[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[John Buehler]

David Kennerly writes:

> I'd like to discuss mechanics.  So far I've read a set of intended
> goals, but what mechanics do you intend to support the desired
> user experience?  Since I haven't heard anything precise, I'll
> take a few guesses at what you mean.  An average action is issued
> from the user each 12 seconds.

My metric is every 3 seconds during an 'intense' activity.
Certainly less frequent control during other times.

> This isn't as pretty as the prose you supplied earlier, but I
> believe it begins to expose what you might mean by that prose.

More or less, yes.  Opponents are designated (or automatically
accepted when they're aggressive) and the character will defend
itself, run away, surrender - according to the player's presets.
Conceivably, those presets could be specific to a number of opponent
types - or even specific to an opponent: NEVER run from a bear.

> You gave brilliant example of a mirror usable to blind a guard.
> It seems this is simple enough to accomplish through a couple of
> inputs, namely indicating the use of a mirror on the guard.  The
> player AI can infer from the enmity relation of the guard, that it
> should choose the optimal tactic using a mirror.  This need not be
> implemented through actual AI.

It would not be implemented through AI.  The AI is intended to cover
the reactive, or realtime, aspects of interaction with the
environment.  Something like use of a mirror to distract a guard
would be set up by interacting with a mirror object.  If the game
software permits it, it may be interaction with an object with
certain characteristics.  Having anything shiny on one's person may
attract attention.

> So what does the character do when the user has input the mirror
> on the guard on a cloudy day?

It does its job, casting a meager light on the guard, who doesn't
notice it.  Depending on the complexity of the simulations involved,
the light may be intermittent, throwing off the timing of a plan.
Or they just don't know if it'll have any effect at all, because the
clouds are hazy.  Maybe it'll work.  Maybe it won't.  It requires
improvisation when it doesn't work.

And this is also an example of designers not knowing what's going to
happen.  They just give the players some tools to find
entertainment.  They don't say how the tools fit into the game.

> I'd rather like to hear about the gameplay.  For example, which
> ladders exist?  Political ladders?  What political systems exist?
> Communism, socialist-democracy, fascism, a republic?  What's the
> political game like? Can you assassinate, exile, coup, stuff
> ballots, invoke Papal Infallibility?

There is a game of political intrigue, controlled by a fine-grained
faction system and a number of skills that go into manipulating that
faction.  The goal is to gain a seat in the court of a potentate,
such as a king, but there are lesser political games such as gaining
the friendship of the town mayor or even just the baker.

Characters have skills in cajoling, telling little while lies,
posturing, discrediting, rumormongering, etc.  All of these things,
as well as actions, such as bribing a guard or paying people to
start rumors for you, are ways of manipulating faction to get your
opponents out of the way and to rise in the political scene.
Naturally, there are honest ways of gaining faction - the classic
quest stuff.  Ideally, these NPC needs are a result of political
intrigue and other environmental factors.

Can you see how an NPC can be gamed to create a quandary for it,
givig rise to a quest that the same character can fulfill in order
to get into the NPCs good graces?

By rising in the ranks (i.e. improving faction with powerful NPCs),
characters gain access to NPC favors.  The baker may toss you a free
loaf of bread because you're his buddy, or he may not want to serve
you at all because you've been unkind to him.  The mayor may permit
you to open a stall in the market without paying the usual fees or
he may eject you from the town because you kicked his dog.  A baron
may permit you to take trees from his land for the large home that
you're planning on building.  A king may back your business venture
to open a new trade route.

All favors have a tendency to require reasonable behavior.  If the
player takes advantage of the NPC that offered the favor, they can
earn the emnity of that NPC (low faction), resulting in the NPC
actively working against the player character.  Having a King NPC
unhappy with you is just not a good thing.

Player characters do not become mayors, lords and kings in this
system.  They can only be permitted to hobnob with them and gain
those factions.

It's likely that new characters start out with a benefactor, so that
they can start the political game at an interesting level, have
certain amounts of money available, etc.  With the NPC benefactor
mechanism in place, the social game starts immediately.  If a player
wants to be an outcast and bandit, they lose their NPC benefactor,
who doesn't want to support a bandit.

>> Micromanagement does NOT encourage socialization.

> That does not imply that non-micromanagement does encourage
> socialization, but I think I see what you're hoping for.

It was meant to imply it.  It doesn't guarantee it, but I believe
that when players are not obligated to do something by the game,
they'll look at their remaining entertainment choices and
voluntarily engage in one or more.  For those interested in
socialization, they'll have the time to do it.

Take that approach and consider overlapping tasks because the
character is more capable than a micro-managing game.  I can
reliably let my character travel across town without having to drive
every step of the way, freeing me to socialize, figure out where my
friends are in the world, check over my belongings, whatever.

>> By eliminating cumulative rewards, players start to look at the
>> entertainment itself.

> I get what you're driving at, and I'd like to get there too, but
> I'll hold up a caution sign on this particular road.  The bridge
> is out.

> By eliminating cumulative rewards, players start looking at other
> persistent games.

This began with an investigation into how combat could be made more
entertaining.  I was suggesting that if we want the combat to be
more entertaining, then the treadmill must be less appealing.
Treadmills have a kind of suction action, pulling the character
rapidly ahead.

Eliminating cumulative rewards is a means of making the treadmill
less appealing.  When that happens, the players are going to look at
the actual task of combat.  If it's boring, they're not going to get
involved in it.  So this is all about rebalancing the player's
expectations of why combat is entertaining.

Which is not to say that cumulative rewards need to be completely
absent.  PvP ladders will be organized by players, based on the more
involved combat system.  The 'war' system that I have in mind
involves players engaging in battle at 'the front', where they can
accelerate or slow the global story.  Enemies are pushed back.  Land
is gained.  New villages are started, become safer, grow into towns,
etc.

Cumulative rewards are present, but they're intended to remain
rather mild - so that players will still look to the entertainment
as it is happening instead of trying to 'get through it'.

> In my experience, the number one bug that has cost more customers
> than anything else is loss of data integrity.  Even more than
> duplication and inflation bugs.  When a game server fails to
> faithfully store the accumulated beads that the player strung
> together, the customers become non-persistent.  :)

When the players expect to create bead necklaces, sure.  The
marketing has to avoid walking into the trap of promising hero
status, power and Swords of d00dn3ss.

If necessary, the game itself will remind the players of it.  The
graphics will be rendered in some funky way so that the players
don't develop the expectation that this is another EverQuest.  Or
the characters are Bouncing Boffos, not elves, dwarves and humans.
If it requires the slow startup of creating a new genre, so be it.

>> Yes, and I'd love to play it as well.  It's a shame I don't have
>> the money to throw at getting all the base technologies to work.
>> For now it will remain an untested idea.

> I wouldn't give up hope.  In my humble experience, explanations of
> the engineering of some of these goals would be conducive to
> realizing your dream.  Writing and prototyping can be cheap,
> although no cheaper than the time you have available to do it.

That's the reason that I bother to expound on this stuff here.  I'm
not going to build it, but somebody else might see something they
like.  I may simply be rehashing 'blue sky' ideas that others are
also waiting to implement.

I've thought about prototyping some stuff in 2D, but I'm trying to
write a book :)

JB
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