The modelling of injuries to decrease homicide rates

From: darshan
Date: 2002-08-19 17:37:10

We don't want to limit murders explicitly. On the other hand we also don't want newbies to drop like flies at the hands of more experienced people, or vice versa. It would also be great if a player could actually survive his entire gaming career without dying, ie. playing one and the same character. Despite this, we still want to keep fighting dangerous. As Origon pointed out, injuries are a good solution to this. If you break a bone, it'll take you weeks of gametime to heal even at the hands of a healer, or you could remain a cripple for the rest of your life - but all of this is better than dying, since you get to keep your character.

So, what we ought to do is reduce the likelihood of a quick death in combat, and instead bring forth various fun and cute injuries. I think the roleplaying aspect of the game will dramatically deepen. If you happen to end up as a leg amputee on a crutch you'll just have to make do, since you can't have two characters...

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-08-19 20:12:24
In-Reply-To: 1896

This brings to my mind the Traddash culture number X, from Star Control II (can't remember it specifically). The point in it was that when engaging a fight, some brave Traddash souls severed their own limbs and this terrified the opponents so much that they often ran away screaming. Thus greatest war heroes of that time had none or just few of their limbs intact.
I can picture in my minds eye the great warriors of Majik with no limbs tucked in a cart or something around the cheering populace.
And just like in the game Die by the Sword, we should have one-legged people randomly shout "Hop, Hop, Hop!" when jumping around the battlefield.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-08-20 06:13:15
In-Reply-To: 1896

Sounds fine, but how to explain, why it is so very difficult to kill the opponent? After all an injury would lead into inability to fight therefore enabling easy kills. Shall we have some kind of knight code that prevents player killing and after first injury ends the fight?

From: gxest
Date: 2002-08-20 09:42:04
In-Reply-To: 1896

Actually, i've given some thought to the whole combat system, we could completely model damage done in combat just by cuts, bruises, fractures, puncturations and other type of injuries affecting to that limb's capability to function, and to the rate at which the character bleeds to death.

Overall hitpoints would only represent the blood level remaining in the player. That would mean if a player gets hit in the hand, his hand would or would not become useless by the injury, but his overall hitpoints would remain the same, until he loses blood from the wound.

When you hit the foe with a mace or a hammer, he wouldn't receive bleeding wounds, but bone fractures and bruises would occurr that would render the bodypart useless. A sword would create bleeding slashes, but with a better chance leave the bodypart more functional. Daggers and rapiers would obviously create heavily bleeding punctures, if one manages to pierce through armor.

I'm not saying this would be the most realistic way to model damage, but it certainly is better than having hitpoints, that don't really tell anything about the way you were hit. Ofcourse any kind of damage can make a limb useless, but that would be kind of boring, that's why in introduced the different weapon types to the equation.

If this system sounds too harsh, (with all the bleeding all the time) the other way to do it(tm) is the one considered before. In that system every limb has hitpoints which reduce when hit received in limb, when hitpoints of limb are less than 0 then limb is useless, overall hitpoints of character would decrease with every hit in limbs, and cuts, bruises, bone fractures and puncturations would be occasional bonuses.

The problem which remains though is the one also Takomtor mentioned, and that's a fundamental problem with permanent death: when two characters engage in combat, they will fight until one of them is dead. There's nothing to prevent the winning party from slaying the other guy once he's injured and unable to flee. And even if players would consider slaying their foes more carefully, cruel npc monsters certainly wouldn't. 10 points and a suffeli bar to anyone who solves this. ;)

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-08-29 00:21:38
In-Reply-To: 1901

Basically there is two possible solutions. Either we force the players not to kill each other by some method, like giving them a (possibly hardcoded) punishment, or we make killing not to be fun or profitable.

We may code that killing will be extremely burdensome, something that drains your mental endurance and makes you feel sick afterwards. Problem is that this works with new (inexperienced) characters and possibly human or other not-so-inhuman races only.

The point is that if a character needs to do some very trying task, he might get some penalties to concentration because of his still small voice or his ugly memories.

That is the case we want to do something. On the other hand, this game is about survival. And you do not survive for long if you run around countryside swinging your small rusty piece of iron.

So, if we can (Is this really possible?) make people understand that if you live (relatively) peacefully, you might survive through your gaming career. Or, we may point out, that the goal in the game is to achieve 'immortality' somehow. (That is 'to get rid of the fear of death among ordinary people', for I think that there will always be a bigger fish)

What I'm trying to say, is that there is no possible waterproof solution, and should there be? Allright, I understand that there is certain problem in permanent death in a game like this, but all it needs is to get used to it. I remember when I first tried ADOM..

Maybe the hugest problem in this concept is the rebirth scenario, where you can take the place of your dead character. Revenge! And another is that bacause this is a realistic world, there can be a single shot with a crossbow, and.. ARGH, the baron is, despite of his dozens of royal guards, well, dead. (Whether this is actually a good thing or not, I do not yet know.)

And one more thing that has been bothering me since very beginning. That is, if there is an irritant, disturbing player who terrorizes that playing atmosphere with all possible ways, how can we get rid of him? If you gather a group and kill him, he can still come back. All it takes is a new character.

Hmh, many things that need answers. Some of them will be solved when the game actually begins and shows what's going to happen, but some should be considered beforehand.

From: ReSpawner
Date: 2002-09-03 19:07:05
In-Reply-To: 1959

Some kind of baning of playername, ip or other kind could prevent the iritating people and it isent very fun to play alot when you are only iritating people.

So i dont think that last part is so important.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-09-04 18:19:00
In-Reply-To: 1972

irritateing people could (by power of the gods) be turned into a NPC Village Idiot/drunk. So there once nice powerful player they spent a year working on, because of there own fault in pissing off most everyone, is now a stupid useless NPC that is drunk all the time.

From: Tumababa
Date: 2002-11-25 10:39:51
In-Reply-To: 1982

I think I remember reading in a preview of a Middle-earth CRPG(Sadly discontinued) that they planned to render a player unconscious once their health was sufficiently depleted. Once the loser was knocked out, the winner could rummage his possessions and perhaps write a nasty message on his forehead before heading on his way.