So I guess I've been nominated to post about the new combat messages. Everyone seems to prefer the old messages.

We use the messages to tell how hard we are hitting. It's really the only way for us to know as Tempus doesn't give us numerical feedback. Without the messages corresponding directly to how much damage we are inflicting per hit, we are flying pretty blind.

Am I attacking a troll? Did I lose my weapon? Is this weapon better than that one? With the new messages there is no way to tell how well you are doing in battle.

The new concept is interesting, but we just rely too much on those old damage messages to tell us how effective we are in combat.

I liked the old ones too.. the new ones haven't done anything for me other than confuse me when I first saw them.. thinking I didn't have a weap, or was ridiculously weakened.

If the new messages were to stick, I would honestly prefer some numeric damage amount appended to help gauge just how much damage is being done. Otherwise the old messages are better for determining damage done (which could also be improved with numeric damage amounts appended to successful hits).

As we've been covering in projected conversation.. the new messages are consistent with message displayed being determined by damage amount compared to max hp of the victim. I think if it was tweaked to compare damage amount to the current hp of the victim, we'd then see escalation of damage messages from start of fight to end of fight. That would be kinda neat. Although i'd still love to have numeric damage amounts appended (in parenthesis or square brackets or something) for geekin' reasons. :)

I agree, I like the old messages. I didn't really feel like there was a problem with the old ones. I get that it was to help newbies and I am all for that. I think rather than changing words they just need to start with a decent set of eq. It does not make sense to me that the HP of a mob would determine how hard I (appear to) hit it. You can annihilate something with 500 hp, or 50000 hp, one is just going to take a lot more annihilates. Seeing how I, or another player attacked helped me to know more about that player and if I was attacking a mob I could know more about that mob by how hard I hit it. I mostly get confused as to what is going on when I am getting vaporized but its only doing like 100 damage. I am glad we are all wanting and trying to help the newbies, but I don't think this aspect of the game needed fixing.

Response to Legion and the messages changing through battle: When I first read the news, I thought this was what was going on. I mean, from a reality stance, why doesn't my first ANNIHILATE to that monster's throat kill him? Excluding all that RPG nonsense, it would make sense that at the beginning of battle, when the combatants are both eager and prime, that they would only be scratching one another. As battle wears on, and one is becoming weak and wounded from so many minor wounds, the opponent would slowly inflict more serious wounds, and finally he would be dealing the mortal blows.

If it wasn't for the fact that other than the damage messages we can't tell what amount of damage we were doing, I'd sign on for that type of battle message.

A toggle for numeric damage would keep the purists happy, and we number nerds as well :p

So, I'm confused.

You use the messages to tell how hard you're hitting. They're still all about how hard you're hitting. If you want some relative comparison, it's pretty easy to beat up on the same monster twice. If you suddenly start doing less damage or hitting a troll, it's still just as obvious, because the message will change just like before.

I've played MUDs that did the messages relative to current hitpoints, and I found the effect boring. There's nothing exciting about DECIMATING something when you do it to every mob.

The change wasn't to help newbies in the way you are perhaps thinking. It was because newbie combat was really boring, and I'm working on multiple fronts to liven it up. This was just one of the items.

But that's all we get now, is relative comparison. If I asked you how fast your car can go, and the only answer you could give me is "faster than a cheetah", then it really wouldn't tell me much about how fast your car is, just how fast it is relative to certain things.

If I am decimating everything, then that tells me that I need to increase my damroll because I'm a pansy. Now I can't tell if I'm doing ok or if I'm not, just how I'm doing relative to the mobs hitpoints that I'm currently fighting.

We just used those messages to let us know our power, now we would have to do math or something.

If newbie combat is boring, just change the mobs they fight, or give them something actually worth wearing from the replicator, or both. I would like the pretty much endless work I put in to collecting the best eq I can to be rewarded with me seeing the sought after ANNIHILATE on my screen. I just can't believe that a person with 50 damroll should see any of the same messages a person with 125 damroll does. Damroll is what determines how hard you hit, and the messages should reflect that. Mobs should not appear to hit me less hard be cause I have more hp. There actually is something exciting about ANNIHILATING every mob because then I know I am hitting as hard as the game allows me to, and that loading a couple hundred hazard claws, or whatever, has paid off. The messages before were a measurement of how much damroll you had, with the reduction and damage your weapon deals factored in. The way it is now, I can't tell how much damage I am doing, or is being done to me. I didn't strap every piece of damroll on my monk/borg and have -100 AC to not annihilate everything. Sorry if I sound abrasive, this is just my opinion.

I didn't really pay much attention to the damage messages. I only focused on the autodiagnose, and was happy to see someone get down to Brink of Death.