Ah, that makes sense. So the keywords within a segment have the 'and' semantic, while 'or' semantics can be replicated with multiple segments, and keyword lists are distinguished by actor/target.Anima_ wrote: I should have explained a bit more what I meant with internal and external keywords. In the example the ability would be bound to the accuracy attribute of the shooter. We then test if the internal keywords are a subset of the shooters state and if the external keywords are a subset of the targets state.
Very good idea.We are planning to use a GUI based editor for that. That problem was a never ending source of bugs for Loren, even with the lesser use of keywords.
Well, the observation was that actions intended interrupts necessarily need a shorter activation time in general than 'regular' actions (otherwise they would be unusable in that fashion, since they have to 'fit' within the delay of whatever they're interrupting; otherwise either you have to somehow start it before the action or it will not finish in time), which is why I mention them specifically. Exactly what the interrupt-type actions do will affect this issue, but if we assume the interrupts tend to be indirect (i.e. they don't work by stopping the activation of the other ability but by action more difficult/less effective), usable interrupts will likely help later actors more. If we think about the snipe/cover example, if you are in a situation where you can use cover reactively, it means thatApart from execution speed, there will also be a measure how difficult it is to interrupt an action. But yes interrupts have the potential to become very powerful. That's a fact we will definitely keep in mind, but trying to balance it in vacuum will not yield many results.
Regarding the advantage of going last. It's true that it does give a certain planning potential to the slower characters. On the other hand it forces them to react to the faster characters, so the faster characters has control over the flow of battle.
a) sniper went before you
b) cover will go off before the snipe goes off
c) your next action choice occurs before your opponent's
This implies that you went from a situation where your opponent went first, to a situation where you have a counter to your opponent's action and you get a head start on the next action (since your opponent's previous action is still trying to catch up to your counter action). Depending on the amount of time left, this might merely mean that you swapped situations with your opponent (they get to react to what you do) but if you are in the right relative timing situation, you have a huge advantage. Any sort of short timing action can make it easier to get into that right timing situation, even if the action is otherwise useless (consider a short-activation delay action that does nothing but use up a little time), making it potentially very strong simply by what it can enable.
Having long actions be multipart reduces how much you can manipulate the timings since the other side has a limited ability to back out if you counter, which would maintain the value of initiative more. Alternatively, having a way to decouple activation time from the total time cost would let you have counters that are useful without having a faster loop time.