Best Of

This thread is a product of a discussion in the Discord today. It came to my knowledge that my 'home' game, Lusternia, is unique among IRE muds in that it has 'Influencing', a nonviolent interaction with mobs. And unique to almost all MMOs--most that experiment with stuff like this tend to cripple the exp output/rewards--it is very competitive with simply mass murdering everything to get to max level... (At max level it does fall behind because no crits = slower exp rate).

My question, then... Will Starmourn have anything like this? Or would the devs consider a system like this?

A little more background just in case anyone is curious:

You'll get some notice beforehand, don't worry!

You'll be able to pick from a range, which varies from race to race!

Colonisation of certain applicable celestial bodies is something we've discussed as an option for the future, but not something we're going to have at launch. The extent of starship personalisation will have to wait for a more full info release!

I am always in favor of more diversity in exp grinding. Bashing is almost never an enjoyable activity for me, but exploring, solving puzzles, debating, INTERESTING quests that don't rely on the 'guess the verb' game? Yes, please. 

I am also a fan of the mechanical rewards Lusty used to have for content creation in the form of library submissions and performances that used player feedback to determine the worth of a thing. 

Not everyone is going to love all of those things, and that's cool. Bashing shouldn't be seen as the primary/only real method of getting where you are going, imo. MUDs are definitely improved by having variety in your leveling game. 

Dodger said:

"unjustified discrimination against coding"

I'm not sure it is fair to classify the concerns people have about the disadvantage they might find themselves at if they don't know how to code/don't use scripts, as "unjustified discrimination." 

While my concerns have been mostly allayed by the idea of "balance" which sounds like it will govern scripters versus typists, I think I'll need to see it in action before I fully feel comfortable with it. Not that I have to feel comfortable with it, of course. It is what it is and in defense of your position, it has apparently worked for other IRE games. With that in mind, I think people who haven't experienced it before should at least try it once Starmourn releases, before deciding they hate it.

But as passionate as you seem to be that everything is fine with it (and I'm glad you hold a strong position, legit), I don't see how people discussing the system and their concerns becomes "unjustified discrimination."

I think scripts are fine and actually good although I don't code much myself - and here's why:

MUDs are text-based and therefore they're extremely easy to bot. You're fighting a losing battle when you try to ban bots; you end up just separating those who are smart enough to hide their automation, and those who unfortunately got caught botting. I think IRE made a very good decision to balance their game around bots, because then they won't have to waste time trying to check and punish botters. You'll just end up with smartasses who script in tiny random amounts of delay before their trigger fires - how to know if they're a bot, or just a really quick typer?

Dodger said:

Whether you are fighting someone who automates every action or someone who only manuals or something in-between, you are still pitting your knowledge of combat against the knowledge of another human being. Machines are as fallible as their creators. There is no 'perfect system'; there is always an error or overlook in the code to seek out and exploit.

Combat is always about exploiting openings and errors that your opponent makes. If two people have the same error in thinking, it is going to be exploitable whether they code it into their system or process it in their brain. Even the difference in reaction time between man vs machine is made moot by the command queueing system that exists in every IRE game and probably will exist in Starmourn.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to who knows more. Knowledge is power, and it doesn't matter how you implement that knowledge, whether you put it into code or type it with your bare hands. Everyone can be beaten regardless of how they choose to play the game, and if you believe otherwise, you've already lost.

To be honest, I think this is nonsense. Are there actually any combatants who waste time trying to find an exploit in their opponent's system, rather than playing it the normal way? A system has thousands of potential exploits. To be honest, I've always felt bored by Achaea's PvP. Almost everything has been solved, people have calculated the different types of preps and affliction combos ... it doesn't feel like I can discover new tricks, new ways to fool around with people.  Sairys said:

But really scripting your input to the game doesn't necessarily make you faster as you're still subject to balance/gcd.

Try healing, curing and attacking without using scripts. Attacking will be easier because of the queueing system, but hell you'll waste precious time trying to cure all the afflictions being thrown at you that you'll probably also lose some attack rounds as a result. Sairys said:

If being able to react at a certain speed was a sign of automation then it would be a relatively simple matter to determine who is and isn't doing so. Similarly, balance times could be lengthened to account for this.

I'm all up for increased balance timers that could level the scripting field ... but the combat would become slower-paced which some people might not enjoy. Perhaps ship combat would be slower-paced, but IRE combat would feel weird if balance took 10 seconds per attack, lol. Also the slower pace would allow more time for decision-making, and people would make less errors (so fights could stalemate a lot because everyone makes perfect decisions) As to your first part, as I said earlier, it's not impossible for a smart coder to implement a delay between receiving triggered text and sending a response. Those people would become gods of combat in the game because it can't be proven that they bot, yet they'll still be faster than their human opponents.

I'm not sure the need for continuing discussion on scripts vs no scripts at all given that @Tecton said heavy scripting isn't even going to be a necessity?