Games where characters make dreadful tactical choices.

[FalloutJack]

OT: Final Fantasy 8. All of it. Need an explanation? Give me three hours and a Dr. Pepper.

You asked for it

Spoiler: Your order sir!

[http://img197.imageshack.us/i/drpeppercan.jpg/]

[http://img202.imageshack.us/i/1292045332onehour.gif/]

[http://img202.imageshack.us/i/1292045332onehour.gif/]

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Well shit. My bluff has been called. I prefer a 20 ounce bottle, but I'll do it. (Actually, this will take considerably less than three hours, but I thank you for the time.)

Okay...

Spoiler: Alot of text inside, so beware of that.

Alright, so I said "Final Fantasy 8 (all of it) is a dreadful tactical choice. Why I think so:

To start with, I never liked the choice of a gunblade as a weapon. Granted, there are a number of unorthadox weapons in Final Fantasy, this game being no exception, but I feel the choice to pursue the explodey-gun-swordy-thing was probably a bad choice on Squall's part alone. Lord knows his father (Hey, I'm IN the spoiler tags, so no worries.) simply favored a machine gun. But then, many of the characters make poor decisions. We all know that Seifer is basically retarded for charging blindly into things, getting all of his teammates into trouble with a botched assassination attempt, and then willingly working for the bads as well. We all know that Rinoa also fails in tactics (and that's part of the STORY), more or less screwing up everything for everyone else every time she makes a move. Incidentally, points for Edea for ever being a sorceress in a world that bloody HATES that sort of thing, even before the villainess came back through time and stuff. I'm sure NO CONSEQUENCES SHALL BEFALL US.

Oh, hey! Junctioning and drawing magic systems! In or out of the game, this was a poor decision. Yes, let's design a system where you have to collect magic to junction to your stats or use for a limited amount of time since apparently MP doesn't exist in a world of SORCERY. GOTTA DRAW THEM ALL!! No, seriously. And going after GFs and having to junction THEM (and getting them forcibly removed just when you had things the way you wanted 'em too) was a poor decision in whoever decided to make it that way in the world and just the designer of the game as well. But while we're on the subject of poor decisions in making the game, let's also include the idea where you never get stronger than any of the mooks or most of the bosses. We keep adding different enemies, but we also want the same shit you dealt with on Level 1 to be a fucking threat. WHY? After fighting 15,000 of these, I should be the Blobra-Killing MASTER even with its damage reduction. Tactical failure on the part of the characters for not knowing how to grow and adapt against ANIMALS. And by the way, whose idea was it to put a goddamn T-Rex in the school?

Okay, the school itself. Or any of them, really. Hmmm, a militaristic school designed to transform the youth into soldiers to fight an assumed enemy. Welp, nothing could go wrong there! That's certainly not going to ruin their lives in some mental or physical fashion, and putting these monsters into their brains certainly won't cause ANY problems whatsoever. I'm sure I'd remember something like that, right Ifrit? Sure, boss. What? You're saying I should randomly give them this magic lamp containing a harmful demon too? Okay! You train these young people, and then your final exam is a real warzone. Most of them are still naive and wet behind the ears. Oh, is that a self-repairing death-bot? I'm sure you'll all be fine. HAVE FUN, KIDS! Let's not forget that the uhhh...Gardens? Yeah, they're mobile for some reason, and apparently it's a good idea for you to take them directly into battle with each other, right? Well, maybe if you're the BAD GUY, who brought motorcycles and power-mechs to launch when all Balamb has is the Scooby Gang. Nice one, Cid!

Okay, let's see what else we got here. Mr. President, there is a SORCERESS on the line, as in our HATED ENEMY OF MANKIND. She wants to come into the capital WHERE YOU LIVE and throw some kind of party. Are you in? Yes? Okay... Nice knowing ya! (Dead.) Heh, so...we decided to throw a cage around the sorceress and then shoot at her with a bullet. Are we missing anything here? (How about the obvious barrier?) So, we threw this bitchy sorceress into stasis where she's helpless and put her into space, next to the monster-filled MOON. Anybody else thinking we should say...blow her up? Or send her hurtling off into space? No? (By the way, why aren't we bombing the moon that's full of MONSTERS?) Hey, we're in the super-advanced Esther civilization full of technological marvels! Should...somebody, I dunno, maybe consider shooting down that giant obelisk before it gets to us or, in fact, the thing that gives it power? (Geez, is EVERYONE here nuts? Damn it, it's like the place is run by a total mor- Oh HEY Mr. Machine Gun-Toting President!)

But the poorest tactical decision (aside from making the game) in the whole game is the plot itself. Check this out. The sorceress, Ultimecia, lives in the future and is ultimately unchallenged because everyone else is probably dead. She rules a dark future, basically. Oh, but she heard some prophecy or gained some information that a gang of sorceress-killers were going to kill her somehow in her future. So hey... Let's mess with time. Apparently, throwing your mind back into receptive individuals (flipping sorceresses) is the 'In' thing to do, so let's go mess up history, 'cause we're gonna compress time. Don't know why the fuck that's a good idea. In fact, what the hell WAS going through her mind at the time? What do you think, Griever? I...have no comment at this time. Right, so! Let's do this thing. We're going to hijack Edea (That's strange, this power she has seems kind of familiar...) and take over a country that deposed its own sorceress-ruler. This isn't unusual at all! Lets also kill the President of another country and assume control, but when it comes to killing, you know, THE PROPHECIZED ENEMY...we're gonna skimp a bit. Oh, what? They somehow managed to escape your cunning plans? Despite the fact that we have a TIME MACHINE and probably watch their every move? The devil you say! So, yeah. Despite all things, time compression happens. Great, you stupid STUPID *****. You brought it on yourself, dumbass. The heroes are HERE. Good work! Your entire plotline made you dead. Otherwise doing nothing about it would've allowed the dark rule to continue. Which is fine by me, because it was most bullshitty battle EVER (which requires an additional rant to get into), so YOU DESERVE IT.

*Sighs*

This concludes my session of 'Jack Gets Something Off His Chest'. Thank you for the time and Dr. Pepper. No, I will not return the unused portion. The rest of the time I asked for was so you'd have time to read it.

 

[ChipSandwich]

You destroying the Reaper in orbit around the one Brown Dwarf, and not, oh I don't know, USING IT AS EVIDENCE TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF THE REAPERS!

That Star System(where the relay is, I think its Hawking Ete or something) is in Citadel space, since you went there in the first game. This means you can bring Citadel ships there. Which means you can bring people there to prove all this reaper stuff to them. Which would give the council reason to help you, and bolster their forces for the Reaper threat.

Cerberus also dropped the ball there. All the researchers going insane could have been stopped buy just doing routine checkups on them. If TIM did that, he would see that they were going crazy, and could rotate them out with other researchers. This could also be a place to study indoctrination. And don't get me started on studying all that reaper tech.

I know sometimes people have to act stupid for the plot and all, but come on Bioware. Your better then this.

And also someone else mentioned that they should take a video of this and send it to the council. However, you're forgetting one very important thing:

The council have seen Sovereign first-hand in the battle of ME1, they had their scientists pick the pieces of Sovereign out of the Citadel AND STILL found no evidence that Sovereign was anything other than an extremely advanced Geth construct (from conversation with Anderson in ME2). If they have Reaper parts themselves and can't figure it out, what do you think a grainy video of some other "Reaper" (ah, yes...) would tell them. LOLZ MOAR GETH.

The things that really bothered me about ME2 were the stupid Warden, taking everyone with you after the IFF, Ashley/Kaiden surviving despite being one of the first people to get frozen and the compulsory Cerberus membership.

 

[EHKOS]

The Junkman in NFSU 1. Did you really think you could win in a hello kitty car?

 

[Arsen]

i would have to say when you have Rapha as a guest in final fantasy tactics....
DURR run into the group of ninjas!
DURR run into the assassins!
as an added bonus i think in both of those missions she cant die because you will lose

The Elmdor battle with the assassins after you fight Wiegraf? Yeah, you have to get lucky with that fight to finally beat it.

 

[8bitlove2a03]

Half-Life 2:

At first she was like:
"We don't go to Ravenholm anymore"
But then:
"Hurry DOG! Send Gordon through the Ravenholm tunnel!"

-_-'

 

[ReaperzXIII]

Ganondorf is the worse offender! "Let's put all the weapons needed to fight the boss in the same temple the boss is in! Don't worry we'll defend the weapon with a miniboss only slightly stronger than normal enemies which Link has slaughtered in the thousands, I'm not stupid pfft!"

Gears of War both COG and Locust sides: "We'll send in 4 Gears to the Locust Stronghold because that is all we need against the bulk of their forces!" or the Locust's "4 guys have a higher kill count than death, lets send 5 or so Locust at them at any one time instead of you know sending one of those Brumak things to kill them"

Or every JRPG ever, "Now I must take this opportunity to taunt the hero despite the fact that it is well known that when he is angry he enters a state that can only be described as: How the hell did he wrap my lungs up using my own intestines?!"

 

[Lt.Snuffles]

Halo CE: Where the Captin goes and releases the flood
New Vegas: He should have made sure you were dead

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Crystal Chronicles: the Crystal Bearers was FULL of ridiculous tactical errors by the villain.

Wall of spoilers in 3...2...1...

Spoiler

For reference, the main villain is a general of the ruling tribe, who wants to take over the kingdom. The Hero is a mercenary with the power of gravity. Magic is essentially a forbidden art, so everyone hates people like the hero.

- General is hiring Hero, because he gets the job done. Hero proves he can get job done, saves entire airship of nobles at the beginning, right in front of the general. General then makes a deal with the Hero's friend (who handles all the merc paperwork), basically hiring him and the hero to track down the mage-creature that nearly killed everyone on the ship.

- Hero then gets into trouble with the law because he uses his magic to stop guards from beating the crap out of him while a thief girl tried to hide behind him. Despite this, the Hero still continues to work for the general through his friend.

- Rather than just let the incident slide since the hero is STILL working for him and is useful, the general sends a hit squad of gunmen after the hero. Hero easily deflects bullets and continues his investigation that is helping the general.

- General sometimes pops up to try to trap the hero (AGAIN, despite the fact that the hero is helping him, and doing a good job too). Despite his campaign to bring the hero in over one stupid charge of obstruction of justice, however, the general NEVER seems to let the rank and file soldiers know, so you can run into any town you want and the soldiers will not try to arrest you.

- General makes the Hero's only friend (from a tribe of brigands) his lieutenant. Eh, not a bad idea, since the guy is easily manipulated, so I'll let that one slide.

- Hero tracks down the mysterious mage-creature he's been hunting for the general, and almost has it cornered. However, the General decided to also hire another Merc to track down the mage-creature (this merc has the power of fire, and is also an untrustworthy psycho), who then burns down an entire monastery while attacking the hero, almost letting the mage-creature escape. After the Hero corners the mage-Creature, the general calls in a squad of gunmen to shoot down the hero AGAIN. Even though he already proved that he can deflect bullets with no trouble, AND pretty much completed the job. Result? The hero and the mage-creature manage to escape.

- Hero finally pieces together (with the help of the mage-creature) how the general could almost destroy the world wit his plan, but isn't totally convinced. General reveals that he ALSO has crystal-magic and attempts to insta-kill the hero rather than try to convince him that he's a good guy.

- Hero's friend manages to catch up to the hero moments before the hero tries to escape through a portal. General sees this, and instead of having his troops attack the hero, he HOLDS THEM BACK and orders the hero's friend to shoot the hero. .....Yeah, that never works. Hero's friend pulls out his gun, but gives the hero the signal to hit him, and escape. Hero does so, escapes, and the General allows the friend to stay on as lieutenant.

- Despite the hero now being his worst enemy (good going there), the general stops hunting him down, and STILL does not tell the troops to attack on sight.

- General THEN decides to kidnap the ENTIRE tribe (the brigand-like tribe) of the hero's friend, and stuff them all in a floating prison. And...Aside from one battle with a pack of mechs, there is no resistance stopping the hero from breaking in. General THEN attempts to murder the entire tribe and turn them into crystals for his use, and kills the tribe leader, totally getting the hero's friend to hate him.

- This whole time, there was a thief girl (the one the hero helped before) who was running around with a picture of the General using his powers. That's heavily incriminating evidence (and the General was VERY aware that she might have evidence against him). And yet, he barely spent any time chasing her. Surprise surprise, after the prison incident, she takes this info to the princess, general gets arrested, but not before he attempts to insta-kill anyone while roaring like a lunatic.

That's pretty much all I can remember of his screw ups. I mean...If the HERO is HELPING YOU, and he's got useful forbidden magic, you don't want to antagonize him.

Seriously, the villain was an idiot. He had the advantage half the time, and he just kept screwing himself over!

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

There's a mission in Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 during the Soviet campaign where your entire army is sent via paradrop right into the heart of the enemy base. It's almost hilarious watching such a huge army die before they even touch the ground because the enemy has such a huge defense around where you dropped your guys.

By the end of the massacre you only have one Conscript and one War Bear that safely dropped outside of all those defenses. Lieutenant Dasha comes on screen and is like "That... wasn't supposed to happen" haha!

OH YEAAAAAH!!!! I remember that! (I was one of the testers for that game)

There was another stupid mistake made later in the soviet campaign:

Spoiler

Soviet leader: So, I'll order the hero to kill off this troublesome asshole general who I feel is a thorn in my side, by saying that guy is a traitor!

Me: ....uhh...Ok...I don't think he was a traitor...ah well, he was an ass anyway.

Soviet leader: Ok, Hero, I want you to be there at this diplomatic meeting with our enemies, but then I want you to kill them all!

Me: Ok, so I killed off their dignitary in my trap and then had to fend off an army they had prepared in case this happened. So, we gonna attack the US now?

Soviet leader: I am afraid you have outlived your usefulness. You're too good a commander and I don't want to risk the people wanting YOU to rule them instead of me. So I will send my army to attack your army!

Me: ....what? So you admit I'm a better commander than you and yet you try to kill me by sending an army at my army??? WHAT?

 

[Irridium]

You destroying the Reaper in orbit around the one Brown Dwarf, and not, oh I don't know, USING IT AS EVIDENCE TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF THE REAPERS!

That Star System(where the relay is, I think its Hawking Ete or something) is in Citadel space, since you went there in the first game. This means you can bring Citadel ships there. Which means you can bring people there to prove all this reaper stuff to them. Which would give the council reason to help you, and bolster their forces for the Reaper threat.

Cerberus also dropped the ball there. All the researchers going insane could have been stopped buy just doing routine checkups on them. If TIM did that, he would see that they were going crazy, and could rotate them out with other researchers. This could also be a place to study indoctrination. And don't get me started on studying all that reaper tech.

I know sometimes people have to act stupid for the plot and all, but come on Bioware. Your better then this.

And also someone else mentioned that they should take a video of this and send it to the council. However, you're forgetting one very important thing:

The council have seen Sovereign first-hand in the battle of ME1, they had their scientists pick the pieces of Sovereign out of the Citadel AND STILL found no evidence that Sovereign was anything other than an extremely advanced Geth construct (from conversation with Anderson in ME2). If they have Reaper parts themselves and can't figure it out, what do you think a grainy video of some other "Reaper" (ah, yes...) would tell them. LOLZ MOAR GETH.

The things that really bothered me about ME2 were the stupid Warden, taking everyone with you after the IFF, Ashley/Kaiden surviving despite being one of the first people to get frozen and the compulsory Cerberus membership.

Well, if they took a voice file from some random Quarian as 100% reason to discharge their best agent(without even contacting him to defend himself), I think a video feed from you would help things. If anything Anderson might help push them over the edge.

But, like you said. It requires the council to be smart. Which is a long-shot.

 

[MrJKapowey]

Spoiler: well, that was unexpected

OT: Final Fantasy 8. All of it. Need an explanation? Give me three hours and a Dr. Pepper.

You asked for it

Spoiler: Your order sir!

[http://img197.imageshack.us/i/drpeppercan.jpg/]

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[http://img202.imageshack.us/i/1292045332onehour.gif/]

[http://img202.imageshack.us/i/1292045332onehour.gif/]

Well shit. My bluff has been called. I prefer a 20 ounce bottle, but I'll do it. (Actually, this will take considerably less than three hours, but I thank you for the time.)

Okay...

Spoiler: Alot of text inside, so beware of that.

Alright, so I said "Final Fantasy 8 (all of it) is a dreadful tactical choice. Why I think so:

To start with, I never liked the choice of a gunblade as a weapon. Granted, there are a number of unorthadox weapons in Final Fantasy, this game being no exception, but I feel the choice to pursue the explodey-gun-swordy-thing was probably a bad choice on Squall's part alone. Lord knows his father (Hey, I'm IN the spoiler tags, so no worries.) simply favored a machine gun. But then, many of the characters make poor decisions. We all know that Seifer is basically retarded for charging blindly into things, getting all of his teammates into trouble with a botched assassination attempt, and then willingly working for the bads as well. We all know that Rinoa also fails in tactics (and that's part of the STORY), more or less screwing up everything for everyone else every time she makes a move. Incidentally, points for Edea for ever being a sorceress in a world that bloody HATES that sort of thing, even before the villainess came back through time and stuff. I'm sure NO CONSEQUENCES SHALL BEFALL US.

Oh, hey! Junctioning and drawing magic systems! In or out of the game, this was a poor decision. Yes, let's design a system where you have to collect magic to junction to your stats or use for a limited amount of time since apparently MP doesn't exist in a world of SORCERY. GOTTA DRAW THEM ALL!! No, seriously. And going after GFs and having to junction THEM (and getting them forcibly removed just when you had things the way you wanted 'em too) was a poor decision in whoever decided to make it that way in the world and just the designer of the game as well. But while we're on the subject of poor decisions in making the game, let's also include the idea where you never get stronger than any of the mooks or most of the bosses. We keep adding different enemies, but we also want the same shit you dealt with on Level 1 to be a fucking threat. WHY? After fighting 15,000 of these, I should be the Blobra-Killing MASTER even with its damage reduction. Tactical failure on the part of the characters for not knowing how to grow and adapt against ANIMALS. And by the way, whose idea was it to put a goddamn T-Rex in the school?

Okay, the school itself. Or any of them, really. Hmmm, a militaristic school designed to transform the youth into soldiers to fight an assumed enemy. Welp, nothing could go wrong there! That's certainly not going to ruin their lives in some mental or physical fashion, and putting these monsters into their brains certainly won't cause ANY problems whatsoever. I'm sure I'd remember something like that, right Ifrit? Sure, boss. What? You're saying I should randomly give them this magic lamp containing a harmful demon too? Okay! You train these young people, and then your final exam is a real warzone. Most of them are still naive and wet behind the ears. Oh, is that a self-repairing death-bot? I'm sure you'll all be fine. HAVE FUN, KIDS! Let's not forget that the uhhh...Gardens? Yeah, they're mobile for some reason, and apparently it's a good idea for you to take them directly into battle with each other, right? Well, maybe if you're the BAD GUY, who brought motorcycles and power-mechs to launch when all Balamb has is the Scooby Gang. Nice one, Cid!

Okay, let's see what else we got here. Mr. President, there is a SORCERESS on the line, as in our HATED ENEMY OF MANKIND. She wants to come into the capital WHERE YOU LIVE and throw some kind of party. Are you in? Yes? Okay... Nice knowing ya! (Dead.) Heh, so...we decided to throw a cage around the sorceress and then shoot at her with a bullet. Are we missing anything here? (How about the obvious barrier?) So, we threw this bitchy sorceress into stasis where she's helpless and put her into space, next to the monster-filled MOON. Anybody else thinking we should say...blow her up? Or send her hurtling off into space? No? (By the way, why aren't we bombing the moon that's full of MONSTERS?) Hey, we're in the super-advanced Esther civilization full of technological marvels! Should...somebody, I dunno, maybe consider shooting down that giant obelisk before it gets to us or, in fact, the thing that gives it power? (Geez, is EVERYONE here nuts? Damn it, it's like the place is run by a total mor- Oh HEY Mr. Machine Gun-Toting President!)

But the poorest tactical decision (aside from making the game) in the whole game is the plot itself. Check this out. The sorceress, Ultimecia, lives in the future and is ultimately unchallenged because everyone else is probably dead. She rules a dark future, basically. Oh, but she heard some prophecy or gained some information that a gang of sorceress-killers were going to kill her somehow in her future. So hey... Let's mess with time. Apparently, throwing your mind back into receptive individuals (flipping sorceresses) is the 'In' thing to do, so let's go mess up history, 'cause we're gonna compress time. Don't know why the fuck that's a good idea. In fact, what the hell WAS going through her mind at the time? What do you think, Griever? I...have no comment at this time. Right, so! Let's do this thing. We're going to hijack Edea (That's strange, this power she has seems kind of familiar...) and take over a country that deposed its own sorceress-ruler. This isn't unusual at all! Lets also kill the President of another country and assume control, but when it comes to killing, you know, THE PROPHECIZED ENEMY...we're gonna skimp a bit. Oh, what? They somehow managed to escape your cunning plans? Despite the fact that we have a TIME MACHINE and probably watch their every move? The devil you say! So, yeah. Despite all things, time compression happens. Great, you stupid STUPID *****. You brought it on yourself, dumbass. The heroes are HERE. Good work! Your entire plotline made you dead. Otherwise doing nothing about it would've allowed the dark rule to continue. Which is fine by me, because it was most bullshitty battle EVER (which requires an additional rant to get into), so YOU DESERVE IT.

*Sighs*

This concludes my session of 'Jack Gets Something Off His Chest'. Thank you for the time and Dr. Pepper. No, I will not return the unused portion. The rest of the time I asked for was so you'd have time to read it.

My hat goes off to you, sir, for you have actually bothered to explain and not just go 'CBA'.

-------------------------------------------

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

But we are the....

SPEHZZ MAHREENZ! DEFENDAZ OF THAH EMPERURGH! WE PHEEER NUFIN! WE BOUGH TO NO MAN! (etc etc)

-------------------------------------------

The Tip of The Spear - Why launch a massive charge using relatively unarmoured jeeps and quadbikes (with probably less than 100 men involved in total) with minimal air support (like two-four small transports) against the largest cocentration of enemies on the planet?

The Covanent had ground attack/fighters (Banshees) and field artillery/Main Battle Tanks (Wraiths), missile (fuel rod) turrets, and even anti aircraft guns.

And in the cutscene...

Why did the marines in the 'Hog behind you try to jump the gap from the destroyed bridge? They didn't have to, and they had more than enough time to turn to a different path forewards.

 

[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.