Limiting rest areas

[Hormalakh]

What madness is this?? Limiting resting? What would possibly limit you resting in real life, and would you really be so quick to run back in the dungeon with open wounds? Sometimes you get beat bloody in these games and some down time is a necessity, much like adventuring in real life would be.

 

I don't understand why this should be limited in any sense, though unsafe areas are obviously unsafe and prone to ambushes and attacks. Keep the challenges elsewhere and let people play the game at whatever pace they want to.

 

There is no such thing as adventuring in real life. When making a game, versimiltude comes secondary to entertainment. You can choose your pace by picking the appropriate difficulty slider, allowing you to choose the appropriate limits on resting (unlimited for beginner, for example). that was the whole point of this conversation from the start. Please refer to the original post.

Edited May 4, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Solstis]

 

There is no such thing as adventuring in real life. When making a game, versimiltude comes secondary to entertainment. You can choose your pace by picking the appropriate difficulty slider, allowing you to choose the appropriate limits on resting (unlimited for beginner, for example). that was the whole point of this conversation from the start. Please refer to the original post.

 

 

What do you mean there's no such thing in real life? What do you think fantasy lore is based on? It is based mostly on Medieval lore which was in turn based on real events. It might have been romanticized but much of the conflict portrayed in mythology and in games took place in daily Medieval life. Quests can be seen as errands and common activities of Medieval existence and adventure is exactly what I would expect an errant knight would have been up to. Besides, have you ever stopped playing games for five minutes and gone out back? There's plenty of adventure to be had in real life.

 

All of that aside I certainly have no idea what you mean bringing up verisimilitude* but I feel you're distracting from -my- point. There had better be a good reason I can't rest because text flashing across my screen saying I can't is an immersion breaker. There are ways to discourage it as discussed above which are much more convincing. I don't agree with a simple difficulty slider as it implies that for me to even -attempt- to rest when I want I will have to sacrifice enemy AI and a proper challenge. Am I to be labeled a novice player because I want the game to have a rational feel? When you fight you often get injured, and when you get injured you stop fighting and take rest. So about that difficulty slider, this is not something to be lumped in with that... include it as its own option or forget it. Players can rest as rarely as they want, that was never an issue.

 

Also I wanted to add to that, if you're a masochist and want to torture yourself with a game come to my house and I'll give you my copy of Dark Souls. There are games for people like you, but you don't have to punish people like me who want a well paced challenge just so you can say you beat the hardest game on the hardest setting. Come on now...

Edited May 4, 2013 by Solstis

[Sensuki]

What madness is this?? Limiting resting? What would possibly limit you resting in real life, and would you really be so quick to run back in the dungeon with open wounds? Sometimes you get beat bloody in these games and some down time is a necessity, much like adventuring in real life would be.

 

I don't understand why this should be limited in any sense, though unsafe areas are obviously unsafe and prone to ambushes and attacks. Keep the challenges elsewhere and let people play the game at whatever pace they want to.

 

I don't know if you've been following their ideas behind this but basically

 

You can rest at : Campfire (designated reasonably 'safe' place in a Wilderness area and/or dungeon), Inn/Tavern, Player House, Player Stronghold and maybe some other NPC protected areas.

 

You can't just press the rest button on the UI (because there won't be one) and voila.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Sensuki

[Hormalakh]

 

 

There is no such thing as adventuring in real life. When making a game, versimiltude comes secondary to entertainment. You can choose your pace by picking the appropriate difficulty slider, allowing you to choose the appropriate limits on resting (unlimited for beginner, for example). that was the whole point of this conversation from the start. Please refer to the original post.

 

 

What do you mean there's no such thing in real life? What do you think fantasy lore is based on? It is based mostly on Medieval lore which was in turn based on real events. It might have been romanticized but much of the conflict portrayed in mythology and in games took place in daily Medieval life. Quests can be seen as errands and common activities of Medieval existence and adventure is exactly what I would expect an errant knight would have been up to. Besides, have you ever stopped playing games for five minutes and gone out back? There's plenty of adventure to be had in real life.

 

All of that aside I certainly have no idea what you mean bringing up verisimilitude* but I feel you're distracting from -my- point. There had better be a good reason I can't rest because text flashing across my screen saying I can't is an immersion breaker. There are ways to discourage it as discussed above which are much more convincing. I don't agree with a simple difficulty slider as it implies that for me to even -attempt- to rest when I want I will have to sacrifice enemy AI and a proper challenge. Am I to be labeled a novice player because I want the game to have a rational feel? When you fight you often get injured, and when you get injured you stop fighting and take rest. So about that difficulty slider, this is not something to be lumped in with that... include it as its own option or forget it. Players can rest as rarely as they want, that was never an issue.

 

Also I wanted to add to that, if you're a masochist and want to torture yourself with a game come to my house and I'll give you my copy of Dark Souls. There are games for people like you, but you don't have to punish people like me who want a well paced challenge just so you can say you beat the hardest game on the hardest setting. Come on now...

 

 

there's a difference between playing a game with rules and playing a punishing game. I want this game to have rules. Resting anywhere is rule-less. 

 

if you want a reason for limited rest areas here's one that will fit your "realistic" mind-set. How many people do you see resting whenever wherever out in the woods? Usually you have to set up camp. That takes time and resources. Camping anywhere in a dangerous forest is the easiest way you can set yourself up for being ambushed because monsters can see your fire and come chasing you. to get restful (think healing) sleep, you'll need to set up camp. You can always rest to catch your breath, but that doesn't mean you recover health. 

 

in cities, you aren't allowed to hobo around becuase there are rules and regulations. city guards patrol and tell the vagrants to find an inn for the evening. you might be able to sleep in the woods in smaller villages, but then you'd better do that outside of town because the townsfolk don't like camps in the middle of their village. of course then you'll have to worry about bandits.

 

enough reasons for you to limit resting to specific areas yet?

[Valorian]

When playing a challenging RPG that has enjoyable gameplay and an interesting ruleset, I usually limit the number of times my party is "allowed" to rest. This adds another layer of strategy and planning to the experience.

[Aguy]

Personally I believe that there should be a choice. If someone wants to rest after every single battle let him and don't punish him. It's his choice. Yes you could say that it's also his choice to face the consequences of resting and so on but really wouldn't it be logical to chose the option that gives the most choices?

 

If you make resting have no consequences the newer player who is probably having Project Eternity as his first game of it's kind would allow him to adjust more easily while letting the more experience player to only rest in places where he considers it makes sense to be allowed to rest (a inn, a small room in a dungeon which you barricaded or where you left a sentry at the door). In the end both players have fun in their style of play. The newer player has more wiggling room, is forgiven for his mistakes while the veteran player still enjoys the game the way he likes it.

While having consequences would force the new players to learn and improve it could also make some of them not enjoy the game as much. 

 

In the end I believe that the best method would be to allow you to somewhat customize your difficulty. For example when you start a new game have a menu where you choose some options regarding the game. When it comes to resting you could chose to have no consequences, have consequences ( random encounters, timers running out, bandit chief you're chasing escape), be allowed to rest anywhere, be allowed to rest in specific designated "save zones" a limited number of times and so on.

 

This would make everyone happy and it shouldn't be that hard to implement in the game.

[Lephys]

^ You speak as if choice answers to nothing else first. Along that line of thought are things like "If the player wants no one in the game to ever die, or nothing bad to ever happen, shouldn't he have the choice to do that?", or "shouldn't the player get to choose whether or not his party is invincible?"

 

Choice is governed by the structure of the game, and resting, being something that affects (and is affected by) the actual structure and limitations of the game's confines, cannot simply be thrown to the wind.

 

If you're talking about having a full-spectrum color wheel for color selections in character creation, as opposed to like 8 different colors to choose from, then yes... more choice is better. But, if you're talking "I dunno, guys, what if the player just never wants to fight anything, ever? Should we really REQUIRE that combat be taken part in, at some point during the game?", then no. More choice is not better.

 

If I wanted to choose that P:E become a first-person shooter, rather than an RPG, my choice would be moot, since it doesn't even fall within the confines of P:E already being an RPG.

 

Besides, the choice to implement limitations on healing/recovery via something like resting, then turning around and making that thing unlimited (rest anytime, anywhere) is self-defeating. You might as well just automatically heal up to full immediately at the end of every combat, at that point (like you do in several turn-based JRPGs).

 

Limitations are a part of a game for a reason. Not just because some of us are weird, limitation nerds, and we love the fact that limitations are in the game, so the developer must appease our sheer opinions about limitations.

[curryinahurry]

Aguy, ask yourself the following questions:

 

How do you balance a game that has unlimited difficulty customizability?

How will the user know whether he or she is playing at the appropriate difficulty to their expectations when purchasing\backing the game?

How do you prevent people from claiming the game is too easy and disseminating that information to others on the web who won't pick up the game because they think it's not enough of a challenge?

 

There a likely an assortment of other issues a game designer can think of that I can't, but I think you get the idea.  The game is being designed with limited resting in mind by virtues of its spell and dual hit-point system.  Add to that fixed difficulty settings (which, like them or not, are an understood convention), and the issue really becomes about resting where (consequences, or even if possible to rest), type of resting (how curative), and possibly when, if fatigue is a factor.  

 

Most of the backers for PE are looking for a throwback feel, some of us to a time before IE games, and specifically against the culture of casual gaming many of us aren't particularly thrilled with and feel has despoiled the RPG genre a bit.  

[Aguy]

I understand what you are saying. Unlimited rests with no consequences breaks the game. As you guys said it removes all the challenge, it would make no sense for the invading army to stand doing nothing for 8 hours because one of the defenders of the city who is the player lost 2 HP in a battle and so on. But I don't see that as a problem if it's only a choice. Only an option. The person who doesn't want a challenge enjoys the game. The person who wants a challenge will just increase the difficulty thus removing unlimited resting anywhere and face the consequences of resting in places where you shouldn't rest.

 

I just believe that if it's possible and easy to implement the option of allowing unlimited resting with no consequences there shouldn't really be a reason for it to not be there if there are enough people who want it. That's just my opinion. 

 

On the other hand if it's not possible to implement this option or if it would take to much resources than I agree that unlimited resting anywhere isn't the best idea for reasons that have been mentioned a lot before in this discussion.

[Hormalakh]

Aguy, the option to decrease difficulty can be set on a slider at the beginning of the game (or whenever) through the option menu. It does not mean that the designer should become lazy and then describe the lack of proper rest-limit implementations as a feature of their game.

 

This is basically what most people fall back on when they describe the IE games' rest mechanic: that it was a feature for you to sleep anywhere at any time. It was poorly implemented and not meant to increase player choice.

 

Now if you think that different difficulty levels should have different rest limits, I won't argue with you. In fact, that's the whole point of this topic. The question is, where do we place the limits and how do we limit the players?

Edited May 17, 2013 by Hormalakh

[cleric Nemir]

Neverwinter had unlimited rest versus no resting areas,and that did not diminished the playability(some will find this arguable,but the nwn series were good nevertheless,let's stop at that). HOWEVER,I feel the need to point out the solution from ToEE,where the rest is allowed everywhere,BUT SCALED FROM SAFE TO UNSAFE. This solution,I think,solves everything you all stated here,and I say let it be done like this. I'll further explain a safe vs. unsafe rest,just in case 

safe rest-hit rest and rest until fully healed,time passed resting is scaled based injuries(missing HP)

unsafe rest-you can attempt rest,but be ready to get encountered/ambushed by local monsters. More time needed to fully rest=more chances of encounter interrupting it.

Color the rest button from green(safe) to red(unsafe),with orange moderate in between.

Problem solved,yes?

[Gfted1]

Problem solved,yes?

 

Sadly, no. The people interested in controlling how you play your game have many shifting reasons why it wont work, from it being "unrealistic" to "it breaks the game" to "verisimilitude" and everything in between. My personal favorite is the group that claims to be physically incapable of not pressing the "rest" button. That's right, apparently there are people that suffer under a crippling affliction that prevents them from not pressing any button labeled "rest". This condition does not manifest itself on any other button title, only the "rest" button, and in their opinion the only way to fix this is to force everyone else in the world to rest at specific locations. True story.

[Lephys]

Sadly, no. The people interested in controlling how you play your game have many shifting reasons why it wont work, from it being "unrealistic" to "it breaks the game" to "verisimilitude" and everything in between. My personal favorite is the group that claims to be physically incapable of not pressing the "rest" button. That's right, apparently there are people that suffer under a crippling affliction that prevents them from not pressing any button labeled "rest". This condition does not manifest itself on any other button title, only the "rest" button, and in their opinion the only way to fix this is to force everyone else in the world to rest at specific locations. True story.

For what it's worth, my only legitimate beef with it is the very idea of implementing an unlimited limit. Without specifically coding the game to only restore your hitpoints and spells and such upon manually resting, you would either never regain such things (which is pretty preposterous), or you'd automatically regain such things, with the exception of active combat (since automatically regaining all your hitpoints and spells as you're actively using them would, in turn, completely contradict the limits imposed by finite amounts of hitpoints and spells).

 

So, coming in and saying "Okay, you're going to have to actively choose when to regain all your stuff, but you can always do that as soon as combat's over" is just plain silly.

 

The design decision, itself, is extremely irrational. I don't care how anyone plays their game, after the game's designed intelligently.

 

What if, at Level 1, 5 seconds into the game, you had an option of teleporting to the last boss and killing it? I wouldn't be upset that I just personally didn't want to do such a thing, and that I think other people should only be able to do what I want to do. I would be upset because that's an absurd design decision that defeats the entire purpose of an RPG's very nature, and is a waste of time and sense to implement.

 

It may seem silly to some, but I couldn't really complain about an "automatically regenerate to full health/spells/etc. when outside of combat" option, be it attached to an easy difficult or whatever. But, it irks me to no end that regaining such things be limited to resting, which is then unlimited.

[Gfted1]

So you choose the "unrealistic" defense when deciding how others should play. *nods*

All of that was already directly within your control for every IE game made. Whether or not a player chooses to "break" their game is their failing, not mine. But we can agree on a slider or check box.

[TrashMan]

No, he is saying that a game design like that is fundamentaly broken and the game mechanics are undermining themselves.

[Gfted1]

And that was already in your control. Careful, weve almost come full circle, "cant control self" is peeking around the corner.

[Hormalakh]

Neverwinter had unlimited rest versus no resting areas,and that did not diminished the playability(some will find this arguable,but the nwn series were good nevertheless,let's stop at that). HOWEVER,I feel the need to point out the solution from ToEE,where the rest is allowed everywhere,BUT SCALED FROM SAFE TO UNSAFE. This solution,I think,solves everything you all stated here,and I say let it be done like this. I'll further explain a safe vs. unsafe rest,just in case 

safe rest-hit rest and rest until fully healed,time passed resting is scaled based injuries(missing HP)

unsafe rest-you can attempt rest,but be ready to get encountered/ambushed by local monsters. More time needed to fully rest=more chances of encounter interrupting it.

Color the rest button from green(safe) to red(unsafe),with orange moderate in between.

Problem solved,yes?

 

regardless of what sort of crazy thoughts gfted1 has, the main issue with this sort of mechanic is the tired old "let's roll the dice and see what happens" paradigm. If it becomes a random dice toss of whether a moderately-safe or non-safe location has enemies attacking, then what you will have is this:

 

oh crap i'm low on health. let's save the game. hit rest. oh crap monsters! ok reload game. rest again. NICE no monsters!

*rinse and repeat*

 

The other proposal was where you'd have non-random monster generation in non-safe locations, i.e. resting in the forest will always have monsters that spawn and attack with the player only restoring a percentage of their hitpoints. That might be a possibility, as it serves as a deterrant to "rest-spamming" and "degenerate gameplay," words which I'm sure will rile gfted1 up immediately.

 

so the proposal isn't bad, you just have to watch out for unintended consequences. that's what a good designer would do anyway.

 

the point is however, that no game should be without limits in its mechanic. good design always demands limitations and regulations on any one individual mechanic. an unlimited rest with the capacity to restore all health at any time makes hit points a moot point and thus destroys whether players would care about hitpoints outside of each individual battle.

Edited May 21, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Gfted1]

And we have reached our closed loop nirvana. That didn't take long.

[Hormalakh]

And we have reached our closed loop nirvana. That didn't take long.

 

lol thank you for being you.

[Lephys]

So you choose the "unrealistic" defense when deciding how others should play. *nods*

It has nothing to do with realism, actually. Plenty of perfectly illogical things happen in reality. Like video games being made with unlimited limitations implemented within them.

 

If I were never born and never formed any brainwaves whatsoever, it would not change the fact that an unlimited limit is illogical.

 

And that was already in your control.

It seems an awful lot as if you're suggesting that anything that can simply be moderated by the player's own willpower has no reason to be moderated by the game. Maybe, by default, we should just have unlimited hitpoints, and there should be a "Fail Combat" button. That way, your party's health limit is in control of the player. When they've taken as many hits as you feel would kill them, you simply click "Fail Combat," and that character dies.

 

Or, let's have an option for whether or not enemies actually attack you, because that limits your ability to progress through the game (it's what causes you to lose HP, and therefore what causes resting to even be a topic of discussion in this very thread). So, boom. Efficiency. Maybe some people want to play their game without ever getting attacked. That should be an option. Because... who needs limits?

 

It's just two opinions versus one another: Limits are good, and limits are bad. Everyone should be happy, no matter what.

 

That is where your line of reasoning leads. And that's why "everyone should just get to choose how they play the game, in all aspects" needs to be tempered with at least one more criteria. At the very least, logic. Implementing an unrestricted limitation is, quite literally, a waste of time. That's all I'm saying.

 

Again, if you want the option of "I always just heal back up to full whenever I survive combat," I'm actually not against that (although it seems a bit silly not to attach such an option to the Easy spectrum of the difficulty settings, *shrug*). I'm against a button that must be clicked before that occurs, but that can always be clicked the second you've survived combat and are no longer partaking in it. There's no need for convolution in player control.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I haven't reread all 6 pages since I last visted this thread, but why not anchor resting to the difficulty setting and or game mode? Obsidian announced various modes beyond the standard difficulty toggle, so it seems like everyone should be able to be happy within their prefered mode.

 

Standard:

• Adjustable difficulty
• Multiple save files and reloading
• Safe resting in hostile areas

Expert:

• Adjustable difficulty
• No ease of use options, less help
• Multiple save files and reloading
• No safe resting in hostile areas

Trial of Iron:

• Core rules difficulty, not adjustable
• No ease of use options, less help
• Single save file and no reloading
• No safe resting in hostile areas

Path of the Damned:

• Highest difficulty, not adjustable
• No ease of use options, less help
• Multiple save files and reloading
• No safe resting in hostile areas

This way, you have all of your targeted play styles set with modes already announced. It progresses from least challenging to most realistic, before ending in absurd challenge. I made "Path of the Damned" mode reloadable, because its meant to be an absurd challenge--not realistic. "Heart of Fury" mode was about outrageous fights and "Gotcha!" moments, often using trial and error methods to work through them. I imagine the contention in this thread is precisely why they are having so many different game modes.

[cleric Nemir]

The P:E is announced as oldschool RPG. Question in this thread regards the resting system,and unless someone displays their genius by proposing an entirely new approach on the matter,we are to choose from the already done. We had very limited resting in Planescape and very unlimited in NWN,I found the classic safe/not safe choice to be only logical,it is sort of a golden middle,neither too harsh nor too unrealistic. The resting system of ToEE is an adequate one,being basically same like in Baldur's/Icewind and user friendly while at it.

 

To make this optional as in post above is a good idea,however. I agree.

 

In general,I do not mind playing another NWN,but I would rather seen it done the classic way. That's how I hear "oldschool RPG".

We could use a poll,for what it's worth,ultimately.

[Hormalakh]

I haven't reread all 6 pages since I last visted this thread, but why not anchor resting to the difficulty setting and or game mode? Obsidian announced various modes beyond the standard difficulty toggle, so it seems like everyone should be able to be happy within their prefered mode.

 

Standard:

• Adjustable difficulty
• Multiple save files and reloading
• Safe resting in hostile areas

Expert:

• Adjustable difficulty
• No ease of use options, less help
• Multiple save files and reloading
• No safe resting in hostile areas

Trial of Iron:

• Core rules difficulty, not adjustable
• No ease of use options, less help
• Single save file and no reloading
• No safe resting in hostile areas

Path of the Damned:

• Highest difficulty, not adjustable
• No ease of use options, less help
• Multiple save files and reloading
• No safe resting in hostile areas

This way, you have all of your targeted play styles set with modes already announced. It progresses from least challenging to most realistic, before ending in absurd challenge. I made "Path of the Damned" mode reloadable, because its meant to be an absurd challenge--not realistic. "Heart of Fury" mode was about outrageous fights and "Gotcha!" moments, often using trial and error methods to work through them. I imagine the contention in this thread is precisely why they are having so many different game modes.

 

this is along the lines of what I was thinking. i believe that this is similar to what josh sawyer wanted to do with specific "camp sites". the resting locations would be limited in space. The question I was trying to raise was would these rest sites also be limited in numbers of uses? Can you only use a specific camp site a few times outside of cities?

Edited May 23, 2013 by Hormalakh

[TrashMan]

And that was already in your control. Careful, weve almost come full circle, "cant control self" is peeking around the corner.

 

Which is beside the point.

 

You're asking the player to compensate for bad design. Why should he?

 

You might as well add a "I win" bottun and then claim it is brilliant design because it makes it easier on the players. After all, you don't have to click it.

The fact that it compeltely undermines the entire purpose of the game is irrelevant to you?

[Gfted1]

 

And that was already in your control. Careful, weve almost come full circle, "cant control self" is peeking around the corner.

 

Which is beside the point.

 

You're asking the player to compensate for bad design. Why should he?

 

You might as well add a "I win" bottun and then claim it is brilliant design because it makes it easier on the players. After all, you don't have to click it.

The fact that it compeltely undermines the entire purpose of the game is irrelevant to you?

 

 

 

The purpose of gaming is to have fun, not to play the game exactly as TrashMan would play his game. One option gives everyone the power to play as they like, the other does not. All this "I win" button crapola you guys keep spouting is just background noise. You play your way, Ill play mine.