Command change: Disengage.

[fearwig]

Allow disengage to work as a toggle, so that main fighters can "attempt" to disengage a fight, succeeding only if the attacking party toggles it on as well. That way, one can end a fight without fleeing the room entirely (thus having to make up some emote about simply "stepping back" when one obviously runs randomly from the room like a headless chicken). When disengage is flagged on, one will parry, dodge, shield block as usual, but will not attempt to land blows. Thus, when both parties have it on... fight's over!

I consider this mostly a tool to fix an RP gap, the way I see it. You shouldn't have to run in a random direction from the room to end a fight, if both parties agree to have it ended. Simply emote holding your hand up, or call out "enough!", and it will be implied to disengage, if the other fighter chooses to do so. The use for sparring is obvious, too. Really a big roleplay improvement there, I think.

Don't forget, when considering whether or not this is important, that there may be times when you want to flee but don't want to walk into a certain room for RP reasons or for code reasons. There's no excuse for having to run all the way into the next coded room just to end a fight, right?

[Marauder Moe]

There is a reason to use flee instead of altering/making a command.  Its not a very good one, though.  Its because flee is a skill.

I've seen people usually just flee and ignore that you actually went anywhere.  Just pretend you stepped off the mat or sparring circle.

>flee

You panic and attempt to flee!

[NES]
Stuff.

>s (stumbling off the mat and landing on his ass)

[LBO]

Has been a few threads on this topic already, one not so long ago I think: http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9695&highlight=disengage

[fearwig]

There is a reason to use flee instead of altering/making a command.  Its not a very good one, though.  Its because flee is a skill.

Yeah, that's a pretty awful reason.

I've seen people usually just flee and ignore that you actually went anywhere. Just pretend you stepped off the mat or sparring circle.

Yeah, that's what we do, as I described. But I don't think there's a good reason to force people into that, you know?

You know, I'm not reaming you, but I swear that every time someone makes a suggestion for code change (especially code change with a good reasoning behind it), someone describes a way you can inventively emote around it instead. It's obvious that you can emote almost anything away--but there are lots of instances where you shouldn't have to. I think there's perfectly sufficient reason to implement something like this.

[Marauder Moe]

On the other hand... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  

There's a lot of code/RP discrepancies in Arm that fall under that catagory.

[fearwig]

Has been a few threads on this topic already, one not so long ago I think: http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9695&highlight=disengage

Yeah. I think this is a bit more specific, though. I think there's a reason for implementing this, and not just for sparring. For real combat, too.

[Larrath]

Here is a situation where this can be helpful.

You, Mr. Burglarly Man, go into an apartment.  Mr. Apartment Owner locks the door behind you.  Inside the room (which has only one exit, which is locked) is Mr. Assassin Man.
Mr. Assassin Man attacks immediately, but then realizes that he's actually your friend, and the two of you want to make a deal.  Striking a deal is gonna be hard when you can't stop fighting.


This is a good idea.  Disengaging can also be the defensive stance thing, which is also good; no longer will unarmed people try to put themselves in further risk by trying to punch that silt horror in the teeth.

[fearwig]

Bingo! Glad you could think of the good examples I couldn't. And that sounds like a great combination of concepts, really.

I've seen defensive stance implemented in muds (DSL) as "hitting less often with better defense", presumably interpreted as hitting only when it doesn't compromise defense--but it's much more realistic as all-or-nothing, especially when there's really no hit you can attempt that won't compromise some defense. Especially since that would have the added benefit of fixing the flee problem.

[Forest Junkie]

Mr. Assassin Man attacks immediately, but then realizes that he's actually your friend, and the two of you want to make a deal.  Striking a deal is gonna be hard when you can't stop fighting.

We all know -this- happens everyday.

Anyone who attacks without even so much as a cursory glance deserves to face the consequences of their actions.

No dire need to change this. I say nope.

[Larrath]

What if the assassin and the burglar are both working for the Guild, for example, but didn't know?  Maybe the burglar only told him after he got attacked - "Fucking stop, I'm with the Guild, you're gonna get gutted!".
What if the burglar, again, strikes a deal with the assassin that makes the assassin not want to kill him?

These are possible situations, and the code should be able to support them.

[fearwig]

Mr. Assassin Man attacks immediately, but then realizes that he's actually your friend, and the two of you want to make a deal.  Striking a deal is gonna be hard when you can't stop fighting.

We all know -this- happens everyday.

Anyone who attacks without even so much as a cursory glance deserves to face the consequences of their actions.

No dire need to change this. I say nope.

I say "bullshit". There are a billion IC reasons for getting into a fight with someone and then wanting to break it off. They may not be common, but that's irrelevant.

What we have presently is a quick-fix sort of arrangement with a very serious OOC limitation to it. You can't end a fight, even with both parties willing, without running into a random neighboring room. If you think that's not a huge intrusion of bad code into the IC world, I don't know what world you're living in.

Frankly, I think this purely defeatist attitude is pitiful, and I see it all the time when someone suggests an idea, even a rather good idea (as I will vainly protest mine to be).

[Forest Junkie]

You talk too much. Let's have a little less condescending attitude, and a bit more politeness in our tone, please. People might take you seriously if you refrain from such harsh wording.

In response:

I've never died from the flee command, or the lack of  a "toggle" that you may be suggesting. I don't know anyone that has. I don't know anyone who has heard of anyone dying from such causes.

Therefore, I am led to the assumption that this change is not needed, as the code currently supports nearly all situations with its simplicity and pithy wording. Adding too much depth can confuse new and old players alike.

I've also never met a player who can't realistically play around the fact that they are using the command "flee" in a sparring match when they emote simply "backing away from ~opponent"

[fearwig]

I am not obliged to be polite any more than you are--and I don't think my tone was unwarranted. I'd rather you were honest than prim and kindergarten proper, thanks, and I plan to show the same courtesy.

Crap like "Anyone who attacks without even so much as a cursory glance deserves to face the consequences of their actions." demands little else than condescention, wouldn't you say? Larrath was obviously speaking about an IC situation that is entirely plausible, and you're talking high-handedly about how people who fall into X IC situation should recieve X OOC consequence. Insulting to his intelligent statement, in my opinion, and just a lot of childish babble.

[Forest Junkie]

I am not obliged to be polite any more than you are--and I don't think my tone was unwarranted. I'd rather you were honest than prim and kindergarten proper, thanks, and I plan to show the same courtesy.

Crap like "Anyone who attacks without even so much as a cursory glance deserves to face the consequences of their actions." demands little else than condescention, wouldn't you say? Larrath was obviously speaking about an IC situation that is entirely plausible, and you're talking high-handedly about how people who fall into X IC situation should recieve X OOC consequence. Insulting to his intelligent statement, in my opinion, and just a lot of childish babble.

I'm not going to argue about such things over a discussion board with you fearwig. If you wish to continue this exchange, email or pm me.

Any situation can be considered plausible. I merely argue that if someone is not wise enough to look at their target before attacking, then they should suffer for their lack of perception. I think that's a rather fair judgement.

[fearwig]

Okay--no argument necessary. Let's proceed with rational discussion, yes?

My point was rather that he never said he didn't -look- at him, merely that he didn't know they were in the same guild.

And it's certainly not the only imaginable situation of this sort. It's a good idea to fix this kind of fault in the code, because that's what makes a mud's codebase strong--rich, all-inclusive code. There are aspects of the game's code that are a million times further into the realm of micromanagement than this would be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to defend an idea past its necessity sometimes, simply because I think it's good. I have proposed ideas that are probably micromanaging. This, especially for reasons Larrath has pointed out, is simply a good, solid fix or improvement to a glaring fault in the mud code.

You CAN RP around almost (note, almost) any flaw in the code, sure. But there may be situations where you can't, or shouldn't need to. If you are in a locked room, you can't end combat. That's a bug--this fixes it. If, meanwhile, it removes the necessity to RP around a fault in the code, great!

[Larrath]

They would suffer for it, as would their victim.
However, it's completely stupid for two people to go "I wanna stop fighting you if I...could....just...move...my...arm!".  They're fighting, they're not being mentally controlled by some supremely powerful psionic parasite-type creature.

There is no problem to, under normal circumstances, to just flee and emote breaking the fight.  This is just not as simple, however, when one is sparring on a cliff top or otherwise placed close to a room that would cause a lot of IC trouble if they went OOCly into.

The bottom line is that Armageddon's code exists primarily to support and enhance the roleplay, as opposed to most RP-Encouraged MUDs where people are encouraged to pretend that their worlds and systems make any sense whatsoever.
Breaking a fight while not being able to leave the room is something that the code doesn't support right now, and it should support it.  Just like breaking bottles to turn them into weapons or smelling spice on someone, it should exist for the handful of scenarios where it would help the roleplay.

Finally; I apologize if any of my posts came off as concending.  It's really not my intent.

[Forest Junkie]

>mercy
>Showing mercy, you withold the killing blow.

Always knew that was good for something.

EDIT::NP, Larrath.

[Cenghiz]

Cenghiz joins the fray!

Yes.. I don't understand why such toggle is not necessary. I really don't.

People may always get stuck in a room.. It may happen. And think of this;

A raider comes in and attacks.... In an area where movement penalty is more than 10. You tell him to stop, trying to defend yourself. You can't hit to each other for some time, but noone wants to stop first. Why? Mounts may be lost in the possible running that may happen later. Added with walking back, about 15 move points lost with fleeing are important. And you still don't know if the other person really wants to step back and stop the fight.. He may hitch your kank instead, believing you'll start fleeing. (I do.. When someone flees away leaving his mount, I quickly reach for his reigns at first so he can't come back and hitch his kank instantly.)

So because there's not an unnecessary disengage command, you decide if you want to lose your kank to the other person for the sake of stopping the battle. You mount and then flee? Oh.. It's too much stretch.

Maybe it's not the most important issue right now, but I'd like to have 'disengage'.

[Larrath]

>mercy
>Showing mercy, you withold the killing blow.

Always knew that was good for something.

Mercy                                                              (Combat)
When a player has mercy turned on, they will try and hold back blows that
might kill their opponent and will refrain from attacking unconscious
opponents altogether.  The more skilled a character is with a weapon the
better able they are to judge what would be a killing blow, while those
inexperienced with the same weapon might accidentally kill without meaning to.

Also, let's say that the mercy did work and the fight ended with the victim getting unconscious.  Is this really that much more realistic?  What then, wish up for a restore?  Use smelling salts OOCly and then play it off as having lost them?  Wait until regaining consciousness and then completely ignoring the combat and the damage and bloodied clothing?
And this is all assuming that you don't accidentally kill the guy.

Mercy is good for not killing someone that you want to fight.  It's not good for not getting out of combat when it should, ICly, be stopped.  Like fearwig said, not every code quirk can or should be played around.

[Ghost]

That burglar and assassin thing put a good scenario indeed.

So we will still have the flee as skill, since the disengage requires the agreement of both combatants.  But flee is just attempting to run away from the combat no matter what, and no matter what it takes.

And disengaging in the same room, when you both agree, sounds realistic.

[Maybe42or54]

I don't really see why we don't implement this.

IMHO

The only thing I can think of opposed to this idea is this.
We have flee.

And then what I say, My flee and my sparring partners flee wasn't really good and we were in a room with only one direction out, if you aren't lucky, then you have to flee eight or nine times.

In my case, I tried to flee at about half my life (I was a noob) He was also attempting to flee from what he tells me.

I successfully fleed at about ten HP left. Then had to hear a pc yell at me for half an hour about how I am supposed to flee before then.