Originally Posted by Maximuuus
Originally Posted by etonbears
The "traditional" party movement scheme doesn't cater for multiple parties - if you have not individually selected a "partial" party, then any movement command gets applied to the whole party in whatever it's current formation is. So this is no good either.

I can't see why it's more complicated with a traditionnal scheme. You still have to select/create a partial party with the chain and formations doesn't exist at all.

Group / Ungroup / Locked characters per players / Group formations... This is easy, fluent and friendly user in many games that don't use the chain mechanic.
(the end of this sentence is obvious... DoS 1/2 are the only games on earth from the beginning of the video game history using this system... a system which at best players are "ok" with).

I can't see any advantages related to the chain here. But I'll be glad to understand. Maybe you could help me with an exemple ?

By "traditional" I meant the Infinity Engine games. As far as I can remember, there was a single party+formation mechanic; you could select (via various mouse actions) a sub-set of the party for individual orders, but you could not create multiple party+formation groups for longer-term control.

The creation of multiple parties is the only real function of the chain mechanism. In DOS there was a formation feature for a party group, but it acted as a "shape" for the group to adopt, with the currently selected character in the front; which leads to the group reorganising if you select a different character.

That's different to IE games where the group formation is set by the arrangement of the portraits, regardless of which character is selected. You could consider a chained group of characters as equivalent to the IE portrait group, allowing multiple party groups.

I think they need to merge the 2 approaches ( including mouse-selecting characters to give temporary orders ) so that they get the advantages of both. Also, not auto-moving into formation unless a group order has been given.

Unfortunately, I don't think they will go for the IE style fixed formation, because mainstream games use the follow-the-leader mechanism.

Last edited by etonbears; 17/02/21 08:14 PM. Reason: Clarity