Sawyerism Distilled - an interview with Josh Sawyer at Iron Tower Studio

[Maltry]

It honestly sounds to me as though the intention for the reputation-stlye system is not to invalidate the idea of converstation checks, but rather to increase the reactivity and and complex nature of these interactions. If you possess a diplomacy skill in a tabletop game, only a GM's influence states that your character must actually be diplomatic in order to use it. By making the system reactive to a character's actions and choices in the game requires that the character put their money where their mouth is. You can't be diplomatic if you've never been diplomatic in your life, and if you consistently choose to be violent and intimidating at every turn you will be unpracticed and unprepared when you suddenly decide that *this* time you want to change your ways. It isn't invalidating character development, it's a way to encourage people to develop characters instead of dotting up paper dolls. Not only that, but 'reputation' system implies a lot more reactivity in the world, with groups you have already affected. Something good GM's are already doing in your table-top games through the application of modifiers. There are many-many factors that can affect any given interaction, why not have a system that can take all of them more effectively into account than those simple skills?

 

The only real speech skills I don't see being more effectively replaced by this kind of reactive system is an empathy or detect lie equivalent. Abilities based around your perceptions rather than your interactions.

[Doppelschwert]

With a fixed ratio of stamina/health damage, resting depends on how much damage you receive (and how many abilities you want to refresh). But there is no tactical decision about how much damage you receive - that would be only the case if you could influence the ratio of stamina/health damage - but this does not seem to be the case. The tactical decision people are implying is whether you feel up to surviving the next battle or not - which is in a fact a tactical decision, but not the consequence of the dual system as it has been in every IE game before.

 

You're making assumptions based on things Sawyer never said.

 

t's actually already implemented and it works similarly to the classic MicroProse game Darklands. The major differences (IIRC) are that Darklands used armor to adjust the ratio of Endurance/Strength lost (i.e., heavier armor reduced the amount of Strength lost on a hit compared to Endurance) and that there were items to regain Strength, but they were rare/expensive.

I asked him specifically about whether PE would have ways of changing this ratio, and he didn't answer. I don't think he's ever implied that the ratio would stay static. Once again, look at my signature. As he says, the details can always be changed later if they don't play well.

 

Fair enough, but I didn't want to imply that a static ratio is final, either. All I wanted to say is that there is no decision involved if there are no ways to influence the ratio, and the way I read his post, that seems not likely for now (I started to write my post before you asked him for clarification on that, btw).

I meant to imply that what I'm saying is based on an assumption, so I propably just worded that badly, sorry.

 

It could be more tactical in the sense that you actually try to limit your health damages as much as possible so as to limit resting. As infinitron stated it seems most logical to limit resting in some way, so that those who play "better" are rewarded for that by whatever means. It becomes a marker of how well you are fighting tactically over a range of several battles.

 

But there is no tactical decision about how much damage you receive (none which is opened up from the mere existence of stamina / health, which is what this discussion is about) - that would be only the case if you could influence the ratio of stamina/health damage - but this does not seem to be the case. The tactical decision people are implying is whether you feel up to surviving the next battle or not - which is in a fact a tactical decision, but not the consequence of the dual system as it has been in every IE game before.

 

No, see above. Thats what I was responding to.

 

You can think about the system what you want but I have yet to see a convincing argument how this introduces tactical decisions based on what we know so far. Also, don't get me wrong; I feel like the system is a very good way to stop restspamming and I'm beginning to like it - however, I'd still have a problem with this if resting is limited to far apart places.

 

Im not sure I follow you. You are saying that deciding to push forward or not is tactical (1st paragraph) but what are you saying is not tactical (second paragraph)? Also, another great way to prevent rest spamming is to choose not to push the rest button.

 

I was arguing that he stamina/health system doesn't introduce new tactical decisions, if there is no way to change the ratio at which damage is received. Its tactical to decide whether to push forward or not, but this decision was in every IE game available, so its not tied to stamina being there. However, some people seem to suggest the opposite when they talk about sending high stamina / low health characters into battle (which is not a new option, its the same as sending a character with low hitpoints into a battle). Also, under that assumption, I ruled out that limiting health damage would be possible, so it was the only thing left I wanted to comment on.

 

Look, I know Im screwed here. There isnt going to be any difficulty level that adds a healer class, or healing spells, or potions, or resurrection, but at least a fellow can dream that there will be a "free rest" option that allows resting wherever you want and that will prevent the game from sucking the life out of me by the fiftieth time I have to hump back 3 map screen to get to the closest inn to rest, just so I can walk all the way back to where I was.

 

Can someone give me a logical reason why that sounds like fun? I mean that seriously.

 

Look, there are good tactics to use when fighting armies and terrible tactics to use when fighting armies. If you're wasting all your magic missles on the goblins and throwing your melee fighters with non-magical weapons at clay golems and then wondering why you're losing health, then you're not playing tactically. You aren't looking at the rules and making judgements based on them. You're just rolling the dice and hoping to win the crap shoot. There are absolutely "right" ways to win a fight and "wrong" ways to win a fight. It's not just armor/underwear. I mean ... come on. BG2 you knew that if you wanted to kill mages, oyu had to use breach first. If you didn't, you lost HP as the mages fireballed your dudes. If you played "tactically" you breached him, then sent in your melees for the kill. These are tactics.

 

You could also sometimes win by waiting for their protection spells to run out, but during all that time, your party members are losing health. You aren't playing effectively. You haven't figured out the important bit (breach mages).

 

It's fun because once you realize that you're doing it wrong the 100th time and realize your tactics need to be changed, you realize that you've been playing the game inefficiently. Then the mages and other dudes fall at your feet. And you feel like you've accomplished something. If they just make everything easy, then you're just playing for the story and the combat is there to distract from the cinema. If you aren't told where you're going wrong (by dying) then you just keep using the same bad tactics as before. The game should teach how how to play it, and then provide challenges to you to see whether you've learned from the basics or not.

 

Hiking back to town to rest isn't fun. It's supposed to be there to say "dude, you did it wrong."

 

Does that clear it up a little?

 

Although I agree with you on the most part, I think your example is quite the opposite. For one thing, BG2 was pretty bad at teaching you how the combat rules work and it assumed you picked at least one healer and one arcane wizard and one kind of thief character or else you're at an disadvantage. Especially the magic battles were tedious as they always consisted of doing the same spells in the same order - thats not tactical decision making either, thats locking you into a single viable option to defeat those enemies. The fun comes when you havea lot of viable options and you know about them at the same time. Imho, you should be dying because you overestimated yourself or neglected the feedback the game gives you, not because of your party composition or failing to find the single only solution to the combat puzzle. The feedback what you're doing wrong should become obvious while you're dying, not the fact that you die (things like the message that your weapons don't work on the clay golems you mentioned, for example). Granted, those are all things josh already adressed as problems somewhere, so I think we'll have some nice mechanics to prevent this.

 

@Gfted1:

If it helps you, just pretend that stamina are hitpoints and health is some kind of fatigue.

You'll be able to heal your stamina during combat and treat it like the hitpoints in other games, while health just tells you to go rest in a while. I'd guess you'll find by actual playing the game that it doesn't feel that different from the things you know.

The system is designed so that you don't need to rest that often, but this doesn't have to mean that you have to run through a lot of floors to find a resting place. We'll see how it turns out.

 

And if there is a way to actually influence the ratio between stamina and health damage, you may want to take more stamina damage in order to save your health or vice versa, making the party more / less reliable on rest to fit your tastes. (which is the tactical decision hormalakh was talking about, if it is in the game).

[Gumbercules]

@Doppelschwert, the way you're describing influencing the stamina/health damage ratio sounds really interesting and makes me wonder what the disadvantage to such an approach might be, since it seems like maybe PE will be using fixed ratios.

[Gfted1]

It's fun because once you realize that you're doing it wrong the 100th time and realize your tactics need to be changed, you realize that you've been playing the game inefficiently. Then the mages and other dudes fall at your feet. And you feel like you've accomplished something. If they just make everything easy, then you're just playing for the story and the combat is there to distract from the cinema. If you aren't told where you're going wrong (by dying) then you just keep using the same bad tactics as before. The game should teach how how to play it, and then provide challenges to you to see whether you've learned from the basics or not.

 

Hiking back to town to rest isn't fun. It's supposed to be there to say "dude, you did it wrong."

 

Does that clear it up a little?

 

Yes, it did, any you and I have vastly different takes on what is fun. I understand your above examples were extreme to make your point but all you have to do is glace at your combat text to see if your attacks are having any affect (unless thats removed too ) and adjust accordingly. Its even still within the realm of roleplaying as its completely reasonable that your character would notice ineffective attacks. You also ignore the fact that HEALTH ONLY GOES DOWN. I doesnt matter how brilliant you are when everyones sitting a 1-2 hp. At that point a single hit will kill you regardless of you being at full stamina. You have no choice but to leave, rest and return. Its not up to skill, any successful attack against you and youre dead.

 

If I have to do anything 100 times in PE to learn it then the game is irretrievably broken. And I dont need a punitive mechanics to teach me Im doing something wrong, thats what dying does. I respect your playstyle but thats not for me.

[Ieo]

The greatest "dialogue game" of all time, Planescape Torment, did not use skill checks.

 

I think I mixed up skill checks with stat checks in one of my previous posts, which PST definitely did have (and which definitely created unbalanced play by class type). Anyway, PE will have dialogue stat checks in the low end, but I don't remember if they said there will be any for the high end. Preferably, neither skill nor stat checks would overshadow the actual roleplay decision-making aspects of PE dialogue.

 

Carry on...

[Hormalakh]

Although I agree with you on the most part, I think your example is quite the opposite. For one thing, BG2 was pretty bad at teaching you how the combat rules work and it assumed you picked at least one healer and one arcane wizard and one kind of thief character or else you're at an disadvantage. Especially the magic battles were tedious as they always consisted of doing the same spells in the same order - thats not tactical decision making either, thats locking you into a single viable option to defeat those enemies. The fun comes when you havea lot of viable options and you know about them at the same time. Imho, you should be dying because you overestimated yourself or neglected the feedback the game gives you, not because of your party composition or failing to find the single only solution to the combat puzzle. The feedback what you're doing wrong should become obvious while you're dying, not the fact that you die (things like the message that your weapons don't work on the clay golems you mentioned, for example). Granted, those are all things josh already adressed as problems somewhere, so I think we'll have some nice mechanics to prevent this.

 

I agree with this. I think there were aspects of BG2 that were too "problem-oriented" as opposed to "tactical oriented." There wasn't several solutions: only one and this was a problem. There should be more efficient solutions and less efficient ones and I think Sawyer has talked about this already. http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2012/11/the-queen-needs-no-advocate.html

 

The point is to go towards more of a chess approach and less of a Rock paper scissors approach.

[Hormalakh]

Yes, it did, any you and I have vastly different takes on what is fun. I understand your above examples were extreme to make your point but all you have to do is glace at your combat text to see if your attacks are having any affect (unless thats removed too ) and adjust accordingly. Its even still within the realm of roleplaying as its completely reasonable that your character would notice ineffective attacks. You also ignore the fact that HEALTH ONLY GOES DOWN. I doesnt matter how brilliant you are when everyones sitting a 1-2 hp. At that point a single hit will kill you regardless of you being at full stamina. You have no choice but to leave, rest and return. Its not up to skill, any successful attack against you and youre dead.

 

If I have to do anything 100 times in PE to learn it then the game is irretrievably broken. And I dont need a punitive mechanics to teach me Im doing something wrong, thats what dying does. I respect your playstyle but thats not for me.

 

Right and Sawyer has talked about that in other places. http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2012/11/the-queen-needs-no-advocate.html

 

I believe the most well-executed systems are ones where thoughtful players can accurately discern the designers' goals simply by scrutinizing the systems in action. Though not all players need to be able to do this, the ones who care to do so should be able to. Designers who succeed in creating systems that can be "reverse-engineered" in such a way have captured the soul of elegance in design.

 

The point is though, that if you reached 2 hp when you did and I, playing by the same rules, reached the same point with 20, then there was a more tactically sound way of approaching the previous battles. In fact, now that I think about it, this even further limits players from quicksaving/reloading after each battle and actually having to deal with the consequences of their choices a little further down the line. If I played badly and am at 2 hp, then I haven't played well enough for the last 5 battles and now have to pay the consequence of hiking it back to town to rest up. If there is no consequence, the game feels "cheap" and quickly becomes boring.

[Hormalakh]

The greatest "dialogue game" of all time, Planescape Torment, did not use skill checks.

 

I think I mixed up skill checks with stat checks in one of my previous posts, which PST definitely did have (and which definitely created unbalanced play by class type). Anyway, PE will have dialogue stat checks in the low end, but I don't remember if they said there will be any for the high end. Preferably, neither skill nor stat checks would overshadow the actual roleplay decision-making aspects of PE dialogue.

 

Carry on...

 

From the reddit AMA from a while ago.

what about high intelligence?

Tim Cain: we talked about adding this in Fallout 1, but we ended up writing skill-specific dialog instead. For example, you could suggest something if your Science skill was high, not just your Intelligence stat.

Avellone said:

We are tying responses to attributes, but what we want to avoid in the mechanics is using attributes as "insta-win" buttons (for example, often in previous RPG titles, using the Skill option often is the instant win for quest solutions). What we'd rather do is have attributes and skills open up a range of new information that allows you to make a more informed decision about a choice rather than gate you to a solution.

This may sound complicated, but it's like the Empathy skill in Fallout 1 and 2 - it would only tell you if the person you were talking to would react positively or negatively to your dialogue option, but that didn't mean it was the right option to choose in every situation, and sometimes you wanted to make someone mad to achieve your goal.

Hope that makes sense.

 

http://www.reddit.co...nd_josh_sawyer/

 

It might be worthwhile to go back and re-read this thing. It has a lot of helpful tidbits.

 

Edit: I am going to stop multiposting.... I am sorry ahead of time to the forum members for doing so. It irks me so I know it probably irks a lot of you. Gotta learn to use the multi-quote....

Edited December 7, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Malekith]

It's fun because once you realize that you're doing it wrong the 100th time and realize your tactics need to be changed, you realize that you've been playing the game inefficiently. Then the mages and other dudes fall at your feet. And you feel like you've accomplished something. If they just make everything easy, then you're just playing for the story and the combat is there to distract from the cinema. If you aren't told where you're going wrong (by dying) then you just keep using the same bad tactics as before. The game should teach how how to play it, and then provide challenges to you to see whether you've learned from the basics or not.

 

Hiking back to town to rest isn't fun. It's supposed to be there to say "dude, you did it wrong."

 

Does that clear it up a little?

 

Yes, it did, any you and I have vastly different takes on what is fun. I understand your above examples were extreme to make your point but all you have to do is glace at your combat text to see if your attacks are having any affect (unless thats removed too ) and adjust accordingly. Its even still within the realm of roleplaying as its completely reasonable that your character would notice ineffective attacks. You also ignore the fact that HEALTH ONLY GOES DOWN. I doesnt matter how brilliant you are when everyones sitting a 1-2 hp. At that point a single hit will kill you regardless of you being at full stamina. You have no choice but to leave, rest and return. Its not up to skill, any successful attack against you and youre dead.

 

If I have to do anything 100 times in PE to learn it then the game is irretrievably broken. And I dont need a punitive mechanics to teach me Im doing something wrong, thats what dying does. I respect your playstyle but thats not for me.

I thing your problem is that you think of the mechanic as if it exists in a vacuum. Its the same thing that happened with the cooldowns. If the rest points are 10 areas away from each other and the said areas filled with boss fights,then you will have a point but it will be not the systems fault.Just broken design. You dont think that the designers will test the game so that a player who plays the game reasonably well won't come to a situation that he has to backtrack 5 maps back because the next rest point is another 3 ahead?

[Gfted1]

I thing your problem is that you think of the mechanic as if it exists in a vacuum. Its the same thing that happened with the cooldowns. If the rest points are 10 areas away from each other and the said areas filled with boss fights,then you will have a point but it will be not the systems fault.Just broken design. You dont think that the designers will test the game so that a player who plays the game reasonably well won't come to a situation that he has to backtrack 5 maps back because the next rest point is another 3 ahead?

 

I dont see why it would only apply to boss fights. Damage is damage is damage. Without a way to heal in the field it becomes a simple matter of attrition. But yes, I hope they figure it out.

[anek]

Above a certain (fairly low) level, potions were not going to get your front-line characters back up to peak condition unless you were dumping gallons of potions down their throats.

 

In BG2, there were so many rings and ioun stones etc. which gave slow but continuous health regeneration, that beyond a certain point in the game I never had to rest due to low health, only due to running out of memorized spells (and to get rid of that annoying "fatigue" icon on the character's portraits... ).

[Lephys]

I think that perhaps the problem some of you are having with the Health/Stamina system is that you're automatically equating "Health" to the very same health in other games that don't use this dual system. So, you're taking an entire game's worth of context and sort of thinking, "Okay, it's like this previous game, but now you've taken away all my healing spells and POTIONS?!" Which is a little understandable, I suppose, given that the word "health" is still used, and it's still a pool of points.

 

But don't think of it like that. Think of it like this:

 

Your health is now called "Stamina," and all the healing spells and potions you would've had in common RPG games are now called "Health," and are sort of a surplus of keeping on. So, in previous games, where you would've NOT had automatically regenerating health, it would get low in combat, and you'd say "TIME OUT! I've gotta have this dedicated healer person over here spend their time and mana -- that they COULD be spending on doing cool, strategic things in combat -- to cause Warrior Will's health to climb back in the opposite direction a certain amount, lest he collapse upon yonder ground."

 

In other words, mathematically, in the games we're used to, you can only mitigate/reverse SOME total amount of damage in a given amount of time before you're out of mana/spells/potions, etc. Well, in P:E's system, all (or most) of that is consolidated into a collective well. Not getting into the difference in realistic representation, it's essentially the same thing as before, only with less micromanagement, especially between combat.

 

Sure, you can apparently affect Stamina regeneration, but it sounds as though (with the "No dedicated healers" bits) that will be more limited than the constant healing of yesteryear. And the reason there has to be some amount of "Health" in this system is that, since your Stamina regenerates rather quickly all by itself, something has to prevent you from having indefinite Endurance in combat. I.e. You're down to one character, and there's one foe left, and you keep making sure you avoid the foe enough to let your Stamina regenerate whatever amount for which you keep getting thwacked by him, in between having your character thwack him.

 

Yes, it's a fairly different system, alltogether, but, obviously the game will be built around it, and it will be tested and tweaked, so all the factors in question (rate of battle damage, rest point locations/distances, armor effects, etc) are going to be integral to exactly how well this works, and all those things are being created from scratch for the purposes of supporting this system. So, please don't simply imagine previous IE games with taverns as the only way to regain health. They are in no way constrained to the already-established underlying math and factor settings of any other game here.

 

That being said, I'm highly favoring the idea of Health only decreasing below a certain Stamina threshold. Whether or not it gets factored in, it's a pretty intriguing idea.

[Monte Carlo]

Stamina / Health ... swapping out one sub-optimal system for another.

 

Hit Points might be a very rough way of simulating damage, but let's face it in a game of heroic fantasy where a character can survive several sword thrusts and a critical hit *and* carry on fighting (and win) does it matter how 'realistic' the mechanic is?

 

The stamina / health thing replaces a not-very-realistic but easy to understand mechanic with a fiddly but also unrealistic one. This is where I would argue, with due respect, that Sawyer's 'design head' perhaps trumps his 'gamer's head.'

[Bos_hybrid]

In theory a lack of visual keys in speech checks sounds fine, however it will lead to annoying players, and will cause similar problems to paraphrasing. Without the visual tip, people will select option and get a different result to what they are expecting.

 

A prime example of this is Mass Effect, were selecting an simple innocuous line, will result in something quite unexpected. Of course a way for the writers to compensate for this, is to make it really obvious what's what, but that can in turn can lower the quality of the PC dialogue by making it basic.

 

Having to think about dialogue is good, having to guess about it is not.

[Tagaziel]

The stamina / health thing replaces a not-very-realistic but easy to understand mechanic with a fiddly but also unrealistic one. This is where I would argue, with due respect, that Sawyer's 'design head' perhaps trumps his 'gamer's head.'

 

I have no problem understanding it. I like the added complexity.

[JOG]

You must rest to get all better (health) and you can only do that in certain locations. I know a lot of you guys love the idea of having to stop progressing so you can walk out of the dungeon and across the map to get back to the town that had the inn, but I honestly dont understand why that sounds fun.

 

No, what "we" love is to actually stay in the dungeon. Always being fullly prepared and ready for anything is just a test of skills; adventure and heroism - tales to remember - begin in a situation where you carry on despite being exhausted and in a desperate condition.

 

And no I'm not against resting in a hostile environment, but there should be consequences for doing so, like time passing and a chance to be attacked while you sleep, and maybe even killed if one of you didn't stay up as a guard. This hasn't much to do with health and stamina though, it's a about whether there should be a D&Dish overkill of healing magic or a "realistic" approach. Health and stamina just allow Obsidian to add exhaustion to the acute combat dangers, and balancing a variety of weapon-(damage)-types with a low-healing setting.

Edited December 8, 2012 by JOG

[Tigranes]

It's not very fun if you're always at your maximum for each encounter, but neither is it very fun to have to backtrack or reload all the time. So obviously this solution is aimed at a balance of the two, further modulated by the availability of Expert mode as an option.

[JOG]

Indeed, we are nitpicking about a concept we have only heard of theoretically yet. Beyond D&D there are various systems with a more sophisticated damage/health system, and even P&P D&D is more complex than the computer games make it seem.

 

I for one have played RPGs with a shock / injury system, ones with a health / stamina system, ones without magical healing, ones with fixed resting points, and even ones with fixed saving points. I have no reason to think that Obsidian isn't capable of building a good game system that goes beyond the complexity of today's "RPGs".

 

That no publisher dares to invest in something the masses may find too newfangled or even challenging, is the reason why PE had to be crowdfunded in the first place.

Edited December 8, 2012 by JOG

[Gfted1]

But don't think of it like that. Think of it like this:

 

Your health is now called "Stamina," and all the healing spells and potions you would've had in common RPG games are now called "Health," and are sort of a surplus of keeping on. So, in previous games, where you would've NOT had automatically regenerating health, it would get low in combat, and you'd say "TIME OUT! I've gotta have this dedicated healer person over here spend their time and mana -- that they COULD be spending on doing cool, strategic things in combat -- to cause Warrior Will's health to climb back in the opposite direction a certain amount, lest he collapse upon yonder ground."

 

In other words, mathematically, in the games we're used to, you can only mitigate/reverse SOME total amount of damage in a given amount of time before you're out of mana/spells/potions, etc. Well, in P:E's system, all (or most) of that is consolidated into a collective well. Not getting into the difference in realistic representation, it's essentially the same thing as before, only with less micromanagement, especially between combat.

 

Sure, you can apparently affect Stamina regeneration, but it sounds as though (with the "No dedicated healers" bits) that will be more limited than the constant healing of yesteryear. And the reason there has to be some amount of "Health" in this system is that, since your Stamina regenerates rather quickly all by itself, something has to prevent you from having indefinite Endurance in combat. I.e. You're down to one character, and there's one foe left, and you keep making sure you avoid the foe enough to let your Stamina regenerate whatever amount for which you keep getting thwacked by him, in between having your character thwack him.

 

I disagree with this because stamina and health do not exist independantly. Any damage taken will affect both stamina and health at the same time. It doesnt matter if you are regerating stamina, whether by equipment, abilities, running in circles, etc..., because you are not regenerating health. You can be at full stamina and still die to a single blow if your health is low. If you didnt start losing health until your stamina was at zero than I would agree but the system as stated doesnt work like that and to me, this system seems like more micromanagement.

[Hormalakh]

I think the dual-bar system isn't so complicated as to make gaming unfun. I do appreciate the new approach to previously broken systems - and I do think the health bar/dialogue systems are broken (everyone has their own opinion) - and I find that it will definitely make players play differently. The thing that I appreciate the most is that Mr. Sawyer is actually approaching everything from a perspective of "Is this broken? Do we need to fix it?" as opposed to unthinkingly restoring every single prior game mechanic that the rest of us are used to.

 

I have a feeling that many of us, the gamers, are hesitant for change when it comes to game mechanics because we are familiar with the old and the new can seem daunting at first. Few people like change.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Monte Carlo]

* shrugs *

 

Someone will mod healing potions into this game.

[Lephys]

I disagree with this because stamina and health do not exist independantly. Any damage taken will affect both stamina and health at the same time. It doesnt matter if you are regerating stamina, whether by equipment, abilities, running in circles, etc..., because you are not regenerating health. You can be at full stamina and still die to a single blow if your health is low. If you didnt start losing health until your stamina was at zero than I would agree but the system as stated doesnt work like that and to me, this system seems like more micromanagement.

 

I get that, and I'm in favor of the possibility of your stamina having to drop a certain point before health is affected. And I understand what you mean about the "when you have low health" situation. But, as far as your ability to die is concerned, that's no different from being injured in a different game, in an area you cannot rest, and having run out of potions. The "health" bar in this system is still basically a limiter on how much of your stamina bar (in this case, about 400%) you can lose and replace before having to go out of your way to be able to do it some more.

 

Again, I do advocate the "health only drops below a certain stamina threshold" system and I think the ability to alter the ratio would be a good addition, as well. Not to mention the fact that the ratio might need to be tweaked as it stands, regardless of whether or not it can be changed in-game by anything the player does.

 

I just don't think the system itself is shattering any worlds here. It's just a different way of getting to that "Agh, I've actually got to go get some more supplies" point, and I'd agree that it does encourage the player to think about what they're doing in combat, instead of simply having everyone "ATTACK, ALL THE THINGS!". I also don't think we're looking at the final system details, here. I'm confident they'll figure it all out before launch.

[Tamerlane]

Hm. Something I'm wondering about the 4:1 (or whatever ratio they end up using)...

 

If I take three stamina damage, do I take no health damage?

Edited December 8, 2012 by Tamerlane

[Hormalakh]

Hm. Something I'm wondering about the 4:1 (or whatever ratio they end up using)...

 

If I take three stamina damage, do I take no health damage?

 

I don't think low-level design decisions like that have been made. The big decision made so far is that it'll be two-bar i.e. stamina and health.

[Tamerlane]

Of course, I'm not expecting an actual answer on that so early in to the game's development. Just A Thing to consider.