Value of Aim/Unaimed

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Teri
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Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2021 11:45 am

Value of Aim/Unaimed

Post by Teri »

Chucking this here after recent vc.
Q: Is cheapshot and counter punch supposed to be unaimed?
A: Counter punch, yes because it has stagger effects. For cheapshot, might need a second look/feedback. Also inspired talk about discussing aimed/unaimed. Another thing to consider. He feels if unaimed attacks are not important or feel like any action that isn't aimed is a waste of an action that is a problem. an extra attack. Some pondering on aim/unaimed or adding more effects if you don't hit the chest and debilitations. Add more emphasis on different hit locations

My thoughts are there are occasions where unaimed attacks make sense, but they do feel underwhelming or slow if that is all I do with certain weapons that don't impact damage/energy in high amounts. As a non warrior, unaimed attacks for death by paper cuts, attacking in the hopes of getting the foes to a bleeding state and letting them trickle down in energy was a method I used before. Apart from broken legs giving negative rerolls, arms/hands don't currently do anything negative beyond energy bleed. Warriors are obviously hitting harder. Reworks are something that need a lot of balancing as it would hurt npcs along with player characters of course.
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Gorth
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Re: Value of Aim/Unaimed

Post by Gorth »

I have used unaimed shots to decent affect, but never at high level. At high level, you're either aiming at legs, or feet, or vitals. When you have 400 or 500 melee, there's no reason to energy kill. It could be neat if that were to change, but I don't see how.
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jerc
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Re: Value of Aim/Unaimed

Post by jerc »

In my experience, aiming seems to be a very binary thing. Before a certain skill level, it does more harm than good to spend 1s of RT on too-low of a chance to actually hit your target, and then above a certain skill level, there's little sense in *not* aiming because the chances are good enough to kill significantly faster.

In some ways, I think this actually makes combat a bit less engaging past the "aiming threshold," since your 6s rounds no longer line up so nicely with the mob's 5s rounds. For me at least, that translates to almost entirely forgoing attack timing in favor of just getting my skills out ASAP for a fast kill.

Even if more effects were added to non-chest/vital hit locations, I would still AIM CHEST unless I had a specific reason to want to hit said other locations, in which case I would switch my aim to those for one attack. It's not the lack of other effects for hitting random locations - it's the randomness itself that makes unaimed actions feel like a waste. So rather than tuning hit locations, it's specifically the unaimed/aimed quality of attacks that needs to be tuned. Maybe some sort of "wild strikes" bonus to unaimed attacks?

And while we're on the topic, Combat Precision is another one that feels a little "wasted." If you're planning on skilling past the "aim threshold," you're going to take it, full stop. There's no reason not to since there's not enough ability pressure for most classes to make it feel like a choice between it and some other ability. I would almost say that its base effect should simply be the default for aim chances, and then make it a class ability for the ones who get the extra bonus from it.
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Ralnos
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Re: Value of Aim/Unaimed

Post by Ralnos »

Personal experiences speaking: once you CAN land aimed shots regularly, you can reliably kill things your skill level in one to three hits most of the time with a heavy weapon. There is no point in not aiming shots at unarmored locations in this case, more specifically unarmored vital locations.

If arms/hand injuries don't give penalties to attack rating, they really should. Same with legs and dodge rating. If your shield arm is effectively destroyed (hand and arm well in the severely wounded level, lower threshold if also including bone breakage and similar?), shield defense should be basically impossible.

From a gaming design stand point, there's not much wrong with adding various debuffs to sufficient injuries as long as they cap out at a certain point. I.E. 300 damage on a hand will not make shield defense impossible, but 100 damage each on both a hand and the same arm with fractures? Yeah, say goodbye to your shield block rate. There should obviously be an upper limit on how bad the nerfs can get for sanity's sake, but the likes of 75 or even 90% rating loss would not be out of the range of acceptability if you REALLY get it bad.

This would also help curb the idea that targeted aiming for lethality is always the best idea. Go for something to reduce their chances of being able to fight back rather than immediately going for the kill and potentially being slain in the process, especially on mobs that have heavy head, neck and torso armor, but lighter or none in other areas.
Navi
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Re: Value of Aim/Unaimed

Post by Navi »

If I'm not aiming my attacks in any particular way, my opponent will likely not be able to defend against them as well. Perhaps grant a single negative reroll to the attacker? This would also lighten the learning curve a bit at lower levels, since it's better to not aim when starting combat out. It seems that many people pursue ending fights with killing, rather than maiming, so it's not like this would really cause any sort of unbalance at higher tiers. I can see it coming into play further down the road when groups like the Wyr Vardn are released, and their goals would be to drive off bandits, rather than just slaughter them with abandon. That is to say, if that is one of their goals. There's not much on what they'll be doing mechanic wise. Anyway. there is more than a single way to end a fight. What threat does someone pose if they're unable to swing their sword, right? That being said, I think before completely removing the ability to fight, that heavy hits cause some debilitating affects. Some examples below:
After getting hit with 30 or more damage, after armor reductions
arms, for 8 seconds afterwards, energy drain from all actions are increased by half. It suddenly becomes more difficult to control your movements and to hold on to things after such a trauma.
legs, For 5 seconds after being hit, reduced acrobatics rolls for checks like sweeping, flipping, and tumbling. As well as the defenses to avoiding these attacks.
Feet, For 10 seconds, reduced balance gain from all sources.
Hope this is helpful.
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