[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD Design doc (long)

[Michael Willey]

On 12/17/98 2:36 PM, adam at angel.com wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Emil Eifrem wrote:
>> Surely you must have some way to delay a 
>>player's queing commands while they're busy 
>>doing something else. For example, say you 
>>have a spell that causes damage. According to 
>>the above, a fight between two people with 
>>this spell would basically be a fight between 
>>their clients and connections -- whomever gets 
>>through most "cast my damagespell" messages 
>>would win.
>
>No, not necessarily.  It's game balance.  A 
>direct player delay is not always necessary in 
>order to ensure that combat itself gets drawn 
>out for more than 3 seconds.
>
>Consider:
>
>- Buffy the mage has a damage spell, 
>'fireball'.  It costs her 100 mana to cast the 
>spell.
>- Buffy has another, weaker damage spell, 
>'chilling touch'.  It costs her 50 mana to cast 
>the spell.
>- Buffy has a really kickass damage spell, >'nuke'.  It costs her 200 
mana to cast the 
>spell.
>
>- Buffy has 120 total mana.
>- Buffy's mana count can go negative, up to her 
>total negated: -120.
>- Buffy gets back (((N + n) / 8) + 1) mana per >second, where N is her 
max (120) and n is her 
>current mana level (which could be between -120
>and 120).
>
>Buffy's current target, Boffo, can be killed by 
>two nukes, four fireballs, or eight chilling 
>touches.  What spell(s) should she cast at him >to kill him as quickly as 
possible, and when?  >Does tintin really help out here?  How long 
>does combat last?
>
>Now throw in that Boffo has spells and mana of >his own, including neat 
mana-twiddling spells 
>such as limiting the targets regen or 
>temporarily increasing your own.
>
>Now what's the wisest course?  Does #10 cast
>'fireball' boffo seem to be the best way for 
>Buffy to start combat?

A simple problem.  Assuming Buffy starts at a 
full charge, a simple script will kill off Boffo 
in eight seconds, with mana to spare.  Something 
along the lines of..

  Repeat 4 { chill touch boffo, wait 2 seconds }
  nuke boffo

Poor Boffo has eight seconds to type in a few 
commands; He will likely be defending himself or 
running away rather than trying to slow Buffy's 
mana regeneration.  Even if he does, he'll be 
horribly injured and she'll be unharmed, merely 
delayed a few seconds.

The only effect your mana regeneration had on 
Buffy is for her to add a 2 second delay to the 
script rather than the system adding a delay 
for her.  Buffy's next goal is probably to raise 
her mana maximum to 200 points, so she can 
change her insta-death script to

  repeat 2 nuke boffo

and be done with it.  Sure, it'll be awhile 
before she can do that again.  (Actually, it'll only be 35 seconds.)  But 
since Boffo is already 
dead, she can pick through his corpse at her 
leisure and be far away by the time he or his 
friends return.  (Or be waiting in ambush with another insta-kill trigger 
at the ready.)