Limiting rest areas

[Hormalakh]

Josh Sawyer and co have been discussing rest areas in the game and whether they should limit it or not.

 

 

 

Have you considered adding a "rest resource" to PE, like Tents in traditional JRPGs? If you have rest areas within dungeons, that could help prevent people from constantly backtracking to them in order to refill their health, trivializing the dungeon.

We've talked about it, but for now we're going to see how the rest areas work on their own. Some people on the team believe that if we limit the use of the rest locations it will be excessively punitive.

Knights of the Chalice generally allows players to re-use rest sites, but there's at least one area I remember that doesn't and I saw a lot of negative response to it.

Personally, I do worry about the potential for player dissatisfaction either if resting removes all challenge or if restricted resting makes things too frustrating. In any case, it's something we're going to be looking at and thinking about more as we continue development.

 

 

In my opinion, I think rest limits should exist at least for higher difficulty levels. Expert mode and Trial of Iron modes should have resting as a resource. Normal or easy levels can keep resting unlimited for the noobs.

 

Another option is to state that many (not all) camps have limited use rests; high enough for most players, but not unlimited in their use. Increased difficulty levels decrease the number of times a site can be re-used.

 

In any case, the limits should be introduced from the beginning so players know what to expect throughout the whole game. It shouldn't just suddenly occur and catch players unaware. That isn't cool. Teach players the rules of the game at the beginning of the game, so they aren't blindsided.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Hormalakh

[JFSOCC]

You could find other ways to discourage resting...

Maybe too many rests fail or reset current quest. (either because you "took too long" or because "they got away" or perhaps because spawns have respawned their hordes.

 

Or perhaps dungeoneering requires items which are perishable and don't restock upon rest. (so many arrows, so many torches, nr of lockpicks etc.) So you could infinitely rest, if you wanted to, but it'd become a tedious, and generally unfun way to play. When proceeding pays you more.

 

Or you could get rid of resting altogether, except for moving forward the clock. Require players to recover in different ways. Visit a bathhouse, or a natural hotspring, a well in the desert. A waterfall. Maybe souls need the caress on their ears of the sound of babbling water before feeling restored. It could be tied to soul magic. IE set-rest locations scattered about in the world. You could have dungeons where they get ever sparser as you proceed towards the end.

 

Actually, I like that idea, because it gives a flavourful way of dealing with the problem

[Keyrock]

I've always though that the best solution was to have very little, if any, completely safe rest areas, outside of beds in an inn, of course.  Most camping should be accompanied by a chance of area appropriate random encounters, and not just easy trash mobs that even a weakened party can clean up on and collect 10 experience points and several short swords, but the chance that you could run into something really threatening.  Higher difficulty levels could maybe give attacking mobs ambush bonuses to their first series of attacks.  Also, there could be camping/resting specific skills that could help the party to avoid getting ambushed.

[Jarmo]

Resting at inn and such.

- costs money

 

Resting in an assumedly safe campsite, maybe in a dungeon in a room with locked door.

- uses up an iron ration or other foodstuff, which costs money and (at higher difficulty level?) has weight.

 

Resting in unsafe area

- uses up an iron ration or other foodstuff, possibly get attacked, depending on safety level of the area (and difficulty level?).

 

 

 

Weight and cost of rations would be a balancing act. Too much and players will just be forced to travel back and forth to the city, which would be bad.

Even a minor cost would still serve as an incentive to press on a bit further. Maybe gulp a healing potion and/or use bandages rather than just sleep it off.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Jarmo

[Frenetic Pony]

Ok... here's the solution I'd like to see: Don't worry about resting spots so much. As long as you're out of battle and far enough away from danger just let people rest wherever.

 

Don't even have random enemies spawned if you're not "safe". That didn't work in Icewind Dale 2, me and my co-op partner did it anyway, and after the enemies were killed we just rested again and repeated until at full health. It just took up time and made no functional difference in the end.

 

What does make a functional difference is, as other games like Fallout and Dragon Age have done, permanent injuries (debuffs) that can't be healed by resting. You'll need to go spend money on healer or use items that cost money to get rid of them. Players will happily trade not reloading to just use items, because they know they'll be able to get more. It's not as punishing as trading an item to rest at all, its easier to square lore wise. But it's still a tradeoff, because those items are essentially money that could be used on other things. You're still making the tradeoff of having taken too much damage having consequences, but you're not frustrating players or having them try to cheat around the game by (usually) getting them into a situation where they can't advance because they've no "item X" available and no health, at which point they'll just backtrack the entire way, spend and hour to get that money and items, just to come back to doing what they're really after (frustrating) or they'll just reload a bunch of times, or they'll quit.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Frenetic Pony

[Osvir]

I responded briefly on the Formspring, I think something should happen if you rest too much.

The question is what? And how?

1. What type of location is it? (Historical, Dungeon, Cave, Fortress, Temple, Ruins etc. etc.)
2. Is it a contestable area? I.E. does Faction A and Faction B fight over it? (~"Those ruins would give a favorable position to us for this war")
[*]3. Is time, generally, something that progresses in the world of Project: Eternity?
[x]4. How would one be warned that you are resting too much and soon the area will "change" if you rest more?

([x]4) To answer the last question first myself. Let's say I've rested 44 (exaggerated number) times, I enter the dungeon, fight some baddies and later I backtrack out to rest for the 45th time. When I exit there's:

A, another adventuring band sharing mead and food between each other by the campfire at the resting location, they are about to enter the second I use that resting location so I can either beat them up, talk them out of it or rest and when I wake up there'll be less to do in the dungeon. Maybe even a virtual dice roll is rolled and perhaps they even die in the dungeon (and you could loot their bodies or whatnot). That's just a matter of spawning "body type A" etc. etc. in other words, it should be fairly easy to implement something like this.
B, Spawn a soldier or a group of soldiers from Faction A or B, indicating that this area will soon be overtaken by one of the Factions. Same thing here, fight them off, talk them out of it "We just need a little more time" or "Let us clean this place out for you then you can grab it" etc. etc. or rest and when you wake up the Faction has taken the area. This too should be fairly simple to implement, a simple "Spawn Soldier at location" instead of the regular mobs that are spawned. Spawn a generic Captain level Soldier instead of the Boss that was there before. Same thing with bandits or any other type of creature taking over the area.

Both of these could be a "Darklands" visualization of sorts. You rest, and a window pops up:

"Whilst you rest, a group of soldiers appear. You wake up as you can hear them mumble, they seem to group up and look at the location. You figure out that they are taking this location for their own. Do you...
1. Attack them!
2. Talk them out of it, you are not finished here.
3. Rest anyways, knowingly that when you wake up the dungeon will be fortified with soldiers"

The other would be "Whilst you rest, a group of adventurers appear"~

C, You took out so many of the bandits/goblins/sentient monsters that they are shaking their boots. They are ready to leave NOW. When you exit the dungeon to rest, nothing really can indicate this except some sort of "Darklands" visualization:
"Whilst you rest, you hear quick feet and echoes from the entrance of the [location] that disturbs your rest. Do you:
1. Look what it is (Reveals the [creature] leaving the area) - prompts a fight outside the dungeon
2. Go back to sleep (Dungeon will be empty and/or overtaken by a new entity/faction)"

For C, demons could be spawned like this. Something scared all the monsters/bandits away, apart from yourself. NPC's could spawn. A historian/scholar type character, tourists, adventurers or whatnot could be found inside the dungeon scurrying about etc. etc. Random or Wild events!

The underline here, I think, if something should happen if you rest too much, the Player needs to be made aware. If something would happen simply by resting too much, it'd just be frustrating = I go outside and rest like I've done several times already, suddenly when I wake up it's entirely different.

As for "Rest Mobs". Like Frenetic Pony says, they just take time, they are in the way and I'll just rest a second time if the first time wasn't successful. I think they are annoying and there should be better methods to do it. That isn't to say "Exclude them all!" but they too should be more interesting (A thug thief who hangs out around these parts is stealing some of your gear/gold when you are sleeping, an Evil Cipher sends you into a nightmare world, you wake up as a mad Wizard has emprisoned 2 of your guys, a slaver has kidnapped some of your guys and you are going to have to go to the World Map and intercept to save them etc. etc. Assassins, Bounty Hunters. Not excluding friendlies, waking up with people around you who are kind and/or simply travelers/messengers).

If you've read all this to this point, scroll up to "3" ([*]3).

Time: What happens in the rest of the world? Do I have more than 1 quest? What happens to the other locations? What happens to the quest itself I am on?* Let's say I have 2 quests, one quest where I am at right now, I have to return within 40 hours from this point, or else I fail it or something happens to the quest itself. The second quest I am on has 80 hours to finish. So I have to finish this dungeon I am in within 40 hours (4 rests+travel time), then I have to high-tail it to the second location to finish that second quest.

Time+Consequence is the way to go (in my opinion) because with "Time Matters" I will be more careful during battles, I will conserve how many times I can rest and I will conserve my party in battle as well. I would want to rest as little as possible so that I have as much time as possible for the second quest. If I can finish the first quest with simply 1 rest I'd suddenly have 60-70 in-game hours to finish the second quest. In other words, I benefit A LOT by finishing a quest as quickly as possible and resting as little as possible.

The following question is, what would happen if the quest fails? Time runs out. Perhaps for another thread, I'm spent.

EDIT:
* What happens between Factions? Do they conquer lands? Does something change between them? Do they become friendlier and/or more enemies? Does the Player Stronghold get assaulted? If the Player can have a business, do you get money from that whilst you rest? Would that be something you could abuse? What should the disadvantages be? Do you have to maintain the business? (In essence: If you leave it for too long you might lose it and/or the Blacksmith you are paying disowns himself from your business or whatnot "I thought you died in one of those dungeons you run around in so I took over the business, sorry man, that's life" or whatever ).

Edited April 22, 2013 by Osvir

[Sacred_Path]

When it comes to resting, I'm actually more in favor of an artificial limit ("you cannot rest here/ now!") than random spawns or quest failure. Spawns make you substitute chance for strategy, and not all quests should be timed. Also, having a hard limit on resting should make it easier to balance.

 

What I could imagine is disallowing resting until a map has been cleaned of all enemies, and overland trips back to town could be interrupted by random encounters, BG style.

[Sensuki]

I like the proposed campfire mechanic tbh.

[TrashMan]

I fid it tragic that the idea of having to go back to town occasionaly is considered so frustrating, when it's so common sense.

Are players that easily frustrated these days?

 

It seems to me that a lot of them want a Hack&Slash with some dialogue choices, not actual RPG's anymore....

[Osvir]

I fid it tragic that the idea of having to go back to town occasionaly is considered so frustrating, when it's so common sense.

Are players that easily frustrated these days?

 

It seems to me that a lot of them want a Hack&Slash with some dialogue choices, not actual RPG's anymore....

I think it is perfectly fine to go back to town when I'm finished with a dungeon, which is what I kind of have to do anyways in all of the IE games (if I want to~ it's a choice, I'm not forced to do it, neither am I not forced not to do it. Play like you want to play TrashMan). The only thing I can think of why I had to go back to town was because my inventory was full. There was nothing that was "fun" about it and there was nothing "RP" about going back to town and selling things, with no new quests or anything. Practically I was a manual Torchlight dog, into town -> sell stuff -> turn around -> into dungeon.

 

Regardless. Already brought up in the post IIRC: Something that could "force" (note: quotation marks) a Player to go back to town. Injuries. Doctors. Specific NPC's that heals injuries. Not just "I go to the Inn and my broken bones are healed" but a merchant-type that specifically heals injuries. Perhaps even the Player can learn some Doctor skills that they can use at Rest Locations and heal injuries themselves.

[TrashMan]

 

 

think it is perfectly fine to go back to town when I'm finished with a dungeon, which is what I kind of have to do anyways in all of the IE games (if I want to~ it's a choice, I'm not forced to do it, neither am I not forced not to do it. Play like you want to play TrashMan). The only thing I can think of why I had to go back to town was because my inventory was full. There was nothing that was "fun" about it and there was nothing "RP" about going back to town and selling things, with no new quests or anything. Practically I was a manual Torchlight dog, into town -> sell stuff -> turn around -> into dungeon.

 

Funny, becuase no one is forcing that either.

At no point is the player forced to pick up every bauble and make 10 trips. That's stricly a players own choice.

 

Now, in RL the reasons why you wouldn't do this is because it's no really profitable/worth it, or you making the trip is time, consuming and boring. So what exactly is the problem of doing the same way in a game? Which is not exactly true, as it's less tiresome in the game by a massive margin aynway (fast-travel and no actual fatigue).

 

It's strange that people want the entire world to turn upside down to accomodate a "broken" playing style.

Why SHOULD it be easy and simple to be a total pack rat? Why shouldn't you have to pay the price that you'd logicly expect?

Because it's a game?

Frak that!

Maybe I don't want to be bothered with fighting and just want to see dialoges, so the game should by default have an "I win" bottun?

Maybe I dont' want to bother with loosign health so I should just be invincible the whole time?

 

A RPG should be about immerison, atmosphere..about bringing a world to life and lettign you loose in it. And then it's up to you to conform to that world, not the other way around.

 

Either the trip is worth it to you, so you'll put up with a few extra clicks and a 5 minutes of traveling OR it's not and you won't. It's simple.

I see no need to fix or change anything.

[Nonek]

What I would personally like to see are campsites, few and far between. So that the option of whether to use them or not is a strategic decision, and if the party bypasses such a site, then they know they can still fall back to it later to rest and recuperate. Limit the use of them to one eight hour period every twenty four hours, and make the resources of that campsite finite (whether that be fresh water running out or firewoood being used up.)

 

As for traipsing back to town and then back to the dungeon, i'd simply make dungeons and other such areas single chance affairs, so that if one abandons the venture then when they return that dungeon will either be empty or changed. Add consequences in the game world for this failure to act decisively in your quests, and you get a far more dynamic enemy and world.

 

More detail in the below two threads:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60111-rest-injuries-and-recuperation/

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60203-failure-states/?do=findComment&comment=1190433

 

Obviously these are just my personal desires, so perhaps these kind of options can be limited to the difficulty levels, or something like New Vegas' hardcore mode.

[rjshae]

You don't get a really good rest lying on the cold ground under a tree, especially if you're used to a bed. Just finding a room to hide in sounds viable in theory, but in reality it should start to wear on you. Likewise, so does walking around in armor and carrying a big load of gear. You get tired, your alertness level drops, and you become more vulnerable to mishaps and surprises. In particular, once you're wounded, simple survival becomes problematic. Eventually you'll need to pull back to a camp site, get some warm grub in you and rest in a warm blanket on some leaves.

 

It might be possible to model this through some type of "deep fatigue" status that reflects how long you've gone without a proper rest in a safe, comfortable environment. This fatigue factor should steadily lower your health recovery rate and reduce your initiative in combat. You can then rest up all you want in a damp, uncomfortable cave, but you'll still be burdened by that deeper fatigue.

[Ulquiorra]

In my opinion, I think rest limits should exist at least for higher difficulty levels.

 

You don't need "higher difficulty levels." to do so...

 

Try sleeping outside in a park or station and they tell us is there are no "rest limits" in realyti ?

[Hormalakh]

This isn't really about verisimilitude. It's about gamism and making a fun game. There are always aspects of "real life" that you can incorporate into a game to make the game "make sense."

 

My point about difficulty limiting the rest is that some gamers are not that great at games (this describes me sometimes) and so it's a matter of balacing challenge for hard-core players and allowing other players to enjoy the game at a more "casual" pace. It's a difficult balance to find.

 

Good players would like to play a difficult game and get enjoyment from that (this also describes me too) especially after playing the game for the story. They want a tactical challenge to, well, challenge them. Others want to just play the game for the story.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Ulquiorra]

I totaly AGINST REST-spawning ....

 

In normal games you can't rest unless you find a bed (even finding camp fire will not grant you abilyti to sleep) ...

 

Besides the whole ide of "sleep heals everyting" in D&D games and rest-spawning (exepcionaly as mage) is the weakest part.

 

In general i 100% for even makeing rest non-healing but a maijor condition like in Fallout NV or life simulators ... for example in you don't sleep at leat 6 hours on 24 hours you get -50% to everything as "Tired" status ...

 

You can regain hp by healing potions and other magical / stamina piont also or eating food with you also must eat ...

 

But insead on manual eating i whoud apple Mount&Blade idea ... you buy 50 pecies on meat and your team slowly eats it ... and if you run out of them you gain "hunger" status ...

 

But those i will put on "higher difficulty" ... on normal i only whoud add non-rest spowning .. Easy dificulty the same but i whoud add 20% more from healing potions or recovery potions/ food ...

 

But thats only my point of view

Edited April 22, 2013 by Ulquiorra

[Lephys]

I'm glad it's something they're giving so much consideration to (the decision of what, exactly, to do about it, I mean).

 

Here's my take on stuff:

 

Is it perfectly reasonable (not to mention pretty much the fundamental basis of challenge, itself) for resources in a video game to be limited? Yes it is -- Health potions, money, armor/damage/hitpoint/stamina values, mana, ammo, time-sensitive quests, etc. If everything were infinite, there wouldn't really be a challenge at all. You'd just be... I dunno, playing through an interactive... I dunno... deity story?

 

So, you limit things in a very natural, reasonable fashion (for example: you can't buy things without money, but then, money comes frequently enough for you to be able to buy things when you might need them, but not ALWAYS when you could use them). If you give the player 1000 gold an hour into the game, and the player purchases absolutely no equipment whatsoever, and instead blows all the money on magical fireworks, or parchment, or some other useless-in-excess thing, then do you worry when that player says "Ahhhh! This is ridiculous! There should be infinite money, because I need equipment, but don't have any, thanks to myself! AHHHHHH !"?

 

The answer is no. No you do not. That's really unfortunate, but, at some point, you've got to accept the limitations of the game, and play accordingly, or you don't have a game.

 

So, I don't see any need for the "artificial" discouragement of resting, when all that does is replace a sensical limitation with a nonsensical limitation. Example: Well, you can rest every 10 seconds, back to full health, but if you do that too much, your maximum health will start lowering by 10% each rest." See, the problem is, you still allow the player to dig his own hole, and now it's a MUCH bigger hole. Because, if the player isn't going to manage finite resources, then the player isn't going to manage finite resources. But, now, you've got him able to rest as often as he wants, but he can't comprehend the severity of the detriment of eventually getting only 10% of his maximum health, total, to utilize to take on combat encounters. So, now he just ragequits anyway, because it's even harder to take on subsequent encounters with such a small pool of health (without dying and having to reload, sparking no progress) than it is to take on those encounters with much, much more health per-attempt that you simply can't fully restore more than a certain number of times.

 

So, not advocating any specific implementation here (as far as the details, because there's still plenty of room for analysis there), putting something in like "You can only use this rest area twice in a 72-hour period (gameworld time, not real world time)" already accomplishes everything you can reasonably hope to accomplish. You've set a limit to health replenishment (so that you don't basically just have infinite health), AND you've given people the opportunity, if they need to, to go back and use that rest area again (even if it might not be entirely necessary to get through the area). But, it has to be worth it to them. The detriment is natural: If you're 5 minutes away from that rest area, and you feel like you should run all the way back to it to use it AGAIN to heal, instead of making it to the next one, then awesome; that's up to you. No one's forcing some extra penalty on you for wanting to use that again. There is no "You're going to move 30% more slowly now because you want to use that rest area more times than I wanted you to," or anything like that. No definite penalty (since you don't know how far away you'll be when you need to use it a second time, so that's not even a guaranteed "run really far back to use it again" penalty).

 

So, I say, whatever they do, it should be either completely unlimited use, or simply limited use. Honestly, if they want to put a toggle in for that, and it's ultra-easy and not time consuming, then whatever. As long as I can have the game actually impose challenge, and the integrity of the game isn't blown on unnecessary effort and development resource usage on such an option, I don't really care if someone else plays on "I can heal to full between every single fight" mode. Just like I don't care that someone else can set the game difficulty to Easy and get past encounters more easily than I can on Normal or Hard. *shrug*

 

But, is it an "We OWE our players a lack of challenge imposition?" matter? Not at all. Again, a person is either going to acknowledge the fact that they have to deal with finite resources, or they're going to demand that they never have to do so. You can't make someone be reasonable. And your game's design need not bend to the irrational desires of the irrational few.

[Sedrefilos]

Tbh, I never liked resting mechanics at all. I'd prefer the DA:O system: party falls -> game over. One survives -> all get up wounded (try to mend your wounds - negative effects if don't), carry on. But ok, if it is to play the greatest rpg of 2014 I'll suffer that too :D

Edited April 23, 2013 by Sedrefilos

[Somna]

 

This isn't really about verisimilitude. It's about gamism and making a fun game. There are always aspects of "real life" that you can incorporate into a game to make the game "make sense."

 

My point about difficulty limiting the rest is that some gamers are not that great at games (this describes me sometimes) and so it's a matter of balacing challenge for hard-core players and allowing other players to enjoy the game at a more "casual" pace. It's a difficult balance to find.

 

Good players would like to play a difficult game and get enjoyment from that (this also describes me too) especially after playing the game for the story. They want a tactical challenge to, well, challenge them. Others want to just play the game for the story.

Rest limitation should only be in the bonus dungeon or a similar, optional place.

 

If you've ever played Pools of Darkness and ventured into that bonus dungeon at the end of the game? The one with an army of beholders in the center of the dungeon if you walked in that room too many times? Yeah, there was rest limits there.

[Ulquiorra]

 

Rest limitation should only be in the bonus dungeon or a similar, optional place.

 

If you've ever played Pools of Darkness and ventured into that bonus dungeon at the end of the game? The one with an army of beholders in the center of the dungeon if you walked in that room too many times? Yeah, there was rest limits there.

 

 

 

Yeah you are chesing a MAIN-EVIL in some dungeoun and in the middle of running and looting dead corpses ... you thoud (**** that im gona sleep hire)

 

You lay down near a zombie smelly cospses .. in the middle of last mision chaseing main-evil ... realy parodical hahaha

 

Imagine this ...

 

Arnold Shwarzennegger in the midle on setting traps for predator ... feel asleep ... predator comes .. cut his head an make a good trophy ! end of a film ...

 

That whoud be brilliant !

[Somna]

 

 

Rest limitation should only be in the bonus dungeon or a similar, optional place.

 

If you've ever played Pools of Darkness and ventured into that bonus dungeon at the end of the game? The one with an army of beholders in the center of the dungeon if you walked in that room too many times? Yeah, there was rest limits there.

Yeah you are chesing a MAIN-EVIL in some dungeoun and in the middle of running and looting dead corpses ... you thoud (**** that im gona sleep hire)

 

You lay down near a zombie smelly cospses .. in the middle of last mision chaseing main-evil ... realy parodical hahaha

 

Imagine this ...

 

Arnold Shwarzennegger in the midle on setting traps for predator ... feel asleep ... predator comes .. cut his head an make a good trophy ! end of a film ...

 

That whoud be brilliant !

 

 

Having consequences for resting is not the same thing as rest limitations.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Somna

[ShadowTiger]

Resting systems are very easy to exploit, can be very unrealistic/immersion breaking, and are used differently for different people.

 

Personally, I hate resting, and I just played through Baldur's Gate 2 with the minimum amount of resting (pretty much only rested when my party was exhausted from traveling between zones).  I know that some people who are having trouble with the combat do the "5 minute work day" and rest after every single battle, sometimes twice. I think this diminishes the game and the only way to avoid it is to have lots of time sensitive quests (do a task within x hours). 

 

My suggestion is to have about 1/3 of the game be too dangerous to rest, 1/3 have random encounters, and 1/3 be safe. Note this is not probabilities, this is zoning areas as safe, dangerous, or suicidal for resting. I also think that resting in town should be more effective than resting in the wilderness, and pretty much require a healer to make it worth doing outdoors.

Edited April 23, 2013 by ShadowTiger

[Lephys]

 Having consequences for resting is not the same thing as rest limitations.

 

 

Well said. I think that's the important thing.

 

Obviously, if resting has no consequences (even if it's technically only the consequences of limitation -- i.e. "You've rested, and now you can't rest again for a certain amount of time," or "You only had 24 hours to stop this conflict from turning into a battle, but you opted to frivolously rest 3 times when you were down to 70% health, so now there is a battle you must deal with."), then you might as well just have everyone automatically get all the benefits of resting after every single fight, and just cut resting out all-together.

 

So, it needs to have consequences, and the player needs to deal with those. Again, unless you have some kind of "Easy/invulnerability/infinite ammo" mode. I'm talking normal play here. I suppose a mode like that would really be up to the devs. But, I don't want to see Normal difficulty have infinite, consequence-free resting by default, just because a handful of people hate consequences and limitations for the sake of actual gameplay challenge and depth. (To be clear, if you want that, then to each his own, but please don't insist that everyone else's game be made into "your" game, lest I become irked.)

 

But, with the consequences (and/or limitations, if they're a part of the consequences) bit... you just can only go so far before it's infeasible. I mean, there's gotta be a better way and a worse way of doing things, or it literally won't matter how efficiently you preserve health and dispatch foes and handle situations, etc. (and the game will be lacking the consequences associated with effort). BUT, you can only have so worse of a way. At a certain point, you hit that "all you can really do is reload" point. And, what you DON'T want is some kind of limitation system that let's you go really far, thinking you're just going to have a tougher time of things, then suddenly give you a wall that you literally can't get past because of your detriments. You know... that "You can't really go back, 'cause you have no more rests to use, but you also can't go forward and finish/complete this situation/area."

 

If the consequences of resting too much are that a quest situation changes, then you find a way to rest less. You make it clear to the player that resting IS going to pass time, and that things in the game world will be affected accordingly.

 

Or, if you want to limit individual rest-area usage, you could put it on a timer. Maybe that rest area becomes 50% less effective each time you use it, for 10 minutes. So, if a player wants to run back to it and use it after every fight, and he wants to sit there and wait for "rest-area sickness" or whatever to wear off so he can use it again to heal to full, then that's totally within his power to do so. But, no one's making him use the rest area that often, so he has no one to blame but himself.

[Frenetic Pony]

So, here's a question to all of you: What are good consequences to resting?

 

I'll go through some, and why they don't work:

 

Random encounters: "Oh no, a few monsters, lol, I'll just rest again."

Can't rest in this area: "I'll just backtrack till I can."

Resting costs money: Why? If you want a thematic reason you might as well go with something that makes more sense to cost money than running out of... uhh, what? Sleep. You can't run out of sleep.

Timed Quests: Most players "DIE DIE DIE!" A hyperbole, but you pretty much never, ever see timed stuff in games, even over the course of decades, for very very good reasons. They don't work unless it's a very immediate "escape this area or you die" ala the end of Halo. It screws up all difficulty balancing, it forces all players to play in the same way when the strength of games is that you can often play them in completely different ways, and can produce some of the most frustrating portions in gaming history. They don't work.

 

What is needed is a cost tradefoff that makes sense lore wise. As I've stated, "injuries" debuffs that need some sort of item/a hospital/etc. are the only thing that really makes sense thematically, and that people are proven to be willing to tradeoff without cheating around it. This is a problem going back for decades in game design, and so far as I know this is the best solution proven to work, while most every other suggestion in this thread has indeed already been tried and been shown to be ineffective or too frustrating in one way or another.

 

You can indeed include resting, only in "safe" areas, if it's that important. It's a tradeoff between lore and taking little extra steps to do things, a tradeoff that can and has been made in plenty of games. The regenerating health in Skyrim is rather stupid compared to their previous "rest" system, trading off too much lore and immersion for the sake of a little streamlining. PE doesn't have to do that. But it shouldn't go "super hardcore" just for the sake of it, trying to do something that's been shown to not work again and again and again just for the sake of that little extra bit of believability.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Frenetic Pony

[Frenetic Pony]

The only other thing I can think of is "Screw it, no casual resting whatsoever!" And just basically disallow it at all, with no health regen or anything. Which probably isn't going to work at all.