Pending Change to Charge

[jhunter]

I agree with the change. I do like the idea of making charge something that can be initiated from a nearby room. That seems realistic enough.

[hyzhenhok]

The charge skill as it was was ridiculously unrealistic.  If you're mounted and beating the crap out of someone or something with weapons, you need to be very close to them to account for reach, as well as the size of your mount.  If you've ever been to the Renaissance festival and watched jousting, that's kind of how I pictured it to be.  You need to back off and gain some momentum to be able to properly charge at somebody while you're riding a creature that large.  If you've ever ridden a horse IRL, you know that maneuvering a horse, even for a skilled rider, is difficult to do in such a small amount of space.

I disagree completely. My aunt has a Horse farm, which I have grown up near. If you want a horse to trample someone you dont need to get any kind of momemtum, all you need to do is yank on the reins and I garuntee you can get that horse to knock someone down that is a few feet away from you. Maneuvering, in a small area, is not as hard as you think. But since you brought it up, if we assume, like most of us do, going from ONE room to Another is a league, that means EACH room is at least a league in length. So you, imms, dont think a LEAGUE is enough room to maneuver a mount around and charge an enemy? Why not just increase the delay?

Maybe make Disengage a mount-associated skill, i.e. when you use it while mounted, if you're skilled you can force the enemy to stop attacking you (as though they were reeled)? So skilled riders (and only skilled riders) would be able to repeatedly charge down a single target.

Of course, the would allow the balance issues that they're trying to get rid of, so it's probably a non-starter.

[Thunkkin]

Part of the problem is semantics.

The skill is "charge" but the result is "trample."

The word "charge" conjures the mental image of a knight mounted on horseback.  The result would be one, very strong hit (with a spear, lance, etc.).

The word "trample" conjures the mental image of a big ass animal bumping/leaning into you and knocking you over and then stepping on you.

When elephants trample some poor sod, do they need to get hundreds of feet of charging distance first?

The idea that charging like a knight results not in a weapon strike but in running someone over is ... well, it's fine.  But it's not what the language leads me to expect.

[tortall]

Then we can has trample skill?

[Eloran]

The charge skill as it was was ridiculously unrealistic.  If you're mounted and beating the crap out of someone or something with weapons, you need to be very close to them to account for reach, as well as the size of your mount.  If you've ever been to the Renaissance festival and watched jousting, that's kind of how I pictured it to be.  You need to back off and gain some momentum to be able to properly charge at somebody while you're riding a creature that large.  If you've ever ridden a horse IRL, you know that maneuvering a horse, even for a skilled rider, is difficult to do in such a small amount of space.

I just couldn't keep away after reading this.

The above is completely untrue. I'm not going to pull an X-D and say I'm a horse whisperer with twenty three years of experience, but I do like to think I know what I'm talking about - wheeling a horse around in a tight space is not that difficult. If it is, I must be a better rider than I thought.

You do not need a lot of momentum to charge someone either. Horses build up speed extremely fast, and their mass will be enough to knock aside most people.

I just wish someone would comment on why a bigger lag wasn't put in place, as opposed to negating charge altogether. Now it's a one-shot skill, though we still have carru that can bash you normally, then use their charge to knock you into the next room while you're still down. If abuse is such an important issue, these bastards should be looked at first.

[Ragnar]

I said it once...And I will only say it once more...Eloran is correct.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

You can still charge repeatedly, just like an assassin can backstab repeatedly. I'm still not completely satisfied, but yes, you can still do it. And perhaps that's the goal, to make it less of a wtf-pwn on the part of mounted fighters, since the staff seems to share the opinion that mounted fighters should have disadvantages for each plus they have.

So, I'm not as against this as I was in the beginning.

[RogueGunslinger]

Wait, so fleeing then charging again is considered good play? It's doing the same thing as before, only adding an extra step. Wouldn't adding a delay achieve this affect and be simpler?

I thought backstabbing, fleeing, hiding and backstabbing again was considered twinking.

[X-D]

I'm gigling, and it is closer to 35 years. Course I'm nothing mounted compared to my sisters, they are barrel racing trick riding fools.

But Yes, manuvering a horse and even other RL mounts is rather easy, and most of them will try and trample on their own if hemmed in by living things smaller then them.  Get in a stall with a pissed off horse sometime.

As to the carru and certain other beasties. Yes, if it is over powered for a PC to be able to trample time after time (and I agree it has been) Then it is doubly over powered for a NPC to not only be able to do that but to even bash you first.

[Thunkkin]

Wait, so fleeing then charging again is considered good play? It's doing the same thing as before, only adding an extra step. Wouldn't adding a delay achieve this affect and be simpler?

I thought backstabbing, fleeing, hiding and backstabbing again was considered twinking.

I, too, would find clarification on this to be educational.

[Morgenes]

Wait, so fleeing then charging again is considered good play? It's doing the same thing as before, only adding an extra step. Wouldn't adding a delay achieve this affect and be simpler?

Fleeing isn't the only way to get out of combat, especially in group situations, but yes, this is considered acceptable.  A delay would add the same affect, but it would allow the combat to go on (swings and the like) while the delay was going on.  We want it to be that you have to maneuver away from the person, disengaging from the combat before you can charge again.

I thought backstabbing, fleeing, hiding and backstabbing again was considered twinking.

Any use of code without regards to the intention of it and with regards to your environment and the situation at hand is twinking.  If you are good enough to flee away and hide and sneak back in without alert people noticing, then by all means, you can do so.  If for whatever reason you might thing this might not be realistic, then likely it isn't and should be avoided.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Er, never mind. Morg said it.

[Niamh]

A horse also isn't a huge lizard with stumpy legs.  Or a big stout insect with lots of scrawny little ones.

[X-D]

And yet that huge lizard moves faster then then that beetle and with a halfgiant on its back and that beetle can carry a mul, some barrels of water and whatever else on them scrawny legs across sand without sinking in and for a very long range...Huh...go figure.

[Lizzie]

That's because...

dundundun

(wait for it)


(here comes)


This is not reality. It is fantasy. (Playability + Believability) trump reality, in a fantasy world.

The gravitational pull is not the same. Squat things won't tip over like horses will. Except for Zalanthan horses, which will probably be much sturdier than earth horses, because zalanthan horses are made by people who didn't bother studying genetics in science class, mostly because it doesn't matter, because they weren't trying to replicate reality anyway.

Inixes and beetles and erdlus and ratlons and horses and whatever else, do what they do, the way that they do it, because the creative talent that went into their existence has chosen that they do what they do, the way that they do it. Realism has -nothing- to do with it. Nothing.

[brytta.leofa]

Believability)

[Eloran]

A horse also isn't a huge lizard with stumpy legs.  Or a big stout insect with lots of scrawny little ones.

Then why were you using a horse as a comparison?

***

What about erdlu?

Sunback?

Sunlon?

Ratlon?

Horses?

Each of these creatures are far more agile than inix, war beetles and oxen - shouldn't they move faster in combat as well?

[X-D]

Don't forget gwoshi, a bearlike animal...you can find plenty of footage of bears, they don't need any space to trample a fool.

[Agent_137]

Just a heads up that due to some abuse we've seen with charge and how we as staff envision it should be used, we're altering the code to enforce this idea.  Charge isn't just turning your mount around and trampling the person again and again, instead you have to break free, get some momentum and come back at the person.  Once this change goes live, you will have to not be fighting the person you want to charge, nor can they be fighting you in order to get the charge off. 

lol, k. how does this help playability or realism, again?

i hate agreeing with eloran, but, gosh. I do.

[Morgenes]

Just a heads up that due to some abuse we've seen with charge and how we as staff envision it should be used, we're altering the code to enforce this idea.  Charge isn't just turning your mount around and trampling the person again and again, instead you have to break free, get some momentum and come back at the person.  Once this change goes live, you will have to not be fighting the person you want to charge, nor can they be fighting you in order to get the charge off. 

lol, k. how does this help playability or realism, again?

i hate agreeing with eloran, but, gosh. I do.

It helps with the playability of being at the other end of the charge and the realism we see in the effects you get from the charge.

[Synthesis]

Yeah, folks, this is a game balance issue first and foremost.

Same reason the ability to subdue;draw;backstab was removed, even though it was totally plausible, from a realism perspective.  (Do you -really- want to give every 5-day dwarf assassin/guard the ability to OHK?)

I've seen many a (good) ranger totally WTFPWN things with charge in such a hardcore fashion that it made my 30-day warrior blush in embarrassment.

The skill was totally off the charts, over the top, crazy overpowered.

[brytta.leofa]

What about bringing back a recalibrated "pull reins" as the charge-without-momentum-while-fighting?

My concern is that people for the most part don't try to fight mounted, and I guess I'd like to see a lot of mounted fighting.  That probably means that either (a) mounted fighting isn't codedly worth it or (b) most players mistakenly think that mounted fighting isn't codedly worth it.  [Okay, or, possibly, (c): warriors can't do it effectively without a subguild boost.  I hope this isn't the case.]

[Synthesis]

What about bringing back a recalibrated "pull reins" as the charge-without-momentum-while-fighting?

My concern is that people for the most part don't try to fight mounted, and I guess I'd like to see a lot of mounted fighting.  That probably means that either (a) mounted fighting isn't codedly worth it or (b) most players mistakenly think that mounted fighting isn't codedly worth it.  [Okay, or, possibly, (c): warriors can't do it effectively without a subguild boost.  I hope this isn't the case.]

Warriors can most definitely fight mounted and hand out ultimate beatdowns.

[Ammut]

I'll play around with the code change and see if I have any feedback to give.  At this point I think that some of the npc's I used to hunt would be impossible without a quiver full of arrows.  I guess I'll have to develop other strategies or rely more on archery... shrug.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'll play around with the code change and see if I have any feedback to give.  At this point I think that some of the npc's I used to hunt would be impossible without a quiver full of arrows.  I guess I'll have to develop other strategies or rely more on archery... shrug.

>flee

A raptor has arrived from the east.

>charge raptor

>flee

A raptor has arrived from the east.

>charge raptor

>flee

A raptor has arrived from the north.
A raptor has arrived from the east.

>think Fuck.

>flee

It'll work.