Delaying Action

[Daithi]

Hi, should start working on delaying action in next 1-2 days. There will be an AP cost for delaying your turn, which will be reduced, or removed with a leadership perk. Main thing in question is the number of spaces the character moves down the queue and the cost.

If increments are 1, it's not really going to be feasible to charge more than 1AP. This would be reduced to 0 with leadership perk, at which point, the player would have complete control over when to act. This is a pretty big advantage, and may require a corresponding AI team buff. Also, I'd prefer mechanics which are useful in some situations, rather than useful all the time. Granted, the player will have to invest in a leader type character.

If increments are 2, and AP cost is 2, could be reduced to 1 with leadership perk. It's a nice AP saver, and doesn't provide complete control over when to act, making it useful in some situations, but not all the time.

Thoughts?

[Nomad]

lol.... I can see several ways of doing this (with varying degrees of difficulty  ).

I can see two basic ways of delaying.

By people or by initiative.

• By people is just the number of portraits that your character moves down.
• By initiative is based on the invisible number that represents what initiative number we got when we started the map. I don't know if that's just based directly off of Stats or if there's a random element. The player won't know exactly how far down they'll move. Though, if initiative is just Stat-based, then most enemies will probably have the same initiative, so this won't work.

The problems you have with setting the number of positions down the initiative you go, is that the impact varies greatly between fighting 4 enemies and fighting 14.
Here are some suggestions of implementation:

• Fixed amount - 1 or 2 positions
• Percentage amount - Move one third down the queue (number of positions is determined by number of enemies)
• Chooseable amount - When the player elects to delay their action, they get a dialog box with a slider or number field, or up and down arrow clicker and the player chooses how far down they move

One that would have great usability and justify the AP cost nicely would be dragging and dropping your initiative portrait where you want it in the queue. I expect that this one will be the most difficult to implement (and naturally it's the one I like the most).

[ushas]

If increments are 1, it's not really going to be feasible to charge more than 1AP. This would be reduced to 0 with leadership perk, at which point, the player would have complete control over when to act.

That's a good idea. Limits how much willing to spent. Note, it doesn't automatically gives advantage we have to think and then use it well... So perhaps 0AP isn't so big deal. I guess you can easily change the cost if too strong.
Why Leadership though? No Utility?                        (medic medic medic medic...)

Though, if initiative is just Stat-based

I think it's: Initiative = Fleetness +1
If you think of it, that 1 AP cost would be cheaper for people with a lot AP, thus also correlates with initiative.

One that would have great usability and justify the AP cost nicely would be dragging and dropping your initiative portrait where you want it in the queue. I expect that this one will be the most difficult to implement (and naturally it's the one I like the most).

Yeah, smooth but tricky? Though I would be content with wait/delay 1 position by button+key. Reason is that you can change your mind as others act in the meantime...

that the impact varies greatly between fighting 4 enemies and fighting 14.

Yeah, but perhaps that variety isn't bad thing? If the perk makes it cost 0 AP, then it changes what can do in those big battles...

[ushas]

Could feel like earning something powerful later in game.

This is a pretty big advantage, and may require a corresponding AI team buff. Also, I'd prefer mechanics which are useful in some situations, rather than useful all the time.

Perk on some high ranking enemy would be interesting, indeed. But you're the AI, giving rules limiting when to use. Delay can help the enemies with Overwatch timing.

An alternative is making the perk reduce the cost, for example by 4 AP, so it's free but only the first 4 positions in case of 1 AP cost, or 2 positions in case 2 AP. Don't know 2AP cost seems a lot.

Can we do it in the middle of the turn? Like I have 9 AP: 4 AP use now and then hit the wait button, next unit acts, and now I can act again with having 4AP remaining.

[Daithi]

@ Nomad: You're right on the initiative observation - it will have to be by positions. Not directly related, but will be rebalancing the character system and reducing enemies in V19 - 14 enemies is way too much. Also right on dragging and dropping on queue - agree it's slick, but would be time costly to implement - God knows where Ushas would try to drop the portraits in order to break the game Will commit a fair bit of time to polish though, near the tail end of development.

@ Ushas: It's jumping out as more a leadership thing, being able to direct the flow of battle. I'm all for some interesting medic abilities though, would be worthwhile addition. Starting to think of 1AP per move, with leadership ability giving a high (say 75%) chance of negating the cost. Makes it a little less powerful, and injects a little tension. Could give x free delays per turn/game too. Yeah, it will be possible to spend AP first then delay.

Again on AI, not sure if AI will make use of this. Haven't looked at usefulness/complexity of it yet. Immediate worry would be that it could undermine pacing if AI keeps deferring turn.

[Nomad]

As the AI has numbers... I personally don't see the point in the AI delaying an action.
All that will do is slow down the flow of combat. The AI has their turn and they delay their turn. Then the AI will have their turn again. If more than one AI does it, then it really starts to add time waiting for the AI to actually DO something. They may as well just do it.

[ushas]

Oh, sorry, thought that Daithi were talking about the AI before. Sure, everybody delaying indefinitely would be fun.

But it's not about directing the flow of battle for others, only for yourself. That would be a cowardly leader, tbh.

Careful where injecting little tensions. Let me express how great is to have hands slippery: 
Reason: X% chance of negating cost changes how it goes. I will simply not factor that into decision because even when it works 3/4 times it's not reliable. So if delay is needed will still reserve required AP as before. If the perk procs, nice, perhaps will change something perhaps not. But the perceived worth of the perk went steeply down, likewise the tension.

I have a feeling that Nomad and me, unless testing it, we boost Fleetness seeing how powerful it is. So often have own allies all on the front of the queue, then enemies. That's the best position, of course. Acting first on the initiative is the most important. With the delay I can easily see myself shuffling allies around themselves to coordinate efforts.

Starting to think the zero cost perk wouldn't be so powerful. Indeed, delaying can help lure enemies and the zero cost has free will, but I would argue seeing the maps, that enemies often need only 1-2 turns to get into good position. Actually, you would even have to give AP to persuade us to delay in the middle of fire (here's some tension).
In other words, even 0AP cost is fairly situational.

Btw. does it work like if having enough AP can delay till the next own turn? Meaning being at the end of the queue will postpone me into the next round, like continuous thing.

Suggestion: add arrows to the beginning and end of the portraits to let us look up where all units sit at the initiative.

God knows where Ushas would try to drop the portraits in order to break the game

Don't need to pray I'll tell: pick as many portraits as possible, alt+tab out of game, drag it over the bin on desktop, drop. 

[ushas]

Ok so according to v18, the answer to this

Btw. does it work like if having enough AP can delay till the next own turn? Meaning being at the end of the queue will postpone me into the next round, like continuous thing.

is nope. I'm having Sam with low initiative and despite his next turn is far away, it says "The end of initiative list: can not delay turn". So a character at the end of queue will never be able to use delay... I'm asking cause thought you're implementing 1AP cost to go away from initiative or other dependence.

As for 1 AP cost... I must admit, feels restrictive right now. The only one who can use it on my team is Elena: high initiative, Max AP 9 and AP per turn 8. She is the fast one, yet even one position feels expensive, apart testing not used much. Not saying the cost must go away, only giving the preliminary feedback. The situation is similar to what I wrote about armours, just not so tough.

[Daithi]

Yep, you can't delay if in last position. Without the cost, it allows you to (with high initiative) to always act when it's most advantageous, and using it a lot slows the pacing. This wasn't really intended to be useful for all characters in all situations. 1 AP cost will likely be removed or have a low chance to be applied with leadership perk.