Rule Previews

[Anima_]

And another preview, this time without (pretty ) pictures.

All this changes are still in the brainstorming phase. ToA:RoW is still all while away, but we're trying to reuse the framework from PS2, which means that I really need to think a bit ahead.
So this time you get the changes to stagger and a new concept called Boost that is closely related to it.

Boost
Most actions have a normal and a boost state. Under certain condition, which depend on the action, it can be executed in it's boosted form. The difference can be almost anything: strength, delay, area, cost or a status effect. Targeting a staggered foe is one of the most common and cheapest ways to boost your attack. Attacks that required a specific status effect in Loren will now be boosted if the target has the effect instead. There are a few more concepts that allow you to boost an action, but we'll save them for later. Status effects also have a boosted state. For some it's just a stronger effect, others gain a completely new additional effect.
This is merely an evolution and combination of the already existing advanced action mechanic in Loren 1. With this change you can still use your shiny new skill even without a fitting target, it just gets even shinier under the correct conditions. An additional change is that this will also expand to benign skills. For an easy example consider a heal skill spell that can revive in it's boosted state. Boost is one of the core concepts the new combat system will revolve around. Getting your own actions boosted and denying enemies boosts will certainly be a core part of the game.

Stagger
This was already announced some time ago but stagger changed from being hard to apply but lasting several turns to being easy to apply and only lasting a short time.
Instead of using the damage value to calculate stagger we'll now have a dedicated stagger attribute. When an attacks stagger value exceeds the targets poise value (A rename for the old Stagger Threshold.) the target will be staggered for an amount of ticks according to the difference between stagger and poise. During that time that target can not act. Should it's next turn occur during that time it's delayed until the stagger wears off. This includes reactions like guarding a character. Since stagger will not last that long most of the time you'll need to coordinate your attacks closely.
With this change stagger should be more dynamic. It happens much earlier and more frequently but only creates a brief window of opportunity. Although with a pretty nice pay off if exploited correctly. In addition it puts more emphasis on the turn order. A nice side benefit is that this will work much better against speedy opponents since they'll have lower poise and a higher chance to have their next turn come up during the stagger.

[yayswords]

Boost sounds like a good step, Loren felt too much like hit hard and hit first and if you debuff in the process that's just a bonus. Except stagger, you want to cripple them so they can't cripple you and you want to unlock special moves. Every other debuff - a bonus

I do however find myself comparing this new stagger to paralysis. If you are paralyzed on your turn, will your turn then also be delayed until the moment the paralysis wears off, or will you have to use that paralyzed turn to defend? It's debatable which is preferable but they do feel similar. Does stagger still reduce stats too?

[Anima_]

Paralyse isn't included in the current status effects. Stagger doesn't reduce stats at the moment, it's an obvious addition if it's too weak of course. But I'm quite confident that it's already strong enough.

[Anima_]

Today’s rule preview is about elements. It's one of the bigger changes to the game and replaces the Elemental and Status resistances from the first game.

Affinity
Pretty much anything in the game has an affinity to one of the six elements (Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, (Normal, Order, ?) and (Dark, Chaos, ?)). There are two different types of affinity: simple and complex. Actions, Damage types and Status Effects all belong to a single element. So you can talk about Fire actions or Earth effects. Those are called simple affinities and each can only have a single affinity.
Complex affinities in contrast are a characteristic of Characters and Equipment. Those are numeric gauges that determine how high or low the characters/items affinity to a single element is. Complex affinities are always defined for every element. Any element has an opposed element. Increasing the affinity for an element will automatically reduce the affinity for the opposite element. For example if Draco has a Fire affinity of 50 his Water affinity will be -50.

A complex affinity gives boni (or mali) for the respective simple affinity actions and effects. These include both using and resisting the element. Spells depend a much greater deal on their elemental affinity. In practice it becomes a broad specialisation for the characters that automatically creates both strengths and weaknesses. Of course there will also be ways to manipulate complex affinities during an encounter, but there are no exceptions to the Element = - opposite Element rule.

Awakening
Speaking of the devil this is one of them. Awakening is an after effect of using an action. It briefly increases the users affinity to the actions element and enables other party members to boost support skills targeted on the user. Of course only if they are of the same element as the Awakening. This will be overwritten if the next action is executed before it can expire.
The purpose is to make buffing more dynamic. It's pretty much the benign equivalent to Stagger.

[yayswords]

The way I understand it, it seems needlessly confusing to call them both affinities. If complex affinity was called affinity and simple affinity called type, that would feel at least as intuitive to me, and if not less confusing to someone else then at least using fewer words ;p

Also is normal supposed to contrast dark? 'cause the obvious contrast to dark is light, and to normal it's Jack's table manners... or supernatural. If normal is supposed to mean physical, then a good contrast could be spiritual or maybe ethereal.

And now awakening, to see if I got it right. Draco casts a fire spell, and until his next turn, any friendly fire (hehe friendly fire) spell cast on him will work better. Will enemy offensive fire spells work better too? Will friendly and/or enemy water spells do worse? And can a friendly action be subject to boost as well as this for some potentially ridiculous numbers?

[Anima_]

Probably. Terminology is still pretty rough as a whole.

Dark was a catch all element for any forbidden magic. We are working on getting a handle on it, but it's still pretty much on the back burner. My favourite is Order and Chaos so far.

Probably not until his next turn. High affinity always has positive effects, low affinity negative effects. So a higher fire affinity means that you can resist enemy fire spells better. Of course since any increase in Fire Affinity will decrease Water Affinity by the same amount you'll be more vulnerable to water spells.
This is one of the ways to get boost for friendly actions, it's not a separate increase.

[Anima_]

Okay up to a new round, this time about Speed, Marks and Mood.

Speed
With the current handling of the Speed stat we have a few problems. Actions become faster and faster as the characters advance often hitting the reduction limits later on. Also there are problem with the way speed interacts with the base delay, making it much more important for already fast actions. Honestly my first reaction was to simply throw out the whole mechanic and only work with base delay. A fast character would be someone who uses fast actions, easy and elegant.
But that's not really enough. With the same reasoning we can eliminate the Strength stat, a powerful character is simply using powerful actions. It's an interesting way to make a game as well, but it would be an 180° turn from the current design.
So instead Speed now got demoted from attribute to attribute difference. When you use an action the users skill is compared against the targets evasion, the difference is the Speed. Speed is always between -100 and 100. The function is calculated so that the effective delay is between 0.5 and 2.0 base delay. If these will be two different attributes or the same attribute doing double duty is still up in the air. Probably the same attribute, but with offence and defence specialisations.

Marks
These belong to our series of unified mechanics. You know them as Guard and TakeAim from the previous games. A Mark is pretty much a special Effect that interacts with the person who caused it. Every character can have at most one benign and one malign Mark. So you can't Guard a character and Shield her at the same time. And of course only one enemy can take aim at her. Of course that opens the door for some new marks as well. A blessing that allows the caster to heal the target better, a Challenge that forces the character to attack the marker. There are quite a few possibilities.

Mood
Time to get to one of the few genuinely new mechanics. Mood is a party wide scale that goes from Aggressive to Careful. All actions change the parties mood in one direction. Attacks to Aggressive and Healing and Buffs to Careful, at least in general. Every action also has a threshold, for example Soulrot, an aggressive action, may have a threshold of 150. If the mood scale is over 150 on the Aggressive side you can Boost the action. The scale is then set back by a certain value, also action dependant, in the other direction. This mechanic allows you to Boost actions even if you may be unable to stagger your target or if it's immune to the effect you need.
Making it group wide forces you to consider the action you take not only from the perspective of the individual character but also from the perspective of the rest of the party. That's one of the design goals for the sequel.

[yayswords]

Any actions boosted by a neutral mood?

[jack1974]

No comments, just wanted to add that I really like this system so far! seems quite interesting and still not overcomplicated.

[yayswords]

I think "mood" needs to be renamed before I lobby for having 0/5 hearts with all party members makes all fights start with 9001 aggressive mood