The presentation layer can hide the inner working of the abstraction. With Hit Points, the numeric value is both the abstraction and the presentation. But, as I stated before, this convention is designed to be playable at the tabletop, and the abstraction is necessarily simplistic. Making a more robust abstraction can provide a more meaningful representation of the body and allows a more interesting set of combat results.
The abstraction isn't "hiding" anything. It is simplifying defense (which in FPS and MMOs tends to result in you concentrating upon the offensive choices, instead. Not inferior, just different.
Your visual cortex is kept busy tracking movement and making decisions about positioning (somethng that takes place at a much lower rate, or even not-at-all in MUD, PnP). Tracking 'shields' or armor rating adds more complexity, but if the movement/reaction processing is absorbing enough 'brainpower', there is an upper limit.
Would a game ticking at 1/10th speed (but with great big most-of-the-graphic-real-estate paper dolls representing complex defenses, and relatively little offensive complexity) satisfy? It might, for a thinking-man's chess sort of combat simulation. Certainly worked for Mech Warrior, back in the day.
Don't think it would make much of an MMO, however--but feel free to design something unique.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
The closest concept I've found to creating a more 'realistic' or complete model of health and stamina mechanics was to limit the ability for the health and stamina bar to grow, let it passively regenerate, and add a 'fatigue' bar that will fill in relation to how often and how rapidly one loses stamina or health.
Hits contain a scale of how focused the force of impact is and consequently how deeply it impacts one's body. You can have high damage strikes that cause minimal impact on the body overall, something that given some time and care you'll heal from, versus a kind of strike that imparts damage on your body more deeply or broadly and causes you to recover slowly.
What this means for your health is that it operates under the pretense that you're pretty much in the 'healthy and active' state while playing. You can run about, get in a scuffle and take one to the jaw and shake it off. These moments accumulate though. You wear your body down and you experience muscle fatigue, bruising, torn and cut muscles or ligaments, etc. Each such detrimental effect becomes harder and harder to handle as your body has to recover from all of it, consequently you find yourself considerably weakened and unable to recover from the attacks or activities you were before.
All in all it doesn't change the core of game play dramatically if you retain a magical means of recovery. You need to keep people active and playing, so unless the game exists in a realistic scenario where the most a medic will do is patch you up and have you rest it off, then a healer will probably be able to come along and restore your fatigue bar and consequently restore your health/stamina.
What it does do game play wise is it changes the moment to moment manner in which you treat your health and stamina. It's less concern about if it's full or empty, and more concern about the speed at which it's moving back and forth. You have to balance how you handle conflicts so that you aren't running your character into the ground to hastily, and at the same time you can be attempting footwork to force your opponents to remain more active and consequently fatigue faster than you so you can finish them off more easily.
The aside I have is that I like the idea of a finite health bar where major attacks from anything remain valid concerns, and crippling effects play larger roles in such moments. A solid strike from a weapon should pretty much cripple whatever it just hit, however when you are playing a game that only uses one hit box, the effect needs to be translated in some manner.
You can send information about where the hit was targeting on the body even if the body doesn't have a hit box for that location alone perhaps, allowing you to make called shots to different places that offer an according effect. In that manner at least you can then offer a kind of mechanic where you have directionally based strikes similar to a fighter game, Asheron's Call, Mount & Blade, or Age of Conan, and corresponding blocking states. When a direction is struck that does not have a defended state, it's considered a solid strike and causes extra damage to health/stamina and fatigue and offers a debuff effect to being crippled. Like delaying or reducing the attacks or defense with one's arms, mobility on legs, extra fatigue damage to the torso, or extra health to the head.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It may sound interesting, but I have to ask: What does this aspect add to the game? What do you do with a broken leg? Does that help your game play?
IMO, it doesn't really add to my gameplay experience. People act as if rethinking hit points is a new thing. It's been talked to death since the mid 70''s. I doubt I have heard a new idea on a replacement in 30+ years. If a replacement isn't an improvement on the existing "flawed" system then the "flawed" system must stay.
It's also funny how some want it to change to be more realistic but don't want permadeath or something that doesn't fast rez like wowser.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
It may sound interesting, but I have to ask: What does this aspect add to the game? What do you do with a broken leg? Does that help your game play?
IMO, it doesn't really add to my gameplay experience. People act as if rethinking hit points is a new thing. It's been talked to death since the mid 70''s. I doubt I have heard a new idea on a replacement in 30+ years. If a replacement isn't an improvement on the existing "flawed" system then the "flawed" system must stay.
It's also funny how some want it to change to be more realistic but don't want permadeath or something that doesn't fast rez like wowser.
To directly answer AlBQuirky's question, a devastating wound, such as a broken leg, isn't going to help your game play. But only if you define game play as combat, like MMORPGs have traditionally focused on.
Ideally, a game needs to have many alternative paths -- sitting in a tavern telling stories of your glory, to quietly attending to religious duties, to entering the rave to become the new Alderman of Freeton, to proving your worth to the crafting guild at village of Mornside, to meditating to gain mana, getting an audience with the King, judging a local crafting fair, attending a social event,or even planning your own. MMORPGs have traditionally focused on combat as the primary system, with crafting systems a distant second. Everything else that I have mentioned have been left to the general chat interface and NPC quest systems.
I feel very strongly that MMORPGs have lost a lot of the role-playing aspects. Sure, there's still progression (now at almost every corner), but the storytelling aspects have been left far behind. Camaraderie and personality isn't encouraged, nor rewarded. Instead, the games focus on constant danger.
This formula might work for a game, but it doesn't work in other venues, especially in fantasy stories. If you read a story where there was nothing but constant fighting, with minimal development of the characters and no overall story, most people would find it very bland and unrewarding. The 'story' written by almost every MMORPG wouldn't get picked up and published in the current fiction market.
To me, things need to change. Not just Hit Points, but other gaming conventions as well. If combat becomes more brutal, maybe players would choose to employ more caution, and seek out other systems. I might know the back story for every character I've played, but I doubt I could recall the story of even one other player's characters. Most people probably cannot recall the name of the last 'Vendor Loot' item they sold.
But almost everyone knows how many Hit Points their character has. That just seems wrong.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
It may sound interesting, but I have to ask: What does this aspect add to the game? What do you do with a broken leg? Does that help your game play?
IMO, it doesn't really add to my gameplay experience. People act as if rethinking hit points is a new thing. It's been talked to death since the mid 70''s. I doubt I have heard a new idea on a replacement in 30+ years. If a replacement isn't an improvement on the existing "flawed" system then the "flawed" system must stay.
It's also funny how some want it to change to be more realistic but don't want permadeath or something that doesn't fast rez like wowser.
A lot of those previous, older, arguments required extensive record keeping by the players. The PnP stuff anyway. There was a PnP system that actually used square roots in its character/results configuration! If all the number crunching is done by a computer, and then graphically displayed in a good interface, it's a bit less problematic.
All games are abstractions, but some abstractions fit better than others. Of course, basic ones have the advantage of being....simple.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
It may sound interesting, but I have to ask: What does this aspect add to the game? What do you do with a broken leg? Does that help your game play?
IMO, it doesn't really add to my gameplay experience. People act as if rethinking hit points is a new thing. It's been talked to death since the mid 70''s. I doubt I have heard a new idea on a replacement in 30+ years. If a replacement isn't an improvement on the existing "flawed" system then the "flawed" system must stay.
It's also funny how some want it to change to be more realistic but don't want permadeath or something that doesn't fast rez like wowser.
A lot of those previous, older, arguments required extensive record keeping by the players. The PnP stuff anyway. There was a PnP system that actually used square roots in its character/results configuration! If all the number crunching is done by a computer, and then graphically displayed in a good interface, it's a bit less problematic.
All games are abstractions, but some abstractions fit better than others. Of course, basic ones have the advantage of being....simple.
Come up with a specific system described in great detail and prove you can come up with something amazing. Other than that, this is just a mental masturbation exercise.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
as far as i'm concerned the heart rate is the ultimate system and here are my reasons:
1) you are aware of your general condition but not your precise count. This element of uncertainty will add to your enjoyment psychologically because you will react differently when you think your about to die vs when you know your about to die. The stress effect will be triggered much sooner when you don't know. Not all stress is bad for you.
2) heart rates can be done graphically without much effort in the ui. They can also add sound effects when you get near death, which will also trigger stress/terror and lead to a better more immersive experience.
3) conditions can be color coded for easy viewing. Green is poison, red is bleed, blue is stun etc.
4) you can either use the heart monitor or beating heart graphic for variability. For those that must absolutely have hitpoints a vial with 4 stages can be used to serve a similar function.
5) You can combine mana/stamina/health into one pool if you want and represent it that way, The more you exert the faster you die. A different way of thinking and managing your lifeforce.
6) because you can combine all stats into one (you will still have mana/stamina/health, it will just be represented differently), it adds a second layer of management where your health might run out but your kept alive by a thread while your mana/stamina rapidly deplete. Your survival would be more of a combination of all stats than strictly hitpoints. Likewise if you waste your resources you die faster. This allows for more skilled play. Players might actually have to learn something new.
7) its time for something new, something immersive.
Originally posted by Draemos Gemstone IV (a mud btw, no idea why you think this is a concept thats something new, the text based combat is FAR more compex than graphical engines) uses an injury system and while intriguing, it's ultimately just annoying. The end result is the same, when something breaks to the point of being too detrimental you stop and need to get it fixed. It's not really any different than a more active gear repair system.
PnP and text-based games require much lower reaction time than modern MMO combat. As such, the more complexity to the damage/health system, the slower the combat has to be in order to allow players to follow it. This is an area where both turn-based combat and phased combat could do very well. The player has the time to assess the situation and decide on the action/reaction based on what has happened.
On of the biggest detriments to any kind of meaningful combat currently is the cooldown timer, a design that conditions the player to mash the next available key because a) there's no reason not to and b) each time they don't they are losing out on some level of gain in the combat scenario.
Whoa... no no no. PnP sure, not text based. You used to have to macro all your commands out so you could beat a 1 second instant kill mechanics from monsters spawning in rooms. For instance my Sorcerer used to have a few seconds at most to incapacitate a War Griffin otherwise I was totally fucked. I died more in that game than any graphical game, the combat was way faster paced. It was kill or be killed, a spell fizzle could be all she wrote. The timing windows where wayyyyy stricter in muds.
I dont mind a hit point system, but the problem is that its way out of bounds.....Really if you think about it, it would not take many hits to kill someone or something.......I've always htought most MMOs do a poor job of relating the type of damage vs the gear being worn also......The old school D&D games seemed to do a pretty good job of not getting too out of hand with the hit points and placing more emphasis on spell protection and other means.
Not all classic role-playing games are like D&D although D&D was the first commercial role-playing sold to a gaming market.
Note that not all classic role-playing games have as simple a hit point system like D&D, and even this game has often has had a concept of fatigue, which is tracked separately to hit points.
AD&D was the first to have vast numbers of hit points with some Fighters having enough hit points to survive falls in which they had reached terminal velocity. It does make things rather odd but also it reflected how some fantasy genres worked.
Other games existed where the systems were more realistic, even quite early on:
RuneQuest was a fantasy game where weapons were quite lethal often maimed people.
Traveller was the early SF RPG where your hit points were your three physical stats (Strength, Dexterity and Endurance) and damage came directly off them, often in large amounts due to advanced weapons.
Various superhero systems added a second amount of hit points - one related to death and other related to losing consciousness, so people could decide to switch to killing attacks.
Fudge (and other games) provided wound levels instead of hit points.
Essentially there is quite a mix amongst classic role-playing games if you can look beyond the typical games.
One aspect of the vast numbers of hit point system is that fights can become quite boring and unexciting.
If someone is trying to make an exciting and different games, like The Secret World for example, but melee combat comes down to hit points and average rates of damage (taking into account various strategies) things become rather samey and boring. Such fights tend to become slow grudge matches that churn on pointlessly.
If people are seeking to make MMO games for differing genres then the base system should be akin to distinctive, classic role-playing games from that genre rather than people constantly falling back to that D&D base.
If you want to scare me use Call of Cthulhu/RuneQuest base, if you want to something superheroic use something closer to the Hero System, if you want to bore me the use a D&D system for any old rubbish.
as far as i'm concerned the heart rate is the ultimate system and here are my reasons:
1) you are aware of your general condition but not your precise count. This element of uncertainty will add to your enjoyment psychologically because you will react differently when you think your about to die vs when you know your about to die. The stress effect will be triggered much sooner when you don't know. Not all stress is bad for you.
2) heart rates can be done graphically without much effort in the ui. They can also add sound effects when you get near death, which will also trigger stress/terror and lead to a better more immersive experience.
3) conditions can be color coded for easy viewing. Green is poison, red is bleed, blue is stun etc.
4) you can either use the heart monitor or beating heart graphic for variability. For those that must absolutely have hitpoints a vial with 4 stages can be used to serve a similar function.
5) You can combine mana/stamina/health into one pool if you want and represent it that way, The more you exert the faster you die. A different way of thinking and managing your lifeforce.
6) because you can combine all stats into one (you will still have mana/stamina/health, it will just be represented differently), it adds a second layer of management where your health might run out but your kept alive by a thread while your mana/stamina rapidly deplete. Your survival would be more of a combination of all stats than strictly hitpoints. Likewise if you waste your resources you die faster. This allows for more skilled play. Players might actually have to learn something new.
7) its time for something new, something immersive.
Bump bump, bump bump
The heart rate and medical graphics are certainly a well-known presentation. One of the unfortunate things about Hit Point Systems, especially systems where the number is both the implementation and presentation, is that a player can too easily judge their survivability, taking the suspense and uncertainty out of combat.
"I've got 950 HPs left, and a Scruffy Axeman will typically do 300 HP damage to me, so I can kill 2 more before I need to rest." Wrong. Ask a real life doctor how many times someone could hit you in the face with an axe. Those that took the Hippocratic Oath (rather than the Hypocritical Oath) will advise against finding out. And you'll get all sorts of psychological notes added to you medical records if you do ask.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Not all classic role-playing games are like D&D although D&D was the first commercial role-playing sold to a gaming market.
Note that not all classic role-playing games have as simple a hit point system like D&D, and even this game has often has had a concept of fatigue, which is tracked separately to hit points.
AD&D was the first to have vast numbers of hit points with some Fighters having enough hit points to survive falls in which they had reached terminal velocity. It does make things rather odd but also it reflected how some fantasy genres worked.
Other games existed where the systems were more realistic, even quite early on:
RuneQuest was a fantasy game where weapons were quite lethal often maimed people.
Traveller was the early SF RPG where your hit points were your three physical stats (Strength, Dexterity and Endurance) and damage came directly off them, often in large amounts due to advanced weapons.
Various superhero systems added a second amount of hit points - one related to death and other related to losing consciousness, so people could decide to switch to killing attacks.
Fudge (and other games) provided wound levels instead of hit points.
Essentially there is quite a mix amongst classic role-playing games if you can look beyond the typical games.
One aspect of the vast numbers of hit point system is that fights can become quite boring and unexciting.
If someone is trying to make an exciting and different games, like The Secret World for example, but melee combat comes down to hit points and average rates of damage (taking into account various strategies) things become rather samey and boring. Such fights tend to become slow grudge matches that churn on pointlessly.
If people are seeking to make MMO games for differing genres then the base system should be akin to distinctive, classic role-playing games from that genre rather than people constantly falling back to that D&D base.
If you want to scare me use Call of Cthulhu/RuneQuest base, if you want to something superheroic use something closer to the Hero System, if you want to bore me the use a D&D system for any old rubbish.
All wonderful systems (RuneQuest may be my all-time favorite), but all the classic games you listed use Hit Points. Granted, these systems weren't as likely to experience the wildly inflated Hit Point totals, probably because they were played by fewer people. But their use of Hit Points is a direct descendent of the original D&D system.
D&D has a relative 'sweet' spot where Hit Points and weapon damages nearly balance, usually around 2nd or 3rd level for fighter classes and 4th to 6th for other classes. It's really a pretty deadly game around this level. RuneQuest was balanced as well, using a single Overall Hit Point total, and Hit Points on each individual hit location. Still, the 1st edition RQ featured several ways to temporarily or permanently boost any of these HP values (directly affecting CON and HPs, or indirectly affecting AC). There were versions of these spells for Common Magics as well as Rune Magics and bound spirits could also adjust the Hit Point totals.
In MMORPGs, any form of Hit Points is a temptation for undisciplined developers to 'improve' a piece of gear by simply adding more HPs. To date, I am unaware of any group of developers that have been able to resist that temptation, leading to games where well-equipped players are essentially immune to the content. Bloated Hit Point totals, whether from levels, stats or gear, have taken the danger and uncertainty out of a good portion of combat. This is where I feel a new method of abstraction would benefit the genre the most.
Historical note: The Hit Point convention even permeated backwards into traditional military board games to give military units multiple degrees of health (Terrible Swift Sword is the first I remember, but there were many, many others). Prior to that crossover, board games used variations on 'Full Strength (front side)', 'Broken (back side)', 'Defeated (off the board)' status. Incorporation of Hit Points into board games required health markers for every unit counter. Chits numbered 1 through 8 became commonplace, and all sorts of other status counters ('Smoke', 'Out of Command', 'Stunned', etc.) followed. This glut of extra counters increased production costs two-fold, three-fold or worse, which contributed to the decline of the traditional board game publishers.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Of all the things to rethink in MMORPGs, Hit Points is not one of them. At the very most you could add a few more and change how they work like SWG but, as others have stated, they aren't going away. Not everything needs to be rethought or replaced just because it is old. In fact, because Static and Regenerative HP has far outlast hit locations, it because it is typically the right mechanic to use in the majority of games and especially for MMORPGs.
Hit locations are great when in turn based, slow paced or pausable action games, or games that play out in a short round. This should tell you that can't take this mechanic and jam it into a typical fantasy MMORPG. In this case, you can't make the mechanic to fit the game. Determine how your game should work and then adapt the mechanic to it.
Since PnP is so deep in your blood, your best option is to make a PnP game at the core, and all the restrictions with it.
Of all the things to rethink in MMORPGs, Hit Points is not one of them. At the very most you could add a few more and change how they work like SWG but, as others have stated, they aren't going away. Not everything needs to be rethought or replaced just because it is old. In fact, because Static and Regenerative HP has far outlast hit locations, it because it is typically the right mechanic to use in the majority of games and especially for MMORPGs.
Hit locations are great when in turn based, slow paced or pausable action games, or games that play out in a short round. This should tell you that can't take this mechanic and jam it into a typical fantasy MMORPG. In this case, you can't make the mechanic to fit the game. Determine how your game should work and then adapt the mechanic to it.
Since PnP is so deep in your blood, your best option is to make a PnP game at the core, and all the restrictions with it.
The simplicity of the Hit Points system makes it the fastest to play with Dice. Adding more die rolls, calculations, special factors and situational resolution charts slows down PnP gaming immensely. What is unplayable as an analog system is lightning fast with a computer. All HP-based MMORPGs have taken the easy way out -- implementing the prevailing system without apparently looking at other systems. (The most 'realistic' combat system I've put before testers would take almost 20 minutes for a single combat resolution; more if people's attention wavered or a chart got misplaced. That wouldn't take anytime at all as a computerized system).
The result, we're mired in a field of MMORPGs that are criticized as dull and boring, or just another WoW-clone. For the good of the genre, some developer needs to do something to innovate the genre, and rethinking old decisions is one way to help foster innovation. A few more been-there-done-that titles that are met with lackluster success will make developers leery of making new games. If I were a developer/publisher looking at the reaction to FFARR (and many other games) on these forums, it would be difficult to make the financial decision to push out another WoW-clone.
It may be in the long run that Hit Points are the best way to systemically abstract the human body for MMORPGs. I'm just hoping (against hope, really) that some developer will hear a cry for rethinking the conventional gaming systems, and we will begin to see new games that will excite the players.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The gaming industry has used the same basic methods for abstracting conflict resolution for so long now that the fundamental gaming aspect has gotten stale. Weapon damage is resolved by random numbers and spell damage with bigger random numbers each whittling away on a target's (both mobs and players) pool of increasing silly HPs. Healers (and potions and regeneration effects) rapidly try to replenish that pool of HPs before the pool reaches 0. Additionally, there are all too many games that bestow Hit Points from items, further increasing the totals of characters and is a root cause of mudflation. At some point, this abstraction will need to evolve; hit points can't be the best (and only) way to simulate the human body.
Hit points abstract a person's ability to continue fighting coupled with defenses. It doesn't abstract pain, nor bruises, nor broken bones, nor cut tissue, nor pulled muscles, nor internal injuries or any other side effect of one object hitting flesh and bone. Hit points are not very good at dealing with lasting effects such as burns or poisons or lack of use. Try throwing a ball with a broken wrist, or kicking a ball with a twisted ankle, you might be able to accomplish the task, but it will not be as sharp or accurate as an unhindered effort. The basic hit point system is now dated and MMORPGs need another way to abstract the human's ability to retain life.
Hit points were used to create a single number in a dice-driven pen-and-paper gaming environment. But with computers, is there really a need to boil everything down to a single number anymore? Why not an alive/dead abstraction with separate pain tolerance levels (abstractions) for each area of the body? Or various, constant pools of health points associated with each hit location? Or fatality percentages for each hit location?
Changes to this basic Hit Point abstraction has ripple effects throughout the entire game system. Combat, natural healing, magical healing, combat magics and other affects use or manipulate these values within the game world. I've tried making several non-HP-based systems. I've not gotten it good enough to be satisfied with, and I've been trying for almost 25 years now.
It's not an easy mechanism to replace, but I think it is time that MMORPGs break its reliance on this RP tradition. And I believe that the next big challenge for MMORPGs is to find a better model for the human body than the Hit Point model.
Your ideas and opinions are welcome.
I'm not going to read the entire thread, sorry if anyone's offended. I've been out of MMOs for quite a while and the hit point system is a major component of the reason.
Basically, I expect an MMO to be a world full of players playing in that world. HPs as they are divide those players into subgroups, and the world with it. It's not *A* world, it's rooms and zones and feels "gamey".
It's not necessarily the HP numbers. It's how they are used. Of course they are used to put forth that D+D feel, but D+D was a few players around a table. You didn't have masses. Except at conventions, where levels were separated to tables much like players are divided into zones in MMOs. But MMOs take it well beyond D+D, at least the D+D I used to play (Advanced D+D).
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One system I saw that I think was a lot better than D+D for an MMO was a game called RuneQuest. You had HPs, and they were divided into body locations including right and left limbs. Not an exact division, it was a percentage of the total for each location, based on the location.
Attacks were against a random location and did damage to both that location and total HPs. In this way, a location could take on a "critical" effect. An arm could become useless, or less useful. A leg could limit your movement, both legs could drop you to the ground. The head could leave you unconscious. Plus bleeding could leave you with but a few rounds to live if not attended.
With computers I think it would be an easy thing to add special attacks designed to go after particular locations, as well as special defensive stances that protect certain locations better than others. Gear also (shields or guards) can have an effect.
Allowing players to wear what they want on each location, and having side effects for armor types (movement based and skill affecting) adds another dimension. So that warrior wearing only a helm and plate armor on the left arm allowing him defenses in key locations but much better movement in order to use his net effectively becomes an identity for the player's character. Or many other options.
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The above system could be used, I think, entirely in a percentage sort of way. Instead of numbers, the player becomes aware that his arm is 10% less effective, or his head is really hurting and he's near unconsciousness. (Of course, numbers have to run in the background no matter what you do.)
At any rate, I think the old D+D style HP system never did work well for a truly "massively" multiplayer "world". And I think we're actually far past the time it needs to be changed.
I've put a lot of thought into this and the end result isn't getting rid of HP but instead disguising to the user. Take APB:Reloaded for instance. Everyone has the same HP but you don't know what is and you don't know how much you have at a given time. At least you don't know by numbers, you can "sense" how much you have based on the sound of the heartbeat or the red color to the screen.
Basically, no matter what you do or what you come up with, there will always be hit points. We just need to think of a different way of representing them to the user.
Multiple hit boxes isn't the answer for diversity like injuries simply because the internet still isn't good enough for it. One valid option is to have different attack heights like low, mid, high where high was head dmg, low was leg dmg, mid would be arm/body dmg depending on defensive stance. There would still be that roll of the dice factored in but it's not much of a role playing game if you can't have a little chance involved
I've put a lot of thought into this and the end result isn't getting rid of HP but instead disguising to the user. Take APB:Reloaded for instance. Everyone has the same HP but you don't know what is and you don't know how much you have at a given time. At least you don't know by numbers, you can "sense" how much you have based on the sound of the heartbeat or the red color to the screen.
Basically, no matter what you do or what you come up with, there will always be hit points. We just need to think of a different way of representing them to the user.
Multiple hit boxes isn't the answer for diversity like injuries simply because the internet still isn't good enough for it. One valid option is to have different attack heights like low, mid, high where high was head dmg, low was leg dmg, mid would be arm/body dmg depending on defensive stance. There would still be that roll of the dice factored in but it's not much of a role playing game if you can't have a little chance involved
I don't know why you think multiple hit boxes are a problem. There's really nothing to that, just some added lines of code. UO used to have locations and the armor you wore would have an effect when hit in that location. They just didn't add the location effects like I outlined above, but they did have armor damage on the location armor when it took a hit.
The rest of your post is good. I've proposed that sort of high/middle/low attacks very often over the years. I think it could add something to the game, especially if you use armor-on-location too. And then also add in the size of the opponent. in relation to the attacker's size. In fact, UO also had that first step of this too, I'm pretty sure. I used to wear leather armor except for the head, where I liked to wear a Mage Hat for the Ranger look of it all. I noticed I was taking more damage against large creatures than medium or small. So I tested it by wearing all plate against Slimes. Slimes had an acid attack that damaged metal armors, and after some time fighting them I took a look at the various location armors for damage. And sure enough, the "Legs" armor took the brunt of the damage to it's "armor wear".
Anyways, something like you suggest would give added tactics. How much added tactics would depend on how far they go with the effects. You could have:
Location specific critical hits: similar to what I outlined above.
Creature weaknesses by location. If a Dragon has a soft spot on it's underbelly, then attacks "aimed" at that zone might have a chance of hitting that spot. Better yet would be to have each Dragon's soft spot in an unknown zone, and only revealed by repeated attacks and awareness of the player of "critical hits" when they happen, allowing the player a discovery and then an advantage against each individual Dragon.
You could have special effects, hit the Ghost's Lantern (a mid height zone) to "Blind" it, hit a Giant's Achilles Heel (a low attack) to "Slow" it, etc.
You could also add the relationship in. A high attack might entirely miss a small earthbound creature, while a low attack might entirely miss a flying creature. And a high attack against a giant class creature might hit that creature's "middle zone" as often as it's "high zone" due to it's towering size. That's assuming the game doesn't have these totally unbelievable giants that reach almost to the clouds.
I've put a lot of thought into this and the end result isn't getting rid of HP but instead disguising to the user. Take APB:Reloaded for instance. Everyone has the same HP but you don't know what is and you don't know how much you have at a given time. At least you don't know by numbers, you can "sense" how much you have based on the sound of the heartbeat or the red color to the screen.
Basically, no matter what you do or what you come up with, there will always be hit points. We just need to think of a different way of representing them to the user.
Multiple hit boxes isn't the answer for diversity like injuries simply because the internet still isn't good enough for it. One valid option is to have different attack heights like low, mid, high where high was head dmg, low was leg dmg, mid would be arm/body dmg depending on defensive stance. There would still be that roll of the dice factored in but it's not much of a role playing game if you can't have a little chance involved
Something very similar to that was done before in probably several games. One I can think of was Neocron, a MMOFPSRPG that came out in 2002. All characters had HP but also there wasalso body HP too like Upper(head/neck), Mid (torso, arms, Lower(legs). But having all of those 3 locations health at 0 doesn't mean you die, it just ment you were temporarily gimped until healed. Your overall HP still determined life/death. Legs shot? You move something like 20-80% slower. Head blown off? You take extra damage. I'm not sure what torso damage was... probably stamina and aiming but it wasn't noticeable. Ultimately, the only resulting gameplay change was that in PvE you aimed higher up on the target and in PvP you would focus on the legs if the player moved fast and was hard to kill with a healer on his ass. The illusion that it added more depth to the game was the primary benefit because really, it didn't add much actual value to the game. The downside was that any falling would do leg damage and made for some slow and annoying travel/exploration. Or mobs did either random high bursts of damage, blew your legs off, or both. Yeah, so fun.
I've put a lot of thought into this and the end result isn't getting rid of HP but instead disguising to the user. Take APB:Reloaded for instance. Everyone has the same HP but you don't know what is and you don't know how much you have at a given time. At least you don't know by numbers, you can "sense" how much you have based on the sound of the heartbeat or the red color to the screen.
Basically, no matter what you do or what you come up with, there will always be hit points. We just need to think of a different way of representing them to the user.
Multiple hit boxes isn't the answer for diversity like injuries simply because the internet still isn't good enough for it. One valid option is to have different attack heights like low, mid, high where high was head dmg, low was leg dmg, mid would be arm/body dmg depending on defensive stance. There would still be that roll of the dice factored in but it's not much of a role playing game if you can't have a little chance involved
I don't know why you think multiple hit boxes are a problem. There's really nothing to that, just some added lines of code. UO used to have locations and the armor you wore would have an effect when hit in that location. They just didn't add the location effects like I outlined above, but they did have armor damage on the location armor when it took a hit.
The rest of your post is good. I've proposed that sort of high/middle/low attacks very often over the years. I think it could add something to the game, especially if you use armor-on-location too. And then also add in the size of the opponent. in relation to the attacker's size. In fact, UO also had that first step of this too, I'm pretty sure. I used to wear leather armor except for the head, where I liked to wear a Mage Hat for the Ranger look of it all. I noticed I was taking more damage against large creatures than medium or small. So I tested it by wearing all plate against Slimes. Slimes had an acid attack that damaged metal armors, and after some time fighting them I took a look at the various location armors for damage. And sure enough, the "Legs" armor took the brunt of the damage to it's "armor wear".
Anyways, something like you suggest would give added tactics. How much added tactics would depend on how far they go with the effects. You could have:
Location specific critical hits: similar to what I outlined above.
Creature weaknesses by location. If a Dragon has a soft spot on it's underbelly, then attacks "aimed" at that zone might have a chance of hitting that spot. Better yet would be to have each Dragon's soft spot in an unknown zone, and only revealed by repeated attacks and awareness of the player of "critical hits" when they happen, allowing the player a discovery and then an advantage against each individual Dragon.
You could have special effects, hit the Ghost's Lantern (a mid height zone) to "Blind" it, hit a Giant's Achilles Heel (a low attack) to "Slow" it, etc.
You could also add the relationship in. A high attack might entirely miss a small earthbound creature, while a low attack might entirely miss a flying creature. And a high attack against a giant class creature might hit that creature's "middle zone" as often as it's "high zone" due to it's towering size. That's assuming the game doesn't have these totally unbelievable giants that reach almost to the clouds.
It depends on a lot of things. For one, do you want FPS style combat that means "where you aim is where you hit" then you use hitboxes. Though using hit boxes and player aim you will also need to consider server load and other things. Darkfall is as close to a full size MMO with FPS combat, and they didn't use multiple hit boxes for a reason, and not because it was more lines of code.
If you were going for more of a click style combat then instead of calculating damage based on where you aimed it would be based on what type of attack you did, and therefore wouldn't require hitboxes at all.
I kind of like AoC's approach to combat (with refining) where you can select your target and perform attacks but they still had a hitbox so you needed to make sure your weapon came into contact with it or it wouldn't do anything. I would change it so that performing certain skills didn't lock the player, I hate not being in control when activating a skill (TERA) and I also would change it so that the ranged players would have to aim their bows/magic instead of being those heat seeking missiles. But then perhaps making the type of damage depend on what type of attack was made (low, mid, high). These attacks could be tied to individual animations so the defender could tell what type of attack was being performed and the proper defense could be taken. All with only one hitbox and less worry about latency.
I've put a lot of thought into this and the end result isn't getting rid of HP but instead disguising to the user. Take APB:Reloaded for instance. Everyone has the same HP but you don't know what is and you don't know how much you have at a given time. At least you don't know by numbers, you can "sense" how much you have based on the sound of the heartbeat or the red color to the screen.
Basically, no matter what you do or what you come up with, there will always be hit points. We just need to think of a different way of representing them to the user.
Multiple hit boxes isn't the answer for diversity like injuries simply because the internet still isn't good enough for it. One valid option is to have different attack heights like low, mid, high where high was head dmg, low was leg dmg, mid would be arm/body dmg depending on defensive stance. There would still be that roll of the dice factored in but it's not much of a role playing game if you can't have a little chance involved
I don't know why you think multiple hit boxes are a problem. There's really nothing to that, just some added lines of code. UO used to have locations and the armor you wore would have an effect when hit in that location. They just didn't add the location effects like I outlined above, but they did have armor damage on the location armor when it took a hit.
The rest of your post is good. I've proposed that sort of high/middle/low attacks very often over the years. I think it could add something to the game, especially if you use armor-on-location too. And then also add in the size of the opponent. in relation to the attacker's size. In fact, UO also had that first step of this too, I'm pretty sure. I used to wear leather armor except for the head, where I liked to wear a Mage Hat for the Ranger look of it all. I noticed I was taking more damage against large creatures than medium or small. So I tested it by wearing all plate against Slimes. Slimes had an acid attack that damaged metal armors, and after some time fighting them I took a look at the various location armors for damage. And sure enough, the "Legs" armor took the brunt of the damage to it's "armor wear".
Anyways, something like you suggest would give added tactics. How much added tactics would depend on how far they go with the effects. You could have:
Location specific critical hits: similar to what I outlined above.
Creature weaknesses by location. If a Dragon has a soft spot on it's underbelly, then attacks "aimed" at that zone might have a chance of hitting that spot. Better yet would be to have each Dragon's soft spot in an unknown zone, and only revealed by repeated attacks and awareness of the player of "critical hits" when they happen, allowing the player a discovery and then an advantage against each individual Dragon.
You could have special effects, hit the Ghost's Lantern (a mid height zone) to "Blind" it, hit a Giant's Achilles Heel (a low attack) to "Slow" it, etc.
You could also add the relationship in. A high attack might entirely miss a small earthbound creature, while a low attack might entirely miss a flying creature. And a high attack against a giant class creature might hit that creature's "middle zone" as often as it's "high zone" due to it's towering size. That's assuming the game doesn't have these totally unbelievable giants that reach almost to the clouds.
It depends on a lot of things. For one, do you want FPS style combat that means "where you aim is where you hit" then you use hitboxes. Though using hit boxes and player aim you will also need to consider server load and other things. Darkfall is as close to a full size MMO with FPS combat, and they didn't use multiple hit boxes for a reason, and not because it was more lines of code.
If you were going for more of a click style combat then instead of calculating damage based on where you aimed it would be based on what type of attack you did, and therefore wouldn't require hitboxes at all.
I kind of like AoC's approach to combat (with refining) where you can select your target and perform attacks but they still had a hitbox so you needed to make sure your weapon came into contact with it or it wouldn't do anything. I would change it so that performing certain skills didn't lock the player, I hate not being in control when activating a skill (TERA) and I also would change it so that the ranged players would have to aim their bows/magic instead of being those heat seeking missiles. But then perhaps making the type of damage depend on what type of attack was made (low, mid, high). These attacks could be tied to individual animations so the defender could tell what type of attack was being performed and the proper defense could be taken. All with only one hitbox and less worry about latency.
Ok, you're talking about "Hit Boxes" and I'm talking about "Hit Locations". That's two different things from the mechanics point of view, although closely related as far as how it can be thought of.
With Hit Locations, as I'm using the term, when a target is hit, then the location is determined. That can be purely random, or weighted (as in your high/middle/low attack could be used), or if you use Hit Boxes (as you are talking about) that can be done as you suggested. There's various way to design it, as you obviously can see, and some more effective than others depending on the game's combat design.
Yes, it all depends on the game's combat design. Or should we say that the game's combat design should be dependent on this?
Edit to add:
"I kind of like AoC's approach to combat (with refining) where you can select your target and perform attacks but they still had a hitbox so you needed to make sure your weapon came into contact with it or it wouldn't do anything. I would change it so that performing certain skills didn't lock the player, I hate not being in control when activating a skill (TERA) and I also would change it so that the ranged players would have to aim their bows/magic instead of being those heat seeking missiles. But then perhaps making the type of damage depend on what type of attack was made (low, mid, high). These attacks could be tied to individual animations so the defender could tell what type of attack was being performed and the proper defense could be taken. All with only one hitbox and less worry about latency."
I like this idea. A lot. It's along the same lines as I've been thinking. Although, I'll add that you could also have "Special Attacks" rather than the high/middle/low attacks. Specials that are specifically going after an end result, such as attacking the legs so as to slow the target's movement.
Ok, you're talking about "Hit Boxes" and I'm talking about "Hit Locations". That's two different things from the mechanics point of view, although closely related as far as how it can be thought of.
With Hit Locations, as I'm using the term, when a target is hit, then the location is determined. That can be purely random, or weighted (as in your high/middle/low attack could be used), or if you use Hit Boxes (as you are talking about) that can be done as you suggested. There's various way to design it, as you obviously can see, and some more effective than others depending on the game's combat design.
Yes, it all depends on the game's combat design. Or should we say that the game's combat design should be dependent on this?
Edit to add:
"I kind of like AoC's approach to combat (with refining) where you can select your target and perform attacks but they still had a hitbox so you needed to make sure your weapon came into contact with it or it wouldn't do anything. I would change it so that performing certain skills didn't lock the player, I hate not being in control when activating a skill (TERA) and I also would change it so that the ranged players would have to aim their bows/magic instead of being those heat seeking missiles. But then perhaps making the type of damage depend on what type of attack was made (low, mid, high). These attacks could be tied to individual animations so the defender could tell what type of attack was being performed and the proper defense could be taken. All with only one hitbox and less worry about latency."
I like this idea. A lot. It's along the same lines as I've been thinking. Although, I'll add that you could also have "Special Attacks" rather than the high/middle/low attacks. Specials that are specifically going after an end result, such as attacking the legs so as to slow the target's movement.
Yes, exactly. I was just using low, mid, high as a brief example.
As others have already mentioned a HP system is easy enough to use. More so it's easy to implement.
The OP often mentioned D&D. If you consider all the possible rules that influence health (e.g. temporary buffs by class or spells, being level drained, equipment used, life draining others, temporarily increasing constitution, etc.) things can get pretty complicated when considering what you will allow to stack and what will not stack. 3rd edition cleaned things up a bit. But unlike previous editions you'll end up with higher numbers now.
The point is, you can invent so many rules and make things more and more complex. Yes a computer could handle that. But you have to keep in mind that a human has to programm it and especially test it. The more complex things get the harder it is to make sure that there are as few errors as possible.
It is possible to implement a system based on numbers and present to the player some abstraction. But you'll have to provide a "debug" mode (with numbers) as well for testing if things are computed correctly.
There are also other aspects to change the dynamics of battle, e.g. flanking rules (attacking from front, side or rear and when a shield or dexterity/agility bonus applies) which make it important for a player to carefully chose his/her position in battle. Whether to charge into a crowd of ennemies or better not to. To keep with the D&D example. Healing spells being touch based spells means that healing during battle is dangerous. The healer will have to enter melee and trying not to get interrupted while casting spells. More often that will rather lead to carrying potions for the combat part and save spells for afterwards (after-combat-bone-mending).
Rules are rules. In the end it depends on how the players adapt to the rules (and how they play the system). An idea might sound good at first but you'll only know if it really works when you try it. But then it might be too late to make great changes due to the possible impact such changes would have on the overall game mechanics.
The only other thing I have considered of any note is armor use. if we have traditional(low) HP but add a layer of specific armor "plates" then use directional attacks and feint parry block so a player can use each peice of armor as a pool via char position to an incoming attack it may make for a fun alternitive considering armor may have a much larger "pool" then the flesh underneath per peice in conection to location. Like a pauldron is usualy made of much harder stuff then a gridle and having a multi joystick positioning system may alow for some really interesting design concepts
Originally posted by Drakephire OP, your system of hit location has been implemented before...not only PnP games, but computer games as well. The game I'm speaking of specifically is Battletech. Hit locations, with each area able to sustain certain amounts of damage before critical components fail. Occasionally a lucky shot will bypass all HP and damage a critical component directly.
If you want to get technical, d&d supplement 2 Blackmoor had an experimental hit location system. Yes it has been done before. It wasn't more fun in the long term.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I thought I would bring the Advanced Dungeon and Dragons explanation of hit points via the Dungeon Master's Guide into the discussion for those unfamiliar with the pen and paper game.
"HIT POINTS
It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).
Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain, and that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into the non-physical areas already detailed."
The notion of combat rounds is actually similar in that many movements, feints, blocks and retreats are built into every round where one 'attack' is actually computed as the culmination of fatigue, cuts and bruises. It isn't as if you are 'trading blows' with axes. Anyway, just an old school interjection.
Comments
The abstraction isn't "hiding" anything. It is simplifying defense (which in FPS and MMOs tends to result in you concentrating upon the offensive choices, instead. Not inferior, just different.
Your visual cortex is kept busy tracking movement and making decisions about positioning (somethng that takes place at a much lower rate, or even not-at-all in MUD, PnP). Tracking 'shields' or armor rating adds more complexity, but if the movement/reaction processing is absorbing enough 'brainpower', there is an upper limit.
Would a game ticking at 1/10th speed (but with great big most-of-the-graphic-real-estate paper dolls representing complex defenses, and relatively little offensive complexity) satisfy? It might, for a thinking-man's chess sort of combat simulation. Certainly worked for Mech Warrior, back in the day.
Don't think it would make much of an MMO, however--but feel free to design something unique.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
The closest concept I've found to creating a more 'realistic' or complete model of health and stamina mechanics was to limit the ability for the health and stamina bar to grow, let it passively regenerate, and add a 'fatigue' bar that will fill in relation to how often and how rapidly one loses stamina or health.
Hits contain a scale of how focused the force of impact is and consequently how deeply it impacts one's body. You can have high damage strikes that cause minimal impact on the body overall, something that given some time and care you'll heal from, versus a kind of strike that imparts damage on your body more deeply or broadly and causes you to recover slowly.
What this means for your health is that it operates under the pretense that you're pretty much in the 'healthy and active' state while playing. You can run about, get in a scuffle and take one to the jaw and shake it off. These moments accumulate though. You wear your body down and you experience muscle fatigue, bruising, torn and cut muscles or ligaments, etc. Each such detrimental effect becomes harder and harder to handle as your body has to recover from all of it, consequently you find yourself considerably weakened and unable to recover from the attacks or activities you were before.
All in all it doesn't change the core of game play dramatically if you retain a magical means of recovery. You need to keep people active and playing, so unless the game exists in a realistic scenario where the most a medic will do is patch you up and have you rest it off, then a healer will probably be able to come along and restore your fatigue bar and consequently restore your health/stamina.
What it does do game play wise is it changes the moment to moment manner in which you treat your health and stamina. It's less concern about if it's full or empty, and more concern about the speed at which it's moving back and forth. You have to balance how you handle conflicts so that you aren't running your character into the ground to hastily, and at the same time you can be attempting footwork to force your opponents to remain more active and consequently fatigue faster than you so you can finish them off more easily.
The aside I have is that I like the idea of a finite health bar where major attacks from anything remain valid concerns, and crippling effects play larger roles in such moments. A solid strike from a weapon should pretty much cripple whatever it just hit, however when you are playing a game that only uses one hit box, the effect needs to be translated in some manner.
You can send information about where the hit was targeting on the body even if the body doesn't have a hit box for that location alone perhaps, allowing you to make called shots to different places that offer an according effect. In that manner at least you can then offer a kind of mechanic where you have directionally based strikes similar to a fighter game, Asheron's Call, Mount & Blade, or Age of Conan, and corresponding blocking states. When a direction is struck that does not have a defended state, it's considered a solid strike and causes extra damage to health/stamina and fatigue and offers a debuff effect to being crippled. Like delaying or reducing the attacks or defense with one's arms, mobility on legs, extra fatigue damage to the torso, or extra health to the head.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
IMO, it doesn't really add to my gameplay experience. People act as if rethinking hit points is a new thing. It's been talked to death since the mid 70''s. I doubt I have heard a new idea on a replacement in 30+ years. If a replacement isn't an improvement on the existing "flawed" system then the "flawed" system must stay.
It's also funny how some want it to change to be more realistic but don't want permadeath or something that doesn't fast rez like wowser.
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https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
To directly answer AlBQuirky's question, a devastating wound, such as a broken leg, isn't going to help your game play. But only if you define game play as combat, like MMORPGs have traditionally focused on.
Ideally, a game needs to have many alternative paths -- sitting in a tavern telling stories of your glory, to quietly attending to religious duties, to entering the rave to become the new Alderman of Freeton, to proving your worth to the crafting guild at village of Mornside, to meditating to gain mana, getting an audience with the King, judging a local crafting fair, attending a social event,or even planning your own. MMORPGs have traditionally focused on combat as the primary system, with crafting systems a distant second. Everything else that I have mentioned have been left to the general chat interface and NPC quest systems.
I feel very strongly that MMORPGs have lost a lot of the role-playing aspects. Sure, there's still progression (now at almost every corner), but the storytelling aspects have been left far behind. Camaraderie and personality isn't encouraged, nor rewarded. Instead, the games focus on constant danger.
This formula might work for a game, but it doesn't work in other venues, especially in fantasy stories. If you read a story where there was nothing but constant fighting, with minimal development of the characters and no overall story, most people would find it very bland and unrewarding. The 'story' written by almost every MMORPG wouldn't get picked up and published in the current fiction market.
To me, things need to change. Not just Hit Points, but other gaming conventions as well. If combat becomes more brutal, maybe players would choose to employ more caution, and seek out other systems. I might know the back story for every character I've played, but I doubt I could recall the story of even one other player's characters. Most people probably cannot recall the name of the last 'Vendor Loot' item they sold.
But almost everyone knows how many Hit Points their character has. That just seems wrong.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
A lot of those previous, older, arguments required extensive record keeping by the players. The PnP stuff anyway. There was a PnP system that actually used square roots in its character/results configuration! If all the number crunching is done by a computer, and then graphically displayed in a good interface, it's a bit less problematic.
All games are abstractions, but some abstractions fit better than others. Of course, basic ones have the advantage of being....simple.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Come up with a specific system described in great detail and prove you can come up with something amazing. Other than that, this is just a mental masturbation exercise.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
as far as i'm concerned the heart rate is the ultimate system and here are my reasons:
1) you are aware of your general condition but not your precise count. This element of uncertainty will add to your enjoyment psychologically because you will react differently when you think your about to die vs when you know your about to die. The stress effect will be triggered much sooner when you don't know. Not all stress is bad for you.
2) heart rates can be done graphically without much effort in the ui. They can also add sound effects when you get near death, which will also trigger stress/terror and lead to a better more immersive experience.
3) conditions can be color coded for easy viewing. Green is poison, red is bleed, blue is stun etc.
4) you can either use the heart monitor or beating heart graphic for variability. For those that must absolutely have hitpoints a vial with 4 stages can be used to serve a similar function.
5) You can combine mana/stamina/health into one pool if you want and represent it that way, The more you exert the faster you die. A different way of thinking and managing your lifeforce.
6) because you can combine all stats into one (you will still have mana/stamina/health, it will just be represented differently), it adds a second layer of management where your health might run out but your kept alive by a thread while your mana/stamina rapidly deplete. Your survival would be more of a combination of all stats than strictly hitpoints. Likewise if you waste your resources you die faster. This allows for more skilled play. Players might actually have to learn something new.
7) its time for something new, something immersive.
Bump bump, bump bump
Whoa... no no no. PnP sure, not text based. You used to have to macro all your commands out so you could beat a 1 second instant kill mechanics from monsters spawning in rooms. For instance my Sorcerer used to have a few seconds at most to incapacitate a War Griffin otherwise I was totally fucked. I died more in that game than any graphical game, the combat was way faster paced. It was kill or be killed, a spell fizzle could be all she wrote. The timing windows where wayyyyy stricter in muds.
Not all classic role-playing games are like D&D although D&D was the first commercial role-playing sold to a gaming market.
Note that not all classic role-playing games have as simple a hit point system like D&D, and even this game has often has had a concept of fatigue, which is tracked separately to hit points.
AD&D was the first to have vast numbers of hit points with some Fighters having enough hit points to survive falls in which they had reached terminal velocity. It does make things rather odd but also it reflected how some fantasy genres worked.
Other games existed where the systems were more realistic, even quite early on:
If people are seeking to make MMO games for differing genres then the base system should be akin to distinctive, classic role-playing games from that genre rather than people constantly falling back to that D&D base.
If you want to scare me use Call of Cthulhu/RuneQuest base, if you want to something superheroic use something closer to the Hero System, if you want to bore me the use a D&D system for any old rubbish.
The heart rate and medical graphics are certainly a well-known presentation. One of the unfortunate things about Hit Point Systems, especially systems where the number is both the implementation and presentation, is that a player can too easily judge their survivability, taking the suspense and uncertainty out of combat.
"I've got 950 HPs left, and a Scruffy Axeman will typically do 300 HP damage to me, so I can kill 2 more before I need to rest." Wrong. Ask a real life doctor how many times someone could hit you in the face with an axe. Those that took the Hippocratic Oath (rather than the Hypocritical Oath) will advise against finding out. And you'll get all sorts of psychological notes added to you medical records if you do ask.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
All wonderful systems (RuneQuest may be my all-time favorite), but all the classic games you listed use Hit Points. Granted, these systems weren't as likely to experience the wildly inflated Hit Point totals, probably because they were played by fewer people. But their use of Hit Points is a direct descendent of the original D&D system.
D&D has a relative 'sweet' spot where Hit Points and weapon damages nearly balance, usually around 2nd or 3rd level for fighter classes and 4th to 6th for other classes. It's really a pretty deadly game around this level. RuneQuest was balanced as well, using a single Overall Hit Point total, and Hit Points on each individual hit location. Still, the 1st edition RQ featured several ways to temporarily or permanently boost any of these HP values (directly affecting CON and HPs, or indirectly affecting AC). There were versions of these spells for Common Magics as well as Rune Magics and bound spirits could also adjust the Hit Point totals.
In MMORPGs, any form of Hit Points is a temptation for undisciplined developers to 'improve' a piece of gear by simply adding more HPs. To date, I am unaware of any group of developers that have been able to resist that temptation, leading to games where well-equipped players are essentially immune to the content. Bloated Hit Point totals, whether from levels, stats or gear, have taken the danger and uncertainty out of a good portion of combat. This is where I feel a new method of abstraction would benefit the genre the most.
Historical note: The Hit Point convention even permeated backwards into traditional military board games to give military units multiple degrees of health (Terrible Swift Sword is the first I remember, but there were many, many others). Prior to that crossover, board games used variations on 'Full Strength (front side)', 'Broken (back side)', 'Defeated (off the board)' status. Incorporation of Hit Points into board games required health markers for every unit counter. Chits numbered 1 through 8 became commonplace, and all sorts of other status counters ('Smoke', 'Out of Command', 'Stunned', etc.) followed. This glut of extra counters increased production costs two-fold, three-fold or worse, which contributed to the decline of the traditional board game publishers.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Of all the things to rethink in MMORPGs, Hit Points is not one of them. At the very most you could add a few more and change how they work like SWG but, as others have stated, they aren't going away. Not everything needs to be rethought or replaced just because it is old. In fact, because Static and Regenerative HP has far outlast hit locations, it because it is typically the right mechanic to use in the majority of games and especially for MMORPGs.
Hit locations are great when in turn based, slow paced or pausable action games, or games that play out in a short round. This should tell you that can't take this mechanic and jam it into a typical fantasy MMORPG. In this case, you can't make the mechanic to fit the game. Determine how your game should work and then adapt the mechanic to it.
Since PnP is so deep in your blood, your best option is to make a PnP game at the core, and all the restrictions with it.
The simplicity of the Hit Points system makes it the fastest to play with Dice. Adding more die rolls, calculations, special factors and situational resolution charts slows down PnP gaming immensely. What is unplayable as an analog system is lightning fast with a computer. All HP-based MMORPGs have taken the easy way out -- implementing the prevailing system without apparently looking at other systems. (The most 'realistic' combat system I've put before testers would take almost 20 minutes for a single combat resolution; more if people's attention wavered or a chart got misplaced. That wouldn't take anytime at all as a computerized system).
The result, we're mired in a field of MMORPGs that are criticized as dull and boring, or just another WoW-clone. For the good of the genre, some developer needs to do something to innovate the genre, and rethinking old decisions is one way to help foster innovation. A few more been-there-done-that titles that are met with lackluster success will make developers leery of making new games. If I were a developer/publisher looking at the reaction to FFARR (and many other games) on these forums, it would be difficult to make the financial decision to push out another WoW-clone.
It may be in the long run that Hit Points are the best way to systemically abstract the human body for MMORPGs. I'm just hoping (against hope, really) that some developer will hear a cry for rethinking the conventional gaming systems, and we will begin to see new games that will excite the players.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I'm not going to read the entire thread, sorry if anyone's offended. I've been out of MMOs for quite a while and the hit point system is a major component of the reason.
Basically, I expect an MMO to be a world full of players playing in that world. HPs as they are divide those players into subgroups, and the world with it. It's not *A* world, it's rooms and zones and feels "gamey".
It's not necessarily the HP numbers. It's how they are used. Of course they are used to put forth that D+D feel, but D+D was a few players around a table. You didn't have masses. Except at conventions, where levels were separated to tables much like players are divided into zones in MMOs. But MMOs take it well beyond D+D, at least the D+D I used to play (Advanced D+D).
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One system I saw that I think was a lot better than D+D for an MMO was a game called RuneQuest. You had HPs, and they were divided into body locations including right and left limbs. Not an exact division, it was a percentage of the total for each location, based on the location.
Attacks were against a random location and did damage to both that location and total HPs. In this way, a location could take on a "critical" effect. An arm could become useless, or less useful. A leg could limit your movement, both legs could drop you to the ground. The head could leave you unconscious. Plus bleeding could leave you with but a few rounds to live if not attended.
With computers I think it would be an easy thing to add special attacks designed to go after particular locations, as well as special defensive stances that protect certain locations better than others. Gear also (shields or guards) can have an effect.
Allowing players to wear what they want on each location, and having side effects for armor types (movement based and skill affecting) adds another dimension. So that warrior wearing only a helm and plate armor on the left arm allowing him defenses in key locations but much better movement in order to use his net effectively becomes an identity for the player's character. Or many other options.
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The above system could be used, I think, entirely in a percentage sort of way. Instead of numbers, the player becomes aware that his arm is 10% less effective, or his head is really hurting and he's near unconsciousness. (Of course, numbers have to run in the background no matter what you do.)
At any rate, I think the old D+D style HP system never did work well for a truly "massively" multiplayer "world". And I think we're actually far past the time it needs to be changed.
Once upon a time....
I've put a lot of thought into this and the end result isn't getting rid of HP but instead disguising to the user. Take APB:Reloaded for instance. Everyone has the same HP but you don't know what is and you don't know how much you have at a given time. At least you don't know by numbers, you can "sense" how much you have based on the sound of the heartbeat or the red color to the screen.
Basically, no matter what you do or what you come up with, there will always be hit points. We just need to think of a different way of representing them to the user.
Multiple hit boxes isn't the answer for diversity like injuries simply because the internet still isn't good enough for it. One valid option is to have different attack heights like low, mid, high where high was head dmg, low was leg dmg, mid would be arm/body dmg depending on defensive stance. There would still be that roll of the dice factored in but it's not much of a role playing game if you can't have a little chance involved
I don't know why you think multiple hit boxes are a problem. There's really nothing to that, just some added lines of code. UO used to have locations and the armor you wore would have an effect when hit in that location. They just didn't add the location effects like I outlined above, but they did have armor damage on the location armor when it took a hit.
The rest of your post is good. I've proposed that sort of high/middle/low attacks very often over the years. I think it could add something to the game, especially if you use armor-on-location too. And then also add in the size of the opponent. in relation to the attacker's size. In fact, UO also had that first step of this too, I'm pretty sure. I used to wear leather armor except for the head, where I liked to wear a Mage Hat for the Ranger look of it all. I noticed I was taking more damage against large creatures than medium or small. So I tested it by wearing all plate against Slimes. Slimes had an acid attack that damaged metal armors, and after some time fighting them I took a look at the various location armors for damage. And sure enough, the "Legs" armor took the brunt of the damage to it's "armor wear".
Anyways, something like you suggest would give added tactics. How much added tactics would depend on how far they go with the effects. You could have:
Once upon a time....
Something very similar to that was done before in probably several games. One I can think of was Neocron, a MMOFPSRPG that came out in 2002. All characters had HP but also there wasalso body HP too like Upper(head/neck), Mid (torso, arms, Lower(legs). But having all of those 3 locations health at 0 doesn't mean you die, it just ment you were temporarily gimped until healed. Your overall HP still determined life/death. Legs shot? You move something like 20-80% slower. Head blown off? You take extra damage. I'm not sure what torso damage was... probably stamina and aiming but it wasn't noticeable. Ultimately, the only resulting gameplay change was that in PvE you aimed higher up on the target and in PvP you would focus on the legs if the player moved fast and was hard to kill with a healer on his ass. The illusion that it added more depth to the game was the primary benefit because really, it didn't add much actual value to the game. The downside was that any falling would do leg damage and made for some slow and annoying travel/exploration. Or mobs did either random high bursts of damage, blew your legs off, or both. Yeah, so fun.
Ok, you're talking about "Hit Boxes" and I'm talking about "Hit Locations". That's two different things from the mechanics point of view, although closely related as far as how it can be thought of.
With Hit Locations, as I'm using the term, when a target is hit, then the location is determined. That can be purely random, or weighted (as in your high/middle/low attack could be used), or if you use Hit Boxes (as you are talking about) that can be done as you suggested. There's various way to design it, as you obviously can see, and some more effective than others depending on the game's combat design.
Yes, it all depends on the game's combat design. Or should we say that the game's combat design should be dependent on this?
Edit to add:
"I kind of like AoC's approach to combat (with refining) where you can select your target and perform attacks but they still had a hitbox so you needed to make sure your weapon came into contact with it or it wouldn't do anything. I would change it so that performing certain skills didn't lock the player, I hate not being in control when activating a skill (TERA) and I also would change it so that the ranged players would have to aim their bows/magic instead of being those heat seeking missiles. But then perhaps making the type of damage depend on what type of attack was made (low, mid, high). These attacks could be tied to individual animations so the defender could tell what type of attack was being performed and the proper defense could be taken. All with only one hitbox and less worry about latency."
I like this idea. A lot. It's along the same lines as I've been thinking. Although, I'll add that you could also have "Special Attacks" rather than the high/middle/low attacks. Specials that are specifically going after an end result, such as attacking the legs so as to slow the target's movement.
Once upon a time....
Yes, exactly. I was just using low, mid, high as a brief example.
As others have already mentioned a HP system is easy enough to use. More so it's easy to implement.
The OP often mentioned D&D. If you consider all the possible rules that influence health (e.g. temporary buffs by class or spells, being level drained, equipment used, life draining others, temporarily increasing constitution, etc.) things can get pretty complicated when considering what you will allow to stack and what will not stack. 3rd edition cleaned things up a bit. But unlike previous editions you'll end up with higher numbers now.
The point is, you can invent so many rules and make things more and more complex. Yes a computer could handle that. But you have to keep in mind that a human has to programm it and especially test it. The more complex things get the harder it is to make sure that there are as few errors as possible.
It is possible to implement a system based on numbers and present to the player some abstraction. But you'll have to provide a "debug" mode (with numbers) as well for testing if things are computed correctly.
There are also other aspects to change the dynamics of battle, e.g. flanking rules (attacking from front, side or rear and when a shield or dexterity/agility bonus applies) which make it important for a player to carefully chose his/her position in battle. Whether to charge into a crowd of ennemies or better not to.
To keep with the D&D example. Healing spells being touch based spells means that healing during battle is dangerous. The healer will have to enter melee and trying not to get interrupted while casting spells. More often that will rather lead to carrying potions for the combat part and save spells for afterwards (after-combat-bone-mending).
Rules are rules. In the end it depends on how the players adapt to the rules (and how they play the system). An idea might sound good at first but you'll only know if it really works when you try it. But then it might be too late to make great changes due to the possible impact such changes would have on the overall game mechanics.
If you want to get technical, d&d supplement 2 Blackmoor had an experimental hit location system. Yes it has been done before. It wasn't more fun in the long term.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I thought I would bring the Advanced Dungeon and Dragons explanation of hit points via the Dungeon Master's Guide into the discussion for those unfamiliar with the pen and paper game.
"HIT POINTS
It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability
in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain
physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an
assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust
which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero
could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why
then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual
physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by
constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill
in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which
warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck,
and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine
protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand
physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas
which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).
Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume
that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four
normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a
character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no
less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain, and
that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup
of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into
the non-physical areas already detailed."
The notion of combat rounds is actually similar in that many movements, feints, blocks and retreats are built into every round where one 'attack' is actually computed as the culmination of fatigue, cuts and bruises. It isn't as if you are 'trading blows' with axes. Anyway, just an old school interjection.
Saving throws are another discussion entirely...