Mercy...Mercy....Mercy

[Krath]

Hey all,

Just wondering your thoughts if you think it would be cool or not if
no matter what, mercy on, regardless of how hard the hit, would not
drop a pc below -5 hps.

To the Players:
What are your Thoughts?
Would you like to see this?
Would it help with more RP and satisfying deaths?

To the Imms:
Would it be hard to implement?
What do you think?

[Pale Horse]

As it's been a while since I've been intimate with the combat code, so I could be wrong, but doesn't this happen, already, after a sorts?  You won't kill anyone when they've been knocked down so far in hit points if you have Mercy On, giving you the echo of like, "so-and-so withholds the killing blow."

Or am I mistaken?

[AmandaGreathouse]

I like it. And I'd imagine that, with some race/guild combos, one could always have a screwy chance of doing the 10+ points of damage it would take to kill someone in one hit, thus dropping you from +hp to mantis head without you even going unconscious. I don't know too much about the combat system though, but that's my guess.


For the record, I think that this would be awesome.

[Lizzie]

If you are good enough, and your intended victim/prey/sparring partner is weak enough, you -can- kill someone with mercy on. Example: if the guy has 100 hps...and he's an elf. And you're a dwarf with a sword. You hit the dwarf the first time, brings him down 60 hps, to 40 hps, because you're badass and he's a noob. Your -second- hit..will bring him down another 60 hps. But he only -has- 40 now..so you just brought him to -20, which means, he's dead. With mercy on.

[Marauder Moe]

With the current mercy code there can still be accidents.  I'm ambivalent about this suggestion because on one hand random death sucks, but on the other hand accidents are realistic.

[SMuz]

It would actually do a lot to help RP - but it won't be horribly realistic.

I dunno, a part of me cares more about the game being realistic more than the RP. Auto -5 HP seems a little.. fake. It's like in those movies, where you know the character won't die. And me, personally, I'm not a fan of 'satisfying deaths'. My 2nd favorite character died in 2 hits, only glancing the sdesc, and I loved that.

So.. to conclude, I wouldn't support the idea for fear that I'd regret it. But if you go ahead with it, it's fine by me.

[SMuz]

If you are good enough, and your intended victim/prey/sparring partner is weak enough, you -can- kill someone with mercy on. Example: if the guy has 100 hps...and he's an elf. And you're a dwarf with a sword. You hit the dwarf the first time, brings him down 60 hps, to 40 hps, because you're badass and he's a noob. Your -second- hit..will bring him down another 60 hps. But he only -has- 40 now..so you just brought him to -20, which means, he's dead. With mercy on.

I haven't actually tried to test it (for obvious reasons), but I think that with mercy on, you'll withhold the 60 HP blow that brings him down to -20, even if he's conscious. Think I did that once during a spammy fight, then someone knocked out the creature and killed it.

When a player has mercy turned on, they will try and hold back blows that might kill their opponent...
...The more skilled a character is with a weapon the better able they are to judge what would be a killing blow...

[Synthesis]

If you are good enough, and your intended victim/prey/sparring partner is weak enough, you -can- kill someone with mercy on. Example: if the guy has 100 hps...and he's an elf. And you're a dwarf with a sword. You hit the dwarf the first time, brings him down 60 hps, to 40 hps, because you're badass and he's a noob. Your -second- hit..will bring him down another 60 hps. But he only -has- 40 now..so you just brought him to -20, which means, he's dead. With mercy on.

I haven't actually tried to test it (for obvious reasons), but I think that with mercy on, you'll withhold the 60 HP blow that brings him down to -20, even if he's conscious. Think I did that once during a spammy fight, then someone knocked out the creature and killed it.

When a player has mercy turned on, they will try and hold back blows that might kill their opponent...
...The more skilled a character is with a weapon the better able they are to judge what would be a killing blow...

You can most definitely accidentally kill someone with mercy on, in exactly the way described.  It's actually more common to get someone to say, 5 hp in melee, then land a common "very hard" blow that puts them to -10 and the mantis head.

Personally, I wish the "mortally wounded" period lasted longer.  I've had a couple of times where I had mercy on, and while I was digging through a dude's loot, he came back to life (p.s. there's no echo when a dude gets back to 1 hp...he's just suddenly standing there) and just up and spam fled away.  It doesn't have to be egregiously long...but there are poisons that will put you out of commission for 90 RL minutes...it seems like getting knocked down to negative hp would be equivalently traumatic, if not moreso.

[Twilight]

I think the mercy helpfile is pretty darn specific:

they will try and hold back blows that
might kill their opponent and will refrain from attacking unconscious
opponents altogether.  The more skilled a character is with a weapon the
better able they are to judge what would be a killing blow

The pieces of the quote in different colors are two different pieces of how mercy works.  That work differently.  The piece in red is impacted by the attacking character's skill with a weapon.

As for the -5 hps thing, you can see from the helpfile that mercy was meant to fail, sometimes.  If something were implemented, I would argue that -5 is definately the wrong number.  I would argue that it should be something that would last only a short time, and would require attention and immediate attention at that if the person was to live.  So like -9 or -8.  Time enough to emote if they are going to die.  Time enough to save them if you can.  Not enough time to search the entire Known World via the Way for someone to save them.

[Agent_137]

i'd like to know the frequency of immediate player death when mercy is on before I make a call on this. If it's over 25% then something should definitely be done to force mercy otherwise it seems a pointless command if it only works 3/4ths of the time.

Plus it's not like forcing a stop at -9 would prevent all instant death. the killer could still just turn MERCY OFF. This is one of those cases I think a huge benefit to playability (death scenes when desired by the killer) should be more important than realism. It's always important to find the most desirable balance between the two, and I feel mercy should be pushed a little more more toward playability and away from realism.

[SmashedTregil]

Personally, I wish the "mortally wounded" period lasted longer.  I've had a couple of times where I had mercy on, and while I was digging through a dude's loot, he came back to life (p.s. there's no echo when a dude gets back to 1 hp...he's just suddenly standing there) and just up and spam fled away.  It doesn't have to be egregiously long...but there are poisons that will put you out of commission for 90 RL minutes...it seems like getting knocked down to negative hp would be equivalently traumatic, if not moreso.

The length varies. I mean if he went down to -1 hp, it'd take him very quick to regen to positive hp and wake up. But if he went down to -5 hp, it might take him ... hours or maybe even days, dropping hp, and regaining it, untill he finally either hits -10, hits +1, or quit dies.

[mansa]

...
As for the -5 hps thing, you can see from the helpfile that mercy was meant to fail, sometimes.  If something were implemented, I would argue that -5 is definately the wrong number.  I would argue that it should be something that would last only a short time, and would require attention and immediate attention at that if the person was to live.  So like -9 or -8.  Time enough to emote if they are going to die.  Time enough to save them if you can.  Not enough time to search the entire Known World via the Way for someone to save them.

In my experience, -5 is the perfect number to interact with someone.  Any lower and they may not recover, and any higher and they may recover faster than the time you want to steal their pants from them.  As for the 'critical fails', well, they are critical.  5% in D&D, right?  Rolling 20 on a 20-sided die.

The point of Mercy should be giving the ability to play with characters, without killing them.  I believe the intent is to prevent death, so it should have additional code to prevent death.

[SmashedTregil]

Maybe make it more safe with most races except muls/HGs? The sparring 'accidents' that are so common with those two races is just one of the dangers of training them for your clan. Take that away, and the 'fear' of sparring with the HGs will diminish visibly, which I'd like to think is a bad thing.

But in combat with regular sized humanoids, I think it'd be well if mercy would allow an assured survival chance.

[mansa]

Well, here's my addition to the idea:

Someone is at 14/110 hp

They get hit by a 'brutal wound', resolving for 30 hit points to be applied to the character.  Mercy should be considered, and set to -5 hit points, instead of -16, which resolves to DEATH.

Now, critical success hits should also be considered, so if someone is at 14/110 hp, and a 'frightening wound' is resolved for 50 hit points, a character most definitely should be dead.

I invision this 'save' should resolve a max of 7 hit points beyond -10, so if a hit was to be resolved for -18, the character is dead.



Could it all be in the code, currently?  Sure, maybe.

[RogueGunslinger]

You know, this post was worthless anyways.

[Twilight]

Well, my intent in choosing -9 or -8 was pretty specific in that I want the person to die, unless there is a bandager handy.  I wouldn't want it to change so that they are not going to die in most cases.  Rather, if it was implemented, it should give the chance at some death scene RP some people seem to badly want, as well as add some utility to bandagers.  It shouldn't be a way for the unlucky to survive (which -5 most assuredly would be).

[KIA]

I think there should remain a chance that a person is killed 'by accident' even with mercy on. Combat is very dangerous, even lethal. Use clubs or the sap skill, or certain types of poison, spells, to have a greater assurance of incapacitating someone without killing them.

That said, perhaps accidental death with mercy on should only happen once in a while.

OR... if a target goes into critical, erase any combat lag the attacker still has, and when a kill command is used on a mortally wounded target, have it generate NO LAG.

[Krath]

I like the idea that mansa had.

If it is a Crit hit then PC = dead
If not then -5.

[SMuz]

Yeah, I like mansa's idea too. -15 puts you at -5. A sharp blade to the neck by a HG will still accidentally kill, critical or not.

But I don't know what it is, but something gets to me about the mercy code being nerfed. Maybe I like it when characters die. There's a certain sort of fun in accidentally killing someone you didn't mean to, trying to explain it, and the rush of guilt, etc involved in it. Personally, I've never seen a character killed with mercy on. Dozens of chars dropped to below 0, sure. I've heard a tale or two of mercy on deaths - but it seems about as rare as that 5% chance that mansa mentioned.

[Fathi]

Though I've lost more than one character to accidental mercy-on deaths, I think mercy is fine the way it is.

... As long as the command is functioning correctly.

I haven't tested it too thoroughly since that recent "fix" of the mercy bug that FightClub reported in Ask The Staff. Before that, I noticed a dozen+ incidents where my character kept right on swingin' at their target in spite of having mercy on. It wasn't every time, but it was enough that I'm wary of the command even now.

Also, I'm with SmashedTregil in regards to muls and half-giants. Sparring them should be dangerous, if not damn near unthinkable, for 99% of PCs. And for the other 1%? Well, accidents can still happen.

[mansa]

There are other issues which I think 'mercy' should affect the code.

I think if someone has 'Mercy On', any 'critical roll' that may occur should not occur.


An example is when two people are fighting, and they both have mercy on, and someone tries to pick up an item from the ground.  With Mercy On, the critical attack / free attack that would occur at that time should NOT occur at that time.


I think the intent of the code is to prevent character death, and 'critical attacks' or 'free attacks' are for the intent to kill someone.

[Maso]

I wouldn't mind seeing some sort 'sparring' fighting setting. That better fighters could employ when they are simply trying to train. It doesn't make sense that someone in a training session would be hitting at full force. They would be holding back. So in addition to what mansa said.

You shouldn't be forced to fight to your full potential if you don't want to, I vote for being able to tone it down!

Mercy is when you want to beat crap out of someone but don't want them to die straight away (so they can watch while you pillage their house, cut their toes off and eat their babies or whatever)...thats different.

[mansa]

Actually, Armageddon Reborn has this code to fight "poorly" or so.

http://www.zalanthas.org/blogs/brideofson/archives/001414.html


OOooo.  I can't wait.

[Maso]

Yay. But this is in the Arm 1 category. I want it now! 

[SMuz]

Oh, one thing I'd hate about this: It nerfs bludgeoning weapons. One of the biggest advantages of bludgeoning weapons is that it lets you knock out characters safely; even if you do 60 damage, like half of it is stun. Bludgeoning weapons are cool mainly because they're already 'mercy' weapons - if 'safe mercy on' suddenly became available, there'd be no advantage at all to using them.

I'd rather that someone go to the trouble of finishing the job with his mace or fists if he really wants to keep his opponent alive.

[mansa]

Oh, one thing I'd hate about this: It nerfs bludgeoning weapons. One of the biggest advantages of bludgeoning weapons is that it lets you knock out characters safely; even if you do 60 damage, like half of it is stun. Bludgeoning weapons are cool mainly because they're already 'mercy' weapons - if 'safe mercy on' suddenly became available, there'd be no advantage at all to using them.

I'd rather that someone go to the trouble of finishing the job with his mace or fists if he really wants to keep his opponent alive.

I disagree.

[Fathi]

Oh, one thing I'd hate about this: It nerfs bludgeoning weapons. One of the biggest advantages of bludgeoning weapons is that it lets you knock out characters safely; even if you do 60 damage, like half of it is stun. Bludgeoning weapons are cool mainly because they're already 'mercy' weapons - if 'safe mercy on' suddenly became available, there'd be no advantage at all to using them.

I'd rather that someone go to the trouble of finishing the job with his mace or fists if he really wants to keep his opponent alive.

Except for the fact that if you KO somebody with a mace, you're that much more likely to cave their head in with your next strike, due to the m-m-m-m-MASSIVE damage penalties given to attacks incurred while unconscious.

Even if you have mercy on.

[SMuz]

Oh, one thing I'd hate about this: It nerfs bludgeoning weapons. One of the biggest advantages of bludgeoning weapons is that it lets you knock out characters safely; even if you do 60 damage, like half of it is stun. Bludgeoning weapons are cool mainly because they're already 'mercy' weapons - if 'safe mercy on' suddenly became available, there'd be no advantage at all to using them.

I'd rather that someone go to the trouble of finishing the job with his mace or fists if he really wants to keep his opponent alive.

Except for the fact that if you KO somebody with a mace, you're that much more likely to cave their head in with your next strike, due to the m-m-m-m-MASSIVE damage penalties given to attacks incurred while unconscious.

Even if you have mercy on.

I'm pretty sure that with mercy on, you don't try to cave their head in with the next strike. I thought mercy on when attacking an unconscious person never fails.

[X-D]

Oh, It fails.

And often.

Sadly mercy is dependant on your skill with the weapon. So, if you are unskilled with the weapon type you can indeed swong that extra time. Which is quite silly. Skill with a weapon should have to do with damage not if you can manage to not swing it that extra time after dude hits the ground. Specialy since you (IRL) Have to move a large distance to nail somebody in the head that is laying down if you are the one that konked him while standing.