Offense/defense idea

[Marc]

Heres another one:

Let everyone set their offense and defense to a percentage number like:

change offense 90

change defense 40

etc

Then when they are fighting whatever their rolls are to hit/dodge etc are modified by that percentage.

What this means:

If you set offense to 0 you wont swing.  If you set defense to 0 you wont try to defend yourself.  It would let people decide how hard they are fighting on the fly, allow very very skilled people to be hired to train very unskilled people without risk of killing them (or a decreased chance), and in general just let people have more control over how they do (throw a match anyone?)

Feedback?

[Gorobei]

Yea, damn right.
It always bugged me that I couldn't go easy on the new hot runners, and get a little extra time with them during unarmed combat.  :wink:

[Eclipse]

Presently, the superior opponent needs to handicap themselves which can be achieved. It's only when you're exceptionally good that you have problems in which case, it may be perceivable to train against numerous newer characters at once to reflect his skill or have him/her take on an instructor's role as training with the new recruits would be a waste of time. For those times you really want to go easy on an individual for RP purposes, maybe go for the coded fight then follow up with an emoted battle so you know how it would end but you can then emote-wise manipulate just how it goes along.

I can't imagine why you need the code-system if it is to RP with somebody. If it's to jump up in skill, use the teach command with emotes though the superior individual, if he/she is that much better wouldn't learn anything from fighting an inferior individual anyways so ICly, it may be considered as a waste of time. So instead, you might teach him/her something like instructional-wise (teach) or you might be trying to teach them a lesson where you beat them around or play with them (disciplining). In which case, you could use the code to determine just how much better you are or how easily it can be done (if at all) then you can go about kicking their ass through emotes instead of having a slew of spammed attacks/defenses making everything more confusing to watch.

This is becoming a disorganized rant now but the abusable aspect is that an aged character sets offense to 0 and lets a newbie attack him. Then, over the course of several IC days, the newbie becomes a competent fighter but there has been no RP involved - powergaming. One reason why training dummies are very limited and watched closely.

[Rindan]

I personally would love to see people be able to alter how good they fight.  I would simply be content if I could type in a command and it would drop all of my combat skills by 25%.  If I keep hitting the command, it keeps hacking my skills by 25%.  Then, with another command it would bring them back up to full.  During such a state the 'weakend' player would not gain any sort of skill.  The reason why I would like to do this is simply so that one has the ability to hide their skills.  Not a big deal, but I can think of a few cases where I would have loved to have pretend to be worse then I was.

[Anonymous]

I personally would love to see people be able to alter how good they fight.  I would simply be content if I could type in a command and it would drop all of my combat skills by 25%.  If I keep hitting the command, it keeps hacking my skills by 25%.  Then, with another command it would bring them back up to full.  During such a state the 'weakend' player would not gain any sort of skill.  The reason why I would like to do this is simply so that one has the ability to hide their skills.  Not a big deal, but I can think of a few cases where I would have loved to have pretend to be worse then I was.

That's a really great idea, especially the bit about the 'faking' player not getting any skill gains from it.

I can think of a ton of applications for this.

Faking how good you are, like you said.  Weathered warriors training a neophyte.  A HG being used as a punching bag, etc, etc.

[Marc]

Agreed.  No skills should be improved unless you're giving it your hundred percent.  For those critics out there let me give a few examples where this would be great:

Byn sergeant is testing a new runner.  This sarg has taken on half the gith nation in his life, but would rather the runner didn't get cut in half like so many of the gith have.  change offense 50

Mr Blue has been "hired" by Lord Fancypants to throw his arena match.  Mr blue would never in a million years lose against Mr blonde, but if he doesn't lose, he is going to be permenently lost afterwards.  change defense 75;change offense 75

Takryn the swordsmaster has been hired by Master Merchant Pennybags to teach him how to use a weapon and defend himself.  After two months of solid training/teaching, Pennybags still couldn't scratch a dead rat with his dagger, but Takryn wants to get paid.  change offense 10;change defense 10.

How many other situations are there out there where one wouldn't want to give their full effort?  The skill argument is a good one, but nullified if no one can gain with less then full effort

[Sephiroto]

I am in favor of this idea.  At one time I had a character who trained others.  His underlings feared getting an ass whoppin' so they usually had to take on my character atleast four blades to one.  But when they dont get a scratch with four weapons to my characters's one....change offense 50% change defense 50%.

Mister swordsman says in sirihish;
Alrigh' men, don't kick my arse too bad.

Underlings say in sirihish;
Aw sir, you're just playing with us.

You think:
Ain't I tha shit!

Mister swordsman says in sirihish, chuckling to himself with a wiry grin;
I know I know, dont flatter me too much, men.

[Rindan]

Personally, I think the biggest reason is just to hide how good you are.  I know that if I had had the option I would have had one character keep his combat skills on low just so that he could suddenly crank them up and have surprise.  I remember one instance while I was in the Byn where I really wanted to hurt another character sparring.  I didn't want to kill him, I just wanted to hurt him and gloat over it.  As it happened, I just didn't use my extra skills until he was getting ready to flee, then bashed him to the ground before he could flee.  My character was so much better that those few seconds on the ground was more then enough to have the end result being one very hurt runner.  RP wise, I would have preferred to have let him harm me, pretend that I was losing through emotes and coded misses, then suddenly crank my skills up to full.  Didn't anyone ever see 13th warrior where that happened?

In fact, now that I think on it, I would love to see the ability to make any skill in the game drop.  Again, don't allow skill gains while the skill is not set to full, but let people decide they want to fail.  Some times a thief might want to intentionally botch a pick pocket attempt so that he can get a Templar alone in a cell to make a bargain for something else.  Perhaps the soldier wants to botch a recruit's armor when he attempts to repair it on purpose.  Maybe the assassin wants to miss with that throwing knife and let it serve as just a warning.  Perhaps an assassin/soldier always holds back so that no one recognizes how superb his training is until he makes an attempt on his commanding officers life.  Maybe your soldier just doesn't want to get prompted and so chooses to look inept.  

That isn't to say that a lot of this can't be done through RP.  You can always try and make something then just junk it.  The difference is that when the code says that you fail the other person's player can't tell if it is intentional or not.  When you RP failure, it is blatant that you are pretending to fail.  Further you simply can't RP failing at some things like combat.  Generally, ignorance makes the game run smoother and more enjoyable for those being duped.  Being able to type 'weaken <skill>' and have that knock a skill down to 75% of its original power would be a nice little feature to have.  Type 'weaken slashing' a few times and you can look completely inept with your weapon of choice.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I think that something like this could add a great deal of depth to the game.  Obviously for some skills it isn't applicable (like hide) but even if it was just added for offense and defense I think it would do a lot.

Now reading all those replies, I like this idea so much more, expecially for all skills. Let's face it, how funny would it be to have a kickass warrior, defense always at 100, offense kept at 0 until in a fight, who likes to get in barfights. Okay, maybe I think that'd be funny ;-> Just after a few rounds of combat you pump up your offense, smash em good with a hit or two, then put it back down ;->

[Malifaxis]

I think it's a stellar idea, honestly... however, perhaps it should be a skill?  As a martial artist, I know that learning to control your hits takes a decent amount of practice in itself... at least if you're talking about swinging full tilt at someone and then breaking the strike at the last moment.  

Perhaps a 'train' command of some sort, since the general idea is to assist someone in practice.  train unarmed 25 would notify that you're going to try to drop your unarmed to 25% of it's current level.  In DnD terms, since I don't know the actual coding, a successful skill check vs your 'train' skill would change the skill by the designated amount.  A tie would get it within five to ten percent, positive or negative, a failure could do nothing, or perhaps get the opposite extreme.  A botch might lock you at 0 in the rating, or perhaps give you a percentile boost... and it's a bit tough to twink botching (if that kind of thing exists... and I've had enough bizarre stuff occur to believe that it might).  The return message, like hide, would always return the same, possibly for combat skills: You begin to attempt to cushion your blows?

Perhaps a branch of 'teach', if that's got any sort of rating?

If set as a skill, would it be possible/probable to have a bonus given to people learning from 'expert' trainers?  The concept of some sort of a 'wandering sensei/hermit' just totally side tracked me.

Just a few slightly tangental ideas from a usually non-linear person.

[Cenghiz]

I liked the idea... 'weaken' may help teach. And I would really like to play with the beetles. They hurted me a lot when I was a wannabe hunter. Now my character mercies it, then just kicks it grinning, with flashy eyes. But playing with it for a while? It would rock.
And also we see just more than we want to. What if a command to close your eyes exists? Sometimes I poke my head into a backpack examining my treasures in the middle of the desert. Then I would close my eyes so I would codewise prevent panicking and getting out of character when a gith enters the room. And also I don't want to trust people's real life egos when I would take them to the secret great oasis.
I like role-playing even if it causes my death. I have been playing my sixth character who's the best I've played, but he will close his eyes even if it causes his death if the command's implemented.

[swordmaster]

i like the idea of being able to focus on one combat skill but then when people are fighting with a sword they will change it to 100% then when they do with an axe they will change it to 100% i think it should be something when you creat a char i dunno good idea bad...?
and i like the offense?defense idea alot too.

I'm not sure what that idea was... was it that you could choose a preffered weapon at character creation and get a skill boost in it? If that is the idea, I'm against it.

[Marc]

I'm not sure what that idea was... was it that you could choose a preffered weapon at character creation and get a skill boost in it? If that is the idea, I'm against it.

That was not the idea at all.  There are not THAT many posts on this thread.  Would do you well to scroll to the top and read the original post.

Sorry Marc, I wasn't reffering to you, I've already posted my support for your idea on this thread. Would do you well to have read that. (Sorry, couldn't help that) But I was referring to swordmaster's post. Unfortunate side effect of the non-subthreading new board.

[Marc]

Sorry Marc, I wasn't reffering to you, I've already posted my support for your idea on this thread. Would do you well to have read that. (Sorry, couldn't help that) But I was referring to swordmaster's post. Unfortunate side effect of the non-subthreading new board.

Heh, bam!

Tony bludgeons Marc very hard with his retort!

[Anonymous]

I newer than this post but ever since i've gotten good at combat i've wanted what the original poster wanted so i decided to post, and keep this thread alive...instead of starting a new one

[wizturbo]

The idea is simple.

Set offense at a percentage between 0-100%

Set defense at a percentage between 0-100%


This gives you control on how hard your character is fighting, and i'm 100% for this idea.  I think it would make the combat system SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better.

[X-D]

Can't say as I like or dislike the idea really.

But I've never had any problem sand bagging my chars combat skills, it is quite easy to do with current code.

[Larrath]

Making people not really try to fight but be unable to advance because of it is a Good Thing.  It is good for assassinations, it is good for staged battles, and it is good for not killing newbie warriors with your 700-day sergeant.

It's also useful if you want to let someone win or not hit them back (in case of a templar or a nobleman in public, for example), or whatever.

Good idea and I am very much for it.

[mansa]

It's also useful if you wanted to try and branch skills...because the more you suck, the more you fail, and the more you fail, the more you get better.

[Larrath]

No, it's not going to be useful for branching.


Part of the idea is that if you are not trying your best, you are not going to really learn from your mistakes, since they are intentional.

Using a skill at anything below your 100% will make you unable to improve in the said skill, or in any skills at all, possibly...so people will not be able to minimize their offensive skills in order to twink on their kicking skills.

[Marc]

I like this idea.  100% behind it.

Oh, this idea was mine

[sjanimal]

I like this idea because it increases game freedom without altering game balance unnaceptably.  Hope it passes.

[sacac]

The really awesome fighter for the north out to kill a few Borsail nobles says in sirihish, to the fancy borsail guy, "No sir. Never fought a day in my life."

I like it.
But then I don't like it.
I don't know why I don't. I just don't.

[Dresan]

This idea is good and really not twinkish or abusive in any way or form since basically we are asking for the ability to be worse in skills then we really are...It is basically an RP tool we are asking for...one which is very realistic, IMO....think about it, how many of us can't fake being bad at something we are good at.

[jhunter]

So long as if you set it to work in a way negative offensively or defensively you gain nothing as far as learning from it. If not...absolutely no to this idea.

[Ktavialt]

This idea is good and really not twinkish or abusive in any way or form since basically we are asking for the ability to be worse in skills then we really are...It is basically an RP tool we are asking for...one which is very realistic, IMO....think about it, how many of us can't fake being bad at something we are good at.

Well, here's my two cents on this idea. I can see where it can be pretty useful
such as the borsail guy situation mentioned before, but it is somewhat
limited. That said, though its limited in its usefulness it isn't a bad idea.

In addition to this idea, if it were to be implemented in, perhaps it should
have a skill attached to it to fake offense/defense. The way I see it a
person wouldn't intend to get major wounds, the skill would be, in essence,
a way to fake your defense while taking only minor cuts from an enemy
instead of major ones. Also, if in retrospect the one to fake offense would,
while you're still not very good at it, cause a bad side effect of lowering
your defense and making you take accidental blows from your enemy
from time to time due to you actively trying to do worse. You'll screw up.

Otherwise, ain't a bad idea.

[Lazloth]

Drugs are bad.