[Discuss]. Abilities Vs second attack

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 Abilities

For classes(type)

Structure abilities. Inspiration (Acelerate research for a moment)

Hero abilities (Caesar Desires' attack all in his range of sight )

Support Units Abilities. Farming seeds for grown tress(food)

Military Units Abilities( Legionaries and Pillum Testudo)

Ideal for Rush movements and Critical damage. Starcraft

Vs

2 Units second Weapon.

Example

Archer use knives

Legionaries use Pillum

Roman cavalry uses swords and spears or Pillum.

Persian inmortal with bows and spears.

The Second is Rome Total war type toggled between 1and 2 weapon.

We can have both if is correctly designed.

And the Abilities needs stamina.

[av93]

I don't know nothing about programming, but taking a look into Design Document, Health ability is handled as a "trait". IMHO I would make a bigger trait called abilities, that would handle that stuff, with a moddable design like the Warcraft abilities.

And of course I would split abilities and secondary (and others kinds of) attack. Also It would be useful that units could launch more than one attack in the same time ( for modern era mods f.e) and attack while moving. But I think that everything will come eventually.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I don't know nothing about programming, but taking a look into Design Document, Health ability is handled as a "trait". IMHO I would make a bigger trait called abilities, that would handle that stuff, with a moddable design like the Warcraft abilities.

And of course I would split abilities and secondary (and others kinds of) attack. Also It would be useful that units could launch more than one attack in the same time ( for modern era mods f.e) and attack while moving. But I think that everything will come eventually.

is important differentiate concepts , and the Guys of Rouge Republic can be a Mixed between Starcraft and Command and Conquer.

The pillum can be a Ability or secondary Weapon?

In Praetorians and Empire Earth is an Ability. in Total war and Spartan Wars series is a second Weapon.

is Two kind of Abilities passive and Active. and Passive can be Auras .

Edited August 16, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[idanwin]

I would make the pillum an automatically used ability that recharges only when a unit has been out of combat for a certain amount of time and that is only used (once) when the enemy is more than 'x' tiles away. It should be a bit more powerful than the melee attack (it could penetrate shields), since it can only be used once per combat this shouldn't make it such a huge advantage.

[alpha123]

See this topic, there's some interesting stuff especially from Mythos_Ruler in there that you might find useful.

idanwin: Yeah, that's pretty much what we want the pilum to be. Not sure if we want it to be more powerful than the melee attack though, it's more meant to soften enemy units up a little bit before melee fighting, not really to kill anything outright.

[Lion.Kanzen]

That is the post i thought about that, if to the pikeman we give sword how can be more a swordman than a pokeman with sword attack?

I'm no against of this method only I know two games do that.

The other uses Ability based in power or stamina or buttons reloading charge.

And if somebody do a Moba game with the engine and system they can request abilities for his/her Hero.

My conclusion do a little bite from both.

[Nolanjoker]

anyway, abilities brings more fun for each units, skirmishers can hide, archers can shot with fire arrows, Bersekers or other units can do it Frenetic, elephsnt can catch a man a throwing him in the air.

[idanwin]

Abilities also bring a lot of micromanagement (depends on the way you implement it, of course), which I would like to avoid.

Archers automatically switching to fire arrows when shooting at buildings/siege engines would be fine, but - please - don't have me push buttons or hot keys all the time (maybe for a few champion units would be fine)

[Mythos_Ruler]

Abilities also bring a lot of micromanagement (depends on the way you implement it, of course), which I would like to avoid.

Archers automatically switching to fire arrows when shooting at buildings/siege engines would be fine, but - please - don't have me push buttons or hot keys all the time (maybe for a few champion units would be fine)

I'm thinking if there are toggle-able secondary attacks, then we should use the same key for the toggle (I'd use Alt- or Command).

[quantumstate]

Just a side note. Anything toggleable should have two hot keys. One for toggle on and one for toggle off. It prevents you accidentally getting into the wrong state

[Mythos_Ruler]

Just a side note. Anything toggleable should have two hot keys. One for toggle on and one for toggle off. It prevents you accidentally getting into the wrong state

Hmm, not sure that's necessary. I think we could make it very plain what weapon you are using if we make the cursor change (say, use a different cursor for melee and ranged attacks). Maybe it's something we'll have to add after an initial implementation and we play around with it for a while.

[quantumstate]

What if you have multiple units selected with different toggle states? Also there are factors like lag, so even if ti is really obvious graphically I still find it easier to just hit a key and know what state I will end up in.

[Nolanjoker]

in Starcraft is with shortcuts save micromanaging. and many player dont use abilities because is dificult, but other does. in AOM is the same.

[oshron]

i think special attacks and abilities could (sort of) be merged into one general function and vary between units and buildings. i'll use AOM in this example:

in Age of Mythology, almost every myth unit and most of the campaign heroes had special attacks or other abilities that they had to recharge after using. for example, Arkantos had a battlecry ability which boosted the morale of allied units around him for a short time, while Ajax had a shield-bash attack that deals extra damage to the unit he's attacking as well as sending them flying. attacks got more fantastical than this in the context of AOM, like the Argus unit in the expansion pack literally spraying acid on a single unit and melting them, or the Frost Giant breathing ice on an enemy to freeze them in place

in the context of 0ad, most potential abilities are probably already covered under various auras, but ones like battlecrys could be added as well. depending on the history behind a particular hero or champion unit, they could have various different abilities applied to them in broad strokes, and it would be foolish to give abilities like that to just one unit and not have it be a shared ability with other units. here's some examples:

• soldiers which are known to have revelled in battle or had a very strong militant culture could have either a "drain" ability, where they take back a small percentage of the damage they deal as health to regenerate their wounds in action, or they could have a "fervor" ability where, when they reach a certain percentage of health (say, 25%) they start dealing greater amounts of damage
  
• related to the above, some units could have a "berserk" ability where they occasionally fly into a rage to deal extra damage and start hitting multiple enemies at once (their targets receive the bulk of the damage, but every adjacent unit receives 50% of the damage of a normal attack as well), though the trade-off is that they themselves become more vulnerable to attack (taking 25% more damage or something)
  
• units with exceptionally large shields could conceivably have "shield-bash" attacks where they lash out with their shield rather than their sword or spear to stun an opponent and leave them immobile and open to attack for a few seconds, though it probably wouldn't work on mounted units or animals
  
• ranged units could have an "accurate shot" attack where they take a few seconds to aim an arrow, javelin, etc., and thus hit a target with 100% accuracy and for greater damage
  
• elephant units, specifically, can have a variety of special attacks: they could gore with their tusks, pick up an infantryman with their trunks and throw them, or they could knock over units and stomp on them for an instant kill
  
• some units with shields and spears could have a one-time use "javelin-attack" where they throw their spears at range and then switch to a sword
  

[Nolanjoker]

the Iberian units are more raged unit. is a pleasure. shied attack to do combos. very spectacular gameplay without fantasy nice way to learn history. the elephant would be fearsome unit. the Spartan must have own rage but loss HP.

[oshron]

the Iberian units are more raged unit. is a pleasure. shied attack to do combos. very spectacular gameplay without fantasy nice way to learn history. the elephant would be fearsome unit. the Spartan must have own rage but loss HP.

i was just using AOM as an example because it's a well-known commercial game that alot of us here have probably played. note that all of my actual examples for what could be in 0ad applied only to real soldiers

and like i said, it would be better for special attacks and abilities to be reserved for champion units and heroes, and maybe one or two others depending (like the dragon that's planned for use in a random map script could potentially have a special attack where it swoops down to crush a bunch of units underfoot and then take off again)