07-04-2020, 07:50 PM | #1 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Some thoughts on lulls in combat
I know there's been a lot of discussion on this topic on these forums. I've heard a few UFC fighters say some interesting things recently which got me thinking about lulls in combat again. Why they happen, specifically. I found it enlightening to hear fighters talk so directly about this.
First, Mike Perry. Here's what he said in an interview recently. I've had to slightly edit this, since he was sort of rambling. Quote:
Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya recently had a veeery boring fight against Yoel Romero, where both fighters did nothing for pretty much the entire fight. Some background for this fight: Yoel Romero is very big and hits very hard, but his cardio is extremely suspect. He likes to sit back and throw a few big shots per round. And so for this entire fight, Adesanya (one of the best strikers in the sport--a significantly better striker than his opponent here), circled around and feinted, and wound up doing nothing, because he couldn't find any openings. Quote:
Quote:
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07-05-2020, 08:43 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Helsinki, Finland
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
Could simply see this as both parties making Feints (in GURPS terms) and not succeeding well enough to go through with the actual attacks?
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07-05-2020, 08:47 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
The Last Gasp (Pyramid #3/44) produces lulls by tracking Activity Points. It's a bit fiddly but completely doable, especially in a one-on-one fight. Evaluate is another option.
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07-05-2020, 09:15 AM | #4 |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
I played around with using some variant of control points to represent temporary advantage or opportunity; they'd work like Evaluate plus a random number generator. This would allow you to strike through a foe's defenses. Notionally.
Of course, your opponent is watching YOU too. Can spend those CP to cancel yours. Defenses might need to be higher in general to make this work, but maybe not. But what you'd have - and I'm honestly not sure it'd be worth it - is a situation where two fighters have excellent parry fu, and lots of skill spent in observing the other guy. An attack would almost certainly have to burn through those high defenses just to land at all, and that means you're less able (by virtue of spending points) to resist the follow-up. It would, perhaps, mean the first person to attack does so into the teeth of someone with very boosted defenses by virtue of spending some of their CP. (Thinking about it, having CP spent add to attacks, or defenses, at 1:1 privileges their use in defense, so that might work just flat-out). The defender could probably counter that attack...and have some CP left over, which means the counter-stroke is probably advantaged. That sets up a situation where defense against that first strike is pretty high (true based on the fighters' statements in the OP), a counter-blow is likely more effective than the initial attack (true), but once the two fighters are engaged, it's ON until they separate, and things get crazy (also true based on the fights I've seen). While The Last Gasp help here from a "too tired to throw punches" perspective (and thanks for the call-out), I think the operative fear-factor here is "I don't want to get punched in the face, and I WILL if I throw the first blow."
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07-05-2020, 10:29 AM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
The gist of what they're saying is this: attacking is more dangerous than feinting.
Which isn't the case in GURPS. You can generally attack and be no worse off than if you had feinted. I like the idea of some sort of mechanism where you can attack and put yourself into a bad position--which your opponent might not see. Quote:
Quote:
A couple of other things worth mentioning here: less damage attacks are easier to land with. Anyone can flick out a jab and get it to land some decent percent of the time, but that's not the kind of strike that's going to cause fight-ending injury. It's just going to open you up to being countered once the other guy figures out your timing. This is why the jab isn't as common in MMA as in boxing: there are a lot more ways you can take advantage of an opponent opening themselves up during an attack. Also: during that fight I mentioned between Adesanya and Romero, where Adesanya never could find a way to engage, Adesanya was a significantly better striker. He's a decorated kickboxing champion. His striking always looks very impressive. Romero, on the other hand, is a wrestler (thought a credentialed one, having had success at the Olympics), with nothing more than a right hand. What made this surprising to me was that I would have expected someone with a huge skill advantage to do a better job finding opportunities against a hyper-defensive opponent.
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"For the rays, to speak properly, are not colored. In them there is nothing else than a certain power and disposition to stir up a sensation of this or that color." —Isaac Newton, Optics My blog. Last edited by ErhnamDJ; 07-05-2020 at 10:39 AM. |
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07-05-2020, 10:39 AM | #6 |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
Yah. I understand bias for action in game design. "Who attacks first loses" makes for a rough game.
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07-05-2020, 11:19 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
That wouldn't be the case in most roleplaying combats, though.
MMA fights are very even because they have weight classes. If you had a featherweight fight a heavyweight, the heavyweight wouldn't be at all hesitant to press the attack, because they would know the featherweight couldn't hurt them. And they tend to do matchups that are somewhat competitive skillwise. In that fight I mentioned, Adesanya did have a big skill advantage, but Romero was still competent. Plus the fights are one-on-one. Once you start looking at big disparities in strength, skill, number of combatants, and equipment, the roleplaying combats would probably still function how players expect.
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"For the rays, to speak properly, are not colored. In them there is nothing else than a certain power and disposition to stir up a sensation of this or that color." —Isaac Newton, Optics My blog. |
07-05-2020, 01:12 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Chagrin Falls
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
Quote:
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07-05-2020, 02:16 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
My group has played out a number of gladiatorial duels in gurps, and there are quite a few Evaluates used as fighters are closing distance.
You could view the MMA fighters as taking Waits in order to interrupt the attacker and get effectively two turns in a row before the other guy’s defenses reset. A more defensive fighter might use Wait while the more aggressive one is taking Evaluates to make that first series of attacks more effective. Perhaps Evaluate and Wait should be combinable under certain conditions (like Wait and Aim when you take opportunity fire on a single hex). |
07-05-2020, 02:27 PM | #10 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Some thoughts on lulls in combat
There's the "Distance and Defense" Tweak from Pyramid #34. In short, you get a +2 to defense against an opponent who is not within reach at the start of his turn. That makes striking first hugely risky.
I think it would be amazing combined with The Last Gasp.
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