It does matter. In Morrowind not only I had to hit the enemy physically, I also have to pass the skills check. In a turn based game (or even a real time, but pause-able games) I don't have to deal with the first part, only with the skill check.

So overall, this would never work on a first person RPG. Except maybe the older ones like Arena and Daggerfall, but it worked there because things were more... vague.

So how exactly would you prefer the NPC's blocking and parrying and dodging be done? They must be based on a set of circumstances, identifiable to a computer as only numbers. So how are these numbers determined? If not based on changing variables, then they are based on static variables. Static variables would mean that if the NPC blocks once, he would block again for every strike afterwards, and succeed. If, after the calculations are done, he has not reached the numerical threshold necessary for blocking, the NPC would never block -ever- and all of your hits would land unimpeded. This is very boring, because it would mean that the winner of the fight would be predetermined from the start. Not much of a "game," yeah?

Therefore, the variables cannot be static. What, then? The variables must change- vary, if you would. In order for the NPC to not "always block" or not "never block," the variable used to determine whether they block or not must change. So how do you change the variable (the variable, and I must stress this, that determines not whether you hit or miss, but determines if the enemy dodges or not)?

Two ways: Player input or an RNG of some type.

Using a player's input "vanilla," so to speak, is, again, ridiculously boring. The game would ask: "Do you want the bandit to dodge?" and you would say "No, I want to hit him." or "Yes, he should dodge my blow." That's, again, not much of a "game". So, unless there's someone else deciding the outcome (turning TES multiplayer), you must rely on an RNG or, as it is otherwise known, a virtual "dice roll." If it makes you feel better, this "chance" isn't actually random and depends on a bunch of "random" factors depending on the programmer, i.e. the system clock or how many steps you've taken or how many times you've attacked or whatever.

To the best of my knowledge there is no other way to dynamically and unpredictably determine the NPC's actions other than a "dice roll".

Flat number, because this isn't a Turn based RPG.

I think it should be said that while I don't mind dice determining what the bad guy does, if I hit the guy I hit the guy. With morrowind you could clearly hit something but the dice said you missed. That's bad. Very very bad. This is an action rpg, not a pure blooded rpg. We as the player get to take up the character's actions and use that control to some extent so it feels more like we are the character fighting, instead of just watching our avatar do what we tell it.

In that regard, hit or miss is determined by us the player. No need to have more dice to help us miss. We have the tech now to represent all the things the enemy can do in order for our attack to miss. It shouldn't just be assummed that the attack deflected off the armor, we should see that now.

For what it's worth, you can't have a game AT ALL without a random number generator. This goes for FPSes, too: how do you determine where the bullets spray? How do you determine if the enemy AIs hit or missed? Yes, some games have settings that remove all randomness... As Reinju suggests, it's not fun at all. You die the instant you peek around a corner, as the enemy just emptied a magazine's worth of headshots into you.

And remember that even Oblivion, again, has randomness: the damage directly isn't, but anyone who's used the upgraded power attacks, used block heavily, or fought a clanfear, knows that there's "dice" involved. Power attacks and blocking are DEFINITELY randomized. And they work far better as a result: having the player have to react to a roll not going their way adds to the excitement. Otherwise, it's not much of an action game if you can predict everything well into advance: there's no on-the-spot split-second decisions to make, and as a result, combat becomes boring. In a nutshell, no randomness in combat yields the antithesis of the high-action excitement in combat TES tries to get.

If a game used the 'dice' and used them to call animation for the results, you would get feedback for the assumed events.

So if you PC has a critical failure an breaks his sword, the the game actually plays the animation and sound effects for that.

I can see two options for handling attacks... In one, the die is rolled and an animation played for the kind of action that occurred; or The game can do collision detection for each attack, and derive the damage based on a formula that takes impact force, weapon class, skill, and armor into account (but that might take some serious computing power for that).

I really don't understand people who say they didn't like the miss chance in Morrowind. If you're swinging at a moving target in real life, there are 4 things can possibly happen:
-You hit the target
-The target blocks
-The target parrys (NOT the same thing as a block)
-You miss

Why is that not realistic?

I think it has to do with the awkward side effect of it being a 3D FPP game. The game plays the attack animation but the PC fails the hit-roll and misses ~but they saw it hit the dude :bonk:; How could it miss!?

I think its more of an, "I'm the dude" problem. When players consider the PC as their personal avatar in the game world, they may tend to take failure personally. When players consider the PC as an entity of the gameworld, they may tend to be more indifferent, and less affected by the PC's failures.

Its true, you can see the gun pressed against the opponent and it still misses ~and it make perfect sense, but not so if you are only judging by what you see, and don't take the game mechanics into account.

Games already do this, including OB. It's called physics, and it's what really controls everything. There's no such thing as chance in real life, if something violates the laws of physics it can't happen. If it's physically possible something has to make it happen. OB has a physics engine called the Havoc engine. MW didn't have a physics engine, so it had to simulate combat with chance. OB, and Skyrim, have physics engines. Your skills just determine the damage your weapons do, not how good you are at hitting something. People prefer that. People who like classic RPG's are a dying breed, sorry it's just the way it is.

:rofl:

Seriously - do you even think about this stuff before you post it, or does it just sort of fall out of your head?

I'm pretty sure physics engine have nothing to do with this.

But yes, Oblivion and Fallout 3 already work this way, and it doesn't require serious computing power at all...

What are you talking about? You ARE the dude. You’re controlling the PC. If you think people don't take their avatar personal you’re wrong. That's what RPG's are really about, playing a role. The point of the game is to make you feel like you’re really there. That's what immersion is. Judging by your comments you either don't understand RPG's, or you just want to play a puzzle game with a back story.

Well the min-max was actually a way to RP the severity of a hit. It wasn't literally your sword growing sharper of duller. It was the difference between hitting them in the head or hitting them in the forearm.

That being said this is a system employed in a game where hits are decided by die rolls, and so it kinda worked for that. In a game where you can literally swing your sword at someones face and see it hit them in the head it doesn't make as much sense to have a min-max system.

For Skyrim the only way to truly do the Min-max system the way it was intended would be to have a flat damage number augmented by where a strike connects on the enemies body.

For example a claymore with a damage of 65, it doubles for a head strike, does normal damage against the torso then 50% damage for extremity strikes, 15% damage for glancing blows and maybe 10% damage for a successfully blocked attack (Based on the shield skill ranging all the way down to 0%). That would be the modern way to represent the min-max damage system.

I am a scientist, and can tell you with complete certainty that when you throw a dice in real life the result is not up to chance. If you know everything there is to know about the throw, you can predict exactly where the dice well land, and what number you get. Chance is merely a perception of what seems to be random, but everything happens for a reason, so nothing is truly random, and if nothing is random there can't be chance.

If "miss" chance doesn't correlate exactly with animation, what you have is pure lameness. If I SEE the sword hit the enemy (or I SEE the enemy's sword hit me) and it registers as a complete miss in terms of health, all immersion and realism is utterly vanquished.

That's not what its doing, nor what it Morrowind was doing.

The Physics engine just adds plausible behavior to falling objects.

The Chance 'rolls' in most any RPG, reflect that which is beyond player control. :shrug:
In Life, you can want to hit the other guy, and can think you are about to hit the other guy, and suddenly realize that the other guy has you in a headlock.

Its a symptom of a larger event.


No. You are not the Dude. In an RPG, the Dude abides.
In almost any RPG you either are assigned, or create a character. That character has a name (most often not the same name as the player).
* I create a character... say... Johan the Necromancer. He is skilled in the occult, and never studied any melee weapons. He considered the dead as a material resource, and has no qualms with using it ~it would not even occur to him that reanimating a neighbors spouse to clean his yard would be heartless or offensive. He is phobic of Rats ~and can't bear to look at them... and so never reanimates Rats. This guy is not me, not based on me; I have no fear of rats, but I would choose his reactions and responses in the game as one who was afraid of them. When I play a Role Playing game, its to explore the potential, and outcome of a specific individual in the game's situations. I don't play like its me only I can raise zombies to fight for me. Its not about pretending to be a necromancer, its about Johan, (IE. the "role"). Would Johan be nice to this person? Could Johan stifle his fear of rats and grab the Lich Gauntlet of power off of the rat covered pedestal? Is this demon something that Johan would choose to aid, or insult?

But put a sword in the hands of a 10 year old with neither training in the occult nor in melee weapons and he can hit someone with it. Moreover, whether or not he misses depends entirely on the location of his sword compared to the location of his target at a given instant of time.


EDIT- your SKILLS should not be "percent to hit" but rather should be SPEED OF SWING, recovery speed after an attack is made (tied to balance perhaps), speed of fighting attacks, agility (i.e. quickness to dodge when being attacked), power of thrust, etc.

And I'm a unicorn.

Umm. Physics after 1925 wouldn't agree with this statement. It would actually strenuously disagree, and show a mountain of rigorous evidence to back that up.
I'd suggest keeping this at a cordial, philosophical level, but that's just my $.02.

What about quantum effects? (inb4 correspondence principle) Regardless, the classical model of the universe is wrong. Having all knowledge of every particle in the universe at a given time not only will not give you the ability to in principle predict everything, it is in fact NOT POSSIBLE to have all knowledge about every particle in the universe. You can't even know both the exact location and exact momentum to 100% precision of a single particle... :celebration:


EDIT-



Hivemind. :spotted owl:

Three guys went to school with each other. One has a 2 hour layover in town and goes sight seeing; the other is out of aspirin and goes to the drug store; the third is in town to pick up a raffle prize, and they all stop in the same coffee shop at the same time on their way back...

You’re also a forty-five year old man you lives in his moms basemant, and plays D&D and War Hammer with your one friend on weekends. You also didn't disprove what I said, because you couldn't, since it's the truth.

So are you against to hit rolls or for them. Because what you just said would be a good way to describe THAC0. The fencer's level of training determines how easily he can parry or step out of the way of the attack which would be reflected in his AC, the other fencers ability to shove pointy object into a meat sack would be the to hit stat. The die roll reflects the subtle nuances that determine how well each of them did, because i am guessing in your example Fencer A doe snot always side step the blow perfectly nor does Fencer B always hit despite an attempted parry.

I am for to hit rolls and preferably damage based on how well you hit. Now D&D used a d20 to determine a to hit roll, I don't like it. It is too random. I've been out of statistics longer than a lot of you have been alive so forgive me if I no longer remember the terms. But a d20 has a flat probability, you are just as likely to roll a 1 as a 20. Something like the hero system has a more bell curve based system since it uses a 3d6 roll. You are frequently going to be rolling in the 8-14 range but the crit rolls or crit fumble rolls will happen rarely. I prefer something like that.

The die roll should be reflected in the game by an animation. Heck Dragon Age 2 uses die rolls, now they removed the ability to miss, but a bad roll got you a glancing blow. While it can be paused for a turn based feel, it is not a turn based RPG it is very action oriented. Now I understand there are a decent number of non-rpg types who get irritated that their fantasy FPS game had some weird miss thing happening despite them lining up the perfect shot, but that is what makes the difference between a shooter and a RPG. Without the to hit roll you have the same massive fail that was the oblivion lock picking mini-game where skill 5 characters could routinely open the hardest locks on the planet. The other option ends up being just as bad I think, you can remove the to hit roll and make the damage based on skill. I am not sure it adds anything to the game to always hit the neck when you want but only hit for 1 point of damage with your 2 handed sword. I don't see that as any more satisfying for non roll types but maybe it is.

I have no stake in your argument, but again, what you said is far from the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

It's still not chance. If any of those people choose not to go to that coffee shop, they won't have all meet there. It appears to be a coincidence, but it's not. They are a lot of factors that decided why and how they got there. Not chance.