kill command: Instant attack or no?

[Harmless]

Should the 'kill' command always lead to an instantaneous attack with no warning of the start of combat to the victim? Or, perhaps should there be some instances (or maybe every instance) when there is some delay first?

Should 'backstab' and 'sap' be the way one gets that first, instantaneous attack without warning to the victim, and for all others, be they drov beetles, mekillots, or people in taverns or in the street, 'kill' needs a slight delay before the first attack in order to represent the approach and intent to shoot, with an echo sent to the victim who can then have a brief shot at 'fleeing' before they get reel-locked and murdered?

To compare, 'assist' will not always cause an immediate attack, but instead awaits the next "round" of combat before you attack. However, a victim of an 'assist' can 'flee' before being struck.

See code, discuss.

Code Select Expand



>kill dwarf

You approach a dwarf with the intent to fight.

(about 1-2 seconds later)

You bludgeon the dwarf in the head.



Dwarf sees:

Code Select Expand



The tall, muscular man approaches you.

(1-2 seconds later)

The tall, muscular man bludgeons you on the head.



(versus):

Code Select Expand



>sap dwarf

You sneak up on your target... (victim gets no echo, as it is currently)

You sap the dwarf on the head, sending him reeling.



[Harmless]

Bash should also be instantaneous... after all, it is a charge, with the risk of falling. Other commands should be instantaneous as well.

I just know from years of playing that kill is the favored way to start a fight, but it is the one way that takes (literally) no skill. Maybe it is time we take a look at this.

[Veselka]

On the contrary, Kill takes a lot of skill.

If you aren't skilled, it comes with a heavy delay that exposes you to massive coded drawbacks.

If you are skilled, it comes with a heavy delay that provides with you with massive coded advantages.

If you RP in-between, which you should, it comes with the burden of knowing when to use it, and when to not.

[RogueGunslinger]

To what purpose. I'm not sure I'm cool with the idea of giving victims more chance to survive.

[BrainySmurf]

Engagements opened with the kill command are massively biased towards the victim already. This is unnecessary.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Agreed, this is unnecessary.

[Hauwke]

I think its a neat idea, but putting a delay on it would be unfair I feel given the ridiculousness that is the ability to spam the flee command, you dont get an attack of oppurtunity if you fail to run, you can just spam it as fast as you can and you will get away upon which you might get hit but not always, then you have the fact that the person who used the kill command is heavily delayed even though both people were just involved in the same combat, one gets to run and the other has to stand there like an idiot for several seconds.

All of this combines to give the attacked a huge advantage on getting away. They dont need an extra second or so to be able to run off. Unless maybe kill was given no delay after use? Thats about the only way I see it being balanced, but on doing that, you would get attacked by a mek that hasnt got a delay on it and so follows behind instantly.

[Cind]

The kill command being instant with no delay/second chance to the typer is the reason I don't tavern brawl anymore. I make that typo way too easily.

[Harmless]

Okay, so we're cool with being able to instantaneously close the distance to a target in melee combat and land a first strike, even though it already has drawbacks.

Just saying, that even though it has some drawbacks and puts you at risk, if you know you're likely to kill your target, the target may never have a chance and all it took was high strength for you to end the fight.

I'm fine with things as they are, myself...but it isn't realistic in some situations. Maybe it should be a situational thing.

[Riev]

I can see where it comes from, but man am I going to trigger "approaches you with intent to kill" to call off "flee self" and call it roleplaying.

Its like Synthesis' intra-room grid where you can't just run in and attack someone from a span of like half a mile. I just don't think it would work.

Though I like the idea of reversing it, where backstab/sap/bash would be instant and kill/disarm/kick/etc would be pre-and-post delay. It'd change things up, but I don't think it would have the effect you're hoping for.

[BrainySmurf]

you know you're likely to kill your target, the target may never have a chance and all it took was high strength for you to end the fight.

This is not typically true barring half giants or very strong dwarves,  and the latter is debatable. The real way to be sure is a locked door, not a high power differential. My human warrior with high strength and weaponskills high enough to branch adv weapons once attacked a sitting target who was non combat and unarmed.

Reeled them, they stood up, fled, got reeled by my attack of opportunity. By the time my kill delay was up, they were out of the zone we were in entirely.

If we're going to nerf kill, we need to do something like increase reel to the point where getting reeled on your way out of a room gives you delay the same as the person who typed kill on you.

Edit: I would also be cool with a nerf to kill if bash could be used on a sitting target that was not in combat, ala knocking them off their chair, giving warriors flight suppression indoors and rangers flight suppression outdoors (ala charge, although mounted targets might need reworking). Basically as it stands, pinning down your target long enough to finish them is so challenging in Arm, apartment ganking is meme tier for its necessity to confirm a kill against 90% of targets.

[Feco]

Like others have said, I think "kill" already favors the victim under many circumstances.

The newish "threaten" and "chase" commands also softened things nicely.  It's no longer necessary that one enter a room and >kill in order to force interaction.

[Riev]

you know you're likely to kill your target, the target may never have a chance and all it took was high strength for you to end the fight.

This is not typically true barring half giants or very strong dwarves,  and the latter is debatable. The real way to be sure is a locked door, not a high power differential. My human warrior with high strength and weaponskills high enough to branch adv weapons once attacked a sitting target who was non combat and unarmed.

Your experience not withstanding, current events renders this a moot point. A 0day dwarf can, indeed, kill an unarmed person with a simple command.

However, I don't think a 2second delay would have saved anyone, either.

[Delirium]

IMO, if you idle at the bar, that's on you.

Yeah, griefers suck, but I'd still rather die to a sudden, public killing than an NPC. Tara's death in Buffy was horrible and unfair and sudden, but it was meaningful to Willow's story and everyone else around her.

[Riev]

IMO, if you idle at the bar, that's on you.

Yeah, griefers suck, but I'd still rather die to a sudden, public killing than an NPC. Tara's death in Buffy was horrible and unfair and sudden, but it was meaningful to Willow's story and everyone else around her.

It wasn't public.
Some of us take more offense to the handling of the situation, than the situation itself.


On topic, I don't think the pre-delay would be beneficial or solve the issue at hand. It is an interesting twist, but that is really all it is.

[Feco]

I'm super lost.

[Riev]

I'm super lost.

This is coming from 2 recent incidents where someone rolled up a 0-day dwarf warrior and, with no noticeable roleplay involved, murdered two PCs. (It may have been 2 different dwarves, likely same player). This involved simply standing in a bar, drawing a weapon, and typing "kill" providing an instant attack, a reel, and a followup for the knockout/kill.

Harmless is suggesting that kill has a pre-delay lag on it, so that people have time to react, to maybe reduce this kind of situation from happening again.

[Miradus]

The level of panic, over-reaction, and hysteria over these two events is far worse than the events themselves.

That griefing method has been documented and known for what, ten freakin' years now? And you've seen two instances of it?

Have any of you ever paid attention to the room echoes going on in the Gaj? There's people being attacked and possibly murdered left and right. And suddenly everyone is like, "OMG IT MIGHT HAPPEN TO ME -- NOOS! I HAS PLOT ARMOR!"

We inhabit a virtual world that George R.R. Martin would consider too harsh. I don't see how dying to this is any worse than running into an uber-carru or walking into a one-shot mek on the Ivory-Salt road. There's another bar where dwarves don't rush out of the dormitory and kill you. It's called "Red's Retreat". Prices are a little higher, assumably because they have a no-murderdwarf rule.

I'd like just one of you to come up with some IC response to this. Sell "guard" services in the Gaj. Announce a pogrom against psychotic and unstable dwarves in Allanak. STAND at the bar or buy a wooden cane and wield it as a prop (knowing that it codedly will be a weapon).

ANYTHING but asking for yet more CODE RESTRICTIONS on the game.

[Harmless]

Maybe guard should be able to be applied to a table.

Guard the bar, or a table, and you have a small chance to guard everyone sitting at it from one attacker. It would be far less effective than guarding an individual.

[Riev]

Maybe guard should be able to be applied to a table.

Guard the bar, or a table, and you have a small chance to guard everyone sitting at it from one attacker. It would be far less effective than guarding an individual.

I WOULD like to see the soldiers in and around the Gaj be more effective than a simplistic Kill-Box when someone accidentally kicks in a brawl. Theres like 8 of them and they just linger around.

I would +1 the idea that bar bouncers/onduty guards guard the people at the bar, somehow. I don't know if the code would allow for it, but I'd be down.

[Brytta Léofa]

I'm not totally opposed to a kill delay or anything, but it makes newbie mages more powerful.

[mansa]

I'd rather have code that prevents new characters from using combat commands in certain rooms until a certain timer is met.

[Harmless]

I do think that with the incredible strength that dwarves have that they really should just be made karma-restricted, also. After all, they are rare, in the lore of the game, far more rare than elves, half-elves, or humans. Secondly, the power they have straight out of the box has clearly and amply been demonstrated. It exceeds most magickers' in terms of ability to kill, as I personally have come to realize through playing multiple new 1 and 2 karma magicker subguilds. It stands to reason they ought to be available only after someone has shown some experience with the game just like all the other guilds, subguilds and races which give a player the ability to inflict an easy PK.

[Armaddict]

Knee-jerk reactions abound.

No need for this change.

[Harmless]

in this thread, I am suggesting an idea that is definitely prompted as a reaction to recent events, but some of these opinions, and ideas are ones that have been suggested before by others and now I just more strongly agree with them.

....such as finally wanting to agree with what others have said about dwarves

...feeling kind of annoyed that in my experience with PK that the "kill" command takes priority as a preferred method of initiating PK over other skill-based combat starters, and

...feeling like "guard" is an underpowered skill, or that bodyguards are in low demand and that they could get some kind of buff in the PK environment.


Also, I am going to go ahead and compare this griefing shit to school shootings and right-wing conservatives saying that it is "knee-jerk" to want to ban rifles and other deadly firearms when it is yelled for more loudly to make that change. Sorry, but the time to discuss a change is whenever the fuck we want to discuss it, and the fallacy of "this is a knee-jerk reaction" is just that, a fallacy. We can still talk about it, as long as we don't go into specifics of IC events, which I have not