Specific Targeting of Limbs

[Potocobe]

Several people have suggested limb severing in a few topics here and I do believe limb severing is indeed planned for the future. What I am suggesting is slightly different. Does anyone remember Evil Islands? It was a revolutionary RPG for its time IMHO. In Evil Islands you could target specific body parts of your enemies by holding down a numpad key as you clicked attack. 4 and 6 for arms, 1 and 3 for legs, 5 for the torso and 8 for the head.

Letting us order our troops to individually target specific body parts would add an extra dimension to the tactical game. I like to focus my attention on my first character and there are times during a fight where I wish I could get him to concentrate on that right arm that only has 25 hit points left. One more smack and my enemy is defenseless. I would like my enemies to be able to target me in the same way.

This feature would be especially useful for capturing enemies and insuring that you don't accidentally chop of their head.

Would love to hear from folks who loved Evil Islands too. That was a fun game.

[Phaser Rave]

Would be fun.

Fallout had that feature, and came out before Evil Islands.

[Clawdius Talonious]

of course, it would affect the nature of the game drastically. I mean, why wouldn't guards be trying to chop off the heads of their enemies? Why would bandits be attempting to take you alive? I guess the whole "Surrender" option coming in 4.0 would be more useful given that everyone was actively trying to chop your head off right from the start. There would need to be balancing factors. I mean, who wouldn't aim straight away for the left arm that is so often unarmored when their opponent was using a two handed weapon? Strike that a time or two and they're unable to wield their blade to try to kill you. I guess then they might just run away, so then again why not just always aim for the head 100% of the time? I mean, unless you're in it for the bounty, and then why not just target the head on every enemy but the leader? Would the AI use less lethal attacks, unless you were clearly trying to take their head off, then they would return the favor?

It would run into other issues as well I think, I mean the AI dynamically adjusts to battle different targets on the fly, would you target the head on the enemy specifically, and the legs on the boss? That way if your characters changed targets, they would automatically adjust their aim depending on your selection?

It's not a bad idea, depending how hard it may be to implement. I just am unsure exactly how the AI would react to the notion.

[Marilous]

I really like this idea, I would guess the balance would prolly come from a lowered rate of accuracy.

[Phaser Rave]

of course, it would affect the nature of the game drastically. I mean, why wouldn't guards be trying to chop off the heads of their enemies? Why would bandits be attempting to take you alive? I guess the whole "Surrender" option coming in 4.0 would be more useful given that everyone was actively trying to chop your head off right from the start. There would need to be balancing factors. I mean, who wouldn't aim straight away for the left arm that is so often unarmored when their opponent was using a two handed weapon? Strike that a time or two and they're unable to wield their blade to try to kill you. I guess then they might just run away, so then again why not just always aim for the head 100% of the time? I mean, unless you're in it for the bounty, and then why not just target the head on every enemy but the leader? Would the AI use less lethal attacks, unless you were clearly trying to take their head off, then they would return the favor?

It would run into other issues as well I think, I mean the AI dynamically adjusts to battle different targets on the fly, would you target the head on the enemy specifically, and the legs on the boss? That way if your characters changed targets, they would automatically adjust their aim depending on your selection?

It's not a bad idea, depending how hard it may be to implement. I just am unsure exactly how the AI would react to the notion.

Would be cool to collect heads, gain bounties that require the target dead, or to put them on pikes.
Also, It'd likely be more difficult to hit the head than the rest of the body. You could more consistently damage and disable an enemy by attacking a larger body part.

[Potocobe]

How about a set of automatic counter moves for different body strikes based on weapon skill level. That of course would take many more cool animations to add in... The accuracy idea could work too except wouldn't someone just always attack the head still? You keep clicking attack the head until you succeed a couple of times despite the misses if your defense skill is good enough the enemy still won't hit you. A lower accuracy plus the chance of the enemy getting to pop you with a quick counter would make it more chancy. Give the choice some consequences.

[Phaser Rave]

How about a set of automatic counter moves for different body strikes based on weapon skill level. That of course would take many more cool animations to add in... The accuracy idea could work too except wouldn't someone just always attack the head still? You keep clicking attack the head until you succeed a couple of times despite the misses if your defense skill is good enough the enemy still won't hit you. A lower accuracy plus the chance of the enemy getting to pop you with a quick counter would make it more chancy. Give the choice some consequences.

Could be you open yourself up, becoming vulnerable to the enemy's next attack if you miss.

[iSuck345]

I just hope it won't require too much micro-managing, there are limits in micro-managing, and limits in macro-managing, but the limits are smaller than ever when attempting to make a balance between micro and macro-managing, unles the game is not meant to be easy of course, so yeah forget about that.

[Tolwrath]

I just hope it won't require too much micro-managing, there are limits in micro-managing, and limits in macro-managing, but the limits are smaller than ever when attempting to make a balance between micro and macro-managing, unles the game is not meant to be easy of course, so yeah forget about that.

A good way to avoid too much micro would be to limit the number of options. All you really need is target: kill (aim for vital areas, like head, chest, and stomach), disable (aim for limbs to reduce movement and ability to fight back), unarmored (aim for spots with less armor, against a heavily armored opponent it might be be best to make them pass out from blood loss on unarmored parts), and no target (for clearing your targeting options and removing any penalties they might cause).

Edit: you might want to split disable into two options, one for arms, and one for legs.

[Sprayer2708]

So forum search brought this up as I was about to request the same thing.

How do we know if chris actually added a requested feature to the to-do list?

It wouldn't actually need to be "all or nothing", aiming for a specific body part could merely increase the chance to hit that part while decreasing the chance to hit any other. Might be difficult in the combat system though as I think the game first calculates if the enemy was hit and then where he was hit.

Btw: any ideas how this would work if multiple opponents are hit?

Oh, I'd also love to train my guys by letting them attack nothing but the legs all the time.