Medikits

[Winter]

Regardless of realism, your idea is vastly overcomplicated for a computer game. Tracking five different stats just for a generic wounds system is really bad design. It would give most players severe headaches trying to understand how it works, and adds nothing that would actually enhance the play experience over a more abstract system.

There are far better uses for our coders' time and energy.

Regards,
Winter

[homunculus]

well, i think it would be nice if players would be motivated to avoid any kind of damage in a soft cap way instead of letting the soldier drop to 1 health point and be totally cheerful about it, or else reloading because the soldier died.
loosing consciousness and bleeding before death is also one of my favorites, because it make the wounded soldier a low priority target and will create a high priority surprise objective to save your bleeding soldier.

you are certainly right about the complexity thing, saying that

"stimulants reduce stun by 50% and temporarily increase stats by 10%"

is vastly more easy to understand and manage than

"the effects of stimulants is an emergent property of the stun and blood pressure system, and the exact result depends on the condition of the soldier"

[Chriswriter90]

well, i think it would be nice if players would be motivated to avoid any kind of damage in a soft cap way instead of letting the soldier drop to 1 health point and be totally cheerful about it, or else reloading because the soldier died.
loosing consciousness and bleeding before death is also one of my favorites, because it make the wounded soldier a low priority target and will create a high priority surprise objective to save your bleeding soldier.

you are certainly right about the complexity thing, saying that

"stimulants reduce stun by 50% and temporarily increase stats by 10%"

is vastly more easy to understand and manage than

"the effects of stimulants is an emergent property of the stun and blood pressure system, and the exact result depends on the condition of the soldier"

This is a strategy game not an RPG. Valkyria Chronicles blends the two well, but this is a pure Strategy/ Tactics game.

loosing consciousness and bleeding before death is also one of my favorites, because it make the wounded soldier a low priority target and will create a high priority surprise objective to save your bleeding soldier.

In Valkyria Chronicles, you get 3 turns to rescue someone before they die, I like this Idea

[Borsti67]

This issue still seems to be actual?
Just my 2 ct...

I'd prefer a solution which is not too complex (e.g. bleeding may be more realistic but also extremely difficult to handle IMHO). Unconsciousness could be a nice idea, though. May be both could be options for the higher game-skill levels (above "normal")...?

On the other hand, the medikit should be quite helpful but not too powerful (like having more hitpoints after a battle than before).

I don't have in mind how exactly the healing value is currently calculated; but what about simply limiting the maximum effect?
Let's say, the first application to a soldier heals him UP TO 75%, the next UP TO 50%, the last UP TO 25%. Another "heal" wouldn't have any affect on this person...

Also, I like the idea of having medikit-healing only temporary. The soldier is pushed, so he can still fight, but after the battle he needs a REAL medication (in fact, the medikit could make things even worse in the long term)...

[TrashMan]

Given that this is a turn based games, calculations and the system can be as complex as they need to be. Number crunching is done by the CPU anyway and doesn't slow the game down at all.

now, if this was a pen-and-paper game....


F'course, just case you can do something doesn't mean you should. But the system shouldn't be too simplistic either. At least some different states would be nice..
Stunned, confused, paralyzed, unconcious, etc...
LEARN FROM JAGGED ALLIANCE 2, X-COM, UFO, etc...

[geever]

Stunned, confused, paralyzed, unconcious, etc...
LEARN FROM JAGGED ALLIANCE 2

BUT DO NOT COPY IT!

-geever

[Another Guy]

In fact, copy X-COM damage/medikit system is perfect. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Its balanced, realistic, and medikit offer no real benefits to the player other than preventing soldiers imediate death (Soldiers would still remain severelly crippled, TU cost is high and only really heal was the actuall bleeding and a very small amount of HP).

Impossible to use to heal soldiers to full health, because its only usable if soldier has bleeding points. Usefullness on unconcious and low morale soldiers was very limited in terms of gameplay (more like used in despair to bring a extra gun back to action when u r probably already loosing the battle).

Slow stun recover every turn adds challenge too, as it gets a lot more dificult to capture aliens alive.

If the pourpose of the game is cause the scarry danger feeling on the player, the X-COM system gets it done. and best of all... its already designed since the 1980s!

[domein]

Here are my thoughts on damage\healing system:

Solder has three values:
1) Base hit points - Fully healed solder's "Max hit points", and a stat to be improved by training and exp. 
2) Max hit points - Value that reflects overall state of recovery from long-term wounds, increases up to value of "Base hit points" during rest(slowly) or treatment(faster) at medical facility at the base.
3) Current hit points - Reflects immediate condition and fitness for combat. If number is 0 solder is disabled\unconscious.

While being hit, subtract 100% "short-term damage" right from current hit points, get 50% of that amount rounded down as "log-term" damage to "max hit points", get 10% extra "bleeding" damage rounded down every turn to current hit points.

If current hit points is zero, solder is disabled until the end of combat, bleeding and all other damage subtracted from max hit points. When "max hit points" is 0, solder is dead.

Medical kits can:
1) Basic Med Kit: Stop bleeding damage.
2) Improved Med Kit: Same as Basic + increase "current hit points" up to "max hit points"
3) Advanced Med Kit: Same as Improved + administer stimulants to return "disabled" solder in action.

This scheme will allow a realistic, yet not too complex for understanding and implementation damage\healing system, with respect to both minor wounds and overkills.

[criusmac]

Just a note, Domein's suggestion is what UFO: Aftershock's (and possibly with other UFO After games) currently does.

In UFO: Aftershock
Max hp is what is damaged slowly each hit. It requires a treatment facility to restore. If you are unconscious, all damage is done directly to Max hp, and if this max hp reaches 0, you're dead. While you are unconscious, your max hp slowly decreases until you are revived by a medikit, or completely dead.
Current hp is the amount of hp you have that keeps you conscious. It is damaged by every hit, explosion, and whatnot a lot faster than max hp. If current hp reaches 0, you are unconscious.
Stun reduces current hp only, and has no effect on max hp.
Acid and fire and other things rapidly reduce both current and max hp (current still faster though). This is sorta like bleeding while still conscious.
You can't bleed while conscious though, only when you fall unconscious do you bleed to death.
Medikits can't raise your current hp above your max hp.


Just thought I'd mention where this idea has already been implemented..
One other note is, if the mission ends, and any of your soldiers are stunned or bleeding, they are considered lost. I didn't like this idea so much, but that's how it was implemented. Unconscious soldier = dead soldier, whether the mission was a success or failure.

[TrashMan]

Actually, UFO: AS has 3 types of damage

Max
Current
Stun (re-generates automaticly over time)

Weapons do different quantities of each. Some specific weapons are designed to stun.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots/ufo_aftershock/ufo_aftershock_9.jpg
You got your basic health bar. Once you get hit by a regular weapon you loose a little bit of each (healt bar becomes shorter - the black part is Max HP you lost, the red is current HP you lost and the grey is stun HP you lost)

[domein]

Criusmac is right, but i never realized in time of writing my post that i was actually stealing the idea from after* game series. Silly me then, duh

Still that kind of damage\healing system would work great in turn-based environment i think.

[TrashMan]

You can go deeper really.

Frankly, I'd keep stun separate.
I'd add an endurance/energy bar - just like JA2. Makes sense. If someone hits you with stun gas, you're going down, but you are perfectly healthy.

[criusmac]

If you keep the stun damage separate, it means injured people can not be stunned more easily than healthy people (assuming you don't decrease the size of the endurance bar based on damage, which is added complexity).

On the other hand, if you are adding an endurance bar, it might make more sense to get tired as people run around swinging swords and shooting guns. Would that make them more easily stunned?

[TrashMan]

Yes. Overload your soldier with heavy equipment, have him run around and his energy (endurance) drops.

Available energy should also affect the number of Action Points. If you're out of breath you don't have as many Max HP.

Not moving a soldier for a turn or two restores some energy. Drinking water fro ma canteen restores even more.

If it reaches 0 your soldier drops on the ground out of breath for 2-3 turns, after which is re-charges at an increased rate back to what it was (or 50%).

Also, getting hit by a weapon can damage energy (a little), so injured soldiers are easier to stun (but not by much)

[MXcom]

[...]
Not moving a soldier for a turn or two restores some energy. Drinking water fro ma canteen restores even more.
[...]

This is not Jagged Alliance.
I seriously doubt devs want something like a canteen in the game...