The other day I went fishing and encountered a bandit who tried to come at me wielding a riot helmet. Needless to say I won, but only after 12 or so 40-50 damage hits from the incorruptible sword you find in arcana. They weren’t that decked out, so I doubt their armour actually did much for them in mitigating damage, and if I’m understanding damage correctly, that damage is what actually translated into health damage.
Here lies the issue. Encountered a zombie hulk, killed it with the same sword in 3-5 hits, and I’m wondering, how in the blue blazes did that guy survive 12 hits while the hulk only 5? Then I remembered they were unable to continue wielding the riot helmet at some point in the fight, leading me to believe I first worked through all of the damage of their limbs before I got to actually damaging their torso/head, and only then did they die.
I propose these solutions:
Either have hostile NPCs only make use of a single health pool like zombies, animals, etcetera.
OR
Give absolutely everything in the game limb and head health bars(except blobs) and have them move slower, lose attack damage, or lose the ability to move or attack entirely(unless they have a bite attack) if their limbs are too damage, and only dying if their torso or head gets too damaged. This could spark the creation of a part aiming mechanic for both melee and rainge combat, allowing the player to cripple enemies by aiming for their limbs, or ending the fight quickly by aiming for the head if they have a high enough skill to be accurate in that regard.
From the standpoint of “realism”, I can accept that a zombie or other pain-immune/pain resistant target wouldn’t be crippled or have exceptionally reduced combat effectiveness from most damage they take. But I find it frustrating that NPC enemies are using the same rules that PCs have, yet aren’t bound by the same limitations. If you break a bandit’s arms and legs, the worst that happens is he slows down a bit - he’s not stopped by pain and doesn’t lose combat effectiveness to any degree. Break your PC’s limbs in that manner, and your character is incapacitated and probably going to die barring circumstances.
It’s easy enough to make a human “monster” in the game, it’s mostly a matter of appropriate tags and loot drops. There’s a Bandit mod out there (in Goat’s Mod Pack) that does just that. But NPCs seem to be hard-coded with a different setup than everything else. I’m not sure it’d be possible to change how they work over without a complete rewrite. If it was that easy, we’d have had mods that made friendly monsters that act as companions and not just pets, or unique bosses that you could talk to before throwing down with them, long before now.
As I’ve said, at some point I did enough limb damage to them that they weren’t able to wield anything anymore, so they can definitely be crippled. My only gripe is that it’s like they have layered health bars, and that it seems like you have to work through each and every single one of them before you get to the torso/head and finally kill them.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind this if everything else had limbs and a head part you could damage and cripple(I know many who would love a mutilation mechanic for enemies and you, requiring you to cybernetically replace or regrow with special stem cell meds your limbs), but at least give us the option to aim for the chest when fighting NPCs or guarantee a high chance of of torso/head damage when fighting them.
As it may seem to be strange, fighting NPCs in Cataclysm is not so bad at all. If you look closely at fighting NPCs in UnReal World… You will appreciate how this is done in Cataclysm. In UnReal World fighing goes like this: two grown men are standing 3-4 feet away, and they are trying to hit themselves with axes, swords, maces. After 3-4 blows, one of them (the player) finally has managed to hit his enemy. Meanwhile, an NPC has managed to maul the player due to the fact that almost every attack was successful
If it comes to Cataclysm, my experience with fighting NPCs is quite positive. Those fights were quick, brutal, difficult, and very satisfying
That’s why I’ve been trying to find power armor to circumvent this. NPC’s giving you the finger? Shove a barrel in their face while laughing at their bullets.
So far though I’ve been getting by by going in pitch darkness and using my active defense system whenever things get dicey.
I can accept that they wouldn’t be crippled by the pain of a broken limb alone, since the Blob gives no shits about pain, but it is highly unrealistic that any humanoid body with a busted leg would move just as fast as an unbusted one. That’s not a matter of pain, but of basic mechanical function. Unless the Blob is molding itself over every fracture the moment it gets made, a broken leg or two is going to slow even the most-undeadest grave reject down.
And what if I just do one better and take the entire thing off with an axe? Realistically, I should be able to do so. Repair that, Bloberrino.
Do NPCs still see you. Get angry. Charge you with a blunt object while you have a rifle? I can tell you I wouldn’t do that. I run for cover until I can smack the daylights outa you from a corner or something.
That or the NPC just sees you and gets angry…then sits while you usem as target practice or a human pinata lol
Would be a cool feature to gimp a zombie so badly that they drop to the ground and crawl after you.
That’s because you know you’d most probably die or at the very least be crippled from one rifle shot. THEY, on the other hand, know that they can tank dozen shots while swinging at you with their club. They ALSO know that if they swing hard enough, you’ll be crippled and unable to do anything while they are seemingly immune to such things (even if technically they should not be). So why wouldn’t they LARP Fallout 3 raiders?
e: they should recognize .50cal weapons, though. Those things DGAF about NPCs toughness, lol.
npc mirror the player completely, and as they possess limb health instead of just number of hits before death, they can either die from two bullets or survive gruesome wounds - just like you would do when one of them would kindly stab you in guts ten times
That’s why I wrote “technically”. What is usually happening, though, is that they still swing their weapon until the moment they die, and they do it even with their limbs broken. Successfully.
Oh, almost forgot: they also they ignore hot air even while standing in the middle of a burning house for dozens of minutes. Now that’s something I’d like to have access to as a player.
Yeah, currently they seem to ignore temperature. They make great bodyguards for the usually almost naked pc in the summer though.
I try to equip them throughout the months in appropriate gear, just so I don’t find myself complaining later on when they can finally feel the heat/frostbite.
