combat disabilities

Pentaverse uses a system intended to eliminate binary status conditions, in which all status conditions have at least one numerical parameter attached to them. For example, a Haste condition has, tied to the Haste[On]=True effect, Haste[Duration]=53, Haste[DurationUnits]=Seconds, Haste[Multiplier]=2 (meaning that the character goes twice as fast), Haste[Caster]=##CharacterIDNo## (non-instantaneous spells can be easily dispelled by those who cast them originally), Haste[SpellLevel]=3, giving the spell level of the spell that afflicted Haste for dispelling and resistance purposes, Haste[CasterAtt], giving the spellcasting Attribute (usually Intelligence or Wisdom) of the spellcaster at the time of casting, and Haste[Voluntary], telling whether the subject of the haste effect can choose to throw off the effect whenever he chooses.

I don''t have a list of status conditions yet, but I''ll be working on it once I finish the skill doc that I''m working on right now. I have to know every ability in the game before I can know how many status condition subsets of Character.Status I''ll need.

There is nothing wrong with binary status conditions...sure they arn''t realistic (what fun would it be if they truely were?)

One thing that could be done is to allow multiple binary status conditions to be in effect on a character/monster...for example confused and poisoned...if both are in effect at the same time, this could allow the infected character/monster to act in confusion (as would normaly) but in addition he/she/it is able to infect poison in whomever they happen to hit....by combineing a variety of different conditions like this....a whole lot of new battle situations can occur.


But, honestly, a big part of the problem with such RPGs is that character/monster map location in battle has little to no effect...it''s just two sides faceing off against each other, without any of the added stratigy of useing the battle ground to an advantage...Therefore a game like Final Fantasy Tactics has a lot more stratigic depth then the regular Final Fantasy games.

poisoned has an obvious variable - how much damage it deals... possibly also a how frequently it deals it.

Confused could be made variable by having a weighting on whether the player gets to control the character or not.

rather than binary silence, you could have a percentage chance of spell failure...

etc for the other status effects...

I''ve never used an ON/OFF for poisoned. In turn based games I set a number, and reduce that number each turn. For example, if I inflict level 10 poison, you take 10 damage, then next turn 9 damage, then 8 damage, etc. until you cure. I suppose in a realtime game, I''d use something similar to ultima online, where the more poisoned you are, the faster your hp decay, but as time goes on the poison wears off.

I don''t like the confused status effect. I know if I was in a fight and I got confused, I''d just sit there defending and not attack everything I saw, and definantly not cast area effect spells all over the place, heh.

I do use pain/stun/paralize in my game though. Basically pain is caused by taking large hits. The chance of going into pain is the % of your hp taken. So if you have 100 hp, a hit for 10 damage has a 10% chance of making you go into the pain animation. A hit for 99 damage has a 99% chance of making you go into the pain animation. The pain animation would interrupt whatever animation you had going, and thereby the action, but you''d immediately redo it afterwards. Stun lasts longer than pain and would generally be inflicted by a spell or critical hit. Paralize would be the most severe, inflicted by deadly items or powerful spells, and it doesn''t wear off without a cure.

Then of course there are mental states. Hopeless reduces the speed, hit, and evasion of a character and makes status effect spells work on them more often. Pissed would make them hit harder but easier to hit and make them hesitate to withdraw from battle. Scared would reduce the hit rate and raise the critical hit rate, etc. Desperate would use large amounts of remaining Mp, Stamina, and even Hp to deliver extreme attacks, but make it more difficult to recover after the battle, or maybe even permanently damage your character''s stats.

Then there is rune. You use a powerful spell to mark an enemy with a rune that doubles any magic damage on that enemy. You could vary the strength of the rune so you might have *1.2 damage, *1.67 damage, *2.3 damage, etc. You''d have to dispell it with a powerful spell. Oh, and you could have distracted. Kinda like silence, but it only increases the time it takes to cast a spell or makes it fail sometimes, rather than always failing.

On Fire is a good one. Like poison, but anyone who attacks the OnFire enemy takes fire damage back. How hot the fire is (how much damage the enemy and attackers take) could be variable.

In my game, there are so far 12 different effects, that does various things to characters when they''re wounded.

From my design doc:

How to know if the target is wounded:

First, the game rolls a D100 for the "best" wound (A wound can be small, moderate or serious). If the result is greater than the chance value associated with that wound type, roll for the next wound the attack has, if any. If the result was less than the chance value, then the game randomizes one of the effects below.

For example: You shoot someone in the head. Your gun has a 40% chance of inflicting a Small Wound. The game rolls a D100, result = 20. The game then decides that the victim was blinded. The victim can''t see for 10 seconds * (40 - 20) = 200 seconds.

This is the info for the effect Blindness:
Blindness
If (Chance Value - Rolled Value) > 20, the victim permanently loses an eye.
Else: Victim can''t see for 10 seconds * (target value - rolled value).

Besides these, I have
Deafness
Adrenaline Rush
Worse Aim
Knockout
Faint
Drop Weapon
Immidiate Death
Reduced AP
Fall
Lose Limb
Bone Breaks

The only real way to die, is to get hit in the head with a small (or better wound), or in the chest with a moderate or better wound.

Different weapon and attacks produce different kinds of wounds, and have different chances to actually make them happen.


I feel this gives a realistic effect, takes the RPG away from the HP system (which can be fun of course, but I wanna try something different - and more importantly, something realistic)



I''ve lately been considering psychological effects, like fear and berzerk etc... But I''m not sure if it''ll be fun having your character run away without you being able to control him. If where your character is is so dangerous that he would freak out and try to run home to mom, then I hope you''ll try to tell him just that

Maybe for the enemy thuogh... Oh well, not important right now - I''m just getting into learning how to mod UT2003

Srekel - you may want to include some sort of blood-loss. Lethal eventually, but weakening immediately, and cumulative over all wounds. Otherwise, you get the situation where someone takes hundreds of bullets to arms and legs, and survives (crippled) while in real life, they''d be suffering from shock and would bleed to death pretty quickly anyway.

yeah, I''ll probably add that (would seem weird without it)

have you thought about aiming at a more realistic system? personally I dislike the idea of HP because they have nothing to do with actual combat... how about a kind of defense-meter showing how good your characters parries and blocks are? the further down it goes, the more likely he´s to get hit... hits would be more damaging than the traditional rpg values, as well as having other effects. it´s just that the traditional way of doing combat treats a character as a chunk of meat from which you slowly carve away slices until the hp run out... which is neither very dynamic nor very exciting.

Hase - As I''ve mentioned elsewhere, the HP system in more realistic interpretations represents the character''s ability to avoid taking real damage - taking blows that bruise or nick rather than crush or cut, barely evading strokes, etc. The loss of HP represents accumulated fatigue and minor blood loss leading to the character letting a decisive blow through.

I´m not sure what you mean with interpretations... yes, it can be seen that way, but from look&feel it´s more the "chipping away at a rock" approach. If your HP are full, then you don´t worry - and that´s not how I think it should feel.

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Original post by Hase
have you thought about aiming at a more realistic system? personally I dislike the idea of HP because they have nothing to do with actual combat... how about a kind of defense-meter showing how good your characters parries and blocks are? the further down it goes, the more likely he´s to get hit... hits would be more damaging than the traditional rpg values, as well as having other effects. it´s just that the traditional way of doing combat treats a character as a chunk of meat from which you slowly carve away slices until the hp run out... which is neither very dynamic nor very exciting.

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I feel the same way, that''s why I''ve removed HP from my combat system and just have different effects.

Give the characters and monsters exactly 3 "states" instead of hitpoints..."dead", "wounded", and "healthy"...

This represents how players react to changes in hitpoints...if "healthy" then everything is okay (think near max HP)...if "wounded" then players have a near serious condition on thier hands and should heal the character (low HP)...and if dead then it''s to late (zero HP)...three "states" that give a much better indication of how to deal with character health.

Hitpoints, however, add that "all important ''realistic'' factor" by allowing a lot of gray area between each of the above states...

But note that if you have more then three basic "dead","wonded","healthy" states...purhapse have "dead","near dead","heavily wounded","wounded","lightly wounded","pretty good health","good health", "excellent health"...simply put the more states you end up with...the closer you get to haveing that Hitpoint system...only you replace a number with some short discriptive phrase, or bar graph, or whatever...

No matter how complex you get...or however realistic you develop your combat model...it will always break down to three such simple states...when the character is "healthy" then the player has less concern over the physical well being of the character...when "wounded" then players know that they must be more cautious, they can continue but at greater risk, that trying to heal the character is a big priority...and when "dead"...well its to bad, so sad

umm.... so instead of having a character with 60 HP max, you want to have three states instead.

What is the difference between these states and having 3 HP?
(3 = healthy, 2 = wounded, 1 = near death)

Or having 60 hitpoints, but divided equally, so 40-60 = healthy, 20-40 = wounded and so on.

I don''t really see any point in that at all.

:confused:

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Original post by Srekel
I don''t really see any point in that at all.

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I think that''s what MSW was trying to say - that HP are as good a way of indicating to the character when they should be worried about the next shot killing them as any.

The only way around {full health}=={agressive play} I can think of is to make a game where the character can be killed easily by most opposition - meaning that you can''t make combat your main mechanic. A "sneak-em-up" would be a possible candidate.

OK, I''ve thought of another way - make a game where there is no damage of any kind - again, though, it can''t be a combat oriented system...

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I think that''s what MSW was trying to say - that HP are as good a way of indicating to the character when they should be worried about the next shot killing them as any.

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BINGO!

It''s the Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay mechanisam...when Mario is in giant forum, it indicates different things to the player, same thing when Sonic has collected at least one ring...if Mario is back to his smaller forum, or Sonic has lost all his rings...players deal with the situation differently then when the character is in the "stronger health forum".

Which is my whole point...With the tried and true Hitpoint systems, or with any new more realistic system you may design...the player will only face the two extreams of "I''m healthy enough" and "I need to get medical attention"...

Play any RPG, and think about how you are adressing the ''character health'' situation...not how the game deals with it...but you as the player...no matter how complex the game system...it always boils down to "do I need to do something/nothing about my health at the moment?"...with a hitpoint system the threashold that defines the "do something/nothing" action is up to the player''s judgement...the more realistic you get (blood loss, lost limbs, etc..) the less control the player has over setting (for themselves) what is an acceptable threashold for seeking medical attention...in which case you end back up with the simple Mario, Sonic model...sure the players options in how to go about healing thier character can be numerious...but the core decision of "need to/ don''t need to" exists only the line isn''t nearly as blured as it seems (with blood loss, chance of going into shock, looseing a limb, etc...all of which wiegh in much heavyer then loseing 3HP when you have 300)

There has been a solution to the HP versus 3 states, and thats color coding the meter. I.E. You have the red, the yellow, and the green. Just as long as no enemy can hurt so much as to drag you from green to dead, the player will be just fine relying on the color meter as his guide to worry.

On the same token, how does it sound relating HP and combat disability? I.E. the yellow or near-dead-get-help stage having an added effect like not being able to move very well...

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Which is my whole point...With the tried and true Hitpoint systems, or with any new more realistic system you may design...the player will only face the two extreams of "I''m healthy enough" and "I need to get medical attention"...

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Well.. yes true. But, just because the player needs to get medical attention doesn''t mean he has to die the next time someone shoots him in the foot, which is basically what HP systems are all about.


And basically, your player SHOULD need to seek medical attention whenever he''s hurt, unless he has some kind of "healing potions" or medical kits or whatever.
Well, at least if the game is somewhat realistic - like what I''m trying to do to mine.

In Fallout, for instance, if you get shot somewhere, you lose X hitpoints, and to regain those you have to either use the skill Doctor or use a stimpack (healing potion basically). When you just have a few more HP left to heal, you can simply walk around for a while and let the character regenerate.

If YOU got shot in the foot, well, you''d HAVE to go to the doctor and stay at the hospital for a number of weeks. There are no healing potions in real life..

Now, I can''t have my players do that, since it would be really boring, so I''m implenting a kind of healing potion (to use the generic RPG term), nanorobots that you send inside your body that can "repair it". (there''ll also be real doctors with better nanobots, but I haven''t really given that much thought yet, I''m just in the starting phase of designing the game.)

Since I use damage effects (instead of HP loss), you will need to have some of these before going into battle, because if you''re damaged, you WILL have significant problems getting medical attention. You won''t be able to walk 3 kilometers, because you managed to survive the battle with 2 HP left.


(btw, don''t get me wrong: Fallout is probably the best RPG ever made)

I think that the system you use depends on what you''re aiming for.

It''s *very* easy to inspire fear in a player by simply limiting their information on their ailments and then making the effects of some of them permanent or deadly(but correctable if you can find help in time, or by surviving long enough), and then add in some uncertainty as to when the effects start(incubation time, only when moving/sleeping/eating...a lot of this was used in the Alternate Reality games to great effect)

But you might not want fear, and it''s quite possible to go overboard in that direction.

Another way to go about it would be to have a lot of things be cyclical. It''s known scientifically that at certain times of day humans reach peaks of ability at various tasks(alertness, strength, reflexes, etc.) Exaggerating this would make the player select the most advantageous period for important fights. And injuries could affect performance in a similar way: "My leg''s acting up again."