There are countless games which include numeric health, experience, levels, etc. But, in real life (at least in my life), people don''t have numeric health. They have broken bones, harsh muscle pains, skin rashes, etc. Does anyone have an idea of how to make health/experience/player-levels more realistic in a game?

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- Rob Loach Current Project: Go Through Object-Oriented Programming in C++ by Robert Lafore "Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

Are we considering the questions of whether implementing those ideas would add to the gameplay or not, or simply how to include them in the game design?

While muscle pains and skin rashes might be a real life thing people deal with, I know I don''t want my avatar in a game getting hemorrhoids or whatever... how could that be linked to the gameplay without just being cosmetic, or annoying?

Broken bones and specific area-based damage, however, that could be interesting. Although I''ve seen the whole headshot vs. torsoshot thing in FPS''s, comparatively fewer have implemented location-based damage ant made it work really well. Deus Ex had only about five zones of damage, and imo they did a good job of it - leg damage slowed you down, etc.

For a game like Rainbow Six, one possibility is to offer a non-lethal takedown for an enemy by shooting the gun out of his hand, for example. In combination with ragdoll physics, it could add a few possibilities... You shoot a guy in the leg when he''s near a ledge, he stumbles and falls off.

As for experience, the most realistic system I''ve seen is the taskmaster system, where you do something over and over again, and you get better at it. Players usually want a numerical representation of their progress, though.

Depending on how you take into account real life physical injuries, you can produce a numerical representation of it. Considering that the human brain is one big number cruncher, and that we can determine whose more injured, then it only stands to reason that a nunber *could* be found.

Towards gaming, this was discussed in an earlier thread. If you remember the NES Mario game, you had 3 character states:
Little -> Big -> Fire-Spitter.
And then you had a backwards trend:
Big/Fire-Spitter -> Little -> Dead.
Here, Mario started with 1 HP, gained a second HP when he took the shrooms and the smoked the flowers, and lose 1 HP for each other moving thing that touched him. There was no number here, but our brains could handle this progression and easily determine how injured Mario was.

Turning to modern day FPS and MMORPG, we could conceivably remove the visual aid numbers provide. However, in the game programming and data, you''d still have numbers to crunch. So these numbers would have to be turned into some other form of visual aid for the player to judge. Displaying numbers is really just a direct connection between the player and the game''s data. If you want to have stuff like blood gushing or colorized GUI elements, thats all good, but its a layer of abstraction between the player and the Data.

Speaking of which, in Vagrant Story (PSX), you had both a numeric HP meter and a colorized character icon. The second didn''t quite work that well, since RED was the only significant state (of RED<->ORANGE<->YELLOW<->GREEN<->TEAL), which makes it a lot like America''s Terrorist Alert system.

I suggest playing any Fallout game for a good reference for specific body part damage and effects. Different effects as a result of different hits.

what ever u do to make it un-numerical, the calculation is still numeric, only representation is in word/description.

"Real Life Sucks"
-my point is that when you try to make somthing too realistic it is no long fun. Many things in game are not realistic, but being realistic isn''t the point, it''s supposed to be entertaining.

The only way i can think of this being done is by zones, meaning that when a character is the game is hit by something, the damage goes to that zone, and thus, if a person''s leg was shot, then he would be limping etc etc.
The only way to kill someone would be a critical hit in the vital organs.

Personally, it would be a whole lot more difficult to design this. It''s easy to come up with new ideas... hard to impliment them.

Well if you some how were shot in the leg and the bullet hit an artery... you''d be dead soon enough. Hell, if you broke a rib and it pierced your lung you''d be dead pretty quick too. Even minor injuries can become life threatening if you think about it. Which is why nobody wants a game that is too realistic.
--> imagine random chance of spraining/breaking your ankle everytime you run around in the game.

Deus Ex''s location based system is pretty neat for FPS. Fallout''s system was great for RPGs, except for the random "reload from instant death critical hit".

I have been wondering how well this would work for a fighting game:

Myself and a group of friends wrapped up some PVC piping with about 6 layers of bubble-wrap (the stuff that you get in the mail when you order fragiles that you love to pop with your fingers).

Anyway, the sparring rules were: Receive 2 "points" and you''re "dead". Each leg hit or arm hit counts as one point (shoes included). Torso (front, back, side) counts as 2 points. Head, face, neck, groin and hands are 0 points (because it''s very painful to be hit in those locations)

If you created a sword-fighting game without any "super fireball death" moves, tested VERY detailed hit locations, momentum, broken ligaments/bones etc, you may be able to get a fairly fun yet realistic system going.

You''d probably have to play in 1/4 speed slow-mo to have a chance to react to moves that might as well kill you instantly.

Yes, real life is indeed boring, and that''s why games should not represent it. The only way to lure players to one''s virtual reality game is to give them a real wow sensation. That is pretty hard to do and it is no longer undone and unique. So lets keep to the concept of letting the player escape this boring life.


Anyway, health systems should be kept simple, to make it fast-paces, easy and fun for the player. But fun also means that the player doesn''t die to easily. An example would be falling in any semi-realistic shooter. For example Counter-strike, where it is very important to stay alive and spare your hit-points, since there is no way to "recharge". I personally can not think of much more irritating than running around, killing some and losing 95% of my health, just to go falling down from a height just enough to (in real life) strain my ancle but to find that it was obviously high enough to take those last 5% and kill me.


You know, last time I checked, falling from 10 feet and landing on you legs didn''t kill you.

Therefor, I think that small falls should not kill you, but perhaps lead to lowered spead or stamina or whatever.

Richard Olsson
maxed@johnbauer.org

The representation of a characters health doesn''t need to be numeric..

I think that realistic damage systems is NOT always a good idea. For instance, Serious Sam is a game that SHOULDN''T have realistic damages. StarCraft would probably be just weird. Etc.

But games like Soldier of fortune 2 have a somewhat realistic damage system, in that "if you shoot an opponent in the head, they''re dead".

Action movies have sorta realistic damage systems, except when the hero has to fight the bad guy with punches and kicks, and can withstand like 10 kicks to the head. But if someone gets shot in the head, they die; if they get shot somewhere else, they''re weakened. So how come the hero always wins? Because he''s SMARTER than the bad guys.

If a game can be designed so that damage is realistically handled, it would allow for a HUGE change in tactics. But the problem is, you can''t just change the damage system. Because if you exchange, say Fallout''s damage system with a realistic one, it''ll be impossible to take out more than two or three guards. How would an action hero take them out? Well, maybe he''d have to pay them off. Cut the electric power. Convince a hooker or something to convince one of them not to go to work for another hour.

It changes the entire design of the game.

But it can be done I''m almost sure of it

Anyways, to end this post: My system.

When a character is shot, he gets a Wound. A wound can have different kinds of Effects, depending on the hit location and the wound type (crushing, piercing etc.). Wounds have different "seriousnesses", which affect the.. seriousness of the effect

A wound also has a "Blood loss rate" value. When a character loses enough blood, he gets worse, then he faints, then he dies. Yes, this is a numerical value, but it is a numerical value in real life too, so that isn''t a problem.

A character can also die from a serious enough hit to the head, or the torso.

"Kaka e gott" - Me