Which is less annoying?

[Ryner]

On the game I'm working on now, I've set up a system allowing for "cooldown" abilities: skills that, after use, can't be used again for a few turns. The way it works is after the ability is used, the character unlearns it until the cooldown period has passed, at which point the ability is placed into the skill list once again.

Obviously with a four character party and quite a few cooldown abilities with cooldown durations lasting between 2-7 turns, it's impossible for a person to mentally keep track of when an ability will be ready for reuse. In playtesting, I've noticed myself checking a characters skill list to see if a specific ability is ready and, when seeing it isn't, closing the skill list and doing something else instead.

This is not something I want to happen, so I'm experimenting with text boxes appearing to alert the player when an ability is ready for reuse. This create the problem of multiple text boxes appearing in a row. At it's worse, this is what could happen:

-Turn ends
-Text box appears "Soandso can use an ability again!"
-Player presses enter
-Text box appears "Soandso can use an ability again!"
-Player presses enter
-Text box appears "Soandso can use an ability again!"
-Player presses enter
-Text box appears "Soandso can use an ability again!"
-Player gets annoyed and closes the game

The odds of four abilities recharging at the same turn is probably slim, but I imagine this doing wonders for breaking the flow of a battle. So I ask this question of you: Which of the two do you think is more annoying? Would you rather be unsure of when abilities recharge and have to check a new menu to find out, or have potentially flow-breaking text boxes pop up to alert you?

And if you have a better solution feel free to share.

(This is what happens when I'm up all night with a stomach virus, I make long-winded posts to ask questions that you can sum up with one sentence.)

[JPS]

Re: Which is less annoying?

I personally wouldnt mind seeing pop-ups, if Ive used them once in battle Im bound to want to use them again as soon as possible, especially if it has a dramatic effect during the battle (high damage, high healing power, etc...).

Another reason is that its a reminder of my "favorites", if a skill appears that I have no interest in using I'll more then likely never use it, so Ill never see the pop-up...things like healing and high-damage skills are important to me and I'd like to know when theyre available immediately, even through a break in gameplay.

[Pagerron]

Re: Which is less annoying?

I've been checking out your post Ryner and thinking about it quite a bit.
If you have a four-player party and the skills are re-usable anywhere from every 2 to 7 turns, and players have more than one of these each, it's possible that a player can have two or more skills that become re-usable in the same turn, which could result in more than 4 texts boxes in a row. Rare, yes, but possible.

It might end up being less annoying to just check your skills menu to see which ones are available. It is cool, though, that your maker gives you the chance to modify your battle programming to allow for in-battle messages.

Is this for RPG Maker 2?

[Ryner]

Re: Which is less annoying?

I'm making it with VX.

[Wavelength]

Re: Which is less annoying?

I'd personally find it a little better to check the skill list each turn to see what's available. However, if technically feasible, perhaps you could use one of these workarounds?

* Have a number next to "cooldown" skills which indicates how many more turns until you can use it again. If the player tries to use it while it's cooling down, have it fail or just say "you can't use this... choose another skill!"

* If the above isn't technically possible because of the way lists are made, maybe you could have "dummy" skills like "Fireball 2tl" and "Fireball 1tl" (2tl meaning "2 turns left") in addition to the real skill "Fireball"? These would replace each other every turn as the skill cooled down, so right after using "Fireball", the skill list would say "Fireball 2tl," the turn afterward "Fireball 1tl", and after that it would return to "Fireball." Again, if choosing a skill with cooldown remaining, it would fail or tell you to choose something else.

* Or, just have automatic message windows appear and stay onscreen for a second or two in the middle of battle, rather than having the player press a button to proceed through them. It could be a problem if five or six would appear at once and you'd have to figure out how to address that, but I imagine it would create a much more smooth experience to just let players know for a second or two, as they go about choosing a move at their own fast or slow pace.

[Shard]

Re: Which is less annoying?

I know nothing about programming or the complexity of what I'm suggesting here, but from the perspective of a player:

Having a single prompt that displayed all of the current cool-down skills and their states would be easier to digest than a prompt for each. For example:

Kill...3 turns
Double_Kill...Ready!
Triple_Kill...7 turns


Alternatively, you could give the player an option to toggle the prompts on/off in an options menu.

[Dallas Alvis II]

Re: Which is less annoying?

I think it would be a slight annoyance in a game in general, but I don't fully understand the presentation and layout of VX just yet, as I do not possess that software. It would depend on how fast or slow the text materialized, as well as the "delay" effect of closing them that have been annoying for me in some games. But I do like the idea of that being implemented in a game.