Body Part Injuries

[Bullet Eater]

I thought about this idea recently, and it was implemented in a couple of MUDs I've played in the past, so I thought I would share it with you all: body part injuries.

With the current way things are, the combat will display something like this:
"The tall, short elf slashes you very hard on your arm."

But what if that damage to your arm affected how you, say, attack? Or hold a weapon? I don't think it does, currently, but if it did, there could also be a command like this:
>target arms
You will try to focus your attacks on your opponent's arms.

As such, damages to other parts could have various effects:
:arrow: Damage to your head might make you do things unwillingly or something.
:arrow: Damage to your arms might inhibit your ability to carry things, wield and hold weapons,  and attack at your full potential.
:arrow: Leg damage would cause you to walk slower, perhaps take away your ability to run, or enough damage would cause you to be unable to move altogether.
:arrow: Damage to your torso could "knock the wind" out of you, or just do nothing special - after all, the torso should be the easiest part of the body to hit.

In a past MUD I played one would have to rub a salve or something on the affected bodypart, and it would be "cured." I imagine in Armageddon a command like "bandage elf head" could work, or simple resting or sleeping, just like how damage is currently undone.

I have no idea how hard this would be to code, but I think it's somewhat realistic and interesting. It could also add more RP opportunities in all forms of combat, from sparring to large-scale combat.

Thoughts?

[Dalmeth]

I personally don't see a pressing need for this.  Most injuries can be played out as is, and, more often than not, they are.

The game doesn't need to keep its eyes on everyone to make sure they don't win.

[Marauder Moe]

I think its a fine idea.  The injury code was my favorite part of Gemstone III.

I wouldn't hold my breath, though, waiting for it to be implemented in Arm, nor do I believe it should be an especially high priority compared to other things in the works and proposed ideas.

[Barzalene]

I voted yes, and thn thought no.

One of my biggest issues is that the code can't tell the difference between fifty hit points lost in sparring and fifty hit points lost to an orc bite. I believe there ought to be a difference, as, if dying during sparring were a regular occurance, if people regularly got their arms chopped off, people would do a lot less of it.

[daedroug]

I voted yes but only to an extent, I think that instead of this being a cumulative thing it shoulkd be that if one blow does enough damage then it might have the specified effect, this might help with the sparring thing to because short of sparring with a half giant i don't think i've ever heard of many high damage hits happening in a spar with training weapons

[KingOfSpades]

I voted yes, I didn't even think about it. It was reaction. That is an aspect of the game I always wanted. If you hit some one in the left or right wrist they should drop whatever is in thier hand.

If someone gets a grevious wound on the leg, they shouldent be able to run away. maybe just limp at slower then walking pace.

just something I always wished for but never could enjoy.

[JoeCan'tLogin]

I would love to see this.

I'd like to be able to cut off someone's hand so they couldn't es any more.

I'd like to be able to cut off someone's foot and reduce their ability to run and their overall MV points.

Think how much more scared of templar torture you would be if they cut off your hands?

[mansa]

I would love to see Templars be given the coded ability to perminantely lower your HPs.  I mean, they have the power to kill you outright, why can't they be given the power to lower your HP from 100 to 80?

And don't say that they can just wish up.  I would rather have like a Torture room, with room commands that can only be accessed by templar pcs, to do it all automated...

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I can't figure out if Mansa was being sarcastic there, but I would totally disagree to Templar torture rooms. Some of them tend to go overboard the way it is. Don't get me wrong, it's hard not to go overboard with the power they've got, but I was once tortured, healed, and slayed in the arena for having a pick even after I gave no protest and gave coins and Eq to every guard and templar in the room! I don't -WANT- to see all the deformed PC's when something like this gets out. (though, to be fair I've also got let off 3 times in half an IG week for assault and murder) If they need to mangle you and cut you up, make them work for it and wish up. I've lost hands and gained scars and each time an Imm was handy and right on the ball. I see no need for such a room.

But, not to derail, I do somewhat like the injury code idea. But, only for MASSIVE amounts of damage. It would seriously suck to break an arm in sparring (though I suppose Mercy could also negate the injury code). Like, if you really get whopped for 50 damage, I see no reason why there could be a chance of sustaining an injury for a few IG days minimal or until someone succeeds at a high bandage check. Or a finger wiggler if yer onna dem funny sorta folk.[/quote]

[Cyrian20]

I know people who log in maybe two hours a week, what if they broke an arm in training?
Would they have to wait four RL weeks. If not then you're going to have people choosing that
time to logout.

While an injury code would he interesting the mush/mud mix we seem to
achieve would be greatly diminished by something that would pop up often and cut into
a chance to rp other things. Yes a broken arm is fun but a contract will never get done if
arms are broken every week. That may seem small but it will effect roleplay all across the
city if suddenly we have no byn for something we need set up.

I would go with it either way I think we should just try to leave a few things with a fantasy setting if we can.

[Hymwen]

I'm not sure. Part of me thinks it's a good idea for realism's sake, and because it would bring more risk to fighting.

And part of me just thinks it would suck to play, say, a hunter, go out to hunt, and the first animal you meet then bites you very hard on the leg and you can't walk for the next 5 RL hours. How much fun would that be?

[EonBlueApocalypse]

I don't expect to walk onto Armageddon and shake the sand out of my hair when I put down my laptop.  The game is real enough with the balance between code and environment.  This is just too real.

Edit:  And it wouldn't be fun  

[Ester]

Think of all the physicians who would find more work reattaching limbs and/or prosthetics and setting bones!

[Pantoufle]

I like what Cyrian20 has to say.

Some things are better off simply being role-played.

[Bullet Eater]

Well, usually when one is sparring you would have 'mercy on' so you wouldn't kill your oppoenent. What if, provided my idea was implemented, 'mercy on' extended to trying to not do significant limb damage to your oppenent? It covers sparring as well as any form of combat where you would have 'mercy on'.

[LoD]

What if, provided my idea was implemented...

It's been suggested several times on the boards here.  I think there is a group of the population that has seen code  elsewhere and wants to see something similar in Armageddon.  Others would see it as an unnecessary change affecting the time they had to play that day.

Not everyone can sit down and play the game for 8 hours a day.  Some people want to log in, hunt a little, drink a little, interact a little, and leave.  For playability's sake, I prefer to have the wounds left up to the player to decide exactly how hard they were struck.  The problem would coding wounds are questions such as:

:arrow: Slashing, Chopping, Piercing, Bludgeoning all deliver different wounds.
:arrow: How much of the "very hard" hit was deflected/absorbed by armor?
:arrow: What about falling damage?  Poison?  Magick? Animal?
:arrow: Do different weapon materials deliver different types of wounds?
:arrow: Are Zalanthans as weak, easy to cut, and prone to injury as Earth people?
:arrow: Do Zalanthas require as much rest, treatment, and time to heal as Earth people?

Armageddon elongates the process to give us a little more time to react, interact, and play.  Armageddon likewise elongates the wound process, allowing us more time before we would need to worry about such things.  If the wound code was ever to be implemented, I wouldn't want to see broken bones or wounds given for anything under something like a brutal, horrendous, or grevious blow.  Something that was doing a significant portion of your total health percentage (50%+).

Something that would hardly ever happen in sparring, fights with regular sized animals, even fights with most other combatants.

-LoD

[Marauder Moe]

Would it be so bad if the location-injury penalty was lifted when the damage was healed?  Short-term injuries/penalties only, still leaving long-term recovery up to the player's RP.  That would solve your casual play objection, LoD.

Also, a likely side effect of this would be being able to see in what way people are injured.  Maybe even corpses too.

As I said, I've always thought such a system would be good for Arm.  It's not quite needed, though, compared to other ideas.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I dig it.

[Anonymous]

It's not really your idea.

How astute of you to point that out.

[LoD]

It's not really your idea.

How astute of you to point that out.

You know, it's funny.  When I saw  new post had been made in this forum under the handle Guest, my first thought was, "Ah, guess somebody wanted to be insulting without being held responsible."  Thanks for validating that.

My comment wasn't meant to be snide, so I apologize if it was taken as such.   I'll take steps to amend it in my post so that it doesn't create those feelings.   It was meant to point out that there have been many discussions and ideas about a wound code mentioned on this board before, containing plenty of good and bad ideas that are applicable to the MUD.  Going back to read some of those was helpful for me to review my thoughts, and others, on the subject to display here.

Here are couple of them:
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17123&highlight=wound
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16085&highlight=wound

However, my post at least had something constructive to add to the thread and wasn't reserved as a personal jab at a fellow poster/player.  Perhaps this comment would've been more appropriate as a PM.

-LoD

[Bullet Eater]

It's not really your idea. It's been suggested several times on the boards here.

I appreciate that others have thought of the same thing in the past, but in general this comment was useless. I realize that it's been in other games before - which is why I said that I saw it in previous games I played in my original post. I only said "provided my idea was implemented" for the sake of brevity. I didn't actually mean it was "my" idea. That would be intellectual thievery. I figured someone would figure that out.

Not everyone can sit down and play the game for 8 hours a day.

Nor can I. The recovery process shouldn't be long - I never implied it should be. You even suggest that Zalanthans require less "rest, treatment and time to heal".

And injuries would likely happen with one extremely strong blow, rather than a number of weak blows. Makes more sense to me, anyway. I thought it would be a given.

EDIT: I figured you weren't trying to be mean in the end, but I was writing this while you wrote your post, LoD. Sorry.

[JoeCan'tLogIn]

I think allowing wound healing while logged out would handle playability.

[Synthesis]

My personal experiences with "realistic" wound systems have been anything but "realistic."  I've had a sparrow land a knockout blow to my head, and proceed to dismember my corpse while I was unconscious.  I've had a deer chase me into the ocean and somehow manage to kick me to death while we were both swimming.  

If this were implemented on Armageddon, some drastic re-tweaking of the code would have to be done in order to re-balance the combat system.

Currently, a rat can bite your head.  If you're unarmed, it can practically bite your head -off-, especially if you're a newbie character or not primarily combat-focused.  How realistic is it that, while you're mounted atop your inix, a gortok can waltz in and make a miraculous leap ten feet (or more) into the air and sink its teeth into your skull?  How realistic is it that you didn't see that mekillot that's north and east of you, in the middle of a barren, featureless salt flat?  How realistic is it if that mekillot inflicts a horrible wound on your legs, because your connection lagged just enough for it to initiate combat?  How realistic is it if you thus can't flee and die because a giant creature appeared out of nowhere on a barren plain, closed some vast distance between you and it, and bit your legs off?

Currently, when ridiculous things like a rat brutally biting your neck or a bahamet coming out of nowhere happen, you can just sleep them off and pretend they didn't happen...because seriously, who actually lies around roleplaying that a rat clambered up their gear and sank its teeth into their jugular?

And what about magickers? Realistically, when you're tossing a fireball at someone, you're probably standing a fair distance away when you do it.  How realistic is it that suddenly your victim is -right beside you-, swinging his weapons at your face?  If he lands a grievous wound to your head before you can cast another fireball, should you stop casting? Because obviously nobody's going to remember spell formulas when they've got a battle-axe embedded into their skull, right?

What about climbing?  If you don't have the climb skill, you can't lower yourself from a 10-ft roof without sustaining a serious injury, unless you've got a full set of rappelling gear and the agility of a spiced-up halfling.  Should you be forced to roleplay broken ankles for IC weeks after falling from a rooftop that you were carefully letting yourself down from, simply because you didn't have the skill?

What about newbies?  New characters (even warriors) start with absurdly low combat skills, and joining a clan to spar up to the point where you no longer receive heinous wounds is simply not feasible for every character concept.  Should an escaped mul gladiator PC die at 3 hours in the wastes because, despite -years- of brutal combat training in his background, his skills were bupkis, a beetle landed a brutal bite to his legs, and suddenly he couldn't flee?  I've personally had a newbie half-giant warrior take over 50% damage in 2 hits from an NPC that newbie assassins use for backstab practice, simply because of the way the agility statistic works.  Should a half-giant warrior be crippled and brought to his knees by an NPC that newbie assassins with decent agility scoff at?

What about unrealistic creatures?  Almost every mob in the game will pursue you relentlessly if you flee from it, as long as you stay within its "sight."  How realistic is it that a docile (and normally very flighty) herbivore will chase you down like a bloodthirsty cougar once you try to whack it with a club?

So, cry "realism" all you want, but this sort of suggestion is the work of people who either don't know how squirrelly the code can be, or have pie-in-the-sky visions of how everything can be made realistic...it's just a matter of working out all the kinks!

[KingOfSpades]

I only like wounds to the extent of dropping shit and not running fast for fifteen minutes until you heal.

[Cegar]

<Logic and common sense.>

Quoted for truthiness.