[MUD-Dev] Battle Systems

[Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt]

On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Philip Loguinov -- Draymoor wrote:
>=20
> after the attack is made, you get set into a lag state. Basicly, its th=
e
> recovery from your attack, and initiative. once you are out of lag, you=
 get
> a message telling you.
>=20
> Spells can have casting times, as well as lag periods. So can some skil=
ls.
> weapons can have speeds (It takes longer to recover after using a halbe=
rd
> then it does after stabbing with a dagger)
> Parry as a command here.
> if you want to parry or dodge, you type it in and you do so until you e=
nter
> in a differant battle command.
>=20
> Instead of multiple blows per round, what  you get is lag improvement.
> As you improve with the specific weapon, you also get faster with it, w=
hich
> results in less lag, which has the same effect as multiple blows.
> Haste and Slow spells act by affecting lag for everything you do.
> Etc.

I have tried a similar system in pen-and-paper game. The lag time was mad=
e=20
discreet ( as a number of 'action-points' ) and each action you took cost=
=20
you so and so many action points. Each round, your character were given=20
a refill of action points. Spells, or potions may take or give action
points. Various actions, like locating a potion, making a hit,=20
getting an arrow, parry, dodge, flee, retreat and so on were equipped
with action-point cost, often determined by the game master. Adding the=20
ability to let an action 'carry over' into the next round made the entire=
=20
thing almost 'round-less' and worked much like what you describe.
Even thugh each player may have had a different number of action points,
that gave rise to some characters being able to do 'more' each 'round'
nicely reflected stamina, while the fact the the timeframe was determined
by the action taken (as in the example; daggers came first, helebards lat=
er)
nicely reflected speed and ease of use. Getting better at a weapon might
let you reduce it time expenditure, etc.

It make a nice feel with a pen-and-paper game. It took some of the
'artificial' feeling from combat, and added only a little to complexity.
It also factored in many new tactical aspects that arose from the system
as speed and weapon size and speed suddenly became a much more prominent=20
factor in gameplay.

Of course adding complexity, also adds complexity to balancing the system.
We have had to revise a few details of spells like speed, as well as
how diverse races and characters speed may be.

As for the players, i agree with another post i saw, i think they will mo=
st=20
likely put in lots of scripts and use whatever is easily scriptable. If y=
ou=20
want to make the system used interactively, you need to put so much compl=
exity=20
into it that a good player can outwit a script, otherwise you will probab=
ly=20
be doing it more for yourself than the majority of your players (which is=
=20
not necessarily a bad thing :-)


Hans Henrik St=E6rfeldt   |    bombman at diku.dk    | work:  hhs at cbs.dtu.dk=
      |
address:                |___  +45 40383492    __|__       +45 45252425   =
  __|
 Dybendalsvej 74 2. th, | Scientific programmer at Center for Biological =
    |
 2720 Vanl=F8se, Danmark. |  Sequence Analysis, Technical University of D=
enmark|




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