New Skill: Farmer's Retreat

[Potjeh]

Adrenaline rush buff sounds good. Name it Fight or Flight, and make it disappear if you do any combat actions on your assailant.

[Chakravanti]

overcomplicated imo. there should just be a "run for your life" move that can only be activated by someone who did not initiate combat.

This. Combat options for retreat and escape should be an inherent part of the combat system. Noobs getting steamrolled by pkers is just part and parcel of the game. Join a village, pay a military tax or suffer the consequences of being undefended.

Speaking of which this is the very game function we wish to avoid when implementing 'classes' into the game. The function can be ignored for as long as desired but regardless of the attention given to it it does and will exist as a natural part of min/maxation discovered by veteran players and taught to newbies as the game evolves.

This is classifying based on unnatural indicators. Having strength over 50 does not make one a fighter. Why should a peasant blacksmith with no military skills be exempt from this function designed to favor peasant class characters? If you think melee should be the indicator then why should a hunter peasant be exempt? It doesn't take military pvp level stats to bring in bears and boars regularly but since pvp is relative there's nothing to say that such a player isn't a militant player.

If you're going to try to affect the gameplay and strategy you need to evaluate the full impact a given function would actually have in practice.

[Chakravanti]

Adrenaline rush buff sounds good. Name it Fight or Flight, and make it disappear if you do any combat actions on your assailant.

That sounds good. I don't think it should be cancelled by combat though. I should just let a player sprint on any tile for a given duration. It shouldn't be an extensive duration but it should be enough to let a player get halfway across the map and reduce the stam drain by water by %50. It could come out as a cost in SHP when used to represent the physical taxation of pushing one's body beyond it's practical limits in order to achieve survival. This would have the additional strategy of allowing a character of sufficiently superior skill to invoke enough damage at the outset of combat to limit the ability of said player to escape.

The question is if the 'physical taxation' of SHP should be a %, flat, or scaling % rate based on ? factors. Maybe %35 CON to a minimum of 50 SHP? Seems like a reasonably balanced but simple enough formula. Swimming could be double taxed?

[Sotsa]

I think Potjeh was aiming at my suggestion without any bad side effects but very minor buff that was auto activated if somebody initiated combat with you.

[Potjeh]

Yeah, if you have to manually activate it you'll be dead by the time you do it.

[Chakravanti]

Totally agree. But the buff has to be significant enough to make it effictive and viable as a strategic option otherwise why even bother?

[Sotsa]

Well, if J&Lare interested i guess that is a matter that can be settled through testing but i don't think you need many seconds of free full sprint to be able to escape a melee character. you just need to keep enough distance between him and you not to be stabbed or punched while running, and there should still be room to fuck up. Talking about maybe gaining enough distance to maybe get inside your gate and lock it, or get in your boat and haul ass.

[Chakravanti]

The buff shouldn't assume combat readiness. E.g. water to keep stam up after boon wears off. This is targeting non militant players who run from combat and I should think it should do more than keep them a neurotic mistake away from their bloodthirsty pursuants.

[Sotsa]

But do you want them to be able to escape their pursuers almost without fail?

[Chakravanti]

But do you want them to be able to escape their pursuers almost without fail?

Even a significant buff can only go so far. The range and speed afforded this should recieve it at a cost and a sufficiently organized targeted murder should require more than just having enough stuff with you to exhaust your target. Indeed, a 1v1 encounter in the wilderness should allow an active player to get away with significant clearance. However, and organized ranging party shouldn't have problems following the targets movements and negating his escape routes by destroying boats, knowing the surrounding terrain and probable avenues of escape. Essentially the function means that combat and murder must either be consenual or given much thought by a group.

Furthermore this would obviously allow victims of a raid to escape with their lives while leaving their assailants free to pillage their belongings.

Although the current disdain for using keys might hand the assailants an advantage here because fleeing peasants would be unable to escape except via the hole created by the assailants.