# Two-In-One: Kill Count and melee flavor text

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115>\
**Category:** The Drawing Board\
**Created:** [September 19, 2013, 8:52am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115 "2013-09-19T08:52:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![moist\_zombie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/moist_zombie/32/131_2.png) [@moist\_zombie](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/moist_zombie)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2013, 8:52am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/1 "2013-09-19T08:52:32Z")

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First idea: Since we do a good bit of pulping/butchering/burning, could we get a counter along with Kills? Not necessarily an enemy-specific tally, though it wouldn’t hurt, but a general tally for each somewhere (memorial at least)… Would say enemy-specific is fine, but I worry about cluttering up the current kills menu 😃

Second idea: Instead of all unarmed damage readouts saying “you hit” for normal blows and “you whack” for critical hits, it could go off some flavor text (going to borrow this from Medievia)… 1-3 damage could be “barely hit” 4-7 “scratch” 5-8 “lightly injure” 9-12 “wound” 13-16 “smite” 17-20 “massacre” 21-24 “devastate” 25-29 “mutilate” 30-33 “demolish” 34-39 “mangle” 40-59 “horribly maim” 60-99 “eviscerate” 100+ “disembowel”…

Something similar to that setup wouldn’t hurt, anyway 🙂 Numbers and flavor text could be changed mercilessly 😛

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**Author:** ![StopSignal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/stopsignal/32/1923_2.png) [@StopSignal](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/StopSignal)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2013, 9:47am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/2 "2013-09-19T09:47:33Z")

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Ehh… there is a kill counter with the ) letter i think.

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**Author:** ![i2amroy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/i2amroy/32/909_2.png) [@i2amroy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/i2amroy)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/3 "2013-09-19T16:13:59Z")

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> [@moist\_zombie](#):
>
> Second idea: Instead of all unarmed damage readouts saying “you hit” for normal blows and “you whack” for critical hits, it could go off some flavor text (going to borrow this from Medievia)… 1-3 damage could be “barely hit” 4-7 “scratch” 5-8 “lightly injure” 9-12 “wound” 13-16 “smite” 17-20 “massacre” 21-24 “devastate” 25-29 “mutilate” 30-33 “demolish” 34-39 “mangle” 40-59 “horribly maim” 60-99 “eviscerate” 100+ “disembowel”…

Something like this is eventually planned, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

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**Author:** ![KA101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/278dde/32.png) [@KA101](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/KA101)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/4 "2013-09-19T23:33:26Z")

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> [@i2amroy](#):
>
> [quote=“moist\_zombie, post:1, topic:3115”]Second idea: Instead of all unarmed damage readouts saying “you hit” for normal blows and “you whack” for critical hits, it could go off some flavor text (going to borrow this from Medievia)… 1-3 damage could be “barely hit” 4-7 “scratch” 5-8 “lightly injure” 9-12 “wound” 13-16 “smite” 17-20 “massacre” 21-24 “devastate” 25-29 “mutilate” 30-33 “demolish” 34-39 “mangle” 40-59 “horribly maim” 60-99 “eviscerate” 100+ “disembowel”…

Something like this is eventually planned, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet.[/quote]

There actually was something like that already in melee.cpp. Dunno if someone removed it.

Basically, there are three verbs for each type of damage: I recall bashing being whack/batter/clobber. Do more (total) damage, get better verb. Hooves in particular tend to Clobber targets.

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**Author:** ![Ian\_Strachan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/ian_strachan/32/1003_2.png) [@Ian\_Strachan](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Ian_Strachan)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/5 "2013-09-20T01:00:43Z")

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I’ve seen Dungeon Crawl do something similar. And to get super oldschool, Castle of the Winds had some very descriptive messages for when you killed monsters along the lines of “You chop open the X, splintering ribs and shedding viscera”.

The infrastructure to have generic ‘counters’ is already in the game, and currently only used to count steps walked, so counting the number of corpses butchered would be pretty easy.

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**Author:** ![vultures](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/vultures/32/69_2.png) [@vultures](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/vultures)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/6 "2013-09-21T02:28:07Z")

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Yup, fine throw moist\_z. 🙂  
And in Heretic (or Hexen, dunno) there were danish monks cursing in native tongue, so this way you could have them maim’d off your sledge, crying for mommy in EthereaLang.

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**Author:** ![moist\_zombie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/moist_zombie/32/131_2.png) [@moist\_zombie](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/moist_zombie)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/7 "2013-09-21T06:39:49Z")

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To avoid making a new thread (I’m trying to be e-eco-friendly), I had a couple more decent ideas… One being a message when you level up a skill (can’t believe it took me this long to notice its strange absence). Not sure if it was left out because it could potentially harm immersion for some people, but I’d take a toggle! 😉

The second thought being an indicator at the end of each message that involves gaining xp. Would look like “You butcher the zombie corpse. (sur 3: 34%)”, where sur = survival, 3 = current survival level, and the percent being current xp amount (COMPLEX SCIENCE!)… Its a little spammy, or would be, but I’d still turn it on if it were offered as a toggle option 😃

You whack the zombie for 14 damage. (bas 2: 37% mel 3: 12%) for a melee attack with a bashing weapon, etc… or (bash 3-37 melee 3-12)…

Thought I’d throw em out and see 🙂

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**Author:** ![StopSignal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/stopsignal/32/1923_2.png) [@StopSignal](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/StopSignal)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 12:03am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/8 "2013-09-22T00:03:09Z")

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No, it would take me to the real world. And i hate real world. It is too… realist. Hurts.

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**Author:** ![vultures](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/vultures/32/69_2.png) [@vultures](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/vultures)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/two-in-one-kill-count-and-melee-flavor-text/3115/9 "2013-09-22T02:29:13Z")

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The real world hurts. Give us some candy, moist\_z. The kind that’s picked off zombie bones. \>:-D