Combat idea 32-A18

[Kixie]

Well as you know there are BILLIONS of ideas on combat. Most of them revolve around the Hack and Slash and repeticiously bash rats untill the brains seep out of your ears \"concept\".

I am going to share an idea for the combat system for planeshift I would like to see implemented. It has come hot from the oven between my ears, so please be carefull, respect protocol and don\'t put any flakes or rough edges around any of the orifices. You have been warned.

The idea I am going to propose is one that centers mainly on the idea of \"Roleplay. No numbers. Ever. Seriously, just forget about the numbers. They don\'t matter\". As we know this is an extremist point of view, who hold roleplay over all. Mostly over fun, enjoyment and a good time on the internet. As far as roleplayers are concerned, we don\'t care if you are having fun, as long as we get our way.

But seriously, this concept could work, could be fun, and could leave you with a massive seisure. The first two are definately worth it, so keep your minds open about this.

I will make this into a nice little story so you\'ll be slightly entertained, then I\'ll wrap it up and summarize the paragraphs. So we shall begin.

Our hero shall be named.... Larry. Larry is a.... generic warrior. +9. With a sword and shield of course. Now Larry (our hero) is walking through hydlaa to the Arena. Now our friend Larry is quite new. In fact, he has just reached the age of 14 and beggining his adventures in this strange and foreign land. Suddenly on the road to the Arena a malicious rat jumps out of the darkness. Larry is quite frightened. He grabs his longsword out of it\'s shealth and is ready to attack the fiend. But out of nowhere, a mean crotchety old pirate and his ninja lackey come to slay the monster.

Larry seeing that the monster that he was once in danger from, is now going to be slain brings mixed emotions to our hero. He is safe, but he will not gain any knowlege for his future adventures. If he cannot slay a rat, how will he be the big bad hero of hydlaa? We can all feel for Larry of course, he\'s a nice guy.

The Ninja and pirate bash the stuffing out of the rat screaming \"OMG U n00b, w4tch out! Teh rats are sc4ry!2\" Larry watches them bash the rat for a while and notices something. When the fellow adventures beat the rat senseless, they have a ceratain technique for doing so. Instead of simply slaying the rat in a horizontal fashion, they seem to poke it in the eye and then slay it below the neck.

Larry feels enlightened by this new knowlege. Suddenly his attacks look so barbaric when compared to this new technique employed by the pirate and his lackey. Larry feels he has learned all he can for now, and goes to Arena to apply this technique. He finds a rat, and goes toward it to beat on it. When he begins to do so he makes a decision.

Larry at this point can beat the stuffing out of the vermin, OR he can take the knowlege he has learned and apply it to this vile creature. Larry is a smart guy. That\'s why we like him so much. Our hero then pokes the rat in the eye, and cuts it right at the spinal column. Larry has killed the rat, and rejoices. He feels faster, stronger, and more effective in his pest control technique. Larry goes immediately to fighting more rats, and starts to develop his own technique. He even reads books and watches more fighters. When he is ready he goes to battle more of the nasty rats.

He returns to the arena, ready to take his rat fighting skills to the next level. Suddenly someone drops by and makes a decision that it should be him that kills this vermin. Larry feels his familiar pangs of jelousy. This mysterious person is about to take all the glory of battle, while Larry fights and gets nothing. Larry ignores this and tries to kill the rat before the other player gets any closer. He is too late, the other fighter steps in and kills the rat beside Larry. However, once the rat is defeated, a blood soaked Larry realizes something. Even though he has had help in his fighting, he still has learned just as much as when he fought it alone.

Larry is once more enlightened, and goes off to become the greatest pest control employee hydlaa has ever known. The end.

Now to summarize:
-Players will gain knowlege from doing certain tasks. The amount they gain will be in order from greatest to least. First comes actually fighting, then comes watching another person fight. Then comes reading a book.
-When players do any of these tasks, a small code or secret will show up on the screen for approx. 30 seconds. This will be randomly generated, and there will be hundreds of these secrets, given at different levels to ensure no cheating or sharing can occur between players.
-When max knowlege is acquired, the player goes to the fields to apply the knowlege. The player is given a mini quiz that pops on screen. The player picks the appropriate action such as: \"You have learned that fighting this creature in a certain manner will be much more effective. Shall you choose to use it? Yes/no. Where is this most effective spot. Is it: The groin, the head, the arms or the foot?\" Choosing the right answer will gain a \"level\" in the ability. Choosing wrong means you have to start all over again.
-This could be applied to all kinds of skills, including ones I have outlined in my Character Creation thread found here:  Clicky teh Link foo\'!

So thats just about it. This program could be applied to mages, fighters, rogues, monks, w/e you want to roleplay. This process allows characters to play in such a manner that kill stealing is avoided all together, and the player is graded and \"leveled\" strictly on how well he pays attention and plays his character.

What do you think?

EDIT:
Just wanted to clear something up. I am not proposing we change the combat entirely. I am merely proposing that a quiz pops up after knowlege is gained, allowing you to get stronger in the desired field. This quiz only pops up when you have the knowlege, and you dont go on poking rats in the eyes after you have learned to do so. It is assumed that you do so forever after, automatically.

[SnowWolf]

I like the concept - anything to get us away from the grind and back to RP. I particularly like that you can learn these secrets just from watching. That\'s neat.

Nice one!

[rosmerelmer]

yeah!  i guess you are fed up of kill stealing.

\'go @w@y u n@sty n00b, ?t\'s my r@t!

[Black_rose]

its kinda a simple repeating motion is that what you mean??? just learn new repeating motions as well? im sorry but the only fighting style idea i like is the possibility of you pressing different buttos for different combos. more gamer skill required then time.

[rosmerelmer]

thats what i always wanted!
you need to fight yourself, not just click on a animal.

[Neryam]

I thought of a system where you can press the attack, retreat, move around back where the enemy can\'t block and stuff..

It got blasted.  ;(

[DaveG]

1)  I really like the idea of having the player make strategic decisions, like where to focus the attack on.  Adding this sort of thing to the system would add to the immersion level, in my opinion.

2)  Gaining some theoretical knowledge by watching others is a good idea too.  However, and AFK-booter must be in place to prevent cheating...  And, the one witnessing must also be at risk of attack, otherwise people could just roam around watching, without any need to participate.

3)  Nice how you managed to get a good story in, in spite of the l337 speakers.    Good post.  

[Kixie]

I think some of you are misunderstanding. I think having a strategic battle would be a little overwhelming for some players. It\'s a cool idea, but not feasible for the common player.

The idea was that you are given a strategic movement as a kind of code. This way the game knows the player was paying attention when he was gaining knowlege instead of just camping near a player who was fighting. The code of \"Poke rats in the eye\" would come up for only 30 seconds, somewhere during the learning process. To get better in a skill, the user would have to pick that code in a list of 3-9 go get better. If he chose wrong, he would have to go right back to his hour of reading, 30 mins of watching, or 5 mins of fighting.

Those times of course are all just random, and can be edited to the developers choice.

[Ivniciix]

It occurs to me that simply by using Left, Right, Center, Up & Down with the existing stances, you could create a fairly large range of attacks.
This would not be something a player would continue to use but, as you suggest, be part of a learning subroutine. It would not interfere with any other planned additions to combat such as the user-definable, skeletal scheme I read about in another thread. I like the idea because it is organic and not automatic instead requiring some thought and observation on the players part.

I do wonder \"Who does the very first player observe and learn from?\" Are there  NPC\'s more or less everywhere there are mobs \"demonstrating\" the proper technique? An alternative is to have the \"code\" appear whenever any player executed the proper attack or sequence of attacks. This could be a simple chat statement such as \"The rat seems particualrly vulnerable when jabbed in the center of his eye and then slashed left or right across his neck.\"

As for this to have anything to do with controlling kill-stealing or lessening it\'s negative impact on lower level players, I\'m less convinced. The best solution to kill stealing is simply to have a priority system-exp goes to first attacker or his team. If you mean mob-owning or dominating a particular hunting area, than an abundance of mobs is the only solution worth pursuing. Period.

Therefore, I\'m also not entirely sold on merely watching another player to earn experience except insofar as you discern a \"code\" from them the first time you watch a particular mob-type being killed and then use that knowledge in the arena as you describe.

However, I do agree strongly that the hidden randomizer for this and many other skills should be generated in character creation. This would allow for the \"code\' message to remain in chat while having what it says vary from player to player as well as be learnable without actually watching someone.

[hereticalfaction]

5min of fighting = 30min of watching = 1hr reading?

If you enable reading as a method of learning a skill, I think it should be variable according to ones abillity to learn from books (a language skill)

The fact is that in real life, experriance isnt all that. This fact has been acknowleged by drill seargents for a century who consistantl claim that the worst student of marksmanship is the farm boy who has been firing a rifle since he could walk and has ingrained a slough of bad habits. A completely inexperianced soldier is more likely to become a master of the rifle because he is open to the perfected teaching of a professional.

Think of it this way: If you have a good abillity to comprehend written material and apply its abstractions to real life, a book can tell you in one sentance information which it took the lifetimes of many masters to learn from scratch. Simmillarily, A few minutes with a talented teacher or coach can correct months worth of the flawed bungling which you would do on your own.

I know that there is a tendancy in games like this to feel that benefits such as skill improvement should be handed out in proportion to the risk which a player takes of his charachter getting killed. This prejudice is understandable, but reflects no realistic mechanism. In real life, People who wontonly risk getting killed generally get killed as a reward.

To keep this risk reward ratio and improve role playing would it not be better to institute a system of Player to player training? To improve a skill, you team up with a senior player whose level in the skill to be trained exceeds yours by at least 10. Include your idea of a library of trivia about each skill, only have there be questions for both the trainer and the trainee... stimulating the idea that the experianced player is passing on these tid bits of information, and encouraging players to keep a notebook full of their library of game lore. Players should be limited to learning 5 points of a skill from one player/trainer.

Lore should be acquired through books, passive watching, or direct combat, and they flash on the screen in such a way that an afk or macroer wont have a record of them. Books should also give bonus skill almost instantaneously, but they should be limited to say every tenth level. A specific book should have to be found through quest or exploration for ex: \"book of small blades II\" would teach one time a level of knife/dagger skill between 11th and 20th rank.

In either case, players should still have to practice as they do now, but training with players or books would save them the time gathering dp and tria.

[Miya]

Our noble Miya decides he wants to fight a rogue! He sneaks through the trees, careful not to alert the foul man of his presence, he sneaks up behind him and.... A popup! A little flying lizard with a slate board pops into thin air in front of him. It clears its throat loudly, and says, \"What is the proper way to polish your blade?\" and then holds out a small claw with a piece of chalk.

Miya looks confused. The rogue turns around and begins beating poor Miya into the ground. Poor Miya...

lol, seriously. If you\'ve ever taken a quiz, and most of us have, you\'ll know that they have no resemblance at at all to anything close to something that might possibly be in the general area of fun.

As for watching people fight giving you experience.... well then everyone would just sit their characters at the spawn points and go eat popcorn while their character levels.

And you absolutely MUST give some indication of the severity of the damage being dealt to you, your enemy, your friends. It\'s just basic game design. Otherwise you get no sense that you\'re getting stronger. No sense that you\'re using a better weapon. No sense that the enemy is going to kill you and there\'s nothing you can do about it, that sort of thing. In a MUD I used to play, they did this by using different damage messages for ranges of damage. For example,
You barely nick a rat with your slash on the paw.
You slash a rat on the paw.
You slash a rat hard on the paw.
You massacre a rat with your slash on the paw.
You obliterate a rat with your slash on the paw.
You annihilate a rat with your slash on the paw.
You SMITE a rat with your slash on the paw.

But, just so you know, most people on the mud HATED this, and complained about it daily.

And it is my belief that just because a game is geared towards roleplayers, doesn\'t mean that the game has to be a glorified 3d chat room. Although I call myself a roleplayer, I think we can sometimes be extremely masochistic when it comes to MMORPG\'s. It\'s like there\'s some unsaid moto that if it\'s fun, it\'s not RP. And I don\'t think that\'s true. Heck, I play World of Warcraft, on the RP server. That game is geared towards power gamers, and yet I have a blast roleplaying. It doesn\'t matter to me that I can see exactly how many hit points I have left. It\'s my job as a roleplayer to translate all these numbers into roleplay. If I crit for 1000 damage, I can say, \"/me watches the head of the beast roll off into the bushes after that last blow.\"

lol anyway I\'m rambling beyond the scope of this thread so I\'ll leave it at that.

-Miya

[Ivniciix]

Quote:
Our noble Miya decides he wants to fight a rogue! He sneaks through the trees, careful not to alert the foul man of his presence, he sneaks up behind him and.... A popup! A little flying lizard with a slate board pops into thin air in front of him. It clears its throat loudly, and says, \"What is the proper way to polish your blade?\" and then holds out a small claw with a piece of chalk.

Miya looks confused. The rogue turns around and begins beating poor Miya into the ground. Poor Miya...
------------

While I found this comment terribly amusing, I don\'t think it\'s quite the scenario Kixie is proposing.

I think it\'s more like you watch the rogue fighting the rat and sometime during the battle, an insight comes to you (simulated in game by a text meessage similar to the MuD ones your describe) that a certain move might well be the best way to kill rats. Quickly hightailing it too the arena, you try this and Presto! you gain some experience.

OK...that\'s slightly more the scenario I added but whether its a momentarily flashed code or a text message, the \"quiz\" isn\'t taking place while the fight is going on....only the \"capture\" of the answer.

That said, were I in a position where I had to choose between this technic of learning and the one hereeticlfaction laid out about learning from higher level players, I would strongly go for the player-training concept...not that I think the two are mutually exclusive. However, training lower players is a great and posiitve guild activity that is very RP and should aid all players in discovering if they\'ve joined a good guild too.

[odd2k]

About he watching others and learning from them thing.. You cold just cap the maximal theorietical knowledge available by say 1/3 of the character who is doing the fighting, maybe less. that way you will never be anywhere near as good as that mercenary no matter how long you sit and watch him slay helpless noobs. (And you will not hit better, you will only grasp the theory more and more)