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This is my own opinion, but I think that PK is not as big as it used to be is because people
A) Don't want to learn to code/say coding is too hard
C) Don't want to learn about the dragon that is Aetolian combat mechanics
D) Don't want to fight the same people, over and over and over again
E) Not enough combat leaders
F) Little to no conflict
Now, I don't have solutions to all of them, but I can offer solutions to some:
A) Coding is really not that difficult. There are a handful of people and a handful of clans that you can be part of to learn about coding. Sure, coding can be complicated at first, but after awhile it gets really simple. Its kinda like driving. Once you get a feel for the basics, the rest starts falling into place. Ask around for help and get people to explain things you don't understand. I cannot count how many times I've had people explain to me how things work and why it works that way, but it really does help.
C) Aetolian combat mechanics is a very tricky beast. It takes alot of time and patience to learn it, and noone truly ever becomes a master of it, because things are always changing via liaison reports, changelogs, bug fixes, etc. While you can become a master of your class, you'll never be a master of combat. Just sit back and ask people how their class works. We're not a secret organization hell bent on keeping you down. Ask, we'll more than likely explain how our class works and what you can do to stop us.
D) Now, this is a much larger issue at hand. One that can only be fixed by more people joining the fight. As it stands now, the only real fighters are those in the Sect + Valingar/Aishia. Yes, alot of us are in the higher tier of combat, beit top-midtier or just top tier in general. However, something that was explained to me, you won't get any better fighting people who are beneath your weight class. It'll make you feel good and give you a confidence boost when you beat somebody, yes. But if you want to get better, you gotta get your ass kicked. Trust me, I hate fighting @Lim, but I know in the end, his fights will only make me better. However, review the fight, ask questions, look at your offense again, figure out where you faltered.
E) If you're a combat leader, beit for lessers or whatever, let someone else who wants to lead give it a shot. Play the backup slot so that the next leader can take your place. For aspiring leaders, this goes hand in hand with point C. You need to know combat mechanics to be a decent combat leader, but don't be afraid to lead. You win some, you lose some. Its all part of the learning process.
F) Finally, we're onto the point why there's so little PK in Aetolia outside of lessers/majors. There is no real conflict. Lifers aren't pressing their theme of "Dawn" and darkies aren't pressing their theme of "Undeath". We are all content to sit there and throw emotes at each other for 50 hours/week, bash 50+ hrs/week, or just sit and idle. Most wait for admin events to run and then participate in that. Fine. I get it, you don't wanna put in the work to make a player driven event... or some players just don't see the point of being the bad guy. However, I think alot of player conflict is stopped by 2 things. The first is people complain when something stops them from enjoying some rp session. I have witnessed this personally when BL decided to raid Enorian and then I got spammed with tells of "We're trying to host an RP event and you're ruining it! We've been planning this for days!" Hey, we're trying to incite conflict. We ruined your event on purpose. Get pissed off and come fight us back. Secondly, most importantly, and for the love of god. STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT CONFLICT ON FORUMS!!! This is the exact reason why player driven conflict comes to a grinding halt, because people want to complain on forums about it, which then snowballs the entire event because now people have to explain why they're doing what they're doing, and other players decide to pick the conflict apart, an ultimately we are either told to stop or we just don't see the fun in it anymore because people wanted to bitch about it. We want conflict, but yet we bitch about it when we get it. WTF. STAHP. PLZ.
Ultimately, the state of PK is heavily reliant on the playerbase and what we want to do. While some of us try so hard to encourage others to join in, there are others who talk shit about how things are unbalanced, or that you need $20k in artifacts to compete, or that you need a super advanced curing system. You don't necessarily NEED any of this. Just jump in and have fun. Everything else will fall into place if you're serious about it.
As for @Malok, the best I can suggest is multiple kill routes. As far as I am aware, with the classes I have, there are usually 3 kill routes. Damage, Delayed, and Instant. Every class gets access to a delayed kill route in some fashion. Instant kills require conditions to be met. Damage kills are generally the hardest to get, but limb classes tend to default-get this option if their target fails at healing (or Daskalos decides to lightning spam your face)
-ramble time-
It can be boring when you know exactly what someone is going to do the moment they walk into the room.. "Oh? Cabalist? Time to spam Diagnose" or "Ugh, Templar, time to run away."
I'm a sucker for options, though, and currently the best I can do is Indorani affliction stacking. Why focus Indorani? Tarot. Yummy yummy Tarot.
It also lets me lol when people try to hunt me down. "Fleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! *universe/hermit/pathfinder/blackwind*" I am sure they have more escapes tucked in there.
A lot of things that are played competitively like eSports like fighting games and MOBAs have set numbers, set outcomes that happen every time in identical situations. That same button press, with that same timing ALWAYS does the same thing. Moves always come out at the same speed. Always have the same properties, same recovery, same block advantage / disadvantage etc. There are no random damage numbers, everything is set damage.
Those games, completely automated, would always have set outcomes, but they're not completely automated, there is execution to consider. Doing a combo in a fighting game is like playing a solo on a guitar for timing and precision. In a MOBA accuracy when you click is VERY important. Both games have elements of reaction speed and mind games further adding to the human element. Both types of games require you to visually judge distance from your opponent and spacing carefully and you don't get that in a text room. Someone mentioned wargaming, wargaming has judging distances as well. It also has strategy in out-thinking your opponent, the mental game in your head as you're playing, that is almost entirely missing from text combat as there is no thought in letting a script run it's course.
The premise that automation makes things clear-cut is wrong. Because Aetolia is not at a drastic state where automation is king. Outside of abundantly easy fights, you do have to be alert to watch for moves and apply the appropriate countermoves. You need to react in ways that cannot be automated because automating it would lead to bad decisions.
To put it in analogy, The list of attacks are no longer "X, X, X, run, X, X, X, run, X, X, X, run, X, X, X, shield". That is from an old era of combat.
Now, combat looks more like "X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z, oh have to change tact, A, B, C, A, B, C, run, A, B, C, A- oh have to change, G, H, I, G, H", oh- "X, Y, Z, X, Y". The automation comes from setting Z to follow Y to follow X, or C to follow B to follow A; the manualing comes from deciding which is the which set of decisions to apply at the time.
Please fight more. You guys will see what I mean. It will save a lot of angst and misunderstanding of the state of things.
Is coders warring scripts all text combat is, all it can be though? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe that is the nature of it. It never felt quite as bad in the past when it was less advanced. I feel because it's getting more advanced, the ceiling for people looking to get into combat goes up which makes it more and more inaccessible.
The question I pose is if it's possible to implement gameplay elements that make the game feel less like a code war, that non-coders can grasp onto or is combat just for coding.
The idea is that make pure machine-made decisions will become clunky and inaccurate, while human-made decisions become the superior and far more convenient way to go about it. Certain decisions require a 'feel'. There's definitely that in combat.
To code in a 'feel' for a machine would require an inordinate amount of time and energy that isn't worth not just deciding as a human, simply flicking a mode on/off. In that way, we avoid a theoretical endgame. People who bother to code for that would probably be perfectionists/OCD sufferers who would need to obsess on perfecting the machine, at a state where being human is much easier and better.
At the time, the example was to introduce movement mechanics. And my take was that movement mechanics would simply raise the bar to coding. It would be the type of people who came up with mudbot who would then dominate because they could automate movement. So I couldn't see it, then.
Having played a while more after that conversation, I do see how the 'feel' element can be introduced into class design. Moi was right in saying that the general principle is to introduce more trade offs. I'd only add now that while some, or even most trade offs can be automated, there will be those that can't, or are too troublesome to automate. That's a good aim for class design.
Of course, it takes time to get there. Some classes right now are more linear than others. With a volunteer team plus 1.5 full time staff, that also has to cater to more than just pvpers/small number of people who pvp in a certain class, it takes, in my opinion, forever for us to get there. But that's the nature of the game, and something that corporate/the producers seem to be fine with. So that's that.
Edit: To reiterate what @Lim I think mentioned, I get a very large and angry hate-boner when I see people compare fighting in Aetolia to hitting a kill button. Honestly, I don't see what the huge deal is. If someone honestly wanted to be involved into PK to the level that we're discussing, they'd just do it. There's not really a half-way point, in my opinion. You either take the steps to learn, because you're INTERESTED and WANT to, or you pittle about complaining about how it should be made easier. I don't know. I look back at when I played actively, and the most exciting (albeit rage-filled) moments I had was learning to code, learning my class, learning different strategies, understanding the building blocks of afflictions (And in that the vice-versa of curing), etc, so forth.
The admin are moving towards things that are too hard to code the logic for already (or maybe it's just me). Playing a mage, for instance, and balancing out delay spells/transfix/voidgaze, switching modes from aff to damage to burst (there's a difference), using steal/replicate, using energize for heal/shield/damage. For some of those, it's just insanely too complicated to automate 100%, for others, there's not enough in game information to use those abilities at 100% efficiency.
If you have the logical skills to pass highschool math you have the aptitude to code on a level that will let you be top tier. Want to compare it to other skills? It's like learning an instrument to the proficiency where you can play Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Or enough of a language that you can communicate tourist questions with the help of a translating dictionary and enthusiastic hand gestures.
Sure you might never be able to become Picasso. But Aetolia combat is simple enough that you don't have to. All you have to learn to do is use a handful of basic techniques to create something, even if nobody else understands wtf it's supposed to be other than you. Your code can be so basic and messy it's like throwing random buckets of paint at other buckets of paint. But it'll work, it's like modern art. You don't have to get into the Louvre.
Does it still look like that? I dunno. If it does, who cares? If it doesn't, sweet on @Lim for getting better at coding. I think people get so immersed in omfg tables and omfg gotta use this script to pick through the table to get what is best. Bro. Do it simple. If elseif elseif end. Or, for those sticks in the mud, #SWITCH {requirements} {action} {requirements} {action} etc.
You DO NOT have to be a rocket scientist to code well enough to be good at it. I'm not good at coding at all, but am I still able to look at one of the guys in Oasis clan's code and be like bruh, you dicked it up here? Yeah sometimes I can.
Could I code something that's a perfect machine? Prolly, given enough time. It's just a matter of covering all of the possibilities. Do I want to, or care to? Hell no, as evidenced by my lack of participation in PK. I got better stuff to do.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
The only classes that I need tables for are ones that afflict multiple afflictions within the same input line. Indorani, for example. That's where a Priority list comes in. I can't make one to save my life, so that means my indorani stuff is pretty much stuck until I can do that.
Technically, I 'could' do an else-if monstrosity so long as I don't use venoms that give the same affs as sun/moon, but ugh, god, the inefficiency of it.
Luminary, on the other hand, I'm able to make a huge else-if monstrosity and it works very well. Why? Because each affliction is its own line. Angel Battle;;chasten tar;;shield tar. With that, it's a very simple matter so long as you have a tracker of some sort.
Also, for the record, I nagged someone into giving me a Lycan code. I essentially just type in "target x;;mode spleen;;kill" and I could then take a nap cause it will go for the spleen rip, then after achieving it proceed to continue bashing the person to death in an attempt to achieve the spleen condition over and over and over. Alternatively, I could change the mode to one of the other rips mid combat if I intended to go for a devour, then it'd devour automatically when all the spleens are ripped and conditions are set.. Point is, it is possible. Sure, some manual is necessary to change mode, but I could honestly have just made a trigger that did that for me the instant the rip occurred. It'd just always be spleen -> other -> last -> devour. Like clockwork. Unless I modified the triggers.
(Pleeease don't smite me, oh might gods of Aetolia. If you check my class list, you will note that Lycanthrope is inept and I've been really good!(and also changed computers because my old one was lame) I also doubt that it still works, if I still even have it, cause this was pre-lycan changes.)
I prefer stuff where I actually have to pay attention, though. It's why I loved Imperian when I started Mudding at 13-ish. Combat gets my heart pumping and my hands a-tingling. Automation does not. (Ever play StarCraft: Broodwar and make a custom melee game with all computers, then spectated as they proceeded to kill each other? The most boring thing ever.. AI is droll.) or even worse, StarCraft 2 vs. Computer? I guarantee you, play 3 games in a row against the AI of the same race and it will do the same exact thing every single time. The only thing yo ucan learn from playing againt the AI in an RTS is how to turtle up really fast so you can survive a rush strategy. )
Anyways.. chatter.. someone throw up a skeleton of a priority list and a function to call said list for.. say.. envenoming and I'll stop grumbling about how hard it is to code. That is literally my only stopgap at the moment, aside from figuring out the variables in the current system I am using.
(Side note: I also had a grand total of 2 artifacts, 1 offensive, and 1 defensive.)
I don't feel that same rush, or terror, or anything on Aetolia currently. I walk up to someone, type kill, and watch for the random times I might need to stop it and diagnose or chase someone(Theres a lot of chasing people). There's no deterrent to losing. Noone cares if they win or lose, I don't really care if I win or lose. I really only do it most of the time to help out the organizations I'm in, and not for any kind of personal fun or glory.
Maybe it's me, but I dunno. I just think there has to be a way to change combat in a meaningful way to make it more fun and engaging and less mechanical. Perhaps the Sanguis changes with the way they sound might do this for me? I have no idea. I'm interested to see.
I also don't think it's correct to invalidate someone's opinion on the fun factor of PK in Aetolia just because they aren't 'top tier'. You can be top tier all day, and still not have fun with it. It seems to me a lot of the 'good combatants' on Aetolia and 'top tier' people in Aetolia derive enjoyment from the PK in the game from the idea of tweaking a system. That's cool and all, and I think that's awesome that you have something that you can do that you're uniquely great at...but do any of you really think PK is going to grow in this game, and combat participation by more people is going to grow in this game, if the fun of it is centered around that one, archaic thing that a vast majority of people don't find as fun as you do?
You can't have both, really. You need to all decide if you want PK participation to grow, or if you want to exclude people for not finding something fun for the same reasons you do. This isn't what I ended to discuss/say when I started the thread, but it's also something that I've felt needed to be said for awhile.
No one's opinion is being invalidated because they aren't top tier.
However, if one hasn't actually fully understood the nature of Aetolian combat (typically - I'm really sorry to be blunt here - this is a common characteristic among people who have an inflated sense of their own combat ability), the resultant arguments and commentary ends up being warped and inaccurate. This must be corrected.
I humbly urge a bit more introspection. In this situation, self-reflection is more appropriate than directing the blame outwards.
If Aetolian combat really is about hitting 'kill' and going afk, how come all of you who have an offensive script aren't all at the top?
Is automation necessary? Absolutely. Is it everything? Not even close. I used to think I could fully automate everything too to become amazing, but it was only when I started injecting manual decisions into my fighting that I actually became very successful.
Would a game without automation be neat? Sure, more hands-on could be fun. But with any text game the only way you're going to achieve manual > automation is if you dumbed it down to a very basic level.
You're going to need to code to be good at Aetolia combat. Maybe you have no interest in doing so and that's fine. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just here to tell you that it isn't all that hard, no matter who you are, to achieve the basic level of competency to do so. Hell, don't just listen to me, listen to everyone who has transitioned from 0 code experience non-PKer to being involved in Aetolian PK. You have several of them posting in this thread as well.
Some people give up before they even try. That's fine if someone want to be all defeatist for themselves but I feel compelled to clear misinformation so they don't drag others down with them and prevent them from trying.
There's a lot of 2 cents being thrown around from perspectives that have never earned a penny. And to be even more clear, I'm not talking about just this thread, so no one in here should feel targeted, this is a lot of pent-up stuff from years along this path and stuff I've seen/heard along it. I'm speaking more to the general attitude and "helplessness" that a lot of would-be combatants feel. I think the thing that makes me rage the most in this game and in this community is when people project their refusal to even try to overcome the coding hurdle onto others and onto the game itself.
I know a lot of of times it can feel like people like me are just being dismissive of your opinions. But it's like...trying to discuss chess with someone who's never played it before, y'know? It's hard when there's no base of experience to relate to. And even harder when the attitude is "change chess into checkers/backgammon/poker/something-else-that-isn't-chess."
Actually if anything I'd say it's the fact that it's too EASY to become good at combat that has a bit of a negative effect on development. There's a very lacking number of low/middle tier combatants for you to really cut your teeth on since everyone who decides to learn PK rapidly rises past that. I mean look at @Trikal who just started trying to learn like two weeks ago. He's already on the top of killstats and locking everybody. This can be a bit discouraging as you're diving off the deep end as soon as you get in and almost always fighting people much better than you, but you'll be there too in no time!
Don't like combat? That's fine. Don't want to bother? A-Okay. Just want people to know that it's not impossible, nor even that hard, if you do want to make the jump. And there are a ton of willing helpers. The knight moves in an L and can jump over stuff. If elseif statements are your building blocks. Insert motivational you-can-do-it speech.
In the past few days I've seen more players getting into the game and giving PvP a serious go. Yarel. Daegon. Zsadist. Cronides. Riluo. Trikal is on a trajectory that I know will see him in top tier, and eventually beating us all one day. It is immensely heartening to see people trying, making the active decision not to be defeatist, and improving visibly.
I'd like to believe that this thread is not indicative of 'most' PvPers at all. I see Aetolian combat growing, and I hope to see a whole mass of regulars in the near future.
I'm glad to see that some of you have touched upon it, but I think it needs to be said more explicitly: It's very difficult to have serious discussion about the top-tier and theoretical apocalyptic future of Aetolian PK for two reasons:
(1) Most of the people involved in the discussion aren't involved in said top-tier PK
(2) The playerbase completely neglects and diminishes everything BUT the top tier.
You guys have to be willing to explore a midbie mindset. It's the exact same problem when we talk about nerfing the extremely well-artifacted as it is when we talk about coding constraints. It DOES take a lot of knowledge, coding, and practice to compete at the highest levels, and it IS hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise has repressed their memories of the events that led to their success (or is inflating their successes and speaking from a false position of authority without realizing it).
What IS pretty accessible, financially, code-wise, practically, is competing in SOME PK. The occasional arena match where the "big guns" bow out. Little ylem fights. Even just coordinated spars with people you know are working along the same hierarchy you are. I'm not sure if it's pride or just ignorance that leads people to believe there's no middle ground (or that they're better than the middle ground), but it's time to face reality and get to work in that regard.
----- Now I'm an administrator: -----
We could stand to do more to help that midrange combatant. But we can't know what it is until (1) s/he exists (2) s/he speaks up about issues and needs. People of all experience levels should be submitting liaison reports and making suggestions, but please: stick to what you know. Don't try to make high-level class balance changes if you're just testing the waters with it and you die a lot. You're going to die a lot. That's how it goes. Good midrange liaison reports make combat mechanics and abilities easier to use and understand, to enable that growth into the higher levels of achievement, if you so choose. Inline envenoming is a great example of something that came about to reduce the coding burden.
Someone please do a liaison report on limb damage tracking.
Currently, the limb messages are such that you:
1. See an attack message.
2. Have a chance of seeing a follow up dodge/rebound/parry/guard message.
This means that to track limb damage, you have to add damage on message 1, and then take it off if message 2 appears. The only class that doesn't have this problem is Templar. For Templar, you can track limb damage off the trauma empowerment message, because trauma empowerment only goes through if your hit lands.
A helpful liaison report would suggest giving us all a message at the end to show a successful limb strike, just like Templar's trauma empowerment. That way, we can simply track off that message.
And I agree 100% the lack of a mid-tier is the biggest problem in Aetolia PK. Learning together with @Kaeus and @Rammus and @Angwe on our ascent from conquered to conquerors was an integral part of my personal journey and what made it really fun. So grab a PK buddy(s) and jump in together.
The game in pursuit of removing trolly elements also removed all the things I enjoyed doing in pvp. Without that stuff I lost incentive to keep up with equipment, tune a system, or keep up with combat/cure changes; plus completely stopped learning lua.