Archery - Initiating Combat

[Cale_Knight]

If you don't want someone to immediately respond to your ranged attack, don't be in the same room at them.

Consider the "you take careful aim" portion of your attack the time period where they're rushing at you.

[Beldin]

The part I'm more interested in is when someone is already in melee and gets shot.  It really doesn't make sense to me that they would automatically and immediately switch targets.

[Cale_Knight]

That does seem pretty unrealistic, but shooting someone in melee is pretty unrealistic in and of itself.

I'd be all for switching the code in those circumstances providing the code also got tweaked so that you had a chance of hitting anyone involved in the fight you're shooting into.

[Nusku]

I like the idea of a type of flag/setting better.  A setting that lets you decide if you auto-respond to being the target of archery/spells.

Yes.  This sounds perfect.  But then, everybody would rather prefer setting their flag to autoattack the attacker, to get themselves, since it looks like setting it off means you will not respond to archery automatically, and there is no gain from it as well.

However, if there can be a benefit/loss on both flags somehow, that would be great.

There are plenty of circumstances under which you might not want to auto-attack someone. Let's say that the archer who just shot you has a bunch of NPCs guarding him. I think that would be a great time NOT to get automatically drawn into combat when you get shot, in the event that those NPCs might auto-assist said archer, and whomp you very thoroughly.

Or, perhaps the archer is currently protected by a particularly nasty spell that does horrible things to you if you get drawn into melee combat with the person protected by that spell - and maybe you don't really want to get into hand-to-hand combat.

[Morgenes]

So the question is, what should this new flag/command be called?  And what are the cases we want covered?  

I can think of not auto-attacking:

Obviously when attacking someone with ranged combat (this topic)

when aggressively cast on?

how about not attacking when attacked, kind of an auto-disengage

I guess I can look and see where else people are forced to hit others, but if you guys want to chime in on ideas, feel free.

And yes, I'm a fan of the shooting into melee might hit either opponent school of thought.  Expect something along this lines to come eventually.

[Krath]

So the question is, what should this new flag/command be called?  And what are the cases we want covered?  

I can think of not auto-attacking:

Obviously when attacking someone with ranged combat (this topic)

when aggressively cast on?

how about not attacking when attacked, kind of an auto-disengage

I guess I can look and see where else people are forced to hit others, but if you guys want to chime in on ideas, feel free.

And yes, I'm a fan of the shooting into melee might hit either opponent school of thought.  Expect something along this lines to come eventually.

Autoengage on/off

[flurry]

So the question is, what should this new flag/command be called?  

Retaliate?

[Northlander]

I think this auto-disengage should be in the game, not as a flag but always on with no option to turn off. Defense should be enhanced while in 'disengage mode'. Further, I don't want shooting or throwing to initiate combat.

Whether to retaliate or defend when attacked should be a conscious choice. Archers and knifethrowers should have something to do in battle without fleeing a room away first. Making it such would make me feel very good about our new, freer combat system.

[Delirium]

Edit:  Okay, I was going to save passive on/off but there might be cases where you don't want to fight an archer but do want to engage in combat.

So in that case:

engage on/off

As a side note.. this still doesn't solve the problem of archers not wanting to engage the scary magicker with "spell of Tek's breath" cast on them, but in that case, I guess said archer should be as far away as possible (i.e. next room over).

[Ghost]

There are plenty of circumstances under which you might not want to auto-attack someone. Let's say that the archer who just shot you has a bunch of NPCs guarding him. I think that would be a great time NOT to get automatically drawn into combat when you get shot, in the event that those NPCs might auto-assist said archer, and whomp you very thoroughly.

Or, perhaps the archer is currently protected by a particularly nasty spell that does horrible things to you if you get drawn into melee combat with the person protected by that spell - and maybe you don't really want to get into hand-to-hand combat.

But being protected by a lot of NPC guards, or being protected by a nasty defensive spell and shooting is not the kind of thing you would see everyday.  What you most often see is a bowman alone shooting you.  It is like a slim to nil chance that you would not want to engage someone into melee that attacks you with a ranged weapon.  So it would lead people to set their autoattack flag on regardlessly.  Which would still not solve the problem:  The shooter shoots, and gets into the melee directly even though he does not want to.  However, if there was an immediate advantage/disadvantage for your average meeting in the desert than it could make a difference.  I don't know, like adding a very long delay to autoattacking when someone attacks you with a ranged weapon or having your defense dropped for a few rounds once you autoattack to someone could make someone to think both sides of the flag.

I also would like to add something else to the discussion:  If shooting/throwing in the same room and not getting engaged in melee is put into the game, I think in outside rooms, you should not be able to shoot arrows from three rooms away since the outside rooms are big (bigger than 1 mile in length right?) so only the best of the best bows should be able to fire from that long a distance, and no one can throw a spear for that much distance.

EDIT:  Delirium beat me to the problem of the archer.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

To add to this discussion and Ghost's comments about throwing and shooting, I personally think that a delay for attacking should be in every outdoor room and in city streets. I think rooms should have sizes or some other number that indicates how big the room is.

As I gradually work on my own little corner of the MUD kingdom, here's what I plan to implement in regards to this. Movement, combat initiation, and ranged combat will all have delays dependant on how big the room is. This will be measured by a number between 1 to 100.  This number stands for how much of a mile this room occupies. This means that while you may have to stand and shoot in the same room outdoors, where a room may count as a mile, in the city, where a room is much more likely to be less than a mile, you may be able to shoot at them from a large number of rooms away. There will be a skill that all PCs get called estimate distance. This skill will give you an idea of how far that PC, object, or whatever, is from you. Since your bow will have a rating in how much of a mile it can shoot, your strength will dictate how far you can throw, your perception how far you can see, and your speed will tell how fast you can move, you'll have to exercise judgement and tactics to be real good at catching and attacking things. Furthermore, this will apply to PCs and NPCs alike.

This is kind of a big idea and I don't really expect it to ever see face in Armageddon, but it's a solution, and as inspiration, perhaps a Armish solution can be obtained.

[Beldin]

Suggestion for the flag:

noretal <option>
options = {ranged, melee, magick, all}


I like the idea of adding a flag, but I don't think that it solves the initial problem.  It only solves the problem from the defender's side.  The attacker (shooter/thrower) will still get attacked immediately, which doesn't make sense, especially if the defender is already engaged in a fight.  All it does is give them the option of setting their character to engage a second attacker or stay with the current attacker.

Honestly, I don't see the problem with moving around to the back of someone in a melee fight, looking for a good opportunity, and tossing a knife into their back.  Shooting a bow into a melee fight, I don't know.  I've never tried it personally so it might be easier than tossing a knife into melee, but it seems a bit tougher to me.

I do agree with the idea that you might end up missing now and then and hitting the wrong person, but to me, it seems like as you get better at throwing or shooting that chance should go down signficantly.  Maybe have a thrown or shot hit give less damage if they are in melee since you are throwing at a moving target and will probably not be able to hit the vital area you are aiming at.

[Vesperas]

I voted no.

And here's why (and no, I didn't bother reading any other replies..hehe):

Ranged combat is much different in my mind than melee.  For one, well.. its ranged.

If someone were to run up to me right now and attack me with the intent of actually doing me harm, I'd probably turn around and tear into them.  It's a defensive maneuver that doesn't bring about much thought -- the threat is RIGHT there, there's not much room for escape, it's already on me.

On the other hand, if someone was shooting at me, my first instinct is not to go barreling toward them and make myself a much easier target.  It's to hide, move, run away.  Or, if I'm surprised, stand there quite stupidly, or throw my hands up and go "DONT SHOOT!"  The threat can be escaped through different means.

[Delirium]

Another problem with 'autocombat' and archery/throwing is that it can be used in rather abusive ways to bypass someone's guards.

My proposed solution is:   No flag necessary.  Archery and throw do not initiate autocombat.  Aggressive NPCS see shooting as a threat and attack, wimpy NPCS see shooting as a threat and run.

To me that would be 'problem solved'.

(psst, this makes certain gith NPCs even nastier.. it definitely isn't just a bonus for PCs!)