Hitpoints, Damage, Experience

OctDev · 2001-07-29T22:20:53

Well this is basically going to be cut and pasted from some replies I made to another thread Damage and Armor equations (oh my!) last night, so sorry if it seems garbled. I want the design forum to take a look. This was in response to a futuristic rpg based around projectile weapons (guns) and various levels of armor. Many rpgs increase hp in direct proportion to experience. How can you create effective damage equations and allow the player to get stronger while not incresing there hp 10 fold (somewhat unrealistic, but soooo many games do this). One attempt to level this is to not increase the hp in crazy amounts, but make new armor available with a significant increase of protection. Now how do you effectively balance damage and armor equations and still attain some degree of realism (armor degrades with time, etc). My thoughts: Player gets hit points, HP. Weapons get Damage points, DP. You need to determine these things with some sort of workable relationship, based on how you want your gameplay. Now, add in armor. Armor gets hit points, AP, perecntage of total AP, A%, and Damage Value, DV. AP is transparent to the user. They have no idea what there AP is exactly, they only have a percentage to work with, i.e., leather jacket 65% usable. AP should be higher than HP, much higher with good armor, i.e. if main weapons are pistols then Bullet proof vest AP ~= 5 * HP. Damage is the # of DP that it can withstand. If a 9mm does damage 7, a bullet proof vest should be able to stop a few of those, so its DV should be ~12. You figure out the specifics for your game. Now the damage system. Enemy Fires. Do your hit check. If a hit is scored, damage as follows: damage_inflicted = DP - A% * DV; if (damage_inflicted < 0) damage_inflicted = 0; HP = HP - damage_inflicted; AP = AP - DP; updateA%(); Basically, the functional percentage of the Armor, multiplied by the Armor''s Damage Value, absorbs that many Damage points from the attack. If there are any leftover, these are removed from the players HP. No matter what, this affects the armor to some extent (but not a whole lot, as the Armor Points should start with a high value). This updates the A%, so eventually it starts absorbing less and letting more damage through, while still deteriorating at the same rate. This system is versatile in its tweaking ability, its ease of porting to component style attack/armor/damage, and being able to keep armor found through the course of the game (or scavenged) not ''good as new''. Now, for adding hitpoints but making things somewhat more believable than "you killed the Boss, good job, your life doubles!''. Especially for futuristic...focus should be that your hero should get better at avoidance with experience, and also should have better equipment available at higher levels, rather than constantly adding more hit points. Better armor fits nicely into my previous example, as armor with a high damage value will absorb most of the hits that get through. This was also a consideration when I first hammered out this idea a while ago. I do think some strength/vitality/hitpoint increase is justified...I know that when I am in good shape I am a hell of a lot tougher than when I am in bad shape. This led me to think of an adrenaline factor too. When I played really competitive soccer, I rarely felt pain during games, even when delivered a brutal hit. A few hours after the game though, I would discover cuts, bumps, bruises, and a general body ache. I used that as the basis of my adrenaline theory--the better your training and skill (experience) the less likely you are to be hindered by wounds. My two thoughts were 1.) (the easy way) this justifies hp increase with experience, although it should be something like inverse logarithmic...in the beginning it makes a noticeable difference, later you only rely on your skill to avoid those injuries, or 2.) (the cool way) Factor in the adrenaline factor. Track adrenaline increases, and use this as a hp increaser in situations, calculated with percentages. Upside--your still moving after getting hit by that bullet. Downside--you kill everyone in the room, no more threat, adrenaline starts to slowly dissipate. If you don''t find a hospital soon, or some place to rest and stitch up, you get killed after the fact. Your thoughts? --OctDev

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by OctDev July 25, 2001 05:37 PM

9 comments, last by OctDev 22 years, 8 months ago

Dauntless

314

July 29, 2001 10:20 PM

Ooops, I found out the name of that company is actually Blackburg Tactical Research Center, and they are still in business. Check out their webpage: www.btrc.net. I really do recommend you check out their 3G3 gun design, and if you can get ahold of it, SpaceTime (I haven''t seen their CORPS game system, but if it''s as good as SpaceTime, I''m gonna buy it). It''s WAAYYYY above most RPG''s, and 3G3 has enough mathematical formulas to give you programming ideas on how to create realistic weapons.

The other company was LEading Edge Games, and unfortunately, they are out of business.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount." - General Omar Bradley

Hitpoints, Damage, Experience

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