Well, again, I don't want us to be talking about different things if you're making these comments in the context of your own combat system. Nothing forces there to be so many combat messages to parse in the first place. I'm not assuming about there being several attacks per second, for example.


The config option would be a good compromise. As to muscle memory: perhaps, perhaps not. When sparring (as in, for real as a person, not in a game), you obviously don't have lots of time to ponder your strategy, but if you're being smart you're still thinking at least a little bit and guiding your muscle memory, for lack of a better word.

In a rush now so haven't read the rest of the replies; will reply later.

A combat system based on bullet chess might be interesting, but I suspect a decent script could play it better than most mudders. I imagine it would also be mentally draining to engage in too many fights like that.


The problem with letting players create their own attacks or combos is that they'll find the optimal solution and stick to it. Perhaps that solution will consist of a few different combos for different tasks, but you're still likely to see far less variation than you would with fixed combos.

I'm also a fan of giving each type of weapon its own special moves - not for realism purposes, but for diversity, so that each weapon has its own unique feel. If people could design their own combos then it would reduce the distinction between different weapons.


That's likely to get extremely spammy though, unless we're talking about turn-based combat (which Tonitrus has said he doesn't want). Even with just one message per move, many newbies have trouble keeping up with my combat system.




But still, my point was that even without having to read any combat messages (i.e., all you need to do is notice there's some red text on your screen) the 2-3 second response time has proven too short for some players. And that's with just one situation to deal with (sweeps) that has a simple two-letter counter-move.

Are you sure that the delay is actually 3 seconds? That's quite a bit of time if all you have to do is see red and type in two letters. People have far more rapid reaction to colors than that, in, e.g., FPS games, so I admit to being a little skeptical here.
Then again, obviously, some people will simply have bad reaction times: perhaps this is why they play MUDs in the first place, and not FPS games. (These are the ones likely to criticize "twitchiness".) I don't view three seconds as twitch, but then again I generally am fast on the keyboard and have played my share of "twitchy" games.

Do you have an idea for how many people react, but too late? Maybe you have statistics, for example, on the average delay in between the red text being sent and the reaction being received. This would be interesting to compare to things like average ping times.

No, you missed my point, there. The idea is that no one combo is in any way intrinsically superior to any other; it can only become superior if your character has spent a lot of practice points on improving it (but that practice improves the effectiveness of any given combo by a sizeable margin). Effectiveness here doesn't just consist of more damage but speed as well - subsequent attacks in a practised combo come faster than they would if you make the same sequence of moves discretely. So the choice of which combo you practice is completely arbitrary - you just pick whichever one you like the sound of. Once you've spent a lot of practice points on it, that combo becomes much more effective for your character but only for your character.

So there's a strategic choice to make: how many combos do you practice? If you pick only one, then your character will become lethally effective at using it, but once it becomes known that it's your favourite combo, anyone who is facing you will realise, as soon as the first move of the combo happens, that it's going to be followed by all the rest, and will set up defensive moves which neutralise them all effectively. So you might want to practice several different combos, to keep your opponent on their toes, including perhaps two or more which have the same starting move. But if you do that then the effectiveness of each combo is reduced because you can't spend so many practice points on each one.

Thus, whenever you encounter an opponent for the first time, you have no idea what their practised combos are; but, as the fight progresses, you may begin to notice that he always follows a shield bash with a stab to the gut (because he's practised that combination) and anticipate accordingly. That means you need a different script for each opponent, because there's no reason to assume that any other opponent has practised the same combos as this one.

I'll probably implement multiple actions as some sort of config setting. The higher the number of actions you attempt, the higher the penalty on all actions. Then I'd probably give dual-wielding a bit of a bonus to attack and parry to partially negate it.

As far as the second bit of that, do you actually mean simultaneously, or just in quick succession? I've had a fair amount of exposure to martial arts, and if we replace the dagger strikes with punches, I can't do any of the things you mentioned simultaneously. I'd probably be inclined to just give each action a time to complete and leave it at that. The idea of limb independence does bring up some great possibilities, but if I were to implement such a thing, I'd probably want to downplay its significance a bit from what I assume it to be in your game.

I should probably also add that I agree with the defense = muscle memory comment, and that my main desire is not so much for manual defenses as control over defenses. I guess some sort of config setting would be the way to go. Or maybe have sort of semi-random defenses if you have several and the ability to select a preference. Or something. Anything is better than just having an automatic skill you have no control over.


When I used to play Goldeneye on my N64, I was fast enough that I could tap the aim button and the joystick and headshot people immediately as they ran into the room. Unfortunately Perfect Dark (Goldeneye's de facto sequel) screwed up the aiming scheme and I could never do it again in either game after playing it. That's a twitch mechanic, and one I excelled at. So it may seem strange that muds tend to be too fast for me. Those 3 second rounds seem a hell of a lot faster to me. I think it has to do with graphical/spatial reasoning verses text-parsing/comprehension speeds. I have difficulty reacting to more than one or two lines of text in that round, and once you hit the normal ROM/SMAUG amount of attacks, I can't read any of the text at all. I just highlight individual words of significance and pick them out of the scroll. I tend to assume that this mud-latency is worse in me than in other people, but that may not be the case. I should add that I don't really have trouble with reading comprehension in any other setting, so it may be worse with other people. At one point I also typed 90wpm, but trying to type and use numpad for movement simultaneously at pk speeds has permanently ruined my typing. Even at 90wpm and reading as fast as I could, I still couldn't really parse/react to what was happening. The more experienced pkers would tell me that they just ignored the scroll and looked for key words anyway.

Color highlights did help a lot, admittedly, but sometimes the scroll of text would still be so massive that I didn't even register the colors, even though they didn't scroll out of the screen.

If I'm any indication of other mudders, what might be slow as hell in graphical media could still be considered "twitchy" for muds.

It's 2-3 seconds, as I mentioned in my previous post. You'll also be actively entering offensive commands in the appropriate sequence, monitoring your condition (and that of your opponent), glancing over incoming and outgoing attacks, perhaps keeping an eye on a prepared counter-attack, etc - it's not as if you're just sitting there waiting for some red text to appear. The chances are you'll be pretty distracted, perhaps even in the middle of typing something else, when your opponent suddenly and unexpectedly kicks your legs out from under you (and afterwards the combat messages continue to flow up your screen).

FPSers take a lot of practice to build up the appropriate skills, too. It's just that their genre is sufficiently well established that many people take those skills for granted.


No, it's just something I've observed on many occasions when trying to teach newbies how to fight. Some newbies pick up the combat remarkably quickly, some are so bad that they lose against inanimate objects, but the majority seem to have a similar sort of skill level somewhere in between. I think the main problem is trying to juggle too many new things at once, and perhaps the habit of wanting to read all of the text before making a decision.



Two. Most of my points go into the Rock combo, with a few left over to put into the Scissors combo.

Well, yes, but I also was explicitly not assuming that there were so many attacks per round. Of course, if there's a wall of text, parsing much of anything out of it will be difficult.


It's true that one kind of terrible feature of normal MUD output is that all output tends to get mixed in the same channel. Separating things out (using subwindows) can make an incredible difference.

Also, a lot of the issues you bring up can be addressed (if only partially) by making the text more spare, and focusing on the information that people care about. An expert player probably no longer cares about the fancy words and imagery being used, but only about the actual information being communicated.

I still am not sure we're talking about the same thing, because you seem to have a whole lot of text per second that I'm not necessarily assuming as a core feature of gameplay.


Are we talking now about learning curve, or what happens once you figure things out? I'm not sure it's entirely appropriate to focus discussion on newbies if we're having a conversation about competitive skilled players.

I think this is probably the main problem. Aside from the screen noise, you have to monitor your hitpoints and things of that nature. In games with no hitpoints or some sort of graphical display, peripheral vision can watch it, but if you've got your hp display and such as text in the middle of other text, it makes it hard to sort the information adequately. Maybe graphical prompts would help with that sort of thing. I was playing a game of nethack earlier (without any sort of graphical interface, just the normal ascii version), and I died because I forgot to read my hitpoints. Didn't even occur to me that they might be low. I got killed by a newt, I think. That's what I get for playing Vulture's Eye so much I guess. Its hp display changes color as you get low.

I have encountered a few techniques that involve simultaneously striking with both hands, or simultaneous punch/kick combinations. Of course the vast majority of moves are performed independently in rapid succession, but you can still throw more punches if you're using both hands - certainly more than one punch per second.

When I talk about fighting with independent body locations this is generally what I'm referring to. Although two attacks might be timed to land on the same second, this is really just an abstraction, because whole seconds are the smallest unit of measurement used by my combat system. However the attacks will still land one after the other, and can be individually blocked or parried (although I do also have a small number of techniques that describe both hands striking at once, and these cannot usually be parried with a single weapon).


And if I wanted to do "left punch, left backfist, right punch", that would be abstracted into a single combo-attack action? Or would I need to do one move after the other?

If you're abstracting multiple moves into a single attack action, this could be used to expand on the defence system. You could indeed have multiple defences in that case - for example my punch/backfist/punch might wear down your defences much faster than a single haymaker attack action.


Well I wasn't suggesting the players should have no control at all - as I said in my first post when describing my approach, "the actual defence process is automated, but specific defensive moves can increase your chances to avoid being hit". You can definitely give players a lot of defensive options, allowing them to assume different stances and prepare appropriate blocks or counterattacks. The problem is when players have to make snap decisions in response to incoming attacks, because that's something scripts will usually do better.



True, but as far as I'm aware that's not the sort of thing most newbie mudders think about. It usually tends to be the more experienced mudders who configure their clients in that sort of way.


I do have configurable options for reducing the amount of spam, but the combat messages themselves can't be blocked mud-side. I did consider giving players a combat "brief" mode that replaced the fancy messages with really short ones, but IMO it's those messages that give the combat much of its flavour, and combat is the main focus of my mud. I fear I could be shooting myself in the foot if I gave the players an option that made the combat messages appear bland.


I don't consistently have multiple attacks per second, but it's possible to time multiple attacks to land on the same second. On the other hand, someone wielding a two-handed greataxe might only attack once every 4-5 seconds.


If you're creating a new type of combat system, there won't be any players who are already skilled at it.

Well, personally, nice messages are interesting at first, and for a while, but eventually I don't really care about them and just want to get the information quickly. Some games have standard forms for their messages: "Person X does thing Y for damage Z". After seeing these for a while, my eyes just pick out X, Y and Z and ignore the rest. If the message had less noise in it, this would be even easier.

I think this would be an option meant for advanced players, not new ones. Are you worried that new ones would turn it on and get bored? Don't you think that the combat is interesting per se, even without fancy messages?


That's not really answering the question, though. I thought that we were talking about difficulty in general, regardless of player skill. Now it sounds like you're talking about learning curves, which is an entirely different ball game.

The other way around. I think that bland messages can make make any combat system appear uninteresting.

I don't think it's limited to combat, either. Cosmetics can really make or break a game - this is perhaps more obvious with graphical games, but it does also apply to text muds.


I wasn't referring to difficulty in general, but to the impact caused by a lack of familiarity. You said you were skeptical about the reaction speed of the mud players, making a comparison with FPS games. The point I was making is both types of game require a lot of practice, it's just that FPSers are already pretty well established and many players already possess the necessary skills (to the point that such skills are often taken for granted). That's not necessarily going to be the case if you design a new style of game.

But we're talking about people who have been playing the game for a while, and who are already quite familiar with the messages. Do you think that your most advanced players actually read all those messages in detail?


Yes, and you responded by comparing newbie MUD players to general FPS players – a comparison that I think is really quite unfair. If you had compared a newbie MUD player to somebody who'd never played a FPS game, the comparison would have made more sense.
I'm not asking if both types of games require practice – that's actually kind of obvious.
That is why I don't understand why you're talking about learning curves, except if you are making the argument that the learning curve is so incredibly steep that you might as well consider it an impossibility to become skilled.


By this reasoning, one should avoid designing a new game if it requires skills that players don't already have.

I admit to being a little surprised by your reactions here. I thought the whole point was to create a competitive game that valued player skill? Now, you're shying away from having learning curves, and shying away from what is essentially player skill. I don't really understand why you think that the learning curve here is such a huge issue, where you in parallel accept learning curves for other things. (Again, unless you are arguing that the learning curve is so steep etc.)

Not in the heat of the moment, but they certainly read back over them, and post logs of the best fights (sometimes on public forums, which serve as a form of promotion). The advanced players wouldn't really be effected by a brief mode anyway, it's mostly the newbies who have problems, and often because they're busy reading the messages during combat.


The FPS comparison was yours (post #23), and I agree it's an unfair comparison, for the reasons I outlined; most FPS players have played other FPS games, but the newbies in my mud haven't played my combat system before. It's therefore not reasonable to expect newbies on my game to have the same reaction speed as the typical FPS player.


No.


Yes.


No. I'm shying away from elements that can be more easily scripted than played by a human, because if players have to script to compete then you've effectively gone back to having an automated combat system, and player skill goes out the window (unless you count script-writing skill, but as players can exchange scripts that doesn't really mean much).

Actually, no… I did not compare FPS gamers to newbie MUD players. You're talking about a comparison I didn't make. You responded to my statement by opposing newbies to experienced players: that isn't addressing my point at all.
I find it difficult to reply to the rest if we are not speaking the same language on such a simple point as this. Why do you keep talking to me about newbies while insisting this isn't about learning curves? I expect newbies to have to learn a system: that's the whole point of player skill.


Well, why not? Your objection has been that newbies will have problems with it.

I really can't be bothered to argue definitions with you. I'm talking about this:

KaVir (post #22): "…even without having to read any combat messages (i.e., all you need to do is notice there's some red text on your screen) the 2-3 second response time has proven too short for some players."

David Haley (post #23): "Are you sure that the delay is actually 3 seconds? That's quite a bit of time if all you have to do is see red and type in two letters. People have far more rapid reaction to colors than that, in, e.g., FPS games, so I admit to being a little skeptical here…Do you have an idea for how many people react, but too late?"

KaVir (post#26): "No, it's just something I've observed on many occasions when trying to teach newbies how to fight."

Yes, I'm sure the delay is 2-3 seconds. Yes, many newbies struggle with it, even though FPS players are often able to react faster. No, I'm not lying.


Well it depends on your personal goals of course - there definitely are advantages to sticking with the tried-and-true and just giving it a good polish, and IMO you're actually likely to attract the largest playerbase by taking this route. But it's the more cutting-edge games that push forward the genre as a whole, setting an example for later generations to follow. And while it can be more difficult to build a decent playerbase if your game is too exotic, that sword cuts both ways - once you've got a following, your players are less likely to find another game that appeals to their new taste.

I'm not trying to argue definitions… I'm not happy that you are arguing with a statement I never made. :thinking:
If you're only talking about new players when you say "some players", I think that is a very important distinction from "some players in general". The first can be addressed by acquiring player skill; the latter cannot really be addressed if they simply can't deal with fast reading/typing even if they are otherwise very experienced with the game. Acquiring player skill is generally considered a good thing (you said so yourself), whereas a feature that excludes a whole bunch of people regardless of skill is more likely to be considered a bad thing.

Also, if by "some people" you mean a small percentage of your player base, or a sizable percentage, that distinction is also important to make.

If you're going to argue with my point on very specific details – especially ones I didn't put forward ;) – then I think it would be helpful if you were a little more precise yourself.


And yet you seem to have a problem with learning curves for newbies; such cutting-edge games are almost by definition the ones most likely to have harder learning curves. You can no longer apply skills straight from other games, precisely because the game is designed to be rather different.

I don't think server side message configuration is a particularly worthwhile feature. Most players who want to filter messages already do so on their client, which seems to me to be the logical place for it.

Well, having the server do it for you means you don't have to figure out a regular expression etc., and you're guaranteed to have it done correctly to some extent, but I do agree that in general it's not a life-changing difference.

It is difficult to be any more precise without speculating, but based on my observations it seems to be a majority of new players. I would guestimate perhaps around two-thirds. Those who hang around usually pick it up (or maybe it's just that most of those who can't pick it up are among those who end up quitting).

It's not really a big part of my combat system, but it's still had enough of an impact that I'd have concerns about extending it further.


Yes, it's one of the main complaints people have about my game. Obviously it's a price I'm willing to pay, but I think it's important to weigh up the pros and cons before making such a decision.


No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Lack of familiarity isn't the same as a learning curve.




Not really a viable option for my game, I'm afraid.

Client side filtering? Why not?