[ian-reeds-games] Some thoughts on turns and rounds
- From: Ian Reed <support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:20:13 -0700
People will have had their fill of all my emails by the end of today.
I am planning on changing how turns are counted in the future. Allan and
others have brought this up in the past and I just haven't been hahppy
enough with the suggested designs or interested enough in doing it up
till now.
Here's how the current turns work.
The map begins and it becomes the players turn.
They end their turn and it becomes turn 2 which is the enemy's turn.
The enemy finishes and it becomes turn 3 which is the player's turn.
This goes on and on.
Odd turns are always the players and even turns are always the enemy's.
The duration of effects is a number representing total turns that have
transpired.
So for an example:
The defend skill has duration=2 which lasts for the current turn and for
the enemy's turn.
Then it expires when the enemy's turn ends.
This is going to have major problems with multiplayer supporting more
than 2 players or even single player supporting a true neutral team that
takes it's own turn.
It's also confusing for map creators and players to think of durations
in 2 turns meaning it lasts until it's my turn again.
Here is the proposed new turn system:
We count both rounds and turns.
A round is a sequence in which all teams take a turn.
A turn is when any individual team is performing actions.
Durations will be specified in rounds with a couple special cases.
Durations of 1 and higher work like this:
If I have a blaze effect that lasts only 1 round and I cast it on my
turn it will last through all team turns after mine and then the next
round will start and it will last through all team turns before mine and
end when my turn starts again.
A duration of 0 is a special case that means it lasts till the end of my
turn.
So I might have a sprint effect that I cast on myself that allows me to
move faster for this turn but ends as soon as my turn ends.
This way it is not in effect when any other team takes it's turn.
I realize my example is a poor one as you won't be moving during other
people's turns but I think there are rare cases where this special case
might be desired.
A duration of -1 (negative 1) does not even last till the end of my turn.
This will be used to have critical effects that deal bonus damage but
are not intended to last for any length of time.
The timer victory and defeat flags will also take a number indicating
rounds.
I expect these to always be more than 1 round.
I think that setting this victory flag to 5 will mean that on round 5
the player will win once it becomes the players turn.
For defeat it will work the same way.
I may also add a hot key for finding out what round the game is
currently in.
The first turn will be in round 1.
Well there it is.
Do you guys think the duration of 0 is needed in some rare cases?
Or am I supporting something no one can find a use for?
Sorry if you've suggested basically this system to me in the past. It
just didn't click in my head until now.
Ian Reed
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