Combat

When combat begins (presence of a hostile, or first hostile action by player), your character is set randomly to 30 +(1-10) action points (AP) out of a max 60, reflecting the character's readiness. AP in combat is restored as the same rate as out of combat, at 1/sec. Agility, Perception, passive skills, items, and statuses may give bonuses or penalties to the starting number of AP at the beginning of combat.

Skills and items have AP costs associated with their use. Any usable skill or item can be bound to any key (hotkey). My default, left clicking on a foe will queue an attack using the character's equipped weapon, or close into range first if out of range.

When a player selects a skill/ability, it will add the action to the action queue. By default, right clicking will remove the most recently added action in the action queue.

When an action reaches the beginning of the action queue, and the player has enough AP, the action will trigger, spending the AP and performing the action. If the player does not have enough AP for the action, the character will enter into a dodging state while their AP accumulates sufficiently for their next action.

Movement is accomplished by left clicking at the desired destination. The movement action is inserted at the front of the action queue. AP is not recovered while the character is running.

Example combat actions:

Fire weapon (AP cost varies depending on item, class, skills)

Double shot (If the weapon and ammunition permit, the next attack will fire twice in quick succession, with each attack having a lower chance to hit)

Reload (AP cost varies)

Study foe (the next attack will be a guarantee hit, with a higher chance of a critical)

Default combat actions

You may set a default set of combat actions to populate the queue in the event that it is empty during combat.

E.g.

1. Close with nearest enemy to weapon range.

2. Attack with equipped weapon.

or

1. Retreat to X range.

2. Attack with equipped weapon.

and

3. If [current weapon] runs out of ammo, switch to [weapon].

or

3. If [current weapon] is broken, switch to [weapon].

Wear and tear:

Players/NPCs/denizens are generally less effective at lower health, with effects such as reduced damage and dodge chance. This will be discrete for the player by adding the Wear and Tear status.

Victory

When an opponent is defeated, participating players receive a chunk of experience, and loot is distributed via a need/greed system like WoW. A character must be "engaged" with the foe for at least 5% of the total duration of the battle to be eligible for a share the experience and loot.