Balancing the Risks

[SumBum]

Sorry, Spill, but I have to disagree with just about everything you said. If you want to talk about people who were "forced" to kill against their will then yes. They would appear shaken, not have thought to wash off blood etc afterward, probably have an odd look to their eyes or some other sign of PTSD.

Those who kill because they want to? Little of that applies. They work at fitting in and appearing unassuming, even charismatic and likeable. So on and so on.....

Edit to add: Maybe you're only talking about those who flip out one day and kill a bunch of people? I could understand the "crazy eyes" thing and looking unstable in that regard, but I wouldn't lump them in with the serial killers. Serial killers are usually longer-term and do what they can to not get caught.

[viktor]

i think it is relativly balanced as is. tea was nerfed and has stopped the easy instant massacre problem. and even further back we fixed the one person can assasinate a dozen people in an hour issue, adding in tiredness and limiting attacks.
sure you can send in a few people to attack a dozen and it does pose a serious risk, they could easily kill a couple people but at the same time. someone could always wake up and the invaders can just as easily get grabbed and executed.
the balance is fine, i have been on both sides of the scenario a few times over the past 8 years, through the changes.

[lulkoek]

The balance is not fine. The whole game is slow paced and there are clear warnings that you have to keep in mind that people aren't on 24/7 to reply to your posts, yet the end result of a fight is determined in less than a second and there is no way to stop it. Sometimes even not when you are online.

I like Cantr generally, but the way combat works is making me pull the plug on my characters. The advantage is always on the attacker's side, unless they didn't plan. There is only one way to "plan" a defense and that's by building a house and hiding inside and do nothing else.

Don't bring up shields, they only are useful against animal attacks.

[Black Canyon]

The advantage is always on the attacker's side, unless they didn't plan.

I'm not sure that's true unless you're talking about a coordinated attack by a group. Each character can attack only once per day, and there is a chance of missing. So once that attack has occurred, missed or not, that character can no longer launch any sort of offence against the one he/she has attacked. The choice then is to run or await retaliation, unless there is the opportunity to drag the victim somewhere that they cannot retaliate. It does make sense that the attack has an advantage if it is a surprise, just as most would be surprised and unprepared by an unprovoked attack.

I'm not saying that everything is perfect in the world of cantr combat necessarily. But in general, the devastation that occurs in cantr is not due to a broken combat system causing mass casualties. Instead it is the mass casualties that are the result of players losing interest and heart attacking their characters or allowing characters to fall into deep comas that hold all others in their world hostage until they finally fade away completely.

[lulkoek]

FYI this was a thread about combat, not about players losing interest.

And yes, it is always true. Surprise or not. Show me a situation where it is not, without total 'retardness' of the attacker in question or the fat chance that every defender in the town is awake at the exact moment he strikes, and I will eat my words, but I doubt I will.

[Black Canyon]

FYI this was a thread about combat, not about players losing interest.

And yes, it is always true. Surprise or not. Show me a situation where it is not, without total 'retardness' of the attacker in question or the fat chance that every defender in the town is awake at the exact moment he strikes, and I will eat my words, but I doubt I will.

I actually do think that there is a very important connection between such things as game mechanics and players losing interest

And in response to the always comment.... In the past I have had characters survive attacks and ultimately prevail, so I'm not sure what you mean. Granted it was before the "tea" thing, but this has been removed from the game again.

[freiana]

There have been examples of situations that turned out different earlier on in this threat, I think.
Either way, if IRL someone would run into a house or, for that matter, town square, stab some people and run of, he would have am obvious advantage, too (people just don't react that fast too surprises, often) It's not -that- different from how it is in game.
This changes when dragging starts... But that has some serious risks for the attackers, too.

[Black Canyon]

If it's true that the advantage is always on the attacker's side, why do we not have vicious groups of thugs roaming cantr murdering all of the innocent citizens? Or at least infamous mass-murderers or criminals out there terrorizing the law-abiding who are huddled, trembling in their mudhuts?

I have a number of characters and currently none are aware of any living bad guys or groups of thugs out there. There are tales of pirates and bandits long dead... but nothing around currently that they are aware of. In fact, cantr seems to be such a land of peace and lollipops that no one really needs to be awake for anything with the exception of grabbing a few morsels of food from the town container.

(yes, I know that lollipops are not in the game)

[Nalaris]

The ratio of attackers to defenders would certainly imply that the defenders hold the advantage right now, but how much of that is due to people just not really wanting to be attackers? I mean, really, what do you get out of being an attacker anyway? I guess you can conquer stuff if you're expansionist, but expansionist governments seem to have difficulty catching on, probably because the thing that drove most people to expansion in real life is a supply of slave labor to do the stuff you don't want to and that's impossible to secure in Cantr where death is alarmingly inconsequential. Plus, most slavers have a tendency to be pointlessly cruel and villainous rather than trying to get the slaves' players to keep the characters around. Vassalage is the way to go, guys.

Anyways, other reasons to attack are mostly pretty dumb, too. With the abundance of resources in the world, there's really no reason to attack people for the stuff they have, unless what they have are more advanced tools, in which case they probably also have more advanced weapons which they will use to murder your face off, especially since if they have advanced tools they probably outnumber you anyway. There's the random serial killings which happen occasionally when someone gets bored and decides to go out with a bang, but that's almost griefing and it's a testament to our community being at the very least not completely full of pricks that it doesn't happen very often.

The lack of attackers might be due to an advantage for the defenders. I think that's probably part of it. But there's also very little incentive to attack people in this game.

[viktor]

the game doesnt always favor the attackers
i was in a battle once, on the defensive. the invaders came by sea (ps this was during a war). we went indoors, when they docked i inspected, then woke my people went on the harbour and annihilated them, they outnumbered us, they were the attackers. the vicotry goes to the most co-ordinated and properly planned team, regardless of being the attacker or the defender.

and there are always reasons for wars, they will always pop up, it is a certainty.

[lulkoek]

we went indoors

Exactly what was mentioned as the only possible defense and that only works if you know them coming.

With the rest of what you described you just proved the point again that the one that attacks has the advantage. You said you went to the harbour with a group and attacked them. They were defending at that point, even if they were the invaders.

[freiana]

IRL, what other options do you have against invaders then to hide/pull back or attack them back? If you don't know they're coming, yes, you'll be surprised. IRL, too, not only in Cantr, we can see that attackers have a very clear advantage with their surprise... (Utoya? Several American schools? Batman premiere? We don't -like- it, but surprise is a strong ally)

Edit: What I wonder is, if attackers have a clear advantage, why don't they attack more often? This would force cities to set up a system against it, and possibly that could be all the balance we seek... Right now nobody is prepared for a attack; surprise effect is too big... Why aren't we all launching massive attacks if we will win 9/10 times?

[Nalaris]

IRL you can have watchtowers that will give you advance warning when a bunch of people with spears is getting close, and it's not hard to guess they might be coming to stab you. IRL you can then ring an alarm bell that will summon all the other guards, even if they're asleep, and they will be ready for a fight when they come. IRL you can have a wall that gives you an absurd height advantage over the attackers. IRL defenses against enemies wielding crossbows and swords are so incredibly effective that it was very rare to see anyone challenging them directly. The enemy army's method of attack was to camp outside, turning it into a battle of defender's preparation against attacker's supply lines, in which the defenders did not have as decisive an advantage, as opposed to guys with swords against five feet of stone. And sometimes they'd toss stuff over the walls. If they felt like they really decisively outnumbered the enemy, they might try a battering ram or siege towers or stuff, and that crops up in movies because it is actually fun to watch, but the usual method was seriously to camp the enemy to death.

Some sort of watchtower thing that allows you to see approaching people before they arrive would be cool, but the big take away from this is that Cantr isn't IRL, and while a certain degree of realism is important to Cantr, there's no point in crying over it in places where it's impossible. A town bell in-game is never, ever going to be able to magically summon people to their computers to fend off attackers.

[Henkie]

we went indoors

Exactly what was mentioned as the only possible defense and that only works if you know them coming.

With the rest of what you described you just proved the point again that the one that attacks has the advantage. You said you went to the harbour with a group and attacked them. They were defending at that point, even if they were the invaders.

LOCK the harbor and put a window in it perfect delay of at least a couple hours from all attackers on the larger boats.

[viktor]

safety in numbers.
it encourages people to congregate for protection. increased likelyhood that there will always be a few people awake at any given time. including to react to an invasion, and quite often at least in english, most fights are english vs english therefore the likelyhood of having similar wake times is generally high, also to mention, this is a global game, people from all time zones and also even in 1 timezone people have different schedules. nerfing combat with regards to time considerations would not help balance the game.