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).
Sorry I didn't read all of it, but with this I was thinking why increase HP when you can simply have the other stats like luck, agility, etc. take care of what the extra HP would do. I realize it's just formalities and only using HP is much more simple (K.I.S.S.) but I think for immersion purposes it could be fun to work on building your characters agility rather than leveling to gain more HP. Just a thought.
Well in this system your Dexterity (agility is a factor here too) could rise to a level where it could improve your armor class depending on armor type and other factors. So, effectively you would be raising your ability to deny hits altogether.
There are a number of overlapping combat stats and states that make up your character's ability to survive in AD&D. Hit points are simply another aspect of the whole. I know you get that but I'm just throwing out some of the game reasoning.
I think part of the problem in MMOs is that hit points are usually given a 'red' color denoting blood or pure physical toughness.
They also generally don't use the saving throw aspect which covers a multitude of combat effects. Resistances usually occupy this area.
Obviously pacing is a factor and the game needs to whether it's giving the player more information then he can handle to make meaningfull decisions upon. However, I don't think that precludes a greater level of sophistication in the injury/damage system. Look at something like World of Tanks Online where armor has penetration values vs different types of ammo and you don't just do general damage to a tank but also can damage or destroy specific sub-sytems (guns, tracks, loaders, optics, engine, gyrostabilzers, etc) which have differing effects on the vehicles performance. Same thing with something like WWII Online or the old Starfleet Battles Online games. There is also the potential of not simply stuff that you do IN the encounter but things you do BEFORE the encounter to prepare (like choosing different armor or weapons when you expect specific types of opposition).
Many ARPG also have a non-trivial meta game. In D3, you can spend as much time as you want to optimize gear, and choose your skills, but once that is done, you have limited options when you fight.
WoT is more or less the same. All these armor & values does not matter when you are just aiming and firing. It matters BEFORE you go into battle.
Having played WoT quite a bit for awhile (not to mention WWII Online where it is even more important) simply aiming and clicking whenever you get the chance without regard to what you are shooting at is a pretty good way to lose a match. Generaly you want to understand if your shots will have a decent chance of both hitting and penetrating your targets facing armor because you will get spotted once you fire and subject to return fire. Alot of times you want to wait (or manuver) to get a side shot or at least until the target isn't hull-down. If your chances of penetration are bad, you'll want to aim at the tracks to see if you can track/immobilize it.....and knowing what your target can potentialy do to you is equaly important.....although you don't want to stay in one spot too long after firing due to indirect HE fire. Not to mention knowing which spots to aim for on which vehicles.
Even WoT which is pretty arcade-y deals with this sort of stuff. Something like WWII Online where you have even more detailed armor penetration charts, including stuff like armor penetration at range, angle of deflection, spall, etc....it starts to make a big deal.
Trying to play those like a typical arcade game is a good way to be ineffective and get blown up quickly.
The basic hit point system is certainly something that has been functional (on some level) for a very long time. However, that doesn't mean it's the only way to slice an egg or couldn't stand some variation. As for "fun" different people find different things "fun", one man's Nirvana is another mans dentist office.
I kinda dislike (ok dislike alot) the basic HP system as it stands in most of todays MMO's. I'd like to see a little bit of variation on it tried, even if some or most of the basic system principle was kept.
The basic hit point system is certainly something that has been functional (on some level) for a very long time. However, that doesn't mean it's the only way to slice an egg or couldn't stand some variation. As for "fun" different people find different things "fun", one man's Nirvana is another mans dentist office.
I kinda dislike (ok dislike alot) the basic HP system as it stands in most of todays MMO's. I'd like to see a little bit of variation on it tried, even if some or most of the basic system principle was kept.
My concern with Hit Points is that since the games are just building on PnP conventions, maybe we're missing something by not developing a computer-specific abstraction. It does seem that entirely too many games are too similar. To me, this is an industry that is begging for something innovative. We're getting the same basic systems combined in slightly different ways and we're wondering why the games don't feel fresh. Something different at a basic level could revolutionize the MMORPG industry and potentially give players that burst of newness they want.
It's not that I am against Hit Points; I'm against developers using Hit Points without investigating alternative possibilities.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Originally posted by GrumpyMel2 The basic hit point system is certainly something that has been functional (on some level) for a very long time. However, that doesn't mean it's the only way to slice an egg or couldn't stand some variation. As for "fun" different people find different things "fun", one man's Nirvana is another mans dentist office.
I kinda dislike (ok dislike alot) the basic HP system as it stands in most of todays MMO's. I'd like to see a little bit of variation on it tried, even if some or most of the basic system principle was kept.
Assuming the general concept of hitpoints is kept then perhaps a graphical representation instead of stats or bars would bring some added 'feeling'. Some have advocated the audio heart beat for example.
I think a system where as a character is wounded/exhausted he (or she or whatever form the character takes) might start to lose color going to increasing depths of greyscale and possibly becoming more and more "ghostlike". People put a lot of concern into how their character looks and growing more translucent and drab might give a sense of dread and impending doom. DOOOOOOM (sorry)
Just a thought and I'm sure it has been done in various forms already. Of course this brings up memories of corpse running as a ghost so now I'm going to think about that all day. Thanks
It's not that I am against Hit Points; I'm against developers using Hit Points without investigating alternative possibilities.
My (armchair game designer) attempts at doing this focused on thinking in terms of chess and starting with the question "is my character in check?" Then I worked backwards through the situations that could have put a character in check and how to communicate that state to the player in a way that lets them make meaningful decisions to avoid danger. I failed to find an idea that passed the basic "is it fun?" test. Either the player needed too much time to consider their options, or they got overwhelmed with the stream of information, leading to what felt like random death or it ended up simplying back to hit points.
It's not that I am against Hit Points; I'm against developers using Hit Points without investigating alternative possibilities.
My (armchair game designer) attempts at doing this focused on thinking in terms of chess and starting with the question "is my character in check?" Then I worked backwards through the situations that could have put a character in check and how to communicate that state to the player in a way that lets them make meaningful decisions to avoid danger. I failed to find an idea that passed the basic "is it fun?" test. Either the player needed too much time to consider their options, or they got overwhelmed with the stream of information, leading to what felt like random death or it ended up simplying back to hit points.
I've run into similar problems when trying to develop a complex PnP combat system. The manual nature of rolling dice, performing calculations and looking up results gets overwhelming when these tasks aren't computerized. Even the venerable old EQ1 combat system is almost unplayable as a manual system, with all the triggered combat responses. (Dodge, parry, riposte, etc.)
As for the speed of information, does the player need to know all the information going on behind the scenes? The presentation can certainly be abstracted, and the world clock of an MMORPG can be slowed down. (Another topic entirely, but the pulse of MMORPGs seems too fast, which limits the amount of information that a player can absorb and tends to make the combat situations entirely too arcade-like). Between an abstraction that is understandable and a slightly slower world 'heartbeat', there is room for alternative systems to function.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
As for the speed of information, does the player need to know all the information going on behind the scenes?
The player needs to know their state of danger and what decisions they can make.
That's not quite the same as knowing what's going on behind the scenes, but it's a problem of equal complexity (in my armchair-developer opinion).
( think of a game like simcity where the city is the "character" - the players don't know exactly what the calculations are that the computer is doing behind the scenes, but the ebb and flow unfolding on screen is providing a huge stream of information to digest about the overall health of their city )
So after reading it all and thinking about it again this is what I come up with.
Most of what everyone is saying is right but only circumstantially so.
Abstraction has been the flavor of the year and justly so but only because it has facilitated a need within a combat structure that has been either severely limited or greatly exaggerated in time. In the PnP mode there were many more rolls that needed to be made in order to complete a full round of combat and so the abstraction helped us keep things moving. In the MMORPG mode combat is fast and furious, far faster than it is in real life, and so the abstraction helps us divide our attention without becoming too distracted.
Both of these things work. We know they do because we have played both kinds of games. But what if the game was more of a simulation of real world combat at real world speeds and with real world circumstances?
I use Mortal Online as an example. In that game a player must not only deal with their hit points but their fatigue in swinging weapons of different sizes. A big ole honking sword is only going to swing so fast and so many times before the player needs to catch their breath, but at the same time, and as it should be, the damage done when that puppy lays into you is profound.
Rethinking hit points then can not just be done across the boards and in a vacuum but must be incorporated into an entire rethinking of combat overall. Concepts like dodging, turning, jousting, reduced effectiveness of damaged limbs, armor, constitution or toughness, weapons restrictions, as well as death penalties must be observed or, as my esteemed colleague mentioned earlier, the min/maxer will just figure out how many hits they can take in the arm before they become ineffective and reduce combat down into a series of strikes to this limb or that.
The key here is to make such a system so close to the real thing that the risk outweighs reward. That is how it is in life. I have a pretty good idea how many times I can be stabbed in real life before I feel compelled to take a dirt nap but that still isn't going to reinforce me into thinking that I can just go get in a knife fight whenever I want to. The risk for losing is just too great.
Now looking at all this I am sure that a lot of you would say, "Holy crap, that would suck!!!" But would it really? At the end of the day it would still just be a video game wouldn't it? You wouldn't be dying for real, and I can vouch that the speed of combat in Mortal Online, or what Bethesda is about to drop on you, is not boring in the least bit.
So in conclusion my contribution is that only through the total overhaul of combat in general could my earlier idea of superimposing the hit zone model over the player character toon actually work well. Under such circumstances it would barely be difficult at all to play in the third person perspective and be aware of, and acknowledge armor damage, wounds, and the lost of use in limbs.
In first person, using the paper doll model, it would trade the immersion of seeing the armor and limbs as they take damage for being able to play inside the head of the actual fighter. In either case both could work.
Rethinking it for games that use the current super fast, non-simulation rules though, or for PnP games that feature saving throws and modifiers and whatnot? Maybe not such a good idea.
(Edited inclusion) Also note, in the simulation model such things as dodging, avoiding, and turning are all player made actions and thus the only number required might be how fast the toon reacts to the players input. Yet another variable that would keep a min/maxer up at night.
Comments
Sorry I didn't read all of it, but with this I was thinking why increase HP when you can simply have the other stats like luck, agility, etc. take care of what the extra HP would do. I realize it's just formalities and only using HP is much more simple (K.I.S.S.) but I think for immersion purposes it could be fun to work on building your characters agility rather than leveling to gain more HP. Just a thought.
Well in this system your Dexterity (agility is a factor here too) could rise to a level where it could improve your armor class depending on armor type and other factors. So, effectively you would be raising your ability to deny hits altogether.
There are a number of overlapping combat stats and states that make up your character's ability to survive in AD&D. Hit points are simply another aspect of the whole. I know you get that but I'm just throwing out some of the game reasoning.
I think part of the problem in MMOs is that hit points are usually given a 'red' color denoting blood or pure physical toughness.
They also generally don't use the saving throw aspect which covers a multitude of combat effects. Resistances usually occupy this area.
Having played WoT quite a bit for awhile (not to mention WWII Online where it is even more important) simply aiming and clicking whenever you get the chance without regard to what you are shooting at is a pretty good way to lose a match. Generaly you want to understand if your shots will have a decent chance of both hitting and penetrating your targets facing armor because you will get spotted once you fire and subject to return fire. Alot of times you want to wait (or manuver) to get a side shot or at least until the target isn't hull-down. If your chances of penetration are bad, you'll want to aim at the tracks to see if you can track/immobilize it.....and knowing what your target can potentialy do to you is equaly important.....although you don't want to stay in one spot too long after firing due to indirect HE fire. Not to mention knowing which spots to aim for on which vehicles.
Even WoT which is pretty arcade-y deals with this sort of stuff. Something like WWII Online where you have even more detailed armor penetration charts, including stuff like armor penetration at range, angle of deflection, spall, etc....it starts to make a big deal.
Trying to play those like a typical arcade game is a good way to be ineffective and get blown up quickly.
The basic hit point system is certainly something that has been functional (on some level) for a very long time. However, that doesn't mean it's the only way to slice an egg or couldn't stand some variation. As for "fun" different people find different things "fun", one man's Nirvana is another mans dentist office.
I kinda dislike (ok dislike alot) the basic HP system as it stands in most of todays MMO's. I'd like to see a little bit of variation on it tried, even if some or most of the basic system principle was kept.
My concern with Hit Points is that since the games are just building on PnP conventions, maybe we're missing something by not developing a computer-specific abstraction. It does seem that entirely too many games are too similar. To me, this is an industry that is begging for something innovative. We're getting the same basic systems combined in slightly different ways and we're wondering why the games don't feel fresh. Something different at a basic level could revolutionize the MMORPG industry and potentially give players that burst of newness they want.
It's not that I am against Hit Points; I'm against developers using Hit Points without investigating alternative possibilities.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Assuming the general concept of hitpoints is kept then perhaps a graphical representation instead of stats or bars would bring some added 'feeling'. Some have advocated the audio heart beat for example.
I think a system where as a character is wounded/exhausted he (or she or whatever form the character takes) might start to lose color going to increasing depths of greyscale and possibly becoming more and more "ghostlike". People put a lot of concern into how their character looks and growing more translucent and drab might give a sense of dread and impending doom. DOOOOOOM (sorry)
Just a thought and I'm sure it has been done in various forms already. Of course this brings up memories of corpse running as a ghost so now I'm going to think about that all day. Thanks
My (armchair game designer) attempts at doing this focused on thinking in terms of chess and starting with the question "is my character in check?" Then I worked backwards through the situations that could have put a character in check and how to communicate that state to the player in a way that lets them make meaningful decisions to avoid danger. I failed to find an idea that passed the basic "is it fun?" test. Either the player needed too much time to consider their options, or they got overwhelmed with the stream of information, leading to what felt like random death or it ended up simplying back to hit points.
I've run into similar problems when trying to develop a complex PnP combat system. The manual nature of rolling dice, performing calculations and looking up results gets overwhelming when these tasks aren't computerized. Even the venerable old EQ1 combat system is almost unplayable as a manual system, with all the triggered combat responses. (Dodge, parry, riposte, etc.)
As for the speed of information, does the player need to know all the information going on behind the scenes? The presentation can certainly be abstracted, and the world clock of an MMORPG can be slowed down. (Another topic entirely, but the pulse of MMORPGs seems too fast, which limits the amount of information that a player can absorb and tends to make the combat situations entirely too arcade-like). Between an abstraction that is understandable and a slightly slower world 'heartbeat', there is room for alternative systems to function.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The player needs to know their state of danger and what decisions they can make.
That's not quite the same as knowing what's going on behind the scenes, but it's a problem of equal complexity (in my armchair-developer opinion).
( think of a game like simcity where the city is the "character" - the players don't know exactly what the calculations are that the computer is doing behind the scenes, but the ebb and flow unfolding on screen is providing a huge stream of information to digest about the overall health of their city )
So after reading it all and thinking about it again this is what I come up with.
Most of what everyone is saying is right but only circumstantially so.
Abstraction has been the flavor of the year and justly so but only because it has facilitated a need within a combat structure that has been either severely limited or greatly exaggerated in time. In the PnP mode there were many more rolls that needed to be made in order to complete a full round of combat and so the abstraction helped us keep things moving. In the MMORPG mode combat is fast and furious, far faster than it is in real life, and so the abstraction helps us divide our attention without becoming too distracted.
Both of these things work. We know they do because we have played both kinds of games. But what if the game was more of a simulation of real world combat at real world speeds and with real world circumstances?
I use Mortal Online as an example. In that game a player must not only deal with their hit points but their fatigue in swinging weapons of different sizes. A big ole honking sword is only going to swing so fast and so many times before the player needs to catch their breath, but at the same time, and as it should be, the damage done when that puppy lays into you is profound.
Rethinking hit points then can not just be done across the boards and in a vacuum but must be incorporated into an entire rethinking of combat overall. Concepts like dodging, turning, jousting, reduced effectiveness of damaged limbs, armor, constitution or toughness, weapons restrictions, as well as death penalties must be observed or, as my esteemed colleague mentioned earlier, the min/maxer will just figure out how many hits they can take in the arm before they become ineffective and reduce combat down into a series of strikes to this limb or that.
The key here is to make such a system so close to the real thing that the risk outweighs reward. That is how it is in life. I have a pretty good idea how many times I can be stabbed in real life before I feel compelled to take a dirt nap but that still isn't going to reinforce me into thinking that I can just go get in a knife fight whenever I want to. The risk for losing is just too great.
Now looking at all this I am sure that a lot of you would say, "Holy crap, that would suck!!!" But would it really? At the end of the day it would still just be a video game wouldn't it? You wouldn't be dying for real, and I can vouch that the speed of combat in Mortal Online, or what Bethesda is about to drop on you, is not boring in the least bit.
So in conclusion my contribution is that only through the total overhaul of combat in general could my earlier idea of superimposing the hit zone model over the player character toon actually work well. Under such circumstances it would barely be difficult at all to play in the third person perspective and be aware of, and acknowledge armor damage, wounds, and the lost of use in limbs.
In first person, using the paper doll model, it would trade the immersion of seeing the armor and limbs as they take damage for being able to play inside the head of the actual fighter. In either case both could work.
Rethinking it for games that use the current super fast, non-simulation rules though, or for PnP games that feature saving throws and modifiers and whatnot? Maybe not such a good idea.
(Edited inclusion) Also note, in the simulation model such things as dodging, avoiding, and turning are all player made actions and thus the only number required might be how fast the toon reacts to the players input. Yet another variable that would keep a min/maxer up at night.