Better combat text

Augur · 2013-03-25T19:17:15.000Z

I’ve been meaning to make this suggestion for a while. I’m not asking for expanded combat descriptions ala Dwarf Fortress, I’m sure they’ll eventually be added. I would like the color of text for combat to change according to whether a good or bad thing happened during that turn. When I duked it out with a pair of Master zombies I had to stop every turn and read the log and check my health, pain, and speed to make sure I would have the ability to run away if I needed to. It was all in red text, even though I was dodging and blocking their attacks like a boss. I want beneficial actions be in green or blue so that hits against me are easier to read without having to stop all the time. I believe this would be a very easy addition to the game that would make combat much more fluid.

Batman · 2013-03-25T20:15:09.000Z

Great idea, would love to see this implemented.

KA101 · 2013-03-26T01:14:57.000Z

Yeah, especially when the combat text overflows the space allotted, too. A general idea of whether I’m doing or being done to would help.

Mantar · 2013-03-26T06:00:25.000Z

Perhaps green and yellow for your hits and misses, and blue and red for enemy misses and hits, respectively? That way if you’re getting lots of green and blue, everything’s going fine, but yellow and red means super run away.

Augur · 2013-03-26T06:28:15.000Z

I think green/blue and red only would accomplish the goal while minimizing eye strain while reading the combat log, honestly. Maybe darker shades of red for misses and darker green/blue for dodges and blocks but the less bedazzling it is to look at, the better.

ribblle · 2017-01-15T21:02:16.000Z

Good idea.

Kulze · 2017-01-16T00:07:36.000Z

That’s already implemented, so no reason to push it unless you got additions towards the already existing system, for instance making other survivors hitting you show red damage indicators instead of green ones as they do now.

Taberone · 2017-01-16T05:16:37.000Z

What about death/pain descriptions like Liberal Crime Squad for more combat text enhancements? Liberal Crime Squad’s source code has quite a bit of text related to combat. Here’s some of it.

Death:

X squirts blood out the neck and runs down the hall. (Headshot? Maybe with a high-caliber weapon?)
X cries out one last time then is quiet.
X breaks into pieces. (Sounds like it could be used for death by high-caliber burst fire)
X murmurs quietly, breathing softly… Then all is quiet.
X sucks a last breath through the neck hole, then is quiet. (Headshot? Maybe with a high-caliber weapon?)
X cries silently for mother, breathing slowly, then not at all.
X breathes heavily, coughing up blood… then is quiet.
X silently drifts away, then is gone.
X whines loudly, voice crackling, then curls into a ball, unmoving.

Pain:

X asks for mother.
X begins hyperventilating.
X begins to weep.
X clutches at the wounds.
X hollers in pain.
X begs for forgiveness.
X whispers incoherently.
X yells until the scream cracks dry.
X cries "It can’t be like this…"
X asks for childhood toys frantically.
X shakes with fear.
X nods off for a moment.

system · 2017-01-20T01:29:07.000Z

This is actually a good idea (not entirely necessary but extremely cool ) I imagine that if enough effort was invested it could be semi-randomized from a large allocated text pool …Omg I would absolutely adore if this was added in as I don’t know how complex it would be to add but I would imagine it would be the equivalent of adding a rand() variable to a pre-existing condition then having it select from text (don’t know if it is the case as my knowledge of most programming is horrible,flawed and basic)

Kulze · 2017-01-20T19:19:42.000Z

It should actually be quite easy to do, just a simple flag over a certain damage value of an npcs triggering a random number generator. Each time the generator is above a certain threshold, the NPC says a text (with producing a slight amount of sound would add a nice gameplay mechanic.) Gives an incentive to keep your companions above a certain health, as well as adding a little bit of fun realism to it, having them moan from the pain and giving up their location this way. Also flavor texts for fleeing npcs, agressive ones and so on can be done in a similar fashion.

The same flag applying for a dying NPC, with a higher chance of them saying something.

Eisen · 2017-01-24T12:07:01.000Z

[quote=“Kulze, post:10, topic:582”]It should actually be quite easy to do, just a simple flag over a certain damage value of an npcs triggering a random number generator. Each time the generator is above a certain threshold, the NPC says a text (with producing a slight amount of sound would add a nice gameplay mechanic.) Gives an incentive to keep your companions above a certain health, as well as adding a little bit of fun realism to it, having them moan from the pain and giving up their location this way. Also flavor texts for fleeing npcs, agressive ones and so on can be done in a similar fashion.

The same flag applying for a dying NPC, with a higher chance of them saying something.[/quote]

No add a hidden “discipline” stat that affects how often your/yourNPCs complain. Long surviving people that “have seen some shit” will complain less than a sheltered noob that get’s bitten by a Z for the first time.

Taberone · 2017-02-02T06:02:36.000Z

Also, what about combat text that triggers specifically on killing blows (Attacks that drain the last of your head/torso health), too? Gemstone IV and Fallout have some pretty violent and descriptive (Not sure if I want to copy/paste them here, pretty gruesome even though it’s just a bunch of text) ones. They also have text that could be used for attacks that drain the last of your arm or leg health.

BorkBorkGoesTheCode · 2017-02-02T07:58:21.000Z

You could quote-mine Gargantua and Pentagruel for combat text.

hobophobic · 2017-02-02T21:32:36.000Z

Honestly, dialogue text coloring seems to need an complete overhaul. At the moment, all I really no for sure is that there are different colors for different actions/effects and these colors change as turns progress, but there’s honestly not very much useful information being clearly conveyed. Oftentimes, I can’t even distinguish any distinction between turns. I’ve been playing this game for over a year, but I still remember being a new player and finding these text colorings almost useless to me in many cases, and I haven’t noticed much change in that appearance from then til now.