A major component that we're currently lacking is the ability for the game to know that a particular fight is a brawl as it's happening; right now, brawls only become brawls when the victory command is used. To address this best, we're planning to add a command that will act as an "opening move" to initiate a brawl called "clobber."
We envision this clobber command functioning like backstab, where one Brawler uses it to tag another Brawler, and thereafter, both combatants are identified as brawling each other. This establishes a nice framework where we can implement some features exclusive to brawls to make it easier, safer, and cheaper to learn PK as a brawler.
One of the significant (and controversial) features we'd like to include immediately is ultra-low-cost healing for brawls. This has the benefit of letting people get up and running in PK without having to grind for gold, and really turns brawling into its own minigame within Dark Risings. However, there are a lot of potential issues here:
PROS:
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CONS:
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1. Less of a Need for Pure-PK Players to Actually Play the Game
"and stay IC" should be tacked on to the end of this con, and it's one of the bigger reservations I have. Catering to PK-only players draws in a bigger pbase, and as long as they aren't disruptive to the rest of the game, I don't really mind. However, I like to think that the process of getting money can often involve RP (e.g., collecting people to go kill mobs for equipment), and if we obviate the need for pure-PK players to get gold, it's easy to envision them having no reason to bother trying to roleplay at all.Realistically though, gold farming has become the norm these days, and there's really no RP involved in that process anyway. So I guess the damage has already been done, and giving Brawlers cheap healing won't cause too much more trouble. It's just that the nightmare scenario for me is having a game full of players used to pure-PK MUDs who log in and are totally OOC in says, tells, over the brawler channel, etc, and generally degrade the quality of the game. I absolutely do not want this, and I hope catering to PKers in this way won't effect that.
2. LOTS of Potential for Abuse
Of course, this is the most immediately problematic, because there are a number of ways this healing discount can be abused. Here are a few scenarios.- An Inferno named Jane jumps Bob the Brawler who has a contract on his head. The Bob the Brawler just initiates a brawl against Jane so that Brawler rules (and cheap healing) are in effect and Jane can no longer loot on KO, etc.
- In a real PK, player Bob is getting attacked by player Jane. He has a buddy, Harry, initiate a brawl against him so that Bob gets discounted healing since the game thinks he's brawling Harry when in fact he's fighting for his life against Jane.
- The opposite happens, and Bob initiates a brawl to get discounted healing, then jumps Jane.
Unfortunately, I really only see two solutions to these sorts of abuses. The first one, which perhaps is what many players would immediately think, is to have an immortal arbitrate cases of abuse like this, and have stiff punishments for people who do this sort of thing. This is a possibility, but we don't really have the staffing manpower to be micromanaging brawls and this is not really a good solution.
The second solution is to make it so that this "clobber" command to start a brawl can only be used when both participants are not in PK fightlag. This solves the issues of people initiating brawls mid-fight to abuse the perks of brawling, but it also means that if you forget to make your initial tag with clobber, you have to flee safe before you can correct the issue and re-tag to initiate the brawl. In practice, I suspect this might get annoying.
Another idea would be to create the opposite command of "clobber" and have it be something like "nobrawl." If Jane wants to jump Bob for real, she can issue the "nobrawl" command on him after tagging him to lock Bob (and Jane) out of initiating brawls until they leave fightlag. This is getting a bit complicated though, as Jane would have to remember to keep issuing nobrawl throughout the fight in case Bob momentarily got out of fightlag. It also all operates under the assumption that Bob is definitely going to cheat to get out of getting KO'ed by Jane, which should be a pretty remote possibility to begin with. Throwing a ton of complicated code at such a narrow problem is not something I like doing.
At any rate, for stage 2, the only brawler perk we're looking to put in would be this discounted healing. However, we might also consider features such as...
- people flagged as being in brawls never leave fightlag (this was suggested a few times)
- people flagged as being in brawls cannot be looted (by either anyone, or their brawling opponent) once they are KO'ed
- announcements over the Brawler channel that Bob and Jane have begun brawling
For right now though, just figuring out how to prevent people from spuriously declaring brawls mid-fight to get out of a real PK is challenging enough. Tying it to fight lag is tricky because there may be times when brawlers get out of fightlag but aren't actually done fighting (running to heal, running for a trap, etc), but we're not quite ready to force brawlers to remain in fightlag until someone gets KO'ed.
Comments, ideas, or suggestions are welcome. Since this post won't fit into a note in the game, it's probably best to leave replies (anonymously or otherwise) as comments to the blog here.
One of the biggest things i noticed was that the Brawler channel has a mix "feel" to it. Some feel it is IC, others OOC. Perhaps the first thing we could do is document in the help Brawler, is that Brawler is 100% IC, and ooc topics should reside purely on the ooc channel/tells.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that makes me unconfortable about "clobber", is the backstab effect, unless you put into place three checks to keep it in balance. Can only be used when you are out of fightlag, your target is out of fightlag, and you both are brawlers. These checks should prevent "clobber" abuse for the sheer damage output of it, and prevent Brawler being used true PK-heal cost-reduction purposes. Also, with the checks about fightlag, a third party could not initiate the heal cost reduction unless one of the original combatants got safe.
If you want to brawl, use clobber, if not, use any other command. Also, Clobber should have a special text message on it...something that catches your attention like *****MORTAL WOUNDS*****.
I like all three bulleted ideas being put in.
ReplyDeleteCreate a BrawlZone that both players get teleported to when clobber happens. It's an approximate facsimile of Arinock with modified surrounding areas with healers scattered around. These are the "cheap healers" that brawlers get to enjoy. Various obsticals could be added to simulate noexit/nosum/noportal rooms and the like.
While learning the true DR area for PK purposes isn't possible like this (it could encourage exploration to learn the "real world", even!), it would minimize outside influence during a brawl proper and, perhaps, add to the minigame-ness of the system by learning the intricacies of the BrawlZone. Fundamental things like items to carry, how to handle certain race/classes, and the like can still be learned and used in a true battle.
Complementing Naenyth's cobbler checks: the moment you target someone with cobbler, he's also affected by it. You can only target one brawler and can only be targetted once. Oh! And have the affected be in a permanent fightlag.
ReplyDeleteAdditional idea: as a way of telling a brawl from a spar/real fight, implement an affect 'spell' and have it show up when people look at the room. Something like:
Brawl: cobbler : modifies none by 0 permanently (until victory/wimpout/KO)
(Brawl)(White Aura) Bob is here.
Also, something I remember from a few years ago is that many players used spar/brawl as a form of getting an enemy out of safety and ambushing him with the friends. With that in mind, I sugggest that:
1) fighting brawlers (with cobble on) can't be attacked by outsiders. That would open space for abuses such as cobbling a friend so that both can eq hunt and whatnot but such things could easily be reported to immortals.
2) leave loot/murder open to brawlers and have immortals solve it through requesting a good excuse for such behavior. This way brawlers would be able to punish each other. Example: a Rain looting one item cause his opponent was disrespectful. An Inferno completing a contract. A Cove teaching a lesson to a vampire associate and so on.
What I could notice is that the 'bad guys' won't spar/brawl (or even fight) because they're scared of being ambushed by 2-3 people at once. My idea wouldn't only open space for them but would also create an automatic dueling system in which all imms would have to do is settle down the conflits.
Naenyth: The brawler channel being IC is actually explicitly stated in the 'help channel' file, but I guess the people who don't think to stay IC by default don't really bother poring through helpfiles. I'm almost tempted to make a brawleric and brawlerooc channel or something to make the person using it choose, but I'm concerned that this'll fragment the game too much.
ReplyDeleteYour description of clobber is exactly what I had in mind as far as who can use it and when it can be used. The backstab-like damage was just a thought; it doesn't necessarily have to be anything better than a "kill" command with flavor text to designate that a brawl has begun.
Anonymous #1: Making a separate copy of significant portions of the game as a brawler arena is an inordinate amount of work, and it also reduces player visibility. If a newbie logs in for the first time and wanders into Kalane, we want them to see things going on, whether that be roleplay or fighting. It is a good reflection of how lively our game is, whereas isolating the action has the opposite effect.
Anonymous #2: Clobber will work the way you described. What will happen is that as soon as one person clobbers another, both parties will be tagged as being in a brawl against each other. They will be unable to clobber anyone else. The idea of making it show up in affects is an interesting one, and we will consider it. The matter of permanent fight lag, though, will not be going in as a part of Stage II, but the door isn't closed to it being implemented in the future.
Regarding your idea #1, we really don't want to go down the route of hardcoding protections against PK. If a third party wants to jump into a brawl, it's up to both brawlers to turn on that third person. It should be handled all through RP and via IC means.
Your point #2 is a valid one though. For Stage 2, we'll not impose any hard-coded loot or murder restrictions on brawling; it was just a thought that came to mind.
Regarding automatic dueling, see my above opinion about your comment #1. I am very hesistant to remove the RP aspect of setting up a fight and adhering to the rules of brawling by just hard-coding everything.
Let's see... I saw in my head phase #2 working just a bit differently. Clobber, while I see why would work, I think is just a poor name. A mage or cleric clobbering somebody... anyway, I propose a different idea.
ReplyDeleteA challenge command, similar to arena code you'll see in any stock RoT mud. You challenge someone to a brawl, they have the option to accept or decline for 60 seconds before the challenge is voided. There would also be a nochallenge command, and if that were turned on, nobody would be able to challenge you.
So if player A challenges player B, player B types "challenge accept" and they are both flagged as Brawling. I think the easiest way to do this, instead of a flag you see in a room, would be to alter the [B] on the who list to actually say [Brawling], so you would know who is actually brawling when you type who.
The challenge command can be used to accept/decline a fight from anywhere, even sleeping, BUT to INITIATE a challenge to an opponent, you have to be either in a safe room or out of fight lag, I'd prefer in a safe room.
Now, this accomplishes a few problems already by itself. If your opponent does not "challenge accept" your challenge, no brawler flag is given to either character. Only characters flagged as currently brawling through the challenge command would receive discounts from healers. So the discounted healing is an option, not a requirement for brawling, so you can still jump people if you want, and not give them the advantage of reduced price healing.
The problems I immediately see with the challenge command.. First off, if one player decides they are done fighting, then they can just get safe and still have the brawler flag on them and enjoy reduced healing forever. Something would have to be implemented in the form of wimp outs, maybe if your flagged as Brawling, but you stay out of fight lag for 5 minutes, you get a wimpout. Or if you quit out with the brawler flag on, you get a wimpout. I'm not really sure what I'd do to fix this issue if I were putting it in a mud, but I'm sure Parv's brilliance can come up with something.
ReplyDeleteChallenge means that brawlers cannot jump each other. Since ambush is one of the core aspects of Brawler, we cannot do it this way. And a "nochallenge" command would have to be a "brawler quit" command.
ReplyDeleteChallenge doesn't mean brawlers cannot jump each other at all. All it means is that you will not get the reduced price for healing if you are not in a fight that was agree'd upon and setup. The nochallenge being quit I actually like and agree with. A great feature as I see it is that when you ambush someone, but it's only for brawling purposes, they lose the advantage that is gained from setting up and participating in an agreed upon fight, because they lose access to cheaper healing. So they'd only be punishing themselves for not accepting the brawl, then having to hug safe or risk being "jumped" by that brawler and having to pay 10x more to fight them. See where I'm going here?
ReplyDeleteThe Brawler "quit" command should only be used out of fightlag. Which means they would need to run safe first, and i would also adding a wimpout colomn to the brawler board for this.
ReplyDeleteAnd the challenge idea I do not like. I myself, love to initiate brawls by ambush. Having to request a "challenge" just to get a heal cost reduction takes away a good portion of the fun.