Reducing Drag-Based Combat

[Pie]

after rethinking things... I do think that "build a vehicle called "chariot" thing is a plausibal thing, exept that I still don't think it's quite enough.

I think that the "you need to be less tired to exit a place" thing would solv all you're problems. Just think about it. It would make it so that people would have to stand "face to face" to fight someone, and unleas its a larger orgonasation against a smaller one, or inleas it's well planned, than it would make armies face each other.

[Solfius]

how do you drive by someone on the road from a vehicle, when you have to initiate a project?

I'm glad you asked, I'm trying to avoid hijacking the thread totally, but as you said, you can't fight a project on the road.

Turn based combat would simulate melee, and melee is impossible whilst travelling some distance apart.

Range weapons could work on a similar system to the current one. Ranged weapons get one shot daily and don't need a project. This would allow you to hunt people down on the road. The catch would be that you can't use a ranged weapon in melee combat. So when fighting you have a choice, do you stand back and shoot, or charge in stopping your enemy firing at you?

[Doug R.]

If you're going to separate ranged combat and melee combat in the manner you're describing, who would ever want to use melee combat? Just take a shot with your x-bow and duck into your house.

[Solfius]

People who don't have ranged weapons would use melee, but you raise a valid point.

I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, so I don't think it should be made impossible, but to balance the ability to attack without retaliation ranged weapons should be relatively weaker than melee weapons.

when actually fighting:

If someone attacks you, the automatic response would be to evade/defend like characters currently do with shields. You get a defence bonus for not attacking, but obviously you can't injure your opponent; this gives makes it harder to kill characters before their players can respond.

When the player logs in an sees they are under attack, they can choose how to respond, they can continue to evade, they can flee along a road or into a building or vehicle, or attack so they start fighting back.

Evasion has been explained above, but to repeat myself: when you evade you concentrate on avoiding blows and get a defence bonus but can't strike back. If you both evade then the combat ends.

When you attack, you choose your weapon and strength as now and attack your opponent once a turn until someone dies or flees.

When you flee you attempt to run away, your opponent gets a free shot at you next turn and then you run down your chosen route. If you both flee you both escape without being attacked.

In multiple combats (eg, 2 vs 1) you can only attack one person at a time, and by default you evade the rest.

Anyway, back to the point of the thread:

Whilst in a combat project you cannot be dragged (imagine trying to grab hold of someone who's trying to kill you).

So being in melee protects you from dragging but puts you in harms way, while ranged weapons allow you to attack without being attacked back but mean you can be dragged.

I expect attackers would want to start melees while defenders would try to use ranged weapons and drag

[Solfius]

One thing I ought to have mentioned above is that dragging should be turn based rather than instant.

In the general sense this would allow one person to move heavy objects alone, like bodies, and during combat would give characters to option to go for a straight fight in melee or use ranged weapons and attempt a dragging (if the target of the drag starts a combat project this would cancel the drag)

[Doug R.]

Let me simplify some things:

If someone attacks you, the automatic response would be to evade/defend like characters currently do with shields.

End it there. You already get a defense bonus in not attacking because you won't be tired.

When the player logs in an sees they are under attack, they can choose how to respond, they can continue to evade, they can flee along a road or into a building or vehicle, or attack so they start fighting back.

If you both evade then the combat ends.

When you attack, you choose your weapon and strength as now and attack your opponent once a turn until someone dies or flees.

The difference now is that fatigue will be accrued gradually over the 8 turns instead of all at once, making subsequent attacks less effective. Unless this was accounted for, simply dividing damage by eight would not be an accurate way to compensate.

When you flee you attempt to run away, your opponent gets a free shot at you next turn and then you run down your chosen route. If you both flee you both escape without being attacked.

In multiple combats (eg, 2 vs 1) you can only attack one person at a time, and by default you evade the rest.

Why? You can attack multiple people now, so why change it so fundamentally?

Whilst in a combat project you cannot be dragged (imagine trying to grab hold of someone who's trying to kill you).

So being in melee protects you from dragging but puts you in harms way, while ranged weapons allow you to attack without being attacked back but mean you can be dragged.

I like that.

I expect attackers would want to start melees while defenders would try to use ranged weapons and drag

One thing I ought to have mentioned above is that dragging should be turn based rather than instant.

In the general sense this would allow one person to move heavy objects alone, like bodies, and during combat would give characters to option to go for a straight fight in melee or use ranged weapons and attempt a dragging (if the target of the drag starts a combat project this would cancel the drag)

I have advocated this for some time, although instant dragging should not be changed.

[Solfius]

I overlooked tiredness...

It's original intention was to stop one man massacres, but seeing as the system I suggested would prevent this by limiting you to one target at a time (although you can change targets if you have more than one opponent) I think it would become useless, and I think popular opinion would like it removed. It certainly has no noticeable effect on the rest of the game.

Leaving fatigue as it is, yes that would need to be adjusted to take into account continuous fighting with no rest, else Cantr battles would be very short affairs.

And I accept that dividing damage by 8 is too simple, but I'm trying to avoid the fine detail and discuss the concept, the detail can be left until it is accepted and programming is in a position to implement it.

As for limiting the number of targets, as I mentioned briefly, to stop unrealistic massacres. This will probably prove contentious, but I prefer this solution over tiredness (obviously as it's my idea)


I should expand the turn based dragging, if an item is light enough to be dragged instantly, that's fine and good. What I meant was if it is too heavy to drag in one, then it progresses on the turn until it is dragged, which is what I think you meant, Doug.

[Doug R.]

What's unrealistic about one-man massacres? I could kill lots of folks if I walked into a crowd with a sword. Regardless, one man massacres are only possible now if the people being massacred are captive, due to tiredness.

[Solfius]

well, perhaps not strictly unrealistic, but undesirable. In real life you can run from the guy with the sword, in cantr you can log on the next day to find you've been killed.

The last massacre in the sense I meant was a long time ago now, in part due to the fact you can't hit every person in the town at full effectiveness

Here's some moans and stuff to illustrate my point
http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1071&start=0
http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1281&start=0

I thin most of the relevant threads have vanished though, probably some kind of archive/cleaning routine on the forum, or they were on the old Yahoo group before the forum was set up

[formerly known as hf]

I thin most of the relevant threads have vanished though, probably some kind of archive/cleaning routine on the forum, or they were on the old Yahoo group before the forum was set up

You'll probably find that it's one of those things that gets regularly mentioned, but has no specific thread of its own.

Forumers get a bit fatalistic like that sometimes. We'll moan about something on various not-neitrely-relevant threads (I know that post-end-of-TBR-war, I moaned regularly about the combat system & docking). But we never bother trying to drum-up a paricular thread. As we are well aware by now that if staff engage, they don't often engage publicly. We can only wonder about the discussion that goes on in the closed forums.

This thread is a prime example - a major bug-bear of many players. Exceptionally important to the game, given that fighting has been central to past interest-generating events. But little to no staff involvement.

[SekoETC]

I was looking for an existing topic for improving the battle system and here are my current thoughts. They have all been suggested before but it's a sort of a combo.

1. Allow hitting a person more than once a day if they are fighting back.

This would make battling more dynamic. If a person is sleeping then the attacker would have to wait a day before they can hit again, but if they strike back then the attacker can hit them again right after.

2. Randomize damage

Hits would range from fumbling to critical like in all the good games. Games that have solid damage are lame and only rely on equipment and stats.

When a person attacks, it will check his fighting skill (affected by the weapon's skill rating and their tiredness, woundedness) * a random number against the defender's fighting skill (also affected by tiredness and woundedness) * another random number. In this point, shields and strength will be ignored. The random numbers will be Gaussian or otherwise not linear and standard deviation is affected by the fighting skill.

Based on the difference of these values the game will decide whether it was a miss (/fumble), hit or critical hit. In case of a miss, the defender takes no damage but the attacker might suffer some negative effect, like taking +1% extra tiredness, suffering a small amount of damage from accidentally hitting themselves or their weapon would take a small amount of deterioration from hitting something inappropriate like the ground or a wall.

In the case of a hit, the strength of the attacker (affected by the weapon's regular damage and skill rating) will be added to the number they got in the previous "die rolling" and the defender's shield value (affected by their fighting skill) will be reduced from this number. If the outcome is positive, the defender will take damage. If the outcome is negative, the defender's shield will absorb the blow and the event created will say that X tries to hurt Y using a Z but Y blocks all damage. In both cases the shield will suffer from the damage it absorbs and if this makes it deteriorate down to 0, it will crumble and the defender will take the leftover damage.

In the case of a critical hit, the defender's shield value will not be taken into account at all.

3. Reduce the tiredness caused by hitting a person.

Currently I think you gain 20% tiredness by hit and that's insane. Something like 5% would be more realistic. Granted that hell would break lose if thise was done with the current system, but with the increased possibility of dealing less than your max value when attacking, people should be allowed more attempts to balance things out.

4. When tiredness reaches 100%, the person will pass out.

This would make massacrists have to count their attacks and careless ones would drive themselves into exhaustion and be easier to capture.

This would also make people more likely to use less than 100% strength in their attacks if they are planning to attack several people.

The current system where a person can continue attacking after reaching 100% tiredness and still with a slight chance of dealing a bit of damage is not realistic.

[Cantryjczyk]

1. Allow hitting a person more than once a day if they are fighting back.

This would make battling more dynamic. If a person is sleeping then the attacker would have to wait a day before they can hit again, but if they strike back then the attacker can hit them again right after.

It was discussed, even in polish forum, and it is great, great idea which I fully support. I can write why, all consequences, but I do that already somewhere.

2. Randomize damage

Hits would range from fumbling to critical like in all the good games. Games that have solid damage are lame and only rely on equipment and stats.

...

In the case of a critical hit, the defender's shield value will not be taken into account at all.

I belive that there is already random damage in combat. And it is not very big, but noticable, like 50 to 61 from hit with battleaxe in my char hands (no shield at enemy and no health or tireness diffrences in my char).
And there is random chance to bypass enemy shield completly, and there is chance to miss. So critical hit and critical fumle are already, fully random. And random damage.

3. Reduce the tiredness caused by hitting a person.

Currently I think you gain 20% tiredness by hit and that's insane. Something like 5% would be more realistic. Granted that hell would break lose if thise was done with the current system, but with the increased possibility of dealing less than your max value when attacking, people should be allowed more attempts to balance things out.

There is 15% tireness from hit. And it is just fine. You have 5% back every hour (40% per day), more if you use bed or something. So you can make three strong attack every day. More if you rest.

4. When tiredness reaches 100%, the person will pass out.

This would make massacrists have to count their attacks and careless ones would drive themselves into exhaustion and be easier to capture.

This would also make people more likely to use less than 100% strength in their attacks if they are planning to attack several people.

The current system where a person can continue attacking after reaching 100% tiredness and still with a slight chance of dealing a bit of damage is not realistic.

Tireness already effect every combat ability. If you are tired, you dont have strenght so
- you hits are very weak, to no effect at all if you are close to 100% tireness. if you hit multiple targets first hit have 100% potential, second 85%, then 70%, 55% etc.
- you defence ability are reduced, shield block much less, or dont block anything att all if you are close to 100% tireness
- you are less resistand to dragging, tired person is so weak, that other can easy drag, even if normally they cannot.

So, if someone go to city and hit everyone he can, only first few hits are effective, every one is less effective becose tireness. And after that, this char is so weak that he cannot block much even with best shield, full health and good skills. And everyone can drag him...

Best is hit only few targets. Every hit more is too weak to do much damage, and make you more valuable to enemies and you need more time before you are not tired again.

It is good I think.

[Frits]

Two things i think are not right. I read tiredness makes a char lighter and therefore easier to drag. Sole dragging is a larger advantage than fightingskill, these strong chars can lock you up which can prove fatal. If a char is a expert fighter you can at least run and hide, said char doesn't control your whereabouts, a chase could ensue of course but this has complex consequences like leaving your project and loot behind.

Tiredness, either the loss of 15 points when hitting a char at full strength is too much or you should recover faster in the first hour. Also natural healing* should play it's part as well as natural death.
* there is a thread on that subject.

[DELGRAD]

Very well said Cantryjczyk. I see no need to say anything further.

[SekoETC]

Yeah, natural healing and natural death. If you hit someone then even if they got away, if they can't do something about their wounds then they would pass out and die. Also it would be cool if instant healing was removed and healing foods only boosted your rate of healing. Currently if you bring 8 kilos of popcorn and keep eating it fast enough, you can survive several attacks. If you attack first then the only way of having an advantage is if the other person attacks you back right after without remembering to heal. Otherwise you will be more tired and easier to hit. So it might be profitable to just keep healing and wait until everyone has exhausted themselves. But if there was no instant healing then people might have to even flee if they get wounded.

Think about the passing out idea, it doesn't matter how tired a person is if they are on a locked boat, you still can't drag them. But if they make oneself so exhausted that they pass out, you would have time to pick the lock. Granted that one day out cold would be too much but even if it was less, if people have several people with crowbars then they might do something. Not to mention that the person can't undock fast so people might wake up to get hits through.