Vault Dweller said:
It's easy to figure out how the player is affected if you know the mechanics (i.e. my responses), no?
Sure - that helps to understand the system as it is. What you are asking is how to change it. To change it in the right way it is vital to know where you want to get, not just where you are - even for a change intended to be small. Knowing how things are now is interesting and useful too, but it's not all that is necessary.
For example, I can talk about how to improve TB combat in general, discussing various implementations, and then decide what I can use or what fits my game.
That's good if you're brainstorming for ideas. If you want more focused suggestions, it helps to give a more detailed view of what you're trying to achieve - at some point at least.
So, my question basically was, if a game, any game, would have 2 separate AP pools, for whatever stupid reasons, what would be pros/cons/better ways to implement/etc.
My answer: it depends
.
Ok here's my attempt at some useful thoughts:
(1) Two pools can usually be shown to the player as one pool, just with different amounts of points used in different situations.
Example: In the first XCOM game Time Units covered movement and other actions. Movement costs (and inventory costs...) were always the same in absolute terms, shooting costs were as a percentage of the soldier's total. This meant that soldiers with higher TU totals could run faster, but not shoot faster.
If you add a variety of weapon speeds, this will almost certainly require a large number of time units [XCOM used about 50 to 80], or the rounding errors will be too extreme. This isn't ideal, since you don't want such large totals.
(2) Separating the pools will give you more room for manoeuver, since you won't need to round things, but might seem counter-intuitive if the pools are completely unconnected.
For instance, as has been stated above, if you ran until your movement points ran out, you'd still be able to attack. If you've time for an attack, why have you no time for further movement?
Either you connect the pools, so that each goes down by the same proportion with any action (effectively the same as the 1 pool XCOM solution), or you have the pools disconnected, and allow the player to attack a couple of times even though he can't move - which seems odd.
You could go for a middle ground - i.e. have a use of one pool affect the other but to a smaller degree. E.g. say the player starts with 20AP, 20MP. Moving one square could cost 1AP and 2MP, while attacking with a short sword might cost 6AP and 3MP. I prefer this to complete separation, but I think it's less intuitive than a one pool XCOM type solution.
You'd still get odd situations, e.g.:
Start at 20AP, 20MP.
Three short sword attacks leave 2AP, 11MP.
Running two squares leaves 0AP, 7MP.
You have 7MP, but can't do anything with it. Is this a bad thing? I'm not sure, but it seems a bit odd.
Similarly,
Start at 20AP, 20MP.
Running ten squares leaves 10AP, 0MP.
But the extra 10AP is useless.
Also, unless all the base costs are even, cutting them in two for the other pool would leave fractions. You could give every action its own cost for both pools, rather than multiplying by any fixed factor. This would avoid rounding errors, since you'd be assigning everything yourself. It'd make things a bit more complicated for the player though.
This type of system would probably work reasonably: a character with high MP could easily avoid a character with low MP. However, the high MP character would have low AP after moving a long way, so wouldn't be able to attack much, if at all. Perhaps you could make attacks cost high MP and AP, movement only high MP, and misc actions usually only high AP??
If the high movement character might still be able to use hit and run tactics with small weapons though. Have you thought about having the defending character respond to melee attacks with attacks of his own? I'm sure there'd be a downside to this, but it's a thought if one of your goals is to eliminate hit and run tactics.
Another thought: how does completely separating the pools help slow fighters? If a fast fighter has separate movement points he'll always outrun the slow fighter even after attacking as much as he wants. The slow fighter won't be helped by having many APs, since he'll never get close enough to use them. The situation is even worse if the fast fighter uses ranged weapons (and the ranged weapons don't use MP).
How about this as a solution to the fast melee fighter vs slow melee fighter issue:
The first movement in any movement sequence takes an extra AP (or two or more if you've doubled the costs - whatever works). This way the fast fighter would require to use this twice - once to move in, then again to move away. The slow fighter would only have to start moving once. This would eliminate the problem for 8AP vs 6AP [since the 6AP fighter wouldn't move next to the 8AP fighter if he couldn't attack], but not for 9AP vs 6AP.
This movement penalty models the relatively time consuming process of starting movement, compared with continuing a movement in progress.
To eliminate the 9 vs 6 issue, you could have a character prepare a melee attack automatically as he moves, but only after at least 2 squares. This preparation could reduce the AP cost of the first attack after the movement by 1. In this case, the 9AP fighter wouldn't get the bonus if he were only one square away to start with, since he doesn't have time to prepare his attack as he approaches. On the following turn the 6AP fighter would get the bonus - having run a few squares.
The AP costs would be:
Fast fighter (9AP):
Approach one square (1AP + 1AP movment start penalty)
Attack (3AP)
Withdraw three squares (3AP + 1AP movment start penalty)
Slow fighter (6AP):
Approach three squares (3AP + 1AP movment start penalty)
Attack (3AP - 1AP attack prepared during move)
This works without dividing the pools (in fact I think dividing the pools just makes things worse for slow fighters).
I'm not sure what you want to happen with ranged fast fighters vs. slow meleee fighters??? The above system wouldn't help the slow fighters much at all in this situation. They would be helped slightly if the "movment start penalty" were not applied if your last move on the last turn were also a move. In this case the retreating fighter would get the penalty after firing / throwing, where the chasing fighter never would.
Is there any consideration of direction of movement / facing at the moment? The "run away and shoot / throw" strategy could be made to work less well by forcing the retreating character to spend time turning before throwing. Running in one direction and throwing in another should be impossible without running backwards, or stopping and turning - either of which should be time consuming enough for the slower attacker to catch up (in most situations).
The bottom line: Splitting movement off into a separate pool will make things worse for slow, heavy fighters - not better: any fighter with a 2MP advantage will be able to move in, attack with all his AP, then retreat to an unattackable position. My above "prepare attack" bonus would be no help, since it would save AP, not MP. The "movement start penalty" would still help, but not enough to fix the problem - particularly when you introduce armour / shield movement penalties.
Take as an example, a fight between two characters, one, F, with 8MP and another, S, with 6MP, with separate MP and AP. Assuming it doesn't turn into a stand-off, the optimal strategies will be the following:
F tries to attack and move out of S's range.
S tries to attack and move so that F can't do the above.
Example combat (movement kept linear for simplicity):
F to move first below
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|S|_|_|_|_|_|F|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
F moves in, attacks and withdraws (so that S will need to be closer next turn):
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|S|_|_|_|F|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
S moves in, attacks and withdraws (so that F won't have enough moves to escape next turn):
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|S|_|_|_|F|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
Same again for F:
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|S|_|_|_|_|_|F|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
And again for S:
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|S|_|F|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
Now F cackles madly and plays his trump card - attacking, then withdrawing:
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|S|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|F|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
S withdraws a bit:
_____________________________
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|S|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|F|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
And the whole sorry process restarts...
This kind of gameplay is encouraged by separating the movement points. There is no incentive to use the points for anything other than movement, so characters will always take advantage where possible by moving to the best position. Unless two characters have the same MP the above movements will always make sense for both players (if both use melee attacks). Is this the kind of combat you want to see? I'd have thought not.
I'd stick to one pool, or two connected pools. Independent pools will encourage the above silliness. Ideas similar to those I gave above (both of which I think are reasonably intuitive and simple) can help to combat the undesirable situations.
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