As you all know Dreamlords is a complex game and in combat you really have to
keep track
of many different aspects of the game. Therefore we have been working
on a new more intuitive
combat gui for some time now, that we feel will enhance
the game interaction. Not only will
more detailed information be displayed, but
lots of new functionality has been added. In this
text we will present the new
combat gui and it's elements. We will start out with an overview
and then go more
into detail.
Getting to know the new combat gui
Ok, so let's check out the new gui. Below is an image of the combat taken from
a PvE mission
with some squads selected.
The combat gui has some fundamental layout that will not change, even
though the information
within these area will be different, depending on what game
mode you are in (PvE or PvP) and
the what you currently have selected in the world.
We will go into the different areas of the gui in more detail a bit later.
A technical note on the new combat gui and screen resolution: How the gui behaves in different screen resolution is different from the old
combat gui. The
old combat gui scaled if you changed the resolution. This means
that the gui took up the same
space of the screen (in percent) in all resolutions.
The new combat gui does not scale depending
on resolution. If you are playing
with a higher screen resolution the combat gui will take up a
smaller area of the
screen compared to playing with a lower screen resolution. The effect is that
you will see more of the actual world in higher resolutions.
The mini-map
The mini-map shows the battleground from a top-down view and displays many
elements of interest
on the battleground. Blue dots are your unselected squads,
while your selected squads are showed
in yellow. Red dots are mobs (and/or enemy
squads in PvP) and white dots are neutral/uncaptured
locations. So you can see
that the mini-map can be used to keep track of many different things
and events
that happen on the battleground.
Many actions can also be used with the mini-map. You can for example select
a squad and then
issue a move command to a certain position by clicking the
mini-map.
Interacting with squads/units (PvE/PvP)
Selecting a squad or several squads can be done in several ways. (Selecting
squads are the same
in the old and new system)
You can select a single squad by left-clicking it.
You can select multiple squads by holding down the right mouse button and "draw"
a rectangle
around the squads you wish to select.
To add a squad to an existing selection, press and hold the shift key while
selecting additional squads.
Double-clicking a squad will select all squads of the same type in a certain
range.
When you have selected one or more squads they will be displayed in the combat
gui. The following
image gives you an overview what is displayed for a selected
squad:
When you have several squads selected you can access information and issue
actions to individual
squads in two ways.
Left-click on the portrait of a squad you want access in the gui.
When the mouse cursor is placed over a portrait (if multiple squads are
selected) you can also use the mouse
wheel to quickly choose a specific squad.
When you have accessed a squad, both its information and available actions
are displayed. A golden
frame will be displayed around the squad that is
currently selected/accessed.
Hovering a portrait will also display a quickbar showing that specific
squad's special abilities.
We will be talking about this later in the section Using a squad's Special Abilities.
The portraits (of selected squads)
Let's take a closer look on the portraits which are displayed when one or more
squads are selected.
The portrait is a way for you to recognize the squad, but
it will also show important information during combat.
In the upper left corner the current number of units in the squad is
displayed. In combat you may be
affected by different auras and special abilities which
either enhances (buffs) or weakens (debuffs)
the squad. Buffs are displayed with
a plus sign, while debuffs are displayed using a minus sign. Remember
that a
squad can be affected with buffs and debuffs at the same time. You can also find out
which
buffs/debuffs that effect you in more detail, but we will talk about that
later.
Health and morale are displayed in the lower part of the portrait. When the
morale bar is empty, your
squad will receive a debuff called broken morale which
drastically decreases the squads ability to fight.
The portrait will also show you information when the squad is being attacked
by flashing red, to alert
you that you should turn your attention to this squad.
Detailed squad information
When you have selected a squad using any of the methods mentioned earlier
information about that squad
will be displayed. You will also be able to see what
orders you can give your selected squad. In the below
screenshot we have selected
a Nihilim Consul.
The area below all squad portraits displays different information about the
current selected squad.
In the upper left corner the type name of the squad will
be displayed. In the above example image you
can see that we have selected a
Consul.
Below the unit type there are eight slots which displays any gear that the
squad is equipped with.
Gear can be of three types: weapons, armor and equipment.
These types affect the squad's different stats.
Hover each type of gear to get
more information on how it affects the squad.
To the right of the gear all important stats for the squad are displayed.
The icon/symbol represents
a different value shown in the below image:
So in our example we could now better understand the Consul's stats in our
example, in the below image:
To the right of the squad stats, all buffs and debuffs that is currently
influencing the selected squad are
displayed. Buffs, effects that affect the squad
in a positive way, is displayed on the top row while debuffs,
effects that
affect the squad in a negative way, is displayed on the lower row. In our example our
selected
squad is being affected by one buff:
In case of multiple buffs and debuffs a scrollbar will appear in the bottom
of the display area. Hover a buff
or debuff to get more information of what it
affects.
Some tomes have special abilities that are passive. These passive abilities
generally create a buff, and will
be displayed as any other buff except that
these kinds have a yellow frame.
Using a squad's Special Abilities
Let's leave the squad information area of the combat gui and concentrate on
how you use special abilities and
their behavior. Special abilities are greater
magical powers enabled through tomes and can have great effect
during combat. The
slots for special abilities can be found to the right of the buff/debuff area.
When a special ability has been used you have to wait for a certain amount
of time to use it again. This is
called cool down. A special ability that is
cooling down will have a timer displaying how many seconds that
remains until the
ability can be used again. The ability will also have a red overlay showing a rough
estimation
on the remaining time.
Some special abilities can be auto-casted, meaning that you as a player
don't have to order your squad to
activate the ability manually. By default these
abilities will be used automatically, but by right clicking
the ability you will
turn this function off. This is good if you manually want to control when the
squad
should use the ability. An icon with auto-cast on, will be pulsating to show
that it's auto-cast is active.
Casting an ability can be done in several ways using the combat gui. If the
ability is ready to use, right
click it and then click the appropriate target
(if the ability requires it). There is also a faster way to
use special abilities.
If your hover a selected squad's portrait, the available special abilities
will be displayed above the
portrait. You can use these icons to cast the special
ability just the same way as described above.
Movement and selection options
To the right of a squad's special abilities, there are some icons which
control squad movement and selection.
They will be explained very shortly here as they
are quite self explaining.
The force move command
To move the selected squad or squads right click on the move icon and then on
a position on the map
(or the mini-map). The squads will then walk to this
position.
The attack move command
This is similar to the move command, but the squads will fight any enemy they
encounter on their way to
the location you have ordered them to. You can also
use a keyboard shortcut to do this by pressing "A"
and left-clicking on a position
on the map.
Cycle squad
Pressing this button will select the next squad (in a list of all squads on
the battlefield). The keyboard
shortcut for this action is "," (Period-key)
Select all
Pressing this button will select "all" units on the battlefield. This is not
entirely true as the game
currently only allows the player to a maximum of 8
squads selected at any one time. This is a good
feature if you want to select many
squads and command them.
Additional gui for PvP
As you can upgrade and bring reinforcements to the battlefield when playing
PvP (not PvE) an addition
to the PvE combat gui is needed to be able to manage
your strongholds and tactical locations. So in this
chapter we will cover how this
additional gui works and look like.
Before we start looking closer at the gui it's important to have some facts
straighten out.
There are three very important locations in PvP:
Victory locations
The Stronghold (upgradeable in 2 stages)
Tactical locations (upgradeable in 3 stages)
The goal in PvP is to earn victory points. The first player to earn a
certain amount of victory points
will win the battle. Victory points are gained from
captured victory locations.
When you start a PvP battle you will have one stronghold in possession. The
stronghold allows you to
send reinforcements to the battlefield. It can also be
used to retreat wounded squads.
Tactical locations are strategical key points in the battle area. To secure
a tactical location you
have to capture it. When you have captured a tactical
location you will be able to upgrade it. Upgrading
it to level 1 will allow you to
send reinforcements to the location (thus working the same way as a
stronghold
in this respect).
Tactical point pools and income
Bringing reinforcements to the battlefield as well as upgrading stronghold and
tactical locations cost
tactical points. In this respect tactical points can be
seen as PvP-battle currency.
When you capture a tactical location it starts earning tactical points. The
earned tactical points are
placed in a tactical point pool that is unique for
that location. Very simply put: The pool is the
locations wallet. Your stronghold
works in the same way.
By upgrading your strongholds and tactical locations (this will be covered
later) they will earn
tactical points at a faster pace. The pace is often
referred to as tactical point income and is measured
in points gained per minute.
As mentioned above each captured tactical location and your stronghold have
individual tactical point
pools (individual wallets). The reason for this is
that you can only spend earned tactical points at
the location that earned them. So the
tactical points in your stronghold pool can only be used to
upgrade the stronghold or
to bring reinforcements the stronghold and nowhere else. Tactical locations
work in the same way.
Taking a closer look at the stronghold and tactical location interface
So now that we have the basic knowledge how strongholds and tactical locations
work it's time to look
at the gui for these locations.
To manage your stronghold and captured tactical locations you will first
have to select them. This
is done by right-clicking them. In the image below I have
selected a stronghold in the beginning of
a PvP-battle.
We have already covered the mini-map, so let's will move on to the more
interesting things. When you have
selected your stronghold or any captured tactical
location you have, the gui will display
many different types of information and
available actions. You will be able to tell who owns the location,
how much
tactical points there are in the locations pool, what reinforcement squads are
available and
much more.
Let's start with the basic information of the location, located next to
mini-map.
The above image shows the basic information. We can clearly see that a
stronghold has been selected
which is owned by the player PvP Nihilim. Left of the
name the icon tells us that this is a
level 1 stronghold (it has been upgraded
once). The green bar under the icon displays the current
hitpoints of the
stronghold. On the very right the players flag with his/her convergence colors.
In the area below the basic information there are two areas of interest. The
first one shows the upgraded
tactical location's defense and current hitpoints.
When the hitpoints
reach 0, the location's upgrade will be destroyed. This not
only means that you will not be able to
send reinforcements to this points, but
the location is now unprotected (even though you still own it).
If your upgrade
is destroyed you have to upgrade it fast or the enemy might capture your tactical
location.
In the image above we can see that the current selected location has a
defense of 11 and it's current hitpoints
is 1385.
Important note: When a stronghold is destroyed you will not be able to rebuild it. So be sure to
keep it safe.
Remember that when a stronghold is destroyed you will not only
loose the ability to bring in reinforcements
to this point but you will also loose
the ability to retreat wounded squads from the battlefield.
In the area to the right information about your tactical point pool and
income is displayed. The larger
green text displays the amount of tactical points
this location has in its pool. Below this text the
locations tactical point income
is displayed in format "X / min", meaning the amount of tactical point
this
location will earn per minute.
The action queue
As mentioned earlier upgraded tactical locations and your stronghold have a
very important feature:
Use can use them to bring reinforcements to the
battlefield. Thus your enemy will certainly try to
destroy these important locations.
That's why it's important to upgrade your locations, which increases
their defense
and hitpoints.
Before we cover how your acquire reinforcements and upgrade your locations
lets check another
important part of the gui out: the action queue.
Upgrading and bringing reinforcements to the battlefield takes a certain
amount of time
You can see this process in the form of a progress bar. The action that is
currently being processed
is positioned to the right of the progress bar.
Only one action can be processed at location at any time, but you can queue
up to 5 actions. When an
action has been processed the next action in line will
be processed. Actions in the queue will be
processed from left to right.
In the image above we can see that the player is in the process of bringing
a Whipping Sorrow to
the battlefield, and the progress bar shows that it's 48%
complete. We can also see that the player
has cueued a second action, bringing in
another unit which in this case is a Proselyte.
If you wish to cancel an action being processed or any queued actions, just
left-click the icon in
the queue. By canceling an action you will get your
invested tactical points back.
Ok, so now we know how the action queue works and it's time to continue.
To the right the available actions for the location are displayed. As
mentioned (several
times) in this text you are able to upgrade a location and bring
reinforcements to it.
Upgrading your stronghold and upgraded tactical locations
If you are able to upgrade the location to the next level, an icon will be
displayed in the upper
left slot. The icon shows what the level your location will
be upgraded to (in the icons upper left corner)
and the upgrade cost (lower part
of the icon). Right-click the icon to start upgrading
the location. If an action
is being processed the upgrade will be placed in the queue.
If you don't have enough tactical points to upgrade to the next level the
upgrade icon will be grey.
If you have upgraded your stronghold or tactical
locations to their max, the upgrade icon will dissapear.
In the image below we can see that the player can upgrade the location to
level 2 at the cost of 50
tactical points.
Calling in reinforcements
You can call in reinforcements to your stronghold and to your upgraded
tactical points. The available
squads that you can call for are displayed below the
upgrade icon. Only army squads you have trained
in the patria manager will be
displayed.
In the lower part of the squad portrait the cost to bring the squad to
battle is displayed. Remember
that you have a limited amount of squads so use them
wisely as all tactical locations and your stronghold
draws squads from the same
reinforcement pool. If you want to know how many squads you have left of a certain
type just hover the portrait.
As you different squads have different costs bringing to the battlefield,
you probably wont be able to
call in your squads all at the same time. Squads you
can't afford, becuase you don't have enough tactical points
will be grayed out.
When the reinforcement pools is epmty from a certain squad, meaning that you
0 squads left of a certain squad in hold,
that squad icon will be removed.
This ends this little tutorial on the combat gui for now. We wish you the
best of luck in combat!
