Scope RPG

Turn Timeline ​

The battle UI shows a horizontal strip of the next several upcoming turns along the top of the screen, starting with the currently acting unit on the left. The strip is your most important in-battle readout - it's how you see the shape of the next few seconds of combat.

Turn order

Reading the Timeline ​

Each slot in the strip shows the upcoming unit's portrait, colored by side (player / enemy), with a marker if that turn will be skipped due to crowd control.

  • The leftmost slot is right now - the currently acting unit.
  • Moving right shows the next turn, then the one after that, and so on.
  • Fast units appear more than once in the strip. A high-Speed Bard coming up now might also appear at positions 3 and 6.
  • Slow units might appear only once or not at all, even though they're on the field.

The strip is a pure preview. The battle engine simulates forward from the current state to show what's coming. It doesn't drive actual turn resolution - that's still the live CTB system.

When the Timeline Regenerates ​

Anything that would change upcoming order regenerates the strip:

  • A turn ends and the acting unit's countdown resets.
  • A Speed buff or debuff was applied, rescaling someone's countdown.
  • A unit died and dropped out of the queue.

The regeneration is instant. When you apply Rallying Anthem and party Speed doubles, the allies' portraits visibly slide forward on the strip the moment the effect lands. When you Frost Spike an enemy, they slide backward.

Using It to Plan Ahead ​

The timeline turns "whose turn is next?" from a guess into a read. A few ways to use it:

  • Before casting, check how soon your next turn comes up. If the timeline shows three enemy turns before your Mage gets back, a buff you were going to cast might expire first.
  • Before Rallying Anthem or War Cry, check that enough ally turns fall inside the buff window to make the cast worth it.
  • Before healing, check if the target is about to take another hit. A heal on someone who survives the next three enemy turns is worth more than a heal on someone who's safe.
  • Before using a finisher like Arcane Surge, check the enemy's remaining HP and upcoming turns to confirm you'll actually close the fight with it.

The timeline is where Bards win fights

Buffer classes live and die by timing. Rallying Anthem's value comes entirely from which ally turns fall inside its duration. Looking at the timeline before casting tells you whether you're buffing one ally turn or five.

Crowd Control in the Preview ​

If an enemy is stunned and their turn is coming up, the timeline shows them with a skip marker - you know ahead of time they won't act. This lets you plan around the enemy's lost turn without double-checking.

A crowd-controlled unit still appears on the strip in their normal slot; the CC effect just marks it as a skip. See Status Effects.

What the Timeline Doesn't Show ​

  • Action details - you see who's about to act, not what they'll choose. Enemy AI decides its action at its turn, not in advance.
  • Cooldowns - those are per-unit state, not timeline state. Check the enemy's inspection panel to see what specials they can still use.
  • Damage predictions - the engine doesn't forecast damage. The timeline tells you when, not how hard.