Combat

Overview

Covert Cats uses tactical real-time combat. Abilities are not turn-based, enemies do not politely wait, and players are expected to manage targeting, timing, support, and survival under pressure.

Fights can begin from visible overworld enemies or from randomized encounters, but once combat starts, the game shifts into the battle screen and the same core rules apply.

How Combat Starts

Combat can begin in more than one way.

A small number of NPCs can also serve multiple roles, such as vendor and attackable target. In those cases, their context menu may include options like Talk, Trade, and Attack.

Once combat begins, there is a brief opening delay before normal tactical flow starts. After that, enemies and players act according to their available abilities, timing, and targeting.

Joining Active Battles

Active fights are represented in the overworld by a battle circle. Nearby players can sometimes join an active fight, depending on encounter type, position, and timing.

Battle Circle Color

• Red circle = you are outside assist range
• Green circle = you are close enough to assist

Joining an Overworld NPC Battle

If the fight is tied to a visible enemy NPC, a nearby player in the assist radius can join by:

• right clicking the engaged NPC and choosing Attack
• right clicking the player already in combat and choosing Assist
• standing in the circle and pressing F to use Combat Assist

Joining a Randomized Battle

If the fight is a randomized encounter, there is no visible overworld enemy. In that case, nearby players can still join by:

• right clicking the player already in combat and choosing Assist
• standing in the circle and pressing F

If a player is standing inside multiple circles, Combat Assist follows its normal priority rules to determine which fight to join.

Battle Screen

Once combat begins, the game switches from the overworld to the battle screen.

The battle screen still uses the normal HUD elements around it, including:

• player portrait and resources
• party panel
• chat log
• hotbar
• target frame

The battle log is especially important. It reports damage, healing, interrupts, enemy cast messages, summon actions, and many other events that explain what is actually happening.

Aggro and Party Roles

Many enemies prefer to attack the player with the most aggro. Aggro is generated mainly by:

• damaging enemies
• healing allies
• using abilities that explicitly generate extra aggro

The Fur is the main aggro-control class and is the only class with a reliable taunt tool, The Fur Finger, which forces the Fur to the top of a target’s aggro list with extra overhead.

Harder content is designed around these roles working together rather than all players doing the same job.

Recovery, Recharge, and Timing

Every time a player uses an ability, timing rules immediately matter.

Recovery

Recovery is the delay before the player can use any ability again. Different abilities have different Recovery values, but the lower threshold cannot be reduced below 2 seconds.

Recharge

Recharge is the delay before that specific ability can be used again. Recharge does not stop other abilities from being used.

Haste improves Recovery, especially on slower abilities, but it does not reduce Recharge.

Enemy Wind-Ups and Interrupts

Some dangerous enemies and bosses use wind-up mechanics before powerful attacks go off. During a wind-up, enemies will visually have a pre-attack animation and/or the battle log will usually show a cast message explaining what the enemy is beginning to do.

These windows matter because they can often be interrupted. A successful interrupt:

• stops that ability from firing
• can prevent devastating damage or mechanics
• may also reset or disrupt the enemy’s ability timing

The Claw is the main class built around this kind of reactive control.

Loot and End of Battle

When the last enemy dies, the fight ends and the battle moves into the loot phase.

At that point:

• a loot window appears
• all dropped items from that fight appear in one shared list
• players can take items individually or use Take All
• new players can no longer join the fight

Loot is currently handled on an honor-system basis. If one player takes an item, the loot window updates to reflect that it is gone.

This means ninja looting is possible. There is no roll system yet.

Post-Battle Safety

After combat ends, players receive:

• a short protection window from immediate NPC auto-attack
• a randomized delay before another random encounter can trigger

This gives a short chance to recover, regroup, or hide before the overworld starts applying full pressure again.

Common Mistakes

Most combat failures come from bad timing, bad targeting, or misunderstanding how the fight is actually structured.

• ignoring aggro and letting enemies drift onto fragile players
• missing enemy wind-up messages in the battle log
• confusing Recovery with Recharge
• trying to join a fight after it has already entered loot phase
• wasting support abilities on invalid targets or the wrong combat state
• assuming faster damage always matters more than better control
• standing around after battle instead of using the safety window wisely