Feedback on new combat system

[Kinaed]

By nature, TI's theme is fantasy novel-esque, but you can't decouple theme entirely from reality because the very act of mimicing reality, under fixed, differeing circumstances, is what makes RP interesting. It's the "what if X happened in a place where reality was like Y" question. Certainly what is realistic should be a priority - to a point.

There are other priorities, like what makes a fun game, and what makes a valuable contribution when reality cannot be effectively recreated?

Anyway, my point is simply this: anyone can wear armor. That's a good game mechanic as well as good for RP. Character concepts with non-knights being in armor or grandmastering their skills are not, in my mind, counter to theme.

[Tribalware]

right thats it! this whole armor thing has become too involving to pontificate blindly on anymore, my characters going to master her staff, buy some damn armor and probably get herself killed giving the whole thing a good old test.

the way i would go about it for my girl in particular is to have a set of full plate strung that doesnt look at all like full plate but has the same protective value, maybe some tight fitting half plate or something much more in line with what a ranger might wear going to war. whats the issue with that? if youre not supposed to look like youre wearing full plate but feel worked out of the system this way, just have full plate made and make it look like something more suitable to your character. Long as it doesnt stray too far away from any standard metal armor type i cant see it being a huge problem.

also one other thing @Kin, ive noticed that attacking doesnt actually use any mv at all? ie i can stand in the same spot and swing seemingly forever as long as i dont have to step or lunge to do so. If this is the case then surely the shortest range weapon is always going to be the most useful? ie if i run out of mv and my opponent closes in with a dagger so that i can no longer swing my staff at him due to range, isnt it a little unfair that he wins the fight that way?

edit - what i meant is that ONCE mv reaches zero its possible to continue attacking, attacks use mv up until the point theres no mv left, but this doesnt stop someone from attacking further only positioning themselves to fight advantageously.

[Kinaed]

Odd, attacking is supposed to use MV and defense both... will have Az look into it. Thanks, Tribal. :)

[Tribalware]

*sighs loudly* so it seems that the price of armor has been effectively raised across the board due to the fire right? i hope this wasnt related to the discussions about armor that have been coming up - it now just seems to be even less accessible to those that dont already have it. i dont think messing with the price addresses any issue at all.

certainly doesnt bode well for my testing anyway.

edit - 'the irony was not lost on me'
- The words of a smith on the topic

[Temi]

The IC post on the rising prices of armor is in response to creating a shop on grid that has utterly absurd prices. Actual costs on makign armor and metal ores has not risen. PC merchant blacksmiths should be able to offer armor at the exact same prices, should they not decide they don't want to.

[Clockwork]

Keep in mind, there's one (quasi) active smith. Demand is significantly greater than supply, and unless someone else wants to make one (which, from what I can tell, is a pretty thankless job, based on the burnout rate), there is no competition, and so no reason for prices to drop.

[Tribalware]

saw this posted somewhere else as well as a suggestion but just to bring it to light again:

I really dont think any weapons save throwing knives or bows etc should be classified as far range. The idea that a swordsman and a character wielding a staff should be having to constantly dance around (the staff away from and the swordsman towards) is irritating, i think they should be allowed to slog it out from similar ranges without problem.

Pull staff back to medium range and reserve 'far' range for bows when they come in, this will mean more combat and less wearisome step lunge step stepping.

[Dice]

So, I'm going to be obnoxious and offer my opinion despite having done all of 2 spars in the new combat. (I did use old combat somewhat extensively, but that really isn't sufficient justification. I like to hear myself talk.)

1. I know this has been mentioned before, but I'd like to reiterate that the hit rate seems remarkably, amazingly high. Someone said this was to keep spars from running too long, but I would personally recommend that a fight is finished by fewer, bigger hits. Reduce the hit rate/up the damage and you'll get a mathematically equal average round length of combat . Why do I like this? 1) realism, 2) it seems that making every hit do damage gives a huge advantage to the HP-heavy PCs out there.

2. I love that there are rounds - I love it. Such a great improvement!

3. There's some weird text effects you get with the way cemotes are parsed on attack. I probably have some loggage if anyone's curious.

4. No helpfiles on Parry or Block - it'd be nice if these could be in, similar to Dodge/Footwork, so it'd be easier to guess which defenses to use.

5. Other people have mentioned that the range can be weird. Since I think I saw that it was under discussion I'll just say that I agree - some way of automatically closing to the proper range, or penalties that permit attacking at the wrong range, would be nifty.

6. Though most of this is complaining (albeit minor complaints), I think this looks like a totally awesome basis for a reliable combat system. I have other thoughts that are likely to end up in the Techniques thread later!

[Kinaed]

Nothing obnoxious here - thank you for the feedback. Some notes:

We do have automated range coming in eventually. Thank Temi for the idea, we just haven't gotten to it. It's on another post, but will basically work like this:
- As part of everyone's combat settings, people will be able to select which range they wish to stay at in relation to their opponents.
- At the end of the round, the game will do a resolution to determine which range everyone goes to, based on each player's preferences and ability to get there.
- The outcomes will be one of: success at getting to desired range, partial success, or failure, for each person, who will be informed at the end of the round where they ended up standing in relation to other players.

Armor costs in SHOPS are too high. I have some work to do around this and have collected data on what it costs merchants and what they charge. However, I just haven't finished resolving what the costs should be. When I do, we'll adjust armor costs accordingly. In the meantime, hit up your local blacksmith. His or her prices are reliant on what raw materials cost rather than obj settings, so they can give you a good deal.

Thank you for the compliments on rounds.

The damage system does lean heavily towards being hit - for smaller amounts. This is because we have a philosophy that, in a real fight, people are going to get hurt. However, skill really does determine to a huge degree what kind of hit you're doing. A glancing hit is the 'you got hit, but not hard because the person's skill didn't win out' - the damage of a glancing hit is directly and heavily regulated by the victim's defense skill. A full hit is exactly what Dice is talking about - brutal and doing massive damage. Misses are uncommon because well, really... how often am I likely to miss someone completely, even as an unskilled person, attempting to hit someone? The reality is that even a kid attempting to hit an adult will probably succeed - they'll just be as effective as a fly on a horse.

Now, the reasoning behind this was to get away from the Old TI combat "breakage" of someone getting to a sufficient skill stage where they were unassailable. Whether or not they could hit someone else, they themselves couldn't be hit. This made characters in game safe, and created some really awful behavior around combat. This system is gritty, dirty, and lethal instead of unreal, cinematic, and ultimately, fluff. Nobody is safe (I tip my hat to Jaafs in saying that).

Please do send or post logs of weird text effects. We may have some bad grammar and whatnot in there. Thanks!

We appreciate the feedback, please feel free to keep it coming!

Oh, finally: Yes, please do give us technique ideas to make this more strategic. Thus far, we've decided not to add techniques that increase damage or give more opportunities to hit (we carefully balanced the math on this system, is why), but we'd love to see things that make major strategic differences - like protecting other players, for example.

[Dice]

The range resolution sounds totally ideal, more or less what I was drowsily thinking about before bed last night!

Armor, I'm not too worried about. I do buy that it should increase move costs while fighting, as was said before, but to me it's not a huge hot-button issue.

Nothing obnoxious here - thank you for the feedback. Some notes:
The damage system does lean heavily towards being hit - for smaller amounts. This is because we have a philosophy that, in a real fight, people are going to get hurt. ... Misses are uncommon because well, really... how often am I likely to miss someone completely, even as an unskilled person, attempting to hit someone?

Here is actually where I disagree. When two unskilled people attack each other, then yes, there is a high likelihood of most hits connecting. Learning how to dodge takes genuine training, whereas everyone can hit (if not well). But the picture changes when you throw actual defensive skill into the equation. If one watches a professional fight, easily 70% of strikes don't hit home, and almost every fight that ends with a decisive victor ends when a single masterful blow really rings somebody's bell.

I definitely understand the desire to keep people from being unassailable, and I think it'd be fine if defense was penalized vs offense (i.e., a rank 50 defense isn't going to stop a rank 50 attack most of the time, or even maybe a rank 45 defense). I love gritty and bloody and dangerous. But I think there's a strong argument that the system, as it is now, is not particularly realistic - and could be made so without losing its grit.

In fact, I feel that by making every blow connect (including when someone with literally zero skill in a particular attack faces someone with 25-30 defenses, as in part of my first spar!) you really water down the impact of being hit. There's nothing like going from unharmed to seriously hurt in a blow to increase the sense of urgency and danger. Lethality can also be preserved just by raising damage of the blows that do connect over the board - you will end up with an identical degree of damage done per round. I feel confident there's a middle point between hitting every round and unassailability.

Another suggestion if there's a real concern about people raising defense super high but not offense - Jei mentioned that it no longer mattered what other combat skills you knew. A neat way to kill two birds with one stone would be to make defense be penalized or benefited by your overall combat aptitude. If you know how to wield multiple weapons, you know how those weapons work and what attacks you're likely to see from them, and you better know how to counter. Thus, individuals who also invested in offense would be more capable defenders, which would be realistic as well as a control against one-trick ponies of any sort.