Suggestions: Hit boxes and KillingBlows/Deaths

[Divinius]

Suggestion Thread:
Please only pertain to the topic, since I was already trolled for putting this on the general thread, even though my ideas are general, and referred to the sticky

Suggestions on Combat mechanics

Hit Box
How will hitboxes be handled in this game

The idea of a single hitbox means, the armor type worn in different parts of the body does not matter; that the stats will all be summed up and the damage done will be calculated afterwards?

Seems rather foolish and well dumb. Hitting an unprotected spot should do more damage than a normal shot. Or hitting the head or aiming for the heart should do more damage than hitting a shield.

I think a multi-hit box idea should be added to make the game play much more interesting and skill based. PvP would be a lot more eventful, offensive and defensive. Imagine trying to kill an enemy, but realizing Hey I can't let them hit there. Active blocking and skilled players won't allow head shots or chest hits due to dodging/parry/blocking/ect...


Death and Killing Blows
Death/Killing Blows should not be handled so lightly. It should be epic.

I am sure you have played Call of Duty 4. You know the last stand feature, implementing that would in return add an interesting twist of events. An epic battle between two people, could in fact end as a draw. While you are on your "last stand", before you die, you could finish off your foe, be finished off with an Epic Killing blow, just die from wounds, even possibly revived by an ally. For those of you who don't know what a last stand is (its when you are dying on the ground, there is a timer for how many secs you have to live).

Although I want last stands to happen by chance, not every time you die or go low on health. That would be predictable and less fun. I mean for instance if multi hit boxes were in fact apart of the game, getting hit to the head or heart that brings you to 0 hp would definably kill you and not allow a last stand. Skilled players can prevent last stands unless the other player is of = or greater skill.

Killing blows should add some benefit to the game at times. Like a chance to proc a frenzy. Imagine a huge siege battle, heavily outnumbered. Killing the invaders, while the smaller group holds out (without dying, preventing the other team from getting the proc) the smaller group could go berserk.

If their is seige in the game and open attacks between clans, not only should killing blows give a chance to receive buffs, but killing a ranking officer of the enemy could give out a debuff. If the guild master were to be killed in the battle field, it could effectively weaken the moral of the troops he is leading. Anything with a lower rank than the person killed could vulnerable to the debuff. This I have not seen in MMOs, but it would effectively make the game stand out.

There would be more strategic maneuvers, because this could work both ways. Because an officer of a guild got a killing blow, it could proc a rally call that would buff other lower ranking members. Sort of Moral Boasters.
A dead officer = low moral(debuff) A sucessful officer = high moral (rally call)
Guilds would then have to carefully plan out group set ups and ect.. according to this. I think this could make the game unique and great.

[catmorbid]

I believe this game might actually benefit very well from hit boxes, or (meaningful) hit locations as I like to say. No other MMORPG seems to be doing it, so it would add a nice touch of realism to the game. Each hit location could also have a some special wound effects tied to them, so hits to head could have a chance to stun or simulate concussion effect, and hits to legs would make you fall or slow your movements and hitting arms would reduce damage with weapons and reduce attack speed/parrying speed and/or effectiveness.

In addition to different armor protecting the hit locations in a realistic way, the added wound effects and maybe increased damage would surely make a big difference in how the combat would feel in the game. Right now I'm hoping for something in the lines of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

[Veith]

@catmorbid, are also my thoughts about, im thinking if there are hitlocations also protection should be exactly visible, if you are uncovered on arms, or one arm, then that location is unprotected and would be the location the enemy surely wants to hit and should be also possible. If such more complex actions will be possible in the game, would be great.

[Necromantic]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

I believe this game might actually benefit very well from hit boxes, or (meaningful) hit locations as I like to say. No other MMORPG seems to be doing it, so it would add a nice touch of realism to the game.

Ultima Online had it, so did Dark Age of Camelot. I was just a chance system like "20% chance to hit the arms or torso and 15% to hit the head" etc. and no real aiming for it, but it had some effects on combat.

[OMGPIE]

I am definately for hitboxes and killing blows they are great, maybe we won't have a Mortal Kombat fatality but still I dont want my same move that i started with to kill him all the time it is just boring. Also, last stand perk...great idea but...we dont have things as light and manuverable with range as pistols, except maybe slingshots hehe. I think that would be a little hard to do unless it is an ability that you can activate or automatically activates when you have like a certain amount or % of your health.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Necromantic

Ultima Online had it, so did Dark Age of Camelot. I was just a chance system like "20% chance to hit the arms or torso and 15% to hit the head" etc. and no real aiming for it, but it had some effects on combat.

Ah, but now you're talking about the simple PnP-style hit-table. That one's easy to make, because you don't need collision detection, just randomized hit location. but the problem is we have a 3d game, and we'd like real hit locations that work with collision detection. If they used the simple PnP hit-table system, combat would surely seem awkward, because it could look like you hit the head, but in reality the hit-table roll shows you hit the leg. Imagine how dumb that would look

[Necromantic]

Yeah sure I understand that, but the basics are there whether or not them being collision based hit boxes.

The problem is at the end everyone will go for the head, 'cause that is an insta kill or at least it does the most damage even if protected good. So as long as we won't be able to "freely" move the head etc. to evade the blow it'll just get annoying.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Necromantic

Yeah sure I understand that, but the basics are there whether or not them being collision based hit boxes.

The problem is at the end everyone will go for the head, 'cause that is an insta kill or at least it does the most damage even if protected good. So as long as we won't be able to "freely" move the head etc. to evade the blow it'll just get annoying.

Hmh.. Very true. If you have good chance go for the head, you will do so. It would be very much more interesting however if hit locations were balanced to offer more tactical variety instead of the most-lethal hit kind of approach. So basically plain damage modifiers is a really poor approach, only suitable for those who lack imagination. So instead of the simplified solution, having a number of different and varying effects would reduce the need to always strike at head, and instead try attacking at an arm. Also, large shields should make it very easy to cover for your head.

[Veith]

Of own experience by training, if you learn and train medieval swordfighting the first blows to learn are all to the head. Thats the most important part. From up to down.
You can have small wounds on arms, legs, also body but if only one 'knock' on the head you are at least for some important seconds not very fit for all actions.
Ok, for internet there exist not to much good videos, but one shows at least the moves for german longsword using. Its clear why those blows are not effectively blown, because all actions would result in the death of the opponent.
You see there the action for first a deadly blow, then the parrying and sometimes the third stage of fight the reaction of the parrying. Its recreated after medieval german swordfighting schools and the teaching books still exist. Most is able to recreate for folks have advantage now decades ago beginning with eastern asiatic fighting schools. Momentary you are able to train those styles by today experienced trainers. The interesting aspect for those here presented are really fighting styles for finally killing your opponent, not for wounding only (like for some duels) for really end-results.
Looks perhaps for some folks unspectacular, sure.
Those folks also fight for stagefightstyle or showfight, here they present 'fencing' for surely sadly deadly results if acted in the right way.
Here a link for their mainsite:
http://www.gladiatores.de/Movies.html
and also one directly to youtube but there are also many scrap for fighting also vieawable, its really difficult to find the 'real' stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC5FIyfI8TA
but finally you see, many blows want to be placed on the head (those are really the first ones you learn, a blow from up to down) and also wanted to parry, also an important aspect the parrying is normally acted in a way with that parrymove the first defender can react at once to a counterattack.
you read often the word 'kopff' its the head and 'maul' is mouth. In the old german words is explained (also in the books) what you need to do and where you must place the blow.

[Necromantic]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

Hmh.. Very true. If you have good chance go for the head, you will do so. It would be very much more interesting however if hit locations were balanced to offer more tactical variety instead of the most-lethal hit kind of approach. So basically plain damage modifiers is a really poor approach, only suitable for those who lack imagination. So instead of the simplified solution, having a number of different and varying effects would reduce the need to always strike at head, and instead try attacking at an arm. Also, large shields should make it very easy to cover for your head.

So now I just need my VR Suit to control my shield arm seperated from my sword arm in all directions.
Maybe right mousebutton for the right hand and left mousebutton for the left one, but what about directions?

[Veith]

@Necromantic, factly if you want 100% controlleable different moves for left and right arm its not possible with one mouse, because you can move your mouse not in the same time in different directions. So one char must be multiplayed! left and right arm (with one player and in every hand a mouse, or two players ) or you limit really possible actions for a char comparing to real possibilities.
So i would tend to the fact the shield is 'only' a blocking possibility but not in complex way, you have it in your normally left, and thats enough. The actions are fought with your offensive weapon.
So without moving a control-tool a kind of 'block' button for the shield must surely be enough. And all mousemoving for the weapon, similar to M&B.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Necromantic

So now I just need my VR Suit to control my shield arm seperated from my sword arm in all directions.
Maybe right mousebutton for the right hand and left mousebutton for the left one, but what about directions?

Hmh, how about a mix of that and mount & blade, meaning you need to react at correct time, so if your enemy is doing an overhead swing, and you attempt to block, you'd expose yourself to other types of attacks. It could still use left-click for left hand right-click for right hand. But I'd like to see possibility to reverse the effect, e.g. instead of blocking you attack with shield and instead of attacking you block with a sword. Maybe if hands would have default actions based on what item you're using, meaning a weapon would default to attack and a shield to block, then you could have separate buttons - say q, and e with default WSAD config for the reversed action... This would also allow an interesting dual wield fighting mechanism, where you could actually set the rhythm of the attacks as you see fit... *pondering*

[Eldrek]

Originally Posted by Veith

@Necromantic, factly if you want 100% controlleable different moves for left and right arm its not possible with one mouse, because you can move your mouse not in the same time in different directions. So one char must be multiplayed! left and right arm (with one player and in every hand a mouse, or two players ) or you limit really possible actions for a char comparing to real possibilities.
So i would tend to the fact the shield is 'only' a blocking possibility but not in complex way, you have it in your normally left, and thats enough. The actions are fought with your offensive weapon.
So without moving a control-tool a kind of 'block' button for the shield must surely be enough. And all mousemoving for the weapon, similar to M&B.

Why can holding right click not control your shield, while holding right click you'll aim your shield.. Then you can block where ever needed. Basically, your aim determines where your weapon and shield are at, and holding right click would ready your shield.

[Thalras Naeblis]

I would definitely want different locations to do more damage unless armour(Canadian didn't spell armor wrong.) prevents it. And I like the last stand idea. I would love to get my leg hacked off and lying there on the ground make my last stand to stab at the opponents genitals or heart if i can reach that high. (I will probably have daggers). That would be cool if I can throw my dagger at him in a last attempt or something.
But yeah I hope that if your first slice is right across their throat they die. Too bad there isnt any mutilations where his head comes off.

[Darknomad]

I think head shots should do more damage. However what about putting a max on the damage from a certain area. For example you wont be able to get shot in the foot over and over again until you die. But it doesn't have to be that specific maybe a leg can only contribute to 50% of total health lost. Also what about the idea of being able to stack types of armour, so you can wear chain-mail and plate armour. After all the knights wore chain under their plate, or maybe you can only have one piece of extra armour. Also since there is full loot it is risk/reward. Higher defence but if you die you lose more money.

[Goatishfiend]

Multiple hitboxes all-the-way!!! For a well thought out, next gen pvp using fps perspective, I don't see any alternative. I mean why bother giving the ability to aim and making it meaningless. It's one of the things that infuriated me about tabula rasa. You'd jump and weave and strafe, but it did no good--misses and criticals were handled by the oppressive weight of statistics.

[Unomat]

Originally Posted by Veith

@Necromantic, factly if you want 100% controlleable different moves for left and right arm its not possible with one mouse, because you can move your mouse not in the same time in different directions. So one char must be multiplayed! left and right arm (with one player and in every hand a mouse, or two players ) or you limit really possible actions for a char comparing to real possibilities.
So i would tend to the fact the shield is 'only' a blocking possibility but not in complex way, you have it in your normally left, and thats enough. The actions are fought with your offensive weapon.
So without moving a control-tool a kind of 'block' button for the shield must surely be enough. And all mousemoving for the weapon, similar to M&B.

Why not introduce a new piece of hardware to control movement with your feet? That way either hand of a character could be controlled separately by the hands of the player through the keyboard (optionally keyboard/mouse).

Incidentily, if a swordfighter were to aim for the head I'd prefer to duck (add one duck button to those foot controls please ^^) and get him completely off-balance, with enough time to aim for the weak spots (sword to the groin ). Then again, I'm completely inexperienced as a swordfighter

[BlackSky]

Multiple hitboxes for sure,well i dont know how it will work but i have an idea:you can have defens buttons and Attack buttons,but the defens buttons are much more faster then the Att buttons,so when the person Attacks you,you can defend while predecting where the Attack will hit.

Attack Skills will be spacial attacks that are hard to predict (defend) and the defens skill will be spacial defens that has a 90%-60% of defending.
(you can have a 100% Defens skill as well, but you will have to wait a while untile you can use it again)

as you train ur attack and defens skill increase,so even if a low lvl player with godly items attacks you,you can easly win beacuse of your attack and defens speed.

the battle system can be like this:you click the player you wish to kill after that your player is in combat mode which means he will attack the player until the player dies/you comand your player to stop/you die.
after getting into the combat mode you will have 6 buttons to use 3 for attack and 3 for defens.
first button is a body attack the second button is an head attack 3 button is hands/legs attack you will have to prees the button and an arrow: left arrow+ the legs/hand button for the left hand,right arrow +the legs/hand button for the right hand,and finally down arrow +the legs/hand button for aming the legs of your opponent.

the same goes for the defens buttons one button for defending the body another for head..............

i hope this will help.

[Darknomad]

What about using wasd for moving q/z to raise/lower shield the arrows to control your players head (like in fps games) and ctrl for attack?

[Wolverine]

Their is only one problem I see from this,let say Im just in a town buying stuff and guy comes behind me and hits my head with a sword or a arrow...it could cause problems if head shots are instant kills.

[Unomat]

Undoubtedly most head shots would be (nearly) instant kills.

I'd say the right question would be: how many players do you expect to be able to run around towns unchecked, killing people?

[LightsabeR]

Hit boxes are nice, of course, but extremely hard to implement into an MMO. Even in FPS games hit boxes are often buggy and never perfect.

I hope we will get some hit detection, but I honestly wouldn't get my hopes up. Besides, I'd rather have a big non instanced world without hit boxes than have hit boxes and have to make due with an instanced/zoned world.

Originally Posted by Divinius

last stand

I hate that perk in CoD4. It's just as stupid as Martyrdom. All it does is add more random luck to the game and I don't think that's something that we would want.

Then again, I guess it could work in an MMO, since they are not as fast paced and player skill oriented. Thing is tho that it would be extremely hard to implement correctly. Why?

a) having it on a random dice roll chance is not the best solution
b) making it so that last stand depends on hit detection and hit boxes means the game would need very good hit boxes.
c) attacking from "last stand"

-If you're a melee fighter, what you gonna do? Throw the other guy with your sword?
-If you're an archer, how you gonna fire that bow? Even if you get an arrow off it wouldn't have much power or accuracy.

[Wolverine]

Originally Posted by Unomat

Undoubtedly most head shots would be (nearly) instant kills.

I'd say the right question would be: how many players do you expect to be able to run around towns unchecked, killing people?

Well I don't really know how the game is going to work but lets say I don't like a guy or want to steal his stuff and I create a new character that I don't care about.So the guy is buying stuff or trading and I just come from behind with my bow or sword right next to his head and hit him and kill him.

I think the way to combat this idea is to have alot of NPC guards(or real player guards) patrolling but even then if head shots are near kills then I don't think they will have enough time to stop the guy.

I mean,I love the idea(hell ill love it you can cut hands,legs and heads like in real life combat) but I see how this can cause problems since people will create new charectors and not care.Ill like it if those were critical hits but instant kills or near instant kills,Im not so sure.

[Unomat]

Off the top of my head I'd say a possible solution would be to let player kills resound through the Deva (i.e. be linked to the account), so an all out PKer would actually restrict himself in the number of ways he'd be able to play the game with his alts...