So i made a bot/macro today, combat needs to be fixed

[Gabula]

From my understanding of combat, if automatic cards were implemented, anyone who didn't pop up a green defense would either immediately go down to a chop or would lose such a large portion of their health that they could not reasonably recover from combat. I think this is telling to how outrageously powerful a soldier's sword is compared to the health of a character. In my opinion that's not a bad thing but I feel like powerful moves like chop need an IP cost or else they will always outweigh the value of other moves. That's more or less what IP is for, to act as an extra balancing dimension.

I'm overall very keen towards the idea of an automatic starting card (not necessarily a defense card even, just let players choose to let strategies build up naturally) but I feel like they should suffer the cooldown and costs of that card as per normal. Else there would be no consequence to using longer cooldown moves as an opener.

Yep swords are way too strong right now. 197 damage, steel plate + helm blocks 57, that's 140 damage dealt instantly at the start of combat, enough to knock out a character with 20 constitution. Kind of absurd. Maybe give Chop an IP cost, maybe bring back old armor functionality (higher values but percentual armor piercing), maybe outright nerf swords, maybe automatic defense at combat initiation, something has to be done.

[Granger]

This is the flaw of mankind, good honest people don't realize that they have power through being the majority because they believe a little group of sociopathic liars that it is otherwise.

[cpt1silencer]

botting combat is pretty dumb. I'd say you people can't have anything nice anymore and remove combat as a punishment. Then work on a fix so you can't bot it as easily anymore. Maybe going so far as taking all human input out of it so you can't bot, it's all auto combat. Again, i'd say you can't have anything nice anymore.

[maze]

botting combat is pretty dumb. I'd say you people can't have anything nice anymore and remove combat as a punishment. Then work on a fix so you can't bot it as easily anymore. Maybe going so far as taking all human input out of it so you can't bot, it's all auto combat. Again, i'd say you can't have anything nice anymore.

thats why we are discussing to fix it, you are a alpha tester, figure out how to exploit this game to fix it.

[Garfy]

Trust Russians to need bots when they have to press more than 5 keys to do anything. Probably explains all the bad Russian Invokers I've seen over the years.

Cyka

USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST.

[MagicManICT]

thats why we are discussing to fix it, you are a alpha tester, figure out how to exploit this game to fix it.

maze has a very valid point here. One of the goals jorb has repeatedly expressed is to make fun mechanics that people don't want to bot. (Some people will no matter what just because they can and stuff in games like this will always be repetitive.)

Question is, when combat is well balanced, can bots actually perform as well as a human player?

[Hervarth]

I have my doubts.

[DamJNeT]

Well if you have a look at ultima online, they have bots for pretty much everything, combat included. Amdl good Pvpers usually win agaisnt bots.

[Sollar]

Well if you have a look at ultima online, they have bots for pretty much everything, combat included. Amdl good Pvpers usually win agaisnt bots.

Not the case here with the current battle mechanics. Maze's basic bot/script needs you to have a reaction in less than 0.10sec. It's impossible, since your latency is greater than that. And mind you this is a basic script that only opens the fight. I'm too afraid of what people with advanced skills will come up with. The only way I think the current combat would stop botting completly is if it eliminates auto-target or locked-target and forces you to push the number of the skill and manually click your target (moba style), or at least the direction where you want your attack to land (Salem style - althought I'm not to fond of Salem battles, I have to admit that praciticing your skills in battle gets you in the position to kill a character with far superior stats). It's the only way to have people with skills coming up on top in most of the encounters.

[Undefined]

Having played UO for about 8 years in the past with purely Red PvP characters and been involved in developing the design and balance of the PvP system, I have to say that you can't really compare the 2 games, you could still bot aspects of it (In fact I coded several PvP bots to act as a more challenging opponent) but a good player would always win out. The key thing other games have that Haven doesn't is health management, you can't do that in haven and so your health should be the absolute pillar point of balance. You also have the fact that death is FOREVER, these combined, I think having a twitch based combat system is absolutely the wrong way to go.

The amount of twitch reaction involved is why a bot will win out in this situation, it's a fringe case though, it can be easily solved by using one of the suggested ideas or something that removes that insta-twitch at combat initiation.

Overall though I generally think combat in haven needs to be slowed down significantly across the board to really reduce the reaction element, it should be a drawn out tactical affair. I like twitch gaming in other games where it fits in no way am I saying it's a bad thing, but twich isn't the right direction for Haven combat in my opinion. Slower combat not only makes it a prolonged exciting experience but also mitigates the advantage obtained through botting. When risking losing a character you've invested heavily in for months combat should feel immensely exciting and epic.

As it stands I don't really like combat in Haven, I won't really invest in learning it and will instead just pump my skills so I can eventually fart on a bear and kill it while generally avoiding PvP combat wherever possible, in the past PvP was always a key draw for my gaming choices, I just don't think the way it's dealt with right now is right for me.