27 Jul, 2012, Runter wrote in the 41st comment:
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Using timing as a mechanism is even worse then the queue problem, I think. That's absolutely going to be better done by a bot than a player. Every mud I've ever played that relied on timing for mechanics had client support for successful players to do it at perfect timing. Other players were just at huge disadvantage.
27 Jul, 2012, Hades_Kane wrote in the 42nd comment:
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The only logical steps to take are creating disincentives to botting and narrowing the advantage between botters and non-botters, to prevent disenfranchisement of the latter category of players. What most everyone in this thread is trying to bring to your attention is that the system you have devised does the opposite of this.

And I maintain the half of a second advantage that someone who has scripted a command queue, or who is using timers, or whatever way to "beat" my wait-state system or whatnot would be negligible. I don't think it would really give anyone much of a tangible "advantage" other than being able to more easily allow themselves to do other things in other windows rather than paying attention to the MUD window. In an actual PVP setting, or even two players fighting the same mob and trying to best it better, or in whatever way two people may be attempting to compete with one another, a slightly quicker firing on the commands won't amount too much. I'd be surprised if it amounted to anymore than a single skill usage over the course of a battle, and really, the better built character or the one with a better strategy is going to come out on top there, not the person who scripted their fight or added a command queue.

If I saw there being a real, tangible benefit to script or create a command queue to be better than other players, then I would give reconsidering this a whole lot more thought, but as it is, there's nothing but anecdotal evidence (if you can even call it that, really), to suggest there might be even the slightest advantage.

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Perhaps it's a small enough segment that you do not concern yourself with them.

Pretty much this. It's unfortunate, but it's hard to cater to every small segment of the potential pool of players. In the works is making our game screen-reader friendly, as the heavy visual element with ASCII areas and such make that an unfortunate reality as well. But timed attacks aren't mandatory, necessary, or in very heavy use throughout the game, so a slow typer wouldn't be necessary too worse off, but I still wouldn't recommend PvP for one on my game.

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Thank you. Although, just recently, a certain MU* community person was making quite contrary statements about me.

Even stricter rules at certain sites won't completely de-troll some of the trolls there :p

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*twitches* Not going to say it…said…I…would…drop…it…

:p

September 1st should be one less thing to bug you :)


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Using timing as a mechanism is even worse then the queue problem, I think. That's absolutely going to be better done by a bot than a player. Every mud I've ever played that relied on timing for mechanics had client support for successful players to do it at perfect timing. Other players were just at huge disadvantage.

It introduces an element of luck and randomness, but the main system of our timed skills (the blitzes) have some randomization with their timers. I'm not going to say it's unbottable, as someone with enough info gathering scripts could probably work out a safe "average" for the timer and set it to that, but the way the timers work in this instance within the amount of time you have to execute the secondary command, both the beginning of this window and the close of the window have some randomization. Attempt the second command too early and it fails, wait too long and it automatically fails. The longer you wait, the stronger the skill is (so it's a lot like charging the skill).

Consistent, static timers are definitely asking for timed bots to be written. The slight randomization to the beginning and end of the timer window isn't a perfect solution, but I do feel like it makes the trouble of trying to script it not really worth it.
28 Jul, 2012, Runter wrote in the 43rd comment:
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And I maintain the half of a second advantage that someone who has scripted a command queue, or who is using timers, or whatever way to "beat" my wait-state system or whatnot would be negligible. I don't think it would really give anyone much of a tangible "advantage" other than being able to more easily allow themselves to do other things in other windows rather than paying attention to the MUD window. In an actual PVP setting, or even two players fighting the same mob and trying to best it better, or in whatever way two people may be attempting to compete with one another, a slightly quicker firing on the commands won't amount too much. I'd be surprised if it amounted to anymore than a single skill usage over the course of a battle, and really, the better built character or the one with a better strategy is going to come out on top there, not the person who scripted their fight or added a command queue.

If I saw there being a real, tangible benefit to script or create a command queue to be better than other players, then I would give reconsidering this a whole lot more thought


You just said yourself there's a half a second advantage. Then you said you're going to get more skills used over the course of a battle. What about that isn't "real, tangible benefit?" And your math is way off. Let's assume you're using a skill every 3 seconds (being generous) with a .5 second advantage. That's 7 seconds of action for your opponents 6 seconds of actions. That's 16% more over the course of a battle. So if your opponent does 100 skills, then you did 16 more. Not 1. And that "real, tangible" benefit would be practically 16% more damage. On top of, you know, being able to "more easily allow themselves to do other things." That's sort of also a real, tangible benefit. There's no doubt in my mind if I were one of your players I would use such a client system, because it doesn't make sense not to. Even if it's a 1% gain, it's gains all around.

If you really want to get to the bottom of this you should install analytics into your combat system that determine how much wasted time your legit players are generating on average. Then you can compare that, as I did above, to someone with no wasted time. That's what the script kid is getting. This isn't anecdotes, these are real numbers. Edges here and edges there all add up.
28 Jul, 2012, quixadhal wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
Me thinks this is a case of "My system works best because I designed it, and all my players say it works fine. None of them would EVER just agree with me because I'm the admin and they want to suck up for perks, or be afraid I might penalize them if they bruised my ego."
28 Jul, 2012, Hades_Kane wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Me thinks this is a case of "My system works best because I designed it, and all my players say it works fine. None of them would EVER just agree with me because I'm the admin and they want to suck up for perks, or be afraid I might penalize them if they bruised my ego."


You clearly don't know anything about me or my players or staff, then :p
29 Jul, 2012, Ssolvarain wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
I'd like to see him try and penalize me lol
40.0/46