Aggressive Following - Legit or Code Abuse?

[whitt]

If three raiders are following you, there's absolutely no reason why you should be able to "unhitch all" and then spam movement commands, knowing that reaction time and latency will be on your side.

I just want to be sure I understand the thought here.  It's sketchy to unhitch folks following you, but not at all sketchy to allow "aggressive follows"?  Which allows followers to unerringly pursue their stalkee without any skill required, potentially through guarded gates they should not have been otherwise able to pass, potentially benefitting from skills their stalkee might have to navigate terrain/weather that are allowed to benefit followers when they otherwise might not be able to, and with no recourse for the stalkee.

I'd be tempted to file a player complaint if you used follow this way as an abuse of code.

[nauta]

I'm sure Synth can defend the idea better, but here's a crack at it.

1) Under the assumption there is some way to unhitch legitimate minions (e.g., nosave unhitch)...

2) If a raider follows you, you can still do (a) flee self (which is a coded skill check) and (b) outrun them (which is a coded something check).

I can certainly see cases where popping on 'follow', 'watch' are the first two commands a raider would pop on when they come on you.  Seems fair, granted how easy it is to just spam walk east.  It certainly would make battles in the sand more exciting.

[whitt]

I can certainly see cases where popping on 'follow', 'watch' are the first two commands a raider would pop on when they come on you.  Seems fair, granted how easy it is to just spam walk east.  It certainly would make battles in the sand more exciting.

I would buy this if Follow was a skill like Watch is.  Watch [person] doesn't guarantee success or allow you bypass coded barriers like follow does.

Someone mentioned a chase skill, that would work as an alternative.

It's already twinkish to me if you walk into a "room" on the Salt Flats, for instance, and punch follow and watch or just straight up initiate combat like an aggro-NPC without even emoting your arrival first.

Yes the spam walk is real.  Abusing code shouldn't be the solution.

[BadSkeelz]

If I'm not mistaken, it's already possible to lose people in your follow-train if you move through rooms too fast. What if we made that easier to do, so that someone running (or on a running mount) is much more likely to lose their followers? I don't know how it currently works of course, but I wonder if it's checking the leader's movespeed or Ride skill against that of the followers. I know my half-elf characters would leave humans behind on a semi-regular basis just by walk-spamming. I've done it while mounted too, although not as frequently.

Ride skill would make for a convenient skill check. A grebber with good rider would be able to outrun three raiders with poor ride on their mount.

Movespeed is a little more problematic since we can't train up how fast our characters walk or run.

Alternatively just slap a hefty delay on any sort of "Unhitch all" command so that it's more practical to use the riskier countermeasures that Nauta's already lined out.

[Delirium]

I'm just glad someone's out there making the salt flats dangerous.

Flee self is the command you're looking for. You can even tack an emote onto it!

[BadSkeelz]

Flee self (shooing all his minions away)

Shooing all his minions away, the tall muscular Templar runs into his office

[Delirium]

I mean for cases like the OP is describing, Skeelz... OBVIOUSLY GOSH

[nauta]

Flee self (shooing all his minions away)

Shooing all his minions away, the tall muscular Templar runs into his office

Code Select Expand


The keen-eyed templar attempts to flee.
The keen-eyed templar tries to climb, but slips.
As the keen-eyed templar falls, she lands on her neck!


[Molten Heart]

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[Synthesis]

If three raiders are following you, there's absolutely no reason why you should be able to "unhitch all" and then spam movement commands, knowing that reaction time and latency will be on your side.

I just want to be sure I understand the thought here.  It's sketchy to unhitch folks following you, but not at all sketchy to allow "aggressive follows"?  Which allows followers to unerringly pursue their stalkee without any skill required, potentially through guarded gates they should not have been otherwise able to pass, potentially benefitting from skills their stalkee might have to navigate terrain/weather that are allowed to benefit followers when they otherwise might not be able to, and with no recourse for the stalkee.

I'd be tempted to file a player complaint if you used follow this way as an abuse of code.

The problem is that spamwalking nearly always defeats manually following by entering direction commands (assuming same base walking speed, obviously), because of the nature of latency and reaction time.  If it were reasonably possible to successfully manually follow someone, this wouldn't be an issue.  As long as you or your mount has stamina points, "unhitch" is essentially a form of magick:  you can spam movement commands with zero latency between movements, because they're stacked, but the follower has to wait for you to move, then input a command, doubling their server ping every movement, and it doesn't take long for that latency+reaction time to build up to the point where they've now moved multiple rooms away from you and you have no chance of keeping up, because now not only do you have to input a movement command, you also have to input multiple look commands, wait for the output, then input a movement command.

The onus of losing a tail should be on the leader, not the follower, because following after someone (when you are presumably moving at the same speed) is a simple task.  Assuming same speed and same stamina, it is a trivial task to follow someone walking in a straight line.  "Losing" a tail implies some sort of active effort, and thus the onus is on the leader.  It should not be possible to lose a tail by default simply because of the physics of internet communication.

[Riev]

Codedly, would the situation be alleviated if the Unhitch command came with, say, a 5-6 second timer delay? So if you use unhitch, or even unhitch all, it takes you a moment to "get away"? Otherwise, you can flee self and run to achieve the same results in a raider situation?

[chrisdcoulombe]

This is a non issue.

[Armaddict]

Following someone is a personal action. You have chosen to follow and must be stopped.

Unhitching is an action that, used in this way, stops the action with no real reason for why that's possible.

Badskeelz has proposed the best solution (even though unhitch all has been expressed by nessalin as only working on mounts). If something arose where unhitch could be used in this way, attach a delay to it.

However, there is a thread where stealth/shadow was discussed where I'd like things to move closer to. Set a follow distance...longer distance is more secure, but requires use of watch. Dynamic follow could add a lot to hunter/hunted scenarios.

[whitt]

The onus of losing a tail should be on the leader, not the follower, because following after someone (when you are presumably moving at the same speed) is a simple task.  Assuming same speed and same stamina, it is a trivial task to follow someone walking in a straight line.  "Losing" a tail implies some sort of active effort, and thus the onus is on the leader.  It should not be possible to lose a tail by default simply because of the physics of internet communication.

You had me up until this part.  Tailing someone is definitely not a simple task, when travelling over desert sands, with dunes, full of other grebbers and desert traffick, or through city streets or the bazaar where any number of distractions can and would get in the way.  Heck.  Just following someone that -does- know you're following them can be difficult.  In the codely empty one dimensional text of the MUD?  Maybe.

I'm not saying their shouldn't be a coded way to do it.  Just that Follow (because of all the reasons I noted above) shouldn't be that way.  Does Shadow only work if you're hidden?  That would seem the more likely choice... or the chase command, which would function like follow, but not bypass things like Direction Sense or guarded gates.

Also, I'm with you that spamwalking to avoid an interaction is just as complaint worth.

[Synthesis]

Codedly, would the situation be alleviated if the Unhitch command came with, say, a 5-6 second timer delay? So if you use unhitch, or even unhitch all, it takes you a moment to "get away"? Otherwise, you can flee self and run to achieve the same results in a raider situation?

Yeah, that could work, as long as "follow" doesn't have a delay on it.  Once you re-followed, it would be clear to the "leader" that they are going to have to do something substantial to get you away from them.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Synthesis]

The onus of losing a tail should be on the leader, not the follower, because following after someone (when you are presumably moving at the same speed) is a simple task.  Assuming same speed and same stamina, it is a trivial task to follow someone walking in a straight line.  "Losing" a tail implies some sort of active effort, and thus the onus is on the leader.  It should not be possible to lose a tail by default simply because of the physics of internet communication.

You had me up until this part.  Tailing someone is definitely not a simple task, when travelling over desert sands, with dunes, full of other grebbers and desert traffick, or through city streets or the bazaar where any number of distractions can and would get in the way.  Heck.  Just following someone that -does- know you're following them can be difficult.  In the codely empty one dimensional text of the MUD?  Maybe.

I'm not saying their shouldn't be a coded way to do it.  Just that Follow (because of all the reasons I noted above) shouldn't be that way.  Does Shadow only work if you're hidden?  That would seem the more likely choice... or the chase command, which would function like follow, but not bypass things like Direction Sense or guarded gates.

Also, I'm with you that spamwalking to avoid an interaction is just as complaint worth.

I'm not talking about being stealthy or unseen, or whatever.  I'm talking about riding directly behind someone in the middle of the damn salt flats.  Hand-waving about "oh, there are obstacles" or "oh, there's a crowd" is a bunch of bull, because the underlying explanation is the physics of data transfer, and that almost always favors the leader (with the one exception being if your connection is absolutely heinous).

[Pale Horse]

Add a timer that prevents someone from "following" a target with which they've recently engaged in combat is the only suggestion I'd have for the posted issue.

As far as the advantage given to the fleeing character...I don't have a good solution.  It's a code limitation that you can't natural see movement in the distance without "watching" and that there's no diagonal movement in the code system the game uses, which would allow the pursuer to better track their target.

[Molten Heart]

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[Synthesis]

Add a timer that prevents someone from "following" a target with which they've recently engaged in combat is the only suggestion I'd have for the posted issue.

As far as the advantage given to the fleeing character...I don't have a good solution.  It's a code limitation that you can't natural see movement in the distance without "watching" and that there's no diagonal movement in the code system the game uses, which would allow the pursuer to better track their target.

The posted hypotheticals aren't a following issue, they're a gate-guard issue or a player complaint issue.  If someone is spam-following you through a clan gate, while you're in front of a gate guard and telling them to fuck off, that's obvious abuse, and if they take it any further, you can wish up to address it.  I suppose you could come up with a code solution to address this, but it would presumably be more elegant than completely nerfing the ability to follow anyone, anywhere, at any time (assuming equal movement speed).

[Brytta Léofa]

Create a "chase" command to signify hostile following. Chasing someone through a guarded gate (that they're allowed through and you're not) auto-initiates combat with the guard.

[Black]

I dislike people that follow like that on any MUD, so something to make it harder for folk to do unless they know the leader's mind makes sense. Like the leader deciding to run, and follow auto-setting you on walk-mode so if they run and leave you behind then they have time to do that.

[chrisdcoulombe]

I they follow you through a clan gate just type this to solve the problem..  Kill man.

[Riev]

Tangential but related:

I wish clan/gate guards worked like innkeepers with back rooms. Allow clanned people through without question, but if ANYONE not clanned is following, force them to use the "rent self <person>" code to let them be allowed to pass. Otherwise they are blocked.

[valeria]

I have never once had a random visible person in the desert start following me for no reason. If they did, I would feel completely justified in unhitching them before I left (if I didn't just 'flee self' in the first place).

Follow to me has always implied a consensual followee/follower relationship. It echoes to the person being followed. And unhitch echoes to the person being unhitched. I don't have to LET anyone follow me that I don't want to.

If you have popped on watch as well as follow, you can very easily see where people are going.

I wouldn't mind a nonconsensual follow skill, like "chase." I'd argue that at high levels it should even follow someone THROUGH a flee self.

[TheGoose]

This is a non issue.

[Armaddict]

There should be no 'nope' button for unwanted followers, the same where there isn't in a real life scenario.  There are methods in place that allow you to try and shake your attacker.  One is overwhelmingly effective but with a tiny bit of risk (flee self).  But as in real life, you're left with the options of shake them, trick them, report them to someone who can do something about it, or confront them.

There's no way to consider it code abuse.  It's using the code in place for its expressed purpose.  HOWEVER.  It is gimmicky.  There have been threads about stealth where we discussed 'shadow' versus 'follow', and I really think a more dynamic follow that requires the watch skill and establishes a 'follow' range (two rooms away, safer, less chance of detection than one room away, but 'watch' failure results in space being gained by the followee) should altogether be on the list of implementations, along with some sort of consent for following (AFTER that other dynamic hostile follow is in place).

[Miradus]

It's already twinkish to me if you walk into a "room" on the Salt Flats, for instance, and punch follow and watch or just straight up initiate combat like an aggro-NPC without even emoting your arrival first.

Don't worry, mate. There will be time for roleplay when you are incapped and have given OOC consent.

Oh there WILL be roleplay.

[Synthesis]

Apparently, someone somewhere in the world is using the follow command for PvP. I've never seen it. It hadn't even occurred to me to use it that way 'till now.

Flee self can be used to get rid of said raiders. I don't really see why having a less immersion-breaking command to lose friendly followers would affect anything. It'd just allow us to stop dragging people around on accident, which happens far more than some hypothetical raider scenario.

This thread is dumb.

Nobody uses follow in PvP because it's useless in PvP, as currently coded, because you can simply type 'unhitch' with a stacked movement command, and that's the end of it.  That is...kind of the problem, as I see it.  It's magick.  "I'm following you."  "No you're not."  Unhitching someone is practically powergaming unless they're linkdead or just utterly not paying attention.  If you catch someone shadowing you and you unhitch them, I'd be tempted to consider that to be abuse of code--except in edge cases where they're about to follow you through a guarded door or whatever.  If movement delay were increased by a fair amount, it wouldn't be an issue, but when running in most places, on most mounts, latency and reaction time slowly adds up to be greater than movement delay, and the leader always wins.

Ultimately though, this is something that is only going to be resolved by slowing movement WAAAY down, and implementing an intra-room location coordinate system like Accursed Lands.  I think the reason so many people are reacting viscerally to this without giving it the thought it deserves is because of the ambiguity regarding the "nearness" of a follow.  Codewise, within a second of being in the same room as someone, you may as well be standing RIGHT NEXT TO THEM BREATHING DOWN THEIR NECK, and yeah, that's stupid...so of course the initial reaction is to not want to increase the likelihood of being the victim in that scenario, because nobody wants to be the loser in someone else's story.  So yeah, most people don't want to lose their magick escape button, but that doesn't mean the escape button either a) makes any sort of realistic sense or b) is good game design (regardless of how long it's been like this).

Obviously, implementing a within-room grid and slowing down movement would be a massive code undertaking that probably is never going to happen.  However, a decent interim step is to allow someone to hard-codedly follow whoever they want, unless the leader takes some sort of realistic action to evade.  You could still break follow with a flee self and run, you could still take advantage of being faster or being on a faster mount, etc. etc.  I'm not saying that you should be permanently shackled to whoever decides to follow you, no matter what, but I get the feeling that this is how the idea is mistakenly being received.

So, to make it clearer:  shaking someone who is intentionally trying to follow you ought to require some kind of coded check to determine whether the leader is in fact capable of shaking them.  It should not be assumed that because distance was created that creating distance was reasonable.  Possible checks:  base speed, agility, encumbrance vs. encumbrance, stamina vs. stamina, hide/sneak skills vs. watch/scan skills, room population, room type (e.g. salt flats vs. grey forest), ride skill, mount speed/size/agility, magickal effects, equipment effects, guild/subguild bonuses to fleeing, guild/subguild bonuses to following, etc. etc. etc.

E.g. a city-elf pickpocket with AI agility at no problem encumbrance with full 120/120 stamina, guild-maxed sneak, hide, and flee, wearing footpads, in the bazaar would be virtually impossible to successfully follow.  Almost nobody should be able to follow this guy without some sort of magick or psionic tracking, unless they were evenly matched, and even then I would be perfectly fine with there being a consistent bias in favor of the fleeing party, as long as it wasn't egregious.

E.g. A city-elf assassin/protector with AI agility at no problem encumbrance with full 110/110 stamina, and guild-maxed watch and scan should be able to tail virtually anyone, anywhere in the city that isn't behind a guarded door/gate.  Few people should be able to "simply" shake this guy--it's going to require some sort of expertise.  He's fast, he's light, the city is his oyster, and if you want him off your ass, you're going to have to -do something- about it.

[lostinspace]

I have both tried to follow someone I was chasing, and been follow spammed before while running away.

In the first case I was trying to catch a pickpocket, they just unhitched and ran away.

In the second every time I unhitched they instantly followed again, so I guess they just queued up a bunch of "follow listinspace" commands and followed me again as soon as I unhitched.

This does seem pretty minor, but I just want to point out that this has happened in game and can be pretty immersion breaking.

[SuchDragonWow]

I'm with Synthesis on this one.  If you're being followed, the onus is on you to no longer be followed.  You can run and hope you're faster.  Seems legit.  You can try to lose the tail and hope you don't get lost.  Flee self.  You can try to hide, and hope they can't find you.  But just unhitching some guy who is following you feels lame and metagamey.  That ain't how it works, folks (except when it is).

[Inks]

Would you rather raiders use shadow? There is 0 difference codedly.

You seem to be complaining about raiders who want to rp with you rather than kill/ charge/ shoot man. Shadow and follow are completely legitimate tools, if someone is following you, and you turn around and say no, it won't stop them following you. The code works well for realism, in this way, barring unhitch.


This is a non-issue. If you want to lose a tail flee is the coded response. Synthesis is spot on with his spiel there.

[whitt]

Would you rather raiders use shadow? There is 0 difference codedly.

You seem to be complaining about raiders who want to rp with you rather than kill/ charge/ shoot man. Shadow and follow are completely legitimate tools, if someone is following you, and you turn around and say no, it won't stop them following you. The code works well for realism, in this way, barring unhitch.


This is a non-issue. If you want to lose a tail flee is the coded response. Synthesis is spot on with his spiel there.

First?  Yes.  Use the shadow code.  Folks can't unhitch you if you're shadowing.  So you're right, it's a non-issue.  Stop using Follow to Shadow.

And no.  What the unhitch folks are saying is that 99% of the time follow is being used it has nothing to do with raiders or pickpockets or anyone in a remotely aggressive way.  It's to lead a group of folks around from point A to point B.   And when you get to point B, being able to drop them off there, potentially in a room full of <keywords> without needing to remember everyone in the gaggle of follower, type key . and unhitch <every single keyword there> to go get the next bunch of folks you need to go pick up.

If I was worried about the 1% situation Synthesis is talking about?  And I wanted to stop a raider from using the follow code to follow me?  I would just type unhitch <raider>, follow <raider>.  Now the raider can't follow me, because I'm already following them.  Brilliant right?  Code as intended right?  Then spam movement commands.  But I wouldn't because (a) that's not how I respond to other folks wandering into a room I'm in and (b) that's even more abusive of the follow code which is useful for soooo many other things.

Back to the first point.  If you want to aggressively follow someone.  Use Shadow.  Alternatively, introduce the chase skill suggested above to follow someone that doesn't want to be followed if for some reason the Shadow skill is unacceptable.

[Dar]

You're standing in a middle of the open area. A comes in closer to you and tells you that he will follow you no matter what.   How would you possibly stop him? You can turn around and run. That's flee self. You can knock him out. That's kill man. You can attack him, reel him to give him a delay, and then flee self. That's both kill and flee self.

unhitch all is an equivalent of you turning around, beginning to walk, and finding it unfair that he dares to follow you after all. 

It Makes No Sense.


What do you do if you're about to enter an apartment and a strange dude comes up behind you, clearly intend on walking into your place alongside you. What do you do? Tell him you've unhitched him?

If you unhitch someone whom you dont want to follow you and they refollowed. Well guess what, they ARE aggressively following you, despite your wishes. At this point you can either switch to run and run until they lose track of you. That's already in the code. And that's one code that Celves are codedly good at.  Or you can trick them, or hide, or bring them to a militia and have them arrested. Or you can knock them out.  There is no realistic real life equivalent of unhitch all, when someone is bent on following you no matter what.

It only becomes abuse, if someone continues to do this in order for you to drive them through the guard. In which case you should definitely wish up and report. If this is a compound, just bring him into the compound and kill the guy. Every surrounding NPC will help destroy him.  If the guy is indeed trying to get past a apartment guard, you can deal with it like a dude trying to get through the locked door of an apartment building. You've opened it because you live there, someone is trying to follow you in, and ... you either do not want him and raise a stink, or ... dont give a shit.

[whitt]

unhitch all is an equivalent of you turning around, beginning to walk, and finding it unfair that he dares to follow you after all. 

It Makes No Sense.

And why wouldn't you use Shadow for this?

[Miradus]

I think a lot of the (city side anyway) bitching about people using follow isn't particularly people using follow.

It's people using shadow and FAILING.

A lot of times I've thought, "Ha, I'll shadow this person somewhere and kill/spy/pickpocket them." And about four rooms down the street it's "You notice: A doe-eyed, wealthy noble's aide turns and looks at you."

DOH.

There's probably an equal number of times I failed shadow but the dingledork had just spammed directions and didn't realize I was on their tail until they reached their destination (a closed room) and the magical stick of mischief got etwo'd.

They look at scrollback and say, "Hey! No fair! He used follow!"

[Armaddict]

I'm kind of at a loss, have I missed something huge?

As far as I've ever noticed, shadow and follow work mechanically the same aside from the follow message while visible.  So I don't know...why that's...such a tremendous thing, here.

[whitt]

I'm kind of at a loss, have I missed something huge?

As far as I've ever noticed, shadow and follow work mechanically the same aside from the follow message while visible.  So I don't know...why that's...such a tremendous thing, here.

To the best of my knowledge you can't unhitch some one using shadow.

Which would mean unhitch all (to drop people using the follow command)  would not hinder people aggressively tailing folks, as long as they use Shadow.

[whitt]

I think a lot of the (city side anyway) bitching about people using follow isn't particularly people using follow.

It's people using shadow and FAILING.

Honestly?  No.

It's about moving groups of people (like a Byn sergeant for one example returning from a ride or an aide shepherding people inside a Noble's estate) and needing to unhitch everyone before you can run to the next thing you have to do.  That's what it's about.  And it's not even bitching, it's saying, "Hey, being able to do this all at once would be awesome".

I can honestly say it never occurred to me to use follow to chase someone, until folks brought it up.

[SuchDragonWow]

Maybe allow unhitch all for people and add a nosave follow.

[WithSprinkles]

Eh, like I said somewhere else before, I've had folks hitch up randomly while I was standing around or moving through town and I've stopped completely, emoted a turn and stared deeply into their ocular sockets before unhitching them and emoting a step back. Usually before I can type out a question as to why they're so close, they've run off with no response. Folks seem to go away if you're all like:



So.. eh. I'm not gonna flail like a muppet and run away if someone hitches to me in the Gaj. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. The sands, I might evaluate other options. It's all about circumstance. If a thief wants to cling to your ass while walking through the city, guide your new found companion to a soldier and introduce them, I dunno. Friendship is Magic!

What does it matter anyway? For all you know, at any given time of the day we're all leading our own mile-long string of pantomiming, lip-synching street performers. You only saw the person who MESSED UP.

[Inks]

Unhitch is twinky in the open, follow isn't.

[TheGoose]

I'm showing this thread to girls, and they're laughing at all of you.



It made me look cooler by comparison, and now they're all my girlfriends. All of them. That's how lame this thread is.

/shitposting

[chrisdcoulombe]

I'm showing this thread to girls, and they're laughing at all of you.



It made me look cooler by comparison, and now they're all my girlfriends. All of them. That's how lame this thread is.

/shitposting

lol

[valeria]

And... this just became a nonissue.  LOVE IT.

[Lizzie]

Thanks Nessalin, glad you thought this thread had good ideas in it!

Now to start a thread about implementing electricity so we can make frozen pina coladas in game...
"-my needs are few." Lizzie

[nessalin]

I'm kind of at a loss, have I missed something huge?

As far as I've ever noticed, shadow and follow work mechanically the same aside from the follow message while visible.  So I don't know...why that's...such a tremendous thing, here.

To the best of my knowledge you can't unhitch some one using shadow.

Which would mean unhitch all (to drop people using the follow command)  would not hinder people aggressively tailing folks, as long as they use Shadow.

You could, before.  Shadow/Follow were identical except for messages sent leader/shadower.  Unhitch worked on shadowers if you could see the shadower (meaning they failed a hide check).

[Harmless]

This is a pretty cool command, this chase thing, as it attempts to prevent command-spamming as a mud combat mechanism, thank goodness. That sounded downright silly. I never really spammed follow in a chase attempt before, and now I likely won't use it on anything but maybe fleeing mobs, and that sounds risky to me, but if the people wanted it, and they got it, that's cool. I take a more passive approach to PK myself.

My question is when I have to "flee self" and therefore run in a codedly random direction, to escape a follower, is there any way to control which direction I "flee self" in?

"flee self w" would attempt a flee even though not in combat, and try to steer you west. (a flee check fail means you might go in another direction).

Is this possible?

BTW, could we add a bit in the "Chase" helpfile about using "flee self" to get away from it? I never knew that "flee self" had actual function before, and someone might think to type 'help chase' when trying to figure out how to escape someone, and may not know the coded command to escape this new code feature. Thank you if you do and thanks again for another code addition!

[nauta]

My question is when I have to "flee self" and therefore run in a codedly random direction, to escape a follower, is there any way to control which direction I "flee self" in?

Great change.  It also looks as if you can shake a chaser by climbing.  The flee self stuff is in 'help flee', but I agree it might well be added to help chase too.

The short of an answer is that, no, flee self is no directional.  However, IIRC, there /was/ a change to flee self that disabled fleeing up, which resulted in some silly results.  So fleeing in a random direction strikes me as a great risk to the reward of shaking a tail.  (You can also try to outrun them [go erdlus!] or jump off a cliff/climb up a mountain.)

[Riev]

+1 to shaking a Militia tail by jumping off a rooftop onto a passing wagon.

[nessalin]

Certainly now that the code can determine the how of someone being followed we can work on things like, if not exactly, what has been suggested above.

Using hide/sneak skills on the person being chased as a way to elude their pursuer with the right, or new, commands.

Using the environment, such as populated rooms, to indicate a better chance of losing a chaser/shadower.


But also ways to strength the association of hitching/following as something that is done in tandem and with cooperation.  When leading someone through a crowd or the wilderness the leader definitely has to keep them in mind.  Some of the leader's bonuses to climb might even be applicable if you 'follow' someone into a climb room compared to if you are using 'chase'.

Plenty of fertile soil in this aspect of the game.

[Armaddict]

Cooooool. Dynamic chases incoming!

Will chase attempt to follow through flee? Maybe with watch? I really like the idea of watch involved due to the negative to perception of everything but your target. Ambushes!

Thanks for the quick implementation!

[whitt]

Thanks for the quick implementation!

+1 Very Cool!

[chrisdcoulombe]

I like what has been done, especially unhitching all followers.

[Inks]

Love it, thanks!

[WarriorPoet]

I'm just glad someone's out there making the salt flats dangerous.

More please.

[SuchDragonWow]

Bravo, nessalin.  I appreciate the nuance you've added to it.

[Rogerthat]

I really didn't read into it much... But.. You know when you're on that war-beetle and its following an Inix.. Then suddenly.. You get out-walked.. Wa-BAM eyes opened.