Combat

The battle system is an active turn based battle system that also incorporates action components to accelerate and vary gameplay. Monsters roam the overworld and all battles take place in the overworld in real time.

Combat Areas
There are different areas where combat is applied.

Monster Ranges
Monster range dictates when monsters will engage the player. Players within the monster's range and within its sight range will be attacked as long as the monster is aggressive. If the monster is nonaggressive, the monster will be docile until provoked.

On path vs. Off path
On path refers to the marked path through a noncity area. On path areas are safe from monster attacks and if a player returns to a path, any attacking monsters will disengage them. Off path refers to all noncity and nonpath areas. Aggressive monsters in this area will attack players in their range. Monster level increases as distance from on path areas increase thus making on path areas the safest method of nonfast-travel between cities.

Special Areas
There are also special areas for combat that are separate from typical world combat. These include PvP duels, PvP leagues , and Arena Wars.

Monster Spawns
Monsters will spawn from designated spawn junctions. Each junction is correlated to the monster species where quadrupeds would spawn from a den, bugs would spawn from a rotting log, birds from tree holes, etc. Several monster species may share the same spawn junction. Monsters emerge from these spawn junctions, and begin patroling.

Aggression
Aggression is based on monster species and calculated in relation to the player's highest level monster. Certain monsters will always be docile regardless of level. Monsters that are aggressive abide by the following:

player's highest level monster's level > enemy monster's level x 2 = docile

player's highest level monster's level < enemy monster's level x 2 = aggressive

Aggressive monster will not attack players on path.

Turns
''This section is semi obsolete. Combat will take place in an action fashion rather than turn-based. This method may be revived for other scenarios in the future.''

Combat occurs through turns. Each character participating in battle has a turn bar that must be filled before they can execute their selected attack. The time it takes to fill the turn bar is determined by the speed stat of the monster. Monsters with higher level speed stats will have a shorter fill time, and monsters with a lower speed stat will have a longer fill time.

The Turn Queue
The turn queue is used to effectively queue consecutive attacks for consecutive turns. The turn queue is 5 turns long. When a player selects an attack, it is automatically added to the first available spot in the turn queue. Players can drag attacks around in the queue to rearrage the order of attacks. Once one turn fills, the attack occupying that spot is executed and is removed from the turn queue. The remaining turns in the queue move forward one spot and the next turn begins to fill.

Multiple turn attacks
There are some attacks that will take several turns before it can be executed. These attacks are not numerous but they are signifigantly stronger than the average attack. Other attacks will only require one turn to charge, but will also have a cooldown period which will always occupy the turn spot following the attack.

Targeting
To attack an enemy, the player must already be transformed to a monster. However, a player within a monster's range may be attacked regardless of their form. In the latter case, the first monster in the player's party will take damage until it faints, and then the second monster and so on until the player runs out of essence and faints.

Attacks added to the queue will automatically target the closest enemy. To specify the target, the player can either right click on the attack when they select it, or they can right click on the attack in the queue to change its target. In this manner, player can change targets between enemies, battle terrain, or allies. In the queue, a red attack indicates an enemy target, a grey attack indicates a terrain or neutral target, and a green attack indicates a friendly target. Cooldowns have no target and are colored blue.

Attack Set
Each monster will have 4 available attacks during battle. However, out of battle, the player can rearrange the attack set and subsitute attacks with any of the skills the monster has already unlocked via the skill trees.

Hunter Techniques
Hunter techniques are independent from the turn queue and monster speed. Players obtain these techniques through quests, shops, or the cash shop. Each technique has its own cool down time, but it can use at any time when its available even if it isn't the player's turn. Players have 3 slots available for hunter techniques. 2 are customizable, and 1 is designated to "stab". Techniques can be equiped to the HunterBracer from the inventory. During battle, the first two can be used, stab only becomes available once all monsters faint. When all available monsters faint, only stab can be used and no other hunter techniques. Stab would be equivalent to struggle in the pokemon games, and can only be used as a last ditch effort. During this time, there is a countdown. If the player successfully defeats the monster during this time they will gain a second life and will be able to loot the monster as normal, but will need to return to a restoration center or otherwise heal their monsters to be able to return to combat. If the player is not successful, they will be returned to their designated respawn.

Capture
A monster may be captured in one of two ways: To capture a monster in combat, the player must have at least one open essence slot in their HunterBracer. Otherwise, the monster will be sent to the player's remote crystal storage. Once the player has defeated the monster they must search the corpse in order to absorb the essence. The essence is added to the player's party with the same stats as when it was battled, and remains with 0 HP unless the player heals it with an item or a monster skill.
 * 1) Combat
 * 2) Taming

Parties
In most areas, monsters are only engageable by one player at a time. If the monster engages a player but the player is running, it is not possible to engage this monster until it has disengaged or the targeted player has fainted. In order for multiple players to engage an enemy, they must form a party. Players can right click on another player and select request party. The requesting player then becomes the party leader. The party leader can then right click other players to request they join the party, or other players can right click the leader and request membership. If one player from the party engages an enemy, all other players in the party can also engage the enemy or other players in the party without their permission. However, if a player is not in the party, they may not engage an enemy that a party is currently fighting.

World Modification
Certain attacks will cause world modification. In this case, you cannot modify preexisting global terrain, but you can modify battle terrain. Battle terrain refers to any terrain or environmental items that are generated during combat. For example Rock Throw is a passive attack that will drop a number of boulders in the area around the casting monster. These boulders can be used as obstacles or can be affected by other attacks. Battle terrain itself does not cause battlefield effects, but using other attacks on the terrain may.

Rewards
Monsters will always drop their essence, but they will also sometimes also drop other useful and sometimes valuable items. These items will be related to the monster and will almost exclusively be single use items, quest items and raw resources for crafting, cooking, smithing, and other player skills. Occasionally and very rarely a monster will drop a nonresource item. In these cases, the items will be very rare and hard to obtain otherwise (ie, require a high level in a player skill to produce, or are not sold in shops etc.). The "search body" option is only available to the player or party who defeated the monster. After three minutes if the loot is not collected the body disappears and the loot is dropped on the ground for anyone to pick up.

Death
If a player's monsters all faint, and the player does not successfully drain the health of the enemy during the stab countdown, the player will white out and will be returned to their respawn. They will also lose all items they are carrying with the exception of what they are wearing, their monsters, and their money. In the event they lose to a NPC, they will lose all their carried items except what they are carrying and they will lose half the money they are carrying. The only exception is if the NPC has laid out other guidlines for loss. Respawns can be set by talking to the head doctor at restoration centers. The player may only have one respawn location at a time. The player may also use the HunterBracer to fast travel to their respawn, though this can only be used every 30 minutes.

When playing as a party, if an ally chooses to heal a wounded player with no remaining monsters, the heal will be applied to the first monster in the receiving player's party.