Combat condensed

[Bryce]

Combat can create a lot of screen scroll really quick. It would be nice to have it so that if you're in a group, there's at least an option to condense combat messaging. So instead of all the details, you'd just see:

Bryce fires a revolver at a brigand and hits!

Jaster swings a dagger at a scarred mercenary and hits!

River hurls a blob of nether at a rogue and hits!

Or maybe even extremely condensed, so you'd just see initial and final messaging.

Jaster begins fighting a brigand!

... (time passes, all combat-related messaging is hidden to bystanders) ...

Jaster strikes a brigand, who falls unconscious!

You could use the look command to get updates on how injured people are or other details. You would still get full messaging for attacks you make or that are made against you. It would just condense and sift out messaging about other peoples' combat actions that don't effect you directly.

Maybe they would only take effect when using the auto-fight commands, battle/barrage/trance.

[Jaren]

This is one of the reasons I have my little chat log plugin (mushclient) so I can see if someone says something with the jillions of texts that are scrolling by.

A few other things that might help to condense combat scroll is having the output for battle related material placed into a single spaced format. (no spaces in between) Another might be to only output the flavor text for a snazzy spell or effect only once then every repeated attack until the end of battle would be just like your first example above.

Another way to reduce battle scrolling is to reduce the number of lines needed to show what is going on. Maybe this might only happen when you are in a large group or you can have the option to switch formats.

Example (normal)

Code: Select all

an evil fredegar hurls a small inky-black blob at you!
A small inky-black blob surges toward you! (R: 101 vs D:100)
   15 nether damage to the abdomen!
(energy -15)
   1 cold damage to the abdomen!
(energy -1)

Example (modified - works differently depending on your clients word wrap)

Code: Select all

an evil fredegar hurls a small inky-black blob at you!  A small inky-black blob surges toward you!  (R: 101 vs D:100)  15 nether damage to the abdomen! (energy -15)  1 cold damage to the abdomen! (energy -1)

It's less organized this way but it removes the need for extra lines.

Anyways, I think your ideas look good too. Combat scroll CAN get annoying.

[Alexander]

The option for condensed combat output would be most useful in larger battles.