Complex combat rules
Nytehauq, that is nice, but Halo had what? less than 10 weapons? Most RPGs have about that many TYPES.
Quote:Original post by Cold_Flame
Oh yes, this is based off a previous topic, but the idea is quite different.
I was reading ADnD 2ed rules book, when it struck me:
why do designers still stick to simple rules for combat, primarily RPG combat? Why do weapon damage attributes like 1d4 or 3-12 or, even worse, simply "12" still exist? Back in the PnP days it was impossible to compute something more complicated by hand.
But hey, nowadays computer RPGs have become quite common :), computers are sure better then humans at computing :), and combat rules are all the same. Take weapon's damage, check ToHit, subtract from TargetHP... it's primitive. Which leads to players caring only about their numbers, not actual gameplay.
Combination of several "primitive" random distributions, doesn't always equal simple random distribution.
And look at ADnD 3.5 edition, they repaired quite a bit, and broke a lot more.
In fact PnP did a quite nice job to explain negative numbers in just "a few" lines of text, and alow to use complex distributions by a just a ten or more large detailed, but very readable, tables. In fact numbers are rather important they alow better understanding on whats going on.
BTW if player will not want to roleplay, or do anything else that playing with numbers, hiding the numbers will not force him to stop it.
Quote:Original post by Nathan BaumQuote:Original post by Nytehauq
Reffering to Halo for the third time, you figure out that human projectile weapons do more against the flood than plasma weapons do very quickly - they die alot faster when you shoot them in the face with the shotgun. They falter, stumble, and explode. Plasma weapons just kind of burn the surface with an unsatisfying sound.
This is a very special situation. You're facing a previously unknown foe with no time to wait for the guys at HQ to come back with their carefully researched reports. In more conventional circumstances, you'll have access to concrete data rather than circumstantial evidence and rumours. In reality wouldn't you expect the other humans fighting the flood to tell you about it over the radio? It shouldn't be something you have to find out for yourself.
In the context of the game, this is irrelevant. They don't tell you that Plasma is more effective against shields or that human weapons are more effective against the flood, regardless of what they "know." From a gameplay standpoint, the only thing that matters is that the realities and dynamics of the situation are never explicitly enumerated but are still easily and readily apparent to the player.
Quote:Quote:
Halo reference number four: Rockets blow up tanks. It's easy to see.
You don't need Halo for that. Rockets blow up tanks because that's what rockets are for. It's inconceivable that the Master Chief wouldn't already know that rockets blow up tanks. No real military force would leave it up to experimentation to figure this out.
In this context, it's the number of rockets it takes to blow up a tank in Halo that becomes intuitive and learned to the player. Rockets don't have some special power against tanks - you can blow up the tank with small arms fire on lower difficulties. However, the player intuitively learns the techniques for dealing with tanks without ever seeing things like how much damage is done to what area - all of the player feedback is given without numerical representations of combat data.
Quote:Original post by Talroth
Nytehauq, that is nice, but Halo had what? less than 10 weapons? Most RPGs have about that many TYPES.
Most RPG's have two types: Ranged and Melee. Those dynamics are comparable to the differences between the 10 weapons in Halo. Furthermore, most RPG's (if not ALL) lack to combat resolution that Halo posseses. Player action matters less and outcomes are determined more by character statistics than interaction. In World of Warcraft, for instance, you have Wands, Crossbows, Polearms, Axes, Swords, Maces, Daggers, Staves, Shields, Bows, and Guns. There are only two dynamics here: melee and non-melee. These dynamics do not even matter for most classes. In fact, the differences barely affect the player experience. In reality, there are spells and physical attacks. Nowhere near the combat resolution of Halo.
Someone will figure out the numbers, post them online, and everyone will use them. I wouldn't worry about immersion... people clearly become immersed in games today, and the systems are very simple (primitive isn't the right word, because old things aren't necessarily bad).
Quote:Original post by NytehauqQuote:Original post by Talroth
Nytehauq, that is nice, but Halo had what? less than 10 weapons? Most RPGs have about that many TYPES.
Most RPG's have two types: Ranged and Melee. Those dynamics are comparable to the differences between the 10 weapons in Halo. Furthermore, most RPG's (if not ALL) lack to combat resolution that Halo posseses. Player action matters less and outcomes are determined more by character statistics than interaction. In World of Warcraft, for instance, you have Wands, Crossbows, Polearms, Axes, Swords, Maces, Daggers, Staves, Shields, Bows, and Guns. There are only two dynamics here: melee and non-melee. These dynamics do not even matter for most classes. In fact, the differences barely affect the player experience. In reality, there are spells and physical attacks. Nowhere near the combat resolution of Halo.
You missed my point. Halo has like 10 weapons for the player to test, see the results and learn what to use againts what. Rockets against tanks. Easy enough.
Take your average RPG,... which of these hundereds, if not thousands of 'differen't' weapons; swords, axes, mace, club, spell, bow, crossbow, sling, hammer, pike, stave, dagger, lance, glaive, etc, etc, etc.
So, this gives you different issues to address. Do you limit the amount of weapons you get? Do you give your great adventurer a dagger, sword, warhammer, and sling. Nothing else? Or do you generate thousands of possible weapons, each with different bonuses and restrictions? How do you handle that then. If I'm not mistaken, this whole thread has been about handeling thousands of weapons.
Quote:Original post by NytehauqQuote:Original post by Nathan BaumQuote:Original post by Nytehauq
Reffering to Halo for the third time, you figure out that human projectile weapons do more against the flood than plasma weapons do very quickly - they die alot faster when you shoot them in the face with the shotgun. They falter, stumble, and explode. Plasma weapons just kind of burn the surface with an unsatisfying sound.
This is a very special situation. You're facing a previously unknown foe with no time to wait for the guys at HQ to come back with their carefully researched reports. In more conventional circumstances, you'll have access to concrete data rather than circumstantial evidence and rumours. In reality wouldn't you expect the other humans fighting the flood to tell you about it over the radio? It shouldn't be something you have to find out for yourself.
In the context of the game, this is irrelevant. They don't tell you that Plasma is more effective against shields or that human weapons are more effective against the flood, regardless of what they "know." From a gameplay standpoint, the only thing that matters is that the realities and dynamics of the situation are never explicitly enumerated but are still easily and readily apparent to the player.
And the reason they're easily and readily apparent to the player is that there are so few options to choose from. Plasma weapons or projectile weapons. And the reason there are so few options to choose from is that there must be. If the player would have to spend hours figuring out how to defeat the Flood, he'd be killed many times over, and that would be really annoying.
When there are many possible types of weapon, on the other hand, you can't make it easily and readily apparent to the player which should be used on special types of enemy. Is this monster weak against fire magic? Ice magic? Edged weapons? Holy symbols? Middle C on a flute made from the wood of an ash tree felled under moonlight?
Despite your belief that there are only two weapons in RPGs, the reality is far more complex. Of course, the level of precision needed in selecting a weapon will depend upon the situation. When you're battling undead hordes, you don't want to be rifling through your bag of flutes to find the right kind of wood for each zombie. Instead the undead would be killable with fire, sunlight and holy symbols. But acquiring a weapon like the flute could be made part of the game's storyline. You'd collect hints and rumours from taverns, libraries and ancient crypts until eventually you pieced together the formula you needed.
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Halo reference number four: Rockets blow up tanks. It's easy to see.
You don't need Halo for that. Rockets blow up tanks because that's what rockets are for. It's inconceivable that the Master Chief wouldn't already know that rockets blow up tanks. No real military force would leave it up to experimentation to figure this out.
In this context, it's the number of rockets it takes to blow up a tank in Halo that becomes intuitive and learned to the player.
By which you mean: the player can determine that a rocket does "1/2 tank health" damage on each hit. So the player is still dealing with combat numbers.
Quote:
Rockets don't have some special power against tanks - you can blow up the tank with small arms fire on lower difficulties.
Which is to say that rockets do have special powers against tanks, but Halo pretends otherwise if you want an easy game.
Quote:
However, the player intuitively learns the techniques for dealing with tanks without ever seeing things like how much damage is done to what area - all of the player feedback is given without numerical representations of combat data.
In Halo, there's no need. The combat data the average player will associate tank destruction are "rockets: 2, other weapons: forget it". Your assumption seems to be that Halo's weapon system is of comparable complexity to that of a reasonably sophisticated RPG. That is a long way from the truth: combat data in sophisticated RPGs is too complex to be communicated to the player without numbers, unless the player is willing to accept a 'dumbed-down' view of the data.
It's ironic that you say we should have "more realistic combat" when realistic combat would entail the player training to use his weapons for months before he got to go on any missions, he certainly wouldn't need to have statistics about his weapon available on the field because he would have memorised it already. The kind of dumbed-down combat where you can intuit the strengths and weaknesses of a weapon after a few minutes of use is precisely the opposite of realistic combat.
In reality, "this rifle does 2d8 points of damage against humans, but is useless against armored targets" is a perfectly reasonable representation of what the character could be expected to intuitively know about his weapon.
"In reality, "this rifle does 2d8 points of damage against humans, but is useless against armored targets" is a perfectly reasonable representation of what the character could be expected to intuitively know about his weapon."
I don't know how 'real' that is, more like "This rifle does X joules, with low effect against armour", meaning they're good against targets without armour, but anything with armour isn't going to notice it.
I agree that there is likely a better way than something like the dice system, but simply giving them no numbers isn't going to cut it with any halfway complex system.
I don't know how 'real' that is, more like "This rifle does X joules, with low effect against armour", meaning they're good against targets without armour, but anything with armour isn't going to notice it.
I agree that there is likely a better way than something like the dice system, but simply giving them no numbers isn't going to cut it with any halfway complex system.
Combat rules are not just all about weapons vs mobs, they can be depending on skills/levels/stats, timing, environmental factors (ie. some spells may become less effective in a humid environment), team cooperations.
Even in a real fight (such as boxing), you dont always hack'n slash like crazy, maybe you have to look for a good chance (time window) to launch a certain punch. Thou in such a fight, reflex plays a crucial role.
In an MMO, where even reflex may not actually be one's true reflex (else there wont be speedhacking programs), thus I think maybe more tactical, timing, team cooperations shall be introduced instead of a rather pure "reflex" combat system.
For example, all the ingame combat skills acquired can be divided into 2 categories, the general skills and tactical skills (you dont need to tell the players which is which explicitly, they can figure it out by themselves).
The general set of skills behave more or less like the various offensive/defensive skills as in teh current mainstream MMOs, and thus more or less rely on your reflex to land properly.
The tactical set of skills on the other hand, requires a correct "time window", correct timing, and maybe correct sequence dependencies (ie., a debuf of your enemy's protection shield done by a Cleric followed by a critical hit done by a Ninja) to launch properly.
The combat could be a usual sandwich combat with the time windowed feature, you start a combat and start to use your general combat skills, till teh time window pops up, then you have to decide what tactical skills shall be launched within that time window.
Once your tactical skill is launched, there will be an indicator showing roughly the "type" or "pre-cast time" of the skill you used, such that your opponents (in case of pvp) may have a *guess* of what skill you might use in order to take counter measures. The mobs will do similarly but maybe more tricky and there are more skills for them to launch, such that more complicated mob AI can be introduced.
There are chances that the "time window" may appear to more than one team-mates at the same time for them to launch group offensive/defensive skills. For instance, if by chance, 3 melee classes in your team acquired the "time window" at the same time (shown by an indicator, or alternatively led by the first skill launcher), they then may launch their own offensive skills simultaneously such that a much more severe (mayhaps more mana efficient) damage will be resulted, than 3 separate attacks. The same may apply to spell casters or non-melee type fighters.
Certain group skills and powerful spells will have to rely on such a time window or even successive multiple time windows to launch. For example, an awful spellhawler may have to use his 1st time window to temperarily increase his stats contributing to damage, the 2nd time window to reduce his opponents defensive stats, and launch his final strike to cause severe damage to a single foe(boss) or a group of opponents. The downside is that the skill user in this case will be more subject to an interruption.
Same the same, the cleric may have to acquire such a time window in order to perform a group buffing. More is that, certain spells (both offensive and defensive) may aim to various number of targets, either in a random pattern or a selectable pattern. Say a dual-wielder may select up to 3 targets to attack in his first acquired time window, however, if he choose to use an assistant skill during the 1st time window he will be able to strike 5 selected targets in his 2nd time window.
In this way, not only that the combat will become more tactical, more cooperative, but also more effective than just zerging, say, a boss. Actually the game mechanics can control up to an extent that zerging may not be an efficient way to take down a boss, such that you have to carefully pick up your team mates in both skills/classes and numbers, in dealing with the various types of bosses (various types of opponents) in order to get the maximized "time window" effects/efficiency in those various situations. (no. of party members is not fixed but somehow depending on situations)
Since such a tactical fight could be fun even when time is extended, you dont need to introduce the extra time sinks such as butt-sitting into your game.
Buffing, debuffing, reversing and decreasing may required time windows and/or successive time windows to achieve. Buffing is to increase stats, debuffing is reset stats to its default values, reversing is reverse the +ve buffed stats to their corresponding -ve values while decreasing to to cause -ve stats from default stat values disregarding previous buffing states. (there could be better terms, i am not an native English speaker :P)
So the combat will start just like a normal sandwich combat where everyone chooses to auto-attack or launch their class/race specific "general" skills. Now the cleric acquires his first time window and launchs a mana buf, the healer is using his first time window to buf himself for successive group healing, the bard sings a buf song in his 1st acquired time window to increase the accuracies or the like, the ninja stealth to the back of the boss in order to launch a backstab in the next time window, the warlord tries to reverse the boss' bufs, the dual-wielder starts to accumulate his triple strike, while the mobs are trying hard to debuf your every buffs using their own time windows, to stun or freeze the spellhawler who's in his 'preparing' status, to detect the presence of the ninja in order to stop his backstabing.........the combat goes on.....(group pvp goes with the same pattern).
While players may yell..'heck, reverse the boss' bufs or else my triple strike will be wasted. Tank, your 'shield' got debuffed, cast 'shield'. Someone, stun the archmage, he's preparing the ice storm..........". Notice that you may have the time to yell or even chat as long as you wont miss out the time windows, while the time windows wont last long enough for you to go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.
[Edited by - Hawkins8 on May 30, 2006 4:21:37 AM]
Even in a real fight (such as boxing), you dont always hack'n slash like crazy, maybe you have to look for a good chance (time window) to launch a certain punch. Thou in such a fight, reflex plays a crucial role.
In an MMO, where even reflex may not actually be one's true reflex (else there wont be speedhacking programs), thus I think maybe more tactical, timing, team cooperations shall be introduced instead of a rather pure "reflex" combat system.
For example, all the ingame combat skills acquired can be divided into 2 categories, the general skills and tactical skills (you dont need to tell the players which is which explicitly, they can figure it out by themselves).
The general set of skills behave more or less like the various offensive/defensive skills as in teh current mainstream MMOs, and thus more or less rely on your reflex to land properly.
The tactical set of skills on the other hand, requires a correct "time window", correct timing, and maybe correct sequence dependencies (ie., a debuf of your enemy's protection shield done by a Cleric followed by a critical hit done by a Ninja) to launch properly.
The combat could be a usual sandwich combat with the time windowed feature, you start a combat and start to use your general combat skills, till teh time window pops up, then you have to decide what tactical skills shall be launched within that time window.
Once your tactical skill is launched, there will be an indicator showing roughly the "type" or "pre-cast time" of the skill you used, such that your opponents (in case of pvp) may have a *guess* of what skill you might use in order to take counter measures. The mobs will do similarly but maybe more tricky and there are more skills for them to launch, such that more complicated mob AI can be introduced.
There are chances that the "time window" may appear to more than one team-mates at the same time for them to launch group offensive/defensive skills. For instance, if by chance, 3 melee classes in your team acquired the "time window" at the same time (shown by an indicator, or alternatively led by the first skill launcher), they then may launch their own offensive skills simultaneously such that a much more severe (mayhaps more mana efficient) damage will be resulted, than 3 separate attacks. The same may apply to spell casters or non-melee type fighters.
Certain group skills and powerful spells will have to rely on such a time window or even successive multiple time windows to launch. For example, an awful spellhawler may have to use his 1st time window to temperarily increase his stats contributing to damage, the 2nd time window to reduce his opponents defensive stats, and launch his final strike to cause severe damage to a single foe(boss) or a group of opponents. The downside is that the skill user in this case will be more subject to an interruption.
Same the same, the cleric may have to acquire such a time window in order to perform a group buffing. More is that, certain spells (both offensive and defensive) may aim to various number of targets, either in a random pattern or a selectable pattern. Say a dual-wielder may select up to 3 targets to attack in his first acquired time window, however, if he choose to use an assistant skill during the 1st time window he will be able to strike 5 selected targets in his 2nd time window.
In this way, not only that the combat will become more tactical, more cooperative, but also more effective than just zerging, say, a boss. Actually the game mechanics can control up to an extent that zerging may not be an efficient way to take down a boss, such that you have to carefully pick up your team mates in both skills/classes and numbers, in dealing with the various types of bosses (various types of opponents) in order to get the maximized "time window" effects/efficiency in those various situations. (no. of party members is not fixed but somehow depending on situations)
Since such a tactical fight could be fun even when time is extended, you dont need to introduce the extra time sinks such as butt-sitting into your game.
Buffing, debuffing, reversing and decreasing may required time windows and/or successive time windows to achieve. Buffing is to increase stats, debuffing is reset stats to its default values, reversing is reverse the +ve buffed stats to their corresponding -ve values while decreasing to to cause -ve stats from default stat values disregarding previous buffing states. (there could be better terms, i am not an native English speaker :P)
So the combat will start just like a normal sandwich combat where everyone chooses to auto-attack or launch their class/race specific "general" skills. Now the cleric acquires his first time window and launchs a mana buf, the healer is using his first time window to buf himself for successive group healing, the bard sings a buf song in his 1st acquired time window to increase the accuracies or the like, the ninja stealth to the back of the boss in order to launch a backstab in the next time window, the warlord tries to reverse the boss' bufs, the dual-wielder starts to accumulate his triple strike, while the mobs are trying hard to debuf your every buffs using their own time windows, to stun or freeze the spellhawler who's in his 'preparing' status, to detect the presence of the ninja in order to stop his backstabing.........the combat goes on.....(group pvp goes with the same pattern).
While players may yell..'heck, reverse the boss' bufs or else my triple strike will be wasted. Tank, your 'shield' got debuffed, cast 'shield'. Someone, stun the archmage, he's preparing the ice storm..........". Notice that you may have the time to yell or even chat as long as you wont miss out the time windows, while the time windows wont last long enough for you to go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.
[Edited by - Hawkins8 on May 30, 2006 4:21:37 AM]
I think combining what Nytehauq is trying to say with what everyone else is saying comes down to this:
If your game has very few weapons, and is aimed at action fans, like Halo, then hiding the data is fine, and will be appreciated by your target audience, who dislikes being bogged down with numbers and would rather focus on gameplay involving tactical movement, shooting, and reflexes.
If your game is more like a standard RPG (which is what the OP seems to be suggesting), and is aimed at the RPG audience, then hiding the data will usually just annoy them. You are going to have seven thousand different swords (Steel Short Sword of the Gorilla, Silver Short Sword of the Gorilla, Steel Short Sword of the Wolf, Steel Long Sword of the Gorilla with a Ruby Pommel, etc.) It is not going to be obvious in any way by looking at those what they will do since RPG combat generally defies reality completely. In real life, any moderately sharp piece of metal will kill someone instantly when I ram it through their chest; in an RPG, I generally need to hack at their chest a few hundred times before they fall over, and the type of sharp stick I use is much more important for completely unrealistic reasons.
If you don't give them the data, they will have to go to a fan website where the data is (trust me, it will appear less than a week after you launch your game with far more data on it than you could possibly imagine anyone figuring out), which is just annoying. Unless you make the combat easy enough that it doesn't really matter what weapons they use, and in that case, the game becomes far too easy for the people who DO look at the website.
Edit: I also want to add this. When people get the idea that they can make their combat more challenging by hiding numbers, it reminds me of "security through obscurity", people who think they can make their business applications more secure by just not telling people how they work. Any moderately successful security programmer will tell you this approach just doesn't work, and creates far more problems than it fixes. It's the same thing with hiding data to make combat challenging. If the only way you can come up with to win at chess is to not tell the other person how the pieces move, you are bad at chess. A good game, of any genre, should have a clearly defined ruleset that allows the players to make tactical and strategic decisions on what to do.
[Edited by - makeshiftwings on May 30, 2006 6:17:09 PM]
If your game has very few weapons, and is aimed at action fans, like Halo, then hiding the data is fine, and will be appreciated by your target audience, who dislikes being bogged down with numbers and would rather focus on gameplay involving tactical movement, shooting, and reflexes.
If your game is more like a standard RPG (which is what the OP seems to be suggesting), and is aimed at the RPG audience, then hiding the data will usually just annoy them. You are going to have seven thousand different swords (Steel Short Sword of the Gorilla, Silver Short Sword of the Gorilla, Steel Short Sword of the Wolf, Steel Long Sword of the Gorilla with a Ruby Pommel, etc.) It is not going to be obvious in any way by looking at those what they will do since RPG combat generally defies reality completely. In real life, any moderately sharp piece of metal will kill someone instantly when I ram it through their chest; in an RPG, I generally need to hack at their chest a few hundred times before they fall over, and the type of sharp stick I use is much more important for completely unrealistic reasons.
If you don't give them the data, they will have to go to a fan website where the data is (trust me, it will appear less than a week after you launch your game with far more data on it than you could possibly imagine anyone figuring out), which is just annoying. Unless you make the combat easy enough that it doesn't really matter what weapons they use, and in that case, the game becomes far too easy for the people who DO look at the website.
Edit: I also want to add this. When people get the idea that they can make their combat more challenging by hiding numbers, it reminds me of "security through obscurity", people who think they can make their business applications more secure by just not telling people how they work. Any moderately successful security programmer will tell you this approach just doesn't work, and creates far more problems than it fixes. It's the same thing with hiding data to make combat challenging. If the only way you can come up with to win at chess is to not tell the other person how the pieces move, you are bad at chess. A good game, of any genre, should have a clearly defined ruleset that allows the players to make tactical and strategic decisions on what to do.
[Edited by - makeshiftwings on May 30, 2006 6:17:09 PM]
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