Another One Bites the Dust: SWG Edition!

[Kageru]

It would be fun to have a post-mortem thread of ideas and flaws worth remembering that could then be a locked monument (The MMO Mausoleum?) to the game. Some of the ones I remember where HAM, their PvP flagging, the attempt to make Cantina's useful, the Jedi mechanisms and how to kill a database with personalised crafted objects.

... And I never actually played the game, those are just the discussions I enjoyed.

[Margalis]

I'm sure some formulation of multiple resource bars could be made to work. (And in fact most games have multiple resource bars) One the conceptual level of "What if instead of just health the player also had Mana / TP / Stamina / Whatever that could also go up and down??" yes, of course it could work. And spending health to do damage is not some crazy thing either, so the idea that you can damage yourself is not a fundamental problem.

The fundamental problem was that the actual design just didn't make sense. The fact that you can be incapped from any type of damage means you have three health bars, only one of which is called "health" even though they are ALL measures of health. The fact that one type was unhealable and doesn't really map to any real-life characteristic, and the idea that hitting people in different places or with different types of weapons somehow damages different pools in a way that again doesn't map to any real-life concept.

Could you make a game where you had a health bar and a TP bar, and certain attacks spent TP and other attacks drained TP? Sure, and most MMOS do some variation of this.

[sinij]

Man HAM...I look forward to the day where Raph can admit that it was horrible in both execution and conception.

Execution, unquestionably. Conception, I can't assess until we get to actually try it and tune it. I may spend the time building a test app someday to find out.

Raph, can you work as a crafting-consultant and unsuck gearing/crafting in every non-Raph mmorpg out there? Thanks!

[UnSub]

For most games only one bar counts in determining if your character is standing up-right or not and that's health.

The HAM system could possibly work in a game that didn't tried to separate out pistol and rifle damage, but instead was something like physical versus psychic damage. It has to be two different, entirely distinct systems.

I've thought that something like that could be interesting for stuns, holds etc that could knock a character out without killing them, but it would mean tracking 4+ bars rather than just 2 - 3.

[HaemishM]

HAM absolutely could work... but only if the end result of running out of any 3 of the bars isn't the same. At that point, it really is all just health bars and what's the point of 3 health bars that not only can be attacked, but that you can drain yourself? What you'd need for it to make sense is for different damage types to have different effects. Things that are psychic/mind damage would have to do things like decrease accuracy, make strange visual effects on the screen (hallucinations, loss color, temporary blindness), physical damage would have to do some kind of deterioration of physical prowess like slowed movement, shaking, etc. have burning damage and piercing damage that causes bleeds, etc. It would have to be a lot more complicated (and thus less gameable) to make any sort of sense. Having 3 bars where the end result is the same is needless over complication without any real benefit.

Thus, SWG.

[Paelos]

There are certain things about it that just doesn't work. People often forgive things becoming more complicated if they provide more realism. Getting shot takes into account the power of the shot and the placement of the wound. HAM was needlessly complicated to become more unrealistic.

[Fordel]

You can have three health bars, but why would you want too?

3E of DnD has non-lethal damage, which is sort of a second health bar, but it's for a specific purpose there (as the name implies, when you just want to knock someone unconscious instead of plain old murder). If you have three health bars, and they all result in the exact same end result... I don't get it.

[Kageru]

We varied original D&D for something similar, way back, to use two health bars. One large pool for the whole "heroic luck" and avoidance element and another for pure physical damage when you couldn't avoid it. So a backstab, surprise attack or unavoidable trap would go straight to the smaller health bar. Whereas normal attacks would have to exhaust the larger avoidance before you started bleeding. The smaller pool being harder to heal as well. It worked pretty well in a descriptive way although it is similar in end result to letting things like sneak attacks do bonus damage.

But as Margalis summarised the important thing with multiple pools is that there is some difference in context or result in how the different pools work. Three pools all of which incapacitate the character means you have one health bar (the weakest, the one being attacked) and a bunch of pools which soak up and render impotent other damage sources. Which is not only pointless but negative.

[Sheepherder]

You can have three health bars, but why would you want too?

3E of DnD has non-lethal damage, which is sort of a second health bar, but it's for a specific purpose there (as the name implies, when you just want to knock someone unconscious instead of plain old murder). If you have three health bars, and they all result in the exact same end result... I don't get it.

Healthy -> Bloodied -> Dying.  Functionally identical to three bars, you just have to track more break points.

Or to make exclusive damage types to break certain group compositions a little.  Or status effects that are more predictable than rolling over a certain number.  Or to track item durability.  Or to make avoidance a little more predictable and front-loaded in an encounter.

But attacks that only hit one stat for a significant amount and a deficit of that stat causes death shouldn't exist, because they're going to get gamed.

[Fordel]

I don't see how Healthy/Bloodied/Dying is anything but one bar.

[Sheepherder]

I don't see how Healthy/Bloodied/Dying is anything but one bar divided into three parts.

There you go.

[Fordel]

That changes nothing. It's still one bar.

[Ingmar]

You can have three health bars, but why would you want too?

3E of DnD has non-lethal damage, which is sort of a second health bar, but it's for a specific purpose there (as the name implies, when you just want to knock someone unconscious instead of plain old murder). If you have three health bars, and they all result in the exact same end result... I don't get it.

Healthy -> Bloodied -> Dying.  Functionally identical to three bars, you just have to track more break points.

Or to make exclusive damage types to break certain group compositions a little.  Or status effects that are more predictable than rolling over a certain number.  Or to track item durability.  Or to make avoidance a little more predictable and front-loaded in an encounter.

But attacks that only hit one stat for a significant amount and a deficit of that stat causes death shouldn't exist, because they're going to get gamed.

It isn't even close to functionally identical, because everything attacks the same bar.

[Sheepherder]

It isn't even close to functionally identical, because everything attacks the same bar.

Temporary hit points.

By the way, that makes four or two, by my count.  Depending on which semantic argument you prefer.  But you don't treat any of those four numbers the same as any of the others.  Temporary hit points are of course treated completely differently, but hitting bloodied or dying comes with it's own mechanics changes as well.

[eldaec]

What you are describing has nothing in common with HAM. Has much more in common with EVE shield-armour-hull. There is nothing wrong with it. But has nothing to do with HAM multibar nonsense.

[Sheepherder]

Well yeah, I was just sort of elaborating on the "there are sound reasons for a systems designer to do these sort of things," tangent.

I never did SWG, but as far as I can gather HAM was broken as fuck because it rewarded people for focus firing on a single stat.  That's just bad design.

Having multiple "health" pools isn't even a bad idea as long as your individual attacks all hit a generic health pool for moderate damage, so that you never get a completely non-stacking damage problem.  Having multiple health pools like this allows you to do fun things, like tuning tanks/healers to be far more viable DPS out of group than they are in group, or giving someone a fighting chance against a Goon rapetrain.

[Lantyssa]

Do we really need to turn the SWG is Dead (Long live the SWTOR) into another discussion on HAM?

[Hawkbit]

Did you expect it to end any other way? 

[Numtini]

Did you expect it to end any other way? 

Vader pix

[Surlyboi]

HAM:

Health, zero this out, you die.
Action, zero this out, certain actions are unavailable to you, or you are unable to move with speed, regularity, etc.
Mind, zero this out and your susceptibility to certain types of attack is higher, cc and other shit works better on you and you are again, unable to perform complex tasks.

Simple in theory. Practical application however, is another story.

And yes, SWG is dead, long live the EMU and SWTOR.

[Mrbloodworth]

[Surlyboi]

Roasted Mon Calamari head?

Is it a trap?

[UnSub]

So how did SOE celebrate the closing of SWG? Anyone here involved?

[voblat]

W

I never did SWG, but as far as I can gather HAM was broken as fuck because it rewarded people for focus firing on a single stat.  That's just bad design.

Nope.

Ham had one major problem (even in its poorly implimented state) . Different professions targeted different pools by design.

So your group of 20 trying to kill the krayt dragon in the early days, werent actually working together, the pistoleers were hitting the health pool (by design) , the riflemen and swordsmen hitting mind , and the carbineers hitting action.

But you only need to get one bar to 0 to win the fight.

Now, because mind was the bar that didnt regen (or only regen very slwoly compared to the other two) , what it really boiled down to was everyone else distracting the monster whilst your swordsmen and riflemen spammed headshot, the damage of all the other professions was irrelevant to the fight.

That is what was broken. It also meant that the same was true in PvP - two clesses targeted by design a pool that wasnt healable(outside a combat medic) and didnt regen fast.

[Sir T]

[Mrbloodworth]

Mobs had HAM?

[Jobu]

So how did SOE celebrate the closing of SWG? Anyone here involved?

I popped in and they had capital ships over the capital cities, and fireworks going off on Mos Eisley. Apparently you could fly ships in the atmosphere too and shoot at things, but I couldn't tell if that was just a feature that was added and I never knew about it. I was expecting there to be more fun going on, but it was hard to find even a handful of people in one spot. It was still fun seeing it all one last time.

[Merusk]

There was a post some months back indicating the ships in atmosphere thing was going to be patched-in ifor the last month or so of the game being opening.

[disKret]

Last 10 minutes of SWG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HUB-XjhHfgY

[Merusk]

Mobs had HAM?

Yes. Everyone had HAM.

[01101010]

Last 10 minutes of SWG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HUB-XjhHfgY

Well that was a shit way to end things... d/c?

Come on SOE - drop some orbital strikes everywhere and then put a message up about how the world has been destroyed ... by a new power in the universe - Klingon.   

[HaemishM]

And so it ends... not with a bang, but with a whimper.

[Sky]

Execution, unquestionably. Conception, I can't assess until we get to actually try it and tune it.

I love you man...but...call me Ishmael...

[Venkman]

HAM absolutely could work... but only if the end result of running out of any 3 of the bars isn't the same. At that point, it really is all just health bars and what's the point of 3 health bars that not only can be attacked, but that you can drain yourself? What you'd need for it to make sense is for different damage types to have different effects. Things that are psychic/mind damage would have to do things like decrease accuracy, make strange visual effects on the screen (hallucinations, loss color, temporary blindness), physical damage would have to do some kind of deterioration of physical prowess like slowed movement, shaking, etc. have burning damage and piercing damage that causes bleeds, etc. It would have to be a lot more complicated (and thus less gameable) to make any sort of sense. Having 3 bars where the end result is the same is needless over complication without any real benefit.

Thus, SWG.

This.

As to what it coulda been, I was always thinking O.G.R.E. HAM coulda worked if one bar was raw health, another was energy and the third was endurance. When energy depletes you can't use skills but can still run around and are alive. When endurance depletes you can't run, can barely move, probably can't use skills. When health depletes it's because you ran out of energy to fire back (or throw up shields), or ran out of endurance and can't run around for +def/+evade.

This then would compel you to target certain things certain ways.

[Ingmar]

It has always seemed to me like someone came up with a system and tried to force it into a game. The right way to go - especially in a game that is more or less trying to be, you know, a simulation - would be to try to figure out what you're trying to model and then come up with a system. HAM is just abstract game design wankery.