Posted by Cyrnon on 02/03
The talk about skills, balance, spamming and delay has me wondering
about the way skills are performed on Legend. Like most other MUDs,
you use a skill and then are assessed a time lag. Given that this
is followed only out of tradition, some MUDs have gone the other way
and have the skill lag before the skill goes through. Ie, you have to
prepare your spell components, do your chant and wave your arms a
certain way to summon and control the magical energies for your spell.
Once the spell is released, you can then start another action. I
find this to be just as arbitrary when applied across the board to
all skills and spells. If you're familiar with the terms in title of
this post, you should see where this is leading.
Instead of having all of the skill lag either before or after using a
skill, I suggest that be split. There should be a small delay before a
skill is used and another after. You shouldn't spend two rounds recovering
from an attempted kick. Nor should you spend two rounds preparing to kick
an opponent. You should spend one round preparing, kick, and then spend
one round recovering. This could be applied to most skill and spell
use. Of course, not all actions have the same delays, or even always
have the same delay time. For instance, bash has a three round delay
if you fail and four rounds if you succeed. I imagine that it is quite
possible that in this case, you would spend two rounds preparing to
bash somebody and if you succeeded, you would then have to spend more
time regaining your balance, consuming two fight rounds. If you failed,
you wouldn't have shifted your balance off quite so far and would
only spend one round returning to your optimal fighting stance. Compared
to the current system, a few fight rounds with kick might look like this:
Current (postfix) Suggested (infix)
- kick - prepare
recover - kick -
recover recover
- kick - prepare
recover - kick -
recover recover
In the middle of a fight, it take just as long to perform any action
as it does now. The delay between repeating the same action would
also be the same. Given this information, what's the point in making
such a change? I see three good reasons; realism, variety, and less
spamming.
[continues]
From: Cyrnon
Tuesday, January 30 2001, 10:43PM
I already gave some descriptions of how it would be more realistic to
use infix actions. As another example, consider punching somebody. First
you draw back your arm and shift your weight to the balls of your heels.
(I haven't been in any fights in RL, recently, so I might not have a
perfect technique. ;) Second, you strike, hopefully aiming well enough
and moving fast enough to connect. Third, you move your arm back and
shift the weight on your feet so that you can maneuver to another angle
from which to strike. Of course, this is contrived, in RL it would be
much more complex. Instead of withdrawing to punch again with the same
hand, you could grab them and swing with your other hand, draw your arm
back and swing again without shifting your weight or many other things.
Still, this change should add realism without becoming overly complicated.
How would this add to variety if all it does is shift when actions occur?
Just as it doesn't make sense to apply all skill lag to one side of an
action, it doesn't make sense to always have it split. Obviously, skills
like rage with only one round of delay can't have the delay split. There
could be situations where you can start one skill, finish it and in
the same round use a second skill which would then have its own lag. Also,
if you have to prepare to use a skill before starting a fight, your
potential target, PC or NPC, should she you doing so and have a chance
to react... most likely, this would be important in pkill. I think that
surprise attacks (backstab!) would not give the victim a warning that they
are about to be struck. Hidden, sneaking or invis characters should also
receive some benefit when initiating combat with a skill. However,
chanting a spell or using certain skills might give away your position.
With skilltrees, the variety achieved would become more obvious and
valuable (without requiring more skills).
Right now, characters can spam skills while waiting for their victim to
arrive. I don't see how this can be justified IC. You must look pretty
foolish bobbing your head up and down, swishing your leg back and forth,
or grabbing at thin air. Skill lag for preparing to use a skill, should
always be applied. This may seem harsh for people who regularly spam
skills, but remember that when your opponent enters the room, they also
have a delay if they are using a skill. The advantage goes to whichever
player is better prepared. Of course, if your foes keep sneaking in to
stab you in the back, you might wish to avoid waiting around in the first
place.
Undoubtedly, there are pitfalls to changing the way skill lag is applied
that I haven't considered. Most obviously, the coding staff would have to
decide what delays are appropriate and change the skills for them. Players
would also have to accept that their character's way of life would be
different. However, I feel that, overall, the change would be for the
benefit of Legend, making it more interesting and enjoyable.
Cyrnon
From: Testboy
Wednesday, January 31 2001, 02:06AM
On duris casters have lag before the spell goes off, sometimes
many rounds worth.. Unfortunately assassins can backstab the
hell out of them and they can't do anything due to the lag.
Lag on backstab before you execute it? People would spam
kill to stop you backstabbing, lag on kill? nah that'd suck.
I haven't read all your post, I don't think I need to.
From: Chanel
Wednesday, January 31 2001, 02:37AM
As someone who likes to play dex, one of my strategies in mobkill
is kick/flee, particularly in situations where I don't have the
HPs to tank.
If mobs could attack me upon re-entering the room, before I could
land my kick, where's the point in kick/flee?
Coco Chanel
From: Sasha
Wednesday, January 31 2001, 08:38AM
Do you really think it would be worth the effort?
It seems to me that this is a lot of work for a small reward.
Personally, I'd prefer to see the imms working to fix things
that are actually broken.
I kinda like the idea in theory, not in practice.
Sasha
From: Vampyr
Wednesday, January 31 2001, 10:25AM
I don't think this would be to the benefit of legend :P
i say if you want a mud like this go back to the one that
had this implemented already :P
From: Cyrnon
Wednesday, January 31 2001, 12:59PM
I'm not surprised that there is little support for my suggestion, but I
had thought the dissent would be more vociferous. Trying to keep my
post short, I glossed over and ignored some details. Should lag when
inititating a fight with a skill/spell be the same as in a fight or
shortened? Spamming with the kill command instead of a skill. I hadn't
considered that, but when you can set up your own ambush with hide and
backstab or drawing people out with throw or shooting them, it shouldn't
be too advantageous. Certainly, it would be less powerful than spamming
any skill like now. I must add, given your previous posts, Testboy, your
behavior now is certainly odd. ;)
The whole concept of attack/flee is based on a flaw in the MUD's design.
You set your wimpy to max to avoid the lag created by using your skill
or spell. The point of wimpy is to allow people who have slow modems or
poor connections to escape instead of suddenly being spammed with a
bunch of fight rounds and their death on info. It's also extremely
convenient and I use kick/flee often myself, particulary when I am
severely wounded and trying to finish off a mob. However, I still don't
think I should be able to use it this way. If I were to rely on manually
typing the flee command, I would have to wait for skill lag to clear.
Should I, somehow, magically, be allowed to ignore the commitment I've
just made to a specific action?
If I didn't think it was worth the effort, I wouldn't have posted my
suggestion. ;) Would it really be much effort though? All skills and
spells would need to be evaluated to determine what the best way to
apply skill lag. A few lines of code would have to be added to each
and another line would be modified. Easy to do, but tedious. For the
most part, it would only need to be done once though. I consider this
less of an addition, than several bug fixes rolled together. ;)
While I have played on many MUD's, and feel that people who only play on
Legend are missing out on a lot (including an appreciation of what Legend
is), I have never seen skill lag implemented in this fashion. Fear of
change is not uncommon nor always bad, but to survive requires the
ability to adapt.
Cyrnon
From: Chanel
Thursday, February 01 2001, 01:33AM
I see I missed your point. The whole point of your idea is to kill
kick/flee.
Sorry, but I like to play high dex/low HP chars. This idea of yours,
if imped, would make them all worthless, cos they don't have the HPs
to tank out the bigger level 50 mobs.
As someone who played this char type, even when it wasn't fashionable,
I think your idea would change dex from its slightly overpowered current
position to -severely- underpowered, in mobkill at least.
Coco Chanel
From: Cyrnon
Thursday, February 01 2001, 11:00AM
Perhaps... or it might change so that you have to use skills with short
skill lags like backstab. Flee after one round if you fail. Also,
instead of using a bug or flaw in the game's design, you could push for
more defensive skills like parry, dodge, and tumble to survive combat.
Dex characters could remain IC and use their dexterity as opposed to
an OOC 'tool'.
Cyrnon
From: Vampyr
Thursday, February 01 2001, 11:44AM
this "wimpy full" has been in for like what, 4 years, the coders
haven't changed it because they didn't see this as a bug, and they
have coded the mud keeping in mind this very option. If you change
this it will most likely have a vast impact on how legendmud is
played, yea this is a change, but it doesn't really benefit us in
any way. It's a bunch of coding done to really, just change the way
people fight, which makes no sense :P
How would this benefit the players?
From: Vampyr
Thursday, February 01 2001, 11:46AM
oh and the reason i said wimpy full has been in for 4 years is cuz
i don't remember before that :P
From: Giordano
Thursday, February 01 2001, 12:10PM
The length of time something has been in has nothing to do
with whether it is a problem with the game design or not. There
are lots of problems which took years to fix (timed items
not decaying in bags, hps depending on con at levelling, etc etc).
I have the feeling hit/flee would be perceived as a problem because
it is so powerful, everything else has to be designed around the
assumption dex characters will use this strategy. Lots of 'cheats'
that people hate, like mobs that land a special in the same pulse
that you enter the room, are put in to try to defeat the kick/flee
method, but they also disadvantage anyone who flees in the normal way
just to heal a couple of times during a fight, and they tend to be
unpopular.
Also the methods tends to mean that priority plays a major role in who
wins a fight, which it probably shouldn't play.
If the hit/fee method was removed, dex would obviously need to be
upgraded some other ways to compensate. I think these ideas are interestin
but the question is, how would they fit in with long term changes
that are planned? If there are already going to be other major changes
in the fight system eventually, then it probably wouldn't be worth the
trouble for the imms to do all that re-balancing instead of working on the
long term goals, but if it is planned long-term to get rid of kick/flee
that might be an interesting way to do it.
Giordano
From: Testboy
Friday, February 02 2001, 06:06AM
People still hit/flee? I thought the priority 'fix' killed it.
Now, I'm curious what you mean about my behaviour being odd?
Cos I mentioned something on another MUD that's no good?
I'm not biased and I wouldn't mention other MUDs just to get
at the IMM's, I've better things to do. Anyway, the reason
this pre-skill lag kinda works there is that most pk is done
in large groups, here it's mostly one on one and you'll find
some char types just won't be able to fight each other.
From: Giordano
Friday, February 02 2001, 02:15PM
I still use hit/flee, and find it very powerful for low level
dex characters killing mobs 20 or more levels higher, especially my
Liman character with a poisoned weapon and first aid.
The only effect of the priority 'fix' is that sometimes it in
necessary to abandon a fight and try again later. This is just a
slight inconvenience really.
From: Nepon
Friday, February 02 2001, 04:27PM
this sounds to me like an idea specifically designed to make dex/str type
characters and their fighting strategies useless, or at the very least
easier to deal with in pkill. now remember not everyone on this mud is a
pkill character and these types of changes are the kinds of things that
mobkillers dont want to see because mobkilling has beenmade extremely diff
icult for a solo non-mage non-con fighter. if you want to get rid of my
ability as a dex fighter to hit/flee then i want to get rid of con fighter
ability to use weapons that do alot of damage, and mage's ability to
create charmies and heal themselves.
i say leave things alone because its this "well you have to learn to
adapt to the new system" crap that has depleted our character base
over and over again for the last 5 years (maybe more). changes like
this go in and people's characters become less suited for what
they were designed to do so people quit. Alot of good honest nice
friendly people have left this mud for these types of things and lousy
mean spirited jerks that only like to cause problems have replaced them.
so i say leave it alone! and also, this sounds yet again like some-
thing specifically targeted at dex characters (because they are the ones
that would stand to lose the most from it) and i seriously doubt that
the imms will do anything that doesnt screw over everyone- not just
one character type, or anything that doesnt help every type of character
that is probably the only reason those of us that have stayed for
all these years have stayed. so dont plan on seeing this go in.
-my 12 and 1/2 cents!
From: Chanel
Saturday, February 03 2001, 03:33AM
Even with prio the way it is, kick/flee is better than straight tanking.
Even if the mob has prio, you're still only there for one round between
specials, not two. And of course, you can always decide to give up if
you realise you can't do that mob without prio.
Coco Chanel
From: Skar
Saturday, February 03 2001, 05:14PM
Cyrnon is exactly right: wimpy is a feature that was intended for
people with lagging connections, so that they could be yanked out of
combat automatically if their hp got too low. Setting your wimpy to
your max hp is an abuse of this feature, in my opinion.
When I use headbutt, I get two (count 'em -- two!) rounds of skill lag.
That means I get two (count 'em -- two!) rounds of damage. When you
use wimpy in this fashion, you get two rounds of skill lag, but only
one (count 'em -- one!) round of damage.
I was here when the new (to me) fight system went in, and at no time did
the imms say, "strength fighters will do more damage, con fighters will
have more hp, and dex fighters will always use wimpy." Dex fighters aren't
supposed to get hit as often, sure, but they're also not supposed to be
unfairly waiting out their skill lag in another room.
All I suggest is that wimpy not activate if you're suffering from a
skill lag. If your connection is truly lagged, you won't be using skills.
And you'll still be fleeing, but it'll be after two rounds, not one.
If this downgrades dex fighters too much, then compensate them, by all
means. Just stop wimpy abuse.
Oh, another point. One way to address someone who abuses wimpy is to spam
headbutts or some such in the hopes that you can hit them when they come
back before they kick you. Mages can't spam spells, which is yet another
unfair advantage to wimpy abuse. Mages should be able to spam spells just
as you can spam fight skills.
From: Huginn
Saturday, February 03 2001, 06:22PM
Personally I think the kick/flee strategy is a bug that's being
exploited, regardless of the length of time you've been able to
do it. However, I highly doubt it'll be changed without a
strong look at dex characters, so doubt get all nervous
about it. :-)
Huginn
| 