Capping Kick Damage

[SailorMars]

I once had a character that could kick for upwards around 30 damage. They weren't a mul or half-giant. They didn't spam kick to get that way. They were just a really good warrior, with a really good kick. That amount of damage from a kick seems excessive to me. It would be like "brutally slashing" someone in the head, were a weapon to do that much damage.

Also (and I hope this isn't too IC), kick seems to be mainly dependant on the opponent's relative kick skill to evade. Many battles between warriors that can't otherwise hit each other are decided by kick. That's... questionable to me too. But that's not really the point of this thread.

I propose to cap kick damage based on race. To clarify this wouldn't mean fixed damage regardless of skill, it would mean the maximum damage a particular race could get their kick damage up to through practice.

This is a purely hypothetical chart to get across the idea.

05 Elf or weaker
10 Human/Half-elf
15 Dwarf
20 Mul
25 Half-giant
And so on for creature races bigger than HG

Those would be the (in this case hypothetical) caps. Now add or remove from those caps based on strength.

-2 Poor-
-1 Below Avg.
+0 Average
+1 Above Avg.
+2 Good
+3 Very G.
+4 X. Good
+5 Exceptional+

Poll aside, in case the imms look at this, here's my full list of requests for kick:

1) Change the "kick" skill to the "strike" skill, and make the echoes more generic. This would allow the players to emote whatever kind of strike they wanted, making combat richer.

2) Make kicking take into account the parry skill, to a degree, if applicable.

3) Add damage caps, so an unarmed strike has less of a chance to inflict more damage than a weapon. (Yes, I know IRL that is possible, but this is Zalanthas, not Bruce Lee's world of kung-fu fighting.)

[Chodo]

Bah, since they changed it to do more stun and less hp damage it's been just fine. Leave it be.

[Larrath]

I'm for the capping, myself.

I'd say, though, that a kick from a mul might be more in the vicinity of 25, while a kick from a half-giant...well...realistically?

I think that if a half-giant kicked someone in the chest, this someone might faint or even be mortally wounded from it.  Then again, I doubt half-giants would really have an easy time hitting something with a kick, considering their general gracelessness and the fact they're just a whole lot taller than the targets (makes aim difficult?).

[X-D]

Not sure if you have really paid attention since the last changes to kick, currently kick does tiny damage even with something very strong and is easily negated by even weaker armors, leave it be.

[Ghost]

I think it should be capped.

Yes, I would right down some things, but it seems I will repeat what the original poster said.  So no point.

By the way, I accidentally picked No in the poll.

[Lazloth]

Disagree with every point short of changing command name from 'kick' to something generic, and/or allowing player to incorporate a custom msg.

[SailorMars]

Not sure if you have really paid attention since the last changes to kick, currently kick does tiny damage even with something very strong and is easily negated by even weaker armors, leave it be.

I've paid close attention, and my experience with PCs and NPCs is quite different than what you describe.

[Koala]

Some NPCs can really deal good amount of kick damage... Also, I hate when a NPC do not care the lag created by the kick...

[Callisto]

Not sure if you have really paid attention since the last changes to kick, currently kick does tiny damage even with something very strong and is easily negated by even weaker armors, leave it be.

Agreed.

Stop picking on the kick skill.

[ashjpd]

Not sure if you have really paid attention since the last changes to kick, currently kick does tiny damage even with something very strong and is easily negated by even weaker armors, leave it be.

Yup

[sacac]

capping good.
renaming I hate. Strike takes longer to type than kick which means more chance for me to skrew it up, which I will.

And if I get kicked by something almost twice my size (In height and weight), yea that would F'ing hurt.
And i agree that mul should have 25
Hg maybe 35


I think an unarmed kick would be more powerful then when you are carrying those two uber-elite 20 stone weighing hammers of destruction simply because you can put more into it.

[My 2 sids]

If we are going to cap kick (personally, I don't think it should because legs have more power than arms/punches) then I think we keep the cap high for the subclasses that boast kicking as one of their strong skills.

[Trenidor]

HGs are 10 times stronger than the average human (it says so in the docs doesnt it?) So....

HGs should technically have 100 instead of 25 or 35

I really don't see any need for this, We're all humans, and we can all kick different amounts. Those professional soccer players that kick it down field could kick in your head with a single hit, you'd be dead, so they should have 100.

How about those little kiddies.... they kick it and it's like: poof 1 ft away.

That would be 1/2 a hp.

strike would be pointless too, I just want to know one thing:

if you have both your hands occupied in battle, how are you going to strike them with with anything else? maybe your head, but if you were really a warrior you wouldn't do it, you're liable to get your head chopped off if you do.

THERE ARE NO BOOSTERS FOR NOT HAVING  A WEAPON IN 1 HAND! I asked the question: "why doesn't using only 1 weapon give you a bonus?"
And then I realized that you don't need to do that, just use etwo and say you switch your hands some times.

Sooo...getting back to your idea....NO, it'd be a good idea on some other mud, but this one's already set as far as that code goes.

[blacksheep]

strike would be pointless too, I just want to know one thing:

if you have both your hands occupied in battle, how are you going to strike them with with anything else? maybe your head, but if you were really a warrior you wouldn't do it, you're liable to get your head chopped off if you do.

I'm sure you could backhand someone with one hand while holding a sword in that hand.

[Trenidor]

strike would be pointless too, I just want to know one thing:

if you have both your hands occupied in battle, how are you going to strike them with with anything else? maybe your head, but if you were really a warrior you wouldn't do it, you're liable to get your head chopped off if you do.

I'm sure you could backhand someone with one hand while holding a sword in that hand.

If you had time to do that...why not just hit them with your sword?

I'm also sure that there're some people that backhand you to know you over...why not just bash the person?

[X-D]

THERE ARE NO BOOSTERS FOR NOT HAVING A WEAPON IN 1 HAND! I asked the question: "why doesn't using only 1 weapon give you a bonus?"
And then I realized that you don't need to do that, just use etwo and say you switch your hands some times.

Um, yes you do get bonus' for a single one hand weapon. I think there is even something in the docs on it, very small, hard to find and not very clear. but there.

Some NPCs can really deal good amount of kick damage... Also, I hate when a NPC do not care the lag created by the kick...

Depends on what you mean is good, Lazloth could probly dig up the weekly updates and such that said when kick was changed last, but I think it was near 2 years ago, maybe less. But before then a strong human could easily kick for 15-20 damage through plate armors, you could and people did kick meks/silt horrors and even bahamets to death. Now, unless the char is very strong even leather armors will turn the kick, even from npc's and I've yet to have a char kicked, even naked for over 12 damage from anything short of a half-giant, most times the armor turns it, hell, I've seen cloth pants turn kicks from many npc's.

And the complaint that people have that two equaly matched fighters have battles decided with kick...well, DUH! thats as it should be, it is the same as when it is decided by that twinky disarm skill (And yes, I think it is simply too easy to do, over and over and over again to the same enemy even if he is many times stronger or more agil then you..bah) These skills are SUPPOSED to give some kind of an advantage in a basicly equal fight. A warrior who drasticly over matches somebody need not bother with it, a warrior who is slightly over matched will resort to other tactics (as in real life) kicking, bashing biting tripping, whatever.

The kick skill has been messed with enough, it is about perfect now IMO, damage is low, stun balanced and armors help against it quite a bit.
Leave it alone.

Oh, and as far as racial caps, Come on, 25 on a half-giant, something weighing a ton and many time stronger then a human? Half-giants already get screwed on kick, if you got kicked (more like stomped on) by something that size you would be lucky to live through it, if anything a half-giant's kick should do 2-3 times the damage of any other pc race, Not like it's easy for them to land them anyway.

[Lazloth]

Depends on what you mean is good, Lazloth could probly dig up the weekly updates and such that said when kick was changed last, but I think it was near 2 years ago, maybe less.

It was roughly July 2003; updates were still emailed then and the archives haven't been touched in ages, so no physical proof.

[Angela Christine]

The kick skill has been messed with enough, it is about perfect now IMO, damage is low, stun balanced and armors help against it quite a bit.  

If that is so then a racial cap would have no affect at all, for good or ill, right?  If you never get kicked for more than 15 now, it wouldn't matter if there was actually a cap of 15.


AC

[SailorMars]

Out of respect for no IC-info, I cannot comment on this in the detail that I'd love to, but you'll have to trust me that it's possible for PCs and NPCs to kick the SHIT out of you. Through good armor. Still. BTW, it might help to mention that my motivation for the cap is not to help save my PC's ass. I didn't just get kicked hard and start crying about this. It's an objective observation after lots of exposure, both giving and receiving.

As for defense against kick being primarily based on relative kick skill... I might be wrong about that, but it seems like that's how it works. Someone with a weapon that is good with parry, should have a better chance to block a kick with the weapon. There's still all kinds of nasty stuff the advanced kicker can do against incoming kicks. For whomever said that kick should be the deciding factor between evenly matched opponents, I'd argue that endurance would be a much larger factor, but that's neither here nor there.

Strike: Headbutt, elbow, knee, kick, punch. All viable in combat with weapons. Maybe strike isn't the best word, but I'd rather see that skill generified so the PCs could fill in more of the flavor text. This change might have sweeping implications on NPCs though... as many would probably need unique echos. But damn if it wouldn't be cool for the next braxat to headbutt in addition to kick?

Thoughts?

Edit: After reading some comments more closely, I wonder if ppl even read my first post? The numbers were an example. I said hypothetical how (hypothetical) many (hypothetical) times? I'm sure the imms would have a much better idea of actual numbers than most of us.

[Agent_137]

no one reads these posts. They just skim and make some shit up. Like i just did. Heh.

I'm drunk. Shut up.

[X-D]

Can't speak for anybody else, but I understood it was not the actual numbers, but you still had a ratio, it does not matter what numbers you put up, it does not matter who has a better idea of the actual numbers, the numbers you posted is your idea of a good ratio, I happen to disagree.

To AC yes, it would make a difference if done properly, though, with a race cap you have many things to decide on, like, what is more important to the damage on a kick? Strength? Skill? Weight? And exactly how do you cap these off with any fairness and balance?

Well, IRL the most important thing to the damage of a kick is skill, followed by strength followed by size. Placement is all important, even a kick to the groin can have lesser or greator effect simply by proper placement and that difference could be an inch or less, this could decide if the guy(or girl, again, placement is key) Falls or just gets pissed and rips one of your arms off. Next is strength, now, elves have strong legs, but they weigh little, so, who has stronger leg, an elf, a dwarf or a mul (we will leave out half-giants at the moment) The mul does, then the dwarf then maybe the elf, an elves running is more a matter of training then leg strength (take a look at a distance runner sometime) So,  mul who is skilled in kicking should have no problem killing a human with a single kick to the chin (just back from the point is best) Or blowing out your knee or crushing a human's chest in.

Lets see, oh yes, I do have a point, and I'm tired, so I will get to it. Currently the kick skill is somewhat unrealistic in use and damage, some races do too much damage and others do too little, but the staff feels this is a balance I'm sure, and I see it as such in a playability light. I see no point to putting these caps on the only reason anybody wants them is in hopes that the damage would be lowered again. FACT is, damage from kicks is already capped by race. Either the origanel poster did not take the help files into account or never read them, but I will quote it.

>help skill_kick
SKILL_KICK                                                     (Combat)


    This skill will cause you to attempt to kick the named person, or
the person you are currently fighting if no argument is given.  Damage
done by a successful kick is dependent upon your strength.

And placement of course, the higher your skill, the better your placement, the higher damage potential, then add in base damage by strength. Strength is limited by race, HENCE, kick has a damage cap by race.

(edit)
Oh, and one more thing, your right, this is not bruce lee's world of kung-fu fighting, bruce would get his ass handed to him by most of the warriors in game, and you my want to think of the zalanthian weapons/kick/bash/disarm fighting style as it's own zalanthian martail arts. Tek-fu in the south and Muk quan do in the north...hell, you have mercs who train 2-3 hours a day in combat for years and years and years, I think they would manage to get pretty damm good at incorperating kicking and whatever in to the point of being incredibly deadly.

[Linedel]

Regarding placement > strength...

I can point spar someone all day, taking a bajillion "hits" to various critical bodyparts, and feel nothing.  Then I'll go fight my brother, who has no control whatsoever (courtesy of USMC boot camp), and he'll be causing various random appendage "damage" just from that lack of control, since he doesn't stop at the body.

I would argue that a "kick" would be more accurately modeled something like:

hit:  skill * ( power / 4 ).  (Power required for speed, and assuming both on a 100 scale.)
damage:  ( power - 10 ) * ( log2( skill ) - 1 )


Of course, the above neglect to take into account the target's skill at.. dodging? blocking?  You can have that crazy 0.01 micron precision.. but if I move half an inch.. it's all gone.  Thus why the half giant doing kank-tons of damage against appendage blocks is more valid than doing crazy skill mad damage kicks in combat with two skilled fighters.