I’ve been thinking it seems kind of silly how so many deaths of characters usually result just because in a fight because your character just shrugs and says “guess i’ll die” after a arm falls into the red zone which means you can’t attack anything, so you basically just sit there until a zombie breaks your vitals. I can understand if it were something heavy like a sword or rebar like a pistol just seems silly. Sure it wouldn’t be accurate at long range, but when a zombie is grabbing you there’s no possible way to miss with a pistol in kissing range.
And even then if theoretically you weren’t able to use broken limbs (the pain would be excruciating trying to use a broken arm but unless both forearms are completely snapped in half they should be able to move) you’ve still got two perfectly functional legs (which actually exert even more force than the arms can). There’s no way a person with the brawling skill shouldn’t have the street fighting knowledge to be able to kick an opponent.
The pain would be distracting to say the least. Just because your legs still work doesn’t mean you’d have the wherewithal to suddenly go about kicking, kneeing or what have you without some serious disadvantage. Then beside the current pain, kicking would move your entire body in the process, with every sudden jerk or movement of the kick or from impact to your broken arm(s) causing a fresh new spike of pain for your mind to also deal with.
The recoil from a pistol could also be enough that the sudden pain would be enough to cause you to drop the weapon after a shot or two. I’m not saying either option isn’t possible, just that they should be highly disadvantaged. Better to use those working legs to run away and fight another day instead.
Isn’t that kind of contradicting though? Becuase of the pain you’d be incredibly slow to run away (I’ve seen it happen many times before) and unless you have some miracle obstacle to put between you only a couple of squares away, you’d just waste that stamina you could have used kicking
If you, not your character, were under attack from someone or some group of someones and they broke or seriously injured your arm(s), would your thoughts be that they are too great a risk to your safety and maybe you should run away or that you could turn the tide by shoving your foot/leg out at something that has already demonstrated it can break your bones?
Are you suggesting you can wield pistols with your feet, or that you can fire a gun with a broken arm?
Either way, no that’s not a viable option.
I’m suggesting it shouldn’t be a problem to use a pistol since your fingers still work. sure the pain would be excruciating from recoil, and it would definitely miss at anything past zero range, but it beats the hell out of dying.
unless your nerves/tendons have been sliced open, you should still maintain enough motor capacity to use your hands, at least for close range
its usually not a single entity capable of breaking bones, but several accumulating attacks that render it useless.
in addition the unfortunate/fortunate thing about adrenaline is that it blocks capacity for higher reasoning and focuses solely on immediate action. meaning your first thoughts would not be about calculating such complex thoughts other than the immediate focus of removing the thing that broke your arm or escaping from the thing that broke your arm. in that state the way to achieve such a result it is irrelevant to your brain. there have been documented cases where people have actually broken limbs fighting because they were in such a desperate state, such as the man who broke their foot kicking a terrorist so hard in their shriveled testicles, that the kicker actually rendered the limb broken
I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about, “your arms are too badly damaged to use”.
You say your fingers still work, but how do you know that? You could have extensive forearm or wrist damage rendering you incapable of pulling a trigger, your shoulder or elbow could be incapable of lifting your arm, the process of lifting a pistol to a firing position could cause enough pain to make you pass out, etc. We abstract all that away to “arm no work”.
I think I can see the point you’re going for… basically to summarize the short answer is hands are just coded to also count as arms?
Perhaps in future updates we’ll be able to have hands count as separate limbs with their own stats. We already have a system that counts hands warmth as separate from arm warmth after all.
I think what he is saying is your hands are very much depended on your arms in order to function.
Just because your hands are at the end of your arm instead of the middle where the physical damage is doesn’t mean the nerves, muscles etc. that support and control your hand will work for you. Even if the break is in your upper arm, the debilitating pain will stop any arm muscles from working pretty much at all. This goes double if something is lodged in your muscle, like a bullet or monster claw. Imagine having a really bad leg cramp and wondering why you can’t run using your foot, just because the pain is in the thigh instead of your toes.
The depiction of action heroes running around with lots of physical damage but still saving the day are not accurate.
I think the way to look at it would be that the point before it breaks but is heavily damaged would represent the actual state you want represented. Where the arm is heavily damaged but you can still force it to work somewhat.
Once it’s “broken” in game terms. That would represent the total loss of functionality in your arm. 1 bar would be barely held together but functional. Basically this state would be what you’re talking about. The busted up arm you force to do something. And the totally broken state is what you mentioned earlier. Totally kaput.
The only real input I have on this convo otherwise is that I really like the rimworld style limb system and think this game could benefit from something similar.
“The depiction of action heroes running around with lots of physical damage but still saving the day are not accurate.”
While hollywood will push it to it’s limits that no one could defend. After an unhealthy amount of CCTV videos I can safely say things are simply strange when bullets start flying. I’ve seen people drop dead from being shot in a limb in the wrong place. And seen people riddled with bullets up and walking around, sometimes literally arguing with the person who shot them.
Most recent one I recall were some police officers that got ambushed by an angry ex trying to kill his girlfriend. he shot them and their arms and hands up real good but they ended up shooting him down after. So the little “heavily damaged action movie hero” moments aren’t entirely impossible. They’re just based on the dumb luck of not getting hit in arteries, organs or bones, that actually disable you not being a mean grizzled cop who doesn’t play by the rules.
Which is another reason I think a rimworld style limb system for dealing with injuries could be neat. It could actually simulate that type of gamble. you could get shot, get lucky and be as fine as a shot man could be. Or get the opposite end of the freak spectrum and end up bleeding out after a chicken pecks an artery. (another real story)
adrenaline is a hell of a drug
it all depends on luck really
My arms are in that state that dont allow to wield anything but I can use a tazer and because I have “imperceptible healer” is my main gun for the last 2 days. Just my two cents.
I don’t think a PR to remove the weird extra health check for arms working would be rejected, fwiw.