Thoughts on the "resting" mechanic.

[Telefax]

Ok, so I know this has more or less been done to death, especially since those rumours about a cooldown system started floating around, but I'd still love to discuss this issue, since it actually is slightly immersion breaking to rest all the time.

 

I've personally always loved the idea of a dungeon as a single adventuring day, and for most of my challenge runs in baldurs gate 1/2 i tried to finish the games without the day counter going over 100. I also hate the all resources restored between encounters type of gameplay found in say dragon age.

 

A suggestion here would be to look at (earlier) jrpgs, who often have you trek a dungeon to find a save point/rest point just before the boss.

 

To implement this gameplay in a quest driven, no combat xp, infinity engine-esque type of game (they said bodycount wouldnt be rewarded, and I'm looking forward to it), I think a good mechanic would be to have instanced dungeon levels. You enter, the dungeon starts. After that you have to beat most of the dungeon to get a good, fortifiable resting spot. If you leave the dungeon, all the combat encounters you did not talk/trick your way through, as well as all the traps, reset. For a larger dungeon, if you go down/up/leave a floor/pocket dimension/whatever the earlier level stay cleared if you go back to it, but the one you are currently exploring resets.

 

Now, i know that resetting dungeons is about as controversial as level scaling, but it would be nice to have a dungeon floor be a challenge, not just individual encounters.

 

Your thoughts?