[MUD-Dev] Battle Systems

[Mik Clarke]

Philip Loguinov -- Draymoor wrote:
> 
{BIG SNIP]
> I'd like to hear what people think of this. Would this work?
> Could i make it better somehow? How about my assessment
> of normal mud combat, is it accurate?

That's sort of what I'm aiming for on CthulhuMud, although there
is still a ways to go.  Currently I still have the automatic
round based trading of blows - small damage but a lot of it.  I
want to add options to fight defensively or offensively. My main
objection to removing it is that players shouldn't be left standing
there facing a mob if the server experiences a sudden lag attack.
As contact with the 'boss' cannot be guarenteeed default activities
should be to try and stay alive and to complete the last order.
The way my scripts work is basically to slow the server down to give
players on normal lag (say 2-300ms each way) a even chance.

I've recently (driver 7 for thsoe who are watching) cut over to
a multi-step spell casting system.  Each spell at least 1 second
and potentially a lot longer to cast.  If the caster gets hit during
that time it may disrupt thier spell (depends on the amount of damage
caused).  The spell definitions are in an external text file.

I also want to convert the combat manouvers - kick, trip etc... over
to use this system as well.  It's a technique that puts the wait before
the action, rather than giving instant gratification and lockout for
x seconds.

I have mob progs and combat chat.  Chat is a mechanism for driving
randomly picked scripts at random times.  There a special set used
for combat which can have a somewhat higher change of being used
than normal chatter.

Mobs can also react to events (such as Bubba attacks Me or, bettter
yet, Bubba walks into the room next door).  These can trigger 
scripts which run complicated spell casting sequences, but it all
has to be hand coded for each mob at the moment.

Mik

CthulhuMud: 212.17.96.215 port 9999
Website: http://212.17.96.215/mud/
Development website: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/2260
Current driver: 7.1.5, with 7.1.6 due early next week



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