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Author Topic: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!  (Read 10318 times)

Kars

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The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« on: February 14, 2018, 07:20:16 am »

Now, maybe it's just me, but the "force twists the [blank]" addition to the combat system has made it ridiculously easy. Especially the nervous tissue aspect of it. I've never heard of anyone becoming a cripple due to being bonked on the noggin so hard it ripped their spine apart. Brain damage, sure. Knocked out, of course. But... Never seen the nervous tissue get "torn apart" due to blunt force trauma to the head. Also never heard of someone getting hit so hard on the arm that it ripped up their tendon either, tendons are remarkably flexible, usually damage would come from your arm being twisted in a joint lock (which is already in the game).
I could believe that this would happen if, say, a Forgotten Beast hit you on the arm, or the head. Or if it was a Superracially strong vampire with a maul. Something like that. But just a normal bandit? Idk. The tendons and nervous tissue really need to be strengthened if this system is going to stick around, because all I have to do is run around with a warhammer and a shield with dodge and I'm immortal. Smack someone on the head once and their spine rips up and they flop around on the ground til they suffocate. This happens even through steel helmets! I do like this system when fighting Megabeasts and other similarly big creatures, because its fairly believable that being hit even once would basically mean you're dead or so badly mangled that death is one step away, regardless of your armor. But it needs balance against more human-sized creatures in my opinion.
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KittyTac

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2018, 07:25:28 am »

Game balance does not really matter to Toady. He never did balance in the game's history. We have higher priority issues right now anyway, and a procedural magic system to work on.
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Fruitsbrain Weapon-tosser

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2018, 08:18:19 am »

Game balance does not really matter to Toady. He never did balance in the game's history. We have higher priority issues right now anyway, and a procedural magic system to work on.
The pain values for broken bones used to be much higher several versions ago, to the point that even a Dragon or a Roc would instantly go unconscious from the pain of a broken toe. Hopefully joints and nervous tissue will be made more durable than gelatin in a future version.
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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2018, 08:22:35 am »

The pain from bones was actually unrealistic. Nervous tissue is really flimsy.
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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2018, 10:58:44 am »

[...]with a warhammer[...]Smack someone on the head once and their spine rips up[...]even through steel helmets!
That's, uh, fairly reasonable, actually. Have you ever been hit on the head with a warhammer? Spoiler: It will kill you. A helmet does nothing to change the fact of the momentum being transferred through your skull to your neck tissue, which is why so many experts think bicycle helmets are pointless, for example.
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Cathar

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2018, 11:43:50 am »

To be fair warhammers are the standard anti-armor weapon. So...they inflict damage through armor. This is normal.

Madman198237

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2018, 11:44:02 am »

[...]with a warhammer[...]Smack someone on the head once and their spine rips up[...]even through steel helmets!
That's, uh, fairly reasonable, actually. Have you ever been hit on the head with a warhammer? Spoiler: It will kill you. A helmet does nothing to change the fact of the momentum being transferred through your skull to your neck tissue, which is why so many experts think bicycle helmets are pointless, for example.

If the helmet is properly padded it'll help a bit...but you're still going down if it's a solid hit from a strong (strong for a human) enemy. You won't have a crushed skull if you're wearing a good (i.e., STEEL) helmet, but you will probably not be standing back up for the rest of the day. Depending on where you're hit, of course, it might actually twist your neck far enough to snap it, but that'd take quite the hit to do.

It's not necessarily a one-hit kill (otherwise every late-medieval/Renaissance-period knight in full plate would've carried around a war hammer instead of a halberd or a name-your-medieval-pole-mounted-Swiss-Army-Knife-weapon), but if you let somebody get a solid hit in on you, you're going to feel it.
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Dyret

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2018, 07:07:59 pm »

I'm not sure being slapped around by a slab of metal on a lever being bad for your spine is the game's worst sin on the realism front.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 07:10:12 pm by Dyret »
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LukeRM

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2018, 12:34:24 am »

While a solid strike to the helm will definitely not be pleasant at best, they wouldn't have worn them if they didn't save your life almost all the time. If you had to wear only one piece of armor, it would be a helmet, and likely followed by gauntlets and then a cuirass, and so on. I do agree that necks transmit too much force right now, but it's certainly more believable than smashing fingers to down people, or throwing fluffy wamblers to kill colossi, etc.

The bike helmet argument, if I recall, comes less from the helmets themselves (I would never forgo one myself) and more from other drivers becoming less wary of you because you're protected.
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Madman198237

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2018, 09:46:48 am »

While a solid strike to the helm will definitely not be pleasant at best, they wouldn't have worn them if they didn't save your life almost all the time. If you had to wear only one piece of armor, it would be a helmet, and likely followed by gauntlets and then a cuirass, and so on. I do agree that necks transmit too much force right now, but it's certainly more believable than smashing fingers to down people, or throwing fluffy wamblers to kill colossi, etc.

The bike helmet argument, if I recall, comes less from the helmets themselves (I would never forgo one myself) and more from other drivers becoming less wary of you because you're protected.

No, thank you. You wear the helmet SECOND, after the gambeson (most basic piece of armor, covers the chest). Then you wear a mail shirt, then the helm/helmet, then grieves, and then gauntlets. Your hands are much less like to get hit than your head, which is less likely to get hit than your chest. Legs before hands because if your hand gets hit you can STILL RUN AWAY.

There's a whole list of armor pieces that could go in here, but to simplify: Protect the chest, then the head, then the shins, then worry about everything else (oh, and have a shield before ANYTHING else, and keep the shield until you're wearing full plate).
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Rumrusher

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2018, 12:23:20 pm »

in a weird mess of force bending I saw a forgotten beast slap a giant fat elephant with a cloak in the head and for the longest time the force twist seems to not take in effect. I guess here is that Super_being strength multiplies the attack force to the point of every hit feels like getting smacked by a car going 20 mph.
so the only few things that could resist that would be elephants of a giant scale.

but then you end up with a game modded so everyone is giants
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bloop_bleep

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2018, 08:32:53 pm »

in a weird mess of force bending I saw a forgotten beast slap a giant fat elephant with a cloak in the head and for the longest time the force twist seems to not take in effect. I guess here is that Super_being strength multiplies the attack force to the point of every hit feels like getting smacked by a car going 20 mph.
so the only few things that could resist that would be elephants of a giant scale.

but then you end up with a game modded so everyone is giants

The problem there is that the game treats all items as stiff, so being hit by a cloak is more like being hit by a foam board. Still not that powerful of a hit, but when there's a giant wielding it....

Also, I don't think the problem with the force-twisting mechanic shows up in the head-neck situation; it's much more visible when you aim at the fingers. Hitting someone in the fingers/toes, despite not being very well known, is one of the most OP things you can do when fighting; the force causes your opponent's wrists/ankles to split apart even with pretty weak hits, immediately disabling that arm. This, I think, is due to the game considering finger bones to be as durable as any other bone; instead of taking out your finger and perhaps spraining your wrist, it takes your entire goddamn arm with it. Not to mention the unrealistic aspect of hitting individual fingers, especially when the fingers are holding on to something.....
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Rumrusher

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #12 on: March 01, 2018, 10:00:10 pm »

So... make everyone hands and wrists and fingers have the same muscle and skin density of the head and neck regions?
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bloop_bleep

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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #13 on: March 01, 2018, 10:40:27 pm »

So... make everyone hands and wrists and fingers have the same muscle and skin density of the head and neck regions?

Well, maybe, but I was thinking of making fingers more flimsy, so that the force is mostly distributed to them instead of the wrist or elbow. Or perhaps make fingers not targetable at all, I mean, the idea of a hammerdwarf swinging his mace around specifically trying to hit some guy's middle finger (and somehow succeeding a lot of the time) just doesn't make sense.
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Re: The force twists the game balance, tearing apart the difficulty!
« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2018, 04:14:50 am »

So... make everyone hands and wrists and fingers have the same muscle and skin density of the head and neck regions?

Well, maybe, but I was thinking of making fingers more flimsy, so that the force is mostly distributed to them instead of the wrist or elbow. Or perhaps make fingers not targetable at all, I mean, the idea of a hammerdwarf swinging his mace around specifically trying to hit some guy's middle finger (and somehow succeeding a lot of the time) just doesn't make sense.
okay I was wondering what you meant because having any body part be target-able seem to make Total sense in a "hey I want knock off only Ringfingers off my opponents." and the Random targeted body parts bit of DF if we're talking about NPC who probably swing for anything that probably has a better hit chance.
and given the hammer dwarf train in the art of hammering Means they get a boosted skill in Accuracy which allows them to pull off those Strikes.
like I guess with this game you kinda have to imagine how the attack taken off a whole arm from the aim finger, probably positioning of the hand


seems like something !!science!! could solve but I don't know how FUN would that mod would be, probably prolong fights and lead to changing tactics to just stabbing someone or choking them out like usual, or weird giant elephantlike men who pass out from pain long before their limbs take enough damage to be removed.
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