One thing that has been a minor annoyance to me is the display of current life. It just being a number at the bottom of the screen makes it harder to "get a feel for" it and requires me to read it. A bar that changes color and looks half full is easier to read out of the corner of my than a number.
This new display of concentration "overlife" might lead to a more user-friendly UI element.
Next, hit points are currently "refunded" to the player on a random basis after an enemy is killed. There is a little strategy to hoarding a small number of unused health orbs, but other than that, random.
Also, it only occurs after an enemy is defeated, which means monsters with a larger health pool require the player to survive for a longer time without health pickups. Some games put weak trash mobs around big monsters so the player has something to farm life from while dealing with the main threat.
If I understand the current suggestion correctly, any attacks done while at full health (i.e. hitting while not getting hit) charges the concentration bar, leading to bonus damage. If a hit is taken, the player's life goes down and concentration is lost. If you had a bar that was 125% as long as the player's current life total, it could over-fill while dealing damage at full life.
To hopefully bring this rambling and slightly incoherent post to some semblance of a conclusion, I will (finally) make my point
. The randomization of damage in AI War was detrimental to the strategic game because you couldn't plan as carefully. What if, instead of hoping for life drops from defeated enemies, you instead gained a form of "life drain" affect. When dealing damage to an enemy, your life bar would increase. This allows prolonged fights against large monsters without the need for the trash farming, and allows monsters to be individually balanced. Any life gained while at maximum continues to fill the bar, into the concentration range. This part will increase damage done, but will be lost over time, down to the current full life amount.
This would encourage the player in the following ways:
- Fighting skillfully
- Not getting hit will increase damage output - Move quickly/efficently
- The concentration bonus will not last forever. Since it wears out, just building it up on easy monsters won't help - Gaining life by fighting, not being lucky
- There will still be a fixed amount of possible health available in a chunk, but it allows more planning
One huge bonus is that this will be a single, unified system. There is only one bar: health. It fills in one way: dealing damage.
With a noticeable demarcation where the full X bars end, and the over bar starts, the system will nearly explain itself to the user. Maybe the bar glows in the concentration area, indicating the bonus. Seeing it decrease back down to full will show that it is a timed bonus. This also shows that the concentration bonus can be only had when already at full life without having to put up a text box explaining it. Taking damage is detrimental to your concentration bonus, which is also evident by it being part of the health bar.
