Pursuit - a tracking skill

[President]

 The command PURSUIT would allow a a player with tracking to 'pursue' a person. Depending on your track rating, you can successfully auto-follow (that is, no player input required to move rooms) someone at a hard cap of 90% speed and 0% error. This cap of course requires a high tracking rating. When you engage with PURSUIT, there will be a hesitation until the next round goes off, at which point it will display your rolls on whether or not you failed the tracking. If you fail it, you get a *Pursuit Off* message, and nothing happens. When you start the tracking with a successfull roll, it will begin to auto-move you at the rate at which you're calc'd to move at in terms of Speed%.

Speed (in %) - the rate at which GreaterMUD will move you automatically from room to room
Error (in %) - the likely hood the PURSUIT will break off, such as a failed sneak

With hybrid combos like a nekojin priest, you can still utilize this command, and may have good success at higher levels (60), but it will never match a nekojin ranger, for example. The reason for the hard cap is that by hand, you can always outrun someone. The two ways for a tracker to catch you is that you pause enough for them to catch up, or they anticipate your movement. PURSUIT does not engage combat, and therefore does not cloud. All stealth rolls will be normal, and calculated in movement.
The shorthand command would be PURS {target}^M

The formula would be easy to calculate; put a nekojin ranger at level 75 and take that tracking rating and equal it to something similar to 90%/0%, and create a sliding scale from there.

[Fermouth]

Let me see if I got this right?
You want to make it easier to kill people without skill?

I can see so many things wrong with this.
Stop using megamud.  Then you might actually be able to pvp?
Kthxdie Lord.

[President]

you addressed none of the problems you are talking about. Im not Lord. Please put relevant information

[President]

I think there are some key points I need to reiterate here. I've capitalized the key words:
  -This command is SLOWER than manual. You will not be able to keep up with someone who is playing manual. Let me say this again: YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH SOMEONE WHO IS FASTER/BETTER THAN YOU.
-Because this command FAILS, it requires maintenance on the player's part. You can't just type PURS {TARGET}^M and expect to find your player.
-This command does not ENGAGE COMBAT. This means that you have to do something once or if you catch up to your target.
-Because this is a SERVER SIDE COMMAND, you won't have MegaMUD fighting with the server for bandwidth allocation, any kind of spamming, or anything similar
-This command is INCENTIVE for people to have a higher tracking. It is not required, does not heavily impact the game, and promotes a fight-oriented atmosphere.

Again, I understand that people with closed minds attack any and every thought or idea to better themselves as "analytical minds", but please refrain from personal attacks, and focus your energy on legitimate business. If you opposed this idea because you think it takes the skill out of it, take a minute to review why it gives people with manual control an *advantage*.

[Gardner Denver]

Tracking classes are also sneaking classes.  I think this would end up being a tool that lets the sneakers mostly worry about hitting the right pvp macro and worry less about "playing" the game.

Getting away from someone who's trying to kill you is kind of a big deal isn't it?

[President]

There are only two trackers, ninja and ranger. 2 out of 7 sneakers have track, so I don't know what your point was there. As far a getting away, like I said, if you input commands manually, you are guaranteed to be faster. Also, the macro you're talking about is either the purs macro itself, which requires a hesitation, or the engage combat, which is already spammable. If you "play the game", you have the advantage, because you are potentially faster. If you rely on the pursue command, you risk losing your prey because they are faster than you. Getting away from pursue would therefore be EASIER than getting away from someone who is moving at you

[Hydroponic]

tracks last like a hour so this just takes out some of the work. I'd rather see tracking worked on so it works like in mmud where you can only track like the last 20 rooms not the last hour of rooms the person has been in. and i'd rather see tracking taken out completely than to see something like this put in

[Fermouth]

You can say it however you'd like.  This proposed idea is absolutely unnecessary.  Why would anyone want to take time to implement something like this?  So you can be lazy?  I mean seriously.  Why would anyone use this if it's slower than manual?  It's hard enough to catch up to someone as is tracking them because we have to track each fork to make sure they didn't go off to a different known room.   And Sure there are 2 classes with tracking.  And there's also a race with tracking that makes any class a tracking class. 

This whole thing is a waste of time, so I'll stop responding to your useless garbage.

K THX DIE LORD

[President]

What is the negative connotation for "taking out some of the work"? Yes, it's a convenience tool. Yes, you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to use it. It is available to people who have tracking, and it's usefulness is on a sliding scale. The discussion here isn't how tracking "needs to be fixed". This is an idea about having the ability to chase people. Also remember, if you're in pursuit, you have a predicatable pathway, and that may work very much against you.

Also I'd like to point out that this is a tool for people who are terrible or new at mud to have something in their toolbox. Like I said, it's predictable and therefore exploitable.

[Gardner Denver]

There are only two trackers, ninja and ranger. 2 out of 7 sneakers have track, so I don't know what your point was there.

My point was that only stealthy classes have tracking.  Unless you're a Neko tank.  I think given the current abilities of stealth classes that this is something they do not need.   You asked for opinions, I gave one.

[President]

I wasn't trying to be offensive by asking what your point was. I still don't see it though. They don't "need" stealth either, but they have it. It doesn't have to be a neko tank either. Is there a certain concept you are getting at? Because I'm not seeing it. What abilities do sleights have that require the lack of the pursuit skill? Are you saying its too much of an advantage? Anyone can have this skill, because of nekojin. Also, it's got plenty of exploits, so it's not like a powerhouse skill. I'm really trying to understand why it such a bad idea? Yes, there are other things more important that need to be fixed. This is just an idea, not to overshadow the project

[mad]

Have you checked out the auto tracking option in megamud at all?

[Jigga]

I like the idea, but it does make things kind of easy.

I have a proposal that is kind of a middle ground. How about this:

Change tracking to work like sneaking. When you first type "track player" it will give you the normal "Player went north from here" message.

Then if you follow that north, upon entering the room, it will instantly display a second tracking message of "Player went east from here", this way it saves you the delay of having to type "track player" in each room which really slows down chasing even if you're using macros.

Then players that wish to could always put in message responses in their megamud to automatically chase.

Oh and it would kind of work like sneaking, the higher your tracking skill, the more rooms it will automatically track. If your tracking is past a certain amount, it will track forever until you type "break track" or something like that... At lower tracking skills it may automatically track the player four or five rooms then say "No tracks found." or something like that and you'd have to retype "track player"


Curious what you guys think of this idea?

[Gardner Denver]

That's not a bad idea Utopia.

[President]

Excellent adaptation