All 1v1 fights are fair.

Farrah

Patroklos said:

Daeir said:

I dunno, the potential interactions between pranks/juggle/tarot are gigantic, not even considering the doors that Puppetry opens. Jester is obscene in its potential depth given what tools it has. Blackout and cure negation on demand with sub 1s affliction speed plus Tarot is a huge bag of dicks just waiting to be thrown at people's faces.

I'm not sure where you're getting all of that from. Tarot balances are pretty slow, even with nimble. Occie has the advantage of the ents and a whole other class set that can help hinder and put pressure. Sticking aeon requires either a concussion bomb on the ground or inventory (which there's still a timing issue with since you get get +- 3 seconds on the timer, or suicide mice which you can off with a single attack each and cost 1s balance to drop. Most decent combatants are either going to pick up the bomb and put it in their pack, or leave the room, or in the case of mice, just kill them and laugh as you sob in frustration. For the record, even in blackout, people can see you set the timer on bombs.

If I wanted to be an ass, mickey definitely affords me some grief capability. Fling a curare axe, watch them eat the mickey, slip again once you get balance back, repeat. It works, but it's a shitty move. I've been working on some things to work together, and puppetry is definitely powerful. Though why puppet slow is 30% slower than tarot is beyond me, especially when it's got a pretty high fashion cost associated with it (1 to strip speed, 10 to slow. Both with 4s pre-nimble). I'm hoping whenever Mak gets around to the Jester re-work, it'll bring some better kit along that makes Jester a little bit less lackluster in 1v1.

Just an FYI, you can't pick up dropped timed bombs. You also can drop/fling at the same time, meaning you can timer concussionbomb 8, watch what time it is set to, count until there are 4-5 seconds left on timer, then Aeon, drop concussionbomb/Aeon, bomb explodes, throw axes.

Also, there's nothing lame about using Mickey's.

Cynlael

"I'm just gonna not use something that denies your ability to cure." Okay, might as well not use kalmia, curare, gecko, slike or itchpowder while you're at it, too. Just throw a dry JITB and hope for the best.

Devran

Cynlael said:

I wish we could go more than a week without this topic coming up. I swear it's arisen in virtually every combat-based thread we've had in the past year.

You're basically saying it's okay to not actually play the game, while playing the game.

Devran said:
Everyone agree to limit themselves to semi manual offensive actions and ostracize people who do automate stuff?

Idk about "ostracize" but don't expect to be treated as though you're as good at the game as you think you are. It's pretty similar to people who use bots in WoW to perform their rotation flawlessly, and then brag about how good at DPSing they are. (Note: speaking in general "you" terms, not directed specifically at you)

[spoiler] Alas, Blizzard has pretty capable detection of that kinda stuff, and they tend to get banned fairly quick. How different the genres of games are. [/spoiler]

I don't know whether "You're basically saying it's okay to not actually play the game, while playing the game." is what I'm saying. That's a very negative and narrow view of it even if it might be correct. I guess you'd have to determine what 'playing the game' actually means and what 'okay' actually means too.

What I think I'm saying is that automation has been encouraged since the beginning of MUDs since Triggers were invented and permitted. There have been many varying degrees of automation in that time and I'm not saying it all has been good for the game, but I don't think it's fair to stand up and say "I accept that SOME automation is okay but SOME OTHER automation is not."

Look at server side curing. That's huge automation. But it's received with open arms. It seems like automation only becomes frowned upon when it's an offensive script that's being discussed. For me, if some is acceptable than it all has to be and full automation is just a natural progression of something that began a very long time ago.

I am NOT saying that people who manually fight should give as much credit to people who automate combat. Their coding should be given credit, absolutely and probably their knowledge of the mechanics. But I do agree with @Atalkez when he says manualing takes more skill. It has to since we're limited as human beings.

Aerek

Automation isn't wrong, it's just boring. Once I fight someone a few times and realize they're following an obvious pattern of automated actions, I don't need to fight them anymore to know who's going to win. Either their script has flaws that I can exploit to win, or it's iron-clad and I will lose because it reacts perfectly and I'm human and make mistakes. 

I won't refuse to fight someone I'm sure is automated, but I will passively avoid them. Fighting NPCs is dull.

Devran

Cynlael said:

"I'm just gonna not use something that denies your ability to cure." Okay, might as well not use kalmia, curare, gecko, slike or itchpowder while you're at it, too. Just throw a dry JITB and hope for the best.

And listen to the stunned outrage and disbelief as it actually works. Haha!

Anedhel

Didn't Caladbolg go around throwing dry cleaves for a while and murdering people who weren't expecting it?  

Devran

Aerek said:

Automation isn't wrong, it's just boring. Once I fight someone a few times and realize they're following an obvious pattern of automated actions, I don't need to fight them anymore to know who's going to win. Either their script has flaws that I can exploit to win, or it's iron-clad and I will lose because it reacts perfectly and I'm human and make mistakes. 

I won't refuse to fight someone I'm sure is automated, but I will passively avoid them. Fighting NPCs is dull.

I respect what you have said here. 

Do you get satisfaction out of exploiting flaws and killing them, or is it the same as fighting an NPC even then?

Cynlael

Anedhel said:

Didn't Caladbolg go around throwing dry cleaves for a while and murdering people who weren't expecting it?  

To be fair, most of them people "stopped" it ... But his rite cured para before the final 'tick', so it went through and killed them.

Antonius

@Devran: For me, the most enjoyable fights are generally those where something surprising happens. That's either because I'm fighting somebody new or because the person I'm fighting has made changes (either defensively or offensively) since the last time I fought them. If I don't have to change anything either offensively or defensively because they haven't changed anything then it's boring; as Aerek said, a lot of the time the outcome is already decided before the fight even starts.

To take a pretty trivial example, somebody using a self limb counter against me. In the first fight, I might be able to sneak a torso break in, then break legs for the disembowel, because they don't yet have the right number of hits. If I fight them again - or if I don't get the disembowel that first time - I can no longer do that because now they'll be able to recognise the torso break when it happens. I either have to try a different strategy that doesn't focus on disembowel (riftlock, damnation if I'm Paladin, etc.) or try another way of securing a disembowel with torso damage intact.

Regarding automation, we generally accept that some automation is necessary. Combat is too fast-paced for you to handle both offense and defense at a high level. The issue (for me) is when people decide they can't, or don't want to, do either, so they're not actively involved in any aspect of playing the game during a fight. It might be a natural progression, but unlike automating one half, it's not a necessary one; it's definitely possible to manual - and, on the whole, I'd say do so as effectively as the majority of automated scripts - your offense.

Antonius

Swiftcurse might be the exception, but there are only like two Shaman in the game who actually fight and yet far more than two people have automated offenses. There are two-handed knights with automated offenses, and you can't tell me that they're making split second decisions about anything on their offense, since their attacks all have 3+ second balances, and the relevant curing balances (primarily elixir and tree) are even longer.

Proficy

Shaman can double afflict now... so no excuse... you jus like the 1 second auto cursing... i completely manual alchy having to go back and forth to single and double afflicts


Different strokes for different folks tho.. i finally tried an aff tracking system for the first time going DwC and couldnt kill anyone using it... i turned it off went to my manual keys and finally got my finisher off... 

 

Aerek

Devran said:

Do you get satisfaction out of exploiting flaws and killing them, or is it the same as fighting an NPC even then?

Certainly a sense of satisfaction in finding those exploits, but once I know them, I don't get much satisfaction out of rubbing your face in the dirt with them, no. I enjoy combat for the thrill of the mind games and the uncertainty; if I know how to break your system and win every time, it becomes boring even if I'm the one winning. There's an adrenaline rush that I just don't get once I know I'm analyzing a program, not testing wits and reflexes against a human.

To make an unfair generalization, I also find that automaters tend to treat all their losses as obvious scripting errors on their part, not skill or cleverness on your part. I'm sure most of them don't mean it that way, but it comes across as more than a little smug.

Farrah

I think a lot of what's being said implies an extremely high level of automation. I do get bored if I don't have to make any changes to what I'm doing, like Antonius said, but I don't find that limited to automated opponents. I also don't see "automation" as "doing the same thing over and over with no changes", but I guess it depends -how- auto your opponent is. There is a lot of semi-auto with a combination of human choices and scripts.

No one who always does the same thing is going to be top tier though. I've been fighting forever now and I still have to change things up all the time. It's what keeps me hooked.

Prythe

This is a fascinating discussion for somebody (me) for whom it is way beyond the scope of what I have, know, or understand. (@Cooper I want an F2 walk away from the keyboard and kill a type of person script! I am amazed that can even be done!)

I remember the first time @Mendax shared a health auto sipper with me. I thought it was the most amazing thing!

That I even remember how to cure things on my own now is nothing short of a miracle, because like most everybody (I think?), I no longer do cure on my own 95% of the time. 

My first aliases and scripts were along the lines of cute sayings (which I still have) and very primative "walk to such and such a place" with hard directions from a starting spot.

Frankly, I am not sure which world I like best. This one is an easier one in which to advance and survive but I do miss many aspects of walking uphill in the snow. Both ways. Barefoot.

Patroklos

Farrah said:

Patroklos said:

Daeir said:

I dunno, the potential interactions between pranks/juggle/tarot are gigantic, not even considering the doors that Puppetry opens. Jester is obscene in its potential depth given what tools it has. Blackout and cure negation on demand with sub 1s affliction speed plus Tarot is a huge bag of dicks just waiting to be thrown at people's faces.

I'm not sure where you're getting all of that from. Tarot balances are pretty slow, even with nimble. Occie has the advantage of the ents and a whole other class set that can help hinder and put pressure. Sticking aeon requires either a concussion bomb on the ground or inventory (which there's still a timing issue with since you get get +- 3 seconds on the timer, or suicide mice which you can off with a single attack each and cost 1s balance to drop. Most decent combatants are either going to pick up the bomb and put it in their pack, or leave the room, or in the case of mice, just kill them and laugh as you sob in frustration. For the record, even in blackout, people can see you set the timer on bombs.

If I wanted to be an ass, mickey definitely affords me some grief capability. Fling a curare axe, watch them eat the mickey, slip again once you get balance back, repeat. It works, but it's a shitty move. I've been working on some things to work together, and puppetry is definitely powerful. Though why puppet slow is 30% slower than tarot is beyond me, especially when it's got a pretty high fashion cost associated with it (1 to strip speed, 10 to slow. Both with 4s pre-nimble). I'm hoping whenever Mak gets around to the Jester re-work, it'll bring some better kit along that makes Jester a little bit less lackluster in 1v1.

Just an FYI, you can't pick up dropped timed bombs. You also can drop/fling at the same time, meaning you can timer concussionbomb 8, watch what time it is set to, count until there are 4-5 seconds left on timer, then Aeon, drop concussionbomb/Aeon, bomb explodes, throw axes.

Also, there's nothing lame about using Mickey's.

That must have been a change I missed. Seems like an interesting one, but definitely manipulate in my favor. Only thing is timer balance is a bit lengthy (I already have a bomb window timer), but that used to be part of one of my old tricks involving a triple mangle into aeon lock. People just got used to seeing it and started shielding or tumbling early. 

Cooper

@Prythe I put the qualifiers I did in my post because what I made is not usable in a real fight, it was just to show that in 15 minutes of scripting (using @Austere's AK tracker for the actual tracking) I made something that did things I couldn't physically do.

Someone who spent the actual time to make something good easily could (but honestly it would rely just as much on their defensive/curing scripts).

Khel

Are you guys gonna mention CATS again, because idk if my ego can handle it.

Without going down the rabbit hole too much, automation absolutely can make you move a step up in terms of tier and I think it's pretty BS. But it also makes for lazy fighters and if you break their scripts/trick them, they're less likely to notice - also, someone who turns on an offense and goes afk is going to get maimed when they have to go on the defensive. I dislike auto-offense, but I guess that I dislike losing more?

Devran

I have this scenario in my head where I learn combat and the ins and outs and so forth of it and start to work on a system. Months go by of painstaking tweaking and adjusting, fighting everyone and anyone I can, losing, sometimes winning but mostly getting my face pushed in by people like @Aerek and @Dunn and @Jhui. Until one day, many moons from when I started I have coded a monstrous beast of a system. Near AI level of complexity, able to adjust and alter tactics on the fly, choose targets and adjust to complicated situations, letting it carry me to the top of Achaea with it's automated fury as I laugh maniacally behind my keyboard, muttering something about "my precious" or perhaps "It's alive! ALiiiiiiive!" all the while.

I want that. But having said that, I don't even know how to color stuff in LUA. I barely know how to make a targeting alias right now and my knowledge of combat is shaky at best. So perhaps it's the fact that it's so far out of reach that makes it something desirable to me. Honestly thinking about it I'm not sure what would happen after achieving that though,... Probably get bored!

I remember when a certain Bloodborn in Aetolia made an automated offense and was murdering the game for a while. Acino I think his name was. Absolutely nobody enjoyed that as far as I recall.

Cynlael

Aetolia is different given that you can see what they cure with passives/actives, and know everything they cure at the same time they eat (without needing to bother with backtracking)