[MUD-Dev] Supporting RP+PG

[Matt Chatterley]

On Mon, 30 Jun 1997, Huibai wrote:

> : From: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
> : >- hiding all statistics. (HP,skills,levels,etc.)
> : >  health is a graphic % bar.  they've got no idea
> 
> : Essentially you now have a percentage value. The problem which
> : it chares with all the other general systems is in evaluating what
> : 20% damage (or whatever) really means in game functionality.  
> 
> well, being graphical, it of course doesn't _say_ 20%.
> more like: |########   |  which would appear to be about 80% of
> full health.  similarly |####      | looks pretty drained for mana.
> (non-ascii bar of course!)

But still, if the scale is linear (which you imply), most people can judge
fifths pretty accurately, those with more experience can judge tenths and
so forth with pretty good accuracy. Hell, if you had enough time on your
hands, you could cut/paste and measure the thing. :P
 
> as they progress, they _might_ notice that a mob who used to
> nail them for half their health bar only hurts them 1/3 now - but
> otherwise they will scarcely notice, since the improvement on
> the underlying HP and mana is so gradual.  however they want
> to interpret their health bar, it's all they get to do so.  as for the
> rest of the game, it doesn't care about the % and just deals 
> with numbers until it hits a nice 0. :)

Yeah - gradual increase seems to be thought of as the way to go now, and
is certainly very attractive over a jagged set of increases, pretty much a
smooth, exponential approach (or a parabola, or normal distribution).

Is 50/100 HP exactly half dead? Would being poked in the tummy hurt more
if you had several cracked ribs? Ie: Will a hit of the same strength
always hurt the same amount, no matter how close to being dead you are?
 
> I like your combat object idea a lot - involving scripts that will
> resolve each turn.  That it drags out a little should be no big
> problem, I predict.  Most mud fights last longer in terms of
> swings and blows than realistic.  Your method seems to so
> far to be more satisfying intellectually, and possibly no one
> will care that combat lasted only 6 actual resolved rounds,
> since out-analyzing and second-guessing the opponent is
> the real effort.  (Very Magic-inspired example, eh?)  I can't
> use anything similar for my theme, however; maybe next
> time around I'll play around and see how you might've imp'd it.

I'll be interested to see how this sort of thing turns out, it's a very
novel twist.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"He can't stop us, we're on a mission from Glod!" - Soul Music (Pratchett)