Formations: How are we envisioning this working?

[Being]

...so... what I am imagining is that say a party of six accepts formation command by a cleric at the inn, before they set out for a dungeon. The party is a rogue, a wizard, the cleric-commander, a paladin, and two fighters.

The cleric-commander gets a new bank of icons with six multicolored dots or squares, each dot colored according to class. Upon creation of the formation but before combat initiation the commander defines who goes where. So the cleric-commander puts himself in the back where he can be protected to heal, the wizard to his right and the rogue to his left. He puts the paladin in the center of the fron tline flanked by the two fighters. This will be the default formation they will initially take if beset by hostiles. Other options might be a six-pointed defensive star with everyone facing out from a central point, or a five pointed star with their wizard in the center or what have you. Another might be echelon -left/right, or perhaps phalanx (wedge). In anticipation of having to fight in a corredor he has one in a column of twos. Finally he has one where the rogue is to flank, so he can take advantage of some rogue backstabbing advantages.

He sets up these various formations as alt-function key assignments, The wizard and cleric set up their ready spells, and the party leaves the Inn or camp for a destination dungeon and they begin to fast-travel.

Along their route a party of six bandits waits in ambush, and as our party fast-travels the road the bandits spring their trap.

The party appears in the road where they have been ambushed in default formation which is less than optimal if the bandits have set up in an enfilading fire configuration where they can fire their crossbows at the party from all sides. The cleric has the option of changing formation to a defensive star or charging one side of the ambush in the current formation. Changing formation would take precious time so he decides to charge whichever side of the bandit formation the party is facing leaving their most vulnrable backs open but potentially reducing the offensive strength of the bandits by one opponent who is quickly overcome. To do so the cleric-commander is the only one who actually uses his WASD movement keys. Once the focused bandit is down he wheels the whole party to their next objective, an adjascent bandit, and also changes formation to send the Rogue to the right flank away from the greatest threat of missile fire from the bandits' remaining positions to set the rogue up for a backstab opportunity. The wizard decides to return fire casting magic missile. Because the wizard (I assume) must stand still to effectively cast his spell his action stops the rest of the party other than the rogue (already in motion) for his cast.

This is just how I envision formations working.

[randomwalker]

well, my vision is quite different!

I envision formations something more like teamwork feats and 'aid another'. The commander assigns a formation and everyone who fulfills the criteria gets/contributes to a bonus for the whole squad (Examples made up on the spot, not based on info)

-shield wall formation: bonus to AC, morale and reflex saves (ie cover bonus) for each person in the shield wall, knocks down enemies trying to move/charge through (need to face same way, run/charge breaks formation)

-wedge formation: bonus to charge/attack for each person in the wedge attacking the same target squad. Possibly command to "follow/assist"

-synchronized archery formation: allows indirect fire and sharing of targets/focus fire (requires organized timing more than positioning)

-pike wall formation: opportunity attacks on enemies melee attacking anyone in the formation, impales anyone trying to move/charge through (hard to setup, movement breaks formation)

-skirmish/loose formation: minor bonus to enemy detection/AC vs flanking, possibly reflex saves, and morale boost. (Simplest formation)

[Dorje Sylas]

I can't see forced formation positioning. I can see optional "keep at distance from" settings a player could chose to enable. What I can really see is a visable "box" emanating from the group commander in roughly the shape the formation should take. People in the formation "box" get bonuses based on the goal of the formation.

Characters with he correct skill level can see other formations that they aren't a part of. By default commanders would have that as part of their command skill.

Commanders can designate 'enemy' formations as targets and players get whatever attack bonus is appropriate vs that formation compared to theirs. And to 'enemy' actually in that opposing formations box.

A possible offshoot is that formation bonus could scale with:
1) the number of members in the unit
2) the % of those members actually in the formation "box"

This gives some incentive to try and break up enemy formations using various tactics.

Commanders at higher levels could place 'order' flags (with appropriate UI elements) to different formations. Think Total War games and the 'yellow' UI that makes where units are ordered to go vs where they currently are.

By using a 'box' system player's are encouraged to stick roughly to their formation but have some latitude to move independently within that zone. The tighter the boxes, the more people in the group, and the more people actually inside that formation box the higher the bonuses. Thus formation commanders will need to blance tightness with the abilty of their troops to actually engage.

This all assumes some degree of physical blockage or collision prevention by characters that prevents 100 players from standing "in" each other.

[Nonexistent]

Basic formation:
Instead of boxes I would like to see "tethers". The commander would select a point for the center of the formation and each member would have a tether that he follows to his correct position allowing a bit of free play. The line would be green when close enough for a full bonus, turn yellow a few steps out and the bonus for that troop would be halved and provide a breach in a shield wall where an enemy could conceivable get through, and finally when too far out of formation would turn red and remove the bonus from that player and reduce the remaining bonus for the formation as if it were a player short. The commander would have a visual que as to their status and be able to switch another player into that spot if he has the reserves to do it.

Also when the commander orders a formation change it would have a small 2-3 second grace period where the players could change formation while still keeping a smaller bonus for those who were still in the previous formation.

Ranged:
For ranged troops may they be mages or crossbowmen I would include a mechanic to increase the firing range while in proper formation giving all the players the same range so nobody gets the crap end of the paper by being just one step out of range and having nothing to do but sit and stare. (within limits of course for the range consideration I am thinking 5 troops or so per unit which share the same attack sphere.

Melee:
Melee is a tough one. As far as a shield wall goes I think the best way to get players to use it is to just have it be so effective it can't be ignored. Walk forward, lower shield, stab it would be better suited to NPCs but if we are looking at large NPC armies where the players are the captains it could be cool. I'm pretty sure a thousand player army with 5 troops a piece all running about in a hex would lag out to the point that formations would be moot.

On the other hand Calvary and flanking forces or harrying units would be having a great time with a basic loose formation for the ground troops and nice moving formations for our mounted friends with the option of tightening to something a bit more defensive if the tides turn.

Ranks:
I would like to see it go something like this. Though there's quite a bit of room for middle ranks.

Commanding General of the armies:
The overall commander of all your troops he get a fancy GUI that shows unit location and strength for his own forces and any within view of this captains in the field. His GUI has a scalable hex grid map of the battlefield with colored and numbered blips that he can drag to new locations or select new formations from a list to the side which tells the captain to move his troops in the desired direction or to the correct location. He also has general battlefield commands that apply to all troops such as "finish them" or "retreat". The more units that are in the proper place the larger overall army buff all the troops on your side get.

Captains:
These are the leaders of 5-6 individual troops that form a unit. They give orders to their unit such as formation and which direction to move. They are the ones whom actually move where the tethers are tethered. They can reorganize troops in the formations individually and are right there in the fighting with a place in the formation.

How to keep AOE from destroying your tight formation:
This does present a problem and I think the devs have commented on this, I just can't quite remember what was said. But placing a magic class with each unit or one that works with multiple units could conceivably cast a minor protection spell on his troops. I'll call them protection and protection from magic, each player with one of these spells has sort of a magic shield around them that blocks some magic, when in formation the shield gets stronger adding the individual shields into a "magic shield wall" one that protects really well against AOE but direct magic damage can still get through.

Anyway that’s kinda how I envision it. I'm thinking the Melee needs some work and this doesn't take into concideration bards which should be awesome in large scale warfare running around inspiring people.

[leperkhaun]

I would like to see normal military formations from history.

There will be a leader to the formation, based on career soldier, the leader can impart bonuses to specific formations, being in formation, decreased penalties for one person out of formation.

Formations would have a little grid on the ground so players know where to stand as the formations moves (based on the leader)

Leaders can call formation changes, so players would see a diamond, player skill would be how quickly they can get into position without hitting themselves with collision and such.

So that soldiers in the formation dont feel like they are not doing anything, soldiers can train in the soldier class to gain bonuses while in specific formations. For example the soldier can train in teamwork things like say..shield wall. Shield wall would impart an AC bonus to the two folks standing next to him in formation.

Formations could be melee formations, long ranged formations (say archers or wizards/sorcerers), magical support formations, intergrated formations (adding cleric/wizard to your shield formation).

For AOE, well you would need say an intergrated formation (so the wizards in the formation can help protect you) or be in range of a magical support formation.

The soldier skill set could basically have two different trees. The first could be leadership. High skill level in this can allow a general to see many different formations and send command suggestions to the formation leaders and such. The other skill set would be for the soldier in the formations, providing bonuses for working in them, and bonuses for others around you (say right next to you in the line).