Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2017 10:20:15 GMT -5
Whats the best combat system you have seen in a mud?
Are innovative systems simply better since you havent played them for a thousand + hours?
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Post by sessizlik on Nov 7, 2018 1:22:57 GMT -5
There was an RP-encouraged Mud, can't remember the name.. You'd split points between accuracy, speed and strength. You weren't forced to split all 100, too, hence experienced players were able to spar with inexperienced ones by simply setting accuracy 0, speed 0, strength 0 and just defending or setting only speed to something to slap you lightly with each strike. You also could "target" body parts and it was possible to dismember and behead enemies. It also had a reach and parry table, for example whips had good reach but 0 parry bonus.
It was pretty fun. You felt like conan the barbarian when your sword slash cut off a hand.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 10:14:00 GMT -5
Accursed Lands?
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Post by sessizlik on Nov 7, 2018 12:02:38 GMT -5
I have no idea right now and a fscking moron did something stupid - change in production database. It's a digital archive project with confidential documentation so I'm forced to go there personally at fscking eight pm and restore a backup. I'll have a look when I come back if it's not too late.
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faroukel
Displaced Tuluki
What's a story without a villain?
Posts: 201
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Post by faroukel on Nov 7, 2018 13:41:15 GMT -5
Best combat systems are simple, easy ones that rely on the equipment and skills of the character, a la Shadows of Isildur or Harshlands. I haven't checked it out personally, but the FutureMud/LabMud enhanced version of the previously mentioned sounds pretty nifty.
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Post by sirra on Nov 7, 2018 16:58:27 GMT -5
My favorite text-based combat system probably goes all the way back to Gemstone III, which was the first online game I ever encountered. I moved on from it after only a couple years, and there was a lot about the rest of it that I didn't care for, or which could be satisfied much better by the golden age of (post-Ultima) MMORPG boom times that was right around the corner.
Gemstone III remained ultimately a kind've corporate theme park, where there was no real way to engage with or meaningfully change the world. However, I did end up befriending a gamemaster who worked for Simutronics, and it was he who introduced me in the late 90s, to MUDs, where he was trying to build his own game.
I eventually discovered Armageddon, which for a number of reasons, greatly appealed to me. It had vastly greater immersion, player agency (and for what seemed to me, for a very long time) potential. It felt like there were real mysteries to uncover, and that actions had real consequences, such as permanent character death. I genuinely pity any online gamer who never had the chance to briefly experience Armageddon at its best, for all that I loathe what it became.
But I have never thought that Armageddon's combat system was terribly special. It somehow manages to be both overly simplistic and frustratingly obtuse at the same time, which is a fairly impressive combination. It encourages twinkery, because the consequences of losing a fight are so great - while at the same time, there is a very poorly understood sense of how to meaningfully and realistically advance. There is no way to master a weapon, without engaging in twinkish behavior...absent either staff intervention (submitting RP logs and receiving skill raises), or being the pet of someone who twinked to master their skills first. Most combat encounters in Armageddon is just a screen scroll of either whiffs, grazes or extremely hard chops to the wrist followed by a beep.
All that said, Gemstone III's combat mechanics were both transparent, just subtle enough to make for interesting choices, and combined it with evocative, descriptive text. Dragonrealms tried the same approach, though Gemstone's combat descriptions were much better written, whereas DR's felt samey. I've never encountered a text-based system that even remotely felt as satisfying. But that's probably because people who are concerned with 'satisfying combat' either channel their interest into other games (such as literally every other RPG, MMORPG, FPS etc in existence), or to 'tabletop' games like Pathfinder, etc.
For the record, I don't think PvP Combat in a text-based game should be entirely 'reflex based', even though all are to a certain extent, and Armageddon certainly is. There are ways around such systems with macros, and if someone is really into raw, reflex-based PvP, there are vastly better vehicles to sate that itch. When I think of PvP in a text/MUD environment, I see it more as 'political'.
9 times out of 10, if my character was going to kills yours in Armageddon, it was owing to the various choices and decisions made leading up to that moment, which imbued it with pathos. When it came, it was virtually always an unfair ambush or some other one-sided murder. The actual combat itself, was more of a ceremonial coup de grace. In fact, I can think of only two fights, in my entire time playing Armageddon, where it was a genuinely fair match that depended purely on a greater mastery of the combat mechanics and luck. There were however, many that seemed fair, but one side was an overconfident idiot and didn't realize they were already dead. There were innumerable arrowed gickers and trampled desert elves which hardly counts as PvP.
So PvP considerations aside, of which I don't think really even matter, I'm taking 'best combat system' to mean which someone found the most aesthetic and amusing to watch scroll by.
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