I am not saying that the system suggested by OP is fundamentally bad, but that there is no need for it. That is not something that PP system was designed for, and there doesn’t seem to be a need for it. If anything soldiers seem to be able to do too much per turn due to willpower abuse.
More importantly, OP issue isn’t mechanic, it’s cosmetic. He did have issue with “wasted” actions in XCOMs be it reloading, taking shot, moving only one tile. OP doesn’t have a problem with wastin AP, but with how they are presented. Trying to solve a cosmetic problem by messing with mechanics seems like a silly way of going about it. Hopefully a UI artist can see his post and find a solution which will alleviate OP problem, without compromising game’s mechanics.
Your problems with [restore will] button also sounds more cosmetic. One might need to compose himself and that take time, therefore it’s an intentional action. I think turning leftover action points to restore will might be an elegant solution, though keeping it an active action helps it to stay in players mind as a valid tactical option, on par with moving, shooting or using other skills.
It’s not a terrible idea to be able to restore will on a 1:1 basis for action points, however will is too abundant at present, and in general needs balancing.
That’s is correct, and its more a phycology issue than a problem with the mechanics, my suggestions is to seamlessly use those points to the next turn so the players are not loaded with the task of having to use all of his actions points each turn, having them stored or used in another way like automatic converting them into will, for example, a soldier that has low will and by not moving he will recover some of it could work.
My problem is not with not having enough action points or too few, but the unspent ones, I wish there could be something else to do with them, more than just running around in circles until I can move no more so my mind is not bothered by it.
I dont agree to unspent AP carrying over to next turn
IMHO that’s the typical example of unused AP:
You are in a good position with your sniper, or you grenade launching heavy, assaults hardly have nothing to do, you look for targets but none is visible so you waste 2 AP just overwatching, better that shooting a far away triton you can barely see the tip of an arm and overwatch with the pistol.
You are doing nothing, but you are keeping your attention high; why carry your two AP in the next turn? to shoot twice without using QM?
The heavy will spend a lot of time doing nothing, he’s a not so mobile aritillery and needs a target, but let him accumulate AP and when a targets appears it will be a carnage; think of BB with 8 AP available.
Even in a standard heavy move he launches his grenade and then use pistol overwatch just to do something having jsut a very little chance to hit an elephant at 20 meters just to enrage it.
He has 4 AP like everybody but, unless he uses BB he uses 3; an heavy on top of a building can shot almost everywhere and if he cannot usually it’s not moving two squares that changes much.
Well they do. For them of course there is no time during enemy turn. But end of their current turn is also beginning of their next. So in other words in current turn they should already know what they will do in next turn. So they prepare (and that preparation is going on during enemy turn - except there is no time to measure it for them). That is what I meant.
This preparation shouldn’t mean that they will have more time in next turn. This is valid for soldiers who have AP left or not. If they have AP left it means that they just have done something more efficiently in current time frame. But it doesn’t allow them to extend their next time frame. I hope I am clear here.
For me the idea of moving unspend action points is bad.
Why? because the fact of losing unspend action point should motivate you to move. not to start positional war and ‘camping’.
If you REALLY need that option. just make it lvl 7 sniper perk, because this is the only class which could ‘real life’ benefit from this kind of activity (you know: masked sniper, waiting in ambush for enemies). and in that case (s)he could use an extra AP to take one more shot.
Other than that, I am absolutely fine with the fact that AP are representation of your time units necessary to perform some actions, therefore,they are lost if you decide to end your turn.
It’s not that they gain time, the time duration remains constant, but the solider that performed less actions previously conserves stamina compared to the one who used all theirs up, they store that stamina in the form of APs, allowing them to do more in that next consistent amount of time.
At the moment in game, a soldier can do more by expending building and then expending will - the desire to want to do more. If there’s anything illogical to take issue with it’s that.
Storage and then use of actual physical energy makes far more sense imho.
But this is not Naruto where you store energy to execute super power. Or in other words soldiers are not robots with some chargers. Healthy soldier who did not store ‘physical energy’ should do the same things like the one who stored it (waited - had some AP left). We talk here about fights that last less than 10 minutes. No one have to rest to regain his physical power, because he is still quite fresh even after few turns. So no one should have gain (or lose) any power or energy by iddling or not doing that. Everything that you decided to do (also being idle) in your turn should be resolved in enemy turn at most (like overwatch or return fire) not in your next turn.
I think that the thing is that Action Points/Willpower is more the modern parallel to the old Time Units/Stamina (with morale rolled in). Except while a soldier had to use Stamina to move, here they spend Willpower only to perform extraordinary feats (and to defend against mind attacks). A soldier waiting with unspent Action Points isn’t resting or storing energy for their next move (those Recovering are doing that), they’re just waiting for everyone else in the team to get into position.
Or something like that. The abstraction of this turn based system into a real time thing is a bit iffy at the moment with your min-maxxed high rank soldiers regularly turning into The Flash.
thats is what we call fatigue and both can be implemented, move too much and you get tire, move too little you get sluggish, move just right and get rewarded ? anyway being the case, players can play the game what ever they choose but can you say a player thats dashes every turn will be equally to the player that goes carefuly over the map ?
the devs had already implemented a system so the player don’t overwatch camp, so that shouldn’t be a problem, a soldier that is running around the battle field shouldn’t be to run every turn, and a soldier that didn’t spend all his point in his turn should be able to do in the next turn.
having a extra point wouldn’t that life changing and it isn’t something you would always be able to do, and it is not like you are gaining more points, it is just that the points you didn’t used at Least a part and not all of them can be use for your next turn, this mean that desicions like to move dashing into the battlefield or not will have an impact into the campaign.
in any case this is not something for everyone, i really hope that when the mod support is added i could add this feature myself as i am the one that is bother by it
I am somehow surprised that nobody suggested that we should redesign the chess, and allow white player to wait and ‘store’ his moves for five turns and then make five moves at once.
In another twist let go with an hypothetical stamina system instead of points per turn.
A soldier has 100% stamina at the beginning of the mission, each turn he can spend 25% of his stamina at 100% then after that he gets tire and each % of stamina needed to move doubles, at the end of the turn he recovers some stamina but not all and your max stamina pool is reduce, if the stamina gets to zero the soldiers can panic, faint or even die.
so now we have a system where there is no a fix a amount of what a soldier can do per turn, and you can push your soldiers to give it all when the situation requieres it, and they will move depending on how much overall stamina they have and not fixed points that get lost at the end of the turn.
if the soldier didn’t move, then they didn’t spend that stamina and so they can use it on the next turn, if for example they move too much there will be consequences that you have to deal with, as fatigue gets carried away each turn and each desicions that you make, matter a lot more.
A system like this is very hard to be implemented however it is more realistic, it would be more engaging for me, but it not something i would ask to the devs to implement, i just sharing some minor modifications that could make the action points system more realistic
So punishing units which used all actions available for them? Therefore encouraging not using all their actions on every turn in case they need them in the next one?
There could be “exhaustion” ability, where a character gains some AP this turn, but looses on the following one.
Don’t take what I said for my wish . I’m very happy with the way things are currently implemented.
The only thing that bothers me is to not have it in my current Long War campaign. Even without manual aim, just being able to use my time units as I so desire would make Long War one of the ultimate games.
As it is, it’s a great game, but when the whole map swarms on your position because that’s how it works now, you really want to be able to do something else than reloading your rifle with 2 ammo in it and end your turn.
I feel you on that. I have been trying to return to Long War for a while now. Don’t have hands on experience with PP, but even coming back from XCOM2 I find it difficult to adjust. Waypoint marker is something I miss the most, as not being able to define unit path it a pain while using two point system.
LW is already one of the ultimate games, adding the AP and aim system will make it even better.
The only thing i never liked is the air combat; everybody i asked of various forums told me it wasnt that difficult but i had problems with a dozen interceptors, rotating to repair in various continents, to keep alive the couple of satellites over my base
Never found it fun - the system is too basic: this is where RNG is felt the most, and there isn’t much you can do about it. It’s just a constant drain on your resources.
Or in other words soldiers are not robots with some chargers. Healthy soldier who did not store ‘physical energy’ should do the same things like the one who stored it (waited - had some AP left). We talk here about fights that last less than 10 minutes. No one have to rest to regain his physical power, because he is still quite fresh even after few turns. So no one should have gain (or lose) any power or energy by iddling or not doing that. Everything that you decided to do (also being idle) in your turn should be resolved in enemy turn at most (like overwatch or return fire) not in your next turn.
So punishing units which used all actions available for them? Therefore encouraging not using all their actions on every turn in case they need them in the next one?
. I’m very happy with the way things are currently implemented.