ATB system??

[Nomad]

Thinking about shaking things up a little with a roguelike I'm working on.
The game will feature procedurally generated terrain as well as permadeath so, as far as I'm concerned, is a true roguelike.

One departure I'm considering is a slightly more real-time turn system... Sort of like the ATB in final fantasy.
The idea is essentially that each character gets a 'Charge Timer' to which, every iteration of the game loop, the character's current Speed is added.
When the Charge Timer >= 100, it is the characters turn.

In most roguelikes, the game is paused while it is the player's turn. Thinking about dropping that, but I'm not sure....

Then it would come down to a Game Speed variable which would affect difficulty signifcantly...
Strategy would be altered considerably...

Any thoughts appreciated!

[Nomad]

Sorry I didn't wait for replies... Did the research and ended up with a pretty cool semi-original system...
Went with the ATB, but the one cool feature is this... If it's not the player's turn, there's no time-delay to compute the rest of the environment... So nice! It's always the player's turn... I'm stoked, sorry for the useless topic...!

[Krice]

It changes the tactics, but I'm not sure everyone likes it. Strict turn-based gameplay is such an essential feature of a roguelike - for a good reason.

[Kyzrati]

Hm, what he said in the second post doesn't preclude the game pausing for the player's turn/input (the "real-time" bit was just a thought from the OP). Clarification, Nomad?

[Nomad]

Currently the game supports both modes...

Classic Turn-Based Mode... Characters with faster speeds have turns more often. When it is the player's turn, the game is paused.

Real Time Mode is pretty cool actually... It's the same as Turn Based Mode except that all entities still update even though it's the players turn. (Based on a constant gamespeed... .2 seconds between iterations works nicely... Longer delay is easier...) If it is not the players turn, the time delay is disabled so that computation happens faster... Thus, it is effectively always the players turn.

Agreed Krice, I think focusing on classic turn-based mode makes a huge difference... I didn't realize this was so essential for so many people. I certainly would prefer this game to be a true roguelike. I'll keep support for real time mode as long as it doesn't break the turn-based game mechanics...

[Kyzrati]

I think it's inevitable that in balancing the game you won't be able to do one mode the same service you can do the other, which will result in a sub-standard experience and why waste the effort on that part?

According to the most comprehensive roguelike survey ever conducted, more than half the community believes turn-based is a required feature to be a roguelike at all.

Not that this has to mean anything to you, since experimentation and new styles of games are great, but in going down that path you immediately cut off a large segment of core roguelike players.

(I have to say I agree--if it's not strictly turn-based it's not a roguelike, and I'm against the growing mass of games labeling themselves as such without featuring turn-based play. Completely different experience.)

[Nomad]

Thank you for the valuable input. This discussion seals the deal, turn based it is. I'm definitely attempting to create a true roguelike.