[KaVir]

Originally Posted by But is second-guessing an expression of skill or just intuition?

It's the same sort of skill used for games like poker - you learn your opponent's patterns.

Originally Posted by If you don't have good options and bad options then the player can't make mistakes.

There can still be good options and bad options - the trick is not to have a best option.

Originally Posted by Eventually there should be a 'best decision', but one that is not linearly deduced - rather one that is part of a flexible combat strategy.

I strongly disagree - a 'best' option results in linear gameplay.  You can have some options being better at certain things, or providing advantages in certain situations, but there should never be an option which is the all-round 'best'.

The most accurate attack might also be slow.  The fastest attack might also inflict the least damage.  The most damaging attack might also leave your defences wide open.  A knockdown attack might inflict no damage, but leave the enemy open to followup attacks.  A bash attack might do very little damage, but disrupt your opponent's moves.  A disarm attack might have a low chance of success and inflict no damage, but leave your opponent without a weapon.  Yet none of these moves are innately better or worse than the others.

To use the chess analogy again: What is the 'best' opening?

Originally Posted by If you have a 'best' target then adding more targets changes little.

Once again you're using the word 'best'.  Who's the best target, the warrior who's hitting you or the cleric who's healing the warrior?  What if the cleric has spells which deflect your strongest attacks?  What if your weaker attacks result in damage which the cleric can't heal?

Multiple targets results in more tactical options, which in turn increase the difficulty of scripting.

[Hadoryu]

Originally Posted by It's the same sort of skill used for games like poker - you learn your opponent's patterns.

Perhaps this is personal preference speaking now, but I don't particularly like the idea of a combat system functioning under rules similar to poker rules. While there is surely skill in poker, a large part of it is trying to stack probability in your favor and then depending on chance. If one player is significantly more skilled than another, I feel that that player should win consistently until the other works up to the his/her level. Losing because you got a proverbial 'bad hand' would cheapen the experience, for me at least. It's possible that this is down to personal preference, of course.

Originally Posted by I strongly disagree - a 'best' option results in linear gameplay.  You can have some options being better at certain things, or providing advantages in certain situations, but there should never be an option which is the all-round 'best'. The most accurate attack might also be slow.  The fastest attack might also inflict the least damage.  The most damaging attack might also leave your defences wide open.  A knockdown attack might inflict no damage, but leave the enemy open to followup attacks.  A bash attack might do very little damage, but disrupt your opponent's moves.  A disarm attack might have a low chance of success and inflict no damage, but leave your opponent without a weapon.  Yet none of these moves are innately better or worse than the others. To use the chess analogy again: What is the 'best' opening?

I'll use the chess analogy to demonstrate what I mean. The 'best' opening in chess is the one that is most in line with your strategy. The 'best' move in chess is the one that moves you further to your goal in a long and complex, dynamic sequence that changes along with your opponent's moves. I don't think chess would be a good game if every time you managed to maneuvre your pieces in a strategical way, you had to roll to see if you actually get to take the opponent's piece - that lowers the value of strategic thinking and instead takes too much control out of the player's hands.

Originally Posted by Once again you're using the word 'best'.  Who's the best target, the warrior who's hitting you or the cleric who's healing the warrior?  What if the cleric has spells which deflect your strongest attacks?  What if your weaker attacks result in damage which the cleric can't heal? Multiple targets results in more tactical options, which in turn increase the difficulty of scripting.

I'm saying that so long as you have a 'best' target, the number of targets doesn't matter. Multiple targets don't innately cause more complexity, they only do so if the choice of target flexible instead of linear, which isn't implied automatically.

[Davairus]

I said multiple players increase the amount of unknowns (hands, and playing styles). Uh, when a system has more interwoven unknowns in it, I call that a more complex system.

Are you using a different definition of complex here?

BTW, the target in poker is the pot, not another player.

[Hadoryu]

It will usually make things more complex to some degree, yes. We're not talking about a specific system though. In a system where damage is the main fighting component multiple targets wouldn't really mean all that much since usually all attacks will be directed at a single target. In a different system picking a target can be a very strategical and dynamic choice, of course, I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that multiple targets versus single targets don't make the difference between having a flexible choice and having a linear one - it's not implied.

And the point about poker was unrelated to the multiple targets point, I'm sorry if I wasn't too clear on that.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Perhaps this is personal preference speaking now, but I don't particularly like the idea of a combat system functioning under rules similar to poker rules. While there is surely skill in poker, a large part of it is trying to stack probability in your favor and then depending on chance. If one player is significantly more skilled than another, I feel that that player should win consistently until the other works up to the his/her level. Losing because you got a proverbial 'bad hand' would cheapen the experience, for me at least. It's possible that this is down to personal preference, of course.

Well as I mentioned previously, I've created a minigame "combat system" roughly based on the poker rules, and it has resulted in some very skillful and tactical play.  People will occasionally draw bad hands, but probably no more often than rolling a fumble in your standard tabletop roleplaying game (and even if you do draw a bad hand, there are ways to get around it).

Originally Posted by I'll use the chess analogy to demonstrate what I mean. The 'best' opening in chess is the one that is most in line with your strategy. The 'best' move in chess is the one that moves you further to your goal in a long and complex, dynamic sequence that changes along with your opponent's moves.

However if you've played chess, you'll know that there are often a number of different strategies at each decision point.  Do you take a pawn, knowing there's nothing they can do about it?  Do you sacrifice your own pawn, strengthening your position on the board?  Do you take a risk which, if they don't notice what you're doing, will give you a quick checkmate?  None of these moves are innately 'better' than the others.

Originally Posted by I don't think chess would be a good game if every time you managed to maneuvre your pieces in a strategical way, you had to roll to see if you actually get to take the opponent's piece - that lowers the value of strategic thinking and instead takes too much control out of the player's hands.

I disagree, although obviously it's a matter of personal preference.  Most wargames are little more than an advanced version of "chess with dice", after all, and yet they can allow for a great deal of strategic thinking.

Indeed, if you wish to better simulate a combat situation, the element of chance is pretty much the only way to take into consideration the countless tiny factors which your game can't realistically simulate.  The wind blows a fly into your eye at a critical moment, the blood and sweat weakens your grip on your sword, your opponent slips on a patch of mud, and so on.

Originally Posted by I'm saying that so long as you have a 'best' target, the number of targets doesn't matter.

And I'm saying that there isn't necessarily going to be a 'best' target.

Originally Posted by Multiple targets don't innately cause more complexity, they only do so if the choice of target flexible instead of linear, which isn't implied automatically.

Unless combat is designed to only support one-on-one fights, there will always be an element of choice involved.  Even if there's an obvious target for you to focus your attacks on (which is by no means guaranteed), you'll still have to handle your defences against the multiple attackers.

[The_Disciple]

Originally Posted by (Hadoryu @ April 11 2006,02:58) When you have many paralel tasks to keep track of (multiple ways of curing and multiple ways of attack) and they interwind, that will often make many of the calls very circumstancial. You might not think that's easy to script and generally you're right, but it's not particularly difficult to script either. The number of significant variables in a decision is often not quite so large as to be impossible to consider. The things that make scripting important are fast pace, repetativeness and complexity. These are instances in which scripting will be valuable enough to a player. If those things aren't present there's no real need to script and no great benefit to it - however it's difficult to balance that with keeping combat exciting. And scripting for combat isn't actually always bad, a lof of IRE players get half of their enjoyment from doing that. It's a new and genuine feeling - it's like building your own Mech.

I've played and enjoyed some games that were pure scripting exercises. Having a decently strong computer science / AI background, I generally do well in them. It's just not what I personally find enjoyable in a MUD.

There's a lot you can do as a game designer to limit the strategy of ganging up on one guy in a group vs. group fight. For example, maybe the more people are trying to focus on one opponent, the more they get in each other's way and prevent attacks, making it a matter of diminishing returns.

[Hadoryu]

Originally Posted by Well as I mentioned previously, I've created a minigame "combat system" roughly based on the poker rules, and it has resulted in some very skillful and tactical play. People will occasionally draw bad hands, but probably no more often than rolling a fumble in your standard tabletop roleplaying game (and even if you do draw a bad hand, there are ways to get around it).

If it's possible enough to overcome bad luck with good decision making, then that's good enough. But if a bad hand dooms you from the start, I feel it's going to reduce the role tactics play in deciding the victor.

Originally Posted by However if you've played chess, you'll know that there are often a number of different strategies at each decision point. Do you take a pawn, knowing there's nothing they can do about it? Do you sacrifice your own pawn, strengthening your position on the board? Do you take a risk which, if they don't notice what you're doing, will give you a quick checkmate? None of these moves are innately 'better' than the others.

Of course, I completely agree and that's my point. There is no innately 'best' move in chess. There's a best move when considered in the context of a strategy - i.e. a sequence of moves and predicted opposing moves. You don't need an element of chance there, because your opponent is unpredictable.

Originally Posted by I disagree, although obviously it's a matter of personal preference. Most wargames are little more than an advanced version of "chess with dice", after all, and yet they can allow for a great deal of strategic thinking. Indeed, if you wish to better simulate a combat situation, the element of chance is pretty much the only way to take into consideration the countless tiny factors which your game can't realistically simulate. The wind blows a fly into your eye at a critical moment, the blood and sweat weakens your grip on your sword, your opponent slips on a patch of mud, and so on.

If the system ends up one that you can lose even when you do everything right and the opponent doesn't, then I'd consider this a bad thing. Adding in an element of chance can bring about that sort of outcome. If the element of chance is insignificant enough to be overcome then the system won't lose much and the small difference chance can make would 'spice it up' as it were. If however the element of chance isn't possible to overcome or is hugely detrimental, you'll end up with a toss-up rather than a real fight in most circumstances.

Originally Posted by And I'm saying that there isn't necessarily going to be a 'best' target.

I never disagreed with that statement. I was simply trying to add to it and say that the presence of more than one target doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't going to be a 'best' target.

Originally Posted by Unless combat is designed to only support one-on-one fights, there will always be an element of choice involved. Even if there's an obvious target for you to focus your attacks on (which is by no means guaranteed), you'll still have to handle your defences against the multiple attackers.

That's still heavily dependant on the system, of course. I'm guessing some systems don't provide you with any real way to defend yourself other than running. In most cases team fights will be more complex than 1vs1 fights, but there's no guarantee that every system is going to become more tactical the moment there is more than two players involved in a fight.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by If it's possible enough to overcome bad luck with good decision making, then that's good enough. But if a bad hand dooms you from the start, I feel it's going to reduce the role tactics play in deciding the victor.

A run of bad luck is certainly possible, but unlikely. You can do a full discard/redraw as your first action of the first turn if you wish, which still leaves you enough actions to get a full defence in place by the time your opponent is able to attack. Equally, you can use bluffs and weak attacks to clear out unwanted cards, distracting your opponent long enough for you to build up a reasonable defence.

If you're only playing one-on-one, and your opponent gets a really good hand while you get a really bad hand (even after your redraw), and they know what they're doing, your chances of survival are very slim. But that's not something that'll happen often.

Originally Posted by If the system ends up one that you can lose even when you do everything right and the opponent doesn't, then I'd consider this a bad thing.

Equally, if the system ends up with one that you always win if you do everything right, I'd consider that a bad thing. It's too predictable, and promotes complacency. No longer do you have to worry about the unexpected, or prepare backup plans. Where is the thrill and excitment in that?

Originally Posted by Adding in an element of chance can bring about that sort of outcome. If the element of chance is insignificant enough to be overcome then the system won't lose much and the small difference chance can make would 'spice it up' as it were. If however the element of chance isn't possible to overcome or is hugely detrimental, you'll end up with a toss-up rather than a real fight in most circumstances.

Well yes, it all comes down to how much emphasis is placed on the element of chance - there are many shades of grey between "chess" and "snakes and ladders".

A fight is likely to require many attacks, so the law of averages will probably make it very unlikely to win through luck (unless the fight is very short). What's more likely is that an otherwise very close fight may shift sufficiently in one direction to give one player the edge. In this respect, small errors of judgement can sometimes be 'forgiven' by the combat system, rather than ensuring defeat.

Originally Posted by In most cases team fights will be more complex than 1vs1 fights, but there's no guarantee that every system is going to become more tactical the moment there is more than two players involved in a fight.

Well no, I don't think we can really make any guarantees about "every" combat system - but the point is that multi-way fights can be used as a way to add tactical options to a combat system.

[Hadoryu]

Originally Posted by A run of bad luck is certainly possible, but unlikely.  You can do a full discard/redraw as your first action of the first turn if you wish, which still leaves you enough actions to get a full defence in place by the time your opponent is able to attack.  Equally, you can use bluffs and weak attacks to clear out unwanted cards, distracting your opponent long enough for you to build up a reasonable defence. If you're only playing one-on-one, and your opponent gets a really good hand while you get a really bad hand (even after your redraw), and they know what they're doing, your chances of survival are very slim.  But that's not something that'll happen often.

So what happens if your redraw is as bad or worse than your initial draw? I can see chance 'setting the stage' as it were, but I think when it 'plays the parts' it's going too far. If chance is such that it can often punish sound tactical decision then that would make the system counter-intuitive.

Originally Posted by Equally, if the system ends up with one that you always win if you do everything right, I'd consider that a bad thing.  It's too predictable, and promotes complacency.  No longer do you have to worry about the unexpected, or prepare backup plans.  Where is the thrill and excitment in that?

Oh, surely. However, just the fact that you're fighting another human being means that you won't be facing the same number of choices over and over. Your opponent can be unpredictable enough to make any element of chance unnecessary. In fact, that's the way many games function, chess included.

Originally Posted by Well yes, it all comes down to how much emphasis is placed on the element of chance - there are many shades of grey between "chess" and "snakes and ladders". A fight is likely to require many attacks, so the law of averages will probably make it very unlikely to win through luck (unless the fight is very short).  What's more likely is that an otherwise very close fight may shift sufficiently in one direction to give one player the edge.  In this respect, small errors of judgement can sometimes be 'forgiven' by the combat system, rather than ensuring defeat.

Well, the law of averages will give you a general idea of what the most likely scenario is. However, if you get some multiple cheap wins/losses, even as an exception, the law of averages won't matter. The way I see it, the larger the element of chance, the more control you take away from the player and the less responsible the player is for the outcome of the battle.

Originally Posted by Well no, I don't think we can really make any guarantees about "every" combat system - but the point is that multi-way fights can be used as a way to add tactical options to a combat system.

I'm just disagreeing with the correlation multiple targets => tactical combat. Team fights usually have much more potential for tactical systems, of course - in that case team fighting acts as an amplifier to an already existing tactical element instead of just creating one by itself.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by So what happens if your redraw is as bad or worse than your initial draw?

Then I'd be at a disadvantage. What I'd probably do is move some junk into my offense hand until I had enough to build up a reasonable defence, then clear the offense hand with a weak jihad (particularly if someone had attacked me, as it'd force them to shift back to rebuilding their defence) and start building up a proper offense. If I was still struggling after three or four turns I'd burn a resource I didn't need to bluff an attack, hopefully giving the impression that I was in fighting shape and encouraging my opponent/s to waste resources pumping up their defences.

Of course that wouldn't help one-on-one against a player who goes pure offense...but if you think they're going to do that, and you have a bad hand, you could call their bluff and go for a pure offense as well. You'd both die, resulting in a draw.

Originally Posted by I can see chance 'setting the stage' as it were, but I think when it 'plays the parts' it's going too far. If chance is such that it can often punish sound tactical decision then that would make the system counter-intuitive.

It's not really a case of chance punishing tactical decisions, but rather the tactical decisions having to take into account (and make the most of) the resources that chance has given you.

[Hadoryu]

Originally Posted by Then I'd be at a disadvantage. What I'd probably do is move some junk into my offense hand until I had enough to build up a reasonable defence, then clear the offense hand with a weak jihad (particularly if someone had attacked me, as it'd force them to shift back to rebuilding their defence) and start building up a proper offense. If I was still struggling after three or four turns I'd burn a resource I didn't need to bluff an attack, hopefully giving the impression that I was in fighting shape and encouraging my opponent/s to waste resources pumping up their defences. Of course that wouldn't help one-on-one against a player who goes pure offense...but if you think they're going to do that, and you have a bad hand, you could call their bluff and go for a pure offense as well. You'd both die, resulting in a draw.

Well, that does sound rather interesting and I guess I'm going to withold comment unless I get to see it in action. If it's possible to put up a good fight, even with luck against you, then the system doesn't suffer too much.

Originally Posted by It's not really a case of chance punishing tactical decisions, but rather the tactical decisions having to take into account (and make the most of) the resources that chance has given you.

Well, to put it another way, it doesn't reward you either. It discourages elaborate tactics, since the chance of them succeeding will drop after every segment.

[lovechiefs]

Of all the Muds I have tried,IRE's combat system is by far the best.I do however think the system is not going far enough as far as players liberty of movement
I would like to see liberty of movement.For example,after slashing at a hellcat or anything for that matter,I would like to be able to move up and/or sideways as to add to the distance the OPPFOR needs to go thru to reach me.That may actually require the addition of movement points or something.
Those movement/stamina points would diminish depending on how far the player moves between attacks and defenses.
I also would like to see a defense command.By this I mean that instead of attacking at every turn,one could attack once,then defend and see what spot the Oppfor opens up for the 2nd attack.

[DonathinFrye]

It would be a lot easier to implement movement if IRE's combat supported a co-ordinate based map-system, like Godwars II or RER.

Ever tried either of those, lchief?

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (DonathinFrye @ April 12 2006,14:31) It would be a lot easier to implement movement if IRE's combat supported a co-ordinate based map-system, like Godwars II or RER.

Our games do support coordinate based map systems, of course.

--matt

[DonathinFrye]

It's not the same sort of system, and as such, does not allow for "movement points" - i.e. oldschool TSR computer game-like game mechanics that allowed for an attack followed by a movement(depending on the circumstances).


There are a few different ways you could implement what you are asking for without using "movement points" which makes combat take a more turn-based route(I prefer real-time combat);


In one of the games I'm working on currently (that's in open-to-public Alpha testing), the system is map/co-ordinate based, using a mixture of ranged(guns) and melee weapons. The gun-weaponry ranges from pistols (needing a straight, unobstructed shot) to shotguns/etc (spread-buckshot rounds, which can target a specific [zombie, typically, in this MUD's case], and also have a lessened affect on adjacent/nearby enemies), and various demolition-based weapons ranging from rocket-launchers to timed bombs, traps, and grenades (all which have an area of effect).

In an effort to reduce the amount of melee vs ranged weapon imbalance we are experiencing(to an extent, naturally there are obvious advantages to using a pistol against someone coming at you with a lead pipe), we've been designing commands that utilize the map more. Examples of what we are looking at a