HP and Health

[mansa]

Do you people prefer Harshlands/SoI's form of displaying your health, or do you like Armageddon's form, or do you like something different?

Armageddon displays health in number form.  So, you can be at 62 health out of 100.

Whereas SoI displays it as a bar and stars, and you're not quite exactly sure what your health is.

[mattrious]

I'm all about the numbers.

- Matt.

[UnderSeven]

What harshlands and soi have works for them, what we have works for us.  I think if Armageddon changes, that's fine, but the last thing I think we want is more soi/harshland carbon copy games, just for the sake of it.

[LauraMars]

Numbers.  WTF is this stars and bars thing, super mario brothers?  Some kind of candy store?

[SpyGuy]

I prefer the SoI combat system, with wounds that need bandaging/time to heal, can become infected, etc. etc.  In that case I'd be all for moving to an SoI health system that was vaguer.  Though I'm not a huge fan of it, and numbers would still be suitable.

But since Arm's combat has a more, for lack of a better word, "arcade" feel to it currently I think keeping the hardcoded numbers in place is appropriate.

[UnderSeven]

Dude, I'm telling you people, apples and oranges.  You're trying to compare very different entities.

[Maybe42or54]

Stars and bars seems childish to me. Besides, I like numbers.

[Aldiel]

I've always thought it would be cool to have hp, stamina, and stun deplayed as words like: Poor condition, good, fully rested, or whatnot.  These conditions would reflect what you see when you assess someone.  However, this might just clog up the promot.  It's something I'd have to think about more.  You'd have to find just the right words too, so that it can both be short and clear.

Like someone's promot might look like:

H: Poor Condition, S: Completely Rested, S: Barely Conscious

The Ss here stand for stamina and stun.

I also find it stange how you can see the direct effects of your constitution, but not your wis, strength, or agil.  I think it shoud all be ambiguous.  I'm not a big fan of the stars and bars though.

[mansa]

I like numbers too.

But I was debating with a friend, and he said that it should be a 'relative' state.  I think he was in the mood for _WORDS_ to describe how your doing instead of numbers, which seems a bit better.  I thought I'd bring it up to the general board.

I like kiwi fruit.

[Moofassa]

Numbers... I like to know exactly how much Hp my character has, cuz im a twink...


I'd be like : Poor condition... WTF WTF WTF... Maybe im at the upper range.. 20.. or maybe im at the lower range of 9 WTF... I wonder if I can take another hit!?!?



Numbers.

[jmordetsky_nologin]

I like bars. I don't want to know that my human has 30% less hp then my half giant. If everyone simply had a bar of the same length that represented the % of health they were at it would be more realistic.

I think we could get rid of the number and the bar and just have Fine, Midly Hurt, Very Hurt, Wounded, Dying, Completely Fucked as indicators.

[Aldiel]

Numbers... I like to know exactly how much Hp my character has, cuz im a twink...


I'd be like : Poor condition... WTF WTF WTF... Maybe im at the upper range.. 20.. or maybe im at the lower range of 9 WTF... I wonder if I can take another hit!?!?



Numbers.

The incrememnt could be as small as every ten hps.  And this game is about reality, not twinkage.

[Morfeus]

I like numbers. There could be difference between "Wounded" and "Wounded" and I like to see how big the difference is.

[Moofassa]

I like numbers. There could be difference between "Wounded" and "Wounded" and I like to see how big the difference is.

Precisely.

[Falconer]

To clarify, Shadows of Isildur's health system works in the following way:

-Players have a number of stars that represent a percentage of their health (rather than a number of hitpoints.)  
-There are types of wounds depending on the weapon-type used. (lacerations, bruises, piercings, scratches).
-No matter the type, each wound has is given a severity adjective (a severe laceration, a minor laceration.)
-Each wound requires a certain amount of time to heal.  Depending on the severity, physician/healer attention may be required.
-The wounds are entered into an algorithm that takes into consideration other injuries, the character's constitution and strength, and various skills, then determines the reduction of the total health percent.

If Armageddon adopted a similar system, there are several expansions I would suggest:

-Give each body part a number of hitpoints.  When these points drop to a given threshold, have various critical results - crippling a leg increases the time it takes to flee, crippling a hand or arm auto-disarms, a crippling neck or head wound would greatly reduce stun-points, etc.  Allow for permanent-crippling or severed limbs when the hitpoints for the body part reach 0.

-Increase (greatly) the amount of time it takes to heal through non-magical means.  In addition to the augmentation of greater 'realism' and less twinkery, this spurs all kinds of roleplaying scenes that follow a combat encounter: Vivaduans and physicians are given greater purpose, bar dwellers can nurse wounds alongside their ales, and the scars and disfigurement of characters will carry with them a story, in addition to a pseudo-object.

-Add this same wound code to armor, giving protective bonuses and penalities depending on the weapon type/material being used.  (eg: a chitin-banded shield might fare well against an obsidian sword but poorly against a bone club; a leather cuirass might be weak against piercing but perform strongly against bludgeoning attacks.)

Just some thoughts.

[diealot 2L2L]

Awesome..  Amazing.. and something I would -very- much enjoy.

But, perhaps, impossible to implement without a -major- motherfuckin' overhaul.

[Irulan]

I'm really a numbers kind of girl, myself....although, jmordesky's indicators might be kind of fun. ;-)

-Irulan

[X-D]

Sorry, I don't like the percentage bar. Mostly because of how inaccurate it is to gauge, and IMO thereby decreasing realism. But also, for me its slower to check.

HP <********>

Lets see, thats um, 8 stars...hhhmm, alright, get into combat, trying to emote, watch stats, use skills, and now I have to count stars. Nah, simpler to just see the number.

[Bogre]

I'm a fan of the numbers.

[Tuannon]

I want a sound macro that yells "Run Away!" in a Monty Python fashion whenever my hp drop to 20%.

[Hymwen]

I liked SoI's a little better, but I don't think Arm's is poor enough that it should be changed.

[Nao]

I like numberas a bit better - just my personal preference though. But SOI's wound system is kind of cool, exspecially that you can tell whether that body out there got half-eaten by wargs or if someone killed them with a weapon... Nifty but it's not like we absolutely need it.

[JRB]

How about a toggle option to set it on which ever the player prefers?

[Lael]

I like numbers, they're more accurate. Plus when you survive something with 1hp, it's more exciting than with *.

I'd like to see different health messages according to what caused the damage.

I.e. Poison - "The guy with lame hair is here, looking very sick and pale"
Slashing weapons, "The guy with lame hair is here, bleeding from many
long cuts"
Bludgeoning, "yadda yadda is here bleeding from many wounds, covered
in purple bruises"

etc, etc.

Just so that when you're actually down at 20hp from poison, people aren't coming up to you and trying to bandage your wounds, or something like that. (Not that you couldn't rp the bandage skill differently - maybe it should just be called healing?)

Anyways, just my thoughts.

[jhunter]

I can't stand the "gauge" thing that SOI and Harshlands do. I've got to see the numbers. It's one of the things that I disliked alot about those two games and one of the reasons, as far as mechanics, that I like Arm better.


Edit: Someone was saying something about numbers being unrealistic. And a "gauge" system is more realistic? We all walk around with a gauge that tells us our current health and such? Bullshit. As far as realism goes a "gauge" system is no more realistic than numbers.