All The Tropes

Gameplay Automation: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Gameplay Automation (view source)

Revision as of 06:10, 8 April 2014

682 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (categories and general cleanup)
m (Mass update links)
Line 10:
Isn't game design fun?
 
See also [[Anti -Frustration Features]], where gameplay changes in response to the player's (lack of) skill. If the entire game is like this, it's a [[Programming Game]].
{{examples}}
 
* ''Deuteros'', an Amiga game, was praised for an almost supernatural sense of timing. The player would get to rediscover space travel. Just as he started to have enough of sending more and more stuff into space, the research teams would come up with an automated cargo transport system. Later on, fully automated orbital workshops, and after that, bulk matter transmitters.
* In the simulation game ''[[Afterlife (Video Game)|Afterlife]]'', buildings have to be manually balanced every so often to stay efficient. It's either mindnumbing, since it means moving a single slider and there are lots of buildings, or the player may have the game do it at a serious cost. This is because the designers were dumb.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'s'' scripting and macro system originally allowed "push this button to play your character" mods. Blizzard has gradually restricted functionality to avert this over the years. The game is also rife with illegal hacked clients that completely automate gathering crafting materials from nodes, but that's deliberate cheating.
* In ''[[UFO After BlankAfterblank|UFO: Aftermath]]'', the player has a squad of soldiers, an Earth full of aliens and mutants to conquer, and one helicopter to do it with. Expanding one's territory increases the number of trouble spots and sending the chopper careening back and forth becomes an exercise in futility, until the player wins the first major victory by capturing an alien teleporter. Then the chopper always launches from the closest base.
* ''[[Progress Quest]]'' takes this to its logical conclusion, eliminating the player from the equation entirely.
* ''Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula'' has a mineral probe, which can be deployed from a planetary lander to gather selected types of resources. It's a real timesaver since the player usually lands to look for trade centers and ruins, which are more lucrative, but needs stocks of metals on hand for repairs.
Line 22:
* In ''[[Forza Motorsport]],'' you can hire AI drivers to do the racing for you. The trade-off is that this cuts into the prize money.
* ''[[Gran Turismo]] 4'' and ''5'' have B-Spec mode, which turns the games into playing a racing crew chief.
* ''[[Master of Orion (Video Game)|Master of Orion]] 3'' was a failed attempt to revolutionize the 4X genre through heavy automation. It was intended to make ruling feel like ruling by having the computer make low-level decisions, freeing the player to focus on the big picture.
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has a [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Combat_Macros combat macro script language]. It's quite limited, lacking such things as variables.
** There is also a fan-made program called KolMafia which will automate damn near everything and has a comprehensive scripting language, among many other things. People have made scripts to play the entire game for you. The devs are fine with it.
* In ''[[Plants vs. Zombies (Video Game)|Plants vs. Zombies]]'' you can buy a snail which auto-collects the coins dropped by plants in your Zen Garden. Though you need to manually awaken it for short intervals or feed it chocolate to keep it awake for an hour.
* ''[[Outpost 2]]'', an RTS, has an optional observation satellite that will automatically survey all resource deposits (make them usable) for the rest of the game. It manages to feel great while accomplishing very little: robotic surveyors are cheap and expendable. Yet it eases the crushing multitasking a bit, and is the first concrete benefit of a plotline about escaping the planet.
* Most [[Real Time Strategy]] games (or strategy games in general) will automate workers for gathering resources once you've set them up, or if a worker is very specific, it will do its job once it's created. You can effectively ignore them until they are needed elsewhere. Likewise, your combat units will attack any enemy on sight. In some cases, they'll pursue them for some time. More recent game will also have units react automatically given a situation (supposedly). For example, in ''[[Company of Heroes]]'', units that get attacked will find the nearest cover, but they won't move from their spot where you left them at.
Line 33:
** Auto Pass: Ignore all opportunities to call opponents' discards except to win the hand. This is particularly useful because computer games usually try to keep the game moving quickly and won't stall after a discard if none of the opponents can call it. Thus if the game stalls for a couple seconds, you know someone probably has the requisite tiles in their hand to give them the option of calling the most recent discard. If you know you're going to pass every time, this skips the stall so it doesn't tip off your opponents regarding the composition of your hand.
** Auto ''Tsumokiri'': When enabled, every time you draw a tile, it'll automatically discard the tile you just drew (known as ''tsumokiri'' in Japanese) unless you can use it to declare a kong or it completes a winning hand. Useful if you're one tile away from a winning hand and are absolutely sure you won't want to change the composition of your hand no matter what comes up.
* ''[[Jade Dynasty (Video Game)|Jade Dynasty]]'' has a built-in bot that can perform a wide variety of actions for the player, though it may be stymied by unforeseen situations. Use is unlimited up to level 90, after which its energy must be refilled regularly.
* ''[[Granado Espada]]'' has an array of automation options to help players with the unique multi-character gameplay (each character having almost as wide a range of actions as a typical MMO's lone hero and synergies must be set up in real time). Players formerly used these functions as an ersatz botting system but the developers have taken steps to progressively limit their usefulness.
 
Line 40:
A common type of automation is turning the combat section of a larger game over to the computer. This is convenient when revisiting previous areas, [[Level Grinding]], or when combat has the tactical depth of wet tissue paper. Good auto-battle systems have a visible and responsive "manual control" button, allowing the player to act as an overseer and intervene when necessary. Great auto-battles have a "WAIT WAIT WAIT TAKE THAT BACK" button. No great auto-battles are known to exist.
 
* ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'' changed its combat system to make party members more autonomous. The player could create simple tactics by constructing "If - then" statements, and listing them in order of priority. Characters could then be controlled directly, or left to follow these orders on their own. It turned out too simple: for instance, the party thief cannot be told "IF the enemy can be stolen from AND has NOT already been stolen from, THEN steal, ELSE attack.", at best you can tell them to keep stealing from the enemy for as long as they have full HP in hopes of getting them to stop when another party member takes a whack at the said enemy, but until they do, they'll just keep wasting their turns after their first successful steal.
** ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]'' took this in a different direction, giving the player control of overall tactics such as each character's role in the party at specific times, in the form of Paradigms, while giving them a literal auto-battle button. This lines up a string of moves for your character, taking into account who has less health or needs which buffs (for medics and buffers), weaknesses and resistances that you are aware of on an enemy (for mages, commandos and debuffers), and other tactics depending on the situation. You still have the option to put in the commands yourself, but unless you have a very specific strategy you're implementing it generally gives you the best option.
* In the DS version of ''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]]'' you can toggle "Auto-battle" on and off at any time, where all characters will perform a specific action as their turns come up.
* In the ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' series, you generally have the option to give your monster orders during battle, or letting them fight as they will. If your monster has low Loyalty, letting it choose its own moves reduces the chances that it will become confused and stall. [[Artificial Stupidity|On the other hand...]]
* The ''[[Dragon Quest (Video Game)|Dragon Quest]]'' games have selectable AI for party members, (probably) starting from ''[[Dragon Quest IV (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IV]]''. In the original version of ''[[Dragon Quest IV (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IV]]'', there's no manual control in the final chapter of the game. The hero can never be put on AI. Not a perfect example because the AI can do things that the player cannot, such as healing another character on the same turn they got hurt, something the player wouldn't be able to know in advance due to not knowing which characters the enemy decides to attack that turn.
* In ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]'', the battle system allows you to control two characters at once, one on each screen. However, if this gets confusing or if it's a particularly difficult battle, you can allow your partner to go into 'Auto' mode.Manual input can override the AI at any time, which is handy if things get hairy.
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' - you can even set what sort of behavior the auto-controlled characters have. Set Auto Battle on someone who has Math Skill and let [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] work in your favor!
* ''Megatraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients''. If you turned on "React" your [[PC|PCs]] would automatically fire back at any enemy shooting at them. Since they could react much faster than you could and move around while doing so, it was usually best to let them fight it out with enemy forces.
* ''[[SaGa 3]]'' features an "Auto" option, which lets you toggle on/off AI controlling the characters.
* ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'' has a macro system which sets commands for a turn using a single selection. Although the most common set tells all the characters to attack, new macros can be programmed in for using combination spells.
* In ''[[Master of Orion (Video Game)|Master of Orion]] 2'', you can turn this option on in the middle of combat. It does the job quickly and fairly well when you have the upper hand and you can't bother ordering massive numbers of small ships around, but in other scenarios you are better off doing the job yourself.
* ''[[Grandia II]]'' has several options for automation. You can automate all your characters but the main one or have no control over any characters and just watch the computer fight the computer.
 
Line 56:
 
Plenty of RPGs have an auto-battle option that consists of using the default attack until told otherwise. Try to group these here. Put examples above if their auto-battle features tactics or special abilities.
* The ''[[Mega Ten]]'' games (including ''[[Persona (Videovideo Gamegame)|Persona]]'', excluding the Raidou games and ''[[Devil Survivor (Video Game)|Devil Survivor]]'' for their different combat systems) have the "Rush" command, which speeds the flow of battle by about 50% and forces all party members to stick with physical attacks, overriding their selected tactics.
* ''[[Suikoden (Video Game)|Suikoden]]''.
* The ''[[Breath of Fire (Video Game)|Breath of Fire]]'' series.
* ''[[Alter AILA]]''
* Status inflictions such as "Beserk" can cause this involuntarily. If all of the player's characters get it, the player may have no control at all.
* ''[[Radiant Historia (Video Game)|Radiant Historia]]''. It bypasses the combo system, making it useful for finishing enemies off.
* Most [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] will have the player character auto-attack (and use any skills tied to it) or use pre-selected skills over and over once ordered to hit something.
 
Line 72:
* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]''.
* ''Dawn of War: Dark Crusade'' for defending territories that the player has already captured. You can improve your odds by increasing the amount of troops you start with, and since you start the level with every structure you had built on the last playthrough. However, it is not failsafe, as the computer doesn't understand the concept of [[Instant Win Condition|killing the HQ for instant victory.]]
* ''[[Star Wars]]: Rebellion'', a Star Wars themed [[Four X4X]] game, gave you the option to take control of fleet battles yourselves in the form of a 3-D RTS, or let the computer handle it for you.
* ''[[Star Wars]]: Empire at War'' has auto-battle for both space and land battles. Space battles are far faster and more interesting. Fortunately land units are cheap, so the player can throw those at problems and focus on space!
* In ''[[Master of Orion (Video Game)|Master of Orion]]'' 2, you have the option to turn off tactical (detailed) combat, after which the AI designs all ships and resolves all combats automatically.
* ''[[Earthbound]]'', bless its heart, did this to generic RPG enemies. [[Preexisting Encounters]] that are too weak to pose a challenge will move away from the player characters, and touching one will trigger an automatic victory (with the spoils!)
* Similar to ''Earthbound'', ''[[Paper Mario (Video Gamefranchise)|Paper Mario]]'' included a few badges that allowed the player to defeat weak enemies on the field, without having to enter battle mode.
* ''The Ancient Art of War'' and ''The Ancient Art of War at Sea''. If one of your units and an enemy unit were adjacent to each other, the computer would run the combat between them unless you used "Zoom" to take control of your unit.
* ''The Ancient Art of War in the Air''. The computer resolved dogfights and bombing runs unless you chose to get involved (which greatly increased the chance of your planes winning).
* In ''Space Battle'' for the [[Intellivision]], when one of your patrols intercepted an incoming enemy squadron, the game would start "playing" the battle automatically, taking out approximately three enemy ships for each of your ships in the squadron. This was important as, when you engaged the combat mode yourself, the rest of the game was still progressing in the background.
* ''[[Slave Maker]]'' allows you to decide if you want to automatically win or lose battles. While winning is obviously the preferable option, auto-losing does allow for some different paths to explore without having to let yourself lose.
* The ''[[Mount and Blade (Video Game)|Mount and Blade]]'' series offers this option in some installments or some versions thereof. Not recommended unless you have an overwhelming advantage and even then you may somehow lose if you spam the Resolve button.
 
=== Autopilot ===
 
Turning controls over to the computer. This ranges from simple orientation aids to automatic travel that fast-forwards until something interesting comes up. Traveling without crossing the intervening space is an example of [[Warp Whistle]], instead.
* In ''[[Uncharted Waters (Video Game)|Uncharted Waters]] 2'', if your Chief Navigator or First Mate has the Celestial Navigation skill, you can order him to auto-sail to any port you've already discovered. However, while it's slightly useful, navigating manually would usually get you there faster. Also, the auto-sail function did not take into account things like food/water supplies, storms, and pirates.
* ''Warhead'' has nine autopilots, which range from "Point the ship in the direction of motion" and "Keep going that-a-way while I sit here and rot" to "[[Take the Wheel]]! I'll man the guns!"
* A minor example in ''[[Ace Combat]]'' -- you can activate the autopilot, which will immediately set you to straight and level flight on whatever heading your nose is currently pointed. The only real use for this is to level yourself out in a dark or cloudy level after you've been dogfighting like mad and are no longer sure which way is up.
* The two easiest difficulty options in ''[[Bayonetta]]'' offer an "Automatic" mode where the game essentially performs all movement for you, essentially turning the game into a series of [[Action Commands]]...meaning you can play the whole thing [[A Date Withwith Rosie Palms|using just one hand]].
* Dynamix's ''Red Baron''. While on a Patrol mission you could activate an autopilot which would fly your plane along your patrol route until you encountered enemy units.
* In the Roguelike ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'', holding the B button causes the player to "sprint", where the game fast-forwards their movement in a straight line until something interesting (fork in the road, hostile Pokemon, etc.) happens. Holding B A at the same time causes the game to fast-forward with the leader standing in place, primarily as a means for regenerating HP.
* In the ''[[Descent]]'' series, as a means of helping traditional FPS gamers adjust to its zero-gravity nature, had a control option to automatically align the player's ship at 90-degree angles to nearby floors/walls so that they could maneuver around it without slight tilts getting in the way.
* In ''[[Mario Kart (Video Game)|Mario Kart]] Wii'' the player is allowed to select "Automatic" or "Manual" drifting around corners, with the former intended primarily for first-time players (as only manual drifting features mini-turbo boosts).
** In fact, it was sometimes a lot easier to use a kart or bike with low drift stats if one uses the auto drift options.
* ''Jump Raven'' had various copilot characters of varying aptitudes you could recruit, and responsibilities for various things (hovering, countermeasures, bombs, missiles, guns) could be toggled on or off at will.
* Interplay's old ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' adventure games allowed you to hand over control of different shipboard systems during 3D battle sequences to the bridge officers.
* The ''[[Wipeout (Video Game)|Wipeout]]'' series have an Autopilot power-up that let the computer control your ship for 5 seconds, an useful item when used in tough sections of a track.
* The [[Mechwarrior]] titles: all mechs come fitted with an autopilot which will guide you through a sequence of pre-plotted navigation points and (fairly) intelligently avoid terrain problems on the way. On some missions this gives the player time for a quick sandwich or toilet break while their mech stomps its way to the first interesting bit.
* Most new [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] have at least a rudimentary autopilot, where the player character can be directed to run to a distant point of interest without player intervention via the area map or minimap. Different games have different levels of comprehensiveness in their autopilot, to the level of traversing between maps without help or engaging the function from ''quest description windows''.
Line 106:
* ''[[Master of Magic]]'' has the Grand Vizier function. Unfortunately it could only be toggled on and off for the whole empire, not configured or limited to the least interesting spots.
* ''[[Master of Orion]] II'' has a simple auto-build option. It simply builds according to a prearranged queue set up (in an order that most players don't want) and continues building until it has nothing more to build.
* The ''[[Civilization (Video Game)|Civilization]]'' series allows town function automation by mayors (such as in Civ II), where you can pick an emphasis for their activities, or automatically selecting what tech to research to get to a specific technology (Civ IV).
** ''[[Free Civ]]'' adds build lists that can be applied to new cities so that they automatically construct improvements and troops in the order desired by the player. Cities will also autobuild unless coinage is put in the build queue.
** You can also tell workers to auto-improve tiles, and even tell soldiers and scouts to auto-explore the area, with varying degrees of effectiveness.
* ''[[Sid MeiersMeier's Alpha Centauri]]'' has the Governor function, with five different modes (explore, discover, build, conquer, no priority) and eighteen settings ("governor may produce land combat units", "governor sets new units to 'fully automate', etc.).
* ''[[Galactic Civilizations]] II'' has planetary governors that will automatically decide what to do on particular planets for you.
* ''Europa 1400: The Guild'' and ''The Guild 2'', games about medieval dynasties, offer supervisors for the player's shops and manufacturies at steep prices. The idea is that a player would make his own fortune, then find that it's become better to hand over the day-to-day operations to the CPU and concentrate on scheming.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/884793"