Shattered Kingdoms

*thumbs up*

The backstab/circle and hamstring "behind" additions are very good IMO, especially considering how it alleviates the "fake" difficulty of having to navigate between multiple NPCs in the room of the same type.

As for the "front" targeting command, I think it would be great to be able to target everything that way, positional or not. It would take away some of the edge that NPC wars brings to the table by allowing people to target what they really want to target. Barring that, it would be nice to have glance give the number of whomever is in front of or behind your target in addition to the name. (e.g. "a 2.sheep is in front of Marfik")

My only issue with this is, how will this affect invisible [edit: unseen in general] characters in the group? I can't imagine that anything would change if the invisible character is in the front, but what if they're in the middle or back row? I think it'd be really cheap if you could target an invisible person just by typing "bs/ham/cir/whatever behind sargas."

P.S.
Brownie points for using Michiru in the example. I adored her.

My problem with the idea is not the actual application of the fix D's proposing. It's more that what I proposed, enhancing the glance command and individualizing each like NPC, fixes the same problem he's addressing and adds much more content to PvP. There would be more than one application for what I proposed rather than just a bandaid on circle stab/backstab/hamstring.

Also, what if the pet in back of a person is invisible and the rogue can't see it? Does it hit anyway?

Given some people's desire to protect the status quo, I'm about to give up on this one. Last proposal:

"There is someone standing behind your victim, blocking your attack."

changes to:

"3.wraith is standing behind your victim, blocking your attack."

Assuming the wraith is visible. And it will always report the guy immediately behind the target, even if the original target was originally in row 1 and the wraith is in row 2 with an additional wraith behind both of them. Then if you bs 3.wraith you might see:

"5.wraith is standing behind your victim, blocking your attack."

Once again, this is for backstab, circle stab and hamstring.

The status quo is idiotic. There's no reason you shouldn't know exactly which enemy is blocking your attack. It's only common sense. If you know which enemy is blocking your attacks from reaching the desired target then why would you run off and attack another wraith down the street in some misguided attempt to figure out which enemy you *should* be hitting.

I'm not sure if the people that are defending the status quo realize that that example is exactly what they can be defending. It's very absurd, and I'm not sure any reasonably intelligent person would actually want to associate him or herself with it.

I doubt they are idiotic. People usually protect the status quo because it benefits them. Probably players of sorcerers and necromancers.

At any rate, my latest proposal would give rogues exactly the information they want without functionally changing the way things work and without forcing them to add an extra step to glance at the target. I don't like seeing something like 14.wraith in the glance message anyway. It feels too out of character. It's slightly more acceptable in a skill failure message.

I have to admit I don't even care for a "front" idea. The "back" row idea seems good enough though, but only because rogues are so god damn weak due to random difficulties in the way their skillset performs.

Well, the front idea could be kind of usefull if, let's say, a swash wants to target whomever is guarding a specific 2nd row character, but I can't think of any other case either.

Aggro NPCs already have a "front" command that hits whomever is in front of their target: And it even works through invis. Why can't PCs do the same thing?