If you were a newbie combatant....

Strata

Or... you know.... you could just go back to WoW.

Teg

Strata said:

Or... you know.... you could just go back to WoW.

I don't play WoW, but it's literally the most successful mmo ever so there's that.

But seriously, why bother have a game mechanic that practically requires automation and is being considered to be automated by a backend sever process when your goal is to decrease the amount of automation in the game?

I mean you can disagree with this and that's fine, but at least say why.

Rom

Teg said:

Strata said:

Or... you know.... you could just go back to WoW.

I don't play WoW, but it's literally the most successful mmo ever so there's that.

But seriously, why bother have a game mechanic that practically requires automation and is being considered to be automated by a backend sever process when your goal is to decrease the amount of automation in the game?

I mean you can disagree with this and that's fine, but at least say why.

I could see an argument for making curing server-side with a sort of built in curing system that you can change priorities and stuff on, and I think that one of the IRE games already features something similar so there may be a precedent. What you were suggesting however would require a complete overhaul of the way that curing and afflictions are handled. Otherwise I think changing curing to this sort of baseline demon syphon would be messed up. I don't see myself supporting it at least.

Sarapis

We're going to try and do something about that, @Daeir. We're going to produce an at-least basic trigger set for the html5 client and go from there. What @Vadimuses and others do is great, but I also want to provide at least more than we do now for people by default. We're coming close to release 2.1 of our client, and after that a trigger set is going to become a priority.

Borran

Teg said:

But seriously, why bother have a game mechanic that practically requires automation and is being considered to be automated by a backend sever process when your goal is to decrease the amount of automation in the game?

I agree with this rationale in theory, but when you think about the specifics of curing, it makes you realize just how deep the overhaul would have to go. Anorexia, Slickness, Asthma.... many afflictions would no longer make sense.

Iocun

You can even take this further. Most afflictions aren't dangerous because of their direct affects. Who cares about occasionally vomiting a bit from nausea or your direction commands getting messed up from dizziness. Those effects aren't why these afflictions are being used - they are used first and foremost in order to combat the curing of other afflictions by means of stacking and such. When an affliction class goes for a lock of some sort, all afflictions serve no other purpose than to mess with curing/defence.

What makes affliction classes "work" is the very fact that different people will cure slightly differently (even if they use the same bought system). If curing was standardised and totally automated, this would effectively mean that either a given offence will beat said curing all the time, or it would always be defeated by it. Neither would be particularly balanced nor fun.

The very thing that makes offence as an affliction class fun is that you have to figure out what variant of your "typical offence" is required to beat a particular opponent and how to finetune it to fit a particular circumstance.

Vadimuses

Sarapis said:

We're going to try and do something about that, @Daeir. We're going to produce an at-least basic trigger set for the html5 client and go from there. What @Vadimuses and others do is great, but I also want to provide at least more than we do now for people by default. We're coming close to release 2.1 of our client, and after that a trigger set is going to become a priority.

Just to throw it out there, Mudlet does support games pre-loading packages from the MUD. So you could do the same thing for Mudlet players to offer them an improved experience as well!

Hirst

Teg said:

Cooper said:

Edit: Adding that coding is pretty much a requirement to play Achaea now.

It's not, credits are the requirement for pk and always have being and will continue to be.

Not true. Rean was one of the better Magi we've seen and he hardly had any. He knew how to use his class (more specifically, retardation). Arties don't make a fighter - they enhance him/her.

Cahin

Hirst said:

Teg said:

Cooper said:

Edit: Adding that coding is pretty much a requirement to play Achaea now.

It's not, credits are the requirement for pk and always have being and will continue to be.

Not true. Rean was one of the better Magi we've seen and he hardly had any. He knew how to use his class (more specifically, retardation). Arties don't make a fighter - they enhance him/her.

credits != arties

Kresslack

Cooper said:

People have always used systems, though. They have just gotten incredibly complex.

A 'system' back in the day was an alias for eating each herb (pill), applying each salve, smoking and lighting your pipes, maybe a few highlights or a wake or writhe trigger, etc.

Now it's something that handles all of your curing.

It was ( and still probably is ) like this for other MUD's like Akanbar and Avalon: Legends/First Age. The manual curing was a significant part of being able to do anything combat wise. The benefit I found in this is it actually made you think about what you're doing, and focus on doing it properly. That, compared to a wall of text flying by at high speed while you mash three keys to do eight  different things all while a system automatically cures you is a big difference, and personally, not one I'm still comfortable with.

Saeva

I think the problem with learning survival is far worse for vet combatants who roll up newbie characters.
For actual newbies, I think it paces out the amount of info you have to intake to really grasp strategies and learning when and what you need to do. The more I spar the more I realize what I need in survival to be effective - and when I reach that point, I'm far more equipped to utilize it. It seems to be at the pace I'm learning though. Some people might be faster or slower than me. I'd lean with maybe more are faster, but still, it has been easier to learn chunk by chunk for me.

Jovolo

Survival isn't that bad as far as learning goes. It's when you have abilities like squint and tumble/metawake/insomnia and parry or envenom and avoidance and so on, split across many different skills. I've always had an issue with the way Achaea approaches that. Other IRE games, most notably MKO all have gone a long way towards facilitating a lower lesson investment than Achaea currently has. Learning class skills has always been of a bigger concern than learning survival on any character I've played while participating in combat.

Nakari

survival has a lot of nice things in it at least. Putting lessons into it felt like I was actually getting somewhere.

Envenom, on the other hand, was dumb. Getting from targeting to envenom just felt like quite the painful investment with annoyingly little reward.

I know that classes that perhaps revolve around venoms a little more heavily often get it in their main skill tree, but it still sucks for classes for which its basically necessary and have to sink all the lessons into weaponry just to grab it.

Anedhel

No one's mentioned avoidance, or riding, or miniskills, I think. If you're going to fetch up against anyone in a damage class without avoidance and probably riding, if your class can make use of mounts, you're going to get hurt a lot. It's not impossible to win, of course. You're just going to be best friends with your shield tattoo.

Truth is, Achaea suffers from having characters that never die/go away. People who've been around for a while/put a big investment into their characters will seem to have characters unapproachable by others (in terms of closing the gap between a newbie and someone who's put a hefty amount of money and/or time into their character), and since there's no leveling the playing field, really, newer players/people not willing to spend cash are going to get the shaft. I suppose 'back in the day', before the advent of curing systems and such, people were also not regularly omni-trans and/or artied to the teeth, were they? And I'm certain it wasn't nearly a requirement to have more than a few skills transcended to participate in PvP. Then again, the people with arties and stuff have done a lot more (whether you think it's justified or not is another matter, but, objectively, it's the truth) to make themselves superior to others, so it's only fair they retain that advantage, I think.

Dakotah

I stumbled across this when seeking priest advice on the forums, I would have to say someone in game was nice enough to help me get svo so I can at least cure and I've purchased the lesson package for myself as it wasn't a huge investment.

My main issue I feel at the moment is understanding what I'm meant to be doing as a priest now that I've finally obtained Trans in Spirituality and Devotion like someone suggested before I even went near combat.

aaaaannnnd,

The fact that I've no previous coding experience, so once I get what I need to do it takes me ages to try and figure out how to code it. I usually just end up spamming the Mudlet clan with questions. (I went with mudlet because it was suggested as being the best free option.) 

It literally took me forever to code a party call reflex, which is likely gonna amuse a few coders out there. I ended up getting help from a few helpful Targossians but what I could really do with is being able to practice via typing it into something like Notepad++ or seeing it in action.

Most of what I have picked up so far has been from Vadi and Mosr's Youtube videos because I can see what they are doing as they explain it.

Verd

Surprisingly, I haven't really had any problems with this. I have no idea how to code, but making simple aliases is easy. Really, all I've done is turn curing on, made aliases for some of my skills, and ask my mentor for help with other simple things. Yet I've still managed to do alright against people who having been playing for far longer than me. The three things that I think would most effect my performance is, in order:

1) Stop being lazy and level past 66. (I'll be honest, I hate the hunting in this game.)

2) Finish transcending groves, and get some survival. (Freaking affliction classes so scary)

3) In the long term, I feel like diadem is huge for Sylvans.

Without spending more than ten dollars, I've managed to get into at least low level combat, and I'm lovin' it.

Fantasma

I find the difficulty in being a newbie or even a 'midbie' the same for all aspects of this game. My experiences over the years is that this world is even more dominated by the 1% than the real world. I have found it nearly impossible to achieve anything meaningful or satisfying in the past. I'm hoping that things have changed, but I'm a skeptic.

Tesha

@Fantasma You can contribute easily, especially with the new server side curing! I'll teach you how if you're interested in combat. Join the Dawnblade and don't be intimidated by those artichokes, they're just vegetables. And remember to vote.

Caladbolg

Sarapis said:

What are the things you would find most confusing/challenging/frustrating about combat without a system?

When I was a newbie I ran around with Para/Voyria on my weapons so when I dsl'd people they'd have to manually outr bloodroot eat bloodroot and they wouldn't have immunity.

Personally I think that's the most annoying things about fighting with out a system is the fact that you need to manually type out things hitting you twice every 1.8 seconds or so while keeping track of your herb balance/sip balance through class spam.

Im not saying it's impossible to fight affliction classes with out a system, but i'd rather not even log in than go with out a system.

Caladbolg

Daeir said:

Let's not delude people into thinking that will allow them to contribute massively to things. Achaea is more than just PK game, and mashing your bashing/raid alias and watching words go past at warp speed is not exactly intellectually satisfying for the most part.

When did this happen? o.O

Tesha

Don't dissuade my newbie @Daeir I will smack you up. @Fantasma don't listen to him, I'll teach you to kill him.

Ladrun

I'm still really new, only killing rats and wildcats mostly, but i don't think I would have made it through my first day if I would have not had the help of the server doing the sipping for me. I can't imagine what is going to happen when I start fighting things that do more than just gnaw on you.

Araeus

@tecton One thing I struggled with when I first started was simply being able to see what was happening to me or what was going on in time to do something about it. I was confused because I could see so much else. others deffing up, hitting, being afflicted, that I could see what was going on with me personally.

Araeus

@sarapis I think the thing I could have benefited most from as a newbie combatant without a system was a way to highlight what was happening to me. a highlight function with configurable otptions. Most 3rd party clients have this. I think it would really help newbie combatants if the server side system had an option to highlight afflictions.

Tecton

Have you tried TUNNELVISION in vision, @Araeus? It allows you to filter out a lot of the "noise" and allows you to focus on just messages relevant to you and your target.

Verd

Tecton said:

Have you tried TUNNELVISION in vision, @Araeus? It allows you to filter out a lot of the "noise" and allows you to focus on just messages relevant to you and your target.

I love you. Freaking people breathing.

Araeus

@tecton I have not yet learned up to this ability, but I am working towards it.

Alaskar

I learned up to tunnelvision, but really it seemed easier to gag it all through mudlet. Spam can certainly be daunting to newbies. I need to test tunnelvision a little more, to be honest.

Mithridates

The single best way to eliminate combat spam is to simply get used to it. I find that gagging and tunnelvision skips over important information that you NEED in group combat. 

Alaskar

I don't gag everything. But breathing, mass , stuff sipping and eating, stuff like that. No doubt exposure helps though