Exponential Health Gain

[AGX-17]

So every RPG does this. It's kinda what ruins MMO's and falling behind your friends in the level curve. It's what's ruined, in part, The Elderscrolls games.

 

Every time you level up, you gain health. Why?

 

Serious question, why do you gain health? The enemies you encounter then gain damage. Your actual net gain versus the enemies you face might be nil. No change whatsoever on gameplay, except maybe low level monsters go from a challenge to a nuisance.

 

It's of no real benefit except making a little part in the players more basic brain functions feel better that a bar has gone up. Which isn't really needed, there are other bars. Just get rid of it.

 

Get rid of automatic health gain, and suddenly balancing isn't as much of a problem, because you need to deal with less changing numbers. Suddenly levelling creatures isn't nearly as much of a problem, you don't have to keep amping up enemies health and damage nearly as much just because the player and party have gained more levels. Get rid of it so players don't have to constantly re-adjust what a good weapon is in terms of damage, don't have to throw away old health potions because they don't do enough anymore, don't have to wade through enemies that can't hurt them simply because they're too high of a level.

 

Just, don't do it. Shooters don't do it, huge open world games like Just Cause and Red Dead Redemption didn't. People still played them for hundreds of hours. It's just a headache and extra work with no real benefit, a relic of the original Dungeons and Dragon's first edition that no one's ever questioned for 40 years so far as I can tell.

 

Do you know what exponential growth is? I'm seeing a bit of confusion here, so let's have a math lesson:

 

Let's say level is capped at 20.

Then let's say you start with 10 HP and gain 5 upon reaching level 2.

If this increases exponentially, you'll gain 10 at lv3, 20 at lv4, 40 at lv5, 80 at lv6, 160 at lv7, 320 at lv8, 640 at lv9, 1280 at lv10, 2560 at lv11, 5120 at lv12, 10,240 at lv13, 20,480 at lv14, 40,960 at lv15, 81,920 at lv16, 163,840 at lv17, 327,680 at lv18, 655,360 at lv19 and 1,310,720 at lv20.

 

So now you've got a grand total of 2,457,605 HP by the time you've hit the level cap of 20. If my maths are not as flawed as I am prone to believe.

 

That is exponential growth.

[Utukka]

^

Math aside, it's safe to assume the majority of people so far have understood the intent behind his post.

[Hassat Hunter]

Shooters don't do it, huge open world games like Just Cause and Red Dead Redemption didn't.

*cough* Just Cause II does indeed do that. Many shooters too... *cough*

 

While the concept works for shooters (don't get hit, moron) that doesn't mean the same concept can be used for RPG's. I see people mention dodge systems. But what fun is combat if you get insta-killed when not dodging (meaning you're entirely a NON-PARTICIPANT through combat), rather than when you can intervene if things go sour (ie. hitpoint get lowered, use potion or run).

So yes, passive abilities to lower HP loss or getting hit are good, but making a RPG build entirely around it? Bad idea.

 

Now that we established it's more fun to get hit and dealing with that, let's deal with... having the same HP for 80 hours of game. Meaning enemies can't really increase damage much. Or hitpoints. Gear is limited in damage and health increases. Generally, you just turned the game into an 80 hour grind. No feeling of progression what-so-ever, not a whole lot of variation to enemies, since it's just not possible, etc.

Again, a really bad idea for a long RPG.

 

In shooters, this is akin to giving player better weapons. And then unleashing better monsters to cope with those weapons. It's not like the enemies difficulty increases without the player getting a buff too. Like you suggest now for the RPG genre. And no game should do that. Definitely not by design.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Hassat Hunter

[harhar!]

1. This not exponential growth.

2. Should stronger guys not get more basedamage? Will every guy just do the same dmg? It makes little sense imo.