Combat

[RogueGunslinger]

I think your skill as a fighter should decrease with your HP. What do you think?

[Zoltan]

No way. Adrenaline-fueled berserker rage FTW!

[Kryos]

I believe if you wanted to incorporate skill penalties for condition, you'd be required to institute a wounding system.  Bludgeoning my butt isn't going to drastically affect my ability to fight in the heat of the moment, but lopping off an arm or lancing a leg cleanly through would, but in vastly different ways.    Discussion of a wounding system has been conducted before, and if I remember correctly, it wasn't to be expected in 1.arm. 

[Sephiroto]

Although Arm attempts to be realistic, it is still a fantasy game.  It's difficult to institute a realistic combat system because of all the factors involved.  Part of the fun in the game is the ability to get horribly messed up, nearly killed, and recover from it without worry of being forced to play a gimp.  If there was such a wound system it is doubtful we would have many, if any, awesome PC fighters because they'd all get jacked up so badly at some point that it would ruin their career.

The only thing I can think of that might be plausable is to base success on the overall condition of the person.  Are the hungry, are they thirsty, are they tired, are the drunk, are they on spice?  Those factors attribute to how well they fight over an extended period of time and I doubt it would be easy to argue against this.  The only problem is, most fights in Arm don't last long enough for this to matter and spice/magick can temporarily render these factors non consequential.

I'm sure something could be coded up to reasonably factor these things into combat, should it ever last long enough to matter.   However a penalty system based on wounds would be very difficult to implement due not only to code, but to game politics and differing opinions between just how real/fantasy Arm should be.

[Sandstone]

No way. Adrenaline-fueled berserker rage FTW!

[brytta.leofa]

I think your skill as a fighter should decrease with your HP. What do you think?

Makes sense, but it would narrow the survival margin.  And we already do have reel to, as they say, bend the curve.

What if your offense suffered but your defense didn't?

[Synthesis]

It seems like offense and defense already INCREASE when you're at poor condition...so why exactly would they turn around and pull an exact 180 on the code that's already there?

I can't count the number of times I've gone near-flawless against something, only to have it land one blow at poor or terrible condition.

[brytta.leofa]

Stupid scrab dun't know enough t' jest die.

[Qzzrbl]

Bludgeoning my butt isn't going to drastically affect my ability to fight in the heat of the moment

Take a five pound sledgehammer swung at full force to your shoulder and tell me that.

[hyzhenhok]

Let's institute a dwarf-fortress style wounding system, with full limb removal and organ injury.

I can't wait to get my eyelid torn off in combat.

[Ghost]

I can't count the number of times I've gone near-flawless against something, only to have it land one blow at poor or terrible condition.

I also thought there is an increase in combat abilities below poor condition, because all NPC critters seemed to get deadly close to death.

But then again, did not Morgenes post there is no code like that?  I started to think maybe NPCs back in the day used to have no skill delay (perhaps also no skill timers) so during the combat they were learning a huge amount of offense/defense and whatever other skills they have, and that reflected in fighting more ferociously?

[FantasyWriter]

I can't count the number of times I've gone near-flawless against something, only to have it land one blow at poor or terrible condition.

I also thought there is an increase in combat abilities below poor condition, because all NPC critters seemed to get deadly close to death.

But then again, did not Morgenes post there is no code like that?  I started to think maybe NPCs back in the day used to have no skill delay (perhaps also no skill timers) so during the combat they were learning a huge amount of offense/defense and whatever other skills they have, and that reflected in fighting more ferociously?

I agree, this seems more the rule than the exception.
I've also had things (often) NEVER land a blow until in their last 15-20% of HP then score some crazy ninja-monk hits.

[Sephiroto]

I'll concurr with the above.  This has happened to me scores of times.

[RogueGunslinger]

Lame. The reverse would probably achieve a better affect towards it's intention.

[Cutthroat]

Lame. The reverse would probably achieve a better affect towards it's intention.

Maybe there is already code that intends to work the proposed way, but it's bugged to work in reverse?

Or it's just bad luck, perceived to be a code effect.

[Riev]

I would not be surprised if, indeed, it -is- that by the end of a fight, a creature has learned so much that they are starting to kick your ass, even if its just in base offense/defense. Which kind of makes me want to go out and fight scrab, get them low, and run away, and keep doing it so they keep gaining.

Heh. Super Scrab berserker killing like 5 gate guards. Love it.

[Sephiroto]

I referenced an aspect of the code not all players would be knowledgeable of.  This is wrong.

[Oleupata]

Just a friendly reminder that playerside speculation about the code is at best ill-founded and generally shouldn't be done.

Talking about new ideas for coded features is, as always, encouraged.

[Nyr]

It could be all entirely anecdotal (most guesses at code mechanics are based on that).  Discussion of such things aren't encouraged here.   

Major revamps of systems in Armageddon probably will not be considered in favor of focusing that work on Armageddon Reborn.  FWIW, I don't think it's particularly likely we'll implement anything like the OP for the current game (or, by itself, for Armageddon Reborn). I think we would instead focus on a more robust combat system in general, with ideas like this as part of a larger system.  If you have suggestions on this, it would be a lot more beneficial to post it on the Reborn forums.

[RogueGunslinger]

 If you have suggestions on this, it would be a lot more beneficial to post it on the Reborn forums.

Where it is has no bearing on the topic. I'm not pressing for something like this in the next game for the very reason that I expect 2.arms combat system to be WAY WAY more complicated than the current game, and something like the op suggestion doesn't sound all that massive of a change in compared to what i'd like in the next game.

[Bogre]

The answer is that the only time I -don't- idle is when I get an alert from NPC's less than 35% hp. I am a sorceror special app with warrior skills and I've maxxed them long ago so I teleport myself invisible to the mob and spam teach them because they are in danger.

Yes, that is why the skeet four weeks ago was doing unspeakables.

[X-D]

I simply do not understand why anybody would want combat to be more complicated, let alone WAY WAY more complicated. Most players, and I do mean like 95%+++ already have a hard enough time keeping a PC alive with what we have now.

And that is just one on one, when you get into group combat it becomes quite complicated and keeping up with the spam we already have is near impossible if you have 3+ PCs on a side.

Arm1 has a silly steep learning curve already, why would you want to increase that 10 times or more? Don't enough people already complain that getting and keeping new players is hard enough?

Keep in mind, I'm a player that would just benefit from a more complicated system. But man, how boring if I could be 99% sure of a kill instead of 97%?

[RogueGunslinger]

Complicated was the wrong word.   

[Nyr]

To be honest, it is a massive change, it just may not look that way because it's posted in a short sentence under a short title.  Without opening any doors to other affected skills, this would require modifications to every combat skill in the game, tying it in with HP.  A few of those other doors would be opened anyway (character stats that affect combat indirectly or directly as well as anything that might modify character stats).  This brings in discussion on whether or not other skills should also be affected, because that would make sense as well.

We would always rather focus on the smallest change possible to get the maximum benefit, but there's a lot that goes into small changes, including unforeseen side effects. 
Example: Armageddon is tremendously stable now.  Side effect:  we had to revamp the virtual economy of the game a year or two back because of it.

I think your skill as a fighter should decrease with your HP. What do you think?

This is just a restatement of my earlier opinion, but I think the idea might need more elaboration.   However, thinking through all of the things it would affect, it may well be better to focus the energy (both in proposing it and designing it) on Armageddon Reborn's combat system instead.

[Synthesis]

This wouldn't really be a complicated change, code-wise.

Just add negative modifiers to the "combat roll" based on your current health.

So you roll up all your crap for your attack roll, then you get a modifier after the final roll:

Excellent condition: +2
Relatively fit: 0
Moderate: -2
Not well: -4
Poor: -6
Terrible: -8
Near death: -10

Same thing for defense.

There's absolutely no reason to tie it to particular skills.  Just make it a global modifier to the attack/defense rolls.