Ender wrote this, and he never finished it as he admits below, but it's some good information regardless.Fighting Guide – NewbiesYou aren’t long out of the school system, you’ve joined a guild, maybe you have a weapon and if you are lucky a pouch or two. You have a handful of basic skills, a smattering of guild skills and you are keen to learn to fight. This is where you start.
This guide is not a set of rules which you must follow, every guild is different and its more important that you find the fighting style that suits you best. There is no single right way to fight, success comes from finding out what works for you and experimenting with new techniques. What this guide does aim to provide is a set of guideline that are generic enough to be “universal” across all professions.
EnvironmentAs with learning anything new, the first step is to prepare yourself and your environment to maximise your potential gain from every fight. While a bad workman may well blame his tools, you’ve never be a good workman without the necessary equipment.
The ConnectionThe faster the better, I’m played on everything from a 9.6k modem (via mobile phone) to the backbone of an international ISP’s core network (with over 600Gb transatlantic link). Bandwidth itself is not important when playing Avalon, however latency (the speed the packet gets from your PC to the Avalon server) is very important. Latency can be measured with a command in DOS called PING, to test your connection speed go to a DOS prompt and type “PING AVALON-RPG.COM” you should see the following output:
C:\>ping avalon-rpg.com
Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0msThe time of interest is the “Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds”. Less than 80ms and you have an excellent connectio, between 80 and 150 is what the majority of us play off. (myself on ADSL in the UK included), greater the 150 or 200ms and fighting at the higher levels is going to be tricky for you.
The ClientMany people start on Javalon but quickly find that the limitations of internal macros (HELP MACROS) soon have a detrimental effect on your ability to fight. Javalon has no system for triggers, no way of logging your games to file, and relies on the unwieldy internal macro system. In short, if you are serious about learning to fight, Javalon is not a suitable tool.
The vast majority of serious fighters in Avalon use ZMud (
www.zuggsoft.com), there is a very old freeware version available but I would strongly recommend forking out for the full licence and using the latest public release. I bought a copy of this software about 4 years ago and have no regretted it for a moment; I have had excellent support and free upgrades without having to pay a penny more. The user interface and help files have improved over the last few versions but it is still a touch complicated for the novice.
I will discuss later how you can setup basic aliases, macros and triggers.
The ComputerSo long as your computer meets the requirements for ZMud then any additional performance makes little difference. A good keyboard, a large screen and some harddisk space to store you log files all helps. Access to a fast black and white printer is also a bonus when it comes time to print out your logs.
Getting StartedFrom here on in I will make the assumption that you are using the latest public release of Zmud.
Your Settings in AvalonThere are several settings you can change in Avalon, I would recommend you do the following:
ANSI ON – enables the colour codes in Avalon, these are interpreted by zmud and the output you get in your client is more colourful. More importantly the colour is context dependant, for example location names are in bright yellow, character names are in magenta etc. This enables you to more easily spot the relevant information as the screens fly past in a fight.
TIMEOUT 60 – this will cause your character to automatically logout should you not input a command for 60 seconds. If for example, your PC crashes and your connection drops, your character in Avalon will often be left logged without you there to defend them. Not only will you get killed but more worryingly you may get stripped, Avalon is a brutal world, many people do not accept being disconnected as a valid reason to leave you in peace.
BRIEF – Avalon is a beautiful world, the location description are generally well worth reading. However, the last thing you need to know in a fight is that there is a squirrel digging for nuts in the undergrowth, or that there is a lovely view of Ge Pike to the northeast.
FVB (Fight Very Brief) – One of the biggest problems people have when learning to fight is dealing with scroll. Fighting the likes of a Sorcerer or Ranger often leads to learn amount of scroll, by switching to FVB mode you will dramatically reduce the length of this scroll, without reducing the information held therein. For example, “You take a jegga piece from your herb pouch” is replaced with “Done”. Given you have just issued the command to take Jegga from your pouch you know what the “done” is referring to; all you really need to know is did it work? Therefore, the simple reply of done is sufficient.
CONCENTRATE/RELAX – Some people recommend using the Concentrate command to limit the amount of scroll even further, personally I find that it removes information about the actions of your opponent that is vital when fighting. I would urge you to stay RELAX when in combat.
FULLPROMPT INFO – This commend is absolutely vital when learning to fight. A lot of what fighting is about is keeping track of your current “status”. Knowing your health, mana, if you are bound, deaf, blind or have a cloak of diffusion is the sort of thing that will save your life and win you fights. FULLPROMPT INFO, puts all of that information on prompt line. An example is shown below:
370h, 370m e-
The first figure shows your current health, the second figure shows your mana. The symbols you see after that includes the following information:
b = Blind
d = Deaf
f = Fire Resistant
e = Equilibrium
l = Levitated
i = Immunity
x = Kelventari Aura
o = Voice Projection
p = Potion Satiated
h = Allhealed
w = Webbed up
v = Candescent Veil
c = Cloak of Protection
a = Alkared
y = Right Unbalance
z = Left Unbalance
Basic EquipmentBeing well a equipped is vital in the world of combat, often in a very evenly matched fight the person with the better equipment and the most of it will win. If you’re health potion runs out before their health potion, you’ve lost. Even though it may not seem like you lost, being well equipped is just another aspect of combat and you should pay it good deal of attention. There is therefore a temptation to get as much equipment as you can, as quickly as possible. On the whole I would urge you to expand your stock of kit as fast as is safe.
There is no point spending 2000 gold on 10 magic rings if you find they have been stolen from you before the week is out. You would be wise to spend the same money and only get 5 ring, making sure each is well protected with Oval and Snowflake runes. I will cover methods of securing your equipment in a later section.
Kit ListBelow is a list of the basic kit you should endeavour to amass as quickly as is safe., if it not an exhaustive list and you will find that profession dependant equipment is required; swords for warriors, wax for astrologers, blowpipes and bows for rangers.
Potions (1st priority):
- 2 x Health Restoration
- 1 x Mana Restoration
- 1 x Allheale
- 1 x Fire Resist
- 1 x Diffusion
- 1 x Immunity
Potions (2nd priority):
- 1 x Antidote
- 1 x Levitation
- 1 x Invisibility
Herbs (1st Priority):
- Athillias, Witan, Megillos, Malloran, Denallo
Herbs (2nd Priority):
- Arkasu, Sata, Tyrla
r, Kelventari, Iorthir/Wirren
Magic Items (1st Priority)
- Pentacle, Web, Healhand, Nullify
Magic Items (2nd Priority)
- Traversal, Teleport, Summon, Sleep
Additional Generic Equipment:
Sack, 2 x Herb Pouches, 3 x Pipes (Megillos, Malloran and Arkasu are all smoked), Clothes and a Glass or Tankard.
