Combat

Gladium's Combat (Also known as abilities) is it's main feature. It blends both the wide range of combos/moves available in a fighting game, the speed and mobility of an ARPG, and the modularity of an MMO.

I draw inspiration from Magicka, Skyrim (although I've never played it myself), TERA, Vindictus, and the entire fighting genre (can't name any in particular since, again, I've never played any. :P )

Introduction to Abilities
Abilities are, essentially, the entire combat system. They are made up of a central move, which is expanded with multiple modifiers. The combination of these has all of its values and variables pumped into a new ability, which can, depending on it's type, fire off a player animation, launch a projectile, fire a constant beam, etc. Most moves can be used by themselves as an ability, but that would be very boring. It does work well if you're a beginner or need a really quick attack/heal/other or are low on everything.

Ability components
These are the components of an ability, in no particular order. Most components have their own properties.
 * Damage Applications: These are the main beef of an ability. Each application can contain a multitude of properties.  Most modifiers will add an aditional damage application.
 * Damage: This is the actual damage dealt by each application. Positive is harming, negative is healing.
 * Shape: The shape of an ability determines how the ability will be rendered in real time and what/where the attack hitbox will be. For example, an ability with a 'projectile' shape will create a projectile(s), around which the hitbox will render, and fire it off in one way or another. Meanwhile, an 'AOE' shape will create a box/cilinder/sphere/etc. shaped hitbox in a certain area.
 * Attack Hitbox: Or just the 'hitbox' (although there are many types of hitboxes so you wouldn't want to mix them up), is a simple, invisible geometric shape(cube, cilinder, sphere, etc.) that the target must be colliding with in order for the ability to affect it. The only shape that does not produce an attack hitbox isSelf, which targets the player. The hitbox is heavily connected to the shape.
 * Damage Type(s): Not all damage is equal. Because of this, there must be different types of damage. Ice damage, fire damage, slash damage, etc. The opponents armor, race, and in-battle (de)buffs will all affect how effective an ability is against them. An ability may have multiple damage types if there are multiple damage applications.
 * Duration: Most damage is applies all at once, but in the case of things like poison or bleeding, a lesser amount is applied at intervals. The duration tells how much damage is done in a single interval, the number of intervals, how many ticks apart each interval is, and any delay there is before the damage begins.
 * Mana Drain: Most abilities will do some sort of magic and thus drain the appropriate mana pool(s). Like damage, there can also
 * Stamina Drain: Many abilities involve the player doing something like jump-slamming the opp. or swinging his sword. These are physical motions and thus drain stamina.
 * Health Drain: Techincally, this is just a special type of self-damage. Whereas something like self-ignite would turn you into a burning fireball (and obviously damage you as well as anything you touch), health drain is used to 'pay' for certain moves or spells.  Think blood magic.
 * Status/Special Effects: These are all the (de)buffs and other sorts of status effects that your move applies. Freezing, stunning, bleeding, speed, etc. Sometimes they will also deal damage themselves and thus add their own damage application.
 * Charge: If an ability needs to 'charge up' then the charge component determines how long it will take to fully charge. Charging is usually done by holding down the attack button for however long you want and then releasing it when you want.  The damage/everything is determined by the charge amount.
 * Animation: Determined largely by the shape and mainly by the move, the animation is the visual representation of the ability. Typically, the player will do something and, if the move is magic, the player animation will spawn another animated object such as a projectile that flies towards the opponent or an animated plane/circle to show off an AOE effect.
 * Type: The type is derived from the main damage type and main resource drained. See 'Categories and Classifications' below for more details.
 * Restrictions/Requirements: Some moves/mods are incompatible with cerain gear types or are exclusive to certain gear types. Some require  you to have certain stats or even be a certain race.  If and only if none of the restrictions are true will the ability work.
 * Move: The main move that the ability derives it's animation and base stats from.Modifiers(Mods): These add extra damage and status effects to a move as well as visually enhance it.

Moves
Moves, as described in the Ability Components section, are the core of abilities. They provide the intital animation, damage application(s), shape, drain, etc. Moves share most of the properties as abilites and modifiers.

Move Components

 * Damage Applications: Same as abilitiy.
 * Damage: Same as ability.
 * Shape: Same as ability.
 * Hitbox: Same as ability
 * Type(s): Same as ability
 * Duration: Same as ability
 * ALL DRAINS: Same as ability
 * Animation: Basically the same as ability. The animation for a move is usually not very flashy, since that is all added with modifiers.  During the animation, the hitbox(es) are created and, usually, destroyed.
 * Charge: Same as ability.
 * Special Effects: Same as ability.
 * Restirctions: Same as ability.
 * Type: Same as ability.

Modifiers(Mods)
Mods are like mini-moves attatched to main moves to create unique abilities. Mods can alter every component of a move, but cannot change the base animation.

Mod Components

 * Damage Applications: Same as ability.
 * Damage: Same as ability.
 * Shape: Same as ability.
 * Hitbox: Same as ability.
 * Type(s): Same as ability.
 * Duration: Same as ability.
 * DRAINS: Same as ability.
 * Animation Additions: Instead of actual animations, mods have little things they add onto/change in the move's animation. This is typiclaly something like a new particle system, color/brightness adjustment, alternate projectile path, etc.  Mods can also slow down or speed up the animation.
 * Charge: Same as ability.
 * Special Effects: Same as ability.
 * Restrictions: Same as abilty.
 * Type: Same as ability.

Functionality
The grand life cycle of an ability goes something like this: Acquire move, acquire mods, equip move/mods to battle hotbars, enter battle, combine moves and mods to create ABILITY, use ability, exit battle, save/delete ability, if saved, bind to hotbar, get used over and over until deletion.

The in-game representation of moves, mods, and abilities are similar to other objects and gear. They are all accquired one way or another and are put into your main inventory. From here, moves and mods (here on out called 'components') are put into the battle hotbars. It is from these that you will activate you components and combine them into abilities.

NOTE: I'll migrate the following info to the a different page later, but for now it stays here. The battle hotbars are a set of two hotbars on the bottom of your screen that are, by default, mapped to zxcvbnm. Until you begin ability construction, only a single hotbar appears here, containing up to seven moves. Once you press one of these keys, the moves hotbar is replaced by a hotbar containing up to seven mods. You can then select as many of these mods as you like until the total drain is too much for you. Once you press the appropriate mouse button (left for primary hand, right for secondary), an ability will be created and used. It is highly recommended to memorize which moves/mods you have in each slot for fast ability creation.

Once you end battle, the game will pause and show you all of the abilities you created during the battle. You can choose to save as many of these as you want. Any you save must be named. These pre-made abilities can then be put into the main hotbar (1-0) to be used along with other items like potions and whatnot. This feature will be toggleable.

To equip components, open your inventory and drag the ones you want into the battle hotbar. If you begin to drag a mod, the move hotbar will turn into the mod hotbar. END TEMPORARY INFO.

In the midst of all the ability talk, gear has been forgotten entirely. What weapon you have greatly alters how your moves will function. The damage is largely determined by your weapon (or lack of one) as are the effects. Abilities are also affected by armor. Of course, armor reduces the amount of damage taken, but it also (usually) provides resistance towards certain damage types. For example, ice armor will almost negate fire damage and heavy plate armor will make most purely physical attacks as effective as hitting you with chopsticks.

Categories and Classifications
Abilities and components (condensed to abilities from here on unless stated otherwise) are sorted into two main category archetypes: Major drain and Minor drain.

Major drain is, in essence, what type of ability something is. To clarify, the three major drain categories are Spell, Physical, and Mixed. A spell is an ability that is purely magical, that is to say it drains only from magic pools and health(blood magic) and never from stamina. A physical ability is the opposite of a spell; it only drains stamina. Mixed is, as you've probably guessed, an ability that drains both mana/health and stamina. Most pre-made abilities will be of the firt two varieties, but most user-made abilities will probably be mixed.

Minor drain denotes the majority resource that the ability drains. If an ability has two or more majority drains(within 10% of each other), then it is a mix-drain ability. The six main minor drain types are Iglammian, Nymeri, Veneti, Munturian, Trontanese, Physical (Stamina), and Blood. If an ability has a minor drain of Physical, then the minor drain is hidden as the major drain shows that the mod drains mainly Stamina. As such, only spells and mixed abilities will show their minor drain.

Implementation
The category is shown at the bottom of an ability's infobox in the form  (No brackets; E.G. Veneti Spell or Iglammian-Physical Mixed Ability). The major drain is shown first and then, if the ability is not physical, the minor drain. The way the minor drain is displayed differs based on whether or not there are multiple majority drains. A typical single-drain ability will display only the single drain type and then the major drain while a multiple-drain ability will display each drain in the following format:  (E.G. Veneti-Iglammian-Blood Spell).