Can you tell the new semester hasn't started up yet?:P

Okay, I've seen a number of PC's who flee immediately upon first engagement, particularly after something like an ambush, even when they are not damaged enough for any wimpy to kick in.

It often seems this happens on classes that have a sleep ability so they can return and c 'sleep' or blackjack or apply poison or some such, before the lag that iniated combat wears off. It's especially annoying when striking a sleeping victim that you know had no idea you were there and they still manage to put you to sleep before the lag wears off.

So my question: is the use of triggers in this manner an abuse of game mechanics? And if so, how would you code to limit it's effectiveness without hamstringing (pun intended) those who use flee to escape combat?
Or is this just something you have to learn to live with and maybe use against the trigger-happy?

Now before you think I'm an old curmudgeon (I am, but that's neither here nor there :) ), I use triggers for somethings myself, like to give warning that I've been disarmed, or that a spell or skill has dropped.

If I know I am most likely to face one enemy, I'll have an alias in so that if I type "asd" it will do something like "c sleep fred".

So if I'm at my keyboard whilst sleeping, and you attack me, damn right I'll react in time to flee and come back with a first attack if I choose.

I'll probably even assess whether I actually want to do this in between fleeing and coming back!

That said, there are trigger users out there. Killing them is extra satisfying,especially when the trigger is what gets them killed (like someone I summoned on eastern only for their camo trigger to go off. heh).

> Can you tell the new semester hasn't started up yet?:P

You bastard, I'm already almost done with my first week *shakes fist* I miss my vacation :(

>It often seems this happens on classes that have a sleep
>ability so they can return and c 'sleep' or blackjack or apply
>poison or some such, before the lag that iniated combat wears
>off. It's especially annoying when striking a sleeping victim
>that you know had no idea you were there and they still manage
>to put you to sleep before the lag wears off.

Question is, what criteria do you use to detect triggers?

(Partially rhetorical. I've seen Marcus' answer to this question and I'm still pondering it.)

For what it's worth, I've done what you describe as a knockout class playing through straight DOS telnet with no aliases or macros on 2400 baud many times. :P

To be honest, just logic, with the admittance that the prepared could do the flee/return knockout, but how does the un-prepared do it?

I imagine I'm Joe the Thief, strolling through the hills trying to get to a chest of gold. Along the way, out of nowhere, a ranger ambushes my innocent self. I have the wherewithal to flee, notice which direction I fled (or scan), return and blackjack all before the ranger has time to do his next command following the ambush.

Could it happen? yeah, but likely?

Maybe it's just me and all the rest of you really are that good, but my response (assuming no triggers) would be something like: north (no, you can't do that you're fighting) {oh crap}, flee, now where were they? Oh yeah, south, sneak, south, damn no one here, probably hiding again, better get the heck out of dodge.

I've seen a sleeping anti-paladin flee from the initial ambush and return to c 'sleep' before the lag left. I don't know how any normal human that has those response times from sleep (while reading notes, checking score, talking over the cabal, etc..).

Then again, maybe it's just me :)

That and it'd be an easy trigger to write. Heck I could even do it and I'm not that fluent in scripts.

>To be honest, just logic, with the admittance that the
>prepared could do the flee/return knockout, but how does the
>un-prepared do it?
>
>I imagine I'm Joe the Thief, strolling through the hills
>trying to get to a chest of gold. Along the way, out of
>nowhere, a ranger ambushes my innocent self. I have the
>wherewithal to flee, notice which direction I fled (or scan),
>return and blackjack all before the ranger has time to do his
>next command following the ambush.
>
>Could it happen? yeah, but likely?

I'd say I could do it better than half the time with straight typing. Give me an alias/macro to blackjack (your name) and it's probably more like 90%. The fact that I can now (in a pinch) come back with 'bl 2.' and hope no one else has walked in doesn't hurt, either.

I assume, not everyone, but at least some decent number of other people could do this. The other thing you're assuming, which a lot of the time (with better players) won't be true is that you're actually surprising the thief. They may well know (or suspect) that you're waiting there and be planning on sucking up the ambush to draw you out and take their crack at killing you.

It's easier with a thief than anyone else because of rogue's awareness.

Of course, snare (sort of) beats this, as does a preset waylay, but now we're getting off the subject.

but instead decreasing the effectiveness of this type of ploy.

Currently most type of knock out abilities have a greatly reduced effectiveness against opponents in combat, perhaps someone who is still suffering from lag from opeing combat should be considered in combat for this reason. Logically it could go something like this the victim of the opening attack flees and the assailant, still frenzied from the opening assault, has a heighted awareness/adrenaline that makes them momentarily resistant.

Personally it is this type of maneuver that stops me from initiating combat with these types of character under many circumstances. And well thats just no fun :P

I don't really see that as an improvement.

To stick with Trouble's example, imagine you're a thief and there's a ranger out there who won't leave the wilds and who will only become visible if he sees you alone in the wilds and will ambush you.

How do you, as a thief, ever have a chance to kill that guy if you can't flee and come back with something big, be it blackjack or backstab or whatever? (Sneaky ganging really is the answer, but let's pretend you're reasonably honorable.)

You already need to suck up an ambush just to start the fight. That's not insignificant.

The same could be said about a ranger that wants to kill a thief who won't enter the wilds, he has to sit on a road or some such place and suck up a backstab or jack or what have you. But that's really not my point.

My point was that if this is seen as a problem that needs correcting/fixing I think simply reducing the effectiveness immediately after combat was initiated against you would be a good way to do it instead of attempting to code against trigger use. The premise which I didn't state but assumed from Trouble's post was that under normal circumstances such actions are not very plausible for normal players, that is the average players reaction time is too slow.

The added benefit that I like from my suggestion is that it provides greater incentive to start combat with these types of characters. The problem is that the knock out moves themselves tend to have dire consequences for the afflicted and thus at least IMO reduce the likelyhood that combat will be initiated against these foes in the first place unless the instigator has a strong chance to reduce the possibility of said knock out. Geared for svs, wearing protective head gear etc.

What it comes down to, again IMO, is whether or not these abilities should be seen as opening moves, that being a requirement that to use them effectively you need to be the one first to initiate combat, and not able to use it in a retalitorial manner.

My proposal was only on the lag for initiating combat, I don't even know if that is possible to code for something of that nature, not any subsequent lag. The benefit being again that the attacker knows he can will not be helpless to such a strategy but the knock out class also can still wait till that lag clears and then attempt to flee/sleep or whatever.

>I've seen a sleeping anti-paladin flee from the initial ambush
>and return to c 'sleep' before the lag left. I don't know how

I've done this plenty of times, and I'm a ####ty PKer. I don't even use macros or aliases, nevermind triggers. If you're sitting at the keyboard paying attention (I'm usually spamming enter so I know when the tick happens) it's quite possible to type fl;e; c sl 2. before they get over their lag and re-initiate. Sometimes you guess wrong on the direction, and it doesn't work, but if you guess right, your chances of beating their lag are decent. I usually can't get my bearings in time to do better than a random guess based on where I might've fled, but I can easily imagine that Nepenthe will know exactly where he is, when it's possible.

>That and it'd be an easy trigger to write. Heck I could even
>do it and I'm not that fluent in scripts.

I actually think it would be pretty hard to do, unless you're a thief. Your trigger would have to know which way to go after fleeing, which is non-trivial. At a minimum, it has to do one of: remember the exits of the room you're sleeping, scan to find the right one, or just pick one of n,s,w,e,u,d at random. There's definite problems with each of those solutions. Being a human and having the ability to know the circumstances is going to beat a trigger unless it's a very complex and intelligent trigger.

My (hypothetical) trigger automatically stores your name when you ambush me (probably as my current target)... I use this for various purposes, like automarking ambushers when I play assassins... Anyway I enter in my fst alias (That's flee sleep $target) which flees, does a quick scan all, and noticing you are to the east, goes east and attempts the sleep. Not only is that possible, I could write it in ~10 minutes, and I don't do a lot of trigger whoring. Your chances of avoiding my sleep attempt providing I'm not AFK when you attack with a two round lag skill?... approximately zero.

Simply being observant means that fle;scan all;go direction;c sle Tro can be performed well within the 2 round lag of an ambush.

Yeah, you could do that with a trigger, but I think that putting the scan in there is going to hurt your chances of success a lot more than just paying attention would. Scan can produce a bunch of text that has to come through, and that can easily be enough to give them time to clear their lag. Maybe I'm wrong. Do most people use scan like this? Maybe my connection just sucks, but I've always found that by the time I've scanned, even if I have a trigger set up to register the direction they're in, I would've been better off just guessing.

>Question is, what criteria do you use to detect triggers?

Sometimes it's a little blatant. Say for instance you are a storm giant and there are a couple imperials attacking Tara'Bal. The moment you enter room, the thief who was busy with fighting two others conveniently blackjacks you as soon as you get into the room.

Now I know this might have been luck, or something like it. But the next two times you get the jump on the same thief the moment you step into the room he immediatley blackjacks you once again... Maybe it's just me but my inclination is to think trigger. I try to be objective about it, but sometimes it's a little bit too consistent to fly as just good PK skills.

That's not really indicative of a trigger. What does indicate (but isn't close to making it a fact) is when you walk in, say n;hamstring thief and get immediately blackjacked before the hamstring goes through. Being the good player that you are, you capitalize and bust an artery, wait a second and then trip the thief. If the thief now flees after the first trip, it's indicative that he either had set a trigger to fire on your arrival, or used a trigger to spam for him.

(Note: This isn't true if you're in wilderness terrain, since then there's plenty of time to react to somebody walking in. If I'm in a forest, I can rest (with stand;n pre-typed) and then get up and walk away when somebody walk in, even with my semi-crappy 200ms connection.

Part of the advantage of being a game-mechanics freak and (former) trigger user is that you know pretty well when somebody uses triggers against you, and when they just did a good move because they knew all possible outcomes and made the correct play according to the circumstances.