Essential and Critical changes to Combat System

[Piscator]

Well, the whole point of the idea is to allow all involved parties to make their move, including B's friends. Deliberate stalling could of course become a problem, but the effect shouldn't be too great. An attack would of course be carried out after a day (I should have mentioned that again for clarity), whether or not the attackee logged in. If you'd play for time and just sit there, all you would gain is one day compared to the current system.

[Dudel]

A announces an attack on B.
C, D and E announce an attack on A.
B strikes back (runs away, starts to drag, etc). -> A smacks B in the face.
A tries to run off (announces another attack on B, whatever). -> C, D and E beat the living crap out of A.

That might decrease a few tactics but if EVERY "combat move" was classified and turn based then I see no problem.

[Piscator]

Elaborating a bit on the self-defense/clash/auto-retaliation idea, would it seem acceptable if you had to "equip" a weapon before you used it in self-defense? The major counter-argument against this kind of mechanic seems to be the possibility of accidentally hitting someone you don't want to hit. If you had to conciously choose a weapon and "ready it", and if this would also be shown on the character screen ("he holds a XY at the ready"), the chance of any accidents happening should be very low.

This system would eliminate the need for a checkbox (although a damage threshold for self-defense might still be nice) and wouldn't require any major interface changes. Equipped weapons could be marked with a simple "(equipped)" in the item list (and on the character screen of course). This wouldn't need to influence the way combat works now, you could still choose which weapon you like to attack with. Equipping would only matter when defending.

By the way, I think it would be good to also trigger a defense when performing a dragging maneuver. That way there would be a good chance for the initiator to recieve some bruises (unless the other "lowers his weapon" first) when dragging a person against their will, which seems more than realistic.

[Tincho]

If the auto-attack produces tiredness, the system would be counterproductive. A tired person is easier to drag or hit.

[Piscator]

I don't think that auto-defense should generate triedness. It might not be completely realistic, but having a negative effect from an automatic response would open the gates for exploits. (For example, let 5 people attack the target to tire him, then attack with the real weapon. Timing and sequence should have as little influence as possible.)

[Cogliostro]

I think that there's a core idea in this suggestion that might be really useful if ever there comes about a special "Duel mode" for characters/players who are online, at each other's throats and want a fight to the death, "right now". We should allow this possibility and it's cool how returner came up with this natural escalating of combat speed between two chars that are effectively consenting to it by logging in frequently to hit back. So then their private fight can be over within a day or two, instead of dragging on for weeks.

But all the other elements where it's trying to slow down the game by cutting damage and adding more delays are, IMHO, useless due to practical reasons.

[Doug R.]

Jos will kill any automated combat idea, so if you want to revamp the system, try to come up with something that doesn't rely on automation.

[Piscator]

Well, it would only be automation in the same sense as using a shield is automation. If a char is able to defend himself with a shield, why not with a weapon? There is not really that much difference. Basically it is just introducing a chance that the attacker gets wounded in a fight, too. It's not like you were able to tell your char to attack a person once a day or something the like.

[Doug R.]

The fundamental issue is, what if you don't want your character to attack back? I can think of any number of scenarios where you wouldn't want to, regardless of if you check a box or not. Defending only protects yourself, but attacking harms another character. Any harm should be premeditated. I know Jos will say this, and unfortunately I agree with him.

[BZR]

All I want from new system is to avoid situations where I log at 8 AM, see my character healthy, and then log at 10 AM to see it dead.

Once I lost my char in about 5 real life seconds, from full health with shield to death. It was like:
1. Refresh to see he hasn't docked yet
2. Refresh to see he's just docked
3. Click at his name
4. Read message "you cannot play a dead character".
5...
6. Profit!

I want this game to be slow-paced, yet still interesting. I don't want my chars to die in 5 secs, and it exactly takes that much time to kill your char, or wound it and drag anywhere if you are "lucky".

Some numbers - strongest char deals about 63% of damage and drags 45 kilos. Average char's weight in dragging (I calculated it) is 33 kg. If he's hit by about 25% then he's even weaker, like 25kg, thus can be dragged singlehanded.

[Piscator]

Doug, if anybody could see whether a character is in defense mode or not, it would be the attackers fault if he gets hurt. If you see someone playing with his sabre, you don't sneak up to him and slap him in the face. You might get hurt. The only problem I can see is that suicidal newspawns might use defending characters to commit suicide, but if someone keeps the defense mode activated while not expecting an attack it's really their fault. If someone can't live with the idea of accidentally hurting somebody, they don't have to use the option.

The other alternative is to freeze an attack until the defender had a chance to log in (which would by the way fit the general idea of the game much better), but I got the impression that many people are strictly against making the game even slower. It would probably also be much more complicated to program.

[Doug R.]

I understand and agree with BZR, but I my "nay" vote on automated attacking stands.

The simplest solution is to not apply damage immediately and to eliminate dragging as an instant weapon.

A way to do either would be to turn them into some kind of project with a fixed maximum duration (if the victim doesn't respond) and a shorter/instant duration if the victim does respond.

[Doug R.]

Some thoughts:

You have been attacked by a man in his twenties with a battle axe. You can:

Block
Parry
Counter
Evade

You cannot move until you chose an action (nor can your attacker).

Block - use of a shield (uses fighting skill + some other skill (strength?), blocks damage as now)
Parry - use of a weapon (uses fighting skill + weapon parry modifier, but success completely deflects - only good for melee weapons)
Counter - Splits your fighting skill half to defense and half to attack and deals tiredness-free damage
Evade - Basically running away. Relies on some other skill other than fighting.

Choose one, or have it go to default after X hours. (player can choose default, though counter should not be a default option). Making a choice leads to resolution, allowing another attack to be made. This means you could have your duels to the death if you're online. You should also be able to attack more than one person at once.

You are being dragged by a man in his twenties. You can:

Break drag
Grapple to reverse drag
Evade

Breaking would be strength
Grappling would be fighting
Evade would be the non-combat skill (run away skill/Agility/etc)

People could join in on either side of the project, so more than one person could drag, increasing their success, and more than one person could come to the victim's aid. After X hours, it defaults. As with combat, victim and aggressor can't move until dragging is resolved.

[Piscator]

Well, I would fully support the latter idea. Non-instantaneous combat fits well with all the other non-instantaneousses in the game and would actually allow RPing the exchange of blows, but I remember to have heard some pretty strong opinions against it.

edit: It might be possible to implement this in a simpler fashion. If you are challenged you get a message (with a link to the attack screen of the challenging char). You can now either choose to attack the challenging char using the normal attack menu or perform another action like moving (also using the regular interface), which would also trigger the attacker to strike. To spice things up we could offer the option to perform attacks with two-handed weapons (or even two one-handed weapons) in which case you wouldn't be able to use a shield. Since attack and counter-attack would be performed in the same moment, switching equipment in fractions of seconds wouldn't be an issue.

[Doug R.]

That's reasonable. I wouldn't even be opposed to the sending out of email notifications to let you know if you are attacked.