In movies based off games, the character dodges or blocks enemy attacks, becoming fatigued as the fight continues and only taking physical damage when receiving a fatal or potentially fatal blow.

July, 10, 2006
www.onrpg.com/boards/
Game Development
a-d
Topic: Gaming Concept: Guard points preceding health points.

Gaming Aspect:
Inspired by the 2005 movie, “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children."

I’m attempting to present the idea that instead using only health or “hit” points which is what I’ve been told is what hp really means, you have guard points which are separate from their health points.

In most games, turn based or otherwise, you and your opponent attack each other, and you either hit or miss.
If you miss you do no damage and if you hit then their health points go down.

But in movies based off games, that same character dodges or blocks enemy attacks, becoming fatigued as the fight continues and only taking physical damage when receiving a fatal or potentially fatal blow.

I believe a second type of hp that I presently call “guard points” would bridge that gap between the two mediums. (What do you know, that is the real word for it.)
But not only that, I like the idea of blocking an attack instead of taking it.

Guard points would be separate, higher, and increase faster than your health points.

They would be increased and lowered by your weapons, armor, shield, stats, and skills.
Generally on a percentage basis.

They would regenerate over time.
And so long as you don’t have Wolverines’ regenerative powers they would regenerate faster than your health points. (Unless Wolverines‘ regenerative powers also affected his endurance.)

Attached to the guard points would be an attribute called “Evasion.”
Evasion is used to dodge enemy attacks and is nearly identical to the standard use of armor to protect health points by decreasing the damage enemies deal you. (Ex. If your evasion is 10 and you are attacked for 15 you dodge 10 points of damage and block 5 with your guard.)
If your evasion is higher than the attack being launched at you neither your guard points or you take any damage, except in special cases like “Backstab.”

Certain attacks like “Back stab” would be able to ignore a persons guard points and attack their health points directly unless they were detected.
In which case the attack would have to overcome either a portion of the persons guard or all of it to reach their health points.

Energy shields like those on the Starship “Enterprise” or used by the “Protoss” in “Blizzard’s” R.T.S. game, “StarCraft” would only be protected from damage by your evasion attribute.
Unless you were using one that left your sword and shield unprotected by it.
(In a case like this you would probably have two sets of guard points.
One set protecting your energy shield points and another protecting your health points.
Now that I think about it I doubt it would be that hard since all it would have to do is add up the guard points gained by whatever isn‘t protected by the energy shield and separate them so they were “Outside“ the energy shield.
When you ran out of their guard points your energy shield points would take damage and when that was gone you would only have the guard points given to you by the equipment and skills that were blocked from use due to the energy shield (armor.) or better to not use because using them would cause you to take energy shield damage. (Body slam.))
Or had an energy shield that protected your health points only (Physical body.) so that all factors affecting your guard could come into play.

A problem I have noticed is that if “Guard Points” is used and shortened to “GP” there would be confusion between them and “Gold Pieces.”

What do you think?

What flaws or areas of improvement would I need to address?

I welcome any feedback your feel comfortable giving.

Topic: Gaming Concept: Guard points preceding health points.
1:52 A.M.
a-d Gaming Concept: Guard points preceding health points.
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I must say the only thing I can really think people wouldn'tlike it for would be it slows down the game a bit.

This seems to work a lot like the SDC points in the table-top RPG's by Palladium. Except you're calling it "dodging" when indeed you are depleting points when attacked, which will make the people think they're losing something valuable... like life. What abut just putting in actual Evasion. And instead of depleting points, you set up a little equation that'll determine whether you evade or not.

-Bryan-

This idea has already been implemented into Lineage 2 in the form of something called CP, what happens is when normal mobs are attacking you it take 's away your normal HP but when you are attacked by another player it will take away your CP before moving onto your HP which sort of gives you a chance to react instead of being killed in hits before you can do anything. Sort of the same thing, and it works very well.

well, some games kinda already have this :/. Like Super Smash Bro's xD, except that really isn't RPG. But, there are other games I've played that do the same, though, just not RPG games.
If you DO put this in RPG games, it'll get... kinda... boring... It'll be hard for an enemy to attack you and you will never die :/ (lol). And also, it'll get kinda stupid because you're swinging your sword and the enemy hits you *hits shield, attack has been taken off of guard points!* wtf? I thought you were swinging a sword...
BUT, if you do this on a game like Rakion, it'll make more sense :/.

July, 20, 2006
www.onrpg.com/boards/
Game Development
a-d
Topic: Gaming Concept: Guard points preceding health points.

First off, Guard Points Would be replacing Hit Points for the most part
Second, after thinking about it for a while I realized that Evasion, or Dodge could be used better as part of the guard points rather than armor.

Which would also change it to GDP’s, GEP’s, DGP’s, Or EGP’s.
No more confusion with GP’s, Gold Pieces.

(Lothia)“I must say the only thing I can really think people wouldn'tlike it for would be it slows down the game a bit.”
Not if Guard/Dodge Points are replacing Hit Points for the most part.
Guard/Evasion Points would be protecting your characters Hit Points, but once your Dodge/Guard Points were overwhelmed your Hit Points would take the damage.
Its just that your Hit points wouldn’t grow as quickly as they do in most R.P.G.’s while your Evasion/Guard Points would increase at a far greater rate than your Hit Points.

(MisterPoppet)“This seems to work a lot like the SDC points in the table-top RPG’s by Palladium.”
Why they didn’t or don’t have Guard/Dodge Points in their game I can’t say.
Maybe they didn’t think of it.
Maybe they realized that there were so many ways a persons Guard/Evasion Points could be raised (Strength, Intelligence, Agility, Armor, Weapon Skills, Martial Arts Skills, Teamwork Defensive Techniques, Evasion Skills, and Defensive Techniques.) that they decided to skip the idea altogether to make the game play less complicated for their customers.

(MisterPoppet)“Except you're calling it "dodging" when indeed you are depleting points when attacked, which will make the people think they're losing something valuable... like life.”
They are losing something valuable.
In a battle between two gun or swordsmen both of them either dodge, block, or wear armor to protect them from taking any damage at all.
The reason is because these weapons do so much damage when they actually do hit that being hit even once is something to be avoided at almost any cost.

A sword that slices into an arm causes pain, bleeding, and can even take off the arm.
A bullet that strikes an arm does much the same thing, though it probably wouldn’t be able to remove any body parts unless it came from an abnormally powerful gun.

But in games the characters only have Hit Points which are taken away whenever they are slashed a sword, hit by an arrow, mauled by a wolf, or hit by a bullet.

I used to explain this away by thinking of it as the characters toughness being increased as they leveled, but thinking about this idea of Guard/Dodge Points has made me reclassify “ Being Tough” as being able to be damaged or in pain and still keep fighting without letting those problems stop or slow you down.

So that being shot in the chest and curling up on the floor in pain as you take five minutes to become unconscious isn’t as tough as being shot in the chest and continuing to fight for three of the five minutes of consciousness you have left is.

And then there’s mental toughness.

(MisterPoppet)”What abut just putting in actual Evasion. And instead of depleting points, you set up a little equation that'll determine whether you evade or not.”
Because in that case you and your opponent still have a chance to hit each other, and being hit would normally have very bad consequences.
Besides, most of the games I’ve played that handled it like that don’t bother much with your attack skills being used to Parry, or block enemy attacks.

(TLM)“This idea has already been implemented into Lineage 2 in the form of something called CP, what happens is when normal mobs are attacking you it take 's away your normal HP but when you are attacked by another player it will take away your CP before moving onto your HP which sort of gives you a chance to react instead of being killed in hits before you can do anything. Sort of the same thing, and it works very well.”
It’s not the same.
Since Guard/Evasion Points would be replacing Hit Points, CP would be separate from both.
Example: When attacked by another player they go through CP, Dodge/Guard Points, and then Health Points.
If in a First Person Shooter then Guard/Evasion Points would be dropped for Health Points augmented by armor.

While games like “XBOX‘s” First Person R.P.G.’s “MorrowWind” would still have Guard/Dodge Points and an automatic guard movements with your weapons and shield to protect your Health Points.

What does CP stand for?
I looked at a website that called it Combat Will Points, but didn’t explain it any further.

Though I can see the benefits of an extra buffer against human attacks it doesn’t seem much more than a few extra Hit points that can only be damaged by human players.

If used to protect you against another human player attacking you in the open game world where you don’t expect every player to potentially backstab you then it seems worthwhile.

But if it can only be used in PvP regions then it doesn’t seem like much to me.

Except for the regeneration, which I think would useful for Evasion/Guard Points.
Probably affected by Constitution, Endurance, and Strength.

Though it would mean that either Guard/Dodge Points would grow slower than Hit Points normally do in games, or attacks would be higher than normal to even out Guard/Evasions Points regeneration advantage.


(XceeD)”well, some games kinda already have this :/. Like Super Smash Bro's xD, except that really isn't RPG.”
It is similar, but while the percentage for greater knock back is like Dodge/Guard Points, there are no health points behind it.

(XceeD)”If you DO put this in RPG games, it'll get... kinda... boring... It'll be hard for an enemy to attack you and you will never die :/ (lol).”
Since Hit Points would essentially be replaced by Evasion/Guard Points and Health Points you would die at the same time you would normally.
As will your enemies.

(XceeD)“And also, it'll get kinda stupid because you're swinging your sword and the enemy hits you *hits shield, attack has been taken off of guard points!* wtf? I thought you were swinging a sword…”
It shouldn’t look stupid at all.

Here’s are a few examples:
When you go to watch a “Jackie Chan” movie you probably aren’t impressed by the fight scenes just when he launches an attack, your more likely to be impressed and amused by the ways he dodges, blocks, and uses his guard and evasion moves to launch a counter attack.

If you’ve ever played the “XBOX” game “Ninja Gaiden” then you might have been impressed by the attacks he and his opponents used.
But when you or your opponents attacks landed you both would stand there and take or spray blood.
Unless Guard was activated blocking attacks doesn’t happen and impressive ninja guard moves were not added at all.

If you were hit without an animation for when you block the attack then it might as well be Hit or Health Points.


To clear up a few things.
The use of evasion as armor was originally thought up for “Blizzard’s” R.T.S. game “StarCraft,” when I was considering paying for someone to make an altered version of the game.
It was for their units since new animations would make the altered version’s creation take longer and increase the work the computer would have to do to animate them.
I just thought that adding an extra armor of “evasion” would excuse the fact that the units would just stand in place as they were shot at.

The reason I changed my mind about keeping Guard and Dodge separated was an image from “Blizzard’s” R.P.G. game “Diablo 2” where your fighting large troll creatures with huge clubs.
If you were to attempt to guard against a 6 foot long, 1and a half foot wide club coming towards your head you would probably be completely crushed.
Which meant any sane person would step to the side, making dodge and guard partners and ending the potential confusion between Guard Points and Gold Pieces.

When I though about how high guard points would probably go and the limits most games have with their numbers (99, 999, 9999) the “Super Nintendo’s” action game, “Super Metroid” gave the answer on how to go higher with their multiple blocks used to get around the systems 99 HP limit.
Just do the same with Guard/Dodge Points, 9999 points per block.
There would still be a limit, but it would be much higher and harder to reach.
And the same method could be used on mana, HP, shields, or any of the skills.

The whole idea of Guard/Evasion Points came from years of thinking of HP as Health Points which meant that when you leveled up your characters they were gaining more Health Points and could take more damage.
Later it was explained to me that HP really stood for Hit Points, which meant that when you leveled up you could take more hits before dying.
Doesn’t sound that different, but just that it wasn’t health points seemed to separate it from your characters health.
And the idea that when your characters Hit Points were what was decreasing your health was as well was reinforced by games where any damage you gave or were given was animated with a splash of red from the attack that sometimes would pool on the floor before fading away.
What finally formed it was the 2005 movie, “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children” where “Cloud was blocking and dodging attacks instead of taking them in his first fight, and at the end took a bullet in the back, dropping to the ground because of it.

Perhaps the movie makers already consider HP to be a combination of blocking and evading attacks leading to zero when the enemies attacks finally get through to slice up the main character, but that would ignore their own growing Health Points and Toughness which would allow them to keep fighting after being hit.

When my definition of toughness changed I realized it could be used to add another skill for game characters by making them able to act without any negative effects at a greater percentage of health damage.
Higher toughness level makes them able to move and attack without hunching over in pain or limping.

Topic: Gaming Concept: Guard points preceding health points.
9:06 P.M.
a-d Gaming Concept: Guard points preceding health points.
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So do u mean like Stamina points? when u attack u're sta goes down a bit cause u start getting tired, an example of this would be The Elder Scrolls 4:Oblivion. It isn't an MMO but it is an RPG. Your idea is relatively new I guess but it's been implemented in a few games already but not in many. Some games implemented this idea well while othersjust didn't make it. Well gl with whatever u're doing anyways.

WOW thats a long post, nice job.