A warroir that can single handedly defeat a dragon better not be caught sleeping by a stable boy, but if we take into account whether the player is in stage 2 ,3, or 4 sleep we can have a percent chance of awakening. (no sarcasm was inteded, such a system would be interesting)

When will there ever be a chance for a player to sleep, especially in an MMORPG ? I suppose in a single player game there might be a 5% chance that a stable boy will kill you in sleep but I think that would be a very horrible idea.

The main goal of a game is to entertain and be fun not frustrate, and annoy. ElAntonius'' idea is not bad, it is noteworthy, it will be great if he can make it fun, few games have tried such a thing.

That makes sense, except for one thing... Near Death blows... in any game context Ican think of except scriptoing events == death blow.

If the guy almost kill you, hell probably be able to easily finish you off... oh well

off for the night

Ramble

This whole thread went from a great idea to a great ramble

Interesting nonetheless.

Continue....

BTW, the knight thing was just an example of realism, but a poor one for a gaming environment. I do not advocate penalizing/killing a hard-earned character when the player is off at work and not online )at least not randomly, I have a few ideas cooked up on this one too but it is wayyyyy offtopic and will start a good debate, so I''ll post it in another thread another time).

A better example is not paying attention to your back when you walk down that alley, or are at the Bazaar. When a goblin tribe of 500 suprises you in the forest and they simultaneously throw their spears--something is going to hit you. When you walk off the edge of the tower. "Hmm...Its 80 feet, thats only 200 damage, I can take it. Hey princess look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

rofl

*casts summon monster while falling*

"I''ll fall on his head hehe, only 100 points"

"fuck a stone elemental!"

*splat*

This thread is very interesting. I agree that death blows shouldn't be random, they should be like headshots in counter-strike.
In terms of HP, I favor the idea that HP shouldn't increase a lot (or at all) based on level. Your level may allow you to wear better armor, and you can go on to assign armor integrity (Armor HP) on each part of the armor, shouldn't be difficult but unnecessary since your AI probably aim at the chest anyway. I like this idea since in most RPG's once you get a good armor, or a rare, you never need to buy any more armor and you start to max out your bank account. This way, you will probably save your rare armor for your favorite dragon, and wear a decent armor that you can fix/replace.

Back to HP, I agree that HP should be kept low, such that each slash without armor should bring you very close to death or right out dead.
This is what happens when your Lv50 guy gets attacked by a mob of Lv1 goblins while you are out for a drink:
Senario 1 : Since your char is wearing full plate, swords don't really do much damage to the armor, but will still eventually dent and break the armor. So depends on when you come back, your armor might have broken and you got stabed to death.
Scenario 2 : A smarter goblins climbs on your back and cut your throat, instant kill, and they rob your unscratched armor.
Scenario 3 : A bunch of goblin archers start firing at you, in this case, they are dumb enough that they aim at your chest, so your armor takes the damage first. If they were Lv30 or so they would aim at your joints and you will die much faster.
Scenario 4 : A goblin wizard hit you with a thunderbolt, and you take damage. Add paralysis effect if you want.
Scenario 5 : Now a team of goblins ram you with a battling ram (a Lv20 will use a battle hammer), your armor take quite a lot damage, and your organs start to dislocate, in terms of the game, your HP goes down.

The moral is that higher level gives you strength to wear armor while not making you ultra-slow, but there should still be many ways to kill higher level char tactically instead of randomly.


[edited by - Estok on April 1, 2003 6:23:10 AM]

well.. if you cant do anything to evade certain attacks to certain body parts, it''s all random anyway, and no better than the system rpg''s currently employ. just another random statistic to track.

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

quote: Original post by OctDev
A better example is not paying attention to your back when you walk down that alley, or are at the Bazaar.

First-person perspective? Because otherwise I can''t see how you can avoid paying attention to your back (side-scroller/iso shows everything around, and third-person is generally viewed from behind). Which makes the example suspect.

A minor point: HP systems have (at least) two interpretations: the one being implicitly assumed on this thread - that every blow that takes off HP lands and does damage, so the usual HP gain/level model is unrealistic (maybe the sword stroke bounces off the guy''s scar tissue?); alternatively, HP represent your ability to avoid taking the serious hit in the first place - the slash with the sword grazes your throat rather than decapiting you or you almost deflect the hammer-blow leaving you bruised rather than caving in your chest... Under this interpretation, you eventually get tired, battered, strain muscles, etc and leave yourself open to a wounding blow (somewhere around single digit HP).

In a PnP system I designed a while back (never quite finished, but got some light playtesting done) characters have two damage types - HP and Wounds. The HP are pretty much D&D style, but once you run out of them (or if you get hit hard enough or in a situation where you can''t dodge the metaphorical (or literal!) bullet) you take wounds, which are localised, tracked individually, and can kill you cumulatively or individually, as well as crippling for longer or shorter periods. Also, some attacks which would sap HP wouldn''t inflict wounds - so the death of 1000 papercuts isn''t an option, but the death of 1000 papercuts and one sword-stroke to the chest is... equally, just about any attack needs to be taken seriously if it''s going to be repeated 100s of times - even if it can''t kill you, it can still make you an easy target for something that can.

i dont think there is much of a point to complicated damage systems, as long as you have no controll over them. if youre working with a topdown rpg, you cant even decide witch part of your body to defend, so you might aswel get this damage substracted from your total hp. its nice ofcource if you have realistic effects like walking slower, but its not really shocking.

i would find such a system really cool in a 3d game though. remember ''die by the sword''? you were able to controll your sword with the numpad there. now if you would have such controll, more complicated the better, it would really be your own fault if you wouldnt deflect a gobbo sword and let it slip to your throath. if such life and death matters would be decided by dice though, id probably throw my pc out of the window before i had the time to remove the game from my hd..