Sparring.

[RogueGunslinger]

I can't really put it any other way, but in the current incarnation of Arm, I absolutely fucking hate sparring. There are just issues with using normal combat code with slightly reduced damage to spar with that make it unrealistic. There should be no reason, why during a sparring match, anyone should ever be dropping half their life and not be able to regain it.

Sure, you could say that sometimes sparring is dangerous.. but you know what? It isn't. I can say, that without a doubt, if you take all the precautions needed during a spar(with or without weapons) People rarely, if ever, get injured to the point that they cannot spar anymore.

I think there should be some form of modification on sparring weapons that simply makes them take more stamina from you, then HP from the person you hit, and it should never take more than a couple points of hp at a time. That way you can accurately roleplay being tired, and somewhat beaten up as well.


Sparring just isn't fun for me unless I'm against an equally matched player. It either ends up where I sacrifice emoting because I'm afraid for my character, or I sacrifice emoting because I'm afraid for theirs. Obviously this is a flawed system.

I'd like to see changes go in for 1.arm, but that just doesn't seem like it's going to happen, and it's kind of depressing. Mostly I think it's because of a lack of ideas, or workarounds with the current code. I'm sure the coders don't want to re-work an entire code for sparring(which is what i'd like, a lot) so does anyone have any ideas?

[Cutthroat]

How about adding a 'spar' command that functions similarly to kill and hit (as in it brings your character into combat), but stops at around the same point that brawling stops, and any damage that goes over that stopping point automatically stops combat. That way you can only get seriously injured if you're, say, brawling a HG, or brawling someone that is vastly more skilled than you. Everything else you mentioned seems okay (viz. when you mentioned changing from hp loss to stamina loss) though I would suggest some stun loss as well. Being hit by blunted sparring weapons should be somewhat like being hit by a club, but not entirely.

> spar amos
Everyone else sees: The muscular, tall woman attacks the tall, muscular man.
100/100 hp

etc etc etc.

The tall, muscular man pierces your foot.
75/100 hp

The tall, muscular man looks over you with pity and stops (or whatever the message is)

And if you want to stage a "sparring accident" simply use kill or hit. The initiation message seen by all would be the same.

[RogueGunslinger]

That would be pretty awesome, don't know how coding it would be though.

[brytta.leofa]

Is it really necessary to unrealistically drain stamina or health?  Seems like skill timers should be enough to prevent people from twinking.

[Synthesis]

Is it really necessary to unrealistically drain stamina or health?  Seems like skill timers should be enough to prevent people from twinking.

brytta.leofa hits the nail's head, connecting hard.

Further, just to add another random gripe:  since the defense nerf, sparring between non-warrior guilds is fucking ABSURD.  Your ability to defend yourself is practically nil once your partner's weapon skill reaches a certain point...and since skill improvements are based on failures...nobody improves after a while, because neither one of you can dodge the other's attacks.  Shield use would help here, except that warriors (the only guild that really doesn't even -need- to use shields) are apparently the only ones who get a practically useful maximum in the skill.

Sparring eventually becomes this ridiculous scene where you just batter the hell out of each other, and the fight is over after each person swings a few times.  How in the hell could you -possibly- be so good with a weapon that you can disembowel a dude in 2 strokes, yet inexplicably be entirely unable to prevent the same from happening to you?

[RogueGunslinger]

I think it should realistically drain stamina. If you've ever gone sparring in most martial arts they fatigue you.

It should hardly ever drain health.

I hate how skills progress through sparring. I also hate that its as simple as, the more you codedly spar, the better you are. I wish there were more modifiers that determined how good you became at combat. Sparring with someone who is more skilled than you should return more knowledge(skill boost). Sparring with the same person a multitude of times should reduce the amount of gain with them over time. Sparring with someone who is codedly less powerful than you should return less gain, but should increase your ability to use the Teach command and give more bonuses when used. All these things I'd like to see, but are very unlikely to go in.

[nyrk]

But how then do you "accidentally" off someone through a sparring accident with these changes?

[brytta.leofa]

Agree re: stamina drain, but I don't think it should be any more tiring than actually fighting.

Possibly we need something like a two-stage stamina system, where the first 20% comes and goes easily:
(1) You fight the gith.
(2) You kill the gith.
(3) You are out of breath, but
(4) Even in the desert, you're able to fairly quickly recover without resting (unless you've gotten yourself seriously torqued).

Coincidentally, that would come very close to providing the "travel really slow, travel really long" ability that several people have been asking for.  Ride slow and emote, and you can ride all day.

But how then do you "accidentally" off someone through a sparring accident with these changes?

How do you accidentally kill someone in your martial arts class?  Probably with backstab, sap, or a real weapon.

[RogueGunslinger]

If you intend to kill someone while you're beating them down with blunted weapons , but make it look like an accident...  Good luck. Heh. That just isn't a realistic option.

[a strange shadow]

Because nobody ever died from blunt trauma.

[brytta.leofa]

Because nobody ever died from blunt trauma.

Helmets should be fairly good at blocking sparring weapons?

I agree that impact weapons should probably be more dangerous in sparring than blunted sharpies.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think you missed the point shadow.

I'd like to see you realistically pull of killing someone in a sparring match without making it look like you intend to kill them.

It's pretty obvious when someone is swinging -really- hard at your head on more than one occasion. If I was a Sargeant, and just watched my newbie recruit get his head bashed in and killed by Amos the Mangler, who's known to dislike my recruit. I'd probably throw Amos into the pit.

Seriously, there are better, and more fun ways, to kill someone. For both parties involved.

Agree re: stamina drain, but I don't think it should be any more tiring than actually fighting.

Possibly we need something like a two-stage stamina system, where the first 20% comes and goes easily:
(1) You fight the gith.
(2) You kill the gith.
(3) You are out of breath, but
(4) Even in the desert, you're able to fairly quickly recover without resting (unless you've gotten yourself seriously torqued).

Coincidentally, that would come very close to providing the "travel really slow, travel really long" ability that several people have been asking for.  Ride slow and emote, and you can ride all day.

But how then do you "accidentally" off someone through a sparring accident with these changes?

How do you accidentally kill someone in your martial arts class?  Probably with backstab, sap, or a real weapon.

I like this idea.

[Yam]

If you want to kill someone in an accidental sparring match, you should probably bribe your sergeant beforehand.

[My 2 sids]

I don't think we need new code.   Maybe we could have a few docs -- explaining that no, your PC isn't really trying to harm (nor be harmed).    As for unevan partners, I've seen everything emoted out (as if in slow-motion to show form) and then use the teach skill.

[RogueGunslinger]

Don't get me started on the teach skill.

[Dalmeth]

Consistent injury is a reality of intensive combat training, especially with up close weapons.  If you strike a stick across my ribs, sooner or later, you're going to break them.  Then there's the innumerable combinations of weapon angle and bodily position wear you could strike a limb and cause serious damage.

Face it, sparring is a strenuous activity.

[RogueGunslinger]

No. Serious injury was, and currently is not commonplace in martial, or military sparring.

Know why? Because injured soldiers are pretty useless.

[Rhyden]

So you're saying that two people beating themselves with blunted bone or wood weapons are not be susceptible to injury?

I like sparring as it is. It was greatly improved when the disengage action was implemented and I'd like to see some sort of way that more experienced fighters could pull their blows on the less experienced, but overall, I see little problems with the way sparring works now.

[Synthesis]

This would help a lot:

Help Spar

The spar command is intended to be used when you are intending to train with the target of the command.  When used, your character will automatically disengage when the target is on the verge of being seriously injured.

Usage:

spar on (Turns sparring mode on)
spar off (Turns sparring mode off)

Note:  Using combat commands that inflict damage (e.g. bash, kick) after disengaging may continue to injure your partner.  Turning sparring mode on will not entirely prevent training accidents from occurring, so exercise caution when using this command.

========================

The way it would work:  it would basically take the place of constantly using the "assess" command manually.  When your sparring partner reaches "not well" (or worse), your character would automatically disengage.  When both partners have sparring mode on, the injured partner will continue to fight until the disengaged partner reaches "not well" (or worse), at which point he will disengage automatically as well.

Additionally, this command would automatically disengage you before landing blows following commands that would ordinarily re-initiate combat (e.g. disarm).

[RogueGunslinger]

So you're saying that two people beating themselves with blunted bone or wood weapons are not be susceptible to injury?

I like sparring as it is. It was greatly improved when the disengage action was implemented and I'd like to see some sort of way that more experienced fighters could pull their blows on the less experienced, but overall, I see little problems with the way sparring works now.

No. Let me be clear, since I guess I haven't been.

If you want to roleplay being injured during sparring, that's perfectly fine, and acceptable , and even realistic. But I don't want to make up some new excuse to go sleep every time I get knocked down too low in HP points to recover. I can't roleplay that I'm seriously injured every time this happens, because it happens way to frequently.

Currently, it is too easy for a more powerful character to completely mangle a newer character when they spar. Something like 1/3 or ever 1/2 of the time, I need to go see Bones, or I send someone else there.




The code, currently unrealistically injures you during spars, and the playerbase has been working around the code for longer than I've been here. They been playing like they are fatigued, when in reality, their characters are dying. So why not have the code cater to the players instead of the players cater to the code.

[mangler]

Yeh I agree somthing needs to be changed.. i find it kind of silly how badly you can maim someone with whats ment to be a blunt weapon, and in a controlled environment, I mean would people really put their full strength into hitting a person on the head in a friendly spar when they know it'll put them out of action of IG days.. or weeks.

[Dalmeth]

Yeh I agree somthing needs to be changed.. i find it kind of silly how badly you can maim someone with whats ment to be a blunt weapon, and in a controlled environment, I mean would people really put their full strength into hitting a person on the head in a friendly spar when they know it'll put them out of action of IG days.. or weeks.

How do you imagine you could train a person to kill another person without actually, ya know, trying to kill another person?  Blunted weapons are used to make it harder to kill the other.

[AreteX]

Coming from a newbie standpoint in terms of my first experiences 'sparring'.

I got my ASS handed to me.  Especially when I played a guild other than warrior.  I was simply NO match for anyone I fought.  We would melee for 3 rounds, and I'd be done.

This isn't fun.  It was boring always roleplaying "being beaten up".  Not that I dont mind roleplaying being beaten up, but I want to at least be able to type out a few emotes before my ass is handed to me, along with the person handing me my ass being able to type out a few emotes instead of sitting on the "Disengage" pre-typed so I dont get fragged.

If you're a newbie two-handed user, fighting against some quick attacking dual-wielder, you get to swing once, or twice before you're done and possibly having to go sleep it off(by roleplaying serious injury) because you "sparred" someone of greater skill who went all out and whooped your butt.  I dont think this is realistic.  For one, if Im more skilled, I know I won't be going all out.  Like an adult teaching a kid how to fight, you dont go knock the kid out, or hit him in the face.  Also, sparring most likely would not have anyone EVER aiming for the head.  Sure it could happen, but the times I've taken a big knock on the head is crazy.

Sparring is more like normal fighting, only the two people are sitting on 'disengage' waiting till someone is hurt and stopping.

It shouldn't be this way, it should allow for alot of emoting, and fun between both parties engaging in the sparring match.  Not just two people waiting to disengage eachother.

[Synthesis]

I don't get aggravated being a newbie and having my ass handed to me.

However, when you're like at, 11 days on a non-warrior guild and you're still getting smacked -hard- by warriors who are fresh out of chargen...that's when you kind of start you know...getting a little irritated. 

[Yam]

I've almost died to small, cat-sized lizards/insects numerous times.

Some parts of combat are wonky.