Brainstorming

BioWare has posted a video about the combat mechanics in Dragon Age 2:

Dragon Age 2 Combat

It got me to thinking about some things I'd personally like to see in a tactical RPG combat system. In particular, when Mike Laidlaw, the lead designer, started mentioning terms like "tank" it really left me thinking about where the genre can go from here.

I've enjoyed several MMOs over the years, but for me, the now-stereotypical roles of tank, healer, DPS, etc have grown stale. They always felt a little contrived and never made much sense.

In "real life" and other RPGs, you always take out the biggest threat first. The idea that a Tank could say something SO offensive that I would attack them rather than the more deadly magic user in the back row never jived with me. It was a transparent mechanic that was a little too obvious and broke suspension of disbelief for me.

Anyway, some ideas that I think would make for an interesting gaming experience:

Terrain and Environment being much more of a factor. Positioning yourself in different ways relative to certain terrain features should provide different bonuses. If you stand behind a short wall or a barrel, ranged attacks should have a lower change to hit or do less damage. Likewise, if you're on top of a hill, that terrain feature should have a radius associated with it indicating that ranged attacks should have a greater range and be more accurate.

Positional Importance should play a more integral role. In almost all martial arts, being aware of (and controlling) range is vital. Different restrictions and bonuses should apply based on distance from your opponent and position relative to them.

Some real life combat range examples for armed and unarmed combat according to Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do and the Filipino martial arts of Eskrima are described in the following links:

Jeet Kune Do Ranges

Eskrima Ranges

I'd love to see a combat system with different 'scales' available for a character to 'zoom' between by using combat maneuvers, akin to 4x strategy game such as Sins Of A Solar Empire

Auto-attack would go away entirely. Even mundane moves like a 'slice' would have to be used with care and at the right time and from the correct distance.

A battle between a character who prefers to grapple vs a sword-wielding opponent might then revolve around the grappler attempting different maneuvers to execute a takedown or to otherwise close the distance. If successful, the weapon-user would be forced to drop his sword and either grapple, attempt to unclinch/disengage, or pull a side-arm such as a dagger. From the sword-user's perspective, he would enjoy a huge advantage as long as he could keep the grappler at a distance and avoid being backed into corners or herded into obstructions.

Just some random ideas that popped into my head. I hope someday I have more time to prototype them out.