Body parts to monsters

[Reaper42]

Player can aim in specific bodypart. Zombie die, if got damage to head. If he got many damage to body - they broken in half and become crawling zombie, damage/lost of one leg - slow down, damage/lost both legs - crawling zombie etc. Other monster like gigant fly die easier (body/head hp=0 or bloodloss). Aslo head is hard to hit, but body is easy..
What are you think about it?

[Whales]

I have been thinking about this feature and I'm still on the fence about it. There was a lot of discussion about this in Cataclysm 1. There, I ultimately chose to not use body parts for monsters. My reasoning is that Cataclysm is a game with lots of enemies, and that combat is interesting and complex enough when you have to decide which one to attack without adding the extra layer of where to attack it. Generally where to attack is not a particularly interesting problem - most of the time players will want to attack the kill spots (head/body). So the complexity:fun ratio is very high - which is an indication that the feature should be excluded.
I'm not firm on this decision for C2, but for now I think I want to keep monsters as having a single HP value.

[arvidsson]

Maybe they can coexist? In certain hard-pressed situations it could add a tactical element as you could risk it all and try to take out an enemy by aiming at their weak spot but sacrificing probability of success. It could also add to the melee combat, but then it should avoid becoming a tedious part of the mechanics.

[Whales]

The more I think about it, the more ambivalent I am now. From a code perspective, I would love to give monsters body parts. Right now the player is special-cased from other entities, and anything that removes special cases is good.
I'm not convinced that aimed shots adds enough tactical decision-making to justify the added complexity.
I'm also concerned about how to convey the (possibly very important) information that a zombie is missing an arm or something. Screen space is limited and we have to be choosy about what to include.
Pros (in order of magnitude):

• Unify Entity HP definition; all entities use the same system, simplifying a lot of code.
• Makes one-on-one combat more interesting (but this is a rare situation)
• Makes monster attacks more interesting (just one arm means a weakened hit attack, no arms limits us to biting)
• Makes larger battles more interesting on occasion (but mostly this option is dwarfed in importance related to the option of who to attack, where to place yourself, etc)
• Flavor
  Cons:
• Often not an interesting choice (players will usually want to go for the kill shot, or a non-aimed shot will be the obvious better choice)
• Increased micromanagement burden on the player (it's easy to weigh a situation where there are five zombies, harder if two are missing a leg and one has no arms)
• Slows down the action; firing your gun becomes a process that takes several times longer (in real time)
• Increased UI input complexity (Either need a new keybinding for "aimed shot," or add a fire mode to guns
• Increased / impossible(?) UI output complexity (How to denote missing/damaged limbs on an enemy?)

Right now, the cons outweigh the pros, but that could change. I think eliminating cons is the first step here.

[Reaper42]

Players can do aim shot via aming (select target) interface. Also this interface may show lost/damage bodyparts (Zombie: HAABLL) - where H-head A-Arm etc. If color of letter is yellow - some damage, red-heavy damage, grey - lost. Сan do autoaiming in weak spots. (For zombie - head, mutants - body etc)

[Zireael07]

My 2 cents: give the body part aim possibility only if no more than 2 zombies nearby.