Won't somebody please think of the pirates?

[Doug R.]

Thank you, Seko.
Combat was also adversely affected when weapons damage was scaled down, and when tea was disabled, and when dragging, ship docking rules were meddled with,

I'm sorry, but you're utterly insane. Anyone advocating for the instant slaughter of entire towns (which you clearly are) has no place here. I'm sorry, that's how I feel.

[Mitch79]

Thank you, Seko.
Combat was also adversely affected when weapons damage was scaled down, and when tea was disabled, and when dragging, ship docking rules were meddled with,

I'm sorry, but you're utterly insane. Anyone advocating for the instant slaughter of entire towns (which you clearly are) has no place here. I'm sorry, that's how I feel.

I agree...

[BZR]

I do think about pirates. But I am totally against quick killing.

What could be done to help pirates? Cannons on ships, concealing identity, etc etc, but primarly...

Players need to play pirates! Start a pirate town, where pirates are safe and everything will start itself!

[Oasis]

Me too! Sure sounds like a pirate's perspective there, Cogliostro, one who only wants to be able to ensure the ability of mass slaughter.

[Jaxon]

Cog, are you insane? Do you realize how bad things were when people had the ability to commit massive slaughters? I lost 2 characters from massive slaughters and let me tell you, it sucks. You don't know why they did it and usually you don't know who they are.

With that said, I would support the idea of an upgrade to the fighting system IF an equal or better upgrade to defense came with it.

[Cogliostro]

When I write "we", I mean the newfangled Pirate Party of Cantr, of which I am the spokesman. Membership is voluntary and strictly confidential, just write me an encouraging private note of support. Amazing how many people have expressed the sentiment that they agree with many things I say, but won't be seen agreeing, due to some kind of forum-clique stigma they built around me.

The reason that I endlessly confuse you is that in the Pirate Party we don't take sides and we don't get upset. We merely advocate equal consideration. We also distinctly understand that there is a massive amount of player inertia, from people who would like violence completely downplayed and gone from Cantr. What can you do? That's what those people want, no matter how wrong we feel they are or how bad it is for the game. Naturally, here in the forum such people are the majority, even if they don't represent any true cross-section of Cantr players at large. Think about it, who would be interested being a regular at a forum with little RP-praise threads and gossips about characters or players? Of course, only the buttercup people.

So, the Pirate Party becomes necessary to represent the interests of those others for whom Cantr is not all about hugs and smiles and growing buttercups.

I don't think you'd call me insane if you understood what I'm saying and where I'm coming from. On the other hand, insanity is the first prerequisite of genius, so I am flattered! I looked at the RP threads and gossips with interest too, as my characters are prominently named in almost all of those. Loved by many players here, it would seem. Isn't that interesting too, that the pimplefaced scurvy hacknslashy guy Cog' would also anonymously be one of the highly regarded unique roleplayers in the game?

You just have to understand what we want. We don't want a return to the old combat system, but a step up to a new one, where clickfesting is (as much as possible) eliminated and both the attackers and the defenders in every conflict are given serious, equal consideration - without the game arbitrarily taking sides with the townies, for example.

And as soon as you start taking sides with the pirates too much, if I'm still around, I will institute the Townie Party and make myself the selfproclaimed speaker of that too.

[Jaxon]

I didn't mean insane if a negative way. I apologize if it came across as that. It was meant to be taken in a more light-hearted manner.

With that said, I'm all for joining the pirate coalition. We do need more excitement in the game. I just disagree with your suggestions for how to improve the game.

[Cogliostro]

Thank you and welcome Jaxon, an open public statement in an atmosphere of derision and sometimes even censorship means a lot.

Today I posted what I think was a very interesting suggestion, combining several ideas in a new way. Easy to implement and functionally elegant, it's been locked the minute I posted it, and now you can find it in "rejected". The reason? They saw something in it that's similar to another suggestion, and called it a dupe without reading or understanding.

Hilariously, if it's a dupe, then it's a dupe of ONE OF MY OWN THREADS. Guys, you really can't have it both ways. Either you let me reformulate and combine old suggestions in new ways into succint posts for all to read, or I will bring back those old threads, which have 100 pages each of my ascerbic prose in them from 10 years ago. And which you, by your own admission, can't be bothered to read. Please decide!

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=23168&start=0

[Henkie]

Lol, this is amusing, and completely idiotic.

[masterekat]

The only problem I have with combat it that its possible for it to be so damned quick. Everything else takes days, months, or years to do: gathering enough resources, building a vehicle, making a trade, traveling, setting up a really interesting rp arc. But combat is quick. You could have a character killed in less than a minute though if the right people are playing at the same time. And I think things get really crazy (shoot first, ask questions later) because of that fact as soon as the first person swings.

Oh, and pssst....the good pirates don't want you to think of them. The good pirates want you to forget aaaaalll about them.

[Doug R.]

If you want to slow combat down and not favor the "townies," you need to eliminate radios. There's no other way around it. Any slow-paced combat system would inherently favor anyone with the ability to call in reinforcements from nearby locales.

[masterekat]

But what about with the tick based damage idea that recently got proposed in the suggestions thread? Divide the damage of each blow by eight. Assign that amount of damage once per hour instead of all at once, for as long as the attacker and defender are in the same location. Since they can only attack each other once per day this would be more like they were engaging in an ongoing fight.

From what I've observed it usually takes about three blows to kill a character. So this way, instead of three people being able to kill a character in less than a minute, it would now take twenty-four characters to kill a character instantly and twelve to kill a character over the course of two hours, six in four hours....so on and so forth, but that being only if the character that was being attacked did not flee.

I'd really like to see twenty-four characters get called on the radio and come running to a town to stop some pirates.

[Doug R.]

I don't recall seeing that suggestion, no doubt because the same ideas are being discussed in multiple threads and I have suggestion fatigue.

However, even if attacks were not resolved instantly, it would still heavily favor the town. A numbers advantage is a numbers advantage. The attackers may not be killed, but they won't stick around to finish what they started either when the vans start arriving.

[masterekat]

>.> You're right...now that I went back to the suggestion forum, I don't see that idea either. But I know I didn't think of that on my own. Maybe I saw hedge's insta healing suggestion and got confused or something.

Anyway, there's almost always going to be a home field advantage. But at least it something that might lessen that advantage. And something's better than nothing, isn't it? And you don't know...the pirates might be smart and could only hit really sparsely populated areas with only towns that may or may not have someone listening to the radio...if there are four pirates they might could get a lock popped open before enough people to chase them off showed up. Or they might be forced to be more conniving..."Look, we really don't want anyone getting hurt, so nobody move and stay away from that radio. Just give us the key to the storage, let us take what we want, and we'll be on our way." Even if they fail, at least it's not an instant death sentence for trying. Better motivation for giving it another try somewhere else, isn't it?

And (this just goes to show that I'm getting slightly off topic, but...) I think that slowing down combat should do more than help pirates out anyway... Maybe this would mean that all sailors, even the honest ones, wouldn't have to wait to see if and when someone will unlock the harbor for them every third stop because the "townies" would be less afraid of being killed instantly by pirates. But mainly it would allow for more RP in any situation. Players would know that they'd have X amount of minutes before receiving that next wound so they have X amount of minutes to exchange words before either party has to consider running away.

[Jaxon]

The problem with being a pirate is the world is simply too small. If you hit a town, you have to kill everyone in the town. If not, there is a good probability that if you want to stop being a pirate and settle down, someone will recognize you. Sure you could simply stay a pirate your whole life, but what's the point of doing multiple raids, if all you really end up with is a massive pile of crap that for the most part you won't use.

Crime simply doesn't pay in Cantr.