Combat System Overview
- Ash Colclough
- Gavin Rummery
Foundational Combat Mechanics
The combat is point-and-click using “Active Time Battle”-style mechanics to allow players to move and select actions independently, but still retain tactical decision making like a strict turn-based game.
Character “lock on” to their targets to engage in either basic melee or ranged attacks. They will repeat these basic attacks automatically until the lock is broken/switched.
Moving stops basic attacks, but retains the lock.
Players are managing Overdrive Points (“OP”) of their characters that allow them to engage Overdrive Actions that are more powerful offensive, defensive and support actions.
OP recharges from basic attacks and determines how often they can initiate new actions depending on how many OP they cost and the action cooldown times.
Elemental alignment of attacks and armour play a large part, with elemental armour absorbing most physical damage and so needing to be weakened by elemental attacks.
Holdarans Vs Nanovoid
The enemy force that has taken over Holdara is called the Nanovoid. This is encountered in regions outside of Lighthaven as the players explore the world and results in PvE encounters:
The Nanovoid exists in “swarms” that vary in size and can move about.
Characters that cross the boundary into a Nanovoid Swarm enter a combat encounter, and while they may leave via an escape attempt, once they do, they may not reenter as long as other characters remain inside.
Characters outside the Swarm are not in the encounter and cannot participate unless they enter the Swarm within 5 seconds of the first character entering. After this time frame, once the encounter begins, no additional characters may enter the Swarm.
The Swarm does not attack directly, nor can it be attacked directly: all combat takes place between the characters and the Shadow Wraiths that the Nanovoid Swarm creates inside. The Swarm contains one or more Nexus, which produce Shadow Wraiths, but these Nexus cannot be directly attacked.
Holdarans Wins: Once all the Shadow Wraiths have been killed, the Nanovoid Swarm is destroyed and the players who participated receive their rewards.
Nanovoid Wins: If the Shadow Wraiths kill all the Characters (Holdarans), the Nanovoid Swarm wins and is completely undamaged (it reabsorbs everything it used in the battle): you cannot weaken a Swarm by attacking it in separate encounters.
Player Despawning
When characters run out of health (HP) they are destroyed (there is no body – they break into nano-particles) and return to their respawn point which will be:
An owned or rented accommodation which the player has designated as their respawn point (marked by their “soul stone shrine”)
Else the default start point in Lighthaven back at the Celestial Tower
The character respawn point will also revert to Lighthaven if their accommodation rental period expires, or their respawn Settlement region falls back to control by the Nanovoid.