"You grab and knee the bear" and other shenannigans

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I’m the most bad-a$$ fighter around. Bear, Zombie Bear? Whatever dude. I will karate them ALL to death!

It’s pretty ridiculous. Bears are apex predators. Not only are they apex predators, but they’re really really hard to kill. Hard to kill as in, IRL, if you shoot at a bear with a handgun and bullets designed to kill people, you’re not killing it. Even worse, you’re not even scaring it off. You’re just pissing it off. And now that it’s mad, it’s going to attack you with top speeds over 30 mph, razor sharp claws, ridiculous reflexes, and immense strength. You’re dead.

Even with a more powerful gun, you’re running a huge risk trying to attack a bear. So much so that you’re better off using using Bear Mace than a 44 Magnum.

Without advanced mutations and/or bionics, there’s no way you should be able to take out a bear in melee combat, and even at a range, you should have to use really, really powerful guns.

2

This issue isn’t just restricted to bears. I few weeks ago I shared my harrowing tale of triumph against a Zombie Hulk. I killed the damn thing in hand to hand combat without mutations or bionics. Key to my success there was the fact that I kept landing dragon kicks that knocked it back, allowing me to kite it to death.

That character’s strength was 8, and he knocked back something the size of 6 men that could run through buildings like legos. Soooomething isn’t quite right, and it’s not just the knock back logic. Strength and dexterity really don’t matter all that much in combat after you progress whatever combat skill you’re specializing in. And because of this, Tough Zombies, Zombie Brutes, and even Zombie Hulks aren’t quite the threats they’re meant to be.

Your character’s relative strength vs an enemy should factor into how successful you are at fighting it. Some of the more epic enemies should be impossible to kill without firearms and other powerful weaponry. And given the fact that we’re trying for a degree of realism in this game, no character should be able to kill a predatory wild animal using their bear hands, no matter their martial art skills, unless their reflexes and strength are enhanced via bionics and/or mutations. Martial arts were designed to be efficient vs humans, and it would make sense if it gave you a distinct advantage vs normal sized Zombies. But vs other creatures and monsters, you should have to be armed.

3

Not that addressing this needs to be a priority. I imagine it would involve a lot of work to rebalance the game to make it more realistic in this aspect.

  • Animal aggro would definitely have to be modified so they aren’t nearly as prone to attack as they are now.

  • You’d probably want to implement logic that would allow them to eat; given the choice between a fresh kill and attacking your character, they should be happily munching on the fresh kill. (This could add interesting situations like, after butchering a corpse, a bear charges at you, chasing you away from your meat and eating it)

  • Martial arts would have to be tweeked a good deal.

4

Also, we would have to make bears leave the player alone in most cases after they knock the player down, rather than eating the player. Zombears can be made rarer to reflect the fact that bears aren’t likely to be deeply wounded by the zombies.

5

I agree, I want to scream ‘HOLY FUCK’ and shit my pants when I see a hulk/zombear. Not just shrug and stun-lock the everloving shit out of it until it dies.

6

Generally:
Yeah, I imagine MA shouldn’t be the total equalizer that it is now. Conversely, Dragon Style (and the other KF forms) is/are supposed to be endgame-level Good. It’s available easy now because we don’t have a good quest/dungeon/Temple for it. Yet.

(So what you see in the dojos and gyms is the future. The traits are not likely to remain around forever.)

Comparative-size is a reasonable limiter on hard-MA knockback, etc. Judo/Tai Chi might fare better as they’re designed to redirect stronger adversaries.

Zombie predators are the critters who died of old age, illness, and other such problems, not just violence. They drank the water too!

7

I like the idea of enhancing big monsters and animals to give them more resistance from MA.

And, as for me, weapon size have to matter too. Killing some hulk/bear/zombear with knife (which might not even reach deep enough to do significant damage to the monster) or pipe (same thing - you can transform their upper layer of skin in heavy bruised area, but couldnt reach their innards) is the same story as killing them with hands/legs/etc.

8

[quote=“Sanarr, post:7, topic:6469”]I like the idea of enhancing big monsters and animals to give them more resistance from MA.

And, as for me, weapon size have to matter too. Killing some hulk/bear/zombear with knife (which might not even reach deep enough to do significant damage to the monster) or pipe (same thing - you can transform their upper layer of skin in heavy bruised area, but couldnt reach their innards) is the same story as killing them with hands/legs/etc.[/quote]
Yea, larger creatures should definitely be harder to injure than smaller ones. Increasing armor based on creature size would be a very easy implementation, though I don’t know if it’d be the most realistic.
More armor would make piercing weapons more effective, fighting a bear with a spear definitely sounds more reasonable than trying to use a knife (Not that I’d want to fight a bear close range in any situation in which I’m not a cyborg).
My usual MO (Shoot it, explode it, burn it, when in doubt run away) works against everything I’ve tried it on, and generally speaking firearms and explosives are almost always a better choice in dealing with large angry things than running up and hitting them with your bare hands or a baseball bat.

On the weapons side I’m not sure if there should just be a reworking of the bash/cut/pierce values for the various weapons based on their size, or if an actual system regarding volume/weight and such should be designed, either way it’ll be a bit of work.

9

Maybe it should limit how much damage you can do, too. Or a character strength + bash damage / monster mass ratio. Something to reflect that swinging a baseball bat is going to do next to no damage to a Zombie Hulk unless your character is absurdly strong, in which case you should probably be wielding a sledge hammer.

10

You know, I think monsters need a buff in attack.

But that’s my OP self talking.

11

get pneuatic rifle its realy powerfull weapon i kill zombear with 5 shots with 1 rifle and 3 marksman skill (yes 5 shots is much but ammo is everywhere)

12

[quote=“FunsizeNinja123, post:10, topic:6469”]You know, I think monsters need a buff in attack.

But that’s my OP self talking.[/quote]

That’s a quick and cheap balance change, but it doesn’t address the root issues with the gameplay mechanics :slight_smile:

13

there are two clear and ‘actionable’* fixes here.

  1. make knockback take size into account (or if it already does, make it steeper)
    1.a.? make other stuff, like shock attacks do the same.
  2. increase armor for large creatures
no character should be able to kill a predatory wild animal using their bear hands, no matter their martial art skills,
If you've mutated Bear hands you deserve it
14

Can’t be certain but you can pretty much take down a bear in hand to hand completely unskilled if you’ve got the right armor on. By that I mean just stacking cloth items.
That’s some goofy shit.

15

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:13, topic:6469”]

no character should be able to kill a predatory wild animal using their bear hands, no matter their martial art skills,

If you’ve mutated Bear hands you deserve it[/quote]

haha

16

You can take down a bear hand to hand with no armor by shoving your arm down its throat and biting its jugular.

17

[quote=“Slax, post:14, topic:6469”]Can’t be certain but you can pretty much take down a bear in hand to hand completely unskilled if you’ve got the right armor on. By that I mean just stacking cloth items.
That’s some goofy shit.[/quote]

In the “armor is too good” thread, people were talking about how some creatures “bites” should be stronger than those of your average Zs. Perhaps certain creatures should have a huge buff to armor piercing stats.

18

[quote=“Paquito, post:1, topic:6469”]I’m the most bad-a$$ fighter around. Bear, Zombie Bear? Whatever dude. I will karate them ALL to death!

It’s pretty ridiculous. Bears are apex predators. Not only are they apex predators, but they’re really really hard to kill. Hard to kill as in, IRL, if you shoot at a bear with a handgun and bullets designed to kill people, you’re not killing it. Even worse, you’re not even scaring it off. You’re just pissing it off. And now that it’s mad, it’s going to attack you with top speeds over 30 mph, razor sharp claws, ridiculous reflexes, and immense strength. You’re dead.

Even with a more powerful gun, you’re running a huge risk trying to attack a bear. So much so that you’re better off using using Bear Mace than a 44 Magnum.

Without advanced mutations and/or bionics, there’s no way you should be able to take out a bear in melee combat, and even at a range, you should have to use really, really powerful guns.[/quote]

Try Googling:

C. Dale Peterson, Masutatsu Oyama, Moses Lekalau, Blazo Grkovic, Sigurdur Petursson, Carl Akeley, Ed Wiseman, Wayne Goldsberry, Tom Wanyandie, Clarence Hall, or Chris Everhart.

C. Dale Peterson one to death, Chris Everhart killed one by throwing a log at it, Carl Akeley killed a leopard by pro-wrestling it to death, Masutatsu Oyama used to put on martial arts demonstrations where he killed adult bulls with a single punch, and so on.

It’s hardly the norm for a human being to kill a massive creature like that without proper weapons, but it’s far from impossible. There are many reasons we’re the Earth’s absolute apex predator; it’s not just because we’re smarter than everything else.

19

[quote=“Rivet, post:18, topic:6469”][quote=“Paquito, post:1, topic:6469”]I’m the most bad-a$$ fighter around. Bear, Zombie Bear? Whatever dude. I will karate them ALL to death!

It’s pretty ridiculous. Bears are apex predators. Not only are they apex predators, but they’re really really hard to kill. Hard to kill as in, IRL, if you shoot at a bear with a handgun and bullets designed to kill people, you’re not killing it. Even worse, you’re not even scaring it off. You’re just pissing it off. And now that it’s mad, it’s going to attack you with top speeds over 30 mph, razor sharp claws, ridiculous reflexes, and immense strength. You’re dead.

Even with a more powerful gun, you’re running a huge risk trying to attack a bear. So much so that you’re better off using using Bear Mace than a 44 Magnum.

Without advanced mutations and/or bionics, there’s no way you should be able to take out a bear in melee combat, and even at a range, you should have to use really, really powerful guns.[/quote]

Try Googling:

C. Dale Peterson, Masutatsu Oyama, Moses Lekalau, Blazo Grkovic, Sigurdur Petursson, Carl Akeley, Ed Wiseman, Wayne Goldsberry, Tom Wanyandie, Clarence Hall, or Chris Everhart.

C. Dale Peterson one to death, Chris Everhart killed one by throwing a log at it, Carl Akeley killed a leopard by pro-wrestling it to death, Masutatsu Oyama used to put on martial arts demonstrations where he killed adult bulls with a single punch, and so on.

It’s hardly the norm for a human being to kill a massive creature like that without proper weapons, but it’s far from impossible. There are many reasons we’re the Earth’s absolute apex predator; it’s not just because we’re smarter than everything else.[/quote]
Unrelated to Bear-Punching adventures:
Someone once killed a cougar that was eating his arm by reaching down it’s neck and crushing it’s windpipe.
I can’t find the picture, but he had the best “I am so done with this shit” look ever.

20

Well, you could add a strength threshold relative to the strength of the target for the damage that a blunt weapon can inflict instead of a flat bonus. Say if you have less strength than the target (strength being a relative definition of body size in this case) then there is a limit on how much damage the attack will inflict. This means that creatures that have 20 strength will take relatively little damage from blunt weapons if your strength is 10. The reverse is similar, except that the instead of dealing more damage for having more strength, the stronger attacker will penetrate more armor with their attack. This means that a skilled martial artist can crush small armored objects better if he is “larger” (robotic spider drones?) but his fists of fury will deal little damage on a motorized tank. How to balance this numerically is still fuzzy, but I can say adding the damage reduction but not adding scaled damage bonuses should keep it easier to control. The intended effect is to allow strong blunt weapons to crush weak armored things but be useless against really strong enemies.