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When you wish to fight a mobile, you may, generally, initiate combat with it
simply by finding it and attacking it with whatever ability you choose to use.
However, most abilities that do something other than just cause damage will
not work against mobiles. The reason for this requires some understanding of
how player vs. player combat works, but for now suffice it to say that
creating an artificial intelligence that allowed mobiles to effectively deal
with the hundreds of things a player can do to another player would be
prohibitively complicated.
Once you have attacked a mobile, it will, in most cases, either attack you
back or run away. Usually a mobile will continue to attack you until either
it begins to panic and runs away, or until you or it is dead. Be warned that
some mobiles may loot your corpse of an item or two after they have killed you.
Critical hits
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As you get to some of the higher experience levels, you will begin to score
critical hits against mobiles more and more often. The higher your level, the
better your chance of scoring a critical hit and the better your chance of each
critical hit being an extremely powerful one. There are five degrees of
critical hit, ranging from:
CRITICAL : 2x damage
STAGGERING CRITICAL : 4x damage
CRUSHING CRITICAL : 8x damage
MUTILATING CRITICAL : 16x damage
ANNIHILATING CRITICAL : 32x damage
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Player combat is an entirely more complicated affair. This is what our combat
system is primarily geared to, and few, if any games, can match the intensity
and complex nature of our combat.
It can be difficult to fully describe player combat, as there are so many
different approaches to it. It is possible to fight with your goal as death of
the opponent, crippling of your opponent, re-arrangement of items (for
instance, stealing things from him), or even just as a demonstration or lesson.
Generally, the details of your offensive combat manouvers will be covered in
the help files for your class-specific skills, as this is where the majority
of offensive abilities lie. Some of your defensive abilities (more for some
classes, less for others) will also lie in your class-specific skills, but
probably the majority of defensive equipment and abilities are available to
everyone who has high enough general (ie non-class-specific) skills and enough
money to purchase the proper equipment.
Player combat generally involves much more than simply inflicting damage on
your opponent. Not only can individual body parts be damaged, with different,
harmful effects resulting from enough cumulative damage on a body part, but
there are hundreds of afflictions that can be inflicted on an opponent.
If we take the most general goal of combat, which is to kill your opponent,
then combat can be said to generally consist of:
1) Locating your opponent and finding him or bringing him to you.
2) Pinning him into place so that he cannot escape.
3) Damaging him until he dies.
This is an over-simplification insofar as only with a very surprised or
helpless opponent will you simply execute 1, then 2, then 3. Usually there
will be much moving around, healing of the things that pin you, healing of the
damage done to you, etc. Combat is therefore a give-and-take process. For many
offences, there are defences, and for many defences, there are methods of
removing the defences. There are many afflictions (the general term for
anything that affects you in a negative way aside from damage), ranging from
the classic web spell to paralysis, to anorexia, to the aeon curse, which
slows your movement through time.
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Most of the damage and afflicting-dealing abilities in Aetolia, as well as some
defensive and movement ones, will require that you have equilibrium and
balance and will, after you use the ability, take equilibrium or balance away
from you for a certain number of seconds. How many depends entirely on the
ability.
Perhaps the single most important factor in mounting a successful attack
against another player, and even against a mobile, is the efficient use of
equilibrium and balance. When engaged in combat, you _always_ want to be
making the most out of every second of combat. If you recover equilibrium and
balance, and your opponent is in the room with you, there is no reason not to
immediately use another ability that will use these up, unless you wish to
flee.
The process of being as efficient as possible in your use of equilibrium and
balance is referred to as "chasing equilibrium" or "chasing balance".
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Combat
