I've done that. Telnet vs. Telnet in Achaea. The fight went like this:

ORDER ENTOURAGE ATTACK
wait...
wait...
wait...
You have slain .

Speaking of telnet. If any of you know Mulkerrin from Achaea, he bashed all the way to level 76 on telnet as a Magi with Stonefist on telnet. So yes, it is very very possible to enjoy Lusternia (or Achaea) without any powerful clients or scripting (not that it's recommended or anything).

Damn. I can barely read the news on Telnet, let alone bash.

Nimby was one of the top Marks in Achaea, he did it all on Java, although I understand he eventually went to zMUD shortly before I left Achaea for Lusternia.

Firstly, about the manual/automated issue, I consider 'automated' anything that requires no effort or reasoning by the player to perform. You get hit with stupidity, the system grabs pennyroyal and makes you eat it. That's automated.

Manual portions of the script are aliases, macros, highlights, and what not that either must involve you to work or are there to inform/advise you on what you should do.

In all ultimate truth: the #1 best way to go is to be pure manual, especialy in the other IRE muds where the Serpent class will fling Illusions every chance they get. It IS possible to actualy read the text that scrolls like mad in a fight and use aliases/macros to get the job done. You just need to take speedreading courses, type for 100+ wpm, recognize and remember every ailment message and it's cure, be focused enough to react in a moment's notice, be multitasking enough to deal with defense and offense, and to do it all with a wonderful connection.

It's easier just to write up a system that can keep up wiht what you can't.

Manual is only superior if you have ungodly reading, typing, and reaction. Also, you'll get decimated in a group, because it is impossible to keep up with that sort of spam no matter your reading ability.

The only time I ever had a problem with that was when my group got nailed by a timed demense. There's no way that I'd see what happened that split second before it hit.

I've seen you fight in groups before and you fall fast - very very fast. I'm inclined to go with guido in that manual systems are far better in 1-v-1 than group. It still can be done, but you better be fighting hard/fast because against someone with a very good automated system, you are screwed in the long run with a group.

Yeah, I fail at group combat, especially when it's scrolling too fast for Nexus triggers to fire (it doesn't take much) so that I have to time my eq myself.

A breakdown of what a good system has:

Aliases - Mandatory. You'll want to have at least dumb aliases for every skill and common action. It's simply impossible to type out a command in full during a fight. Same goes for eating herbs and smoking pipes.

Autosipping - Very important unless your reaction time is very fast. It should basically make sure that you're sipping health, mana and bromides whenever you can. Those are relatively easy to implement. Note that if you set it to sip when too little health is lost, you'll go through vials pretty quickly; if you set it to sip too slowly, you'll get killed. I'd suggest you err on the side of caution with humans, and let it be a bit lower when fighting mobs.

Highlights - Fights are spammy. Group fights with 10+ people scroll faster than your screen can render the characters. Highlight at least balance/equilibrium/potion balance messages, in bright colours that make your eyes bleed if you stare into them for too long. (But don't use blinking ANSI - it's harder to read.). Highlight afflictions with a note telling what the cure is.

Autocuring - Optional, but highly recommended. Some fighters metagame and try to use affliction combinations that your system can't heal, though. Allheale comes in handy at those times; turning off autohealing and doing it yourself too. Triggers for curing things that you can heal without herbs (Compose, focus body, focus mind) are essential.

Macros - If you're not a fast typer and can't remember aliases, you might want to add a few of those, specially if you're sipping manually.

Bloodclotting - Stabilish a minimum; don't just clot any bleeding. First, it's spammy; second, you'll be spending 100+ mana to avoid losing 40- health. When you're hit with a wound that exceeds that, clot several times in a row, proportionally to how much you're bleeding. Kingdom enchantments are useful but don't replace clotting blood at the right time; alternatively, use a clotting macro.

Aeon curing aliases - If you want to cure aeon decently, a good trick is adding an if statement before all aliases to check for aeon, so that you never do anything besides cure aeon if you're afflicted with it.

Buttons, bars, and so on - If you like eye candy, can't remember aliases, think that pointing and clicking then moving your hand back to the keyboard is faster than typing, and don't mind wasting precious screen real estate, then go for it. A good idea is having some on/off buttons in a row somewhere unobtrusive that activate and deactivate several parts of the system. A bad idea is cramming your screen so full of buttons and displays there's hardly space for the actual text. Of course, if you're a GUI weenie who runs and screams at the sight of a command line; have a monitor with very large resolution; or own a multi-head display, this might be useful to display a lot of information at the same time easily and without spam.

Autosipping is -not- mandatory...I guess it would help vs. knights, but against other classes it's really okay to sip normally.

Highlights are -critical-, if you don't autocure you're pretty much screwed without them. Or echoes.

Bloodclotting, I think you've missed something - if you try to clot when you're not bleeding you don't actually lose mana. So even if you go slightly over you're fine.

How is that metagaming? Isn't it feasible that as a character, I am aware of what ailments work best together based upon how a typical opponent would likely cure them?

Autosipping is mandatory if you, like me, are neither tanky nor capable of reacting to losing health/mana/ego fast enough. YMMV.

Yes, highlighting is extremely important. Remember to highlight with a colour you'll have an easy time seeing. Very bright colours, that is.

As for clotting, my main problem with it is spam. Authough it is possible to waste a fair amount of mana clotting just after you lost 30 health and are about to lost 15 more. I usually wait until I'm bleeding 100 and then clot several times in a row. Again, your mileage may vary.

And Narsrim, I'm not talking about the usual combinations of afflictions like impatience + paralysis. I'm talking about deliberately thinking about someone else's system and trying to break it. It's metagaming, to a certain extent, although you can pass it off as predicting someone's patterns and using them against him (I'm sure there's something in The Art of War about that somewhere.) The best way to survive those people is curing manually or writing a pseudo-intelligent, adaptable system. Both aren't easy.

Illusions must be a metagaming skillset then...

What client are you on? Most decent ones (i.e not Nexus) can gag, right?

Maybe he's too inept to set up a gag, like me.

And even with a gag it's still a waste of mana. Kingdom will clean up 40-100 bleeding in no time at all.

You can't rely on kingdom when you're being nailed by a druid/blademaster/Nifilhema/torturer really. Well, maybe for a torturer. :x

If Triggers can be considered an IC 'reflex' then breaking a trigger can also be IC. Can't have one without the other, now.

In all, truth, though, against a fighter you only realy have two ways of killing them: damage/afflict faster than they can heal or make them screw up long enough to mess them up (Do both for more fun ).

The latter, considering the fact that a system is mandatory in fighting, IS attempting to break the system. You do so with effects like Stupidity, Illusions, hidden afflictions (how effective do you think that scorpion tail would be if you actualy KNEW what was hitting you?), Amesia, and that "forget the old command when new is done" effect of Aeon. Anticipating parry/stance, like what I posted earlier, is another example.

Please tell me this is common practice. The idea of the majority of combat in Lusternia focusing on UbberOverpowering moves does explain why there's so many "OMG NERF" or "I'm so useless!" arguments flying around.

I deliberately study how people fight and heal to set up ways to break their systems. It's not metaging, it's learning about your opponent. This is like reading and studying an old professor's tests to see what sort of questions he might throw at you in your class. There's nothing wrong with this and it's highly encouraged.

It's fine that you don't want to engage yourself in Lusternia's combat, but don't call others metagamers just because you don't like it.

I'd love to see these anti-clotters fight a decent blademaster and/or a druid. Munsia whoring desert (which is 300 bleeding at a time) drops my mana quickly if I'm not careful because it is possible to have 2 of them fire off almost at the same time followed up by cudgel, which does like 150+ bleeding for her + squirrels + vines.

EDIT:

As long as I'm clotting, it is fine - but I just don't see how you wouldn't die to bleeding everytime without clotting as much and as fast as you can.