Combat System Screwed?

[saztronic]

Sometimes people can deal over 70 damage with a battle axe or a crossbow. I think if things made any sense, damage should be capped at 52 or 53 but the code is so complicated that it's hard to read. The main point is nobody can kill a healthy character with one hit.

In the Suggestions thread yesterday, I proposed a system for implementing gunpowder and simple firearms in Cantr. I think there are a lot of reasons why doing this would be valuable -- a new stage of technological progress, complicated things to strive toward, injecting an interesting but not devastating new variable to game play, etc.

But I suggested that firearms should be a little bit more powerful than crossbows, and freiana objected that crossbows are already too powerful. That reminded me of Seko's comment above from the "Best Weapon" thread.

So what are people's thoughts on this? Is a crossbow or steel battleaxe in the hands of an expert fighter, just too huge an advantage? Should the maximum harm done in any given attack be less than 70? For those who would know, is the code really so inscrutable that no changes would be possible?

What do you think about the current combat system?

Any thoughts on how it ought to be modified?

[Swingerzetta]

I have no problem with combat as it is. It's actually a pretty clever solution for a slow-paced game like this. I do, however, think it could be better. Right now, it's suitable as a game mechanic that enables/encourages the roleplaying of violent situations. In the future, maybe it could be something more. Or just do it's job of rp enablement even better.

[LittleSoul]

The combat system is... a bare minimum in terms of what it is used for.

We wouldn't have such a problem with over-powered crossbows if they actually made sense. Currently, all ranged weapons work exactly the same as melee weapons. They've behaved this way for years and years, yet they should be completely different in terms of how they work. Both for the benefit of being a realistic sim, and also a fun game.

Skill and strength, in my opinion, shouldn't even be considered in the equation for ranged weapons. You either hit, or you miss, and when you hit you should always get within a certain range (between 10 and 15 percent to compensate for the fact you don't get to choose to aim for a deadly head shot or a crippling knee shot) of the base weapon damage no matter what. Skill should -only- determine whether you actually hit or miss. That makes more sense than the current system, and if you want it more balanced out, decrease the damage dealt by crossbows. Simple enough of a solution for damage, though there are definitely more creative and complex alternative solutions

Now, on to the questions.

Is a crossbow or steel battleaxe in the hands of an expert fighter, just too huge an advantage?
In the current system.. it's not necessarily too huge, but it is a huge advantage. It depends on whether the strong skilled fighter is fighting with or against a group. Against a group of like three or four, I have no doubt a strong skilled fighter could kill them all given enough time, the right strategy if applicable, and enough healing food. Should they be able to do that, is the question. On one hand, even a strong and skilled person in real life could not take on so many people at once. Then again those in the opposing group could also be strong/skilled, and be able to take them on. It is realistic that a weaker character would not be able to do this, however. The answer to this, in my opinion, is very relative (maybe too relative) to what people really want having a strong and/or skilled character to mean in terms of combat. Are they -supposed- to be pretty damn near invulnerable without a group to take them down, or are characters supposed to be on more or less equal grounds unless they have great equipment? Both of these are kind of true, perhaps at least one of them should not be anymore to even things out. It's also relative to a lot of other aspects and mechanics to the game. If you tone one thing up or down you have to do it to lots of other things as well, which is probably too much effort any of the programmers are willing to go through when people will simply tolerate the existing system so they can work on other newer, more exciting ideas to attract new players.

Should the maximum harm done in any given attack be less than 70?
It's hard to say. As I've mentioned above, you would think that the damage would depend on -where- in the body one was hit, but since there is no system to keep track of that in the game.. it depends on what people are willing to compromise for. Real people can kill another in one blow, but since this is a game, no one wants any players to be upset that their character wasn't given even a teeny chance to survive in that instant. No chance to retaliate, surrender, or roleplay. I understand that, but, it should also be understood that if you're going to give up on making that realistic, a lot of other aspects of attacking characters will not be realistic either. Which is fine, I suppose. If the goal here is to be able to add in new weapons/new technology that is superior to the more primal weapons, I'd suggest instead of limiting character attack that way, to lower all damage of significant weapons, and either totally deleting the obsolete weapons or making their damage even lower. Most don't even use most of the low end weapons, they're barely even useful enough for hunting as it is, much less so for combat. If you're getting attacked with a claymore and you have a bone spear, you might as well put up the white flag. Over all, perhaps all weapons in general should have more equal damage, but far less life span on the lower weapon end to compensate for their cheapness.
There are a lot of ways to go about bringing back the balance in terms of weapon damage, is my point.

For those who would know, is the code really so inscrutable that no changes would be possible?
No, it may be complicated, but it's not impossible at all. It would just take a lot of time and effort, not to mention working in a flood of code that I will assume was made by other people, so that code is not very familiar to those who would currently work on it. It seems to me, it's simply a matter of the pain is not worth the result when people will tolerate the current system. No coder wants to touch a mess of complicated code they've barely spent any time getting to know; so many things can go wrong. That's why it would really require an overhaul. Start from scratch with combat, make something new, and it won't be as boring or complicated to navigate for the coders; but you also risk accidentally not considering all the variable and conditions that combat effects when you start over one aspect of an already completed game.
The short of it is, no, not impossible, just a big pain in the butt and no one wants to even go there and touch that mess with a ten foot pole I betcha.

What do you think about the current combat system?
I think it works, but it's nothing special. You hit, I hit, you hit, I get hit by three other people and I go into NDS. I'm screwed. That's it. There's nothing surprising about it. There might be interesting roleplay or dialog in the middle of it, but looking at just the combat system by itself without all the magical interaction of other players? It's dull, predictable, clear cut, and not realistic by any means.

Any thoughts on how it ought to be modified?
A few ideas are explained above, but honestly, I think it will require a major overhaul for it to be done right. That will not happen as it would take too much time and effort that will instead go into easier to implement, fresh, new mechanics that are probably more fun to work on and less intimidating to the coders.

[bnlphan]

Sometimes I wonder if one hit kills wouldnt actually be good for the game. Far too often players and characters seem to think they can just stock up on healing food and do as they please. If there was a possibility that you would never get a chance to use that healing food, would it actually cut down on some of the random violence and thievery in the game? Assuming you think that violence and thievery are a bad thing in the game.

[SekoETC]

I once played a post-apocalyptic game where people could attack others repeatedly while they were offline, so it was possible to get killed in your sleep. As a result, I never survived a night after being out of the newbie protection period, even if I managed to get a good weapon before going to sleep. Imagine having to create a new character every morning. It's not fun. Then again, it would be convenient if troublemakers could be killed with one hit instead of chasing them down a road for days. So it's a double-edged sword.

[cjace68]

Adding a new weapon to the game isn't going to increase interest. Most places still don't have all the current technology. I've often refrained from making suggestions in the suggestion thread because I honestly believe that adding new crap to the game isn't what is going to make it better. There are other, more important concerns to consider. Like, oh I don't know, the dwindling player base.

[saztronic]

Adding a new weapon to the game isn't going to increase interest. Most places still don't have all the current technology. I've often refrained from making suggestions in the suggestion thread because I honestly believe that adding new crap to the game isn't what is going to make it better. There are other, more important concerns to consider. Like, oh I don't know, the dwindling player base.

This is a really weird comment, I think. I've tried to understand it, but am having trouble...

You propose that our focus should be on the dwindling player base. I agree. The obvious question, then, is: why is the player base dwindling?

I think one clear reason -- only one of many, but still, an important one -- is the feeling, as another player has put it, that Cantr is a dying, post-apocalyptic world. There's an overabundance of built technology. Whole towns with 2 dozen buildings and 2 dozen vehicles, abandoned. Multiple drills, machines, tools galore wherever you turn. Such a glut of natural resources that many towns have no need of them anymore and won't trade for them, even if they aren't native to the area.

In this kind of environment, players have little to strive for. That's fine if you are interested in "pure RP" for RP's sake -- just creating characters and interacting with them. But I'd argue that a sizeable portion of the player base probably wants some balance between pure RP, and a sense of accomplishment from doing something that's hard, or hasn't been done before, or would confer some special advantage or prestige earned through sweat and effort and persistence.

I think this is one huge, gaping absence in the game currently. A problem it hasn't always had, and one that didn't exist back when the player base was more than 4 times its current size. There's a clear correlation there. Whether there's a causal relationship is open to debate, but I strongly feel there is.

I agree with you that a lot of the Suggestions that appear on the Suggestions page -- tweaking the way radios work, adding a new piece of furniture, wearing two bracelets at the same time -- hey, these are fine, but they aren't going to do anything to address this larger issue.

Adding a new layer of technology; preferably several; a more advanced stage of technological progress to strive toward; would, perhaps, address this larger issue. Something that provides interesting new tasks to pursue, and also shakes up the game a bit. I would argue (and have aruged) that adding gunpowder and guns would have this effect. It's totally fine if you disagree, but I think nothing less than this is going to do anything to address the dwindling player base.

If you disagree, what is your alternative proposal for addressing this critical problem?

[Swingerzetta]

My solution, if you were to ask me, would be to make changes to the game that would render the entire experience more intuitive for new players. I suspect that a lot of people are chased away by the learning curve, as I actually was myself, at first. My first character starved to death on a road somewhere, and I forgot about cantr for maybe as much as six months. And then I decided to give it another shot.

[saztronic]

My solution, if you were to ask me, would be to make changes to the game that would render the entire experience more intuitive for new players. I suspect that a lot of people are chased away by the learning curve, as I actually was myself, at first. My first character starved to death on a road somewhere, and I forgot about cantr for maybe as much as six months. And then I decided to give it another shot.

I support this idea very much.

BUT, I have to say that this has always been a problem... I first played the game 8-9 years ago, and my very first character almost starved because I spent all my time harvesting tomatoes, not realizing they were not "eating" food, but "healing" food. Very confusing.

But back then there were so many more players!

So I don't think this aspect of the game (not immediately intuitive) can have caused the precipitous decline in the player base, over a period of time when the number of people with internet access has increased dramatically.