dpc wrote:evilmike wrote: There are a bunch of reasons why it is a bad idea, and I could name them if anyone is interested. Suffice to say galehar and jpeg are correct in saying it will cause more problems than it would solve.
I'm all ears.
The best way I can illustrate a few of the problems by coming up with a few simple examples. In every one of these cases, assume that all actions are normal speed (thus, "average" attack speed, human movement speed, monster speed 10). The problems exist just as much for other speeds, but having everything equal simplifies things. I'm also not going to consider energy randomization here (even if I did, it wouldn't make a difference).
Imagine you are in this situation:
- Code:
..........
..@....c..
..........
Where you are @ and c is a yaktaur captain. Let's say, for whatever reason, your best option right now is to retreat (and there is some safe place for you to retreat to, somewhere to the left), and that you're in a lot of danger if you try to stay and fight. Moving orthogonally will cost 1 turn, while moving diagonally will cost 1.4 turns. In both cases you'll probably be shot a few times, but in the case of orthogonal movement, you will only be shot once per move. With diagonal movement, you'll either be shot once or twice per turn. Even if you take roughly the same amount of damage while retreating in either case, being shot once per turn is preferable, since the damage comes in smaller amounts per turn. Thus, in some situations (low HP ones in particular) it becomes more preferable to retreat orthogonally. This can be managed by a knowledgeable player, but it's unintuitive and weird - not really much of an improvement over the status quo.
Here is a similar example, except instead of wanting to retreat, you want to get into melee range:
- Code:
.....c....
..@.......
Melee range gives you the advantage of forcing the yaktaur to switch to his (generally weaker) melee attack, rather than shoot you with his crossbow. To do so, you could either (a) move two squares to the right; or (b) one square to the right and one square diagonally up-right. Case (a) costs you two turns, while case (b) costs you 2.4. Again, this makes (a) better. Also weird.
Now consider retreating from melee range.
You are @, and O is an ogre. If you retreat one square to the left, the ogre can simply follow you by also moving left. You'll probably be safe for that turn, though. However, if you move one square down-left, you would be less likely to be safe: this is because if you spend 1.4 turns to move diagonally, the ogre could just move 1 square to the left and be adjacent to you again, and would sometimes be able to attack you. Again, this means that if you want to be as careful as possible, you should retreat orthogonally.
This also highlights another problem: what to do about diagonal melee attacks? If diagonal movement costs 1.4x more, should diagonal melee also face the same costs? That could work... but then, what about diagonal ranged attacks? Would it make any sense for the game to make you take more time to shoot arrows at enemies diagonal to you? Probably not (LOS is already limited in those directions). Same goes with spells (and these also have range limitations diagonally). But, you can use ranged attacks (or cast spells) on enemies diagonally adjacent to you. If they cost the same amount of time regardless of the direction you are firing them in, it becomes faster to use ranged attacks on monsters that are in melee range but diagonal to you.
On the other hand, if diagonal melee had no penalty, there would be some strangeness too, because it would essentially treat all 8 squares around you as being the same distance for melee purposes, but not for walking purposes. The gameplay ramifications of this would be less severe, but it would be an inconsistency.
The last problem is that every single issue I mentioned can be negated by a player who meticulously keeps track of their own movement and the movement of monsters, and is aware of the quirks in the speed system. This has already been mentioned in the thread, but it's not to be taken lightly. Most players won't bother with this, but the fact that you could gain an advantage by tediously calculating your movement is a big issue: the game should never reward you with more power for doing things that are unfun.
Another way to put it is this: right now, movement is a simple, straightforward process where you aren't penalized or rewarded for a huge number of non-obvious things. It's a good system, because it's simple and does what it is supposed to. Increasing the cost of diagonal moves would only complicate things, even if the resulting system would be more consistent. I believe that in this case, simplicity is better than consistency. Or, if you prefer, "worse is better".
Anyway, this post isn't an exhaustive list of the problems that would arise, but I think it covers some of the more obvious ones. There are of course ways to design a system around these problems, but that would only make it even more complicated. The point is, the status quo has its issues, but trying to fix them in this way would only create more problems. It wouldn't be worth it. The game would be more consistent, but at a cost of clear and straightforward gameplay.