Damage System

[Shaman]

One of the biggest features I'd like to see implemented is a hit location based damage system with targeted locations on the humanoid form (Head, F/B Torso, L/R Arm, L/R Leg) and location for non humanoid / mechanical targets.

• Armor could then be designed to cover specific parts of the body allowing for the balance of weight vs coverage.
• Body parts would have different hit points with varying wound severity (Slight, Moderate, Heavy, Incapacitated, Destroyed)
• Wound effects based on location and severity (i.e An arm wound could result in x% loss of accuracy all the way to being unable to handle a two handed weapon)
• Players could target specific areas with varying hit modifiers
• Allows for greater range of alien/vehicle strengths and weaknesses

This along with basic cover and concealment would make a very nice, sleek and easy to understand damage system.

[Conductiv]

I'm on the fence, while I do like these kinds of systems they usually add very little with regards to the gameplay.

-gamebalance wise, in many cases where players can bypass cover/defences it is designed in such a way that it doesn't really matter in the end (the defense can be bypassed, but this particular unit is either extremely numerous, has a failsafe or has a very high HP pool to offset its weakness)

-enemy AI wise, they either always go for the center off mass, resulting in a sort of RNG what limb is going to get hit, or they go for the bypass..making armor either useless or unreliable. (random 1-shot scenario)

-while limbshots might sound great, in most cases players either go for highest chance to hit or highest damage per shot. rarely...if ever...has a game made disabling the opponent by shooting arms a worthwhile endeavor.

-there are rumors about that X2 will not feature any multi-tile playable units (aka vehicles) so even if the bypass would be made interesting...it would likely only apply to humanoids.

so in the end you end with a system and a lot of work to set that up...that really doesn't really do much for this type of game

[GoodGuy]

I have an addition-don't allow people to chose what to hit-

It'll bog down the gameplay and people shouldn't aim for anything else other than center mass.

 

In fact, a good mechanic is to allow target shots to hit specific places if you use an aimed shot- snap and normal should just hit center mass.

[Shoes]

On 12/7/2017 at 3:51 PM, Conductiv said:

I'm on the fence, while I do like these kinds of systems they usually add very little with regards to the gameplay.

The original Xcom had it, and it didn't do much. I mean, maybe it did? But it did not factor into any of my tactics. XCOM2012 had that red fog mode, where an injured unit would be less accurate. Adding more detail won't net much of a benefit. 

It might be made more interesting if the consequences were permanent. A soldier who takes heavy or more damage to a limb loses some stats permanently, but other stats like bravery or perhaps gained perks are never lost. So maybe their stats don't end up being superb, their field experience makes them valuable.

It might still be a moot point if the game is still heavy on the one-hit-kills.

[Chris]

We were toying with something like this internally over the past few months, but there are problems. Other posters have mentioned them already but the main two are:

• It's pretty fiddly to allow the player to manually target specific areas, so the system needs to add a lot of gameplay to be worthwhile.
• It's rarely actually an interesting choice - you generally want a headshot if your soldier is accurate enough to reliably hit them, or a torso shot if they're not. 

There is potentially something to be said for a randomised location damage roll, where each shot has a set chance to hit the body / head / limbs etc, because it does allow you to have armour that covers specific areas of the body and also allows you to add perks etc that boost the chance of hitting a headshot.

Ultimately though if the player can't choose where the shot is aimed then some of the potential value is lost - if you hit three shots on a Sebillian's legs and destroy all his armour there, it'd be annoying if your super-skilled-up sniper with all the +headshot perks then has a 0% chance of hitting the legs.

That is mitigated a little if you use an even simpler system with locational damage split between just head / body, because the damage multiplier on a headshot can be high enough that a headshot is *always* better, even against intact armour ... but then what you have is a fairly simple critical hit system dressed up in different clothing (although that's not necessarily a bad thing). It would certainly be another tool to allow us to differentiate between the different types of Xenonaut weapons, e.g. between rifles and sniper rifles.

[Drakon]

I personally think that the development cost of getting a hit location based damage system in place is not worth the gain. I'd rather see the resources used elsewhere.

[jamoecw]

my understanding is that there is a chance for doing below stated damage value, and above stated damage value. if the below damage value is a limb shot, doing less damage but either slowing or reducing accuracy and adding a wound to the limb for bleeding damage then it would stay pretty similar gameplay wise, but have a slight advantage over a system that was just damage output. hitting and getting unlucky several times without killing the target is not quite as bad. not sure if it is worth the effort though.

 

one could have wounds exacerbate existing wounds on the same location, so a wound on the torso would say have 5 hp of bleed, then a second one would have 7 for a total of 12 hp per round, and a third could have 11 for a total of 23 hp per round. this means that limb wounds on your guys would be preferred in the middle of battle, and torso/head for the enemy. so healing would be important, and armor. though again i am not sure if it worth the effort.

 

fallout 1&2 did this quite well, but mainly it was only useful on high hp targets when you had weak weapons. they had blinding and other effects with each location in addition to damage, though most of the time you just aimed at the head or center mass. i am not sure with a whole squad that it would be good to manually aim the shots like in fallout. in the end it is as chris said, a critical hit feature dressed up as something more complex.