Ability mechanics

[renke_]

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 ^^)

[yayswords]

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

[Anima_]

@ 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.

[renke_]

@ 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)

[jack1974]

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.

[Anima_]

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.

[jack1974]

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

[renke_]

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

[Anima_]

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.

[yayswords]

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.