Stars of Shareware: Programmierung/SOURCE.mdf/programm/msdos/pascal/rehack/text/combat.txt

Text File | 1993-10-07 | 5.1 KB | 100 lines

I want to share some ideas I have on melee combat.  There
are a couple of things that I dislike about most CRPG combat
systems.  One is that they tend to favor getting the
heaviest armor and biggest weapon you can find, and the
other is that they are too limiting tactically.  The
solution to both problems is to model the physics of combat,
rather than relying on a series of look-up tables.

I'm no student of history, but I'm reasonably certain that
even before the advent of firearms, the only people that
wore plate mail and carried two handed swords were mounted
knights.  Foot soldiers wore chain mail at most, and carried
lighter weapons.  The reason the use of plate mail and huge
slashing and bludgeoning weapons like two handed swords,
axes and maces was discontinued was not due to firearms, but
rather to the development of lightweight, high strength
swords that could pierce armor, and tactics that emphasized
mobility, range, quick thrusting attacks, and soft, parrying
defenses.  The underlying mechanics of most (C)RPGs (some
variation of THAC0 vs. AC) fail to account for this.  The
only exception I know of is Lord of the Rings, which
penalizes your defensive skill if you wear heavy armor, so
that you are more likely to get hit, but less likely to
take heavy damage.

The second problem, I believe, stems from the fact that both
RPGs and CRPGs tend to handle combat situations on a case by
case basis.  That is, in an RPG, you determine initiative,
THAC0, AC, and whatever else for each character, dig a bunch
of modifiers out of the relevant tables, and roll some dice.
In a CRPG, I would imagine there are big look-up tables and
a series of function calls to handle each different
situation.  Both of these approaches limit you to those
strategies that the game designers thought of.

In real combat, there are only a few variables.  Timing and
distance are the most crucial, followed by skill level,
guts, and brains.  For the PC, guts and brains are provided
by the player; for NPCs and monsters, by an AI routine.
Skill level is a known character attribute for both parties.
This leaves only timing and distance as variables.

An attack can only be successful if it meets two conditions,
you must be able to act before your opponent can react, and
you must be within range of your opponent.  This is timing
and distance in a nutshell.  Effective fighting strategy
then is simple:  do whatever it takes to reduce your action
and reaction times and increase those of your opponent; stay
out of your opponent's striking range when possible; get
into your striking range without your opponent noticing it
(and get out again FAST if you miss).

For example, the founder of Tae Kwon Do, General Hong-Hi
Choi, did some research into the length of time it takes to
perform various martial arts techniques.  He found that a
punch can be executed in as little as 0.03 seconds, and a
kick in approximately 0.1 seconds.  Reaction times, on the
other hand, are seldom less than 0.3 seconds.  If a well
trained fighter is standing within punching range of you,
there is no way you can dodge or deflect his attack, no
matter how skilled you are.  On the other hand, if he has to
take a step towards you first, which may involve moving his
entire body weight a foot or more, his action time may
increase into the 0.3 to 0.4 second range, making it
possible to counter him.

Action and reaction times are complex, dynamic quantities.
It takes longer to swing a two handed sword than to thrust a
cutlass.  Chain mail increases your action time, but not by
as much as plate mail.  A poorly trained fighter will tend
to telegraph his intentions well in advance of actually
making his move, effectively increasing his action time.
Trained fighters are generally capable of reacting faster
than untrained fighters.

But action and reaction times are not just static functions
of equipment, skill level, and other character attributes,
they also change constantly during combat.  Fatigue and
injury increase both action and reaction time.  If a person
is attacked first from one angle, then another, his reaction
time to the second attack will be longer.  They are even
affected by whether a person is inhaling or exhaling
(probably not relevant to game design) and numerous other
subtle factors like morale, confidence, state of alertness,
whether the target is at rest or in motion, etc.

To summarize, the most important variables to simulate in
combat are timing, or action time vs. reaction time, and
distance.  These are in turn functions of the size,
strength, and weight of the combatants, the size and weight
of the weapons, skill levels, fatigue, health, and numerous
other factors.  All this may seem too complex for gameplay
purposes, but remember, we are talking about a computer, not
a human DM.  My point is that the better we model the
physics of combat, the more likely it is that any tactics
that work in real life will work in the game also, even ones
that none of us thought of, and also the better it will
reflect realistic trade-offs between armor, firepower, and
mobility.