Firing this up while waiting (or something) for some kind of description to that design philosophy question in the resource management thread. Given that Anima wants the ideas now so he can try to make them work rather than hack them in later



This is about creating new mechanics that you would like the game to use. If you believe it's not already supported in SotW, make your voice heard!



Now, what I would really like to see is a better crowd control system. Currently in SotW the only way to disable a target is to paralyze it. But paralyzed targets can still be hit, which I think makes for a rather repetitive combo. You render the target helpless and you pummel it down. Now this has its place, I believe it should be a legit tactic to lock down your target so it can't use its abilities in self-defense, but it means paralysis needs to have a bearably short duration so you can't just disable the whole enemy team. What I want to see is abilities that disable a target without allowing you to nuke the living shit out of it.



Needs to be mentioned that paralysis itself is apparently not in Loren 2 ATM, but I'm guessing something similar will be available through abilities? "Causes extra long stagger" or whatever



Anyway, the list of new disable types I'd like to see are...



1) Longer-duration paralysis that breaks or loses a lot of duration if the target takes damage. Should already be derivable from Bramble Coat.

Disorienting Blow

Disables the target for a long duration. Damage dealt will end the effect.



2) Same as above, but it makes the target immune to damage too.

Banish

Disables the target for a long duration, for which it is also immune to damage.



3) A "channeled" crowd control which loses duration if the caster (not the target) takes damage. Here with even more twists:

Hypnosis

Paralyzes both the caster and its target for a medium duration, lowering the defense value of both. Striking the caster will reduce the duration.



To counter these, a greater access to dispels. Nothing new design-wise though.



I also think it'd be cool if we could have abilities like...



Lightning Strikes Twice

The next action taken by each party member will incur 0 delay.



Improvised Cremation

Renders a fallen enemy unable to be resurrected.



Unholy Blow

Damages the target and reduces the effectiveness of healing spells used upon it.



Leaf Barrier

Absorbs X damage taken by the target.



Nature's Kiss

Each time the target takes damage, it is healed for X.



The names are just there to spice the spells up, lore-wise I'm sure we could make most of the ability types work for any class. Anyway... above all, this is the thread for abilities you think it'd be cool to have.

There will be no effects that completely disable a target. Instead effects will prevent the target from using ability groups. Though I do agree in general that more crowd control is a good idea.

Since all effects will come in default and boosted forms it would be great if you (generic you) can incorporate that in your ideas.



@Lightning Strikes Twice

Definitely not. But effects that reduce delay for certain abilities would not be a problem.



@Improvised Cremation

Generally fine and I see the reasoning behind it. Probably a bit specific though.



@Unholy Blow

I have an effect planned that will prevent healing and if boosted will reverse healing.



@Leaf Barrier

That's planned as shield type spells, though only for specific elemental damage. Nothing concrete yet.



@Nature's Kiss

Not sure about that one.

The idea for Nature's Kiss is that it's a good answer to enemies who rely on many small sources of damage, but it's weak against single large blows.

Since all effects will come in default and boosted forms it would be great if you (generic you) can incorporate that in your ideas.

Will do!



Blood Oath

Heals the user to full, but causes them to take Y bleeding damage over a duration.

Boost: Also increases maximum health by X%.



Eternal Winter

Spreads a Frozen debuff to the rest of the row.

Boost: Also increases its duration by X ticks.



Wandering Curse

Curses an enemy to take X bonus damage from the next attack against it. The curse will then jump to a new enemy.

Boost: The user is healed each time the curse deals damage.

Instead effects will prevent the target from using ability groups.

Does that mean we can have a proper disarm ability?

The idea for Nature's Kiss is that it's a good answer to enemies who rely on many small sources of damage, but it's weak against single large blows.

That will already be done by the new damage formula.



@Blood Oath

That's quite the contradiction between bleeding and increasing max hp.

You seem to like the pattern of strong effect with drawbacks, or at least those are your first ideas.

All boni/mali should be absolute, not relative. Unless there is a very good reason for that.



@Eternal Winter

Boost shouldn't increase duration, that's already done by attributes/skills. Also what should Frozen do?



@Wandering Curse

Broad damage increases are already handled by marks. And a jumping effect might be hilarious, but I'm not sure if it's (non entertainment) value is high enough to merit implementing that. Sounds more like an enemy ability in the first place.

Does that mean we can have a proper disarm ability?

Depends on your definition of proper disarm. We can definitely prohibit weapon dependant attacks with an effect.

The point of Blood Oath is that it's a panic button to press to survive short-term. It's your turn, your health is low, and you don't see yourself getting healed anytime soon. Sure it could have no drawbacks too.



And the point of most of my suggestions isn't "I want exactly this ability implemented". When I suggest Blood Oath, it's because I want to see abilities that increase your maximum health. When I suggest Eternal Winter, it's because I want to see abilities that can spread debuffs. When I suggest Wandering Curse, it's because I want to see debuffs (or buffs) that can jump. I'm giving you your programming challenges now, as requested. If you prefer they can be totally disconnected from ability suggestions.

Okay, I think now we're on the same page. It would probably be good to include the mechanic the example was meant for.



Jumping buffs/debuffs are out though. All effects are directly applied trough actions and that is where the code for it should stay.

What do you mean with spread debuffs?

Increasing maximum health is very easy for the framework. So no problems there.

What do you mean with spread debuffs?

In SotW terms: Ice Spike an enemy, applies Frozen. Then I use this Eternal Winter on that enemy, and Frozen with the same strength and duration is also applied to other enemies in the row.

We could do that but it would probably simply end up as an ability with Frozen as prerequisite that hits a row with Frozen. Honestly simply using an ability that applies Frozen to the whole row in the first place would be much easier and achieve the same thing in the end.

Except the upfront damage of the Ice Spike isn't in that. I was thinking four skills interacting like this:



Ice Spike - Deals water damage to single target and applies/extends Frozen.

Eternal Winter - Spreads that Frozen to the rest of the row.

Blizzard - Causes water damage to a row. Bonus damage to Frozen targets.

Arctic Blast - Deals minor water damage itself, but causes the Frozen debuff to deal all its damage immediately, depleting it.



So for single target, you'd throw a few Ice Spikes until the Frozen debuff is large enough that you feel the time has come for Arctic Blast. For row nuking you could Blizzard right away, or you could build and spread a Frozen debuff and then Blizzard for more damage - if you can wait for that buildup. If you want to focus down one target but "cleave" the others a bit while doing so, build a large Frozen debuff, spread it, Arctic Blast your primary target and repeat (I guess you could spread the Frozen debuff back to the primary target too).



I'm hoping to create "more interesting skill interaction" and I hope I didn't strike "needlessly complicated" instead.

I've given this some more thought. While I'm still a fan of the interaction I posted above, I think a different approach would be better. I was going to mention "but what if it spread all your debuffs, then it saves you a skill slot if nothing else".



Anyway, while the above interaction would certainly be a step up from SotW, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a unique concept for every character. Also, no battles in these games are "long". If you imagine it was real-time and there was a player behind each character, even the longest fights would only take like a minute. In terms of actions per character, combat is really short. Therefore, complex damage buildup might not be a good idea.



And lastly, we're playing a party, not the individual characters, so skill interaction and synergy between party members is what's important, not that each of them could perform epic stunts by themselves. With this in mind, I still want the debuff spread mechanic, but it could simply spread any debuffs at all. Now for balance reasons it'd probably be limited to DoT's and for more balance reasons it might be limited to max 2 of them but I want to see the mechanic. Also the "exhaust" effect on Arctic Blast where you force a DoT (or all of them) to deal all its damage immediately, or perhaps just speed it up? The former could be the boosted version actually.

so skill interaction and synergy between party members is what's important

here it could be interesting to give the player more flexibility about the order. currently planning actions is inconvenient (Argh! The +2 speed ring for Vaelis was a mistake! My strike through / leap attack combo is broken!), I'm thinking of a method that allows to delay the action of the current char so (s)he can act directly after the selected other char (if some buff or debuff changes the speed of the chars - bad luck, plans don't survive enemy contact very often ^^)

Yeah, we talked about a "Wait" action already in the Loren combat thread. I think we agreed it was a good idea but I'm not sure if it's in Loren 2.



One way to implement it, rather than having 9001 subskills called Wait N ticks, Wait N+1 ticks etc, would be to have Wait as a targetable action that works on any friend or foe. It would mean as soon as your target has acted, it becomes your turn. If multiple characters wait for the same target, the highest speed goes first. Ideally this speed contest would only exist between opposed characters; if you want a combo that relies on A acting, then B, then C, then you'd have B wait for A and C wait for B, not both wait for A.



And suddenly, this mechanic feels more important than anything else I've suggested in this thread

@ yayswords

That example didn't sit well with me, though it took some time to get from gut feeling to actual reasons. There are two problems with it. You've already seen one of them, it's static. Works only with one effect, so if an enemy is immune you can forget about 4 skills right away. The other problem is not really a problem in the usual sense. The combination is explicit. It doesn't follow implicitly from the general rules, instead it has to be created as an exception from the rules. Unfortunately these kind of exception usually only increase the game space by a constant amount. Other like the wait command interact with several rules and actions and therefore increase the space much more.



@ Spreading debuffs

While I can see the benefit I'd rather do it with the boost mechanic. Giving a usually single target effect inducing skill the option when boosted to either boost the effect or apply the basic effect to the whole row.



@ Exhaust effect

Not sure, it might be better to have it as a boost condition, where the effect is also removed if you take the boost.



@ Interaction

You two definitely got that part right. Teamwork and inter party interaction are very important design goals.



@ Wait 2.0

Honestly I'm dithering on this. On one hand it border on necessary on the other I'm really worried about it's interaction with stagger. Have 5 characters wait for the sixth, the sixth staggers the opponent and all 5 characters unload with their boosted high damage attacks. That's not exactly a fun dominant strategy.

@ Wait 2.0

Honestly I'm dithering on this. On one hand it border on necessary on the other I'm really worried about it's interaction with stagger. Have 5 characters wait for the sixth, the sixth staggers the opponent and all 5 characters unload with their boosted high damage attacks. That's not exactly a fun dominant strategy.

as such a "Wait until foo acted" has great benefits (a combo enabler like your example) it should come with downsides: Works only from the back row on front row chars (waiting char has to see the other one) and comes with a defence malus (waiting char has to concentrate on not missing the action of the other one)

My main reserve for the wait 2.0 and other advanced stuff present in this thread, is that might not be easy to understand for casual RPG players, a demographic that I'd like to include

A solution could be to have a simplified interface, and an "advanced" one, like happens in many RTS for example.

Maybe if we do two things. The kind of waiting marks the target you wait for. (Benign mark for friends and Hostile Mark for Foes) That mark won't go away until your turn comes up again. So for every character only one character can wait for them. In addition it will be not be instant but with a slight delay, not that much but enough to be noticeable. So you could chain wait, as in A wait for B waits for C waits for D, but the delay would accumulate and once again you'd need a high stagger value to have all the attacks profit from stagger.

Or maybe much simpler having the stagger duration reduced by (boosted) attacks. It would be simpler to program and more organic too.



@ jack

It would simply be an action like guard. Click on your buddy and select Wait for <Buddy>. It's not complicated from an interface perspective and completely optional as well. It's not required in any way.

Ah I see, done like that is easy enough indeed!

only excactly one person can wait for another? don't know if I like it from a story pov - a *very* artificial restriction

only excactly one person can wait for another? don't know if I like it from a story pov - a *very* artificial restriction

Not that little matters like that would stop me, but the solution is also cumbersome and over complicated. So I'd rather just decrease the stagger duration whenever someone use it to boost. We could even make it a regular rule that boosting from an effect reduces the duration.

A big "wait chain" can be disastrous for yourself as well. What if the first guy gets staggered? Nobody can act until he can.



Also, why is it 2.0? What's 1.0? Take the shortest shittiest action possible?

@ Spreading debuffs

While I can see the benefit I'd rather do it with the boost mechanic. Giving a usually single target effect inducing skill the option when boosted to either boost the effect or apply the basic effect to the whole row.

there's no interaction there. If you let A, B and C "DoT up" one monster and then have D spread all those DoT's, that's interaction.