Non-lethal options for on-foot combat

[Morbad]

Fantasy/ magic games are always interesting because there's resurrection spells, therefore the argument can always be made that death has far less consequence.

Need a marginally intact body and spirit/soul/life force to resurrect someone in AD&D (and plenty of other fantasy systems/settings)...and these CRPGs also allowed things like death spell (which blasts one's life force out of existence), disintegrate (turns one's body to dust and scatters it), or shattering of frozen or petrified people. These rules even applied to player characters on the core rules or harder settings...a character takes an extreme form of damage and they don't just die, they are forcibly removed from the party, forever.

Irenicus gives a good demonstration of some of these effects when he escapes Spellhold in the second game:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Ki7yp2XL0


First two guys are hit with death effects (plus plenty of overkill, including disintegration) and the last...well, maybe if the janitors find enough of him and someone's got a lot of tape.

Depending on one's views regarding an afterlife it could be argued that, in fantasy settings like these, the consequences of some forms of death can be more severe. A real-world follower of any of the Abrahamic religions, for example, is likely to view the soul as eternal and some form of afterlife a guarantee (even if it's not guaranteed to be pleasant). In AD&D there are many ways to not only render one's foes permanently dead (barring something like direct divine intervention), but to deny them any kind of afterlife as well.

But i think it's the 3rd person view and low detail aspects that probably make them "ok"

I never played deus ex... it looks very "goldeneye" in its level of detail. It's also a 2000 release, which although there were plenty of video game controversies before then, was before GTA 3 which drew a lot more attention into this sort of thing.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXlushAHd9A

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlu5C0PT4kQ


I'm sure censors have become more picky over the years and that graphical fidelity also plays a role...which has been something I've always found rather odd as it's clearly not gore that separates killing an active combatant and an unconscious individual, or an adult and a child, or an innocent bystander and an enemy.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Stuff like this is always going to be case by case and the ratings people are always going to need wiggle room, so you're never going to get hard and fast rules. Intentionally incapacitating someone and then executing them while standing a metre away does feel like it would be difficult to justify not to have a higher rating for though.

I mean it's no Soldier of Fortune where you could merrily run about melting people with white phosphorus, but there's got to be some kind of line on player behaviour that would be classed as war crimes in the right context in real life somewhere.

 

[SteveWW57]

I mean it's no Soldier of Fortune where you could merrily run about melting people with white phosphorus, but there's got to be some kind of line on player behaviour that would be classed as war crimes in the right context in real life somewhere.

Yet, exploding ships, player or NPC ships is fine. One has to assume that NPCs get rescued from an escape pod. CMDRs get picked up by the rescue rangers, so why not npcs as well?

You could read "killed" as totally incapacitated and there will be a rescue later. Once they are down as it were, your suit/weapon will register the incapacitated as no threat and not allow targeting.

And I was not serious about the pixel thing.

As an aside, I play games in the Total War series. In those games, it it good policy that when an enemy routs (and are out of the battle) to pursue and finish them off, otherwise you may have to face them again later. Complete elimination of the unit is the goal.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Yet, exploding ships, player or NPC ships is fine. One has to assume that NPCs get rescued from an escape pod. CMDRs get picked up by the rescue rangers, so why not npcs as well?

You could read "killed" as totally incapacitated and there will be a rescue later. Once they are down as it were, your suit/weapon will register the incapacitated as no threat and not allow targeting.

And I was not serious about the pixel thing.

As an aside, I play games in the Total War series. In those games, it it good policy that when an enemy routs (and are out of the battle) to pursue and finish them off, otherwise you may have to face them again later. Complete elimination of the unit is the goal.

The difference with ships is death is implied, even in the case where you scoop up the escape pod and feed it to thargoids, or just ram it to the point of exploding. There's a big difference between that and the act of shooting an NPC in the face with a rocket launcher (although the result of which is arguably cartoon levels violence, or how someone 'died' when we'd play war in the playground at 6 years old, but that's for someone else to argue).

I suppose the main problem I'd see with the everyone is incapacitated idea is that assassination missions or settlement massacres just become smacked bottoms for the NPC(s). The implication with the language used really is that you're going to kill people.

 

[Jmanis]

Yet, exploding ships, player or NPC ships is fine. One has to assume that NPCs get rescued from an escape pod. CMDRs get picked up by the rescue rangers, so why not npcs as well?

Yes, it is fine, because its about impact and context, not the actual action itself.

That is, destroying a fantasy ship with fantasy missiles to cause a fantasy explosion, heck, destroying the escape pods which are nothing more than a black box in- game, is seen very differently by classification boards to shooting, in first person, a mostly- realistic person, I'm such a way that depicts an execution of a helpless individual... even if some lore text later said "despite putting a HE rocket to the forehead of the unconscious individual, rescue rangers managed to put old mate back together"

Classification boards don't care about the lore. They care about the depicted experience. Otherwise, you could do so much dodgy stuff under the guise of "oh, but it was just a dream, so none of it actually happened".

Blowing up what is visually depicted simply as tonnes of steel, even if some text said it contained billions of people, is low impact.

Comparatively, "no Russian" is very high impact, even if the act is less destructive.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Surely, the best kind of technicality...

It is the kind of technicality that counts for a rating.

 

[Jmanis]

I'm sure censors have become more picky over the years and that graphical fidelity also plays a role...which has been something I've always found rather odd as it's clearly not gore that separates killing an active combatant and an unconscious individual, or an adult and a child, or an innocent bystander and an enemy.

I'd also flag that back then, the content assessed as part of a classification seems (from all info I can find anyway) was submitted entirely by the one seeking the rating. That is, provided it seemed like you submitted a mostly-complete representation of the game to the ratings board (emphasis on representation; this could've been a handicam video of someone playing the game end-to-end for all intents), that was all that got assessed. Assessors did not go through the game themselves

So I'm doubtful Eidos Interactive would've even thought to go "Yeah so here's our game, oh btw, there's this one kid you can gib with the rocket launcher, lel". It just never would've come up, and nobody would've known you could. Likewise, I doubt assessors back then would even understand what half the things in BG2 were about, let alone do an accurate assessment.

It's simply not an exact science. The key factors of "No Russian" certainly has nothing to do with the gore, and (IMO) very little to do with the fact it's civilians being killed, rather, it was all to do with cultural norms and the global security climate at the time. Even if I'm completely wrong here (and it was about the gore(?) and killing civilians)... it just shows the inconsistency more.

Remember, Rimworld got temporarily banned in Australia purely for it's interactive drug use, and not for, well, where to start right? It's only the unrealistic, minimal depictions that get that game off the hook

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Pretty sure ratings and censors have become more lenient. Back in the day, games like the Original Doom or Quake weren't allowed to be sold here. Now look what kind of depicted brutality is fine for a 16 rating.

 

[aRJay]

Pretty sure ratings and censors have become more lenient. Back in the day, games like the Original Doom or Quake weren't allowed to be sold here. Now look what kind of depicted brutality is fine for a 16 rating.

A reminder of where “here” is for any particular poster might be useful in this discussion.

 

[Jmanis]

Pretty sure ratings and censors have become more lenient. Back in the day, games like the Original Doom or Quake weren't allowed to be sold here. Now look what kind of depicted brutality is fine for a 16 rating.

Yeah... there's a lot more awareness than these days (thank god), though pockets of lunacy still exist.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

A reminder of where “here” is for any particular poster might be useful in this discussion.

Germany. Pretty famous for their index in the 90s. Original Doom was cleared in 2011.

Edit: we also had green blood in a lot of games and robots instead of troopers in HL.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

I agree there needs to be a way to KO NPCs. The age rating thing makes no sense. There's plenty of other games where you can knockout a NPC at this age rating. If the issue is violence against an KO NPC, then just make it so they stay KO'd cannot be killed once KOd.

It's a simple fix that is also present in other games.

Fdev just minimum viable product their stuff so rather than add a secondary parameter to the state NPCs can be when they're "no longer active" they just eliminate the other possibility.

 

[SteveWW57]

Germany. Pretty famous for their index in the 90s. Original Doom was cleared in 2011.

There is still the issue of historic flags not being used because of sensitivities, and earlier/later ones used, or even ship/aircraft markings. When it happens, it feels, strange.

 

[Jmanis]

I agree there needs to be a way to KO NPCs. The age rating thing makes no sense. There's plenty of other games where you can knockout a NPC at this age rating. If the issue is violence against an KO NPC, then just make it so they stay KO'd cannot be killed once KOd.

It's a simple fix that is also present in other games.

Fdev just minimum viable product their stuff so rather than add a secondary parameter to the state NPCs can be when they're "no longer active" they just eliminate the other possibility.

Let's get to the real meat and potatoes.

It's not non-lethal options people want.

It's that they don't want a murder bounty.[1]

And if we want a discussion about how a stealth, undetected kill shouldn't accrue a murder bounty, then I'm all ears. This would actually help alleviate the issues anarchy factions face being that it's repercussion-free killing 24/7 for farming materials. And while we're at it, let's actually get a penalty for killing criminals. Not one that gets enforced by law... but hey... what if IF were shut down while you had an extant "criminal bounty" with a criminal faction.

But a non-lethal option, one that prevents murder after the fact, is fraught. You can already anticipate the "I tased my assassination target, and now it's mission failed because I can't put a bullet in their head" rumblings already. Considering people can already clear entire bases with just the zapper... nonlethal weapons would just become "better normal weapons" because you can incapacitate without a bounty.

[1] Personally, I'll never understand the "Oh, crime shouldn't be rewarding, but if I'm tasked to do something by a faction that normally illegal, I shouldn't get penalised" logic that gets thrown around here sometimes... but on this I'll play ball.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I agree there needs to be a way to KO NPCs. The age rating thing makes no sense. There's plenty of other games where you can knockout a NPC at this age rating. If the issue is violence against an KO NPC, then just make it so they stay KO'd cannot be killed once KOd.

It's a simple fix that is also present in other games.

Fdev just minimum viable product their stuff so rather than add a secondary parameter to the state NPCs can be when they're "no longer active" they just eliminate the other possibility.

The games I played that allow knocking out NPCs and let you kill them afterwards (intentionally or accidentally - the Deus Ex games are notorious for that) are all PEGI 18 if I remember correctly.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

The games I played that allow knocking out NPCs and let you kill them afterwards (intentionally or accidentally - the Deus Ex games are notorious for that) are all PEGI 18 if I remember correctly.

Indeed which is why my comment said just make NPCs who are KO unkillable.

 

[Jmanis]

Germany. Pretty famous for their index in the 90s. Original Doom was cleared in 2011.

Edit: we also had green blood in a lot of games and robots instead of troopers in HL.

OT...

Spoiler

I remember getting a laugh from a poor German who posted about what they thought was an exploit in C&C ZH when they found you could put the GLA remote controlled bomb on a bike, which seemed like an exploit when it was this:

... sitting on a bike... only to realise in the rest of the world, this was a suicide bomber, and behind the scenes this functioned the same and was just a reskin.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Indeed which is why my comment said just make NPCs who are KO unkillable.

I try to remember of any of the games with stealth mechanics actually do that... but I can't. But knowing gamers, I am sure if there are unkillable unconcious NPCs, there'll be lots of salt along the lines "why can't I kill them!!!!!" .

I think killing isn't the only issue, but also being able to "abuse" them in other ways; not so much in Elite, but think about games where you can pick them up while onconscious and, don't know, throw them in front of a bus or down a bridge or something. General violence and abuse towards unconscious depictions of humans seems to be the issue.

 

[Jmanis]

I try to remember of any of the games with stealth mechanics actually do that... but I can't. But knowing gamers, I am sure if there are unkillable unconcious NPCs, there'll be lots of salt along the lines "why can't I kill them!!!!!" .

I think killing isn't the only issue, but also being able to "abuse" them in other ways; not so much in Elite, but think about games where you can pick them up while onconscious and, don't know, throw them in front of a bus or down a bridge or something. General violence and abuse towards unconscious depictions of humans seems to be the issue.

Like I've been saying... I can't speak for PEGI/other ratings systems,, but in the real world there are massive moral, ethical and legal differences between killing someone who is conscious vs killing someone who is unconscious... and only because PEGI assesses the impact and representation, rather than the underlying action, that it would be treated differently.

But yeah, disabling the ability to kill is sure as heck going to annoy a bunch of people who use non-lethal against a kill target intentionally or otherwise... unless we suddenly want to say "But for a mission, killing and disabling can be the same thing... right?"... bringing us back to here, where they are the same thing.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Let's get to the real meat and potatoes.

It's not non-lethal options people want.

It's that they don't want a murder bounty

Yeah, we could discuss all kinds of stuff to do with why's and wherefores. It does come back to that.

My 'simple' solution would that a bounty gets deleted if all witnesses are killed within 1.5-2 seconds of the crime being observed. Basically this means any stealth kill where the only red arrow on the screen is the target immediately before the shot hits them and kills them

Additionally, anarchy factions put a price on your head for murdering their people (functionality identical to lawful bounties) again - if spotted. This also means rep gets tanked as well with repeated murders, as it should do.