Backstab?

[Dwarf]

Ya, i was playing my guy and some guy kept sneaking and hiding and backstabbing my dude but whenever he backstabbed, he fled, came back in and backstabbed me again and again. I think this is bad but i was wondering what everyone else thinks. is this twinkish? im not sure. Should I report it or something?

-DwARF

[Morgenes]

Try watching him, you will put a serious damper on his ability to do that.

[Marauder Moe]

Your "watch <person>" status continues even if said person leaves the room?

[Larrath]

I think it is very twinkish.  You should keep a log from the point where he started attacking you (or a few dozen lines before that) until the point it ended somehow, and email it to the staff.
Try to get his sdesc, name/nickname or his mdesc and attach that to your log.  Also mention your own account and character names.

[LauraMars]

There's such a big lag for Backstab.  Watch him and hit him while he's incapacitated.  Unless you're a merchant, in which case, spam flee.

[moab]

I agree with Larrath - if your report is accurate.

It's hard to judge from your perspective or ours.  Best to log his sdesc and time and place and send it in.  

No doubt the powers that be will check and respond accordingly.

[Morgenes]

Your "watch <person>" status continues even if said person leaves the room?

Unless they somehow come back unseen, yes.

[Lazloth]

is this twinkish? im not sure. Should I report it or something?

Not that I know much about mob ai - but are you sure this wasn't an NPC?

Your "watch <person>" status continues even if said person leaves the room?

Unless they somehow come back unseen, yes.

So if you watch someone, and they go about their business/you on yours .. and paths cross some unspecified amount of time later (where you haven't reset your watch target), you'll pick up where you left off?

Quit removes the association?

[Yokunama]

Your "watch <person>" status continues even if said person leaves the room?

Unless they somehow come back unseen, yes.

Nice.

[Kalden]

Unless they somehow come back unseen, yes.

How's that work? If they come back unseen(successfully sneak), they're still visible to the look command...if they sneak in, hide, and then do a command like backstab, they immediately become visible upon entering that command. The watch command applies the moment they become visible in the room - whether the person noticed them come into the room and whether they succeeded at their hide or not.

Hell, now that I think of it...I could sneak up on someone who'd been watching me earlier, and then he'd magickally see me try to hide. That's unrealistic, but it seems like that's how it would work.

Either way, they're visible when they backstab after sneaking back in and successfuly hidding. Or no?

NOTE: "You are watching someone who is not here."

Proposed CHANGE: The moment you lose sight of the person you were watching, you should no longer be "watching" them.

Nice.

Nice and unrealistic. How do you automatically start watching me again when you didn't even see me enter?


ON-TOPIC: Xygax has stated before that backstabbing, fleeing, and backstabbing is OK as long as you dissapear in between it. There's nothing unrealistic about me running from the fight, finding a hiding spot, and then sneaking in again on my confused enemy - or is there? Does it depend on how much time I spend doing that?

[Yang]

I think its fair to say Morgenes as thought out the interactions between abckstab and watch, and that the two commands are wlel balanced. To backstab and flee and then come back: twinkish? I am reserved on that conclusion. I think twinkish would mean the backstabber was using some other thing than backstab to abuse some sort of bug. I do not think backstab is bugged. I think people may just need to learn how to navigate pkill situations better before they start complaining.

[Sir Diealot]

Agree with Yang.. bs is a skill.. deal with it.

lock thread?

[Maybe42or54]

Kill him. It'll solve both your problems.

[Larrath]

So what if Backstab is a skill?
Steal is a skill but we report people that use the skill excessively and without roleplaying it.
Sneak and Hide are skills but it's very bad form to use either of them while someone is talking to your character.
Crafting skills are skills but spam-crafting and flooding the shops immediately after Armup is a Bad Thing.
Forage is a skill but foraging endlessly without ever resting is bad.

The combat system is based on skills but sparring for 3 IC days is very bad.

Backstabbing, running away and then backstabbing again is bad.  Unless your character has some super powers or a friend to keep the defender busy, you should not do this.  The code can't really tell how utterly impossible it is for one person to sneak up on another more than two times in under a single hour.  The Scan skill simply doesn't represent turning slowly around, weapons drawn, and watching the place where the attacker ran to.
Honestly.  Even in a fantasy world, it's just not possible if you don't have use of useful misdirection, some magick to help you out, or a trap door hidden somewhere.

[Morgenes]

Unless they somehow come back unseen, yes.

How's that work? If they come back unseen(successfully sneak), they're still visible to the look command...if they sneak in, hide, and then do a command like backstab, they immediately become visible upon entering that command. The watch command applies the moment they become visible in the room - whether the person noticed them come into the room and whether they succeeded at their hide or not.

You've got the order of actions wrong.  If the flee away and hide, then sneak back in, that's how they can do it (avoiding watch)

[Kalden]

What you may not know is that a successfull sneak does not confer hidden status. It's basically the same as if you'd walked in, only they don't get the message on their screen. You have quite visible.

Similarly, you are visible the moment you hit the backstab command(pretty sure). The delay between the command the actual hit of the backstab probably allows them to watch and may give them a higher chance of dodging.

So if they're watching you, their watch will automatically start back up again the moment you're visible - whether you've snuck in or not. Following me?

[Maybe42or54]

Unless it checked if you snuck back in succsessfully or not.

[Kalden]

...which is highly unlikely. You don't get any sort of flag after successfully sneaking that I've noticed.

[Morgenes]

So if they're watching you, their watch will automatically start back up again the moment you're visible - whether you've snuck in or not. Following me?

This is incorrect, if by some means you become unseen, the watching status will be dropped.  They would have to notice you came back into the room, see through whatever caused the unseen status to register a new watch to see you again.

[Kalden]

Ah, ok. So if I hide, the watch status is dropped, but if I just walk away, it's not.

That works.

[Kalden]

On the topic of backstab again:

If it's a loophole, it should be fixed. It's not fixed, so I'll continue to use it. Maybe someday that will cause it to be fixed.

[Xygax]

backstab; flee; backstab; flee; backstab isn't a "loophole" that we've somehow neglected fixing.  It's just lousy RP.  I can't really stop you from doing it without wasting a lot of my time monitoring, but your behavior is more likely to prevent you accumulating karma or being trusted with special roles than to encourage the "loophole" to be fixed.

-- X

[Bebop]

I was just wondering... would attack and flee, attack and flee, attack and flee say for a gith or an elf be considered twinkish since guard turns off everytime you are attacked?

So say there were PCs guarding one PC and the person ran in an attacked and fled and attacked over and over again?

[bloodfromstone]

That sounds pretty twinkish. It just doesn't make sense. Picturing someone running up to someone else and swatting them with a club then hauling ass down the street, quickstopping, and charging back in is just silly.

Same for backstab. I don't care how smooth your assassin is, sticking someone then running away to come back and backstab them again is a pretty out there thing to do in a 1v1 fight, unless there's some seriously fancy emoting and situational specifics going on. I'd love to see a short time limit applied to keep someone from backstabbing the same target repeatedly.

[Kalden]

There should be one, but often the situation makes this sorta thing happen. You fight, you start to get beat down, you run, the guy chases after you. You're hidden, perhaps behind the guy now as he searches for you(if you hang around without emoting or walk in the direction I fleed, I'm probably gonna assume you're looking for me), and you creep up behind him for another shot.

One way to defend against it is to look constantly and stay on the move - something you should know, since, twinkish or not, it happens. In the heat of the moment it's hard to resist.

I look at my average 'rinth assassin, especially in the 'rinth against a warrior, as a guerilla fighter. I duck off into off-alleys, nicks, and crannies, throw something, and then maybe creep back up on the guy and hit him again if I'm not too wounded. When I run the guy has the chance to leave the area. My average assassin is not gonna stand there and trade blow for blow with the often very heavily armed and armored warrior(not to mention skilled - with disarm, parry, and everything else, the odds are stacked in his favor). The assassin is at home in the dizzy maze of the alleys, and the warrior, quite frankly, is not. You traded that ability for the ability to go whack scrabs and spar in the Byn. You made the choice. There's a reason the Arm of the Dragon is afraid to enter the 'rinth alleys.

Should I be able to run faster than him(maybe there should be a a better agility+encumbrance check to see if the fighter catches up with you when you try to flee? That's a GREAT FIX right there - end the days of OUTRUNNING D-ELVES and all the other ANIMALS)? Should I be able to hide as quick as I can? I don't know, but the code lets me. Should I put myself at a major disadavantage so I'm not considered a twink? SHOULD HUMANS REALLY BE OUTRUNNING ELVES? DO WE CONSIDER THEM TWINKS WHEN THEY FLEE FROM SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY FASTER THAN THEM?

I don't think I've ever done simply the backstab; flee; backstab, but I've done close(and usually I don't get a kill - it's fairly easy to run 10 rooms and be gone). When I successfully sneak and hide, then sit there watching the guy, it's hard not to incorporate that into what my character's thinking - which is sometimes go for the kill.

In summary: It is easy to avoid being PKed if you are cautious. Understand that if you stick around the area, you're acting 'badass' and taking the risk of being PKed..

To explain a little...when one types backstab, there's a delay, both when they hit and after it's struck, like the kill delay. The target, on the other hand, can immediately flee if he/she is paying attention. Then the target can walk(RUN!) the other direction. Unless the assassin is super-powerful and carries poisoned daggers around all the time, you'll probably be pretty safe in the lawful area.

Now you might say that the only option for a warrior shouldn't be to flee, and maybe you're right, but he'll either need friends, magic items, or damn good luck to win with the code as it is. Watch helps. But with the hide ability the assassin is pretty darn invulnerable if he wants to be. He owns the 'rinth(I've never backstabbed in the wilderness and never plan to). Backstab is a risky action - if he misses, he opens himself up to major damage. The warrior plays the defensive game and waits for that.

My reccomendation: if you're a warrior fighting a competent assassin(of which, in my experience, there are quite few - it's a risky job) in the 'rinth, run away and fight another day. (THOUGH I THINK I COULD POSSIBLY OWN AN ASSASSIN BY SPAMMING LOOK AND IMMEDIATELY TYPING HIT <target> when I see him (or perhaps bash or watch instead)

</end lecture>

[bloodfromstone]

I pretty much agree with the above post over all. I actually have no problems with fleeing, hiding, and then sticking someone when they come looking for you. It's the re-entrance that bothers me, I suppose.

[X-D]

I don't even have a problem with the re-entering.

Assassin moves in on you, stabs for your kidney, lands a close one, darts off quick as he can, hides in whatever, sneaks back to you without notice, tries to stuff that dagger in your neck, its all good. He has simply managed to sneak back up on you, which, is as he should do.

Now, if your char saw him enter and you did not react, thats your fault, but it probly just means he failed his sneak, not that he is simply walking up to your char.

Unfortunatly, the game only has rooms, there is simply no way to really say what distance the assassin moved off.

No, I have no problem with the method myself. I know I can defeat it because of the many built in code factors. Hell, the backstab delay is large enough that the victom could flee, come back and subdue, or attack getting the first attack bonus, which to me is the same as simply managing to get around behind the would be assassin and get the jump on him. If he happens to be even a decent warrior, that will go very bad for the assassin.

Fleeing and running about are actualy more realistic play IMO then just standing in one spot and duking it out in any case.

One of my most fun encounters to date involved my very skilled dwarf warrior and another very skilled delf warrior on the north road.

Entering combat, fleeing, running about, throwing stuff, entering combat again etc etc, its called strategy and it was loads of fun.

Both of our PC's survived BTW.

[Majikal]

Assasin has always been my favored guild so I understand the arguments here. Attacking, fleeing and re-entering to backstab again is perfectly okay in my opinion, there are flaws to that tactic but then again.. against someone who's just trying to stand there and take it, it's amazingly powerful.
One way to avoid this is to not simply stand in the same room and let them do it, pursue him before he has a chance to slip back into the shadows, catch him when he comes back before he can slip into the shadows.

An assasin isn't that amazing at fighting someone upfront.. that's the idea of the guild. Warriors stand and fight.. rangers use bows... assasins use surprise and not getting hit as a tactic.
My opinion: Deal with it.

[John]

An assasin isn't that amazing at fighting someone upfront.. that's the idea of the guild. Warriors stand and fight.. rangers use bows... assasins use surprise and not getting hit as a tactic.
My opinion: Deal with it.

A skilled assassin would only need 1 backstab to kill you. And I don't mean that they can kill you with one stroke.

[Hymwen]

I personally think that it should be impossible to sneak up on someone that you've attacked within, say, a minute. If I was a coder, I'd implement a flag that automatically made the person you fought detect your sneak attempt. Or maybe just give a big penalty to your sneak, so that a super-skilled sneaker could pull it off. But attacking someone, running away, and immediately sneaking back just seems wrong to me. It's not like people instantly relax and go "phew, he's gone, I'll just stand here and look in one direction" as soon as you flee the room.

[Ava]

I seriously like the idea of a penalty on backstab success if the victim is holding a weapon...especially a long weapon.  Combine this with the "you're too excited to quit" combat timer to indicate extra alertness...well, I think I suggested this in an earlier thread.

I think of backstab as a hard, ice pick style strike with a dagger.  In real life, if somebody comes at you with a Ka-Bar, you have more or less three options:
- You are unarmed and not highly skilled? You just die real quick. Most folks, alert or not, can't defend themselves against a 7" blade.
- You are armed but not alert, or taken by surprise: same thing. This is where sneak and hide come in.
- You are holding a sword or spear (or firearm) and pissed off: the attacker never makes it within range.

Good RP is always needed, but the beautiful thing about Arm is that the code gives clear bounds on what actions are and aren't realistic. Seems like backstab isn't quite there yet, given that (per staff comments) it can be abused.

[Seeker]

Good RP is always needed, but the beautiful thing about Arm is that the code gives clear bounds on what actions are and aren't realistic. Seems like backstab isn't quite there yet, given that (per staff comments) it can be abused.

Well, I think the point of the current code set-up, and some of the excellent comments in this thread, is that, in certain situations, it -can- be realistic for backstab to work in moderately quick sucession.  Chasing a skilled rat through the alleys of the 'rinthi is a good example.  Having the sneaky bastard keep popping out from behind garbage heaps, dropping down from ledges on you unseen... all that is imminently playable and realistic enough to be damn entertaining.

I don't think it is just a coding challenge.  I favor the general policy NOT to over-restrict skills just because in some situations the most liberal use is unrealistic.  Most players that I interact with are trustworthy, and almost all the others are still teachable.  Just stating a philosophical stance.


Seeker
p.s. "Watch" rocks