Changes : )

[xorex]

Well, I don't want to clutter EB's changelog, so I started a new thread just to say that it's really cool to see some updates/fixes/new features being added to BR : ) I've been really busy with school for a while now, so I haven't had time to play, but I still lurk the forums and it's cool to see that some new life is being added to BR.

Since minor code fixes have started being implemented again, I'm curious about my biggest pet peeve -- mob tripping. In my experience, the trip effect of a mob over level ~40 would last longer than the time the mob had to wait before it could attempt to trip a player again (not sure exactly how the code works, but this is what it felt like in practice). The result of this is that once a player is tripped against a high level mob he/she stays tripped for the duration of combat, unable to flee or use any skill.

Mostly, this went unnoticed because players usually wear of piece of fly equipment, rendering trip useless, but it still seems to me to be suboptimal behavior. The main reason this bothered me was that long ago I was working on an underwater area (with ~150? rooms written -- I really should try to finish that some time) and was worried that the trip code would render any sections with high level mobs basically unplayable (because you can't fly underwater).

Any way, don't fix that for my sake since I hardly ever play, but I just thought I'd throw it out there since it's always annoyed me. Keep up the good work : )

[Everybody]

Actually, what happens when a mob trips you is: you get set in what's called a "wait state" (which prevents you from doing anything). The tripping mob does nothing of the sort, so they're free to keep trying to trip you, even while you're already tripped. This is not an issue, since trip doesn't work when you're already tripped. The problem is that the chances of a mob succeeding in tripping you is entirely dependent on its level, and once you're over about 35, they essentially never fail. So, every time trip wears off, you're immediately re-tripped. On the bright side, if you're quick and diligent about using trip, this same trip-lock can be reversed so it's the mob that's stuck.

There's a number of other skills and such that I've found that are built like this. I am intending on fixing all of them to work more along the lines of a save vs. attribute, which is adjusted for success based on comparative levels (instead of absolute levels).

[xorex]

That almost makes sense to me. Was it the case that when a player came out of the wait state that the mob always got a crack at tripping the player before the player could trip/flee/etc? I'm just curious because whenever I got tripped it seemed like I pretty much never got a chance to do anything again.

I'm glad to know that you are fixing things. The combat code was originally written for levels 1 to ~35(?), right? Some aspects were not written to scale up appropriately it seems.

[Everybody]

1-35 is almost exactly right. It was a 40-level system, that beyond 32, I believe, was entirely immortal levels. The biggest issue related to that is actually the ac calculations, and how those (and hitroll) play into your chance to hit. I'm working on doing something a bit more reasonable for this, but I haven't finished the research on what the current formulas are, as I keep getting sidetracked with other projects.

I actually went through just recently and made several changes to trip, disarm, and other skills along the same lines. Turns out the trip checks for mobs were actually taking place every time they got a hit, which means they usually got a chance to trip you 4 times a combat round, or so. I adjusted this to once a round to be more reasonable, and introduced attribute saves so that you have a chance of avoiding it even if the mob goes through with it.