Let's revisit dying

[Ishtar2]

Ideas have come up now and again about improving fighting.  All these ideas refrence HP in the singular.  But, the body is not one thing, but many part making up one thing.  My idea is to break the body down into different areas with their own Hit Points, making the game more realistic.

First let's recall what is already in the game.  Monsters hit you in different parts of your body, but you take damage as a whole with little regard as to where you were hit.  (i.e., two equally powerful attacks on your arms and your head will hit you the same, if you have no armor, at least I think) In real life, being stabbed with a sword in the arms would be nowhere as deadly as being stabbed in the head.

There should be different health bars for the different parts of the body and different punishments for having each part die.  Divide the body into 4 parts: head, torso, arms, legs.  When you run out of health on your arms, you can no longer fight or use your hands, but you can sure run far away.  Same with the legs.  You may not be able to run, but you can fight what's attacking you.  Of course if your head was destroyed, you'd die on the spot.  As for the torso, I was thinking that when that reached zero you'd enter into cardiac arrest, and have to be healed soon or it's curtians.

Well, that's my idea.   I think it would give fighting more complexity and realism.  What do you guys think?

[Ithorius]

I do agree somewhat... I dislike it how if a ulbernaut hits you on the hands twice it could kill you... I mean you can chop off someone's hands, and they would still live... maybe bleed to death later, but it wouldn't be a instant KO...

[Quitarias]

i agree with you it would make fights more realistic but an adition might be needed to target certain body parts maybe it could be set to random as deafault so ne people would have no need to bother with it[happy noobs  ] also beating the torso should result in a dodge chance of 0
thus making your head an easy target and quite it would be easy frankly finishing you

PS hope i made senese i tend to do that sometimes

[Ishtar2]

I was actually thinking that it would be determined by which stance you chose.  Bloody would have more headshots, while defensive would take out the legs.

[bilbous]

In my view hit locations are a really, really bad idea. I've never seen them work well and it is added complexity for no real gain.

*Said the black knight when Arthur chopped off his right arm: "I'm alright, it is just a scratch I'll still beat you." Said he again when Arthur chopped off his left arm. "I'm all right, just a flesh wound I'm going to kick you to death"....*

[Kalika]

  i jsut ahve to sya you should get an award for a morbid title...kinda freaked me out when i saw it 

ahaha i sorrys, i dont have much to say about the topic *hugs*

[John80sk]

I'll take anything to make the combat system anything other than incredibly boring.

[zanzibar]

I dislike it how if a ulbernaut hits you on the hands twice it could kill you... I mean you can chop off someone's hands, and they would still live... maybe bleed to death later, but it wouldn't be a instant KO...

Ulbernaught chops off your hands.  You can't defend yourself.  It then easily finishes you off.  Even then, being hit on the hands can mean that it grabbed you by the hands then pulled you in for the kill.  There are any number of ways you can interpret it which would result in your death.

That said, for those of us with less active imaginations, you have a point.  I don't think PS is a game for people without imagination though.

[John80sk]

Why even have a combat system at all if that's your mode of thinking?  We could just use our imaginations.

[zanzibar]

Why even have a combat system at all if that's your mode of thinking?  We could just use our imaginations.

Welcome to life before Crystal Blue.  Some people here actually would like to go back to that.  I'm not one of them, but then again I wasn't here during MB and AB.

[Nurahk]

Yeah.

We say we roleplayed a lot back then.  And it's true for the most part.

But mostly we roleplayed pacifist

[dying_inside]

This is a nice idea.
I think  the damage to the body parts should effect the overall result depending on how baldy its mashed.
For instance:

Arms at 50% health will do half their usual damage, and when they get to 5% or less they become completely inneffective and you cannot fight.
Legs - At 50% you cannot run, at 5% you cannot move.
Torso - At 50% your bleeding internally and suffer dammage over time. At 0% your dead, your torso has a huge great hole in it and  parts of your ribcage have punctured your heart etc.
Head Every blow to the head has a chance to stun for a couple of seconds. At 50% Every blow you take has the potential to knock you unconsciouse, you cannot move fight etc, but the enemy can keep smacking you. When your head health reaches 0% your dead.

[Krann Omins]

I like the idea the way it was put above (but with regards to torsos having a huge great holes in them and  parts of ribcages have punctured hearts etc. i think i read somewhere that they aren't gonna have blood n gore stuff ever) I understand what people say about how initially one would think the combat system need change so a person could target specific parts--but the current system seems to randomly enough hit different parts, thing is this thread's idea would have to add feet & hands to the areas taking damage, as they are in current system. As mentionned one could rolplay the part they hit was where the person as momentarily vulnerable, or seemed so... The thing i'm suprised by is nobody mentioning having a visual option with a loose body image that has parts change color when hit... unless that was mentionned in another thread..

as far as the other questions, rpwise i'd say ulbernaut hits me in the hand, his claw goes up into my arm & thru some ribs, he only hit my hand tho...
it does seem a tad silly tho to die instantly by being stabbed in the arms or feet with daggers tho... i guess that could be accounted for by ps time going 3-6 times as fast as real time & your character going into shock or such.. presure points... vulnerable organs that all ps races have even tho we don't...

[dying_inside]

Hahah sorry if  that was taken literally.  That was basically my way of saying "Uh mate. Fall down. Your bloody well dead!"
The thing thats good about these types of system is there is a decent amount of  little nooks and crannies that can relly make combat feel like its on a wholoe other level. Its not the just hit stuff until you die its, hit stuff and  while your doing this your gonna have to realise  what  you want to do  and change with the circumstances.

Also, this could bring in a "target" system where  you could focus more on one part of the body than another. As you are actually iming for a certain space  then your accuracy and ability to hit might decrease as you are  not as wild but  the over all effect  might be pretty fun. it would focus 70% of your attack on the chosen body part (with the decent to-hit penalties).

The head would be a vulnerable area when hit but being as its a small target  it would decrease the chance to hit by  further  X amount.
The torso would be quite easy to hit as its fairly big, but torso armor is usually the toughest and being as  I would think the torso  would carry the most amount of "health" it would take longer to give you a desired effect.
The Limbs are quite hard to hit but have not got  that much in the way of "health" so i guess they would be kinda hard to hit but quite easy to damage.

[Xurtio]

I've seen limb parts broken up in two different game platforms where they actually worked:

A mud (where you still had a universal HP, and when it ran out you died still, regardless of your limb condition.  Limb condition was just for added negative affects and
it was handled statistically, not by mob choice.  It was more likely a side affect of losing HP in huge chunks at a time)

a tabletop rp (where the GM can be the processor of all that information.  Battles took like two hours.)

I don't think it's very realistic for video games yet, and frankly, when I sword fight (which I do regularly) I go for openings, I don't target body parts.  Where I hit my opponent is based on where he makes mistakes, just like chess.  So the mud I mentioned above seem more realistic in that the parts are handled statistically.

The only time I aim is when I'm shooting a gun or a bow