Cantr Combat System

General out-of-character discussion among players of Cantr II.

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Postby Piscator » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:37 pm

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.


We could combine that with the defending of others. Just integrate a little "defend this person" checkbox. For your own character this would be set on yes as a default. If you are a pacifist you could change it to no.
If you want defend your friends, change theirs to yes.
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Postby Joshuamonkey » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:58 pm

This would mean big changes! Wars would be much more bloody, and it wouldn't be so easy just to attack people in locked buildings.
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Postby Nosajimiki » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:02 pm

SekoETC wrote: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.


I like this, it still allows for some "cloak and dagger tacktics" but limits them in terms of full scaled combat. I think if you are attacked your allertness should go up to 100% no matter what you are doing for several days, and seeing someone get attacked will also escilate it.

This would mean big changes! Wars would be much more bloody, and it wouldn't be so easy just to attack people in locked buildings.


Yup, that's the point :D
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Postby Arlequin » Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:06 am

The alertness one is good.

And it has ways for further expanding, like:

- Indoors lighting: To boost alertness at indoor places.

- Patrol project: while being performed, adds a fixed amount (shared) of alertness to all people in that location. More people, more guards needed to safely work on projects.

- Weapon type effect: you need more alertness to notice someone trying to kill you with a knife than with a halberd. There should be a chance to kill with one knife blow, rogue style, an inactive character at an unguarded area.
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Postby Pie » Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:09 am

I for one like the

"you have one hour to counterattack or react or jump in front of your frend in a heroic poze saving there lives and having a good point of refurence to RP off of"

I'd like it if when you were attacked, you had one hour to respond.

maby 2 or 3 hours.

and of course, you can attack someone until your to tired.
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Postby Hannibal The Imbecile 15 » Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:32 am

I must say that while I would like it to be more like real life, I can neither think of a better idea nor have I seen one here. All in all I'd rather just keep it the way it is then muss it up even more.

However I think the healing system should be reformed. It is way to easy. If somebody's health drops below say... 50%?? they should at least be laid up for 5-6 game days, and if it gets to low perhaps irreversible injuries?

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Postby Phalynx » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:31 am

Where does this, healing is too easy come form? That is entirely location based. There are places where healing food is more valuable than iron and thus for these people healing relies on the meagre amount off eggs that people can get.... And if healing is so easy why were there so many thread recently about natural healing etc. Besides which this is about combat not healing, if you want to be so broad you could talk about reforming locks, travel, boats, vehicles. As I was suggesting before combat needs to be simple, unless you want to wait a year for our already busy ProgD friends to actually implement it.

Talk of lighting and different ranges or weapons is all very good but it just isn't cantr to me...

Let's remember in all this, that the nature of the game is such that cmobat HAS to be comparatively slow. Some people only check their characters once a day... a change that alienates these players (wierd as they are) would be a bad move.
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Postby Nosajimiki » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:49 am

Pie wrote:I for one like the

"you have one hour to counterattack or react or jump in front of your frend in a heroic poze saving there lives and having a good point of refurence to RP off of"

I'd like it if when you were attacked, you had one hour to respond.

maby 2 or 3 hours.

and of course, you can attack someone until your to tired.


I like attack instantanious, this has a lot of the same problems as projects, and repeated attacks would make killing someone when they are gone way to easy.

There should be a chance to kill with one knife blow, rogue style, an inactive character at an unguarded area.


same problem as repeat attacks, and witcha's already repeatedly mentioned not wanting possible 1 hit kills.
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Postby ratm » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:51 am

I think dragging just needs to be restyled. Right now, it's really what combat is about. Perhaps turn dragging into a project, and unless there were say five people working on the project the person being dragged could "break free" (this could be a project or just a button). Also, to help attackers, maybe a "Block this buildilng" button could be implemented, where a person stands in front of a building and stops all traffic going in and out. The only ways to make him move would be to drag him into a building or kill him. This would allow a well-armed strike force to attack a city, block all the exits and turn it into a big battle instead of a dragging contest. It would also give people being dragged a chance to break away (unless they were being dragged by a large number of people, in which case they shouldn't be able to slip out).
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Postby SekoETC » Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:48 am

- Weapon type effect: you need more alertness to notice someone trying to kill you with a knife than with a halberd. There should be a chance to kill with one knife blow, rogue style, an inactive character at an unguarded area.


Holy crap, that's a good one! :D That's a very good one! Finally something that gives a meaning to making small weapons!

(Insert an appropriate "you win a prize" picture here.)

We could combine that with the defending of others. Just integrate a little "defend this person" checkbox. For your own character this would be set on yes as a default.


I see one problem, if the button was along with the character description, and someone did something to make your character mad then left, you would prolly want to stop defending them, but couldn't because they're not in your location anymore.

I think if you are attacked your allertness should go up to 100% no matter what you are doing for several days, and seeing someone get attacked will also escilate it.


Good point. I was thinking about that but apparently didn't write it down. Though if your alertness goes up to 100%, you should at least temporarily stop working on your project, since that makes you jumpy and can't concentrate.

A similar effect would also be gained through loud noise, such as blowing a giant horn or hitting a cong. Everyone would have their heart jump to the throat and couldn't concentrate on their projects for a while, but if someone was trying to signal that an army of pirates is approaching, they'd be sure to have gotten everyone's attention.
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Postby Lord_Igor » Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:10 am

The receiver of an attack should get tiredness. Especially if he isn't hurt.
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Postby Piscator » Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:18 am

I see one problem, if the button was along with the character description, and someone did something to make your character mad then left, you would prolly want to stop defending them, but couldn't because they're not in your location anymore.


How would you defend him/her if he or she isn't in the same place anymore?

OK, then make a little list instead with the character you want defend and your character as default. If you want to stop defending a character not at the place anymore, just delete him from the list.
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Postby Sicofonte » Wed Oct 11, 2006 5:19 pm

If that kind of list and the alertness attribute are implemented, it would be logical to reduce the alertness of the guardian for each extra person added to the "protected list", giving eventually a maximum number of protected chars.

For simplicity, it could be good to add an option in the "char settings page" for protecting anyone (logical behaviour for a guardian/deputy char). Alertness would be almost null in crowded areas, but the guardian would engage in combat against any attacker (although the initial attack would be unblocked).
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Postby The Sociologist » Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:26 am

See my Essay on Motivation. Note that these suggestions do not favor any major changes to the system. After all, it worked in the past before it was deliberately buggered up. It is more a question of trying to rebalance the pernicious effects of the tiredness and skills systems.

(i) All characters should be granted some or other combat skill of rough equivalence. Currently Cantr has a massively long list of weapons but they are all the same thing! In fact Cantr is, in this respect, the most primitive and backwards MUD-type game I've ever encounered. As a solution, I would recommend dividing characters into attribute classes and then assigning skills accordingly. Hefty characters would best use battle axes or the like, agile characters bows, dexterous and stealthy characters daggers or dirks. There is just so much that could be discussed here, and yet such discussions are far too rare. Overall, the point is that, given the shortage of really awake characters in the game, there simply must be a wider distribution of adequate combat skills. Give a roughly equivalent combat skill to everybody.

(ii) Locks should not be so absolute. Currently, locks defeat all except crowbars. That's even more boring than the stone-paper-scissors game. At least there are three elements in that one! So we downgrade current locks to "ordinary" and allow such a lock to be defeated by, say, one person wielding a crowbar or three wielding stone axes [EDIT: was sledgehammers] and so on. But that isn't the end of it. You then have the possibility of superior steel locks fixed to improved buildings with bronze doors (see above). Breaking one of those would require two people with "ordinary" crowbars or one person with a hardened-steel crowbar, this being some new process. And so on. You have introduced strategic variation. The key element is that ordinary locks should be breakable by non-steel technologies provided that sufficient people get busy with it. You thereby enhance the danger level.

(iii) Dragging living characters should be less effective relative to other forms of combat. In particular, dragging should always take at least one Cantr hour to complete and there should always be a message "You see X beginning to drag Y" appearing the very instant the project is begun. Finally, if the tiredness system is retained, then dragging should generate more tiredness, roughly equivalent to combat. Stealthy dragging is currently the modus operandi of both pirates and police tyrannies. Either way, it is an evil because it reduces almost all combat to dragging. If the tyrants want to complain, then the answer is simple: employ more guards! And if they fail to do so, then they might have to accept the risk of being overwhelmed. As I said, you thereby enhance the danger level.

(iv) It should generally be easier to kill in that shield defensive values should be reduced, but it should also be possible to guard or defend. Character A should simply launch a project of "guarding" character B, whereupon any attempts to hit character B should hit A first. Likewise, character A would have to be gotten out of the way before B can be dragged anywhere. Furthermore, it should also be possible for a character to launch a "defensive" project for themselves. During this time they can't work as normal, but it is rather harder to hurt them or drag them aywhere. A defensive project might be what any character reverts to once their normal project is completed. (Yes or no? Not sure about that one). So you can see how that would work. A town under immediate threat would no longer enjoy quite the same protection from locked buildings and dragging, but it could still live on with a routine of workers under guard. This would require considerable organization, but requiring organization is a good thing!

(v) Semi-enclosed "rooms" should enjoy some protection in combat, but this should not be total. These rooms are vehicles, boats and enclosures (see above). A while back we went from being able to hit people on vehicles to not being able to hit at all and back again. Generally, the truth should be somewhere inbetween. Partially improved defense. In other words, there should be some encouragement for launching an attack on a town using vehicles or boats. At the same time, the town's answer is the enclosure - rather than trying to wall off the entire town. So, therefore, citizens would be safer working in the private enclosures, but attackers would also be relatively safer mounted on vehicles. The two should more or less balance. With this in place, you might implement the possibility of dragging people off vehicles or out of enclosures without having the key, but it would then be a major issue requiring at minimum four to six people and always taking one full Cantrian hour. (Yes or no? Not sure about that one either).

(vi) Should the outer rooms of improved buildings have windows? With the window open, you could then have access to the same outside information you get from a vehicle. With the window closed, it would be as currently. An improved building with an open window would then function as an enclosure for the above example in (e) above. Once again, just a thought. Not sure about it.

These are all just suggestions, of course. They are open to debate. But the bottom line is that combat in Cantr should be more likely, more feasible and more varied. Above all, it should not have been undermined by the skills system to the extent that it has been. Things must be woken up.
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Postby Marian » Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:34 am

I actually liek combat the way it is...I think the tiredness needs to be tweaked a little, but mainly I just wish locks weren't so powerful that dragging someone into a building basically means an automatic victory.

I do like the idea of being able to defend people though.

Also, I'm completely opposed to the idea of automatic counter attacks - it takes away from RP, and doesn't factor in things like whether a character even wants to fight back it that individual situation, or attack strength or practicing with wasters.

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