[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[Vincent Archer]

According to Matthew Mihaly:
> Interesting. I'm of the opinion that combat is a virtually completely
> skill-less activity in the big graphical MUDs. It's all about your level
> and your equipment.

Then you haven't played in relatively challenging situations. In challenging
situations, player skills matters (and makes or breaks the fight). Not
reflexes (the games are geared against reflexes being significant), but
tactics, and adaptation to the circumstances.

EQ for example, requires skill to manage combat, notably the "breaking"
combat, when a group arrives in a fully populated area, and has to contend
with a batch of aggressive critters.

You can get away without any skill, and go for the brute force... at low
levels. At level 50, a single monster can wipe a spellcaster in two blows.
A spellcaster has to gauge exactly how and when to cast. A mistake, and
the combat changes suddendly because a key member of the group is under
attack. The wizard twitch-nuker dies. The wizard who know how to cast
lives.

If it was that skill-less, you would not have people complaining about
"bad groups", or dumb clerics/warriors/wizards (insert favorite black
sheep for the group failure here). At high levels, people are leery of
grouping with complete unknowns. They do not know how you're playing. And
if you're not playing correctly, they throw you out, or leave. I once had
a player walking out on me, because we did everything wrong. You'd think
a group with three clerics and two warriors could survive anything, right?
(end result: two clerics dead, one warrior escaped with 8hp)

For all its shortcomings, EQ combat at high levels require a lot of skill.
Not much reflexes, but a lot of tactical skills.

That's what ultimately breaks the E-Bay customer who buys the level 50
Druid. When faced with combat, he dies, because he hasn't got the
skillset required to play his character. He either get it quickly, or
stop playing that character. At level 20, rushing a monster as a mob
works. At 40, rushing a monster as a mob results in player deaths.

That is, unless you don't want to call tactical sense, and circumstance
evaluations 'skills'. Who has no skill? Gary Kasparov, Michael Schumacher
or Tyger Woods?

--
Vincent Archer                                         Email: archer at nevrax.com

Nevrax France.                              Off on the yellow brick road we go!



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