Dog Pile Solution

[hatchets]

So, I was thinking about the craziness of 20 people all attacking 1 person.

Clearly size has to factor in on both sides. So for simplicity I will use Small, Medium, Large.

Small creature can be attacked by 4 small creatuers, 2 medium creatures, 1 large creature.

Medium creatures can be attacked by 8 small creatures, 4 medium creatures, 2 large creatures.

Large creatures can be attacked by 10 small creatures (I chose ten cause 16 sounded a bit much and made me vizualize squirrels attacking a half giant), 8 medium creatures, 4 large creatures.

Now, the size does not have to be assigned persay based on weight and height. In general, most humanoids would just be medium. Half Giants of course clearly large. And the various creatres across the game could be assisgned their own size aswell.

This way during, say an HRPT, 16 characters cannot dogpile onto one. They have to wait their turn.

[Lizzie]

The general idea that a limit is set, is great. I endorse it entirely.

A way to make it less specific - which I think would be useful..is that every PC and NPC gets a numeric value, based on overall size and weight - and natural defense skill could be a variable to add or subtract from that value.

If I'm a well-trained HG, at the top end of height and weight, maybe I'd have a value of 20.

So the max value of the combined efforts of my enemies - could not exceed 20. If another half-giant, less trained, has a value of 18, and a tregil has a value of 2, then you could have that HG and his pet tregil attack me - but no one else would be able to find purchase in the fight.

If a fat human has a value of 8, and a tall lanky elf has a value of 9, and a stumpy well-trained uber warrior dwarf has a value of 10, then whichever two of the three gets to me first, are the ones who can fight. The third one has to sit back, or attempt to rescue one of the others in order to get involved.

[Scarecrow]

Solution: Master Parry, Master Shield Use.

[hatchets]

The general idea that a limit is set, is great. I endorse it entirely.

A way to make it less specific - which I think would be useful..is that every PC and NPC gets a numeric value, based on overall size and weight - and natural defense skill could be a variable to add or subtract from that value.

If I'm a well-trained HG, at the top end of height and weight, maybe I'd have a value of 20.

So the max value of the combined efforts of my enemies - could not exceed 20. If another half-giant, less trained, has a value of 18, and a tregil has a value of 2, then you could have that HG and his pet tregil attack me - but no one else would be able to find purchase in the fight.

If a fat human has a value of 8, and a tall lanky elf has a value of 9, and a stumpy well-trained uber warrior dwarf has a value of 10, then whichever two of the three gets to me first, are the ones who can fight. The third one has to sit back, or attempt to rescue one of the others in order to get involved.

I don't think that actually works, due to your example. Why wouldn't another half giant be able to walk up from behind and attack?

What I am offering to solve, is the simple fact, that 20 people cannot physically have enough room to swing at 1 person with their fists, let alone with weapons that take 3-5 feet of area to swing.

Solution: Master Parry, Master Shield Use.

Go ahead, master parry and shield use and go let twenty people swing at you. It's not as impossible to get passed as you think.

[X-D]

As I posted in RAT.

I am fine with 10, 20, 50 PCs being able to ride/run over a single PC...ignore the code saying Billy got his head slashed 25 times and imagine it saying "Billy was trampled by the mob of soldiers."

It is war, some people will die, Some highly skilled people will be trampled by twenty newbs....

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yeh, X is right. I don't like the insta gank much, but he's definitely right. You can literally be trampled to death in real life, and although the code doesn't give you that message, that is basically what's happening when you get ganked by 20 pcs at one.

Probably could do with a delay on their attacks, though, to give you a split second to run.

[X-D]

Well, to be fair, I would not mind a graduated delay to that first round attack depending on where you come in.

Say, attackers 1-4 no delay, 5 is 2 seconds and everybody after that add 1 second.

Course, leave fleeing as it is...after all, you are trying to remove yourself from that trampling mob without getting hit.

In the battle, I was actually amused by the number of high skilled PCs with low flee skill and low skilled PCs who had not neglected that skill.

Honestly, I did not like  the flee change before that battle. but watching it work large scale let it make more sense.

[AreteX]

I think a delay would be great to at least let people feel like the battle is more epic.  If you die in two combat rounds after all this buildup then it really just isn't as glorious as it could of been.

If we had time to flourish with emotes, yell, taunt, scream, emote blood flowing from the wound we took I think it would add an overall experience to the whole thing.

[Cutthroat]

Explaining it away by trampling implies that the people trampling you have some place to move forward. In the case of a massive HRPT battle there is no such space - the soldiers would have to walk through other enemy soldiers to dogpile on one person. So the combat actually is combat, not people stepping on you, IMO. I approve of having some kind of limit.

[X-D]

We are simply not going to agree on that. That dogpiled PC was out front or otherwise away from the group, got flanked, fell down and trampled...etc etc etc.

Guard is a great skill to prevent that BTW...and only one of the ways I can think of.

(edit) I do not agree with limit...I can get behind increasing delay. At least that way, if you are PC #12 to be attacking dude, you have a 10 second delay till your first attack goes in, you can disengage or type stop and choose a new target...or just wait till your rush to the first target gets you there....course then smart people will wait and target people who are #10 or #15, knowing they are in a massive delay....increases battle tactics.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think simply having small groups of people, about 7 vs 7, per room and the fill in the rest with "virtual soldeirs" would be fine. Have a battle spread out over multiple rooms. Left flank, Right flank, Middle. Far left flank, Far right flank.

Something like that. This doesn't take any code, just coordination from staff and cooperation from the players.

[Delirium]

I think simply having small groups of people, about 7 vs 7, per room and the fill in the rest with "virtual soldeirs" would be fine. Have a battle spread out over multiple rooms. Left flank, Right flank, Middle. Far left flank, Far right flank.

Something like that. This doesn't take any code, just coordination from staff and cooperation from the players.

This. 20 pcs max to a room or it gets too impossible, IMO.

[Withered Ocotillo]

I agree entirely with putting a limit on the number of attackers that can attack a single target at the same time. This is something that has already been done in a number of other roleplay MUDs, with the idea that these games are about roleplay and story, not about insta-gibbing targets in the span of one second with dogpiled "kill" commands.

For everyone who is arguing that targets killed in this way are "trampled by an army", please consider that this same tactic is possible even with just a 10 vs 10 battle. If everyone on one side attacks the same target on the other side, that target will die immediately due to the cumulative combat penalty from multiple attackers. The actual player in front of the keyboard will also have no time to respond to ten simultaneous attacks. Remember, this instagib death happens within one second, so let's try to imagine how this looks in the IC game universe:

Ten people in a line vs ten people in a line. People are banging their shields and swinging their swords, they are about 20 feet away from each other, ready to charge. Someone yells, "CHARGE!!" and suddenly, in that very same second, ten sword swings have already cut multiple times through one target in the time span of a single stroke, rendering that person into multiple sliced pieces before anyone can blink. Likewise, the other team in battle uses the same tactic, and someone from the opposing side suddenly bursts into bloody pieces as ten sword strokes simultaneously strike as one.

There are plenty of tactics you can use in large battles to accomplish all sorts of things, and plenty of targets will die rather quickly. This is not an argument that players should not die quickly in battle. It's an argument against assured instant death when faced with dogpiled kill commands, no matter the skill level of the target, where a) this is not feasible due to space constraints in combat and b) this does not promote roleplay in combat, for a game designed around roleplay.

This dogpile tactic has been around forever (I call it the musket line tactic), and I've seen it used in all of Armageddon's mass warfare scenarios, going all the way back to 1991. In the famous original battle of Thrain Ironsword and his Tuluk crew vs Liben the red robe and his Allanak crew, Thrain was such a high profile character that you can be sure every single player (and the templar ordering his soldiers) was spamming KILL THRAIN on the front line. And while Thrain got dogpiled like mad from soldier NPCs and player PCs alike when stepping into battle, you need to keep in mind that the code did not give a penalty for multiple attackers back in those days, and the defense/parrying code was much more forgiving than it is today. If you fought against 20 guys, you didn't get ANY penalty for it, other than having to defend against that many hits (which is still quite a danger).

So what happened to Thrain? He valiantly fought in the battle like the badass that he was (and he wasn't even a warrior). The logs (LoD may still have them) showed him fighting off hit after hit because his coded defense and skill was able to handle it, and the lack of negative penalties from multiple attackers let him stand his ground. Soldier after soldier and player after player struck at Thrain and he put up a hell of a fight. He was eventually downed by Liben the red robe, who was throwing fireballs at him again and again until Thrain finally fell. And Thrain may have only fell in that encounter because all the players were using 1200 to 2400 baud modems back then, and LoD couldn't even react to what was going on with the spam. By the time he saw anything suggesting he was in danger, he was already dead on the server side from the queued player commands. If you think the spam is bad today, you would be shocked to see it at 2400 baud speed.

I bring up the Thrain battle because even though it had its spam issues (LoD never had a chance to react in combat due to modem speed limits of the time), the log does at least show him fighting valiantly and having a chance to stand his ground before the end. This was only possible because negative penalties did not exist for multiple attackers, but I really don't agree with that old code and I think the new code is much better. I am mentioning it because it's an example of how giving characters a chance to play out their story is always more interesting than dying to oversights with the code. The MUD from 1991 is not the same as it is today - multiple attackers are lethal and defense/parry in general is far less reliable than it used to be. To evolve with the times, I think the next step is to limit attackers on a single target, to allow characters to still having a fighting chance (or at least a few seconds more of roleplay) when faced against larger groups of enemies. How many attackers that is, is open for debate and discussion and balance testing. It will be different for every combat engine.

As a side note I'd like to add that the HRPT battle did a FANTASTIC job at not involving "unit" NPCs and piles of NPC soldiers. I think that is a great step forward for Armageddon MUD with mass warfare. It's such a waste to see PCs slaughtered by nameless "unit" NPCs and city guards. Good job to all those responsible for making that happen and allowing players to fight with players on the micro battlefield.

[Delirium]

I agree with the above but I would like to add that more indication of actual army sizes (beyond pcs) whether via units which only battle each other, or staff echoes, or some other solution, would be nice. As I understood it, one of the armies vastly outnumbered the other (I'll avoid saying which) but many seemed to think it was the other way around due to PC presence.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I have some ideas about mass warfare that I'll wait until I'm on a computer to post about. A phone is somewhat annoying to post on. I would indeed love to see a more elegant solution to battle in RPTs.

[X-D]

", please consider that this same tactic is possible even with just a 10 vs 10 battle. If everyone on one side attacks the same target on the other side, that target will die

Untrue, I have had and known several warriors and other guilds that could not only stand up to that, but win.
With current code.

I do not like limits, and they suck in other muds as well, because it turns it into some kind of silly scripted event. Not the chaos and confusion of battle.

Even more annoying, Ok, we 5 will take onthose five, this other 6 will take on that six...Now we have 3 and they have 15 more, those 3 will take on that 6, and the rest have to wait...Alright, first 6 have won... on larger side, Can we join other battles...Nope, size limit...Now we wait with the other 12 that have been waiting since the beginning.

In those cases, I have even seen the smaller side come down to a single PC and win, simply because of combat limits to how many can attack 1.....silly, No matter how good your warrior or whatever is, when you are being faced with 35 soldiers...you will lose...even if it is only because they get to jump on top you and bite you while you are down.

[Nyr]

Just an assumption on my part but I tend to think most players don't care if the side they are fighting for wins or loses in a particular battle, provided they have the opportunity to:

affect their own survival
affect the survival of the PCs they are assigned with
affect the overall battle to some degree
use combat skills, tactics, and low-level strategy to try to do well

and all of that without worrying about massive amounts of combat spam.

One of the things we were trying out this HRPT was an objective option.  It...sorta worked.  Not the way we envisioned it, though, so we had to make do with what happened and change plans.  I think battles with specific objectives apart from "kill other team" would be more fun for the players.  Could be wrong about that but that's just what I was figuring.

[Marauder Moe]

Or maybe a "squad" command, like follow but it designates people into distinct tactical units.

>squad amos
The tall, muscular man is now your squad leader.

Brief combat would then only show you combat messages related to your squad.

You could also have certain coded benefits, such as swarms of attackers being more evenly distributed among the squad members and bonuses to certain combat skills.  These bonuses could be calculated off the average squad skill or even, dare I suggest, off a sort of squad leadership skill.

One could even go as far as to have the squad leader able to dictate special squad tactics modes.
Phalanx: defense bonus to each squad member using a shield
Overwatch: bonus to guard skill
Volley: bonus to archery
Cavalry charge: bonus to mounted combat for the first X rounds of combat
etc.

</crazyideas>

[Morrolan]

Can we join other battles...Nope, size limit...Now we wait with the other 12 that have been waiting since the beginning.

So, yeah, X-D, there would be waiting. And orders to withdraw and attack. Troop "movements" etc. Officers might actually have to lead. It'd be fun.

Thirty-five guys don't fight one person all at once. It's not physically possible.

I'd like to see this implemented, and then have code-twink problems addressed when they arise.

The first one to address: the "hit and run mob."
>OOC Okay, guys. Here's what we're gonna do. Everyone "Kill Bob" and then "disengage" after three seconds after you get through.
>OOC We'll try to keep six people on him at once. He can't parry all of us forever.
>OOC And anyone who takes damage, do the FLEE and RETURN dance.

[Withered Ocotillo]

", please consider that this same tactic is possible even with just a 10 vs 10 battle. If everyone on one side attacks the same target on the other side, that target will die

Untrue, I have had and known several warriors and other guilds that could not only stand up to that, but win.
With current code.

I've played a character that knocked out a bahamet in a single hit to the head, and knocked out a silt horror in two hits. I've had a character who kept taking no damage while subdued during an execution scene, because the character kept using shield block to stop the executioner's hits.

Both of those characters would have rather faced a bahamet or silt horror before facing ten simultaneous PC attacks in a war scene. I take it the skilled warriors you've played and the skilled warriors you knew were much more powerful than the ones I've played or seen, and in that case I can't speak for that level of ultimate power. I must concede that I am inexperienced at combat in comparison to your experience.

With that said, I imagine the battle mastery of being able to reliably conquer ten opponents at once and emerge victorious is something most players will never see. Keeping that in mind, I am inclined to maintain that the "dogpile" code is an instant kill scenario in almost all cases.

[Delirium]

A maxed-out, straight-up warrior might be able to take on multiple PCs but after more than 3-4, maybe 5, will get fucked up and/or die without certain buffs, which your PCs had, XD. Lets not go too far down this road.

[X-D]

Hey, long as you say "almost" I will agree.

But I still maintain that...first, this is easily mitigated by current code. Second, It is not nearly as bad as people tend to claim on the GDB...even in the last battle, Nobody ever had more then 9 attacking 1 anyway, which is well within realism AND that PC survived.  (any others did not because of other coded reasons).

In fact, the only times I have ever seen things like even 10 PC or NPC on 1 is when that 1 is all alone...and well, if you are alone and run into the enemy, SOrry, I don't really have a problem with the entire army jumping on your head.

NOW

Thinking over past RPTS/HRPTS I have been in and other events. If there was anything that needed fixing, it is the NPC auto assist. It causes the most in accidental or unbalanced deaths...it happened several times recently and has happened to me and many others in the past. Autoassisting NPCs really should have a limit. I think every time I have seen one pc taking on even 10, it is because of 6 instant autoassist npcs. And that is lame...least Players can have some kind of lag to  assist, even if it is just typing speed..

Actually Delirium....many did not. Oh sure, some did. But maybe ask about a certain Byn sarge of mine and a gith tribe...no buffs at all and 3 waves of 8+ gith on him at once.

I am not saying some things do not need work, in fact I have offered up things that surely do. I just am dead set on hard limits of any kind. Or really anything that lowers that battle chaos and confusion. I am all for things that balance out NPC involvement, and giving soft limits to how many can attack one, I am all for almost anything to help the player control combat spam as well as work with others. But I do not want to see silly coded unit combat manuvers and crap.

THOUGH...in this writing, I have been thinking. I have no problem with staff being able to set room combat limits for big battles...say 20 total PCs, and even making sure both sides know the rules. 10 from each side...charge! meanwhile everybody else can shoot at that next room over or archers and reserves 2 rooms over, spells, whatever. But such things should be on a case by case basis, setable by staff.

[LauraMars]

I like hatchets idea.  More roleplay, less DIKU.  This is not a hack and slash game.

[Qzzrbl]

In what way does it make sense for a 10 vs. 10 fight to center and hinge entirely on the person that typed "kill amos" and his victim first?

I think a limit on how many attackers on one guy would be a good thing, provided that a few other things are taken into account.

For instance, how many people are following him? One guy with nine guys following him vs another guy with nine more guys following him isn't likely going to end with a funnel towards the two in the middle. That just doesn't make sense.

That just doesn't fall in line with typical "wall of people" behavior.

Science would refute it.

But ten guys picking on one lone ranger guy? Yeah. He'd be dogpiled and stabbed to death pretty quickly.

[Qzzrbl]

Maybe even taking into account weapon type could be a thing.

What's easier to crowd around a motherfucker and kill him with?

A wide-arc-swinging-two-handed-battleaxe-of-fuck?

Or a simple thrusty-stab-pokey-stick spear?

POTENTIAL FOR SO MANY VARIABLES, SHOULD THEY BE WANTED!