Zinn

Honestly, I think resting mechanics are pretty bad in video games in general because video games operate on a completely different level than a tabletop experience. You see, there is no DM in a video game, so nothing really stops you from abusing the rest system anyway, rendering it moot and something to be used in an options menu (maybe as a difficulty option?). Basically, why have a Per Rest and Per Encounter ability when I can either hike back to an inn whenever I please or just sit my booty down and camp to fix the problem right away? I know it might get some people up in arms but it's actually really important in terms of game design. Are you just wasting people's time for "realism" in a game where people can just drink a potion or cast a basic spell to deal with literally any other health issue? Did nobody think about inventing the magical equivalent of caffeine since they solved their world's other health problems via potions and magic? As with anything, you could just build something entirely around a resting mechanic but it'll be a damn hard time balancing it so you hit the exact right pixel between "Am I wasting people's time by forcing them to rest constantly?" and "Why even bother resting in a dangerous place since I have enough charges anyway?". Some games have attempted to solve this problem with random encounters on rest but that's pretty terrible for obvious reasons and hasn't been used in ages as far as I'm aware. You rest because you're out of spells/skills/whatever and/or have low health, followed by random monsters ruining your day and wasting your time. This is where a DM comes in to be lenient but a computer has no such distinction, it can only operate within the parameters it's given. So either you get swarmed by enemies or you don't - and god help you if the players figure out some health/spell value to achieve leniency vs harshness. I'm all for it as an optional difficulty or roleplaying option. By all means, rest away if you find it fun and/or realistic but I don't think there's any really good option so far that has straddled the line between realism and wasting your time. I never really rested in the previous game outside town visits because it was lenient with charges and such - only severe screw-ups once or twice in a playthrough which doesn't justify an entire game mechanic. Honestly, I don't really think the mechanic was needed at all unless you did a blind first playthrough on PotD, at which point you're such a small part of the playerbase that it might be worth just relegating it to either be mandatory on PotD with limited resting at inns (maybe by making that absurdly expensive or something) or as an extra option as mentioned before. Basically, this is such a fundamental game mechanic that it's at the point of either going all out and virtually eliminating resting at inns (either thorugh economy or just running around tiny villages where no one will take you in) or you don't bother at all and balance your encounters around having X abilities at Y levels among your party. I can deal with either but I'm not a big fan of this middlepoint we have currently and where video games tend to settle. Either I get to go all out all the time against tougher opponents or I get to optimize my resources and alter my gameplay via party class management and item management. PoE2 seems to tilt quite a bit towards the former option, which I'm okay with, but I can see why D&D traditionalists may not be fans. It's also arguable whether or not the opposition is tough enough but I'm not on PotD yet, as I'm doing my first playthrough on the 2nd highest difficulty. This is no small or simple change to make in either direction, as you need to tweak basically every number in the game from the amount of money you get to how much health you have, plus it impacts your gameplay experience in terms of seeing major cities and such (the devs will have to find a really good answer for you either never visiting cities or never being able to find a bed in one). Interesting topic, though! TL;DR: I write way too much. I'm sorry fam.

My Stronghold was attacked by Drakes and some Xaurips, including a Priest. I'm not entirely sure what happened during the chaotic fight but afterwards, my hirelings were hostile to me, possibly because I hit them with a spell by accident or because something converted them. The problem is that now all hirelings are hostile forever, no matter what I do, except one who shouldn't even exist (I killed him during the fight, yet there he is inside the main hall). Dismissing and reaquiring hirelings doesn't help and some of them don't dissapear anyway: Any new people I hire are instantly and permanently hostile, attacking me on sight in my own stronghold. Saving and reloading doesn't help, resting doesn't help and changing location doesn't help (eg. to the nearby woods and back), so it appears this permanently breaks hirelings in my game. Thankfully, I'm the paranoid type in these games, so I have a save just before the fight where everything should be working and a save where all of them are hostile. Save before the fight: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c4cgud8ntjqcroi/d568948bddf24835b65e37d10c27b33c%2017644051%20Brighthollow.savegame?dl=0 Save after the fight: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5y1f6zk8myphvf/d568948bddf24835b65e37d10c27b33c%2017808932%20CaedNua.savegame?dl=0 I suspect that hirelings are either counted as a faction you cannot otherwise interact with or a single unit, so attacking one will permanently aggro all of them, even ones you haven't hired. System specs shouldn't really matter on this one, I wonder if someone out there is willing to attempt to replicate it (eg. fireball a hireling or something)?

I don't really understand how people can argue this much over such a small thing. Everyone is basically splitting hairs about the exact same concept: Resource use vs resource gain. There really needed to be an "I don't care" option because it isn't really different either way, as the designers will obviously balance the game around the system of choice. People act like it's set in stone that there must be exactly 10 enemies between point A and point B in the game and whatever system is chosen will dramatically alter the outcome of the difficulty in the area. The only thing that matters is that it's balanced, and there goes a lot of different things into it besides simply picking how to spend and gain resources. D&D (and especially the videogames based on it) is notorious for it's extremely faulty magic system where magic is very hard in the beginning but eventually lets you replace virtually any other party member if you min/max correctly. Likewise, systems with mana potions are usually way too generous with them and let you buy a ridiculous stack, leading to severe imbalance because the developers haven't thought about the economy in spending all of your gold on potions and simply living off the loot you find (which is usually better anyway). The D&D system hinges entirely on a DM deciding when something is and isn't appropriate or simply cut down the wizard by adding enemies that do nothing but laugh in the face of spells. This can never be reality in a videogame, which is why a game like BG can be immensely easy and hard at the same time for a spellcaster: If you play it completely blind with little knowledge of the core system, you are likely going to have a very hard time. However, if you're great at D&D or have played the game before, you'll breeze right through it because you already know which spells to pick to be able to get out of anything it can throw at you. The other systems tends to be exploited because the developers generally don't give any consideration to the economy of a singeplayer game: You can buy heaps of potions and with the right upgrades/spells, you can cast indefinitely. There are lots of potential fixes for each possible system but arguing whether you'd rather have a blue mana orb or a scroll icon that says "5" is a bit silly, IMO. All systems you can ever think of are easy to break by either ignoring the in-game economy or failing to consider the options available upon spell selection and how many you can choose at any given point in time. Why is it of the utmost importance that it's done like in D&D, Dragon Age or Diablo, when the only thing that matters is that you can only gain X resources between point A and B, with only Y potential spells to use?