Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BlckKnght]

I've found the discussions of unkillable creatures and ineffective weapons in DF2010 to be quite interesting. Though there very well may be some bugs making things work differently than Toady intended, I think that a substantial part of it comes from a more realistic model of combat wounds. Many of the wounds that would come from medieval combat would not be instantly lethal. Slowly bleeding to death from an injury really should be more common than instant death! However, many of the injuries that won't kill you for hours or days should put an immediate end to your effectiveness in combat (severed limbs, head injuries, etc).

The big trouble with the new not instantly lethal wounds is that combatants don't recognize when an enemy is not a significant threat any more. I think that when a creature is unconscious or when several of its body parts have been severed or mangled, it should be considered to be incapacitated by the creatures that are fighting against it. Exhaustion or a stunning blow might temporarily incapacitate an otherwise unhurt creature. When a creature becomes incapacitated the opposing creatures should not fight it as before. Instead they should either ignore the creature (and fight against other more capable enemies) or they should target their attacks more thoughtfully so as to finish the incapacitated foe off quickly.

Ignoring an incapacitated enemy is obviously advantageous to creatures who are fighting against many opponents. It would also make it more likely for injured creatures to survive close fought battles, either because they will leave an enemy to bleed out while they get medical treatment for their own severe wounds, or because a victorious enemy ignored them long enough for them recover (and run away) or be rescued by allies.

Finishing off an incapacitated creature is the other side of the coin. If a fighter doesn't have anything else they urgently need to do, they should try to kill nearby incapacitated enemies as quickly as they can. This sort of attack should be more deadly than fighting an actively resisting enemy! Throats can be slit and spears thrust between ribs. Even against an armored enemy, daggers can be stuck through eye-slits in helms or through under-arm gaps in plate armor perhaps, or an enemy's helmet or other armor could be deliberately ripped off to expose a vulnerable area. Wrestlers could focus on chokes and other potentially lethal techniques (head strikes) rather than twisting a third toe.

Figuring out exactly how such finishing moves should work within the existing combat and wound systems may be a bit complicated, but it might be something that could be folded into a more general "enemy vulnerability knowledge" system (which I think Toady plans to add eventually). Attacks against an incapacitated creature would be much more likely to target a vulnerable spot.

Anyway, what do you think of this idea? I think it will add both balance and realism to combat, as strong, well armored fighters will be able to move from enemy to enemy more quickly, while still being vulnerable to having their throats cut if they eventually get overwhelmed. Hopefully this kind of system would prevent 100+ page combat reports being the norm when armored creatures fight in the arena and stop dwarf mode soldiers from starving to death while trying to finish off a marmot.

[Umi]

I agree, especially when the opponent is unconscious.  If they are knocked unconscious then the fight is all but over.  I am certainly not going to be aiming my sword at their foot in my efforts to kill them.  The whole "whacking-them-with-my-sword-on-some-pointless-extremity-for-so-long-that-they-actually-wake-up-before-I-finally-aim-for-their-head" thing gets annoying...

Maybe have a "Finish" option added to the attack/wrestle screen?  It can be used if they are on the ground, but has low accuracy unless they are unconscious (In which case it has almost perfect accuracy)?

[Hyndis]

I agree. This would be awesome in that it would allow battles to have more than just a binary result.

Currently, creatures tend to be either perfectly healthy or completely dead when a battle is over. Its somewhat rare that someone will be injured seriously though still alive at the end.

This would give your medics a lot more to do while also significantly extending the lifespan of your military dwarves. Unless they're instagibbed by an instantly fatal attack or all of their allies have fled, if a dwarf drops due to a serious injury and is unconscious, enemies should then ignore that unconscious dwarf unless there are no other conscious enemies around.

Think of it like an aggro list.

If a goblin attacks a dwarf, knocking the dwarf out but not killing the dwarf, the goblin should then refocus his attention on that other dwarf who is very much active currently hitting the goblin with an axe rather than slowly breaking the unconscious dwarf's toes.

[DOOM lad]

I agree, I drafted my entire fortress and had them fight, until they all died of starvation, a blob of steam the only had all of its libs riped off.
It was funny to watch but seems a bit silly.

[Acanthus117]

I heartily support this idea. It seems more realistic to add a coup-de-grace to combat, making it easier to dispatch enemies, and adding a possible new ethic. the treatment of wounded. Do elves slaughter the wounded they find at the end of their campaigns? Do humans?

[Chthonic]

Choosing not to coup de grace could also lead to prisoners being kept--either to fill your dungeons, or (if the goblins/etc win) to be hauled off into slavery/held for ransom/prisoner exchange.  This would differentiate incursions by intelligent civilizations from murderous titans somewhat, add in a hook for diplomacy, and allow for prolonged warfare while keeping site populations at levels that can support it (when real armies are moving around the map, their soldiers drawn from historical cities, it will be uber-easy to deplete warlike civilizations). 

It could also allow individual soldiers' personalities shine through . . . i.e., is your champion riding high on bloodlust?  A cold, sadistic killer?  A merciful sort of guy?

[Hyndis]

Ooo, I do like this. Prisoners!

This will give your dungeons a purpose.

I want my gigantic dungeons full of elven prisoners, each one chained in a tiny iron cell, tormented in various ways.

[Warlord255]

There's no reason not to put both of these in. If I had to pick one, though, it'd be prioritization.

When playing as an adventurer, it works quite handily; I become an efficient murder machine, ignoring enemies as soon as I puncture their lungs, slash their throat or hack off an arm. Once everyone's crippled, then I come back and finish off whoever hasn't bled out.

[Safe-Keeper]

As a tangent, what about giving squads aggression settings? These settings could include whether or not to let fleeing enemies go, whether or not to prioritize conscious enemies, whether or not to hunt fleeing targets down or let them go, etc.

For example, if you've got a squad set up to kill thieves and snatchers, you'd want them to just engage and hunt down all targets, since none of them pose any real threat, but if you're in the middle of a large battle, you'll want your squaddies to prioritize the enemies still in the fight. Makes no sense to have two axedwarves beat a half-dead goblin to a pulp while there are two others, very much alive and fighting, only two or three tiles away.

[Dagoth Urist]

Finish him! ...[Obligatory Street Fighter reference] 

I can't believe this isn't in the game already. It would bring combat to a much more believable level, with little effort. I guess. But Toady wouldn't have a hard time coding that, would he?

If your dwarfs or other NPC's were given a little more personality, this could also be a neat way of showcasing how merciful or ruthless they are! A little variable; "EXECUTIONER = (1 or 0)" 

[sweitx]

I like the prioritization bit.  A quick way may be to simply prioritize conscious enemies over un-conscious ones.

[Hyndis]

Yup. If their current target falls unconscious, do a check to see if there are other targets that are still conscious. If there are, attack them instead.

If there are no conscious targets within vision range then just attack the nearest unconscious target.

An option could then be put in at this point, where if there are no conscious targets and only unconscious targets, capture instead of kill them. Perhaps a toggle in squad behavior?

Take Prisoners?  Y/N

[Funk]

Some type of attack aim readjustment to the vital spots(neck?)

[Adelus]

I think it would be great if you could continue to take wild swings as you do now, with a random target, or to specify precisely what you want to strike and with what, with penalties to skill based on the size of the target, the enemy's ability to dodge, among other factors. As the skill goes up, wild swings could even start prioritizing more vital locations and take account for what kind of weapon is being wielded, and what visible armor the foe is wearing.

Further, it would be nice if these options were streamlined (ditto for the wrestling options) into some nested lists rather than one large, incomprehensible list.

As it stands, you basically have a huge list of "Do X to Y with Z" for wrestling. A better system that should save time and reduce headaches going down the list would be three menus, set up like:

Do X -> To Y -> With Z (or any arrangement that makes more sense).

I find it kind of silly that highly skilled weapon users just tend to hit more often and forcefully, but not necessarily in more appropriate hit locations.

[Virex]

Yup. If their current target falls unconscious, do a check to see if there are other targets that are still conscious. If there are, attack them instead.

If there are no conscious targets within vision range then just attack the nearest unconscious target.

An option could then be put in at this point, where if there are no conscious targets and only unconscious targets, capture instead of kill them. Perhaps a toggle in squad behavior?

Take Prisoners?  Y/N

It would be a possibility, but knowing the general intelligence of a dwarf, that could have "fun" consequences. A better option would be to allow the player to order an incapacitated/unconscious creature to be captured, in a similar way to how you can claim stuff that wasn't yours before. Maybe kill should also be an option, but that one should come with penalties/plusses based upon ethics: "Urist was ordered to murder a worhty opponent recently" and "Sodel has witnessed the excecution of a prisoner recently". Of course, psychopath would be more then happy to do this (and be the first to rush to the opponent when you give the kill order).