AgentBlue said:
I have to agree with cmdr_flashheart on this one.
The dramatic fabric is strong enough to withstand some ellipsis. Not that big of a deal.
You say ranged and bomb arracks would have to accommodate some form of friendly fire. So what kind of in game reason would we be given if Geralt's sword accidently and yet visibly runs through a NPCs stomach but he's not harmed at all?
Say Geralt is about to rescue a kidnaped NPC, who is tied up in a room along with 3 foes. Geralt walks in, does his thing, but, darn, the blade cuts through the kidnaped.
What should happen?
First of all, I think that good RPGs (and similar choice and exploration based games) must be designed to ”flow” when played in accordance with your characters motivations and actions. Each node in the story provides with an extra push providing momentum to the developing and mutually reinforcing cohesion between narrative, environment and character. This teaches the player to take the game-world seriously and rewards roleplaying with an immserive experience.
It should not reward stupidity (illogical action relative to the story, setting or character)or not taking what is happening seriously (if stealing from someone and getting caught, it should not come as a surprise if it will result in hostility, bad reputation and in some cases even inability to complete storylines that would be affected by the consequences of such an action. Any option of behaving uncharacteristic, strange or acting like you are crazy is translated into the game as your character actually has lost it -of course there are degrees - and the game-world will react to it in an appropriate manner.)
But yes, it can go too far for some players (for example, a lot of non-super hardcore RPG-fans would find it annoying if you needed to keep track on hunger, thirst and the need to take a dump) so think it is important that a good game or story has a tolerance towards different levels of immersion and attention to detail as long as they are not expressing (socially)illogical behaviour.
I often use the image of a beautiful pond as an analogy to a good narrative- or rpg-structure.
The pond should be designed so that is pleasing to look at even if you are not paying much attention to the surroundings or what is under the surface, but those who can see such things should have an even greater experience, seeing how many beautiful details interconnect to form a greater whole and how they relate to one another. A story and game should be designed in such a way that those unfortunate people who can only see the surface of the pond - with its clear water mirroring the sky, water lilies and colourful fishes coming up to feed on water insects – as a rewarding experience. But it would be a shame if it is not designed for those who do pay attention and figure stuff out (how the sream is feeding the ponds water supply, the colour of the stones and banks of sand at the bottom, the stems of the water lilies serving as hiding place for smaller fish and their eggs etc)then it is superficial construct lacking in consistent quality (where the hell does the water come from, I can hear the brook but there is none to be seen? Why does the water-liles have no stem?)
One way to fix issues associated with ”hyper-realism” (the need to eat, etc) – besides having different game modes of course – is to have such things designed into the game at regular natural pauses in gameplay. Such as: cutscenes with eating and drinking with friends or showing the hero sleeping in the camp with empty leftovers of food and drink beside the campfire, etc.
Its very easy to avoid the problem of Geralt acquiring stuff in a questionable manner and change it to Geralt acquiring stuff in a clearly non-ambigius ways. This is not some ”realism in absurdum”. Geralt walking into peoples home and taking stuff is pretty damn contra-intuitive behaviour if you are not playing a guy who just goes wherever he pleases uninvited and takes stuff – which you are hardly playing as you are playing Geralt whos character is largely defined.
With that being said, over to the issues with Combat and friendly fire.
When it comes to combat, I would not think its strange with a system where all characters who comes in ”contact” with a weapon in action gets injured. Geralt would probably not want to have any friendlies in close proximity to his target as it would be a distraction to think of their safety. This could with advantage be reflected in the game.
Here there is possible room for examining how viable it would be to implement a fighting mode that involves a penalty of sorts when Geralt is fighting with friendlies in close proximity, such as only being able to use ”safe attacks” less acrobatic/mobile combat movement with no sweeping or circular sword moves that would risk hitting people on the sides etc.
Geralt only kills people who attack him, so it would be too far out of character to allow the player to intentionally kill innocent people (not counting any possible quest scenarios where Geralt might accidentally kill someone or let someone die due to prioritizing something else).