Vagrant Story (ps1) used a system that is almost exactly what you are talking about...
It did it very well actually...
No More Health: Combat Alternatives?
Quote:Original post by KingRuss
The Setup: You have a health bar and a suit power bar. The percent of damage you don't take is equal to the percent of power left in your suit. 59% power left = 59% damage taken. Your suit regenerates power on it's own, when not being hit. There are various classes that can use different weapons and armor, and have different life totals.
Sounds like Halo.
Has anyone here ever played Bushido Blade?
Admittably not an RPG, but it's a sword combat game. If you slash someone's arm, they won't be able to use that to swing with. Nail their legs, and they have to walk on their knees. If you get them in the vitals, they die. Other spots are less important, but the general idea I think is good: you're either dead or you're not. In reality it doesn't matter if you get your jugular vein sliced through three times or four, 'cuz either way you're done.
Admittably not an RPG, but it's a sword combat game. If you slash someone's arm, they won't be able to use that to swing with. Nail their legs, and they have to walk on their knees. If you get them in the vitals, they die. Other spots are less important, but the general idea I think is good: you're either dead or you're not. In reality it doesn't matter if you get your jugular vein sliced through three times or four, 'cuz either way you're done.
Quote:Original post by KingRuss
Hi there, a quick point first, and then a sample solution.
Covering up the problem (changing health from quantative to qualative) isn't the solution, much like covering up a pile of dog poo with a pretty carpet isn't the solution to a similar problem. The problem is ... the system is crap. A baseline is created for damage increases and health increases, and you variate from that baseline to create varying techniques that do damage. The problem is all the damage goes to the same place.
Now to find a simple (sample?) solution to the problem. By just adding 1 bar of an alternative resource can greatly increase strategy.
The Setup: You have a health bar and a suit power bar. The percent of damage you don't take is equal to the percent of power left in your suit. 59% power left = 59% damage taken. Your suit regenerates power on it's own, when not being hit. There are various classes that can use different weapons and armor, and have different life totals.
The effect: Choosing weapons now has an additional tag (besides damage:accuracy:frequency) and that tag is (power-damage). Weapons can do ranges of damage to either, from 0 to X. You realize that you must do some damage to power, otherwise you won't be doing any damage at all, but you could hold that job off for a teammate. Suits can also come in varying strength of Capacity and regeneration rate. Armor could do better against shell or energy damage. Ammo prices, weapon prices, armor prices... they all have more meaning now. NPCs could say "People from Town X often use energy weapons" and you could alter your equipment to adjust for it.
The Conclusion: Even just one extra bar adds variety and strategy to every other option. It doesn't even have to be that special. A simple stamina bar, or fatigue bar, or anything else. The fun part comes in when you meet someone to fight, and realize that your combination doesn't do well against theirs, but you win anyhow or you realize your combination DOES do well against many people. You just can't have that level of customization with a single bar and any conception of balance.
Isn't this extra bar just a glorified Armor slot? I mean all you're still doing is trying to reduce your enemy's health bar to zero before they do it to you. There's really no extra strategy here, just hit them until they die. If their suit makes them strong against weapon A and weak against weapon B, then use weapon B to hit them until they die. How is that much different from wearing Armor in an HBR game that has Protection from Fire and +50 Defense.. it slows damage down and prevents certain attacks..
IIRC SoF had such a system for the player, but they ditched it and choosed the regular hitpoints system, since "walking aroung and beeing damaged(less accuracy and speed) isn't fun". It may work in a RPG, simulation or in a stealth-game, but having to loose precious "gameplay-points" because of I got damaged doesn't seem like a good design.
That being said, here are some systems:
1 shot 1 kill:
You get damaged (enough) - you die
Bleeding system:
You get damaged - you bleed or die(depending on the damage). Bleeding could be internal(from falls) or external from wounds.
External bleeding can be stopped with bandages. Internal bleedings(and external) can be stopped with potions and/or a doctor.
Sort of realistic system:
Damages to the head: causes visual problems(blured vision perhaps), and decreases most of the attributes.
Damages to the arm decreases your aim. Damages to the leg decreases stamina and such.
Every damage increases your pain-level. Using something(a hand for example) that is damaged increases your pain-level. The pain-level slowly reduces. If you aren't damaged. When the pain-level-maximum is maxed, your awake-level decreases rapidly.
When your awake level is low - you fall to the floor(either to sleep or by "pass-out"). You can increase your awake level by sleeping. Your awake level steadily decreases.
Your "objects" (libs, head, torso) have 3 states. Healthy, Damaged, Dead and Lost. When it is damaged it looses 1-many states. Health can be used, Damaged can be used with penalties, Dead and Lost can not be used. Each object has a govering attributes that decreases when the object is damaged. It may also decrease the maximum level of some attributes. Beeing damaged in the head may result in some inteligence loss and beeing damaged in the arm results in accuracy and strength loss.
Something is damaged it looses blood. When the blood is low(below 70%) your awake-level decrease fast. When the blood is extremely low(below 50%) you die.
Probably more rules apply, and itsn't a life-copy sollution but I think it would look realistic and IMHO pretty boring.
Not mine:
The latest metal gear(MGS3: Snake Eater (thanks ferr)) had some way to do it. IIRC you had to eat and do some surgery when damaged.
Rimworlds A role-playing sci-fi core that is pretty realistic.
edit: corrected game name
[Edited by - sirGustav on August 4, 2005 10:11:29 AM]
That being said, here are some systems:
1 shot 1 kill:
You get damaged (enough) - you die
Bleeding system:
You get damaged - you bleed or die(depending on the damage). Bleeding could be internal(from falls) or external from wounds.
External bleeding can be stopped with bandages. Internal bleedings(and external) can be stopped with potions and/or a doctor.
Sort of realistic system:
Damages to the head: causes visual problems(blured vision perhaps), and decreases most of the attributes.
Damages to the arm decreases your aim. Damages to the leg decreases stamina and such.
Every damage increases your pain-level. Using something(a hand for example) that is damaged increases your pain-level. The pain-level slowly reduces. If you aren't damaged. When the pain-level-maximum is maxed, your awake-level decreases rapidly.
When your awake level is low - you fall to the floor(either to sleep or by "pass-out"). You can increase your awake level by sleeping. Your awake level steadily decreases.
Your "objects" (libs, head, torso) have 3 states. Healthy, Damaged, Dead and Lost. When it is damaged it looses 1-many states. Health can be used, Damaged can be used with penalties, Dead and Lost can not be used. Each object has a govering attributes that decreases when the object is damaged. It may also decrease the maximum level of some attributes. Beeing damaged in the head may result in some inteligence loss and beeing damaged in the arm results in accuracy and strength loss.
Something is damaged it looses blood. When the blood is low(below 70%) your awake-level decrease fast. When the blood is extremely low(below 50%) you die.
Probably more rules apply, and itsn't a life-copy sollution but I think it would look realistic and IMHO pretty boring.
Not mine:
The latest metal gear(MGS3: Snake Eater (thanks ferr)) had some way to do it. IIRC you had to eat and do some surgery when damaged.
Rimworlds A role-playing sci-fi core that is pretty realistic.
edit: corrected game name
[Edited by - sirGustav on August 4, 2005 10:11:29 AM]
"Not mine:
The latest metal gear(twin snakes?) had some way to do it. IIRC you had to eat and do some surgery when damaged."
It was MGS3: Snake Eater. It had a strange impact on gameplay, it was basically just all in the vein of being poisoned. A bad shot meant you'd be bleeding, losing HP gradually.. and that was pretty much the full extent of the system. You'd clean it, stitch it, and bandage it.
The latest metal gear(twin snakes?) had some way to do it. IIRC you had to eat and do some surgery when damaged."
It was MGS3: Snake Eater. It had a strange impact on gameplay, it was basically just all in the vein of being poisoned. A bad shot meant you'd be bleeding, losing HP gradually.. and that was pretty much the full extent of the system. You'd clean it, stitch it, and bandage it.
I didn't really played it, watched some gameplay movies and noticed that the player used a knife and read a review.
This feels about the same whay when I discovered that Halo 2's "revolutionary" health system basicly was armor instead of hp. The reviewers always talked about protection and I got the feeling of something like the shields in space invader.
Hey, that might be an idea that might change the gameplay a bit. Your "health" is based on the amount of protection(both enviroment and armor) and (perhaps) your visible area.
Beeing in a bunker, or lying behind some large rock results in larger "health"-value than when standing in a field with no trees. Note the "health" is not a hitpoints system, it is basicly the propability to get killed...
This feels about the same whay when I discovered that Halo 2's "revolutionary" health system basicly was armor instead of hp. The reviewers always talked about protection and I got the feeling of something like the shields in space invader.
Hey, that might be an idea that might change the gameplay a bit. Your "health" is based on the amount of protection(both enviroment and armor) and (perhaps) your visible area.
Beeing in a bunker, or lying behind some large rock results in larger "health"-value than when standing in a field with no trees. Note the "health" is not a hitpoints system, it is basicly the propability to get killed...
Quote:Original post by sirGustavHey, that might be an idea that might change the gameplay a bit. Your "health" is based on the amount of protection(both enviroment and armor) and (perhaps) your visible area.
Beeing in a bunker, or lying behind some large rock results in larger "health"-value than when standing in a field with no trees. Note the "health" is not a hitpoints system, it is basicly the propability to get killed...
Or you COULD literally say that it is your current "health." Maybe you're hiding behind a tree with varying degrees of "health" divided amongst itself, hitting the tree with a laser and doing 800 damage to it may be just enough to shred right through the tree and do some damage to you. So in that case your current "health" would be 800+Your Character's HP.
Maybe you could flip over a table and use it as a shield (another thread spawns a baby.)
Still health bar racing to some extent, you'd still want a more powerful weapon in order to kill your enemies more easily (cut through twelve trees instead of one.) But damn it sounds like it would be fun.
I rather liked the way GoldenEye and Perfect Dark (both n64) handled HP. For all intents and purposes, it was a normal HP system, you take damage, the meter goes down, when it hits zero, you're dead. However, they did this thing where there were no health packs anywhere, that is, the HP never recovered (within a given stage that is). Instead you'd just find whole armor. It'd fill up the second meter, which then took the place of Hp until it was depleted. Take a Headshot when you had full armor, and you had no armor.
The practical upshot is that the normal life bar was so valuable, you felt naked without any armor. Quite like the Mario brothers and the Super Mushroom. You had your two states of Drastic Worry and Protected Freedom.
The practical upshot is that the normal life bar was so valuable, you felt naked without any armor. Quite like the Mario brothers and the Super Mushroom. You had your two states of Drastic Worry and Protected Freedom.
My favorite action-style health system is the Halo 2 route. It gives you all of the worries that HP brings, without the hassles of healing and finding ways to heal. Each scuffle is it's own battle. It's okay to mess up here and there, but if you mess up too much all at once, you're done. In a genre where the only alternative is to pick up little floating icons to refill, I think it's the way to go.
I guess one would need a decent reason for the regenerating. Your character would need to be tricked out on something, or a robot, vampire, werewolf, or some other supernatural thingo.
I guess one would need a decent reason for the regenerating. Your character would need to be tricked out on something, or a robot, vampire, werewolf, or some other supernatural thingo.
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