Combat Rewrite II

[Mykey]

I'm now thouroughly confused. *goes off to sit in a corner and cry*

*joins addicted*

[DylPickle]

I haven't had time to write a big response to the whole thing, but...

I don't think any of these proposals will stop a group of attackers from dragging key people* away to gang kill them. Project based combat wouldn't eliminate this, because attackers or defenders would likely still operate on a basis of drag first, attack later (and in numbers).

Somehow dragging has to be equated to making an attack, or it has to be turned into a project-like action that takes a bit of time (allowing people to still be peacefully dragged away).
I don't think one person should be able to attack and drag the same person on the same combat turn. It should be one or the other.

I support the near death state for any and all suggestions. It's a great concept. That's all I've got in me to comment on right now.
*Funny how in cantr "key people" or usually literally key bearers? Yarharhar.

[Piscator]

- Weapons and shields (and armor) are equipped RPG style. When a person attacks another character, the defender immediately counter attacks. Damage is applied to both parties depending on their current equipment and stats.

- The one hit per day rule is canceled if the victim attacks back.

So these two points seem to go against each other. If the character is attacked, the character immediately counter attacks so that means the one hit per day rule is canceled or is counter-attacking a different kind of attack?

I guess the confusion is due to the addition of the word "counter-attack". The word "attack" in the second rule is meant in the sense of "clicking the attack button" and has nothing to do with the exchange of blows during the clash.

[Chris]

The problem of players not being online at the same time during a combat situation must be addressed. If auto-retaliate is removed from Suggestion 3, something else to address the problem must be put in its place. I suspect that auto-retaliate is what has made Suggestion 3 as popular as it is. The frozen-in-duel alternative would be a much more radical change.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

For me, option three was much more palatable -specifically- because it did not have a frozen-in-place aspect to it.

[Chris]

Maybe we could modify the frozen-duel idea to make it a delayed-damage idea. The attacker swings instantly and then can do other things. If the defender comes online within a day, a choice of defensive options (including retaliation and other options) is given at that time. Then damage for both attack and retaliation occur. (If the defender doesn't come online within a day, the attack damage is resolved without opportunity for retaliation.) For the attacker, the delayed damage will be a major change from what we have now. It's even possible that the retaliation damage kills the attacker who has moved elsewhere. The in-game explanation is that the whole battle (attack and retaliation) happened instantly, but the damage wasn't felt because of adrenaline or because of some delayed effect such as internal bleeding.

[Doug R.]

The idea of freezing activity was to avoid this kind of time-warpy weirdness.

[SekoETC]

I don't know how difficult it would be to program but if people could write their own macros or select reactions from a list then every character could react in a way that best fits them and there would be no forced automation.

Reaction to an attack

It could have limiting parameters such as:

if $ATTACKER not in (safe list)
if $ATTACKER in (enemy list)
if $MY_HP <(number)
if $MY_HP >(number)
if $MY_TIREDNESS <(number)
if $MY_TIREDNESS >(number)
if $THEIR_HP <(number)
if $THEIR_HP >(number)
if $THEIR_TIREDNESS <(number)
if $THEIR_TIREDNESS >(number)
if $MY_MAX_DAMAGE-$THEIR_MAX_DAMAGE>(number)
Maybe even if $NUM_OF_ATTACKS during (given timespan in Cantr hours) but it would be more difficult to program since if the given timespan extended to the previous day, the query would have to be like select count(*) from violence where victim=(my id) and (turn=(current turn) or (turn=(prev turn) and turnpart>(what's remaining of the hours after reducing the number of hours belonging to the current day) )). This would be very useful in defining if people are ganging up on you even if they couldn't get through your shield at first.

The if checks could be nested or combined with and or or.

Then the reactions:

HEAL - auto-eat healing food until health is back to max or no more healing food is left. It should probably start from the most potent healing food, especially if a stomach capacity limit is ever going to come into play
HIT - hits the person back with currently equipped weapon, default 100% strength
HIT (number) - Retaliates using a given percentage. When the macro is saved, it should check that the number is valid and refuse to save it if it isn't. This will avoid the problem of how to deal with illegal values - by default the attack would be canceled, but it could turn out disappointing for someone who accidentally added one too many zero in their number.
ENTER (location) - If location ids should be kept a secret for some reason, it should provide a dropdown list of buildings and vehicles in your current town. If the location is not a sublocation of your current location then it would be ignored.
TRAVEL (road number) - Will start traveling with 100% speed, will of course use a vehicle if the person is in a vehicle or entered one previously with the command above
UNDOCK (direction) - If direction is not valid, it should either pick one at random or not undock at all
SAIL (direction, speed, (turns)) - Turns is optional and will be presumed indefinitely if left out or 0. When the macro is saved, it should again check that the numbers are within valid range.
SAY (text)
SAY TO $ATTACKER (text)
SAY TO (char_id) - Again if charids should be kept a secret, it should provide a dropdown list of either people present or everybody you've ever named. If the receiver is not present when the macro is executed, the command will be ignored.
Perhaps also DRAG (target, can be the attacker or a pre-defined person) TO (location) - This would make more sense with people being able to allow friends to drag them without resistance, otherwise it would only work if the target was much weaker than you or if combined with checking their hp and tiredness first. Maybe the their hp/tiredness could be expanded to checking out other people than the attacker but then an id should be included.

There should preferably be a delay between the execution of each command to make it match the reaction times of a normal (albeit alert) player, with some random deviation included.

People with no background in programming might find macros confusing but if there were macros, people who do understand the syntax could post useful examples on the forums for others to copypaste.

Macros allow the greatest freedom in customisation, the biggest problems being it might be difficult to program something that analyzes textual commands, it might leave loopholes that can be exploited, the question of can the system handle several people's macros launching at the same time and that most people find too having too many options intimidating.

And if we did have macros, it would be useful to be able to launch them manually without a trigger, because some people might prefer typing to browsing menus.

I was only typing out the case of reacting to an attack on one's person but it could be extended to auto-attacking people on your hit list, or attacking people who attack someone on your friends list.

[Polt86]

I like the concept of the macro, but I don't think it should be setup in text form. I feel I would have trouble setting up this sort of thing, and I work as a programmer.

It might be better to have a page with a number of fields, such as triggers, such as being attacked, someone else being attacked, etc, and reactions, such as retaliating, fleeing, eating healing food, etc. Each of those would have to have additional options specifying the who, what, where, and so on, depending on the first choice.

The details don't really matter now, but the goal is to have an interface that everyone should be able to understand and use easily. And it wouldn't require writing a parser/interpreter to handle the macros.

Also, the increased use of phones for playing is something to keep in mind, especially regarding formatting characters.

[Zlotnik]

I reject 1st and 2nd suggestion as the most confusing but i find freezing as a very interesting idea but not enough studied yet, maybe in different form would be acceptable with delayed damage .

So i would like to share my reflection about 3rd i chosen for now.

- Weapons and shields (and armor) are equipped RPG style. When a person attacks another character, the defender immediately counter attacks. Damage is applied to both parties depending on their current equipment and stats.

-I like it more than the situation when attacker and defender are freezed and others can wake up just before the end of project and make fight ridiculous what wouldn't happen in real fight even in a slow one.
But i see it very important to give defenders chance to defend against lightning/synchronized group attack. But it shouldn't make this kind of attack impossible at all. Assassin mission should be still an option.

Let's imagine not so hipotetical situation where kidnapped char is trying to escape from kidnappers. He leave all unnecessary burden and go random road. If he has minimum weight usually he will be attacked once by every kidnapper and if he survive it he will escape because he has time advantage. After freezing he is instantly a dead man no matter how long fight will last.

Maybe counter attack should be an option which you could turn on and turn off. But i would like more to improve it by adding that threshold.
And i must admit i really like threshold idea!
It would solve one big problem. Attacked person will not respond if first attacker would fail, won't loose stamina and will be better prepaired for next attack (maybe threshold could be changed manualy) which without it could be much stronger and really deadly.

And i think that addition of defenders option (like choosing your guards and after acceptance they would protect you while sleeping and would fight first, maximum 2 maybe) would be really cool and enough to make any key holder protected. Every King should have that kind of guards

- People can give order to attack people who are currently not present (but were previously). The attack is then carried out the next time the target is in reach.

I see this proposition as an opposide possibility than guarding option. It's the same level of automation but guarding is a passive option won't make troubles pointed for this autoattack and works for all attackers not only one. And gives chance for someone who is hiding to escape(it would help alone chars attacked or kidnapped and makes ambushes more difficult).

- People with 0% health enter the near death state, which would make them drop their inventory and render them unable to do anything but speak and notice events. If not healed within a certain number of days (1,2,3?), the character dies.

Epic idea is epic. But cantr shouldn't become game for immortals!
One or two days maximum and my proposition is that character should be somehow affected by that halfdead state. Maybe he should loose some fighting skills, strength temporarily. Or maybe he should be “weaker” and if someone kill him again in 2 days after healing and coming back to the world of living he won't be able to be resurrected.
He shouldn't have 9 lives In other case this halfdead state will be overused.
Every tale should have an ending you know...

- The target of a dragging project is informed about the attempt.

I like reasonable.

- Daily healing and energy regeneration capabilities will be limited.

You can mess all you want with energy drinks/food but i hope you don't touch regenerating furniture. It's essential.

- The one hit per day rule is canceled if the victim attacks back.

In this kind of fight mode fighters should loose energy like in any other fighting case.
If there would be button "start/stop counter attacks" it wouldn't be any contradiction between these two rules.

Someone said that maybe we would see if somebody have a weapon or training item in hand and there could be towns where weapon ready to attack would be prohibited.
I wish all the best for the town with harbour with that law

The last, most important thing. If you are going to change fighting module you need to improve all important aspects of it with udjusting all weapons effects/statis as well or... all these changes will look just incomplete.

Forgive me my english writing skills level.

[Joshuamonkey]

In other case this halfdead state will be overused.

Better than the actual dead state being overused..

I'm convinced that we should go with suggestion 3. I think the auto retaliation project thing is good, and the auto counter attack is a maybe if there's a damage threshold set and/or you could choose who not to attack. I'd like there to be a way to guard someone.

I think if we go with the macro thing it should be set up as a graphical interface with buttons and a place to enter the damage threshold, if we do that.

[kaloryfer]

current system
+ people after 100% dmg enter near-death state (lose all items, can't work), when they have 3 days to be healed and work normally or die permanently

that would be enough for me

[Joshuamonkey]

current system
+ people after 100% dmg enter near-death state (lose all items, can't work), when they have 3 days to be healed and work normally or die permanently

that would be enough for me

That brings up a good point. I think the near death state should be the first thing we implement, since it doesn't rely on the rest of the combat changes and is important (and I think has been accepted for a long time).

[Mykey]

I think it`s pretty much a given we`re going with option 3 in some version... So this leads me to a few questions....

1. Will any of the ideas about ranged weapons in suggestion 2 be used?
2. Will there be any balancing of weapons and damage?
3.Will any ideas from suggestion 1 be used?
4. Will there be new armors?
5. I haven`t seen anything like a critical hit, though I have noticed shields sometimes fail, any chance of 1.5 damage 1-5% of the time for melee weapons?
6. Will anything be changed in the strength system or skill system for combat?

Call me crazy, but I always thought things like battle axes were designed as blunt weapons to smash through shields..
And blocking a crossbow bolt with a shield, while possible, Shouldn`t be that easy. Same for a blow darts and even regular arrows.
Unless these shield are like what the roman legions used and cover most of the body. I may even just be speaking out of place because I`m not completely sure these things haven`t been changed.
And wooden shields and bone shields... shouldn`t these be broken easily by steel weapons? Tortoise shell may stand up better...
Yeah I`m over thinking but I remember most of the weapon damage didn`t make much sense, and the complete lack of armor of any type doesn`t either.
I could really go on and on but I`ll just stop here while it`s kind of short and sweet. I still don`t think the combat system we have is all that bad, it`s just horribly unbalanced last I knew.


*EDIT* Disregard some of the comments I`m reading the wiki now. It seems some improvements have been made, though the rot,repair and strength weight seem more than a little off still.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Honestly though, I actually kind of like what Chris suggested better than the three proposed in the poll, with the exception of his 4th statement. The lock thing sounds kind of weird the way he put it. If there's a lock, it should be picked or broken. Not... simply gotten past. So maybe a picking option?

Thanks for the endorsement. As for getting past a lock, have you ever watched a prison escape movie? They don't get out through the main gate past the searchlights and guard towers and razor wire. They dig a tunnel. So even in the most disadvantaged situation -- much more so than Cantr characters vs. a lock -- people circumvent devices meant to keep them in/out.

Ah, okay, I wasn't thinking about it from that perspective.