Puuk on fun and realism

Briosafreak

Briosafreak

Lived Through the Heat Death
In this thread here at NMA Damien "Puuk" Foletto brought a few ideas on a few Jeff Husges posts we`ve talked about earlier, about the possibility of the Player Character beeing disarmed by a Non-Player Character and the consequences in gameplay:
<blockquote>Another compromise might be that the PC's disarmed weapon immediatly drops back into the PC's inventory. That would eliminate the need for the player to remember to retrieve their weapon. It also gives the player the chance to go back into inventory during combat (at a higher AP cost like in the previous games), instead of having to hunt around on the ground for their fav weapon.</blockquote>
So i`ve asked him this:
<blockquote>I`m all for it, but wouldn`t people think it would go a bit too far in breaking the immersion, the slight suspension of disbelief they are experincing in combat? Others could say "that`s not very realistic" too, even if i don`t use that argument myself.</blockquote>
So Damien "Puuk" Foletto replied this:
<blockquote>I see your point. My thing is this; if we do put something like I mentioned above, it would have to be tested to see if it does not take away from the fun. If it's better and more fun to have the weapon plop onto the ground instead of back into inventory, then that's what we'll do. Personally, I prefer fun over realism. I know you don't adhere to the "realism" thing, Bri, but my argument against the realism mantra is (hypothetically if we're working on a game like this :) ), "You play a character in a 1950's style interpretation of an apocalyptic future, your character can not only sustain multiple gunshot wounds, but also immediately mend himself with chems, and have a "magical" pocket that can hold a shit-load of different size guns and hundreds of rounds of ammo - not to mention that every creature that was exposed to radiation has become the size of an SUV, or humans exposed to just the right amount of radiation become a charismatic and entertaining ghoul.
Want realism? You die instantly after one shot to the chest or head. A wound to any other extremity causes you to die a lingering, slow death. You must eat several times per day and relieve your bladder and bowels several times per day as well. You cannot travel more than 20 miles in the hot, scorching desert before passing out from dehydration. There is a better than average chance your character will contract a flu virus of some kind and eventually drop dead because you can't get to medical aid in time. And finally, you can't save the world because you're not a super hero-chosen one guy. You're just an average guy with normal, human frailties."

Bottom line: Realism should only be used in a game if it adds to the fun factor, otherwise it's tedious.</blockquote>
Good fun discussion here on NMA.
 
It'd be more fun if one was disarmed "realistically."

Animation has a definite "cool factor" to it. Now you can't tell me that watching an NPC knock the Hunting Rifle out of your hands and send it flying 5 hexes over isn't one of the coolest things ever.

Or if you were disarmed and your enemy immediately used the butt of the weapon to strike you on a critical success.
 
Bradylama said:
It'd be more fun if one was disarmed "realistically."

Animation has a definite "cool factor" to it. Now you can't tell me that watching an NPC knock the Hunting Rifle out of your hands and send it flying 5 hexes over isn't one of the coolest things ever.

Or if you were disarmed and your enemy immediately used the butt of the weapon to strike you on a critical success.
Click to expand...

Yes, the PC doing that to an enemy would look very cool and I would like to see that (we're still working on the whole disarm thing). But we have to weigh the fun factor of having it happen to the PC. Would it be better if the PC's weapon just went back into his inventory on an enemy's successful disarm? Visually no, but maybe in alleviating the pain-in-the-ass syndrome it might be more fun. However, if we did this, the enemy NPC would not get this magical return to the inventory. Alternately, it might be we'll just keep it simple for all in the game and disarms just send weapons flying to the ground for everyone, PC's and NPC's alike. We still have to see (there's a lot of that going around...).
 
I guess its a matter of taste I suppose.

But what if disarmed weapons belonging to the Player Character were highlited so that it'd be hard to miss them? It would really help in dark environs like Vault 13. I never knew that Hunting Rifle was there until I read about it in a FAQ.
 
I have an idea. How about retrieving it automatically to the inventory, but sort of graying it out, and then when the player clicks on it, it costs so an so APs to actually get it back? Visually, the weapon would be knocked out of your hands to the ground, and you could pick it up manually without using the grayed out inventory item by just clicking on it, but using the inventory to pick it up automatically picks it up from the ground.

If combat is over and the player didn't pick it up this way, it'd be automatically retrieved as if the player clicked on it in the invetory.

However, make sure to have some flashing indicator or text message or otherwise have this feature well documented if you implement it.
 
What about having it drop just one or two hexes away? That way, we get both the visual treat of seeing the weapon fly out of the hand... and at the same time, we don't have to run across the screen to pick it up again.

Another thing to consider is the AP cost of it. If someone was disarmed, it wouldn't make sense for them to spend 3 or 4 AP (whatever equipping a weapon from inventory would cost). It would make more sense to spend 2 or 3 AP picking up the weapon, then 3 or 4 more re-equipping it. If you don't add that extra amount, it sorta makes disarming trivial. What's the point of disarming someone if they can just whip it back in their hand and shoot you in the same round?

If the weapon is flung across the screen, the character would have to then decide whether he should go get the weapon (which he is most proficient with) or dig in his bag for a different one that he's not as skilled with. Nobody goes around the wasteland without at least one backup weapon, anyway.
 
What about having it drop just one or two hexes away? That way, we get both the visual treat of seeing the weapon fly out of the hand... and at the same time, we don't have to run across the screen to pick it up again.
Click to expand...

The problem that was talked about was: what happens if the players uber gun is knocked away and he forgets to pick it up and he leaves? Bye bye gun, hello pissed off gamer. Thats why they are talking about it being knocked automatically in to the invetory.
 
Not to mention being buried under a Pile of Corpses or hiding in dimly lit corners (dimly lit anything, for that matter), behind a wall (you may have a rotateable camera, but who's to say you'll remember to use it?), etc.

Really, I think the best argument for auto-retrieve is the pile of corpses one. If you don't have such an option, you'll be forced to wait for the bodies to rot away in order to get your weapon back (unless of course items can be picked up from the ground like in X-com, but that'd still be a crummy solution). Just as long as it still costs APs to retrieve in mid-combat, and the game gives a clear indication that you can use it (perhaps include this in a tutorial).
 
Unless of course you could drag corpses. I imagine that would be a feature a sneaky character would use liberally given his, well, sneaky nature.
 
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