Developer Blogs

Combat Changes 1: Playing Styles., posted on Fri Jun 12 10:54:13 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes

Category: Special

====Where we're going and why.==== As you will probably have noticed, there have been a number of staggered changes to various aspects of the combat system over the past several months. This is the first of the posts that should begin to clarify the reasons for these changes, as well as what these changes are ultimately designed to achieve. This first blog post is going to talk generally about one of our aims: Playing Styles. ====Playing styles.==== The situation until these changes started was that there was one hugely dominant playing style: dex-dominant melee weapons and dodge or parry as a main defence. To some extent this is still the case as the most crucial changes are yet to occur. This playing style is overly dominant in every guild, and there is a perception that the dex-melee/dodge-parry build is a one-size-fits-all solution to combat on the MUD. It is worth mentioning that this perception exists because to a great extent dex builds are indeed "optimal" at the moment. Aims: 1) Ensure that a wide variety of different combat playing styles are feasible and competitive with each other, rather than there being one dominant style. 2) Ensure that each of these playing styles has its own advantages and disadvantages. Illustrative Examples: If you fight using daggers, you might attack quickly, but each attack might deal less damage and might be more easily absorbed by armour. If you fight using a two-handed mace, your special attacks might do devastating amounts of damage and be difficult to parry, but it may be easier for your opponent to dodge your attack as you swing. 3) Encourage guilds' distinctiveness. We don't want to create a game where you are limited - rather than empowered - by your guild: the fact that you can use some wizard spells without being a wizard, or some rituals without being a priest, is one of the most enduringly popular features of the MUD, and we have no intention of changing that. What we do want to do is ensure that there are genuine and concrete differences between guilds: one guild should not be demonstrably better than every other in every situation. Guilds - like builds and playing style - should have tangible advantages and disadvantages. Illustrative Examples: Wizards - Powerful offensively (and against groups of opponents in particular), but vulnerable to attack, especially when lots of opponents concentrate on them. Assassins - Can deal lots of damage in a short period of time, but less effective in normal melee combat. Can create tactical advantages with the effective use of poisons and other apparatus. Thieves - Similar to Assassins in that they can deal lots of damage to opponents in a short period of time. They can use theft tactically with their theft commands. Priests - Great at protecting themselves and others with their faith shields with some support abilities from healing and the tactical effects of offensive rituals. Still able to deal a moderate amount of damage in melee combat. Warriors - Arguably best suited to a "tank" build where they can absorb lots of damage with their armour and high health. A broad range of combat abilities, and with the highest damaging special potential when using the heavier melee weapon types. Witches - Tactical advantages through the use of headology, plus support abilities in the form of commands and potions/teas. Unique spells such as beesargh and bugshield give them offensive and defensive abilities, but their offensive magic in particular is more limited than that of Wizards. ====See you next time...==== We've broken up this series of posts into relatively small, self-contained units. Next week's post will continue talking about our general aims; subsequent posts will discuss how the recent changes fit in with these broader aims.

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