Comprehensive Combat Re-Write

[SumBum]

I'm still on the fence about all this. I see some good and some bad.

One of the things I would suggest is not limiting healing food consumption, only limit the consumption of energy foods. I am in favor of having energy foods and miss being able to use them now but they should have been limited from the start. Hindsight and all that.

[SekoETC]

It seems to encourage people to stall in order to get friends online to drag after the round of combat is resolved. The defender will be online while the attacker most likely will no longer be. Stalling should cause some sort of a penalty, but how do you tell someone is stalling and not simply being offline for real life reasons? Can't tell the difference. And friends could tell the player not to log in if the penalties only applied if the defender had logged in and not reacted to the attack. There would be no way of telling if OOC coordination happened. I guess it leads into disallowing people from dragging the attacker instantly even after the first round of combat had been resolved, because if someone is in middle of a battle, they wouldn't let a bunch of people sneak up on them and not try to defend himself.

[viktor]

it's my job to point out all the problems i can think of so we fix em before we suffer em.

another scenario i thoguht of while i was off to the store...
a town has someone come and cuse a disruption, in many places they would ge dragged to prison, nsometimes the guard that is awake is not quite able to lock them up but is close so usually, we do a quick slash and drag, if the hit landed.
but now that policing ability is gone, because if the guard wakes and attacks, the criminal can just delay and wait until the other player is tired of waiting and either checking another char or offline. complete the move and run off.
there are many aspects this will disrupt if implimented as described.

[Trapaças]

What about slapping someone? Does that cause a combat event too or can it be resolved immediately since it won't harm the other character?

[Piscator]

I guess that is something that could easily be emoted.

[viktor]

finally occurred to me, the bigges flaw would be.
sparring
sparring registers as attacking as would punching with 0% strength (slapping)
in a great many cultures throughout the game people spar to become stronger and skilled or to just avoid boredom, they spar casually so they can continue going about thier business, but now, if we impliment these changes, one would spar and then stand and wait for thier companion to finally wake up and complete the sparring, this causes major issues.

[Snickie]

I have a character who does a -lot- of sparring, especially on sleepers, so I know where this could be an issue.

[mikki]

I have a character who does a -lot- of sparring, especially on sleepers, so I know where this could be an issue.

So do I. I have chars that hit sleepers with a waster to try and wake them up

[viktor]

*nods* you spar then you want to go rest on a cot but you can;'t because the attacks are not resolved.

another instance.
you attack someone because you are a guard and they had hit the town leader, some other schmuck comes and steals things but you can;t do squatas they take off with an armload except wait for someone else to wake a pursue even though you are a totally awake guard at that moment.

[SumBum]

Seems like it would be easier to remove the one hit per day restriction, increase tiredness and limit energy food. Possibly limit healing food but it should have a much higher capacity than energy. I know this wouldn't solve all the problems of the current system but might slow things down enough without seriously impacting other activities.

[Piscator]

Well, I don't know if hitting random people on the head with a stick and then continuing with your business should be called sparring and I also don't know if it is something worth keeping. The new system would allow sparring, even a quick series of several blows if both partners are awake, but you probably would have to stop gathering potatoes at the same time.

you attack someone because you are a guard and they had hit the town leader, some other schmuck comes and steals things but you can;t do squatas they take off with an armload except wait for someone else to wake a pursue even though you are a totally awake guard at that moment.

In this case you would be able to cancel the attack on the first person and go after the second one. You wouldn't do damage to the first person, but you wouldn't be frozen on the spot either.

[viktor]

then the first person you were trying to discipline, wakes and runs down the other road... :S
removing the hit limit and re-implimenting energy foods would not help us even if the energy food is limited intake.
hit someone hard, do a lot of damage, use energy food which would cover that otherwise there's no sense in having energy food if you cant even recover one full hit worth of tiredness. then you hit again, the person logs in so they can resolve and die from the 2 hits from one char. :S

[Peter]

How does the software register who is and who is not online. I hardly ever hit the log out button, but I'm not always watching my cantr screen either. I could be attacked, the online time ticking starts while I'm actually doing my job for a change. *smiles* (as if...)

No, seriously, if it takes that 15 minutes into considderation like the counter of active players does, I might be offline already.

Also it would only see natural to me that atleast others can drag the attacker off. I understand others can be warned to do this before the one being attacked will resolve the attack.

I agree with other points made, now not the one attacked is asleep, but the attacker. Then again, that would only make the attacker more careful, which leads to other solutions than violence.

[Mitch79]

Until the person you were awake with goes to sleep and leaves you sitting wiating, then once again as it's pointed out, you're just stuck if something else comes up that needs your attention or you try to get back to a project. You've also got entire groups out there that use sparring as a continuous often used activity. It's actually become a part of some of their culture, I can see this screwing that up for them. Don't get me wrong, I think the combat system does need a change, but thinking more about it and reading comments here I am not sure this is the best way to go about doing it.

[KAOS]

then the first person you were trying to discipline, wakes and runs down the other road... :S

Guess that simply means you need more than one guard.