Split discussion: Improving Imperian - server-side offense
This discussion was created from comments split from: Improving Imperian.
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That's just not inviting.
Taking this from other MMOs, why don't we have each profession have some basic combos and useful sets already pre-programmed in?
I haven't exactly got this idea fleshed out or have good examples, but for instance, a Runeguard can enter in "1" and it'll do DSL TARGET STRYCHNINE/STRYCHNINE/FLARE SOWULU AT TARGET, and "2" will do DSL TARGET STRYCHNINE/STRYCHNINE/FLARE PITHAKHAN AT TARGET or something like that.
Guild Wars 2 does something similar where as you continue to hit a certain attack, it'll continue down a path of attacks(okay, maybe not the best example since it's been years since I've played that game, but), and we can probably do that with this as well. Not the best toxin stack in the world for a Renegade, for instance, but maybe a basic one that can make them feel useful in a team, or otherwise a series of button presses that can make them feel like they can fight.
That's not really coding, that's more like 'making a basic alias' and it's the kind of thing they really need to learn for themselves and the kind of thing that anybody can manage. Where the coding burden becomes problematic is when you are dealing with affliction tracking and such things, and that's something that really can't be avoided; having a 'g-tracker' to go along with the g-bot would be ludicrous.
That aside, how do you gauge it? I mean, either the toxin stack is good enough to kill somebody and thusly does their work for them or it's not good enough to kill somebody and you're giving your newbie Renegade a nerf gun and sending him out into the jungle.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
The big problem with that is that there are essentially two different kinds of offenses in Imperian.
The problem with that is that serverside affliction tracking will turn Septus from a monster into a monster++ while moving the B-list to maybe an B+ and making several affliction classes outright overpowered. Most people won't bother to take advantage of it and will still suck; you will still have to know how to respond to the tracking. If you avoid that by making a full-fledged offensive bot you might as well just implement a system of coinflips because combat is largely going to devolve into whose class has the faster g-offense.
The problem with these offenses is that I cannot give you a 1, 2, 3 sequence of simple aliases that will push a real offense against anybody who has half a clue, because this all depends on reading your opponent and reacting properly. Feinting at the right time, avoiding parry, etc. This is all skill-based; the buttons are dirt simple but you still have to know when to push them. Again, making these offenses work out of the can without that skill would require a straight up Fazlee-esque "push F1 repeatedly to kill" system.
The solution to the first problem is that they should stop making so goddamn many affliction classes when there's only like 4 people who play them properly. The solution to the second problem is learning how to use the buttons. And regardless, they should fix the in-game alias system and make it less of a reeking pile of crap.
Having to set the alias target with "st tar <target> is ridiculous, there's no reason why there can't be a generic target variable that you can set with 't' and use as &target. Furthermore, there's no good reason why separators shouldn't work in an in-game alias. Maybe just make the pipe a generic alias separator or something. I should be able to do
setalias sow dsl &target strychnine strychnine|flare sowulu at &target
and then just be able to do
t bob
sow
to dsl/runeflare Bob.
That, combined with autocuring, would be enough functionality for many classes to play work decently well straight out of the box with basically no coding knowledge at all. I could implement most all of my offenses with those aliases. Outrider would be a bit wonky cause I'd have to cycle my surges, but most non-tracking offenses with that kind of setup would be no problem at all.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
As @Khizan also states above, there are a lot of classes that play well without any tracking outside of rebounding and shield. Even if you've never coded a thing in your life, tracking a single rebounding variable and doing one if <blah> then <blah> else <blah> end conditional in each alias/macro should still be very doable. If you're not able to manage that at this point, there are tons of starter guides for all the major clients. If you have any questions about getting the examples in those tutorials/guides/forum posts working, a lot of us are glad to answer.
For reference, classes that can be played without anything more than rebounding/shield tracking, simple aliases or macros, and highlights for important stuff: Templar, Monk, Priest, Wardancer(artifacted for damage, pretty sure they can still suicide drop for kills), Ranger, Predator, Outrider(bloodfreeze or shatter), Druid, Mage(lavablast route), Runeguard(battleaxe with the 5 flares you use for pushing damage), Bard, Deathknight, Diabolist(artifacted for damage, or focusing mana). I'm not familiar enough with Defiler or Summoner to guarantee it, but I'm willing to bet that I could set you up with highlights and less than 10 macros and you could make a very solid showing in either class.
If you can't code on the rudimentary level that is required for simple one-line aliases, but you have the time to spend playing a game, you could invest a very small portion of your time to learn. Again, if you don't get it from what you read, there are plenty of people who will gladly answer any questions you have.
If you are entirely unwilling to put in the hour or two it would take you to learn the very, very basics of coding, and are convinced that the entire game should be catered to that unwillingness to learn, then yeah, this likely isn't the best game for you.
On your second point. Yes, in anything that you play, if you don't know(not sure if you had some special meaning you meant with the - - on either side of it) anything about the class you're playing, you're going to do poorly. If you are unwilling to actually learn how your class works, then no, you don't deserve to win.
Third, we know why the population is in decline. It's declining for the same reason that the population of most MUD's have declined. However, Garryn and co. have done a nice job(in my opinion) of adding combat paths to 5 of the last 6 classes they've revamped or released, and I'd imagine he's only getting better at it as he goes. (not to mention the plethora of other things he has done to make life easier for those without extensive coding knowledge including, but not limited to, Autocuring, Inline envenoming, the move away from illusion-based combat, removal of retardation(so you don't need to code contingencies around everything you do), IFEQBAL/IFEQ/IFBAL, Generic Def Messages, and Generic Aff Messages.)
Fourth, this is "Improving Imperian", not "I HATE", and if you didn't see any reasoning in either of our posts beyond "but this is how it -is-", you didn't actually read them.
Edit: Oh, and @Khizan, I agree that a standardized target variable(for more than just the simplest attack commands) would be great, but you can also just "setalias t settarget tar" and then use "t bob".
If you don't know how to play the game, you shouldn't win at the game outside of maybe a round or two due to dumb luck. This seems pretty standard throughout any kind of game ever.
If you can't lane, you're going to lose at LoL. If you can't aim, you're going to lose at an FPS. If you can't make a shot, you're going to lose at basketball. If you don't know how the pieces move, you're going to lose at chess. And if you don't know how to break limbs, you're going to suck as a monk. The solution to all these things isn't "I should get an aimbot because I'm bad at Counterstrike and you aren't", it's "I should learn how to play the game that I want to win."
You do not need to be an Ultrix or an Eoghan or a Garryn or a Whyte to make basic attacks for, say, a monk. My monk attacks use highlights on the limb break warnings and attack strings that look like "IFEQBAL stand|||unwield left|||unwield right|||snk $target left|||snk $target left". You don't need to know how to code to do that kind of thing. When you take out my fancy wielding detection, my outrider aliases boil down to "target limb|spear stab target toxin|surge animal". Druid attacks are "evoke wisp at dude|empower thingy|quarterstaff stab dude toxin|naturebind root to attack".
The key to winning as those classes isn't coding or fancy affliction tracking, it's knowing how to play your class and knowing which attack to use in which scenario. I don't know why you think you should be winning fights if you're not willing to put in that much effort. You can get by in teams with "push these 3 buttons over and over", but fighting on your own or in small groups is going to take more from you.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
As far as giving out pre-built systems, if you're asking me to give out a system basic enough for people with 0 ability to code and 0 interest to learn, I've got 0 interest in giving out an F1 kill button. If you want get the tools to Ranger or Druid well enough to be useful in teams, all you need is a single alias or macro. I'll tell novices to "tipslash <target> strychnine"(superior dps to qjab and less of a loss when you hit rebounding/shield) or "evoke wisp metallic glowing <target>|evoke empower rockfall|quarterstaff stab <target> strychnine|naturebind shred <target>" all day, but giving out a system that does that for them is taking away their opportunity to learn the single most basic part of mudding, which is building an alias. That is ONE alias, but with the other changes we've seen(autocuring, etc) it's all they need to participate in team combat. If someone is unwilling to learn how to set up that ONE alias in the client that they've chosen(with the seemingly unlimited about of support that is available in game from people like myself or in various forms should they have the capability to google), they are not putting in any effort and I'm not going to reward that kind of attitude.
If for some reason someone is unable to handle googling "basic tutorial for <client>", here are some things I found in 10 minutes of looking(also some posts and comments from this very same forum, for people that are unwilling to use the search feature):
General:
http://forums.imperian.com/discussion/comment/16207/#Comment_16207
http://forums.imperian.com/discussion/comment/16489/#Comment_16489
MUSHClient:
Edit: Might I also point out that in this day and age, there are even video tutorials for those that need something more advanced than a text tutorial. If you would prefer to spend <x> minutes on the forum ranting about your inability to code an alias and can't be bothered to spend those few minutes instead watching someone explain it to you, there's not much that can be done to help you.
Also, that is a nice list.
Not everyone has the time or inclination to learn any aspect of coding. For those who have been doing it for years, understand that learning PK for someone new to it or even new to MUDs as a whole is a -daunting- task. The less painful you can make the learning curve, the more people you'll have willing to participate in it.
More fighters, even mediocre ones, is good for the game. Good for PK. Having a smash-button system that allows moderately useful assistance means that you'll have people join who would otherwise be intimidated. Some of them will never graduate beyond smash-button. Some will get the PK bug and start learning beyond that.
I see no downside here.
You (directed to anyone who feels insulted) don't have to do it, but -someone- doing it would be good for the game overall. (And I am super excited by the general trend from Imperian's admin to do this on their end, with autocuring and the advancements to the web-client)
I think stating that requiring some amount of coding to excel in PvP is an effort to maintain the status quo is shortsighted and honestly kind of selfish. It's a core part of the game - combat strength does not scale with level, it doesn't scale with time, it mainly scales with knowledge. If you don't want to learn how to play the game, you can't expect to do well. I am an abysmal coder (seriously - don't look at my system, you will cry if you have any appreciation for efficiency), but I've spent the time to learn the little details so that I can participate. It's not part of maintaining any status quo to expect people to make some amount of effort in that vein - it's simply an integral part of the game.
If someone can jump into the game without any coding knowledge or any understanding of combat specifics, why should they win?
That being said, I can get behind attempting to lower the barrier to make it easier to jump into the code. Things that I think would help:
- Actual documentation for the web client. Seriously, why bother with the fancy buttons and bars if your support documentation is literally two pages and can be summarized as "learn javascript"? It seems like a complete waste of effort, because anyone who already knows how to code will probably be using a separate client.
- Maybe a configuration output for 3P afflicition messages (e.g. blah blah shuffles his feet impatiently could give an additional line of "Wysrias has been afflicted with impatience."). I'm not talking Aetolia discernment-level information output, despite how easy it makes coding tracking systems, but every step that can be taken to remove trigger line collection is a step towards lowering the bar for new players who don't have access to a pre-built system.
- Configurable/standardized messages for important combat states - rebounding, prone, shielded, prismatic. Making these jump out server side reduces the need for automation, at least in smaller skirmishes, and standardizing the messages (probably, again, with a config) would let players skip past the fluff and line collection aspect.
Aetolia has a number of prebuilt system with -full- AI for combat. Lots of people have them. It lets people who would normally be non-coms participate in their conflict mechanisms, but it doesn't automatically make them exceptional fighters. It's not possible to do that sort of AI here. So that's not even a concern. It'll still take knowledge and practice for someone to go beyond mediocre. Which is all that's necessary to let more folks participate.
TL;DR version
Note: Resources, really, and education. If you want people to come out and play, they have to feel confident that they can do it. If it's as simple as 'bash alias, set autocuring to A, B, C', then make sure people know that. Put those resources in game in an obvious place, grab newbs and tell them, take them in the arena. I'm not seeing that reflected in the help files I have access to now.
EDIT (so I don't double post):
The initial coding hurdle is not the problem, that lies more in the core functionality of the classes. Every single class in Demonic has a basic "autobash" combat command, but unlike AM's classes, these are usually accessory to the core strategy of the class. The other issue is that 3/6 of Demonic's classes ARE heavily tied into affliction strategies, and there's no way around that - it's simply what those class archetypes are. Automating affliction tracking won't fix the fact that you need to understand what afflictions do and why you're delivering them, and as you learn the knowledge core to affliction strategies, you learn to code alongside it. I don't think there's a magic fix for this, especially in handing out tracking for free.
The point is that you need to learn what you're doing. AM gets a leg up here because their classes all do damage with every primary attack, and that's simply how their classes have been designed.
This, I agree with. I think there's a lot of value in approaching other players for help, but I understand that it's not always an option. I will always be behind having more resources available, but I can't get behind letting people skip that. It's a core facet of the game, and I think we stand to lose much more than we gain by bypassing it entirely.
I'm not comparing the curing, I'm talking about the impact of easily accessible, simple-to-use systems have on the conflict in the game. There are still lots of players who don't participate, but a larger percentage do, and a lot of them are not people I'd see involved in PK here.
EDIT: Imperian (and IRE games in general) are far, far more complex than MOBAs. It's not really a good comparison because you're talking about a game designed around being as broadly appealing as possible, to one that is sustained largely because of niche interest. If you dilute the appeal of the game (which, in my opinion, would come from removing the coding aspect), I don't think you're left with any substantial draw. If I wanted to play an easy game, I have more options than I can count.