So what exactly is Trash combat?

[deuxhero]

Remember the game is normally caped at 30FPS and setting it to 60FPS doesn't make the game smoother, it makes it run at double speed, and while it makes the game much more playable that is clearly not the way it was designed (the animations are really weird looking. Also I doubt an era appropriate PCs could run the game like that)

Modern RTWP games tend to have larger delays than double speed BG.

 

[Average Manatee]

Even at 30 FPS, you'd be hard-pressed to do faster in a turn based system. You can't effectively order 6 characters to attack, cast spells, etc in under 6 seconds consistently. Just attacking is 2 actions, casting spells is 3 or 4. Maybe godlike Korean APM could handle that, but I doubt anyone actually plays a TB game that fast and I'm still not including any kind of animation downtime or turn calculation from the game itself.

 

[deuxhero]

That's not what I'm talking about. Sure you can ISSUE orders quickly, but waiting 6 seconds every round, even though your commands are all "attack this trash" repeatedly for them to RESOLVE is VERY painful.

 

[Average Manatee]

You're only waiting for them to resolve because you don't have to manually re-issue the attack command to everyone every 6 seconds. In a TB system where you had to manually click all 6 characters individually and tell them to attack again, you'd still be far slower. RT only feels slower because you aren't occupied doing busywork.

 

[Azrael the cat]

When I read 'Trash combat' I think of the period a while back when Trash was repeatedly baiting the GD trolls by posting leftist topics and going in to bat for the socialist-Codex.

My second thought, however, is that of using combat as padding. Often such combat is easy, but it isn't necessarily measured by difficulty, e.g.:
- easy combat can be used as a marker for character progression. In some games, especially those with a super-hero or chosen one aspect, this can be vital to conveying the character coming into his powers (Deus Ex, PS:T, VtM:B). However, this often turns into trash combat, as the ease means that the player blows through the 'mood/character/progression establishing' combat quickly and the developer needs to pad out the dungeon. But this isn't universal (Deus Ex has a lot of encounters that do little but show JC's progression, yet very little trash combat), and the combat isn't trash because it's easy - the easiness encourages trash.
- in an oldschool blobber with no in-dungeon regen, the emphasis on risk and resource management means that there's no true trash combat. The combat provides a sort of turn limit, a ticking down of resources and spells while the challenge comes from mapping the dungeon and the risk of getting lost/teleported without enough hp/mp to find the stairs. Same applies to rogue-likes.

Similarly, combat can be difficult in a manner that amounts to padding rather than fun/challenge. Mass repetition of difficult enemies, long past the point where the player has mastered their tactics against that enemy, can make even a challenging encounter into trash.

 

[Damned Registrations]

One thing people don't seem to realize is that trash combat can be important for the pacing of the game as well. In the same way you don't want to have a movie that consists of a climax and nothing else, you don't want the game to be nothing but a series of battles all with the same difficulty. You can get around this by having other aspects to change the pacing (like exploring between combat, or tons of dialogue, or whatever) but that won't necessarily suit the themes of the game as well as some easy combat.

Easy combat is only boring when the only thing you're anticipating during it is more easy combat. If you're looking forward to the loot after the battle, or finding out what's in the next room, or seeing what it looks like when your 3 strongest fighters surround someone and bash their head in with their strongest attacks all at once (because you've never tried that before), then the difficulty won't be grating. X-Com is a perfect example of a game that contained trivially easy combat at some points that didn't feel aggravating at all. Getting the experience, the loot, and the reputation with sponsors all made finding an easy craft to beat the shit out of at some farm a relief instead of a chore, not to mention the joys of trying out your latest weaponry in the hands of your most skilled soldiers on pathetic targets. And it punctuated the difficult battles against shit like chrysalids, making them all the more terrifying.

 

[Norfleet]

Trash combat is combat that serves no useful purpose for the game except aggravation. The attackers have no realistic reason to attack the player, do not pose any danger whatsoever, and serve no purpose except to obstruct gameplay, often because being forced into combat itself imposes some direct hindrance on the player, such as the inability to continue moving.

Classic examples of trash combat:
Effing Cliff Racers.
Invisible random encounters that drag you out of fast/world-travel mode while you're returning to town to unload your junk.
Attacked By Wolves For the 915th Time.

Such encounters do not further any goal the player could desire, have slim to no rationale for continuously occurring, and do not actually threaten the player with anything other than irritation. It is particularly apparent in games where "combat" represents a clear transition of state from "non-combat", causing the gameplay mode to change or locking the player out of certain functions. Trash combat is the degenerate extreme of filler combat. If you've ever found yourself hitting "Flee" from an encounter that you could curbstomp, you've found trash combat.

 

[Crooked Bee]

As long as resource attrition is an important part of the game, combat that is part of resource attrition isn't trash combat, even if the encounter design isn't the best one possible or the encounters aren't tied into the plot or whatever.

Of course, if the game lets you rest or reload anywhere, or replenish your HP after every couple of fights, resource attrition goes out of the window (and trash combat tends to come to the forefront instead).

 

[eremita]

I see the purpose of combat as two general tests, which can be done singly or in combination:

1. A test of the character/party's combat ability vs a single battle.
2. A test of the character/party's ability to endure a succession of battles.

Trash combat is when you have "passed" the current level of test, yet the game insists on making you retake it another 100 times before letting you graduate to the next level of tests. Given that I know the codex is almost entirely inhabited by geniuses, I'm sure everyone can relate to the time in school when you understood the material after about 5s of thinking yet the teacher droned on about it for hours. That's what Trash Combat is to me.

Of course, the "trashiness" of combat is highly dependent on other factors. I can accept a handful of weak, brief fights if needed for story purposes. But if your combat system does the JRPG 10s intro 20s spell casting animations 10s outro bullshit then fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

It's probably also worth discussing how certain games turn decent combat into trash combat. Namely, games like Dragon Age, NWN, and probably 99% of all AAA RPGs/JRPGs released in the last 5 years directly subvert test #2 by providing endless amounts of restoration items, infinite resting, or automatic healing after battle. If I go through a battle and absolutely nothing changes about my character other than my XP bar went up, the combat was irrelevant. As a contrast, take a game like System Shock 2 (not a conventional RPG, but bear with me as I'm replaying it at the moment so it sticks in my mind). SS2 resources are heavily limited and past the early game all combat will generally require some expenditure of resources, whether Ammo, Psi Points, or healing items. Due to this combat still has meaning no matter where or against what, because the act of combat will actually change the fundamental state of the player.

This.

 

[Crooked Bee]

As long as resource attrition is an important part of the game, combat that is part of resource attrition isn't trash combat, even if the encounter design isn't the best one possible or the encounters aren't tied into the plot or whatever.

Of course, if the game lets you rest or reload anywhere, or replenish your HP after every couple of fights, resource attrition goes out of the window (and trash combat tends to come to the forefront instead).

Is it really necessary to think of reloads as counter to attrition?

In my view, yes. Unless we're talking tactical RPGs (FFT, Blackguards, etc.), resource attrition is not about an encounter but rather a succession of encounters over a (more or less lengthy) period of time. Save/reload anywhere trivializes that entirely.

 

[TigerKnee]

Damnit, all the Trash jokes have already been taken. I feel so... inadequate!

 

[Crooked Bee]

Save-reload does not really change your resources, but rather it gives you a second chance to decide how to spend them.

Which is exactly the problem. You shouldn't be able to optimize or "min-max" each encounter (i.e. minimize your resource losses in each encounter) -- you should be able to efficiently manage your resources over time. In other words, you should learn to deal not with each and every encounter in an optimal way, but rather with a series of encounters.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I agree. That does indeed require a different approach to design, though.

 

[V_K]

As long as resource attrition is an important part of the game, combat that is part of resource attrition isn't trash combat, even if the encounter design isn't the best one possible or the encounters aren't tied into the plot or whatever.

I wonder why autocombat didn't make it out of the 90-s - it seems a perfect solutions to such a design: it still wastes your resourses while not forcing you to play boring fights over and over again.

 

[Abelian]

The following examples aren't RPG, but I liked the way they allowed players to skip trash mob combat.
-in the Splinter Cell series, you almost are always given a chance to do a no-kill stealth run (except for plot-related reasons). Echoing what was said earlier, each encounter felt like a puzzle where you had to use the environment to your advantage.
-in HoMM3 there was the quick combat option. In the beginning, I liked to fight every single battle, but now I usually use quick combat for roaming monsters that are much weaker than me.
-Lords of the Realm 2 had a rudimentary auto-combat where you would lose the same percentage of each troop type. However, if you had overwhelming forces, you would not lose any troops, which was tedious to do in combat since it would involve archer hit and run tactics.

I haven't played the series, but I hear that the Realms of Arkania also had a quick combat option.

 

[pakoito]

-in HoMM3 there was the quick combat option. In the beginning, I liked to fight every single battle, but now I usually use quick combat for roaming monsters that are much weaker than me.
-Lords of the Realm 2 had a rudimentary auto-combat where you would lose the same percentage of each troop type. However, if you had overwhelming forces, you would not lose any troops, which was tedious to do in combat since it would involve archer hit and run tactics.

This was hilarious in vanilla HoMMV with the OP Necropolis army. After not so long it was common to have stacks of 1000+ skeleton archers. If you autoresolved you could lose ~20% of them and some of the other units. In-battle it was just skip turn until the archers came and oneshotted any enemy stack.

 

[Abelian]

This was hilarious in vanilla HoMMV with the OP Necropolis army. After not so long it was common to have stacks of 1000+ skeleton archers. If you autoresolved you could lose ~20% of them and some of the other units. In-battle it was just skip turn until the archers came and oneshotted any enemy stack.

Have you ever played Homm1 or Homm2? Those had the ghost unit (a flying tier 3 undead unit) and you received an extra ghost for every enemy killed (I forgot if non-biological things such as golems were excluded). The ghost recruiting structure, the barrow mounds, were a game-breaker. The only way to prevent more ghosts from appearing in the stack was to destroy the entire ghost stack.

Also, in Homm3 multiplayer, it is common to have house rules that forbid playing as Necropolis and Conflux, since they can give a huge advantage.

 

[DraQ]

1. Does the combat tie into the story or game world in a way that is narratively relevant and effective?
2. Is the combat encounter itself engaging, interesting and or/challenging, or rote, repetitive and routine?
   
3. Can the combat be avoided through some means, whether non-combat skill use or CYOA-style decisions?
4. Is the combat a means to an end or an end in and of itself?
5. Does the role of combat fit logically into the game's wider systems (i.e. leveling, resource management, loot drops, exploration, etc.)?
   
6. Ultimately, if removed from the game, would the game suffer at all for lack of that particular combat encounter?

Massive

Planescape: Torment

PS:T had trash combat, it's just that it was all neatly sequestered in Undersigil.

I really just have to conclude that trash combat finds its way into games because it's easy, it's lazy, and provided your combat system itself is still alright, most players are going to tolerate or even enjoy it provided it's not done to excess.

That's how you make crawlers and H&S.

Does the combat tie into the story or game world in a way that is narratively relevant and effective?

That's not exactly much of a criterium as it only applies to "do I suddenly get attacked by daemons in the temple of the lawful good god?, and while "do I get attacked by prison guards in a prison" sure is relevant, it ain't exactly effective when you essentially get attacked by the SAME GUARD just copy-pasted x1000 with no other guards.

Ultimately, if removed from the game, would the game suffer at all for lack of that particular combat encounter?

Actually, those two tie into each other.

The question is: "would the game, as a whole make less sense if I removed this combat encounter"?

As much as PS:T combat is shitty, I don't think there are cases where you'd answer "no" (other than aformentioned Undersigil), except possibly beasts in the outlands.

I don't think BG1 is full of trash. Quite the opposite.

Of course it's full of trash combat. Pretty much every single time my rest was interrupted by easily slaughtered mobs (repeatedly) is tied for the position of the most egregious trash combat encounter I've ever witnessed.

One thing people don't seem to realize is that trash combat can be important for the pacing of the game as well.

Then you're suffering from content underrun and desperately trying to pad the game. Fix *that*.

In the same way you don't want to have a movie that consists of a climax and nothing else, you don't want the game to be nothing but a series of battles all with the same difficulty.

Read sea's excellent post.

easy != trash

 

[Damned Registrations]

Draq's solution to everything: spend more money on development. Money isn't a real thing right?

Given the choice between padding out a game with some filler combat or cutting it several hours shorter (since you'll not just be cutting out the filler combat, but the main combat it padded out, in order to add other content (like I dunno, a sidequest or something) to pad out the game in it's place.

If you have tasty spaghetti, you serve it with some cheap bread to offer contrast and balance things out. What you want to do is replace the cheap bread with expensive wine. If you do that, and keep the price of the meal the same, you end up with a thimble of wine and a spoonful of food.

Design isn't just about the end product, it's about using the resources you have to make it. Hand crafted keyboards might be of higher quality than machine produced ones, but it'd still be a fucking retarded design choice given the disparity between cost and quality differences. Trash combat is an excellent tool for padding things out, when used properly.

 

[Morning Star]

I feel like trash combat is basically any combat which is not justified effectively in some way by the story or the environment

With that definition, though, Baldur's Gate (1) has very little trash combat... after all, you ARE in the woods, so wolves, bandits, gibberling, etc, are all justified, of sort.

I don't think BG1 is full of trash. Quite the opposite.

Really? You don't think that killing another group of 10 gibberling who go down with one arrow is trash combat?

 

[Aikanaro]

I don't think BG1 is full of trash. Quite the opposite.

Of course it's full of trash combat. Pretty much every single time my rest was interrupted by easily slaughtered mobs (repeatedly) is tied for the position of the most egregious trash combat encounter I've ever witnessed.

Having your rest interrupted by mobs is a good mechanic to discouraging abuse of resting. If your sleep is getting interrupted, you brought that upon yourself by trying to camp in a dangerous environment. It's not 'trash combat' because it serves a proper mechanical purpose other than to waste your time - if you can rest anywhere without problem, you can instant-heal after every battle and will never run low on resources.
Plus, those mobs are not always easily slaughtered. At low level or in certain areas, they can be legitimately threatening.

I feel like trash combat is basically any combat which is not justified effectively in some way by the story or the environment

With that definition, though, Baldur's Gate (1) has very little trash combat... after all, you ARE in the woods, so wolves, bandits, gibberling, etc, are all justified, of sort.

I don't think BG1 is full of trash. Quite the opposite.

Really? You don't think that killing another group of 10 gibberling who go down with one arrow is trash combat?

Even if we call it 'trash combat', in BG1 it's never bothered me in the slightest because it doesn't take up any time.
But even so, low level monsters like gibberlings serve a purpose. At low level, fighting a mob of gibberlings can still be a notable event, and there needs to be some monsters that you can kill at those levels.
For me, trash combat is typified in that fucking awful mine in Arcanum where you run down a long narrow corridor and fight identical groups of enemies one after another, or parts of NWN2 where it's the same fight room after room.
BG1 gibberling fights are avoidable, fast, and make sense in the context of the game. I don't think they count as trash combat.

 

[Morning Star]

Even if we call it 'trash combat', in BG1 it's never bothered me in the slightest because it doesn't take up any time.
But even so, low level monsters like gibberlings serve a purpose. At low level, fighting a mob of gibberlings can still be a notable event, and there needs to be some monsters that you can kill at those levels.
For me, trash combat is typified in that fucking awful mine in Arcanum where you run down a long narrow corridor and fight identical groups of enemies one after another, or parts of NWN2 where it's the same fight room after room.
BG1 gibberling fights are avoidable, fast, and make sense in the context of the game. I don't think they count as trash combat.

Let's call it "less annoying trash combat" then, maybe, but it still was a fight that added absolutely nothing to the game, which is what I (personally) call trash combat.
BG2 gave you more challenging fights. Sure, If you're lvl 1 in BG, 10 gibberlings might be a challenging encounter, but casting a sleep/entangle and shooting from a distance usually does it, like 90% of the times.
To me, non-trash combat is something challenging (mage duels in BG2 solo? liches? the black mountain mines if you follow the plot and get there at a low-ish level, and so on.)
Of course, if you replay BG1 with tutu and a lvl 20 wizard, all encounters are trash mobs, but that's a different matter that has to do with design.

 

[Aikanaro]

Do you consider the groups of hobgoblins, gnolls, skeletons, etc that wander around various areas in BG1 to be trash combat?
Gibberlings are easy to pick on because after a few hours of playing they're completely negligible encounters, but these mobs operate on basically the same principle but are more challenging/take longer before you completely overlevel them. Are they still trash? Do they become trash when you outlevel them?

 

[Amn Nom]

The combat in any Spiderweb Software game.

 

[Longshanks]

BG 1 easily has the most trash combat of any game I've played - I don't play many shitty games. Huge waves of generic enemies that I don't care about and don't offer any interesting challenge and yet I must kill, repeatedly, in almost every area of the game.