What makes combat fun?

[123]

So I watched a couple videos of the game play and it looked like the guy playing had it set to auto fire. Enemy contact and pew pew pew until they die ...... is that the extent of combat or am I missing something?

[BlackHorse23]

Are you talking about my live video?

[123]

I don't think so .... it was from youtube name Ekybob.


https://youtu.be/IWd_rUUZlKk?t=474

[BlackHorse23]

Ah

[BlackHorse23]

Well I am playing right now but I think I may be calling it soon

[123]

If is not so much about combat complexity then it is what it is .... but what is it?

Is the game more an infiltration/stealth type or solving problems type or exploration type or get from point A to point B and kill everything in sight type or something else ......

Just trying to figure out if it's my cup of tea.

[Creamysmooth]

It can be anything you want it to be, the game gives you the freedom of tackling it the way you want, its your choice. (though sometimes its both when a stealthy infiltration turns pear shaped and becomes a fire fight!) Generally I play stealthy and explore and hack my way through, sometimes it can just be easier to take down the guards and walk through.

[Prkl8r]

Combat definately seems to lack the tactical aspect that most people are going to hope for coming into this.

Stealth is the more compeling gameplay aspect of this game.

[darksouls]

Are you serious? Are all of you.... right. Nevermind.

Dude, play the actual Syndicate Wars and syndicate game, there was not even HALF the strategy available this one has cover AND stealth...

[Disky]

I guess its in how you equip your agents, how you arrange them for combat, do you even use combat, perhaps you stealth, perhaps you hijack an enemy unity, perhaps you use cloak. When do you activate the shield boost, do you un-equip a gun to group heal with your nano bot cloud heal ability, when to run, when to fight, when to hide, when to sacrifice.

Or in short strategy.

[Prkl8r]

@

Originally posted by Mix Tape:

Are you serious? Are all of you.... right. Nevermind.

Dude, play the actual Syndicate Wars and syndicate game, there was not even HALF the strategy available this one has cover AND stealth...

Problem is, any game that comes out like this from now on is going to be compared to the new XCOM game, and compared to that, combat definately lacks the tactical aspect that compares to that game.

I still like the game a lot, but I will admit that stealth is much more fun and satisfying because the most effective form of combat seems to be to just highlight all 4 of your units and just click on the enemies one at a time until they die.

[Halfgeek]

People confuse the difference to TBS tactical games like XCOM/Shadowrun to a Syndicate Real-Time Tactical style.

In a Syndicate style game, nearly all of the tactical choice happen before a fight begins.

1. Unit equip/skill
2. Unit positioning
3. Bait/Ambush

If you're in a position to jump on enemies one by one and focus fire on them, you already won the tactical side.

Ofc in combat stuff like ability usage, special weapons, movement matters too.

Generally playing XCOM or Shadowrun, there's not much tactics involved, its just find cover, focus fire and use abilities. Except it happens per turn so it doesn't feel rushed. In a real-time tactical combat game, if the pre-fight tactics are done right, you won't feel rushed either cos you're already winning.

In Syndicate Wars, I would position 3 agents well, not next to each other (avoid AoE), use 1 guy with upgraded legs and go be bait, lure in enemies into the killzone. Also well placed mines help. That's tactics applied pre-fight, to determine the outcome of the fight.

[TwistedMinds]

I find the combat more engaging than stealth right now. Stealth is all about going slowly and choosing the right route without too much difficulty.

In Syndicate it mostly was about entering a building, ramping up the IPA and spraying everything dumb enough to open the door for a while, then continue the 'mission'. Not much else in term of strategy.

In SR, For the combat to be interesting, you have to abuse the command queue and ALWAYS be on the move or have an attack queued. Never, ever, let the queue empty. Either you derped stealth or doing the first part of an assault (group / deathball and go as far as possible before the heat is too high), the weakest part is the combat is when there aren't enough enemy to keep the queue going. It is the only place where I think the requested auto-retaliate would be useful and add to the experience.
Once you are surrounded and outgunned, the fun begin. Press that slow time skill, send your soldier in cover, queue an attack or two, then queue a movement to start flanking, and queue 2-3 more attack just to be sure he doesn't start doing nothing. Do the same for all agents. Close slow time and see how it goes, micromanaging one of the agent while the others go on with the plan. Pop slow time once it's available again to adjust to what happened, queue enough sensible actions for the next 20-25 sec and outplay the enemy. It is insanely dynamic and micromanagement heavy, that's part of the fun. Can you plan ahead with a plan for the next 20-30sec or are you forced to group up, run away and find another position? Many people ask for a pause button because their queue skill sucks :)

With all that said, I think the queue overlay (the orange line) could be waaayy more detailed but I can't think of a magic design to show everything without being overwhelming/hard to read.

[darksouls]

Originally posted by Prkl8r:

@

Originally posted by Mix Tape:

Are you serious? Are all of you.... right. Nevermind.

Dude, play the actual Syndicate Wars and syndicate game, there was not even HALF the strategy available this one has cover AND stealth...

Problem is, any game that comes out like this from now on is going to be compared to the new XCOM game, and compared to that, combat definately lacks the tactical aspect that compares to that game.

I still like the game a lot, but I will admit that stealth is much more fun and satisfying because the most effective form of combat seems to be to just highlight all 4 of your units and just click on the enemies one at a time until they die.

Any game can be found lacking when compared outside its genre.

It's genre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECHmCzXMFb8

[Prkl8r]

Originally posted by Mix Tape:

Originally posted by Prkl8r:

@



Problem is, any game that comes out like this from now on is going to be compared to the new XCOM game, and compared to that, combat definately lacks the tactical aspect that compares to that game.

I still like the game a lot, but I will admit that stealth is much more fun and satisfying because the most effective form of combat seems to be to just highlight all 4 of your units and just click on the enemies one at a time until they die.

Any game can be found lacking when compared outside its genre.

It's genre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECHmCzXMFb8

I don't disagree that the comparison isn't really fair, but it's being made none-the-less.

[Prkl8r]

Originally posted by halfgeekstudios:

People confuse the difference to TBS tactical games like XCOM/Shadowrun to a Syndicate Real-Time Tactical style.

In a Syndicate style game, nearly all of the tactical choice happen before a fight begins.

1. Unit equip/skill
2. Unit positioning
3. Bait/Ambush

If you're in a position to jump on enemies one by one and focus fire on them, you already won the tactical side.

Ofc in combat stuff like ability usage, special weapons, movement matters too.

Generally playing XCOM or Shadowrun, there's not much tactics involved, its just find cover, focus fire and use abilities. Except it happens per turn so it doesn't feel rushed. In a real-time tactical combat game, if the pre-fight tactics are done right, you won't feel rushed either cos you're already winning.

In Syndicate Wars, I would position 3 agents well, not next to each other (avoid AoE), use 1 guy with upgraded legs and go be bait, lure in enemies into the killzone. Also well placed mines help. That's tactics applied pre-fight, to determine the outcome of the fight.

I strongly disagree with you that xcom didn't really have tacitcs involved and that you just find cover and focus fire. Maybe if you play on normal that's all it is. Higher difficulties it is entirely movement, pisitioning and when to use abilities, and you need to constantly be moving your characters looking for flanking shots and hight bonuses, as well as retreating injured squaddies and rotating who is taking fire.



A game that you could compare this to that, personally, I think has more tactical combat; is fallout tactics (in CTB mode). it was similar but felt much deeper in the things that you could, and had to do to be successful in combat. Yes you mostly tried to lure enemies into ambuses, but not always, and the running your group around in a clump, focus firing down every enemy wasnt even a possiblity because of friendly fire.

From my own experience, and from watching plenty of youtube videos of people play, when going full combat, just clumping all your units and click focus firing enemies down seems to be just as rewarding as actually setting up, and using proper positioning. That's really my main complaint.

Also the AI is aweful at combat. Maybe if that were fixed the blob tactics wouldnt be as effective.