keyword: "group"

[Brytta Léofa]

Not really a keyword, but a well-known word that does the right thing for various commands.

"Group," as a concept, means:
me,
the people following me,
the person I'm following, and
the other people following the person I'm following.

This is not quite everybody in the directed graph of followers. For Byn trooper Amos, it's his sarge and buddies. For Byn sarge Talia, it's her troop, the templar, and the other leaders.

Uses:

(1) assess group works like assess room, but limited to your group. Big boost for making sense of mass combat: you can see who's hurt, limited to your crew. It's not as spammy and confusing as "assess room," nor as gamey as if it showed, like, everybody on Our Side.

(2) assist group finds someone in the group who is in combat and causes you to assist them. Search order: your followers, then your leader, then their followers. There could be some kind of skill-based delay if you want.

(3) rescue group finds someone in the group who is in combat and below "moderate condition" and rescues them. Search order: hit points, lowest to highest. There could be a rescue skill check involved in sorting this correctly (such that inept rescuers rescue people who don't need it, or aren't the worst off).

(4) kill person's group initiates combat with someone from another person's group. Search order: people who aren't in combat; people who are in combat by hit points, highest to lowest.

(5) Not a command in the same way, but brief combat could hide some combat messages pertaining to people outside your group. (For instance, blows with damage below "connecting hard.")

I think these would represent a significant step in moving mass combat from "completely incomprehensible scroll" to more just "scary chaos." It would tend to make mass combat more grindy in a good way, by directing combat away from the most-hurt people and away from "everybody hit the templar" (which is a little too successful of a strategy at the moment). And it's a QOL improvement for routine operations.

What saith the hive?

[Armaddict]

I've actually thought about these functionalities being added to the game in various ways, but usually tied to skills as much as possible (similar to how you did with rescue).  I don't want absolute freedom from the chaos of mass combat so that all I need to do is spam group commands to feel safe, but I do want people to not just freeze up in the midst of spam.

Largely, I deviated away from 'group' commands into 'formations' where the guard skill would dictate who's immediately near you.  At a certain level, 'guard' would allow you to guard another target.  Thus, guard <person to left> and guard <person to right> would make you automatically assist them first, and rescue them without a target.  Anyone away from that would require assessment of the field and direct targeting.  Something of that nature.

But I do agree there is room for these functionalities to be in the game to make mass combat -actually appealing-, because let's face it.  Big battles are the pinnacle of epic war stories.

[Brytta Léofa]

I've actually thought about these functionalities being added to the game in various ways, but usually tied to skills as much as possible (similar to how you did with rescue).

I think of this stuff as falling into two categories:
#1 basic stuff anybody should be able to do (but is weirdly hard because spam/game mechanics), and
#2 things that require skill.
Also, anything that gives you code-supported twitch response (rescue, assist) should have a skill check.

"assess group" is #1 because of the limited definition of group. You're not filtering assess room by faction, you're filtering by the people in your unit (who arrived together and, arguendo, are fighting near each other), and it's only informational anyway.

"assist group" is #2 (good combat awareness is clearly a skill). Not clear what existing skill(s) would represent this, but.

"rescue group" is clearly #2 since we have a rescue skill already.

"kill person's group" is #1 because (a) it shouldn't be hard to find someone at random to fight and (b) the current way of doing this (kill other.templar) is really undesirable.

I'll throw in one more:
shoot person's group - a random target with slightly increased chance to hit. (tbh only staff would use this; players want to kill the leader or a straggler.)

Largely, I deviated away from 'group' commands into 'formations' where the guard skill would dictate who's immediately near you.  At a certain level, 'guard' would allow you to guard another target.  Thus, guard <person to left> and guard <person to right> would make you automatically assist them first, and rescue them without a target.

That would be a cool system, but it does require people to learn a new system and sort themselves out carefully. I feel like we don't have any near analogues to this in game right now.

What about dropping the left/right argument and simply allowing multi-person guarding?

> guard amos
You begin guarding the tall, muscular man.
> guard talia
You begin guarding the tall, muscular woman.
> guard
You are guarding the tall, muscular man and the tall, muscular woman.
(Guarding efficacy reduced by 10% per additional person.)
> guard fred
You don't have enough skill to guard another person.
> rescue
No one is fighting anyone you are guarding.
> assist
No one is fighting anyone you are guarding.
> guard none
You stop guarding.

My one qualm about this is that I don't think guarding your comrades represents the intent for combat. I don't want to jump in front of them, I just want more situational awareness so I can help them.

But I do agree there is room for these functionalities to be in the game to make mass combat -actually appealing-, because let's face it.  Big battles are the pinnacle of epic war stories.

Yup yup. They don't happen that often, but they're super important to our stories--as witness the amount of player and staff time that goes in to setting up these situations.

[Brytta Léofa]

What I want to do is completely get rid of this and never see it again:

"Call out your name if you're hurt!"

...Because in a room full of hooded/uniformed figures, you can't find the screaming wounded dude unless you know his name. <facepalm>

[mansa]

Should it be a new functionality...
Or should "assist" itself have coded modifiers to automatically join combat with anyone within "a follow train"


>assist <target>
if <target> is in combat against <enemy1>
force player to join combat against <enemy1>

otherwise - NEW CODE -
if <target> is not in combat.
Look at followers of <target>
-> for each follower of target
If follower is in combat, join combat against follower's combat target.



this "follower of <target>" functionality could be expanded to rescue, but I don't think it could be for 'guard'.

[flurry]

I think it's an idea with good potential for combat and beyond. For example, I think whisper group would be cool to have.

[Brytta Léofa]

Love some way of whispering to the crew when you're all hiding, without breaking hide.

dessert elf whisperer