Combat Affected Movement

[rishenko]

Alright, if this has been suggested before (most likely) and I'm just missing it (more blind than Xygax shutting down muds) flame me and get it over with.

When you take a look at combat, right now you can run like mad when at 1 hp.  Have I done this before myself?  Yup.  However, I usually slow the progress with emotes of staggering, falling, etc. etc.  In any case, my point is that if you have been brought that low in health, or have suffered massive trauma to core sections of your body, you should not be able to run like a bat out of hell in every direction.

My solution?  If you take a hit that is of "wound" or greater to your head/neck/body/legs/feet, your movement drops.  Hit again in a similar manner, lose more movement.

Is this realistic?  Yes - taking a heavy hit to those sections makes a person less likely to.  Will keep twinks from running everywhere after getting the crap kicked out of them?  Yes.  Will it make you think twice about taking on that big freaking beast?  Yes.

[Ritley]

Good idea, I think it'd be better though that once your under a certain amount of HP you can't move at all.

[proxie]

I like this from a more evil standpoint. When you're trying to assassinate someone, at least you know you have a chance at finding them if your first massive hit doesn't take them down.

It also can lead to more roleplay situations. A PC that would have previously spam ran would now have to sit, roleplay crawling backwards from his assailants and beg for mercy. And the assailants would have a chance to monologue before they kill him instead of previously being stuck going for the spam track and kill before the victim informs the templars by running to the nearest gate.

I'd want to see this with relation to arrows too, perhaps even have arrows knock you down if the damage is serious enough.  Certain thrown weapons already knock their victim down, an arrow has the benefit of added force times mass behind them.

Proxie

[Delirium]

One word:

NPCs.

Death to NPC is already cheesy and crappy enough.  

For playability reasons I would not like to see this go in.

What's more fun - getting knocked down near death, barely surviving, and having a warstory to tell later, recuperation to play out, and a neat new scar to show off, or *beep* mantis head, you're dead to bahamet/gith/mekillot #9278?

[X-D]

I second Delirium 100%

[jhunter]

Thirded.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Someone around here has a quote in their signature which sums up my viewpoints perfectly.

I actually think it's rather cheesy when a mekillot whomps you for 80 damage and you end up miraculously surviving.  Every single fucking time.

But I still see Delirium's point.  I'd like it set up so that you still have a chance for surviving after taking a heavy blow, just a rather mediocre one.

[Angela Christine]

Good idea, I think it'd be better though that once your under a certain amount of HP you can't move at all.

This already happens.  Remember, you don't die at 0, you die at -10.  Between 0 and -10 is a twilight world of pain and despair.


Angela Christine

[Synthesis]

I wouldn't like it, but it would be realistic.

However, instead of using damage alone as the variable, I'd use damage as a percent of total hp. Why? Because there are certain creatures that can take a brutal slash and still be "relatively fit," meaning they're essentially unfazed.  To penalize them when they're relatively unharmed doesn't make any sense.

Also, I wouldn't reduce total stamina points, as that's a kludgy code solution.  I would simply set a "maimed" flag that disallows anything but a "walking" speed, and temporarily sets the maimed individual's walking speed to a very slow pace (below dwarf walking speed, for instance).

Further, I would have the "maimed" flag influence a person's ride skill as well.  If you've just had your arms or legs crushed, you shouldn't nonchalantly be hauling yourself atop your kank and riding off into the sunset.


The reasons I like this:
1.  People will give large things the respect they deserve.  

Codewise, yeah, you and your buddies can probably take that half-giant down before he kills any one of you.  Realistically, if you get struck once, even by a glancing blow, by something that huge, you're going to be maimed for life.  

Armageddon doesn't have any code to reflect a shattered femur or a broken pelvis, so PCs tend to risk it, because they know they can "get away with it" codewise.  Realistically, however, you might be the baddest warrior in the south, but you're going to consider it very, very carefully...because one blow could put you in the hurt locker for the rest of your life.

Now, this code wouldn't exactly reflect that you've been horribly maimed, since the effect would presumably wear off after a while, but at least it would make messing with things out of your league far deadlier.

2. People will give the desert the respect it deserves.

The desert is a relatively placid place, usually.  But it is an unpredictable place, where very large, scary things can come out of nowhere and tear you into chunky bits in the blink of an eye.  Independent hunters/foragers should be the exception, not the rule, and only the most experienced should even consider going beyond a certain distance from the safety of a city.  (One could argue that the most experienced would actually be the ones -least- likely to wander too far, but that's another issue.)  

However, with the code as it currently is (if you know what you're doing), you can take a newbie ranger to the ends of the Known World and back relatively easily.  Sure, you might get brutally chomped, pinched, bitten, slashed, mauled and eviscerated a few times along the way, but you'll probably be able to escape and sleep it off.  This simply shouldn't be the case.

3. It would force people to interact.

With the desert suddenly scary again, it makes sense that people will team up in order to mitigate some of the risk factors.  Independents might not like it, but like I said, independents are exceptions, and will just have to learn to deal with it.

4. It suggests new skills and abilities for physicians and those with healing abilities.

This should be fairly obvious, so I'm not going to delve into it.

Reasons I Don't Like It

1. The damage done by a single blow is a wonky statistic.

There are so many things that influence the damage done by a blow that are unrealistic that it may not make sense to have realistic, potentially lethal IC consequences for these unrealistic dice-rolls happening behind the scenes.  A quick example, for clarity:

As anyone who's played with the combat code knows, people hit you a lot harder when you're sitting or resting.

Now, as anyone who has tried to follow a running person without actually using the "follow" command knows:  the movement delay on a running person is substantially lower than the amount of time it takes to respond to their movement.

Given this, assume you are a badass ranger, resting with your kank in the desert, weapons sheathed because you're chipping down a spearhead in your spare time.  A relatively unskilled individual could conceivably run in, attack you before you had a chance to stand and draw weapons (setting your "maim" flag on, in this case), then retreat out before you have a chance to retaliate and give him his comeuppance.  Now you're maimed and almost unable to move, but this newbie is in the next room, nocking an arrow and thinking himself quite sly.  As you pathetically drag yourself to your kank and fail miserably at getting it into motion, this newbie is pelting you with 5 damage arrows and slowly, inexorably kills you.

Now, this is a complicated hypothetical case, but there are many others essentially like it (think magickers, for another set of good examples) that raise questions.  

Overall however, I think the balance tips in favor of the "maimed" flag, based on realism.  There are far fewer cases where this unrealism could be abused than there are current cases where the unrealistic flexibility of the wound system is being abused, so overall, the total unrealistic quality of the system would be reduced.  

In the final analysis, I presume that this flag would be a temporary measure until a more complete wound system is worked out.

[LoD]

This already happens.  Remember, you don't die at 0, you die at -10.  Between 0 and -10 is a twilight world of pain and despair.

Agreed.  Everyone seems to have a slightly different view of what exactly those points listed under "Health" mean.  Are they a numerical approximation of our ability to function?  Of our actual "life force".  Of our ability to remain mobile while wounded?

The system currently stuns you after 0 health, rendering you immobile and helpless.  You are mortally wounded shortly thereafter and teetering on the brink of death, not quite knowing which direction nature may take your miserable existence.  It is because of this realm of pain and immobility that I don't have as much of a problem remaining mobile when heavily wounded and above 0  As others have mentioned, I may emote and purposefully slow my pace if I feel that my character wouldn't realistically be able to escape, but if my health is above 0, then I consider my character mobile and capable of making an adrenaline-fueled attempt to flee for my life.

-LoD

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

While I would like the code to reinforce the notion of heavily damaged, I can't say I would want the code to change beyond the parameters it currently is implemented at. I wouldn't mind a lag here and there as you get hurt, messages about your bleeding body, knockbacks, and all of this, but as long as you are above 0 hitpoints, you are coherent, and that's what I don't want to change.

I also really trumpet that if a change goes in in any aspect dealing with PCs, it must affect NPCs as well.

[X-D]

First

I also really trumpet that if a change goes in in any aspect dealing with PCs, it must affect NPCs as well

Second, I'm still completly against the idea. I think it is already done.

Hitpoints are not "life" per say, but simply the amount of damage you can take and still function. Hence the word HITPOINTS. If it was LIFEPOINTS it would say so right in score.

At 0 HP you become stunned and unable to move, meaning, now you are simply too damaged to give or take any more hits.

Only thing any of these suggestions does, even maim is confer an unrealistic advantage on the already no lag no poison npc's. Who, even if affected by wounds in the same manner as the PC's would STILL be without lag and therefore getting a net gain.

Over all playability would suffer IMO and more advantage of it would be taken then people seem to think.

Hell, why do you think that little movement lag stacking thing was fixed?
Or subdue/wield/kill?

[Dakurus]

I think all the points have been good ones. Is there a solution/compromise that encompasses them all.

We do have to consider playability, and even how much it might be abused. However it would be nice if this could help shift the very commonplace, casual attitude towards engaging in combat. After all I can always flee on my kank, or foot down the road after a hit or two, it's not that bad. Then I'll heal up/sleep it off. I don't think this is going to be an attitude that will change through example, but needs at least some nudging with code.

[X-D]

Yes yes, and there is also bloodloss code, which, if I remember right, was put in for a short time then removed but can still be stuck on a PC if needed.

But the biggest nudge you get from code is that your char DIES from combat. It happens, it happens to the best.
[rant]
But really, I don't see the problem. Casual? Commonplace? Your damm right, for any combat guild at least, HELLO, guild/profession that focuses on what...um, COMBAT. Hey Joe, what's our job? Um, lets see, oh, We are hunters. Alright Joe, lets hunt. No way man, I might get hit and crippled. Hhhmmm, your right, guess the known world will simply starve..or the nobles will have to do without all that sweet silt horror gear.

Fact is, it is far harder for combat guilds who actually are playing as such to last very long. And, many short lived chars is the price you pay Already to play this style. If you, as a player, whish to play it safe, do so, or even play a non-combat class. But don't try stuffing it down everybody elses throats.

I specially hate that these ideas come up to make life harder for any combat class but they never EVER come up with anything to offset it.
You want maiming or something, Fine, make NPC's poisonable again, give them skill and MV lag like everybody else, make bandaging easier (IE more fucking realistic) Make bandages cheaper and more effective.[/rant]

[LoD]

I think all the points have been good ones. Is there a solution/compromise that encompasses them all.

Is a higher turnover of PC's what the game wants?  Combat is already pretty fast paced when it comes to how quickly your character can perish, especially at the hands of certain NPC's or groups of NPC's.  The complaints seem to be focused on unrealistic actions when it comes to combat:

:arrow: Sparring over too long a period of time
:arrow: Fighting NPC's without much thought or RP given to the wounds received,
:arrow: Minimal downtime between periods of combat activity (spam hunting)
:arrow: Not enough of a reaction to high impact (damaging) wounds.

Without thinking of how difficult it would be to code something, you may consider some kind of "flag" to be acquired when your PC drops below 50% health or is struck for a certain percentage (%) of their total health.  This flag, let's call it "Wounded", will allow you to regain lost health by sleeping, but will not be removed until sufficient time has passed since the combat activity - i.e. perhaps 4-6 game hours.

If a Wounded character resumes combat before the flag has expired, then the PC will lose health slowly over regular combat down to 50% of their health (requiring sleep) even if they aren't struck.

This would require PC's to do one of two things:

:arrow: Manage their health in a more realistic manner by ending combat earlier.
:arrow: Seek adequate rest between intense sequences of combat.

This idea still does not address spam hunters capable of avoiding these kinds of blows, players using kanks to flee an encounter quickly or the ability to flee from combat, but it may stop the ones who are hurt from re-engaging for a good while and giving them proper motivation to seek rest and play out the injury appropriately.  That, in my opinion, will be as far reaching as a system like this will ever be able to deliver if you want to retain playability across several different IC situations that the combat codes treats the same.

-LoD

[Dakurus]

There's rarely a perfect solution that encompasses every situation, and if a perfect solution was the only solution we are happy with we'd rarely do or change anything.

But as LOD's suggestion indicates, one can find middle ground. Death can be very quick, and very vicious on Zalanthas, and I don't think it generally needs to be more so. However having better ways to indicate and represent the period in between perfect health and corpse lying on the ground seems reasonable.

[spawnloser]

I have nothing new to add except support...to everything that both AC and LoD have said.

[Maybe42or54]

How about a new kind of fatigue? Trainable upon use, like a normal skill. Combat Fatigue. Based off of Endurance.

Not stun, stamina, or mana, or Hp, but Fatigue.

[X-D]

You know, I could see that, and have far less of a problem with it if some work was done to make it balanced...course, I would still have a problem, just less of one.

I once had a char that did not intend to fight anything on this one trip.
But the agro animals were about. Alright, fine, run.
Damm, its faster...run some more. Alright, better save some stam here, might as well fight.

Fight going well enough, in comes another animal. Shit...no choice but to fight.

Kill one, losing to the other, down below 50% HP, run again.

Get away this time, try to rest some moves back. Well damm, I did not know these things tracked.

Run, out of moves. rest. Nope, here it comes.
Fight, amazingly, win, Woohoo, gods must love me.
15% hp left, walking to town, moving slow, emote now and again.
In comes another...30 moves left and 20 hp. Run run flee.
Make it in the gates 2 steps ahead of the animal and collapse. 1 hp 0 moves 14 stun.

Most excitment sweating palms thudding heart shaking fingers fun I've had in the game to date.

Which would not have happened if any of these ideas were put in at the time.

I see NO way that these would really enrich the game for anybody, specialy not new players, instead it would make an already steep learning curve even steeper.

And make it much harder for any starting indy hunters and such.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yeh, fuck it. X-D has a good point.

[jhunter]

Yeah, I've had a few of those incidents and they were alot of exciting fun to narrowly survive them. In each case if this was added it I'd have just died instead.

[Synthesis]

The "I was so excited, but with X implemented I would've died" argument is a fallacious one.

The excitement surrounding narrowly escaping death is based on...narrowly escaping death.

The new code would not turn every encounter into certain death, thereby spoiling the excitement of cheating death.  It would make death more likely in certain instances where it -ought- to be more likely.

In fact, if you want to push the argument in a somewhat absurd direction, you could make the claim that, by increasing the likelihood of death in many instances, the new code will actually give people more opportunities to be excited about cheating death, since death will now be so much more likely to occur!

[X-D]

And increase the the odds on a quick death with little chance to cheat it...blah.

Death in arm tends to be VERY quick and VERY brutal already.

Here, lets slow down the pc's in some manner to make what often is already a slim chance even smaller.

But hey, what do I care, I don't approve apps.

The "I was so excited, but with X implemented I would've died" argument is a fallacious one

I'd almost call that a flame, or at least trolling, it is no more false then your opinion to the contrary.

The excitement surrounding narrowly escaping death is based on...narrowly escaping death

You are exactly right, but in order to have that one must know that they have at least a fighting chance to do it once in a while, not just on the rare blue moon when you simply get very lucky. There is not much excitment to cheating death 3 rooms from the gate bcause thats all the farther you are willing to go because the risks simply become too high.

[jhunter]

The "I was so excited, but with X implemented I would've died" argument is a fallacious one.

The excitement surrounding narrowly escaping death is based on...narrowly escaping death.

The new code would not turn every encounter into certain death, thereby spoiling the excitement of cheating death.  It would make death more likely in certain instances where it -ought- to be more likely.

In fact, if you want to push the argument in a somewhat absurd direction, you could make the claim that, by increasing the likelihood of death in many instances, the new code will actually give people more opportunities to be excited about cheating death, since death will now be so much more likely to occur!

I've been playing this game off and on for just over 10 years and those narrow escapes from death havely only happened a handful of times.
I think that's rare enough. Let's not make it -never-.

[Synthesis]

X-D:
It's hardly a flame to call something fallacious, especially when I quite clearly explained why it's so.

The argument's general pattern is:
1. It's exciting to cheat death, and this excitement makes the game more enjoyable.
2. If the "maimed" flag were implemented, it would have made cheating death impossible under certain circumstances I've experienced.
3. Therefore, we shouldn't implement it.

Now, the fallacy is one of hasty generalization, i.e. if the code would be bad for my experience, it must be bad for all experiences.

I merely pointed out that this is not the case, quite reasonably.  Since when did pointing out mistakes in someone's reasoning become flaming?

Also, you all need to keep in mind that the "maimed" code would only go into effect on an individual who has been struck, in a single blow, for more than X% of its hit points.  In all reality, there just aren't that many things out there that can do that much damage in a single blow...certainly not anything that an unexperienced ranger should be running up against, and certainly not anything that even experienced rangers should be taking down on their own.

To address your other concerns:

1. Increasing the odds on a quick death.  The code would only increase the odds of dying a quick death against creatures and beings that, in all reality, would be perfectly capable of obliterating you.  The fact that you can currently engage (some) of these beings, take your licks, and then limp away to sleep it off is highly unrealistic, and in my opinion adds nothing but contempt and disregard for realism in the gameworld.  (Note that, even with the code, you can still simply ride or run away from these things -before- they maul you!  Encountering them does not become more deadly...only actually engaging them in combat.)

2. Death in the game tends to be quick and brutal already.  Well, quick and brutal for newbies, maybe.  But the fact is, if you don't take any significant risks, you can survive for quite a long time without ever having so much as a close call.  I would wager that most PC deaths (I know for a fact most of -my- PC's deaths, at the very least) are a result of those characters being in places they really ought not to have been.

3. Risk-taking.  As I noted above, risk-taking is usually the root cause of death.  Now, this runs counter to your (somewhat parenthetical) argument that the code would increase the number of new applications that the Imms would have to sort through.  That is, once people become familiar with the code, they will take fewer risks, and will thus live longer, ultimately reducing the number of applications the staff has to deal with.  Further, I'd like to note that very few things capable of inflicting this kind of damage actually roam within "3 rooms of the gates" of any city, and that if you're unskilled enough to be struck so severely by something that really isn't all that dangerous, perhaps you shouldn't be meandering about the desert.

I hope that clears up any misconceptions you might have about what I'm suggesting.

As for jhunter...playing 10 years and only escaping death a handful of times.  Again, your experience is not the measure of the game.  I, quite contrary to you, have been severely wounded in the several dozens of times and managed to live through it.  Hell, back in my twinking days, I used to "spar" bahamets, knowing quite well that I could just take a grievous wound (and hopefully the corresponding skill boosts) and be on my merry way to sleep it off at a secure, undisclosed location.  This, quite obviously, was ridiculous, and I'd like to see to it that such ridiculous behavior is not only a violation of the game's rules but also technically impossible, by code restriction.

To go further.  Obviously, accidents occur.  Sometimes, you're just not paying attention and something comes out of the blue and tears you a new bunghole.  Some of these occasions are highly unrealistic.  For example, the silt horror lurking northeast of you that you, for some odd reason, just can't see, despite the fact that it's 70 ft. tall.  I mentioned another example in my previous post that could result in an unrealistic death.  

However, I also reasoned that deaths of this sort are and would be less frequent than the current frequency of unrealistic portrayals of grievous wounds and the further unrealistic behaviors that stem from players assuming (knowing, really, as it stands) that, if their character is wounded, it won't be permanent (and it might even result in a positive: skill gain, for example), so they might as well go ahead and run out to bahamet country on their own to pick some herbs.