Rest, injuries and recuperation

[Nonek]

Thinking on Mr Sawyers comments about not disrupting gameplay to deal with injuries, i'm left thinking why don't we carry the answer on our backs? Bedding, blankets, bandages, herbal supplies and arcane paraphernalia, all the party needs to set up a mobile camp. However this would still leave the exploitation of resting to cheese the game and destroy difficulty, as well as spoil any sense of momentum.

 

So why not guard against this with two rules: One the player may only take one rest period within any twenty four hours, and two the available sites to set up a party camp are limited and set by the developer. We thereby have the ability to drag back permanently injured companions to the nearest campsite (or risk pressing on to the next one) and if not heal them completely at least get them on their feet to be of some use to the party.

 

Differing levels of injury could be treated to differing levels of combat readiness, a flesh wound though painful and irritating could be completely sealed, a broken limb could be set and fused but still require the complete bed rest of the players home (and incur a severe penalty until such recuperation is taken.) A near death state would be the serious one where even after healing the afflicted is walking wounded, fit to perhaps carry a torch or serve as a lookout.

 

These down time periods would serve as perfect excuses for party intreraction, lore research, rough crafting attempts, weapons practise, portentous dreams and such so that time is not being wasted watching a ticking clock.

 

This may sound a touch draconian but the getting of supplies for your expedition, as well as the preparation and planning you exercise would lend a much missed strategical aspect to the rpg. So that when we've limped wounded and weary from the lair of the dread beast, we've got a real sense of accomplishment and tribulation.

 

Anyway just my tuppence ha'penny on the subject.

[The Sharmat]

It would be another way to avoid limiting companion and NPC interaction to completely isolated "Do you have some time to talk" options in whatever your party hub is. Dialogue triggered by certain characters sustaining injuries would be neat.

[Nonek]

Hadn't thought of that, good point.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I'm very interested in this subject because I always felt it was a weak point in IWD and IWD II. Thanks for your comments.

[Troller]

I'm very interested in this subject because I always felt it was a weak point in IWD and IWD II. Thanks for your comments.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60092-morale-system/

what you think about a system like this man?

I thought it looks interesting to implement in an RPG, and ofc INjuries would play a great part on it

[The Sharmat]

Hadn't thought of that, good point.

There's lots of things you could do with it. Not just one character showing concern for another, but noticing that one character has some exotic means of healing. Or say, an interaction along the lines of "Dude, your leg was nearly cut off and now you're standing on it fine. What's the hell's going on?" to reveal something about less...baseline human party members.

[SqueakyCat]

I agree with the OP completely. Please, no regenerating health.

[Delterius]

I'm very interested in this subject because I always felt it was a weak point in IWD and IWD II. Thanks for your comments.

 

Well, I can't add much. Except that I do think the rest mechanic was flawed in the IE games because of how dangerously un-lethal the ambushes were, but I spammed resting regardless. I played those games while only resting in between 'adventures' and the resource management that added is kinda of important to me.

 

I'd be very happy if Eternity better implements that same resource management.

[Audiocide]

Anyway just my tuppence ha'penny on the subject.

 

All great ideas. A real injury system, necessity of rest, and non-regenerating characters (unless they're werewolves, magical creatures, etc.) could make for a very interesting and refreshing challenge.

 

This might be out of context, but a survival mode, or having to eat/drink/sleep every day similar to New Vegas might be neat as well.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Audiocide

[Nonek]

Mind you, thinking of flaws in the scheme, what if the cunning adventurer just keeps going back and forth, clearing a little more of the danger zone as he progresses. Perhaps the camp sites could be of limited use, they run out of clean drinking water, firewood etcetera. You'd intentionally bypass some campsites just in case you'd need them later.

[Posbi]

Regenerating health should be done slowly. I remember playing the old Realms of Arcania (Das Schwarze Auge) games on PC and their resting mechanic was basically that you ordered different party members to stand guard, had your priest/wizard aid in any healing process, had your wizard/alchemist search for herbs, had your ranger hunt for food etc. I guess what I mean is that if you have a "resting mechanic" you should be able to use it for a multitude of otherwise mundane things that still might help the party along. Throw in some random encounters/occurences along the way, too.

[Skie Nightfall]

It was silly characters could rest endlessly until full healed on the old IE games. On the other hand, severely injured people do need a lot of rest.

Could have injured characters have to stay back in camp for example, making you switch companions more often, but then, what about the main character?

Can't recall at the moment any game with a specific implementation I liked.

Also, things could be different depends on the magic system in the game (healing spells or not)

 

It would be nice to see diseases make a come back (like in ToEE).

[Valorian]

I'd also love a rest system for replenishing health, mana/stamina/spells/abilities and treating injuries. I'm strongly against auto-regeneration of health and mana, especially during combat.

[Nonek]

Give a chance to utilise non combat skills as well, the technologist kindles a flame in the wet wood, the magi summons a mist to hide you or places wards upon doors, the rogue sets his traps and alarms, while the keen eyed and eared guardsman keeps watch or uses his great strength to seal the entrance.

 

I saw eyes on my watch!

Eyes?

They glittered with a cold fire, when I rose, they disappeared.

 

Could be a nice tension builder.

[Troller]

Man there should be some side effects for potions, I mean they are like those powerful chemicals that make fatal injuries disappear pretty much, maybe some addiction system like in Fallout, or more severe side effects for the constant use of potions, also a cooldown, I mean what human being can chug liters and liters of potions in a matter of seconds, and in combat...

[Stun]

I agree with the OP completely. Please, no regenerating health.

While I absolutely loathe the modern system of "fight's over. poof! here's all your health back!", I wouldn't want a game to do away with health regen completely. The old IE games certainly didn't. PS:T had health regen, as did BG1, BG2 and IWD (remember, according to AD&D second edition, regeneration is tied to your constitution score, and it begins at 20.)

 

As for the resting mechanics, I'm not sure what a good solution would be. The system implemented in the Icewind Dales and the BG games was....uninspired, But it wasn't all bad. You could rest when you absolutely needed to. But What I disliked most about it was that even if you Cleared a zone of all foes, you could still have your rest interrupted by a pack of enemies that seemingly spawned from out of nowhere. This should be done away with, first and foremost.

 

IMO the best resting system I've seen was in Mask of the Betrayer. It was still riddled with flaws but it was better than the others. A set up camp option was given, and the chance of wandering enemies to interrupt your rest varied according to the hostility level of the area you were in. For Project Eternity, Obsidian could, perhaps, begin with this system and work on enhancing it/enriching it. Maybe create a guard duty mechanic and have its success be based on the intimidation skills of the guard, or even implement the ability to lay deadly runes/traps outside of the camp area to deter or kill wandering enemies who try to interrupt your rest. Or hell, how about giving mages the ability to cast some form of a Temporal Stasis spell to make the camp area impervious to intrusion.

 

Oh and on a related note, why is it an unwritten rule that resting at an inn is a guaranteed safe rest? Why can't thieves or assassins break into your hotel room every once in a while for flavor? Hmm?

Edited September 16, 2012 by Stun

[Stun]

Man there should be some side effects for potions, I mean they are like those powerful chemicals that make fatal injuries disappear pretty much, maybe some addiction system like in Fallout, or more severe side effects for the constant use of potions, also a cooldown, I mean what human being can chug liters and liters of potions in a matter of seconds, and in combat...

Since 1999, I've been begging Bioware, Bethesda, Black Isle, Obsidian and Troika to implement an addiction/Withdrawal symptom system for people who abuse consumables.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Stun

[SqueakyCat]

I agree with the OP completely. Please, no regenerating health.

While I absolutely loathe the modern system of "fight's over. poof! here's all your health back!", I wouldn't want a game to do away with health regen completely. The old IE games certainly didn't. PS:T had health regen, as did BG1, BG2 and IWD (remember, according to AD&D second edition, regeneration is tied to your constitution score, and it begins at 20.)

 

As for the resting mechanics, I'm not sure what a good solution would be. The system implemented in the Icewind Dales and the BG games was....uninspired, But it wasn't all bad. You could rest when you absolutely needed to. But What I disliked most about it was that even if you Cleared a zone of all foes, you could still have your rest interrupted by a pack of enemies that seemingly spawned from out of nowhere. This should be done away with, first and foremost.

 

IMO the best resting system I've seen was in Mask of the Betrayer. It was still riddled with flaws but it was better than the others. A set up camp option was given, and the chance of wandering enemies to interrupt your rest varied according to the hostility level of the area you were in. For Project Eternity, Obsidian could, perhaps begin with this system and work on enhancing it/enriching it. Perhaps creat a guard duty system, or even implement the ability to lay deadly runes/traps outside of the camp area to deter or kill wandering enemies who try to interrupt your rest. Or hell how about giving mages the ability to cast a variation of a Temporal Stasis spell to make the camp area impervious to intrusion.

 

 

This sounds very interesting -- just no "instant full health".

[Nonek]

Made a thread about healing a few pages back where I argued for abandoining them entirely.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59960-healing/

[Delterius]

But What I disliked most about it was that even if you Cleared a zone of all foes, you could still have your rest interrupted by a pack of enemies that seemingly spawned from out of nowhere. This should be done away with, first and foremost.

 

Seems pointless for the following reasons: resting was incredibly easy and spammable in the IE games; if you're resting in the wilderness you couldn't have possibly cleared the entire world of enemies and If you're resting in a dungeon, there should be enemies about if resting is even worth it.

[Valorian]

Slow auto-regeneration doesn't fix the problem, it just makes it more tiresome. So instead of managing where and when to rest (remember, the player can RP when his characters would want to rest and limit himself from spamming the rest button), you'd have to wait and wait.. and wait in a spot, doing nothing, for your characters to slowly regain health/mana/stamina and that's not a good thing.

 

A resting system lets me, sort of, challenge myself. In games with a resting system I always decide, at the beginning, how many times my party is allowed to rest throughout the game. From a combat perspective it makes the game more challenging as I need to manage my spells and abilities and not waste it all in every single fight. From a RP perspective it makes sense as well because my party wants to reach the goal as soon as possible.

[Lady Evenstar]

I seem to be in the minority in this one. I don't want to see the party immediately restored to full health after combat, but I don't want a punitive game, either. If the process of restoring party health is too tedious, I know I'd reload. One thing I quite like is the use of herbal packs in Betrayal at Krondor that cause health to regenerate more quickly (out of combat). I'd consider really slow natural regeneration to be both most realistic and most interesting, as it makes the stop-and-rest vs. press-forward with/without expending resources to treat the injured decision less obvious.

[NoxNoctum]

A few ideas:

 

1)I'd like to see resting have serious penalties if you're doing it in dangerous areas. I.e. camping in a swamp for more than a few hours will result in you catching a disease or something. Or just have there be a % chance to have something really dangerous show up if you keep insisting on taking a nap in some dark crypt. This would have to be balanced with rewarding the player to finish a dungeon in one go, so as to avoid having people running back to a village to heal safely.

 

2) Or, to avoid the above problem, you could have a food supplies system, where your supplies slowly dwindle the longer you go without re-supplying. Make it expensive enough to matter, and players will be encouraged to finish a dungeon in one go rather than going back and forth constantly. It would be a delicate balancing act though but if pulled off could be excellent.

 

On the other hand maybe they should ditch consumables entirely and go to the Tome4 route, where you have various inscriptions and runes (limited number depending on class/level) that operate on cooldowns. (the system that game uses also has "saturation" effects, so you can't just spam everything constantly)

 

One thing I've always hated about RPGs is how I feel like I have to horde mana and HP potions... having a cooldown system does away with that entirely.

 

I really like the OP's idea though, the only problem I see with it is that you could have people going back to town to take care of all in safety. There would need to be an incentive to finish a dungeon in one go. This is important I think.

Edited September 17, 2012 by NoxNoctum

[Nonek]

Interesting point.

[Baudolino05]

For me a good rest/healing system is not necessarly about realism; it's about trade-off decisions.

Let me give you two different but equally good samples...

 

1- In Ultima Underworld you had limited inventory room, no mana/healt regeneration and a (once) typical starvation system. To heal the Avatar you could use healing potions (extremely rare), different healing spells (mana consuming) or try to sleep.

The most convenient of the 3 opitions (sleeping) consumed only time, but any x hours the Avatar bacame hungry and due to the limited inventory he never had too much food.

2- In Frayed Knights, instead, your party members consume energy with almost any combat action, even with the simplest physical attack. You are allowed to sleep almost everywhere, and sleeping, of course, refills your energy pool, but still any x hours your TOTAL amount of energy decreases, and you can restore the pool to the original level only with a safe bed nap or a (relatively) rare potion.

 

In short: I don't care how realistic will be the healt system in Project Eternity. I just want an interesting system like the two I mentioned above...

Edited September 17, 2012 by Baudolino05