So I had a shot at ClandestineMUD after seeing it recommended as good PvP, but I quit very shortly after realizing it was based on the D&D system from the first dikus - a system I personally consider to be quite archaic by now and severely uninteresting.

That got me wondering, aren't PvP MUDs moving ahead with new and more exciting combat systems?

So I thought I'd list the ones I knew about and comment on them and then I hope others can post and introduce me to new ones.

Diku's combat system, which is actually D&D rules-turned-code. A lot of the time it's just a matter of who has the higher level and better stats on their eq/race/class. I find it to be very uninteresting to use because it usually stacks statistics versus statistics and winning is usually a matter of plain old D&D powergaming. It leaves too little in the hands of the combatant and too much in the statistics making for a fairly detached experience.

Godwars II's combat system. I tried it out for a week or so and I did like it. I didn't particularly like what looked like underlying old D&D attack/defence rolls and such (especially with the 5% chance to hit/miss looking precisely like the 20 roll. It provided a fair bit of variety and some tactical thought and was actually pretty entertaining, although I didn't like how the power shifts were somehow too sudden. I either destroyed something or it destroyed me when the middle ground is usually where the most fun is to be had at. It is a pretty good system though, in my opinion.

Rapture/IRE/Avalon(?) system. This is the one I've got the most experience with and I do rather like it. It's very deep,  very tactical and nicely paced. I love the idea of status effects being a major part of combat because it creates a great deal of complexity and variety when it comes to attack and defence. It can be pretty difficult to get into though and is very vulnerable to scripting, which in my case is a good thing, but to most casual gamers is an inpenetrable wall. Luckily there are combat systems being given out for free on all IRE games currently.

Dragonball mud.. I don't know which. It basically had a system of entering a command, getting the message of the attack being prepared and then being launched and the enemy could react with a dodge or another attack. It was based on good reflexes and flexible thought. I really liked it a lot, thought I think that MUD either disappeared or I just for some reason didn't log in after a while. The MUD was highly interesting to play, barring the boringness of having to accumulate power-level.


So what fighting systems do you know about? What do you like/dislike about them? Share your thoughts.

It's not even close.

D&D uses a d20 attack roll, plus Strength, plus magic bonuses, and compares it to your opponent's armour class (AC), which is their Dexterity bonus plus armour bonus plus any magic bonuses they have. If you successfully hit, you roll a damage dice based on the weapon used plus strength plus magic modifiers (regardless of how well you hit), and apply it directly (regardless of how much armour they've got).

GW2 uses one of your four independant Attack ratings, depending on which location you're attacking with. Each attack rating is initially based on your Brawn, Grace, Size and Tenacity. It then adds a modifier depending on which of the 6860 fighting techniques you're using, another modifier for your weapon (depending on how damaged it is and how skilled you are with it), and applies any magical bonuses the item has. It then adds your Combat skill and appropriate weapon skill together and applies them as a percentage modifer, then applies the percentage modifier for a two-handed grip (if appropriate), and another percentage modifier depending on which of the 25 fighting styles you're using. Finally, you add spell and pain modifiers.

The mud then selects the best of your opponent's Defence ratings which are capable of blocking the attack (eg a sword cannot stop an arrow or parry two weapons at once, nor can a forearm block a sword, so those Defence locations would be ignored). The three Defence ratings are calculated in much the same way as Attack, and if none are available (eg if they're in cooldown from recently being used) your opponent will have a Defence of 1.

If the attack hits, the mud will then calculate the damage inflicted. Your base damage is calculated per-location in a similar way to Attack, adjusted according to your opponent's Resistance (so that tough people take less damage). The actual amount of damage caused is then calculated from the final result, depending on how well you hit your opponent, with additional modifiers based on how good your Attack rating is compared to their Defence - thus if you have a very good chance of hitting your opponent, you'll also typically cause a larger percentage of your maximum damage on a successful hit (and if you only barely hit them, you'll almost certainly cause negligible damage).

The inflicted damage then has to make its way through each layer of armour protecting the location struck - for example, if you hit your opponent in the chest, it might have to go through a breastplate, a chainmail shirt, a regular shirt and a vest before being applied to them (assuming they have no natural or spell armour, or damage immunities). Each piece of armour covering the location will absorb a percentage of the damage, depending on the damage type - a steel breastplate won't help much against a lightning bolt for example. The more damage a piece of armour absorbs, the more damaged it becomes, reducing its ability to soak further damage. Certain powers, talents, weapons and magic bonuses can give your attacks the ability to bypass a certain amount of soak, however. Depending on the weight of your armour, a small amount of the remaining damage will also be negated after applying the soak.

Obviously that's only the basic system (there are countless more modifiers and special cases which are also taken into consideration), but as you can see it's nothing like the D&D system.

Food for thought: What's the difference between an automated combat system, and a manual combat system in which scripting is the most effective strategy?

Ah, that's pretty complex, yeah. I suppose I was pretty unclear with what I meant or I simply didn't put it in the proper way. What I mean was not so much that the exact mechanics are like D&D (apart from the 1/20 chance for critical success/failure) but rather that attacking consists of applying modifiers to a roll and looking for the highest damaging combination of such to apply to the opponent. Eventually that limits your choice of techniques to two categories - effective and not so effective. Meaning often times you'll end up using the same attack against the same kind of opponent. The different ways to guard offset this by a decent amount, of course, but that doesn't broaden the selection too much.

I'll say again I really did like the combat system though, it was pretty fun.

This is a question that's been asked in the past. There are several points that differentiate the two and they're in favor of the manual combat system with scripting. I'll recount the ones I can remember:
A) You can never code a system to act as an automated combat system - the feedback you get isn't perfect, hence open to many shapes of interpretation. There's a lot of room to be creative there and those with a better understanding of the system will build scripts which are much more responsive than others.
B) An automated system will never give you the liberty of a system you scripted yourself. You have multiple options at every possible crossroad and they are differently viable in different contexts. The simplest example I can think of right now is that if fighting a class that can kill you at half mana, you'd want to keep mana above that border while letting health drop lower than that, but there's a class that can kill you at half health. You can't predict everything and the calls are a matter of sentient judgment. You can try and put a lot of intelligence in your scripted system, but it's your intelligence you're putting in there. The script will only work as well as you make it.
C) More often than not, there's no perfect solution. An automated system can't make the decision for you because it might actually a bad decision in your own biased point of view and it might come into conflict with longer term strategy.

How does that actually work at The Inquisition? Are there actual combat rules wrapped in under the emotes? It sounds pretty interesting.

The DBZ one wasn't really turn based as you usually had to react within a special time-frame, too early or too late and you'd have gotten hit, for instance. Then again, that might fall under a broader definition of 'turn based'.. Hard for me to tell.

Your strategical system sounds like an interesting take on things. Will it allow for any interference from players after the initial three commands? It looks suited to handling large-skale battles between armies and such. Even if it doesn't work out as a 1vs1 combat mechanism, it will probably make a very decent mass battle mechanism.

Well no, not really. Supposing your opponent has a target shield - how are you going to hit them? You could just go pure damage, but a far more effective strategy would be to use a feint to waste their shield defence, then go for a followup attack with your other hand. What if they're using a two-handed sword and you're armed with a rapier and main gauche? They're going to out-damage you...but using Crane style you'll likely have a better defence, so set your rapier into position for a counter-attack, then (after execution) lock their weapon with your main gauche, giving you enough time for an unparryable thrust before reseting your rapier back into position for another counter-attack. You can use swordbreakers to destroy their weapons, nets to entangle them, whips to pull them off their feet, bows to take them out from a distance, you can stab, cut or pummel with your sword depending what sort of armour they're wearing, you can hit them where their armour is weak, chop off their hands so that they lose their weapons, use a flurry of kicks, punches and headbutts to brute-force your way past their defences, etc, etc, etc.

The "highest damaging combination" depends on many factors, not least of which are the tactics your opponent is currently using, and how your 'combination' complements the other techniques you're using. If they suddenly shift the grip on their battleaxe to one hand and unsling a target shield from their back, for example, you're going to need to alter your tactics accordingly.

Regarding the 5% chance for a critical/failure - this is common for most combat systems, for obvious reasons, and I've never heard of a mud which didn't have it (or something similar). If you can never hit or be hit, then you remove entirely the element of chance from certain situations.

The points you mention could also be built into an automated combat system as well. In fact you could quite easily build a scripting language into the mud itself, allowing players to override any and every part of the default choices used by the automated combat system. I guess you'd end up with something a bit like .

I wonder if each combat system could be broken down into something like:

Automated Elements (choose one of the following):

* None: If you type nothing, you do nothing (i.e., "manual combat").
* Partial: You hit each round, and may also type commands (eg Diku).
* Full: Combat is fully automated - you cannot type any commands (eg Gladiator Pits).
* Optional: You may toggle automated combat on or off.

Manual Elements (choose zero or more of the following):

* There is a delay after each inputted attack executes.
* There is a delay before each inputted attack executes.
* Each inputted attack costs resources (movement, action points, etc).
* Each inputted attack applies a negative modifier to your character.

But the elements which determine the strategy seem to be fairly static to me. I.e. you look at your opponent's setup and then simply adjust yours after which the fight is fairly linear. Or that's how it looked to me at least. Meaning, you adopt a single strategy from the start of the fight and stick to it unless the opponent's status changes - and that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. I didn't get too far into the combat system, but that's what I thought I saw in it - there was usually one or two attacks that would be really useful for any particular fight and the rest could be ignored.

So how would that be different from just scripting in the client anyway? If you could manipulate everything (and you need to) then you'd be at the same level of complexity as with just scripting in a client. Worse even, you'd have no choice of client and/or scripting language.
And it does sometimes seem like putting up one piece of code against another, but fights do require a lot of active input as well. There are too many situations to script without going into the depths of complex AI.

Maybe my imagination is failing, but I cannot conceive of a text MUD combat system that can't eventually be automated to be at least as good as the best human can be. Depth is no barrier. Chess is already scripted, for instance, to be better than any human is. It's just a matter of time before Go is as well. Heck, the main reason we don't have competitive chess tournaments in Achaea (something people have requested for a long time) is because they can just be 'scripted' by using any commonly available chess program to play.

--matt

Oh that is most certainly the case. What I rather meant was that the more complex and fast-paced a system is, the more open it is to scripting. The more simple and slower a system is, the less necessary it is to script. Finding a balance is going to be very difficult, of course.

Right. Both complexity/depth and reaction times increase the value of scripting. Not much value in scripting tic-tac-toe given that there's no speed imperative and the strategy is so simple. Either speed OR complexity can, by themselves, create a very strong value for scripting too.

--matt

Nope, definitely not, unless you want to die repeatedly. Strategies against mobs tend to be fairly static (learn a tactic which works against mob X and that same tactic will work again against mob X), although that's mostly due to the limited AI, and doesn't apply in PK situations. Still, you'll see the same trend in most fighting games (Street Fighter, etc), so I'm not convinced its necessarily that bad - the challenge lies in learning the strengths and weaknesses of each mob, and then exploited that knowledge.

That's the point - it wouldn't. Yet one is generally referred to as automated combat, and the other manual combat.

Indeed - "choose one of" the first, and "zero or more" of the second.

That's interesting then. I should give it another go.

Umm, no, that's not it really. It IS manual combat, as manual as it can be. It's the individual's choice to make part of their response automate. That can be done for any MUD. It's just too fast-paced and complex for most people to keep up with, hence people will alleviate some of that by making their computers do the work for them. Mind you, the information the MUD sends your way is often times purposefully obfuscated and gets in the way of automation.

What would transferring the scripting capabilities into the MUD itself accomplish, actually?

Toggling passive abilities falls under "manual" then? Hmm. I suppose you could make that work.

In theory, sure - one day I'm sure computers will be able to write an entire mud.

However in practice, there are two ways to make a combat system which people don't script; either you make it so simple that it's not worthwhile, or you make it so complex that it's not feasible.

Chess has many permutations, but it is conceptually very simple, and has no element of randomness. Even then, the amount of raw processing power required for a computer to beat the top chess players is excessive.

A complex combat system is likely to have far more factors to take into account for each decision, and cannot reliably plan ahead. Furthermore, the client won't be able to access all of the information required to form decisions, rending it fallable.

I doubt you could create an enjoyable combat system which couldn't be assisted through scripts, aliases and triggers, but you can certainly minimise the advantage, and create a combat system which cannot be automated as effectively as a good human player (based on the limitations of current technology).

I was specifically talking about building the scripting options into an automated ("The points you mention could also be built into an automated combat system as well"). Simply adding scripting functionality to an automated combat system doesn't make it into a manual combat system, surely?

Or are you referring to the ability to override the default manual commands? In that case you're not chosing when to attack, you're just choosing to replace your default "hit" with something more specific like a "sweep" or "headbutt" - the combat itself will continue regardless of whether or not you type anything.

As you yourself said, "the information the MUD sends your way is often times purposefully obfuscated and gets in the way of automation". If the goal of the mud was to create a game in which people could choose their own form of automated combat, then you might not want that obfuscation. You might also want to level the playing field between those who use clients (much like some muds add aliases), or simply have the feature as a side-effect of implementing a complex mob AI and feel that you might as well let players take advantage of it (particularly as you could then reuse their scripts, perhaps to give the impression that the mobs are learning and adapting).

However the main reason for the example was to try and draw the line between automated and manual combat.

If they don't involve typing anything (other than the toggle command), then I probably wouldn't consider them manual, no. If the toggling was part of the game (eg you have to choose to put up your defence, but it costs something, and can be knocked aside by the attacker) then I'd probably categorise that in the same way as the attack commands.

It really isn't that simple.

First of all, in chess, every single move causes a change in status. In chess there are as many possible statuses as there are possible combinations of piece*position and all of them are significant. In combat it's very, very rarely like that. The possible statuses can usually be reduced to a much lower number. Or even simpler - you can just react to specific statuses and ignore most others. Combat systems are more practical to script that chess.

The point isn't to make a combat system that can't be scripted, it's fairly impossible to do so. The point is to create a system that can be exciting, yet doesn't need to be scripted. The balance lies between making it fast enough and complex enough so the faster players will still be excited and so the slower ones can assist themselves with some scripting. That's what I think at the moment, at least.

Clandestine's PvP system is not stock or even similar to D&D at all. If you just "tried it", then you obviously did not level to the point where you could even experience player-versus-player combat. The opening 50 levels (there are 205 max levels) use mostly stock Diku spells; however, these spells are worthless in PvP and worthless once you reach level 50. It is more along the lines of an introduction to the game.

I could refer you to Clandestine's two PK Logstations if you were truly interested in its actually rather unique and fast-paced PvP, but knowing you to be little more than someone who comes on here to blindly defend IRE's Matt and flame other MUDs, I doubt you were ever logging on with hopes to find a new place to play anyways.

Long story short; get to level 205 if you want to experience PvP at Clandestine. One should become acquainted with a MUD before attempting to blindly PK anyways. Now let me read the rest of these posts and catch up.

Strip away the random element from a combat system, and there will also be as many possible states as there are possible combinations of stats, hp, mana, action points, weapons, weapon positions, pieces of armour, available actions, etc.

The random element simply renders these states unreliable - you can no longer work in terms of absolutes.  You can't guarantee victory through a specific sequence of actions.

Try playing a game of chess, except that each playing piece has a combat value (Queen = 9, Rook = 5, Bishop = 3, Knight = 3 and Pawn = 1).  Every time one piece tries to take another, both players roll 2d6 and add the combat rating of their playing piece.  If the attacker wins or draws, then they take the defender's piece, otherwise their own piece is destroyed.

Now see how effective the computer AI is.

I think you lost me this time. I'm talking about taking a fully manual combat system, one that does nothing without player input, then building a client script which processes data from the MUD via triggers and sends in input instead of the player. The combat system is incredibly complex, more than most people can possibly handle with just aliases and macros. That's why people end up making automated scripts to take some of the load off. The MUD's combat system is completely manual, it's the players who use automation by scripting their own actions. You can't simply take the automation from the client and put it into the MUD, because the scripting is done via an imperfect medium - the text the MUD sends isn't always clear about your status or about what's going on, it's up to you to think of a way to catch on to the real state of things. Also, the point at which a player loses is usually when their system fails - be it because a trigger doesn't fire, because their curing priorities aren't good or because they allowed themselves to be brought into a tactically disadvantaged position.

I don't think there are two scripts out there that are the same. It's a very big task to script everything and most people don't, most people just script enough to get them by. Putting a player-made system into the MUD itself wouldn't accomplish much, simply because no system is perfect and because the conversion would likely be too difficult.

I mean like a passive effect that you toggle and then it keeps going. For instance, you can order a loyal to attack your enemy, the loyal needs no further input from that point on, but you keep fighting manually yourself.

But very few of these actual states would be meaningful. Your current health for instance has little bearing on your weapons, so you don't need to consider that correlation. You do need to consider your health in correlation with the capability to restore it (if for instance there's a buff that's stopping you from doing so).
You could potentially reduce every possible combination to a reaction, but that's completely impractical.

You could potentially create a perfect computer AI to do the fighting for you, but doing so is impractical - it's a mammoth task and it's not necessery.

If you add an element of chance to a combat system then obviously that's going to play a big part in the outcome. However, that isn't usually a favorable way to do things, I feel, since it punishes good tactical decisions unnecessarily. Obviously a perfect AI won't always win if there's chance involved.

That's pretty blatant flame-bait there Donathin, but I'll indulge you anyway.

I logged into Clandestine, made a character through the painfully familiar process and then got the painfully familiar question of "What weapon do you wish to use?" I checked score and realized I was playing another Diku derivative.

Are you now telling me that the combat system suddenly stops being Diku based after the 50th level?

There are many ways to discourage scripting in your MUD. We've introduced several anti-scripting measures on Clandestine MUD for PvP that have created a history of environment where players do not rely on scripts and rather reflex and action in combat. There have been times where we have toyed with advanced scripts for fun, in order to see how they would react in our larger group on group battles, and while possible, it is not truly a feasable ploy;

Beyond just the fact that Clandestine(and I'm sure we're not the only MUD) employs anti-combat scripting measures, we have a very intelligent PvP base. An intelligent PvPer on a MUD such as ours would be able to tell that an opponent is using a script, and then take measures to abuse others' scripts (and if the scripter were able to avoid abuse, still take advantage of knowing how they can force an opponent's script to flee/do other things).

Then, on a MUD such as Utopia, everything becomes so verbose and so many things are happening at once, that scripts become even easier to confuse.

In the end, when I give seminar or write articles on MMORPG and MUD(it is particularly true for MUD) PvP, the element I always stress will serve your player-killing efforts more in the end than anything else is creativity and psychology.

You cannot really compare PvP to chess - one has no element of random, the environments are totally different, one introduces many more than 2 versus players, and reaction-time means everything in PvP. On a good PvP MUD, the player should be getting the same kind of adrenaline kick that you got when you went to the arcade and played Street Fighter II, or when you go out with a group of friends to play paintball.

Okay...it's just you replied to a post in which I pointed out how the points you listed could just as easily be integrated into an automated combat system, by building the scripting options into the mud itself. This would allow the automated combat system to cover all of the differences you listed between it, and a manual combat system in which scripting is the most effective strategy.

If mud clients support scripting (which obviously they do) then so can the mud server itself. It's not going to be any harder than writing the support for a client, and in many cases will be much easier (because the built-in version has direct access to information which the client doesnt't).

Many muds already have scripting languages, so from a technical point of view it shouldn't require much effort to add this sort of support. Of course you might not want hundreds of players using the server to do their number crunching, and you quite possibly don't want to encourage people to use scripts instead of playing themselves, but there's no reason why it couldn't be done - and a number of ways in which it could be used for the benefit of the mud (perhaps as an admin tool).

Well the 'loyal' is presumably a mob that would use its own automated combat AI...I'm not sure if I'd consider that to be part of the player (and obviously mobs need to be automated if you want them to fight).

The point of my previous post, in-line with response to this post, is that MUDs which require client-scripting triggers to PvP means that you aren't doing something right. In Utopia, one of the fastest, most verbose, most intense PvP systems I've played - scripting is not required. In Everwar, scripting is -not- required. If advanced scripting is required in any PvP game in order to succeed in combat, I'd challenge the designer of that combat system, stating that making your system that complex does not serve you if you force your players to no longer take responsibility for all elements of their own PvP.


As far as flame-baiting, I won't respond to that(I felt like the topic subject itself was flame baiting, hence my post).

As far as Clandestine - yes, like many other successful MUDs, it is a descendent of DIKU; however, as many MUDs have proved in the past - good coders can take the DIKU combat system and mold it many different ways. If you did not even bother to combat, or level, or PvP, you really have no right posting incorrect assumptions involving another MUD up. That, is flame-baiting, effendi.

Hadoryu wrote:
I like to refer to that as 'changing the landscape'. Every move in chess substantially changes the landscape that you're playing on. I'm trying to take advantage of that kind of idea, with some randomization involved, with the new combat system for Midkemia Online, but it remains to be seen whether it'll feel fun or not. I only designed the high-level system and the Midkemia team is doing the rest.

As Kavir pointed out, every change changes the landscape, but there's a pretty long continuum there between trivial changes (such as losing 1 hp in Achaea's combat system) and massive changes (making virtually any move in chess) to the landscape. I think the thing to do is mix up moves of small consequence with moves of large consequence.

--matt

It depends entirely on the combat system.  Perhaps every point of damage applies a tiny modifier to your ability to hit and/or inflict damage?  Without the element of chance, this could well change a successful hit into a miss, depending on the weapons you're using and the way you're using them.

Precisely - just as with chess - because you've taken away the element of chance and turned it into something predictable.

I disagree - without any element of chance the games becomes boringly predictable.  When I play chess with people I either always beat them or always lose to them (with very, very rare exceptions).

Can you imagine how dull it would be to play a combat system like that?

Do you know of any muds which don't use an element of chance in their combat system?

Donathin wrote:
I don't follow. The more verbose a text MUD is, the bigger the advantage scripting is. No human can even come close to matching the ability of a computer to speedily parse text messages coming through in a known format.

You absolutely can. The principles are exactly the same on a fundamental level. Further, reaction times don't mean everything in PvP unless that's how the PvP system is designed. Many of them are designed so that reaction times are important, but that's a design decision.

--matt

There is a text-based gaming/role-playing environment called Rings of Honor which operates a dueling system based on three matrices(one for weaponed combat, one for magic, one for bare-fisted combat), each based around 14-commands and not being able to use the same command in succession. So for each round, the combatants face each other having each chosen their command/"move", and the matrix results for any two pairing are the same every time. The system then allows for the fighters to emote/roleplay the results.

This is the closet MUD/text-mmorpg combat system I can think of to what you are asking, and what would be considered chess-like. However, the focus of the game, as you can see, is on roleplay;

Why? Because few PKers would want to use a system that so removes the element of random. I enjoy the system for its ability to integrate PvP and roleplay, but it is not a system that I would ever introduce outside of a mini-game on a MUD.

That's a pretty personal preference. I mean, the reason I love chess is because it's entirely about skill and because you cannot get screwed by random chance. Chess has survived as one of the world's most popular games for hundreds of years for a reason too, which says that it's probably not boringly predictable to at least some segment of the human race.

You can argue that the only reason people still play it is that it's not been solved, but then, checkers has been solved and lots of people enjoy checkers.

--matt

Ah, I think I see what you mean. But you see, the most crucial turning points in a fight in that system happen when the script doesn't anticipate the MUD well enough. If the script was brought into the MUD itself an integrated, that would eliminate the imperfections that under normal circumstances make the difference between win or lose. I'm starting to realize what an odd relationship it is and how difficult it is to put into words though..

But the point is preciesely that clients work with imperfect information and as such make mistakes. The best scripter is going to be able to deduce the best amount of information from the MUD. There are actually player abilities (illusions) that can send fake input to an opposing player.

There are also many situations that aren't very practical to script, there are hidden effects that the player might want to react differently according to many, many variables - including their knowledge of the personality of their opponent.

I guess I'll give a better example then. There's an ability called 'shine' which once turned on, will do damage to the opponent every 10 seconds. It's an ability centered on the one using it and only works so long as the character is alive or until he/she turns it off.

Yes, the computer can more immediately respond to the incoming text, but between anti-scripting measures, the importance of timing, and the fact that a good PvPer sees how your script works and therefor gets a one-up on your script, there are many reasons why scripting is just not sufficient in designs that take client-scripting into account.

Actually, it's quite fun. A lot of players seem to think so too and the combat system is one of the biggest draws for IRE games. So while you're free to disagree with the designer, you can't disagree with the results.

And I have every right to write off a MUD for being Diku based if I find Diku based MUDs to be hopelessly outdated. You on the other hand have no right to accuse me of being zealos and ignorant because I don't happen to agree with most of what you tend to say.

This is another example of scripting falling short (which is the reason why systems should encourage not needing or using scripting).

I cannot tell you howmany times, on howmany MUDs, I have used restrung items, custom-designed food, emotes, titles, etc/etc/etc to use people's scripts to make them do whatever I wanted them to. Whether it was confusing a pursue script to walk an opponent into a trap, or deciphering their triggers to disband their group, or getting them to attack their allies - I could write for hours about all of the ridiculous things I have done to people's triggers in MUD PvP.

So in some way, I do sort of enjoy scripting - but only because I enjoy confusing and abusing other people's scripts.

Granted, good scripts are more difficult to confuse - however, all scripts have weaknesses and a good player-killer will exploit that. The less abusable the script, likely the less effective it becomes in most cases, also.

I do not enjoy games that encourage scripting for combat success, however, because the most exciting elements for good PvPers come from split-second decisions and instinct and creativity. You remove some of those instances, and you are removing the best thing about MUD PvP in most good PvPers' eyes(that I know from various surveys and discussion in MudCons and MUD Festival topics).

It is possible to become indistinguishably as fast at PvP as a computer, on nearly every MUD. I type between 140-180 WPM depending on how worked up I get while typing, and constantly get accused of using triggers and scripts merely because I PvP/react/pursue extremely quickly.

Why require or encourage scripting?

Well, most combat systems won't in fact have correlations between all those variables. In turn that means you won't have to consider every possible permutation, but instead only ones you deem meaningful - which is a complex task in itself.

And while chance can provide a big element of excitement for some players, it can also cheapen the experience for others. If you did everything right and still died because of chance, that tends to bring you down quite a bit. Well, maybe I'm making an assumption here, but some players do feel like that. A minimal component of chance does make for a good ingredient in a combat system, of course.

Well, I'm actually pretty sure players would make perfect AI systems if they could. There's a limit to what most people are willing to invest in respect to time and effort when it comes to things like this, even if some players are very motivated. And in the end a perfect system gets torn down after the next major change in the combat code. It's just not very practical, but I'm pretty sure the desire is there.

I don't know any myself. Well, maybe on that odd DBZ MUD, but I hadn't gotten far enough into it to find out. I do know I try to avoid combat systems that are dominated by chance, but I don't mind ones which are mildly supplemented by it.

There's no way to prevent scripting in a MUD. If a player can figure out what's real output then a player can get a script to do it. IRE games allow some classes to show three lines of player-inputed text to the opponent and systems are as prevalent as ever.

Yes, you have the right to write off a MUD without playing it just because it is derived from DIKU (even though DIKU is very moldable and can show great variety). However, doing so makes you look ignorant and zealous. I did not accuse you of being ignorant and zealous in my previous post - you made the connection from my words to how other people would like interpret them yourself.

In short - don't post a flame-baiting comment about a MUD's combat system that you haven't even played. I've played three IRE games and am familar with its combat system - so if/when I speak of why I do or do not like its system, I speak from experience with that individual game. If you DO post a flame-baiting comment about a MUD's combat system that you haven't even played, expect someone to raise an eyebrow at you and think you are bias or ignorant for your commentary.

You can implement code to reduce player ability to script.

You can make certain kinds of scripts/bots be illegal, and then enforce(it really is not that difficult to tell when someone is using a script).

You can discourage your players to use them.

You can do many things to reduce scripting in MUD PvP instead of encouraging it.

That is completely true. If a player can tell the difference, so can a script. If a player can't, then neither can a script. In either case, the script is minimally equal to the player.

--matt

I never said Clandestine was bad for a Diku MUD. I said it was yet another Diku MUD - meaning it has a Diku based combat system. Unless that is a false statement, I don't see how you could assume I was flame-baiting.

You cannot reduce a player's ability to script. You can place punishment on people you consider to be scripting, which is going to be completely arbitrary since you can never have concrete proof. You can discourage it, but you can't completely get rid of it.

In the end that's a wrong way to go about it - hunting your own players for a vulnerability you left in your system. If you don't want scripting to make a difference, design the combat system to not benefit from it particularly.

I'm curious if you, yourself, are an experienced PvPer, Matt?

As I've stated, that's what we do - our system does not encourage scripting. I was merely giving you a few of the many options you have when trying to reduce or weaken reliance on scripting for PvP. Scripting is not "illegal" on Clandestine, though it is discouraged and there are coded measures to dissuade its use. I have played MUDs, however, where scripting was illegal.

On many PvP-focused MUDs, people who use bots are generally flamed by the other players for being lazy or lame, anyways. It is a pretty widely-accepted idea that relying heavily on triggers and bots reduce the amount of the PK-Rush in combat which makes PvP more fun for most.

It is fundamentally impossible to tell except where the script lets you due to incomplete design.

Simple case to demonstrate:
I get hit by poison.
The cure for poison is eating a 'whatnot'.
I eat a 'whatnot' or my client trigger does it for me.

The MUD receives 100% identical information from the client regardless of whether I pushed a button myself or whether my client trigger outputted the command for me. You can look at delay times, etc etc, but those are all easy for a script to fake.

Getting a client to operate completely autonomously is, of course, pretty difficult and currently impossible if it involves any sort of free-form communication, but there is simply no way for a MUD to tell if someone is using scripting assistance (which is what I assume we're talking about here, given the current impossibility of fully scripting a believable character).

--matt

If you have a point, you'd be best served to just spell it out. Instead of baiting.

And your suggestions, while they would be well-received, are nothing new. They've been tried and they don't work.

Yes, I am. I also designed Achaea's PvP system, of which Dr. Bartle said, "Few virtual worlds with an immensely complicated combat system avoid being completely dominated by it -- Achaea is the best-known exception."


--matt

Well, this I certainly agree with, but players in general (not all players, to be sure), value winning more than the rush. Or rather, they get a bigger rush out of winning with scripts than they do not winning as often without scripts. One might view that as a shame (I kind of do), but human nature is what it is. I fought against scripts for years in Achaea, going so far as to try and hold combat tournaments where scripts were banned. It eventually struck me that it's just not possible to ban them and gave up at that point.

Scripts are extensively used on the IRE games and whether you or I might personally prefer people not to use them, there's not much question that lots of people love the IRE combat systems, scripts and all. To each his own eh?

--matt

My question to you wasn't whether or not you developed a PvP system, as most of us involved in this conversation have experience with that, obviously. I could respond to the name-dropping, it just isn't necessary.

My point was to say that your line of thinking is similar to many lesser experienced PvPers I run into, who are very logical and mathematical in their approach to player-killing.

My point was that if you are experienced in player-killing yourself(not design), then you would probably have experienced fighting PvPers who dominate via creativity and instinct. Without fail, I have never played a good PvP game where the best scripter or best mathematician dominated everyone else.

There's a reason for that, and that's my point. My push is that a system should encourage creativity, instinct, intuition, groupwork, leadership, suprise, etc - the system should push the biggest rush possible, and that by actually discouraging scripting, you offer your players more responsibility for their actions and therefor more danger and more rush.

I'm an experienced PvPer and I was the one to make the initial statement. I also stand by it, precisely because of my experience.

There are many possible ways to show your talent in a competitive game. Why you consider "reflexes" to be superior, I don't understand. And making scripting part of the fight in no way limits creativity.