Wow, this really kicked off overnight! I want to make one point re: plenty of time, AFKs, distractions, etc-
Not to fish for sympathy here, but I live with multiple physically and mentally disabling conditions, in ways that highly vary in intensity and impact from day-to-day. It's one of the reasons I've always returned to MUDding as a hobby - it's a form of gaming and creative expression that I can typically do even when I'm absolutely laid out.
When I'm having a good day, I'm as fast at responding as anybody. When I'm having a bad day, I am... not, and it is simply not within my capacity to control how 'present' I am. In practice that means I might lose a minute or three as I'm busy staring off into space, or trying not to fall asleep, or trying to remember a word that I definitely know but can't pull up, or tabbing out because my brain has literally forgotten what the hell I was doing as some new idea pops up I have to go look at RIGHT NOW. I'm not trying to be distracted, I promise! And I don't THINK this tends to put me in a zone where I'm leaving people waiting unacceptable times for my emotes, even on bad days.
But I want to gently suggest that people's idea of what moves quickly and what doesn't is hugely dependent on personal capability.
I am... ffffffairly certain in this case I zoned out for only 1-2 minutes, and that was the difference between "no thugs spawned" and "-12% hp". Granted mine was an extreme case of 12 thugs spawning, but man that's not really a lot of time, y'know?
And about danger - I did know the White City is dangerous (though I certainly did not hear about Avaria before opening or read any of the promo materials - remember, I'm a late joiner!) My point is simply that 'dangerous' is a term that doesn't have universal meaning, because people come to any given game from a HUGE variety of backgrounds, and also IRL experiences.
There's a huge, huge difference both OOCly and ICly between the danger of 'pickpockets will rob you if you carry too much money' and 'you will get stabbed to death for your shoes', right? I thought the White City was #1, and it's #2. I don't have any inherent objection to it being #2 - but knowing it was like that would have changed my IC decisions completely, and that's what I mean by highlighting the need for communication. Assumptions mess up storytelling!
Things I'd think would be great improvements to the system, in an ideal world where coding time wasn't precious:
* Rakim's setup is perfect: Have them try to rob you before they kill you. That is both realistic in terms of what the thugs' actual goals would be, AND it does build in a slightly longer wait time than the current situation, where combat ensues immediately on the mobs spawning.
* Love the idea of surrender, too. This also fixes another issue that arose in this situation - because I COULDN'T seem to go unconscious in combat no matter how much they hit me, I took an appalling number of wounds. I was actually stuck in combat so long that multiple wounds healed during the fight, at least judging by my HP bouncing up and down. If this happens to anybody else before a fix is in: Use sleep to 'effectively' surrender. It's a little janky but I think of it as just standing in for falling unconscious anyway.
* Limiting the spawn to 3-5 or so NPCs. I think it's better if it's at least possible to have a chance in a fight/chance to flee, on both a realism front and a player agency/experience front. TBH 3 NPCs is still enough to be an unwinnable fight for I think anybody, but it doesn't KO you so fast there's no possibility to respond by escape, compared to 12 at a go.
* Changing how the threshold for robbery value works to a tag-based system. I've also observed inconsistent values on actual clothing items and that seems like a huge bugbear to fix across the board. Plus, things like repairs don't SEEM to affect item value even though they probably should. If items could have a tag instead that identified them as something worth stealing, this might allow for something a bit more nuanced. For example, I'd think jewelry would be seen as worth stealing even if a silver earring sells for 200, or the velvet hipscarfs in the Bazaar; these also seem like items that'd provoke people as being blatant shows of privilege. But a well-patched wool cloak doesn't feel like the same kind of thing, even if it's technically got a higher cost tied to it.
* Adding a shop to buy cheap disguise clothing, a command to make clothing's value lower by ripping/dirtying it up, or crafting recipes explicitly designed to make shoddy products.
* This is a pipe dream, but adding the items taken off PCs to a fence so players could buy them back (or otherwise attempt to get them back from said shop via stories) at an inflated cost. This would also keep them from potentially disappearing on mob despawn, if that's currently a risk?
I do very much appreciate the willingness to hear constructive suggestions!
