Aetolia's combat/curing

Moirean

Oh yeah, I think it would require some pretty extensive reworking of some classes. However, I think some of the things you've been doing with PK really open the door to tactically complex and engaging solutions to that - stuff like momentum and temporary resources (eg stolen soul, boosted attacks) open the door to creative affliction stacking based not as heavily on cure trees, but on fight conditions. Off the top of my head, you could do something like spend a bit of gathered energy/shadow power/whatever to embed a state in someone. When they do the things that fulfill the state's conditions, the embedded affliction then also comes up. For example, you could give someone a crippled body state that makes arms break when they shield. Not a very complex example, but I'm just tossing out something to illustrate the idea.

Shamans kinda approach this idea - but their conditions are based heavily around the order in which stuff is cured (which is, practically speaking, a coded response), rather than active choices made in combat, so fighting one doesn't achieve that more complex goal and instead just places even more emphasis on coding. 

However, I believe it would be possible to still push afflictions without a heavy emphasis on just speed, affliction overload or beating systems. It would be a pretty immense overhaul, though, but absolutely worth it, or we're going to have a continual arms race of "can x class beat the newest iteration of complex curing systems." In my opinion, the best way to handle it would be to look at our current defences and active choices and integrate manipulation of THOSE into the overhaul, instead of completely redesigning how afflictions work. 

Right now, defences are pretty much completely static - you can be levitating AND have mass, for example. If you had to pick between which defences were ideal to defend against specific attacks - and there were attacks to capitalize against which defences were being used - then combat becomes more about manipulating your target to do certain things, capitalizing on what your target is doing, and intelligently responding to these changes. Basic rock/paper/scissors at the core, with good fighters recognizing when someone is using rock and busting out the paper. With the above example of embedding states, you then have affliction complexity, where you can push someone into a place where they will get more afflictions than they can cure - you aren't getting them there because your scimitars are super fast or you used a ton of hidden afflictions, but because you recognized what active choices they were using and manipulated that.

Writing this out makes me realize just how much work a really good overhaul to combat would entail, but...it's the kind of work that isn't just about dealing with a single class, but creating a sustainable framework for combat in general. I currently don't think what we have is sustainable - some parts are really outdated and kinda limp along almost in spite of themselves and we keep having to revamp classes, skills, afflictions, artifacts etc for speed/aff-rates/mechanics to make things more balanced. Aetolian combat wasn't designed with the current system potential that we have these days, so the fundamental concepts behind it have become disjointed. If the core of combat itself was tackled, then combat balance turns into slotting in how well stuff works with that core, which is a much more centralized and manageable task in the long run.

Daskalos

The problem with all these skills is that a lot of them can be stacked - anything delivered via a venom a vampire, for example, has access too. As Aetolia has shifted to more and more of momentum based classes, when you're slowing them down by a full second (this especially hurts classes like Vampire\Luminary that chase balance -and- eq every round, because now you slow down one and you slow down their entire aff rate. This is what I've seen a lot of lately:

Get one of the 5 'slow down' afflictions stuck and you're now ticking at a second slower usually, so instead of say around 2 seconds, you're at 3. Then, epilepsy or berserking fire, which increases time. Then secrets or something will proc. In one fight, I was off balance or eq for 11 consecutive seconds. Did I cure perfectly? No, and I've been tinkering with that some, but a lot of my off balanceness was based on randomness. Add in stupidity and it's just wowza. 

Of course, I'm still a bit sad since Lumy's gave up the ability to stack care\purity for more afflictions and the afflictions still haven't been coded, but I get the derth of coders. I wish IRE would give us a paid coder to support Raz like every other game has. I don't get why we continue to be the red-headed stepchild. When Raz first took over, there were LOTS of people logging in and active, but as things have slowed down, so has our playerbase. I don't understand why IRE doesn't understand that we have people that want to play but get bored waiting for releases and if they would help with the release schedule by giving Raz some help we'd be better off. I am -not- digging at Raz at all, I think he's awesome and one of the best things to happen to this game, but at some point IRE needs to step up and stop treating Aet like the bastard child of Iron Realms. One man can't do it all, and while volunteers are awesome, we shouldn't be at the mercy of volunteers because, you know, they're volunteering and giving up their own time and stuff happens and they have to step away. \derail.

Also, I asked Raz some time back about Limp_Veins\Asthma and he said it's on the 'to do list' along with 'fixing that terrible idea that is called reanimation'. 

Hey, at least reanimation doesn't have separate cure orders anymore :P

Setne

Lua, not LUA

Ezalor

Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually have some super secret awesome Jedi source code hack to exploit all the systems in existence. They are simple fixes that take literally one look at a log to discover.

As far as only telling friends...well I tried to give combat advice in the past and it wasn't wanted. I got a bit sick of everyone just crying OP rather than trying to find out why, and I'm not paid for Citadel, so I leave that stuff for people to figure out themselves. I don't have access to the Citadel source code, ironically, while some of the people complaining about exploitation of code actually do.

Angwe

Ezalor is actually really open about helping with stuff. Fighting him, losing, and then figuring out why I lost (often with his help) is a big part why I've improved so much.

That and sneaking peeks at his super secret awesome Jedi source code hacks.

Daskalos

If you saw the Citadel source code, you'd understand that unless you're Lanira, chances of understanding it are just about nil. However, I would like to point out that you're quick to talk about how to beat everyone else (prioritize blindness to beat all Lumys, for instance) but you never offer any advice for fighting Bloodborn. You claimed they have one of the slowest total aff rates in the game, but when asked to produce numbers, you've failed to do that. If there are things that can be fixed to improve Citadel, by all means, share them. If I can fix it, I will. If I can't, we'll wait for Lanira to get back (which will be soon).

Angwe

Daskalos said:

...However, I would like to point out that you're quick to talk about how to beat everyone else (prioritize blindness to beat all Lumys, for instance) but you never offer any advice for fighting Bloodborn.

That's just not true, man. While he won't come out and say, 'DO X AND X AND X TO BEAT ME U WILL BE L33T PWNZOR FOREVER!1!11!' or anything like that, he does give tips for how not to get completely fucked over. Part of the problem is that Bloodborn is ridiculously strong right now, and there aren't really any ways to get over on them right now for most (lighter accessible) classes.

Daskalos said:

You claimed they have one of the slowest total aff rates in the game, but when asked to produce numbers, you've failed to do that.

While he does understate Bloodborn's craziness (I'll never understand how you think Bloodborn have the slowest aff rate in the game, they can give three active afflictions consistantly per balance, bro,) he does understand that they are overwhelming when combined with artifacts. This is, perhaps, the reason for his lack of advice. Also, he's a Canadian troll and lives under a bridge. It's part of his culture.

Edit: wording

Missari

Stop derailing.

Stop finding personal attacks in general statements.

Get over yourselves the lot of you.

And leave my fucking thread out of your grudges.

Draiman

I guess I see things differently than a lot of you. The only thing I hate about systems is that Kaeus and Lanira both sell theirs.

The comparison in my head, which prolly makes no sense to anyone else, is Aetolia PvP and WoW PvP. Sure, you can BG or even Arena without key bindings, keyboard turning, no macros, and not really pay attention to what's going on and adjust accordingly, you're just going to get rolled over and over by people who have put in the work and learned to make macros, hot keyed ASD to force themselves to use their mouse to turn, and pay attention.

In Aetolia, you can participate in lessers/FFA's/duels/spars with just first aid. You're just going to get rolled by people who have put in the work and learned to deal with the spam or gag it, and get beat by people who built a system that's better than first aid (or bought), etc.

Saying you need a programming history or w/e to keep up is BS, too. I'm a highschool drop out with no experience in programming outside of Aetolia, and I've built my own system that has allowed me to keep up with Kaeus for a bit, beat Dourif, and keep up with Ezalor. I'm still working on it (who isn't still working on their system though?) And I'm sure I've annoyed the piss out of Feichin and Kaeus with noob questions all the time, but coding is -part- of Aetolia PK. It's not -as- difficult as you all make it out to be either.


I'm not disagreeing with making First Aid a little better, but I don't want it to all but remove the need for automated curing. That's always been a very big part of Aetolia PK.


Also, I just had one of the roughest work days in like 3 years. It hurt to type all of this and there's a pretty decent chance it all sounds dumb, but whatevs. I typed it and now I'm about to hit submit

Moirean

I disagree with the WoW analogy, and the idea that time spent coding = better combat ability. WoW world championship arena matches have to use the default UI. In the end, truly top notch PvP isn't about getting the right add-ons and stuff; it's about knowing when to use the right skill at the right time, how to move well, and how to get your opponents to do what you want. See: Orangemarmalade's 2v1 victory in the finals a few years back. This sort of scaling DOWN at higher level play is more common - the heavy add-on and coding stuff is something more middling players use because they are basically training wheels which help people know the most opportune times are to use x skills. To keep using WoW as an example, it's like if you play PvP a bunch or raid a bunch - after a point you really don't need DBM calling out when the boss is going to do x skill or how long x stun is going to last on you. You get an innate timing for these things with practice and you already know how to handle it, making the add-ons superfluous.

I'm not saying you shouldn't invest time to get good at PK. I absolutely agree with you in that regard. Getting good at combat requires time in any game - but right now in Aetolia, that time investment is entirely in the wrong place.

Draiman

I apologize if I wasn't clear, but I don't recall mentioning addons anywhere. Unless macro's are banned along with them, or something and that's where that comes into your argument. 

Draiman

Also, you don't have to be Kaeus or Searoth and have beautifully written script with a bunch of things that confuse the shit out of people lol me but ultimately do "outc moss;eat moss" to have a working system. Your stuff can be janky like mine and work fine. Total time coding the bare bones of my system to make it eat herbs just off the aff view line was honestly just a couple of hours. I'm just horribly lazy and it took me 2+ weeks. I mean like full herb balance tracking and use of tree/focus/renew too, so as to not spam myself. I spend more time trying to find a creative way to kill people instead of waiting for a lucky ghast tick and hope you eat bloodroot over kelp than I do coding.

Fleshing out the offenses more is something that I agree with, BTW. I just want the coding to stay. This could just be because I've been playing for almost 10 years and I've always had to do it, but eh. I feel entitled to be grumpy after having to do it this way for so long.

Missari

There would still be coding, you could choose to use your own system, or code around using he server curing. I can understand the entitled feeling of "I had to do it, so does these nubs." I was there years ago, but I've since taken the stance that more people PvPing is a good thing, and the biggest barrier to that happening is the commitment to learning to code. Even if you pick up someone else's system you have two options, be at their mercy for fixing bugs and updating, or learn to code.

Moirean

I wrote a novel about my thoughts on that in this thread: http://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/comment/11608/#Comment_11608

Ezalor

That is, for better or worse, how Aetolia is. With static cure orders, discernment, and all that jazz automation is simply king. I used to think like that too, that automation would take the fun out of PK, that I wanted to manual. It was just completely ineffective and I lost to everyone.

Simply handing someone a curing system does not make them a combatant either. It doesn't take away the need to know how to code; offense is still half the game. There are something like 40 people on Tripwire and 40 people on Citadel? Only a handful of these are actual PKers. I don't disagree at all that a great curing system being readily available would greatly help PK but with Citadel, Tripwire, and now Xarian's free system floating around it is already readily available. 

Actually I would say these systems being available like this is a far, far greater boon for new entrants to the PK scene than serverside curing because the availability of looking at and editing the script teaches people how to code. As far as them being publicly available and hence abusable, reading logs and being able to recognize and fix these problems is a big (I'd even say the biggest) factor in being a successful PKer. Only Citadel really leaves you at the mercy of the coder, due to the inaccessibility of the source code, but even then it has tons of commands in for you to interact with the system and the cure order is available to all to edit.

Basically I agree with the thought that readily available curing would be great for PK, but disagree that serverside is the way to do it. You would need to balance out just the pure no-latency speed of it with similar offensive queues, but that is only really possible if you build in actual automation frameworks for each class serverside as well (ie you set a venom priority serverside and it auto afflicts for you based on that). As for the argument that you could still use non-serverside curing if it was implemented, that is simply not true. The speed alone (and subsequent rebalancing around that speed) would mandate it being used exclusively, unless it was kept purposely flawed like Firstaid currently is, but then it would be obsolete in any case.

As far as the manual vs automation thing, PvP in Aetolia/MUDs in general is indeed unlike most other games. Most of the work towards becoming a successful PvPer comes before/after fights in reviewing logs, scripting, coming up with strategies and routes to use, etc rather than anything in the middle of combat. There is no actual difference between me and someone I handed all my scripts to because of the level of automation. The effectiveness of manual combat can be increased by slowing everything down but even then automation will be superior.

Missari

I don't see why we would need to add in an automated server side offense? That seems kind of silly. Giving people access to curing that they can easily customize without knowing how to program would be a huge step in getting more people interested and participating in PvP. You don't have to know how to code to make a basic offense. You do have to know how to code to make a basic curing system. 

Ezalor

Because it completely removes latency and makes curing faster than offenses can possibly be. You'd need to either rebalance offenses completely around latency or put it on par with the curing which would necessitate serverside offense as well.

And even then just throwing them curing isn't going to do anything. As I said, plenty of people have top notch curing and aren't at all interested in PK. I had Citadel for a solid couple months before I even attempted anything. Without making a coherent offense PvP is just going to be waiting until one person runs out of resources.

Missari

I think you're overreacting. 

Ezalor

Possibly, but as Valdus mentioned it would take rebalancing due to that. I use the in game queue for my contemplates and they fire quite a bit faster than the rest of my commands. It's not a negligible difference by any means.

Missari

That's a fair point, but I think it could be balanced around with enough time and information.

Toz

The two key things you're not noticing here is that 1 first-aid fires on a timer, not on event like queues - this means that even with an improved version, it wouldn't be firing instantly (to claim otherwise, especially considering how much extra work per second it'd make the server do, is kind of silly) - and 2 that the reason people have Tripwire/whatever and still struggle with getting into pvp is that it still has a code requirement to it. I don't like how heavily Aet relies on scripting to pk, there is really almost 1 'right' way to fight as a certain class and a few less efficient ones (this is absurdly true of, say, Carnifex).

Ezalor

For sure, but Aetolia has a bit of a problem churning out coder content as is, heh.

Saybre

Combat Fixes/Ideas as I thought we had a dedicated Combat Idea thread...guess not!

PLEASE allow the discernment of a venom leaving the blade of a weapon be PART of the Envenom skill, rather than Transcendent Vision - Discernment.
Newbie Knights/Sentinels have a -much- harder time doing any sort of tracking to know if their attack actually hit. The coding is far more of a pain in the butt, rather than just being able to trigger that line. This wouldn't cause a disparage in combat, because Discernment is still necessary for top-tier tracking, but it would allow my poor novices to actually have a chance at real combat without being hindered by programming hindrances.

I poked Moi about this, but I suspect she got busy. So hopefully @Oleis is looking!

I know it's more a Liaison thing, but I wasn't even aware that it -wasn't- part of it until recently when I did reports. Additionally, for us squishtastic knights instead of waiting until the next Liaison round...

Aura Absorb - It does a quick heal by removing an existing blessing.
Problem: It doesn't tell you -what- blessing, and to put it back up takes another 3 seconds of EQ. This is on top of the absorb skill having a cooldown as well.
This means you have to lose your wonderful protectiveness for however long it takes to get away/win before putting up the blessing again. This is PvE and PvP pain in the bum.

What would be nice is if when you Absorb, it not only tells you which one is absorbed, but just temporarily disables it, rather than removing it. If this means increasing the cooldown I think we'd all be fine with that. As it is, the skill is too much of a detriment to even use at the moment, because you might end up dropping protection, or healing (which help keep you alive in the first place) and BAM, you dead, without even knowing which one dropped.

Moirean

I brought it up to the liaisons. I can't really do much more beyond that; it's an admin decision.

Saybre

Ah. Appreciate it Moi!

(Wasn't certain if you got buz-ay)