Engagement System Updates

[HR-Marduk]

2 / 23 / 05

<FLEE> has been updated.

- You should now be able to flee much more easily than before.
- There is now a cap on the magnitude of penalties you can receive due to health/encumberance.

- The stamina hit will now be much more significant.
- The roundtime will now increase with the number of enemies you are fleeing.
- There will now be a significant penalty to defensive ability while fleeing (moreso against ranged attacks)

<DRAG> has been updated.

- The base drag distance for a given set of skills and sets has been boosted considerably.

- The penalties for trying to drag someone away from multiple enemies will be higher in general and much more random.
- The roundtime for trying to drag someone away from multiple enemies has increased.

- It is no longer possible to attempt to drag someone while in combat.
- You will now see how successful you were in your attempt, even if you fail to drag the person out of the room.

3 / 4 / 05

<FACE> is now released.

FACE <RANGE> will face the next creature at the specified range to you.
FACE <NEXT> will face the next creature in the room, regardless of range.

Distance calculations have been slightly modified. If you are more skilled than your opponent, you should now notice that it is significantly easier to retreat than previously. However, if your opponent is more skilled, you will find it more difficult to retreat.

These modifications have large random components, so you will not always see the difference you expect (and are slightly skewed to favor the retreating party).

<HANGBACK> <POLE|PILUM|MISSILE>

This command will allow you to automatically attempt to keep enemies at a certain range.

<3 / 8 / 05 >

Scavenged creatures should now properly select targets using the ES.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

[HR-Marduk]

I've put a soft cap on the maximum mutliple-opponent penalty, based on the number of enemies engaged.

What this means, basically, is that it will no longer be possible to hit the hard cap (which was very high) without having 5-6 enemies engaged, and should help when fighting 2-3 creatures near your level.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

A bug has been fixed that was causing ranges to be improperly calculated when players were fighting against creatures.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

The <ASSESS> verb has been updated.

<ASSESS> will only show your current engagements.

<ASSESS ALL> will show all engagements and hostile creatures in the room.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

Engagement System should now generate much less scroll.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

Creatures will now have engagement speeds modified by level to compensate for the fact that they're missing out on maneuvers like dash, leap, and a few other things that are so cool I can't even tell you about them yet.

If general, low-level creatures will have their engagement times significantly increased, while higher (40+) creatures will have their times significantly increased.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

Stamina hits from <LEAP> and <FLEE> have been moderately reduced.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

A couple of rather large bugs were fixed tonight, but I don't really remember what all of them were.

The two biggest:

Damage calculations for polearms and thrown weapons should now properly take the range between attacker and defender into account.

Damage calculations for thrown weapons should now work properly (they'd occasionally do 0 damage for really stupid reasons).
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

Hangback should now stop you at the designated range if you are advancing or retreating from your target and are stationary.

It should not stop you if:

You are retreating and something is advancing towards you.
You are advancing something that is retreating from you.
You are advancing something that is advancing towards you. (though this one may change in the near future)
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

Accuracy bonuses/penalties based on engagement ranges have been cut in half.

This means a few weapons (whips/chains) will become a bit more accurate in melee, while others (a very few specific blunts/bladed) weapons will be a bit less accurate.

Damage bonuses/penalties remain unchanged.
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

A bug has been fixed that was causing engagement messaging to not properly appear under certain circumstances (specifically, when something is advancing towards you and you are neither advancing or retreating).
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HR-Marduk

[HR-Marduk]

Just a heads up.

Sometime in the next week or so (hopefully this weekend, depending on my schedule), a number of factors in the engagement system will be examined and rebalanced, and some other bugs are going to be cleaned up.

The list includes (but is not limited to):

Base engagement times will be lowered across the board, but bonuses to engagement times will be increased and will be adjusted to use a broader set of skills and stats. This means engagement take more time for everyone, but will be more noticeable for lower-level creatures and players; players will not need to focus as heavily in a few skills/stats to get high engagement times; the difference between engagement times for low-level vs. higher-level players/creatures will now be more pronounced.

Damage penalties for not aiming ranged weapons will be reassessed at missile range, and will be increased for most weapons. This should be most noticeable for high-power marksmanship and pulse weapons.

The ability to hit a specific body part (hereafter referred to as THBP) will be reassessed at missile range, and will most likely be reduced across the board. This will be most noticeable in high rate-of-fire weapons.

THBP will be reassessed across the board (including melee weapons and unarmed). It is very likely it will be significantly reduced for high-level players and characters. This will be most noticeable when using weapons such as flamethrowers and shotguns.

Aiming will now significantly reduce accuracy penalties for archery weapons at melee and pole range, making them more usable (but not ideal) in these situations. Damage penalties will now apply to archery weapons in these situations.

EDIT: Knockdown and stun rates are going to be examined and likely toned down a few notches as well.

A few bugs with retreating while hanging back will be addressed.

The goal of these changes is to:

A> Adjust the engagement system times in order to bring them in line with the changes to combat in general.

B> Adjust missile weapons so that they will still offer a significant advantage in combat, but not necessarily kill your opponent before he reaches melee.

(Do not take this as a downtweak to ranged weapons in general. Keep in mind that reduced engagement times will result in more shots before they reach melee, and allow you to better time shots to get a snapshot or two in while they're within missile range but not within melee range.)

C> Reduce the effect of THBP annihilating body parts (thus quickly killing) in a few blows.

D> Make engagement system bonuses broader in scope, thus accessible to a wider range of players.
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HR-Marduk