I love everything I've seen and been through in Lusternia so far, although that's not much since Elderen is only level 24 currently. But I'm pretty confused on the subject of PvP combat.

I've played and PvP'd in a lot of MMORPGs, but I'm fairly new to muds and haven't played one at a high level and haven't been involved in PvP yet. I have read everything on the website about combat, and I've read a lot of the threads here in the combat forum, but I still don't feel like I really understand what PvP combat is in Lusternia.

I'd heard about people using scrypts in combat from a friend of mine who played Achaea, so that wasn't a surprise when I encountered that here. And I've already spent some time researching scrypt writing in ZMud, and attempted to make a autosip scrypt just to experiment. When my health went below 800 it would sip. Problem is it wouldn't stop sipping, and it'd spam my screen and use up the whole vial. So that's as far as I've gotten with that..

Anyway, here's my questions:
1) Are the scrypts just for defence and for curing afflictions, while you fire off macro'd offensive spells, or physical attacks?

2) Do you get confused about what's going on sometimes? I fought a crab and he broke my legs and I didn't even realize it untill afterI was dead and reading the log of the fight. I'm not a very fast reader..

3) Is the quality of a fighter determined more by the quality of his scrypts or by his real-time reactions during the fight? Do you have to be able to read really fast, or do you have scrypts that just highlight certain key words?

4) Do most people write their own scrypts, building it up slowely over time as they realize what they need to add to it, or do you just dive in and build a massive scrypt that'll hopefully do everything right off the bat? Or do only a few people actually write scrypts and most people just use pre-made scrypts?

I know that's a lot of questions, but I couldn't find any helpful FAQ, or pinned thread that covered all this for people who are new to the genre. Thanks in advance for you answers!

Script. Please, no "y."

Scripting is used primarily for curing. While there are exceptions, very few things that use balance or equilibrium will be scripted. Offensive things generally do best when wielded with creativity and insight. Defensive things generally do best when handled quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly. People are better at creative, machines are better at efficient.

Not everyone learns to process battle spam, so don't stress over it, but it's very useful. Fights with you and one NPC shouldn't be too hard, though. With experience, you won't need to read things word for word--you get a pretty good sense of what might be coming at you and just check to see which of those things hit.

#3 is tricky. A solid offense can do a lot to make up for a lackluster defense, but you have to be at least competent in both or PvP isn't feasible.

While most top-end PvPers make their own systems or heavily retool someone else's, most casual players grab one of the free systems available or slowly add to their own system over time.

Thanks Xavius! Sorry about my poor spelling

Anyway, that sheds a fair amount of light on the subject for me. I think I'm the type that will probably build up my own scripts over time. I've got a background in programming and the scripting looks like it could be pretty fun.

1) scripts can be used for everything. Some of the most usefull scripts in combat, are actually utility scripts (such as organizing your herbs for you, or displaying your health/mana/ego graphically, showing you a list of afflictions on the side as you get them) Most often its for defense.

2) I get confused all the time. Many people have color triggers (i.e. a script) for the people they often fight so they notice them easily. You'll want to highlight getting back balance and have various colors for your prompts so you know when you can attack again. You'll also want colors for things such as writhing and being blind etc. I don't think people read every word, I know I only read every word when I look at logs.

3.) quality of his calm and confidence during combat. You can have all the skills, all hte artifacts, a great system, and still not do well in combat. Especially if you don't spend time getting used to it.

4)Most people take other people's scripts, i.e. systems. However those who build it up themselves slowly over time, tend to do better.

Thanks daganev! Your answer to number 2(color coding certain words, like balance messages) is something I'll be doing immediately. It sounds pretty easy and would help a slow reader like me a lot.

The spam slows down eventually too. Spar/fight in groups lots lots lots. you get sorta shakey after. That's good! Keep going till that disapears. Also colour highlights, as already mentioned, are veeeery useful. But things like entangled/broken leg, you just sorta subconciously process. You see something that's about 10 words long it's this, something 9 words long it's that. It's quite amazing what gets prossess even though you never really focus on it EDIT: Wrong link! (See automatic processing. Specicfically about the bee pulling attention away from a book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_mechan...vert_attention)