New combat system, who dis?

Time and time again, I'd get this bit of feedback from players that I didn't quite know how to digest and that was that they weren't sure where they should be looking while they were playing.  I tried a few different solutions, most of them UI focused to try to make things easier to read.  This didn't work as the issue had more to do with the combat system itself.

So let's dive in to the old combat system, what it was, and the problems it had.

The Old Combat System

• Entirely in real-time.  Once you placed your units on the board and started battle, your team would battle the enemies until one party died. 
• While this was happening, each hero on your team had an active card from their deck they could play given they had enough mana.
• Each hero could only have 1 card active at a time so there was a bit of RNG in combat with the player hoping to draw the right card for the situation.

This mix of CCG combat combined with autobattler gameplay was, as far as I can tell, a pretty novel concept.  This, however, presented a few problems that were not very apparent until much much later into development.

The first issue is lacking visual clarity.  I would see new players time and time again get lost at what they were supposed to be doing.  They would usually figure it out eventually if they stuck with it, but the initial flow of combat was a bit overwhelming.  You'd have the board where units would be moving around constantly, the left side of the screen with the turn gauge for units, the right side of the screen with the mana bar, and the bottom of the screen with your heroes 4 cards.  It's difficult to know exactly where you're supposed to be focused and even as the developer, I couldn't give a solid answer.  Yes, you should be watching the board, but you should also be reading the cards in your hand.  Want to cast a 1 turn haste spell on an ally?  Well now you have to also be looking at the left hand side of the screen to determine if that unit's turn is about to come up and thus would be a waste for you to use it on them.  What about if you had enough mana to cast?  Well now you're watching the mana bar on the right fill up too.  Did I mention that all of this was happening in real time?

The real time issue presented some pretty glaring issues with too much action happening at once.  Even play testing my own game that I know from the ground up, I would still find myself lost in some of the more chaotic fights.  New players would have no hope of being able to react in time while also having to read all of their available cards.

There would be situations where your Rogue would automatically move into melee range of a troll and just be helpless as they got walloped to death because you didn't draw the cards you needed to keep him safe.  These kind of situations happened frequently and were seldom ever fun for the player.  It never feels good when you lose and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.

The New Combat System
Ok so now that I've basically torn apart all the problems that exist in the old version of this game, let me now shift focus to the new battle system and why I feel it should solve these issues.

• After you place your initial team, the cards fade away and you cannot see them again until an allied hero's turn begins.
• Once an allied hero's turn begins, the game pauses and all of that hero's cards appear for the player to use at their discretion, not just 1 card.  No more RNG.
• Once the player has finished playing that hero's cards, they can select End Turn and then that unit will then move and attack automatically (as is the tradition in autobattlers).

The big issue this solves is visual clarity.  With the cards gone until it's your unit's turn, the focus can naturally be on the battlefield while the action is occurring.  Once a hero's turn begins, the action is now paused which will give players the time they need to actually analyze the situation, asses their best options, and then make the appropriate response. 

What you're seeing in the screenshot is the game pausing on the Templar's turn.  While the game is paused here, I can now see all of my Templar's cards here and can take as much time as I need to make the best decision possible given the 10 mana I currently have (I passed my last couple turns to get here).  What I would probably do in this situation is use Intervene to swap places with the Elementalist so he can absorb the next hit and then Retaliate to do some counter damage to the Orc.  I would save the rest of my mana so my Rogue could use Assassinate on his target.

This one change really brings the "Tactics" into the game as each turn now presents a myriad of different options for the player to consider.  One of the big gameplay considerations this brings is taking into account how much mana you'll generate between turns.  "I coulddddddd use this 8 mana nuke on an enemy, but then my Druid won't have enough mana to heal up my Templar during his turn."  The pause during turns now gives the player as much time as they need to assess the situation and make the right play.

Additionally, presenting all of the player's options during every turn helps alleviate the issue with your Rogue running into battle and no one having the right cards drawn to save him.

Some Obstacles

While I'm very optimistic about this new combat system, it's not without some potential drawbacks in which I will be address as well as my proposed solutions to them.

1. Battles will end up taking too long.
   1. With the game pausing on every turn, this will inevitably slow down the pace of the battles.  To alleviate this, I will be rebalancing the cards and unit stats so that units die in fewer swings.
2. The game will feel too easy with greater control
   1. I've yet to determine if this is true or not.  It will greatly reduce a lot of "cheap" deaths that you feel like you had no way out of.  If it turns out the game becomes too easy, I will adjust the numbers accordingly until I get something that feels right.

Current State

So with all this said, I released a new version of my game at approximately 1am today with the first draft of this combat system.  As of the time of writing this, the new combat system has quite a few bugs that I will be working on squashing by the end of the week.  I wanted to get this new version out into the world as soon as possible for feedback because it's a lot more important to me that players are experiencing the version I intended for them to play, rather than an outdated one.

If you play, please please please leave a comment and let me know what you think.  I'm dying for quality feedback.