If you were a newbie combatant....

Xith

Learning curve is certainly one thing. I've sampled a handful of classes and still only fully understand a third of all combat skills (as "full" as a mortal can understand them). But that's the joy of it: packing all this knowledge into my noodle.

That being said, systems/curing are the obvious thing, but Vadi does a wonderful job of keeping that problem at bay. And others who make distributable systems.

Banning auto-curing is not the solution, and I know "server-side" curing has been suggested, but I don't think it should be a direct part of the game's coding. Can't put my finger on why, except that then if somebody dc'd in a fight, they could theoretically continue to cure certain things.

Sarapis said:

We'll probably end up adding triggering packages server-side to try and make the ramp less harsh for newbies. 

The thing I like about player-supplied curing is that it is based on their "assumed knowledge" of the curing and everything. Point being that there are dark corners of Vadi or Carmain's knowledge and so nothing is flawless. My worry with Divine-supplied systems or server-curing is that it could be too perfect.

But side-stepping that, can I suggest tooltips? For example, on either the afflict message or the condition message of paralysis:

You are paralysed and cannot do that.

[Tooltip]: You may want to EAT BLOODROOT from your Rift.

The obvious problem there is making Tooltips not defeat illusion, so I don't think it can be a server-side message (triggerable).

Instead, what about a downloadable full echo tooltip package that suggests any known cure if toggled on?

And an additional toggle to attempt that cure upon seeing the message, so that whether they have herb balance or not, they'll eat the bloodroot.

Last idea would be allowing the playerbase to nominate favoured curing systems (Svo/Omni) for official listing on Achaea's site. Systems could be listed with an attached user rating and level of completeness (and price, if applicable).

Nizaris

Honestly, Congregation has it in their requirements that newbies have to have a system. Granted, it's worded sanely (speak to your mentor about curing strategies that they employ, or some such), and to the point that I think it's probably too vague to a true newbie, but then again, we rely quite a bit on interaction between mentors and novices.

Beyond systems, I'm still trying to get over the sheer spam of combat.

Nellaundra

Christ, I'm still a newb.  Quite honestly, everything Cooper said x100.  Back when I was starting out, I brute forced my way through everything with I think Omni 2.0 which was halfway broken and died to stupid crap.  I mainly got through via getting -really- good at limb counting as a Monk and learning to stick mangled-torso BBTs.  If I didn't have that system, I likely wouldn't have learned of the others and started actually learning how to not suck.

tl;dr Achaean combat is -ing awful for any newb who isn't an alt.

Mishgul

My system is already on the ironrealms with link to its download. After im done learning new tricks i'll be updating it, completely free of charge for anyone

Jules

Secrecy - mainly on the part of IRE (which allowed players to be secretive).  It's become much, much less of a problem, and frankly I thank Vadi for a fair bit of that too.  IRE seems to have recognized that the secrecy is incredibly annoying and frustrating to newbies - but it used to be nearly a religion among both players and admin.  Things seem to be moving in the right direction on that account - keep moving that way please.

Shahai

I do not use a system. I am not involved in combat, even if I am planning to.

The most frustrating is when someone puts you asleep, and kills you because you struggles to wake up.

Wysteria

The thing about my crappy connection is whether or not I'd be lucky for SVO to work for me when I want it to. Can end up being faster just to pp and go manual which is what I do most of the time lately. I started out making my own system and triggers and svo helps out with that—but yeah, combat as a newbie would be hard now, not not totally unmanageable if you're willing to learn and can type fast enough (I didn't get svo til Wyst was lvl 75, I was NEXUS all the way!)

Sylvance

Yep, for once I'm fully behind @Cooper.  Well, maybe twice, but let's not get distracted.

What I will say is that even as somebody with a middle-of-the-road system I'm not terribly good at combat because of the speed of combat.  It's one of the reasons I prefer MKO combat, the pace is -far- slower and you can actually think your way through the evolving combat situation.  My train of thought when fighting as a BM (and that's an 'easy' class to fight with!):

How are their limbs looking? How long til the next time I need to Hamstring? Which infusion should I use? How much longer will that ImpaleSlash last? How much longer until VoidFist drops? Has VoidFist been effective this time or should I go in again? What are they parrying/guarding? Should I switch limbs or just throw up an AirFist? Is latency currently going to allow me to stack Pommel-Necks in Thyr or is hit-and-running in Mir a better option?

This is partly because of the way my brain works.  I can think of ten rhymes for purple in the right metre, but not juggle that constant strain of thought... and that's without me even really having to think about curing.  Sure, I could script an offense for BM pretty damned easily, but as much as I'd enjoy the coding it would make combat utterly boring and pointless to me.  "My code's better than your code" just doesn't get me excited, but it's the only way to hit top tier.

A truenoob manualing in today's combat environment...? ...forget about it.

TL;DR: The speed, @Sarapis.  It's the speed.

Nim

I dunno if half a year makes me relatively new at combat or not, but that's about how long ago I got into it.

My biggest frustrations with newbie combat in Achaea is the lack of everything that you start out with. @Cooper's first post basically nailed it, so I'll be a bit more specific and rant about something that I have a love/hate relationship with.

The lack of information.

When you're new, you might not even know how to compose when you're afraid. For the longest time, I thought the only way to cure insomnia was to eat goldenseal, and I only stumbled unto that by accident, when my (self-designed) system thought I had stupidity because I tried to go to sleep with insomnia up. I still don't know Blademaster limb-breaking, and I dread trying to figure it out.

Gathering information is a mixture of tedium and luck. No one, not even you, knows what you don't know, so it was sheer chance when someone told me that I can just RELAX INSOMNIA. I think AB SURVIVAL INSOMNIA says it too, but it was a long time before I got that ability. I believe traditional advice is to trans a few class skills before even bothering with survival, and it's not like an actual newbie would be able to figure out (on their own) how best to learn their skills in advance. It might say it in some help file somewhere, but, again, sheer luck and chance seems to be involved as to whether or not you'll find that help file!

As far as tedium goes... I can't even imagine what it's like gathering every single affliction symptom line on your own. I thought it was bad enough that I had to individually c/p them from Carmain's Omnipave into my own script, modify any regex differences (I think I used regex for that, ironically enough, though!), and write triggers for each of them. I can't imagine having to figure them all out yourself. (btw, thank you so much, Carmain )

Another thing that was a little annoying was learning what afflictions do. I had to rely on this old, slightly out-dated book that apparently got a few minor details wrong, written by players. Although encouraging the existence of player-written books is ok, why is this information not public? It boggles my mind that the Achaea wiki is full of lore that could be learned ICly, but has so little on the game's actual mechanics, which are awkward-at-best to discuss ICly.

All that said, I do enjoy learning, and learning new things is kind of fun. I wouldn't be a combatant at all if I didn't think so, and so I hope that aspect isn't ever removed entirely. It's a very important gameplay element, and the design behind how new players learn a game can very easily determine whether they'll think that game is boring or fun. I just think that, currently, Achaea has more than a few kinks in that area.

As far as I can tell, this issue is being looked at, but the emphasis all seems to be on super-new players, while slightly more advanced topics remain unexamined. I think it might be better if the learning curve were made smoother all throughout.

Also, on a note unrelated to anything I said above, but another issue was finding people who were evenly matched against me that I could spar with. Combat would have been so boring without @Nellaundra, and she still wasn't even an even match for a while (I think, for a huge chunk of time, I didn't have a realistic chance of winning against her). I realize might isn't a huge factor after a certain point, but it still amuses me that most combatants I fight are still 2-3 times my might!

That said, for the purpose of this conversation, might does matter. So does level. Before I had a system, I beat someone in a tournament because they didn't have restoration, and lost to the next person because they were twice my level and I forgot a moss tattoo. So... yeah. That's my impression of low level combat. (It was still kind of cool, in an unfair sort of way, I guess.)

Sylvance

Nim said:

I dunno if half a year makes me relatively new at combat or not, but that's about how long ago I got into it.

My biggest frustrations with newbie combat in Achaea is the lack of everything that you start out with. @Cooper's first post basically nailed it, so I'll be a bit more specific and rant about something that I have a love/hate relationship with.

The lack of information.

When you're new, you might not even know how to compose when you're afraid. For the longest time, I thought the only way to cure insomnia was to eat goldenseal, and I only stumbled unto that by accident, when my (self-designed) system thought I had stupidity because I tried to go to sleep with insomnia up. I still don't know Blademaster limb-breaking, and I dread trying to figure it out.

Gathering information is a mixture of tedium and luck. No one, not even you, knows what you don't know, so it was sheer chance when someone told me that I can just RELAX INSOMNIA. I think AB SURVIVAL INSOMNIA says it too, but it was a long time before I got that ability. I believe traditional advice is to trans a few class skills before even bothering with survival, and it's not like an actual newbie would be able to figure out (on their own) how best to learn their skills in advance. It might say it in some help file somewhere, but, again, sheer luck and chance seems to be involved as to whether or not you'll find that help file!

As far as tedium goes... I can't even imagine what it's like gathering every single affliction symptom line on your own. I thought it was bad enough that I had to individually c/p them from Carmain's Omnipave into my own script, modify any regex differences (I think I used regex for that, ironically enough, though!), and write triggers for each of them. I can't imagine having to figure them all out yourself. (btw, thank you so much, Carmain )

Another thing that was a little annoying was learning what afflictions do. I had to rely on this old, slightly out-dated book that apparently got a few minor details wrong, written by players. Although encouraging the existence of player-written books is ok, why is this information not public? It boggles my mind that the Achaea wiki is full of lore that could be learned ICly, but has so little on the game's actual mechanics, which are awkward-at-best to discuss ICly.

All that said, I do enjoy learning, and learning new things is kind of fun. I wouldn't be a combatant at all if I didn't think so, and so I hope that aspect isn't ever removed entirely. It's a very important gameplay element, and the design behind how new players learn a game can very easily determine whether they'll think that game is boring or fun. I just think that, currently, Achaea has more than a few kinks in that area.

As far as I can tell, this issue is being looked at, but the emphasis all seems to be on super-new players, while slightly more advanced topics remain unexamined. I think it might be better if the learning curve were made smoother all throughout.

Also, on a note unrelated to anything I said above, but another issue was finding people who were evenly matched against me that I could spar with. Combat would have been so boring without @Nellaundra, and she still wasn't even an even match for a while (I think, for a huge chunk of time, I didn't have a realistic chance of winning against her). I realize might isn't a huge factor after a certain point, but it still amuses me that most combatants I fight are still 2-3 times my might!

That said, for the purpose of this conversation, might does matter. So does level. Before I had a system, I beat someone in a tournament because they didn't have restoration, and lost to the next person because they were twice my level and I forgot a moss tattoo. So... yeah. That's my impression of low level combat. (It was still kind of cool, in an unfair sort of way, I guess.)

I was with you right up until the bolded.  In my humble opinion, might is the singularly least useful (and most potentially misleading) statistic there is.  It took me a long time to really get into my head that it's absolutely no indication of how long the other fighter's bootprint will be in your ass for.  I've had my hind handed to me by enough people below 50% my might to be able to say that fairly confidently.  And if you still think might's important, go and fight Ayoxele.

ETA: Eff you, quotes.

Aerek

Fighting Voy was all I ever needed to explain to me that might doesn't matter. Having the necessary skills to complete your setup is all that matters.

"Aww, this newbie Shallamese wants to spar. Hes 15% my might? Okay, I'll let him try some things out on me."

"WTF just happened?"

Nim

@Sylvance: Yes, but we're talking about newbies. Chances are, those people that are beating you have systems, and are not newbies.

And might is a misleading statistic, but not an inherently useless one. It attempts to represent how many tools the player has through skills. Tools are not useless. It just so happens that you're fighting people who, in spite of having less tools, are still able to beat you, in spite of any potential disadvantages they might have.

It's just misleading because not every tool will be useful in every situation (some aren't even useful in combat at all!), and it can't (as a singular number) accurately represent that fact. This is why their disadvantage is only a potential one - for all I know, they might have learned every skill and every ability even remotely useful in a fight against you, and the rest of their might difference might be in things that wouldn't make a difference.

The biggest use I can think of for might is to help find people who are about as far into the game as you are, and thus might be suitable opponents or even hunting partners (think pre-transed characters!). Rankings can do that too, but you don't get into those until level 30 anyway, which cuts out a 25 level gap that every newbie must go through.

Aerek

Neither of those are any kind of indication for how well an individual can use those tools, is all that we were saying. It's pretty common for people to buy credits to trans their skills because it feels like a big accomplishment, but never even take the time to learn what all those abilities do outside their bashing attacks. Using it as a rubric to judge "how far they are into the game" is just judging a book by it's cover.

Edit: Christ that pic was huge. Screw it. Bruce Lee said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Sylvance

Yep, totally that.  Though I do like your other suggestions for using might, @Nim, so thanks.  Personally I think they should even consider changing the name of it from 'might' to something else, but that's small fry.

And put the picture back, @Aerek it was awesome

Mishgul

Aerek said:

Neither of those are any kind of indication for how well an individual can use those tools, is all that we were saying. It's pretty common for people to buy credits to trans their skills because it feels like a big accomplishment, but never even take the time to learn what all those abilities do outside their bashing attacks. Using it as a rubric to judge "how far they are into the game" is just judging a book by it's cover.

Edit: Christ that pic was huge. Screw it. Bruce Lee said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Iirc voy was the alt of someone who was already very good.

Sabiru

Losing my baalzadeen all the time, and having him not respond to my platinum whistle which I bought from the shop of wonders to summon my baalzadeen.

Sylvance

Mishgul said:

Neither of those are any kind of indication for how well an individual can use those tools, is all that we were saying. It's pretty common for people to buy credits to trans their skills because it feels like a big accomplishment, but never even take the time to learn what all those abilities do outside their bashing attacks. Using it as a rubric to judge "how far they are into the game" is just judging a book by it's cover.

Edit: Christ that pic was huge. Screw it. Bruce Lee said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Iirc voy was the alt of someone who was already very good.

Which further shows that might doesn't tell us much

Tanaar

The problem, @Sarapis - After ten years with Achaea this coming April, and a primary character that's about to turn 300, I'm ++still++ a combat newbie. Casual combat is impossible. Come for the role playing, stay for the degree in computer sciences.

Iocun

Nizaris said:

Honestly, Congregation has it in their requirements that newbies have to have a system.

That sounds like an extremely questionable requirement...

I'm always of the opinion that it's nobody's business what happens in a novice's computer, as long as he can fulfill IC requirements to a sufficient degree. (E.g. pass a curing exam, etc.) If a house required me to get a system, no matter how they worded it, I'd quit immediately.

Another problem here, besides the IC/OOC separation issue, is that requiring a fully working system may actually discourage people from slowly building their own. Almost nobody can cook up a near-perfect system quickly enough to just fulfill a house requirement. It's a very long and arduous process. But if something near-perfect is required to pass a certain stage, that sort of discourages slowly building one from ground up, in favour of just getting a ready-made one.

Daslin

TBH, my issue when I started out, was the speed, EVEN 1v1. I could figure affs out, but just the speed of text flying, and needing to sip at the right times, which affs to fix. Stuff like that.

If there was an "area" or something where newb fighters could go and fight but it's like retardation, but not actually retardation, all balances are extended, things may be a bit easier. I won't lie, sometimes, when I spar, I have people go about half-speed so I can check up on what they're doing, if it's a certain way. @Caladbolg is a perfect example of this. He and I will go in, and admittedly, we're at fullspeed, but once one of us (Usually him) gets to where our kill could be used, we say it. Just to get the feel for certain setups and stuff like that. If it's helpful to a person who's in combat, it would be even more useful to a newbie.

Mishgul

The spam does not to be the biggest problem I think as a complete newbie. More colours would be nice.

Stilaus

As a newbie I would say a big barrier to entry is, as others have mentioned, informational. People are of course more than willing to answer questions, but that presupposes that a new player would know what to ask. Coming into a game where there is such an extensive amount of legwork to be done beyond just simply playing is daunting.

I have been preparing for an exam the last week so I haven't done anything at all but my plan is the following:

1) Write a dummy server to connect to on local host that pushes combat logs to mud client. (easy)
2) Write a parsing function in lua that comments (in addition to formatting and coloring) combat logs with, for example, what move a particular line of text denotes, what affliction it is associated with, and what cure that affliction requires. (easy)
3) Actually assemble the necessary information, i.e. triggers and the like. (hard)
4) Watch combat logs using the above. (fun & informative)

I plan to gut out other peoples systems and just load there triggers into a database.

Sylvance

Would it be out of the question to have some proper training dummies? Ones that you could target/damage limbs, hit with affs/bleeding, instakill.  If I'm honest I'm asking that for slightly selfish reasons, but I wonder if it wouldn't also help noobs. Because if there's one thing I'm learning it's that the only way to really learn offense (short of scripting and then hitting the same three keys in repetitive sequence) it's hours served on the dojo floor.

I know that you can always send a tell to your buddy "Can I break your legs please?", but honestly I can never do that without a) breaking immersion and b) feeling guilty that I'm asking somebody to stop playing the game to stand still for ten minutes whilst I beat the shit out of them.

Sherazad

:S I'm still a newbie in combat. 

To be honest, I'm not interested in it, it's just my character needs to be involved in combat. My problem with it is, I get interested, then I figure out what I need to know. Then I mostly learn that I need to know more. Then I get distracted. 

But one day. One day.

For novices, I wait until they are curious about how people cure faster, then I slowly explain systems and some coding. I'll give links but that's about it. I'd rather not discuss systems but it's something everyone needs now, if they want to get into combat. I think Iocuns are very rare.

EDIT: Sleepy, running out of English nao.

Valden

One Issue I've run into quite often is that quite a lot of the time when discussing combat is that people talk to you as if you are an alt of some form, they expect you to know how combat works even if you don't know the class skills. So it's all very well you telling me that I can do This, This and This; but when I don't have any clue how to actually do any of that it gets really frustrating. This hit me when I was learning to limb count and prep people, then they would just static parry a leg and I just stopped mid-spar totally clueless as for what to do next.

Not knowing what questions to ask and then not getting in-depth answers to what questions you do ask seem to be the greatest problems that I've run across.

Delphinus

Depth and speed -- things that systems are made to address. Even so, they shouldn't be a house requirement.

Although I'm not really a combatant, I will say this: The necessity for systems, combined with the focus on RP, probably gives a mixed message on what Achaea's about. The solution might be to move that functionality server-side -- not just trigger packages, but things like curing queues, priorities, multi-line aliases, echoes, setting folders, and possibly "loadouts" for fighting various classes and situations. This makes it less "download a mod" and more "configure settings," which is, at the very least, still immersed in the game itself. (It's also much gentler on non-US players with their might-as-well-be-in-Antarctica ping.)

Hhaos

Valden said:

One Issue I've run into quite often is that quite a lot of the time when discussing combat is that people talk to you as if you are an alt of some form, they expect you to know how combat works even if you don't know the class skills. So it's all very well you telling me that I can do This, This and This; but when I don't have any clue how to actually do any of that it gets really frustrating. This hit me when I was learning to limb count and prep people, then they would just static parry a leg and I just stopped mid-spar totally clueless as for what to do next.

Not knowing what questions to ask and then not getting in-depth answers to what questions you do ask seem to be the greatest problems that I've run across.

This! It will come with time, I promise, one thing that most people need to remember when they are starting out, is if you have a problem with anything, ask someone what to do in that exact scenario. LOG LOG LOG LOG LOG. 90% of what Hhaos can do came from logs and logs and more logs of my own fights, other's fights, asking 9323720327830928930 questions and even admittedly, seeking help from known combatants on an OOC level asking for support/advice and sparring the living life out of my Achaean time.

I know that you personally are in THREE orgs that require you to learn combat, use that as a competitive edge. Find a friend to be a friendly rival in your training, constantly fight them, share tips, and continually get better with each other. Then branch out. If you are not sparring all the time it can be hard to get used to the spam. Echoes, highlights, and substitutions are almost needed regardless of how sexy the flavor is. Talk to me on facebook or something for more

Averi

Random suggestion:

I think this game would be a lot more newbie friendly if there was a server-side curing system for basic curing, kind of like first aide or whatever that skill is called in aetolia. It's slower than a player created curing system if I remember correctly but at least it can deal with enough things so that people could hunt dun valley, maim's mansion, ulangi moose without dying too often. 

Also, if there was a server side way of highlighting things? like if balances were automatically highlighted and then there was a way to change it if we wanted to. That might also make things a bit easier. 

And lastly, I don't know if this exists. But is there a way to make multistep aliases with SETALIAS? if so, teaching newbies how to make a basic hunting alias/outrifting and eating herb alias would also be simpler. 

What I like about not having an all encompassing serverside system/very detailed combat descriptions on how to do things is that it forces people to interact with other people and thus helps with the immersion. But sometimes i find explaining how to make a simple alias/trigger to some people to be really difficult and always begins with "what client do you use?" "Oh I don't know how to use that client. Can you install mudlet?" Having the above things might help in that aspect. And directing people over to svo or omnipave is really not rping. 

Sultani

It comes off as overly scientific which turns me away often. It's as if one program is looking to exploit some weakness in the other while spam ensues. That said, I don't know how the older generation could fight Serps, Apostates and the like without system curing. That takes a lot of reactionary talent. I appreciate the complexity but its definitely not for everyone. Thankfully there are other options in Achaea as well and you can find some combat use in a group if that interests you.

Alcinae

I'm still beginning to finally take my first steps into combat, and it really is just the spam, as well as thinking up your offense, especially when you haven't transed your skills yet. Luckily, others can give advice, but it really is up to the newbie (in my case, me! lol) to think up their own method, and how to properly execute it well enough to either survive, win, or die knowing they did their best.