Charge Skill

[Delirium]

I'd like to see some maneuvers like

- attempting to shove another mounted rider off balance (increasing the chance that they'll tumble off so you can trample them)

- goading specific mounts into making a one-round attack on the person you're fighting, but only when they're on the ground (i.e. not mounted). Vaguely similar to the 'whip' code.

Neither of these would necessarily enable someone to twinkishly overpower anyone any more than 'charge' would, and with combat lag, you would have to use your smarts and a good sense of timing in the use of these maneuvers.

Imagine four or five riders, working together to time their attacks and charges in practiced maneuvers - damn that would be cool.

I also think it would be nice if a subguild could be added to give anyone the coded riding maneuvers - but not necessarily a higher ride skill cap.

Kind of like how a burglar could take the thug subguild.

[Koala]

I also think it would be nice if a subguild could be added to give anyone the coded riding maneuvers - but not necessarily a higher ride skill cap.

I think mercenary subguild may fit to it... They should be very good at riding as the helpfiles states.

[Ghost]

Because you can powergame to get it, and being effective in cavalry is something that is trained and taught, not learned.

Please..Not again twinkable/powergamable/abusable response.

All of the skills, and by saying all skills I mean ALL SKILLS, in game can be powergamed.  Period.

And there are many, I mean MANY skills that require long lasting training. Like, Backstab, trap, steal, pick, brew...etc etc..

All of those are branchable, yet they can only be learned by training.  

I don't think average joe ranger should just be able to hop on a kank, powergame his skill, get really good at ride, and become a kickass mounted fighter.

I dont get it.  Now that average Joe Ranger is going around, powergame his fighting skills on foot and becoming a kickass on foot fighter, and this is the reason why we should not have a better mounted combat code?

Powergaming your ride skill, is a lot more harder than powergaming your fighting skills on foot.

[Armaddict]

No, it's not.  Know why?  Because especially at the beginning, -everyone- will be trying to get it as fast as possible.  Thus, you'll find ten to fifteen indy rangers who are constantly fighting mounted and doing the exact same thing, and a few will actually live long enough to get it.  You missed the point of the post.

You cannot become -effective- cavalry through your own learning.  It requires instruction.  What is in game, right now, accurately reflects cavalry in it's non-refined form.  There is -not- a ranger in game right now who could refine it to it's 'bonus-to-combat' form.

Like I said, it would have to be role-played, developed, and then approved by an immortal, otherwise it'll just be another silly skill that everyone will powergame to and complain about.

Don't even try to pull that bullshit, either.  Yes, -every- skill is twinkable.  But how many do you see twinking it?  Guarantee, this skill would blow them away in the number of twinks on it.

[Kill4Free]

You cannot become -effective- cavalry through your own learning

Define effective, because as it stands, your definition of effective, means anything better then fighting on foot.
How do you think the first calvary came to be used?

Not to mention that you said it requires instruction.  How many of the dozens of skills in arm, should need to be taught to someone, and one cant realistically learn them on their own, yet people can.[/quote]

[Tamarin]

Wow...you say every skill listed above needs to be taught?  I gotta say, I have seen this mentality prove to be disastrous in terms of RP, especially when relating to newbies.

His head bowed, the small, bald man says to you in sirihish:
   "Sir, could I please take you outside the gates to practice sap on you?  I will pay you 500 coins and I promise I will bring you back inside once you're unconsious.  I can't do it here in the city because the guards don't like it.

With your head cocked in a confused manner, you say to the small, bald man in sirihish:
    "Have you lost your fucking mind??"

***

In my heart of hearts I believe that you can learn a skill to its absolute pinnacle of perfection without any sort of instruction.  Obviously not everyone could do this.  The way the code works, however, it -is- possible for an PC to become a master at the various skills he or she has (keeping skill caps in mind of course).  Is that to say that every being in the game should be able to be maxxed?  Of course not, because to me, the PC population represents that "exceptional" fraction of the population that can do really great things, supposing they live long enough.  But this is a whoooooole different debate, imho.

[Kill4Free]

Wow...you say every skill listed above needs to be taught?

I never said that, I said I can name many of the skills in the game where this should be so.

For example, I will take the most used one, combat.

Just because you fight a lot, realistically, does not mean you are a good fighter, it might mean you are tough, strong, but one of those ninja dudes, who was taught for a decade or so, would take him apart fast.  Only masters really make their own combat techniques, and they learned everything they know from their masters, what do you think the chances of them getting even a fraction of the skill they have, if no one at all showed them how to fight.
Your arguement was it needed teaching to be able to be effective with calvary, and learning to use a mount in combat, seems a lot easier then mastering the arts of fighting.

Also another basic example, contact, how is your characters supposed to know how to harness his mental energies like that.  I can safely assume that one has to be passed their 'teen' yeards before they can use it (hence the minimum age PC chars can be) and how would you just learn to use it, it doesnt just work, it takes a lot of concentration, and effort, almost to the point of unconsciousness, before you even realise that you can succeed.  One would think that it would need a bit of teaching to get it started.

[Tamarin]

I was talking about armaddict, not you k4f...

[Kill4Free]

oops
*slaps self*

[waroth]

Only masters really make their own combat techniques, and they learned everything they know from their masters, what do you think the chances of them getting even a fraction of the skill they have, if no one at all showed them how to fight.

So..uhm..is there an unending line of masters dating back to the dawn of time?  Who taught the very first "master"?  I am going to take a shot in the dark and say he taught himself.

Someone teaching you a skill just means you learn it faster.  It is not impossible for one to teach themselves how to do something and even end up as good as one who was taught.  The more you do something, usually the better you will get at it and that works for RL as well whteher you are being taught or not.

Not meaning to flame in any way, just throwing in a little arguement.

[Armaddict]

Simply....no.

Nope.

And one more time...nuh-uh.

Wanna hear about the first effective cavalry?

Mongols.  They had been raised on horses, but that wasn't it.  Every single bleeding one of them had been -taught- by someone -else- that rode all their lives.  And another before that taught -him-.  It was constantly built upon.  Not just one guy jumping up on a horse and riding until he was good.

So yes, there were instances of cavalry before then.  But they weren't -effective-.  They weren't good cavalry that were pivotal to the outcome of a battle.  They didn't have any significant advantage over those they fought.

And K4Free (I think it was you?), let me define what I mean by effective cavalry.  It could be completely wrong, but when I say it, this is is what I mean:  Cavalry that has improved it's war tactics to include mounted soldiers that have refined a technique of riding and fighting, and learned well enough when and where to use that technique and how, to allow cavalry to gain a significant advantage against the opposing force.

Anyone can jump on a mount and attack someone.  But as it was stated earlier in the thread, groups of infantry -do- take down cavalry unless the cavalry is used correctly.  Which leads back to my original argument...it needs to be learned by other means than hunting mounted for your whole life.


Once again, the thing you're talking about...in -my- not so humble opinion...isn't something that needs to be widely distributed to a broad group of players.  Any, in fact, who choose a guild and hunt for however long it was decided, while happening to be mounted.  It brings elements to the game that will bring -drastic- change to the way things are done through little to no rp...just a post on the OOC board.  And then they're granted knowledge they didn't have before...*snap*, just like that.

Every other branching sequence can be at least -somewhat- reasonable.  Either the skill before it being a -part- of the branching skill, some new technique learned, or even just time freed up so that you have time to look into this.  But this skill branch would instantaneously put knowledge in the characters head...knowledge that has to be -learned- in the first place, that you won't get through just riding around.

I dunno, I realize I'm beating on a dead horse, that you all just want the skill in, but I'd rather see it be policed.  It's a skill that would completely change what zalanthan standards and practices are...and it would just be sudden and drastic, with nothing leading up to me.  Kind of like if you just woke up one day and...holy shit, your dad's going hunting, as usual, but where'd they get those goddamn laser guns?!

[Angela Christine]

I don't want mounted combat to become universally superior to combat on foot, I would just like to see some of the heavy penalties reduced or redistributed in a more sensible fasion.  If a pair of combatants are equally skilled at fighting, and one is an expert rider, then the rider should be able to fight roughly as well while mounted as he would if he dismounted.  A warrior who is a good rider, using a mount suited to combat, and weapons suitable to mounted combat, ought to be able to fight about as well on kankback as he does afoot.


AC

[Delirium]

What AC said.

[Armaddict]

*shrug*  I think it's accurate the way it is.

Just because you can ride a kank well does -not- mean you can fight well.  Balance is completely different when you're swinging a weapon.

The penalties are fine.  Fighting is -not- the same when you can't move your feet to dodge, and your riding is not good enough to make the mount move quickly enough under you.

Once you learn to ride better than most, you're picking up on it.  And you eventually suffer no penalties whatsoever (I think), which would accurately reflect self-trained cavalry.

[Tamarin]

this discussion has gone so far past being useful...

[Kill4Free]

And K4Free (I think it was you?), let me define what I mean by effective cavalry. It could be completely wrong, but when I say it, this is is what I mean: Cavalry that has improved it's war tactics to include mounted soldiers that have refined a technique of riding and fighting, and learned well enough when and where to use that technique and how, to allow cavalry to gain a significant advantage against the opposing force.

Calvary already had a large advantage over ground troops, even with very little training, dont you know anything about history?
Mongols, used mostly bows, and didnt often come close for hand to hand combat with calvary.  Obviously it takes a great deal of training to learn how to use a bow while mounted.
That was why the great wall of china was built, to keep out the mongols, because without the horses, they werent much of a threat, and there was no way to bring horses over the wall.

You claim you know about history, but you only care to bring up what you want to hear.
I have far less respect for you now, after you go out of your way to message me on AIM, calling me the "stupidest person who posts on the general discussion boards".

Not to mention that your earlier claims about why being on foot was better then being mounted, now you contradict yourself here.

[Kill4Free]

So..uhm..is there an unending line of masters dating back to the dawn of time? Who taught the very first "master"? I am going to take a shot in the dark and say he taught himself.

Yeah thats true, but I thought it was too obvious to point it out, also I might mention that the masters today, could probably take out the masters before.
Take school for example, how many of you have a profession that you learned completely on your own scratch, for lots of programmers this was the case as computers are relatively new, and they taught themselves.  But now you need to learn how to do that, and you learn by being taught.  Wether the teacher is a book, or person, generally it is quite hard to learn something like that that is new.
A lot of the skills in the game work the same way, I dont see how one can just learn it, so I dont see how learning as opposed to teaching applies to this, but for some reason armadict brought it up, but his same arguement could be used against a large fraction of the skills that are available.
And one can learn by ones self how to fight effectively mounted, they might never be the best our history has seen, but they can still be quite effective.

[Xerokine - To lazy]

I have far less respect for you now, after you go out of your way to message me on AIM, calling me the "stupidest person who posts on the general discussion boards".

Actually I was the one that sent that message.. *Coughs*

[Tamarin]

K4F, your logic here is really flawed.  The skills employed on Zalanthas aren't even close to specific enough to warrant the kind of specialization you're talking about when you mention programmers.  The things that most people use in the game are sort of the base skills that everyone kind of has an idea about, because a majority of the people rely on them to survive.  Everyone sort of knows how to cook, everyone sort of knows how to ride, everyone sort of knows how to fight to some degree.

The reason this doesn't mesh with what you say about the game is that in real life, our society has evolved to a point where we have so many organisations and disciplines that have nothing to do with hunting/gathering.  I mean, who the fuck really knows what an ebusiness solutions company does?  Why do we even need it?

On Zalanthas however, if you go up to any shmuck and say "how do you ride" or "how do you skin a scrab", they will more than likely have a vague idea of what you're talking about.  All this goes to say is that the skills probably don't warrant the kind of specialization and mastery that you are talking about, since -everyone- sort of does said skills in the first place.

[Kill4Free]

I was using an extreme example, so you could best understand what I was trying to point out.

Basically I can sum up everything by saying
If ride needs to be taught, to be effective, so do many other skills.  So if being able to ride has to be taught, it is inconsistent with other similar skills.

[Tamarin]

It doesn't need to be taught to be effective...


Will someone please lock this thread already?

[Armaddict]

I didn't message you, Kills4Free, sorry.

And whoever did do it should cut it out, because it's a discussion board.

And you still aren't getting the point I'm trying to get across, after repeated posts.  I agree, the thread should be locked, because I think we've got two stubborn people (myself and at least someone else, heh) who are just butting heads over and over again.

I think all the points that have relevance have already been discussed, and that this will be beating the dead horse until it's a black and blue pinto.

[Kill4Free]

lol, sorry for blaming you, his name looked very similar to your own (he used a lot of numbers and stuff oddly enough).  I was just annoyed that someone would do something that low :/

I will do one final thing though.

emote lowers head
...
...
...
emote charges forward, ramming his head into ~armaddict

[Intrepid]

I've been waiting to see if someone would lock this thread.  It must
be like a train wreck...can't look away and all that.  It is for me, at
least.

You guys can believe in black powder being made in a tech-starved
world like Zalanthas, but not that someone in millenia of history
in Zalanthas could have developed mounted combat to the point
where it was beneficial.

This is bizarre.  Please report back to red sector for your new mission...

[Armaddict]

Did black powder (which we can't even be sure is the same as what's in game) just appear out of nowhere because someone on the board said, "I think we should have something that explodes"?

Things in game can't just fly out of left field with the squirrelmaster.  There has to be something to bring it on, as opposed to a random appearance and 'wow, now it exists!  Yay!'