Speed and combat

[muzharab]

Hello,

We had a "discussion" about this thing with Abharsair today, mainly because I somewhat agreed with what Stilgar wrote.

So, we decided to test it. (And spent something like 5 hours in the process)

We made an elf and a dwarf fight eachother, slightly altering the equipment and the stats. (I won't go into exact details, since I don't think that would benefit anyone and I don't want to reveal all the details of the combat system).

The results were the following: elves can be extremely good fighters (and speed is at least as important than strength, and yes, there is a big difference at the rates and hitting). We ended up with a lot of dead dwarves (some elves too)

There are however some things that need to be taken into account. First of all, this was in one char vs. one char situation. When taking that same elf into a situation where there are multiple enemies hitting him, the importance of armours and con is greater (which seems quite natural) and the elf gets butchered more easily.

And the other aspect is that even the elven warrior needs some strength and skill too, in order to get the benefits for his speed. If he is too weak to move or dodge while carrying his sword, well...

All in all, I agree with Stilgar a lot less than before our experiment (which is a way of saying that I was wrong).

However, I do think there would be some room for improvement when it comes to fighting in teams. Most often one character acts as the 'tank' while the others just hit and hide behind this one person (and elves make bad 'tanks'). And even if the team tried, it is often very hard to make the enemies aim at more than one target (if you guard, they all turn against you). Maybe being able to guard someone against only one his enemies would make that all-elven team a better option.

[Kortha]

Here's another idea I'll toss out...I'm not sure if it'd work with game balance and stuff, but I've seen another mud that uses it.

Have a "split defence" skill, which as you get better at it, lets you defend yourself from multiple enemies better. I've seen really strong chars get slaughtered by large groups of enemies, and while I don't think a strong char should be able to kill anything on the mud, you'd think a highly skilled warrior wouldn't get hit 6 times in a second heh.

[Delia]

Heh...I remember too clearly the faeries when fighting faeries with newbie Delia, but if not discussing speed and just fighting in general, when I team with my tshahark buddies, I'm the "weak sidekick", but doing anything outside fighting I remember why I like my elf char so much, so I guess there is some balance, I just have to remember NOT to jump in front of that thurse's sword...

[iza]

I'd like to see something like what muzharab suggested be implemented...team combat would be alot funner and more effective if it didn't alway fall on one person to tank. Maybe a lure skill or something to make a single emeny attack you. So if ten orc are attacking one guy you could lure one and then another to attack you...thus splitting up the other mobs attack.


I don't know what to think when it comes to stats/skills....right now my char is missing a whole level of stats due to death(a level, not one sub-level) and he can't stand up to ogres as well as he used to...without str he can't do as much damage, without agi he attacks slower and without con he is hurt faster and gets tired quicker. Also if stats do in anyway affect things such as defence skill, parry or sword (which i've heard they do) then he won't be performing as well as he would with all his stats.

Someone said something interesting in game...That you could break an ogres neck with titanic strength and crapy slam skill or you could do it with weak strength and 100 skill...she would go with skill any day(not a direct quote, paraphrasing, my apologies to that person if i understood wrong). This is probably very true...however my char only has some strength and far from max skill and he currently manages to do it (only happened once but i've died alot since then ) . Point is I believe both are very important.

[anglachel]

Some words about team-combat.
There are already two skills for this! -> 'teaming' and 'guard'
The skill 'teaming' gives some you and your team-member
some boni on attack and defence.
With with 'skill' guard you cam jump between the current tank
and the enemies. If you are successfull, you will be the tank.
So more than one person can be a tank!

[jezz]

And a coordinated team, with say 3 possible tanks, that keeps on guarding each other, can really wreak havoc among the strategy of their foes Still I haven't seen that kind of strategy (mainly because I have never played big team fights with multiple fighters)

And as it was mentioned, agi is very important already, since it helps a lot in combat. But I have seen many players, putting 5 in str and 5 in con, and max in agi, whinning and saying: "Omg! I have very high agi and they still hit me!"

Sure man You aren't Flash Maybe they won't hit you often, but with that low con, if they hit, you are toasted, and with that low str, you will barely pierce their armours... It's all a matter of strategy.

Anyway, brute force (like a warrior with big stats just charging into battle) has never worked in Geas. Wait until your foe enters the troll room, prepare the fight, enter, block the exit immediately, and throw him to the ground as a beginning And that foe can be 2 times stronger than you, but there is a 80% that you will end winning...

[stilgar]

Here's another idea I'll toss out...I'm not sure if it'd work with game balance and stuff, but I've seen another mud that uses it.

Have a "split defence" skill, which as you get better at it, lets you defend yourself from multiple enemies better. I've seen really strong chars get slaughtered by large groups of enemies, and while I don't think a strong char should be able to kill anything on the mud, you'd think a highly skilled warrior wouldn't get hit 6 times in a second heh.

Let me warm up the issue a bit at this point...

Lets say each character has a certain number of moves in a combat round. Different moods should indicate how much he/she uses up for offensive-defensive maneuvers. Like a VERY fast character with like 3 or even 4 actions could use ALL his maneuver for parrying attacks. Makes sense right? thismeans.. IF you're fast enough to parry like 4 times around you can try to parry the first 4 incoming attacks that round. No matter if that came from 1, 2, 3 or 4 opponents. Did I mistaken somewhere?

This means two things.. Either you fast and parry a lot.. or you wear armours and can take hits...

about "tanking"..

in my opinion it is possible and logical that teams might try to focus their attention against a single enemy, though.. I think that does not mean automatically I cannot try to distract only one enemy from attacking my teammate and if I want to help him I should get everyone's attention from the opposing party... we already have protect though it is only for self-defence.. what if at higher levels people could defend someone else's podyparts in the same row? Like an arm or hand? If one hasa high-enough protect why not let him parry for incoming attacks against the teammate's bodypart?

just ideas.. feel free to add opinions

[chara]

Let me warm up the issue a bit at this point...

Lets say each character has a certain number of moves in a combat round. Different moods should indicate how much he/she uses up for offensive-defensive maneuvers. Like a VERY fast character with like 3 or even 4 actions could use ALL his maneuver for parrying attacks. Makes sense right? thismeans.. IF you're fast enough to parry like 4 times around you can try to parry the first 4 incoming attacks that round. No matter if that came from 1, 2, 3 or 4 opponents.

How is that different from Mood Defend?

[stilgar]

I'd say quite easily.. imagine 2 hillgiants with twohanded weapons. A Very fast character with 4 attacks in mood balance could be parry against BOTH with 100% efficiency for 2 actions and yet could attack with his remaining 2 actions a bit too.. Now you mainly defend and attack against only one opponent, and take the hits from the second third, etc. opponents

THIS is how it differs from our current system with moods I think

[chara]

But Geas doesn't have combat rounds, persay.

[Abharsair]

Nope, we don't. We have no combat rounds. And frankly, if three enemies, who are not completely incompetent, attack you at the very same time, you're just out of luck. Even if you're the God of Agility. That's why in our tests a lightly-armoured elf with high agility beat up the heavily-armoured dwarf (one vs. one). However, against multible enemies the heavily-armoured dwarf is much more effective. That's how it is, and that's how it should be in our opinion.

[stilgar]

I believe most mobs that have extra attacks have things like extra limbs to justify them

So we have no combat rounds.. I see.. then please explain how can a creature with 4 limbs can attack more than a significantly faster elf with 2 limbs during the same period of time if he moves significantly slower?

In my opinion the logical explanation: we have combat rounds, else having more limbs would not mean more attack during the same amount of time. This also means if we have combat rounds we should have combat actions per round... this can either be calculated by number of limbs or based on speed.. I can accept number of moves were calculated by number of limbs and speed counts at hitting/defence yet it not affects the number of actions..

yet.. with changing the allocation of defence bonuses or give a possibility to allocate these bonuses as we can allocate actions at defend/attack would add a bit more fun

could be easily integrated with a command like

like attacks/defensive bonuses could be adjusted between opponents evenly or unevenly.. combat attack/defend where one could allocate attack/defence bonuses in ascending/descending ratio sorted by the threat rate of opponents..

like: combat attack/defend multiple 100 0 0 0 or 25 25 25 25 etc.

this also add some salt to team-combat as I'd say most would gladly take 4 hits from a goblin instead take one from and ogre

[Abharsair]

I believe most mobs that have extra attacks have things like extra limbs to justify them

So we have no combat rounds.. I see.. then please explain how can a creature with 4 limbs can attack more than a significantly faster elf with 2 limbs during the same period of time if he moves significantly slower?

I suppose you want to know why a creature with four arms can have more attacks than a faster elf with two arms, right? At least that's what I think you asked. If that's the case, then I can tell you that it's the very same reason why a crack dealer with a submachine gun can shoot more bullets in the same amount of time than a really fast cop with a muzzle-loader. Following your logic, that would mean that all drive-by shootings are done in ROUNDS.

GAH!

[stilgar]

I suppose you want to know why a creature with four arms can have more attacks than a faster elf with two arms, right? At least that's what I think you asked. If that's the case, then I can tell you that it's the very same reason why a crack dealer with a submachine gun can shoot more bullets in the same amount of time than a really fast cop with a muzzle-loader. Following your logic, that would mean that all drive-by shootings are done in ROUNDS.

GAH!

You mean rate of fire? That is actually shots per second/minute? That is actually turn based calculation Also in your setup crack dealers have the same amount of limbs and faster weapon, this does not fit 4 armed and SLOW miecrawler vs 2 armed FAST elf in HtH

Let me give you a better setup:

crawlers can hit coordinated with all 4 of his limbs.. yes.. possibly.. at start.. then while he can hit again with all 4 our elfie will run him around 3 times an hit like 8 times

Yet.. I heard and feel the cathegoric NO so really won't force it further

[Abharsair]

The rate of fire is in my example a metaphor for the number of attacks someone has.

And to use your minecrawler-elfie example, it pains me to tell you that it has a slight flaw: The average minecrawler is 10% less agile than your elf, and has twice as many limbs/mandibles to attack with. So go figure.