Tactics for Dummies: Moving People Around on A Battlefield is Hard, Part IV: Why Do We Need Units?

Now, I guess, would be a good time to synthesise the things I’ve previously explained in Part I and Part III (the latter of which would have been Part II if not for the digression on wedges). And for that we’re going to move to a slightly larger scale. Let’s use this line, with four groups of nine individuals each:

Now imagine we’re marching the line forward — but whoops. There’s an obstacle lying in the path of the blue group.

This is where the division of the line into several sub-units really comes in handy. Instead of the entire line getting stuck at the obstacle, now it’s only the blue unit that has to solve the problem of how to get ahead. In this case, let’s use one of the simplest solutions, where the blue leader moves to the clear end of the blue sector while the other units continue forwards.

From this point Blue Leader can resume the march while the rest of the unit “snakes” in into a file behind them. This time I’m going to remove the shadow of the units’ old positions to declutter the image.

Why swordfighting in video games can’t be (and maybe shouldn’t be) “realistic”

All right. While cleaning up some old files, I found some stuff I wrote for some old discussion on why the swordfighting mechanics in a video game several years ago (I don’t even remember what it was) didn’t look “realistic.” My basic response was that there are several fundamental reasons why video-game swordfighting can’t be realistic, and maybe why it shouldn’t be in the first place. I think I can still stand by most of those points so I guess I’ll just post them here for posterity’s sake.

1) Controller and display latency. When we’re talking about responding to an opponent’s attack in a video game, first the attack will have to be initiated in the console/CPU, then the information will have to be transmitted to the display, then processed into a form that the human eye and mind can perceive as the designers intended. Then the human player needs to perceive the movement and react by manipulating the controller in some way. Then the information must be transmitted back from the controller to the console/CPU and the cycle begins anew. In a “real” swordfight the fighter would only have to do the middle step (perceive the movement and react by manipulating the sword). This means that it takes much more time (maybe twice or three times as much) for a video game player to plausibly react to an opponent’s attack, which in turn means that the attacks will have to be slower and more telegraphed if the game designer wants the player to be able to react to it at all. The most illustrative comparison here isn’t HEMA vs. medieval sword games, but rather Olympic fencing vs. FIE swordplay (the game). Pay particular attention to the slow-motion replays in FIE Swordplay and the sheer amount of telegraphing you should be able to spot in them.

1a) A somewhat-related issue is the limits of modern display units. By and large, affordable ones have much lower resolution in the human eye and a narrower field of view. This means that video game displays mostly have to engage the gamer’s central vision and can’t take advantage of the eye’s peripheral vision — which is incidentally much better at detecting motion. (Note: this was written before the advent of 4K displays, which in some cases may actually exceed the resolution of the human eye, but 4K doesn’t really have much effect on the issue of cutting off peripheral vision anyway.)

1b) There’s another corollary in that swordfighting is a whole-body activity while video game controllers are usually just manipulated with the hands. This not only limits both the stimuli the player can provide to the game but also the kinds of feedback that they can rely on — visual, auditory, and a minimal amount of haptic force feedback, as compared to pretty much all the senses in an actual swordfight.

2) To be brutally honest, people play video games to have fun, not to become better swordsmen. This is one really important fact we tend to forget as fencers (whether modern, HEMA, theatrical, or whatever): the vast majority of people in the world lack the time and/or the inclination to make an actual study of swordplay. It’s economically unfeasible for a game company to make games with swordfighting systems that can only be effectively be played by real-world fencers and martial artists. Indeed, it’s not as if there aren’t enough people in those categories who don’t mind unrealistic video game swordfighting. Just from my own individual and subjective perspective, when I play a video game I want the swordfighting system to be relatively simple and fun and easy to learn — I certainly wouldn’t want it to replicate the complexity and the frustrations I have to face in actual training!

So there. The low-effort post of the day since my brain is to preoccupied with other things to write a really substantial, useful post. And in any case you can check the index of similar articles if you want more substantial stuff.