[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.)

[coder at ibm.net]

On 12/12/97 at 01:15 AM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> said:
>[coder at ibm.net:]

>> For the technical reasons noted afore I'm moving away from combat scripts
>> (they just don't work any more), and trying to move to a more losely pace

>What changed, might I ask, to keep them from working?

Combat is too indirect and multi-flavoured for combat scripts any more. 
Consider the basic methods of attack that are now commonly used in my
fights:

  Physical attacks (eg guns, bombs, blasts, swords, knives, clubs, 
    punches etc).
  
  Magical attacks (spells, fireballs, and the like).

  Particle attacks (starve the opponent of needed energy types, swamp 
    them with particles which consume their resources, cause their EQ to
    self-destruct due to being unable to feed itself the needed 
    particles).  Note Mana attacks are just a flavour of this.

  Traps and indirections (pit falls, teleports, indirections, robots, 
    mannikens, daemons, TC's etc).

  Willpower attacks (body stealing, general suppression, ousting, etc).

All except the last have roughly 50 - 60 different forms they can take.
  
>And how does this affect your plans to leave characters always logged in
>to the game world?

It doesn't yet.

>Scripts still work then?

Yup.

>*bow* Actually, the flow of combat was mostly Orion's thing.  We came up
>with the prioritized task system together when we realized that a simple
>what_i_am_doing value was not enough anymore.
>Secondly, I do like a sense of pacing to bring some urgency into the
>fray, but I'm not interested in making it so that the strength of your
>link directly determines how well you will do.  The 'intentions' thing,
>as you call it, came from two desires - one, to make it so that a little
>lag doesn't cause your character to turn into a drooling idiot (the
>original 'intentions' stuff we put in was a direct descendant of the
>'wimpy' concept), and two, make it so that the sense of urgency comes
>from actually *playing* the game, instead of struggling to get your
>commands into the system fast enough.  This is the main thing I don't
>like about recent realtime strategy games for the PC (Warcraft, C&C..) -
>you spend all your time trying to direct your troops to where you
>actually want them, rather than thinking about where they should be
>going. This isn't quick thinking (I have no trouble thinking at the speed
>the game runs), but rather quick mouse-work (which I am terrible at).

I want the concentration to be on the correct selection of action.  Slip,
and you're dead.  Essentially this means that I want the following
characteristics:

  -- Average combat is fatal in 5 blows.
  -- Attack more capable than defense.
  -- Strategy far more important than tactics.
  -- Speed is not an issue.
  -- Timing is everything.
  -- Prediction is even more than everything.
  -- Unpredictability is very high.
  -- You can always see the first blow coming, or the first blow 
     is always non-fatal (either will do), but second blow may be 
     fatal.
  -- Resource management is critical during combat (over/under 
     expenditure).

>> I also don't like moving to a
>> clocked system as it fairly well forces me to move the entire game to a
>> clocked system, which I'm resistant to.  I'm still much won over with
>> letting everything execute as quickly as it can.

>Nods - your argument of 'why should I have to wait on the computer'? 

Precisely.  Computers wait on humans, not the other way around.

>I
>like pacing for what we're doing (fairly realistic combat), but I thought
>the stuff that you proposed would work great without any sort of timer. 
>If it's all based on resource stuff (which is easy to do as soon as you
>get away from realistic swordplay), there's no reason anything needs to
>be timer based.  Of course...once again this could end up meaning that
>fast links and fast fingers always win over quick wits and good planning. 
>Hmm.

Given a newbie attacking a hardened veteran, where the newbie has the
advantage of surprise, I'd have no problem with the newbie winning 30% of
the fights.  I don't want DOOM, I want something much closer to chess, but
more in character with a quick game of liars dice.

If you've had a look at Regimental Chess you'll get almost exactly the
idea of what I want.  Fast, furious, incredibly flexible combat, very
quickly fatal, war by attrition where precision and prediction are the
true keys.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...