Distinguising enemies

[janeshephard]

You're out in the desert and everyone has their cloaks up.

Someone walks up with their cloak up as well. We'll assume everyone is wearing a duster.

How do you attack the right person? I know I can "assist" whoever is being attacked and if I know their name I can use that but it's still very confusing.

Thanks.

[hyzhenhok]

You're out in the desert and everyone has their cloaks up.

Someone walks up with their cloak up as well. We'll assume everyone is wearing a duster.

How do you attack the right person? I know I can "assist" whoever is being attacked and if I know their name I can use that but it's still very confusing.

Thanks.

>keyword duster

1.figure in duster
2.figure in duster
3.figure in duster

The highest (#1) person in the list is the most recently arrived.

[tortall]

The last person to enter the room is 1.figure.


Beyond that, there's really no way to tell.

[Marauder Moe]

Good combat discipline (half-IC, half-OOC) says always just assist your squad leader.  Let him worry about targeting.

[jmordetsky]

Good combat discipline (half-IC, half-OOC) says always just assist your squad leader.  Let him worry about targeting.

Seconded. Assist is the better command, but omg, cloaks up is awful. From a pure OOC perspective, as a leader I always command cloaks down when out in the sand.

[Gimfalisette]

Seconded. Assist is the better command, but omg, cloaks up is awful. From a pure OOC perspective, as a leader I always command cloaks down when out in the sand.

Complete agreement. Hoods down in the sands, use assist. Yell a lot until everyone gets this down!

[Qzzrbl]

Be sure to learn and memorize everyone's name.

[Twitty]

Whan can be implemented codedly is a "group" command which helps targetting someone in or out of a group (preferably out, especially in this case). This also needs a modification in kill or hit codes:

Code Select Expand


The first man is standing here.
The second man is standing here.
The third man is standing here.

group myCombatGroup first second third
You groupled first man, second man and third man in your myCombatGroup.

...Enemy approaches, or you approach the enemy....

kill man -myCombatGroup

The fourth man swiftly dodges your fist.
The fourth man swiftly dodges your fist.


[mansa]

New warrior skill?
How about a skill that forces everybody following you to flee / retreat in the same direction?

Ooo

[janeshephard]

New warrior skill?
How about a skill that forces everybody following you to flee / retreat in the same direction?

Ooo

This would make warriors useful on patrols or any excursion where you don't know wtf you're going to encounter.

Cloaks down may not be an option. Some players want cloaks up for RP reasons.

A really good command would encompass a formation where everyone assists whoever is in front or back if they get attacked.

[Zoltan]

New warrior skill?
How about a skill that forces everybody following you to flee / retreat in the same direction?

Ooo

This would make warriors useful on patrols or any excursion where you don't know wtf you're going to encounter.

Cloaks down may not be an option. Some players want cloaks up for RP reasons.

A really good command would encompass a formation where everyone assists whoever is in front or back if they get attacked.

Warriors are always useful!  At least when there's not a sandstorm... or hidden enemies... 

I would always demand hoods down on excursions. I know, it sucks for many reasons, but my character -would- be able to distinguish his subordinates relatively easily from attackers. It's just that I as a player cannot keep up with combat/movement spam with large groups, so I need sdescs to be visible.

It would be cool to be able to distinguish combat groups on the fly, though. It'd be much more complicated, but it would eliminate a lot of awkward, difficult to explain IC accidents I think.

[Voular]

If hood up is required for some reason, make everyone wear a different claok/aba/facewrap/mask. If you want to identify yourself on a distance, have ONE person flip up their hood. And so on. This is a problem easily overcomed by simple tricks.

[MarshallDFX]

New warrior skill?
How about a skill that forces everybody following you to flee / retreat in the same direction?

Ooo

This would make warriors useful on patrols or any excursion where you don't know wtf you're going to encounter.

Cloaks down may not be an option. Some players want cloaks up for RP reasons.

A really good command would encompass a formation where everyone assists whoever is in front or back if they get attacked.

Guard gets you half way there, if you have the skill.. But ultimately, the most important thing you can do is to stay alert, and read n' type fast.  Some people put in colour highlights, client side.

[janeshephard]

New warrior skill?
How about a skill that forces everybody following you to flee / retreat in the same direction?

Ooo

This would make warriors useful on patrols or any excursion where you don't know wtf you're going to encounter.

Cloaks down may not be an option. Some players want cloaks up for RP reasons.

A really good command would encompass a formation where everyone assists whoever is in front or back if they get attacked.

Guard gets you half way there, if you have the skill.. But ultimately, the most important thing you can do is to stay alert, and read n' type fast.  Some people put in colour highlights, client side.

I'm on a Mac and just use tinyfugue (it's an old text client I can run in a terminal). It supports things like emacs keybindings so I can edit and type fast -- unfortunately the color support is so-so. If anyone knows of a good client for the Mac that would color everything up for easy identification I'd love to hear about it.

[MarshallDFX]

Oh, also:   "brief combat"

[brytta.leofa]

There are good reasons for keeping hoods up, especially if your cloaks/robes/abas aren't distinctive.  If you can assist by name, that's the very best.

[Gimfalisette]

There are good reasons for keeping hoods up, especially if your cloaks/robes/abas aren't distinctive.  If you can assist by name, that's the very best.

Brytta's gunning to play a Byn Sergeant and prove that his strategy is most-wise

[brytta.leofa]

There are good reasons for keeping hoods up, especially if your cloaks/robes/abas aren't distinctive.  If you can assist by name, that's the very best.

Brytta's gunning to play a Byn Sergeant and prove that his strategy is most-wise

Dangit, I'm not telling any more of my hard-won dessert sekrets.  Except IC.

[janeshephard]

Oh, also:   "brief combat"

I just gave this a shot. Can you tell me if I'll see "so and so attacks so and so" ? I don't think I am. I'm only seeing successful hits.

[X-D]

brytta is actually correct.

I've played the Byn sarge, and other sarges and higher many times.

I also have played many raiders and evil doers. And if you all are traveling hoods down, It just makes it easier for me to target.

Better to have unit combat and tactics training, make sure they know names and when to speak up about needing help etc. 

Sadly the byn and other groups right now seem to think coded is the only thing needed.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Sadly the byn and other groups right now seem to think coded is the only thing needed.

But 'hoods-up' is also coded advantage/disadvantage too.

If I'm playing the raider and I don't know who to target, that's partially IC - my character can't tell who's who from a cursory glance because everyone's wearing the same cloak with hoods up.  That's great, and realistic, and how it should be.  But me as the player also can't tell who's who because it's very difficult to distinguish codedly as well.  While my character might have two cloaked figures on their left, and one cloaked figure on the right, I could try to use the keyword command to keep them straight (so long as people aren't moving in and out of the room), but there's no way for me to convey through my character this information to say another player and their raider character.  The other problem is this: if one of the hoods has a giant glowing dong, I should be able to have my character target that one right away, as well as tell others how to target that one, instead of having to type look 1.hood, look 2.hood, look 3.hood, etc etc (and have my friends have to do the same) - by the time me the player does that, the targets are gone, or my character's dead, etc.  Beyond this, if both targets have similar equipment, and one is magicking your face off, there's actually no way to codedly distinguish these two targets whatsoever - you just have to codedly guess.

This is a shortcoming of the code and we've long talked about this and suggested ideas to remedy it.

I have a new idea though.

Building on Voular's mount suggestion, if something like 'stitle' goes in for kanks, how about allowing us to attach a similar temporary keyword/title to another PC or NPC in general?  In order to avoid abuse, this would have to record the 'disguised state' as well.  In other words, if you stitle a PC when they have their hood up, it would only work to target them if their hood is up.  Once they tug down their hood/remove their cloak/facewrap/etc, the stitle temporarily does not work until they trigger the original stitled state again.  Stitle might also be removed when a PC logs out.  This is to reflect the fact that the command would be something like a memory snapshot for your PC to recognize the target - this might fade with time, or the target might have changed their clothing/equipment while 'away', or otherwise look different.

And yes, assist works, but only if you're already in combat.  What about if the person fighting you is not the one you and your friends actually want to target?  What if nobody's fighting yet?  What if someone's wanting to chuck a knife into the target's face instead?

[Gimfalisette]

The code for group stuff in general just sucks. Hoods up makes things harder for everyone, unrealistically so for those in the group and probably realistically so for potential raiders; hoods down makes things easier for everyone, realistically so for those in the group and unrealistically so for potential raiders. I would probably play more combat PCs if ARM had useful, interesting group functionality rather than the blehhhhhh of what we have now.

[Lizzie]

You are here, as a hooded figure.
The hooded figure is here.
The hooded figure is here.

All three of you are together.

The hooded figure arrives from the west.

That hooded figure is your enemy.

The hooded figure attacks the hooded figure!

Which hooded figure is attacking which hooded figure?

assist amos

But they're not fighting!

assist malik

But they're not fighting!

The hooded figure flees to the west!

The hooded figure attacks the hooded figure.

The hooded figure has arrived from the west.

The hooded figure hits the hooded figure, doing horrendous damage.

Which hooded figure is fighting which hooded figure now?

key hooded

1. a hooded figure
2. a hooded figure
3. a hooded figure
4. a hooded figure

key malik

1. a hooded figure

key amos

1. a hooded figure

This is why hoods down is a good thing when you're in a combat situation. It is unfortunately also why it is pretty stupid for "hoods down" to suddenly become a priority as soon as you discover that someone is beating your ass up. Your hood should be the least of your worries, -while- you are in combat. And so - hoods down -before- you enter combat - is really the most playable option, given the existing code.

[brytta.leofa]

Code change: "assist" with no arguments should assist someone who's following or being followed by you.  Unless he's fighting someone else who's also following or being followed by you.  Follow that?

[Gimfalisette]

Code change: "assist" with no arguments should assist someone who's following or being followed by you.  Unless he's fighting someone else who's also following or being followed by you.  Follow that?

Make it anyone in the loop, and yes. I think that would be helpful.

[Lizzie]

hide
shadow amos
(the group goes down the road, and heads toward the barracks)

think *snicker* Bwahahaha.
kill amos

Amos was following Malik
Malik was leading
Talia was following Amos.
Kayla was following Talia.
RobertTheBruce was shadowing you.

Everyone types ASSIST with no arguement.
Chaos ensues.

[X-D]

I actually think we should have simple friend tags.

This would allow assist without arguement to assist the first friend tagged that is in combat.

Put a top limit on friend tags, I think somewhere between 3 and 6 and have them be limited in, If Malik tags Amos as friend, If Amos moves out of sight, By stealth, magick or simply getting 4 rooms away then the tag needs to be renewed.

Simple fix, no real drawbacks and improved group dynamics.

[Gagula]

The only other thing I can think of is that cloaks, aba's, and who's-ya-what's-its can be dyed or marked (for looks and code) so that when you type assist scrab (because your friend convinced you that scrab stitched cloaks would be "most fearful indeed") you start helping your friend out against the guy wearing the tattered cloak.

[Lizzie]

That'd work most of the time. But there's always that "murder death betrayal thing you have to deal with.

If you have Amos and Malik both tagged as friends, and all three of you are out together, and one of them attacks the other..what would assist (no arguement) do?

[X-D]

It would assist the first one you tagged of course.

So, either your PC wants Amos to win or, you really don't care...as long as one dies.

Also, I'd have no echo to the outside on tagging friend...you just never know!

[mansa]

Group formation code

[Gagula]

That'd work most of the time. But there's always that "murder death betrayal thing you have to deal with.

If you have Amos and Malik both tagged as friends, and all three of you are out together, and one of them attacks the other..what would assist (no arguement) do?

Yeah, and if that stinkin' elf decides to pick infiltrate your group by picking up a cloak from your friend who was just a liiittle too drunk at the bar last night, well, they'd never see it coming, no?  Even if your (fill in the blank here) PC goes to the bazaar, describes the cloak to an NPC seamstress (and pays them a little extra to be hush-hush about it), then that takes care of the problem, at least in my mind anyways.