Jos Elkink wrote: redesigning the combat system will take loads and loads of time.
Who is asking for a complete redesign? The issue is mostly balancing. A single very strong individual can drag an apparently weaker one, especially one not carrying much, back and forth through umpteen locked doors without apparently picking up any tiredness whatsoever. There is little or no combat left in the game that does not center around this kind of dragging. People have been telling you this for more than a year now.
I find it ironic that there was just one weak character of mine left from the big purge that I undertook a year ago, mainly because in those days I took hunting skill to be some kind of indicator of strength or combat skill, and this character suffered exactly the kind of fate I'd predicted. (ie single-handedly dragged indoors where she eventually died). Not only her , but in effect her entire crew, including 3 well-shielded people with 2 average weapons and one very good one, and 2 crowbars, where they joined numerous other people totalling eventually 20 or so). All of them imprisoned by one single person.
I find it even more comical that this same character of mine was witness you friend Jur's asinine character "Goram Yoful" proving to the whole MRU in an especially pathetic fashion what everyone else who plays the game already knows: No experienced player can be persuaded to have their characters attack any kind of major town. Such conflict cannot realistically occur, and so it doesn't.
What is really strange is that the game worked much better a year ago, but you then went through a phase which had as a direct result the driving from the game of most of the major strategically-minded players.
As many keep pointing out, it's your game. So if you want the "doll's tea party effect", so be it. I tend to suspect now that that's exactly what you do want. But it is then misleading to advertise the result as a society simulator.
And if it isn't a society simulator, then I cannot continue carrying out the experiments I'd hoped to, and so there is little point in my spending all this time.
