kill command: Instant attack or no?

[Harmless]

Buff watch. If you are watching someone, you get an echo if they type >kill, you are facing them and if standing, you back away as they approach, and or to position yourself in combat to be in a favorable situation for that first strike -- perhaps just giving a one-time bonus to dodge for the first round of attacks, or maybe codedly delaying the kill and giving you a few seconds to try to outright flee or draw a weapon. If you aren't watching them, no delay / no bonus to that first dodge.

Why do I care so much about this? Because a change like this will improve roleplay.

Think about it; if I knew that codedly a character could instantly kill me, why would I want to interact with them if there is even a chance that they would want to? If I instead knew I at least had a chance at escaping alive, I would hear what they had to say.

Therefore if approached by a raider, who wished to "parley", I would consider hearing or even complying with demands instead of being tempted to straight up run. If in the Gaj with a rinthi or dwarf I would have drinks at the bar if there was just one person I was worried about becoming abruptly murderous. It wouldn't help me if there were hidden assassins around, and so be it, that is what assassins train to do.

Here are ways one should still be able to get an insta-attack in say a raiding situation:

A.) Target is subdued or sitting and cannot back away
B.) Target is watching someone else or scanning
C.) Buff ranged weapons such as crossbows or bows with the "aim" command, where you have the ability to "fire" after aiming for an instantaneous release of the projectile
D.) Combat skills already mentioned, such as Bash which closes the distance too quickly for opponent to back away
E.) Stealthy engagement such as backstab or sap, which have a timer pre-delay but no echo


Sorry, not gonna drop how much I still think this insta-kill and one-hit reel lock BS drains RP possibilities for weak PCs interacting with dangerous ones. Not asking for an echo chamber but any idea in this thread could potentially help roleplay without asking us to do non-IC things like stand and hold a weapon at all times or ask us to take life and death risks just to get a little interaction.

[ShaLeah]

Why the hell would we want to make ArmageddonMUD safer?

This.
Kill should be an instant fight or flight adrenaline rush. I'm against any change in this code.

[Harmless]

I'll up the ante on my "aim" idea, to prove further that the point of my idea is not to "make armageddon safer" (which is ridiculous) but to improve roleplay and further make this game into a roleplay-intensive environment. See the full content of all my damn posts on this thread to see why I am getting at this, and no, this is not just a knee-jerk response to a griefer, I have had beefs with how >kill works for a long time and wished that aggression was more nuanced for a long time now, such as when I have been raided in the past.

Revised "aim" command:

With an optional toggle (nosave_aim), you will automatically fire and initiate combat if the character tries to flee or leave the room, immediately initiating combat with them.

(Conversely if the victim does flee/leave before aiming has completed, their chance to dodge will be better, to balance it out, but they will still be shot at).

In addition, the aiming person don't have much of a delay after firing the shot, so they can put away the ranged weapon and draw another melee one once combat has started.

Just remember, the ammo may be laced with poison.

Now, once a victim is "aimed" at, they really should think twice before avoiding RP; they know that a simple release of the bowstring or trigger of the crossbow will likely get them shot, so they are basically forced to roleplay with their raider.

Again, the whole purpose of all my ideas is to get people to want to interact with each other and bridge hostility, as opposed to there being a universal ability to one-hit stun/KO/reel lock someone. Aiming will not trigger the victim to want to just run off, because they know it'd risk consequences.


Alternative idea: One can broaden the "aim" command to a "holdup" command; it'd work with any weapon, ranged or melee; you point your weapon and close distance with them, or aim at them, whichever. As soon as this is typed, they cannot leave the area, flee or walk/run in any direction, or else they will be attacked, a la "kill." However, because the attack hasn't happened yet, it allows the victim to beg for mercy, roleplay their frustration, maybe call for help, whatever, or for the raider/aggressor to list their grievances or make their demands, i.e., ROLEPLAY.

I'd be fine with adding holdup, or aim, or hostage, or whatever you want to name this command, and just leaving >kill as is; it at least gives raiders and aggressors an option for a way to "lock in" their intent to harm a victim, but still give them the option to roleplay before the archaic combat code kicks in.

>disengage would cancel any intent to aim, or hold-up a victim and release them from the hostage situation.

Holdup/aim should not trigger crim-code, but clearly, aiming/holding someone up puts the attacker at some risk of being crimcoded if the victim tries to flee. the auto-attack could be toggled on or off as above. Also, maybe aiming/holding someone up can even give a slight BONUS to the first attack, in exchange for the downside that the victim received warning of the hostile intent. Therefore >kill is a little less advantageous compared to getting your weapon ready for a brutal first strike.

[Nao]

Alternative idea: One can broaden the "aim" command to a "holdup" command; it'd work with any weapon, ranged or melee; you point your weapon and close distance with them, or aim at them, whichever. As soon as this is typed, they cannot leave the area, flee or walk/run in any direction, or else they will be attacked, a la "kill." However, because the attack hasn't happened yet, it allows the victim to beg for mercy, roleplay their frustration, maybe call for help, whatever, or for the raider/aggressor to list their grievances or make their demands, i.e., ROLEPLAY.

I'd be fine with adding holdup, or aim, or hostage, or whatever you want to name this command, and just leaving >kill as is; it at least gives raiders and aggressors an option for a way to "lock in" their intent to harm a victim, but still give them the option to roleplay before the archaic combat code kicks in.

>disengage would cancel any intent to aim, or hold-up a victim and release them from the hostage situation.

Holdup/aim should not trigger crim-code, but clearly, aiming/holding someone up puts the attacker at some risk of being crimcoded if the victim tries to flee. the auto-attack could be toggled on or off as above. Also, maybe aiming/holding someone up can even give a slight BONUS to the first attack, in exchange for the downside that the victim received warning of the hostile intent. Therefore >kill is a little less advantageous compared to getting your weapon ready for a brutal first strike.

Part of what you're describing is in game with the threaten command, with the major difference that it doesn't guarantee an attack. I think it has a 35% chance of attack without the skill, more with the skill. I agree it would be cool to have this also work with ranged weapons, though.

[ShaLeah]

PK is infuriating sometimes. You spend x amount of time fleshing out a character only to have its life snuffed out like the insignificant peasant it is in the grand scheme of things. We want to know why. We want Oscar worthy performances. We want real world realism and fairness in a fantasy world that is ANYTHING but.  We want the code to force the player to act a certain way.
Ah, nirvana,  why do you forsake me?

PK, to me,  is one of those areas where that blood starts pumping,  that heart is pounding and those hands are shaking.  It makes for an intense time.  OP says it's not to make the world safer.  Doesn't matter if that's not their intent,  it IS what will happen.  Period. 

Code that forces someone into a stay of execution will do ONE thing I reeeeaaaallllly don't agree with and that's Waying, if I don't want people knowing it was me,  I'm not gonna let that happen.  Sorry,  Amos, not happenin'.

You can't force someone to roleplay how you think is worthy of a death scene.

I'm going to leave this here.


For the record? I'd be totally fine if a kill stall code was accompanied by an inability to use the Way.

[Brytta Léofa]

I'm a big fan of threaten and chase even though I haven't used them.

Threaten could be made to work with ranged weapons as well as melee, such that a successful threaten check (with bow+arrow/crossbow/sling/blowgun wielded) would cause you to shoot with reduced delay.

[Harmless]

I knew about chase but somehow didn't realize we had threaten. Maybe it needs some added features to further encourage its use. Maybe it needs to give a bonus to that first attack like I said, so that people don't keep feeling compelled to just type >kill. Maybe I should stop posting in this thread.

Btw. I know that this whole thread SEEMS like I recently lost a character because people like Shaleah and Vox keep posting these long winded condolences, arm is harsh, etc etc posts. Well, tough shit, my PC is alive and well. I am trying to improve PvP related RP here and nothing else.

[Miradus]

If you're not immune to crimcode and in the rinth, don't even try to use threaten.

It will trigger on weird things like pulling something from a backpack or standing up, and then you've got Seal Team Six Half-Giants rappelling in on you from the rooftops.

As a villainous villain, the only way to stay safe both IC and OOC is to ambush your victim and have them dead or unconscious. And it had better be quicker than they can type "look short/tall".

I once sapped a person unconscious while watching east on Caravan Way. THUMP, down they went in one hit. Stunned.

I'm busy pulling off their pack and like 20 seconds later I see:

Very Far to the east: A handsome studly man runs in from the east.
Far to the east: A handsome studly man runs in from the east.
East: A handsome studly man runs in from the east.
A handsome studly man has arrived from the east.
A handsome studly man says, "Get away from her now!"

A lot of these suggestions do not make it easier to protect our villainous behavior IC from the OOC cliques. And let's not pretend for one damn minute that they don't exist, aren't active, and aren't protected from on-high.

[Delirium]

If you spend time thinking about how OOC stuff is infringing on the game as a player you're gonna have a bad time.

You might as well give your sanity a break and just take everything as IC as possible. Not only will you have more fun, it will make the gameworld feel more seamless. Something seems weird? PLAY OUT THAT IT IS WEIRD. There are many possible reasons why various unlikely events or identifications might happen, some of them supernatural but totally in character.

Even griefers can be taken IC - yes, send in a player complaint if you think they're abusing the game, but as far as the IC ramifications, well, how many times have you heard the news IRL where someone was shot over seemingly minor things? Or someone just tripped on the stairs and killed themselves? At least we don't have a .0001% chance of just randomly dying while we're walking down the street because we got run over by a wagon.

If there are obvious OOC breaches of conduct, send in a player complaint.

[Miradus]

I couldn't agree more with that.

We play the game we've got, not the game we want.  Can't stop everything, so you just have to deal with what is.