I thought combat spam was deliberate.
Target Bar
16 minutes ago, myrek said:
I thought combat spam was deliberate.
Room descriptions are even more deliberate, but I'd never want to play with them turned on.
Having your target in your prompt isn't a bad thing, whether it's just a name or includes a bar. The biggest change here will be those pet classes or who otherwise rely on you missing the rescue/flee-return.
The biggest issue I think, comes from the percentage/condition difference, and I think Celerity addresses that well. You can have a bar, just have each segment one condition level rather than the entire bar be based on a percentage. Or having a percentage period.
Only issue I have in her latest post (apart from condensing combat) is that the [??|??|??] for the condition-less target is redundant. I can't think of an instance where you can't see condition if you can see your target.
Unless there's a qskill for that.
Still, the other three are fine:
Normal: Magick: [==|==|==] excellent
Blind: Someone: [??|??|??] --
Blindfighting: Someone: [==|==|--] quite a few wounds
%N : Display name of target (combat only)
%q : Display condition of target
%Q : Display condition of target ("health bar")
On a similar note:
6 hours ago, Unknown Criminal said:
Why make @Fool_Hardy and other people like him "learn a new client, and reprogram 20 years of aliases/triggers/macros"...
I agree with this. One shouldn't need to switch clients from one they're familiar with unless one client offers a (suite of) functionality that another cannot. For example if Client A offers a gauge that gives you a health bar in addition to your numbered total and your client Client B does not. Except perhaps if Client A has more people familiar with it and can help with a script or functionality you want, even though both may have.
Moreover, this is what I'm wanting to address as alluded to my post above: scripting help, not that I have some magical program that will auto-translate between clients or some such.
11 hours ago, Unknown Criminal said:
People say that MUDS are a dying breed of gameplay yet when players ask for simple 'optional features' they are shut down by old school minds who are unwilling to change with the times. A health bar on your opponent hurts NOTHING and offers NO advantage where 75% of 1500HP and 75% of 800HP still shows up on a health bar as 75%, what it does do is gives the players who want it a visual option.
Morphious: [===|===|==-|---]
13601tnl (5258gold) (16o'clock)autov
You choose to see your victims health bar.
Daryth, the Giant Priest [===|===|===|---]
Morphious: [===|===|=--|---]
13601tnl (5258gold) (16o'clock)autov
You will no longer see your victims health bar.
Daryth, the Giant Priest has quite a few wounds.
if (IS_GAME(ch,GAME_VICT_BAR)) { buf[0] = UPPER(buf[0]); health_prompt(buf, ch->fighting->hit, ch->fighting->max_hit, FALSE); if (!is_affected(victim,gsn_mirror_image)) sendf( ch, "%s %s\n\r", PERS(victim,ch), buf ); } else do the old thingEvery MUD has races and classes and clans and bla bla bla but not every MUD offers an alternate health prompt on your victim. New players to MUDS these days wont stick around long enough to learn 'how we did it back in the day', they will move on to another game where options are available. This victim health bar idea targets NEW players where the benefit to OLD players is they could likely have more people to play with.
Gameplay options 'especially visual ones' are never a bad thing where even if only 1 player uses it he becomes a happier player.
Why make @Fool_Hardy and other people like him "learn a new client, and reprogram 20 years of aliases/triggers/macros" when you can install and offer the option to everyone from this point onwards in less than 5 minutes.
I think you are being a bit dramatic.
I don't think new players (do we even have any?) are being driven away by a lack of enemy health bar...
Also nobody is forcing FH to throw away 20 years of work. We are just trying to help him achieve what he wants using a client based solution. The people who have offered client help use cmud/zmud. This doesn't mean he can't achieve his own goals using his current client, it just means he will have to figure it out for himself.
Just to be clear I am in no way against this change. If the staff wants to add an enemy health bar I am fine with it. Truth is I don't think it will change much, buts that's just my opinion.
The main point is that a LOT can be done with a good client and not every little QOL change needs to be done by the staff when players can easily customize their own experience, this after all is a big feature of mudding in general.
I use my client for this, though I don't bother with a bar. Just color code the condition and add a %.
I do store my targets name though, in a variable, that displays on the bottom bar of my client.
I use wintin.
@Manual Labour I wasn't being dramatic, I was stating what I think is an obvious. Players aren't going to stay or leave because of a health bar prompt, but what's wrong with having the option for one? The fact of the matter is that experienced players are manipulating the way the game looks 'to them' with client side features, so if players are doing it anyways why not just add it as in game options.
Example:
playing FL or any mud on telnet looks like X.
playing that same mud on Cmud look like Y.
playing it on wintin looks like Z.
What is wrong with me playing on Zmud but being able to choose a Cmud and wintin display feature?
Me personally, I would ask all players for a screenshot of their clients display output so I could see the difference in how they view the game, then add all the differences to the code as options. But that's just me ;)
UC
Maybe there should be a forum section where players can swap scripts.
2 hours ago, Unknown Criminal said:
@Manual Labour I wasn't being dramatic, I was stating what I think is an obvious. Players aren't going to stay or leave because of a health bar prompt, but what's wrong with having the option for one? The fact of the matter is that experienced players are manipulating the way the game looks 'to them' with client side features, so if players are doing it anyways why not just add it as in game options.
Example:
playing FL or any mud on telnet looks like X.
playing that same mud on Cmud look like Y.
playing it on wintin looks like Z.
What is wrong with me playing on Zmud but being able to choose a Cmud and wintin display feature?
Me personally, I would ask all players for a screenshot of their clients display output so I could see the difference in how they view the game, then add all the differences to the code as options. But that's just me ;)
UC
development time and resource allotment.
Do we want to spend time developing in the game what is a custom thing the user can do themselves?
Or do we want to spend that time focusing on things that cannot be done client side, like new classes, areas, and such other examples.
I personally would have the developers leave my client alone, do little if not nothing aside from QoL changes like replay says, and focus on content.
1 hour ago, Kyzarius said:
development time and resource allotment.
Do we want to spend time developing in the game what is a custom thing the user can do themselves?
Or do we want to spend that time focusing on things that cannot be done client side, like new classes, areas, and such other examples.
I personally would have the developers leave my client alone, do little if not nothing aside from QoL changes like replay says, and focus on content.
This is not a very good argument against the suggestion - which concerns the merits and flaws of the actual idea. Your opinion on determining how to allocate developer time or resources is a matter of wider policy -- something this suggestion doesn't even begin to scratch.
We can have that discussion about priorities, but it won't be very effective unless it is centralized into its own thread -- probably not best piggybacked onto individual ideas. That just derails the topic from the content suggestion to the priority discussion. Furthermore, it is very difficult to even have that policy discussion without a pool of suggestions to prioritize.
What we are doing is adding to that pool of available ideas. When several of these ideas in the same vein can be strung together, implementing the change becomes more efficient and worthwhile as they can all be done at once. Thus my follow-up suggestion about suppressing condition in the combat round. The purpose of the discussion is to refine the idea, determine relevant expansions or dismiss the idea as superfluous or otherwise without merit through reasonable arguments. If it has merit, it sits until it can be batched with other suggestions or otherwise gains developer attention.
This could be implemented tomorrow, in 5 years or never. That part is largely irrelevant to the merit of this suggestion though.
@Kyzarius that's the basis of my point, 'you' aren't the target market for these kinds changes, its the next generation of players that don't have the patience to learn client side tweaks and would prefer to just 'auto x'.
What makes muds different IS the time spent developing unique options and features that nobody else offers. Think about it, what things have really changed with FL in the last 20 years? Areas, equipment and 20 years of rebalancing because of that equipment. Mages are obsolete because every straight up melee class can cast, smoke, eat or 'use' for virtually every major spell with NO setback.
There is a roof to race and class creation because every damage type, lag type, attack type has already been written in one form or another. If new skills do show themselves they should be given to the already existing races and classes that are struggling, not create another watered down option for people to play.
Those are just my thoughts :)
UC
On 11/15/2017 at 4:23 PM, myrek said:
Maybe there should be a forum section where players can swap scripts.
Something like this?
@Fool_Hardy @egreir
9 hours ago, Magick said:
Something like this?
@Fool_Hardy @egreir
Yes, but not a club.... a forum section.
It's a section accessed through the forum. I'm calling that a win.
What’s wrong with a club? They can have multiple forums within one place and other cool features that focus on one thing. I think it’s great.
Indeed. The club was a brilliant idea. It will allow for separate conversations regarding different clients. Keeping a sometimes confusing topic more compartmentalized.
I plan to drop my hp per round script in there when i get a chance.
19 hours ago, Erelei said:
What’s wrong with a club? They can have multiple forums within one place and other cool features that focus on one thing. I think it’s great.
Location location location
Is there a reason it isn't part of the "main" forum? What's the benefit of pulling it out of the primary flow of information where everyone already hangs out and burying it 2 clicks deeper on the site?
I mean if we can discuss Skyrim VR here, there's certainly room for MUD client scripting.
I think sharing scripts is infinitely better than hard-coding prompt changes because everyone is going to want something different.
What would everyone prefer here? Why have clubs at all if we don't want players to take charge of things like this?
I mean, I'll make the change if it's really something everyone wants.. I just find this to be a very awesome use of clubs, which have not been really used at all since their addition to IPS4.2.
"Why have clubs at all?" is a valid question. Is there some benefit to having a club? From here it looks like nothing more than a hard-to-find forum section that doesn't show up in the forum feed.
"if we don't want players to take charge of things like this" I have no idea what that means. I'm a player. I'm posting here. How is it any different?
The question was "Why have clubs at all if we don't want players to take charge of things like this?"
I don't think you understand the concept of Clubs. (they could be named better, I agree).
They're "player run forums", where the creator can modify, edit, delete, whatever - have their own rules on their own forum, and essentially run a section of their own forum within the namespace of this forum.
I mean, if we honestly can't tell the difference (or refuse to, whichever), I see no reason to have them. I'll simply setup more forums on the front page with whatever additions we come up with. That's fine by me too. I assumed players wanted more control, as they do here in the decision making process for modifications and direction of the game, just as much as they want more control in the forum side of things.