"Miss" icon in an RPG

[DraQ]

I would not design an RPG where a character could "miss" (although I guess I would entertain a "critical miss" rule). Instead, I would represent that as the opponent performing an "evade", "dodge", "parry", or "block".

This, at least with melee weapons.

"Missing" should be active on target's part. Note how this enables a bunch of sensible things:

• Having a melee weapon equipped may count as defence depending on skill with this weapon (and hitting in combat might be treated as opposed checks)
• Being unconscious, paralysed, entangled, etc. doesn't need special cases for auto-hit.
• Parrying/blocking could exhaust target's defences making getting attacked by multiple enemies guarantee getting hit.

 

[J1M]

I don't understand why you would remove the introductory sentence of a paragraph when you quote someone. Disrespectful.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

All right, I have decided & implemented it (will be in v1.16). Thanks you for all the suggestions and thoughts!

If anyone is interested I went for something like this:

tibia had cloud icon on miss that worked quite well.

I recall there was a game that had small cloud on spell fizzle in similar manner but cant recall

A white cloudish thing (the nice thing is it's a very distinctive from the red damage splash) with "--" symbol on it. If English is selected it still shows "Miss" instead of "--".

As for the "swoosh" sound, it was there from the start (all attack outcomes have a separate sound, which actually sounds quite fun because from the sound alone you can "understand" how the fight goes on), still that was not enough, so a traditional graphical indicator was needed as well.

Again, thanks to all who replied here

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[somewhatgiggly]

Runescape just uses a blue splat with a white '0'. Sure it might register as a 'hit' in some people's eyes but I've always seen it as a 'miss'.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Darth Roxor]

Blocks are sort of punch star made from sticks, cant find pic quickly.

I'm pretty sure it's just sparks.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Horvatii]

 

[Norfleet]

I would not design an RPG where a character could "miss"

I wouldn't say THAT. I mean, after a long night of hookers and booze, you'll certainly start missing things, too. Hopefully not your organs. But it should definitely be in there: Adventurers are notorious for their use hookers and booze, and occasionally violence breaks out during or after these events.

 

[Excommunicator]

You should only be implementing a visual indicator if it's very important for the player to know when misses occur. Nobody likes it when games cover the screen in numbers and symbols.

If you do need to show it then this is the simplest and most obvious answer:

The method I've used before doesn't need any icons, but simply displays a "-" for a miss, an "X" for an active block such as a parry or point defense, and "0" for failure to pen. That works in with your floaty number display and requires no icons.

Don't overcomplicate it

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

From a game design perspective, I would say that missing is better represented by the opponent succeeding at something than the character failing. I would not design an RPG where a character could "miss" (although I guess I would entertain a "critical miss" rule). Instead, I would represent that as the opponent performing an "evade", "dodge", "parry", or "block".

I think the character's failure could work well if it leads to interesting results.

If the player character missed the intended enemy position, but the enemy did a successful evade roll, what if he accidentally moved to a place where the player character's attack landed?
What if the enemy tried to hit the player character with an arrow, but failed his accuracy roll and accidentally hit another enemy that tried to sneak up on the player? What if it could lead to in-fighting, making a challenging fight a bit easier?

Bonus points if the game systems are designed around the possibilities of shit going wrong on many levels, as these small touches can turn even a quick encounter against a generic pack of enemies into a memorable moment purely through gameplay itself.