Thoughts on the "resting" mechanic.

[Osvir]

"Force" people. You are forcing yourself to go make a sandwich because you think you're getting some extra benefits by leaving the game? That's your choice completely and has nothing to do with the design. I can stop playing League of Legends in the middle of a match to go make some coffee or something, it'll ruin everyone's experience because I go "afk" but I really needed that cup of coffee.

 

In essence: Not playing as designed. You make the design flawed, because you want to "break" it.

 

You could always try using that in a review "I had to go make a sandwich to be able to rest".

Edited December 9, 2012 by Osvir

[Osvir]

Osvir, I've never played WoW, nor do I intend to, so I wouldn't know.

 

Missed the edit time, zzz, just wanted to say that the WoW, in essence, "High Quality Temp Perk"/"Well-Rested" idea that you had isn't entirely bad in concept. In WoW it is more of a "Log out at an Inn" and wait a couple of hours and you'll have a temporary "bonus" to Experience (MMO mechanic). Which I hope P:E is not going for, instead in P:E a "Well Rested" scenario could imply that you get better "To Hit" chances, more agility, dexterity. Perhaps a +1 to all of or some of your stats.

 

Well Rested+Well Fed are two interesting mechanics, though at the same time I feel they could be unnecessary for the P:E experience. Ambivalent.

 

Ref:

Perhaps I'm going too far now, but what about scrapping "sleep" and make any rest at inns a high-quality resting with some temporary perk being turned on for like two hours? You know, like all those scattered priests giving the party blessings of all kinds.

 

I can't resist but this sounds like copied and pasted from W.o.W. "Well Rested" is a stamina thing?

 

However, I think that there should be a perk, as if encouraging the player, to rather rest at an Inn instead of out in the wilds (both for safety and because of comfort/morale).

 

Could sleeping out in the wilds cause demoralization? If you sleep outside this or that many times you'll notice your party becoming more and more grumpy, but by going to a Tavern and drink some as well as sleep at an Inn could replenish it? Hm..

Edited December 9, 2012 by Osvir

[Jobby]

I would like to see a resting system simmilar to that of the BG series where you can rest in most places where some locations are more likely to cause random encounters than others.

 

However as it seems that resting is going to be more important in PE than the BG series i feel they should take some time to flesh out the system, i would quite like to see some arbitrary resource (that does not require inventory space or micromanagement) being depleted but i would also like to see something deeper than this, perhaps a rest menu where you have to option to assign party members tasks, i.e. player xx can forage/hunt, player yy stands guard.. etc.. It doesnt need to be a long and painstaking process.

 

I realise i may be in the minority here and i am not going to spit the dummy out if we end up with the standard "fade to black" rest mechanic of the BG series i just think it's an area that could be expanded upon.

 

Also i think the well rested idea is very good, alsthough as opposed to "to hit" increases i would propose +x max stamina till next rest or fatigue kicks in (is fatigue even in the game?), this may also serve as an initiative for players not to rest spam and to hold off resting until the can find another inn.

 

Finally i think it would be quite cool if when camping you actual saw your tent set up where you had decided to rest, with your pcs round the campfire to chat to, not quite to the same extents as the KOTOR and DA home hub where you have to spam chat to everyone to make them like you more (which i thought felt rather forced).

Perhaps things like the journal, crafting and maps could be visible items in the camp area that you could access (I'm not saying remove them from the UI).

To be fair this last paragraph is more for personal preference and flavour more than anything else, and i realise it would add little to the game other than a better feel of adventure (for me anyway).

[ReyVagabond]

Perosonaly i want to able to rest/camp in every open space and cleared "dungeon", resting for 8 hours in a badit camp is moronic , how the hell those badits didnt see their dead companions and tryed to kill me or just flee or something. the static world is something that for this game cannot hapend.

 

but aside form that, i want to have a micromanage screen for the rest, like how many hours do i want to rest (full day and night sircle), consuming/using, tents water, food, etc. maybe adding little stuff like who sleeps with who (creating or destroing friendship, like the smelly guy using the same tent as the clean princies creates tention), and also asing jobs to do: like Gathering resoureses, healing companions, cooking, staying up to look up for enemies (aka that dude doesent rest for the night), etc. what ever you feel like it would be cool to do.

 

The same could be done in a town while resting in a inn or what ever, you send the team in diferent tasks in the city before the actual rest.

 

Maybe adding something like the Private action, of the firsts Star Ocen games.

 

All i know is i dont wat to hit a button and its done.

[rjshae]

I'd like to see a mechanic that differentiates comfortable rest in a warm Inn from just sleeping on the ground. Since rest is already going to cure your health damage, another differentiator is needed. The first that comes to mind is disease. Resting in a safe, warm, comfortable place should improve your odds of recovering from a bout of disease. In fact, resting up should improve your resistance to both disease and possibly poison as well. It should also clear your thoughts and rest your worn body, so it seems reasonable to allow a small bonus to skills for a day or two.

[Osvir]

Almost done with Divine Divinity, resting really works well in Divine Divinity, all I am missing in that game is a bedroll that I can carry with me and use wherever I'm at (does it exist?).

 

If the "Bedroll" doesn't exist in P:E then I've got nothing against specific places where you can rest and not everywhere (unless you've got a "Camp"/"Bedroll" that is placeable).

[ogrezilla]

"Force" people. You are forcing yourself to go make a sandwich because you think you're getting some extra benefits by leaving the game? That's your choice completely and has nothing to do with the design. I can stop playing League of Legends in the middle of a match to go make some coffee or something, it'll ruin everyone's experience because I go "afk" but I really needed that cup of coffee.

 

In essence: Not playing as designed. You make the design flawed, because you want to "break" it.

 

You could always try using that in a review "I had to go make a sandwich to be able to rest".

good design would not give a benefit to someone who walks away from the game like that. I understand its the player's choice, but predictible player choices should be considered when designing mechanics. LoL clearly discourages you from walking away. A mechanic that limits resting to every 16 game hours does nothing to discourage walking away. In fact, it would seem to encourage it by allowing you to be rested for more of your actual time playing the game.

 

Obviously some of the blame is on the player. But ideally the game design would encourage the game to be played. A single player game doesn't need to discourage someone from walking away. Please include a pause button. But I don't want to come across a point in the game where the optimal solution is to stop playing the game while I wait for some artificial timer to finish. The 16 hour rest limit would do exactly that. If there is a difficult encounter coming up and I'm injured, the optimal strategy would be to wait until I can rest before I attempt the fight.

[Osvir]

"Force" people. You are forcing yourself to go make a sandwich because you think you're getting some extra benefits by leaving the game? That's your choice completely and has nothing to do with the design. I can stop playing League of Legends in the middle of a match to go make some coffee or something, it'll ruin everyone's experience because I go "afk" but I really needed that cup of coffee.

 

In essence: Not playing as designed. You make the design flawed, because you want to "break" it.

 

You could always try using that in a review "I had to go make a sandwich to be able to rest".

good design would not give a benefit to someone who walks away from the game like that. I understand its the player's choice, but predictible player choices should be considered when designing mechanics. LoL clearly discourages you from walking away. A mechanic that limits resting to every 16 game hours does nothing to discourage walking away. In fact, it would seem to encourage it by allowing you to be rested for more of your actual time playing the game.

 

Obviously some of the blame is on the player. But ideally the game design would encourage the game to be played. A single player game doesn't need to discourage someone from walking away. Please include a pause button. But I don't want to come across a point in the game where the optimal solution is to stop playing the game while I wait for some artificial timer to finish. The 16 hour rest limit would do exactly that. If there is a difficult encounter coming up and I'm injured, the optimal strategy would be to wait until I can rest before I attempt the fight.

 

The optimal strategy, so far as I understand it, is to fight one battle then walk towards the next one because my stamina will have regenerated almost 100%. Whilst you are making sandwich I am well under way to finish the game. To be honest... why do you need "Resting" in P:E? There is no spells to memorize, no health to heal and stamina will heal by itself.

 

What is the function of the resting? What can you do there? Is it a special place where you can access crafting? Some preparation inventory management?

 

"What is Resting?" in P:E

Edited December 28, 2012 by Osvir

[ReyVagabond]

"Force" people. You are forcing yourself to go make a sandwich because you think you're getting some extra benefits by leaving the game? That's your choice completely and has nothing to do with the design. I can stop playing League of Legends in the middle of a match to go make some coffee or something, it'll ruin everyone's experience because I go "afk" but I really needed that cup of coffee.

 

In essence: Not playing as designed. You make the design flawed, because you want to "break" it.

 

You could always try using that in a review "I had to go make a sandwich to be able to rest".

good design would not give a benefit to someone who walks away from the game like that. I understand its the player's choice, but predictible player choices should be considered when designing mechanics. LoL clearly discourages you from walking away. A mechanic that limits resting to every 16 game hours does nothing to discourage walking away. In fact, it would seem to encourage it by allowing you to be rested for more of your actual time playing the game.

 

Obviously some of the blame is on the player. But ideally the game design would encourage the game to be played. A single player game doesn't need to discourage someone from walking away. Please include a pause button. But I don't want to come across a point in the game where the optimal solution is to stop playing the game while I wait for some artificial timer to finish. The 16 hour rest limit would do exactly that. If there is a difficult encounter coming up and I'm injured, the optimal strategy would be to wait until I can rest before I attempt the fight.

 

The optimal strategy, so far as I understand it, is to fight one battle then walk towards the next one because my stamina will have regenerated almost 100%. Whilst you are making sandwich I am well under way to finish the game. To be honest... why do you need "Resting" in P:E? There is no spells to memorize, no health to heal and stamina will heal by itself.

 

What is the function of the resting? What can you do there? Is it a special place where you can access crafting? Some preparation inventory management?

 

"What is Resting?" in P:E

 

What about, all the above.

 

You rest to recover from lets say Exaustion a cap to stamina because staying awake for to long is bad for you!

the party could craft, could chat with each other, you could enter the level up proces (a complex system where you chose whay you want tell before gainin any xp where).

To have that old school sensation of man i just beat a dungeon we need to rest.

Heal each other, by using consumables like bandeges, despite the characters having little HP they could still have injuries or broken bones, or beeing poisoned or who know what.

a canp to treat a frieds fiever sounds logical.

Gather crafting materials, like watter from a near by river, or what ever we can imagine to place in PE.

 

perosonaly i want all party micromanaging to be done only at "camp or resting or at an inn" i want to plan ahead or deal with the consecuenses of my adventures.

 

in game play i would like to "camp" every more or less two hours game play, and be something like going back to base in a X-Com game, but with more Fantacy and Role playing involved. New RPGs like ME have something like this sensation of you starship is your camp, you come back there and you rest there you talk to your friends etc.

Well something like that but done well!

 

And take away from Combat part of your game play time, making more inmersive the world where you live and explore, and stuff hapends.

somewhere the cool non combat skills of your party can be used! and apricieted.

 

But thats just me

[Osvir]

^Great post!

 

I also got an idea from it.

 

Could leveling up be pre-decision? "I want my character to gain experience in this" and whenever you gain experience the character gains experience for specifically what you have chosen before-hand. So you could tell the Rogue "I want you to gain more Scout experience" or "more Offensive experience" and they'll level in whatever you choose and thus you'll get a class style. You'd be able to choose the "Direction" you want to take the class/leveling up at camp.

[ogrezilla]

I was just basing my point on what rest was used for in past games.

[Racker]

In Neverwinter Nights 2, if I remember correctly, the characters would just kind of squat down for a few moments while resting outside or in a dungeon or something. It was less disruptive to the 'flow' than the resting in BG and IWD2, which I recently played, where the screen would fade out and a line of text would tell you that you'd been asleep for two days or whatever.

 

But what constitutes a good resting system is determined by the combat mechanics of the game, so it's difficult to say I'd really favor anything at this point in development.

[rjshae]

In Neverwinter Nights 2, if I remember correctly, the characters would just kind of squat down for a few moments while resting outside or in a dungeon or something. It was less disruptive to the 'flow' than the resting in BG and IWD2, which I recently played, where the screen would fade out and a line of text would tell you that you'd been asleep for two days or whatever.

I never liked that five second rest-pause system in the NWN2 OC. It looked completely ridiculous and implausible. Fortunately they improved upon it in the sequels, doing a fade out/in and a possible combat encounter while you were resting.

[Crowseye]

I'm a big believer in 'rest' and 'sleep' in my RPGs. I believe they lend authenticity to the role-playing experience. They can also add a strategic layer to combat and decision making: when the ability to restore HP and use abilities that require exertion is finite (between recovery periods), the player has to make decisions that transcend any given encounter and therefore become part of the exploration process. The ability to rest or sleep (and the player's judgement on whether it is safe to do so) will affect the player's decision to use certain abilities and items, to push on or go back and so on in a way that is fundamentally different when stats and abilities are effectively reset between every encounter.

 

When looking at examples of rest and sleep functionality in other games, I think it's important to differentiate between concept and implementation. Baldur's Gate is a good example of this. Conceptually, rest/sleep in BG is used to restore HP and ability uses. In terms of implementation, BG is based on an 8-hour rest/memorization and recovery cycle suggested in D&D material. As has been pointed out in earlier posts, this creates stupid scenarios where the party simply rests for 6 days straight (in a matter of seconds) to fully recover. However, the 8-hour figure is completley aribtrary, as is the HP gain per hour of rest. Another game could implement the same mechanic and fully restore the party in 6 hours instead of 6 days, for example, just by tweaking the numbers. In other words, just because BG's implementation created an absurd scenario doesn't mean the concept of resting/sleeping to restore HP and ability uses is entirely broken.

 

As an aside, D&D 4e uses the "encounter" as a unit of gameplay and has abilities that function once-per-encounter, the idea essentially being that they require sufficient energy/concentration that in the midst of a fight they can only be used once, but once the character "catches his breath" between encounters he's ready to use them again. It also offers once-per-day abilities that require longer periods of rest.

 

In any case, the important thing to me is that the decision to rest or sleep be as meaningful as possible without necessarily making it too complex for the player to make a reasoned decision from the information provided. In addition to recovering health and replenishing the use of tasks that require heavy exertion, other bonuses for being rested help make the decision more meaningful. Penalties to resting in uncomfortable or dangerous locations (specifically being attacked while resting) do the same, but from the opposite angle. At the very least, any sleep system should include these kinds of bonuses and risks IMO.

 

I also like the idea of differentiating "resting" or even "catching some shuteye" from "setting up camp," with the latter providing a period to interact with party mates and perhaps organize inventory/supplies. Rest can be differentiated from sleep by limiting the number of rest periods between sleep, or more realistically by having rest periods offering diminishing benefits until they are reset by a period of sleep. Likewise, depending on the quality and length of sleep, trying to sleep again immediately after waking could see decreased benefits as well. The implementation would obviously depend on how HP and abilites function in normal gameplay.

[Frenetic Pony]

Playing Dragon's Dogma right now, and honestly I like the way health is handled therein. You get your health bar and heal spells and thousand plants you shove down your throat to heal yourself.

 

But if you take too much damage part of your health goes down and can't be restored until such time as you go to an inn. Meaning as you wander about the amout of health you can restore via random forest plants and spells gets lower and lower until you simply have to back to town and stay at an inn to rest and get it all the way back up. It's a nice balance between no health restoration (not the type of game PE is) and regenerative/infinite heals all the time, which is kind of... ADHD like in that there's no medium term risk/reward, you're always 5 seconds away from being back to perfect and so don't need to think about anything beyond about the next 10 seconds.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Frenetic Pony

[Game_Exile]

"Force" people. You are forcing yourself to go make a sandwich because you think you're getting some extra benefits by leaving the game? That's your choice completely and has nothing to do with the design.

It has everything to do with the game's design, lol.

 

I'd like to see a mechanic that differentiates comfortable rest in a warm Inn from just sleeping on the ground. Since rest is already going to cure your health damage, another differentiator is needed. The first that comes to mind is disease. Resting in a safe, warm, comfortable place should improve your odds of recovering from a bout of disease. In fact, resting up should improve your resistance to both disease and possibly poison as well. It should also clear your thoughts and rest your worn body, so it seems reasonable to allow a small bonus to skills for a day or two.

This is a good idea, and Crowseye pretty much says why:

In any case, the important thing to me is that the decision to rest or sleep be as meaningful as possible without necessarily making it too complex for the player to make a reasoned decision from the information provided. In addition to recovering health and replenishing the use of tasks that require heavy exertion, other bonuses for being rested help make the decision more meaningful. Penalties to resting in uncomfortable or dangerous locations (specifically being attacked while resting) do the same, but from the opposite angle. At the very least, any sleep system should include these kinds of bonuses and risks IMO.

The decisions to rest can be a lot more interesting than it was in say, Baldur's Gate, where you just hit the rest button when you needed to recover spells and relieve exhaustion. Having advantages and disadvantages to where and how you rest, as mentioned above, can make money more interesting, for example, provided that money is scarce. Resting at an inn costs money, obviously, and "pitching camp" could cost supplies.

 

The issue here is that there should be some more significant risk in resting than just making the player spend extra time traveling back and forth to resting spots for some advantage. If there were timers or time limits involved in the quest(s), for example, deciding whether or not to rest would be a lot more significant.

 

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.

The dungeon "resets" need to make sense in the story/setting. If the devs can design a few "reset" variations that would be appropriate in the setting and make the dungeons extra challenging, that would be a good way to implement some risk for resting or not finishing a dungeon or dungeon level in a single run.

Edited December 30, 2012 by Game_Exile

[Osvir]

"Force" people. You are forcing yourself to go make a sandwich because you think you're getting some extra benefits by leaving the game? That's your choice completely and has nothing to do with the design.

It has everything to do with the game's design, lol.

 

All I'm trying to convey is that if you get a Pit Fighter (Modded kit) for BG you get a Perk which regenerates 1 HP every now and then. I could go (afk) make a sandwich and regenerate all health, or I could simply continue the game and I would've regenerated most of the health when I arrive at the next location (fast traveling) or until I face the next encounter.

 

In BG, let's say I had 50/50 Health. Lost 30 in the fight, now at 20/50. If I walk around, and face the next encounter (in an area with few encounters), I might be at some 30/50. Fast traveling to a close location, 40/50 and to a far away location 50/50 (unless random encounter). Otherwise I could use a health spell to regenerate.

 

Pit Fighter is a great concept, check it out. Made by Ghreyfain (just kudos, whoever that guy is, kind of).

 

Pit Fighter

These hardened gladiators have honed their combat skills and endurance in the vicious fighting pits found in the seedier parts of Faerun. Years of brutal fighting have improved their stamina, giving them a considerable boost to their Constitution. Exposure to such constant violance has hardened the bodies of these embittered warriors to the point where they are able to recover from wounds at a rate beyond that of a normal human being* Fighter**. The gladiatorial arenas have taught the Pit Fighter not only the need for strength and endurance, but also the importane of speed and agility. As a rsult, Pit Fighters can move and strike faster than an ordinary adventurer. Only the very best fighters survive past their first few fights. These extraordinary men eventually gain the ability to Cause Serious Wounds*** of their opponents through sheer force of will.

Howeveer, only humans, dwarves and half-orc have the physical potential to become Pit Fighters, who are chosen among those with outstanding strength, stamina and agility. Whilst Pit Fighters are brutal warriors, they are rarely given the opportunity to hone their skill with any one weapon, being forced to train and fight with whatever instrument is nearby. As a result, Pit Fighters may only become proficient in Two Weapon Style and Sword and Shield Style. Similarly, due to their lack of familiarity with ranged weapons in the arena, Pit Fighters are unable to use them in combat. Because agility is a fundamental attribute of Pit Fighters, they are unable to wear full plate armour which is far too restrictive to their fighting style.

 

ADVANTAGES:

- Regenerates slowly

- Has a naturally high movement rate

- Gains Cure Serious Wounds at level 1 and 12***

 

DISADVANTES:****

- Requires 16 Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution

- Must be Human, Half-Orc or Dwarf*

- Can only be proficient with Sword and Shield or Two Weapon Style

- Wears no armour heavier than Splint Mail

- Does not use ranged weapons with any skill

- Can only place up to 3 proficiency points in a single weapon proficiency

- Cannot be Lawful Good

 

* Probably a typo since both the description and disadvantages say "Human, Half-Orc, Dwarf".

** Editted

*** You gain Cure Serious Wounds and not Cause Serious Wounds (the latter would've fit much better so the author might've changed it or chosen the wrong one, regardless, Cure Serious Wounds is all good imo from a gameplay perspective, though Cause Serious Wounds probably would have been more fun)

**** Doesn't add up to the Advantages in my opinion, still a great class. Magic Resistance could be an all time low (probably is though, but it should be in the description).

---------------------------------------------------

 

This Class Kit is super fun, as a Fighter.

 

Though, granted, it is a bit of an upgraded Fighter (Pit Fighter feels generally stronger than a regular Fighter, but in my opinion it also makes the Fighter feel much better. Not immortal powerful either, the Pit Fighter doesn't stand a chance against a seasoned team of mage's (with tactics/AI mods).

Edited December 30, 2012 by Osvir

[Game_Exile]

All I'm trying to convey is that if you get a Pit Fighter (Modded kit) for BG you get a Perk which regenerates 1 HP every now and then. I could go (afk) make a sandwich and regenerate all health, or I could simply continue the game and I would've regenerated most of the health when I arrive at the next location (fast traveling) or until I face the next encounter.

It is a bad idea to design a strategic choice where the risk connected to it (journeying with poor health in this case) is eliminated by leaving the computer and going to get a sandwich. If P:E had a mechanic closer to Fallout, where you could choose the amount of time you want to "rest", then waiting around for health to regenerate on your pit fighter wouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

My point with resting, anyway, was that there should be some significant resource risk (time, money, or whatever) in resting, where resting gives you a significant advantage (which will probably work out to almost always). This is one of the reasons I think there should be timers/time limits on all sorts of things in the game.

 

Pit Fighter is a great concept, check it out. Made by Ghreyfain (just kudos, whoever that guy is, kind of).

Thanks for the recommendation, maybe? I don't think I'll be playing BG2 again, much less dive back into the BG2 mod gauntlet.

[Osvir]

All I'm trying to convey is that if you get a Pit Fighter (Modded kit) for BG you get a Perk which regenerates 1 HP every now and then. I could go (afk) make a sandwich and regenerate all health, or I could simply continue the game and I would've regenerated most of the health when I arrive at the next location (fast traveling) or until I face the next encounter.

It is a bad idea to design a strategic choice where the risk connected to it (journeying with poor health in this case) is eliminated by leaving the computer and going to get a sandwich. If P:E had a mechanic closer to Fallout, where you could choose the amount of time you want to "rest", then waiting around for health to regenerate on your pit fighter wouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

But it isn't an issue.

 

A has 40 Stamina, B has 40 Stamina

A lose 10 stamina, B lose 10 stamina

A makes sandwich, B continues game

A gets +5 Stamina, B is at next encounter (ahead of A) +5 Stamina.

 

It all depends on how fast Stamina is regenerating. I am not advocating for sandwich?

Edited December 30, 2012 by Osvir

[Adhin]

Last update makes it look like you will actually need to rest to use spells instead of them being on a timer. Which leads me to believe some use abilities will be on timers instead and grimiore swapping (aka, spell 'sets') will have a cooldown on swapping. Looks like they're using a per day/per encounter setup with spells (at least for Wizards and Priests). Basically you have to rest to get your spells back, if your high enough level your low end spells will become per encounter meaning they auto-reset when a fight is over. DnD terms it would be like always having 5 magic missiles to use in every fight you go into once your say, lvl 5 or higher. Lets mages be useful magically on a consistent basis while keeping the higher more powerful spells on a more controlled basis.

 

Also you have to rest to regain health and it's the only way to get health back. Stamina exists as a means to, ultimately, extent your character's life bar by 4 times while still acting like it's normal in any given encounter. That's putting it a bit simple but its the jist of it. Say you have 50 health as per example above, say you have 50 stamina to go along with it in the new system (these may not actually be perfectly matched in game mind you). You lose stamina at a 4:1 ratio to health so you lose all 50 stamina in a fight you get knocked out and your health is at 37-38. You can basically do that 2 more times before you absolutely need to rest. It basically adds more risk while extending the time to rest... it's a good system.

 

Stamina will regenerate quickly out of battle (and not in battle with out aid). Basically it's kind of like DAO super-quick health regen out of combat except your companions and your character can die even if the rest of the teams still conscious. It just adds a bit more to manage while keeping 'how' often we have to rest (either by design or flaw) to a minimum.

 

-edit-

Also a well made Sandwich is delicious.

Edited December 30, 2012 by Adhin

[clippedwolf]

Before asking if a resting mechanic is "realistic", ask if it is fun.

[Lephys]

^ It's not really about realism. It's about reason. Many realistic things follow reason, because reality is subject to reason. So, if your goal with a rest mechanic is to limit spell use, say, and you allow resting every 10 seconds, say, then you're not really achieving that goal. It's silly, in that example, to say "Pssh, we should be able to rest every 10 seconds, because it doesn't need to be realistic!" Because, really, what you want then, is a lack of limitation on spell use. You don't really care how often you can rest, which is why you don't care about it being realistic. You only care that any amount of realism worsens the perceived detriment to your gameplay experience by compounding the spell usage limitations.

 

Realism (or believability) and fun are not mutually exclusive things.

[Rubarack]

^ It's not really about realism. It's about reason. Many realistic things follow reason, because reality is subject to reason. So, if your goal with a rest mechanic is to limit spell use, say, and you allow resting every 10 seconds, say, then you're not really achieving that goal. It's silly, in that example, to say "Pssh, we should be able to rest every 10 seconds, because it doesn't need to be realistic!" Because, really, what you want then, is a lack of limitation on spell use. You don't really care how often you can rest, which is why you don't care about it being realistic. You only care that any amount of realism worsens the perceived detriment to your gameplay experience by compounding the spell usage limitations.

 

Realism (or believability) and fun are not mutually exclusive things.

 

No, but the question needs to be on the correct framework. In this case it's exactly as you say unlimited resting destroys the limits placed on certain abilities. But the simplest "realistic" solution is no good, by limiting rests to every 16 hours or so players can just wait past them. It's poor design to make the most boring solution the most effective one. A better solution is to have preset resting points, that way the intended limits are retained and there is no way to work around them by playing in a boring fashion. Alternatively have a time limit associated with every quest or even some simple mechanic such as food that limits the amount of times a party can rest between each safe area.

[JOG]

As long as PE doesn't use a Vancian spell system that makes you memorize the spells before you need them and mages can run out of spells, then the main resting factor would be health anyway, and getting some miserable sleep in a damp dungeon wouldn't help too much to recover. I guess/hope the helath/stamina-system will be balanced well enough to allow us to emerge from our dungeon crawl battered but victorious, rather than having to sleep right in front of the final boss' room, to prepare for the final battle.

 

Resting, as in taking a break, sitting down, and catch a breath for five minutes (to regain stamina and some spell energy) should always be possible, but you shouldn't be as good as new after a short break, and most areas simply shouldn't be safe for sleeping and recovering, either because they're uncomfortable, dangerous, or because the citywatch doesn't like vagrants on their streets. Finding a good place to rest (sleep) in the wilderness is a survival skill, so the amount of health regain and chance to be interupted may be directly linked to the skill, but the prefered way of resting should be a warm bed in an inn.

 

Of course we could automize "leave the dungeon, go to next town, rest and return where we are" to the press of a button, but this "streamlining" is one of the reasons why current "RPG"s are as they are. To me exhaustion and the possibility of party members dying permanently is a good thing, as it makes an adventurer's life well... adventurous.

 

 

BTW: many of the RPGs that were already old-school when BG1 was released had another resting limiter: food; you either couldn't rest with an empty belly, or the time spent resting would make you hungry and you would suffer some penalties when you hadn't thought of bringing along enough rations, a real simple solution. Also quite popular were the "safe spot" places that were the only places where you could rest (and in some cases also the only places where you could save the game).

Edited January 6, 2013 by JOG

[Adhin]

They seem to be using a parcial vancian system. You don't memorize spells, like your not going in with 2 fireballs and 2 holds or something for the same tier. It's more sorcerer like in you have say a few spells in a tier, and 5 casts in that tier. Looks like as you level up at least first tier of spells become per-encounter instead of per-rest so you'd be able to use all 5-6 of your magic missiles every fight and they'd reset once your out of a fight.

 

They've also talked about using a spellbook mechanic as kind of pre-sets. So you'd still be picking spells to have 'at the ready' but it would be in more of a set. For instance maybe you can only have 4 tier 3 spells available at any given time but you know 10 of them. You have multiple spell book pre-sets (like weapon sets) that you can switch between out of combat (with a CD between book swapping). That's all from ideas Obsidian has mentioned in updates. Resting is still to reset your spell use per day, but they seem to be trying to make it less of a forced thing to deal with certain encounters. Like one bad encounter needs a certain number of buffs, now you can just 'swap' to a new spell set to do that instead of rememing, resting, then going in again.