[IMPLEMENTED] Stop to shoot archery, easy or hard?

[stranf]

Could we put a check in Uo.ini to allow for the option of bows to only shoot when the PC is stopped?

example:
STOPTOSHOOT = 1
(if 1, archers must be motionless before taking shots)


Right now If I see a difficult enemy, I just arm my bow and walk around in circls for about 15 minutes. The monster never hits me. In all honesty, combat is probably one of the more boring aspects of UO.

On my shard, I could increase tension, force the players to use better tactics (ie, melee warriors defend the archers), and balance combat with a simple fix of forcing archers to remain planted while shooting.

Same check could be used on mages as well, although mages have a built in check of low mana to deal with.

[giwo]

*nods*

The sticky part is ensuring the "delay" only affects archery and magery. Notably regular combat can be very difficult trying to get the finishing hit on a fleeing NPC, let alone with a delay. Really I don't think it needs to be an option, rather just how it is.

[stranf]

I understand. In real life it'd be tough to take on a fleeing NPC.

What I did on my shard was set the fleeing NPC value to like 1% max hits, so therefore very few NPCs flee anyway..

Another thing I noticed, is that the monster AI likes to charge a lot. So if you gave the monsters the same ruleset as the players, they would never shoot their bows until they were in melee range anyway.

[Maarc]

It's probably reasonably simple to do, and to make it only affect archery/magic. If casting, and movement occurs, break timer (fizzle probably). With archery, if you're in combat, and your currently equipped weapon is a bow of some sort, you would reset the combat timer (so you essentially start the shoot sequence again).

[Guest]

That would be a great fix; however, we'd have a problem with NPCs (like the archery armed ratman). They tend to "charge" the PC instead of sit back and strike.

[Maarc]

It would be relatively simple to wrap that in a if not NPC check, really. However, a better solution would be to update the AI (or even better, push it out to JS), so that it makes smarter decisions.

[stranf]

Does any of you CVS guys want to tackle this? I think it'd be cool for 3.5

[Maarc]

Can't test at the moment, but the code looks right and compiles, and is now in the CVS. Spell failure (no reagant deletion), or reset archery timer is the consequence.

[stranf]

nice. Thanks, I'll play/test this weekend. good work.

[Xuri]

Just tested. The combat timer seems to get reset correctly for players where archery is concerned - though it's perhaps a bit long (with 100 dex and full stamina I had to stand still for nearly 3 seconds or some such before I would fire another shot) - when I attack the target specifically by double-clicking on it.

If I'm attacked by an NPC and autodefend but don't specifically "attack" in return, I can run around as much as I want and shoot at the same time.

This was tested using a GM character that I used 'MAKE PLAYER on.

[stranf]

I would think around 1 second would be good for a player with around 70 dex.

a nice "one-one thousand" goes a long way on games. 3 seconds would seem like an eternity and would frusterate newbies with low dex to no end...

[Maarc]

So you're saying the delay occurs, if you initiate the attack, but not if something attacks you?

It shouldn't be any different based on who started it ... and the delay is the normal delay used for combat attack stuff, so it shouldn't be any longer once you stop moving, than if you were standing still in the first place.