Goblin Squad Member
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I've been thinking through my wishlist for PFO in terms of warfighting—what features would make it a compelling game experience for those of us interested in the domination aspect of the game. Be glad to hear other's thoughts and suggestions. In particular, I don't know enough about the technical side of the game to know how expensive or difficult any given feature would be. I would also guess the middle-ware engine is the single biggest limiting factor for what can be done, so if any of the Devs can say whether a given feature is a no-go because of the engine, that would be helpful.
Cohesion: Cohesion is a values orientation where individuals place the welfare of the group above his or her own. Thus paradoxically, when everyone in the group doesn't concern themselves with their own safety, collective safety for the whole goes up. This is a subject very dear to my heart—my field of research is cohesion and resilience among US Marines. It would be amazing to see cohesion directly modeled in the game, but I don't think that's possible, so the next best thing may be to abstract the effects of cohesion. This is something Ryan has already talked about, and the idea of making coordinated action a force multiplier sounds like a good one.
Combined arms: I very much want to see combined arms—that is, differing kinds of fire that put the enemy on the horns of dilemma. A classic example is cavalry and artillery fire: one calls for you to bunch up to protect, which makes you more vulnerable to artillery, in which dispersion is the best solution. In essence, combined arms gives the enemy two bad choices.
Indirect fires: I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that direct fire will be in the game (arrows, rays, etc). I'd also like to see indirect fire in as well. Not only would this add to the possibility of combined arms, longer range indirect fire it would add another dimension for scouts and reconnaissance, in terms of both observers who call in fire, but also scouts who provide security by countering observers. I'd hope to have this for both mundane projectiles (e.g. high angle fire for bowman against targets with frontal cover), but also possibly magical fires. I'm more a 3.5/D20 person, less familiar with Pathfinder, but if it could be done rationally within the game world (indirect fire from magic) it would be awesome to have it in.
Concealment & Cover: Hoping to see concealment designed in, both in the sense of blending in with terrain and vegetation, but also magical means of concealment. In a lot of the games I've played, vegetation was often two dimensional pieces crossed (i.e. looking down you would see a cross). So angle of view and a top down (flying) perspective vs on the ground would really change what you see. It would be pretty bad-ass if you could thoughtfully use magic and the terrain to help deceive the enemy.
I would also like cover—-objects that have some relative kind of stopping power against fires, which would add a lot to planning for the defense, how arms worked and combined, direct vs. indirect, etc.
Techniques of fire: I hope there can be different effects for different fires, i.e. frontal, oblique, flanking and enfilade. Errors in deflection should be more common than errors in elevation, and thus the relationship of the direction from fire to target relative to the long axis of the target, should impact the effect of the fire. Also, differing protection, for example better armor to the front (shields) vs. flanking fire, should impact the effect of fires.
Entrenchment: It would be awesome if military leaders had a skill that allowed unmounted units to entrench, with time and higher skill levels creating more effective defenses. Total bonus if you could do things like cut down trees and and use them to provide reinforced dug in positions with cover.
Coup d'œil: If cover & concealment, combined arms, direct and indirect fires and techniques of fire are in, and if terrain is meaningful in how it affects movement, there will be some people who will have a coup d'œil, the ability to at a glance see the ground and how forces can and cannot be employed, and the consequences of those choices. Tactical ability will be important, and generals will rise on the field of battle.
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Goblin Squad Member
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These all sound really cool to me, though most of it seems heavily dependent on the feel and type of combat itself which we are in many ways still in the dark about. That being said, if the combat mechanics allow for it, any or all of these would be welcome levels of depth as far as I'm concerned.
In particular I like the relationship between cover and indirect fire. In close quarters combat everyone is moving too quickly and cover is often too scarce to be of any value. I'm more interested in a siege situation however. It'd be neat to see players who could specialize in seige equipment and large scale assaults. Things like being able to land a catapult shot just inside an outer wall, or the ability to see through defenses to find clusters of enemies ripe for the killing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Cohesion, Combined arms, Indirect fires:
Cohesion: agree. Ryan's blogs clearly say explicit formations and cohesion is something they are putting effort into.
Combined armes: agree. But most MMOs get some of this for free. If a mage can fireball adjacent enemies while rogues get huge flanking bonuses, there's already reasons to huddle up and spread out at the same time.
Indirect fires: sceptical. It could be simply implemented via an 'assist'/'target party members target' command, and have some attacks not require line of sight to attack. Instead of calculating 'line of effect' they could just limit it to outdoors and give cover bonuses for terrain.
But a catapult hitting you from behind the hill sounds very much like 'one-shotted by an invisible attack' and is something that rubs pnp GMs the wrong way.
If tied up to formations and larger scale warfare I'd welcome it though. Requiring a commander with specific merit badges (that require some dedication to soldiery skill paths) could be enough to make it tasty.
conclusion: being one-shotted by a bandit with a hidden catapult crew feels just unfair, but being one-shotted by an artillery division in fine ;-)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mbando,
Those sound pretty good to me as well. Indirect Fire wouldn't make much sense if it were historical Medeival warfare...as archers and siege weapons often did undertake high arching shots to place thier fire into an area of effect at long ranges...the english longbow had a range out to about 400 yds that way, as I understand, and seige engines often fired over fortified walls to randomly strike unseen targets beyond...but there really wasn't much of a role for fire direction from observers, due to a lack of long range communication...archers and siege weapons were directing thier own fire...(or being directed by a commander standing right next to them)....but with magic in the equation, who knows?
Fire (i.e. ranged attacks) may be a bit over-emphasied in the model you presented though (or it may not be)....if things are a bit closer to the historical Medeival model, fire often (but not always) played more of a harrassment role...and battle was frequently decided by melee between opposing lines of battle and somtimes by shock of charge (cavalry or foot troops). The model you presented sounded a bit more "Age of Muskets" in it's emphasis to me...but again with magic...who really knows...that may be a more accurate reflection of large scale warfare in PFO.
Other interesting aspects may be...
Logistics - Getting arrows, spell components and other consumables to the forces fighting if it's an extended engagement (especialy sieges). Maybe include getting fallen troops revived and back into the fray.
Interdiction - Stopping those supply colums from coming in, by whatever means.
Combat Intel - Knowing the enemies force composition, movements and plans.
For you're Cover and Concealment.... I'd actualy add it to a more general category of "Terrain Effects"... in the older models where tight formation fighting and shock of charge played a more significant role, not only did terrain make a major difference in fire effectiveness but also played a huge role in restricting movement of formations and nullifying shock of charge. So certain types of terrain (woods, marsh, steep, uneven slopes) having a major effect on formation cohesiveness and movement would add alot of tactical depth to large scale battles. For example if you look at Tours (732) one of the major factors in the battle was the ability of the Franks under Charles Martel to place thier forces so that the Saracens would have to attack up a wooded slope in order to reach them, thus breaking up the cohesion of the Saracen formations and blunting the shock of charge which essentialy nullified the Saracen advantage of heavy cavalry, which had been a backbone of thier combat effectiveness up until that point. It would be great to see something like that represented in game in large scale battles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Random: Yea, I was thinking about warfighting, not banditry. I would hope there are economic and logistic reasons why it would only be cost effective to use artillery against high value targets in war, not in banditry PvP.
Nothing says "Stand & Deliver ye Goods" like 4 ballista pointing down the road at your caravan. The comedy of it aside, if a bandit group has the resources, I think it should be an option. Perhaps a ridiculous risk moderate reward option, but still one that's viable.
It was my impression that all of those things were on the wishlist, but my opinion that some of them will have to be incorporated in somewhat unrealistic ways. Cover and Concealment based on natural terrain/foliage/etc could end up being a fairly complicated bit or work. And as discussed in the fabled and long dead invisibility thread; There's very little way to reliably prevent players from knowing the location of other players. Maybe one unit will be noticed or viewable, but not targetable in some way...? just brainstorming a bit off the cuff...
I see many of the strategic concerns that Grumpy cites (logistics/combat intel points in particular) as being something that is primarily handled out of the actual game interface, or offline between players. As Knowing your enemies is the path to victory, so offline research will dominate that level of intel (Co. Composition and make up being high value information). With the prevalence of offline tools/addons/etc I suspect it will be an interesting challenge to manage both tactical on site concealment, as well as strategic force composition obfuscation.
brainstorming on the direct/indirect fire possibilities:
As to a possible implementation of in-battle options, perhaps something along the lines of a Movable Blind (3 tower shields on wheels) providing LoS or unit-based deflection/defense bonus. Even better would be to have these items as consumables that degrade with enemy contact. As a unit moves such devices into contact with the enemy, perhaps they also should become more vulnerable to direct action from infantry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A relatively simple (I think), though obviously less satisfying way might be to "paint" different terrain types onto the map. So the server wouldn't go through an LOS detemination to come up with the fact that 50% of Joe's body is blocked by a tree when Ralph tries to target him from his position and thus apply 50 percent cover...but the server could know that Joe is located in coordinates x,y,z and that position is painted as "light woods" which applies a modifier to certain actions. I'm guess alot of this is dependant upon the Engine they use, and I really don't know much about MMO Engines....but I'm guessing resource wise, "painting" of terrain and then appling modifiers may be a simpler/less intensive (therefore mor doable) system?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Grumpy & Waffley: I don't want to see an over-emphasis of ranged fires either. I feel safe in assuming melee is part of the engine, and direct fire ranged as well--it's some of the aspects of ranged fire that I'm interested in seeing.
Also Gruffling, I understand the engine/resource limits means that some things might be in or not, or may need to be broadly abstracted. That's one of the reasons I posted--I hoped someone from the development team would comment about what was possible/impossible based on known limits like the engine. I think your idea of force-level consumables is also a good idea, and would add another layer of logistic/economic complexity.
The list I came up with is an attempt to think through the necessary prerequisites for generalship to emerge. From smaller engagements to the largest, I want to see cheng and chi (the direct and the indirect) as what decides battles, not mass. Not that mass isn't a legitimate way to fight, and certainly in the game I would like to see the settlement/nation with superior economic power enjoy a comparative advantage. I just don't want economic power (and mass) to be the deciding factor. It would be wonderful if a powerful nation that creates a large force also used cheng and ch'i to win with minimal losses. I want to see a battle one day when one side carefully probes the enemy, finds a gap, and like water through a crumbling earth dam pours in to exploit that weakness...only to find they are in a firesack, in deathtrap of their own making.
That would be megasuperultra badass.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I could see things like indirect catapult fire requiring the "profession: (siege engineer)" ability, with improved targeting options for higher levels of the ability. Requiring the spotter to have LOS to the target and no concealment from the catapult seems like it would be hard to program, but would give any target a chance to see and engage the spotter, who would have to be wielding semaphore flags or the equivalent- not ideal for fending off ranged or melee attacks.
To force it that way, the spotter's player would have to make all the targeting decisions, and the catapult crew would be unable to fire without a spotter giving the order. It would be similar to a formation where the character leading the formation was not with the rest of the crew.