Of MUDs and Grouping: How is it handled?

WontoonRoo · October 2016

For all you MUD players, I have a question that's actually been confounding me for quite some time.

How on earth is grouping handled, from the experience of a player (and I guess, "how is it designed" but it can vary per mud so I'm looking at how it is in general)? And what I mean by that is, is it that as a healer you have to type the command to heal someone each time in the midst of combat? Is group info blurted out at important intervals (stuff like "That player looks really hurt" would be shown at low HP)? Is it just a zerg? Similar to Everquest? etc.?

I've been wondering about this, and I have seen a few MUDs advertising that have grouping in it but have not exactly seen any example of it in action as of yet.

g0m0rrah · October 2016

Usually you set up macros, like f1 heal "tanks name", f2 smite, etc. A lot of muds show your health every round of combat. With any decent client you can set up triggers to automatically cast when something specific happens. I usually set up a trigger for "died" to get all from corpse. you can also automate healing in this way for example, hp: 7/10 cast heal...

WontoonRoo · October 2016

g0m0rrah said:

Usually you set up macros, like f1 heal "tanks name", f2 smite, etc. A lot of muds show your health every round of combat. With any decent client you can set up triggers to automatically cast when something specific happens. I usually set up a trigger for "died" to get all from corpse. you can also automate healing in this way for example, hp: 7/10 cast heal...

Aha. That's pretty close to how I imagined it to be (didn't think about the macros bit). I've been coding a MUD in my spare time just for the fun of it (it has surprisingly gotten very far in terms of functionality and many systems are working), and was wondering about how groups were generally handled. Thanks for the info!

filmoret · October 2016

First it will be hard to find a mud where you will heal anyone during combat. But if you do happen to find one. You have to type group to see everyone's hp. Now while this is happening the screen is constantly flashing with all the fighting that is taking place in the same room. You have to setup a script/trigger to heal the person in the group with the lowest hp. You will also use a lot of macros for stuff. If you have a good mud client it leaves the last command in the prompt so you can just keep pressing enter and it will keep doing the same thing over and over. Then hope someone doesn't kick dirt in your eyes. Which is very easy thing to do and will make you completely useless since you wanted to nothing bu heal.

If you want to play a mud as a healer then you need to do a lot of research and see if you can find one. Because muds evolve around characters having the ability to do a lot of things. Healing is a waste in 90% of muds.

filmoret · October 2016

Ah I see you are building a mud. How to fix healing.... Low cost AOE heals maybe. Regeneration perhaps. IDK I never found a good way to fix healing in muds.

filmoret · October 2016

It would be nice if you could somehow at the top right of the screen show the group names-hp that doesn't scroll with the rest of the telnet client. IDK if that is even possible with the telnet. Then you get into the whole making your own telnet client.

WontoonRoo · October 2016

filmoret said:

Ah I see you are building a mud. How to fix healing.... Low cost AOE heals maybe. Regeneration perhaps. IDK I never found a good way to fix healing in muds.

Actually, having a heal that is room-based was indeed one of my proposed solutions. Also with Mudlet I know you can create custom HUD elements with its Geyser engine, so you can just make a window with a display of party members' HP and use a trigger and some Lua that will update the window and gag the text after outputting the group's health display (thus keeping the main text window clean).

filmoret · October 2016

Clerics were viable in so many ways. Be carefull not to pigenhole them into the healing role. Tanks are going to be another challenge. We usually tried to find a mob to tank for us when fighting bosses. Lots of the muds would cause the bosses to hit random players in the room instead of 1 target. You would have to split the attacks maybe 70% at the main target and 30% rest of group.

How I handled bosses as warrior. I would ask a mage friend to help and he would summon mobs and charm them so they would tank the boss. A lot of muds allowed the warriors/thieves to learn spell schools but they were much higher level to learn and cast at 1/3,2/3 level. So Warriors could cast sanctuary spell at lvl 40 but a cleric could cast at lvl 15 and mage cast it at lvl25. Mages/Clerics would cast at their lvl. It would also be possible to make clerics cast certain spell schools above their level or gimp the mages when casting cleric school spells.

anemo · November 2016

IronRealms games are a good demo of group content. Though with my limited stay there it just looked like a cluster rush to me, even when I went through the logs later still not much of an idea of what's going on. Pretty much everyone just sets up so many types of triggers and responses in hopes that when they get spiked they wasted enough energy on the enemies side to have come out ahead.

Scot · November 2016

The ability to feel you were part of a group worked so much better in a MMO, an example of new technology paving the way. Since then grouping has been denigrated to a second rate status, which shows that gaming technology is not the primary factor guiding the evolution of gameplay.

filmoret · November 2016

The biggest problem is somehow to make it so 12 people can be fighting in the same room without the wall of text problem that occurs. Its a massive wall of text and it moves quite fast. A split screen with group fighting on the right and your personal fighting on the left could work. Or the fighting on the left window and the abilities that are being used on the right window. But yea muds with groups larger then 4 people become a problem with text walls.

nerovergil · November 2016

mud better be single player.

filmoret · November 2016

nerovergil said:

mud better be single player.

mud= multi-user dungeon

I guess you could have fun playing the mud on your own server alone. But it offers no story or anything its just a world for players to interact.

waynejr2 · November 2016

filmoret said:

nerovergil said:

mud better be single player.

mud= multi-user dungeon

I guess you could have fun playing the mud on your own server alone. But it offers no story or anything its just a world for players to interact.

It is sad that you had to point that out.

SyndromofaDown · November 2016

You guys need to look into Batmud to get a great example of how easy it is to get used to MUDs. The first MUDs i believe were command status updates. Later MUDs developed automatic updates on status information. Batmud has a neat little health bar on the top left corner. Its fun!

filmoret · November 2016

Here is an interresting client I found.

Image result for batmud

Its basically using windows for different stuff similiar to a chat tab in the mmo's. If you took the time to make a client like this then I would also suggest that you have tintin commands. That way the players can remove lines they don't want to ever see or highlight words and make triggers as well. The easy way to do this would be server side. Allow multiple connections per character and let them choose what will be displayed on each connection.

So I would basically use a client but open up like 4 different sessions. I would then make one of the clients only display my hp and group. Another display would show all my combat. Another display would show who is in the room and the room description. That might be easier then making a client.

WontoonRoo · November 2016

filmoret said:

Here is an interresting client I found.

Its basically using windows for different stuff similiar to a chat tab in the mmo's. If you took the time to make a client like this then I would also suggest that you have tintin commands. That way the players can remove lines they don't want to ever see or highlight words and make triggers as well. The easy way to do this would be server side. Allow multiple connections per character and let them choose what will be displayed on each connection.

So I would basically use a client but open up like 4 different sessions. I would then make one of the clients only display my hp and group. Another display would show all my combat. Another display would show who is in the room and the room description. That might be easier then making a client.

Oh wow! I'm amazed this forum post is still going! I'm honestly kinda tempted to at least show some of the functionality of the MUD here and maybe show off some of the systems I do have working, as I do like playing around with and designing/analyzing systems; the setting and world for the MUD though would most likely NOT be anyone's cup of tea here, however (and hey, I did mention that I was just doing it for the fun of it). Might be too... cutesy, cuddly, fuzzy, soft, and squishy for anyones' tastes. ;Op

I did think of several ideas for handling parties thanks to the discussion here. As for clients, I don't think I need to make my own; I'm rather fond of Mudlet right now. (I've heard of Tintin, but I wasn't aware that there were specific commands. I'll have to take a look at it).

Scot said:

The ability to feel you were part of a group worked so much better in a MMO, an example of new technology paving the way. Since then grouping has been denigrated to a second rate status, which shows that gaming technology is not the primary factor guiding the evolution of gameplay.

Oh I know. I've played a lot of FFXI in my day (since launch, stopped after a while), and even enjoy Everquest p1999. But I am also aware of the flaws they presented on a system level. Some games did attempt to address the flaws but in my opinion they sort of missed the mark. I absolutely love playing with others in my games! However, developers know the one simple fact: people just want to play the game. They design a way that works for their games, and I give them kudos for finding something that works for them!

And of course, I look at these flaws and benefits and look to see how I'd approach it myself...

nerovergil said:

mud better be single player.

You will be very disappointed.

Again, thanks for the replies. Makes it all the more fun doing this and makes me want to continue this side-hobby project of mine.

filmoret · November 2016

The tintin commands probably exist in mudlet. Its the basic scripting commands that enable you to highlight certain words or eliminate entire lines during combat. For example I would make it so that any line with the word dodges in it is ignored and not displayed. So in the middle of combat all the lines where someone dodges an attack won't spam my screen. Then I can highlight things like the word DISARM or BLINDED. So when that happens I am able to see it clearly and respond accordingly. You can also build scripts to do anything from leveling to questing. I don't suggest those because it would enable afk players.

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