Games where characters make dreadful tactical choices.

[Neverhoodian]

As much as I like the Halo series, I have to shake my head sometimes at the absolutely bone-headed decisions both the UNSC and Covenant make in combat. Each game has examples of this (Spoiler tagged in case someone still hasn't played these and doesn't want to know any plot points):

Spoiler

Halo CE:
-Truth of Reconciliation level. One time Captain Keyes decided to shoot the corpse of a Grunt he had just killed. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that he was wielding a Needler, and there were some plasma grenades sitting nearby. Needless to say, hilarious carnage ensued.
-The very start of the Silent Cartographer level. Your Pelicans drop the Chief and the Marines on a beach where the Covenant have the high ground instead of, oh I don't know, setting down on the FRIGGIN' HUGE LEDGE RIGHT ABOVE THEM.

Halo 2: The Prophet of Truth's plot to betray the Elites always seemed needlessly complex to me. Instead of wasting an entire advance fleet for the sole purpose of having the Prophet of Regret die by the Chief's hands, why not just quietly assassinate Regret, blame it on the Elites, and proceed to overwhelm Earth's defenses with a single huge fleet? That way he could proceed to uncover the Ark with no opposition. Also, all of the Elites seem to have suffered brain damage in this installment, as their ability to take cover and generally behave intelligently in a fight seems to have left them. They're much more likely just to charge blindly into the fray, and let's not forget the turkey shoot on the bridge in New Mombasa. If sending twenty Ghosts down a narrow bottleneck didn't stop the Scorpion tank, you might consider a different tactic instead of sending twenty more.

Halo 3: I realize the UNSC military's been thoroughly battered by now, but why do they have to drop nothing but light vehicles like the Warthog and Mongoose most of the time? I would have killed for some Scorpions backing me up during the first Scarab fight. Also, Miranda Keyes is a moron and a drama queen:

Trooper: Ma'am, squad leaders are asking for a rally point, where should they go?
Keyes: *Dramatic pause* ...to war.

That's it. She's asked a perfectly legitimate tactical question, and never bothers to actually give a clear answer. Probably her crowning moment of stupid though is when she tries to stop Truth from activating the rings on Installation 00. When Johnson tells her to quickly kill him and then herself so Truth can't use either of them to activate the controls, she hesitates, giving Truth the opportunity to kill her. Way to go, lady. I know you don't want to shoot Johnson, but the fate of the galaxy is at state. Be the soldier you are (or at least the soldier you're supposed to be) and fucking DO IT. Good thing the Chief made it in time thanks to the Flood's intervention. It's pretty sad though when a galaxy-threatening parasitic abomination has more common sense than a trained soldier.

Halo ODST:
Covenant: Hey, let's attack that elite squad of ODSTS armed to the teeth with rocket launchers and missile pods with incremental waves of easily shot down Banshees! That's bound to work!

Halo Reach: Tip of the Spear level:
Falcon Pilot: I don't think going through that Covenant shield's a good idea.
Jorge: *****, do what I say!
*passes through shields*
Falcon Pilot: We've lost all power. We're going down.
Jorge: NOBODY COULD HAVE SEEN THAT ONE COMING.

Also, why didn't the Covenant send in a massive invasion fleet from the get-go, given how they have a huge numerical advantage? Taking the planet would have been much quicker. In fact, the novel The Fall of Reach did just that, and the main battle only lasted a day (thanks for royally screwing the canon by the way, Bungie).

This isn't even going into normal screw-ups by the AI (Piss-poor driving, Marine vehicle gunners ignoring the Wraith tank to shoot at a fleeing Grunt, team-killing with bad grenade throws, etc.)

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

EDIT: Also, his solution to dealing with people he considered treasonous is more treason?

Without a King (the person against whom treason is committed in the governing system in the game), it is impossible to commit treason. Was quitting the field treason? Probably. But it was also the only intelligent move to make. You do not reinforce a failed effort; such a path is foolhardy.

My point, in fact, is that Loghain made reasonable choices when handed the situation. I'm perfectly willing to believe that committing his force would not have saved the king or allowed the garrison to hold Ostagar for reasons I've clearly stated. Killing a single Arl to keep the nation from plunging into civil war would have been a perfectly reasonable exchange considering the circumstances. And, if killing the Grey Wardens ensured Orlais kept out of the matter (keeping in mind that Loghain had no reason to believe the Wardens were actually anything more than skilled warriors), that works too. After all, what use is saving the nation if you just give it right back to a hated enemy?

One problem, treason is against a country and the king. Abandoning the king is treason, acting to divide the country further is treason, claiming the throne was treason. Attacking the Arl could also be considered treason, hence it was done covertly. It is actions against the best interest of the country. No, his actions remained treasonous the whole time.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

One problem, treason is against a country and the king. Abandoning the king is treason, acting to divide the country further is treason, claiming the throne was treason. Attacking the Arl could also be considered treason, hence it was done covertly. It is actions against the best interest of the country. No, his actions remained treasonous the whole time.

Yes, abandoning the king on the field was treason. But the rest of your point is incorrect. The Arls have power for two reasons: because the king granted them the power and because they have the military might to maintain their status. Thus without a king to be granting them position, they have only military force to their name. As such, actions committed against an Arl in the absence of a ruler is not treason.

 

[Reece Stevens]

any villan who allows you to freely run arround a base, knowing you are there... and not sealing you into a room with no exits and gassing you

credit to liquid snake for trying this, however he didn't know about otacon so it can be ignored that he let the door be hacked

 

[funksobeefy]

Team mates in Fifa 11, god those guys are stupid. Some sort of programing needs to be done so they know when to gone a run for a leading pass, not just stand there like a fuckin lemon waving their arms

 

[Paragon Fury]

Spoiler

Bulletstorm; when Gray forgets to double tap General Sarrano, allowing him to get away.

 

[kickyourass]

Just wanted to start this thread to see how many games were npc's have used dreadful tactics.
I'm gonna go with dragon age, the first battle with the Darkspawn with King Cailan in charge.
Man it was awful:
Failing to take use of a higher ground advantage, underestimating your enemy, wasting hounds on a ineffective attack, charging a prepared, more numerous enemy from a strong position. Poorly equipped soldiers and a ridiculously stupid signaling system.
I could have done a shit ton better in the same situation.
So anyone else?

You know I always thought that was iffy to, I mean had nobody in Fereldan heard of a 'Shield Wall?" Cause that relatively narrow bit under the bridge would've been PERFECT for that kind of formation. Even with Logain being the back stabbing mother fucker that he is, the king's army would've at least stood a little bit of a chance in hell. And why send the hounds out first thing? The Ash Warrior said how deadly they were so why waste them by sending them out in front, by themselves, in an extremely loose formation that almost ANY number of troops could counter?

As for my own answer I'd have to say any RPG in which the main villian is fully aware of the hero (Who is usually the one and only person who poses any kind of threat) and yet does not immediatly come down and reduce said hero to a reddish-brown stain on the floor while they're still at level one.

 

[E-Penguin]

Just wanted to start this thread to see how many games were npc's have used dreadful tactics.
I'm gonna go with dragon age, the first battle with the Darkspawn with King Cailan in charge.
Man it was awful:
Failing to take use of a higher ground advantage, underestimating your enemy, wasting hounds on a ineffective attack, charging a prepared, more numerous enemy from a strong position. Poorly equipped soldiers and a ridiculously stupid signaling system.
I could have done a shit ton better in the same situation.
So anyone else?

That was pretty bad. Dont forget they only fired one volley of arrows before sending in the hounds and then charging.

That is all entirely irrelevent in comparision to what Logain did. To anybody at all his betrayel would have made absolutely no sense at all. You sacrifice half a bloody army when the kingdom is under attack by a force which already has superior numbers. Killing off the king, outlawing grey wardens, starting a civil war, all of this while they were under attack by the darkspawn. You cant even say that he underestimated the darkspawns power because he saw the size of the army at ostagar.

I notice it in nearly every game though. Both sides always make these rediculous tactical errors or dont even think of the most obvious solution available.

There's also the fact that the events in the game spans around a year, which makes you wonder what the hell the giant darkspawn horde were doing in before the final battle.

 

[E-Penguin]

Just wanted to start this thread to see how many games were npc's have used dreadful tactics.
I'm gonna go with dragon age, the first battle with the Darkspawn with King Cailan in charge.
Man it was awful:
Failing to take use of a higher ground advantage, underestimating your enemy, wasting hounds on a ineffective attack, charging a prepared, more numerous enemy from a strong position. Poorly equipped soldiers and a ridiculously stupid signaling system.
I could have done a shit ton better in the same situation.
So anyone else?

That was pretty bad. Dont forget they only fired one volley of arrows before sending in the hounds and then charging.

That is all entirely irrelevent in comparision to what Logain did. To anybody at all his betrayel would have made absolutely no sense at all. You sacrifice half a bloody army when the kingdom is under attack by a force which already has superior numbers. Killing off the king, outlawing grey wardens, starting a civil war, all of this while they were under attack by the darkspawn. You cant even say that he underestimated the darkspawns power because he saw the size of the army at ostagar.

I notice it in nearly every game though. Both sides always make these rediculous tactical errors or dont even think of the most obvious solution available.

I always scratched my head and asked where the mage volley was. There was such a big stink about the mages saving their spells for the darkspawn and I don't recall a single damn fireball, Inferno, tempest, Blizzard, or Earthquake. I just saw typical catapult barrages.

They could have at least used Grease first and then lobbed some fire in. Hell, there could have been an entire barrage of withering artillery and spells before they ever loosed the hounds. I would have kept the hounds with the soldiers for added foot soldier support.

Loghain could have won the day, despite Cailan's tactical errors, by simply doing what he was told.

All said, that front line should have been a hell on Earth for the darkspawn to march though before they even touched the infantry. I kept wanting to yell at Cailan. "USE THE MAGE NUKES DUDE!!!"

Not to mention what would have happened if several mages had used the "Storm of the Century" spell. The darkspawn would have been decimated.

I think Loghain was supposed to flank the Darkspawn, while the Grey Wardens would serve as a bait.

 

[E-Penguin]

Most video games don't feature sound tactical decisions. Game developers aren't soldiers. They know most people aren't soldiers either, so there's no reason to crack open one of the many field manuals available for free on the internet to see why charging a machine gun nest isn't a good idea. Some are so lazy in their research I've seen games where sergeants are saluted by captains. It's fucking madness.

A friend of mine used to mix "Captain" and "Corporal", they could have made the same mistake.

 

[E-Penguin]

Fallout New Vegas: Thinking that two bullets were enough to kill you.

It was a headshot. Who WOULDN'T think that would be enough to kill someone? Let alone two headshots.

A headshot is a medical term used when a bullet penetrates someones skull and ricochets inside, turning the brain to mush. This is impossible to survive. It wasn't a headshot.

Although it was a shot to the head. Eh, Two.

 

[MacroSamurai]

The Arls have power for two reasons: because the king granted them the power and because they have the military might to maintain their status. Thus without a king to be granting them position, they have only military force to their name. As such, actions committed against an Arl in the absence of a ruler is not treason.

Not so. The Arls are granted power through the freeholders, not the king.

As for Dragon Age's bad tactics?

Spoiler

Riordan jumping onto the back of the Archdemon in mid-air, then jumping out to the fleshy wing and hoping his sharp stick wouldn't cut through it.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Not so. The Arls are granted power through the freeholders, not the king.

The freeholders give the Arls power to maintain a military capable of holding their realm. This much is true. But it is the king who gives them station in government; without the king all they have is whatever power they can project. Without a king granting them station in government (because without a king there is no government in this case), attacking an Arl is no longer treason (as there is no unifying force that makes it so) and as such any attack against an Arl would simply be one of war rather than treason.

As for Dragon Age's bad tactics?

Spoiler

Riordan jumping onto the back of the Archdemon in mid-air, then jumping out to the fleshy wing and hoping his sharp stick wouldn't cut through it.

That was a poor choice given the simple fact that it should be pretty damn obvious that a single person would be incapable of killing the damn thing even if it were isolated. Hell, even on stupid mode it takes at least your party to get the job done and on the harder difficulties you throw corpses at the damn thing to chip away at it's health. This was both a poor tactical choice in one sense (it killed 1/3 of the Wardens present on the field) but an excellent one in another (it forced the Archdemon to the ground where it could be effectively fought). Given the improbability that this maneuver would work, I would say that it certainly counts as a stupid plan, but thanks to the fickle nature of fortune turning against the enemy in RPGs, it worked out in the end.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Bulletstorm.

Why would the enemies even try and fight against the physics defying wizard known as Gray?

His kicks make you fly in SLOW MOTION and his sliding is more like hoverboarding around...

It's fucking awesome!

Now Rico from Just Cause 2 and Gray need to have a fight to the death wizard to wizard!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

anc[is]In the intro of one of the Dawn of War games the commander orders his squad carrying heavy weapons to charge up a hill directly into the Ork horde. Fuckin noob

Technically they were forced into the fight. Their predator had been blown up by the Rokkit Orks, leaving them open to enemy artillery. Orks are deadly in close combat, and without tank support they couldn't hold out very long.
Also

Spoiler

Yeah, might explain it.

 

[Bravo 21]

definitely the starting mission of darkest of days, you take part in the battle of Little big Horn. Definitely a stategic/tactical error. Not sure if that qualifies as an NPC making an error, but well, you get what im saying.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Resident Evil 5,
Giving what's-her-face anything other then a shockrod, a bow, and maybe some armor.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Basically any decision made in Dead Space 2 by Isaac Clarke.

Dude, Isaac, listen man. We love you, but your reasoning sucks. We all know that when we watch horror movies the dumb blondes walk towards the door with the monster behind it and open it anyway.

Your not a dumb blonde. You don't just open doors where all the bodies are! FIND A WAY AROUND!!

 

[Lord Devius]

Any tactical RPG or strategy game, any character under my control. Seriously, I'm horrendous at tactical stuff.

The final boss of Tales of Symphonia. Now, this might not be quite as bad of a tactical flop for every player as it was for my first time beating him, but oh boy. I'd beaten the superboss of the game, which had more health and damage-dealing capabilities than both of this guy's forms combined, with next to no items. He first begins fighting you with just magic, which is fine; he uses some pretty cruel status-inducing spells, and a couple of easily avoided attacks. When his first form is defeated, he jumps into this... magi-mech thing, which (from my experience) replaces his magic with more physical power. Problem being? He's still pathetically weak, and his defense drops even further than it originally was.

"Hurr, these guys kicked my ass when I was playing to my strengths. Let's hop into a machine that takes away what little defense I have and stops me from using my strengths."

Seriously. You're 4000 years old. Stop being so stupid.

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, some of the tactical errors tend to be explained during the storyline. Video games as a medium suffer from a lot of the same limitations in storytelling as TV and movies, where characters ALSO do a lot of things that make little or no sense. The problem is that this kind of medium doesn't really let you get into the heads of those involved, or give you a good view of what the people involved actually know. You just get to see the end results. It's sort of like when you watch a movie based on a book you've read, and watch a situation you recognize from the book and while it looks pretty accurate to what you'd imagine, it comes accross as lacking due to a complete lack of subtext or perspective on the events occuring.

There are plenty of cases where things that are just plain stupid happen for the sake of moving on a plot, but in many more it's simply a matter of trying to deal with situations requiring a depth which the medium is not capable of. It's also important to know that characters in a story do not have the advantage of your omniscient perspective as the person watching the story unfold. Military intelligence is a big deal IRL, and honestly just because you as a spectator know the true extent of a threat or what tactics would work against it does NOT mean that the characters in the story have the same insights. In things like "Dragon Age: Origins" the battle of Ostragar makes sense when you consider that the king is being set up, Loghain is setting things up specifically to kill the king, and having information intentionally held back towards that end. Loghain himself underestimates the threat posed by the Darkspawn, and sees the King as a greater threat due to his dealings with Orlais. If everyone involved had your perspective as the game player they doubtlessly have made other desciains, but you have to remember that they don't have access to this information.

I cases like the Reapers in "Mass Effect" it's important to think about things realistically. Logistics and money a a major factor in deploying military forces. You can't have them jumping at every shadow out there, you have them reacting to the wrong things and it causes a lot of problems, especially when there are clear and present dangers people know about. It's one of those situations where your perspective as an omniscient player of the game lets you know what a huge threat the reapers are, however from the perspective of those making the desicians there is no real evidence of a threat on that scale, there was Sovreign, but it was destroyed, and no way to prove it didn't act alone. Sure you have Shepard's word for it, but don't forget he was killed pretty soon after the events of the first game, and being dead he wasn't there to actively promote the information he had even if there were other witnesses. It's quite probable the way he was targeted by the keepers was intentional, and exactly for that reason. If he wasn't dead things would have probably developed differantly between Mass Effect 1 and 2.

Or simply, in Mass Effect terms, your making a desician: You've got all these colony worlds to protect, space pirate problems, criminals, and everything else. You get a report from a source that is pretty reliable that there is this threat that should take priority over all those other duties and that you should gather up all your fleets and get ready for it at the expense of their regular duties. This source however dies in what seems to be routine duty, and you OTHER reliable sources (all your spies, intelligence agents, etc...) can't confirm anything that the original source said in any tangible way. Remember that even the other "eye witnesses" lack the advantage of having had a prothean beacon in their head and the exact perspective/translation of what was revealed to Shepard as well.

Now remember, this is your responsibility. By choosing to respond to a threat you heard about but can't verify, fro a source that no longer exists, it means your going to be letting a lot of people die when you committ your fleet to it. Ships that would be out pirate hunting aren't going to be doing it, they are going to be looking for this bigger threat that nobody can find, or spend a lot more time than normal being refitted for a battle of that scale that could be spent using the ships (by trying to get them all updated at once), when even without refits and the like they do their jobs well. Simply put people are going to die. If it's to avert a bigger threat where a lot more people would die it's worthwhile, but if you do this and no threat like that materializes, that makes you an idiot and directly responsible for giving the pirates and other elements those ships kept in line a free lunch pass while you were looking for something that didn't exist. Think of all the criticisms out there about pointless money being spent on military manuvers and operations with no verifyable results, this is like that but on a much larger scale.

See in the situation in Mass Effect, if I was making the desician, with what the guys in charge of the fleets actually know and can verify (as opposed to what I as the player know), I'd probably wind up making a lot of the same desicians. I'd be wrong, of course, but I'd do it thinking I was making the right call at the time, given very little in the way of actual proof other than the word of a dead man who had alien tech in his brain and had problems understanding what it was trying to tell him a lot of the time. If he was still there to deal with, and the data could be analyzed with mental techniques and things that would be one thing, but he's not.


A bit of rambling based on those two points that were raised in response, but I'm just saying I think the positions there can be justified. I don't think there was any paticular stupidity involved in the storylike of either DA:Origns or Mass Effect, as far as those plot points go. Admittedly it could probably have been written better.

Also, for the guy who mentioned it was kind of stupid to have wardogs run out ahead... ummm yeah, that's generally the idea of wardogs, to soak up part of the enemy charge.

Truthfully like a lot of fantasy games (pnp or computer games) the whole "order of battle" depicted is just garbage in general. if you look at it from any kind of technical perspective very little of what we see of "The Battle Of Ostragar" makes a whole heck of a lot of sense, but then again it was meant to be a cinematic to show "yes there was a battle, the good guys lost" to really break it down into a full confrontation using realistic tactics would probably have involved a lot of time and effort that could have been better spent on other aspects of the game... since really the point of the sequence is to set up the plot for your Gray Warden more than anything.

Besides, I think there would be some outrage if along with the dogs they forced a bunch of serfs, peasants, prisoners, and perhaps dreg mercenaries out in an mob ahead of the actual troops to also soak up the charge and act as arrow fodder, while the "important" troops
came in afterwards.

It's also admittedly a lot less cinematically pleasing to watch things like Phalanxs in action, which is why in movies like "300" they demonstrated it, but then found reasons to make the rest of the fight scenes have nothing to do with things like formation or disapline, and instead deal with a bunch of he-men flexing around with weapons doing the action hero thing. It's cooler for a movie, and the same kind of applies for video games. Many people might find the constant portrayal of realistic tactics entertaining and exciting, but I think those people are outnumbered by those who prefer a far more... theatrical presentation. Simply put soldiers replaced warriors on the field of battle, but warriors are far more entertaining to show, or tell stories about for the most part.