Punchwhoring in serious roleplay

[Rensai]

Last night, I was at the Vanilla Unicorn, where two people had an altercation. One provoked the other, while the other party remained purely defensive. As soon as they got outside, the aggressive party made a simple /me "rushes Aiden", and then began to left click relentlessly. Had my character not intervened, the defensive party, Aiden, would have been punchwhored to death, leaving him in a wounded state. There is no way to defend against such an attack besides to left click in return and hope that their health bare depletes before yours. I believe this is against the main focus of heavy roleplay. As if someone attacks you physically there is a chance to defend yourself. You can block punches, deflect them, counter attack, tackle and turn it into a wrestling match, inumerable things could happen. 

 

I don't think a simple /me should entitle you to start left clicking the hell out of someone and putting them in a wounded state without the use a weapon. Even if punchwhoring is okay, getting knocked out doesn't mean you'll lay there until you die. You'll eventually wake up.

What I propose is making punchwhoring against the rules, and possibly script implementations to discourage or disable it. Maybe if you're put into a wounded state via punching, you get up after 2 minutes, as opposed to being offered /acceptdeath, or make punchwhoring unable to render a player below a certain amount of health.

[DaHes]

To me this is just blatant power gaming.  The /me should have been more along the lines of "/me rushes towards Aiden in attempt to tackle him to the ground and punch him repeatedly in the face".  So in essence, the rule is in place, actually two of them.  Using the "stunlock punches" native to the game could also be considered using a game mechanic to gain an unfair advantage.

 

If, and only if, Aiden had responded with "/me is caught off guard, tackled to the ground, and knocked out from the flurry of fists" would it it not be considered PG, least how I see it anyways.

Edited May 10, 2018 by DaHes

[Rensai]

No response was awaited, and very technically it is not currently against the rules as long as you emote before you do it. I do agree though it should be against the rules as it is definitely a form of powergaming. Like I said a fight could go a number of ways it shouldn't be determined by how fast you can click the other person to death.

Detractors might say "well aren't you doing the same thing when in a shootout?" Well, no, you're not. A shootout requires a very good IC reason and requires aiming to take down your opponent. Whereas a fist fight needs much less reason, due to the less deadly nature of it, however scriptwise it is as deadly as a bat or a gun given enough left clicks.

[DaHes]

I see combat in text based RP as a mix between a turn-based RTS and a tennis match played in half the time.  Poorly done RP will always exist, and in those cases, I say report it and/or clarify the rules.  Had this happened to be, I'd have taken it on the chin, but it would have ended up in a report in the end.  Granted, I know nothing about the situation (I was there for the tail end of it) but that still doesn't matter.

[shar33f]

imo there should be a kys command and hand 2 hand combat should be disabled but i guess thats just me  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[BobGardner]

You can respond to someone rushing you, the word itself implies that someone is running to you and trying to hit you, nothing is forced upon anyone when doing it.

I do agree that hand to hand combat should be disabled for a bit due to the desync in punching, but if we were to keep it strictly RP, then people would try to pull this:

Without even showing any development of their skills, only modifying their abilities to be able to win a fight.

[Pan Grama]

On 10/05/2018 at 6:34 PM, DaHes said:

I see combat in text based RP as a mix between a turn-based RTS and a tennis match played in half the time.

I think DaHes pretty much nails it here.

 

While I understand that a player would want to get the drop on another player I don't think it's fair to simply declare "{Player1} rushes {Player2}" and then start FlappyBirding your mouse button.

 

Player2 could be in the middle of typing and not even looking at the screen. But his character would most certainly be looking at the guy he's having an altercation with. Even if you argue that Player1 is attacking first and has the initiative, Player2 could still be locked in a chatbox and isn't capable of IC defending himself just as a reaction.

 

Text based combat, done properly, should enter some kind of phase where both players agree on it, kind've like 9.0 Offensive Roleplay. The player who declares the phase should be the one to go first and the defender can't react till it starts.

 

I know this all seems simple in a forum post and IC combat tends to be heated, but implementing some kind of official start to combat would prevent a lot of these kinds of complaints.

 

Edit: This obviously shouldn't apply to stealth attacks.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Pan Grama

[Rensai]

13 hours ago, DoranoIS said:

You can respond to someone rushing you, the word itself implies that someone is running to you and trying to hit you, nothing is forced upon anyone when doing it.

I do agree that hand to hand combat should be disabled for a bit due to the desync in punching, but if we were to keep it strictly RP, then people would try to pull this:

Without even showing any development of their skills, only modifying their abilities to be able to win a fight.

You can't respond if they just start left clicking you except to left click back. Except they got the jump and now have already left clicked you more than you can have left clicked them because they started first.

As far as the screenshot goes, that's /b, not rp. If a person's character does have prior combat experience however, and that shows in their emotes, then maybe the best course of action for the attacker is to flee, and not, I don't know, to ram people with a vehicle over a fist fight.

[SuaveWelshy]

Enforce /roll RP on people until the desync is fixed. E.Z P.Z.

 

 

[Topinambour]

1 hour ago, SuaveWelshy said:

Enforce /roll RP on people until the desync is fixed. E.Z P.Z.

 

 

And we would then end up with an 80 pounds 5'3 character who rolls 75 against a 7'1 10-year boxing world champion who rolls a 65. Roll is... really the bane of RP servers, I would really not go there =/ 

 

Though punchwhoring isn't any better, to be entirely honest. Ideally it would/should be solved through IC and OOC discussion, but it makes things more complicated with people who only "play to win". Not sure about a solution, tbh.