[HYPOTHETICAL] Altered Ability Mechanics

[Savin]

Some recent conversations about the way abilities are gained and the Energy system (both with you guys and within FenCo) got the old brain grinding over a different scheme for gaining and using Specials and passive abilities in TiTS. This isn't really meant to touch on balance/core mechanics so much as presenting a different way for the level-up, trainer, and equipment abilities to interact in a smoother way. I've summed up my thoughts in this Google Doc. Let me know what you think! 

 

[VantagePoint]

Let's see, this is gonna be a long one:

Replacing Energy with Cooldowns sounds pretty interesting, it prevents one from spamming the same ability over and over again to get through encounters. Energy is useless for preventing this, because enemies aren't strong enough to survive through 6 straight turns of 300% damage. Queen of the Deep comes close, though. As the energy system is now, it just serves to have Tech Specialists hit the "Rest" button after every 2-3 encounters, which gets really annoying and doesn't do anything to limit the other 2 classes because they have built in energy regens and no enemy can survive long enough to expend their energy reserves. Smugglers in particular only have to worry about their Flashbang landing (which is pretty easy as it is now) and boom! 160 damage a turn.

Gyms, Syri, and Tanis stat boosts should definitely be changed to not give stats indefinitely. There isn't much reason to put any thought behind your build right now besdies maxing out Willpower because all the other stats you can get later without using up Stat points. However, skills would have to be heavily replaced/retooled for this to happen. Because we have the Grenade skills that deal damage based on Int and if you don't train Int, they just wind up being useless. And you have no choice but to take it. Meaning that character builds wind up being very linear. Smugglers won't take it because they can already deal ~160 damage a turn if Flashbang works. So people who make Smugglers just wind up leveling Aim and Reflexes. Physical Mercenaries could take it because their damage and means of breaking out of binds is in their Physique. But Ranged Mercenaries can't because no matter what, they have to level Physique to break out of grapples, so one build gets full use out of a Skill and for another build, it's a complete waste of time.

Passive abilities being the majority... I'm not sure about this one. If done right, you can appeal to those that just want to mash the Shoot button and fap, but if done incorrectly, it could wind up being like the level 8 perk, in which it's just a "do you attack from a distance or up close?" checkbox. It could make the game shallower than it is currently if handled incorrectly. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, just that you should tread carefully if this is going to be the goal.

The resting mechanics as you've laid them out make sense to me, if energy is taken out. Enemies being more likely to attack you while you rest for four hours isn't totally insane. Healing half your health after battle prevents you from having to rest every 2 or 3 encounters like the energy system does currently. 

Base modifiers are pretty straight forward, I have no real objection to it. Makes equipment more personalized too, which is always a good thing.

Exhaustive abilities... I'm not too keen on those. It's already rather easy to trivialize bosses as it is now, abilities like that would probably allow for even more game imbalance. Abilities as overpowering as that shouldn't exist on bosses and they're utterly pointless on normal mobs.

For your ability advancement scheme... I'd have to see the actual abilities to make a call on that. Your actual structure is pretty... structured.

And I 100% agree with your Specialization idea. Balanced properly, that allows for a hell of a lot build freedom than if the current system was balanced. Being able to take the specific abilities that you want would make for very interesting build possibilities and people would probably start taking builds more seriously.

 

[Darkwarpalg6]

I don't think energy should be done away with just yet. I believe a good model for this kind of overhaul would be the game Paper Sorcerer. It's similar to TiTS in having a shield rating that regens after battle, but it also shares both an energy and cooldown system for abilities. As an example, rather than having a pool of 100 energy, you would start with a 5 energy cap and you would recover 1 energy at the start of every turn during battle. A high damage attack like Rapid Fire or Overcharge would cost about 3 energy, you could use them again on the next turn but if you do you wouldn't have enough energy to use an evasive ability or stun if the opponent prepares a big hit on the turn after, and that skill is not something you can spam, it would be on 3 turn cooldown on top of it's energy cost. You could use an energy regen but that (obviously) has a hefty cooldown of it's own. Sometimes it would be best to throw a normal attack (or tease) as your energy builds itself back up. This would encourage players to go into a fight with a bit of strategy in mind.

 

[Klaptrap]

 This would encourage players to go into a fight with a bit of strategy in mind.

I've spotted the problem with your suggestion.

 

[Darkwarpalg6]

Oh, right. how silly of me...

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I guess another option for abilities is to have more trade-offs involved in using them.  Like say the gun overload disabling your shoot attack for a turn or two.  Another might be an ability that kills whatever shields you have left for a big attack or status effect, can only be used while you have shields but the level of those shields doesn't matter.  Stuff that changes what you might do on later turns or is dependent on the current board state in some way.  They could be alternative abilities paired with more general or easy to use effects for players that want to just attack, attack, attack.

 

[JimThermic]

Another idea for those outliers is to have a few optional bosses with high difficulty, if they really want to put the system to work. People seemed to love the Doctor Lash 'challenge'. That said, that's post core-content building for sure. 

 

[JimThermic]

Oh, hey, in regards to the special once a day power thing. You could tie it into the special micro surgeons your dad gave you that make you adapt to damn near everything. Perhaps the PC can acquire one special ability, but you can only physically maintain one at a time, and an ability is gained on a planet through effort or cash. When it comes to getting a new one, you have to give up your old one, meaning you give some thought as to how useful it is and you can't collect them.

An example of this might be that on Mhen'ga, you could obtain as a once-a-day perk the ability to use the vanae's stealth camouflage or the pitcher's pheromone power, probably gated behind a quest of some kind. The next planet, you might have the option of trading in for the sydian's rust power etc, but you'd have to give up the Mhen'ga one. That way the currently taboo racial combat abilities are opened up that everyone once loved (I'm looking at you, CoC's dragon breath), but there's enough balancing that people won't go nuts with it, AND it's independent of actual TFs in a lore friendly way, since your microsurgeons ARE designed to make you adapt to any environment like a chamelion and are supposed to be a super-whiz-bang gift your dad left you.

 

[DiscipleOfDeath]

I like Jim's idea sounds like it could fit into the theme 

 

[Lashcharge]

Oh, hey, in regards to the special once a day power thing. You could tie it into the special micro surgeons your dad gave you that make you adapt to damn near everything. Perhaps the PC can acquire one special ability, but you can only physically maintain one at a time, and an ability is gained on a planet through effort or cash. When it comes to getting a new one, you have to give up your old one, meaning you give some thought as to how useful it is and you can't collect them.

An example of this might be that on Mhen'ga, you could obtain as a once-a-day perk the ability to use the vanae's stealth camouflage or the pitcher's pheromone power, probably gated behind a quest of some kind. The next planet, you might have the option of trading in for the sydian's rust power etc, but you'd have to give up the Mhen'ga one. That way the currently taboo racial combat abilities are opened up that everyone once loved (I'm looking at you, CoC's dragon breath), but there's enough balancing that people won't go nuts with it, AND it's independent of actual TFs in a lore friendly way, since your microsurgeons ARE designed to make you adapt to any environment like a chamelion and are supposed to be a super-whiz-bang gift your dad left you.

I like with this. Something like a geneticist follower where you have to do quests to unlock and lock those abilities (and stuff like nuki nuts) would be cool.

 

[Trixie]

I don't know if it possible to put in but there a game where it had a system where weapons and armor gave you your active and passive abilities and damage output and defense came form your character stats and level. It give an incentive to use the other 90% of items no one bothers to get or use in the game.

 

[Hanzo]

Spamming is boring, so yes to cooldown-based system.

Since Energy is already in the game and removing it would take some time, it could be given other uses, like discouraging spamming even more. For example with an attack that deals less damage the less Energy you have and costs Energy as well, so after 1-2 uses it won't be worth using. Or the chance of inflicting the attack's side effect is the one that decreases with Energy.

Another use could be for moves like CoC's Naga bind. Instead of praying for the RNGodess to shine upon you and if it doesn't happen you're back to square one, everytime the victim uses struggle the Naga's Energy goes down by a variable amount (varies with stats). When Energy goes below a certain value then the victim becomes free. Since the Naga's Energy would be low she won't be able to use sucessfully the bind move again for the rest of the battle.

Retrainable Abilities - When can we have this?

Exhaustive skills... with a 12 hour cooldown they won't see much use outside of bosses. I like a restriction like "once per fight" more, but a big damage move with a once per fight restriction would break the game as it would end regular battles pretty fast. With a cooldown like this exhaustive skills had to be something like "2x damage, restores HP and/or shields equal to 50% damage done" or a move that stuns for 2-3 turns with 100% accuracy.

Repeatable stat boosts shouldn't exist, but I wouldn't go as far as "only permanent stuff can give stat boosts". Something that is reversible but can be used only a limited number of times like CoC's piercings or cocksocks (or Rut if it gave a boost to stats) seems fine to me. If that's too powerful then nerf them so the net gain they provide is zero (for example, a piercing that gives +2 to Physique gives also -2 to Willpower).

Enemies being more likely to attack you while you rest sounds logical.