Status Effects 2.0

The initial implementation of status effects, the one you may have seen in the first three tech demos of magecrawl, was almost an exact reimplementation of the model used in crawl. Effects when cast have a length (in turns or ticks or whatever) at which time they disappear. Some effects are positive, some are negative. If you have a positive effect (say haste) that you want to have on you permanently, you need to recast it was it expires. Some games automate this step, but in the end it is the same model.

While simple and easy, I don't really like this model for magecrawl. Mages in books and legend sometimes were wrapped in layers of magical protection, and the idea that you need to stop walking every five minutes to recast all your buffs seems silly. I'm stealing a page from dragon age, and separating effects into two orthogonal categories: length and type.

Sustained effects (long term) are ones that persist until canceled, however have a continuing cost. My current implementation reduces the player's maximum MP by an amount for each effect that persists. This provides a nice trade off; keep no effects up and have access to your entire mana pool, keep some up and have only part, or keep a bunch up and be able to maybe only cast one spell.

Temporary effects are effects that use the traditional effect model of a deadline time and no additional cost while in effect. Unlike sustained effects, where having a sustained negative effect doesn't make sense, temporary effects can be positive or negative in nature. Positive effects that are too powerful or come from items could be temporary. 

Another status effect idea I had, which I haven't implemented yet, are school specific debufs for common attack spells. An simple example would be the school of fire. Fire attack spells could have a chance to apply a "burning" negative status effect upon targets. Some spells (like sticky flames) might have a higher chance to apply effects than others. In the case of burning, it would do damage over time to the target. If attacked by any water or ice damage damage, the effect would end early. 

Some effects I have in mind would reduce damage taken by some schools and increase others (e.g. being frozen reduces fire damage but a good earth spell would shatter the target nicely).

Effects might be a trait added on by skills in the skill tree, so the initiates fireblast might do damage but not be powerful enough to set things on fire. It also brings up the possibility of branches in the skill tree, where some could specialize in damage over time or status effects while others specialize in raw power.

I think status effects will be on the areas I focus on for this iteration. I think it can be used to bring out a lot of flavor and interesting choices in magecrawl.