all PVP is surprise attacks. Not lame, but what do we do?

[Hauwke]

Erm, I may be mistaken (it's been awhile) but doesn't attacking remove your guarding status anyway?

Select classes retain guard status during combat. Fighter does, for example.

[Brokkr]

What is it about bash that prevents it being the answer to prevent folks fleeing?

[Armaddict]

What is it about bash that prevents it being the answer to prevent folks fleeing?

I've talked about it several times, people don't really give it the credit it deserves.

I believe it is because of:
A) Training bash is basically non-stop fails to the point that people think it will always fail, so they just stop using it.
B) It can't be used against someone who's mounted.

I don't believe, personally, that these are critical drawbacks, but getting other players to view bash the way it has often worked against -me- has not been successful.

[Is Friday]

What is it about bash that prevents it being the answer to prevent folks fleeing?

It's incredibly unreliable if you're not max height or if the opponent is taller.

[Narf]

What is it about bash that prevents it being the answer to prevent folks fleeing?

It's incredibly unreliable if you're not max height or if the opponent is taller.

Only at lower levels. If you're a class that can master bash then height barely matters, the skill just overwhelms the height modifier.

I've had characters with high-end bash be reliably successful against creatures and people much taller than them. Spiders, scrab, anything that was within the size limitations, all with a below-average height human.

[Namino]

My master bash delf failed four times in a row against an assassin guild who was shorter, after double disarming after backstab, leading to his death.

I'm pretty sure bash is operating as intended, due to the fact that it has been in continuous operation as a skill for multiple decades.  For what it's worth, height and skill are not the only factors to determining a successful bash, and it looks like the RNG was just against you in this series of encounters.

- the following request.

"RNG was against you regardless of your maxed skill". That's the definition of unreliable. The issue with bash is, unlike all other combat skills, there's no neutral resolve (ie, you disarm and neither party loses their weapon). Failing a bash means you're on your ass 100% of the time.

It's too unreliable for the negative consequences and anyone suggesting that it's the lynchpin underlying flight control needs to actually test the skill.

Edit: also bonus, "it's been like this forever which means it must be right". You can probably explain a lot of Armageddons worst aspects with that logic. 

[X-D]

I have to ask....what weapons were you using?

[RogueGunslinger]

Bash is garbage because it has so few opportunities to be useful. Even if you land it its what 10 seconds max that someone is down? It feels as long as combat delay. And due to the nature of skills theres no point in using it unless you have it mastered. And it takes a long time to get it mastred.

Why bother with something unreliable when you can just nuke them with a backstab or some poison.

Maybe make standing players take extra attacks. Or players who have been bashed are forced to walking speed for a couple seconds. Maybe add a failure where you dont fall yourself once skilled enough and leave falling to crit fails.

Honestly any skill that only either succeeds or backfires mid combat should be looked at. Its a stupid mechanic that discourages use. Nobody would use disarm if every failure meant dropping your weapon.

[kahuna]

Bash is garbage because it has so few opportunities to be useful. Even if you land it its what 10 seconds max that someone is down? It feels as long as combat delay. And due to the nature of skills theres no point in using it unless you have it mastered. And it takes a long time to get it mastred.

I have to disagree here. Bash puts the enemy at a serious disadvantage if it succeeds, so much so that if you fail you're put in that position. High risk high reward type of skill.

Why bother with something unreliable when you can just nuke them with a backstab or some poison.

Why bother with anything when you can just use fireball? This is a cherry picked statement. You can say this about anything, what's the point?

Honestly any skill that only either succeeds or backfires mid combat should be looked at. Its a stupid mechanic that discourages use. Nobody would use disarm if every failure meant dropping your weapon.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Bash and disarm and two completely different skills. Disarm while is great doesn't lag the enemy at all. They can immediately draw another weapon. Bash is one of the only mundane skills in the game that permanently lags and puts the enemy in a terrible position for combat.  It's very powerful.

[X-D]

I mostly agree with Kahuna.

BUT....I do find it odd that I have the bash skill and this other guy does not and yet he is able to "roll with my charge causing me to fall on my face" He does not have the bash skill but still Judo-master at reversing it?

Also, at master, you should stop falling over unless the person you are trying to bash is also master. It is in the realm of silliness that this guy has perfected the art of knocking people over but cannot seem to figure out how to remain standing himself if he misses.

[Intuition]

I try to make it so my encounters aren't surprise attacks. There are ways to do it you just have to be willing to engage in that collaborative story with others.

[Halcyon]

I mostly agree with Kahuna.

BUT....I do find it odd that I have the bash skill and this other guy does not and yet he is able to "roll with my charge causing me to fall on my face" He does not have the bash skill but still Judo-master at reversing it?

Also, at master, you should stop falling over unless the person you are trying to bash is also master. It is in the realm of silliness that this guy has perfected the art of knocking people over but cannot seem to figure out how to remain standing himself if he misses.

The game is never going to have enough success and failure messages for every gradiation of outcome.   Bash and every other disabler must be unreliable, or they become "I win" buttons.

[Armaddict]

Edit:

Just saying that I have indeed tried the skill out over decades and it has often been exactly what people say it isn't.  The reason I died/killed someone.  The lynchpin of an engagement.

[Hauwke]

Personally I have never been able to get kick or bash to go up, not once that I remember.

[RogueGunslinger]

A successful bash is hardly an I win button. If that were true every failure would be an I lose button.

[Greve]

What is it about bash that prevents it being the answer to prevent folks fleeing?

A number of things, Brokkr.

For one thing, not all classes get bash. The class system is one of those cases where Armageddon is more RPG than RPI. If your chosen class doesn't get the bash skill, your character is outright incapable of ever attempting to prevent someone from doing something. Same way you're simply unable to attempt to spot a hidden person if you can't scan. It's just one of those things.

Secondly, the bash skill is useless until it's pretty high up and it goes up really slowly. Let's not mince words and pretend people haven't been through twenty years of play and one or two code leaks - bash is one of those skills that you have to grind for ages because its chance to increase is so small, and if you use it "responsibly" it'll never go above journeyman. It just doesn't go up at the same rate as things like backstab and throw and disarm and so on. This is antithesis to calling it the go-to solution to instant flee. You can't call it that when it's one of the hardest skills to raise while literally every character has the ability to instantaneously teleport out of combat. That is what prevents it from being the answer to flee, same as [redacted because seriously wtf are you thinking] can't be called a common counter to nofail stealth.

Thirdly, size plays an inflated role in bash. If you're short and they're tall, you can pretty much forget about bashing them. I'm not a RL wrestler so I can't say too much about the logistics of putting someone on their ass, but burly dwarves should not be so terrible at it and skinny, hollow-boned elves should not be gods of bash resistance. There's a reason 95% of combat chars pick max height.

Fourthly (is that even a word?) you can't actually bash someone who's riding, sitting, flying or in any position besides standing upright with the soles of their feet planted on the floor. Hilariously, if someone's worried about being the recipient of a bash, it actually makes sense to fight seated so they can quickly stand and flee if it seems necessary. People use this against tarantulas. I bet that if someone was to play a character known to use bash to land kills, people would go out of their way to fight them in unbashable positions. Same way people speedwalk to avoid backstab, knowing that you can leave the room faster than the skill's before-delay.

And finally, even if you manage to get your bash skill pretty high, it just still seems to fail too often to be relied upon. If you fail a bash, it's over--either you die because you're now fighting on your ass or the guy gets away guaranteed and you've missed your shot as the guy will never let you have another opportunity. It's just not a dependable skill. Most skills actually become very reliable once you're good at them. Backstab and archery practically never miss at master, steal pretty much can't fail unless you're trying to steal a boulder, high climb turns you into spiderman, master stealth becomes failproof, etc. Bash doesn't seem to do that.

[Brokkr]

It obviously should not work in all cases to a high degree of reliability.  That creates an "I WIN" button which is something we try to avoid.

My experience is with decent bash I could lead with a bash and, with a skilled character, kill people before they ever stood up.  Also, that I could logically choose weapons such that I would hardly ever miss a bash, given a reasonable opponent.

[Namino]

That creates an "I WIN" button which is something we try to avoid.

Is that right.

[X-D]

Halcyon, I never said bash should not fail. In fact, I would not change how often it fails or why.

What I would change is the outcome. You don't have the bash skill and I try and fail to bash you, You don't cause me to fall down, you don't know the first thing about making people fall down. Instead maybe I just cannot use any combat skills for double the amount of time for a success. Or some other thing that is just a stumble and time to regain balance.

I have master bash, I don't fall down unless verses somebody with skill close to mine and other penalties are reduced a bit. As it sits now, failing a bash at master is the same as failing at novice...and mildly silly.

I have to echo Brokkr on this point.

My experience is with decent bash I could lead with a bash and, with a skilled character, kill people before they ever stood up.  Also, that I could logically choose weapons such that I would hardly ever miss a bash, given a reasonable opponent.

Done properly, master bash is nearly unstoppable even dwarf verses elf. (leaving out half-giants of course).

[Greve]

Let's put it this way: if bash was actually the answer, people would be doing it. This debate wouldn't exist. If bash was a reliable and effective way to engage in PvP, it would be what we see people doing. It just isn't. We see people resorting to max-strength bludgeoning etwo, we see people resorting to sap and backstab, we see people resorting to peraine and spells and whatnot. These are effective ways to overcome the fact that any idiot can type 'flee' and instantly leave the room unless it has no exits. Brokkr, you want to make it sound like bash is this miracle solution that noone has ever thought of. It just isn't. If it was, this forum would have five threads per year talking about how people use the bash skill to render their victims helpless. I'm not even saying I want that to be reality, but I maintain that it most certainly isn't, and I don't like being gaslighted with "just use bash lulz." Time and time again, your answer to coded concerns is something that we all know just doesn't work, but you persist in trying to hoodwink players who have tried these things a hundred times and found them lacking.

[Heade]

In my experience, when used by someone who is good at it, bash is absolutely devastating. It's normally followed up by a head/neck attack. It's so good that it's sometimes dangerous to let someone bash you while using sparring weapons.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Bash can be horrifying and life-ending when it lands.
That's enough of a trade off for its current accuracy.

[RogueGunslinger]

The whole reason we're talking about bash is because people resort to the truly deadly things like Backstab, Magick, Poison, apartments, because people can flee too easily. People resort to those things because they ARE "I Win" buttons.

Bash is definitely NOT in the same caliber. And even if it landed 100% effectively it would still not be even close to on par in terms of feeling as cheap and powerful as those others are. Bash still gives you opportunity to escape, to outsmart your enemy, to avoid them, to be guarded by someone else.

Also, that I could logically choose weapons such that I would hardly ever miss a bash, given a reasonable opponent.

What does this mean?

Bash can be horrifying and life-ending when it lands.

Only if you're significantly more skilled than your opponent. At which point literally anything can be life-ending in such an engagement. Like a reel.

[RogueGunslinger]

doublepost accident

[Is Friday]

Mundane on mundane violence should be fairly balanced imo. Bash is not balanced. Neither are dwarves.

Things which are unbalanced on purpose, which is okay:
Poison
Magick
Muls
Half-giants
Social power

The things that are unbalanced are either in theory difficult to acquire, creates enemies, or require karma and responsible use with respect to other players.