Since I'm taking so long to make another update, I may as well talk about some of what I've been working on.
As I played along with my game, I've been thinking that the combat leaves something to be desired. Mainly, it didn't have the tactical depth that I envisioned when I was jotting down ideas. So I've been working on changing the way combat works.
As an overview, the new combat mechanics work differently than any other SRPG (strategy RPG) that I've played; the focus is on setting up ability combos, resetting ability cooldowns, and managing troop readiness... almost in the style of a "card game" but with a smaller and more focused set of rules.
There is no longer a "player turn" and an "enemy turn". Instead, all unit activity takes place in turns, and each turn units move according to their relative readiness. Units will be able to act in the turn as long as they have AP left to move, but after a unit performs an action, which includes walking, attacking, using an item/ability or waiting, the next readiest unit will act, and the unit that just moved will go back into a queue. This will keep going until all units either use their AP or choose to wait. In other words, units can act multiple times each round, but each unit's action happens at a different point in that round. Now where this gets interesting is that certain abilities can be used to do things like allow a unit to perform more than one action without making another unit act; for example, the ability "Charge" will allow a unit to walk and then follow that walk with an attack. Otherwise, they'd need to walk to the enemy, then the enemy would get a turn, and the unit would only be able to attack after the enemy gets their chance to act. You will need to time Charge's cooldown to make sure your units act efficiently. Another ability, Quick Stab, will let you attack without ending your turn, so you can use that to attack multiple times. Here is an example of an ability chain that would have an interesting set of effects using this system:
Three of the Ranger's attacks include Quick Shot, Aimed Shot and Followup Shot. Quick Shot takes a small amount of AP and does a small amount of damage, and has a cooldown. However, if an enemy is killed by Quick Shot, the Ranger gets some AP back (the Quick Shot cost plus a bit more), and can attack again. If there are 3 weak enemies, the Ranger can therefore kill each of the 3 in one turn, and get some extra AP to boot. Aimed Shot has a high AP cost, so the extra AP from Quick Shot can be used for an Aimed Shot, which deals lots of damage, and also enables Followup Shot if it kills; this attack lets the Ranger have a free shot that does not end the turn. So if the ranger is surrounded by 4 enemies, it can use 2 quickshots to kill 2 weak ones, an Aimed Shot to kill a big enemy, and then a Followup Shot plus a Quick Shot to kill the medium enemy. This kind of comboing is what I'm experimenting with now.
There will also be a few other tactical rules to play with; some attacks will lower enemy AP, causing them to move later or even miss turns. Abilities can do things like reset your unit turns so you can attack with units that have already acted this turn, opening options for team builds.
By setting up the combat this way, the focus will be on having multiple different abilities and juggling their cooldowns. I think that will be fun for this style of combat, and I have not seen it done before in this type of game.
Setting up this style of combat is less about implementation time and more about tuning and balance... I can end up having a wide variety of abilities, so the brunt of the work will be focused on making these abilities balanced and fun to use in combinations. Will this be too much for me to handle? We'll see. I think it won't, but I think it will be a very fun addition to the game.
