Can we DODGE?

Not running away from an enemy for miles?

Personally, I'd also like hunger and exhaustion from lack of rest to effect stamina.

 

When was the last time you ran from an enemy for MILES in a video game. If you can run a few hundred yards you are usually able to reach a safe point or elude them. Mobs leash, normal players give up.

I would like to see a need to eat, a need to sleep, penalties for not doing it right. But the penalties shouldn't be "you missed a meal, you are at half stats". I've gone as much as a day without bothering with more than water, and two days without sleep. All I got was hungry and tired. It takes a while for starvation and sleep deprivation to really set in.

 

I was just giving an example when I stated miles. But even after running a few hundred yards you would need rest. Realistically, the mobs would leash because they're getting tired, they see you aren't getting as tired as quickly as they are, and realize following you isn't worth it anymore.

You're exactly right about hunger and tiredness; what I would like is for it to accumulate over a long period of time, so the more you go without food and sleep, the more your stats penalties increase. But one thing it would make sense to penalize is stamina. The more weakened you are from hunger and tiredness, the less you'd be able to do physically. If you don't sleep for days or eat for weeks, you can't flee your enemies as quickly. Only later on, when you have deep penalties in stamina, might your health be penalized, too.

I just don't see a drawback to adding stamina, except maybe that its an extra meter on the screen. I do think it could be done in a balanced way.

 

This is not my experience. From ShadowBane to GuildWars 2, in PvP, if you can be seen, players will pursue you indefinitely unless you reach friendly forces or a fortification held by friendlies. Rarely will the chase require miles, with snares, hamstrings, slowing spells, and so forth.

In UO PvP, the chief way to escape was to run off a person's screen, and change direction. That usually would allow enough time to recall out while pursuers are casting about trying to find you. You cannot easily run off a person's screen in a 3D game, so I think you should count upon being run to your death if you cannot reach a safe haven, or unless reinforcements arrive.

 

How is that not running a short way to reach a safe point or elude them? Are you telling me that you ROUTINELY ran from someone for several uninterrupted minutes? Cause at a standard PC jogging pace of 12-15 mph, you'd need between 4-5 minutes per mile covered. I asked when the last time was that someone ran from an enemy for MILES. It might feel like a long way when you were running, but really go back and think about it. Would the chase have exceeded a football stadium? Two stadiums?

 

People were generally running from me, but on occasion I have been cut off behind enemy lines, and from ShadowBane through Darkfall and recently in GW2, I have taken part in chases that have gone on for a long long time, both as a pursuer, and being pursued. Chasing solo is a chore, mostly because classes I chose to play may not offer a snare, or a root, or something to permit me to close the gap. GW2 at least allowed me to equip a rifle with which I could do a leg shot. Otherwise, I would coordinate on TeamSpeak for team mates to provide cut off.

A long chase is risky, particularly if chasing someone into enemy territory, you can find you running into an ambush. Bad guys use TeamSpeak, too.

 

Ok, I won't jump down your throat for just pulling out an example, but if you are going to restate to a few hundred yards, follow the stream of ideas back up to where that comment came from. Do you think the fully trained Marine needs to stop and rest after running 500 yards? The marine that force marches 15 miles a day? I don't think 500 yards will make him stop and rest.

See, I think there IS a realistic point at which draining and refilling a stamina bar on my hardened adventurer will work. Except that that point is going to be so retardedly huge, that if I rest up and let my bar refill before starting an exercise, be that a fight, a sprint, swimming upstream in a river, or attempting a complex jump puzzle over a deadly waterfall (yes yes, I know SotA won't have those, I'm not advocating them, sit down), I will run out of task far before I run out of stamina. The bar will cease to matter.

In my mind it works kind of like the raid tank's HP bar. If it's too small, the monster will one shot you. If it's big ENOUGH to survive a few hits, then all that matters is that the healers keep hitting you. The real limiter on how many hits the raid tank can absorb is the healer groups collective mana/reagent supply. If we take the example a step further, the regen/consumption rates on the stamina bar will relate to the tank's mitigation and the healer groups mana regen. It can be possible to get these factors twisted so far in the player's favor that the healers will never even run low. They can cast as fast as the tank needs, and never ever deplete their resources. To take it back to the stamina bar, It doesn't matter that I have a stamina bar. The ammount in it is enough for the task I am attempting, I have trained and built the character not to use up too much too fast, and I regen stamina almost as fast as I use it. And that is scenario B) from my above post. Scenario B) is the destiny of anyone with a stamina bar who practices and trains and works to improve his stamina related stats. The devs CAN limit our ability to get that good, but at that point, they risk creating a highly unpopular and unrealistic mechanic that has players constantly running out of stamina. So, because they aren't jerks, and want us to play, they will avoid being so restrictive that the stamina bar becomes a serious limiter on play.

Every time I've seen the stamina bar show up, that's what has happened to it. You run out of stamina, you sad . You work to fix that problem, you develop. You have lots more stamina, you don't run out as much you happy . At which point, if you don't run out, who cares? It removes itself from play due to basic player psychology.

 

@MalakBrightpalm,

No, I still disagree, primarily because its a useful stat to give penalties too. Not just from sleep and hunger, but from drains by certain types of opponents. Also consider circumstances like heat and frost. I also think its a good mechanic to build behavior in things like chases around. During normal gameplay, stamina shouldn't deplete so much to be a hindrance, but exceptional circumstances should affect that and accumulate to penalties.

I really don't know that a trained marine is the a good example to compare all possible characters to, either. Certain characters could have better stamina than others.. and of course, it would depend on how fast you want to run. Certain Ultima games have had different speeds to running, and so does The Elder Scrolls. In TES, you run and won't lose stamina, but if you sprint, your stamina drains pretty quickly.

I'm going to post something soon on how I imagine would hunger/sleep affects this. Its a subject I was giving suggestions on back months ago, but I've been rethinking how it should be done and also now the forum allows visual aids in our posts

 

I liked the idea behind the food/sleep/fatigue/cold/whatever system, and still do, my response in that thread notwithstanding.

Personally, I think the Marine is the PERFECT example. Yes there will be people without good stamina. They will be noobs and noncombat characters. The noncoms will avoid fighting for a variety of reasons, stamina will probably not top the list. The noobs will skill up, and eventually become seasoned combat characters, "Marines", if you will. And I think that Marines are such a good example because MY combat character will be relentlessly forced to run as much as he can every single day of his life, will fight and train to fight so often it will become like driving a car is for many of us players, and he will be told to LIKE IT. That kind of intense lifestyle will do one of two things, either kill you or make you impressively tough. As avatars, we come back from death. So even having a stroke won't save him. That butterball new made character is going to get loaded down in heavy armor, given a shield and sword, and a heavy backpack, and a torch, and some rations, and then told to fight his way through an entire forest, stopping to chop down trees and mine ore. AND THEN CARRY IT ALL BACK TO TOWN. And don't forget anything valuable that comes off those enemies. That's right fill your backpack up to max weight, and THEN run back to town to vendor it as fast as you can. Done vendoring? Then replenish your supplies, repair your gear, and GET BACK OUT THERE.

Yeah, I think a Marine could relate pretty well to that experience. It's like having your drill instructor following you around for the rest of your life...<shudder>