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Critical Hits/Coup De Grace/Melee Damage Modifiers

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Surrealistik:
I am in the process of coding three additional features.

The first is critical hits. This initially permits a base 5% chance of dealing double damage after armour and resistances/vulnerabilities are applied. This chance is modified by accuracy and skill with a given weapon. The modifier is equivalent to (accuracy + relevant weapon skill) / 100, doubling the chance at maximum, and is further modified by weapon and firemode types. Aimed shots are much more likely to land criticals for example, than bullets from autofire/snap shots, similarily, sniper rifles are much more likely (per bullet) to land criticals than say miniguns, while rocket launchers obviously won't land critical hits at all.


The second is the coup de grace. This results in an automatic critical hit with any weapon if the following conditions are met:

A: You're adjacent to (right beside) your victim.
B: No one on that victim's team can see you.


The third is the melee damage modifier. Melee damage is increased for most melee weapons by a modifier equivalent to the (close combat skill + strength) / 100. At maximum (100 close combat skill, 100 strength, best of luck achieving either) this will effectively double the damage ((100 + 100) / 100 = 2x).

Questions, comments, opinions?

Punkiee:

--- Quote from: Surrealistik on January 03, 2008, 02:52:23 am ---The first is critical hits.

--- End quote ---

Many games have critical hits/strikes but have always a ways to influence the chance of occurrence and/or damage associated with it. This is a necessity else there is no point to it. Else will be just the same as changing the damage and introducing luck. Luck is to be evaded at all cost imho in strategy games.
How exactly can the player directly control the critcal hits? Using it only as a second order derived effect would be a shame. Eg for aimed vs auto fire, the decision on the mode to use depend on the conditions and the available and needed TU's, not on the critical strike conditions. Instead of critical damage, one could just introduce a wider variance in the weapons damage to have the same effect.
If you cant influence it directly its probably not on the players mind and thus the player wont mind it happening or not. Unlike rpgs we dont dress up soldiers by calculating the average damage and all other stats to the point exactly.

Quick idea: critical hits could be used to augment second order effect of damage. For example a critical strike will damage the morale by x3 and boost the attackers morale. The victim could be knocked out temporarily or dazed, reducing his TU's.


--- Quote from: Surrealistik on January 03, 2008, 02:52:23 am ---The second is the coup de grace. This results in an automatic critical hit with any weapon if the following conditions are met:

A: You're adjacent to (right beside) your victim.
B: No one on that victim's team can see you.

--- End quote ---

I like this though. Its extra damage for sneaking up behind enemies. It might introduce the option of playing stealthy. We should also want extra features for it like encumbrance from wearing amour and heavy equipment. A stealth meter to aid the reaction fire. and so on..

Surrealistik:

--- Quote ---Many games have critical hits/strikes but have always a ways to influence the chance of occurrence and/or damage associated with it. This is a necessity else there is no point to it. Else will be just the same as changing the damage and introducing luck. Luck is to be evaded at all cost imho in strategy games.
How exactly can the player directly control the critcal hits? Using it only as a second order derived effect would be a shame. Eg for aimed vs auto fire, the decision on the mode to use depend on the conditions and the available and needed TU's, not on the critical strike conditions. Instead of critical damage, one could just introduce a wider variance in the weapons damage to have the same effect.
If you cant influence it directly its probably not on the players mind and thus the player wont mind it happening or not. Unlike rpgs we dont dress up soldiers by calculating the average damage and all other stats to the point exactly.

Quick idea: critical hits could be used to augment second order effect of damage. For example a critical strike will damage the morale by x3 and boost the attackers morale. The victim could be knocked out temporarily or dazed, reducing his TU's.
--- End quote ---

Control over critical hits is exercised in multiple ways. First of all, the stats your characters which you do have some degree of control over in singleplayer. The extent of this control increases over time as new recruits and stat increasing implants become availible. In multiplayer this control is far greater. Secondly, the weapon used. You have complete control over this. Thirdly, the fire mode, again, you have complete control over this, and consequently are afforded an additional degree of control over crit frequency. Some firemodes, such as the sniper headshot have an almost 100% chance of landing a critical on a successful hit, thus the control afforded by this venue is near absolute in some cases. While there are certainly considerations other than a firemode's critical chance modifier to take into account which will influence one's decisions, it is readily conceivable that the appeal of increased critical rates may tip the scales in decisions between any given number of firemodes. It is a factor like any other to take into account.

Further, merely wider variances would not have the same effect. Higher average damage equal to a percentage increase that is the sum of all crit contributing factors, would, over time, have the same effect approximately.

In any case, the overall impact of criticals on gameplay is minor, unless of course you deliberately maximize your odds of realizing one, in which case, you deserve to benefit from their inclusion. While I agree that in most instances, chance should be avoided and minimized in strategy games, this feature adds an interesting new mechanic to the game that can be strategically utilized and exploited. This specific addition of chance also adds a level of excitement and entertainment that can only be supplied with a randomly determined outcome.

Finally the additional critical hit effects you've proposed are interesting, but I don't find that critical hits should be limited to them, if this is what you're suggesting. If you get hit in a critical area, you're going to suffer for it in terms of health, in addition to whatever other side-effects result.

BTAxis:
I've already asserted on IRC that I don't care for the idea of the coup de grace attack. As for criticals, I'm starting to think we should just leave them out, too. The damage variation is already in place, which means you can already get lucky and score a more damaging hit, especially against heavier armours. The effect isn't as pronounced, but the idea is the same, and as Punkiee said, we can tweak it easily enough. I believe adding more random modifiers is going to make the game worse. The more randomness there is, the less influence the player has over the flow of the game.

Ildamos:
I like Surrealistik's ideas but BTAxis has a very solid point; I hate strat games with randomness thrown in.

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