Damage effects make everything more exciting an tell a story all on there own. Have some kind of state for each limb. Head, body, left an right arms an legs. Now. Depending on which limb, the type of character be it NPC or PC, the type of damage, an finally the state of the limb. Or maybe even damagable gear. I'll try an give examples to explain.
Ex1: Super Fist is fighting a droid with his super strenght. The droid has be taking major punishment from the blows of super fist an its head stat is at its lowest. Super punches the driods head depleting the head energy knocking the head off ending the battle. If its a boss lvl droid it lowers the droids accuracy but the head stay but shows electrical spark damahe animations from neck of droid from time to time.
Ex2: blood ranger buys grade l body armor vest upping his chest stat to grey(like absorb power) once destroyed theirs a minor animation of it being destroyed. Optional if it covers costume but animation still happens when destroyed
Ex3: Joe Tuff is extremely resistant to physical damage but the explosion he was caught in burn his cloth or ashed his uniform.
I see it working two ways really. It could be used to buff/debuff depending on limb status (head depletion means mez resis -1, -1 acc, leg depletion -1 KB/kd -1 speed, arms depletion -1 damage chest depletion -1 def/res -1 recharge. Or it could be a status rating for side gear. They give minor perks but are for the most part destroyable add ons. Your main costume can be torn or ripped up, show bruising/ blood, rip cape,scratches, etc.Figured if i just came from a battle with kraken size monster, hit by a nuke, saved a child from a burning home. I shouldnt walk away "clean"
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
Somebody's got to work that all out for every mob in the game. A four-legged giant robot isn't going to handle damage the same way as a humanoid, much less a kraken.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Very true! If done correctly the results could add some serious flavor too the game. You return to the local titan city "chill spot". All the new and old faces are looking at you like " what ever did you get yourself into" or " man that guy took a serious beating" "wonder if I can do any better". It opens doors/ breaks the ice to casual or rp type conversations. It allows expression of a witty mind, hidden behind a lvl one character. It shows that whatever you been threw was well earned. It could maybe slow people from steam rolling 80% of the content if the status effects remain during an instance. Only replenishing over time after mission fail/complete. It would be a stand out thing for regen/will power types who's healing factors "shine" In moment of massive team mission stress. It could be the one thing that makes that four legged robot hard to bring down with its" nanite" ability. So many application that could separate classes and avoid stepping on toes.
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
This sounds very much like gear damage. Something I would prefer not to have. And frankly we tried that mechanic in the prior game. Vahz plague anyone? No, yeah don't really want to do that arc again either. Also, I suspect you will find a great many actually prefer steamrolling as opposed to viewing it as something to avoid.
Just my .02
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Steamrolling has its ups an downs. An 8yr vet trying to speed past the first few slow lvl ( 1-20 in coh) is understandable. A noob reaching lvl 50 in an hr is a huge no no in my book. As far as the gear goes. Its not mandatory. Having it is just for "visual" flavor. It wouldn't effect stats like swtor. It wouldn't even make a difference in battle out come or even effect your health bar. Now the limbs effect is really no more than a mez/debuff/buff evaluator showing a status effect happening to ya! Simple flavoring. Its like being in love with a girl. She has long hair ,hazel eyes an a sense of humor. She's also pretty easy on the eyes. All that stuff is just "flavoring". None of those things make up why you should love her.
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
It's worse. It's [i]you[/i] damage. So carrying spare gear won't help.
That was just a persistent debuff. This would be far more work, and the effects would be nastier.
Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in things like fancier damage models than a bucket of hit points. But there's no getting around how you'd need to add lots of animations, and art, to support that. And I don't see that happening on this game's development time scale.
There was a thread some time back about simply changing an avatar's appearance based on hit point level. Not even debuffing the character. And even that spiraled out of control; there are so many "simplifications" that simply make it look wrong.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]