[MUD-Dev] realistic combat vs enjoyable combat

[Tom Hunter]

Rayzam wrote:

> I believe there is an inverted U-shaped curve affecting 'combat',
> not realistically, but viscerally. This is for the player, not for
> real life.

...

> Short combats do not produce much enjoyment, because they either
> are of no challenge for the player, or the player dies so quickly
> that negative reinforcement or punishment occurs.  Long combats do
> not produce much enjoyment, because they often get boring. As
> stated, its a matter of watching 2 hp bars go down. Or the player
> settles down into a routine of combat options, cycling through
> them.  Medium combats allow enough time to get viscerally
> involved, without being so long as to get boring.

> Stringing a number of short combats together, does not necessarily
> lead to the same enjoyment as a medium combat.  Taking a long
> combat, and being able to flee & return in medium combat chunks
> does not necessarily lead to the same enjoyment as a medium
> combat.

> And the last caveat: this enjoyment is separate [though not
> independent of] the enjoyment from the risk of the combat that can
> produce its own adrenalin-infused rush of excitement.

I agree with this curve having experienced it in numerous games.  It
was one of the reasons I quit DAOC, you never lasted more than 4-5
seconds in combat.

On your last point I disagree somewhat because I think the two forms
of excitement will often build on eachother.  I would say that the
two are linked but can be defined seperately rather then seperate
but not independent of eachother.

I also want to add a thought to my first somewhat rantish post.  I
don't think combat should be realistic at the expense of fun.  It is
more fun when you can take a bullet or two and keep going in a game.
Right now we have unrealistic combat that is often less fun than
combat based on real knowledge of the world.  If our knowledge of
combat was based on experience and the people with experience told
us what they found to be fun then we could build better combat.
Currently our knowledge of combat is often based on guessing what
combat is like and guessing what part of it would be fun.  This puts
us at a disadvantage when we design combat systems.
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