Neuromancer

Quote: from Dominik on 7:09 pm on Sep. 14, 2002[br]

Which brings me to combat…I'm sure it's being worked on and discussed and debated. �I realize Moss, and Luc's will always exist that you can't beat. �But I think th e gaps need to be lessened. �I'm not saying that every newb should get a gone and extra UE if he's combat. �But there needs to be a way that they can obtain certain advantages to even the score. �Like if your hiding in the alley, and attack from stealth mode, maybe you should be harder to hit the first few times because �your attacking from 'behind'. �Drugs are a good start. �

I remember ranting something like that - what I'd be thinking is something along a refined initiative and abstract distance system based on stats n' weapons n' stuff.

Lookit this -

Bob and Sven decide to have it out - so, they go for a fist fight, man to man, a fair fight.
So, it'd run like it runs now.

Let's say Bob and Sven really have it in for each other. Bob brings a gun, Sven brings a sledgehammer.
So, if Bob attacks first with his gun, he'll act first, because he probably isn't very close to Sven when he pulls the trigger. He gets a bonus round or two?

Now, if Sven attacks -first- (i.e. types 'kill Bob) with the sledge, then Bob's not going to have his 'distance' advantage - Sven is already close. So combat would run as normal.

Now, let's say Sven is hiding and attacks Bob. Bob doesn't see it coming, so Sven just makes an attack roll without counting Bob's dodge - Bob didn't have time to dodge. Then combat goes on as normal.

So now, let's imagine Bob is 'aiming' at Sven, and pulls the trigger (types 'Kill Sven'), now Bob gets his distance bonus, and a to-hit roll bonus, because he was aiming. A bonus maybe modified by how long Bob was aiming, up to a certain maximum?

Now, what if Bob is hiding, aiming, and attacks Sven?
That's narrowing the gap, isn't it?

Another interesting thing would be lowering the chance to hit in gun vs gun battles, and maybe making it so in firefights 'disarm' and 'grapple' would take a number of turns as grappler or disarmer approaches the other guy?

Random thoughts on combat, I guess.

I'm not going to tell you about it though because the underlying game mechanics should be unimportant to you as the major thing you should be concentrating on are the RP implications of thoes type of actions.

You want something that models combat perfectly and takes into account all kinds of situtations, well, I suggest you start your own MOO.

Johnny designed and has successfully used the existing stats system for over 4 years now without a single problem. If anything, in 4 years, the rest of the code hasn't caught up to the stats system. Rastus spent a lot of time from what I can see to account for RP situtations in combat, like aiming, initiative (getting the first hit in) and how that's affected by hiding, grappling, human shields, and other RP situtations.

You can kill someone, and that's what's really important. Everything else should be RP. And that's really the final word on this: It's designed the way it is to help support non-GM assisted killing of other people.

Because the only way I can see to really add support for the rare and special types of situtations that we -DON'T- allready support (because we support some of the ones you don't seem to think we don't) is to add really unnecessary things like sub-locations or ranges so we can effectively judge distances for things like ranged combat, and then people would just spend all their time retreating, hoping to get that lucky shot in. Boooooring.

There is of course another option:

We ditch automated combat alltogether, and make GM-assistance required, so in order to get in a fight you have to wait for a GM to show up, then make your stat checks and pose as accordingly (which some people would be alot better then others at, which may or may not be a good thing).

I've seen this system in action before. It works allright when the people are all sitting at the same table and were all rolling our own dice.

It really fucking sucks on a MOO when your in the middle of RP, and you have to pause all RP in the room to wait for a GM, so you can spend the next hour and a half emoting taking pop shots at each other.

But, maybe that would be better for you, because you could accomidate these types of rare situtations which arn't possible to handle, like the gun vs. the sledgehammer at 15 feet apart and closing. I dunno. I do know that the GM's are booked as it is without having to referee combat, and that something like this would in all likelyhood bring the rest of the game to a grinding halt, or at least certian lines of RP.

So while your right, there are certian things that arn't modeled well right now, don't expect any changes in the near future.

I personally think that Combat has it's weaknesses, and it's lack of modular design will not allow us to do everything that we want to do in the future (think cyberware, and different guns), but for the near future, don't expect much to be different, except for maybe grappling and disarm, which needs some minor touches.

-Kevlar

(Edited by Lotus at 8:28 pm on Sep. 15, 2002)

I'll have to put Harry Potter aside.  LOL!

U PUNCTUATIN': AWFUL