The Reverse-Threaten: Evade!

[Brokkr]

I'm just not seeing the usefulness other than for slow typing.  I mean...

Raider Comes in.
You type evade raider.
Raider attacks you.
Raider gets first set of attacks in.
You flee.

Not sure how that is any different than just typing flee when they attack.

It may be you envision the blue bit not happening, but I can't really envision that not happening.  Otherwise this would become a bash/charge/whatever defense, which is entirely different.

[Riev]

I believe the intention is:

Raider Comes in.
You type evade raider.
Raider ATTEMPTS TO ATTACK/BASH/ENGAGE you.
You attempt to flee before combat engages.

A failure being you get hit and have to try and flee again.
The suggestion is to be able to auto-flee BEFORE the raider attacks, not to flee after the first attacks come in.

The idea is that, like how threaten engages combat when the opponent performs an action, flee would go off before combat initiates.

Not that I am for it, but so that we are thinking of the same thing.

[Brokkr]

I can't really envision that not happening.  Otherwise this would become a bash/charge/whatever defense, which is entirely different.

Bolded for emphasis.  It isn't even an auto-flee if you evade the attacks, it becomes a defense skill against those attack skills.

And then how are they supposed to kill you?

[creeper386]

The problem is even you as staff can't forsee it going to code. Neither can the grebber. - misread

Threaten was given as a tool for players to help engage without going to code.

But the other side of the equation, was giving no tools.

You have a raider and a grebber right. They both are concerned with unrealistic play taking away their agency. So they both result to code, right of the bat. No interaction.

The raider was giving threaten, which helps provide opportunity for RP. The grebber was given no tool to help ensure their agency. They have no way to enforce that they aren't letting the raider near them, or that they are ready to run. Other then just spam walking away.

The grebber doesn't trust the raiders play. Giving the raider threaten which just helps take away the grebber's agency doesn't help the grebber trust the raiders play.

Auto flee gives up nothing in exchange for making several actions at once and indicates that you're okay with roleplay only if you have an advantage over the other player and less risk.

The same could be said of threaten. The Raider isn't okay with roleplay unless they have an advantage over the other player and less risk of their raid being foiled.

It isn't multiple actions in my mind. It'd preparing to run. And then running if things go wrong. If you fail, their actions still go through.

[Brokkr]

Then it becomes who could type evade or threaten first?  Because obviously given the nature of them, they couldn't be in place at the same time on each other (one is you get close enough to threaten someone, the other is you keep them far away enough so you can run).

[Riev]

Trigger
Match *has arrived from the*
execute: evade

[Pariah]

I am completely confused as to what the two sides of this debate are trying to convince the other about.

Is one side arguing that they should be able to "Get ready to run." and get a chance to flee sans attack?  Like a successful flee command currently?

And the other is arguing they should just type Flee?

So automation is the argument here?

[Armaddict]

I would also like a auto-cure poison skill please.  And an auto-dodge bash skill.

I would also appreciate a coded in chance to dodge arrows in addition to the ones in place.  And I'd also like an additional skill to catch a thief's hands when they steal.

If you do this I will feel more confident having a scene where I win and have more control so that I can look down my nose and tell them I'm rping now where they weren't.

[Riev]

I would also like a auto-cure poison skill please.  And an auto-dodge bash skill.

I would also appreciate a coded in chance to dodge arrows in addition to the ones in place.  And I'd also like an additional skill to catch a thief's hands when they steal.

If you do this I will feel more confident having a scene where I win and have more control so that I can look down my nose and tell them I'm rping now where they weren't.

Have my children, though.

[LindseyBalboa]

The same conversation has been had from before I starting playing Arm.

Raiders kill on sight, and they do it because people auto flee and spam walk away from.

Other people say they auto flee and spam walk away from them because they kill on sight.

Nobody can kill on sight. They have to try and attack you or engage you and then attack you, or do some other command. Threaten doesn't even do that - it's actually the opposite. They are not 'giving up roleplay,' they are literally making themselves combat vulnerable and giving themselves a malus to their skill to try and get roleplay.

Whereas with auto flee, anyone who is playing the game can type flee at any time. If you want to flee before someone attacks you, flee self can be done anytime.

Or:

Trigger
Match *has arrived from the*
execute: evade

I mean this is basically the same thing. If you have mudlet you can script a %chance into it, and maybe some fun factors like if they're taller, bigger, or it's night.

I am completely confused as to what the two sides of this debate are trying to convince the other about.

Is one side arguing that they should be able to "Get ready to run." and get a chance to flee sans attack?  Like a successful flee command currently?

And the other is arguing they should just type Flee?

So automation is the argument here?

One side has suggested that there should be a command that puts you into a ready-to-flee stance that makes you flee before you're attacked, and also makes you disengage from the combatant, and also turn around, and also flee. The idea is that threaten is for aggressors to RP so non-fighting-characters should have a command that lets them run off, which will stimulate roleplay between strangers, especially players that are fearful of being attacked quickly without RP.

The other side says there is a flee command that you can use to do that right now. Just like threaten has to succeed and then the skill has to succeed, if you're attacked you have a chance of successfully dodging, and successfully fleeing. It is already the opposite of threaten, and combat characters who might actually attack you are giving up some of that utility to use threaten to ask for RP. This is a command that uses skills and stats of characters and is used based on the character.

[Windstorm]

I would also like a auto-cure poison skill please.  And an auto-dodge bash skill.

I would also appreciate a coded in chance to dodge arrows in addition to the ones in place.  And I'd also like an additional skill to catch a thief's hands when they steal.

If you do this I will feel more confident having a scene where I win and have more control so that I can look down my nose and tell them I'm rping now where they weren't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Politely, let's keep things productive.

[Armaddict]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Politely, let's keep things productive

Hold on.  Which part did I misunderstand?  Are we NOT presenting a skill that adds another check to the success of another skill made by another person, despite its own inherent checks?  I'm afraid I must have read this entirely wrong.

Or I didn't, and these are just comparable ideas, not strawmen, particularly since I didn't present them in order to make an argument against those as if I was arguing against the original idea.  It's sarcasm, sure.  Fallacy?  Naw.

[Windstorm]

Not worth it, nevermind.

[Armaddict]

Where was an auto-poison cure proposed?

Where was an auto-arrow-dodge proposed?

Where was an auto bash dodge proposed?

Please list specific examples.

Or, admit they were strawmen.

They're not comparable examples, it's arguing in bad faith, being snarky and cute, and fairly transparent about it.

They were proposed by me.  Because they follow the same premise as the original idea.  You find them distasteful because they follow the same approach but sound a lot worse.

If you want it to be all nice and dandy:

If we want to add more checks to the use of aggressive skills, then those can be done directly in the skill.  Something along the lines of 'Can threaten give an echo to the receiver that they try to take a position of initiative but fail', which could then lead to the same argument, which is that there's already skill checks for failure via [threaten] as well as skill checks for your success via [flee].  If threaten is too effective, we could also talk about that.

What is actually desired here is confidence in the control, i.e. your knowledge that you can behave confidently in nullifying someone else's skill whose level you don't know yet.  That is why they're not strawmen, is because you're focusing as if the argument was directly about one thing and one thing alone.  But it isn't.  It's about mechanics, and how to be confident in those mechanics.  So I've shown the same mechanic in similar scenarios.

It also does not do anything to increase interaction; that's the original purpose of threaten in the first place, is to allow for someone to use a command that still allows them to maintain initiative, but allow for other actions to take place without losing that initiative.  This gave the aggressor the ability to make for more elaborate scenes.  The 'increase in interaction' in adding another skill check is just to reduce effectiveness for what inevitably becomes the same action:  Right now, if someone threatens you, and you decide you want to play, you can.  If you decide you want to run, you get to try to run.  As mentioned above, a 'counter-skill' isn't any more needed here than any of the other listed skills unless you are specifically trying to make those skills less effective.

If you want an example of an actual strawman, albeit a poor one:
"By adding this check, you are trying to eliminate combat. [Notice how this statement has nothing to do with what you've said.  I'm taking the idea you've presented, and pushing it into grounds where I'm putting words in your mouth.] Eliminating combat is a bad endeavor, because it is integral to the strife of the game. [Notice how I am no longer arguing against your presented idea, I am now arguing against what I've changed your argument into.]"

What I've done is shown similar cases where a skill from one person has success checks for their effectiveness, and made the same request: Please add another skill to give me a chance to make that skill less effective at what it's supposed to do.  They follow the same mechanic as presented here (except the poison one, that's actually a bad one that's more centered on negating effect rather than action).

They aren't even slippery slope despite sounding extreme.  They are, literally, the same mechanic proposed in the same arena in order to demonstrate why a new skill, and in particular a new skill, is not a great solution.  You seem to be assuming that I'm saying no change can happen.  What I -am- saying is that creating counter-skills is clunky and weird.  I also think it likely results in having to re-evaluate how we determine success and failure for any skill that a counter-skill is created for.

Would you care to redirect into what it is about threaten in particular that is stifling to the interaction that it was put in to enable?  Does it not fail often enough?  Does it not account for enough?  Or is it just anxiety-inducing to know that your general defensive actions still give them their move as the scene unfolds?

[Windstorm]

It's not a counter to threaten, it's giving a potential raider victim a chance to interact with the raider instead of just walking away instantaneously before they can even be threatened.

The way things are, people will (and do) probably just walk away instantaneously and no roleplay's really had out of it.

Just like there's a prepared attack if someone tries to leave, this is a prepared retreat if someone tries to attack. In the meanwhile, there's a potential for interaction.

The alternative, how things currently stand, is just typing "w" and that being the end of the encounter.

[Armaddict]

Why is there no chance to interact with the threatener as it stands?  If they attack instead of interact after the threaten, the threaten goes away and you flee, where the additional skill check never comes into play.  If they threaten and start to interact, you have interaction.

If you are walking away before they have the chance to threaten, you are not looking for interaction.  If you stick around to interact, then decide you need to leave, they have a skill check (and possibly another skillcheck) and you have a skillcheck.

How does the additional skill check (making 2 and possibly 3 that they need to succeed at for actual success at the aggression) promote any more interaction when every scenario already allows for that same interaction?

[creeper386]

I would also like a auto-cure poison skill please.  And an auto-dodge bash skill.

I would also appreciate a coded in chance to dodge arrows in addition to the ones in place.  And I'd also like an additional skill to catch a thief's hands when they steal.

If you do this I will feel more confident having a scene where I win and have more control so that I can look down my nose and tell them I'm rping now where they weren't.

Lets see, auto cure, you can now take cures before hand and they help. So that's in. As you've stated you've already have chances to avoid a bash and a dodge. And a steal.

You know what you don't have control over, RPing trying to keep distance from someone and them charging/bashing you instantly when they come into a room and killing you.

Instead, we well just continue having players spam walk away from other players like currently happens.

[Armaddict]

I would also like a auto-cure poison skill please.  And an auto-dodge bash skill.

I would also appreciate a coded in chance to dodge arrows in addition to the ones in place.  And I'd also like an additional skill to catch a thief's hands when they steal.

If you do this I will feel more confident having a scene where I win and have more control so that I can look down my nose and tell them I'm rping now where they weren't.

Lets see, auto cure, you can now take cures before hand and they help. So that's in. As you've stated you've already have chances to avoid a bash and a dodge. And a steal.

You know what you don't have control over, RPing trying to keep distance from someone and them charging/bashing you instantly when they come into a room and killing you.

Instead, we well just continue having players spam walk away from other players like currently happens.

Saying those are already is the same state that threaten is currently in.

Threaten is the increased interactivity.  It's actually less effective than just running in with a bash or charge or what have you, so the aggressor already takes a hit to basically let you know that there is the opportunity to play.  But if you're just looking to walk away, it's not the aggressor causing a lack of interactivity, it's you.

They have the chance for threaten to fail, you have the chance to flee.  There is no 'additional skill' that gives you a second attempt at avoiding a steal or bash, it's just you.  It -is- influenced by you having the same skill, which I believe is also in for threaten.

I'm uncertain why instead of asking for a modification to threaten to do this or that, you're presenting an entirely new skill that specifically targets threaten.  And I'm still not seeing how that increases interaction, when in reality with 'how these scenes go', it's actually just giving more reason to skip threaten altogether and jump straight into combat.

Threaten specifically takes that first offensive action that occurs in raiding/mugging/guarding and puts it in delay so that you have the chance to play a scene without losing the initiative as the aggressor.  This is a giant boon as far as trying to make scenes with clear communication rather than only interaction being the actions themselves (which are still roleplay, mind you).

I really don't know what else to say; the description of this interaction is more telling of why threaten was put in the first place than anything else, and a full on verification of why the raider/raidee interaction goes this way.

[Pariah]

I don't think I've ever been codedly threatened in game, is this really a very used skill?

I'm not Poo Poo ing improvements to it, but just wondering if on all my stalkers I just got lucky and never ran into all the people using Threaten.

[creeper386]

That's the thing. Threaten still being put in, still doesn't help prevent anyone from spam walking away. While you are walking towards them.


I've been riding around a lot. You know how many people instantly walk away. A ton, seems to be pretty much a common occurrence and threaten hasn't really changed that.

The point is, this sort of skill would allow you to actually wait and interact INSTEAD of walking away.

Grebber is grebbing. Raider walks in.

Grebber evades raider.
Raider threatens grebber.

Interaction can happen. If it escalates to kill, grebbers evade gives a chance to run, without just getting charged/bashed  possibly instantly killed.

If the grebber tries to leave, the threaten skill would kick in.

Currently though, the power just still exists all within the attacker. If they come in and hit threaten, and that's it. They don't have to care about anything else. How large the rooms are, how likely someone is trying to avoid them anything.

And it does NOTHING for the grebber to trust that the Raider is playing in good faith. Instead it just says, the raider is interested in RPing only if they have the upper hand. This sort of thing helps even that out.

[Kaathe]

Then it becomes who could type evade or threaten first?  Because obviously given the nature of them, they couldn't be in place at the same time on each other (one is you get close enough to threaten someone, the other is you keep them far away enough so you can run).

Calling it evade is confusing.

It's threaten flee.

However 2 people using threaten on each other works is the same way this would work (assuming threaten doesn't activate threaten. If it does it's not in the help file.)

The point is to queue the action you want to do if they attack or flee so the computer can do it if you're in the middle of typing an emote or a say.

I'm not Poo Poo ing improvements to it, but just wondering if on all my stalkers I just got lucky and never ran into all the people using Threaten.

You'd be lucky if you did run into threaten because it's the attacker saying "hey i could have typed bash immediately, but instead I'm doing threaten so we can RP"