Why not? I mean, if First Aid cures afflictions on a first-in basis, then spamming it enough (so that it consumes all cure balances constantly) would still be worse than a system that intelligently cures afflictions in a sensible order. The point of First Aid, in my awesome opinion, should be to allow newbies to make a quick n' easy curing 'system', with people willing to put in the time for a priority system coming out on top.

FURTHERMORE. I agree with Xavius. Most of these changes seem more about balance/making it easier for established fighters... only First Aid (and possibly the meld idea) seem to really help with more accessible combat.

Put your meld in a field instead of the majority of the village. Being able to 1 man 'watch the majority of an area' is one of the issues with melds. I personally think that being able to steal furrikin from estelbar/acknor without a 1 person alarm system ruining this minor conflict quest is a good thing.

Two versions of the skill, FIRSTAID and FIRSTAID LIST. FIRSTAID cures one affliction, taking only the balance for the cure. FIRSTAID LIST is basically FIRSTAID plus DIAGNOSE.

If FIRSTAID LIST gave the affliction list from diagnose without balance, it would replace diagnose.

This won't change. It just means that only the rich people will have 1 person alarms. But there will still be that said rich person.

uh...no.

Oh, I forgot to add that the defense would be a manadrain defense.: So you could manakill them if they keep it up.

Well, I don't know your code, but here's how I would do it.

When a mage/druid moves or casts/loses the effect, all adjacent rooms are tagged with the effects and the casting mage's name. When the system clock's seconds field is mod 10 = 0, a terrain check is made, then an enemy/declare check is made for all effects that can fire and tags the targets, then the targets get hit with each effect they are tagged with and the flags cleared.

EDIT: Grammar fail. Never change from singular to plural without rewriting the whole sentence from scratch.

I believe that streamlining should just be implemented as the administration sees fit.

From there, it can be tweeked to better state from there, because everyone is going to have an issue with something, somewhere, for whatever reason.

I think at this point we're pretty set in thinking that it should be on a short balance (if we implement it).

You know, it's extremely frustrating when people suggest nebulously that we missed the mark and then don't provide any idea of what exactly we should have addressed. I've just went through all the streamlining reports that players submitted to see what Xavius thought we should address to streamline combat but ... I couldn't find any submissions! (Maybe we lost it?) If you aren't going to tell us exactly what you think we should do to streamline combat (even after we've asked to give us ideas), then it's hardly fair to complain that we aren't doing it to your satisfaction!

This is getting far from Streamlining Combat, not an almost envoy like state of changing melds.

Some of the biggest things that I see in combat for me is numbers and any time-slowing skill where you either run and possibly survive or have someone or have yourself code a complex script for curing in it.

The synergy of certain skillsets, night, shadowbeat, necromancy can at times seem a bit overwhelming.

EDIT: This is from a city players PoV.

Edited it into my other post as an afterthought, but I really do think it is doable.

Let's take GEOCAST TREMORS and the following set of rooms as an example:

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There is a group of people at C-3. There is a mage at C-3. He does GEOCAST TREMORS. A set of checks are made for rooms B-3, C-2, C-3, C-4 and D-3. If any of those rooms have taint terrain and do not already have an effects object in them, a Tremors effect set for that room, just like it is now when you GEOCAST TREMORS in a single room.

If the mage moves from C-3 to B-3, then all of the old effects check for adjacency. If they are no longer adjacent to the mage that created the effect, they are deleted.

If the terrain changes, all invalid effects are deleted, just as they are now.

If a mage is in a room and another mage is adjacent to the room, the effects of the mage who is in the room fire.

If two mages are both in a room, only the effects of the one who was there first fire. If two or more enter at the same time, then it is randomly decided.

If two mages are adjacent to a room, but neither is in it, only the first effects of the first mage to be adjacent to a room fire. If, for example, mage A is at C-1 and mage B at C-4 and mage A moves to C-2, then only the mage B's effects will effect the people in room C-3. If B moved to C-5, then A's effects would effect C-3 but not B's effects. If B moves to C-3, his effects still effect C-3, but not C-2.

I hope all of that makes sense and that I am not missing some obvious point.

Sorry, I think that makes things more confusing and really doesn't convince me that it should be something we should replace melds with. I think melds will stay regardless.

*cough*

Sorry, we're going to keep melds at this point.

Maybe I sent it to the wrong place? Dunno. I think the changes that would best serve would be standardizing affliction output lines and lowering the lesson cost of one kill condition per guild that doesn't already have one. If you really don't have it, I can quick resend it, but it's nothing that I haven't put on the forums before.

EDIT: But it's really not about my thoughts in particular. As designer, you probably have more resources and objectivity at your disposal than I do for trying to figure out why people complain about combat being inaccessible. It's hard to change anything you can't define and quantify first, but swinging blindly isn't usually a good first step. Expect most people to swing blindly anyways.

You can send it to us again (maybe it was under a name other than Xavius?). But I do recall looking at an idea for "standardized" affliction lines. While we (obviously) wouldn't strip out all unique text messages (like fancy text about a bonecrusher smashing a leg), we had considered a secondary line underneath ("Your left leg is broken"). I definitely don't recall anything about lowering the cost of a kill condition (nor do I recall ever reading it on the forums) but you'd have to list every "kill condition" you mean for us to consider it.

Thats whats missing from the list!

Stupdity lines!

Each affliction should have 1 output line that is consistant with that affliction everytime it is given. No reason why an affliction should require more than 1 trigger. It doesn't add strategy or tactics.

The secondary lines would help a lot, and was one of the more important comments I was reading in that scroll giving suggestions. A lot of these aren't really ideas for streamlining combat itself, but that one (and the "focus" skill, and the first aid one) would all be very helpful for someone writing a system and make it so, so much easier to get started.

It would reduce the number of affliction lines from the current mass amount to just those lines that actually give you an affliction. Especially if it also happens on NPC attacks (probably easiest if you're just doing a blanket "getting this affliction gives you this line" thing, with a few exceptions where people are using power to "mask" those afflictions).

I think she or someone else made a point not to to gag secondary stupidity lines, something about still needing to keep some complexity.

It seems my topic keeps being danced around.

This is normally what is meant when once says "standardized" affliction lines, and is pretty much what is being looked for, best as I can gather.