If you were a newbie combatant....

Skye

Tvistor said:

I don't mind base functionality. The thing is that they might come across a novel tactic, and instead of managing to scale a particularly difficult part of 'Combat Difficulty Mountain' it's possible to just call for help, wherein someone will put up a rope ladder for you.

Well yeah when you put it that way... it's not that attractive

Drauka

Yue said:

@Drauka - your post prompted me to say that one of the aspects of Achaea that is thoroughly enjoyable to me is developing my system. Not necessarily curing specifically, but scripting an intuitive interface to your skills and such is part of the fun. Just IMO.

I second those who have said that the complexity of the game is part of the enjoyment. Simplifying combat will lose players, not bring new ones in.

I'm not minding that part. I'm starting on offensive and combat text parsing code tomorrow. 

Mudlet is a dang good client for extending the interface without having to patch the source.

Plus it creates a mini-game for me, to see if I can detect things correctly (as well as one can anyways), apply offense correctly without getting too swamped, and filtering out the text to not look like a ran 'cat war_and_peace.txt'.

There's also much about Svo I am not aware of yet, but reading through the excellent docs and easy to understand code makes life much easier

Drauka

Svo is like a sweet lamborghini I got for a cheap price, but I don't know how to drive stick and can only turn left. I'm still like, "wow, there's a glove compartment and cup holder, no way!?!"

Tael

I don't think combat should be made easier.

Nor do I think the lack of information is actually as big a problem as many are making it out to be.

I think the primary problem is that you have to have some external thing to fight at all (ignoring the fairly marginal cases of newbies kicking each other to death). Fighting is, so far as I know, literally the only thing in the game you could not possibly do via telnet. You can even set up aliases through the game.

That's why I think that (real, not tick-based) server-side curing would be desirable (that and giving high ping players a fairer time of it). I can't think of any conceivable way that it would hurt things and it would make things so much more intuitive and consistent by removing the need for any external stuff, even "bundled" code to get started in combat. Once you build in a basic prio system that does nothing but give you a prio list for each cure and take into account what afflictions stop what other cures (so it knows to cure slickness before anorexia for instance), people who aren't as interested in combat can compete at a lower level using just that and people who are into combat can use commands to switch the priorities around intelligently, meaning that coding would still very much be a thing for the people who like it (though you could probably even "manual" such a system with priority-switching aliases - you could fight somewhat decently without a single trigger).

You could even make it a default ability in survival, with the ability to switch priorities slightly higher up so newbies have some baseline experience before things start getting more complex. Building it in as something like a flag-based learning system where the system doesn't "know how" cure things unless the player's cured the affliction manually at least once gives it some measure of IC explanation and forces players to learn a little bit about the effects of the different abilities and afflictions.

And again - two birds, one stone. Latency is a way bigger part of combat right now than it probably should be. And if you want to help with the problem of the game being too defensive, such a thing would be, for many classes that rely on precision timing, a godsend in that it makes curing times less variable. Right now I have to change how I try to fight based on what I think someone's ping is because certain things will actually be too fast for high ping opponents whereas other things will be too slow for low pingers.

Xith

Tael said:

Latency is a way bigger part of combat right now than it probably should be. 

I get that people jump on the ping-wagon, but I don't know that this is any less of a problem for other MMOs or if not, why. And if so, how could Achaea solve ping too?

"should be" is confusing though. Achaean combat is faster paced than probably anything else I can think of, and far more complex. Everybody gets their own ISP lag or whatever here and there, but I don't know that slowing down combat is in any way possible, and server side curing could make the player go on curing after they've dc'd or something.

Achaea could maybe auto-delay everybody's commands by approximating ping based on how quickly they do stuff after balance, to round them all down to the slowest ping or something, but I don't think that's the right solution.

I think curing/systems are fine, and also available and a common investment per character. The biggest wall for new players is knowledge of the game, no matter what aspect of it.

I still think newbie tooltips that appear prior to a certain level are informative and teach without just giving them the fish, so to speak.

Caladbolg

I don't see why Latency is a bigger problem in Combat than it should be. If you have a .5 second lag your not going to get any better if anything changes your still going to be .5 seconds behind.

Xith

Half of a tenth of a second... That's what confuses me about ping complaints. I trigger some of my combat on balance and I'm pretty sure mudlet doesn't send it faster than 0.100. Never lost a fight because of that timing.

Still not impossible to fix though. You could trigger all your attacks to time their own balances and send your next move (timertime - pingdelay) seconds later.

It would take research to find all your times and trigger lines, but the community can help with that, and doing that research helps you learn your skills anyway.

I'm actually considering a similar function to accomodate retardation balances.

Tvistor

Triggering things to my equilibrium lines and balance lines is quite unfeasible on my connection. I generally illusion once per doublestab for practical reasons. I experimented with temp timers a bit but found that adding enough time to allow for fluctuations in latency meant they were either a) too slow or b) unreliable.

Vadimuses

Caladbolg said:

I don't see why Latency is a bigger problem in Combat than it should be. If you have a .5 second lag your not going to get any better if anything changes your still going to be .5 seconds behind.

I'd like to point out that Lusternia implemented a server-side do/dofree system (stratagems), and it really does help for a part of the balance-related stuff: you can queue your next attack(s) and the server will do them right away without your lag getting factored in. You don't have to spam as much either.

Yeah, there are drawbacks, but overall - given months of use, it's an good idea that improves game quality.

Averi

I agree with @Tael .  I don't believe that the difficulty in getting into combat actually has much to do with combat but rather the game itself.  Even hunting is difficult without a system.  As a level 78 with approx 3500-3700 health (don't remember anymore), I ended up dying to moose on ulangi because I couldn't stand up/sip/and tune jab fast enough.  Edit: Granted I had no idea how to use html5 to make basic triggers and stuff. But my point is, hunting places like dun swamp, maim's mansion without a system would be terrible. So then everyone goes and gets some kind of system to do things in game and it's just kind of silly that it's external. I tell newbies to get one even if they don't plan on ever fighting (which is like most bards) just for hunting and stuff.

A server-side system that can cure afflictions, allow people to keep up certain defenses, and toggle priorities easily would be wonderful.  Something like omni, if not even simpler, which has all the lines and can react to them and can cure whatever is on one's diagnose list although not always in the most optimal order. I truly admire @Vadi and @Carmain for having collected all of those lines over the years. As a true newbie, it was a pain to even get all the stupidity/paralysis lines from all the denizens. I got about 10 triggers into scripting my own system.  When I got svo, it was like a godsend. Though now I use omni but that's more of my personal choice than anything.

The lack of information, I find is what keeps this game exciting. It's impossible to learn everything about this game and if all the balances/times/whatever were published out, I feel like that'd shorten the time people spend playing this game.  I personally, have a habit of playing something until I figure out basically how the game works/can navigate around/and know the majority of things in it. Then I stop playing usually after 3-4 months. I think what has kept me in this game for so long is the fact that things change, it's impossible to learn everything about everything, and learning new things about one's current skills is exciting. Part of learning to combat I feel like is more of learning what my skills do and how I can better use them.  In addition, I feel like even with the amount of misinformation, it brings people closer together and gives people something to argue about. For this reason, I don't think a detailed wiki is actually necessary. 

tldr: I agree with Tael. Combat shouldn't be made easier. The curve is kind of fine as it is. 

Tael

Caladbolg said:

I don't see why Latency is a bigger problem in Combat than it should be. If you have a .5 second lag your not going to get any better if anything changes your still going to be .5 seconds behind.

Then you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.

If you have server-side curing and a server-side queue (even if it's only a queue of length 1), it's still suboptimal because you're half a second behind on the actual information, but it's a huge improvement. It's the best possible solution to the problem of lag. And yes, people would still cure after getting DC'd, but so what? For one, it makes IC sense since DC is not a state a character can be in. And it's not really unfair either given that someone with a set of static priorities who isn't reacting or hindering should still be easy pickings (to say nothing of the notion that somehow you deserve a free kill if the opponent DCs, which is not, I think, obvious). So I'm not even sure that curing after you DC is a problem, and, if it is, it's a pretty goddamn minor one compared to the problems it would ameliorate.

If you do things server-side, you don't need to compensate for lag by slowing things down or estimating ping time. You don't need to change a single thing about combat in the game.

And to respond somewhat to Averi, server-side curing probably shouldn't manage defences or anything like that. All it should do is provide you with a configurable priority list. You don't even need to worry about hamstringing it by making it cure in an enforced suboptimal order since there is no globally optimal curing order - if people want to cure optimally, they'll HAVE to start changing the priorities as they fight.

And again, in what way would such a server-side condition be negative? I can think of numerous ways it would help from high ping to more widespread basic combat ability to newbie retention, but not a single way it would hurt things, other I suppose than for the people who somehow enjoy the most tedious part of system-building - making all of the affliction-line triggers (and you'd still need to "collect affliction lines" if you instituted the flag system).

Caladbolg

Yeah, I wasn't thinking server side wise they could do something to actually compensate for lag. Something like Vadi was saying would be awesome. I get kinda annoyed when I see people fighting and such and they can't win because of a .2 second ping or some such.

I had thought you meant change combat in general to make ping be less of a problem.


Me of course my usual ping to Achaea is 35-37 ms. now if I was at 100 I would start having alot of problems killing people.

Also don't know if this effects achaea, but there was a thing to your registery that made your ping higher for games. This effected Warcraft and League of Legends for me and cut my ping down by about half. I tried youtubing it to find it and there seems to be free programs that allow you to cut your ping down as well. See if this doesn't help you any.

Also I don't use them so I don't know if they really work or not.

Also as far as server side curing, im wondering how this would work? A free Trigger package or something with basics or a full scale system. I doubt a full scale system would work to well.

Tael

What I was suggesting (at length in the longer post) is a basic system of prios built into the game (not an external trigger package and not a fullscale system).

It would actually be pretty simple to code. All you need to do is give everyone a prio list for each cure type and have the server run the curing subroutine on affliction, cure balance, and cure events (to deal with afflictions that block the curing of other afflictions). The only real complication is illusions, but (as I wrote in the wall-of-text first post) that's a problem that's not too difficult to solve.

It would help a lot with high-ping and would provide a very nice, solid starting place for newbie combatants without being too powerful. Best of all, it wouldn't be a "stepping stone" as in many other suggestions in this thread where you have some essentially deficient curing system and then you eventually discard it in favour of a better one - instead you'd have a static system of priorities (which makes sense to provide since every system anyone is ever going to make is going to include that) and you'd build on it by creating scripts/macros/aliases that change the priorities.

To implement that in a nice way on the user side, you'd probably just want an inept-level ability in Survival that gives you a static priority list (and, ideally, where the server doesn't cure an affliction until you've done it once manually). Then a little further up, you get an ability that lets you reorder the priorities with a simple command that doesn't cost or require balance/equilibrium/whatever.

Edit: Probably also an ability at a similarly low level in Survival to ignore an affliction too, so you can still have anti-illusion checks.

Drauka

I support server-side queues.

Xith

I think adding server-side offense in combination with an incomplete server-side defense (resulting in the use of systems to cure anyway) is going to give the advantage to the wrong people. So people with 0.200 are now dealing with serpents that have 0.000 latency for their dstabs.

You could automate curing that's as simple as sipping balances, but people will still need external things to sip during blackout, etc.

I don't have latency issues that I'm aware of, but I also don't spam commands and just let my natural timing guide me on flinging hangedman when it's time, or trigger balance on certain moves.

Tvistor

We should make another thread for this.

Drauka

Tvistor said:

We should make another thread for this.

Done

Mizik

Wow, this thread got huge.

Just reward combat teachers. With credits. Watch us all go soft and rubbery.

Top Tier Achaea within a week.

Mizik

But seriously. 

Holla wit dem credits.

Garao

I'll teach!

Just don't ask me to prove anything please.

Delphinus

Xith said:

I think adding server-side offense in combination with an incomplete server-side defense (resulting in the use of systems to cure anyway) is going to give the advantage to the wrong people. So people with 0.200 are now dealing with serpents that have 0.000 latency for their dstabs.

You could automate curing that's as simple as sipping balances, but people will still need external things to sip during blackout, etc.

I don't have latency issues that I'm aware of, but I also don't spam commands and just let my natural timing guide me on flinging hangedman when it's time, or trigger balance on certain moves.

That's why I said:

Delphinus said:

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.

The above^ is obviously not a comprehensive list of features, and if it came to pass, I'd hope that someone like @Vadimuses and/or @Mishgul would be involved in an advisory role. The wish is that you'd lose zero system functionality aside from GUI bells and whistles.

You know what would be interesting? This, in conjunction with a database of in-game user-built systems -- but rather than just download and go, you'd have to encounter certain situations before you unlock them. So after you heal paralysis manually (either once or x number of times), paralysis curing is checked off, and you'd need to check off all the afflictions in a curing system before you can download it.

In addition, maybe you can unlock systems by reading special in-game books, and those books can be stored in libraries and be attributed to their authors: "The Codex Serpentus," by Iocun, or "Carmain Fol'ia's Tome of Cures." Maybe you'd have to unlock all of the cures (heal paralysis/whatever manually) before you can use them. Something to consider. (One benefit: it would still allow people to sell their systems.)

Iocun

That sounds amazingly awesome!

(Except that I'd never give a book a Latin name in-game! And if I did, I'd at least name it more correctly "Codex Serpentis"/"Codex Serpentum"/"Codex Serpentinus".)

Xith

Something just feels off about having the people who write the code for the abilities also code the curing systems for them.

Why not just calculate each party's odds of surviving based on all their stats and let the game auto-resolve duels?

"Let's auto-queue the offense to shave 0.100 off my on-balance attacks!"

"Let's also auto-cure afflictions to shave 0.100 off my curing!"

What have we really achieved here besides making Achaean fighting robotic? I mean yeah we're all about a "balanced" combat system, but seriously? The way I see it, you get extra bragging rights when you win as the underdog.

That element of random chance is what gives a chance to someone who isn't the favorite.

Just saying that level playing fields are boring. Find another way.

Mishgul

Xith I think you missed the point.

Trevize

Xith said:

Something just feels off about having the people who write the code for the abilities also code the curing systems for them.

Why not just calculate each party's odds of surviving based on all their stats and let the game auto-resolve duels?

"Let's auto-queue the offense to shave 0.100 off my on-balance attacks!"

"Let's also auto-cure afflictions to shave 0.100 off my curing!"

What have we really achieved here besides making Achaean fighting robotic? I mean yeah we're all about a "balanced" combat system, but seriously? The way I see it, you get extra bragging rights when you win as the underdog.

That element of random chance is what gives a chance to someone who isn't the favorite.

Just saying that level playing fields are boring. Find another way.

I would agree, except in many cases, ping/lag is outside the player's control.

edit: Plus I wouldn't want to see a full-fledged system - something relatively basic, enough to get someone started.

another edit: I rarely have latency as much as 0.1 seconds...

Tael

Delphinus said:

Xith said:

I think adding server-side offense in combination with an incomplete server-side defense (resulting in the use of systems to cure anyway) is going to give the advantage to the wrong people. So people with 0.200 are now dealing with serpents that have 0.000 latency for their dstabs.

You could automate curing that's as simple as sipping balances, but people will still need external things to sip during blackout, etc.

I don't have latency issues that I'm aware of, but I also don't spam commands and just let my natural timing guide me on flinging hangedman when it's time, or trigger balance on certain moves.

That's why I said:

Delphinus said:

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.

The above^ is obviously not a comprehensive list of features, and if it came to pass, I'd hope that someone like @Vadimuses and/or @Mishgul would be involved in an advisory role. The wish is that you'd lose zero system functionality aside from GUI bells and whistles.

You know what would be interesting? This, in conjunction with a database of in-game user-built systems -- but rather than just download and go, you'd have to encounter certain situations before you unlock them. So after you heal paralysis manually (either once or x number of times), paralysis curing is checked off, and you'd need to check off all the afflictions in a curing system before you can download it.

In addition, maybe you can unlock systems by reading special in-game books, and those books can be stored in libraries and be attributed to their authors: "The Codex Serpentus," by Iocun, or "Carmain Fol'ia's Tome of Cures." Maybe you'd have to unlock all of the cures (heal paralysis/whatever manually) before you can use them. Something to consider. (One benefit: it would still allow people to sell their systems.)

------------------------------------- (edit: added since I dun broke quoting apparently)

Heh - that's really similar to what I've been trying to suggest.

Though I have no idea how you'd do fully IG systems without implementing some sort of fairly rich scripting language into the game, which would, I think, be a bad idea.

But the idea of having a static priority list for each balance with a command to switch it (so systems can be built on top of the static prios) would be extremely doable. And the idea of having to unlock each cure is exactly what I suggested above.

Xith

Just feel like "let players handle curing/fighting". But give newbies an easier way to deal with the learning curve. They have to understand that systems are necessary to cure, which is why I previously suggested officially sponsoring the popular curing systems.

But learning the nuances of combat and what does what is probably the answer to the thread's question. Not mechanical stuff.

Delphinus

Xith said:

Just feel like "let players handle curing/fighting". But give newbies an easier way to deal with the learning curve. They have to understand that systems are necessary to cure, which is why I previously suggested officially sponsoring the popular curing systems.

But learning the nuances of combat and what does what is probably the answer to the thread's question. Not mechanical stuff.

But... it would be in players' hands.

You are absolutely not at all understanding what's being said here. We're saying to make them server side (in the manner of SETALIAS etc), not to have IRE hand out systems on a silver platter. Specific systems can be maintained by players, just like it is now -- as I said above in my in-game database idea.

The difference is that currently, downloading a system is like downloading a mod. Saying "get a mod or you can't fight" is amazingly offputting. But if you put it within the game -- say, by practicing combat to unlock stuff, or by using a book to load a system -- it's a whole different experience. It's engaging, and immersive, and all those nice industry checkmarks you'd want for a virtual world.

Tael said:

But the idea of having a static priority list for each balance with a command to switch it (so systems can be built on top of the static prios) would be extremely doable. And the idea of having to unlock each cure is exactly what I suggested above.

Much like the in-game SETALIAS command, it really seems like it wouldn't be enough. They're still required to get SVO (or a similar system), and SVO is no more a black box than this would be. In fact, SVO lets you monkey with curing prios much the same, and Vadi encourages users to do so.

Drauka

Delphinus said:

Tael said:

But the idea of having a static priority list for each balance with a command to switch it (so systems can be built on top of the static prios) would be extremely doable. And the idea of having to unlock each cure is exactly what I suggested above.

Much like the in-game SETALIAS command, it really seems like it wouldn't be enough. They're still required to get SVO (or a similar system), and SVO is no more a black box than this would be. In fact, SVO lets you monkey with curing prios much the same, and Vadi encourages users to do so.

That's one of my favorite features about it, and I'm sure going to be one of my big annoyances as an affliction class starting to get into combat as I have to deal with that.

Iocun

One of the main problems with player-designed server-side curing systems is that depending on how much coding freedom they offer, they might end up very ineffective and slow down Achaea. There's already a ton of inefficient code out there, but currently that only harms the person using the system itself, which would be a lot different if it was server-side. The system probably also couldn't offer all too much coding freedom due to security concerns, so it probably wouldn't end up being server side code so much as just different configurations on a fixed curing core.

That itself is fine, but never allows the kind of optimisation that client-side systems allow. There's a lot of variables that factor into what particular cure I use at what particular moment, which couldn't be handled by a simple priority list, even if you could change it on the fly (mostly because whatever command you'd use to change the priority would often arrive on the server too late). So I really doubt it would manage to be a full replacement for current client-side systems. But I certainly wouldn't mind it existing as an alternative.

(Chances are however that the new optimal way of curing would be some kind of weird tangled-up mix between serverside and clientside curing, to both give you optimal speed and flexibility, which might actually complicate stuff further, as it'd require people to get the acquired in-game components AND still get a script to work with them for their client.)