keyword mixing at range (archery nerf)

[Harmless]

It's difficult for me to describe exactly how this should work code-wise, so first I will detail a scenario that I think should be modified.

The scruffy, one-eyed bandit is here.
The lanky, ratty-haired female is here.
The hulking, cross-scarred mul is here.

The hulking, cross-scarred mul says in sirihish, readying his horned war-bow:
    "Remember, we go for the one who name is Ratbait."

The lanky, ratty-haired female nods uncertainly, her grip tight on her slender duskhorn bow.

The scruffy, one-eyed bandit says, in sirihish, lifting his chin:
    "How in tha fuck do I know who is named Ratbait and who is named what the fuck else?"

The hulking, cross-scarred mul says in sirihish:
    "Ratbait is short, and he got dark hair."

The scruffy, one-eyed bandit says with a dubious lift of a brow, in sirihish:
    "That ain't 'zactly helpful boss."

The hulking, cross-scarred mul says, in sirihish:
    "Just do what I fuckin says."

(a few minutes later)

Far to the south: The tall figure wearing a dark, hooded mercenary's cloak has arrived from the south.
Far to the south: The short figure wearing a dark, hooded mercenary's cloak has arrived from the south.
Far to the south: The very short figure wearing a dark, hooded mercenary's cloak has arrived from the south.

The scruffy, one-eyed bandit exclaims, in sirihish:
     "Ah fuck, I can't tell who's what!"

The hulking, cross-scarred mul grunts, raising his war-bow, a serrated red-fletched arrow in his off hand.

The lanky, ratty-haired female raises her slender duskhorn bow and takes aim.

The scruffy, one-eyed bandit says, in sirihish:
     "Fuck it, the one named Ratbait ehh..."

>Shoot ratbait south

The hulking, cross-scarred mul shoots a serrated red-fletched arrow south.
The lanky, ratty-haired female shoots a wickedly-sharp bodkin arrow south.
The scruffy, one-eyed bandit shoots a broadhead arrow south.

Far to the south: A serrated, red-fletched arrow flies in from the north and strikes the short figure wearing a dark hooded mercenary's cloak in the head!
Far to the south: A wickedly-sharp bodkin arrow flies in from the north and strikes the short figure wearing a dark hooded mercenary's cloak in the neck!
Far to the south: A broadhead arrow flies in from the north and strikes the short figure wearing a dark hooded mercenary's cloak in the chest!
Far to the south: The short figure wearing a dark hooded mercenary's cloak crumples to the ground.

The hulking, cross-scarred mul says in sirihish, grinning:
    "Good aim. Now kill tha one named Fuckbait."

..I propose that name keywords should have a high chance of missing or hitting other targets -- basically randomly picking someone in the room. In order to remove this penalty, you have to aim at the keywords that are actually visible at long range -- if they are a short figure, you have to shoot short.figure south, etc. If there are multiple short.figures, it should go randomly between all the matches in the room for that.

..Yes, this exact scenario happened to me above -- a bunch of NPCs focus-fired my PC at long range, immediately at being at range, likely because they were told by one of their fellow NPCs that my PC should be targeted. I don't care that this happened, but it is very unrealistic that it happened the way it did, because there was a group of 8+ other PCs surrounding mine, many of whom also appeared as a "blank figure wearing a blank cloak." A lot of the arrows that all sunk into my PC should have been going to other PCs that the NPCs firing would have thought were their "target". It was especially unrealistic that they all hit their mark on the first volley.

[Patuk]

How do you take into account ten people shooting at a person they all knew for a decade?

You're not quite wrong to suggest this, though. This kind of thing is why generally speaking, ranged combat is really weak in MUD's.

[Harmless]

I agree Patuk. It'd be really cool if there was some kind of global "keyword familiarity" code, but that would require a massive storage of data on the MUD, and take into account memory rusting.

If you reference someone's keyword in the same room as them, you get a "familiarity point" for that keyword and that PC. If you contact them over the way, you may (or may not) also get a familiarity point.

If you're trying to shoot Ratbait at range, and you have had drinks with him many times before, then yes you should be able to shoot ratbait <direction> and hit with high certainty.

But if you've never heard of ratbait before, just was told his name, then his name is meaningless, and referencing ratbait would mean your character just picks whoever looks like a "ratbait" at range.


NOTE: BTW, in the above scenario (the reason why I am NOT mad about what happened to me, but proud), my PC totally earned that kind of enmity and targeting. I mean, really, really EARNED it -- so I don't mind at all that my PC was targeted. In fact, I take it as a major point of pride that my PC was considered "enemy number 1." -- but I think it's unrealistic that multiple NPCs that had never seen or fought my PC before were able to pick them out instantly at range.  If they had watched which one was hit by the first shot, then taken their shots, then maybe I could see it happening -- but it was simultaneous and all happened in the space of 2-3 seconds.

[Patuk]

There's a pair of fixes I think would work better:

Make firing at anything harder as the number of things in said room increases. Shooting any particular person inside a busy military camp is harder than it is to fire a lone guy in the desert.

Make guard more effective against archery. Throwing yourself in front of an arrow isn't difficult after some training, and with a shield it gets even easier.

If forest rooms, busy city streets and heavy wind don't fuck with accuracy, they really should.

[Harmless]

Make firing at anything harder as the number of things in said room increases. Shooting any particular person inside a busy military camp is harder than it is to fire a lone guy in the desert.

Or to make it more targeted to my OP, make it much more likely your arrow hits a random other person in a crowded room rather than your intended target.

[Molten Heart]

It might be cool if more potential targets meant more chance of missing.  It'd be cool if missing meant a chance at accidently hitting something else.

[Reiloth]

In the case of NPCs, I always thought it should make sense they charge the target that fired at them, also.

[Patuk]

Yep. Arm archery really is awfully strong.

[RogueGunslinger]

As it should be.

[Patuk]

From a point considering realism, yes. It lacks some very obvious drawbacks it should have though, and we're not even mentioning game design yet.

[slvrmoontiger]

I agree, something should be done by this. It's difficult to program though, I believe.

1) From a distance with everyone having their hoods raised and looking pretty much the same, even if you've known someone you shouldn't be able to just used a ranged weapon with their name. That is so unrealistic.
2) Without a hood and if you don't know someone's name you shouldn't be a able to target them by name.

I think a familiarity code would work great in this situation, but it would need to be adjusted based on having a hood up or a mask on or something that changes the PC's sdesc. Unfortunately, this sounds like a bitch to code.

[Molten Heart]

What if attacks (ranged and otherwise) would only accept keywords from the current visible sdesc as targets? This would stop people from targeting people by name, they'd have to figure out which one of the dudes in the hooded cloak they wanted to shoot was.

[slvrmoontiger]

This would make sense. But if you were able to look at the person you could probably tell who they are if you knew them. Hence why this would be a difficult thing to program.

[Dar]

While I support the idea of an increased chance of missing/hitting someone else in a crowded room, I do not like the idea of mixing keywords and so on.

You shouldnt forget that the whole concept of keywords is a work around to navigate in a text environment. In real life, the leader of the fire team would just say, "Shoot the one in the lead, or shoot the one on the left." Imagine how that would translate in the game?


Far to the south: The tall figure wearing a dark, hooded mercenary's cloak has arrived from the south.
Far to the south: The short figure wearing a dark, hooded mercenary's cloak has arrived from the south.
Far to the south: The very short figure wearing a dark, hooded mercenary's cloak has arrived from the south.

Which one amongst those three is the one on the left? I guess it's easier to say who is in the lead, since the tall one arrived first, but during all the text scrolling, things like that get chaotic.

Fact of the matter if those raiders know the keywords of the people about to arrive who are hooded, it's safe to assume they've researched their prey and set up their ambush properly enough to organize their volley at the correct target.

[Reiloth]

It'd be funny if it just took 'hooded' into account and randomized.

[BleakOne]

Random Archery ideas:

A 50% chance of hitting a random other person or creature in the same room on any given hit with a ranged weapon from outside the target's room.

Someone 'guarding' your target has a large chance of taking the arrow instead.

Someone being held has the same chance as a guard, since you're being all super-villainy and using them as a 'human shield'.

[MeTekillot]

em shrugs

shoot hostage south