Movement, blind spots and enemy reaction times.

[Kavrick]

So I'll preface this with, "This might just come down to a skill issue but I do think it's something that negatively effects the game." But when it comes to playing wilderness characters, there's one main issue I bump into time and time again, and that is diagonal blindspots and enemy reaction time. If you move into a room one room away from another enemy, and that enemy is hostile (which is the majority of creatures in our fantasy australia), that enemy will instantly move into your space, before you even get a chance to use the look command and see that they're in the first place. This compounds the issue of a lack ways to check your blind spots, so you can look in all directions, but because an enemy is in your NE, the moment you think it's clear and move to the north or east, that creature will immediately catapult itself at your face.

This isn't a huge issue for some enemies, but especially for enemies around tuluk in particular, there are a lot of both fast, and extremely deadly (kryl, bahamet, carru, packs of gortoks), which can not only lead to a lot of player deaths, but also results in enemies being dragged out of their usual positions and closer to gates. I think if enemies had a longer delay on moving into your room, this would help both alleviate the issue of creatures not being where they're supposed to (which could be an intended feature, but I do wish they at least slowly wandered back to their original location) and quickly dying due to the need to wrestle with an inherently clunky text-based system (Again maybe a skill issue on my part, but as someone new to MUDs, typing in the perfectly right commands without typos to avoid my character's head being removed from it's shoulders by a carru when you're panicking can be extremely difficult).

[LidlessEye]

Aliases could help alleviate some of these problems. 

Other than that, I do concur that it would be nice if animals wandered back to their original location after awhile. In the past, people have lured dangerous animals closer to roads and gates, and it feels silly. I have personally experienced a situation where 3-4 mekillots (not all at once) were lured to the surroundings of Allanak over 2-3 weeks, more than a year ago, and it actually resulted in a PC's death (not mine) who was new and grebbing. The suspected culprit was ultimately slain, but not before a lot of damage was done.

[Kavrick]

Aliases could help alleviate some of these problems. 

Other than that, I do concur that it would be nice if animals wandered back to their original location after awhile. In the past, people have lured dangerous animals closer to roads and gates, and it feels silly. I have personally experienced a situation where 3-4 mekillots (not all at once) were lured to the surroundings of Allanak over 2-3 weeks, more than a year ago, and it actually resulted in a PC's death (not mine) who was new and grebbing. The suspected culprit was ultimately slain, but not before a lot of damage was done.

What aliases would you recommend? I use one for looking in all directions but i've had multiple situations where the enemy will go into my square before it even fires off.

And I do agree that I would much prefer creatures slowly wandering into their natural habitats. I've had at least two player deaths come from either massive swarms of creatures being somewhere that's normally safe, or an incredibly dangerous creature being right outside a gate and then having said gate shut on me because of the creature. (which is a gate behavior I both understand due to bahamets and also hate).

Zalanthas has an incredibly dangerous set of wildlife, which from someone who plays a lot of wilderness characters, I love. It makes the game exciting when it comes to exploration but I do also think that a level of predictabilty would both make sense, and be at least some sort of reprieve. No one likes walking two tile sout of a gate just for three kryl to be there for some reason.

[LidlessEye]

The mud has an inbuilt alias system. I have one for fleeing, fl (direction), and should I fall off, I also have aliases to mount up fast, aliases to draw weapons swiftly etc. I've never used any aliases outside the game.

[LidlessEye]

And I know this is only partially helpful, but when I've led combat RPTs, I'd have a soldier or two go parallel to the designated path, and look to see if there are any dangerous creatures diagonally.

A B
C D
E F

Suppose you were in E, and needed to go North through A, you could go F and look North.

[Kavrick]

And I know this is only partially helpful, but when I've led combat RPTs, I'd have a soldier or two go parallel to the designated path, and look to see if there are any dangerous creatures diagonally.

A B
C D
E F

Suppose you were in E, and needed to go North through A, you could go F and look North.

I'm aware that you can technically do this, but when you're in the open wilds, hunting every single day. It's not particularly practical to do this when danger can be in any direction.

[CalmThyPalm]

Aliases could help alleviate some of these problems. 

Other than that, I do concur that it would be nice if animals wandered back to their original location after awhile. In the past, people have lured dangerous animals closer to roads and gates, and it feels silly. I have personally experienced a situation where 3-4 mekillots (not all at once) were lured to the surroundings of Allanak over 2-3 weeks, more than a year ago, and it actually resulted in a PC's death (not mine) who was new and grebbing. The suspected culprit was ultimately slain, but not before a lot of damage was done.

What aliases would you recommend? I use one for looking in all directions but i've had multiple situations where the enemy will go into my square before it even fires off.

And I do agree that I would much prefer creatures slowly wandering into their natural habitats. I've had at least two player deaths come from either massive swarms of creatures being somewhere that's normally safe, or an incredibly dangerous creature being right outside a gate and then having said gate shut on me because of the creature. (which is a gate behavior I both understand due to bahamets and also hate).

Zalanthas has an incredibly dangerous set of wildlife, which from someone who plays a lot of wilderness characters, I love. It makes the game exciting when it comes to exploration but I do also think that a level of predictabilty would both make sense, and be at least some sort of reprieve. No one likes walking two tile sout of a gate just for three kryl to be there for some reason.

I'm no great player by any stretch of the imagination, but the aliases that help me lots to have an easier time keeping my PCs alive now versus how I started have a lot to do with making sure they're quick to have hands on what they need in order to fight a threat, or make sure their hands are free for the reins if the only option's fleeing (granted they're a race that rides and I have a mount early on into a new character). So things like...

eps = change hands ep es
esp = change hands es ep
ep2 = change hands ep etwo
es2 = change hands es etwo

... so on and so forth aside from the ever useful 'rp', 'rs', and 'rtwo', because the last thing you wanna be doing is panicking over having full hands when you're not yet skilled enough to ride with a weapon and a shield/a weapon in both hands/two hands on a weapon.

Oh, and if you didn't know already, something that took me a while to realize is that disengaging from your attacker makes it easier to pull your mount out of combat... or at least that's what it's felt like to me from the times I've done it.

[Riev]

I think, in the end, it may come down to a callous "too bad, so sad" scenario.
If your mount is not faster than the apex predators in your area, or your skill at riding does not allow you to get away fast... well. You should not be hunting there.
ABSOLUTELY this is an issue when you can just run up next to a bahamet basking in the sun. Thems the dangers of the ever-green lands.

That said? Give me a wilderness skill called "danger sense" that alerts me if there is an aggressive beast in a diagonal position from me. If it fails? I'm in danger.

[Kavrick]

I think, in the end, it may come down to a callous "too bad, so sad" scenario.
If your mount is not faster than the apex predators in your area, or your skill at riding does not allow you to get away fast... well. You should not be hunting there.
ABSOLUTELY this is an issue when you can just run up next to a bahamet basking in the sun. Thems the dangers of the ever-green lands.

That said? Give me a wilderness skill called "danger sense" that alerts me if there is an aggressive beast in a diagonal position from me. If it fails? I'm in danger.

Some sort of danger sense owuld be nice, maybe not make it a new skill but instead make it work off of hunt (as honestly i've never found a practical use for hunt myself). As for the whole 'don't hunt where it is dangerous for your character part'. This is not really an option in Tuluk, Tuluk is basically hyper dangerous in every single direction one way or another, I could explain in detail but that would more than likely be breaking meta-rules. Even the easiest thing to hunt in Tuluk is right next to like two different dangerous enemy spawns.

[Pariah]

I think, in the end, it may come down to a callous "too bad, so sad" scenario.
If your mount is not faster than the apex predators in your area, or your skill at riding does not allow you to get away fast... well. You should not be hunting there.
ABSOLUTELY this is an issue when you can just run up next to a bahamet basking in the sun. Thems the dangers of the ever-green lands...

The problem is that every aggressive critter is faster than most beetles.

I've had non-combat foragers out there who get the chalton that's enraged from (insert reason) and I instantly go, Run, e e e e e e e e e

And that fucking chalton will follow me like I'm crawling.

I've always thought that critters have entirely too much speed compared to mounts.  And the mounts that are super speedy, can't carry you for more than like ten rooms, so it's the choice of, am I going to rest my (speedy mount) every ten rooms I travel and lose the daylight simply from waiting for his endurance to tick, or am I going to ride my normal mount, but he can't run from shit.

There are some mechanics you can use to ensure you get away, but I don't know if spreading that knowledge here would be appreciated as it's sorta mechanical.

[Kavrick]

I think, in the end, it may come down to a callous "too bad, so sad" scenario.
If your mount is not faster than the apex predators in your area, or your skill at riding does not allow you to get away fast... well. You should not be hunting there.
ABSOLUTELY this is an issue when you can just run up next to a bahamet basking in the sun. Thems the dangers of the ever-green lands...

The problem is that every aggressive critter is faster than most beetles.

I've had non-combat foragers out there who get the chalton that's enraged from (insert reason) and I instantly go, Run, e e e e e e e e e

And that fucking chalton will follow me like I'm crawling.

I've always thought that critters have entirely too much speed compared to mounts.  And the mounts that are super speedy, can't carry you for more than like ten rooms, so it's the choice of, am I going to rest my (speedy mount) every ten rooms I travel and lose the daylight simply from waiting for his endurance to tick, or am I going to ride my normal mount, but he can't run from shit.

There are some mechanics you can use to ensure you get away, but I don't know if spreading that knowledge here would be appreciated as it's sorta mechanical.

This is a big issue I have with Carru in particular. In the north carru are EVERYWHERE, they're fast, faster than pretty much anything that's not an Inix and they're extremely deadly. I don't really understand why some creatures are so obsessively hostile, this is why I thought it'd be a good idea for some creatures, especially ones that are supposed to be herbivores to have a delay on running into your room, more intent to chase you off than kill you.

[Brokkr]

The problem is that every aggressive critter is faster than most beetles.

Incorrect.  Beetle mounts are equal in speed to most aggressive critters.

This is a big issue I have with Carru in particular. In the north carru are EVERYWHERE, they're fast, faster than pretty much anything that's not an Inix and they're extremely deadly.

No, carru are exactly the same speed as war beetles.

As for the original topic, NPCs move exactly like your PC moves, for the most part.  Meaning delay on movement is after.  Just like your PC.  Giving you somewhere between the movement delay wait state and movement delay wait state + aggro kick off to react to its presence, something I've always found beneficial myself.  Much better than if we flipped it, so it had delay to move in with you but no delay to attack you once it moved in.

The diagonal discussion has come up multiple times before. Beyond the technical issues, the idea doesn't really mesh well with the "harsh" part of the world to me.  Part of the world being harsh is your PC getting into dangerous situations that you, the player, did not intend them to be in. This mechanic of not seeing around corners is one of the few ways we have to do this. The idea that you can control which conflicts you get into with your PC, and that death only comes due to bad choices on the player's part, would absolutely gut the harshness of the world.

[Kavrick]

The problem is that every aggressive critter is faster than most beetles.

Incorrect.  Beetle mounts are equal in speed to most aggressive critters.

This is a big issue I have with Carru in particular. In the north carru are EVERYWHERE, they're fast, faster than pretty much anything that's not an Inix and they're extremely deadly.

No, carru are exactly the same speed as war beetles.

As for the original topic, NPCs move exactly like your PC moves, for the most part.  Meaning delay on movement is after.  Just like your PC.  Giving you somewhere between the movement delay wait state and movement delay wait state + aggro kick off to react to its presence, something I've always found beneficial myself.  Much better than if we flipped it, so it had delay to move in with you but no delay to attack you once it moved in.

The diagonal discussion has come up multiple times before. Beyond the technical issues, the idea doesn't really mesh well with the "harsh" part of the world to me.  Part of the world being harsh is your PC getting into dangerous situations that you, the player, did not intend them to be in. This mechanic of not seeing around corners is one of the few ways we have to do this. The idea that you can control which conflicts you get into with your PC, and that death only comes due to bad choices on the player's part, would absolutely gut the harshness of the world.

The only thing that I would say is that npcs dont move like PCs because NPCs gain and process information instantly. If I move into a room and then start looking to check my surroundings, the NPC will always notice me before I notice it. I understand that diagonal movement and sight would be awful and I'm not really wanting or desiring that. I do also understand wanting to keep the world dangerous and hostile, as someone who's play a lot of wilderness characters and considers themself at least a little decent at not dying to the local fauna, I would say that having a bahamet walk into your square instantly from a blind spot and then hit you for 60 damage before you can react doesn't feel particularly great when you're playing a game where death is permenant and progression on your character can take months, even years.

[LidlessEye]

I think, in the end, it may come down to a callous "too bad, so sad" scenario.
If your mount is not faster than the apex predators in your area, or your skill at riding does not allow you to get away fast... well. You should not be hunting there.
ABSOLUTELY this is an issue when you can just run up next to a bahamet basking in the sun. Thems the dangers of the ever-green lands.

That said? Give me a wilderness skill called "danger sense" that alerts me if there is an aggressive beast in a diagonal position from me. If it fails? I'm in danger.

Some sort of danger sense owuld be nice, maybe not make it a new skill but instead make it work off of hunt (as honestly i've never found a practical use for hunt myself). As for the whole 'don't hunt where it is dangerous for your character part'. This is not really an option in Tuluk, Tuluk is basically hyper dangerous in every single direction one way or another, I could explain in detail but that would more than likely be breaking meta-rules. Even the easiest thing to hunt in Tuluk is right next to like two different dangerous enemy spawns.

Hunt is very important for tracking down your quarry. I've literally used it to track fugitives over long distances, once tracking a fugitive from Allanak to Red Storm for a Templar.

[Brytta Léofa]

Other than that, I do concur that it would be nice if animals wandered back to their original location after awhile.

+1

Whenever an NPC is added to the game (spawned, loaded, teleported by staff), tag it with its start location.
When the NPC wants to wander, give it a chance to move towards its start location that is proportional to its distance away. (Say, 50% at 15 rooms away.)
Various game conditions might temporarily or permanently remove its memory of its start location.

Lets things wander around, be lured away, etc. but not hang out in a weird place forever.

(Also, now we can has carrier pigeons.)

[Pariah]

I think Kavrick hits the issue on the head.  That computer based enemy sees me the split second I come into the room, before I can even type look n to see it.

The NPC always has the benefit of this speed.

The problem is that every aggressive critter is faster than most beetles.

Incorrect.  Beetle mounts are equal in speed to most aggressive critters.

This is a big issue I have with Carru in particular. In the north carru are EVERYWHERE, they're fast, faster than pretty much anything that's not an Inix and they're extremely deadly.

No, carru are exactly the same speed as war beetles.

As for the original topic, NPCs move exactly like your PC moves, for the most part.  Meaning delay on movement is after.  Just like your PC.  Giving you somewhere between the movement delay wait state and movement delay wait state + aggro kick off to react to its presence, something I've always found beneficial myself.  Much better than if we flipped it, so it had delay to move in with you but no delay to attack you once it moved in.
...

I think it would be more balanced and sorta fair against a manually typing person like me to have them notice me, but have a delay before they start the chase train.  That gives me time to go:

W
Look N
(Mekillot just chillin)
think Oh shit
run
w

As it is now we are at a disadvantage from lots of different factors.  Say that mekillot insta runs into my room, there is lag on the game, I type run w w w w w w but before even my run command hits, their server side command of kill homie hits, I'm now one or two shotted by a mega predator.

Which I get it, it happens, the world is harsh, but I think the world should be harsh in a way where a little bit of lag doesn't kill your character.

Also, as I said before, there is really no roleplay at all from the critter side of view, where we have all these emote capabilities and animation capabilities of some critters (Kryl, Gith) etc.  A scrab will just run in and attack you, no emote, no messaging no nothing.  I think it would make sense if they showed some outward aggression that wasn't just kill homie.  A snarl, a growl, an angry clatter of mandibles, something.  But that's just flavor shit really.


Edit:  I think this has always been looked at as a "But it works." situation by staff/builders/coders because yes, sure it works.  Been working for decades.  But I think it should be looked at as a "Let's make the world more immersive and not settle for just, "It works."

[dumbstruck]

Southlands/EoE had a command called 'peer' that got around their diku style nswe limitations and let you look in diagonals up to 3 rooms out but it showed up odd, it would return different for peer nw than peer wn for example. That said, it's the closest I've seen to a legit workaround to this. There is a difference between genuine organic danger (which exists, and there is a lot. I recently played a tribal and swore to my clan staff I wouldn't go to a relatively popular spot in <area> because 8 poisonous npcs were known to spawn and glom up there. That's danger enough.) and code limitations, and I understand that using code limitations putting you in danger can increase the danger, but I don't think it's necessarily what players want or are looking for in a played experience where all too often the slightest slipup can mean a death that can lose you months to years of your RL investment of time, effort, and energy. If I'm going to lose that, I'd rather it be to a player, or at least an npc fight I CHOSE or a genuinely hidden npc, not just...code limiting me from ever having peripheral vision on a map in some ways.

[Brisket]

I'm aware that you can technically do this, but when you're in the open wilds, hunting every single day. It's not particularly practical to do this when danger can be in any direction.

Danger could be in any direction is part and parcel of the theme.  Until you're a very accomplished hunter that can easily handle a local apex predator, it is not only practical, its what your PC would, ICly, be doing.  Hunting isn't just mob bashing like in a different mud, its an active process that your PC is engaging in to collect meat, hide, and bones from living beings in order to use them for a variety of purposes.  Your hunts should be purposeful.  Your hunts should be scary before you become confidently able to handle the wildlife.

You're new so you haven't yet gained the experience with the difficulty curve necessary to understand when you should feel capable, and that can be deeply frustrating. I get it.  But every action should be considered ICly, and if tapping your 'look all' alias isn't practical, then the city might be a more engaging place for you to play.

[Kavrick]

I'm aware that you can technically do this, but when you're in the open wilds, hunting every single day. It's not particularly practical to do this when danger can be in any direction.

Danger could be in any direction is part and parcel of the theme.  Until you're a very accomplished hunter that can easily handle a local apex predator, it is not only practical, its what your PC would, ICly, be doing.  Hunting isn't just mob bashing like in a different mud, its an active process that your PC is engaging in to collect meat, hide, and bones from living beings in order to use them for a variety of purposes.  Your hunts should be purposeful.  Your hunts should be scary before you become confidently able to handle the wildlife.

You're new so you haven't yet gained the experience with the difficulty curve necessary to understand when you should feel capable, and that can be deeply frustrating. I get it.  But every action should be considered ICly, and if tapping your 'look all' alias isn't practical, then the city might be a more engaging place for you to play.

This is something i'm going to be stubborn on. Making it so enemies are invisible to you until you bump right into them when they're the size of a horse or even a building isn't 'part and parcel'. I'm fine with the game being dangerous, I'm fine with the world being hostile. But having this displayed through clunky and unintuitive systems isn't the best. Even if this comes down to me being 'new'. I've actually never died to this problem, it's just a very blatant problem that could be fixed with a few tweaks. I never said tapping alias isn't practical, I said that having to walk back and forth, trying to catch every angle with your look command so you can catch your blind spots isn't practical in the long run.

Make the game dangerous, make enemies that track you to find you, make enemies with venom and make enemies that are incredibly aggressive. But giving enemies impossible to match AI reaction times and being invisible until you walk right into them isn't the best way to display that, in my opinion.

[Pariah]

I'm aware that you can technically do this, but when you're in the open wilds, hunting every single day. It's not particularly practical to do this when danger can be in any direction.

Danger could be in any direction is part and parcel of the theme.  Until you're a very accomplished hunter that can easily handle a local apex predator, it is not only practical, its what your PC would, ICly, be doing.  Hunting isn't just mob bashing like in a different mud, its an active process that your PC is engaging in to collect meat, hide, and bones from living beings in order to use them for a variety of purposes.  Your hunts should be purposeful.  Your hunts should be scary before you become confidently able to handle the wildlife.

You're new so you haven't yet gained the experience with the difficulty curve necessary to understand when you should feel capable, and that can be deeply frustrating. I get it.  But every action should be considered ICly, and if tapping your 'look all' alias isn't practical, then the city might be a more engaging place for you to play.

This is something i'm going to be stubborn on. Making it so enemies are invisible to you until you bump right into them when they're the size of a horse or even a building isn't 'part and parcel'. I'm fine with the game being dangerous, I'm fine with the world being hostile. But having this displayed through clunky and unintuitive systems isn't the best. Even if this comes down to me being 'new'. I've actually never died to this problem, it's just a very blatant problem that could be fixed with a few tweaks. I never said tapping alias isn't practical, I said that having to walk back and forth, trying to catch every angle with your look command so you can catch your blind spots isn't practical in the long run.

Make the game dangerous, make enemies that track you to find you, make enemies with venom and make enemies that are incredibly aggressive. But giving enemies impossible to match AI reaction times and being invisible until you walk right into them isn't the best way to display that, in my opinion.

[FantasyWriter]

this is my command stack:
n
l e
l w
l n
n
I am already have my next north move queued up waiting on the previous north move delay.  If I need to change my mind, I can type stop. 
This lets me "outrun" the next door aggros about 60-70% of the time.

[Pariah]

this is my command stack:
n
l e
l w
l n
n
I am already have my next north move queued up waiting on the previous north move delay.  If I need to change my mind, I can type stop. 
This lets me "outrun" the next door aggros about 60-70% of the time.

I may just have a shitty connection to the game, but I type FAST, and I've had times where I don't even type the looks, cause insert-scary-shit just started chasing me.

And I get a room or two if I'm lucky before they bite off my leg.

[Brisket]

This is something i'm going to be stubborn on. Making it so enemies are invisible to you until you bump right into them when they're the size of a horse or even a building isn't 'part and parcel'. I'm fine with the game being dangerous, I'm fine with the world being hostile. But having this displayed through clunky and unintuitive systems isn't the best. Even if this comes down to me being 'new'. I've actually never died to this problem, it's just a very blatant problem that could be fixed with a few tweaks. I never said tapping alias isn't practical, I said that having to walk back and forth, trying to catch every angle with your look command so you can catch your blind spots isn't practical in the long run.

Make the game dangerous, make enemies that track you to find you, make enemies with venom and make enemies that are incredibly aggressive. But giving enemies impossible to match AI reaction times and being invisible until you walk right into them isn't the best way to display that, in my opinion.

Be stubborn, there's a delay when they walk into a room and you can leave, your mount is almost certainly as fast or faster than them.  The wilderness isn't *actually* a flat plane in most places, so think of weaving now and then as your character riding to catch a look around enormous sand dunes and other obstacles that something might be lurking behind. 

There is no impossible to match AI reaction time, there's a delay when they walk in, as has been mentioned.  They walk in and you have a solid few seconds to react - mount up, tap 's' or 'e' or 'flee self', react to a dangerous creature you spy approaching you that is unable to attack you for a little bit.  The game does demand some level of attentiveness and reaction time if you'd like to be a wilderness hunter.

Do you use a screen reader?  If so please reach out via DMs, I know blind players have thrived on Armageddon, and I can help you set up your client to beep at you when something walks into the same room so you can have a faster warning.

[FantasyWriter]

Reguarding Brokkr's comment about carru v. beetle speed.

Aggros are almost always "run"ning when they come after you. You can't run a mount very far at all.

So if a carru and a beetle have the same speed, you are walking your beetle, and the carru is running, then they aren't going the same speed.

[Pariah]

Reguarding Brokkr's comment about carru v. beetle speed.

Aggros are almost always "run"ning when they come after you. You can't run a mount very far at all.

So if a carru and a beetle have the same speed, you are walking your beetle, and the carru is running, then they aren't going the same speed.

Some of them accurately RUN into the room, sometimes they just walk in, but they walk like a senior citizen five hours before the mall opens, FAST.

The other issue is that creatures regenerate at STUPID high levels, I've walked in on an exhausted critter that spams the trying to run but is exhausted over and over.  I'll chill there for a minute and then they run off, they never sat down to rest, they in fact did the opposite and tried to break their neck running.  If critters had to recover like mounts do, then that would again be more of a fair exchange, but right now you can have a carru run ten rooms and hardly be tired, or if he is, by the time he ends up kill you his stamina is all the way back up.