Fight monsters in turns: a player or a whole party against a monster party, started by an event, by touching a mob or by walking through an encounter zone.
Turn-Based Battles
A turn-based battle takes a player, or a whole party, out of the real-time world and into a fight played in turns. Everyone on the party's side chooses a command for their own character at the same time, the monsters choose too, and then the turn plays out in order of speed. Win, escape or lose, and the world carries on.
Your game stays real-time until you change it: nothing turn-based happens in a world that has not left Real-time mode.
Where you'll find it#
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| The world setting (mode, turn timer, escape, guard) | Database → Combat → Turn Battles |
| Mobs that start a battle when touched | Database → Combat → Turn Battles → Mobs that start a turn battle when touched |
| Random encounters by zone | Database → Combat → Turn Battles → Zone encounter lists |
| Starting a battle from an event | A map event + Add command → Flow Control → Battle Processing |
| The monster groups you fight | Database → Monster Parties |
| The feature switch | World → Features → Turn-Based Battles |
Setting it up#
- Make a monster party in Database → Monster Parties (for example "Two slimes"). Its members and their counts are the monsters that fight.
- Open Database → Combat → Turn Battles and set Battle Mode to Turn-based or Chosen per encounter. Save and publish.
- Start a fight in any of three ways:
- From an event. Add Battle Processing, pick the Mob party, and put commands under If Win, If Escape and If Lose. Untick Can Escape or Can Lose to drop those branches.
- By touching a mob. In Mobs that start a turn battle when touched, add the mobs. In Turn-based mode every hostile mob does this; in Chosen per encounter only the ones you list do.
- By walking. In Zone encounter lists, add a row for a zone, set Steps between encounters, and add one or more monster parties with a weight. The more weight, the more often that party turns up.
- Walk up to a mob or through the zone in the game. A battle screen opens on top of the world.
How a battle plays#
- Each player picks Attack, Ability, Item, Guard or Escape for their own character. Choosing again before the turn plays changes the choice.
- The turn plays when everyone has chosen, or when the Turn Timer runs out. Anyone who has not chosen guards.
- Faster characters act first. Within a turn, guards, items and escape attempts come before attacks and abilities.
- Abilities a character already knows appear in the Ability list. Damage abilities hit one monster, or all of them when the ability has an area. Healing abilities heal one ally or all. The ability's mana cost is spent, and its cooldown counts in turns.
- Items are potions and food that restore health or mana, used on one ally.
- Escape works for the whole party at once. It is likelier when the party is faster than the monsters, and every failed try makes the next one likelier.
- A party fights as one: party members close to the player who started the battle join it, each commanding their own slot.
- Other players on the map see everyone in the battle marked In battle, and cannot start another fight with them.
Rewards#
A win pays through the same systems as a real-time kill: the monsters' XP, silver and loot tables, kill quest objectives, achievements and gear progression. XP and silver are shared evenly among the party; items are dealt out one by one. If a bag is full the item is mailed.
Fields (Combat → Turn Battles)#
| Field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Battle Mode | Real-time keeps every fight as it is. Turn-based starts a battle when a player touches a hostile mob, runs Battle Processing or enters a zone encounter. Chosen per encounter only starts one for the listed mobs, Battle Processing commands and zone encounters. | Real-time |
| Turn Timer (seconds) | How long the players have to choose. | 30 |
| Escape Chance | Chance an escape works when the party and the monsters are equally quick. | 50% |
| Escape Bonus After A Failure | Added after each failed try in the same battle. | 10% |
| Most Monsters On The Field | Extra members of a monster party are left out. | 6 |
| Party Join Distance (tiles) | Party members this close are pulled in. | 12 |
| Touch Distance (tiles) | How close a player must be to a mob to touch it. | 1.6 |
| Group Distance (tiles) | Other mobs this close to the touched one fight beside it. 0 = it fights alone. | 4 |
| Seconds Per Cooldown Turn | How many seconds of an ability's normal cooldown make one turn. | 6 |
| Damage Taken While Guarding | 50% means half damage. | 50% |
| Zone encounter lists | A zone, Steps between encounters (each gap is half to one and a half times this) and the monster parties it can roll, each with a weight. | none |
Gotchas#
- Turn-Based Battles must be on in World → Features. Off, no battle starts and Battle Processing counts as a win at once, like before.
- Real-time mode counts Battle Processing as an instant win. Switch the mode before testing an event battle.
- A mob that was touched leaves the map and comes back on its normal respawn timer, whether you win, escape or lose.
- A lost battle leaves the party at 1 HP. There is no death penalty yet.
- Abilities with no direct effect are not offered: buffs, summons and pure status abilities do nothing in a turn battle yet. Stamina cost, range, elements and status effects are ignored.
- A battle that names a monster party that does not exist is counted as a win, with a warning in the server log.
- A player who is already in a battle, or is down, cannot be pulled into another; an event battle for them answers Escape.
- A player who leaves (disconnects or changes map) guards until the battle ends. If everyone leaves, the party counts as having escaped.
- A battle nobody finishes ends as an escape after 30 minutes.
- Your game server has to be up to date for the Battle Processing command to start a fight; an older one counts every battle as a win.