A good point, although this was not the case during the rise of firearms. The lack of face to face and emotional aspects really only recently came into play (recently being a relative term when discussing historical time frames :P). Still, very much a valid point for today's combat :D
|
sapphiremagus wrote:
Shock is part mental, part physical but primarily is the result of the brain/nervous system. If you've ever played Mechwarrior on the PC, think of your brain/neverous system as the mech you pilot, and trauma as the heat guage. When that guage gets too high, the mech shuts down for a while. Same happens with the brain. Too many complaints from the nerves in your tissue about the damage done causes the brain to shut down a bit. Well said. Our brains are wondrous things, and a huge part of a bodies response to shock is due to experience and the lack of it. Both physical conditioning and experience with pain can partially eleviate the effects of shock on a body, though usually only in the milder forms. Muscle tissue can shield you partly from shock and damage to internal organs, as can bone(which is the purpose of the rib cage and the skull). In the case of things like blood loss or blunt force trauma, previous exposure to simular injuries can prevent a person from panicking, keeping blood pressure from plummeting. This isnt so likely with internal bleeding of course. We humans tend to be highly visual/tactile. Environment as well can affect shock. Its far less stressful to be bleeding in a hospital rather than a car in a ditch at night. |
ThreeFingerPete wrote:
We humans tend to be highly visual/tactile. A little off-topic... but that's one of the things that irritates me most about most games; most characters have absolutely no tactile reaction whatsoever. When a character is standing in the middle of a thunderstorm, how many games make the character look wet? Barely any. How many games make the character look miserable because s/he's wet? None to my knowledge. As a different example, when someone gets hit in a game, there's a dull thud, and the person gets knocked back or momentarily prevented from acting, but they straighten right back up and go right back into the thick of things. Maybe their character looks a little bloodied, or maybe not, but regardless, there's almost always only a visual effect (or even no effect at all) associated with the damage; the character remains in pristine fighting condition until the hit point variable dips below zero from one last punch, whereupon the character collapses and doesn't get back up. In reality, every single blow suffered renders a person weaker and less aware of his/her surroundings. Oftentimes, the first person to land a good blow is eventually the victor, even if that blow doesn't even seriously wound the opponent. |
Spuzzum wrote:
A little off-topic... but that's one of the things that irritates me most about most games; most characters have absolutely no tactile reaction whatsoever. When a character is standing in the middle of a thunderstorm, how many games make the character look wet? Barely any. How many games make the character look miserable because s/he's wet? None to my knowledge. Although this doesn't fully justify it, this could cause trouble in non-interact cutscenes, where the character is automatically injured- this could be very unfair if it comes out of the blue, when you are on very little health! However, look to Zelda for expression. Windwaker was designed so Link's eyes, expression would change. The more hurt he is, the more is eyes droop, and he looks worse for wear. He'll look...that look you get when putting physical effort in (grimacing?) while swimming, and then look panicky and exhausted when he is beginning to drown for swimming too long. |
Kholintian Destroying Army wrote:
Although this doesn't fully justify it, this could cause trouble in non-interact cutscenes, where the character is automatically injured- this could be very unfair if it comes out of the blue, when you are on very little health! Cutscenes where you're automatically injured and possibly killed? Urgh. Fire the designer who thought of that one. =P This has nothing to do with appearance though... |
Crispy wrote:
Kholintian Destroying Army wrote: I've seen it in Resident Evil Zero, of all things. (although bad design and gameplay isn't exactly unexpected in a Resievil game) |
But that would lead to all sorts of balance issues, especially here, where connections speeds often determin the winner.
If DSLPlayer and 56KPlayer met in combat, DSLPlayer would likely get the inititive, and most of the attacks. Poor 56KPLayer would scramble to keep up, but would inevitably loose due to their slow reaction times. If you factor in loss of control as damage was increased, 56KPlayer would never stand a chance. It would boil down to a fragfest of high-speed connections slaughtering everything that didn't move fast enough. ~X |
A gun does not require you to be face to face with your opponent in order to kill him or her. Modern warfare requires less and less killer instinct -- you don't have to knock down your opponent and hack into him and have his dying breaths haunt you; you can kill at a distance and not think twice about the person you've shot and killed.
This is much easier for a soldier to handle than a knife fight or a swordfight. Humans have internal instincts which cause them to fight for their territory (in order to possess enough area to acquire food and live), but also feel remorse when they kill another human being (this is also instinctive; murder eliminates genes from the pool, resulting in stagnation). But when killing is necessary -- some would debate that killing is never necessary, but I won't get into that -- a gun doesn't cause undue emotional stress to the soldier employing it, as a pike or sword would.
Today's soldiers are nowhere near the physical and emotional specimens of past soldiers, who could not only easily kill in close combat, but also feel little or no remorse in doing so. But today's soldiers are a million-fold more intelligent than past soldiers.