Why Do I Sometimes Get Instahit?

[Miradus]

Most of the time I've noticed that some nasty critter will walk into your room and you have a moment to get away.

At other times they walk in, instahit you, keep you reeled, and you're looking at the menu screen suddenly.

Is there some sort of rhyme or reason for this or is it completely random?

[BadSkeelz]

That is the dreaded double-attack "feature."

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,46419.msg785669.html#msg785669

Though I also seem to recall it being said it is not officially a bug, and doesn't actually happen, but only appears to happen due to client-side lag.

Basically, some mobs are just quicker on the draw than others. Unfortunately they also tend to be deadlier.

[Miradus]

Yeesh.

My suspicion is that it is somehow related to stats. When I have a great character going with high attributes, it's more likely to happen.

So no way to avoid it?

[BadSkeelz]

I would guess it's related to the attacker's agility score. PCs can do it as well as NPCs.

As for defense, they're not necessarily attacking you with a Super Die Quick Kill Multi Special Attack. It's just two normal attacks firing in quick sequence. So defending against it is the same as defending against all attacks - be armed, train your skills (including your hidden defense skill), and hope you didn't roll poorly on agility and endurance.

[Miradus]

Last time it happened it went like this:

Hit, hit, reel, flee, enemy seizes opening, mantis screen.

I hate not being able to see diagonally.

[Armaddict]

Last time it happened it went like this:

Hit, hit, reel, flee, enemy seizes opening, mantis screen.

I hate not being able to see diagonally.

You've talked a lot about enjoying the Grey Forest as well.  For as much as the south is considered inhospitable...the fauna of the north is also much more...squirrely, in killing you.  It's a great place to be a hunter, but it's also just as good of a place to die.

Those sneaky sneaky things in particular, you know the ones I'm talking about.

[Miradus]

The grey forest is just so underdeveloped as part of the game. I LOVE it there. And there's "safer" spots buried within. But it is ridiculously unforgiving. You can't lag, lose connection, or get dismounted.

I'm not sure why I prefer the north, actually. I started the game in the south, fell off the shield wall at one point with one character, and made my way to Luir's. From there I started mapping and that was the first place I learned. So after that I always just played in the north.

[Jihelu]

Shields save lives.

[Pale Horse]

Wasn't it also pointed out that mobs have a range of attributes with which they can randomly spawn?  The same critter you might have been able to avoid or "get out dodge" quickly enough when they came into the same room with you could, conceivably, be able to catch you next time if it's a new mob which got a higher score in agility than the last one you faced.

[Miradus]

My takeaway from this is that nothing is safe.

[Pale Horse]

My takeaway from this is that nothing is safe.

That's a great attitude to keep with you when you're wandering the Known.

[Miradus]

Heh. Yeah, suppose so. But I've found that MOST insta-death can be mitigated.

That instahit though? Still accounts for an unreasonable amount of my deaths.

[Molten Heart]

.

[BrokenRomance]

It's my personal experience that most anything from the Grey is like that. They are, even when they're the same, vastly different beasts from other areas where they roam.

Ever messed with a Grey Forest gortok? They'll hunt you like a bloodhound. You can ride an ox an escape a scrubland gortok though. That's just the way the Grey Forest is. Personally, I like it that way. It's a huge potential resource area that is kept unexplored because of the fact it's ten times more dangerous than most anywhere else.

[Miradus]

The reward is entirely RP though. There is not enough there (that I know of) to justify the risk. You can chop wood just as good right outside of Morin's or pick flowers just as valuable anywhere else in the area.

I had a mind once to make a "Tarzan" type character who lives purely in the forest but the game mechanics don't really support it.

[Armaddict]

The reward is entirely RP though. There is not enough there (that I know of) to justify the risk. You can chop wood just as good right outside of Morin's or pick flowers just as valuable anywhere else in the area.

I had a mind once to make a "Tarzan" type character who lives purely in the forest but the game mechanics don't really support it.

I feel ya.  There actually were special sort of applications for characters like this in the distant past (though I'm not sure if this one in particular would have been possible) but I think those were phased out because it was so easy to mistake it for preferential treatment (I once had someone call me an immpet because I was allowed to make a human outside of the normal height range.  I never expected such a small thing to incur such an amount of hatred out of a dude.)

Some of us come up with 'quirky' things like this on our own, but really, that comes down to knowing how the code works so that you can make it work.  I don't mean that in the way of 'OoooOOoo, keep it secret!', but as in you have to be comfortable with the way things behave in the game, how code interacts with certain things, etc, so that you can make the concept work not perfectly, but well enough to be roleplayed out.  This is, sadly, an area that can't really be fixed; I know that a lot of newer players come in with fantastic ideas that just can't be implemented due to code, and by the time they know enough about the code to maybe be able to get it to work, they realize how hard it would be and ditch it.

[Miradus]

I may try it anyway someday. Just because it'll be fun for that 45 minutes before I die.

By far my biggest gripe about the range of characters is the crippling age penalties. As an older male, I find it insulting.

There probably could be some sort of special app considerations made if I submitted it as such ... for instance, since my character is going to be 60 years old, can you bump some skills up to represent that wisdom? However there's only a limited number of special apps per year. I hate to waste that.

In general, I have the creativity for a wide range of backgrounds and such but lack the game skill to keep them alive long enough to matter.

[RogueGunslinger]

Some critters get set to "run", making their delay shorter. Sometime you lag. Sometimes the server lags.

[solera]

I may try it anyway someday. Just because it'll be fun for that 45 minutes before I die.

By far my biggest gripe about the range of characters is the crippling age penalties. As an older male, I find it insulting.

There probably could be some sort of special app considerations made if I submitted it as such ... for instance, since my character is going to be 60 years old, can you bump some skills up to represent that wisdom? However there's only a limited number of special apps per year. I hate to waste that.

In general, I have the creativity for a wide range of backgrounds and such but lack the game skill to keep them alive long enough to matter.

Well my first oldie PC , I was pretty insulted, you know the line, "this game was coded by a bunch of teenage nerds".
I mean , for kraths sake, I work with 70+ year olds that  don't need to sit down every half hour.

Since then, meh. The price paid for being superwoman at age 35.

[Kryos]

Back to the topic:  I've had a few discussions on this topic with staff.  It is not a bug, it is a feature working as intended.  You can do it to others, too, by the way.