skill ideas (was 'one skill, multiple abilities?')

[yayswords]

Yes I know it's not, but the post will be basically what should improve from SotW to Loren 2. And I want to try the new characters and their abilities and just generally full party combat before I speak. There might be solutions to things I deem a problem right now and there might be problems I haven't thought of yet. The post will be lacking if I base it only on act 1.

[renke_]

after a short consideration (w/o thinking about implications) - I think I like your special ability in every turn approach. one way to do this would be a cool-down phase with high SP regen - one could use the switch position thingy to restore 25 % SP or so (and a simple skip action with the same short delay would be a welcome addition). I'm not convinced of a high base SP regen, I believe a deliberate action to restore mana would feel better.

[yayswords]

Taking junk turns for regen is more or less an exploit of the current system. Fortunately it won't be very effective under the Loren 2 global timer.

There are many concepts you could use for resource management what I want to end up with is a game where we don't take 10 turns in a row using basic attacks - especially not to save mana for a different battle. Like you could have one class with the simple approach of a high base SP regen, but not higher than their own mana costs. They can use an ability most turns and a basic attack here and there. You could have another with lower regen but active gains from attacking.

Global timer system explained on this page kinda.

Right now your speed does not influence your resource management. Under that system however, higher speed will appear to slow down your regen - because you act too fast for your regen to keep up. Then we could actually have a regen stat and you'd need to find a good balance also there will be no more fast characters losing their buffs/debuffs sooner than slow ones.

[jack1974]

I think with a global timer even the current system would feel very different to play
Also when the time comes, I want also the skills/spells to have a "recast time", since is something that is missing right now, and is at the base of many (most) battle systems!

[renke_]

Global timer system explained on this page kinda.

interesting, so instead of turn+delay all actions/effects/... are measured in time ticks?

I want also the skills/spells to have a "recast time"

why? I don't think multiple constraints are fun to play - currently you use a finite resource pool (SP), not sure if adding another precondition (elapsed time) is an improvement

[yayswords]

I'm gonna hope for Anima to explain the system in one beautiful sentence.

I agree cooldowns would be great to have, assuming a system with more interesting resource management. Will it be possible in Loren 2? It could mean huge progress with class design.

[Anima_]

The actual difference is that effects now have a duration in ticks not turns. So they are independent of the targets actions.

We have played around a bit with conditional SP Recovery instead of time based recovery.
Cooldowns are an alternative to resource pools. The main difference is that choosing an ability will constrain the choice for the next one. It's the first time I heard about this craving of Jack though.

[jack1974]

The actual difference is that effects now have a duration in ticks not turns. So they are independent of the targets actions.

Yes this will be useful to avoid the pointless dances around the battlefield to make ailment go away quickly or SP/HP regen works faster. So this thing alone will make everything different

We have played around a bit with conditional SP Recovery instead of time based recovery.
Cooldowns are an alternative to resource pools. The main difference is that choosing an ability will constrain the choice for the next one. It's the first time I heard about this craving of Jack though.

Yes I never thought about this before, but recently I've resumed playing a few MMORPG (EQ2, Guild Wars 2, etc) and they all use the cooldown system and it works well. I have to say that they're all real-time, so not sure how that applies to turnbased though. Is an idea for now, as always everything will need to be tested and then approved/discarded

[renke_]

What if SP would be used not as a global resource but refilled after every battle? HP loss is persistant and indicates physical injuries, SP is the level of fatigue and affects the chars only while fighting. To simulate the recovery time (important for some cascaded battles like the end fight in Act 1) it would be possible to e.g. restore only 10 % SP per screen, switching to the map should fill-up all mana points (leisurely walk in the, uhm, dungeon?)

[jack1974]

Yes, or there could even be 3 resources, HP/SP and stamina or something else If we go with the cooldown abilities then makes sense to not force players to suffer from low SP like before.