Combat

Actions where the intent is to kill or otherwise overcome opponents.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Symbolizing the actions between game elements in games as Combat is one of the oldest and most common ways to give games themes. By doing so, the theme of the game contains a link with the real-world competition between players as well as alludes to the tension, uncertainty, and importance of the real-world equivalent. Combat in games give players clear goals and opponents and gives clear indication of what players have succeeded and what players have failed.

Examples

Fighting Games

First-person shooters' main challenge is to kill or otherwise overcome the enemies found in the game.

Fighting games such as the Dead or Alive, Tekken, or Mortal Kombat focus purely on Combat, with Meta Goals of unlocking new characters or new costumes.

Torchlight

Some games have Combat as optional components. Players of Empires & Allies can be safe from other players' attacks by declaring neutrality and those playing Race for the Galaxy can avoid Combat by not playing some types of cards. Although Combat is most often a big part of the gameplay in the Fallout series there is often peaceful ways of resolving quests.

Using the pattern

Combat is the means to achieving Capture, Overcome, or Eliminate goals against Enemies so these need to be present in order for Combat to occur in games. A number of patterns can then be applied to the Combat to modify this, including Achilles' Heels, Armor, Attributes, Combos, Damage, Health, Environmental Effects, Invulnerabilities, Privileged Abilities, Skills, Vulnerabilities, and Weapons. Imperfect Information may relate to the various patterns above of to the combat environment through Fog of War. Randomness is very common and often used to allow Critical Hits to cause more or special types of Damage.

Beyond these specifics of all these design options, a highly influencing factor on how Combat can be designed in games is whether they are Real-Time Games or Turn-Based Games. Line of Sight is quite frequently used both but for different reasons: in Turn-Based Games they are used to simulate the paths of projectiles while they are often present "for free" in Real-Time Games due to the use of Aim & Shoot actions to perform Combat.

In Turn-Based Games, Combat are usually based on complex evaluation functions or a large number of simpler evaluation functions, and gameplay concerns trying to make game states have as many favorable modifiers as possible. In these types of games, Budgeted Action Points can be used to allow several Combat actions to be performed in one turn and increase the Trade-offs between different possible actions (e.g. Space Hulk or the Fallout series). Imperfect Information exists mainly due to not knowing the opponents strengths, weaknesses, and configurations, while Randomness is usually instantiated through Dice or the equivalent.

Real-Time Games may have as advanced evaluation functions as Turn-Based Games, but players usually do not have the possibilities of considering all of these. Here, a main difference may be if players control Avatars or Units since the latter requires Attention Swapping. Aim & Shoot is common in Real-Time Games, and may be modulated by Auto-Aim support. For these types of Combat, Imperfect Information is often due to bad players having Game State Overview.

Control of Avatars in Combat requires Timing and Dexterity-Based Actions, typically Aim & Shoot or Combos of close combat maneuvers. Damage in this case is often abstracted to forced retreats, stuns simulated by forcedNo-Ops, and health values shown by Progress Indicators. If Combat is the only activity in the game, as is the case in fighting games, the Combat is often structured in Tournaments to allow Perceivable Margins and Higher-Level Closures as Gameplay Progresses by having more difficult opponents appear later in the Tournament. Fighting Games also often combine loss of Combat with Player Elimination. Games where players engage in activities other than Combat usually make use of Lives and penalize loss of Lives by Ability Losses and Spawning at earlier locations. Real-Time Games with Avatars and Team Play often have special Penalties for team killing or make those events impossible through Privileged Abilities.

Controlling Units require skills in coordinating Collaborative Actions and employing Attention Swapping. Often knowledge of Strategic Locations is important as well as efficient Resource Management. The loss of Units due to Combat in these games do not usually have any specific Penalties connected to them except for the possible Ability Losses if no other still existing Units have the same abilities.

When these goals deal with Area Control, the presence of Combat is especially common since the opposing goals typically are also achieved by Combat.

While Boss Monsters may in some games be defeated by the same type of Combat that can defeat other Enemies, some games make regular Combat impossible against them to either require other types of solutions or to keep the Boss Monsters alive to a later stage in the gameplay.

Can Be Instantiated By

Avatars, Units

Algorithmic Agents together with Single-Player Games

Non-Player Characters together with Preventing Goals

Can Modulate

Area Control, Massively Multiplayer Online Games,

Potentially Conflicting With

Private Game Spaces

Can Be Modulated By

Always Vulnerable, Arenas,

Camping, Choke Points, Dedicated Game Facilitators, Flanking Routes, Friendly Fire, Galleries, Improved Abilities, Killcams, Loot, Neighbors, Player/Character Skill Composites, Sniper Locations, Strategic Knowledge, Tools,

Consequences

Combat provides a direct way for players to deal with Conflicts in games, but since the players' Enemies may cause problems through the Combat it may also be Attention Demanding and cause Tension. Since Combat postulates a presence of an opposing force, games with Combat are more likely to have Challenging Gameplay than those without. Combat typically can lead to the loss of Units or removal of Destructible Objects, and in the case of games with Avatars to Player Killing. Player Elimination can in turn be a consequence of any of these.

When the participating in Combat is optional, or when whom to attack is optional, players have a Freedom of Choice and need to consider the Risk/Reward and Trade-Offs that exist between participating in the Combat or performing other activities. Choosing to attack other players will most likely reveal that these Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences, especially in games that have Player Killing or Player Elimination. Players can also have Freedom of Choice in Combat when they can attack in several different ways, and this is also typically offers Risk/Reward choices and Trade-Offs.

Combat that is combined with Capture can make Timing or the execution of Dexterity-Based Actions important in games. How well this or other types of Combat is performed can be the basis for Character Development, e.g. by giving Experience Points (as for example Dungeons & Dragons or Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory does). When the success or failure of an attack depends on player skill but the Damage depends on game statistics of Weapons or Powers, this is an example of Player/Character Skill Composites.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences, Attention Demanding, Challenging Gameplay, Destructible Objects, Freedom of Choice, Player Elimination, Player Killing, Risk/Reward, Tension, Trade-Offs

with Capture

Dexterity-Based Actions, Timing

with Damage

Player/Character Skill Composites

Can Modulate

Area Control, Character Development, Conflicts, Experience Points, Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Units

Can Be Instantiated By

Aim & Shoot, Avatars, Capture, Eliminate, Enemies, Overcome, Units

Algorithmic Agents together with Single-Player Games

Non-Player Characters together with Preventing Goals

Can Be Modulated By

Achilles' Heels, Aim & Shoot, Always Vulnerable, Arenas, Armor, Attributes, Budgeted Action Points, Camping, Choke Points, Combos, Critical Hits, Damage, Dedicated Game Facilitators, Environmental Effects, Flanking Routes, Fog of War, Friendly Fire, Galleries, Health, Imperfect Information, Improved Abilities, Invulnerabilities, Killcams, Line of Sight, Loot, Neighbors, Player/Character Skill Composites, Privileged Abilities, Randomness, Real-Time Games, Skills, Sniper Locations, Strategic Knowledge, Tools, Turn-Based Games, Vulnerabilities, Weapons

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Boss Monsters, Private Game Spaces

History

An updated version of the pattern Combat that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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