Toward a Satisfying, Asynchronous Combat System?

[Cogliostro]

This suggestion is not as specific as the others, but since we've already spent time discussing the subject in many threads, I'm calling for people's ideas and comments here.

The criteria for this discussion are the same as usual. We want a more satisfying combat system but it can't be too complex to program. If you imagine it abstractly, currently the combat always consists of a sequence of simple "broadsides" unleashed player against player instantaneously, using the Attack button. Our concern is this instant-ness; ideally we don't want it, since that means the other player has no chance to respond or do anything, this being against the original design philosophy of Cantr. An "asynchronous system" is a fancy way of saying that stuff doesn't happen at the same time, but gets resolved properly and fairly regardless of when exactly you hit the attack or he hit his attack.

But if you start thinking about this (I did), you'll see that while kinda good, such a time-less system would also be very unsatisfying. When you hit the attack, you want something to happen right there, that's an important part of the play which I'd be sad to see go. Just imagine how much it'd suck to hit somebody and then have to wait for 1 day to finally see damage appearing on them, when the server's new "combat tick" supposedly happens.

What if instead of thinking either-or, and being stuck, we tried to think of how to combine the best parts of the two systems? We would want to keep the ability to hit at any time from the current implementation, and the ability of the victim character to respond somehow, even if at the time when you clicked attack they weren't at their computer. How? Let's work through all the ways.

What if... You could hit at any time instantly, just as now, but the red damage bar with percentages was removed (hidden from the player). Instead of the numeric health bar, there were several new text-states, reflecting "woundedness", from healthy to lightly wounded to grievously wounded. Internally the game still tracks the damage as now, on the percentage scale. The text reflects it directly. The key difference comes when you understand that this woundedness when it goes above 100% does not kill you. Your character is grievously wounded, but for now you can still roleplay, still move, still eat your healing food (which doesn't clear the wounded state instantly either).

What if... You had no way of knowing how long exactly this wounded state will last. The server decided this semi-randomly, semi-based on the severity of the woundedness and the character's physical constitution. The worse the beating, the sooner (in normal ticks) your character dies. But it's always a reasonable number of ticks, before that happens.

What if...in the interim before becoming very wounded and death, you were applying healing food and medicine - how does the server treat that? You don't know for sure how much healing food to apply, and it doesn't tell you. You just have the option of applying as much as you like, and your hunches, and you apply some. These healing attempts (perhaps going forward there will be other options not only healing foods) you made are all recorded and during the next tick you see that either you're now much better, or still very badly hurt. If the latter, you can try to apply more healing.

What if... woundness was progressively worse on your character the longer it was in place. For example, if you were hit by a ganksquad and grievously wounded, if you logged in fairly soon afterwards to check on your character, you would be able to shoot back at your attackers and hit them with very nearly your character's full strength. Within a few ticks, though, being wounded gradually causes you to lose vitality - reflected by the fact that now your attacks are more and more affected by how wounded you actually are (the now-internal figure of 0-100%). Within a reasonable timeframe in ticks, it becomes "full healthweighting" - that is, your damage reduces your damage output just as it would in the game right now.

While this would need a comparatively advanced programming involvement, what we're talking about is based directly on top of the current system with the addition of certain new database tables. To players it would be transparent and intuitive, working just as the current system does. You broadside the enemy, and they are wounded. Now, what happens after this (the *combat resolution* phase on the server) is described in a simple light by the above examples I gave, but imagine what we could really do with that approach, given time and effort. Slowly, we might be able to add actual different types of wounds, with different effects. On another front, ProgD might be able to have the server during the resolution phase consider many factors from what weapons are being used against what (and adjust temporary advantages accordingly, in a sort of paper-rock-scissors way behind the scenes), to advanced combat skill checks to affect each of your hits, where certain trainable skills (a set of three-five would work fine: combat agility, hit severity, defensive skill? - all of those would be mutually exclusive, you train one, the others suffer). The possibilities are very great, but they don't need to all happen at once, and they always build on top of the same solid system we have now.

In summary, for those who don't like my long posting, we're saying that hits should stay instant, but deaths should stop being instant; and have proposed a (hopefully) sufficiently simple implementation to get to this point. Under the new rules death occurs just as surely as now, if someone is badly wounded AND then afterwards nothing is done by anyone to help them. Otherwise, the person can still move, and can still act, and in the beginning can even hit back nearly as hard as when they were healthy. Death occurs within some time, and going forward we can adjust how easy or how difficult it is to prevent in each case (by making changes to how the server treats healing food use and other healing attempts). Near-death characters (the tick or a few ticks before actual death) can no longer move, and involuntarily drop all their items, so those around know what is about to happen to them.

Comments and ideas very welcome.

/

[SekoETC]

It blows my mind. It would certainly make the game more interesting if people wouldn't be able to tell exactly how wounded they (or someone else) is or how many grams of healing food they needed to eat exactly. It would improve the market for healing food if people ate more just to be on the safe side, and it would certainly make the game more exciting if a seriously wounded person couldn't be sure if they were going to die or not. A person could've suffered critical damage but others might still be giving him healing food and convincing him you're gonna be fine, it's just a scratch. And a couple of hours later he would die. How cool is that? The only problem is this sounds very difficult to program.

[Doug R.]

It blows my mind.

With Cogliostro saturating the forum with overly long gloomy posts lately, I admit it was only this first sentence that got me to read this. (space out your ideas over time , or they wont get the attention they deserve).

I'm glad I did. I really like the general concept of this, and I won't nit-pick details, cause that just throws off the conversation anyway.

[Dudel]

The only problem I see is that this would require me to micromanage more then I do already... and I don't like to micromanage, to much.

If there was a clear "You are still <whatever wounded>" added as an event... then all is well here.

Otherwise it just kinda... gets lost and characters die cause people don't check things constantly.


I am also unsure of how "easy" this would be to implement.

[Rebma]

My only concern is for the people in the towns nowhere near healing foods, and I think I'm still a little confused on how the healing works, but it could be because of a long day.

I'll re-read later, but seriously, even with my brain-deadness I like this. I really like this.

[Gran]

I may have get lost due to the prolixity. But as far as I understood, this is similar to the suggestion to the introduction of a moribundancy state - you can be wounded badly, but you can still have some hope. You can try to heal or just have the opportunity to roleplay your death.

Well, this adds a new - needed - dimension.

[Rebma]

The more I think about this, the more I think it would satisfy those players that are always bitching and moaning about having no roleplay when killed and/or not being able to respond back because of insta-hit-death.

So, how many ticks until death with a fatal injury? How long between ticks? Does the "healing" tick come before the "DIE NAO" tick?

[Drael]

Intriguing way to solve some combat issues. Its also more realistic, on real medieval battlefeilds most death occurs from bleeding over time and not getting treatment.

Might make things fairer, but not sure it deals with the micro-managing problem that well. Something like a defense state/project with auto-hit back and healing food consumption would do better IMO.

[Dudel]

Intriguing way to solve some combat issues. Its also more realistic, on real medieval battlefeilds most death occurs from bleeding over time and not getting treatment.

Might make things fairer, but not sure it deals with the micro-managing problem that well. Something like a defense state/project with auto-hit back and healing food consumption would do better IMO.

Holy crap Drael, quit making points I agree with!

That was going to be my "added suggestion" to this but thought it was best to not "involve" the additional idea due to people straining from the topic.

FUNNY THING! I'd also be okay with the "random death crit hit" with this too. Cause its not just... SMASH DIE.. its more like "*gets hit with a lucky strike* I'm doomed if we do not get home soon, I must return! *Turns around quickly*"

...if this was suggested FIRST, before the rest of your.. noise, you'd have had more people on your side.

[*Wiro]

...if this was suggested FIRST, before the rest of your.. noise, you'd have had more people on your side.

That's not the way it works. It's about the suggestion, not about who suggested it.

[Dudel]

...if this was suggested FIRST, before the rest of your.. noise, you'd have had more people on your side.

That's not the way it works. It's about the suggestion, not about who suggested it.

Which is what I said, Wiro.

If this suggestion was FIRST then the other ones would have been easier to handle as you could "lump them together".

Man, does no one read my stuff anymore? O.o

[Rebma]

...if this was suggested FIRST, before the rest of your.. noise, you'd have had more people on your side.

Suggests people don't support his newest idea because they are annoyed by him personally, because of all his ideas.

So it sounds like its more about the person, rather than the suggestion the way you said.

Which isn't supposed to happen, but we now see it does.

[Dudel]

In which case Reb, "Ooops, that was not what I had meant to imply AT ALL" My bad, sorry!

But I still like the idea... minus its micromanaged and/or slightly "clifesty"(as it has been put in the past) tendencies.

[Caesar]

I like the fact Cogliostro keeps coming up with suggestions, however useless and sometimes.. Unwanted they are.

I'd like to applaud for that, also because you actually seem to think before making them.


On the other side you are making far too many in a row, which tires people. I actually skipped reading this thread for some time until now. (And I am still busy thinking, been a bit slow recently.)

I have a strange feeling that I like it, at the least partly.

[Dudel]

I wanna see this core idea "poked at" with Cogliostro leading the way.

However, Cogliostro, you need to keep things SHORT and not be a prick when/if someone tells you "why not".

The idea of a revamped combat system would, overall, help Cantr as a whole. Something from this idea should be looked at... which is the "not actually instant death"... part.

Instant strike... but not death and/or damage.