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PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:52 am
by Finwë
As Wobbler said, and we probably all know it:
Wobbler wrote:99% of all flees are nothing that would even remotely resemble a flight in panic in a real-life situation, but an attempt at either a tactical retreat by a group to reform the line (which the game forces players to do in another room instead of 50 metres back in the same room) or a manouvering by a solo player to make sure he does not have one opponent right in front of him and another right behind him. Think of a fighter moving about in a ring - he may step backwards many times without fleeing in panic.
You can also think of it as guerrilla tactics, where you try to hit a stronger enemy, quickly retreat along a pre-planned route and possibly try to ambush eventual followers before regrouping for the next quick attack, again followed by a pre-planned retreat. If things go as planned, you don't get more and more panicky with every iteration.
Guerrilla tactics are something we don't want to lose in MUME. But maybe hit-flee has become too prevalent a tactic across all the classes when (as Elec says) this kind of tactic should be more of a scout tactic. The problem is that without the hit-flee tactic, there is currently very little tactics to playing a warrior (which is why I rarely do it). It's basically hit and bash as fast as possible (because the other warrior delayed skills like charge and kick are ineffective), so it's just a question of spamming bash and sometimes hit. (Or if you have a consistent link, you may be able to predict the timing of your bash correctly with practice.)

Given these facts, I'm not for penalties that are very likely to result from fleeing ('very' being the operative word here). (Like the old "You cannot attack and flee!" system, which was there 100% of the time.) However, we could, and perhaps should, increase the flee penalties somewhat.

I note that it (the flee penalty) has already been increased for scouts with the addition of the nosneak effect. But I can not see any reason why fleeing should incur any more penalty for scouts than for the other classes. In fact, given that scouts are the best fit for guerilla tactics, you could argue the opposite. Of course, now they have escape in a usable(?) form, so I won't bother with that argument, since, as Elec says, they should be using escape for this tactic.

I propose that the PANIC effect affects all aggressive actions, and all actions requiring any concentration (any spell, track, bandage, etc.). Let's split the effect into two first before I describe how each might occur.
Affected by:
- mild panic
Or
Affected by:
- severe panic

Mild panic would be like the current effects of panic: maybe a loss in effective level for everything except HPs, Mana and Moves, or a loss in effective skill percentage for things that are not affected by level. So, including OB, but also everything else that is level dependent (spells, backstab, etc.). It should be greater than the current loss. (Perhaps equivalent to losing two levels (or 20 legend levels) for things affected by level or say 10% skill level for things not affected by level?) The duration of this would be about 30 seconds.

Severe panic would mean that any aggressive action or action requiring concentration would not be allowed. So no hitting, bashing, backstabbing, casting, tracking, bandaging, etc. Sneaking and riding are more borderline. I reckon you could probably do both while severely panicked and they are neither aggressive nor requiring concentration of the delayed variety, nor requiring steady hands, nor contrary to expectations having just fled, but do require skill. So maybe someone's skill level for these two should be halved. (Haha! Lots of chance of ZBLAMs! This seems reasonable.) Or maybe level / skill level for everything should be halved, but everything allowed. The duration of this would only be a few seconds.
A few changes (in italics) to what I already (in another [url=http://mume.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=653&p=3019#p3020]thread[/url]) wrote: 1. Panic-effect should not be automatic when fleeing a fight, even if you had a failed flee. The reason for this is that fleeing is the usual way to leave a fight quickly (for any of a multitude of reasons, including just not feeling like a fight right now (in this location)). Failing a flee is also normal and not worthy of panic. Given this...

2. Mild panic-effect should be acquired under any of the following situations and only these:
(i) failing a flee three times in a row (can easily happen in a closable, especially if all the exits are closed!) So people will need to be quick with the flee off button!
(ii) if a critical hit (i.e. wound) causes your HPs to fall below your autowimpy and you don't switch flee off before this causes you to flee out of the room.
(iii) if you are below your autowimpy AND fail (one or) two flees in a row.
N.B. Failing a flee while bashed or held should not count as one of these failed flees (as you are stunned or frozen and therefore not able to panic). Eating a bash will probably put you below your autowimpy anyway, so your chance of getting panic goes up.
(iv) other involuntary causes of fleeing such as failing to save the fear spell. Actually failing to save vs fear spell should result in immediate severe panic effect.

3. There could be a small random component in (iii). And/or a component based on your will power (wil) and/or the percentage of your autowimpy level your current hitpoints are and/or the amount of damage taken in the last two rounds.
Severe panic should occur when you already have mild panic and one of the reasons in point 2 above reoccurs.

If autowimpy is set to the max due to link-loss failed flees should not cause panic.

Likely effects:
1. Fleeing becomes slightly less attractive than now for all classes.
2. Players new to pking on MUME aren't left wondering how illogical everyone's fighting style is. (To such an extent: it's really only warrior vs warrior hit-fleeing that is illogical.)

There could also be a new 'bravery' cleric spell. It would remove panic and make the beneficiary immume to panic and possibly the fear spell for about two minutes (i.e. not long). Of course, due to panic, it should be difficult to cast on oneself after being paniced!

Discuss. There may be better ways of determining when panic effects are acquired. I went for the ones that seemed most realistic. I don't think the level or number of opponents are very good ones though, since it is not the act of fleeing that causes PANIC, but the continuous failure of fleeing attempts or talking lots of damage while failing to flee.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:20 am
by Wobbler
Even better would be to just do away with this annoying panic completely.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:44 am
by Parrafin
In my mind, a hero+ thief/warrior would never panic unless outnumbered or severely overpowered. It's silly if i flee from b.s. hostile mobs that i should become panicked, since i wasn't in much danger to begin with.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:54 am
by Parrafin
If the sum of levels on one side of battle > other side, then becoming wimpy from 'flee' would be less likely to extremely rare. Or something to that effect.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:56 pm
by Elestir
How about giving players option to decide when they want panic and when not. For that, panic would also have to bring some bonuses of course, not just penalties.

E.g.:
fleeing without panic (through flee command) = current flee but 10% slower
fleeing with panic (through change wimpy) = current flee but 25% faster + current panic + perhaps more disadvantages from panic (such as you cant attack and flee at same time etc.)

You may argue that thats what escape should be for, but even as it is now, escape is way too unreliable mean of "escape" for PK and it will always be inferior to flee (which is almost instant).

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:34 am
by Parrafin
the flee system is confusing, i don't understand the maluses of panic, and the fact that there's a thief skill 'escape' separate from fleeing. all the while 'attack' aids you in fleeing. i mean, who in their right mind is going to shoot/escape when shoot/flee works just fine with a little more patience. it's a no-win situation. you shoot/flee, 3/4 of the time you have to wait a couple seconds to re-shoot. you shoot/escape, you're wasting precious pracs and it still takes somewhat longer than flee used to.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:38 am
by dianos
What Finwë said sounds pretty good to me. I'm not sure what the best way to balance the effects would be, but I like the overall system.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:17 am
by Civril
Why can scouts disengage from combat in an organized manner and other classes can not?
Retreat should be a general skill.
A group leader with mastered leadership and retreat should be able to retreat the whole group in an orderly manner.
To make it a viable skill it should not take long (1-2 round maybe) AND flee should be somewhat less attractive option most of the times.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:07 am
by Elec
Civril wrote:Why can scouts disengage from combat in an organized manner and other classes can not?
Retreat should be a general skill.
A group leader with mastered leadership and retreat should be able to retreat the whole group in an orderly manner.
To make it a viable skill it should not take long (1-2 round maybe) AND flee should be somewhat less attractive option most of the times.
Erm,

You do know that when group leader or buffer is engaged and you assist him/her you can always type in "disengage" and the only one who really would need to retreat or flee is the group leader/buffer? So I see no point of (new) skill that would allow group leader to automatically disengage the whole group... If youre not the one doing buffing you can always disengage. Otherwise just flee or escape.

And no, escape is not thief only skill. You can always learn it and use it. Oh, wait, it takes alot of precious pracs? Yes, yes it does. But scouts dont get it free of charge either...

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:20 pm
by Caerroil
Elec:
And no, escape is not thief only skill. You can always learn it and use it. Oh, wait, it takes alot of precious pracs? Yes, yes it does. But scouts dont get it free of charge either...
I have said it before, and will most likely say it again, scouts have the least lack of pracs of any class even now when they "need" to get max escape (if you want escape at all). Other classes can prac escape but due to the fact that it is a scout skill they won't get that high percentage in it and thus it will be far less useful (if useful at all) than for a pure scout.

As for the original topic: So, people want it to be easier to kill newbies and less powerful groups than the one you are in? Or did you just consider the idea realistic and cool and thus good? The only results of a change like proposed would be that less powerful groups would become more or less chance-less vs. more powerful groups, and that newbies would die a lot more if they will start falling of their mounts while trying to spam away in panic. It is just so rare for fights between equally powerful groups to occur that any change designed to affect those almost never will but it will end up affecting all other fights and in this case in a highly negative way.

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:11 pm
by Elec
Caerroil wrote: I have said it before, and will most likely say it again, scouts have the least lack of pracs of any class even now when they "need" to get max escape (if you want escape at all). Other classes can prac escape but due to the fact that it is a scout skill they won't get that high percentage in it and thus it will be far less useful (if useful at all) than for a pure scout.
Not so true. Well, maybe it is @ level 80+ :)
I have a L25 scout who generally sucks at stabbing absolutely anything :). well it sucks mostly in everything :D
He has only 3 skills outside of class. cure light from cleric which is @ bad and Endurance and parry from warrior that are poor. Not many pracs there, you see.

And quess what. absolutely no pracs in escape. Why? because I have 0 prac sessions left.. All other pracced skills are scout/thief skills. And all those skills are required. Like sneak, hide, track, dodge, etc. Maybe backstab isnt required per se, but well, then I couldnt exp/kill anything at all :) And yes some of them (not all) are pracced to 100%. But you know what? thief skills wont do you much good if they are not near maxxed out. Even then you mostly suck at everything :)

Enough of off topic from my part, I just wanted to point out that its not so black and white :)

Re: PANIC! A rethink...

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:08 pm
by Caerroil
Guess what? I also have a scout and it never had any lack of pracs, even at level 25. Pracs after that went to some convenience skills (bandage, climb, swim), maxing some not-essential-to-max skills and a few more warrior pracs when prac distribution allowed it without dropping scout skills too much. Since you won't believe that I will give you some "proof", a prac-set with backstab/sneak/missile/hide/escape all maxed and all other needed skills high enough to work just fine.

Code: Select all

Awareness               20/27
Bandage                  5/18?
Climb                   10/13
Ride                     8/13
Swim                    10/14
Track                   22/27
Wilderness              20/27
Cure light               3/12?
Attack                  10/16
Backstab                23/23
Dodge                   15/23
Escape                  16/16
Hide                    16/16
Missile                 16/16
Pick                     8/16
Piercing weapons        10/16
Search                   2/16?
Sneak                   23/23
Steal                    1/16?
Endurance               10/58
Parry                    5/29
----------------       ------
Sum                       253
(I can't recall the max number of pracs for a few skills, marked with a ? in the list above, but that is only for some skills you don't really want to max anyway.)