HP system?

[Zev]

You mentioned that you didn't like the idea of having a HP system, yet in the TUTORIAL: THE MEDICAL SYSTEM you show multiple HP bars. I was wondering why ? Would it make more to remove the numbers and bars and replace them with just words like Good, Ok, Sore, Painful, Bad, missing... something that can generalize a status. In real life, you dont know your arm feels like is at 75, but you know if it kinda hurts or feels like its broken.

Besides that, I am really looking forward to this game.

[Captain Deathbeard]

Everything in a game is represented by numbers, its the way computers work. If I did that it would just be hiding the bars and summing them up with words, I would be hiding all the depth and complexity.
Its not just health bars I hate, its the idea of using one single measurement to represent the injuries of a person who shows no sign of damage.

[Sephro86]

yeah well, as you said already...the graphics can be improved in a later stage of the game. i for myself am totally satisfied with this solution and i can't say how i appreciate the complexity and amount of detail you put into this game!!!! so keep up the good work and leave the criticism and praises for the community .

[ArcaneSaint]

Well, it's not really a HP-bar in the usual sense. There ain't no single bar that tells you how close you are to dying, which can be miraculously filled by drinking red paint. why'd you think HP potions and Health bars are so often red, it's all one big conspiracy! The worlds of video game characters are dominated by the paint factories.

[Zev]

I understand that the numbers are there in the background, but showing your Arms HP at 75, Torso HP is at 95, Head HP is at 55% is vary important to know each components status considering how it affects several aspects of your character. I think its awesome how there is separation of components, but reporting the players status per component with an int vs a string still seems to take away from the feel of a real character vs a virtual character you get when defining their hp at 285HP.

Left Arm - Hurts
Right Arm - Strong
Left Leg - Sore
Right Leg - Normal
Stomach - Normal
Chest - Sore
Head - Painful

vs

Left Arm - 20
Right Arm - 100
Left Leg - 50
Right Leg - 75
Stomach - 75
Chest - 50
Head - 35

[Captain Deathbeard]

Yes but there is more than one bar per bodypart. You have damage, stun damage, bandages, and later on there will be splinting. You cant see those details with just words. You also cant see slow changes from healing or deterioration.

[Ineedcash12]

A suggestion for this maybe is to create a person and have the body parts change from white outline to red and when moused over that body part you can see the stats themselfs over it, for that body part, it'll look cleaner than all the bars.

so the bars will go from White outline(no damage) -> Green (slight damage) -> Yellow (more damge) -> Orange (Serious damage) -> red (very serious Damage) -> Black [BLACK WON"T SHOW UP ON THIS FORUM] LOL (severed)

it also could flash when near the bottom of that color range, or glow green for healing or something of that nature.

When moused over it can show the stats as numbers, I'm a fan of having that kind of complexiity.

it'll just need to be decided when the numbers change color and so forth.

[Sephro86]

a little suggestion of me, maybe just take out the numbers (make it purely color-coded)?!

i mean the only thing troubling people at this moment seems to be the numers (which i can very much understand!)....so i think purely color-coding might to the job. maybe just at some point a short warning like "it hurts badly" or simpgle "danger!" (or just a symbol "[!]").

greetz

[Zev]

Yes but there is more than one bar per bodypart. You have damage, stun damage, bandages, and later on there will be splinting. You cant see those details with just words. You also cant see slow changes from healing or deterioration.

Ohh ok, I am stil missing something though, but that's probably what your talking about. You know what your doing, seems like we are on the same page anyways =) Looking forward to the beta.

[ArcaneSaint]

But as Chris said, that would present a new problem, that of the different damage types.

Say your left arm is at 7%, with 93% stun damage (heals quickly on it's own) and your right arm is at 7%, with 93% "normal" damage (heals with bandages). Then how are you supposed to know what arm to use your last bandages on if all you can see is "Right Arm--Painful" "Left Arm--Painful". The left arm will heal on it's own over time, but the right arm won't. And what if your right arm is at 7%, with 43% bandages and 50% bleeding wounds? You can't say the arm is Sore because the bandaged wounds are still wounds, but they're also healing, and saying the arm is Painful could cause players to panic and waste too much bandages on that arm.

There isn't really one HP bar, it's a number of different bars, all interconnected. The only way to replace these bars with graphics is if you'd hire a very competent artist to make visual representations of the various types of damage (bruising, bleeding, bandaged), these would have to be very detailed though, otherwise it's still impossible to say which bodypart is more seriously damaged.

Oh, and black does show up on the forum. Just press the "Font color" button and select top leftmost tile (it's color #000000)

[allblackz93]

I would just like to add that ArcaneSaint AKA 'Unkown' is just EPIC xD Love your posts bro/dudette

[ArcaneSaint]

Definitely a dude.

*checks again*

Yup, definitely.

Oh, and I've looked into this whole color mess and discovered this: Color #2A2A2A is the same color as the forum's background. So if you want to leave invisible messages, remember, the code is #2A2A2A. That's #(don't know how you call this) TWO "A" TWO "A" TWO "A" (#2A2A2A). Have fun !

And if you want the same effect in quote boxes, use color #333333. And easy one. Just simply six threes in a row. Not six trees, six threes! Preceded by #, otherwise it won't work.

[RustKnight]

I must say, i was a little disappointed myself when i saw all the numbers on the medical system...
I understand that there is complexity behind the scenes, but that's why it's behind and not in front.

Still, it's your game you're developing and i guess it feels sort of discomforting to hear wines from other people, even thou they are the receivers of what you create.

I believe indie industries are a bit different from programming corporations, these monster hungry entities are slaves to the majority of people, whereas private developers have their own point of view and are intitled for it - eat it or beat it sort of policy. I'm trying to say that i somewhat trust the developers point of view, and go along with it.

Because really now, how many features or requests were really implemented in indie games, mostly don't got in because they are already thought of by the devs, or it's just too hard to see from the pile of other Reoccuring "suggestions".

[ArcaneSaint]

I must say, i was a little disappointed myself when i saw all the numbers on the medical system...
I understand that there is complexity behind the scenes, but that's why it's behind and not in front.

Ugh, I thought we went over this already? Read my comment (scroll up a couple of comments), I already explained there that this number-display thing is the most efficient and least confusing way to bring the complexity across to the players. The behind the scenes stuff is way, way more complex than this, 'cause I'm pretty sure that there are many factors deciding how fast certain types of damage regenerate that are not shown here (yet).

[Magzpierz]

If you want to pay attention to every little detail, look at the numbers.
If you dont want to see the numbers... look at the colours.

[RustKnight]

Arcane saint, simply by the fact that you pointed out your idea of how things should work, doesn't mean i can't say my own piece of mind. Of course there are more complicated figures behind the ones visually presented but it would be outrages to think that somebody would enjoy seeing those numbers and make a decision based on them.

[Shoelip]

The only reason most games these days don't show the numbers is because they're trying desperately to seem more like films.

[ArcaneSaint]

Arcane saint, simply by the fact that you pointed out your idea of how things should work, doesn't mean i can't say my own piece of mind. Of course there are more complicated figures behind the ones visually presented but it would be outrages to think that somebody would enjoy seeing those numbers and make a decision based on them.

I never said you couldn't speak your mind. But the way you did so (and reacted now):

I understand that there is complexity behind the scenes, but that's why it's behind and not in front.

Gave the impression that your ideas are superior than other, the way you claimed these were "behind-the-scenes" numbers and should never ever be displayed to the public. For example, I for one would love to look at these numbers and then decide the best course of action based on those numbers (and I don't consider myself an "outrageous" person), that's one of the reasons I like playing Dwarf Fortress so much, or is enjoying DF also "outrageous"?
I also never pointed out how things "should work", I only used the material at hand to deduct the most likely fashion in wish things could work the way they apparently do. As soon as the game is released that vision will be (re)-shaped according to observations made in the game.

[Shoelip]

I dunno. Outrageous seems like a pretty apt description of DF.

[Captain Deathbeard]

The numbers are shown for 2 reasons.
1 - They show when the health level has gone below zero, and by how much.
2 - The make it clear what your effective health is, in the midst of all those different colors. If a leg has 10 points of health, and the rest is all bandaged up to 100, the number will read 10, showing the player his leg has 10 health, not 100.