[MUD-Dev] Cognitively Interesting Combat

[Paolo Piselli]

--- Derek Larson <tek at physics.ucsc.edu> wrote:

> Let's consider the UO tank mage.  100 hp, 100 mana.

Ok, I will attempt to construct a cognitive model of rudimentary
UO-tank-mage-combat using your description.

> Primary means of attack: melee weapon attacks (generally a
> halberd) interspersed with spells (must unequip your weapon to
> cast). Primary defense: healing spells (either ~10hp or ~40hp).
> The important player skills are timing and mana management.
> Timing comes into play with swinging your weapon: the period of a
> halberd is about 5 seconds, so after you swing you use that time
> to cast your spells, while making sure to be ready to swing again
> after the 5 seconds

As we go, we will construct one rule for each chunked sequence of
moves that the player will make.  It sounds like you are saying that
unequiping your weapon is standard procedure following each melee
attack, and I'd bet equiping it beforehand is also neccesary.  So
I'd say the first rule is something like:

  MELEE-ATTACK:

    if in-combat and melee-weapon-ready-to-swing
    then do procedure "equip weapon, melee attack, unequip weapon"

there would probably also be a rule to monitor wether the melee
weapon is ready to swing.

> are up.  If you spend too long casting, you'll probably end up
> punching instead of swinging your halberd (missing a potential ~30
> damage).  The best players maintain their swing frequency of
> 1/5sec.

Maintaining this timing would probably be a conditional in a casting
rule - i.e. "if <other conditions> and there is enough time to cast
this spell before melee-weapon-ready-to-swing ..."

> Another important tactic is disrupting your opponents spells (and
> not having yours disrupted).  If you take damage or are affected
> by a hostile spell while casting, you fail.  Spell casting times
> vary with level, going from ~1sec to ~2.5 sec for the combat type
> spells.  This is important for choosing which healing spell to use
> when damaged.  You can attempt to use the 40hp spell, but it's
> slower and a good player will disrupt you.  The 10hp spell is
> pretty failsafe, but it's effective healing rate is slower and
> less mana efficient.

Ok, so there are at least two rules for the healing spells:

  CAST-SMALL-HEAL

    if my weapon is not ready to swing and I need to heal and I am
      likely to be interrupted
    then do "cast small heal"

  CAST-BIG-HEAL

    if my weapon is not ready to swing and I desperately need to
      heal and I am not likely to be interrupted
    then do "cast big heal"

... and to go with this there would be some rules to recognize when
you need to heal and when you "desperately" need to heal.

> Novices usually die because they don't use the small heal and get
> disrupted.

So I guess we are not modelling novice-level play :)

> Then there's the damage spells, the most important are:

>   Energy bolt    - 20 mana - ~30 damage    - 3 second cast
>   Explosion      - 20 mana - ~25 damage (2sec delay) - 3 second cast
>   Flamestrike    - 40 mana - ~25-50 damage - 3.5 second cast
>   Lightning Bolt - 11 mana - ~15 damage    - 2 second cast
>   Magic Arrow    - 4 mana  - ~4 damage     - .5 second cast

> Choosing which spell to use will depend on your mana reserves,
> opponent's health, and what they are trying to cast.

> If they are using greater heals, you can often use lightning bolts
> to both disrupt and damage them.  If instead you cast energy bolt,
> they will successfully heal, and the net result is not in your
> favor.

Hmm, this results in alot of conditionals that can be handled in the
antecedents of each rule, but the level of complexity of the
interaction that I'm coming up with doesn't have too much reactivity
to it.  Once the general situation has been recognized, and the
player has mastered timing his weapon swings, it seems like a
tactically automatic game.  Is there some kind of challenge to the
user's dexterity in pulling off the optimal sequence of moves, ala
Street Fighter?  Is there some kind of reactivity neccesary (other
than in the lightning-bolt interrupts)?

In any case, we at least have five more rules - one for each spell:

  CAST-ENERGY-BOLT:

    if weapon-not-ready-to-swing
    then do "cast energy boly"

  CAST-EXPLOSION:

    if weapon-not-ready-to-swing and I'm-not-in-a-hurry-to-do-damage
    then do "cast explosion"

  CAST-FLAME-STRIKE:
    if weapon-not-ready-to-swing and I-have-alot-of-mana and
      I-am-not-likely-to-get-interrupted
    then do "cast flamestrike"

  CAST-LIGHTNING-BOLT:

    if weapon-not-ready-to-swing and
      opponent-is-trying-to-cast-big-heal
    then do "cast lightning bolt"

  CAST-MAGIC-ARROW:
    if weapon-not-ready-to-swing and I-am-almost-out-of-mana
    then do "cast magic arrow"

> The above paragraphs, plus the mana management example I mentioned
> last email, make up the crux of tank mage combat. In addition,
> there's usually a back-and-forth with poisoning and curing poison,
> and possibly some use of healing or explosion potions.

This sounds like more options, but where is the reactivity?  Where
is the planning and strategy?

> To directly answer your questions, the decisions the player makes
> are basically: which heal spell to use and which damage spell to
> use, and these are made between weapon swings, so 1 or 2 per 5
> seconds.  As for reactions, the best players have to be able to
> react to within .5 seconds (with a broadband connection), with
> similar frequency as decision-making.

> Let me know if you need clarifications.

Its a good start, and I'm curious to hear how well you think the
rules that I am coming up with match the actual protocols in this
"case study".  Once we get a good model, we can then anecdotally
compare your experiences with this class in UO against the
evaluation provided by my metrics and see if there are things not
captured by the metrics.

-Paolo

=====
Paolo Piselli
ppiselli at yahoo.com
www.piselli.com , www.bestcoastswing.com
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