Combat needs a lot of work. In addition to my on-stream list of literal changes/bugs, here's some more conceptual thoughts I'm mulling:

• Combat needs to be faster in all aspects
• Combat needs as minimal and stoic a barrier/transition as possible
  • If combats are fast things you're supposed to do a lot of, it shouldn't be too dramatic or jarring to enter/exit one.
• Characters need a more bulky or significant feeling list item (in troop list)
  • Maybe updated character page will help with this too.
• Common pitfalls to avoid
  • Battle outcome clearly decided but need to "play it out"
    • Somewhat unavoidable but if we can balance on the razor's edge enough, you'll still need to pay attention to maximize/minimize damage
  • Total grind stalemates, shield/healing spam
• Actions need to be really tactile; there needs to be a direct "feeling" as soon as you click the button to engage, a direct reaction to your press and a juicy wind-up hit when something occurs.
  • The same (if not more) for deferred things like guards being activated, preparation abilities, etc.
• On that note, need to add back some minimal screen shake + option to disable
• Character XP after battles + randomized/contextual quips
• Desperately need more abilities and variation between units + upgrades
• Consider where an intent system could be interesting: maybe not in combat, but maybe on map level??
  • This came up while thinking about structuring the conquer/reconquer loop and how to balance attscking/defending same turn and what+how many enemy troops should deploy for any given non-castle battle. Lot to work through here.
• We also really need particles, proper death animations, "blood" splatter, corpses, etc. That's a huge part of the combat that's got basically nothing to it yet.

Dynamic combat animations

• The last point is sort of waiting on this point: I'm inspired by how games like dawn of war or total war games do 1-off special animations in the midst of larger squad battle animations. My struggle is: how do I do that in the middle of a 0.3 second attack animation. Is such a thing possible? I think so, I just haven't cracked it yet.
  • Need to "sell" the conceit more: each group is an abstraction of a much larger unit (as indicated by current troop number). Maybe attackers rush forward, stab opposing enemies, back up, and fresh opposing enemies "run in"/fade in from back of unit. Again the timing is the hardest part.
  • Make it work on the small scale first: 1 unit to 1 unit, multiple dynamic animations for attack/get hit, and scale from there.
  • This is really a key component of making Android Asylum's combat something special and unique. This is what would really truly "sell" the army battle conceit. It must be done. Plus, everyone loves special death animations and I've always wanted to do an homage to quake 3 gore.