Comprehensive Combat Re-Write

[Mitch79]

then the first person you were trying to discipline, wakes and runs down the other road... :S

Guess, that simply means you need more than one guard.

Good luck with that with the lack of players these days...

[SumBum]

removing the hit limit and re-implimenting energy foods would not help us even if the energy food is limited intake.
hit someone hard, do a lot of damage, use energy food which would cover that otherwise there's no sense in having energy food if you cant even recover one full hit worth of tiredness.

No, energy food should be very inefficient, it's a luxury item. I'd suggest recovery of half or less tiredness from one attack to be the limit. Maybe it could be reset each Cantr hour so that you could consume tea multiple times a day but certainly should not recover a significant amount of tiredness each time.

[KAOS]

Yeah, but that's not the point. If you only have one guard and one person you'd like to punish runs away while you try to keep someone from stealing, this is a realistic situation and doesn't show a weak point of the combat system.


Another question about the system: When you say

damage is not assessed until either a) the player of the attacked characters logs in and resolves the attack or b) a period of time passes (one day for logged out players, much less for players that are logged in to prevent stalling)

do you mean the player must be logged into the affected character or only into the game account?
Sometimes I don't have much time when I log into Cantr and then only look into the events of two or three chars, so this could be important for people like me.

[gejyspa]

then the first person you were trying to discipline, wakes and runs down the other road... :S

Guess, that simply means you need more than one guard.

Good luck with that with the lack of players these days...

Maybe those people who left because of the way their previous characters were massacred under the old system would come back when these new proposals are adopted

[KVZ]

It seems to encourage people to stall in order to get friends online to drag after the round of combat is resolved. The defender will be online while the attacker most likely will no longer be. Stalling should cause some sort of a penalty, but how do you tell someone is stalling and not simply being offline for real life reasons? Can't tell the difference. And friends could tell the player not to log in if the penalties only applied if the defender had logged in and not reacted to the attack. There would be no way of telling if OOC coordination happened.

Yeah, thats why I think it is stupid change, I would support even auto retaliation, but not this...

[Doug R.]

The character that initiates an attack, be it sparring or a real attack, will never be "stuck," because they can cancel the attack at any time. If you're sparring with someone, and it's clear that they went offline or afk, then cancel the attack and go about your business.

[Mitch79]

The character that initiates an attack, be it sparring or a real attack, will never be "stuck," because they can cancel the attack at any time. If you're sparring with someone, and it's clear that they went offline or afk, then cancel the attack and go about your business.

Aha, thanks for clearing that up for me Doug

[SumBum]

... Upon initiation of the attack, an event is generated, tiredness is applied....

Any way that could be changed so you're not penalized for canceling an attack?

[phoenixannwn]

What about sleepers? We've been plagued with them lately, and they're just standing there, eating very valuable food, and you're telling me I can't kill them unless they consent to it?
Or am I wrong here? Please tell me this leaves some way to deal with the sleeping dead.

[Joshuamonkey]

I guess it leads into disallowing people from dragging the attacker instantly even after the first round of combat had been resolved, because if someone is in middle of a battle, they wouldn't let a bunch of people sneak up on them and not try to defend himself.

We're planning to change dragging also. Dragging and combat are indeed very related.

What about slapping someone? Does that cause a combat event too or can it be resolved immediately since it won't harm the other character?

I personally think that slapping should be resolved immediately because it does no damage, even though this means they can slap people multiple times. I think that they should not be able to attack once they reach 100% tiredness.

if the guard wakes and attacks, the criminal can just delay and wait until the other player is tired of waiting and either checking another char or offline. complete the move and run off.

Yep. I don't see why the guard would choose not to drag them first then, but yep, that's what could happen.

Also it would only see natural to me that atleast others can drag the attacker off. I understand others can be warned to do this before the one being attacked will resolve the attack.

If others could drag the attacker away, then it could be impossible for some people to ever get hit, because the guards would just drag the attacker away. If the attacker is losing tiredness and initiating combat, they should have a chance to hit. I say chance because they could miss.

do you mean the player must be logged into the affected character or only into the game account?
Sometimes I don't have much time when I log into Cantr and then only look into the events of two or three chars, so this could be important for people like me.

I'd say that the player would have to view the character page; otherwise they probably wouldn't know that they're being attacked.

What about sleepers? We've been plagued with them lately, and they're just standing there, eating very valuable food, and you're telling me I can't kill them unless they consent to it?
Or am I wrong here? Please tell me this leaves some way to deal with the sleeping dead.

Since the combat would initiate anyway after 1 day, you could kill them just as fast as is possible now, possibly faster if they complete the attack or check their character page/log in.
Whether they're a sleeper or not, people should be able to log in before an attack is completed on their character. If they don't log on, then life will go on after 8 Cantr hours.

[FrankieLeonie]

Ok I wrote this up last night and then it got lost so here are my questions:

1) Can a person have more then one attack going at a time? Can I attack Bill and Sue and wait for them both to respond?

2) Can more then one person attack one? After I attack both Bill and Sue can they both attack me while I am offline?

3) If no to the previous the it would be great for me to have an accomplice who makes sure to attack me and then cancel it before I accept or it goes through. This would stop me from being attacked by anyone.

4) Do I have a chance to eat healing foods before accepting the attack?

5) Can I attack myself and not accept?

6) If I am in a car or other fast moving vehicle that can go from point A to point B in one turn and attack someone else in the car would movement be paused for up to a day even though we could go through multiple towns in that period?

7) If I am on foot and someone is in a car, can I stop them from traveling by attacking someone in the car?

8) How about on ships? seems easy to code around just making a point.

9) Seems to take power out of the attacker and to much to the defender. If I know I am going to lose, stalling as much as possible seems my best option.

10) Are you told you have a pending attack before you log into your character?

11) Can I switch characters without responding to the attack? Seems like if we are not told we are being attacked and switching characters counts as accepting would be a work around to delaying. But with the current bug of viewing other characters this could cause someone to accept an attack prematurely.

[BZR]

I like the new system, but time will prove if it is good;)

[muidoido]

... Upon initiation of the attack, an event is generated, tiredness is applied....

Any way that could be changed so you're not penalized for canceling an attack?

I like this idea. Raising the axe to someone isn't the same as slashing this persons head open, and shouldn't spend tha same amount of stamina. Maybe 50% tiredness when cancelling? It would even alow RP-moves like threatening someone!

Yep. I don't see why the guard would choose not to drag them first then, but yep, that's what could happen.

100% right! If you see a thief running from you, you can throw a hammer on him or jump over him. If you throw and kill him, good for you, but if you miss, he will run away!

I'd say that the player would have to view the character page; otherwise they probably wouldn't know that they're being attacked.

And it will avoid problems with cantrspy accepting attacks!

[Dudel]

I got an email.

One should note: All this new change does is make things more in favor if the defender than the attacker, not balance anything at all.

Generally speaking, retaliating becomes a lot easier while aggression becomes a lot more difficult. This, also, wont encourage more RP. It will, however, encourage a lot more sleeping.

Bye for now.

[SekoETC]

Ability to cancel should hopefully balance things. If you think about it, a character initiates a fight on a seemingly easy target who's offline, meanwhile the rest of the town wakes up and even though they're currently unable to drag the attacker, they'll be making it clear that they are about to do it as soon as they're able. That would intimidate the attacker and make them cancel the attack and run while they still can, instead of waiting for the target to keep stalling until the attacker seriously has to go offline. Just like in real life if you try to attack someone in a crowded location, random bystanders can scare you away even if they didn't necessarily have the strength or weapons to beat you up.