Combat triggers
- Consider this a brain-storming page*
Rationale: Combat in groups often takes the form of one person leading a bunch of players with auto on through a series of battles. Some of these players may be intermittently away from their keyboards (AFK) and be partially relying on the lead player.
On occassion players will fall in battle and, if the group is fighting high-level ferals or lots of challenging ferals the result may be that everyone falls having relied on the group strength to ensure success.
Another scenario is that players may not uniformly target the most dangerous ferals. Allowing them to persist longer than is necessary hurts the party as a whole as the feral can continue attacking and potentially summoning pets. The exception to this can be seen in boss fights where everyone (generally speaking) knows to target the prime as soon as the battle starts.
Solution: Combat triggers.
Combat triggers would take the form of triggers in the OOC channel that allow everyone to work in coordination with the lead without having to pay attention to every aspect of the combat. They would take the form of:
<OOC> Someone says, "!Target X"
<OOC> Someone says, "playername !handup"
<OOC> Someone says, "playername !revive !rejoin"
<OOC> Someone says, "playername !search"
The first trigger would guide everyone to target a specific feral
The second trigger would allow a fallen player to request an automatic handup allowing the lead to concentrate on the battle.
The third trigger is a combination that would be used by the lead to first revive (hero revive or guide a healer player to use adrenaline hypos), then if the revive is successful, to automatically rejoin the party.
Examples of how these would be used in tintin:
#act {<OOC> %5 says, "Anwen !handup"} {#send handup %5}
#act {<OOC> %5 says, "!target %4"} {#send ooc Understood, %5! Targeting %4; #send target %4}
#act {<OOC> %5 says, "Anwen !auto"} {#send ooc Understood, %5! Auto on.; #send auto on}
#act {<OOC> %5 says, "Anwen !revive"} {#send ooc Understood, %5! Reviving.; #send hero revive}
#act {<OOC> %5 says, "Anwen !revive"} {#send ooc OK, searching!; #send search}
Pros:
Lots of people use MushClient - triggers could be written by a knowledgeable person and shared. Others could share triggers for other clients.
If a player can't or won't use triggers then they would still perform battle in the default manner - nothing is lost.
Cons:
Triggers involving revives may burn through hero points if the lead makes a bad decision though the player using a !revive action may limit revives to one or two instances. Leads must have an appreciation of party strengths and weaknesses.
Players must either know how to create triggers or know how to add them if they're already written.
Players must understand the potential limitations of certain trigger combinations.
