[XMark]

One constant factor of any kind of combat from hand-to-hand fighting to full-scale warfare, is that when one attacks, the defender is almost always at the tactical advantage. This could lead to the conclusion that the best strategy is to wait for your enemy's attack and respond accordingly, but the other side of the coin of course is that if you never attack you can't possibly win.

This is one element that I've noticed seems to be missing from console-style RPG's. Generally the idea in RPG's is to keep attacking your enemy with the strongest stuff you got until they're dead, but if there was some way to include the risk factors of offensive and defensive strategies in a simple-to-use way, it could make RPG battles much more interesting.
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[Ninkazu]

Of course. I know Onimusha isn't an RPG, but if you stay in the blocking position until right before the enemy strikes, and then slash, you will do a move called "issen" that - if you do it right - you will kill everyone on the screen.

Really, you're at a disadvantage in offense and defense both, since you're in a deathmatch :P. In kenjutsu, there are different cuts you can do to an enemy when he's in a certain position (he has the sword above his head for a downward cut, and you slit his stomach. He manages to get a downward cut going, you step to the side with your sword like this \ to deflect, then wing it around and cut his hands off. Wow, I don't know how to describe these without showing someone).

Just think of weaknesses in every move, and allow the player or enemy to do attacks that take advantage of the weaknesses. Of course, if the enemy is currently being knocked back, he wouldn't be able to do a downward slash in a split second.

Once again, long day, tired, and my wording of my posts could be anything, since I'm only 1/3 here.

[Rainer Deyke]

It's not really true that the defender has the tactical advantage. It is true that you have some advantage if you're just trying to stay alive instead of trying to kill your opponent, because that generally means that you can choose where to fight. However, if you're trying to defend someone or something, you're at a severe disadvantage because you have to defend no matter where your opponent strikes.

When fighting against an opponent who has no holes in his defense, I tend to attack anyway. This is because I know that there are holes in my defense, but as long as I can keep my opponent on the defensive he can't take advantage of them. Of course I have to use attacks that don't open me up to a counterattack.

In short: realistic tactics are very complicated, which explains why most games don't include them.

[XMark]

Interesting points all. I guess I started thinking about this after playing a game of Risk and noticing how when I tried to wipe out another player and failed (lucky bastard kept rolling sixes) he brought me down to like 12 armies in four countries next turn, and the other two players finished me off no problem.

Perhaps a simple way to add a bit of strategic depth is to have a bit of a delay between selecting an attack and performing the action, and during this delay you're more vulnerable to the enemies' attacks.
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[valderman]

Perhaps if you add in that delay, and have the enemy sprites take a certain stance indicating their type of attack if the attack could be identified, though you'd have to be quick to act on it.
You'd have to have experienced an attack before in order to identify it, and how fast you learn to identify an attack could depend on some "awareness" thingy that goes up with the levels. Furthermore, unidentified attacks could perhaps do extra damage or have a higher hit%, since your character doesn't know what to expect or how to defend. The attributes of your chars would also affect which attacks are good and which aren't, and perhaps even the way they're executed. Perhaps fighter-type chars could specialize on one style of attacks, with pros and cons, much like many RPGs allow magicians to specialize on certain schools or elements.
Naturally, all of the above would apply to eneimes as well. Different levels of enemies know of different techniques, and perhaps bosses could have perfected defenses or counter attacks for some of your attacks, but don't even know about some others.
I'm not quite sure about how to use this with multiple characters in your party, but I'm sure someone with more experience designing battle engines than myself (never made one >_<) can come up with some way.

All of the aforementioned ideas were inspired by Rurouni Kenshin, by the way.
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[Rainer Deyke]

Rurouni Kenshin is a decent show (and a great OAV), but its battles are about as realistic as those in Final Fantasy (i.e. not at all). In a real fight, you can counter just about any attack if you know it's coming, but a good fighter will attack so fast that you can't see the attack until it's too late. That's what makes defense so hard - the attacker only has to hit in one spot, but the defender has to defend all over because he can't predict where the attacker will strike.

[valderman]

[Sirocco]

[XMark]

I think I've figured out something for my battle engine. To encourage defensive tactics, I'll make it so any character can defend any other character, and by doing so they also defend themself, sort of a double defense bonus. And when in defensive mode sometimes you do a counter-attack which is more powerful than a regular attack.

Also I'm planning to have some powerful spells that take a long time to cast, and if the spellcaster is hit during that time the spell fizzles out, so to lower those risks it would be a good idea for one of your characters to defend him until the spell is complete.
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[ishpeck]

The belief that the defender has an inherent advantage is not directly true. This is a common misconception of the rule of "Second Intention" (explained later) which is an effective tactical practice in certain situations.

In the game Risk, the attacker has a 17% advantage if he has the presence of mind to attack with 3 dice. If the attacker has only two dice on the attack, the advantage shifts over to the defender -- for-whom, tied dice rolls favor. A good rule of thumb for playing Risk: Always assume that you'll move into a territory with half of the difference between your armies and the defneder's. So if you have 17 armies attacking a territory with 9 armies, assume you're going to occupy that territory with 4 armies after the fighting's done. ;)

In the case of old, medieval warfare, the defending armies often had the advantage on the principle that they had fortifications or did not exhaust themselves in marching prior to the engagement. A good tactician knows how to position his troops such that his armies have that advantage in any given skirmish or battle.

In the case of personal combat, or combat in small groups, there are two opposing factors to consider: Power and flexability.

Making high-powered attacks that could easily kill in one blow is a significant commitment and exposes much of the attacker's target area; leaving much of the body undefended. If such an attack were to fail, the defender would be able to move in for a strike.

During the renaissance, swordsmen began to realize that having a bigger, heavier, more-powerul sword did not necessarily make one a more effective killer: The advent of the rapier, the light piercing weapon, allowed a less powerful person defeat a hearty warrior by simply side-stepping a big attack and impaling his foe. It was common practice to, when the opponent lifted his sword above his head for a big, lethal blow, simply stab his chest while the sword was out of the way. This practice is called "Taking Second Intention."

In order for this practice to be effective, one must use a very light, versatile weapon. It is almost entirely ineffectual when performed with large, powerful weapons. When two, light-weapon, second-intention combatants engage each other, they have the liberty to parry or deflect opponent's attacks (something that doesn't reasonably happen with heavier weapons) and the concept of parry-riposte (defend then counter-attack) becomes a fesible one; This is when large amounts of blade contact come into play.

Of course, the trade-off is that armored opponents will be near-impossible to kill and fighting multiple opponents is significantly harder (since stabs do not transition between targets as well as large, sweeping cuts do). The most effective way to defeat someone who practices second intention fighting is to simply outnumber him since he cannot take second intention against three different opponents at once.
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The Ishpeckian Network is part of this balanced breakfast.
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[Rainer Deyke]

[BadMrBox]

Accually, it would be fun to see someone blocking a broadsword with a rapier IRL. It would leave a pretty mess. And im not talking raphael vs nightmare here...
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