Cantr Combat System

[Doug R.]

Some players have been complaining about the combat system, and some have gone so far as to say that it is the biggest flaw in the game, but I have yet to see any constructive posts offering alternatives on a system scale (yes, there have been suggestions for tweaks and new features, but no suggestions for complete overhaul). I've started this thread so people with ideas about overhauling the system can present them here.

Some points, before we start:

-Any combat system in Cantr needs to provide "ample" opportunity for the attacked players to respond. This is currently implemented in the form of time (8 game hours) but it does not necessarily need to be based on time.

-Any combat system in Cantr should not dominate the game (i.e. it should not turn Cantr from a society simulator into a hack and slash game).

-In the interests of the recurring theme of cooperation, it should not be possible for anyone to kill a healthy character outright. It should take two, minimum.

A good starting point might be for those that dislike the current system to enlighten the rest of us as to why the current system is so bad.

[Piscator]

How about a riposte attack. I mean every time a character is attacked he or she automatically tries a counter attack. That would at least make hit and run tactics less effective. Perhaps this could even be used to make a difference between melee and ranged weapons. You could only counter attack if your weapon has at least the same range as the attacker.

I know this is no complete change of the system, but it would be quite easy to do, I think.

Perhaps a "fighting" project would be a good idea. You choose an opponent and start the project. The opponent would have to interrupt his current project and join the fight. In every following hour damage would be dealt to both opponents depending on skill and weapon. Perhaps others should even be able to join the fight. In this case damage should be shared to all participants of one side.
To avoid that people are killed in just one day characters should flee and hide automatically if they recive more than, say, 50% of damage per day.
"Flewn" characters would then be unatackable for the rest of the day.

[Arlequin]

Fight lock for melee weapons. Both fighters can't just flee away once they have engaged in a fight. They must actually attempt to flee of all the fights they engaged on. There would be one attempt to flee available each 8 hours. When someone has succesfully flew away of you, none of both can hit each other during 16 hours.

Ranged weapons would be still lock-free, but if the one that was using the ranged weapon is hit back with a melee, he will be locked.

Also, shield effectiveness against ranged weapons should be quite good.

I think this would improve a bit those siege scenarios when someone behind a locked door jumps out and in and keeps attacking everybody.

[Sicofonte]

Why it is so bad:

No opportunity to respond attacks. Attacks are too fast (just instantly), no way of automatic counterattack is implemented, and the available "manual" ways to counterattack are quite handicapped by the Cantr system (I'm reffering to locks that avoid one char to reach another one that can daily attack the first).
Instantly projects that involve another player's chars are always against the principle of slow paced game.



Possible way to solve this:

To use fight projects: clicking in the attack button you enter in a page where you can specify the ruddeness (strength) and one or more of the ending-condition parameters: time you will be fighting (turns), the maximum damage inflicted to the adversary and maximum damage received (health percentage).
Each combatant will receive damage each turn depending on the ruddeness, base strength, base weapon damage, fighting skill, tireness and hunger of the adversary.
The combat ends when one of the ending-conditions are achieved.

The characters being attacked will stop their current project to defend themself, maybe using the better shield and weapon available in the inventary and engaging in combat with the attacker, maybe blocking the attack and retreating (not to another building or location, just running around in front of your pursuing attacker).

Any of the combatants could be killed by the other one if the later gets to inflict enough damage in a single combat round (turn).

The base damage of weapons and base strength should be adjusted to ensure that people don't die too fast. A initial tip could be to divide by 8 (since damage could be inflicted 8 times in a day, decreasing it to the eighth part would ensure that no char die faster than with the actual system).

From Seko's suggestions:

Characters should be given an option to flee when attacked, instead of fighting back.

If a person attacks somebody and then retreats, the person attacked will now be on their guards and there will be no element of surprise for the next attack.

People should be allowed to protect others, making them respond to an attack as if it was directed at themselves.


Then, each char could have a combat settings page where to specify if he/she would counterattack or flee, and the maximum damage received in combat before fleeing.

EDIT: Oh, now I have to merge this with Arlequin's suggestion.

[deadboy]

I personally like the current system

[Arlequin]

Uh, wait. Another idea:

Inconscience. There's a 80% chance of falling inconscient when health drops below 10% (0% included). The character drops his items and isn't able to do anything. If nobody starts a heal project (herbs, cotton bandages, surgery tools) on him, he will die. If an attacker or beast gives him a coup-de-grace, he will die, too.

This would allow surgery, thieving and Viking raids without involving mass murders. Also inconscient characters can be more easily dragged, while conscient characters should be way harder.

And then add a button "allow dragging" for those that are just boat passengers.

[deadboy]

Uh, wait. Another idea:

Inconscience. There's a 80% chance of falling inconscient when health drops below 10% (0% included). The character drops his items and isn't able to do anything. If nobody starts a heal project (herbs, cotton bandages, surgery tools) on him, he will die. If an attacker or beast gives him a coup-de-grace, he will die, too.

This would allow surgery, thieving and Viking raids without involving mass murders. Also inconscient characters can be more easily dragged, while conscient characters should be way harder.

And then add a button "allow dragging" for those that are just boat passengers.

I think the word you are looking for is unconsciousness . Anyhow, a reasonable idea in itself, it would not have much effect though and it would be a complete disaster for those living in animal infested areas because it only gives them 90% to kill the animals in, not 100%. Also, I cannot see why any raids would not involve mass murder, it's funner that way

[Black Canyon]

Wow.

I also don't mind the current system. I've yet to hear an idea for changing it that sounds good to me.

It's true that combat is different in cantr. But....it's cantr I'm not convinced that the combat system prevents wars and massacres and murders. I still hear about them happening all the time. The only obstacle that I see is a lack of patience, organization, and planning... which I admit can be hard to overcome with sleeping and dying participants.

[Lord_Igor]

Add tiredness to dragging if that hasn't been done already.

Have several body parts instead of just one damage bar.

Add wrestling. (I've been playing Dwarf Fortress.)

If wrestling is added, then you should have to grab and possibly wrestle a victim before dragging him away.

I'm also favorable towards making fighting a project, but I haven't yet bothered figuring out the best way to do it.

[Piscator]

Do we really need body parts? OK, quite funny somehow. Bit like Monty Python.
"Haha, your arm's off"
"Just a fleshwound"
But do we need that in Cantr?

[Phalynx]

Sounds like I am not the only one who, whilst not entirely happy about the current combat system, feels rather nervous about some of the suggestions being made....

I'd rather we stick with what we have than create a monster!

[Cdls]

-Problems with current combat system-

1) You can only hit a person once per day.
2) The strength drain it has on a person
3) Inconsistency between weapon types and damage dealt
4) It is just too slow paced and boring to use if playing a "criminal character"
5) Healing is too easy
Explanations for problems

1) First off, everyone keeps calling this a "society simulator" or whatever, but with the current system for combat in place, it just isnt true. In society there is murder, mass killings, wars where people die. Societies have crime, and part of that crime is murder, and the only way to pull that off here is the whole "drag someone to some locked room and kill him" thing that has been attempted so many times before. I know that some would be pissed to have their older characters get killed, but that is part of the game.

2) Everyone keeps complaining about the lack of cooperation and wanting to promote it, well here is a way to do it. If there was the threat of a real attack then people would have to get more organized and form their own security and so on.

3) People are saying that this isnt a "hack-n-slash" game, but it really is in part, just on a slower scale. This adds a lack of action that some people may be looking for. If something were to be done to speed it up, then more people may be excited to check in the game to see if something has actually happened.

4) It is just to damned easy to be healed. I think that it should be slowed down somehow, maybe like make it a project that required healing food, but at the same time has a time imposed on it. Here is a quick example say **g (insert healing food) heals **% of health per hour. This way, people actually need to be concerned about their health and not about how much healing food they have on hand.

[Wolf]

The current combat system may not be perfect, but if it becomes based on projects, locking and such, then what would become of the following situations?

- Let's say a newspawn grabs anything he can carry, and runs down a road.
The sheriff, marshal, or anyone else upholding the law in that town, hops into a fast vehicle to give chase.
If a system is implemented where attacks from locked buildings become more bothersome, then the same applies to vehicles.
Having to lock in combat, on a road, from a vehicle (maybe against someone in a vehicle) would be more of a nuissance than the way it is now.

- Let's say you're a sheriff/marshal or another lawful citizen, and something is implemented that does away with dragging as a means of fighting battles.
Now, along comes the cheeky newspawn robber, grabbing anything that isn't bolted down, hitting anything and anyone he can hit...
Your town is civilized enough to deal with such people through simple re-education and a short term imprisonment.
But now that can't be done anymore, since the dragging has been made harder.

Also, a lot of battles require planning, dragging members of a naval force into harbours and ships because they're asleep at the moment that the fleet needs to depart...
Having to hit the members of your own defending group before you can drag them aboard the ships, isn't exactly the way to a good strategy.

So my point is, just re-balance the weapons a bit, if it's really needed to make a change to the current system.
I recall another thread where someone suggested some weapons would rely more on skill, while other weapons would rely more on strength.
Juse be ware that whatever change gets made, there's always going to be people who'll be shafted by the changes, just like there's people who might be shafted by the current system, but at least with the current system you know what to expect.

Phalynx, I only saw your reply while writing this stuff, I guess you said the same thing, in a shorter way.

Cdls:
"4) It is just to damned easy to be healed. I think that it should be slowed down somehow, maybe like make it a project that required healing food, but at the same time has a time imposed on it. Here is a quick example say **g (insert healing food) heals **% of health per hour. This way, people actually need to be concerned about their health and not about how much healing food they have on hand."

Well, some people live in places with bears, or elephants, or other visciously violent animals.
I'd say those already are concerned about their health.
In a place with just raccoons, deers and other animals that aren't too aggressive and too strong in their attacks, that healingfood/hour thing might work, but in a lot of places it would just result in a huge pile of corpses.

[SekoETC]

Yes, healing is definitely too easy. Once I was trying to rp not being able to eat kilos upon kilos of onions in one day, but was rationing them. But then a totally obnoxious newspawn stole a bike and I thought what the hell, I'm not gonna waste a chance to hurt somebody legally, and I sure wanna be in perfect health to deal as much damage as I can. So I ate all the onions and ran after him.

ALWAYS when mentioning auto-counter-attacks, you need to remember the fact that not everyone wants to fight back, not even to save themselves. It might be against their personal ethics.

Also, a computer response is merciless. If someone does have the plan to stab somebody in the back and then retreat, leaving it to one strike, there should be a chance of the victim not having time to respond before the attacker has already run out of reach.

What I'd like to see is alertness. When you're working on a project that takes a lot of concentration, like making a complicated tool or a piece of jewelry, you wouldn't notice someone sneaking up on you (unless they stepped on a twig or something). Then again if you were concentrating on keeping an eye on the surroundings, you would be likely to notice someone trying to sneak up on you or someone else before they even got around to striking. Something in the middle of these two would be doing nothing.

I'd like to see lowered alertness once you've gone without logging in for several days, because then you obviously don't care about playing your character. And don't you complain people, you would have it equally or even more hard with the current system, where someone can hack you to cubes without you doing nothing in response, because you wouldn't log in to strike back. This system would allow you to strike back automatically, even if it didn't always work out.

Fighting projects sound pretty stupid. What if you forgot to define how far you're gonna go and then your internet crashed, or you simply forgot you were engaged in a fight. They could keep going for days, or then you could get killed without even being there.

[Nosajimiki]

most of this sounds over complex with the auto flee and chance of unconsiousness etc. I also dislike the project idea b/c hunting is currently instantanious, as should fighting be, and to make both projects would ruin hunting compleatly and vastly unbalence economies that rely off of it. I also think your should be able to flee from a fight whenever, so that's another reason I dont want to see the projects emplimented as sugested

How about a riposte attack. I mean every time a character is attacked he or she automatically tries a counter attack. That would at least make hit and run tactics less effective. Perhaps this could even be used to make a difference between melee and ranged weapons. You could only counter attack if your weapon has at least the same range as the attacker.

I personally like this idea, infact I've posted basicly this same things atleast once elsewhere, but for RP reasons, there needs to be a way to chose what your counter attack weapon is and if you will automaticly use it. If you're RPing a spar, you dont what to automaticly hit your friend with a battle axe... maybe .

I'm also not entirely sure if I like the range idea though. I like the idea of weapons having different abilities other than dammage, but this would create too much imbalince between wood and steel weapons. The thread on boardings has a good idea about making bows able to fire between locked ships though.

Another idea I've had, not so much to "fix" combat as to make it more interseting is to diversify weapons more, both in terms of what you need to make them, and what they are and are not good at.

Some examples for building requirements: make maces use iron instead of steel, battle axes take timber instead of wood, crossbows require resin, things like that. Also: maces, war hammers, flails, etc. are caste instead of pounded so you would need a clay mould to make them instead of all those hammers. Curved swords would require different hammers than strait ones, skiny swords (like rapiers and sabers) would need a tempering furnace, so on so forth. The general idea here is that different reagons will develope different ideas for what the perfect weapon is based on what they have available.

In terms of diversification of usefulness, there is ofcourse the option of ranged weapons having some intrensic advantages like fireing between boats, or not being able to be counter attacked, they could also be giving the handicap of not being able to counter attack as effectively (1/2 damage?) when you are attacked by melee. I'd also like to see some weapons made more skill based and others strength based. So someone who is very strong but a poor fighter could do more dammage with a battle axe than a crossbow, and someone who is the other way around would have an advantage with rapiers, sabres, etc. Claymores, longswords, daggers and such would proabbly be relitively ballenced

Edit: maybe weapons could have a piercing factor, subdual factor, and/or exausion factor.

piercing: how effectively a shield can absorb it, bludgoenoning weapons and crossbows have lower base damage, but higher penitration against well deffended enemies, cuved swords (sabres and scimitars) vise versa.

Subdual: fatgue inflicted by an attack, a billy club doesnt do much dammage but if it exausts an opponet quickly, then it would be good as a police weapon.

exausion: Heavy weapons create more fatuge than lighter ones as a gerneal rule, but some weapons, like the compound bow would create vertually no fatuge compared to other bows to fire b/c of it's mechanics. Two handed weapons might also be considered less exausing for thier wieght.