Achaea's combat system offers an unprecedented level of depth, providing multiple layers of afflictions and ailments. While this makes it enjoyable, it can also make it difficult to get started in.

Most MUD clients provide the functionality to have triggers and logic to help with this, but it's a massive barrier for people who have no familiarity with programming. We want people to enjoy the game without feeling the need to spend exorbitant amounts of time tinkering with a triggers, aliases, and all the behind-the-scenes stuff just to enjoy large parts of Achaea. Massive props go out to people like Larkin, Vadimuses, Carmain, and the many others who've made client-side systems over the years to aide in this, but it's time we levelled the playing field and reduced the reliance on external factors.

As of today, we're pleased to announce that we've introduced a server-side curing system that will provide a fully-functional method of handling curing.

Now, before we go too much further, we have not gone and made afflictions irrelevant! The system is designed to mimic having client-side curing, so it functions with what we deem to be average latency, and is not a perfect curing mechanism, but it should work for most people who just want the basics. For those seeking to compete in the upper echelons, there is some customisation available, or you're still free to use your own client-side systems. There's no mechanical advantage to using server-side curing vs. client-side curing (with the exception of illusions, see below).

So without further ado, we present HELP CURINGSYSTEM!

We hope you enjoy this change, allowing greater choice in how and where you play Achaea.


Regarding Illusions
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One of the most limiting factors in making combat more accessible to everyone is illusions, as any efforts to help show people what's going on would make illusions detectible every time (with today's modern systems, we gauge the efficacy of affiction combat illusions to be very low (10-15% success rate). At the end of the day, we decided that for the good of the game, the reliance on them as a mechanic had to go.

In short, the server-side curing cannot be "fooled" by affliction illusions. You can still successfully illusion defensive manoeuvres such as shielding, etc. to misdirect your opponent.

To compensate, we've sped up serpent's BITE speed, and over the coming weeks with classleads and upcoming changes with tradeskills and multiclass, there's a lot more in store.

Penned by My hand on the 12th of Mayan, in the year 651 AF.