Will we ever see an RPG with realistic combat mechanics?

[Jarmo]

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?

 

Mass increases pretty fast, being cubic-system-thingical.

A bull can weigh 5 times as much as a pony and I'd still consider them to be in the ballpark.

 

10 ton elephant compared to a 40 ton dinosaur would obviously be smaller, but not by a huge margin.

20 times more... well that I'd already call a lot lot, 10 times more even.

 

Maybe double the height and length and width and it's what I'd call a big major difference.

[Lephys]

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.

You don't beat it to death with a sword. You dramatically dodge its strike, whilst swinging upon its tooth (using your shield strap, or belt or something) up onto its neck, then get shaken around until you lose your grip, falling back off of it relative to its motion of trying to turn about to keel you, but then even MORE dramatically somehow utilize your uncontrollable fall to your advantage as you intentionally get launched by its flailing tail, high into the air, resulting in your coming down with an ULTRA-dramatic downward thrust finisher, straight into its brain.

 

Either that or you just get straight-up nommed, but swallowed whole (because all manner of animals just swallow giant bits of food the size of their head, even while its alive and wielding a sharp, metal object). Then, at the opportune moment (typically when all seems lost), you simply SLICE your way out of the innards of the beast! Because... it's totally like... super spacious in there and whatnot, rather than a straight-jacket of fleshy insides squishing you against yourself.

 

Duh... everyone knows how to deal with giant animals whose sheer size renders swords nigh-useless. u_u

 

[Greydragon]

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.

I would suggest the sword type in question would determine the result; a hand held weapon can realistically bring down an elephant. This has been done in the past. Shaka Zulu used to sponsor hunts; he slashed the hamstring from behind with an axe, leaving them open for a fatal blow to the side they couldn't reach. Of course it made the elephant quite furious ... I wouldn't recommend head on, but finesse and diversion tactics would be effective against any modern land animal (they did catch rhino too).  Ultimately one-hit kills are fantasy, unless you use a gun ... or get really lucky with a spear. 

[TrashMan]

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.

 

HM...well, you CAN kill a rhino with your sword.

The trick is avoiding getting skewered yourself in the process.

[Iucounu]

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

 

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

Not when the creature has bones like steel.

[Walsingham]

Wasn't there an FBI project - now openly readable - on the mechanics of dropping people in fights? Something like a combo of blood loss and nerve shock, plus mechanical disemxploderment.

 

That last term may be one I've just made up.

[Diagoras]

Keep in mind that when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the oxygen level was way higher which allowed all sorts of gigantism to show up - check out the size of the bugs, for example.

[Tuckey]

I lean towards abstraction when it comes to combat mechanics. Too realistic and you get dry tedium, too abstract and you lose the sense of what its supposed to be about.

 

Abstract elements examples

======================

-Inventory in rpgs; they are pretty much felix's magic bag when it comes to items. Imagine a virtual pack animal if you will.

-Ranged weapons are typically nerfed in an rpg because otherwise they would dominate the battlefield. Plus the battlefield would have to be much bigger to take into account the range these weapons would have.

-Even clicking and commanding units to do things is an abstraction because typically realistic companions would do there own thing in combat.

 

Bottom line

=========

As long as the abstractions are fun I don't mind. Meaning as long as abstractions don't take away from giving me a sense of the world and threats these characters are faced with I am content. Realism is not as important as making sure it works in a gameplay sense first and foremost. Having said that I like having realistic looking armour/weapons with character models that look believable because it helps me engage with the gameplay. I know mileage varies in terms of what different people find fun, I think the goal for this project is Infinity Engine like fun; at least around the same vein; given it will be mostly inspired by IE. I tend to agree with the OP that a shotgun blow to the head is not a very good abstraction. It would of been better to just allow instant kills if characters are rendered unconscious and the player attacks. Takes away a sense of a believable world in that aspect.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Tuckey

[TrashMan]

A pack mule would be nice

 

Ranged weaposn are typicly incredibly innacurate and hitting an armored, moving target in combat is unlikely to happen.

[Killyox]

I realize that, in many ways, PE is going to hew to RPG standards, but I wanted to share some thoughts regardless.

 

By far, I find the weakest part of the RPG combat experience to be "hit poiints."  Somehow, everyone has a lot of them, and somehow, weapons do little damage, meaning you need to typically make lots and lots of hits against a target in order to kill them.  

 

This is ridiculous, and it always has been.  When you consider what happens in melee combat IRL, for example, basically the following things are likely, presuming you're talking about a bladed weapon and you are unarmored.  

 

1.  You parry or dodge a blow.

2.  You are hit by a glancing blow.  It could be quite painful and bleed a good deal.  You're still able to fight, but unless you have excellent battle training/conditioning, your concentration is sapped.

3.  You get hit in an arm or leg, and basically crippled for the duration combat.

4.  You get hit in a vital area, and are either bleeding out dead within two minutes, or otherwise so incapacitated you collapse to the ground.

 

The bottom line is combat is actually not about who can take the most punishment, it's about not getting hit.  If you get hit, you've essentially already lost.  Hit points are dumb - Gary Gygax swiped them off a Battleship game, where they made sense.  But humans can't take hits the same way battleships do.  

 

The minimal damage level of weapons also leads to absurd results in other areas.  For example, while rogues can backstab in D&D, even critical hits don't always lead to instant death.  It's even worse with games like the Fallout series, where you can shoot someone in the head (or eye!) and have them not only survive, but continue to attack you!.  As I said in a thread the other week, one low-point for me in Fallout: New Vegas was realizing I could not successfully kill a sleeping character with a shotgun blast to the head!

 

I think the ideal system would work something like this.  This is still more forgiving than real-life combat, but more like 

 

1.  Glancing blows (or hits to armored characters) are abstracted as stamina drains.  If your stamina drops to zero, you pass out.  You've basically lost too much blood and are in too much pain to go on.  But every decrease in your stamina also saps all of your combat abilities to some degree.  You hit less hard.  You're less likely to hit.  You find it harder to concentrate on anything as the pain level rises.  Of course, this is also true for your enemy.  In reality, it should take weeks after heavy stamina drain to recover fully, but I'd be fine with a shorter period

 

2.  If you get a direct hit on a limb, you're crippled.  Ideally, it should be months to never to heal from these, but given many RPG systems have magic or high technology, going to the appropriate healer would work.

 

3.  A critical hit and you're dead.

 

The beauty of the system to me would be it would provide great incentive to non-traditional means of dealing with combat, including assassination, ambush, use of terrain, etc.  In general, it would make combat much more infrequent, but this isn't altogether a bad thing.  Even soldiers at war are not getting into multiple battles with body counts every single day.  Just getting into one encounter every few days with a party of similar size should be a treacherous, literally death defying experience.  

 

While higher-level characters would not get additional hit points on leveling up, they would get other bonuses.  For example, a bonus to conditioning would represent battle-hardening, showing your character can deal with pain without getting distracted.  A bonus to dodge and parry is also realistic, as experienced characters have not been hit many, many times, and should know better how to evade hits.  

 

Thoughts?  

 

 

Thought's? That is far fetch from realistic. Realistic would be if after getting critically hit in hand with sword you would lose it. If your leg would get broken you would be crippled and generally slower etc for like 6 in-game months etc. Not just until the end of combat.

 

It would make next engagements more dangerous.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Killyox

[jamoecw]

i haven't read the whole thread (unlike normal), but:

 

the key problem with fully realistic combat systems is that people don't have a clue about real combat.  if your impaled on a spear, you have anywhere from 20 secs to days before you die, half of that you can still fight almost at full effectiveness.  fights are about getting the enemy to withdraw to heal the wounded, if you have either modern medicine, or magical healing characters dying would be quite remote, even though losing fights would be more likely.

 

if ambushed the enemy gets to pick positioning, and gets first strike in, after that it is pretty even.  so after the first attack your main guy needs medical attention or he's dead after the fight, but you could stay and duke it out.  if you have armour then the odds of the enemy doing such a good job is far less.

 

normal fighting (no poisons, magic, etc.), would make priority targets on the enemy things that allow them to keep fighting, such as legs and arms.  if you can get a good hit on a leg with a sword you might break it even through the armour, or sever the muscle without, without both legs the enemy would have trouble standing let alone fighting.  going for the torso, the best you could hope for is to take out the heart, causing death in about 20 secs, and incapacitation in less than 10, though if you withdraw out of the weapons range to draw out the fight at that point it is effective, otherwise you'll still have to fend him off for the next couple of rounds.

 

poison affects a bodily function, so in essence if you 'save' then you suffer no ill effects, if you 'fail' you suffer minor effects (like being drunk off alcohol), if you 'critically fail' you are on death's door (alcohol poisoning, if untreated you die, though it will take at least a day), and if you 'massively fail' you die in the same time as a crit (20 secs to a few minutes), it would be determined after the poison circulates through your system (after a couple of rounds), and from then on it would diminish as your body processes it out (so there is a chance that you could live if on death's door if you are hardy enough and the poison is weak).

 

magical healing would be OP, as it would mean that fatally wounded people could be saved rather easily (unless they have been decapitated, which is rarer than a crit dealing max damage), fights would last just as long, though the first round or two would determine who would win.  a party of just clerics would be able to beat almost any other party.

 

fireballs and such would be far weaker, explosions do damage based on conclusive force.  in order to deal fire damage you need time for heat to transfer, if you have magical fire at 5k degrees fahrenheit (roughly double that of a blow torch), you would need about .15 secs to do any damage whatsoever, which means that the outer 1/3 would be perfectly safe (if a bit disorientation and scary).  magic missile would be able to impact specific weak points and deliver fatal blows easily, so mages would be pretty uber if they got the first shot in, and the enemy isn't wearing any armour.  though out of combat mages making magical equipment would be far more helpful (magical armour that has no weak spots).

 

so in short magic becomes much better, but mainly for logistics, and death becomes much rarer, and losing battles becomes more frequent.  unless you scrap magic, then losses increase, deaths also increase slightly but mainly outside of combat.

Edited July 2, 2013 by jamoecw

[jamoecw]

 

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.

I would suggest the sword type in question would determine the result; a hand held weapon can realistically bring down an elephant. This has been done in the past. Shaka Zulu used to sponsor hunts; he slashed the hamstring from behind with an axe, leaving them open for a fatal blow to the side they couldn't reach. Of course it made the elephant quite furious ... I wouldn't recommend head on, but finesse and diversion tactics would be effective against any modern land animal (they did catch rhino too).  Ultimately one-hit kills are fantasy, unless you use a gun ... or get really lucky with a spear. 

 

actually one hit kills with a gun are a fantasy as well, in modern warfare bullets are made to penetrate armour and bounce around, so as to spread out the damage, in vietnam there was a 99.9% survival rate for such injuries, it is higher today (amazingly).  hunting bullets tend to do localized damage, which is where people get this fantasy, if you hit a vital organ they die, the kinetic force stuns the creature.  so they live for a short time (high localized damage kills quicker, if it is a killing blow), but drop almost instantly.

 

and the spear isn't any different than any other weapon that can impale things (like swords), so you can just get really lucky with anything pretty much and one hit kill things (which again doesn't mean an instant kill per se).

[TrashMan]

 

normal fighting (no poisons, magic, etc.), would make priority targets on the enemy things that allow them to keep fighting, such as legs and arms.

 

Flase.

Arms and legs are parts of the body that move the fastest and are hardest to hit.

Fighting techniques focus on gettinga hit, thus targeting parts of the body that you are most likely to hit. Torso and head and the center focus of swordplay.

Edited July 3, 2013 by TrashMan

[kgambit]

I suggest those of you with a real interest in medieval sword fighting techniques read THIS:

 

http://www.thearma.org/essays/armoredlongsword.html

 

"Certain tactical basics became apparent early on. The edge of the sword, for example, is relatively useless against plate armour. Most source texts show no edge blows at all. Rather, armoured sword fighting is all about putting the point into a relatively unprotected area. In order to thrust effectively and accurately to these relatively small targets such as the face, armpit, inside of the elbow, and other areas which are not covered by plate armour, and defend them, half-swording is the predominant technique. Half-swording, with a firm grip closer to the point, gives one the thrusting accuracy to hit these relatively small areas. It also enables one to thrust with power and body weight behind the attack, often necessary in order to penetrate the maille and padded garments between the plate defenses. Grappling moves such as trips and throws are an essential element as well. Levering with the sword, arm and wrist locks, even kicks and hand strikes are all useful techniques against an armoured man. It is often necessary to throw your opponent to the ground and perhaps hold him there in order to make an opening for your finishing move."

Edited July 3, 2013 by kgambit

[Jarmo]

Arms and legs are parts of the body that move the fastest and are hardest to hit.

 

 

 

Flasé

 

That'd make sense if you were aiming with a bow, but I don't think things work that way in cose combat.

I'm willing to be corrected if you or someone else is an expert in broadsword fighting.

[TrashMan]

I'd post a video link with an ARMA guy goign trough the basics, but I can't find it ATM.

Also, YouTube blocked at work.

[teknoman2]

personaly, i always considered hit points as an indication of the characters ability to defend himself and not simply his health. for me, losing hp, is when you cant defend properly against an attack and lose your ability to concentrate, or your arm gets sore by a bad block, or it glanced on your helmet and got you dizzy, or you had to spin to deflect it on your armor making you feel pain, and generaly by losing hp your ability to fight properly is diminished until at 0 hp you dont have the strength to avoid an attack and get the single hit that actualy struck your body and kills you

Edited July 3, 2013 by teknoman2

[TrashMan]

But that is redicolously redundant interpretation of HP.

 

It made sense in YE OLDE DAYS when your character had 3 stats.

 

If HP is your abiltiy to defend yourself, when WTF are armor rating, defense, block, dodoge, parry, stamina, etc?

 

HP should be health. Plain and simple. Other varaibles are for other things.

[Mico Selva]

And if HP is health, character should get weaker when losing it (and I think they did in Betrayal at Krondor?).

[Diagoras]

For what it's worth, legs and arms were targeted in certain periods by certain cultures due to their tendency to be unarmored. There's a big pile of dead soldiers from a peasant revolt they dug up in France that had wounds all over their legs - while they were well armored in coat-of-plate on their chests, their legs and arms were much less armored. This is a pretty good characterization of P:E's period as well, what with three quarters and half plate armor leaving the legs vulnerable.

[Gavinfoxx]

You could just make a CRPG version of The Riddle of Steel.

This, all this.

[Archmage Silver]

Realistic combat would be incredibly boring to me. A big, slow human fighter would get crushed by an ogre nine times out of ten.

[teknoman2]

 

normal fighting (no poisons, magic, etc.), would make priority targets on the enemy things that allow them to keep fighting, such as legs and arms.

 

Flase.

Arms and legs are parts of the body that move the fastest and are hardest to hit.

Fighting techniques focus on gettinga hit, thus targeting parts of the body that you are most likely to hit. Torso and head and the center focus of swordplay.

 

i have a friend who was practicing kendo and sometimes we sparred for fun. the thing he told me, is that most of the things you can do with a sword in modern sports is limited by the rules and the teaching methods of swordplay is thus limited accordingly. in some rule free practice matches he had, he found that a most effective trick, was to attack the opponent's attack move instead of defending. and the most vulnerable spot for this kind of trick, was the hands as he showed me. 

[TrashMan]

Realistic combat would be incredibly boring to me. A big, slow human fighter would get crushed by an ogre nine times out of ten.

 

Doesn't that assume that huge creatures aer fast and nible, but fighters aren't?

 

And speaking of which, so what?

The fight would go differently in RL anyway.

Against larger creatrues, you fight with numbers, mobility, range/reach and traps.

Agaisnt smaller ones, heavy armor rules.

 

[TrashMan]

There is a reason handguards exist ya know.

 

In RL combat there would be a lot of grapling and twisting, and your opponent would know this. If you can disarm your opponet, good. But it's not an easy thing to do.