They did this 13 years ago in "Die By the Sword". Weapon damage was based on how hard you hit with them. (That game also featured full body dismemberment at the joints)


So you end up with an NPC that never trips, and always reacts the same way to the same input.

To be frank, in a real-time ARPG, Die-rolls feel so out of place it would be asinine to see them retun in any form with Skyrim.


That being said, I felt a system where weapon had damage ranges and the weapon skills made the damage more consistent-since getting better in a weapon is also about maling less mistakes.


Some weapons like Axes and hammers would have a very large range to work with yoo.

I don't mean just how hard you hit. I also mean where you hit. Where your weapon hits them and where you hit them on your weapon. Also, where in your swing does it connect? At the beginning when you're just getting the momentum started or at the end where it has momentum, but you're trying to slow it down so you don't over-swing?

Maybe the dice could affect the animation choices and sound effects. :chaos:

(Causing plausible actions for failed attempts and accidents.) That was a real downer about Fallout 3 that no one had critical failures, and your weapon only jammed during reloads.


It did that too, and had wounding by location, and dismemberment. Hit the knee hard enough and you could chop off their calf & foot. Your weapon hit where ever happened to strike. The player had full 360^o control of their melee weapon (on all axis).

I absolutely guarantee you that they ARE going to use "chance to hit." They have to, just as they did in Oblivion. What do you think is happening when an opponent blocks you? When an opponent dodges? Those things happen PRECISELY because you failed to meet the "chance to hit."

What they're going to do, certainly at least as well as they did in Oblivion, is mask the bald nature of "chance to hit" with animations - with dodging and blocking and such. But it's still "chance to hit." It's still, at heart, determined by a "dice roll."

That's the thing that you seem to be completely failing to grasp here - "dice rolls" are necessary. They already exist in games and they HAVE TO exist in games. For all intents and purposes, they exist in life. If you go outside during a storm, there's a chance that you're going to be hit by lightning. Whether or not you in fact are hit by lightning is determined, to some considerable degree, by a cosmic "dice roll." ANYTHING, whether in a game or in life, that has some element of chance to it (which is damned near everything) is subject to "dice rolls."

You're just going to have to come to terms with that. It's not going to change.

But what about the HUMAN PLAYER making an error? What about the fact that the IMPERFECT HUMAN controlling the avatar will screw up?

THEN you get TWICE hit with "chance," which certainly does not ADD to realism.



EDIT- in other words, a confluence of the direction your cursor is pointing + the timing of your swing + distance to target + shape of weapon (etc) should correlate with the animation you see, and the damage you cause against the enemy should realistically be reflected in that animation you see (which in turn is influenced a great deal by your location, distance, cursor, timing, length/type of weapon, etc).

If the "dice" your referring to here is billions of 1's and 0's, then yes games do use "dice", but what we have been talking about this whole time is a system that uses chance to calculate your chance to hit something, and only that. It doesn't factor in dodging or blocking just not hitting. I've done fencing before, and really the only possible way you can miss your opponent when there standing right in front of you is if they move out of the way or block your thrust. You don't just magically miss. Something has to happen. Dice can only calculate that you missed. They can't calculate WHY you missed. Thats why it doesn't work for modern games.

Have you ever played baseball?

Have you ever taken a swing at a fastball, felt as if you'd done everything right, but missed anyway?

There's your answer.

The players actions should have no hindrance on a PC. Consider the PC with mastery of the sword ~utter grand mastery. If you are role playing as a grand master, your PC should act like one, and not like they were possessed by Bean, or Inspector Clouseau.

...Or a heart attack, or a fly gets into your mask, or... a cramp?

precisely, there's already error built in. I missed all the time in OB. It was because I miss judged how far away they were going to be when I swung. If I swing at the right time and in the right direction I SHOULD HIT THEM. My sword shouldn't magically then miss. If the AI blocks it's because it reacted in time, not because the game said, "every tenth time the PC swings your're allowed to block."

No, that's a logical error on your part. Hitting a human being with a large weapon is a lot easier than hitting a tiny object moving at 70-90 mph. Now, making a KILLING or MAIMING strike to an ARMORED human being, that's different. Your weapon can deflect off of their armor.


But say, if you had a knife and were fighting an unarmored person, it would be all but certain you would land NUMEROUS strikes against him- and that's with ZERO training on your part.

I know this from helping my brother train in MMA (he is quite good), where as an exercise to demonstrate the futility of fighting someone with a knife they were invited to take someone with little martial arts training (me) and put a marker in their hand, and then use all of their training to avoid getting marked while subduing the opponent. Though I ended up being armbarred or choked into tapping on numerous occasions, with my limited skill I was able to make his arms, chest, neck and face COVERED with lines, indicating where I would have damaged him, and I got him EVERY TIME we engaged.

This is a guy, my brother, who has beaten soldiers in hand-to-hand (MMA rules), and who helps train (by being his sparring partner sometimes) a low level professional fighter (this fighter also teaches jiujitsu at a local MMA/Boxing school, and used to at the YMCA). So even someone relatively unskilled (me) can easily beat a skilled fighter if they are unarmed and the unskilled fighter is armed.


This tells me that HITTING SOMEONE with a knife or a sword is not NEARLY as difficult as you claim it is. Now factoring armor is different, but in the game misses should be translated to animations of weapons glancing off armor or shields.

You misunderstood what I was saying there. I said if I HIT there neck. Missing isn't a factor because I already hit them. In Morrowind you would see your sword hit them, and nothing would happen. That's the problem with change to hit. It applies a chance to miss to every attack regardless of how you swing, what angle you swing form, or any other factor. I understand there should be a possibility to miss, but not when I've swung in the right direction and theres absolutely no way the NPC can get out of the way in time, I should hit. That's what a good attack is, when everything is set up right to hit. What I'm trying to say is that sometimes there is a certainty that you are going to hit. For instance if you have a gun touching someones head and fire you are going to hit. There's nothing stopping you. The chance something works should be based on the situation. Not some over arching all powerful set of chances that are the same for everything.

I watched a friend of mine fight off a knife wielding attacker (one with real intent to harm). The man attacked him in a laundromat with a knife, and got the hell beat out of him without landing a hit. He limped off bleeding from his head and toes, and parts between, and my friend folded the knife shut and through it at him. :laugh:

I had a different friend, that was mugged outside of a bar while walking to his car. He broke the man's arm and kept walking.

---

Watching the Skyrim video, What we can see of combat looks pretty good, and they seem to have added reactions. (One man appears to look at his belly when stabbed during a fight).

Then either the guy with the knife was a complete idiot, or he didn't really want to cut/stab your friend (maybe because, despite all logic, he was afraid? Is your friend a big or intimidating guy?).

Quick jabs and cuts, without fully extending yourself into one attack (like LARPers do when they do their complaint attack defenses lol) do the job. Unless the other person is armored in some way (a thick leather coat will work some for dealing with slashes and such). But if you're not, all it takes is one good cut into the tendons of your forearm and you lose ability to grapple or make a good fist with that hand.

That's not to say what your friend did is impossible. Just that fighting unarmed against someone with a knife is very likely going to get you cut or stabbed. "Knife defenses" you see on youtube videos are by and large bullshido. Best defense against a knife is a gun.



EDIT- there is a difference between someone PULLING a knife on you and someone trying to hurt you with one.

ok seriously now your getting stupid. I would never want to play game were theres a chance I can randomly have a heart attack or have a fly, fly in my face. Chance to hit doesn't factor that stuff. It only factors your chance to hit, which in classic RPG is a percent chance. When you do something there isn't a percent chance your going to succeed. It's either you succeed or something gets in your way. That thing getting in your way isn't chance, it's a real physical thing. Abstract things like chance can't make you trip or have a heart attack.

Well, Oblivion has a min-max system if fatigue is taken into account, doesn't it? For the sake of simplicity (simplicity on weapon damage) flat number should be dominant. If you have full Fatigue then your swings should be strong. If your Fatigue is at %10 then they should be weak. That works for me.

Sure was, but he did not start the fight, and my friend was a better fighter.

Not at all. The example was exaggerated, because the boast was exaggerated, but the premise is accurate. The chance rolls reflect everything including bad footing, straining ones ankle, or arm, or sweat in the eye, or any hundred other things that might occur (both positive and negative). This is what the chance rolls reflect.

*And its the same with say... lock picking. The chance rolls reflect the attempt, the slipped pick, the bent pick, the finger cramps from holding the tension bar, the complexity of the lock; the PC's knowledge of the lock's internals and what's really going on inside ~and their misjudgement of what's really going on inside. :shrug:

holy crap do you live in the ghetto your friends get attacked way to much! And your friend most likely survived because his opponent was high or mental challenged. Otherwise he wouldn't have randomly attacked you. I've fought dunk people. They make terrible fighters. I wouldn't be afraid of ten drunk people with swords.

Its very possible... The guy climbed out of one of the driers.
(But I don't think he was drunk, and he was not too disoriented; Its funny now, but it wasn't at the time.)

Ten? Ten of them could fall over ~at you, and there would be no path to dodge the blades. :laugh:

Alright I'm going to bed, so I don't miss college today because of over sleeping again. Skyrim forum equivalent of the cold war will resume tomorrow. You guys can go pray to the the magical pair of dice that you think controls the universe, and I'll go pray to god.

Flat please. Otherwise I'll use spellmaking to make my own flat versions. If spellmaking is not in I'll just mod it in
H8 dice rolls.

Okay, first of all, "dice" does not represent what happens in turn-based games. They are numbers generated from specific (as opposed to random) parameters given a variable.

Secondly, (it's not mentioned here, but somewhere else in this thread), MW was not a "real time" fighting system, nor was it purely a "turn based" fighting system, in the traditional sense. What it was, was a turn-based fighting system in real time. In other words, it wasn't a traditional, "it's your turn to attack, pick your action" like a Final Fantasy VII or a Pokeman game. The action you choose was in real time, while the effect was generated as if it were turn-based. Thus the complaints.

What we have now, is specific calculations given a situation and certain variables and an action (RE reaction), is determined from a previous action and a database of response, through which the system calculates the most appropriate. This is opposed to generated numbers from specific parameters given a variable, eg, "dice."

This may seem off topic, but let me explain.

Earlier, someone said that we don't have the computing power to determine "reactionary AI," or AI which can react to a player-controlled avatar in any given circumstance and thus a "dice roll" is necessary. This isn't true either.

Think of the process, through which the NPC (I'll use NPC to avoid using overly complicated terms and systems), must calculate in order to react to a player-controlled avatar (henceforth referred to as PCA). Now think of this process as A, B, C. With modern computing powers, processes can be threaded so they don't come in order. I.E. A computer, or Xbox or PS3, can compute the needed calculations (what is happening and how an NPC needs to react), by doing these processes out of order, in other words, A, C, B. Or even B, A, C.

The best examples of this is through real-time-physics engines. I could go into great detail, but an example would fit better. Let's say you're playing a hockey game that just came out this year (in order to be modern). The reaction of a player being hit by another player is calculated by the simulated speed, momentum, (Re, kinetic energy) displaced by one player onto another, and also takes into account the size of both players, direction and a myriad of other variables. This is calculated and determined on the spot--very quickly. These calculations are, however, simulated, which cause some "goofy" reactions at times. Many games use real-time physics, like Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, Backbreaker, NHL 11, just to name a few.

Now, this is relevant to show how powerful today's computing systems really are, and how accessible this power is to the general public. Most people don't understand the vast complexity needed to design and program video games and how much power is present in their Xboxes or PS3s

As far as the so-called "dice-rolls" as opposed to...well...not, the really only choice for a full-time real-time game is, not, because the technology is present that an NPC can react to the actions of a PCA in real-time. This is why when you play football, soccer or hockey, when you go to tackle or check or steal the ball from another player, that player might, "deke," change direction, pass, or do nothing, (again, within certain parameters given the difficulty level and the predetermined skill-set of both players and the actions of the PCA). In other words, while a hit-miss system might be a good idea for turn-based games, but not generally for real-time games, because instead of a simulated action/reaction, that you have (A simulated swing of a sword vs an animated one, which is why MW was a turn-based game in real-time), a real-time game will give you the same thing, but in terms of animations instead of arbitrary actions.

Thus, the technology for an NPC to "dodge, block, counter or do nothing" and do so fully depending on the actions of a PCA is certainly there, but only needs to be employed (as it has been for some time now).

To put all of this much more simply, but not so simply that the rest of my post is redundant: a turn-based (or hit-miss) system, is a representation of what a real-time engine animates.

And in regards to the person, whom I've quoted. These actions of dodging and blocking, in Oblivion were not a result of a so-called "dice-roll," but the AI determined the best action based on the situation with its parameters of available actions. If I swing a sword, they block. If I'm too far away, I miss. If I stumble, they will likely keep hitting me. This is not chance, but these are actions based on calculations about what's happening. If I stumble, they may try to still hit me, but if in that same situation, I didn't stumble, they may not try to. If I sit there holding block, they might not try to hit me for a while, but if I block long enough, they eventually will (probably programmed not for the NPC to be deliberately stupid, but to avoid stalemates of infinite length).

Things like being ungodly with a sword, too accurate and whatnot, can be addressed differently. Bow sway, sword weight, and player's strength, etc.

Now the gamer in me:

I say really the only choice is not a so-called "dice roll" but real-time fighting. Of course I always have a chance to miss, but this should be based on the situation and not arbitrary numbers given the variable that is the number assigned to my skill of blade.

If I swing a sword and hit an orc and no one was around to see it, did it happen? If I miss, it was because I was too far away, my arrow, or spell wasn't on target, the character moved or blocked or a number of other possibilities, but not because some arbitrary system telling me that I was within the required parameters of hitting a target, but because of my skill level, I somehow "missed." If my sword collides with something, it should "hit" it. Like I said, if the concern is over being too good, that can be addressed with other methods.

I didn't vote because I'm unsure as whichever of the options would suit Skyrim's combat system better.

Some posted in this thread on Morrowind's Chance to Hit feature, as well as it's min-max damage. I'm sure NPCs in Skyrim will be able to dodge or block based on if you press the attack button, so if that is implemented in-game, Chance to Hit shouldn't exist in Skyrim. There are other factors that could affect the player's strikes, like having a low Marksmanship level would cause you to have wavering aim when your arrow was nocked, or having a low One-Handed Weapon skill will cause your weapon damage to be low.

Min-Max damage could have a place, as all weaponry would have min-max damage, but increasing your skill in, say, Marksmanship should reduce the gap between the minimum and maxium damage numbers for ranged weapons. I don't think spells should have a Min-Max, but I'm all for the idea of a spell "fizzling", or failing.

I believe that Min-Max should be implemented so that it worked with the novice penalties of skills, like the wavering aim I mentioned earlier, to provide a "rough start" for players and give an incentive (as well as a definite feeling of mastery) to level their skills. However, Min-Max shouldn't be permanent, and upon a medium-high level (Journeyman perhaps?) in a skill, there should be one number representing the weapon's damage that's increased with increased leveling in that weapon's corresponding skill.

Example:
Iron Shortsword has a base min-max damage of 1-5 damage at minimum skill level 1.
With level 17 One-Handed Weapon skill, it's damage is 4-7, it's damage increased with growing skill, as well as the min-max gap being reduced.
At level 50 One-Handed Weapon skill, you look back at this weapon and it has a damage of only 15, the min-max gap being removed.
It's decent, however your Dwarven Shortsword proves more effective, having a damage of 35.
However, you obtained a glass claymore, and it looks like it would do more damage than both combined!
Upon closer inspection, due to your low Two-Hand Weapon skill, it has a damage of 5-38, proving to possibly do more damage, but your Dwarven Shortsword would still perform better.
In addition, after testing it on a wolf, it's also very, very slow, the penalty for using a two-handed weapon with such a low skill.
Due to your ineffective strikes and the sheer amount of times the wolf easily dodged your blows, you switch out for your Dwarven Shortsword and hit the wolf twice and kill it.
The wolf was no match for the combined speed and bonus damage of your Dwarven Shortsword!

I just woke up so I might have been off by a lot or a little, so have mercy. The numbers are a little high because it's a hypothetical example. Hopefully, Bethesda's view on combat damage is more graceful than mine.

Chance to hit doesn't work in a first-person action based RPG (the TES series was always that ever since Arena, don't deny it). It works in a top down view, or third person RPG where you give orders mainly with your mouse, only clicking on the target once, and your character would obey to attack the thing, you don't have to click after every single hit.

So that no random number calculate your random hit, does that mean that the game is not an RPG anymore? No, stats and skills are still calculated, mainly in the damage done, attack speed, and in case of ranged weaponry, sway. Fallout 3 and Deus Ex uses a pretty neat system where the lower your skill, the lower the chance that your bullet will hit the middle of the crosshair.

This argument seems to ignore the absolute fundamentals of game design. You don't go with a pure random chance, you use a MODIFIED random number. gpstr's posts are "mostly" correct, but fail to point out the absolute necessity of modified results, otherwise you've just got a dice game in disguise. A few of the other posts about "deterministic" systems without randomness make almost no sense from a "combat simulation" perspective.

If it weren't for random number generators running in the background, your character would make an attack on an NPC, and it would either ALWAYS get through that particular opponent's block (because your skill exceeded theirs) or ALWAYS be blocked (because their skill exceeded yours). You might as well just have the fight resolved automatically, because the outcome would be pre-determined. Instead, the game uses MODIFIED Random Numbers to determine the odds of the NPC blocking your attack, and either plays the block animation or the stagger one. That's how Oblivon handled it, at least indirectly. You never saw the die rolls (a good thing on the part of the developers), but they were there.

First, to determine the success or failure of an action, you figure a "base" chance, then add "modifiers". In this case, let's just say that the base chance of one "semi-competent" fighter with a weapon hitting another similar fighter with a weapon (the "usual" situation) is a solid 100% (it's pretty hard to miss if they're standing right there and not doing anything to prevent it). This could easily exceed 100%, as the character' skill increases, and could also be adjusted up or down by any differences in skill levels between them. Then you modify the odds by factoring in the amount of hesitation or caution on the part of the attacker because of the likelihood of a counter attack, and having to be prepared to block or parry that. Then you factor in the chance of the opponent parrying, blocking, or dodging the attack. If it's still successful after all that, THEN you figure out whether the margin of success was sufficient to overcome any passive defenses like armor, and deduct the protective value of the armor in the location from the strength of the attack. Whatever's LEFT, if any is "damage".

That may seem like a massive pile of calculations, impossible to do in real-time, but it's actually VERY simple. Base odds, shown as 1.0 for 100% (+ or - any skill differences) X Aggressiveness (a fractional value, such as 0.8, depending on a simple character stat of the attacker) X Defensiveness (1.0 minus a stat of the defender, giving a fraction like 0.6) = odds of hitting. In this case, it would be 1.0 x 0.8 x 0.6 = 0.48, or a 48% chance of actually landing a hit past any attempt to block. Depending on WHY it failed (whether it failed to exceed the base number, the first modified number, the second modified number, or the armor rating), it would play different animations. Damage resolution is similarly simple for a computer to do in a few lines of code. These should be absolutely trivial tasks for the computer to resolve in real time, far less difficult or CPU-intensive than calculating distances between graphical primitives to determine a hit.

As for Morrowind's damage range, it was NOT randomly determined, or even a modified random number. If you "spammed" the attack by pressing the attack button over and over as soon as the weapon hit, the game used the minimum damage for each attack. If you held the attack button until the weapon was fully drawn back and then released it, the game used the maximum value. It made it matter whether you "jabbed" or "power attacked", and you could even hold the attack for a part of the required time to get a damage value somewhere in the middle.

Where Morrowind fell far short was in not showing HOW and WHY the attack failed. Damage done was simplified, only affected by your attack "speed", the stats of the weapon, and your strength. Skill had no effect on damage, where realistically there should have been some adjustment due to more accurate hit locations or ability to use the weapon to its fullest capabilities. Regardless of that, when you DID hit with a fully charged attack, the damage was significant. Where Oblivion fell short was in totally failing to represent the character's skill in making the attack. Then, in over-adjusting the damage for the character's lack of skill, it pretty well "nerfed" the effects of a heavy chunk of iron or steel hitting flesh at high speed, and ended up being "silly" how you would barely scratch them with each hit. The combat system was definitely not the highlight of either game, although Oblivion's was more "visceral" and exciting, while Morrowind's was more accurate from a role-playing perspective.