Defense Nerfed

[jmordetsky]

For once, I completely agree with Jstorrie.

I even quoted him in my sig.

Heh. That is pretty fucking quotable.

[Lizzie]

Currently NPCs have command lag like we do. So no need to worry about meks attacking.. They delay. I tested it myself a few times - though they all were unhappy accidents.
In past sometimes creatures charged into the room and instaattacked. They can't do it any more to my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think we are supposed to bug npcs that don't, there is still that issue though especially for us dial-up mofos that get to see the npc a second after they enter, and then have to wait another half second or so to type and pray and sends fast enough to ginka.

I'll have to wait and see on the new change but I just wanted to add an observation of irony here:

It sounds as though you won't be able to bug NPCs that don't have that delay, because we'll be dead and you can't bug stuff once the mantis shows up.

As for the initial post from Synthesis, I haven't experienced combat since the change, enough to have any opinion one way or another. But I would like to say I enjoyed reading his post, it was entertaining and creatively written (even if it might be incorrect, or inaccurate, or premature, or whatever the current concensus is at the moment).

L. Stanson

[Xygax]

I personally didn't enjoy reading his post.

It comes off as inflamatory and confrontational in my reading, and doesn't provide much value in terms of actual statistical analysis of anything he's seen in game:  "In my last fight, I was "reeling" during 10 out of 12 rounds".  Probably the good statistical remarks are best reserved for logs sent directly to the mud account, rather than posted here.  Instead, most of the post is cluttered and unfocused and based on assumptions that he cannot possibly have imperically tested or validated in any way.  It's hard to be convinced, and even harder to be motivated by a post like this.

I realize that it is often tempting to post your bitter, sarcastic, flaming rants here rather than send a considered message along with a log to the staff, but I guarantee you that one method is more effective than the other.

-- X

[Morgenes]

I'll have to wait and see on the new change but I just wanted to add an observation of irony here:

It sounds as though you won't be able to bug NPCs that don't have that delay, because we'll be dead and you can't bug stuff once the mantis shows up.

This is incorrect, bug does not get delayed by command delay.  So unless you're like one-hit killed, you should be able to get off a bug.  If not, use the request tool to submit the bug.

[Sephiroto]

The code was changed to add ability to block missiles in such.  In this, because of a bug, experienced characters lost an edge over newer characters as the new came out with the ability to automatically defend themselves on a level higher than before if I am not mistaken, no?  Then the staff fixed this and all I hear are complaints because they put them as they were before.  Well, I for one am very thankful because for a while now I was depressed that my relatively skilled character was getting challenged up by newbies for some reason and I couldn't for the life of me explain.

Your joe-schmoe warrior shouldn't be running around with carru anyway.  I see no reason why one shouldn't hammer most humanoids.  Thanks for the fix, Staff.

[jstorrie]

Perhaps this is better in terms of realism, but I have to say, I'm interested in playing a fantasy game where I could become something increadible. Where I -could- become a part of history, could slay dangerous animals with a word, and could go through limitless bountiful imagination.

Not where I couldn't do anything solo until day 50 unless I twink out and use every second of coded advantage to survive.

If every character can be a great hero right out of the box, nobody's really being heroic. There has to be a certain level of difficulty and prevalence of failure for any character's successes to be extraordinary.

I really don't think many characters should be able to go it completely alone in Zalanthas, kick everything's asses, and become epic superheroes. It is still possible to do so with a -lot- of luck and very careful planning. If everyone could be Conan, pwning everything from day four onward just because they took warrior/hunter, I think Armageddon would become very dull.

As it stands you don't have to twink out for fifty days just to survive. You might have to to survive running through bahamet-breeding grounds, or charging head-first into a gith warcamp, but are those really reasonable actions in the first place?

Finally, keep in mind that - as LoD pointed out - a PC learns to defend himself by failing to defend himself. If it gets harder to succeed, that just means the PC will learn more. Things will reach equilibrium again fairly quickly. This sort of reminds me of when it was make much much easier to slice fruit: everyone could now do it, but no-one improved their cooking skill by doing so anymore, because it was no longer a challenging activity. The same thing with defense, in reverse, basically - although skill_cooking doesn't help you fend off mekillots, I suppose.

[rufus]

Code Select Expand

>i
You are carrying:
a piece of steak
a slice of butter
a lump of gravy
various assorted spices and such
>craft steak slice lump such into a delicious meal
You set to wor--You craft a delicious meal.
>
A big mekillot stumbles in from the east.
>
You shout, in mekillish:
   "DON'T EAT ME!..EAT THIS!"
>give meal mekillot
A big mekillot licks her lips and chows down a delicious meal, grinning at you.
>
A big mekillot happily walks west, a silly grin on her face.
>
You sigh, relieved.
>
An anakore explodes from the earth, screeching loudly as he drags you down with him!
>
>
Welcome to Armageddon.

[Nusku]

I've gone through several hours of solid testing on this now, using different classes, races, weapons, armor, skills, monsters, and tactics. I can't post up the actual numbers that I generated, so I'm just going to speak in generalities. Understand that this is data that I have accumulated, not some assumptions that I've made about how things work, not a story my brother's cousin's aunt's sister-in-law told me, and not the result of a single experiment. I ran these simulations repeatedly.

The results look something like this:
:arrow: You can no longer rely on being untouchable to win fights. If you're fighting things that are pretty reasonably in your range, you're still going to win, you're just not going to get by without so much as a scrape.
:arrow: Forget about going solo against Big Nasty Things. You all know what Big Nasty Things are. Thanks to NPC command delay, your chances of running away from Big Nasty Things have improved, so 99% of PCs are better off anyway. The other 1% shouldn't have been able to do what they were doing anyway.
:arrow: If you could handle scrab before, chances are you can handle scrab now. If you were blowing through scrab without getting scratched before, don't count on going unscathed, but you're not going to suddenly be slaughtered.
:arrow: Staying in a fight even when you are running low on hitpoints is now an appropriately risky activity. Routinely getting in fights that end with you barely scraping by has always been a bad idea from a roleplaying standpoint, and now from a coded standpoint it's an equally bad idea.
:arrow: It takes some effort to daze an opponent. The delay from getting dazed is also nowhere near the delay from using several of the common combat commands, including bash, disarm, kick, backstab, sap, kill, etc.

Conclusions:
A range of activities that were unrealistic now have that backed up by the code. I don't see that as a problem.
Combat is a little bit more brutal, and you're no longer as likely to walk out of an encounter unscathed (not that it's impossible). I see this as a good thing as well.
The playing field for combat styles is a lot more level. There are now some distinct advantages for every style. I see this as a very good thing, something I've wanted to see for a long time.
You can't "work" the system in the same way that you used to. Your formula for the ultimate warrior may not have the results that it used to. Also not a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.

[Forty Winks]

Woohoo! I love it. Now add the bleeding code and Armageddon would be perfect for my warrior/physician. Woohoo!  :roll:

Eh, I was serious about the bleeding code if it was adjusted...but in any case, I like how Nusku's data turned out. No more uber warriors being able to kick a bahamet to death...

-FW, who nearly got close to doing just that with a previous char long ago... :oops:   Not anymore...which he likes now that he knows better.

[Bushranger]

Conclusions:
A range of activities that were unrealistic now have that backed up by the code. I don't see that as a problem.
Combat is a little bit more brutal, and you're no longer as likely to walk out of an encounter unscathed (not that it's impossible). I see this as a good thing as well.
The playing field for combat styles is a lot more level. There are now some distinct advantages for every style. I see this as a very good thing, something I've wanted to see for a long time.
You can't "work" the system in the same way that you used to. Your formula for the ultimate warrior may not have the results that it used to. Also not a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.

I think these are all admirable goals to strive for, and thus I'll echo Forty Winks - Well done staff members.

Woohoo! I love it.

[Dresan]

Alright i've had a chance to test out the new changes,  my character is pretty combat oriented and i'm quite familar with my characters abilities in various forms. Its a 22 days old heavy combat oriented character, very well trained, still take all this with a grain of salt.

Before the changes, fights were a bit slower but still seemed balanced, one side would win in an orderly manner. I've gotten the impression not only did defense go down but because we've been fighting with boosted defence abilties, our offense is extremely high and skills like shield_use haven't been trained very much. Right now fights feel like a brutal slug fest. Since i worked very hard to build my defence i am not sure whether my defence is actually been trained at the level of my offense or if the bug has significantly hinder it. On a personal note this makes me sad since i've put alot of love and effort into building my PC in all aspects of the game.

I would agree with Nusku that it has made some styles more viable (two-handed and dual wield seems really strong right now) but again i've always assumed that offense and defense would more or less train equally so i'm not sure if currently some PC are seeing Offensive skills at 60/100 trained and defensive skills(shield_use) 30/100 trained (as an example) because of the bug. Personally i didn't find my PC's old defense that impressive to begin with alot of things would still hurt him before he could kill them.

My biggest problem is with mounted combat. This is because when your good at riding you don't fall off. Its so much better to fall off on your mount first hit then stay on your mount. Being mounted currently feels like being fighting unarmed -and- not being standing. Even with the bug goudra, hawk and durrit (creatures like that) would still hit you once in a while and fights took a while to win. Heh enough to say its alot more brutal and down right suicidal now. I really think the penalty should be severely reduced or at least make dismounting when attacked automatic (toggable). Ex. depending on your riding skill you fall off or dismount. Currently being skilled at riding is at times more dangerous then benifical.

I think daze is fine, you need to be around 50% health before hard hits begin to daze you. Otherwise you need to be very skilled, very strong(dwarf) -and- very lucky to daze in the first couple of hits. Currently it doesn't take very long to get there now but for the most part  daze itself is fine. I wanted to see kick and  charge (on top of making them fall on their butt) get a decent chance of dazing someone even without low hitpoints. I still want to see stamina drain where the more tired someone is the more likely they are to get hit and/or not to hit their opponent, etc etc. However i did want this added with a defence boost on top of the one given by the bug because even with the bug my PC was still mangling other PCs pretty easily (it being a non-warrior vs some warriors even). INnmy opinion this would have made combat more strategic and heart thumping other then the 'blink and mantis head' that we are used to seeing.

To be honest i don't have a problem with the way things are right now. Imms have to ask themselves if this is the type of combat they want to be seeing.  Before my opponents had 30-2 mins to decide whether to run or risk fighting me. As it stands now, 10 seconds into the fight, they are getting dazed, 20 seconds they are dead. If they want to see fast and brutal then its fine, if they want to see slower and more strategic then defence levels need to go up somewhat. Again maybe defence just needs time to catch up with current offence levels, right now there isn't much time to emote even when sparring.

Lastly about wilderness being more dangerous. It currently is but for newbies and new PCs. Its just alot harder to start on your own without clan training and from one point of view i like that...Alot. However uber NPCs isn't the type of dangers i wanted to see, i'm still hoping for code and mechanics to allow  PC raider groups and noble house PC slavers to be running around making the wilderness dangerous more easily.

[jstorrie]

The playing field for combat styles is a lot more level. There are now some distinct advantages for every style. I see this as a very good thing, something I've wanted to see for a long time.

Except one-handed and mounted combat styles! [/hint hint]

[Rhyden]

The only thing Synthesis said that I agree on is the magicker bit. Magickers -will- make themselves more isolated from the rest of the world now. I've seen how the new daze command -alone- affects magickers without this defensive bug thing and it's not very good. I think the number of magickers we'll be seeing now will be much, much less. Either because they're all off in their little holes to gain enough skill to survive or because they'll die off a lot more quickly than they did before. Whether or not this is a bad thing, I don't know.

[jhunter]

I agree with the magicker part regarding these changes as well as how much hg defense sucked to begin with.
Also, from what I've experienced so far with the daze code...it happens WAY too easily IMO. I've already seen creatures dazed basically from the beginning of combat until their death more than once now by a human that isn't exactly a great fighter.

Honestly, most of the code changes regarding combat over the last several months are really beginning to turn me off to playing anything combat related at all. I gave it a while on the stamina drain that primarily affects those of the warrior guild and I still don't think it's fair or realistic that other guilds are not losing stamina while fighting to their full potential as well.

Daze, while in theory a good idea, doesn't appear to have been executed that well IMO. It appears to happen far too easily and I think the starting end of the damage that gives a -chance- at even causing it should be raised.  I'm not the slightest bit impressed or happy about pc's defenses getting nerfed simply to make the game even harder on combat pcs who already live a very dangerous life as it is.

[Nusku]

Just a quick note of reassurance: magickers are actually the least affected by the defensive changes. The majority won't be affected at all. Daze code will still have an effect, but how much of one still remains to be seen. This is something we'll be keeping an eye on.

[Dalmeth]

Ya know, I wonder how horrible it's going to be fighting poisonous animals now.  It's just a scary thought.

Anyway, this change doesn't nerf defenses, it just shows how few defenses there were beforehand.  Most of people's defenses come from their primary weapon skill and their style.  I don't really know how much of a parry bonus dual wield and two-handed bonus confer or even if it increases with skill in the style.  Either way, it's not all that much.  So, the only really defensive skill open to anyone is shield use, and I've never had a character where that went off with any regularity.

I personally like this change more than the daze.  Before, you could send two average fighers against a great one, and the great one would kill them both unscathed.  That rather sucks.  I think it could use some tweeking in some areas, like poisonous animals and larger animals perma-dazing until death (saw someone die to accidentally attacking their mount recently, it wasn't pretty).

I can wait for the tweeking, though.

[jhunter]

What was unrealistic about a veteran warrior defeating two greenies without a scratch?

*BOGGLE*

[LoD]

The results look something like this:
:arrow: You can no longer rely on being untouchable to win fights. If you're fighting things that are pretty reasonably in your range, you're still going to win, you're just not going to get by without so much as a scrape.
:arrow: Forget about going solo against Big Nasty Things. You all know what Big Nasty Things are. Thanks to NPC command delay, your chances of running away from Big Nasty Things have improved, so 99% of PCs are better off anyway. The other 1% shouldn't have been able to do what they were doing anyway.
:arrow: If you could handle scrab before, chances are you can handle scrab now. If you were blowing through scrab without getting scratched before, don't count on going unscathed, but you're not going to suddenly be slaughtered.
:arrow: Staying in a fight even when you are running low on hitpoints is now an appropriately risky activity. Routinely getting in fights that end with you barely scraping by has always been a bad idea from a roleplaying standpoint, and now from a coded standpoint it's an equally bad idea.
:arrow: It takes some effort to daze an opponent. The delay from getting dazed is also nowhere near the delay from using several of the common combat commands, including bash, disarm, kick, backstab, sap, kill, etc.

So, this description leads me to agree more with Synthesis that these changes were not coming at the hands of a "bug fix", but as a planned and focused change to the way combat works in the game.  

It seems as if there were opinions that some "unrealistic combat situations" were resulting with people being able to walk through NPC's or PC's without being touched once they were passed a certain level of skill, and one of the focii of this change is to address that.

Defense and the factors that used to be used to calculate defense have been changed, modified, removed, or tweaked to not only "fix the bug" but to adjust the ceiling.

Is that accurate?

-LoD

[Rhyden]

What was unrealistic about a veteran warrior defeating two greenies without a scratch?

*BOGGLE*

Ya, I'm curious why it was so unrealistic for an 'untouchable' warrior to take down a scrab or two without being hit at all.

And personally, even the completely maxxxed out 'untouchable' warrior of doom still could have gone down one way or another before this new code change. *I'm not saying that they'll go down way faster now.* But what I'm saying is the maxed out warriors have gone down in the past and I've never really seen it as a problem before that some fighters were so exceptionally trained that others around their range couldn't hit them.

[Dalmeth]

What was unrealistic about a veteran warrior defeating two greenies without a scratch?

*BOGGLE*

Uhh... everything about it?  Armageddon isn't one of those movies where badguys charge the hero one at a time with their weapons raised until they are dispatched.  Two people surrounding one are going to get at least a few glancing hits, if not a couple good ones, no matter what.  In reality, the lone veteran would need to have a few advantages on his side to win.

[jhunter]

What was unrealistic about a veteran warrior defeating two greenies without a scratch?

*BOGGLE*

Uhh... everything about it?  Armageddon isn't one of those movies where badguys charge the hero one at a time with their weapons raised until they are dispatched.  Two people surrounding one are going to get at least a few glancing hits, if not a couple good ones, no matter what.  In reality, the lone veteran would need to have a few advantages on his side to win.

A lone veteran already has all the advantages they need. It can happen and I'm sure it has plenty of times. There is nothing unrealistic about it. I'm just going to have to say that I believe you are completely wrong and we'll leave it at that because my opinion in this will not be swayed.

[Mudder]

What was unrealistic about a veteran warrior defeating two greenies without a scratch?

*BOGGLE*

Uhh... everything about it?  Armageddon isn't one of those movies where badguys charge the hero one at a time with their weapons raised until they are dispatched.  Two people surrounding one are going to get at least a few glancing hits, if not a couple good ones, no matter what.  In reality, the lone veteran would need to have a few advantages on his side to win.

A lone veteran already has all the advantages they need. It can happen and I'm sure it has plenty of times. There is nothing unrealistic about it. I'm just going to have to say that I believe you are completely wrong and we'll leave it at that because my opinion in this will not be swayed.

I dont see nothing unrealistic about a veteran laying the smack down on someone without taking a blow. If we are talking about realistic stuff then I will bring up and example that happened in real life. I have seen someone who was a decent fighter get the living crap beat out of them without laying a single blow on the other person. This is indeed going to make things tough icly. Even with the bug, I never had a problem losing a pc, heh. I mean even insta-dying sometimes, even to something that wasnt really all that bad. I dunno, we are just going to have to suck it up and get over it.

[Forty Winks]

I think the best thing to do, as with most changes of this kind, is to sit back and wait to see how the newer combat-types are affected, as well as the more long-term effects. If the fix was truly a bug as the imms have stated, it only goes to say perhaps we've been thinking of Arm combat wrong, and the now 'fixed' code is how it should have been.

From the gist of the posts explaining the new change, it seems to me that extra bonuses applied in defense have been removed to better accurately portray defense. That means other skills that rely on defense will be increased more over time than previously, including skills such as parry and shield-use to offset the difference. The main reason everyone is seeing such a large drop in the defenses is due to losing the extra defense bonuses that weren't apart of defensive skills (parry, shield-use) and the base defense.

As of screwing magickers over, if this is the case with the code, it really only affects magickers who have relied on melee combat for some time (some krathians, for example) as they now won't have a defense that portrays their past experiences in combat. It isn't -this- change in the bug that magickers should be worried about, it's the daze effect.

Personally, I think the 'fix' brings alot more good to the game than bad. Yeah, there's going to be some short-term consequences for everyone to adjust too, but think about the characters you'll have in the future (and those who survive through this period) who get to enjoy the benefits later on. Loosen up abit, and start thinking about the good things instead of just the bad.

-FW, who appreciates dyanamic changes to the game, even if they screw you over for a (hopefully brief) time.

[Forty Winks]

Which brings me to another point: just how much are fighting styles really affected due to this change? Dual wield will allow increased "parry" and more consecutive attacks, shield-use will add more defensive abilities through "blocking" (as an update was announced for shields blocking), and two-handed will hit harder (with more chances for daze) in exchange for a worse defense.

[reflection]Looks to me the staff have done a good amount of planning ahead already to take into account these changes. As the players don't (and shouldn't know) the exact mechanics of the code, it's better not to be jumping all over them for making changes that may seem detrimental to the game at first, but are assuredly done for the benefit of players and the game. Complaining and ranting right off the bat won't accomplish anything with no solid basis or long-term experience, and will only make you as a poster appear foolish abit down the line when the real benefits of the code are actually revealed. Also, the imms aren't there to cater to -everyone-. There will undoubtedly be people who hate certain changes (as it seems some people still haven't gotten over the stamina drain from combat skills), but in my Arm experience thus far, any addition, modification, deletion, and tweaking to the code in the past have been for the overall benefit of the game, and not simply to screw certain guilds/roles over.[/reflection]

-FW, who he thinks has been posting funny lately.

[spawnloser]

Actually, I have to agree with jhunter on one point...

I have seen in RL a 'maxxed out warrior' take out 5 'noobs' in 30 seconds without suffering a scratch.  He was unarmed and they were all armed.

Will we ever see such in Arm?  Probably not.  Everyone will complain that warriors are too strong.

Currently, as I've said, I'm playing a character that seems to have been benefited by this code more than penalized...so of course I see nothing wrong.  Honestly and seriously, though, I still think everyone complaining about this needs to chill and wait.  See how this affects long-term, not just short-term.  As has been suggested, many people's defenses have probably not gone up as much as they should have due to the fact that their defensive skills were all getting a bonus here or there that they shouldn't have.