command: rescue

[moab]

you can easily have a point man tell everyone to spam assist all the time, and then have the point man just go around whacking enemies in no time flat.

The real problem here is the point man telling everyone (oocly, apparently) to spam assist.  If they aren't telling people to do this, then likely everyone will not be mind-melded together, right?

Further, if you play a combat leader role appropriately, you won't be telling everyone "everyone, attack the dude i attack."   Rather you'll say something like "you take up flank, you guard the merchant, you, watch our ass, you and you, follow me."

Edit to Add:
Mass combat - in the case where you have three equally skilled warriors, the guy getting double-teamed is going to die _very_ quickly unless he manages to kill someone else first.  Even then, while he's  sinking his blade into someone's chest, he's likely getting it in the @ss by the other guy.  All it takes is one of the double-teamers to decide to take the blow on his shield or trust his own skill to open the opponent up for the other guy.  It's almost always a given.

[Sokotra]

Unless I missed something, we are not just talking about the command "assist" but just mass combat in general.  As far as I know, assist only helps against confusion when you don't want to accidentally attack a comrade.  Since you can effectively do the same thing that "assist" does by having everyone simply attack the same person - "kill zerg".  

If this is the case, then I can sort of see where it might be realistic to have some sort of limitation or something on the amount of people that can attack one person at a time.  As someone said, only so many big brutes can surround a skinny little thief without whacking each other in the back of the head.  

If possible, I think it might make sense to have size affect combat in this way:  The bigger the target, the more people that you can have surround it.  For example, you got a huge silt-horror... a crowd of Byn will have enough room to surround the thing or its various huge parts would make lots of big targets for lots of smaller attackers.  On the other hand, if the attackers are bigger than the target then things would work in the opposite manner.  Only so many half-giants are going to be able to surround a tiny little pickpocket.  And then there's the running between the legs and ducking under the swings of tall-attackers and stuff.  Hehe.. but that's another story...

[moab]

Mass combat is confusing.  It's confusing in RL and confusing on the Mud.

That said - of course mass combat is pretty unplayable in game - but this is a short coming of the whole combat thing:

Individual combat is broken as well.

1. Mounted Combat - broken
2. Consideration for weapon length
     a. first strike with long weapons, setting spears
     b. close in combat renders long weapons useless
3. takes too long for two matched warriors to kill each other
4. combat doesn't take stamina into consideration

I say we fix individual combat before we add to the problem by having a bunch of broken individual combats in one big broken mass combat.

ps:
All my love to the Imms.  Combat may be broken - but it only speaks to the greatness of the game that the game itself rises above these problems!

[Sokotra]

I personally wouldn't really use the word 'broken' toward the combat in Armageddon as a whole.  I do understand where you are coming from though, and know what you mean.

Combat in Armageddon is just much better than any other mud, as far as I'm concerned.. so I think it's great.  Despite, perhaps, not being completely realistic as far as having matched warriors fight for days.. I think that is just Armageddon and should be left as one of its trademarks.  Zalanthans are tough.  

I could definitely live with a little tweaking here and there, though, wherever plausible or feasible or edible or whatever...  :wink:  just to improve on an already awesome combat system.  But, like I said, it is distinctively Armageddon... Zalanthan... and it is good beyond its faults.  I admit I am looking forward to seeing a few things 'fixed'/improved, though.. that have been left the same for years, it seems.

[Maybe42or54]

Like some degree of fighting styles.

No monks, ninjas, Samur guys. Just Red Storm Fighter, Mounted fighter, Allanaki, Tuluki, tribal. (I left luir's out because I don't remember if they had a style beside smoking spice.)

Combat isn't broken, it is very hack and slash. It just hasn't been improved much since way back when.

[Delirium]

Combat isn't broken.  It's just simplistic.  

Surviving mass combat is all about three things: Luck, experience, and fast typing.

With a few color-highlighting triggers and some training, you can teach yourself to skim the spam pretty effectively and keep a fair handle on what's going on.  When it gets truly unplayable is when there's so many combatants in the room that it's impossible to read the scroll, but that can be avoided by splitting the battle up into separate rooms.

[Agent_137]

Combat in Armageddon is just much better than any other mud, as far as I'm concerned.. so I think it's great. D

WRONG.

Maybe much better than most other free muds, but the mud I played for 7 years had a intricate, beautiful, and realistic combat system.

So i'm spoiled. Of course, the rest of the game was crap. CRAP CRAP CRAP. and that's why i'm here, in spite of the ultra-simplistic-to-a-fault combat system.