Will we ever see an RPG with realistic combat mechanics?

[TrashMan]

There are ways to do more realisitc comabt even in games such a PE.

If I can think of it, then so can others.

 

Aalas, it is quite complex and expenditures of resources for a game have to be balanced carefully.

[eschaton]

Back from work trip.  Some scattered comments...

 

First, I want to make clear I don't want realistic combat because I want a combat-focused RPG.  I actually dislike action focused games.  Instead, I want realistic combat to make combat a brutal, uncertain thing, and to severely limit the number of encounters.  Any system which makes combat too "safe" compared to real life is going to result with body counts far higher than even most soldiers rack up in their professional career.  I don't like being forced to have a trail of corpses behind me hundreds deep.  A system with real repercussions to face-to-face combat opens up strong incentives to either nonviolent solutions or asymmetric encounters, which are often not rewarded properly in RPGs.  

 

 

If I remember correctly, hit points in ye olde d&d manuals were always meant to be an abstract representation of general grit, the ability to turn a deadly blow into a more superficial one, and plain luck (essentially, action movie plot armour), and most `successful` attacks were not meant to be direct stabs and shots to the gut, but rather relatively minor wounds - scratches, cuts, bruises and grazes etc. Getting your hit points reduced to 0 was, rather than arbitrarily falling down after one direct stab to the gut too many , either being slowed down enough by all the previous minor wounds to allow this attack to actually be a direct stab to the gut, or your `luck running out` and finally receiving a direct stab to the gut after so many lucky escapes.

If represented like this, I really don't have a problem with the hit point system - it was meant to represent `action movie physics`, which I generally feel fits better with the idea of a small team of misfits beating impossible odds than something more gritty and complex. Particularly in a game where we don't have direct control over making sure our character does not get a direct stab to the gut.

 

I can understand this abstraction of hit points.  But as others have noted, it has resulted in weird results as P&P rules moved over into computer games.  Why should a backstab of a high-level mage be less effective than a low-level mage?  Perhaps a high-level character would be more likely to notice someone before they attacked (having years of experience dealing with sneak attacks), but they shouldn't be able  to shrug off a critical hit.  

 

Similarly, as I noted, once firearms get into the picture, it just gets ridiculous.  Even in action movies, one typically cannot continue to attack after getting shot in the head.  One might miraculously survive the attack depending upon the needs of the plot, but you don't just keep on charging.  

 

 

The truth of the matter is that realistic fights aren't fun. They're dirty, brutal, and short. There's not much to the game if your opponent goes down in several hits, which is realistically what happens (unless we restrict ourselves to full medieval plate and give our fighters weapons ineffective at penetrating the armor). A street fight is usually over in the first strike, a large-scale battle you'll probably die from an errant bullet or arrow, or being trampled by a horse or crushed under the weight of a toppled ally.

 

People want their games to be "fair". Fights aren't fair in reality. A game which simulates realistic combat is frustrating at best, and really only suited for games like Dwarf Fortress (where the focus of the game isn't combat, but strategy and resource management), where combat is fairly realistic.

 

Massive Chalice, a recent kickstarter title, is the kind of game where combat could be ideally "realistic" - because the loss/death of your fighters is not that significant, as you're always popping out more. But since RPGs (like PE) are generally about a static cast of characters, realistic combat just can't be realistic.

 

I don't want combat to be fun (or at least, far from the most fun thing in the game).  If combat is fun, we're artificially rewarding body-count heavy play.  I think by making combat have so few repercussions (lots of attacks to kill foes or kill the player),  we're inflating the amount of time and energy which should be devoted to encounters.  I'd love to see more games, for example, do what KOTOR2 did where a huge amount of prep work involved strengthening a settlement for a known assault.  That sort of planning is most instrumental in winning, not what happens on the battlefield once the melee is joined.  

 

So basically OP is advocating for a constant save/load feast on every fight. If you want a fighting simulator go play fighting simulator. One hit kill is a nice mechanic in arcade playstyle where player have complete control on character. In team based RPG it's idiotic.

 

I hate arcade action games.  I think people tend to have too negative a thought about save/load use though.  Sometimes you just lose games, even things like solitaire.  You just try again.  I don't see the issue with this.  In a long, plot-driven game, it makes sense to try again from a point before the beginning, as the crucial mistake you made may have been just before perishing (or whatever).  

 

Regardless, in my ideal RPG, you'd be able to avoid rolling the dice most and resorting to it though, since you go diplomatic, recruit allies, set the opponent's camp on fire, assassinate, divert a stream to drown them out, cause a cave in, plant evidence they falsely committed a crime, etc.  Any number of ways to ensure that you do not meet the enemy in the field of battle, unless you can bring down numbers heavily in your favor.  

 

I'd be okay with a mechanic similar to recent Bioware games though, where "killed" characters are simply unconscious and can be revived provided you win the encounter.  Particularly because most people before this mechanism used to just reload when a party member died anyway.  It would still mean you'd be highly unlikely to wade into (as an example) 40 goblin mooks, who would likely kill all of you due to sheer number of attacks and flanking bonuses (regardless of how low-level and inexperienced they otherwise are).  

[Lephys]

Gameplay trumps realism.

/thread.

Game quality trumps narrow-mindedness.

 

Fixed.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Lephys

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Gameplay trumps realism.

/thread.

QFT.

 

If I wanted to play a realism simulator where the party would most likely die slowly and painfully from an infection if they were hit, I would get my head examined. I play video games to have fun, not to see my party slowly rotting away because they were nicked by an arrow and didn't bathe in suitably clean water(something that has been relatively rare until recently) or some other realism induced death.

[anubite]

Back from work trip.  Some scattered comments...

 

First, I want to make clear I don't want realistic combat because I want a combat-focused RPG.  I actually dislike action focused games.  Instead, I want realistic combat to make combat a brutal, uncertain thing, and to severely limit the number of encounters.  Any system which makes combat too "safe" compared to real life is going to result with body counts far higher than even most soldiers rack up in their professional career.  I don't like being forced to have a trail of corpses behind me hundreds deep.  A system with real repercussions to face-to-face combat opens up strong incentives to either nonviolent solutions or asymmetric encounters, which are often not rewarded properly in RPGs.  

 

 

If I remember correctly, hit points in ye olde d&d manuals were always meant to be an abstract representation of general grit, the ability to turn a deadly blow into a more superficial one, and plain luck (essentially, action movie plot armour), and most `successful` attacks were not meant to be direct stabs and shots to the gut, but rather relatively minor wounds - scratches, cuts, bruises and grazes etc. Getting your hit points reduced to 0 was, rather than arbitrarily falling down after one direct stab to the gut too many , either being slowed down enough by all the previous minor wounds to allow this attack to actually be a direct stab to the gut, or your `luck running out` and finally receiving a direct stab to the gut after so many lucky escapes.

If represented like this, I really don't have a problem with the hit point system - it was meant to represent `action movie physics`, which I generally feel fits better with the idea of a small team of misfits beating impossible odds than something more gritty and complex. Particularly in a game where we don't have direct control over making sure our character does not get a direct stab to the gut.

 

I can understand this abstraction of hit points.  But as others have noted, it has resulted in weird results as P&P rules moved over into computer games.  Why should a backstab of a high-level mage be less effective than a low-level mage?  Perhaps a high-level character would be more likely to notice someone before they attacked (having years of experience dealing with sneak attacks), but they shouldn't be able  to shrug off a critical hit.  

 

Similarly, as I noted, once firearms get into the picture, it just gets ridiculous.  Even in action movies, one typically cannot continue to attack after getting shot in the head.  One might miraculously survive the attack depending upon the needs of the plot, but you don't just keep on charging.  

 

 

The truth of the matter is that realistic fights aren't fun. They're dirty, brutal, and short. There's not much to the game if your opponent goes down in several hits, which is realistically what happens (unless we restrict ourselves to full medieval plate and give our fighters weapons ineffective at penetrating the armor). A street fight is usually over in the first strike, a large-scale battle you'll probably die from an errant bullet or arrow, or being trampled by a horse or crushed under the weight of a toppled ally.

 

People want their games to be "fair". Fights aren't fair in reality. A game which simulates realistic combat is frustrating at best, and really only suited for games like Dwarf Fortress (where the focus of the game isn't combat, but strategy and resource management), where combat is fairly realistic.

 

Massive Chalice, a recent kickstarter title, is the kind of game where combat could be ideally "realistic" - because the loss/death of your fighters is not that significant, as you're always popping out more. But since RPGs (like PE) are generally about a static cast of characters, realistic combat just can't be realistic.

 

I don't want combat to be fun (or at least, far from the most fun thing in the game).  If combat is fun, we're artificially rewarding body-count heavy play.  I think by making combat have so few repercussions (lots of attacks to kill foes or kill the player),  we're inflating the amount of time and energy which should be devoted to encounters.  I'd love to see more games, for example, do what KOTOR2 did where a huge amount of prep work involved strengthening a settlement for a known assault.  That sort of planning is most instrumental in winning, not what happens on the battlefield once the melee is joined.  

 

So basically OP is advocating for a constant save/load feast on every fight. If you want a fighting simulator go play fighting simulator. One hit kill is a nice mechanic in arcade playstyle where player have complete control on character. In team based RPG it's idiotic.

 

I hate arcade action games.  I think people tend to have too negative a thought about save/load use though.  Sometimes you just lose games, even things like solitaire.  You just try again.  I don't see the issue with this.  In a long, plot-driven game, it makes sense to try again from a point before the beginning, as the crucial mistake you made may have been just before perishing (or whatever).  

 

Regardless, in my ideal RPG, you'd be able to avoid rolling the dice most and resorting to it though, since you go diplomatic, recruit allies, set the opponent's camp on fire, assassinate, divert a stream to drown them out, cause a cave in, plant evidence they falsely committed a crime, etc.  Any number of ways to ensure that you do not meet the enemy in the field of battle, unless you can bring down numbers heavily in your favor.  

 

I'd be okay with a mechanic similar to recent Bioware games though, where "killed" characters are simply unconscious and can be revived provided you win the encounter.  Particularly because most people before this mechanism used to just reload when a party member died anyway.  It would still mean you'd be highly unlikely to wade into (as an example) 40 goblin mooks, who would likely kill all of you due to sheer number of attacks and flanking bonuses (regardless of how low-level and inexperienced they otherwise are).  

I think you should avoid saying something like "fights shouldn't be fun" because fun is a nebulous concept. Are horror games fun? They're certainly horrifying, so why do people play them?

 

Getting into a fight should be stressful/nerve wracking but it shouldn't be something players hate doing. Fighting should be fun, but it should be something to be avoided, because it is highly uncertain. Making a game with realistic combat is an interesting choice, but inevitably, but if you try to make combat "scary" like a horror game might be horrific, the game ultimately needs to be about something other than combat, which may alienate a large core audience.

 

PE and cRPGs in general are about collecting items, plowing through story, and learning lore. Fun strategic combat synergizes with all that. Combat that you dread, something akin to Demon's Souls/Dark Souls (where combat can be scary at times) is better suited for an action game, or something like Dwarf Fortress (where it's about non-static characters).

Edited June 20, 2013 by anubite

[Mico Selva]

 

If I remember correctly, hit points in ye olde d&d manuals were always meant to be an abstract representation of general grit, the ability to turn a deadly blow into a more superficial one, and plain luck (essentially, action movie plot armour), and most `successful` attacks were not meant to be direct stabs and shots to the gut, but rather relatively minor wounds - scratches, cuts, bruises and grazes etc. Getting your hit points reduced to 0 was, rather than arbitrarily falling down after one direct stab to the gut too many , either being slowed down enough by all the previous minor wounds to allow this attack to actually be a direct stab to the gut, or your `luck running out` and finally receiving a direct stab to the gut after so many lucky escapes.

If represented like this, I really don't have a problem with the hit point system - it was meant to represent `action movie physics`, which I generally feel fits better with the idea of a small team of misfits beating impossible odds than something more gritty and complex. Particularly in a game where we don't have direct control over making sure our character does not get a direct stab to the gut.

 

I can understand this abstraction of hit points.  But as others have noted, it has resulted in weird results as P&P rules moved over into computer games.  Why should a backstab of a high-level mage be less effective than a low-level mage?  Perhaps a high-level character would be more likely to notice someone before they attacked (having years of experience dealing with sneak attacks), but they shouldn't be able  to shrug off a critical hit.  

 

Similarly, as I noted, once firearms get into the picture, it just gets ridiculous.  Even in action movies, one typically cannot continue to attack after getting shot in the head.  One might miraculously survive the attack depending upon the needs of the plot, but you don't just keep on charging.  

I think the problem You describe is not in the hit points concept itself, but in the D&D-derived scaling of them. If a Level 1 mage has 5 HP a level 10 mage has 35 and a level 10 warrior has 75, while a sword deals 1d8 damage, things do get ridiculous.

 

If, for example a level 1 character had 100 HP, and got something like 3-5 additional HP per level, with an average sword swing dealing (1d100 + 50) damage, it wouldn't be nearly so bad.

 

The second example is taken straight from a Polish P&P game 'Dzikie Pola' ('Wild Fields'), which was praised (in Poland ) as having a very realistic (and also very deadly) combat system.

[TrashMan]

I can understand this abstraction of hit points.  But as others have noted, it has resulted in weird results as P&P rules moved over into computer games.  Why should a backstab of a high-level mage be less effective than a low-level mage?  Perhaps a high-level character would be more likely to notice someone before they attacked (having years of experience dealing with sneak attacks), but they shouldn't be able  to shrug off a critical hit.

 

That isn't a problem with HP - that's a problem with HP inflation. There is no real NEED for HP to auto-increase with level.

 

 

 

Similarly, as I noted, once firearms get into the picture, it just gets ridiculous.  Even in action movies, one typically cannot continue to attack after getting shot in the head.  One might miraculously survive the attack depending upon the needs of the plot, but you don't just keep on charging.

 

Very unlikely, but possible.

There are accoutns of poeple with a large metal rod going trough their skull that walked to the hospital...

 

 

***

 

Like I siad -  I can think of a way to have more realsitic combat in a party-based CRPG.

It requires a lot of works, as you 'd have to create a database of stances, possible attacks from each stance and counters.

Then you'd need an AI that would pick moves based on Level/Experience and combine it with attributes.

 

In other words, a high-level fighter would literaly fight better, because he would pick proper moves more often.

Edited June 20, 2013 by TrashMan

[eschaton]

I think you should avoid saying something like "fights shouldn't be fun" because fun is a nebulous concept. Are horror games fun? They're certainly horrifying, so why do people play them?

 

Getting into a fight should be stressful/nerve wracking but it shouldn't be something players hate doing. Fighting should be fun, but it should be something to be avoided, because it is highly uncertain. Making a game with realistic combat is an interesting choice, but inevitably, but if you try to make combat "scary" like a horror game might be horrific, the game ultimately needs to be about something other than combat, which may alienate a large core audience.

 

PE and cRPGs in general are about collecting items, plowing through story, and learning lore. Fun strategic combat synergizes with all that. Combat that you dread, something akin to Demon's Souls/Dark Souls (where combat can be scary at times) is better suited for an action game, or something like Dwarf Fortress (where it's about non-static characters).

 

You have a point.  There are many game systems which were very combat-heavy, but had unfun combat systems.  I hated the combat systems in the Witcher and Mass Effect, for example, and had a hard time finishing the games because even on easy it felt like I was fighting the controls.  

 

I do think the example of Planescape: Torment, which remains immensely popular despite probably being the least combat heavy D&D-based game, shows that the core audience will be willing to accept a world where the number of encounters are ratcheted down a bit.  

 

Also, I think I made it clear in the examples I used that I think there are many ways you can make "fights of choice" easier with planning.  Even in the case of ambushes of the player, given an RPG is to an extent story driven, I think it's fine to offer a "plot device" way out of a difficult encounter, such as the attackers just happening to bunch up next to a crate of explosive powder.  

 

I'd even be okay with the compromise of a similar number of encounters, but ensuring that the number of foes is seldom much larger than your party.  In real life, hordes of peasants easily killed knights, because nothing beats the power of numbers. 

 

I think the problem You describe is not in the hit points concept itself, but in the D&D-derived scaling of them. If a Level 1 mage has 5 HP a level 10 mage has 35 and a level 10 warrior has 75, while a sword deals 1d8 damage, things do get ridiculous.

 

If, for example a level 1 character had 100 HP, and got something like 3-5 additional HP per level, with an average sword swing dealing (1d100 + 50) damage, it wouldn't be nearly so bad.

 

The second example is taken straight from a Polish P&P game 'Dzikie Pola' ('Wild Fields'), which was praised (in Poland ) as having a very realistic (and also very deadly) combat system.

 

You have a point there.  That system is a step forward.  

 

But again, even with the understanding hit points are an abstraction, I don't see any reason why the traditional system of mages having few and fighters having many makes sense.  A skilled warrior should be able to dodge and parry better.  They'll often be armored.  Their battle experience should make them more likely to notice sneak attacks.  And general conditioning should make them more able to shrug off minor wounds and continue doing what they were up to before.  But none of that means they should be hurt proportionately less by a sword than a mage.  And it especially doesn't show why they should respond better to poisoning than a mage.  The HP concept falls because it encompasses so many other things which could be dealt with through combat skills instead of a multiplier off of constitution and class.  

 

Very unlikely, but possible.

There are accounts of people with a large metal rod going trough their skull that walked to the hospital...

 

 

Like I said -  I can think of a way to have more realistic combat in a party-based CRPG.

It requires a lot of works, as you 'd have to create a database of stances, possible attacks from each stance and counters.

Then you'd need an AI that would pick moves based on Level/Experience and combine it with attributes.

 

In other words, a high-level fighter would literally fight better, because he would pick proper moves more often.

 

1.  Phineas Gage did survive a horrific injury, but it's not like he was in combat prior to this.  It does make me wonder, however, if we went to a metric similar to what someone suggested - with a "pain" meter, if you'd have a "shock" status where the PC wouldn't feel any pain at all following a grievous wound.  The times I got bad lacerations which bled heavily, there was a moment of intense pain, and then it didn't feel like anything - until it started healing the next day.  

 

2.  This would work.  However, as I've said elsewhere, a system where experience characters spent skill points on things like dodge, parry, and conditioning would work just as well.  Experienced characters would get hit less, and when they were hit, they'd be able to shrug off minor injuries easier.  The chance of critical hits wouldn't change dramatically of course, but use of proper armor (which would probably be contextual to the mission - everyone should wear the best for planned assaults, and less or even none when traveling, in cities, or making sneak attacks) should be able to make up the difference.  

[Mico Selva]

 

But again, even with the understanding hit points are an abstraction, I don't see any reason why the traditional system of mages having few and fighters having many makes sense.  A skilled warrior should be able to dodge and parry better.  They'll often be armored.  Their battle experience should make them more likely to notice sneak attacks.  And general conditioning should make them more able to shrug off minor wounds and continue doing what they were up to before.  But none of that means they should be hurt proportionately less by a sword than a mage.  And it especially doesn't show why they should respond better to poisoning than a mage.  The HP concept falls because it encompasses so many other things which could be dealt with through combat skills instead of a multiplier off of constitution and class.  

 

I disagree to a degree.

 

Some people are tougher than others. Whether it is represented by hit points or some kind of natural damage reduction system based on toughness, or something else, I'd like to see a battle-hardened veteran be harder to kil than a lifetime librarian.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Mico Selva

[eschaton]

I disagree to a degree.

 

Some people are tougher than others. Whether it is represented by hit points or some kind of natural damage reduction system based on toughness, or something else, I'd like to see a battle-hardened veteran be harder to kil than a lifetime librarian.

 

Toughness does not equal physical strength in all cases however.  Women are pretty much proven to have greater endurance (on average) than men, despite lower strength (on average).  Athletes, particularly those who engage in team sports, do have higher pain thresholds.  But differences in terms of how much poison affects one person versus another seem to be mostly genetic, and don't really have anything to do with how physically robust you are.  

Edited June 20, 2013 by eschaton

[motorizer]

I'd be okay with a mechanic similar to recent Bioware games though, where "killed" characters are simply unconscious and can be revived provided you win the encounter.  Particularly because most people before this mechanism used to just reload when a party member died anyway.  It would still mean you'd be highly unlikely to wade into (as an example) 40 goblin mooks, who would likely kill all of you due to sheer number of attacks and flanking bonuses (regardless of how low-level and inexperienced they otherwise are).  

 

 

I hate this, it's just removing choice from those, such as myself(sometimes), who would carry on and accept the consequences...without really adding anything for those who would reload except for a few seconds of their time.

 

I see it as a symptom of the dumbing down of RPGs

[anubite]

I agree. I think death/defeat should be something meaningful. I'm fine if characters can survive after being felled in combat, but it should come a cost, or be naturally scary. For instance, in BG, you can have a petrified character - potentially, or at least, in the early game, it can be very difficult to unpetrify them. That kind of thing, I think is really cool. I'd love to play an RPG where there are multiple forms and degrees of death that require certain solutions that may be very expensive or challenging to overcome. It might be that you decide to abandon a party member if the means ot revival is too costly.

 

The same goes with level drain and other debilitating effects.

Edited June 20, 2013 by anubite

[Mico Selva]

Toughness does not equal physical strength in all cases however.  Women are pretty much proven to have greater endurance (on average) than men, despite lower strength (on average).  Athletes, particularly those who engage in team sports, do have higher pain thresholds.  But differences in terms of how much poison affects one person versus another seem to be mostly genetic, and don't really have anything to do with how physically robust you are.  

 

 

Of course there are many aspects to toughness, endurance, vitality and such, but games are not able to simulate them all. Not that it would make much sense anyway, because no player would be able to wrap his/her mind around it all, and it would not be very fun.

 

Abstracting is the only way to go. The question is, are we abstracting with emphasis on fun gameplay or on realism. Sometimes they are the same thing, but sometimes not.

 

Hit points are pretty abstract and 'gamey' way to simulate body damage, but they are so prevalent and easy to implement that they are here to stay. If RPGs were to take a step towards realism, they would probably need to abstract damage inflicted into a few discrete cathegories (in example: no damage / bruise / minor wound / serious wound / maim / killing blow) and take bleeding into account. But even then some kind of character endurance would have to be taken into account (and abstracted too).

 

I am kind of on the fence in regards to implementing 'realistic' mechanics, because they are sometimes very frustrating, but complete focus on gameplay balance is not optimal too. For example, if my badass level 15 character can never die from a single hit, I consider the game flawed, because IRL even the toughest tough guy will croak when shot in the head.

 

In Baldur's Gate critical hits always dealt double damage. It was ok from gameplay balance point of view, but if critical hits dealt damage in a pattern like the one below, I would be a much, much happier player.

 

85% of critical hits: deal double damage

10%: 3x damage

4%: 5x damage

1%: 10x damage

[Jarmo]

To my knowledge RuneQuest system has never transferred to a CRPG (King of Dragon Pass is awesome but doesn't count).

That'd have a ready system for somewhat realistic combat. The downside is you'd be dying a lot.

 

What I'd really like to see is a Jagged Alliance type of adventurer company management game in a fantasy setting.

Then losing your best wizard to a random crossbow bolt would suck, but it'd be par for the course.

[Hellpyre]

The biggest problem I have with this is the question of what happens when you encounter a big enemy - would a fight with a traditional fantasy fire dragon end a second in when he wiped your entire party with a single breath?

[PrimeJunta]

It would be a very different kind of game than the ones we're used to seeing. Combat would be lethal, and if you want to avoid the obvious result – save-and-reload-fest – you'd have to develop mechanics around that. Some ideas, from more to less obvious.

 

* Super-effective healing, magical or otherwise. Consider the late Iain M. Banks's Culture novels. The Culture has technology so advanced that they can fix anything as long as your brain is more or less intact, and they can even take a real-time backup of that, with a neural lace. It just takes a few weeks to grow you a new body. The advanced humanoid races in that universe also have capabilities to control their metabolism and shut off pain. 

 

* Avoidable combat. Add other systems with which you interact with the world. Since the potential cost of combat is so high, you would want to avoid it whenever possible, and only get into it when you're pretty sure that the odds are in your favor. When asked how he managed to survive all those hundreds of duels, Miyamoto Musashi is said to have replied "I only fight people weaker than myself."

 

* Mostly ritualized combat. Consider a world where combat is governed by a strict code of honor. You have duels, tournaments, and jousts, but they're set up in such a way that armor is much better than weapons, and the winner is determined by adjudication rather than death or maiming. Actual fights to the death would be narrative climaxes, where all your dueling and jousting experience would be tested for real.

 

* Super-effective defensive capabilities. Consider Dune and the way shields work in it: lasguns are as good as unused because a lasgun intersecting a shield produces a nuclear-level explosion, killing everybody; projectile weapons are mostly useless because shields stop projectiles flat, so combat is mostly hand to hand, and the challenge with that is the ability to feint effectively so that you're able to get a strike that's slow enough to get through the shield to hit its target.

 

Combine a few of these and I think you could make a pretty compelling fantasy or high-tech-sci-fi world. It would probably have a good deal less combat – at least to the death combat – than any of the cRPG's we're used to seeing. Perhaps about as much as we have in sci-fi and fantasy novels and films, which is still a quite a lot really. (As an aside, one trope that's getting a bit threadbare is the one-man army – i.e., your hero that kills his way through hundreds or even thousands of enemies. Too much asymmetry.)

[motorizer]

The biggest problem I have with this is the question of what happens when you encounter a big enemy - would a fight with a traditional fantasy fire dragon end a second in when he wiped your entire party with a single breath?

I'd be quite happy with having to find another way of dealing with a dragon than a straight fight..

or possibly needing to raise an army to fight it

 

A world with realistic combat mechanics mean you cant just beat everything and win every fight.

[Jarmo]

Or maybe there'd be realistic dragons. Giant crocodiles or something.

 

Real world physics don't allow for much bigger creatures than elephants anyway.

T-Rex sized opponent would be a tough nut to crack, you just wouldn't be able to hack it to death

with a sword, any more than you could beat an attacking rhino with a sword.

[Sacred_Path]

Will we ever see a game with realistic magic mechanics? *stabs doll*

[motorizer]

 

 

Real world physics don't allow for much bigger creatures than elephants anyway.

.

Were we on different physics then when Argentinosaurus roamed the earth?

 

You do have a fair point though in that there are plenty of animals around today that you just wouldn't take on with a sword, if you didn't want to get turned into jam, and I do wish monsters in games were as formidable as they would be in real life, even if it meant actually fighting them was a fools errand

 

beating the dragon(dinosaur) that is terrorizing an area could involve building a trap or digging a pit rather that steaming in with a sword and shield like a tiny armoured crunchy snack.

Edited June 29, 2013 by motorizer

[Pshaw]

Hit points aren't really a problem. As mentioned by other people they're supposed to represent your ability to take a hit that would have killed you and turn it into a minor wound. When you're out of HP you're simply out of energy required to do that so when you get hit again you finally don't get up your sword in time to deflect the enemies attack and get killed.

For more realistic combat you can still keep hit points you just need to make them go away in 4-5 hits tops. In a RTWP type game I don't ever see this happening. You need to be allowed to take hits and react while controlling multiple party members. However in a turn based game you can get that more realistic combat feel. X-Com is a good example of this (at least for me) as death is normal thing you need to work around because you will lose party members. If you turn up the difficulty and get rid of the ability to save/reload you pretty much get the sort of game you're looking for.

So essentially we need a game with x-com style combat AND a real story/world behind it. I mean you wouldn't even need to include permadeath if you wanted to have a strong supporting cast just keep the combat hard and once a character is out for a fight have them be rendered critical. Otherwise you will probably have icewind dale type characters and an adventure's hall sort of place to replace people as they die.

If such a game were to exist I'd like them to kinda go the valkyria chronicles route for perma death where if you're down you're down for the fight. But if an enemy then reaches your body they will finish you. If an ally reaches your body they can stabilize you and call in a med evac. Heck you could get rid of the med evac and force you to stick around and guard fallen party members for a bit of additional strategy.

[motorizer]

 

If such a game were to exist I'd like them to kinda go the valkyria chronicles route for perma death where if you're down you're down for the fight. But if an enemy then reaches your body they will finish you. If an ally reaches your body they can stabilize you and call in a med evac. Heck you could get rid of the med evac and force you to stick around and guard fallen party members for a bit of additional strategy.

That isn't a realistic combat mechanic though, it's just a different one.

 

realistically you would try to avoid fighting altogether unless you had no choice or were damn sure of winning

[Jarmo]

 

 

 

Real world physics don't allow for much bigger creatures than elephants anyway.

.

Were we on different physics then when Argentinosaurus roamed the earth?

 

 

I'll rephrase that to a lot lot bigger than elephants.. 

But really, mostly even the biggest dinosaurs are not that much bigger, a longer neck and a fatter tail for sure.

A quick google says Argentinosaurus is a couple of bones and a lot of speculation, might pan out or not.

[PrimeJunta]

Wel-l-l... another quick google turns up a bunch of sauropods with weights between 35 tons (conservative estimate) and 100 tons or more. The largest elephant ever shot weighed 12 tons, and an average bull elephant is about five tons. So that would make these sauropods about 7 to 20 times more massive than the average bull elephant. So how much is a lot lot?

[eschaton]

PrimeJunta pretty much hits exactly what I'm talking about here.  The point is not to turn an RPG into a squad-type combat game with disposable party members.  The point is to make combat with unfavorable odds so dicey that even "warriors" scale back their encounters tremendously from what we have in RPGs today.  I think such a system would help tremendously have a much more immersive, reactive game.  Let me give a few examples.

 

1.  Even in the average fantasy novel, being ambushed in a dark alley at night can be terrifying.  You don't know what you're up against and you're caught flat-footed, with no prep for combat.  Might not even have your armor on.  These encounters, however, are so commonplace in RPGs that the reaction is "oh, look, more mooks I'm supposed to mow down."

 

2.  Too many RPGs have had a scenario where your squad, alone, takes out a whole fortress.  While having a small squad go behind enemy lines has historic parallels, usually you'd be trying to do something like slit the gate guard's throat and open the gate for the main force.  Or you'd steal or overhear battle plans.  Or you'd be setting up explosive charges.  All of these are realistic, and I'd argue more exciting than wanton slaughter.

 

3.  As you grow in power and respect, it makes sense for you to become more of a "commander" and less of a "grunt."  Of course up until relatively recently, generals did fight at the forefront of armies.  But I think games which model your growth by having larger and larger logistical forces at your command are ultimately more rewarding than the whole "awesomesauce attack" thing - particularly because in modern game systems level scaling means generally you don't find combat getting easier just because you're getting more advanced.    

Edited June 29, 2013 by eschaton