Opponent keyword (for emotes, etc)

[CodeMaster]

Taven wrote some cool examples of (canned) gladiator emotes:

om1

Opponent's attack misses

em Side stepping an attempted blow, @ brings both swords in a slashing arc at ^me opponent

The part I'm focusing in on with this idea is "^me opponent".  What if there were a way to reliably refer to your opponent (the person you're attacking or defending against) in emotes?  E.g., if you were to type:

Code Select Expand


fighting >
em smiles defeatedly at ~?

(where ? is just a character designed to refer to opponents)
It would give:

Code Select Expand


The tall, muscular man smiles defeatedly at the extremely short figure wearing a 50-character long cloak.


Beyond emotes, being able to do that could streamline other commands like assess, watch, etc.

[Marauder Moe]

Beyond emotes, being able to do that could streamline other commands like assess, watch, etc.

Not to mention actual combat.


Not a fan of throwing more symbols into the game, but maybe one or more reserved keywords: "opponent", "op", "enemy", "foe".

And of course numeric modifiers, so you can do like:
>bash 2.foe
>disarm 3.foe

and most importantly...
>key foe

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I like this idea a lot.

[Harmless]

what a great idea. Look foe, assess foe, targeting for magick purposes, so many uses.

[Taven]

Beyond emotes, being able to do that could streamline other commands like assess, watch, etc.

Not to mention actual combat.


Not a fan of throwing more symbols into the game, but maybe one or more reserved keywords: "opponent", "op", "enemy", "foe".

And of course numeric modifiers, so you can do like:
>bash 2.foe
>disarm 3.foe

and most importantly...
>key foe

While targeting numerically is fine, and key foe is awesome, I'd definitely want to be able to specifically target people with the normal multiple key-words way...

IE, the green-eyed, barrel-chested man is fighting you, and the athletic, bronzed redhead is fighting you. You could target them by green.foe or bronzed.foe or so on. I'd argue that trying to keyword target is always better then numbers, because if your opponent flees or disengages, suddenly your list of foes (1.foe, 2.foe, so on) has changed.

HOWEVER, the problem is that if you're using a trigger (IE, a1) for a specific command (em Side stepping an attempted blow, @ brings both swords in a slashing arc at ~1.foe) then you're not going to be able to make it custom anyway--as far as I know. Without further MUD coding, I don't think you could do something like making a1 set to (em Side stepping an attempted blow, @ brings both swords in a slashing arc at) and then do the command "a1 ~1.foe" -- I think the extra on the end confuses the MUD. But it's been a veeeeery long time since I messed with combat aliases, so I could be wrong.

I still approve of the "foe" command, because it will make organic emotes faster, but if you're trying to use it in combo with alias I think it gets more complicated.

But there are ways, client-side to allow you to have fun with pre-written emotes. Here's what you'd do in MUSHclient:



And I'm going to repost this, too, for people who didn't look at the original post:

The thing to remember is DO NOT OVER USE OR ABUSE [PRE-WRITTEN EMOTES] because there's a point where pre-typed anything ceases to be an emote and starts to be spam. If every time you get disarmed, you use the same pre-aliased emote there is something wrong. Aliases like the above are meant to help spice up special combat where you just don't have time to type.

[Marauder Moe]

I'm not sure I understand.  Armageddon already has ~1.something keyword functionality.  Seems natural that it would extend to an opponent keyword.

[Taven]

I'm not sure I understand.  Armageddon already has ~1.something keyword functionality.  Seems natural that it would extend to an opponent keyword.

It should. I'm just saying that ~green.foe might be better to use anyway, because if people are disengaging or what have you, it'll change your foe order. Like, uh...

Key foe

1. Foe - The green-eyed, barrel-chested man
2. Foe - The athletic, bronzed redhead
3. Foe - The incredibly fat elf

You're fighting, and holy cow, that elf is dangerous with his dagger. You want to disarm him. You type "disarm 3.foe". Good, right?

Well, if before the command goes through, the green-eyed man flees, suddenly that elf isn't going to be foe 3. There won't BE a foe 3. He'll get bumped up to being foe 2. Your disarm won't have a target at all.

Or, another example, let's say you're trying to bash that elf instead...

1. Foe - The green-eyed, barrel-chested man
2. Foe - The athletic, bronzed redhead
3. Foe - The incredibly fat elf

There's also the battle-tattooed mul in the room. The mul rescues the redhead, pushing her out of combat. Suddenly, the foe order changes:

1. Foe - The green-eyed, barrel-chested man
2. Foe - The incredibly fat elf
3. Foe - The battle-tattooed mul

And you're trying to bash the mul now, because your command targeted 3.foe, which he now is. Bashing the mul may not work out as well as bashing the elf would have--and now you've fallen over! Ahhh, the dreaded beep!

[RogueGunslinger]

The idea is good, I'm all for making it easier to emote when in combat.

[Marauder Moe]

That's true of every keyword list, though.  They're all capable of changing contents and/or order.

[Taven]

That's true of every keyword list, though.  They're all capable of changing contents and/or order.

Yes, but "foe" is specifically looking at people you're fighting.

I mean, heck, if you just targeted with ~elf instead of ~3.foe in a multiple opponent situation, you'd be more likely to get the right target (or at least not hit the wrong person with it). Well, short of more elves coming in. Really, ~fat.elf would be best. If only everyone had such short keywords.

I think "foe" is useful, but probably most useful in a single-opponent scenario. Or a dual opponent scenario... Which really, ideally most combats would be. Otherwise, you might be in trouble--or fighting Gortoks.

(Updated because I said something wrong... Changed "~elf.foe" to just "~3.foe", since that's what I meant. Don't mind meeee.)

[Barsook]

I dig this idea.

[valeria]

Being able to target foes would be a huge improvement.  I'd probably always do bash elf.foe to be safe, but if I could do that it would be awesome.

[Reiloth]

Or just bash elf. Make him a foe!