More Lethal Combat

[theTrav]

Flame suggested that the most expert swordsman in the land, in his best gear with his best sword, should be vulnerable to death from a farmer who gets a lucky stab in his eye.

What do people think about this?

I can see it being a problem with established characters vs noob rush. However on the other hand, if you've got 5 or 10 actual players throwing new characters at you constantly, I don't think it's unreasonable that you should be motivated to give up some ground...

Thinking about it more I guess I'd like it if that statement was softened to something like "even an expert soldier in the best gear can be taken down by a peasant if he's careless" so that it's not so much about luck as it is about the player letting their guard down.

I haven't spent heaps of time with the combat system (which is going to be changed soon anyway) and don't typically spend time on combat, so I'd rather not speak about mechanics, numbers etc. I'm more interested in what people think of the general idea of top stat characters being less than invulnerable super men when compared to 4 week old characters who haven't been pushing stats?

[Winterbrass]

I fully agree with Flame, with the caveat that equipment should always be superior to stats.

A farmer in plate should be able to take more hits than a warrior without.

[theTrav]

I fully agree with Flame, with the caveat that equipment should always be superior to stats.
A farmer in plate should be able to take more hits than a warrior without.

I'd say stats vs equipment is fairly separate from the issue I'm talking about which is the ability to guarantee success in combat.

[ImpalerWrG]

Generally a man fighting with melee weapons and body armor can only effectively attack or defend one other person at a time, if 2 or more attackers can surround and attack simultaneously a person has to be incredibly agile and skilled to keep from being struck in their blindspots and thrown to the ground at which point their as good as dead. This is why almost all warfare till the invention of the gun (and a while after as well) involved a formation of men fighting side by side, it limited a single mans exposure and allwed him to focus his attention in one direction both for attack and defense.

Completely unarmed, untrained attackers are going to be hard pressed to take down someone with arms and training but if their physically fit (which they historically weren't) and numerous enough they can just ware down their target till they collapse from exhaustion, nerve would be the primary thing most medieval peasants lacked which is why this almost never happened. Lightly armed men-at-arms though would be able to defeat a knight with much less numerical advantage having both real weapons, armor and nerve even if all three are inferior to the knights, even archer were known to defeat knights if they could isolate and gang up on them.

Assuming you wanted to model this (which is debatable an not something I'm decided on) then a simple method to simulate it might be to have each character able to 'aggro' only one other at a time, incoming attacks from non-agrroed opponents bypass/negate armor is some way or perhaps do compounding damage the greater the number of different players that aggro a target simultaneously (first non-agro dose double damage, second dose triple etc etc). The effect should be that difficulty rises with the square of number of opponents rather then linearly.

[theTrav]

What about 1v1? Should it not be possible for a substantially weaker player to defeat a strong player through sheer chance?

[Peter]

Loosing a character through chance is not very satisfying, but riskeless combat is even less enjoyable. I for one would like to see more of a cycle of starting, building, dying, restarting unlike our current start, build, die and quit/just keep building.

So yes, I support more lethal combat, even if it means cheap deaths, if the game continues to be engaging afterwords.

[theTrav]

Loosing a character through chance is not very satisfying, but riskeless combat is even less enjoyable.

Agreed on both counts.

Re: Losing a character through chance, I'd say it's part of the risk vs reward mechanism. If you decide to risk your character in combat, with what you believe is a slim chance of death, and he dies, then that shouldn't be too frustrating. Particularly if you've taken the same risk many times before and reckon that he's probably come out ahead of his probability.

Can you really make a risk vs reward decision if there is no risk?

I realize the current system really sucks for estimating risk, that's probably something that can be improved.

I guess my view is that if you participate in constant combat then statistically, you should eventually die, no matter what precautions you take. It may take thousands of battles for that unlucky moment, but it should happen.

I for one would like to see more of a cycle of starting, building, dying, restarting unlike our current start, build, die and quit/just keep building.

Yeah I guess that's a separate topic as well. I've voiced my views on it numerous times.

If the game continues to be engaging afterwords.

I think you'd have to assume that's a criteria. The dev's have already spoken about wanting to make cyclical play rewarding and enjoyable rather than just having the one guy that just keeps getting fatter and fatter like a big fat cake eater that never dies.

mmm cake.

[Twentytwos]

I argee as well having the risk of dieing regardless of how well epuip a character is would nice and breed a new pvp/pker a type that has too think risk vs reward. Off topic i would like so see a better Crime and Punishment system implemented as well atm there is no benfit to hunting down a outlaw other than braggin rights and sense of justice. But then again i would like to see outlaws have some sort of mark or apperance that let ppl know ur a badass and not just this making thief/murder alts to hide behind.

[Lothaudus]

Flame suggested that the most expert swordsman in the land, in his best gear with his best sword, should be vulnerable to death from a farmer who gets a lucky stab in his eye. What do people think about this?

The immediate thought is of 10 - 20 relatively new players (or alts with Thanes + Bear Capes) all who have merely just acquired the murder skills, going on an unstoppable rampage (simply creating new characters when they die and continuing their rampage), with none of the experienced players either being able to stop them or willing to risk their own experienced characters in an attempt to do so.

If one lucky newb can get off a lucky insta-kill shot, even 10 experienced veterans wouldn't even bother banding up in an attempt to stop such an attack. At least not with their mains... They'd probably just pull out their own low-skilled murder alts and have at it. Then others would join in and WEYHEY, WHY IS EVERYBODY BEING MASSACRED ALL OF A SUDDEN???

Oh that's right, we just opened up death to everyone.

I can see it being a problem with established characters vs noob rush. However on the other hand, if you've got 5 or 10 actual players throwing new characters at you constantly, I don't think it's unreasonable that you should be motivated to give up some ground...

"new characters"? No. Just how new are we talking here?

Thinking about it more I guess I'd like it if that statement was softened to something like "even an expert soldier in the best gear can be taken down by a peasant if he's careless" so that it's not so much about luck as it is about the player letting their guard down.

Stats should definitely give you an edge and should definitely put you in front but not so much that an organised group can't take you down (reducing the threat of the lone, unstoppable warrior).

At the moment the idea reads to me as "I'm a nub farmer who's put no effort into combat, who hasn't bothered with STR and I'm going to go up against KlauE in ye Olde World and I want to win!". The answer to that is: No. Never.

However, no man should be untouchable and it should be feasable that a well organised group of lesser experienced players should be able to take such a person down (I'm using KlauE as the example as I believe this is where it really came from, though in the end, even the old map proved he was capable of being killed and brought down).

I fully agree with Flame, with the caveat that equipment should always be superior to stats. A farmer in plate should be able to take more hits than a warrior without.

Given the argument is that it seems "experienced" warriors are the problem, then I don't see why said experienced warriors would not have their own plate... That in most cases would be vastly superior to the farmers n00bish equipment. They are warriors after all.

difficulty rises with the square of number of opponents rather then linearly.

The group ideas are interesting. I think a group of 5 reasonably combat experienced players should definitely be able to kill the single experienced warrior with over 9000+ Strength. This should require some decent knowledge of the combat system though (IE: No "you just got lucky"). EG: If each person in that group had 1,000 STR as they went up against Mr 9,000 the odds of the group winning should be slightly tipped in their favour.

[Nanothnir]

My thoughts on Combat is that it should feel like the real thing, not a point and click battle...

In Mount and Blade for example (wonderful Medieval Combat game, must try for everyone) even armoured with the best gear, you could be taken down by 40 Low level Characters with weighted clubs and knives. Sure you could easily kill over half of them, but the that one good hit by the 40th man can kill you...

Especially if forced on foot...
They mob and Pile on, you can't get a good slash or stab in. And become slowly mauled to death...