Introducing Combat Styles into the Game

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Documentation creates the basis of many of these proposed features. The desire to spice up the combat code provides the basis for others. Many have thought the Combat Style portion of the game to be roleplayable via emote and desire no actual coded style. I am not one of those people, and I have wrapped my mind around this for some time in an effort to propose it with few intrusions into the vast number of commands that we already have.

The following is not nessessarily in any particular order, but rather showcases features.

1. How to turn Combat Styles on and off.
The command to use Combat Styles would be:

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>cstyle on
>cstyle off

2. How to change Combat Styles.

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>change cstyle Northern
>change cstyle None

3. Style Types.
Obviously, we have a Southern Style, a Northern Style, and most likely a Tribal Style. However, there are other factions to consider, such as Red Storm and the Labrynth, both of whom I feel use unique styles. So below is a list of the Styles we can start out with, and their corrosponding requirements.

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Southern Style = A medium main weapon and a small secondary weapon.
Northern Style = A medium main weapon and a shield.
Red Storm Style = Two medium weapons.
Tribal Style = A single spear.
Labrynth Style = Two daggers or knives.
Custom Style (PC created) = varies
House Styles = varies

4. How to learn Combat Styles.
You could be taught the style or you could pick it up fighting others who possess it. For instance, you may learn how to fight in a Northern Manner by fighting a Northerner or by being taught by him, but the only way you'll pick up the Sandstorm style of fighting that the gith use is to go tangle with a few.

5. How to intergrate Combat Styles.
This is one of the things that will be cool about this, I think. It will intergrate itself with your normal combat code. For instance, you will attack a gith. We'll say that the fighter has about 30% proficiency in the Southern Combat Style, and of course, has turned his CStyle on, choosing the Southern Style.

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The narrow-eyed man slashs the lanky gith hard on the body.
The narrow-eyed man nicks the lanky gith on the foot with his slash.

The narrow-eyed man slashs the lanky gith lightly on the arm.
The lanky gith deftly parries the narrow-eyed man's slash.

The lanky gith slips forward quickly, nicking the narrow-eyed man's wrist.

The lanky gith stabs the narrow-eyed man on the waist.
The narrow-eyed man deftly parries the lanky gith's stab.

The narrow-eyed man feints with his shortsword, but quickly spins, putting his strength behind the horrendous slash he deals the lanky gith with his scimitar.

The narrow-eyed man nicks the lanky gith on the arm.
The lanky gith deftly avoids the narrow-eyed man's slash.

The narrow-eyed man deftly parries the lanky gith's stab.
The narrow-eyed man deftly parries the lanky gith's stab.

The narrow-eyed man moves forward, rapidly finding his way inside the lanky gith's defenses and scoring a serious pair of slashs with his shortsword and scimitar.
Consider that none of those extended lines were emotes, but styles, replacing the typical message given. The fight code would retain the old messages, for those who would rather not deal with the backlash of using CStyles, namely, failure. Continuing with the above example:

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The narrow-eyed man slashs the lanky gith lightly on the leg.
The narrow-eyed man leaps towards the lanky gith, but a worn hide-vest gets in the way.

The lanky gith slips forward quickly, but misses the narrow-eyed man with his stab and over-compensates, leaving himself open.
The narrow-eyed man does unspeakable damage to the lanky gith's head with his slash.
The narrow-eyed man does unspeakable damage to the lanky gith's head with his slash.

The lanky gith crumples to the ground.
While the above fight was between several decent fighters, typically, you would get one style message per ten regular rounds per ten percent of skill. In other words, a master could very well have ten or twenty of those  CStyle messages whip out in round after round, while a newer fighter would not be so flashy or talented.

Well, I think that sums it up ... any questions, concerns, or other stuff to say?

[Many Faces]

Homey, you've done it again.

[WWYD]

I like it..hell, you know what'd be equally cool if this didn't get through? Custom auto combat emotes! :O

[Maybe42or54]

People between Tuluk and Allanak would have a fair bit of experience with both of those styles to pick whichever one they wanted. Spears are damn hard to assemble when you are south of Tuluk anyway. So making it the starting style of Pcs south of Tuluk would be a bitch. Seriously.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Typically I'll address concerns by updating the head post. However, I can't do it with your concern, 42. Here's my solution to that. People in Luir's Outpost get the Northern Style of combat. They already get Northern Accents.

Also, flesh out spearmaking. It's an underused and under-implemented part of crafting and of combat.

People between Allanak or Tuluk would not be familiar innately with either style. There are plenty of cultures other than Northern and Southern.

Do see #3 in my original post for an update to styles.

[Maybe42or54]

Spears are all nice and dandy if you are hunting animals. Tribals should be able to pick which way they want to go.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Fine. Then give Tribals no style at all other than those particular tribes might have or particular PCs might create. Either that, or give them a choice in the Hall of Kings.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Actually, what might be a better idea than that is creating a tribal sword, club, spear, or knife CStyle. Then give them the choice in the Hall of Kings.

[flurry]

I didn't focus on the details, but yeah - I think it would be great if there were different styles worked into the combat code somehow.

If something like this were in place, it would be neat to also be able to toggle between sparring or not, or aggressive/defensive.

[Yokunama]

I like it..hell, you know what'd be equally cool if this didn't get through? Custom auto combat emotes! :O

You can code your client to do such things.

[Agent_137]

*roars*

stop taking away my MUSH!!!!

if i wanted to play a hack and slash with roleplay, i'd go play on a WoW RP server.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

What?

[ThirdEye]

This would be grrrreat. There was another thread a while ago with similar ideas that I also thought were very good.

[Nao]

Where is the real benefit in this..? I think this should be roleplayed out and nothing else. IT might be a cool idea for now, but it doesn't make the game any more realistic than roleplaying it out would - it would jsut make things more complicated for new players...

Anything that makes code describe your character instead of letting you  do it yourself - bad. I like neutral descriptions in code, even if it means just getting screen-spam when you don't feel like emoting at that time.

Also, if there's coded advantages, balancing this would be a bitch.

And if all that this is doing is adding a few canned emotes to every fight... why? Play one heavily-combat-oriented character and you'll soon be able to recite all of them backwards in your sleep, so after a while, they don't
add anything anymore.

[UnderSeven]

I agree with Nao in basically every single bit of what she had to say.  

This has come up before and it's been said if you wanna do combat styles, rp it and frankly I agree.  For every reason she said and then some, here are the some:

Combat styles are a push in the direction of a code oriented game away from rp.  How can I maximize my character?  For instance.  Not to mention balancing issue.  I just ultimately am against this.  

More or less everytime this has come up in the past it's hit the same problems.  Further more it's far to structured.  Does everyone who practices karate practice it the same way?  Even if taught by the same teacher?  The answer is no, people and variation go hand in hand, it's almost impossible to mimic somehting completely and I think this is an important point to keep in mind.

[jhunter]

I'm with everything the last two posters said. Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the subject. I like the looseness of it the way it is, I enjoy creating my own combat style and roleplaying it out with the tools we currently have.

[Agent_137]

*roars*

stop taking away my MUSH!!!!

if i wanted to play a hack and slash with roleplay, i'd go play on a WoW RP server.

What?

a mush:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH

I basically was saying what underseven did. Don't force code onto things that can be RPed perfectly well with emotes. When you do, you shift toward a hack and slash heavily coded MUD and away from a MUSH style.

[Cenghiz]

Forgive me but... Some things need to be coded. I know you can easily play northern or southern with emotes but... Have you ever tried to remain defensive or attack more agreessively and carelessly via emotes?
It doesn't help adjust your fighting at all. If you try to aim 'one hit one kill' with a southern and you dare ignoring defence just to leap into that foe as quick as possible, you still see yourself defending and attacking moderately.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

...man, I'm trying so hard not to be a smart ass.

You don't want coded additions anymore?

.....

I'm so very ... saddened by this argument. This is not a mush. It is a MUD. A MUSH is a talker with rooms. There is no combat code, no hunger code, no nothing code. This is not a MUSH.

I'm sure you gather that, so how are you arguing that code is bad, when obviously it is what you guys needed, being that you are not playing a MUSH? Are you really saying that you would rather play a MUSH?

Well, not me. I don't like MUSHs.

Introducing these styles does not unbalance anything. Instead, it uses the attack rolls you would normally get and translates them into messages. And if you don't like them? Then don't fucking use them, ie: change cstyle none. But why deny others who might like the idea the chance to have a cool looking fight scene? Because, you do understand that it pretty much just gives you a cool fight scene, right? It's not twinkable. It's really just not.

I really don't understand how this could unbalance the game, lessen your ability to Rp, or anything else. What I do think is that it brings to the fore the styles we are all supposed to be accustomed to, and it facilitates a pretty fight scene.

But have it your way. I suppose I'll just stop coming up with ideas, since they all involve evolving the code, and so many folks seem so bloody opposed to changing code, despite the vailant efforts of Mergenes and Xygax.

[Maybe42or54]

We could do a half way agreement. We could have an offensive style and a defensive style, the rest could be roleplayed out.

[UnderSeven]

Okay Deadly7.  

Does this combat style thing change anything how your char fights? Or just give different messages?  If it gives different messages, then why not use emotes or increase the emote system so we can do more costume combat messages, if it actually changes anything stat or roll wise, yes, there is a balancing issue that would have to be dealt with.

I did not give the mush arguement personally but I did give other arguements which you didn't mention in your post.  The non-mush version is simply this, by coding how our chars act, we're essientally power emoting them.  Which basically means chosing the action they're taking for them (as in the code forcing an action).  If you have say the northern style that does everything exactly the same based on skill level you'll have cabon copy fighters who do it all to the letter, that just isn't very realistic.   Even in real life situations where people practice the same style variation exists, my point is, coding combat styles would specifically not allow variation, furthermore it would be a push toward more combat oriented play.  There would be something more to combat and incentive to play around with it.  Therefore we would be doing a push a little more toward hack slash.  

And if not?  If it were just changing messages then we have just a matter of emoting and power emoting.  

I don't like it. I don't want arm to be a mush but the idea of fightinig styles is too restrictive.  Sure with this suggestion you're politely including the option of not using it, but if not using it is just as good as using it then what's the point of having it, does it add anything to the game that isn't already here?  

Maybe we need a better explination but from my standpoint:

Combat styles that just changes ingame messages: No, because it would be forcing our characters to act in a certain manner and elimitate variation and lower rp.  Yes lower it because without coded combat style messages you have the OPTION to rp whatever style you want.  I've had a blast doing this in the past with an assasin char trying to emote emulating ayames fighting style from Tencho.

Coded combat styles that alter how your char actually fights: No, this would be a balancing issue, and it would include all the above issues and then some.  Some would be better than others unless it were somehow balanced across the board and if not? People would probably end up using the style that was the best, or complain when other people did without ic reason.  Can you in real life go learn 'karate' and pull up  your real life skill sheet and see karate and then use it exactly as it was written on those stone tablets by GOD?  No, because there are no stone tablets and karate is just a learned style which changes by how you use it, how your body works, how it is set up, how you feel that day, and how much milk you drank.

The point is coded things in game does write it in stone. My short desc is the little green goblin, like it or not, players can rp me elsewise but they'll always see the same thing.

Code is here to assist rp, not define it.

What I wouldn't be so adverse to is a thing allowing you to change what method of offense and such you use.  Mixing d and o.  But on the same token I would not be too strongly in favor of it either.  some games have it, I don't feel it adds to the game.  Just a useless addition.

[Agent_137]

i think the ability to place emphasis on offense and less on defense, or vica versa, is realistic and would be an important code addition because it's not currently possible to do by emotes.

As stated, code should support RP not define it.

I don't want the engine emoting for me. I want the engine to be able to accurately reflect what my character is doing in the coded world of zalanthas. Repeat: I do not want the engine telling me what my character is doing in the full world of zalanthas. Nor do I want to see the engine in other people. I hate canned emotes from the engine, in every form.

This is NOT a mud. This is Armaggedon. It's unique in that while heavily coded, the actual gameplay flows as if in a MUSH. It's character and plot based, but all supported by coded actions and skills.

If this game shifts strongly away from the MUSH and toward a MUD, I will quit completely, plain and simple.

[ThirdEye]

I would like it to have the combat styles but not the canned emotes. They would get kinda annoying I think.

[Intrepid]

Being able to personalize your combat emotes is preferable to having it
decided for you.