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The event "The Assault on Taekir" is beginning in 1 day, 9 hours.

New concept: "Wielding" lags
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Davairus
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:52 am    Post subject: New concept: "Wielding" lags

The concepts of combat style and weapon advantage have been a huge asset for the intended gameplay of AR. Things like hobble & overhead, those aren't just "cool" uber skills. They require an element of skill to setup first, matching a combat style and then picking the right skill for the situation. This challenges our ability to make situational decisions, which is essential for putting some skill into pvp. It fits in with AR's philosophy of brains over brawn.

However, most of us (me included) also know that because this process was allowed to take place at such lightning fast speed, it unfortunately has lent itself very well to "macroing", taking the typing time and thought out of the process proving to have awesome payoffs (imagine for instance, being in a basic flail/shield setup, and your opponent hitting a macro to dual wield axes - axe being strong against shields, advantaged against flail, and combat style on top). In addition, former essential skills like "disarm" and "shield disarm" fallen into disuse, due to these new beef skills.

Adding "wielding lag" solves those problems. Increasing the time taken to throw on different weapons grants more time to the process of natural thought, and the typing time involved. In the new climate, everyone should be able to do this at a competitive speed. But also, it brings skills like disarm straight back into the picture. Since you can disarm peoples weapon, they must wield that weapon again, and that means they must accept the wielding lag incurred by doing so. There are more implications, which you guys will soon be experiencing.

Good-to-know information

* lag applies ONLY when done in combat - you can flee first to avoid it
* lag applies to weapons, swords, shields, dual wielded, and held items
* lag applies to removing, wearing, and switching
* lag applies to every "change" - e.g. if a weapon is switched, one object is removed, and a new object worn - that's TWO changes, so more lag
* lag is one round per hand involved - e.g. removing/wearing two handed is 2 rounds


There are many new implications of this system, and it would be naive of me to say we've already thought of all of them. Here is a few I'd like to point out:

* "even-style" hobble got a lot more useful
* the effect of "double grip", especially its overbear form, in terms of switch-speeds
* the potential of thieves, which have great affinity for weapon advantage
* the problem of in-combat disarm triggers, especially for hybrids

There are also some obvious problems introduced. But what I'd like to do is deliberately keep my "To Do List" outside of the game right now. As you explore the mechanics, finding problems, I encourage you to think of solutions yourself and post them. This is a foundation to develop gameplay further from, and I would like to give you the opportunity to try that. But dont worry, I have solutions ready if nobody manages.. we won't be waiting too long.

Related updates

10 July 2006

Murder update :

Flying now causes additional lag when murdering. The same goes for against any flying target - if the opponent is flying, there will be more lag from murdering. Avians are exempted from the penalties on their own natural form of flying.


Last edited by Davairus on Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:43 am; edited 1 time in total
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MrCarb



Joined: 20 May 2006
Posts: 170

PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 11:19 am    Post subject:

Brilliant. And not a moment too soon.
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Mandor



Joined: 03 Mar 2006
Posts: 794

PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 5:39 pm    Post subject:

Shocked Shocked Shocked Get out of my mind Davairus!! Seriously, I had thought of this month ago, but didnt think it would be very well received..
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Esivole
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 958
Location: Somewhere beyond the present.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:51 pm    Post subject:

HEY!!!! a point to cursed weapons!

Very nice.
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Slade
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Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 666

PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:05 pm    Post subject:

Bad change. This is just going to result in weapons users flee'ing left and right. Did someone change style/type on you (and get 1-2+ round - wtf? - lagged), then flee, switch weapons, murder, and hobble/whatever if he stays put.

Or just in general, two people will converge, ONE or both (if type/style neutral) will realize they aren't ideally setup, and they will flee, converge again, another problem, flee and murder, converge, flee and murder, flee, flee, flee, flee, flee, flee, flee. Dumb. Get disarmed? Flee. Get shield disarmed? Flee. Flee. Flee. Flee. Flee. Yeahhhhh. No.

And 2 more rounds of lag for wearing weapon against all the mobs that disarm Rolling Eyes .

If you really wanted to do something along these lines it should have been a weapon wearing counter. You make your change, and you get an affect weapon use 1-2 rounds, where you can't change anything again in that time.
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Shughurd



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Estonia

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 1:58 am    Post subject:

Have you tought about this?

Code:
Person1 wields an axe.
Person1 gets one round lag.
Person2 flees, switches for adv. comes back with overhead/barr/sideswipe?


Point: changing weapons while engaged = pointless.[/code]
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Mandor



Joined: 03 Mar 2006
Posts: 794

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:42 am    Post subject:

umm, kind of the point? using it when the other person is not lagged will have you eating their skills for not using it wisely?
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marsd



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 832
Location: Magewares

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:32 am    Post subject:

I had the good fortune to have a go at the system, a few comments.

Lag occurs on every single weapon switch. Switching to and from different styles will rack up different lag accordingly, so you can't just swap a onehand+shield to a two handed and overhead someone dual wielding you immediately. This has been very well thought out, and Slade's "flee murder flee murder" won't work here, since lag will stop you from doing that.

You wear the weapon first, then lag. Not lag and wear.

Slade wrote:
If you really wanted to do something along these lines it should have been a weapon wearing counter. You make your change, and you get an affect weapon use 1-2 rounds, where you can't change anything again in that time.


This -is- the counter you're talking about. Learn more about it before dissing it completely.
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E-ant



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
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Location: Estonia

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:20 am    Post subject:

I think the flee fest is exactly whats going to happen.
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Slade
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Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 5:17 pm    Post subject:

marsd wrote:
This has been very well thought out, and Slade's "flee murder flee murder" won't work here, since lag will stop you from doing that.


What are you talking about? If you see the need to switch weapons, instead of doing so in combat and lagging yourself, you flee, switch (no lag), murder and wait to see what happens. If they stay put you can hobble or do your thing. If alternatively they see the need to switch they will either lag themselves (dumb player) in which case you'll flee, switch, murder, see what happens, or they will flee themselves, switch, and murder and wait to see what happens (smart player). It is an absolute flee fest between thinking players.

marsd wrote:
This -is- the counter you're talking about. Learn more about it before dissing it completely.


With a counter you can still do actions right after the weapon switch. So you can wield polearm -> overhead right away. Then because of the counter you just wouldn't be able to do the next insta switch -> action in a couple rounds when necessary because you can't switch for x rounds again. This method allows you to get in your type/style action, while also letting your opponent get in their type/style action kind of in turns. Counter would apply in combat or not.
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Mandor



Joined: 03 Mar 2006
Posts: 794

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:50 pm    Post subject:

you flee to get weapon advantage and that gives the other a chance to open with a murder on you, or run away. advantage, disadvantage.
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Louis



Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 823
Location: Los Angeles, CA

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 8:49 pm    Post subject:

i think hobble just got a lot more powerful

but dirt is still king
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Davairus
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:33 am    Post subject:

Slade's idea "just put a delay on wielding something new" undoes the fix for the problems of superfast switch/hobbles, putting back in win-button macros and ruining disarm again. It actually does nothing since people lag themselves when they hobble already. Complete waste of time to code.
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Esura



Joined: 29 Jun 2006
Posts: 129

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:47 am    Post subject:

If lag is one round per change, and involves each hand, why is changing from a 2 handed staff to a 2 handed uncanny weapon two rounds instead of four?

2 rounds for removing a weapon from two hands + 2 rounds for wielding a weapon from two hands= 4 rounds?
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Davairus
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 5:17 am    Post subject:

One round per HAND FILLED, applied once per change. Its more difficult to wield a polearm than just flipping out a dagger, and switching between weapons is more difficult than just filling an empty hand.
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Xerties



Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 484

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:27 am    Post subject:

Maybe a stupid question, but should I take this to mean that to go from two handed -> dual wield you would wield the first weapon, one round of lag, then wield the second weapon? So you're chilling with just one weapon for a round?
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Davairus
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 8:24 am    Post subject:

I have no idea what you are getting so confused about. Lets look at some examples of 2-handed stuff lagging 2 rounds, and 1-handed stuff lagging 1 round (which you could just do in game, but, shrug):

Primary:

* if you remove a two-handed weapon, 2 round lag
* if you remove a one-handed weapon, 1 round lag
* if you wear a two-handed weapon into an empty hand, 2 round lag
* if you wear a one-handed weapon, 1 round lag

Off-hand:

* if you remove a shield, 1 round lag
* if you remove a dual wield, 1 round lag
* if you remove a held item, 1 round lag
* if you wear a shield into empty hand, 1 round lag
* if you wear a dual wield, 1 round lag
* if you wear a held item, 1 round lag

Swap (just add them together as if it were remove/wear, get it?):

* if you swap two-handed for 1-handed, 3 round lag
* if you swap one-handed for 1 handed, 2 round lag
* if you swap one-handed for 2-handed, 3 round lag
* if you swap two-handed for shield, 3 round lag
* if you swap dual wield for a different dual wield, 2 round lag
* if you swap dual wield for shield, 2 round lag
..etc.


Beyond that lies consideration of the special cases that come up - double grip, counterbalance, sudden urge for fleeing, and more that nobody's poked at yet. Those are problems I'm waiting for you to tell me how to fix (or if I should, especially the supposed "mass fleeing"). At present, it looks like we'll end up making do with what I already had on the agenda for them.

Another problem this resolved which I failed to mention was the intrinsic setup of "turtling" - standing on defense waiting to switch/hobble the guy who attacks first. With this kinda setup instead, advantage is in the hands of the guy that attacked first. Sure the other guy can just flee/switch right now, but he has to return - and its a mind game you know, if your attacker notices you keep flee/switching, he's gonna switch too, so when he catches you again, oops! And if you aren't murdering back, lets face it, you're going to lose eventually on all the murders ahead your opponent is getting on you. Its going to go horribly wrong spamming flee like that, eventually you will get caught by dirt or fast tracking. I prefer that to the old-style of just switch/hobble FTW whenever someone takes initiative against you.
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Shughurd



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Estonia

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 8:41 am    Post subject:

Hey Dav, here's my 5 cents:

Make the weapon-switch delay a "pre-delay".

"You are now trying to wield a huge warhammer."

1 round PRE delay, opponent sees nothing.

And then you wield it.

It will be then easy to fix the combat;skill macro usage, as while you are going to wield a twohander, enemy might have wore a shield already.

Anyway, in general, it makes pk alot less boring everyday switch swamp, eg.
you have a shield+weapon wielded, knowing that most likely your enemy gonna wield a dualweapons now for barr/hobble, so you go for twohander instead and ruin his chances. Alot more thinking and predicting an enemy would accour, and it would be easy to fool someone who relies on these tactics aswell, it gonna be all about the wits.
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Davairus
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 10:12 am    Post subject:

Will people tangle with weapons first? They might. They might also just dirt if they're good at dirt, or in the case of high strength people who don't dirt so great, try that "even style" hobble I mentioned - and you thought you were safe! I am not saying I know for sure how things will play out before they've had a chance to happen, but that's the outcome I'm going to be expecting.


Well I'm glad to see you challenging this idea, and trying to come up with something better, but on the other hand I don't see that happening, and frankly I wish you'd put your energy into helping build on this foundation, which is solid. I don't know if I am going to be willing to wait for the idea to gain more acceptance before I start working on the followups to it, because I want to get going, so all I can say is think about it and I'm sure if you have thought about it enough, maybe you'll start seeing what a good thing it is and how great it can be. If you want to participate in making it great, now is the time. If you wanna just say it is a huge mistake, ok that is your opinion, fine, but a lot of people have said the same thing about things that people wouldn't want to lose anymore, and changed their minds. But by then the had ship sailed. Be careful about bias - try to look at things from other perspectives, not just that of your own character (given the players page stats, probably a warrior.) Personally, I have considered how this plays out for every class matchup there is, over months. I've seen your concerns and I've found resolution in my mind about them in looking at the "big picture". I don't want to offend anyone, but I feel I am better than you guys at doing that, due to a more extensive knowledge of AR. I'm asking you for followup ideas though because that doesn't require that kinda skill as much.

Here's how "pre-delay" looks in the big picture.

1) A "pre-delay" thing allows the user to switch/hobble/barrage/etc in one swift motion and I've already stated I'm oppose to that, i could pull up 50 or so logs including ones with rage/deletes in them but I dont wanna. Once again, think about it a while. There are things out there that should be decent but get really amazingly trashed by that - auspice of ilythir, shield block, counterbalance, even berserkers getting a good round or two in raged... bows vs instant volleys is an outlier but its there to do.. if I can think of the problems, I'm sure you can.

2) People are used to lags and things. Somebody said the word "everyday". Lag's are things everyone is used to, so its the intuitive thing to do. The most intuitive thing we've felt we could do fits in very well with the rest of a system of things we've also found intuitive to do. Simple to grasp for anyone who has some understanding of AR's gameplay, and fitting nicely with everything else. You can't beat it. I guarantee if you try to think of something complicated you'll screw up something you never woulda thought about, leading to last point :-

3) Windmill cleaving is an AOE that gives a thief time to tank it counterbalanced and try to flee after his free hit. With some "wield delay" thing, that won't work anymore, he'll be switching his style too slowly. There are probably some other things that will disturb that I haven't given thought to, that's just one that came off the top of my head instantly. I didnt throw this in with point (1) because its a weirdy, I hope it illustrates the problem with over-complication causing too many revisions of skills, especially the less commonly used ones. I dont plan recoding many skills, other than the one or two out there that have long needed a look at already.

If you can't look at what I just wrote and say you thought of all that within 15 minutes like I just did, perhaps you can trust me that this is rather well-thought out.


Last edited by Davairus on Mon Jul 09, 2007 10:32 am; edited 1 time in total
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Xerties



Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 484

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 10:31 am    Post subject:

So I tested it out to answer my own question (yeah I should have done it in the first place, shut it) and it turns out that it works the way I thought it did. That is, when you're going from 2hand to dualwield or shield you have 3 round where you're just chilling with one weapon. Now I like this change, it kills the 2hand->overhead winbutton, but the idea of having 3 round where you can't dual wield or wear a shield is a little much for me. Maybe the lag can hit after someone has completed a full style change, instead of just switching one weapon or something. I don't know, just an idea.
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