[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[cruise]

This thread is a spawn of the Level Grind discusssion. However you
look at it, the overwhelming majority of MMOG's use combat as the
primary means of advancement. Yet for the most part, combat is a
matter of typing <kill rat> or clicking on a mob with your mouse.

The most entertaining combats are those which take a long time,
which require every bit of ingenuity to emerge triumphant. So why do
most games require several thousand odd mobs to be slain for the
higher levels? Replacing 1000 easy fights with 5 or 10 hard fights
could produce the same levelling rate, with a much greater
entertainment value.

Or would it? This could be done, simply, by increasing HP by
x100. But that doesn't make it any more entertaining than killing
100 basic mobs. The fight is harder, as you have to survive longer
without a break, but it's still just a time sink. What is the
fundemental difference between combat that is fun, and combat that
is trivial, apart from time?

It seems obvious to me that the actual player skill required is the
determining factor. Or at least /a/ determining factor. FPS
deathmatch style twitch gameplay is obviously impractical for the
moment, but a more strategic version of combat seems possible.

Puzzle Pirates' success seems based around this concept. It
obviously is attractive to players. So why don't we see more of it?
Complexity I presume is one answer - trying to keep the game
intuitive and easily understood. I'd argue easy-to-play and complex
are not mutually exclusive however. So what ways could depth be
added to combat?


Of course, though combat is the major activity addressed, these
questions and answers can (and should) be applied to all skill-based
activity - constructing one hundred swords is no less mind-numbing
that slaying one hundred orcs, without some kind of depth to the
process.

--
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org ]
   "quantam sufficit"
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