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.
The one does not preclude the other. Meaning, if there is a smash-button option that lets basically everyone jump in, it is still not going to make them -good- fighters. They will -still- have to learn coding over time to get better, and learn the classes and the flow of combat. It'll just let them jump in -right away- and help out. If newbs come in from day one being able to participate in the PK aspects of the game, they won't end up with the intimidation factor that creeps in over time.
Edit - It took me years to actively participate in PK. A few months into first making Krysaliss I decided I wanted to learn to fight. I spent a -stupid- amount of time learning how to code a healing system. I built one from the ground up. Then I had a horrid experience with an extremely abusive PK troll who took great delight in jumping me over and over and over again, without any IC recourse whatsoever (had me snubbed, killed me several times a day in a team for a RL month). Old-school aeon and my shoddy coding meant that my system, and zmud entirely, crashed every time I got jumped. I eventually fixed the issue, but that was such a horrid experience that I didn't -care- for another few years. Sethren getting me drunk and convincing me I -had- the system and the skills resulted in me PKing again. The attitude of players at the time chased me away again. Now I'm coming back to the game after years of not playing at all. I don't have anything resembling a system, most of my knowledge of skills is way out of date, and it -is- a pretty daunting task to gain back that knowledge. I'm saying this because I am -speaking- from the perspective of someone who has always -wanted- to help combatively, but mostly didn't because of the coding/knowledge level issues.
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.
The one does not preclude the other. Meaning, if there is a smash-button option that lets basically everyone jump in, it is still not going to make them -good- fighters. They will -still- have to learn coding over time to get better, and learn the classes and the flow of combat. It'll just let them jump in -right away- and help out. If newbs come in from day one being able to participate in the PK aspects of the game, they won't end up with the intimidation factor that creeps in over time.
What if there were a server-side option to set your character up with a basic set of aliases? Maybe a 'beginner' mode that, when activated, will give you a set of aliases to do your basic class functionality (attack, raze, maybe a couple of others depending on the class), with a short explanation of why you have each of these aliases, and maybe some toggled hints/highlights when important things happen in combat?
E.g.
A numbing energy runs up your limbs as your attack rebounds off of blah. [Combat Tip]: Your opponent has a protective shield active! Use (ALIAS) to shatter it!
The problems you run into start getting weird at the population scale. When you're able to field 10-20 people on average (AM and Magick) one of your best defenses is throwing up a shield or a prismatic barrier. No one knows how to get past it and you'll reduce the team's effectiveness. If you introduce an auto-razer, you may as well not ink a shield tattoo. Automatic offenses are going to exacerbate this 'zerg horde' mentality because you're going to be combat capable without knowing what or why you're doing things,which should be a goal in combat training.
The next step is a slippery slope. The one button offense is fine for druid, summoner, knight, and all of anti-magick (it's true). You don't really have to move past this one button offense because it's so damn good. When you move past this, things get even better. If you're in a class that I did not mention, you're shit out of luck. You -have- to learn how to manage afflictions, track, watch cooldowns, watch resources, etc. Is the game going to code that for you too? At what point do I draw a hardline and say 'the game does not support your newbness past this point." You just made easier classes that much easier. Imperian should never provide affliction tracking for offenses, and this inhibits a lot of interest in these classes.
What I think Imperian -should- do is take the resources that the players offer. Imperian already survives on unpaid laborers so why don't we just cash in on this again. Publish on their website the basic outline of offensive outlines by 'good' coding players based on the client that you use. It's pretty derptastic that Imperian runs it'sown client but doesn't have any sort of reasonable support documents.
Also, Wysrias' beginner mode would be pretty fantastic. Even moreso if you're able to customize it to the class at hand that references the exact skill that you would use. I would even go so far as to add combat tooltips to conditional instakills that would say: "You were just absolved (DEVOTION ABSOLVE)" so that you can see what killed you, read the ab, determine why, and ask around how to avoid it.
There's a lot of mechanics in the game that newbies just don't know about because the documentation is awful. Off the top of my head, people don't know how to: configure options in the auto-healer (health, mana, toadstool, clot, sip priority), push afflictions into gbot queue, queueing in general. Maybe there's a way to tell new combatants that this crap is there and why it's important.
What if there were a server-side option to set your character up with a basic set of aliases? Maybe a 'beginner' mode that, when activated, will give you a set of aliases to do your basic class functionality (attack, raze, maybe a couple of others depending on the class), with a short explanation of why you have each of these aliases, and maybe some toggled hints/highlights when important things happen in combat?
Doesn't the existing server-side alias system already provide this functionality; albeit even if you have to add the alias yourself?
@Cassius The server-side alias system is pretty bad. Having played with the alias/separator/queue systems in Imperian, Aetolia, and Achaea, I see some room for improvement. Support for separators in server-side aliases is already there in both of the other games, and it makes the alias system about 100x more useful. In addition, I think setting a default separator for novices and anyone that hasn't configured it yet(something like || so it doesn't mess up what people already do), along with advocating it in the intro and maybe even sending out an ANNOUNCE or a notification to everyone about its existence might be a good idea. I'm baffled by the number of long-time players that don't use it or don't even know that it exists. Also, I'd like to see the alias cap increased, because I've been at 100 server-side aliases for quite a while. Anything that I can alias there I will. From that point, you could take the basic class alias idea and either add the aliases to novices automatically, make them universally available to everyone in that profession, or just have them listed in a common scroll like HELP <class>. Those actions alone would do a lot to improve novice combat readiness.
@Wysrias, as far as your idea for additional CONFIG options. I don't know how much of this that admin are willing to do, but I find that the Generic Combat Messages option that you can toggle on in Aetolia is pretty great. They have the option to sub the standard flavour text of an attack, send the generic message afterwards(in the format of "<player> used <skillset> <skillname> on <target>" IIRC, or send the generic info as GMCP transparently. Adding in some additional information like targeted limb at the end would also be great, but that's optional. I also think that generic afflict messages(like "You afflict Septus with metrazol.") would also make things considerably easier for people trying to code a first system, although there might be a limit to how much it does or else you'll take away the challenge of ignoring misses on dsl and things like that.
Last big thing would be improving combat log readability for people that are new to the game. As @Ahkan says, a message after insta-kills, along with some highlighting for things like hitting rebounding/shield/parry or seeing rebounding/shield applied(so that you don't have to farm messages) would go a long way. I remember how daunting it was coming back to Imperian in like, 2012 after having been out of it since 2008. Trying to go back and read logs was impossible without having someone to ask repeatedly what some of the more obscure messages mean. Debuffs like bloodpoison, supremacy triggers, shamanism marks, runelore flares, overwhelm, nature curse, etc could also get some simple color to make them stand out in the 20-line messages that some classes(*peer Druid) spam per combo, would do a lot as well. Hell, if you're feeling really giving, drop MXP tags on Generic Combat Messages so novices can look back at a log and just click on the skills they don't recognize to get AB files pull up. That would make so much of a difference in bridging the gap between bashing alias novice and situationally aware novice.
All of the above are solid ideas, IMO, and would do a LOT for increasing combat interest of both novices and non-coms if they got admin support.
I agree that @Wysrias's suggestion about configurable "hints" when something happens is a great way to teach people about various profession skills in game. I know that I spend a lot of time reading over logs and having to ask people "What does this message mean?" It would be great if that initial guesswork was taken out of the equation -- that is, you'd still need to understand yours (and others') skills and how they interact, but at least you aren't struggling to figure out what skill was used on/at you.
Going back to an earlier point, however, I would still like to see more support from the administration in helping teach people understand how to "code" (i.e., make basic aliases and triggers). While having server-side support for in-game separators would certainly be a huge step in helping to make alias-creation easier (because it takes out any of the third-party client issues), that's only part of the puzzle. Even in "easy" classes such as "AM-mash-damage button", you still need to learn how to make a trigger for identifying when your target has rebounding or shield in order to be able to successfully apply said damage. Even that simple level of 'tracking', for the vast majority of people in game, is a non-trivial task (and in particular, for someone who has little to no exposure to "coding").
The next step is a slippery slope. The one button offense is fine for druid, summoner, knight, and all of anti-magick (it's true). You don't really have to move past this one button offense because it's so damn good. When you move past this, things get even better. If you're in a class that I did not mention, you're shit out of luck. You -have- to learn how to manage afflictions, track, watch cooldowns, watch resources, etc. Is the game going to code that for you too? At what point do I draw a hardline and say 'the game does not support your newbness past this point." You just made easier classes that much easier. Imperian should never provide affliction tracking for offenses, and this inhibits a lot of interest in these classes.
Someone who knows their limits is going to avoid those classes anyway. If anything, it's sort of a "point of pride" for people who can/do play them, no? And it would be nice if all circles had some mix of both. Even better is when classes have both an "easy" and "advanced" mode built in, like knight does. I'm not saying give me an offense tracker by the way, just saying that anyone who doesn't know how to code well is going to avoid those classes like the plague if they have any sense, and enough experience with MUDs to know they need to ask which classes are less complex for basic play.
I learned basic Nexus because I wanted to get Tekal. Triggers + Alias + Highlights. I helped code a system with Nexus because I got sick of trying to explain coding simple variables when I could just give them a system and show them what I mean. I learned ZMUD because somebody gave me a system. I learned CMUD because my.. system converted easily to CMUD. On Cmud, however, with the help of forums which dispensed so many cool utility stuff [ala Dicene] I built my own system. Which WORKED and was AWESOME and USELESS when I came to Imperian. I learning MUDLET because Baasche regrets me [sad], but also because I was given a system I could work backwards with. I could probably even manage to code something substantial if the motivation struck me.
My first step was self-driven, but without the push of people helping me with systems, I could never have learned how to like, make a health bar, or a button, or even felt the urge to graduate out of Nexus. We should provide basic systems and aliases; it provides the framework for the information. The more the better. I didn't know about Nexus targetting until I had been a monk for two freaking years. I went into my client every time I changed bashing areas and typed in my new target three times in one alias, sdk ucp ucp. For two. Freaking. Years. Forget learning combat, two different targets in a bashing area could ruin my whole night. Just because I had no idea that was even possible.
Put the information out there. All of it. Fix the HELP ALIASES to reference targetting and give examples of basic bashing aliases for the kids instead of garbage role-play examples. Hyperlink to different client alias/trigger walkthroughs, even ones we've written, make HELP CLIENTS not be garbage, shove as much of that shit out there as possible and make it as accessible as possible.
There's no downside, it's like giving a kid some toadstool and saying, basically, 'Switch your autocuring to use these. These will help keep you alive. You probably don't really need to worry about them until they are actually helpful to you, but now you know they exist and you can ask questions about them when you're ready.'
Edit: I didn't notice the second page because I don't care. So I'm a page late. O well.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
To provide a perspective from someone who simply can't code.
I forget who it was, but they said they were unaware of someone leaving a class/circle/guild because of the coding difficulties. I left Magick for that very reason - Mage got ruined (in my opinion) so off I went. Demons yo.
So, a proposal:
Web client based, class specific, offensive builds.
Upon login, the Imperian web client determines the class and unlocks (explained in a minute) the suite of skills available to the player. Buttons highlight/ungrey/appear as pre-conditions are met (think limbs and vivisect) and the player can click away. Include functionality for mapping buttons to keystrokes and have skills not available yet greyed out with indicators (This is unlocked at Skilled in shebangabang).
Will it generate an interest in coding? Maybe, perhaps once seeing how fluid combat can be. How fun it can be.
Will it increase the pvp population? Most likely. Remembering that engaged pkers are less likely to issue for borderline stuff and just roll with it. Issuing comes from when there is a perceived inequality. By levelling the playing field in this regard, or at least adjusting the slant, coding novices can come to play on the field. Will they dominate? Gosh no, but there will be small victories that engage and retain.
What's the catch? Cost - it takes time, coder time, to make this happen. So you attach it to the iron elite membership. If you're a subscriber this service is available to you. Those who PK generally have already invested credits and as such tagging on the iron elite membership just makes it more tantalising. To create buy-in, make it available to anyone below level fifty, so they can see what's on offer. The PK game is level 80 and above generally, simply because of health restrictions.
Summary: For an initial outlay of time, this offers an inclusive pvp experience that will bring bodies to the pitch and generally remove the issue with some, if not most classes. Suddenly its not "that class is too hard, choose this", it becomes "Do what you want, play the class you want, here's the interface to rock your socks."
I push this ardently because Eden was an absolute game changer. Those who say pre-fabricated builds are bad, you're saying they're bad for your gameplay style, and that's fine. Not everyone is you. As a coding incompetent, I'm telling you this is what works for me, and I think it'll work for others too.
@Bellentine Garrynbot killed the hurdle of needing to build a basic defense because you couldn't even bash without first creating/finding a functional autosipper. It introduces you seamlessly into understanding how balance and equilibrium work, which puts you on the way to making an alias, which leads you to variables, etc etc. You kind of need that footing to be able to learn the basics of combat even if you have no grasp of it. It necessarily eliminated an initial learning curve.
But yeah, I'm on board that what you're asking for isn't a good idea, despite my pro-information fistpump. For one simple reason; I'd
say to about 95% of the fighters, at core, the fun of PvP is coding. When I was given this system, I didn't want the thing, because I had already made a functional system elsewhere, and that's what I wanted to use. Because that's what was fun.
Taking away the challenge of beating somebody with code and replacing it with, what is essentially text-based WoW combat, is going to shift the game away from the wishes of the current PKers, who are kind of who need to be catered to since they are already playing the Imperian PvP game. If that's the game you want, I'm sure there's a coder who will create that for you, but game-side it doesn't feel right.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
I dunno about that. I'm not a fan of the idea either, but I will say the coding isn't what is fun about imperian combat for me, and I like coding. I'd wager that goes for a lot of the other people actively fighting too.
I think having some basic stuff setup to help people who don't know how to code isn't a horrible idea. There have been several (valid) concerns brought up about handing out god-mode systems, but I think something to help those to don't know how to code participate would overall be a good thing. In my opinion more people fighting = better. It is after all a conflict centric mud.
I have looked into the client api a bit to see what was exposed / how it all worked. It is low on documentation but there seems to be enough to get the job done. One of the main things that prevents me from wanting to put any time into a project like this is, like Ultrix said, I don't want my game time to become system support time. Which in the past has been the case when I hand stuff out.
I dunno about that. I'm not a fan of the idea either, but I will say the coding isn't what is fun about imperian combat for me, and I like coding. I'd wager that goes for a lot of the other people actively fighting too.
I would say that coding/designed an offense/defense is not what I like most about combat; however, it's probably what keeps me engaged and interested to keep coming back.
I'm not opposed to handing out systems ,but there's a pretty solid distinction to be made in how people use it. Many of the people I've met who used Eden are actually modding it to suit their needs. They change aff priorities and add skills that allow them to better function with their play style. In contrast, I've seen people on the Fazbot system relegate 100% of this to Fazlee. They don't have a damned clue what anything in the system does. You just hit F2 and shit will happen.
Both systems serve a purpose and accomplish a goal. Personally, I would like more people to understand why something should be done a-b-c or why they died. Until then, you'll have F2 champion amazons complaining about super lust and asking why they die so often because f2 isn't shielding for them.
The best example for understanding through exposure is going to be Aleutia and Kanthari. They could not be less interested in combat if they tried. They do see it as a necessary evil (arghpee) and will answer the call of mrererererer. If you give them a task and explain why they do it, they well herpyderpy that task. You can even give them several tasks based on certain conditions and they will herpyderpy through that too. When you pair a simple set of instructions and make sure the person performing that task has a clue, you can place 2nd and 3rd in the ToA tournament with 2 pkers, 2 confused corgis, some random, or cleavebot Bathan. (Your run of the mill bandwagony zerg are not this example). Lionas went through the same progression and was one of the more knowledgeable personas given his limited duration of exposure.
The flip side of this is there are a lot of coding champions who don't have a clue about the state of Imperian combat because they're theorycrafters and exist in a vacuum. You'll see a lot of their work sputter out of the beta (incinerate classlead, super dart adjacent toxin dstab, defilerdabest, vivisect = best skill). I just threw this in here to prove that the ability to code defense/offense does not necessarily bear with it an understand of what is working, what is not, and how to succeed in the game.
At least for me. Piking Sarrius' head at Wendigo Crossroads. Managing to survive when I absolutely should not have. Dying hilariously. Drunken smashing through half a dozen deaths in short order. Every bloodbath on Dymphna I ever participated in. :P
No part of it is coding. I HATE the coding. It's dull and I could better spend that time writing something interesting. I now have the ability to code things, even some fairly complex things, if I absolutely must. But... given the choice between coding something and writing an in-game book nobody is going to read or writing a description for an item nobody is going to look at, I'd much rather write. All day.
The knowledge that makes or breaks a good fighters is class/skill knowledge - and not just your own, but everyone else's too. There are an astonishing number of people who do not know basic things about their own class. Having an ease in that strips out the initial requirement to learn to code to fight will not, and can not, ever mitigate that necessary element to PK. Nor should it.
Learning to code/caring about coding/being good at coding should NEVER be an absolutely requirement to -participate- in pk. It is going to be a requirement to be top tier. But to participate? No. Everyone should be able to play in all parts of the game if they have an inclination.
So you run into the problem of teaching a man to fish and giving him a fish. Faz's system is a good example of most people will take offensive coding and never step out of that. There are a lot of people in AM/Magick who are like this. Shaylei will never move past cookie cutter druid unless a better, more damaging cookie cutter is released and then she'll use that 100% of the time. The way to counter balance this, I guess, is to make it sub-par, but still effective. If you want to move from sub-par to average or good, you'll have to invest time.
I'm a big fan of Wysrias' idea. It could function as tooltips working off a combat-focus mechanic. (maybe server side targeting?)
A numbing energy runs up your limbs as your attack rebounds off of Kanthari's shield.
[Combat] Your target is shielded you should TOUCH HAMMER KANTHARI
or if you have a skill
[Combat] Your target is shielded you should INVOKE CLEANSEAURA KANTHARI
Aleutia raze's Kanthari's aura [Combat]: Kanthari's shield is down, you may attack now.
It's going to be spammy as crap, but it will at least give someone a clue when they scroll through a fight what's going on. Then you can even go the next step and do things like.
You get annihilated by Wysrias. [Combat] You died to the Sabotage skill Annihilate because you had the following afflictions:peace, heroism, vertigo, stuttering
You got absolved by Ultrix
[Combat] You died do Fayth absolve because your mana was less than 50%
You just got radianced by Septus [Combat] You died to telepathy radiance because you didn't take the hint from 5 messages to the tune of Nelly's it's getting hot in here so run the eff away.
If you pair this with a much better set of how to pk documentation it could have more of an impact than the 20 combat clans.
What does it matter if most people don't want to become elite PKers? Most people also don't want to become insane bashers, super RPers, political maestros. Let people be mediocre if that's what they want. It doesn't hurt anyone for people who would -not normally participate- to have the ability to assist with raid rejection, conflict mechanisms, and wars in some meaningful/useful way. Shaylei definitely lands in the category of people who would likely never fight if fighting required the uphill climb it used to. Do I care that Shaylei is unlikely to never push herself to become a top tier fighter? Not one bit. Is it useful for Kinsarmar if Shaylei is at least capable of coming out to help with caravans and repel raids? Yes.
More info, better documentation, ease-in options are awesome. Whether that ease-in is sub-par are reasonably good, you are still going to have roughly the same percentage of people who enjoy combat enough to put in the time and work necessary to become exceptional. So, if effort is made to create an ease-in on the game's side, they should definitely strive for good and not sub-par.
Just because I had to painfully construct a complete healing and offense for a bard (I still have nightmares, ok) doesn't mean anyone else should have to suffer through that same tedious nonsense to play (play!) a game (game!).
Just because I had to painfully construct a complete healing and offense for a bard (I still have nightmares, ok) doesn't mean anyone else should have to suffer through that same tedious nonsense to play (play!) a game (game!).
@Krysaliss, the problem that I (personally) see with canned offenses (or canned anything) is that it typically doesn't encourage people to actually learn about their skills (or other professions' skills), or develop any "coding" skills. Instead, it tends to create the situation where "mashing F1 to win" works when your group has enough people, and when you don't, you sit it out and that's that. And perhaps that is fine for the majority of the population, but the underlying issue is that providing canned anything creates little incentive to learn more and take that next step to "learn to code" (aka "build an alias so you do more than spam the same attack over and over"). Maybe I am in the minority here, but I would rather we encourage and motivate people to learn, rather than encourage complacency. It goes back to @Ahkan's point about giving someone a fish vs. teaching them how to fish.
A huge barrier to me ever keeping a character in Imperian long term is coding. In Achaea, we have Vadi (god save the Vadi!). In Imperian, you have nothing close. From what little I've seen, you have no affordable systems available here. I mean, you don't even have anything floating around that offers effective defense management. (I'm sure you all know how annoying it is to sign in and raise each class defense you have through a series of chunky aliases and triggers that fire off them. Not to mention keep up.) New players are told to use an in game queue system that is sorely lacking functionality. No offense to the admin because I'm sure they're doing the best they can.
Convenience is huge for players. When I play here, it seems like I'm starting over as a real mud newbie instead of an IRE transfer simply because of the lack of convenience that I had in Achaea that was made possible solely by Vadi's widely used system. Unfortunately, it is a LOT of effort.
What you really need is a player, or group of dedicated players, who are willing to code a system (both for convenience and curing), make it available to all players no matter their class/faction, and set a -reasonable- price (You actually need to be paid for your work, just not an outrageous price.) I can guarantee you that if some of the coding tedium is removed, you'll retain more new players than you do now.
Very, very few newbies want to even consider learning to code. It is overwhelming to new players when they look through examples that make no sense to them. Even I, a veteran IRE player of over 10 years, have absolutely zero interest in learning to code more than the very basics of setting up usable Mudlet aliases and triggers. Imagine how real newbies view it.
You didn't make a bard healing/offense system to play Imperian. You made a bard healing and offense system to participate in a specific game within a game that requires a combination of: ability, preparedness, and skill. Pick your comparison. I wouldn't say a sport, but we can say golf, poker, league of legends, dota. You won't log on instantly and not suck at those games. Why do you complain about it here? None of those have 'canned how to play' features.
We're probably not going to get a Vadi, as great as Vadi is. People don't understand what a one in a million, lucky deal that was and is. I actually can't believe he's still supporting it, especially to the incredible level he does. I do believe he has some help, but that just speaks to how important the system has become, and the years of professionalism that have made it something of an institution.
I would generally hesitate to say "take for granted" and "spoiled" when it comes to expecting a great product and customer service, but what Ultrix mentioned about people mostly providing help/scripts/systems and support really is true. You're pretty much on their clock, not the other way around. They're here to play a game too, and there's not NEARLY enough money in what they're doing to make it worthwhile as any kind of "business". It might have seemed (financially) worthwhile to Vadi when he was still a teenager, but even then, I think it was more about him taking pride in developing a system for widespread use, and learning the professional skills that are serving him very well today. We all just happened to benefit (as has IRE). Again, we're lucky it's still supported (and to an almost unbelievably high level).
If anything, that's something admin could step in and provide (because they actually benefit from it more than anyone). It still just may not be doable - because then people really *would* expect them to support it forever, and would have even higher expectations than people do of svo.
As for teaching people to fish, the biggest problem is getting to that critical point where you can really try to decipher coder speak for yourself. Often, a coder writing a tutorial will give an example of something incredibly basic, but then gloss over "next step" concepts as though "everyone knows this". In short, one of the hardest places to be is right after you have a basic understanding of a few simple things, but no idea where everything goes from there.
On a mostly separate note, something we could all benefit from would be if someone headed up a Mudlet crowdmap on our server... holy crap it would be amazeballs for everyone, and Imperian would sell a lot of wormhole arties.
Yes. I made a bard system because I wanted to play a game in which combat plays a major role. I made a bard system because I wanted to enjoy all aspects of this game. Well, most. No power on earth will ever make me enjoy bashing.
The majority of the playerbase will never. ever. ever. want to invest the amount of time and effort it takes to be a top tier fighter. No amount of awesome players taking time out of their life to teach and assist, no amount of amazing resources in game or built in systems will fix that. It's not everyone's thing.
It -should- be accessible to everyone, though. Not everyone should be able to log on and be a powerhouse player, but they should at least be able to get their feet wet. They should be able to respond to calls for aid to repel an invader or to hijack a caravan to assist their c ity's research endeavors. They shouldn't have to invest hours upon hours of coding and learning time to be able to jump in and have fun and be reasonably competent.
The people that enjoy it -will- want more. They will learn to code, they will learn their class and others. They will invest the time. That will always be a small percentage of players. Just like there are a small percentage of players that have the skill and desire to do leadership well. Or play a performing character well. Or do basically any aspect of this game -well-. But there is no other part of this game that requires the same -tedious- start up process to get involved and it is HUGE detriment, I think, to the game. The more we get people invested and involved in all the bits, the better we retain them, and the more fun that can be had by all.
Numbers gaming is already a problem. That's an ENTIRELY different discussion with it's own unique set of issues. Having more people able to confidently jump into combat from every faction isn't going to change this all that much.
Better highlights and instructions on basic aliases would go a long way. Something like a wizard in the web client that removes the coding aspect and makes it a decision process would be awesome along with the 'default' alias thing.
Edit: Wanted to double down on the highlights. Text is our graphics. That makes built in combat highlights effectively a graphical update, IMO. This would be shibby.
And I'm not sure how many of you have tried the play.net client, but it makes the IRE web client look like an idiot, and I haven't touched it in years. Even saying that, the massive impact having what the web client *does* offer (map window, chat cap, and who here/ih) are great tools for new players.
Otherwise:
opinion = function() for i=1,500 do cecho("\n<pink><:yellow>Coding is not a game.") end end
I'm going to skip over responding to a lot of what you've said(@Bellentine and @Krysaliss) since you two seem to be rehashing the same point and ignoring the valid reasoning that multiple people have presented as to why giving everybody an F1 kill button is bad. Regarding Mage, which you say was redone in such a manner that it made it unplayable for you. Right after it was revamped, yes, it was difficult to do anything in Mage without tracking afflictions. Now, however, I can give you 3-5 aliases and show you how to pull off a lavablast. That's about as easy as you can make a class like that without making it one-button. If you're just trying to be useful in team combat, you can even get by with a single "immerse|batter" combo. This is how most classes work for beginner's to team combat. Druid can be done to a team capable extent with 1 button. Runeguard can be useful with 1 button. Hunter can be useful with 1 button. Renegade can be useful(ish) with 1 button. These aren't even complicated buttons. Here is an example of how simple it really is to participate in team combat as Mage, and it works in any client, and is basically the same example they have in the HELP ALIAS file:
setalias t settarget tar
setalias pib cast penetration immerse batter at &tar
Now the easy part: During combat, you use "t khizan" then spam "pib" repeatedly until he's dead or you get another target called.
That's it. That is the prerequisite coding for being able to participate in team combat in Imperian as Mage.
What's that, Deathknight example?
setalias dd dsl &tar strychnine botulinum
setalias rr rsl &tar botulinum
setalias ss soulstorm &tar
Then spam "dd;ss"("rr;ss" if you see rebounding or shield go up) in combat.
Hunter?
setalias ii wyvern iceblast &tar
setalias ll basilisk lash &tar
Spam "ii;ll" until you run out of ice, then SUMMON ICE until you're back and max and keep on blasting.
If the Admin eventually ends up allowing separators in aliases, these examples would be even shorter:
Runeguard:
setalias dd dsl &tar strychnine strychnine|flare sowulu at &tar
In Mudlet, you'd add an alias with the pattern "^ksh$" (^ matching the beginning of the command you are sending, $ matching the end, these being used so that typing something like "rt ksh is my alias" doesn't fire it) and you add the following script:
These examples are extremely simple. If you can't manage to figure out how they work from the solid explanation in HELP ALIAS, and in the case of the examples for specific clients, the beginner's guides available to you, I'm 100% sure I can make them make sense to you given 15 minutes of your time. If you're not willing to put in the 15 minutes of time required to learn how those examples work, you don't care enough to participate. Wysrias is even suggesting adding those aliases for you automatically. Beyond that, there's nothing else that can be done to make basic team combat any simpler for you to join in on, short of giving you a Fazlee F1 kill button that does literally everything for you, and you've already been told several reasons why that's a bad idea.
@Geneve You mention Vadi's system from Achaea and say "In Imperian, you have nothing close." We had Whyte's around for a long time, and it handled defences and curing both back in the day. It's still around if you want it for defences or for map features(a majority of which we've got added in to Imperian now, see PATH SEARCH <room name>). As far as defences go, the lion's share of vital defences have been moved into autocuring. All defences have been put into our generic defences system(which also comes with the ability to custom colour defence related lines), which makes it easy to see which defences you get stripped of in the few, rare situations where defences are being stripped during ranged pre-combat. If you want something to up defences, for the most part you can just add defences to a DEFUP alias and do something like "resistance;grip;weathering;celerity on;alertness on;deathsight on" and just spam that button until you stop gaining new defences. If you want better defence handling than that, you can find it, you just have to look. I posted a simple defence handler for Mudlet a while back in response to someone asking for one on forums. Since then, I've developed something more thorough, but since I don't charge for it, it's likely not going to be quite as pretty as svo makes it. As far as getting custom code like that, it's mostly a matter of asking around. If you really want something and can't find it, ask on the forums. If someone doesn't have it available already for free, then if you're willing to pay for it, someone will be willing to code it.(I'm definitely willing to do contract work, as long as you're not asking for a kill button offense. =P)
No. I haven't. What I said was that from the perspective of a non-fighting older player or a newbie, it is not as simple to jump into combat as you think. Yes, combat is MUCH (astonishingly) easier to get into right now than it was. Across my assorted alts, I haven't seen much laid out that says, "Hey you. Combat in A, B, C" and lays that out. So if it -is- that simple, then that needs to be addressed by organization leadership. Make that information obvious and accessible.
Red letters so you catch the bit that you seemed confused on. (tl;dr color! Go!)
IF it already is that simple, then we are failing at educating people on this matter. So we need to fix that.
IF it's not, we should make it so, because it means we'll get more fighters of mediocre level and more fighters at a higher tier level alike. Plus greater retention, investment, and maybe even more exciting combat.
I don't fight right now, I haven't fought in years, so I can't speak to exactly how streamlined it is to jump into fighting right this moment. However, I imagine that there is slightly more to combat than a single alias still. Even when I did fight, I have -always- hated team fighting, so I didn't participate in it much. Even still, I imagine that you still need to care about keeping defences up, and prioritizing which defences need to be maintained and which are less important. You likely still need to keep track of what you are wielding. Probably some kill methods that have -some- level of tracking where your opponent stands (obviously, some of that has to be just guessed and can't be fully coded, but yanno). I'm sure there is less finesse required in team combat, but I can't imagine combat has gotten so cheesy that you can mash a macro and -really- compete. And if that's the case, then that's a problem with Imperian, not with letting more people PK.
What I, and others, are saying is that it should be -easy- and -obvious- to jump into combat as a novice fighter. The learning curve ensures that even if we provide the easy, obvious method to allow people like Shaylei (since her name was mentioned) to jump in and fight without a strong urge to invest the time necessary to become top tier. They can still help without being amazing.
Then. Once we get more people in and participating in combat, some small percentage of that group is going to want to learn more. They are going to care about perfecting their game, learn to code, learn their class, learn strategy greater than the button smash. I imagine it'll be roughly the same percentage of folks who give a damn now. The primary difference will be that -a lot more people- can participate in PK at a lower level of skill. And that this is a Good Thing. And I think we'll get -more- people who end up doing that extra effort than we might have otherwise.
Comments
Edit - It took me years to actively participate in PK. A few months into first making Krysaliss I decided I wanted to learn to fight. I spent a -stupid- amount of time learning how to code a healing system. I built one from the ground up. Then I had a horrid experience with an extremely abusive PK troll who took great delight in jumping me over and over and over again, without any IC recourse whatsoever (had me snubbed, killed me several times a day in a team for a RL month). Old-school aeon and my shoddy coding meant that my system, and zmud entirely, crashed every time I got jumped. I eventually fixed the issue, but that was such a horrid experience that I didn't -care- for another few years. Sethren getting me drunk and convincing me I -had- the system and the skills resulted in me PKing again. The attitude of players at the time chased me away again. Now I'm coming back to the game after years of not playing at all. I don't have anything resembling a system, most of my knowledge of skills is way out of date, and it -is- a pretty daunting task to gain back that knowledge. I'm saying this because I am -speaking- from the perspective of someone who has always -wanted- to help combatively, but mostly didn't because of the coding/knowledge level issues.
E.g.
A numbing energy runs up your limbs as your attack rebounds off of blah.
[Combat Tip]: Your opponent has a protective shield active! Use (ALIAS) to shatter it!
"You were just absolved (DEVOTION ABSOLVE)" so that you can see what killed you, read the ab, determine why, and ask around how to avoid it.
There's a lot of mechanics in the game that newbies just don't know about because the documentation is awful. Off the top of my head, people don't know how to: configure options in the auto-healer (health, mana, toadstool, clot, sip priority), push afflictions into gbot queue, queueing in general. Maybe there's a way to tell new combatants that this crap is there and why it's important.
@Wysrias, as far as your idea for additional CONFIG options. I don't know how much of this that admin are willing to do, but I find that the Generic Combat Messages option that you can toggle on in Aetolia is pretty great. They have the option to sub the standard flavour text of an attack, send the generic message afterwards(in the format of "<player> used <skillset> <skillname> on <target>" IIRC, or send the generic info as GMCP transparently. Adding in some additional information like targeted limb at the end would also be great, but that's optional. I also think that generic afflict messages(like "You afflict Septus with metrazol.") would also make things considerably easier for people trying to code a first system, although there might be a limit to how much it does or else you'll take away the challenge of ignoring misses on dsl and things like that.
Last big thing would be improving combat log readability for people that are new to the game. As @Ahkan says, a message after insta-kills, along with some highlighting for things like hitting rebounding/shield/parry or seeing rebounding/shield applied(so that you don't have to farm messages) would go a long way. I remember how daunting it was coming back to Imperian in like, 2012 after having been out of it since 2008. Trying to go back and read logs was impossible without having someone to ask repeatedly what some of the more obscure messages mean. Debuffs like bloodpoison, supremacy triggers, shamanism marks, runelore flares, overwhelm, nature curse, etc could also get some simple color to make them stand out in the 20-line messages that some classes(*peer Druid) spam per combo, would do a lot as well. Hell, if you're feeling really giving, drop MXP tags on Generic Combat Messages so novices can look back at a log and just click on the skills they don't recognize to get AB files pull up. That would make so much of a difference in bridging the gap between bashing alias novice and situationally aware novice.
All of the above are solid ideas, IMO, and would do a LOT for increasing combat interest of both novices and non-coms if they got admin support.
I helped code a system with Nexus because I got sick of trying to explain coding simple variables when I could just give them a system and show them what I mean.
I learned ZMUD because somebody gave me a system.
I learned CMUD because my.. system converted easily to CMUD. On Cmud, however, with the help of forums which dispensed so many cool utility stuff [ala Dicene] I built my own system. Which WORKED and was AWESOME and USELESS when I came to Imperian.
I learning MUDLET because Baasche regrets me [sad], but also because I was given a system I could work backwards with. I could probably even manage to code something substantial if the motivation struck me.
My first step was self-driven, but without the push of people helping me with systems, I could never have learned how to like, make a health bar, or a button, or even felt the urge to graduate out of Nexus. We should provide basic systems and aliases; it provides the framework for the information. The more the better. I didn't know about Nexus targetting until I had been a monk for two freaking years. I went into my client every time I changed bashing areas and typed in my new target three times in one alias, sdk ucp ucp. For two. Freaking. Years. Forget learning combat, two different targets in a bashing area could ruin my whole night. Just because I had no idea that was even possible.
Put the information out there. All of it. Fix the HELP ALIASES to reference targetting and give examples of basic bashing aliases for the kids instead of garbage role-play examples. Hyperlink to different client alias/trigger walkthroughs, even ones we've written, make HELP CLIENTS not be garbage, shove as much of that shit out there as possible and make it as accessible as possible.
There's no downside, it's like giving a kid some toadstool and saying, basically, 'Switch your autocuring to use these. These will help keep you alive. You probably don't really need to worry about them until they are actually helpful to you, but now you know they exist and you can ask questions about them when you're ready.'
Edit: I didn't notice the second page because I don't care. So I'm a page late. O well.
Garrynbot killed the hurdle of needing to build a basic defense because you couldn't even bash without first creating/finding a functional autosipper. It introduces you seamlessly into understanding how balance and equilibrium work, which puts you on the way to making an alias, which leads you to variables, etc etc. You kind of need that footing to be able to learn the basics of combat even if you have no grasp of it. It necessarily eliminated an initial learning curve.
But yeah, I'm on board that what you're asking for isn't a good idea, despite my pro-information fistpump. For one simple reason; I'd say to about 95% of the fighters, at core, the fun of PvP is coding. When I was given this system, I didn't want the thing, because I had already made a functional system elsewhere, and that's what I wanted to use. Because that's what was fun.
Taking away the challenge of beating somebody with code and replacing it with, what is essentially text-based WoW combat, is going to shift the game away from the wishes of the current PKers, who are kind of who need to be catered to since they are already playing the Imperian PvP game. If that's the game you want, I'm sure there's a coder who will create that for you, but game-side it doesn't feel right.
I would say that coding/designed an offense/defense is not what I like most about combat; however, it's probably what keeps me engaged and interested to keep coming back.
I'm not opposed to handing out systems ,but there's a pretty solid distinction to be made in how people use it. Many of the people I've met who used Eden are actually modding it to suit their needs. They change aff priorities and add skills that allow them to better function with their play style. In contrast, I've seen people on the Fazbot system relegate 100% of this to Fazlee. They don't have a damned clue what anything in the system does. You just hit F2 and shit will happen.
Both systems serve a purpose and accomplish a goal. Personally, I would like more people to understand why something should be done a-b-c or why they died. Until then, you'll have F2 champion amazons complaining about super lust and asking why they die so often because f2 isn't shielding for them.
At least for me. Piking Sarrius' head at Wendigo Crossroads. Managing to survive when I absolutely should not have. Dying hilariously. Drunken smashing through half a dozen deaths in short order. Every bloodbath on Dymphna I ever participated in. :P
No part of it is coding. I HATE the coding. It's dull and I could better spend that time writing something interesting. I now have the ability to code things, even some fairly complex things, if I absolutely must. But... given the choice between coding something and writing an in-game book nobody is going to read or writing a description for an item nobody is going to look at, I'd much rather write. All day.
The knowledge that makes or breaks a good fighters is class/skill knowledge - and not just your own, but everyone else's too. There are an astonishing number of people who do not know basic things about their own class. Having an ease in that strips out the initial requirement to learn to code to fight will not, and can not, ever mitigate that necessary element to PK. Nor should it.
Learning to code/caring about coding/being good at coding should NEVER be an absolutely requirement to -participate- in pk. It is going to be a requirement to be top tier. But to participate? No. Everyone should be able to play in all parts of the game if they have an inclination.
A numbing energy runs up your limbs as your attack rebounds off of Kanthari's shield.
[Combat]: Kanthari's shield is down, you may attack now.
You get annihilated by Wysrias.
[Combat] You died to the Sabotage skill Annihilate because you had the following afflictions:peace, heroism, vertigo, stuttering
You got absolved by Ultrix
[Combat] You died to telepathy radiance because you didn't take the hint from 5 messages to the tune of Nelly's it's getting hot in here so run the eff away.
If you pair this with a much better set of how to pk documentation it could have more of an impact than the 20 combat clans.
More info, better documentation, ease-in options are awesome. Whether that ease-in is sub-par are reasonably good, you are still going to have roughly the same percentage of people who enjoy combat enough to put in the time and work necessary to become exceptional. So, if effort is made to create an ease-in on the game's side, they should definitely strive for good and not sub-par.
Just because I had to painfully construct a complete healing and offense for a bard (I still have nightmares, ok) doesn't mean anyone else should have to suffer through that same tedious nonsense to play (play!) a game (game!).
Convenience is huge for players. When I play here, it seems like I'm starting over as a real mud newbie instead of an IRE transfer simply because of the lack of convenience that I had in Achaea that was made possible solely by Vadi's widely used system. Unfortunately, it is a LOT of effort.
What you really need is a player, or group of dedicated players, who are willing to code a system (both for convenience and curing), make it available to all players no matter their class/faction, and set a -reasonable- price (You actually need to be paid for your work, just not an outrageous price.) I can guarantee you that if some of the coding tedium is removed, you'll retain more new players than you do now.
Very, very few newbies want to even consider learning to code. It is overwhelming to new players when they look through examples that make no sense to them. Even I, a veteran IRE player of over 10 years, have absolutely zero interest in learning to code more than the very basics of setting up usable Mudlet aliases and triggers. Imagine how real newbies view it.
The majority of the playerbase will never. ever. ever. want to invest the amount of time and effort it takes to be a top tier fighter. No amount of awesome players taking time out of their life to teach and assist, no amount of amazing resources in game or built in systems will fix that. It's not everyone's thing.
It -should- be accessible to everyone, though. Not everyone should be able to log on and be a powerhouse player, but they should at least be able to get their feet wet. They should be able to respond to calls for aid to repel an invader or to hijack a caravan to assist their c ity's research endeavors. They shouldn't have to invest hours upon hours of coding and learning time to be able to jump in and have fun and be reasonably competent.
The people that enjoy it -will- want more. They will learn to code, they will learn their class and others. They will invest the time. That will always be a small percentage of players. Just like there are a small percentage of players that have the skill and desire to do leadership well. Or play a performing character well. Or do basically any aspect of this game -well-. But there is no other part of this game that requires the same -tedious- start up process to get involved and it is HUGE detriment, I think, to the game. The more we get people invested and involved in all the bits, the better we retain them, and the more fun that can be had by all.
Numbers gaming is already a problem. That's an ENTIRELY different discussion with it's own unique set of issues. Having more people able to confidently jump into combat from every faction isn't going to change this all that much.
That's it. That is the prerequisite coding for being able to participate in team combat in Imperian as Mage.
Spam "ii;ll" until you run out of ice, then SUMMON ICE until you're back and max and keep on blasting.
If the Admin eventually ends up allowing separators in aliases, these examples would be even shorter:
Runeguard:
@Geneve You mention Vadi's system from Achaea and say "In Imperian, you have nothing close." We had Whyte's around for a long time, and it handled defences and curing both back in the day. It's still around if you want it for defences or for map features(a majority of which we've got added in to Imperian now, see PATH SEARCH <room name>). As far as defences go, the lion's share of vital defences have been moved into autocuring. All defences have been put into our generic defences system(which also comes with the ability to custom colour defence related lines), which makes it easy to see which defences you get stripped of in the few, rare situations where defences are being stripped during ranged pre-combat. If you want something to up defences, for the most part you can just add defences to a DEFUP alias and do something like "resistance;grip;weathering;celerity on;alertness on;deathsight on" and just spam that button until you stop gaining new defences. If you want better defence handling than that, you can find it, you just have to look. I posted a simple defence handler for Mudlet a while back in response to someone asking for one on forums. Since then, I've developed something more thorough, but since I don't charge for it, it's likely not going to be quite as pretty as svo makes it. As far as getting custom code like that, it's mostly a matter of asking around. If you really want something and can't find it, ask on the forums. If someone doesn't have it available already for free, then if you're willing to pay for it, someone will be willing to code it.(I'm definitely willing to do contract work, as long as you're not asking for a kill button offense. =P)
Red letters so you catch the bit that you seemed confused on. (tl;dr color! Go!)
IF it already is that simple, then we are failing at educating people on this matter. So we need to fix that.
What I, and others, are saying is that it should be -easy- and -obvious- to jump into combat as a novice fighter. The learning curve ensures that even if we provide the easy, obvious method to allow people like Shaylei (since her name was mentioned) to jump in and fight without a strong urge to invest the time necessary to become top tier. They can still help without being amazing.
Then. Once we get more people in and participating in combat, some small percentage of that group is going to want to learn more. They are going to care about perfecting their game, learn to code, learn their class, learn strategy greater than the button smash. I imagine it'll be roughly the same percentage of folks who give a damn now. The primary difference will be that -a lot more people- can participate in PK at a lower level of skill. And that this is a Good Thing. And I think we'll get -more- people who end up doing that extra effort than we might have otherwise.