Hmmmmmmm

[isengoo]

Or, if the monster seeks out the archer, using some crude tracking and awareness skills (as orcs and hobgoblins already do), I don't see a problem with shooting at NPCs multiple times from another room.

[Olrane]

Right, I'd love to see some of that. Or I'd like to see monsters actually take cover, if the idea is that they take cover. The message that a monster takes cover is fine and well if it's not simply an arbitrary block against extra arrows.

Perhaps the bowman would have a penalty to shooting again at the same monster from the same direction. Perhaps terrain would determine how effective this cover could be. Perhaps if the archer shot an arrow from an opposite direction, it would ignore the monster's cover, since the monster can't block all sides.

I don't know. There are any number of things that could be done to simulate cover. If Jezz can't have a magical shield, though, goblins don't deserve one.

[jezz]

Frankly, I think that one should be able to shoot multiple times at a target in another room. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to hit them if they were hidden or left, so that's one thing they can do against this. I of course don't think that people should easily get bull's eye headshots from another room.

I just see this. Jacilor and the other shaolin guards can fire multiple times. The crossbowman in Ryan's example fired multiple times.
It doesn't make sense in the game universe that a player character would not be able to do so.

Would this be overpowered? I don't think so. As I said, another player character would probably get the hell out of there or find the bowman and engage him in close quarters combat. As for fighting against NPCs, it still doesn't seem overpowered. It's an alternative way to fight, and lets an accomplished bowman avoid the fray. Shouldn't he be able to?

This is I think just a case of arbitrary and self-contradicting piece of code.
If the power of missiles would need to be nerfed in response to multiple attacks being allowable, I think that would be fine.

I agree with Olrane that a npc should be able to shoot multiple times from another room and so should a player.

What I am against is a npc that can shoot multiple from another room, to which you can't access. Specially, when that next room, is guarded by closed gates, npc's and such. Basically, I don't like it mainly because I suffer all the types of that kind of npc's: orb temple and crusader towers, and I'm starting to see it becoming as common for a wiz trying to stop sathos as it was making every npc fighting us wield a weapon two-handed.

[tessa]

The funny thing is, the first example that came to mind when you mentioned that were all those archers that Asador has, which safely hide behind a row of guards and, at one place, a gate.

[Olrane]

*sigh* I really didn't want this to devolve into a relative strengths of good and evil sides discussion, as so many threads do. Let's not let it.

I just wanted to point out an inconsistency that I hadn't noticed before, as I'd never seen NPCs that were able to fire more than once and with great effect. I'm assuming that the original post with Jezz's death was the result of three skilled archers firing, reloading, and firing again.

I'd really love to see something like cover be implemented in the game in a serious way. That would be cool. I think the most important thing, though, is to remove the magical shield that makes an NPC invulnerable to room-to-room missiles after the first attempt.

Now, let's examine this. Does this make missile attacking overpowered? It really might, I'm not ruling that out. Sieging a city or temple or whatever should be a ridiculously difficult task, and being under constant arrow/bolt fire sounds about right. Does missile damage need to be reduced or does missile accuracy need to be curbed to change these tasks from impossible to just intensely difficult? I don't know, I don't have experience or know the code.

If a player could fire many times, then yes he could feasibly pick off many enemies from afar, granted that he can hit them despite good cover. I don't see this being a hugely overpowered thing in the long run. For one, it would take a nearly infinite amount of arrows to kill something like a troll, and this tactic would be useless indoors, which rules out many contested areas.

I would guess that by the time an archer is good enough to easily clear an area with just his bow, he'd probably not even care about fighting there anyway.

[jezz]

The funny thing is, the first example that came to mind when you mentioned that were all those archers that Asador has, which safely hide behind a row of guards and, at one place, a gate.

Yep, I never said I like them either, just that they are becoming the vanilla resource for stopping players. Having such archers at backrow would be much more funny. That way, player teams could think about strategies like: "first part of fight tanks go defend and our archers and clerics toast first their bowmans, after that we toggle to offensive mood and the clerics focus on heal".

Maybe, the npc archers could hide behind a fence in the same room, just leaving their cover to shoot, giving them a bonus against player bowmans and maybe also some protection against "physical" miracles like bspear, ice lance or heaven's fire.

I don't know how good are the archers at Asador, but looking at the deaths of the people trying to raid the city, I think it's pretty safe to assume they wouldn't crit jezz twice in a row.

Anyway, I'm not trying to suggest they should be changed, because, let's be clear, I think we all sathos are pretty excited about a new place we can try to explore even knowing we have a 66% chances of beeing critted. I'm just trying to ask that such archers don't become a common resource.

[tessa]

To Olrane:

Well, now that you mention it, one reason it might have been limited to one shot is to prevent lone archers with high missile skill from sieging towns or guilds with repeated arrows until gate/entrance guards were dead, and then just waltz into the place.

And while yes, in theory, that might be a long job, it'd still be doable. And most guards would be a lot easier to kill than trolls due to bloodloss (and while most guards have armours, there's a lot that have unprotected zones that can be focused on).

While it might seem like a really hard and improbable thing to do, rest assured if it was made possible, there's a player out there that will eventually do it, and whoever it was done to IMO would have a right to be annoyed that their otherwise formidable defences just got wasted and their place raided and sacked by a single character with a bow and 500 arrows.

[Olrane]

And to that, I'd say that implementing cover and allowing characters to enforce things ICly would do just fine. If that doesn't work...

A city guard is attacked by an archer outside the gates. He takes cover and tells the archers among the city guards to attack the person who is outside the gates. That person is now under a rain of arrows. Problem solved.

All that would be needed here is to add code to city guards to allow them to respond to missile attacks by sending their own. They certainly would if they had brains, they just hadn't thought of it yet.

[tessa]

And to that, I'd say that implementing cover and allowing characters to enforce things ICly would do just fine. If that doesn't work...

As sad as it is to say, I wouldn't rely on people actually having responsibility (if that's what you mean by enforce things ICly) very much. Look at a recent thread about why Abharsair has no interest in making it easier for evil chars. to hide their faith for an example of why.

A city guard is attacked by an archer outside the gates. He takes cover and tells the archers among the city guards to attack the person who is outside the gates. That person is now under a rain of arrows. Problem solved.

Which requires every guild and city to have one archer or more, which currently is not the case. While it probably would be doable, I cringe at the thought of how much work and code it would take to implement such a thing for every place where such a need would arise.

[Olrane]

What I meant was that ICly, it doesn't make a lot of sense to carry around 500 arrows or to take two hours OOCly to fill a defense with arrows. I take that as a blatant abuse of the game and system, and I would frown heavily upon someone doing that both ICly and OOCly. In my opinion, if you've emptied a quiver, you should go and finish the fight at close range, or at least go and get your arrows.

I don't think that you should assume that players are going to abuse this right off. I think that's a bridge we could cross when we get there, and a lot of it could be done ICly without anything else needed. It could be called dishonorable, it could be called treacherous and equated with backstab to overdo a little bit of pre-fight shooting. It could simply not be done because characters want to stay in character and don't think to do something as completely preposterous as to empty a quiverful, run to get more arrows, rinse, repeat until gate guards are dead.

I'd rather have my faith betrayed than not to believe in people.

[amrat]

I don't think that you should assume that players are going to abuse this right off. I think that's a bridge we could cross when we get there, and a lot of it could be done ICly without anything else needed. It could be called dishonorable, it could be called treacherous and equated with backstab to overdo a little bit of pre-fight shooting. It could simply not be done because characters want to stay in character and don't think to do something as completely preposterous as to empty a quiverful, run to get more arrows, rinse, repeat until gate guards are dead.

I'd rather have my faith betrayed than not to believe in people.

I agree.

I don't know where the wizzes get the idea that people would do things like:

sneak, cast thundercould, flee, sneak, cast thundercloud, flee, repeat until dead

or

charge slay, attack, die, resurrect, charge slay, attack, die, resurrect, repeat until dead

just because they can. I mean, it wouldn't really make sense IC, would it?

Sorry, couldn't help myself., no offense intended.

@Amrat

[tessa]

To clarify a small bit, I don't assume "players" will abuse it, but rather I am sure at least one person will at some point, if not intentionally, then due to assuming it wouldn't be possible to do if it was an abusive act.

And yes, it's a pretty grim perspective, but I've seen worse exploits done that would make a "500 arrow siege" appear tame.

Anyway, I don't really think this is an enjoyable discussion to have, so maybe it would be a good idea to pull back to the topic. I am pretty sure if the wizards feel it's a good idea, they would change it, and add the changes or balances or whatever else that they felt were necessary.

Do not get a wrong idea, though, I do like the idea of being able to shoot more than once at a target from a room away, though I'm having a feeling the one-time-shot may have been implemented for a specific reason or more, unless it came like that from day 1.

[Abharsair]

It is now possible for everyone to shoot repeatedly at other player characters from neighboring rooms. NPCs will still take a safe position after one shot, because the amount of work it would require to make them react properly is not justified by its benefit, and because I have to agree with Tessa's concern that it would be abused if they don't.

So the next time you have a stalemate between two player teams laying siege to each other, bring some bows along and entertain yourself.

[jezz]

So the next time you have a stalemate between two player teams laying siege to each other, bring some bows along and entertain yourself.

Yai!

[Olrane]

Fair enough, Abh. Thanks a lot.

[Olrane]

Now that it's PvP viable, I don't think anyone has any reason to complain. Here's your shot, Rangers!

[isengoo]

Now Isen must learn to shoot a bow to ward off the Crusader ambushes outside Arborea

[tessa]

*trains Crusaders to shoot down those blasphemous Asralites*