Reducing Drag-Based Combat

[DylPickle]

Ok. I know nothing might come of this...
Infact, it may just not be possible....

But I just made a post on how the benifits of a "battering ram" vehicle would mainly be to protect the "crowbar wielding, doorbreaking, entry team" from being dragged off into the hopeless abyss we know as the dreaded "locked buildings of cantr" (duh duh duhh...)

So! I realized (remembered, would maybe be a better term. Haven't been in a cantr fight since the Blackrocks attacked somewhere) that dragging is really the only thing that's ruining the combat system. It's not the skills, or the fact that sometimes nobody's active enough to be awake, but it's dragging.

So, how do we attempt to tone down the dragging?

Armor. Cantr-Armor.

Heregoes....

Armor doesn't actualy reduce damage taken, but makes its holder (it would be a visible item, not clothing) MUCH harder, and more tireing to drag away. The expense would be that it's heavy, causes wielder to walk slower (5-10%?), and maybe not allow wielder to enter smaller vehicles. (bikes, etc.)

Summary for armor:

ADVANTAGES:
-Defends wielder from probability to be dragged away.

DISADVANTAGES:
-Causes wielder to walk slower (to encourage face to face combat, while discouraging use of drag-defence by thieves)
-Doesn't allow wielder to enter small vehicles (same reason as above)
-It's relatively heavy (discourages use by those who aren't profesional fighters/people expecting conflict. Encourages storage of combat items)

SIDENOTES & BALANCING ISSUES:
-Shouldn't be a problem, but if, for some reason, people end up simply passing the "armor" around for an unfair advantage, the armor would have to somehow be "unpassable", and could only be dropped.

-Costs around the same amount as a crowbar.
-Carrying two "armors" shouldn't increase effectiveness. Like shields, only the most effective armor piece can be used.



... Whadya think?

Yea? Nay? ? ? Eh?

[DylPickle]

Post #2, before I get too sleepy and go to bed.

Despite the armor making people slower, and not allowing them to go on vehicles, they'd still be able to go and hide in buildings... Another issue that's annoying when trying to spice up the game with a little conflict...

Battering rams, to -completely- protect you from being dragged away, so doormashers can use their crowbars without being scared to bits.

Here's an abbreviated post from another thread:

Battering Rams: These would be vehicles, but would take three men to operate. On normal doors they would be twice as efficient as crowbars, but on gates they would be a certain project. This would be a mix between dragging and crowbarring, in that it would take a minimum strength to be used, say 4 strong men, and then afterwards, like a crowbar, it would take half a day to use, but only have a percentage chance of breaking down the door.

I don't think they should be twice as effective or anything.. That's too much of an advantage.
Secondly, apparently there's no real way to implement the "minimum workers needed" thing, so you can scratch the 3 people needed factor.

The true advantage of a "battering ram" vehicle is that you'd be able to stand and work on breaking a lock, without the fear of being dragged off.

Then again, it's a vehicle, so they could just drive off down the road if they needed to flee, right? Nope.

A battering ram, in my opinion, would have to be equal to, or slower than, a person travelling on foot.

[N-Aldwitch]

Against.

Tell me- how would armour NOT protect you from attacks? You're saying that if you are attacked with armour on, you lose exactly the same amount of health..

Anyway, tiredness is already taking care of this.... If you drag too many, you can't drag anymore.. Can't you see that??

[DylPickle]

(remembered, would maybe be a better term. Haven't been in a cantr fight since the Blackrocks attacked somewhere)

So no, I haven't noticed that dragging makes you more tired.
BUT. Even with the tiredness, people will get dragged off and away, and all the draggers have to do is rest in a building for a couple hours.

The only way combat will ever work is if people can stand and fight face to face.

Secondly, you'll notice I called it "cantr-armor" once, and that the work armour, itself, is in quotes at times. It's for lack of a better word.

If you want to picture it as a big iron ball around someones foot, then so be it.
As realistic as cantr is, the ability to drag someone off during a sword fight so easily is ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that you can hold propane gas in your hands. x2

[Schme]

Drag based combat if fine. It doens't need to be eliminated. It's a great system.

[Elros]

I agree with Schme, even though there might be small small flaws in the combat system, I still like the way it is. It makes you have to work together and use a little strategy then just getting out there and hitting back and forth.

[DylPickle]

I disagree. It's a great system for those that enjoy being dragged off into a building, then have people take turns coming in to silently kill your character.

In war, people die. In drag-war, people die boringly. A more outside based war would at least allow people who are losing their characters, to do it in an interesting way.

But it's not meant to "eliminate" (As I now notice I put in the title.. it was late ), but to reduce the dragging a little. Realy, it will only encourage a little more strategy as well, not to mention a variety of strategies.

[Schme]

The only strategy it encourages is making some armour. Cantr can't have a realistic fighting system. In a real fight, you keep throwing punches, or whatever you're doing, until it's done. But it's not real. People aren't playing this game all the time. So you can't get together to drag a guy, you can't have some kind of martial arts movie fight.

Drag and kill system is perfect. It's more realistic then anything else could be. Devoloped, rich or militarily advanced society, or whatever, controls the buildings, it can slaughter the bumbkin militiaman from the countryside who's got a bone spear. Usually people defending have the advantage, if they can see what's coming in advance and barricade themselves, or prepare, whatever. In Cantr it's no different.

And you can have interesting fights. You just have to do it right. If you haven't go steel weapons and shields so that you can fight a whole town on your own, you need some more people on your side. There's strategy.

[Nakranoth]

Riiight, because as we all know, throwing someone into a locked room IRL make people completely harmless. Sure the well trained well equiped army should be able to slaughter the lone militia man, but the militia group sould never be able to massacre an equally sized better trained, better equiped army, even on the defensive.
Drag and kill may be the best we'll get, but it's not the best possible, otherwise there wouldn't be so many people up in arms about it.

[Sicofonte]

I think... the way to balance the drag-AND-LOCK-system is giving more ways to break a lock (if it is needed).

Armours should be a way of defense in fight, not a crude patch of the drag'n'lock system.

[Schme]

The thing is, there are no well trained and armed armies. If you've got a couple locked buildings, that's a fortress. Unless you've got a crowbar, your army isn't well armed.

A crowbar is the equivalent of a guided missle in Cantr.

And yeah, locking someone up in real life won't make them harmless. In real life, you can't build a lock with a screwdriver or pummel a horse to death with your bare hands. It's not real life. It's a video game.

[DylPickle]

Minus the video

[Nakranoth]

The thing is, there are no well trained and armed armies.

One of my charries is in one...

If you've got a couple locked buildings, that's a fortress. Unless you've got a crowbar, your army isn't well armed.

We have crowbars, so dragging us isn't quite as useful, but that it conceptially could be is just absurd.

And yeah, locking someone up in real life won't make them harmless. In real life, you can't build a lock with a screwdriver or pummel a horse to death with your bare hands. It's not real life. It's a video game.

Well, should locks require a file and pliers too then? No, that makes them impractical for storage purposes. Have you tried to beat a horse to death? It's quite possible I assure you, just not easy...
How about a slightly less drastic change to game functions... simply add a button to buildings that allows you to attack/drag past the door... so throwing them in a building and keeping an eye on them to make sure they're not breaking the door stops being an end all answer. Also prevents the classic mud hut from becoming clogged by corpses... and I suspect it wouldn't be terribly difficult to implement. (ProgD I have no idea how exactly you have this code structured, so would such a change be readily possible?) *note* This would also prevent two men in a mud hut from being invincable.

[Skulty]

Drag and kill system is perfect.

I don't agree very much with this...
Five chars armed with bone spears and wood shields arrive at a location with two chars armed with bone spears and chitin shields. There's a war going on between them, so who do you think has won this battle? It should have been the five man army, but no! The two guys were awake at the same time and are experts at fighting(the others I don't know), so they just dragged everyone, one by one, to one of their buildings! Seems fair? Seems perfect? Not to me...
The solution to this? Really hard! But I have another ideia! Just think: what's the most strange thing about this whole dragging problem? My answer is: being capable of draging lots of people, one by one, even though they were fighting together! In RL you would go help your friend if he was being dragged.
Now the solution to this might be something like programming(and I know this ain't easy) team fights! Or even better, just create a friends list. Then, supose A is trying to drag B, if anyone in town has B in their friends list, they'll make the draging harder for A! This way, draging someone from an army will be real hard, as everyone from the army will help the to-drag guy!
This wouldn't be easy to implement but I think it would make the fights much more fair!
Oh, and about the breaking locks thing, I think it is very unreal to be able to lock ten guys in a room with a wooden door! Come on, ten guys are more than enough to break the damn door! Why not making a drag-like project for breaking doors? This would raise the need for cells in a prision, in order for the criminals not to run away.
Oh, and.... just kiding! Not that I'm out of ideias, but I'm tired from all this writing. I'll just post some more ideias once I get some replies (probably, all against the ideia, but whatever...)

[Pie]

I must disagree with the frends thing.

I also disagree with you're "dragging system is perfect"

I would prefer some sort of system that involves secters, hyding behind objects, moving around, and the like. Such as, jumping frome barrel to barrel, hyding behind them and the like, trenches, and sort.

you also should have an hour, or another time delay, for getting in and out of sertain erias, depending on the coolnes of the arias.