On the existence of unblockable moves and players right to affect policy

[UnderSeven]

A long time ago I became aware that sometimes npcs will use procs, which is programs that are scripted to do an action outside of the standard code.  This can add color to the gaming world, but it can also add things which I have often questioned about the fairness of existence.

In combat this can mean ignoring the rules of the game world for an outcome otherwise not possible, such as an attack that ignores all stats, armor and skills of the character being attacked.  My question is two fold, one, how do we as players feel about potentials out there to ignore aspects of the game and balance that was put in place for the combat system and two, do we even have a say?  Clearly as it stands right now we do not, because players aren't given the option of vetting what staff build, in part on purpose but also as an artifact of how this game is made. But should players?

A lot of time and effort can be put into characters for them to be snatched by something that is in essence completely arbitrary and while death can often be, there is a question of playability and realism to consider as well. 

Anyway, just a question I thought I might bring up to the players of this game.

And before anyone goes to the ooc vs ic argument, I think that since I did not specify what and how any of this stuff works, I was as vague as possible, otherwise this is an impossible discussion to have and the game can break whatever rules it wants because players are not allowed to discuss game rules.  Therefore I disagree most vehemently with that argument. 

Feel free to flame or ban me as you see fit.

[Lizzie]

I think this is a situational and conditional thing. If it's something that exists according to the documents, but is not codedly possibly by players, then it seems a reasonable method to move plots and have the game world respond believably to the scene.

If it's not something that exists according to the documents, but the players are behaving in a way that also doesn't correspond with the documents, it might be a more believable reaction than simply "poofing" that character out of existence. In other words - if a player does something ridiculous, outrageous, abuses a bug in a way that creates IC drama - then I feel the staff would be doing everyone a favor by keeping the already ruined situation IC, and saying "this equally unbelievable thing showed up - we'll just call it a mutant, since mutants do happen, theoretically, and this thing killed that character."

A one-shot like that, I'm fine with. If it's done regularly, if it becomes the "go-to method" of solving IC situations, then I'd probably submit a request to the staff and ask what's up. They can answer or not, but they'd be aware that this player is bringing up what she believes to be a problem, and maybe they'll look into it and see if there's a point being made or not.

[UnderSeven]

You misunderstand. 

Say there is an npc, lets call it Doom guy.  And he uses combat code to attack, he spawns in the world at a spot.  You fight him.  In addition to combat code he has a proc that fires on a ten % chance per game tick.  This proc randomly rolls a die and on a 20% chance it does an attack to you that deals between x and y damage, applies an affect to you and removes a random amount of stun.

This attack doesn't consider your stats or skills or armor, it does not have a delay coded in so really bad luck and you could get hit by this successively on each tick.

This is the sort of thing I'm referring to.

Edit: And this is a tame example, say doom guy's ability basically one shot kills you.

Even if that doesn't exist, even if doom guys attack considers one of your stats, it does so arbitrarily and not based on the balance of combat code and furthermore maybe it ignores damage reduction due to armor completely despite the attack being physical.

This is what I mean, arbitrary coded attack procs.

[kahuna]

Kind of confused. Are you mad that mantis have 4 arms and you don't? I think PCs have plenty of advantages over NPCs so if they get some scripted attacks that are particularly devastating it might be best to avoid them or bring some friends next time? This is supposed to be a harsh setting so I'm all for the NPC world having special attacks that wreck the city dwelling humanoids that wear the skin of beasts dead relatives.

[UnderSeven]

I'm speaking about if players should have a say in how these things are built.

I'm further saying that such attacks should at least follow rules.

it doesn't bother me that meks and horrors exist, but it does bother me that a physical attack can ignore armor and delays and ability to defend.  I'm not that mad though, I can just stop playing this game.  This is kind of my point, just because you like it, or the staff who built it likes it does that mean we all have to sit down and shut up (as your post implies) or we're salty whiny babies (as your post also implies)?

This is the kind of attitude I think turns a lot of people off from this game and this community especially.  This elitism about harshness that cannot be questioned or discussed no matter how civil the one asking about it is.

[Heade]

You're being vague, so it's difficult to determine what, exactly, the situation you're describing is.

For instance, you speak as if you have intimate knowledge of the code. If you do, it would help if we knew that. If not, then it's possible that said NPC's mechanic does consider stats and skills in the equation, but that your skill/stat simply needs to be unusually high in order to avoid the mechanic.

Big bads exist in the game world. The documentation is full of them. Full on sorcerer's exist who can essentially bend reality to their will, and as a player I would expect them to be able to do things like you're describing. There are some things in the game world that just SHOULD completely wreck the vast majority of PCs.

To me, it sounds like you're referencing something in the game that isn't an everyday occurrence for most of the playerbase. So something that likely isn't in any of the major player centers of the game. And if that's the case, the outside world is specifically designed to be dangerous and unforgiving. Without such mechanics in place, a maxxed out fighter with good stats would be able to confidently go pretty much anywhere in the game without worry, and what fun is that for the player of said character? A game with no danger at all isn't much of a game. It's like playing a game with god mode turned on.

EDIT: And to answer your question: No, I don't think players should "vote" or otherwise have a say in the building of areas or NPCs in the game. A big part of this game is exploration and discovery. And, yes, it is extremely punishing to have a situation where it's nearly unwinable to go into an area by yourself. That is the nature of the game, and part of what keeps exploration both dangerous and appealing. Being able to finally manage to explore an area and find secrets that you haven't successfully explored on multiple other characters because of multiple character deaths in said area is a satisfying experience, even if the loss of those multiple characters in said area is not.

[Dar]

the problem with what you're talking about is information. People. Society, anyone needs information to truly be able to discuss, debate, and complain.

For example, currently I have no clue what so ever what the heck are you talking about. I genuinely cant think of any action that an npc does that deals unavoidable damage. Short of maybe the Gaj psi whip, but I've never encountered it.  edit: Actually ... maybe I do have an idea. You might've met a being whose power is second to Muk Utep/Tektolnes only. In which case ... you bet he killed you and no amount of skills and stats should help you.

But let's say it exists. It means that it's existence is so remote and rare, that most people need to seek it out to encounter it. Seeking things out is inherently dangerous. A player should be aware each time he seeks things out that they might die.

There was an instance a ... year ago? When a known raider was captured by Allanak and eventually tossed into the arena. The raider killed ... everything. That PC was so codedly powerful, that he killed the HGs, the Muls, the junky giths, the mantis, whatever else that was tossed at him. Eventually, the GMs had to echo vnpc archers shooting at him and drop his hp that way.

So. I can for example envision, that some creatures out there who are supposed to be deadly. Have scripts that ignore all skills and stats, to remain deadly. Because it is codedly possible to reach such heights in combat skills, that you're neigh unkillable in some VERY RARE instances.  You can say that that's the GMs fault and that they should balance the system so perfectly that players would be able to reach heights and not yet become immortal. And sure, it sort of, kind of works that way. Unless you put in an extraordinary amount of effort to go beyond it. In the end though, the game "should" be about the story more then just code. There are a lot of very powerful abilities out there that if used in a cunning way can easily let a single PC kill off every guard NPCs and become the king of the city!!! But the story isn't about that type of stuff.

Think of it as legendary actions for bosses in D&D at Critical role podcasts. I mean wtf, bad guys able to do actions inbetween other character turns and THEN act again when their turn comes? The fuck?


But aside theoretical aspects of it all. I've recently identified an aspect in code that was in my opinion totally whack. It was my personal opinion that it just really really should not be that way. Didnt take me very long to file in a request about it. What they will do about it? I dunno. If they genuinely think that it's how it's supposed to be, they'll leave as is. Or they might recode it. Whichever. But I cant discuss it and I dont want to discuss it, tbh. I myself think it shouldnt be that way, I dont really need the playerbase agreement on it. I just went to the people that actually made it and expressed my views. The actual change is up to them.   The decision to change it, or not is up to them.


Granted, there is such a thing as a weight of the many that can skew the decision in direction that the many desire. But in that case the 'many' need to be informed to express their opinion in a way that's worth in taking in account. If 99% of the playerbase are raving about something that they learned from in part obfuscated post and dont actually know what they're talking about, expressing guesses that are "way" off and to be honest, never themselves encountered the issue. It's hard to take it seriously. But if the problem is so paramount that many of them encountered it and it plagues them and dampens their enjoyment of play. Don't worry, we'll voice our opinion just fine. Many many times, in many weird ways.

[Lizzie]

What Dar says, I agree with. I'll add:

If this mysterious thing can't kill you, and you kill it, and it turns out that was the baddest, worst, horriblist coded entity that anyone can encounter, then you win the game. We shut the game down, because someone won it.

The end.

Is that what you want?


To answer the exact question asked, even though I think the question was only asked to make a point, and the above already addresses the point:

I think the staff already gets its ideas and suggestions from the playerbase, and implements based on a combination of "what seems to entertain the players most" and "what the primary function, scope, and theme of the game is," and "what the existing codebase will allow without having to shut down completely and re-write it from scratch."

[Namino]

Can I post a log of this phenomenon for people who are not familiar with this? I had a kryl that was incapable of hitting my character with auto attacks hit me with nine ticks in a row of a script, lol.

So obviously I think these scripts need to be seriously considered.

I had Rathustra check the code and obstensively it's working as intended. But it was just poorly designed. It totally makes zero sense. The kryl stabs at you and misses infinitely but then it stabs at you with *jaaaaazz hands* and suddenly it can't miss any of its jazz hands stabs. Also does wonders for invalidating any sense of progression to your character's growth.

[ScramblesForPurchase]

It'd be nice if there was some kind of "challenge rating " assigned to creatures with such death skills so that fighting them could at the least give you a chance to gain some defense or something as a reward for not dying. You could fight certain things multiple times and never get hit or have them dodge then it's script of doom pow mantis head.

[Riev]

Many scripts that were designed, were done in a way that didn't call any game code into effect at all. Namino's example of a kryl attack, is one such script. No matter what your personal stats were, the script was just something that happened. Deal 10 damage Namino. No defense, no parry, nothing.

I personally don't think they have a place in the game at all, as even a top-tier Vecna-like god could miss an attack if you took the dodge action (etc etc).

Last I knew, a lot of these were being reconfigured to take the game and characters' stats into consideration. However, not all have.

[Dar]

Ohhh. I remember those. But they rarely were insta kill type stuff. I find it pretty meh, but not enough to really give a shit. It's more of a mechanism that's ment to make sure that only groups of people wonder into the forest, instead of high skill indies

[Namino]

I fought a different kryl once that missed me perpetually with its damage dealing auto attacks but by the time i had killed it, I was naked because it had scripted all of my very expensive armor off.

It couldn't kill me.

But it could make me poor.

D:

[ScramblesForPurchase]

I fought a different kryl once that missed me perpetually with its damage dealing auto attacks but by the time i had killed it, I was naked because it had scripted all of my very expensive armor off.

It couldn't kill me.

But it could make me poor.

D:

Merchant house kyrl sponsorship confirmed.

[Brokkr]

Scripts are individually crafted, rather than running off a single combat type simulator for results.  So what gets taken into account varies dramatically.  A particular script may or may not take into account stats, defense, skills, etc.  It is highly unlikely a script will take into account more than a couple of these, and should not be an expectation at all that it will behave in the way melee combat behaves.

Scripts are typically the things specific to that creature that they can do beyond normal combat, because of the natural abilities, size or other specifics of the creature in question.  They can range from mildly annoying to absolutely deadly.

Just because it doesn't work on the same exact mechanics as the melee combat code doesn't make it unfair.  Our standard is more along the lines of "does it make sense" rather than "is this the same amount of fairness as the combat code".

[Halcyon]

I doubt anyone is complaining about hunting tandu or scrab, here.    The high end monsters need to be differentiated by something more than just higher aggregate accuracy, defense, and damage dealing.   I'd also point out that many of these scripts do have defenses or counters, but they are not always obvious, and some classes simply dont get all of the defenses.

Some of the special attacks could be redesigned to be more fun, but I have also repeatedly seen other players die to top tier monsters on low and mid tier skill pcs.   Some places on the map are just really dangerous, and some resources are very risky to try to collect, much less repeatedly harvest.

[Riev]

Sorry, what I'm reading is:

We don't have consistency in our scripting, but if you think its unfair, it probably is. Too bad.

When what I'm sure you meant was:

Scripts are an on-going, but low-priorty, project and unfortunately not all of them are in line with the expectations of the game as it relates to combat.


Because there's no way staff are purposefully creating a script that will automatically hit with an attack "because someone thinks it makes sense". Which brings back the OP's wonderment of "who gets input on what makes sense?"

I'm hoping it is, in DnD terms, that a mage can cast a Cone of Acid at you, and its going to hit you, even if they themselves can't hit you with a dagger. You were in the cone, you're going to get hit. But at least DnD has reflex saves, or a way to not just trigger that cone of acid every turn.

[tapas]

There are still a few examples of instant death rooms/npc's throughout the gameworld.

A common example are the beetles around redstorm who can hit you for bonkers damage -- if they can hit you. Certain effects caused by players can also make these creatures 10x more dangerous by flipping them into run mode so they could potentially run into a room and kill a player before you could even type out a reaction.

I've mentioned this to staff a few times but it's never been fixed.

[Namino]

In addition, the pacing of the scripts is incredibly inconsistent even within a single script.

Fight a kryl and it uses it scripts once a minute.

Fight the same type of kryl 30 seconds later and it hits you with 8 in the same time period.

Based on this behavior it's clear there is a x% chance each combat tick that the script fires. I would encourage an alternate approach of increasing that percentage while simultaneously placing a longer cooldown between uses in order to make the variance less egregious. The cooldown prevents it from mass spam due to random chance, and the higher proc percentage prevents a deficit of usage by the creature by random chance in the other direction. The ability for creatures to literally SWARM SPAM script abilities at beakneck speed if you got unlucky was my major gripe as well as their disregard of player characteristics.

And special attacks can have higher hit rates. But if someone has 100% dodge rate against a normal attack and a 30% dodge rate against a special attack, you've gone too far in the opposite direction and made your creature's performance inconsistent enough to rupture immersion.

[mansa]

It's like a call to invoke a melee combat strike success/failure check before applying a special condition.

Interesting.

[Brokkr]

Sorry, what I'm reading is:

We don't have consistency in our scripting, but if you think its unfair, it probably is. Too bad.

When what I'm sure you meant was:

Scripts are an on-going, but low-priorty, project and unfortunately not all of them are in line with the expectations of the game as it relates to combat.


Because there's no way staff are purposefully creating a script that will automatically hit with an attack "because someone thinks it makes sense". Which brings back the OP's wonderment of "who gets input on what makes sense?"

I'm hoping it is, in DnD terms, that a mage can cast a Cone of Acid at you, and its going to hit you, even if they themselves can't hit you with a dagger. You were in the cone, you're going to get hit. But at least DnD has reflex saves, or a way to not just trigger that cone of acid every turn.

Lets say I am in melee combat and I whip out a magick missile to your face.  Does the magick missile follow the same rules as normal melee combat?  No.  Should someone expect it to?  No.  So don't think of the scripts as an extension of melee combat, think of them as something different, like magick.  Or archery.  Or backstab.  All of which work differently from melee and differently from each other.

I assumed you realized that a number of scripts don't include any visible indicators when you save.  Whether you pass a combat check, stat check, resistance check...that is usually silent.  So many of them do have checks, you just never see a negative outcome.

[Namino]

Sorry, what I'm reading is:

We don't have consistency in our scripting, but if you think its unfair, it probably is. Too bad.

When what I'm sure you meant was:

Scripts are an on-going, but low-priorty, project and unfortunately not all of them are in line with the expectations of the game as it relates to combat.


Because there's no way staff are purposefully creating a script that will automatically hit with an attack "because someone thinks it makes sense". Which brings back the OP's wonderment of "who gets input on what makes sense?"

I'm hoping it is, in DnD terms, that a mage can cast a Cone of Acid at you, and its going to hit you, even if they themselves can't hit you with a dagger. You were in the cone, you're going to get hit. But at least DnD has reflex saves, or a way to not just trigger that cone of acid every turn.

Lets say I am in melee combat and I whip out a magick missile to your face.  Does the magick missile follow the same rules as normal melee combat?  No.  Should someone expect it to?  No.  So don't think of the scripts as an extension of melee combat, think of them as something different, like magick.  Or archery.  Or backstab.  All of which work differently from melee and differently from each other.

I assumed you realized that a number of scripts don't include any visible indicators when you save.  Whether you pass a combat check, stat check, resistance check...that is usually silent.  So many of them do have checks, you just never see a negative outcome.

To continue with this analogy to make my point of inconsistency, you're not going to find anything with a stat block in modern D&D that gives it a + 5 to one type of attack and a +13 to another. It's not going to have a +2 to its melee and a 18 WIS spell save or +13 to a ranged magical attack. That sort of disparity between attack types leads to inconsistency in performance and fucks up the estimation of an enemy's challenge.

[Namino]

Double posting because I feel an example is necessary. Here's a mage, a monster type designed to SUCK in melee but kick your ass with spells.

Mage
Medium humanoid (any race), any alignment
Armor Class 12 (15 With Mage Armor)
Hit Points 40 (9d8)
Speed 30 ft.
STR
9 (-1)  DEX
14 (+2)  CON
11 (+0)  INT
17 (+3)  WIS
12 (+1)  CHA
11 (+0)
Saving Throws Int +6, Wis +4
Skills Arcana +6, History +6
Senses passive Perception 11
Languages Any Four Languages
Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)
Spellcasting. The mage is a 9th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 14, +6 to hit with spell attacks). The mage has the following wizard spells prepared:

• Cantrips (at will): fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation
• 1st level (4 slots): detect magic, mage armor, magic missile, shield
• 2nd level (3 slots): misty step, suggestion
• 3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fireball, fly
• 4th level (3 slots): greater invisibility, ice storm
• 5th level (1 slot): cone of cold
Actions
Dagger. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.
Dagger. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.

Note it has a +5 to its melee attacks. It's ranged/touch attack is one points higher at +6. It doesn't have +5 to melee and +10 to spells. That would produce inconsistency.

[Brokkr]

Magic missile isn't unavoidable any more?  Lame.

[Dar]

Fire elementals put people on fire and make them take damage every turn. No rolls required. There are ways to protect themselves from it, but they're not obvious and they're not roll related.

[Dar]

Magic missile isn't unavoidable any more?  Lame.

It isn't? Pretty sure it is.

[Brokkr]

My example was magick missile.  For a reason.

Something like chill touch always used the combat system.  While other spells, like magic missile, used something different, typically specific to the spell.

What I am saying is most scripted attacks are not chill touch.  They are magic missile.  Or dragon breath attack.  Or whatever...that doesn't wrap back into the melee system.

[mansa]

Hey Brokkr,

I feel that the game echos might not be descriptive enough.

Does the game tell me that it's a special move?
Do I know if it's possible/impossible to avoid it?
Do I know what I can do differently in the future to overcome the challenge?

Is there a few seconds that may echo "NPC raises up, preparing for an attack" and then a few seconds later of "NPC shoots you with magic missile"?



I feel like giving the opportunity for the player to prepare against an NPC script would be more entertaining and challenging as a game...

[Brokkr]

But then you might live and I wouldn't make my quota.

It is more difficult to script it that way.  As I noted, many scripts don't let you know when you have saved against an attack...there simply isn't any game output.

Much like a DM might not want to get into players adjusting their behavior to have the best outcome because they have read the Monstrous Manual, I am not sure we would necessarily want the answers to all those questions to be yes.  We typically make even the really dangerous scripts survivable, if you make the right choices*.  Not always, but a decent number of times.

*Disclaimer:  Right choices may refer to bringing a large group.  With half-giants.  And hiding in the back.

[Shalooonsh]

Many scripted attacks/actions DO take into effect a defense variable. 

This is because most of these actions can be avoided, by characters with the ability to do so.  Will they always succeed?  No.  Are all of these actions avoidable?  No.

On the issue of stat block consistency, that just makes me laugh.  Players have a whole lot of 'outside of the boundaries' perks to them.  You guys can memorize the terrain, and know how to best use it to your advantage.  You can figure out the best combination of moves to use in certain situations, and plan accordingly with what you're going to be fighting against.  You can kite enemies into bad situations.  There's all sorts of stuff you can do that NPCs can't defend against (unless we notice and take action.)

But yet we throw a few attacks or actions outside of the normally coded boundaries, and someone gets some rumpled tailfeathers about it. 

Kinda makes me want to go build some new kryl now... see how fun we can really make this. 

A dungeon master's job is to make an interesting story.  A dungeon master is 100% there at the table 100% of the time the players are actively playing their characters.  A dungeon master can react to each and every action that a player takes and make sure that there is a realistic modifier in place. 

WE can't do that.  This is a 24/7 game with a good amount of staff, but even with a good amount of staff, even if we had double the amount of staff we currently have, we couldn't watch EVERY action you guys take to make sure they're all realistically responded to.

So because of this there will continue to be unrealistic responses from both NPCs and PCs.  NPCs will continue to have terminator style tracking in some cases, or a complete lack of response to two members of its hunting pack dying to arrows from some guy shooting just on that dune over there within sight.  PCs will continue to get bloodied, race off, sleep for 10 mins, and come back to try again, or jump over the edge of a cliff counting on that high climb skill to save them and let gravity do the work, even though by all rights that NPC should stop at the cliff and just chop your freakin fingers off.

Actions that are outside of the normal boundaries force you guys to think, and to actually apply real threat towards things that might just otherwise be hum drum.  I love them, honestly, and I'm going to continue to put them into the game where I can.  This should be a thinking person's game, not a "My offence and defense should be able to handle this" style game.

[Riev]

The fact that a small group of people disagree isn't grounds for you to even hint at "Then we'll just make things deadlier because fuck you".

Stop being an asshole. You're staff. Be better, or be gone.

[Shalooonsh]

I forget not everyone has a high skill at humor.

My most sincere apologies.

[Dar]

Holy shit. That got sour quick. Geeeez.

[Brokkr]

Holy shit.  That got locked quick.  Geeeez.


Contrary to perhaps popular belief, we do not have to tolerate our staff being insulted or called names.