Broken Ranks will be out tomorrow, and there’s a new preview of the game's combat system from the Whitemoon Games development team. The isometric MMORPG has combat that is turn-based and tactical.
The developers took influence from games like Heroes of Might & Magic and classic cRPG games like Baldur's Gate. In creating a tactical system that is turn-based, they didn’t want it to feel static, so every round in combat you have just 10 seconds to choose the abilities and assign your action points.
You have 12 action points total and you assign them to attacks and defense depending on how you want to strategize for that turn. Once your decision is locked in, you see the outcome of your choices on your opponents and determine what you need to do next.
Strategy will come in observing your opponents and what they do, as well as their types, and what moves they have. Since you have only a pool of 12 action points per turn for both attack and defense, sometimes you’ll want to consider leaning more defensively.
The way attacks between you and your opponents happen is also determined by your choice of action type. Whether your attack is area of effect or single target, ranged or melee, player attacks of each type will take priority over the mob or boss attacks of the same type. Mental attacks go first, which are the buffs and debuffs of the game, then ranged, then melee attacks. So if you pick a debuff first to reduce the boss’ strength, you should land first, but if you try to punch the boss but the boss tries to poison you, the boss will hit you first.
There’s a lot of strategy in combat, as it applies to both PvE and optional PvP, but you can read the full update for much more details and a breakdown as well as a couple of video tutorials showing off the system of Broken Ranks.
