[BUG-6261] Negative llSetDamage(float damage) values implemented to cause healing

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How would you like the feature to work?

llSetDamage(float damage) - Currently, only Positive floats work, such as llSetDamage(50) (causing 50 damage). What is proposed is: Negative floats REPLENISHING health, Rather than doing nothing at all. llSetDamage(-50), for an example, would replenish 50 health.

Why is this feature important to you? How would it benefit the community?

Currently, Secondlife has built in combat functionality through which an avatar can receive damage, and upon receiving a total of 100 damage, said avatar is teleported back to their home point. It is said, that in the past, the ability to heal via negative floats in llSetDamage was a thing, but was taken out for being a "Bug". I, along with a number of people that are still within the LLCS (Linden Labs Combat System) community, propose that the ability of using negative damage to heal be reimplemented.

Opponents of this suggestion in the past have claimed that the userbase of LLCS is too small to warrant this change, and that the alternative would be simply to use a meter based system. However, the userbase of the LLCS community, as well as the scripters within it, choose to use said system because of the obvious drawback of meter based systems - Script Overhead. We use LLCS because it's an integrated (albeit incomplete) system which doesn't require laggy or biased third party solutions. With LLCS, There is no script overhead for serverside interaction or passing of damage to an avatar.

At the moment, there IS currently a function by which health is regained in LLCS, this function being a trickling regeneration effect at roughly 1% per second. When put into perspective with the pace of combat within SL, it is a bit lacking. Rather than waiting, a simple llSetDamage(-25) would heal 25% of your total health pool. Restoring this system to its original usefulness, by enabling Healing via negative damage would be an undoubtedly simple change, as the functionality does currently exist, and would open the door for a tremendous amount of development within the SL gaming communities. The Userbase of the LLCS community, while it may be smaller than some other communities, still contains roughly ~1000-1500 active members (According to the current member count & activity of the Combat Continent spawn group), and this function would improve the quality of our "gameplay" and community quite a bit.

Links

Related

• [ ] https://github.com/secondlife/jira-archive/issues/13320

Original Jira Fields

| Field | Value | | ------------- | ------------- | | Issue | BUG-6261 | | Summary | Negative llSetDamage(float damage) values implemented to cause healing | | Type | New Feature Request | | Priority | Unset | | Status | Been Triaged | | Resolution | Triaged | | Labels | health, combat, damage, collision | | Reporter | Dread Hudson (dread.hudson) | | Created at | 2014-06-05T02:26:41Z | | Updated at | 2015-05-04T15:48:10Z | ``` { 'Business Unit': ['Platform'], 'Date of First Response': '2014-06-04T22:46:06.850-0500', 'How would you like the feature to work?': 'llSetDamage(integer damage) - Currently, only Positive integers work, such as llSetDamage(50) (causing 50 damage).\r\nWhat is proposed is:\r\nNegative integers REPLENISHING health, Rather than doing nothing at all.\r\nllSetDamage(-50), for an example, would require 50 health.', 'Target Viewer Version': 'viewer-development', 'Why is this feature important to you? How would it benefit the community?': 'Currently, Secondlife has built in combat functionality through which an avatar can receive damage, and upon\r\nreceiving a total of 100 damage, said avatar is teleported back to their home point. It is said, that in the past,\r\nthe ability to heal via negative integers in llSetDamage was a thing, but was taken out for being a "Bug".\r\nI, along with a number of people that are still within the LLCS (Linden Labs Combat System) community, \r\npropose that the ability of using negative damage to heal be reimplemented.\r\n\r\nOpponents of this suggestion in the past have claimed that the userbase of LLCS is too small to warrant this\r\nchange, and that the alternative would be simply to use a meter based system. However, the userbase\r\nof the LLCS community, as well as the scripters within it, choose to use said system because of the obvious\r\ndrawback of meter based systems - Script Overhead. \r\nWe use LLCS because it\'s an integrated (albeit incomplete) system which doesn\'t require laggy or biased third party \r\nsolutions. With LLCS, There is no script overhead for serverside interaction or passing of damage to an avatar.\r\n\r\nAt the moment, there IS currently a function by which health is regained in LLCS, this function being a trickling \r\nregeneration effect at roughly 1% per second. When put into perspective with the pace of combat within SL,\r\nit is a bit lacking. Rather than waiting, a simple llSetDamage(-25) would heal 25% of your total health pool.\r\nRestoring this system to its original usefulness, by enabling Healing via negative damage would be an \r\nundoubtedly simple change, as the functionality does currently exist, and would open the door for a \r\ntremendous amount of development within the SL gaming communities.\r\nThe Userbase of the LLCS community, while it may be smaller than some other communities, still contains roughly \r\n~1000-1500 active members (According to the current member count & activity of the Combat Continent spawn group), and this function would improve the quality of our "gameplay" and community quite a bit.', } ```

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ObviousAltIsObvious commented at 2014-06-05T03:46:07Z

Since we can now kill ourselves with llSetDamage, wouldn't this feature allow the opposite, and let anyone be immortal? Maybe negative values should be restricted to the land owner?

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Dread Hudson commented at 2014-06-05T03:58:15Z

Thank you for that question, Actually. Yes, While that could be possible, there's also the factor of sim management being able to tell people "No, That's not cool". There's a ban button for a reason, and a 100 damage bullet from say a Sniper rifle could still kill someone despite constant health spam.

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Dread Hudson commented at 2014-06-05T04:24:54Z, updated at 2014-06-05T04:26:41Z

Also, regarding this issue, https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-5320 is another subject that should be looked into. It IS, however, under the "Accepted" flag.

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Valaska Svendsen commented at 2014-06-05T04:52:42Z

This would be great for reduced damage LL Damage combat, it would open up whole new technologies, medics not only in the form of Teleporting but in actual heal guns etc as in Planetside 2. This could breath a lot of life into the reduced damage community.

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ToNieMiasz commented at 2014-06-05T20:10:06Z

That can also make people to do their stuff this way. If bullet hits some enemy, it deals partial damage. If bullet hits some friendly, it heals him. Healing guns: nonononononono -> banana. An heal injector: Yes, please!

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Christoph Naumova commented at 2014-06-05T20:13:10Z

Anything that can be abused will be abused. However, as dread stated this could be prevented by people who actually cared about fair combat. Those that didn't would definitely abuse it in their regions, though.

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glitzern.fiertze commented at 2014-06-05T20:14:19Z, updated at 2014-06-05T20:14:30Z

Maybe as long as you cap to 100 hp maximum. ...buut considering how much love reduced damage day gets, or well doesn't.

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Dread Hudson commented at 2014-06-05T20:16:40Z

Every little bit counts, Glitzem! We can push for it, and hopefully get some love for our community. Even if it doesn't get used 100% of the time, the extension of LLCS to incorporate this would still be a great thing to have, and as stated above, most likely easy to re-implement. Hell, I'll even offer to drive down to San Fran and do all the work for LL if it gets this put back in.

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Jeremy Duport commented at 2014-06-05T20:56:16Z, updated at 2014-06-05T21:06:13Z

This would be kinda nice. Sorta. This should be a feature request, not a bug report. Negative damage has never healed in all the life of the platform; in fact, it count(s/ed) as maximum damage.

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Dread Hudson commented at 2014-06-05T21:04:30Z, updated at 2014-06-05T21:08:30Z

There's only four Jiras active that can have a requesst/tickets can be filed in. BUG, RIFT, Third Party Viewers, and Security Exploits. Rift is for projects that are currently under way, and this is hardly third party or a security exploit, nor is it currently in progress. Also, this is a "New Feature Request" in "Type"

As for "Negative damage has never healed" - So many people have mixed reports on this. Some say it didn't, some say it did, but the main issue here is, why doesn't it at the current time? Yes, even if the entire community doesn't adopt a partial damage standpoint and actually have healing implemented or being a viable option in their sim, the extended functionality of simply being able to do that would be nice, both for combat and other "games" that people would use LLCS in.

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Jeremy Duport commented at 2014-06-05T21:07:00Z, updated at 2014-06-05T21:17:32Z

Yep! That's because VWR and SVR are hidden.

Negative damage has never healed. I made my first damage gun in 2004 and healing was going to be a part of the weird little system I was putting together then, before I found that <0 was == 100. It didn't work then, and it has never worked in the intervening time. I am not an authoritative source, but I'm right and conflicting statements are not. *shrug* The only change in the intervening time appears to be that <0 == 0 instead, according to the current documentation.

It doesn't at the current time because damage is a hold-over from the pre-release state of the platform in 2k3 and 2k2, and is maintained in the name of compatibility, not progress. I'm not disagreeing that it would be nice; it's just literally the farthest thing from a priority.

edit: honestly I would prefer to see experience keys finally finished. That offers a hundred times the possibilities.

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Suki Katana commented at 2014-06-05T21:35:41Z

I agree in principle to reduced and variable damage combat, including the positive health thingy, but my concern is how are standards going to be set and monitored concerning damage values inflicted by various weaponry. At the moment, even with fairly simple principles for weapons and armor design, there is no end to various controversies concerning the amount of HP that is "fair", and the operation of various armor types. Even with our simple rules, right now I cant hit a tank with a 40 hp rocket and expect the thing to actually get 40 hp damage. People scream "Throttled" at the top of their lungs, whether or not the "throttling" in intended (velocity filters and other techniques), or just that sl is too slow to accumulate and process the hits.

For this to go ahead, a clear set of specifications must be devised, as well as testing procedures common to everyone. Equipment would have to be tested by a neutral body to ensure conformance.

My 2 cents :)

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Miranda Umino commented at 2014-06-06T00:12:25Z, updated at 2014-06-06T00:14:28Z

I vote yes . Nevertheless , i will prefer to have a llSetHeal(integer amountToHeal) function :

Indeed , llSetDamage destroys an object . If we choose llSetDamage(negativevalues = heal) , it will destroy the object who heals us . So we couldn t be healed over time , except by continuous rezzing . This is why i will prefer an another function who doesn t destroy the object : with a llSetHeal function and a timer , we could get "regeneration"

Oh .. And a function to damage over time could be nice too : for instance , poison

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James Benedek commented at 2014-06-06T02:16:30Z

Would prefer llSetHealth(float health); but whatever is easier to calculate. I have attached my related feature request from 17/Dec/07 (SVC-2140) that had over 70 votes, to show that there is still interest that the community wants Damage Land and its functions to be updated.

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Taffa Markova commented at 2014-06-06T02:43:19Z

this would be wonderful for the combat sims, they could have medic stations and stuff. Maybe they'd finally start using bullets that don't deal 100% damage

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Moy Loon commented at 2014-06-06T02:51:52Z

In a world where everyone uses 100% damage bullets, healing seems kinda silly!

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Sasami Zwilling commented at 2014-06-06T05:26:58Z, updated at 2014-06-06T05:30:15Z

I don't think People are even enjoying RD. I honestly don't go there knowing it will take 2-3 rounds to kill me. I just don't think its the best interest for CC to have RD day.

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aubrene commented at 2014-06-06T05:31:54Z

I vote yes, it could produce interesting combat systems where damage and healing rates are moderated. Otherwise, you will chose to stick with stagnation. :c Which would, to be completely honest, be in very poor taste.

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Dread Hudson commented at 2014-06-06T05:34:23Z

@ Moy, a world in which people only use 100% damage bullets is quite silly as well.

@ Sasami, This is a Jira, not the Combat Continent forum, but okay. Even with their reduced damage guidelines in place, TTK is still extremely low, if, yknow, you actually aim instead of flailing a bullet whip around.

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FadeOut Razorfen commented at 2014-06-08T13:06:14Z

The truth is that script overhead from using combat system is next to nothing when properly done (physical bullets are a main bummer, which is a server side interaction), people are just way too lazy to implement their own solution and push it to public standard. Raycast is out for ages and nobody lifted a finger yet. The idea to improve linden damage is pretty good, but for god's sake, i'd just implement my own solution - open source combat system that uses mostly raycast (but compatible with old guns while damage is off on sim). Give out the source code to people, so they can contribute (Github or something), but make the script nomod when given to a consumer/3rd_party_dev (you can check the script creator to make sure). Actually I was the guy who was going to do it, but I left for real game development job. Other indie devs who grow up in SL and worth something go the same route. Linden Lab is ignorant and will never pay attention to something like this. If you have time, then do it yourself.

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Messenger Runner commented at 2014-06-08T19:07:18Z

@ Dread Hudson

"a world in which people only use 100% damage bullets is quite silly as well"? Dude, people die out there in real life, from a bullet that definitely causes 100% damage and a lot of fatalities. And you're calling 100% damage bullets silly on SL? I thought the purpose of SLMC is to emulate real life combat, unless I'm mistaken. RD would pretty much take away that realism, but that's just my opinion.

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Valaska Svendsen commented at 2014-06-10T23:30:29Z

@Messenger Runner

No, it has NEVER been our intention to emulate real life, hence why we have space ships with railguns, lasers, and only rockets that have 5meters of range, which is the same as our infantry explosives WHICH is about 15 meters too small for potential kill range of a real grenade. We have dodge rolls, combat huds, recoiless rifles that we fire by hand, jetpacks, tanks with 100 HP instead of realistic armor (which we easily can do), furries, mechs etc. It is not the intent to make ARMA with SLMC, the objective is to have fun and make a game experience.

RD is a good shot at that, as VICE etc thrives with reduced damage compared to us.

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Alexa Linden commented at 2014-06-11T18:09:50Z

Thank you for your suggestion.

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Dread Hudson commented at 2014-06-18T09:09:57Z

Thank you for commenting on & putting this Jira into Triage, Alexa. If this long debated concept and now eagerly awaited possibility even does make it through triage and implementation, I'll be pretty eager to play around with all the new toys I can make with negative damage!

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Dread Hudson commented at 2015-05-04T15:48:11Z

Has there been any development or discussion about this on the Bug Triage team? It seems like this got put into triage and then thrown off to the side immediately.