[crossfire] Project: Slow down combat

[Mark Wedel]

Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:

> Remember that combat speed isn't all about how fast I hit them.  The more I
> play, the more I realize that mostly what changed is I can't hit as fast.  I
> am still extremely vulnerable to buffered keystrokes... maybe even more so
> now because action is so much more slow.  I have to play "very fast" to avoid
> death.  I can't say that I think this is an improvement.  I don't want to be
> slower on one hand, I want to be able to be faster at saving my life.  OTOH,
> regarding balance of physical combat vs. magic, yes, there is an element of
> wanting to be slower so I can really play a magic user without always having
> to defer to saving myself with physical combat.
> 
> The player should not always be on the edge of death due to things like
> buffered up keystrokes...  Michtoen seemed to address this in his comments on
> being able to interrupt the incoming commands when a monster was beside the
> player, but I didn't really find out what all he was talking about when he
> reviewed what was done with Daimonin.  This, to me, was a lot of what was
> behind my vote for slowing down combat.

  So something like that is doable.  The way to explain it is that the server 
looks at all commands sent by the player every tick (not just the one at the top 
of the queue), and some commands have precedence and are perhaps meta commands, 
like a 'cancel all previous commands'.

  In that way, you're playing, having buffered up a bunch of stuff, and then 
something happens that changes the dynamic of the battle. You hit the 'cancel' 
button, it cancels the previous commands, and then starts doing the commands 
after the cancel.

  I've wanted to right this irrespective of slowing down combat - it sounds like 
to some extent that this is perhaps more relevant now.

  It also has some other advantages - some commands should be freebie commands, 
and thus executed whether or not the character actually has an action (things 
like who, maps, chat).

  One could also extend this so that all commands have a priority, and the 
server processes in priority order.  So you're in the middle of combat, and have 
hit the keys to cast some spells.  You notice your hp are low, so you drink the 
potion of healing.  In general, you probably want the potion quaffing to be very 
high priority, so it happens first, but your casting of spells still goes off. 
This is a bit more flexible than the cancel action.  Programatically, it isn't 
that much harder - the harder part is an interface for the players to set these 
different priorities - it probably be simplest just to having things like 'high, 
normal, low' instead of a number scheme, as that would be easier to understand.

> 
> Kevin
> 
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