[MUD-Dev] Re: combat

[Andy Cink]

At 02:19 PM 1/25/99 -0800, Matt(diablo at best.com) wrote:
>I've renamed this thread as it no longer has anything to do with peerage.

>With all due respect, your paragraph illustrates one of my major
>complaints with combat on virtually every mud I've ever played. Why is
>just doing damage so important? I find that very boring. In Achaea, for
>example, player v. player combat is very oriented on what I call
>"give-and-take." You give something hindering to your opponent, and he
>tries to heal it. The combat system is too complicated to explain fully,
>but as an example, if I were an Occultist in Achaea, and I were attacking,
>say, someone of the monk class, the first thing I'd do is hit him with an
>Aeon tarot card (which causes a 1 second lag on all commands entered by
>the victim. If you enter a command before the 1 second was up, it would
>clear the first command and there would be a 1 second delay before the
>second one went through). Then I'd hit him with the hangedman tarot card,
>which entangles the monk in rope. All the while, my Chaos Entities would
>be doing various things to the poor monk (lightning bolts, setting him on
>fire, etc). Then I would try to shrivel up his limbs in order to a) stop
>him from walking out of the room and b) stop him from using his martial
>arts. Only after I had incapacitated my opponent would I bother with
>damage. 

<major snippage about Player vs Player fights>

This all really just comes down to a difference in opinions. I take
your point well that combat should consist of a lot more than damage.
As I get into the class design phase of my mud, I will keep this in
mind. But what a lot of this boils down to, is differences of opinion.
In my case, I don't really want player vs player combat taking place
on my mud. I don't really want to start another thread on this, so
I won't list my reasons why :) I just don't like it..

In my case, I want the mud to revolve around killing monsters. I like
combat. I like charging into battle with a two handed sword and full
plate, and hacking three kobolds in half with one huge swing. I want
monsters to fight back as intelligently as possible, and have realistic
skill sets and to fight using them. In my case, I don't enjoy fighting
against other people, I enjoy hacking virtual automatons to bits,
without worrying if I hurt someone else's feelings, or if they're mad
at me now. I just prefer a virtual opponent :) But I want one who can
make me feel challenged, where I worry what to do if he happens to
cast the big bad spell of death.

Making a very detailed PVP system and a very detailed mob combat
system are different sides of the same coin. I don't know how
well you can do one, without doing some degree of neglect to the
other. With 120 class skills, various counters and such, writing
up intelligent mobs could be a nightmare. And coding in intelligent
PVP combat in a system where things are simpler to accomodate the
intelligence of mobs could be equally nightmarish. So as I said,
it comes down to a difference in ideals I think. But I enjoyed your
points and agree that combat should be a lot more than just damage.
Bravo :)

Andy



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