Combat Rewrite II

[Joshuamonkey]

In fact, armour would really add very little to the game, especially as the game already includes weapons developed to completely overcome armour, such as the rapier, and various short swords, and crossbows.

Having some weapons be better than others against certain types of shields or armour is a good thing.

I do find it odd that people are leaning toward three - it relies _totally_ on an auto-retaliate mechanic, that was universally and catergorically rejected in the past discussions. If thats going to be the option, your going to need to somehow rethink it without autoretaliate (which inevitably leads you back, at least somewhat to the slower turn based system you see in 1)

Suggestion 1 is not turn based. There is no turn based suggestion; it was considered and then denied. The closest thing to that is suggestion 2, which would cause all attacks except for slaps (and maybe characters on an accepted list) to take one day, no matter what.
Suggestion three would still be much better than the current system even without the auto counter attack. I do think that there is a good way to add it.

I think number 3 is okay, but currently my vote is for keeping the system the same. Why? Because I don't like the idea of limiting how much healing food you can consume in a day, nor do I really understand why it's necessary to limit it, when how much you can successfully attack each day is already limited.

To be honest, that doesn't seem like a good reason by itself to not want a change (which is inevitable). Here's one reason why restricting healing food is important for suggestion three:
If there's no automatic counter attack, then the characters are pretty much dead either way unless they're awake at the time. If there is, then it still wouldn't do much good if the attackers just heal whenever they're attacked, and the defenders don't because they're not awake at the time. Cantrians shouldn't be immortal, yet they should be able to survive ten people attacking them in one day, or even one hour, just because they keep eating healing food?

[OvertNi]

Alright, you make a good point, I'll change my vote.

[SekoETC]

Any chance we could lose instant healing and the instant weakening effect caused by wounds? This was discussed earlier in some other topic but not mentioned here.
The healing food system is used because it's simple to program but if people had the chance to auto-retaliate but not auto-heal before doing it (and what sense does it make that people are stopping for a snack in the middle of a fight, anyway? They only do it because the system makes it the most efficient strategy), the attacker would have an advantage because if they had managed to get through the defender's shield, the defender most likely wouldn't be able to deal considerable damage in retaliation. If online, the defender would eat healing food first to maximize damage (although this would involve a risk of the enemy running out of reach in the mean while).
Irl adrenaline and other hormones that are secreted during a fight make it possible to ignore wounds as long as they aren't crippling or critical. They also might help the person to perform with strength and reflexes that might appear super-human, leading into heavy fatigue after the situation is over.
Moderate wounds would require a bandage and a couple of days of resting, larger wounds would need to be stitched and require a longer period of resting. People would have natural healing that could be sped up with healing foods, and it would be possible to eat healing foods even if you weren't injured to ensure you had the highest healing rate if you do happen to get wounded. The damage would be invisible when bandaged and it would also hinder fighting and working on projects less than if the wound was uncovered.
Wounds would have a chance to rip open if the patient exerts himself, this chance getting smaller the further the wound heals, and also reduced by stitches and bandages.
Bandages could be made from any cloth and leather, hide, fur and grass. Advanced materials would offer more protection towards infections and could be sterilized through boiling. Stitches could use any yarn or sinew and the more advantaged yarns would again speed up the healing process and reduce the chance of complications.
Then there could also be bruises and fractures caused by blunt weapons (something like heavy swords would cause both blunt and sharp damage). Fractures in limbs and back would usually be crippling at least to some extent and would take longer to heal than cuts. This might give people more of a reason to prefer blunt weapons. They would have less of a chance of threatening to claim someone's life but would limit or disable the person from moving (leg or back fractures) or working on projects and fighting (hand/arm fractures). Their healing would be sped up with a splint that would use wood, large bones or metal and any of the bandaging materials or rope. It would be neat if also objects such as anything with a shaft could be used instead of the wood or other supporting material, so people could recycle any junk they happen to have at hand.
People with injuries that limit movement could retaliate, provided that they don't have both arms crippled, but they couldn't initiate attacks.

[palpatin]

Could someone picture events of a pirate attack with the three different versions of the new combat system?

edit: oh i never saw theres eight pages of post. never mind

[SekoETC]

Could someone picture events of a pirate attack with the three different versions of the new combat system?

edit: oh i never saw theres eight pages of post. never mind

Pirate attack in system:

Pirates dock to town, initiate attacks on everybody in town who looks like they might be a considerable threat. Attacks are not carried out instantly. Pirates can't just hit people and undock to get out of reach. They also can't work on breaking locks while waiting.

While the attacks are pending, none of the projects in town take progress (except ones worked on by people who weren't targeted). Also if pirates decided to start breaking locks instead of initiating attacks on people, the people could initiate attacks on them and prevent them from making progress on the project, even if you only had a bone club or some other weapon that couldn't cause considerable damage. As long as you'd be able to block enough damage to stay alive, you could prevent pirates from picking locks even if you couldn't harm them. Although they could drag you. Dragging would be like a hit.

When people log in, they most likely choose to defend themselves, unless they were secretly hoping for death. Ones who won't log in within a day will get hit, provided that the pirates had the patience to stay in town for a day.

People are able to counter-attack instantly upon resolving attacks, ensuring a pirate couldn't get a hit through and then undock while the defender was browsing through the interface.

After resolving a hit, a person will be protected against a second attack by the same attacker until they do any of the things mentioned in point 6, which means if the pirate is online, the victim should first run into a locked building before healing because they would become vulnerable again after the healing, although the pirate probably wouldn't know this without trying.

If someone is in a vehicle and it starts moving, the hit will be auto-resolved using best shield for defense. Most likely a person under assault in a vehicle wouldn't have the option to start traveling/undock, but a non-targeted person could, so the precaution is in place.

If someone escapes in a vehicle and others follow on foot, they wouldn't be able to hit the person even if they could still see the person on the road because it's assumed the person could escape if they wanted to - unless the escaping person has set their traveling speed equal to or slower than that of the chasers.

If someone manages to kill someone, the victim's stuff ends up in the killer's inventory and they'll be prevented from moving until they drop the excess load to get to 15 kilos or lower. During this time the person could be attacked by others, and if they retaliated, they could be hit again straight after, while if they didn't retaliate, they would still be vulnerable to being hit straight after they dropped the next item or pile of resources, so if someone killed someone carrying a lot of weight in small piles, they could be prevented from fleeing for several seconds, maybe even minutes.

Point 10 is a bit conflicting with point 9 since point 10 would suggest the victim's items remained on the person rather than going to the killer's inventory. People who would normally die might get rescued by others if they aren't finished off.

Pirates wouldn't be able to drag people onto their ship or into a claimed building without the people being online to react to it or if they remained passive for a day.

Suggestion 2:

Pirates would have to enter town to initiate combat, they wouldn't be able to snipe at people from the safety of the ship.

People would be able to fight against several opponents at a time but they couldn't change their minds in the middle of the battle even if the situation changed (apparently).

Pirates would be taking quite a risk because if they initiated combat against easy targets outside, they still couldn't kill them in under a day due to the lenght of the project, and would be vulnerable against new people coming out of buildings. The fights initiated first would also be finished first due to fixed duration, so you couldn't stop beating up a hapless newspawn even if a more dangerous opponent stepped out and initiated combat with you, so you would be fatigued by the time the second combat was resolved.

Also if someone stepped out of a building and noticed pirates attacking people outside, they could go back to the building and radio for help, or take down a road, and the pirates wouldn't be able to give chase if they were all engaged in combat. This might lead into pirates bringing extra people to act as lookouts who won't initially engage in combat so that they'll be fresh and rested in case unexpected trouble should arise.

Suggestion 3:

Most town people would most likely have shields equipped like in the current system, but only guards would be wielding weapons. Rpers might be wielding pillows, some people might be wielding wasters, maybe some would be wielding tools like dung-forks because it would make sense if stuff like that only worked if wielded. This would lead into people auto-retaliating with mostly useless weapons, which would rarely go through the pirate's shields and would cause the defenders tiredness, so it would actually work against them. If there was a way to turn off auto-retaliation, people not wielding weapons would most likely do this in order to save their strength.

If the pirates undocked and were planning to re-dock the next day, villagers could choose to auto-attack them and would make sure to equip their weapons in order to be prepared. This would lead into all the active people attacking the pirates the moment they re-dock, the pirates would auto-retaliate but would most likely be outnumbered, resulting in being quite tired after the auto-attacks. They would most likely be online so unless they died from the auto-attacks, they could eat healing food and attack the people who were wounded by their auto-retaliation.

People wouldn't die instantly so it would be possible to save them if there was someone left and willing to give them healing food. It would be possible to steal items from them while they were incapacitated. It might be that pirates even beat the town leader to near-death, stole the keys, looted the town and then healed the leader not to make it a murder on top of a raid.

People couldn't be dragged without them noticing it was about to happen if they were online and following their events page.

People couldn't keep healing indefinitely even if they had a huge stock of healing food. The limits haven't been decided yet but it would most likely be in kilos, making denser (and generally more expensive) healing foods more desirable because they give the most percent per gram.

People would be able to hit the same person several times a day if the target came online to resolve the attack. Sleepers could only be hit once a day.

[Joshuamonkey]

If there was a way to turn off auto-retaliation

It would be unreasonable to implement auto-retaliation without that option.

The limits haven't been decided yet but it would most likely be in kilos, making denser (and generally more expensive) healing foods more desirable because they give the most percent per gram.

I'd rather have it in percentage (100%?). I don't really want all of my characters eating wine, to be honest, and I'd be afraid to make less dense healing foods like onions and mushrooms not very useful.

And thank you!

[SekoETC]

Maybe there could be a limit both in weight and percentage. I don't think people should be able to eat say 12 kilos of grass or sugar in a day but wine and such shouldn't be miracle drugs, or at least they should have side effects such as drunkenness to balance them out if consumed in large amounts. Heavy healing foods would still be useful for slow healing in situations where you're unlikely to get attacked again any time soon, such as in a safe building or out at sea.

[Chris]

With the systems in Suggestions 1 and 2, let's say that pirates come into a town and initiate attacks on everyone. Mr. McWakey is awake soon afterward. He resolves his combat, heads into the radio room, and puts out a call for help. In neighboring towns, people pile into their vehicles and travel to the town under attack. They arrive before the pirates have had a chance to finish most of their attacks. They initiate attacks on the pirates. If the pirates have indeed stayed, they will be dead or captured.

Under Suggestion 3, the pirates could hit and run, just as they do now. They would get some wounds, which may be too severe to be fully healed right away. They might attack fewer people so as to avoid unnecessary risk. There is still an incentive to have the element of surprise, but it doesn't make risk close to zero, as it is under the current system.

[palpatin]

well, it would be a bit more closer to a real siege if there would be an attacker and a defender competing by the rules of the different versions
so why dont the pirates start with dragging the town leader on board?

[Joshuamonkey]

I think it does make sense for all of the fighting to be finished (as in, people die on both sides), before the actual raiding and breaking locks happens. This is why the first two suggestions would make sense, but people would likely get annoyed and impatient, understandably.

[mojomuppet]

well, it would be a bit more closer to a real siege if there would be an attacker and a defender competing by the rules of the different versions
so why dont the pirates start with dragging the town leader on board?

You assume they know who the leader is.

[palpatin]

well, it would be a bit more closer to a real siege if there would be an attacker and a defender competing by the rules of the different versions
so why dont the pirates start with dragging the town leader on board?

You assume they know who the leader is.

you can always go for the oldest people carrying a lot of stuff he or she obviously not using

[mojomuppet]

well, it would be a bit more closer to a real siege if there would be an attacker and a defender competing by the rules of the different versions
so why dont the pirates start with dragging the town leader on board?

You assume they know who the leader is.

you can always go for the oldest people carrying a lot of stuff he or she obviously not using

One town that Im in is the oldest char the leader. That wont work. Most leaders carry very little you can see because they have someplace to put it and are holding keys and healing food.

[palpatin]

well, it would be a bit more closer to a real siege if there would be an attacker and a defender competing by the rules of the different versions
so why dont the pirates start with dragging the town leader on board?

You assume they know who the leader is.

you can always go for the oldest people carrying a lot of stuff he or she obviously not using

One town that Im in is the oldest char the leader. That wont work. Most leaders carry very little you can see because they have someplace to put it and are holding keys and healing food.

leaders have to move and distribute stuff often and are too tired to drop everything off all the time. Keys are not heavy, and why would they hold healing food? So they have to drop it before moving stuff and pick it up again? Actually its enough for pirates to capture these people in charge of hauling resources and administration, which usually is the same person.

i checked my charries 5 towns it was obvious who to kidnap - oldest person carrying a lot of different crafts tools (of all the people holding different tools the oldest), 1 town had two visiting oldies, kidnapping them would only claim land vehicles (so its a 1 to 2 chance to pick the right one) and moderate spoils, and 1 town had noone in the center who has access to town storage.

anyway my point was that we could try the three systems without actual coding of any, which could bring out some issues with it. you can also RP it to make it more pun

tried to start with a pirate first move ...

[palpatin]

by the way can you drag yourself in any of the suggestions?