Proposed Combat Changes 2019

[Joshuamonkey]

The following is currently being considered by RD and the Player Board:

Have combat be time-based like a project; ticks are very frequent and incremental damage is applied as the current rate of damage divided by the number of ticks in a day. This does not apply to attacks with 0% force (slaps), which remain instant, and this proposal does not apply to hunting.
Multiple people can join someone's attack on someone (after selecting their weapon), as with joining someone's project. Subject to programming implementation, when trying to attack someone who's already being attacked, the person joins the current attack- this enables calculating attack and defense based on multiple group members.
This proposal only specifies the details of ticks and joining attacking projects. You can only join one attack at a time, but others who are attacking you (which may or may not include the person you're attacking) could effect your ability to attack your target(s), under a group-based combat system, to be determined with a future proposal.

Implementation

• Very frequent ticks (already in the works)
• When attacking, turn the attack into a tick-based project on one individual, as with dragging (but with ticks instead).
• Damage applied is by default the current damage rate divided by the number of ticks in a day. (another proposal can change this)
• As with normal projects, others can join the attack project, and there may only be one attack project on an individual.
• If the attacked person (victim) goes out of sight, any attack progress ceases (as with repairing objects), but attackers may continue to keep the project active in case the victim returns (e.g. the victim goes in and out of a building, or prolonged vigilance for a specific person). Others may join the attack project by helping others even when the victim is not present (people can take turns keeping the project alive).
• An event notification occurs every time someone joins and leaves an attack project.
• An event notification occurs when a victim returns to an active attack project on them.

Comments on why each person should focus on attacking an individual:

I think being explicit about who we are attacking is essential for both strategy and roleplay. So, there may be a group who is attacking us as well as a specific person we are attacking, and our choice as to who we are attacking affects our ability to defend ourselves; that is, we are much better at defending ourselves against the specific person we are attacking.

Let's say attacking someone while they're attacking you would cause you to defend yourself just as well as currently. Defending yourself only would be better defense, and not doing anything would be worse.

Comments on defense:

A defense project might complicate things significantly since there is no such action in Cantr currently, but I suppose you could join a defense project by clicking to help someone who is being attack, or even before they're being attacked. Or just a new character button altogether in addition to attack.

Question: Should it be a new button or should it be an option in the Violence Form after clicking the current button to attack someone?
Answers: I don't think the current image is very clear:
Shammat:

Could have two new buttons, each initiates a project - diagonal sword button, to start an attack, or join an attack against that person, and a shield button to defend that person from an attack or join them in actively defending against an attack?

Conclusion: Change the image of the attack button, and have a new button for defense, which may not require a new page unless there are defense options in the future. Someone can click to defend themselves (or another person) just as they can attack themselves. Defense would increase shield effectiveness.

Advantages of defense projects

It makes establishing a town guard actually worthwhile

I like that the concept forces you to choose between working on a gathering or crafting project, or combat/defense

It allows effective defense without always being online, which is important especially if plans to greatly limit healing food are implemented.

Comments on healing food
Question: How do we combine the current healing food with the fact that healing should take time like a project?
Answers:

the simplest solution is easy, make healing food heal at combat ticks
Better healing food will heal more per tick, so it'd make some distinction

I also think a lot of current healing food should instead be converted into "buffs" instead, and healing liquid should be among the only things to actually "heal" people

• Buffs, like strengthening things like strength/attack/defense/tiredness/body parts temporarily? That may be too dramatic of a change for now, though if most current healing foods would still help significantly against attacks then people might not complain too much.

Stomach capacity:
We can allow some eating right away for roleplay and to encourage purposeful action, but limited by stomach capacity.
Limiting stomach capacity is good for normal food as well, to encourage complex foods.
Stomach capacity can be restored incrementally by ticks, so that the specific time that it starts isn't important.
Implementation:
Potatoes are at 333 grams a day. I'd say 400 grams for a stomach is plenty. The best healing liquid is 6.6% per 100 grams, so 6.6*4 is 26.4 percent! But that's very specialized and now healing liquids would have a good purpose.
Onions would heal only 6%.
Formulas:
daily food healing = healing percent at stomach size
tick healing = daily food healing / number of ticks

Advantages of tick-based healing and small stomach:

this would make combat about combat more than about healing food, while still making healing food, and /good/ healing food, critical.

Dragging and locks are no longer so central to combat:

Dragging somebody to a locked room currently has big implication of preventing access to healing food. Having healing food will be less important with smaller stomach

You can't avoid fighting someone the hard way. You can lock them but need to outnumber or outskill them somehow.

Disadvantages:
Healing will take a long time. 100 / 6% (onions) is 16 days (this doesn't include natural healing)
Note that healing will take a very long time now, but I believe this is as it should be, and combat is usually a rare event. Now it makes more sense for someone to have a scar or a battle wound. Combat is now about attacking and defending and in-person interaction, while still giving healing foods an important role.

Conclusion:
(Note that ticks will be frequent) Have healing food be applied over ticks, and limit stomach capacity for any food to 400 grams. Have stomach capacity be restored incrementally by ticks. The current numbers on the effectiveness of healing foods can be used.

[PaintedbyRoses]

This is awesome. It should breath some new life into the game.

I have one (OK, about 10) question(s):

If the attacked person (victim) goes out of sight, any attack progress ceases (as with repairing objects), but attackers may continue to keep the project active in case the attacker ***[should this read 'victim' rather than attacker?] returns (e.g. the attacker goes in and out of a building ***[attacker or victim?], or prolonged vigilance for a specific person ***[vigilance by attacker or victim?]). Others may join the attack project by helping others even when the victim is not present (people can take turns keeping the project alive).

There are too many attacks, attacked and attackers in this. I can't follow it. Is the initial attacker going out of sight or the victim? Who is coming back in sight? Who is going in and out of buildings? Who is being vigilant?

Also, does this mean that the instant the victim exits a building he or she would be hit? That doesn't seem fair. It gives the victim no chance to escape due to the lack of vigilance by the attackers. In fact this seems very heavily weighted in favor of the attackers. What if there are numerous victims who are fighting back and not just hiding?

The only advantage people in a town have is the ability to use the town structures for protection (i.e. get inside a locked building) and the surprise element of jumping out. Attackers have many advantages: the initial surprise, preparation, training, coordination, every one would probably be armed with superior weapons and shields, etc. and now, the ability to fight even if every player is asleep?

Do vehicles afford any protection? How about horses or other animals? What happens on roads? Can attacks take place to and from ships? Or are they like buildings?

I'm not sure what a buff is but it seems like something that is more supernatural than consistent with real life beings (or whatever Cantrians are).

[Joshuamonkey]

There are too many attacks, attacked and attackers in this. I can't follow it. Is the initial attacker going out of sight or the victim? Who is coming back in sight? Who is going in and out of buildings? Who is being vigilant?

Good catch. I corrected it; it should say "victim".

I'm not sure what a buff is but it seems like something that is more supernatural than consistent with real life beings (or whatever Cantrians are).

Oh, I thought of it as the effects of eating healthy. If I'm not mistaken, alcohol increases one's strength temporarily, for example. I don't think we'll use this idea for now, but wanted to include it at least.

Also, does this mean that the instant the victim exits a building he or she would be hit? That doesn't seem fair. It gives the victim no chance to escape due to the lack of vigilance by the attackers. In fact this seems very heavily weighted in favor of the attackers. What if there are numerous victims who are fighting back and not just hiding?

The only advantage people in a town have is the ability to use the town structures for protection (i.e. get inside a locked building) and the surprise element of jumping out. Attackers have many advantages: the initial surprise, preparation, training, coordination, every one would probably be armed with superior weapons and shields, etc. and now, the ability to fight even if every player is asleep?

I agree with your philosophy here, but I think the concern is a misunderstanding of the proposed idea.
These concepts:
"the instant the victim exits a building he or she would be hit"
"the surprise element of jumping out"
These are no longer relevant or significant in the project-based system, as damage occurs slowly with very frequent increments- if reasonable server-wise, the ticks will last 1 minute or less.

This helps people originally being attacked, such as a town, much more than those initiating attacking (intrudors) for this reason, at least if there are more town citizens. As damage is slow, town members will have time to fight back. And with the ability to watch guard with a defense project, either on yourself or someone else, this gives reasonable chance to those who aren't logging in all the time.
Yet it also gives reasonable chance to the intruding attackers, if they have the skill to do so. Now they can't simply be dragged away and killed- they can continue to fight back while being locked up, because the attacker will have to remain in their presence to damage them.

So hit and run is now meaningless except in large chunks of time. Say- someone goes out for an hour, then goes back in for an hour to recuperate a bit (heal a small amount), and this wouldn't be very advantageous in most cases.

Do vehicles afford any protection? How about horses or other animals? What happens on roads? Can attacks take place to and from ships? Or are they like buildings?

This is also worth bringing up. We discussed the possibility of giving weapons range, so only ranged weapons would be effective from a vehicle, etc. This is mostly unrelated to project-based combat, but now that attacks can be calculated based on multiple people working on attacking the same person, we can take the types of weapons of the attackers into account; that is, ranged weapons would be more effective if 1 or 2 other people are attacking the target as well with a non-ranged weapon, and relatively ineffective if attacking someone by yourself.

Roads: Same as any other place. Damage is only applied when the target is present.
There should be no or little advantage of doing lots of clicking- going in and out of buildings, etc. Or logging in every hour. This is why it's important to allow the attack project to continue and wait for the victim to return. What's important is that the character, by the player, actively chooses to initiate the attack, but I don't see why we need the player to restart the attack again. It's the character who's choosing to dedicate their time to attacking (or defending) instead of working on another project.
In my opinion no character should attack someone automatically without the player telling them to attack that person specifically, and either recently or due to spending time keeping up an attack project for vigilance. And that's how it is in this proposal.

[Theda]

Roads: Same as any other place. Damage is only applied when the target is present.

Currently, on the roads, when you go on foot, without vehicle, you cannot start a project, but you can hit. Would that be changed so that an attack project can now be started or something?

This is also worth bringing up. We discussed the possibility of giving weapons range, so only ranged weapons would be effective from a vehicle, etc. This is mostly unrelated to project-based combat, but now that attacks can be calculated based on multiple people working on attacking the same person, we can take the types of weapons of the attackers into account; that is, ranged weapons would be more effective if 1 or 2 other people are attacking the target as well with a non-ranged weapon, and relatively ineffective if attacking someone by yourself.

I don't see this. If you or your group travel on horseback, or on a motorcycle, the effectiveness of the ranged weapon and that of mele should be the same, for example. It would be the same as everyone hitting the victim with a blunt weapon than attacking at a distance ... I think.

[Greek]

Roads: Same as any other place. Damage is only applied when the target is present.

Currently, on the roads, when you go on foot, without vehicle, you cannot start a project, but you can hit. Would that be changed so that an attack project can now be started or something?

The thing preventing projects from happening during travel is the fact that the project must be in a specific location and character is not in a location when travelling by foot. I'm not sure if combat will be technically a project, like the manufacturing projects we have. Dragging is technically not a project, for example (even though it would be more consistent to be one).

I don't see this. If you or your group travel on horseback, or on a motorcycle, the effectiveness of the ranged weapon and that of mele should be the same, for example. It would be the same as everyone hitting the victim with a blunt weapon than attacking at a distance ... I think.

Cavalrymen could have a bonus when attacking with a spear or lance

[PaintedbyRoses]

This is also worth bringing up. We discussed the possibility of giving weapons range, so only ranged weapons would be effective from a vehicle, etc. This is mostly unrelated to project-based combat, but now that attacks can be calculated based on multiple people working on attacking the same person, we can take the types of weapons of the attackers into account; that is, ranged weapons would be more effective if 1 or 2 other people are attacking the target as well with a non-ranged weapon, and relatively ineffective if attacking someone by yourself.

I don't see this. If you or your group travel on horseback, or on a motorcycle, the effectiveness of the ranged weapon and that of mele should be the same, for example. It would be the same as everyone hitting the victim with a blunt weapon than attacking at a distance ... I think.

Do you mean that the attackers are in a vehicle or the victim (or both)? Realistically, it would be next to impossible to hit someone with a blunt weapon if both were in/on a vehicle, motorcycle or horse. I think they should be able to use only ranged weapons.

[Theda]

The thing preventing projects from happening during travel is the fact that the project must be in a specific location and character is not in a location when travelling by foot. I'm not sure if combat will be technically a project, like the manufacturing projects we have. Dragging is technically not a project, for example (even though it would be more consistent to be one).

Then, my opinion is to see if this is possible because if not, the roads could the escape points in any battle of fight. Here, we have a weak point in this new proposal I think.

Cavalrymen could have a bonus when attacking with a spear or lance

:D
Exactly, that would be great, but maybe we have to study all the posibilities. I don't know if this is too much work or if this is possible.

Do you mean that the attackers are in a vehicle or the victim (or both)?

Both? All posibilities are valid for my argument.

Realistically, it would be next to impossible to hit someone with a blunt weapon if both were in/on a vehicle, motorcycle or horse. I think they should be able to use only ranged weapons.

Well, if you want to see how is possible, you can watch any historic battle in a movie, serie, or something. Vikings, Game of Thrones, I don't know, you have battles with horses in many, lots of movies. They fight with battle axes, spears, and all type of blunt weapons. Also, you can see any action movie, when someone hit to other with a bar or any tool in a motorcycle.

[PaintedbyRoses]

Movies and TV shows are notoriously inaccurate about their portrayal of many things. Their goal is to make things look exciting and reality is often not that dramatic or cinematic.

I am against creating lances, javelins and other weapons of war specifically to make it easier to massacre victims.

On the road:
I think it greatly depends on what the attackers and the victims are riding in or on. I think it should be presumed that both the attackers and victims are moving - even between tick times.

Cars, trucks, vans and other motor vehicles: Attackers are unlikely to penetrate a vehicle and strike a victim even with ranged weapons (unless they have guns). Maybe with a crossbow.

Bikes: Tandems and other bikes, although technically open, have always been treated as though they are enclosed vehicles. You get 'in' them rather than 'on' them. No one can steal from them if they are locked. Passengers can't get out of them if they are locked. The attacker would need to be in some sort of vehicle to keep up with the bike for attack. Melee weapons would not be effective.

Horses and other mountable animals (and motorcycles, I guess): If the attacker were on foot and the rider rode right up to them, it's possible the attacker could make a hit with a melee weapon. More likely though, the victim would be riding or running away from the attacker. Taking speed into the equation seems like it would be too much.

From Wiki:

Riding and fighting on horseback

At first it was not considered effective to use weapons on horseback, but rather to use the horse as transport. "Mounted infantry" would ride to battle, and then dismount to fight. For a long time, riders and charioteers worked alongside each other in the cavalry.

The first recorded instance of mounted warriors are the mounted archers of the Iranian tribes appearing in Assyrian records from the 9th century BC.

Mongolian troops had a Buryat bow, for showering the enemy with arrows from a safe distance. The aim on horseback was better than in a jiggling chariot, after it was discovered that the best time to shoot was while all the hooves of the horse were in the air. Nevertheless, an archer in a chariot could shoot potentially stronger infantry bows.

Javelins were employed as a powerful ranged weapon by many cavalries. They were easy to handle on horseback. Two to ten javelins would be carried, depending on their weight. Thrown javelins have less range than composite bows, but often prevailed in use nevertheless. Due to the mass of the weapon, there was a greater armour-piercing ability, and they thus caused fatal wounds more frequently. Usage is reported for both light and heavy cavalry, for example, by Numidia and the Mongols' light cavalry and the heavy cataphracts, Celtic cavalry and the Mamluks during the Crusades. The Celtic horsemen's training was copied by the Roman equites. A significant element learned from the Celts was turning on horseback to throw javelins backwards, similar to the Parthian shot in archery.

Stirrups and spurs improved the ability of riders to act fast and securely in melées and manoeuvres demanding agility of the horse, but their employment was not unquestioned; ancient shock cavalry performed quite creditably without them. Modern historical reenactors have shown that neither the stirrup nor the saddle are strictly necessary for the effective use of the couched lance, refuting a previously widely held belief. Free movement of the rider on horseback were highly esteemed for light cavalry to shoot and fight in all directions, and contemporaries regarded stirrups and spurs as inhibiting for this purpose. Andalusian light cavalry refused to employ them until the 12th century, nor were they used by the Baltic turcopoles of the Teutonic Order in the battle of Legnica .

An example of combined arms and the efficiency of cavalry forces were the Medieval Mongols. Important for their horse archery was the use of stirrups for the archer to stand while shooting. This new position enabled them to use larger and stronger cavalry bows than the enemy.

Javelins are considered ranged weapons which are thrown and would have to be retrieved to use again. I mostly found examples of attacking with melee weapons in instances of warfare using horses.

[On horseback]...Medieval European knights attacked in several different ways, implementing shock tactics if possible, but always in formations of several knights, not individually. This attack was often protected by simultaneous or shortly preceding ranged attacks of archers or crossbowmen. The lance as primary weapon pierced the enemy. The heavy lances were dropped after the attack and the battle was continued with secondary weapons (swords, axes, or maces, for example).

Many knights during Medieval battles fought on foot.

...lances weren't much use after the first charge - they often broke in the clash and were difficult to use in close-up fighting. So then the knights would fight with swords, standing up in their stirrups and hammering at each other's helmets or trying to cut through each other's mail.

On foot: An attacker could certainly hit even a fleeing victim on foot with a melee weapon. From a vehicle, however, it would be much more difficult because the victim would be much more agile and could simply stop or run in a different direction.

My argument is that there would be too much running around, dodging, protection from vehicles and other factors for victims to be hit with melee weapons. Charging a village and hitting people by surprise is one thing. Hitting fleeing people on a road is another. Either we are going to be realistic or we are not. In reality, the victims could simply run off the road and hide in the trees and buses. In Cantr, they are forced to stay on the road and be slaughtered whether it is with ranged weapons or melee weapons. I am not saying that there should be no hitting but I think it should be limited in some way.

[Theda]

I am against creating lances, javelins and other weapons of war specifically to make it easier to massacre victims

Me too. We have several weapons created to use as blunt weapons (battle axe, bone spear, etc.)

Anyway, thank you for your exposition, I still think the same and I suppose we could be discussing this issue for several days, but I think that the best for all us is that this important change in the combat system does not stagnate at this point, then..., I insist:

The thing preventing projects from happening during travel is the fact that the project must be in a specific location and character is not in a location when travelling by foot. I'm not sure if combat will be technically a project, like the manufacturing projects we have. Dragging is technically not a project, for example (even though it would be more consistent to be one).

Then, my opinion is to see if this is possible because if not, the roads could the escape points in any battle of fight. Here, we have a weak point in this new proposal I think.

From my view, we would need to know if this is possible, firstly.

[Joshuamonkey]

From my view, we would need to know if this is possible, firstly.

This is an important point, but if it's not possible currently, that just means it'll take longer for it to be possible, and it would be required for this proposal to be released.
However, we could decide to not apply project-based combat on the road, which is a more fast-based environment anyway as people are present for a limited time, and no one can come and go instantly. Now that I think about it, the current system seems fine for road combat. Thoughts?
This would discourage fleeing from a fight, which I think is a good thing, as well as keeping road combat exciting.

My suggestion about ranged weapons being more effective if someone else is attacking with melee was referring to being in the same location. If you're right next to someone with a bow and arrow and they have a sword, the sword-bearer has a much greater chance of hitting and stopping you. But if that person is attacking someone else or being attacked by someone else, then you have a better chance of a good shot.

For all the ideas thrown out here about range, I think there are 2 factors to consider:

• Damage
• Chance of missing

I think range could affect both of these, but especially chance of missing. I also think it's reasonable that your chance of missing someone with an axe from a building is 100%, unless it's specifically a throwing axe, or else we should implement losing your weapon. Having dramatic differences like this encourages the use of different types of weapons.
We also need to rethink "chance of missing" in general. I think the chance of missing should be much lower with project-based combat, though this may not be so necessary since combat would be recalculated at every tick, giving you another chance. I don't think it makes sense for two people to not do any damage at all for a day if they both miss, so I like this change.
Changing my mind a bit, I think a good way to simplify things here would be for range to only affect chance of missing, since over the course of the attack this would affect the amount of damage anyway. Say, with a 90% chance of missing, you only apply damage once every 10 minutes (10 ticks).

I am against creating lances, javelins and other weapons of war specifically to make it easier to massacre victims.

Such additions wouldn't be added for the reason of making killing easier. They would be added to make attacking and weapon-creation more interesting by making it harder or more complicated. Making lances, etc. more effective on horses means that other weapons would be less effective than they are currently. There's no need to go above the current upper limit of damage I think.

[Theda]

However, we could decide to not apply project-based combat on the road, which is a more fast-based environment anyway as people are present for a limited time, and no one can come and go instantly. Now that I think about it, the current system seems fine for road combat. Thoughts?

I like it.

[PaintedbyRoses]

I'm all for combat which will, undoubtedly, result in attacking towns. What I fear is that the attackers will have such an extreme advantage over a town which, maybe, has a small population and doesn't have access to resources for powerful weapons or shields, that every town will be decimated. I don't think that would be good for the game.

I'll admit that I don't understand all the combat ticking and small stomach stuff, so maybe my fears aren't really founded. I'll just have to trust that your system takes the survival potential of the villagers into consideration. That's my two cents. I won't harp on it (probably).

[Joshuamonkey]

We need people to harp on it, since there might be something we've missed. But I'm surprised this is seen as something that makes attacking towns easier than the other way around, since the main motivation was to make it harder to suddenly attack a town. The people being attacked can still always run away- now they can do so without having a large hit on them first, depending on how long the attacker has been attacking.

[Wolfsong]

I think PaintedbyRoses assumes (for some reason) that any change affecting combat therefore makes combat more "dangerous." This isn't about making combat dangerous or not dangerous; combat should be equally balanced between attacking and defense no matter the system. This proposal is instead about aligning the combat system to the rest of Cantr by removing the instant gratification of it.

[PaintedbyRoses]

Well, I did think that the purpose of this change was to make combat more appealing and easier. Like I used to argue, I think there should be more danger and death in Cantr to make it more exciting and interesting and to potentially facilitate the deaths of powerful and wealthy characters so that there is a turnover of wealth and power rather than the stagnation that seems to be causing a lack of character participation in most towns.

I thought that the thing where lots of other attackers join together made the attack more powerful and more deadly, which is good but not if it makes the attackers too efficient at killing. Like I said, I don't understand the mechanics and I don't really need to understand. If you who do understand it think it's good, that's fine with me.

I would just like to see change that would result in good guys and bad guys banding together to do good things and bad things and occasionally have conflicts and battles. Cantr needs more drama to make players get emotionally invested in the game and that mostly comes from conflict. Every movie knows that.