The New World - Assuming Control

A design topic on The New World forums asks the question about assuming control.

Design Topic #1: Assuming Control

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Now that we're slowly implementing things, different design issues start popping up, so we might as well discuss them openly and get some feedback.

Imagine a situation where you're helping a group of armed men (Jonas and his thugs) to attack another group of armed men (Braxton and his Regulators). Let's say that Braxton has less men but they're better armed and trained (aka quality) and Jonas has more men but they're poorly armed and trained thugs (aka quantity). Let's say 8 Regulators vs 12 thugs plus your party, so it's 8 vs 14-15 avg and the Regulators have the advantage of properly fortified headquarters.

If you control only your own party (which could be just you if you're playing solo) and you have to wait until 20 guys take turns shooting at each other, it will get boring very fast. We can reduce the Regulators to 4-5 and Jonas men to 5-6 but it won't solve the problem but make the fight less interesting. Thus it seems that the best solution is to let the player assume control over all allies and have a bit of fun, instead of waiting.

Basically, it's like attacking Antidas and his men in AoD but controlling not only your own characters but the Imperial Guards as well.

Let's take it a step further though:

To make it more manageable I think we should split the attackers in two waves (the first wave will soften up the Regulators and the second wave will go in for the kill) and let you control the first wave (the suicidal thugs destined to die) as well, trying to inflict as much damage as possible before your party and the remaining allies go in.

If you're having trouble visualizing the scenario, there was a somewhat similar situation in AoD in the thieves questline, where you recruit Rusty and some local scum, pump them full of drugs, and send them to soften up the assassins hiding in some house, before you finish them off. In AoD you're told of the outcome of this attack and then you go in. Imagine taking full control of Rusty and his crew and overseeing the attack personally. Basically, having fun instead of being told about other people having fun while you're waiting for your turn.

Other examples of such control would be attacking several targets simultaneously (your party attacks target #1, your allies attack target #2, then combine forces) or splitting your party to lead different groups.

I know that this design is definitely not for everyone, so we want to hear what you have to say before we start designing fights.