Berserk tactics, so much the norm.

[Marek14]

How about making tactics giving bonuses/penalty for visibility range? I.e. when you are careful, you see further, but when you lust for blood, you are so enraged you only notice things that happen close to you?

[Stingray1]

I don't see(intended) how that would make a big difference, I'd just change tactics to coward to spot the enemy and then switch to berserk and manually target the tile I now know the enemy is on. Unless it is changed so that you cannot target tiles outside line of sight.

[Marek14]

Or you could get penalties for targeting things you can't see (basically same as if they were invisible).

[Stingray1]

In the end it has the same netto result as making tactics give less of a bonus to missile attacks. Only difference is you don't see the enemy and how much it is damaged, you can then just switch to a coward and then with the healthbars see how much you damaged it.

Unless you are saying things like perception, farsight spell and necklace of the eye, etc. must play a big role.

[Harwin]

It seems like some of this is just a problem with the name "berserk". I just think of it as a continuum trade-off - Hit+Damage vs. Defense. When you're on "aggressive", it doesn't seem odd to have a bonus to hit, and it mirrors a natural penalty to hit on "defensive".

Sure "berserk" doesn't sound like something with accuracy, but compare it to the defensive option and it makes sense.

Whether it should affect missile settings at full strength is something else, but I think it should roughly behave in the same way as melee - the aggressive side is more hit and damage, the defensive side is less hit and damage. If you don't want it to affect damage, then that's one thing, but it shouldn't change the general way it works.

[Stingray1]

That is the way I see tactics too, the words used is not that important. One side gives bonuses to attack and penalties to defense and vice versa. The issue at hand though is that the most aggressive tactics setting is used mostly during melee and missile combat(especially missile combat). The reason being that it has the best bonuses to to-hit and damage and the penalty to defense is in most situations irrelevant. I think there needs to be some more drawback to setting tactics to "berserk".

[Marek14]

All right, what is the main problem here? That high-aggression settings on missile combat give you the bonuses, but not penalties.

Possible solutions are, therefore:

1. Reduce bonuses. Easiest way to do it would be to make Tactics affect missile and melee combat separately, with different set of bonuses for each. One thing I'm wondering about is whether it would make sense to REVERSE to-hit bonuses for missile attacks. When you're very aggressive, I feel you'd make maybe stronger shots, but much wilder, and therefore with lower chance of hit. On the other hand, being defensive means you'd take more time to aim. (This would, of course, not apply to melee combat where you're, after all, able to guide your weapon to enemy during the whole swing.)

2. Increase penalties. My visibility reduction was one attempt to do that. Another would be to increase prevalence of missile combat for enemies (but that would have other effects).

[Stingray1]

1. "Aggressive means you are concentrating more on your attack and "Defensive" means you are concentrating more on your defense. This is what the bonuses and penalties tells us.

2(a). By penalties you mean less bonus to to-hit and damage or a bigger penalty to DV? 2(b). That is a consideration.

If you are just saying reduce the bonuses then everyone is still just going to use the berserk setting or whatever setting gives the best bonuses for missile combat.

[Marek14]

Yes, mere reduction of bonuses would not eliminate the use of berserk setting, but it might limit it a bit. Bigger penalty to DV doesn't seem to be useful since people who use this tactics don't get hit that much.
Here's an idea: how about making aggressive settings increase the energy cost of missile attacks (of course, with no reductions for defensive settings)? Aggressive missile attack, to get the bonuses, would take longer to aim, AND you'd have to spend more effort and time tauting the bow, cocking the crossbow or whirling the sling.

With this, the sweet spot of maximum damage output would no longer be just "strongest attacks" because you would be able to make less of them.

[Stingray1]

Yes, I considered that. Let's hear what others think.

Another solution I just thought of is, how about the higher your tactics setting the bigger the chance of the missile being destroyed and the bigger the chance of a returning missile not returning. You are so accurate that the missile gets deeply imbedded in the enemies skull or whatever and you cannot retrieve it or something in that vein. This would not affect a xl 50 Archer though as his/her missiles just ploughs through everything, although maybe it still gets destroyed against the wall?