Party Mechanics - Downtime

[HunterOG]

Hey Folks,

 

I was reading Chris' post regarding companions, and it got some wheels turning.  I wanted to throw out some ideas I had regarding these elements of the game - which I would say are probably my favorite part of just about any RPG.  In this post, I wanted to open up a discussion about party behavior during those 'quiet moments.'

 

Here's certain elements that I like, that I'd love to see implemented:

 

RELAXATION

Base Camps, Party Spread, Party Character

 

The concept of a base camp, a place for the player to relax, interact with their party, and engage in routine maintenance, is something that I've always liked about RPGs.  I liked it as a kid and I still like it today.  However, there are multiple ways of doing it, and I don't think it necessarily needs to be something so simple as 'when you rest, everyone is hanging around a campfire.'  Different games have handled it in all sorts of ways in the past.  Base camps can be big or small.  They can travel with you (Dragon Age, Breath of Fire) or remain in a fixed place (Diablo or BG2¹ for example).  In some games, you can make functional improvements to the area (Suikoden II is one that always springs to my mind).  Technically speaking, they function pretty much like towns - you don't get attacked, you have the opportunity to buy things, and there's people to talk to.  The big distinction in my mind is that your party members are hanging around.  For the majority of the game they are following your commands, but in this one area they are given their own identity, in that you must approach them as an NPC.  They also respond to the player in a more direct way - in many respects, they're an empty space that the player fills as they progress through the game.  Typically, much of the player's time is spent carving up spaces they visit, killing what's there and taking things away from it.  The Home Base is the one area that players add to; they grow the space by populating it with other characters and their belongings.

 

I don't think the presence of a base camp can be underestimated when it comes to player psychology.  It not only roots the player in the world by giving them their own space, but also gives them a chance to interact with the party as characters in their own right².  Depending on the kind of mood you want to set, the character of home base can really dictate how you feel about your characters.  If the camp is small and nomadic, it establishes the group as rootless wanderers.  However, if it's large and stationary, with the opportunity to expand it, it paints them as a concrete force in the world and gives you a sense of their expanding influence.  

 

Improvements to the base camp can also be a huge player motivator.  I find it hard to resist blowing my cash on making improvements to my town, or shack, or whatever.  When these improvements have a functional aspect, it's even more fun.  When the physical improvements are linked with even more characters is when I get really invested.  The condition of the home says a lot about the player's situation.  And i don't think it necessarily needs to be a constant upward trajectory.  It could be in varying states of disrepair depending on the situation in the game at large.  What if, for example, a party member took it upon themselves to tidy up the camp, and when he/she wasn't there it just degenerated into a pig sty?  This could be a great storytelling device.

 

From a design perspective, it makes party management much easier without feeling too abstracted.  You generally have access to all the members of your party at once, you can move all your stuff around between them, and you can do that all important number crunching as you compare different load-outs.

 

I haven't yet read much regarding PE's implementation of Base Camps, but it sounds like you have a stash at the very least, which I imagine means that there is also a designated area surrounding it.  I'd be interested to know more about what sort of form the home base for the players will take.

 

 

Party Spread is a term I use to describe the times in games where your party detaches from you when you enter a non-combat area.  Final Fantasy games did this a lot.  FFX, in particular, would have your whole party hang around outside a merchant stall where you could talk to them in turn.  This would happen pretty regularly throughout the narrative, and it was a feature that I always enjoyed.  Furthermore, in larger areas, it gives the developer a chance to have Companions act independently of the player - they have an opportunity to engage in something mysterious, covert, or at least in an active way.³  BGII and Torment had a lot of great NPC moments where they engaged with the world at large, but I was usually a chaperon when this happened, which sometimes made it feel like these people, despite having a well realized back story, didn't always have a will of their own.

 

I enjoy this device quite a bit.  For one thing, it sort of takes the concept of a base camp and overlays it onto an area that you're visiting.  If your party is entering a new area and they fan out over it in a particular way, it can really give a lot of character to how you, as a group, impose yourselves on a space.  This can help establish your characters as individuals or a coherent group.

 

I've always felt that Inns or taverns in RPGs to be, if not an afterthought, at least underutilized in their social function.  They tend to behave like any other area in a town.  Furthermore, the moving of your six characters through a tight space crowded with a lot of people was often a clusterf*** and just felt silly.  If, every time you entered an inn, your party were to sort of let it all hang out, you could open some interesting doors for scenarios.  BGII had a lot of taverns.  What if when you entered, Korgan sidles right up to the bar, Minsc harasses patrons with rousing nonsensical stories, Edwin sits in a corner and reads, and Keldorn posts up by the door, waiting politely.  This sort of dynamic could encourage players to visit taverns and also establish their identity in a particular area.

 

Also, the use of this sort of thing could help to preserve the party members' identity through the entirety of the game.  One phenomena I've noticed in IE games is that, despite having side-quests and back stories, once you've cleared these out of the way the characters are then effectively brainwashed - you've ran through their part of the script and they just follow you around from then on out, rarely complaining or speaking their mind.  I totally appreciate that at a certain point there isn't going to be any more side-missions, but including an opportunity for the party to express itself at semi-regular intervals could be a good way to keep the player from dehumanizing their companions.

 

 

Party Character

 

A party is a group of individuals, to be sure, but I'm wondering if there isn't an opportunity through the methods I described, as well as others, to define parties as a group as well.  They tend to all orbit around the Player, which is as it should be, but often to the exclusion of one another.  There's the obvious instances of when characters chatter at one another as they walk around, or chime in on a conversation the player is having, but are there subtle ways that the party could be given a 'group identity' that allows the player to see how his gang is viewed from the outside?  I'll think on this a bit but would welcome any ideas.

 

 

+Too Long, Didn't Read+

+ I'd like to see a home base, and would be curious as to what it's going to look like, and if it will be used in a storytelling capacity.

+ Inns could be redefined as places for the party to detach from the player and socialize with NPCs and one another.

+ What your party does when it's not engaged in adventuring is an underutilized piece of gaming real estate.

 

Cheers, Folks!

 

==============================================

 

1. Baldur's Gate 2 left me with very mixed feelings about how they implemented these.  On one hand, I loved how your 'stronghold' provided a whole set of side-quests to undertake, how it served to define the nature of your character class in the larger society, and how the spaces were often well populated by NPCs.  On the other hand, I never felt like I actually lived there, in that once I had taken over the stronghold, my party functioned in the same way as when that place was a dungeon.  They often felt empty and cavernous, huge mausoleums where I could almost hear my footsteps echoing off the walls. 

 

2.  I don't mean to imply that party members have no identity of their own, merely that their actions are almost entirely controlled by the player.  The occasional loss of player control gives the companions a chance to 'express themselves' in a way which would not be possible otherwise.  They could loaf around, cook food, spar, do pushups, talk to one another, etc.

 

3.  One thing that distinguishes IE games from FF is that the field and combat areas are not so divided.  I do appreciate the the sudden departure of party members can be awkward or inconvenient if combat is prone to occur at any point and time.  

[Nonek]

1. There will be a player home, later a stronghold and numerous party camps for resting.

2. Inns sound very fine.

3. In total agreement, there's a lot of good underused meat on that bone.

 

Edit: I also like your addendum point of the characters performing little actions, if Atton had been shuffling a pazaak deck, HK cleaning and stripping a firearm etcetera. Really builds and reinforces character at very little expanse, and a sudden change in that behaviour might serve to convey a change in attitude very effectively. If the gregarious drunken warrior who is usually singing at the bar with a pint is suddenly sat alone on his bunk whetting his blade, it makes a clear signal.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Nonek

[J. Trudel]

I hope the dev notice your post and take many many notes on what you said ! I second 110 % of your ideas. If I may add something, even while in the party, the NPC's may as well have some will of their own, conflict, romance or friendship between themselves. This would make the group a much more dynamic experience. 

 

It may not have been the best way to do it, but I still love how DA:O camp felt.

 

Just a few more ideas where the party may split and even DO something :

 

• Market place  (Party members should have some money of their own, they could buy things sometime)
• When they know someone living nearby
• Temples
• If you get into jail (you or one of your party member might end up there, they could come to get you out for a change)
• Random moments, a Rogue for example might break up for a few moments to go scout ahead on his own initiative. 

[Chrononaut]

I don't really like any of those ideas, tbh. CRPG's are adventures, they aren't filler episodes for tv shows, the primary purpose of a CRPG (or at least an IE-like one) is killing monsters, getting xp and loot, doing quests, etc. I instinctively dislike any suggestion of going into "Sims" territory, you see it in modern RPG's too like with that Hearthfire DLC for Skyrim. CRPG's are about adventuring, not make-believe simulation stuff like player housing. You go in that direction and soon you'll have a whole bunch of "fans" who want player marriages, children, and make believe they're living in a fantasy world, and a whole lot of unrelated crap.

 

Even with regard to camps, what is the point? If you need to rest to memorize spells, sure, but apart from that what is the point? If PE doesn't have a hunger/thirst meter (well I expect not), OE aren't making Realms of Arkania so your party aren't going to get life-threatening diseases or whatever that require resting and the like.

 

If it's cosmetic and not mechanical, ie if the player doesn't need to use this stuff then there's not much point.

[J. Trudel]

I don't really like any of those ideas, tbh. CRPG's are adventures, they aren't filler episodes for tv shows, the primary purpose of a CRPG (or at least an IE-like one) is killing monsters, getting xp and loot, doing quests, etc. I instinctively dislike any suggestion of going into "Sims" territory, you see it in modern RPG's too like with that Hearthfire DLC for Skyrim. CRPG's are about adventuring, not make-believe simulation stuff like player housing. You go in that direction and soon you'll have a whole bunch of "fans" who want player marriages, children, and make believe they're living in a fantasy world, and a whole lot of unrelated crap.

 

Even with regard to camps, what is the point? If you need to rest to memorize spells, sure, but apart from that what is the point? If PE doesn't have a hunger/thirst meter (well I expect not), OE aren't making Realms of Arkania so your party aren't going to get life-threatening diseases or whatever that require resting and the like.

 

If it's cosmetic and not mechanical, ie if the player doesn't need to use this stuff then there's not much point.

 

I am unsure what you didn't grasp in the concept of ''Role Playing'', IE games were not about killing monster and getting xp. It was about living a story in a fantasy world. Gaining experience and loot are just some of the mechanics to make the world exiting. You should play Dungeon Hunter Alliance, it may fill everything you need from a cRPG. Honestly, I don't think P:E is for you.

[Chrononaut]

Really? From memory basically all Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale were dungeon crawling, they had dialogues but the vast majority of the gameplay was fighting through towers or dungeons, IWD doubly so. As for "living world", well neither BG nor IWD had that, NPC's always stood in the same place waiting for you to speak to them, they had no scripted routines for day/night etc.

 

Almost all of PE's Kickstarter updates have been related to combat mechanics. I think you would be the one mistaken if you think PE will not be a dungeon crawler. It might be more open-world than BG/IWD but I would bet quite a lot it will be a combat slog game, perhaps tied together with some nice dialogues and maybe a puzzle or two.

 

I have played every game Obsidian has made, all of which had budgets and development timetables far in excess of this project, and all of them were combat slog games, why would anyone expect anything more?

 

As for "Dungeon Hunter Alliance", a google says it is a PS3 game, and I don't own one of those nor do I play non-computer video games.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Chrononaut

[J. Trudel]

Really? From memory basically all Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale were dungeon crawling, they had dialogues but the vast majority of the gameplay was fighting through towers or dungeons, IWD doubly so. As for "living world", well neither BG nor IWD had that, NPC's always stood in the same place waiting for you to speak to them, they had no scripted routines for day/night etc.

 

Almost all of PE's Kickstarter updates have been related to combat mechanics. I think you would be the one mistaken if you think PE will not be a dungeon crawler. It might be more open-world than BG/IWD but I would bet quite a lot it will be a combat slog game, perhaps tied together with some nice dialogues and maybe a puzzle or two.

 

I have played every game Obsidian has made, all of which had budgets and development timetables far in excess of this project, and all of them were combat slog games, why would anyone expect anything more?

 

As for "Dungeon Hunter Alliance", a google says it is a PS3 game, and I don't own one of those nor do I play non-computer video games.

 

If I can remember, in Baldur's Gate 2 your player could own a class specific stronghold. Engage in NPC romance, some of them even ended up in having a kid. Your NPC's even had some personnal quest of their own. If you look closely at P:E you have crafting, deep story, NPC interactions, also look at this quotes from the dev :

 

Thanks to our backers, players will have access to both a player house as well as a full stronghold in the game. 

 

 

I do think you are of the mark pall. Sure this game will ALSO have xp, loot, dungeon crawling. But it's not ONLY about this small protion of the game.

[Chrononaut]

Sure, I mean focusing on that kinda stuff. Majority of BG was just clearing out dungeons/towers, I do not mean it in a bad way it was fun because of D&D rules and the large amount of character options, as well as the large amount of unique creatures. I just think it's silly to romanticize what these older CRPG's really were. If OE wants to make a game which is somewhere between BG, IWD and PST, then I'm not exactly sure what kinda game that makes PE but I do know it means a lot of combat.

[LadyCrimson]

The thing about the IE games is that even when themes of romance/roleplay are in there, they're usually dialogue and quest related, not "Sim-like" related. So you'd get that aspect of roleplay via dialogue choices and a quest path/tree ... hence when you're actually moving about/exploring in the world (vs. sitting in your stronghold or standing in some tavern having a dialogue), it largely did feel like 95% of what you were doing, action-wise, was combat. I find that true of most cRPG's, really.

 

Just my opinion tho.

 

And while I do like strongholds, collecting fashion items/items in general, and (when the option was there) stacking pillows into the sky, or building castles, I do tend to like a bit more separation of sim and action-oriented games. eg, if I want to build castles, I'll get a castle sim or strategy game.

 

I don't see the harm in having more interactive party mechanics, tho ... doesn't sound like the suggestions are ones where such would be mandatory or get in the way, really. Course, there's always the time/resources aspect,  which as always could be an issue for P.E. in terms of whether such are likely to be implemented.

[J. Trudel]

I agree that it's a role playing game and not a Sim game. Actually, I can't think of any sim games that have good role play in them. But combat is only a part of the role playing experience, and not the other way around (even if you fight 90 % of the time). Baldur's Gate series (on pc) was one of the few games that actually felt like a RPG despite the limited possibilities at that time. What I hope is that P:E improve on the genre by pushing it's concept even further. 

 

If it was to be only a hack n slash game, I would be very sad about it as there are a thousand game on the market that are already out. I hope (am pretty sure, actually) that the devs aim to make something special out of that game. 

[HunterOG]

I don't really like any of those ideas, tbh. CRPG's are adventures, they aren't filler episodes for tv shows, the primary purpose of a CRPG (or at least an IE-like one) is killing monsters, getting xp and loot, doing quests, etc. I instinctively dislike any suggestion of going into "Sims" territory, you see it in modern RPG's too like with that Hearthfire DLC for Skyrim. CRPG's are about adventuring, not make-believe simulation stuff like player housing. You go in that direction and soon you'll have a whole bunch of "fans" who want player marriages, children, and make believe they're living in a fantasy world, and a whole lot of unrelated crap.

 

Even with regard to camps, what is the point? If you need to rest to memorize spells, sure, but apart from that what is the point? If PE doesn't have a hunger/thirst meter (well I expect not), OE aren't making Realms of Arkania so your party aren't going to get life-threatening diseases or whatever that require resting and the like.

 

If it's cosmetic and not mechanical, ie if the player doesn't need to use this stuff then there's not much point.

 

Hey Chrononaut!  Judging from your response, we're bound to have slightly different preferences here - but I'd like to refine a few of my statements so as not to sound so much like I'm requesting a point-and-click television program  Hopefully I can allay some concerns about soap-opera-ness and also demonstrate how, mechanically, such ideas could be implemented.

 

I'd say that any CRPG is a mix of mechanics/cosmetics.  I'd agree that the change I'm suggesting is more cosmetic than mechanical, but I don't think it has to be to the detriment of the game mechanics themselves.  One of the things that separates the good IE games from the great ones (IWD/BG1 vs. BG2/PS:T) is that the great ones managed pack in huge amounts of storytelling into the empty space from earlier games (the fact that they did the same thing with the mechanics, at least in BG2s case, didn't hurt either ).  One thing a lot of people talk about really liking was Dakkon's development in PS:T, for example.  I think it could be interesting to ground some (not all) of that type of activity in a space, rather than whipping around and just pestering him for his life story, apropos of nothing.  Other things worked very well in the field and made a lot of sense to me.  Take Edwin studying his nether scrolls in BG2 - I totally bought that he was hanging back in the party, reading those things whenever we were walking somewhere, biding his time...

 

***Disclaimer***

One thing I want to make clear is I don't want to force players to engage in this sort of activity if they don't want to.  I hate lengthy cut scenes, tiresome voice-acted conversations between characters, and the padding of game time by forcing players through circuitous, farcical means of party management (walk across town to the blacksmith, then ten blocks away to the alchemist!  booo...)

 

The base camp thing that kicked off the post was more of a statement of opinion - that stuff already exists in games and people like it or they don't.  It's become a trope at this point.  After sleeping on it, here are some questions that maybe I should have posed that would clarify things:

 

1. Where are party 'safe zones'?

2. When the party is in a safe zone, how does it behave?

3. What sort of game features would define a safe zone?

 

Here it goes:

 

1. Where are party 'safe zones'?

 

A 'safe zone' would be anywhere that the party took a load off and engaged in their own thing while they were there.  I liked how Dragon Age handled the campsite - you could choose if you wanted to go there whenever you entered the world map.  You didn't have to, but the option was available.  The camp itself lacked interest but I still appreciated the element.  What if you gave the opportunity to make camp in other, more interesting locations as well?  In between some levels of a deep dungeon, you could make camp under gigantic ruins or over a vast abyss.  Climbing up a mountain, you could huddle in a cave near the summit.  Travelling through a deep forest, you find a huge, hollow tree to camp in.  J. Trudel's suggestions were all great as well.  At these locations, your party could have the opportunity to meet NPCs.  This wouldn't be so different from a random encounter but would give it a sort of character.  Also, if you were attacked while camping, there could be a geographic element to the encounter, if you're trapped in a cave or fighting on a mountain ridge.

 

Since inns are already in pretty much every RPG ever, set them apart by designating them as a safe zone (at least when you get there).  Your companions can spread out over the inn and do their thing, and that way your PC can move through the space without you pushing the party through a mass of obstructions.  If a fight breaks out, there's strategic interest in that your party is scattered, and maybe they have to fight their way through the space to gather with one another.  This sort of scenario's interest would be dependent on combat mechanics - if there was any added enjoyment to be had by fighting with a scattered party on occasion.

 

The stronghold is in, by the sounds of it, so might as well give it some life.  If there's nothing to separate it functionally from a camp site then I agree, it's inconsequential and probably redundant.  All things being consistent, I'd MUCH rather have a campsite whose functions follow me to a degree than one I have to trudge back to.

 

One thing I am not suggesting is that, every time the player clicks a 'camp' button, the whole party fans out wherever the PC is standing on the map.

 

2. When the party is in a safe zone, how does it behave?

 

I described this in the original post, so I'll try and sum it up by saying that they do a couple things differently than usual.  They are outside player control, which means that they are free to act in accordance with their personality as dictated by the space.  They interact with the PC independently of the party as a whole (in private, or with a select set of party members).  They can get into their own kind of trouble, and the player has the option to intervene, or let it play out, or let other party members intervene, etc.

 

Also, your entire party could occupy the safe zone, not just the six active members.  This is a chance to see party members interact that might not typically be in an active party together (though PE's limited cast might not be much of concern in this regard), two thieves, for example.  One thing I found strange in games where you cart everyone around (Dragon Age) was this tacit implication that while you were in the city, everyone else was camped outside (even if that wasn't the intent).  I'd love to see inactive party members strolling through the marketplace, playing cards, or at least sidled up to a bar.

 

Mechanically speaking, I would still keep everyone's inventory accessible and seek to streamline party management in every way possible.  I'd even extend party management to everyone who wasn't in the active party.  No way in hell would I expect the player to track down individual companions or anything like that.

 

 

3. What sort of game features would define a safe zone?

 

This is more about mechanics.  Basically the safe zone is the place where you would have unfettered access to the whole party and their joint abilities/inventory.  It's where you can make any and all preparations.  Sure, this can all be done with a series of menus, but I described above my personal justifications for tying this player activity to an area.  In terms of what's there?  I don't know about shops - personally I like the shopping aspect of the game to be separated from the party (Dragon Age had a shopkeeper following you around, which rang false), so I'd leave shopping to towns and outside vendors.  Specific camp sites, as described above, might have a shopkeeper hanging around.  I'm a bit of a crafting-hater, and consider 96% of that activity to be padding of game time (BG2 had almost enough, as far as I was concerned).  I prefer the narrative component of meeting the guy/gal who can make the item, and as an artist I even get a little offended that someone who spends most of their time slaughtering monsters can also slap together a holy sword whenever they please.

 

I imagine there's a bit of a debate when it comes to limited access to gear and things like that.  I understand the desire to be able to get at anything whenever you want, camping or not, and the tedium of inventory restrictions.  However I can see from the designers perspective the huge strategic component of forcing players to limit their available decisions once they enter into the combat structure.  I'm of the opinion that the developer must have the ability to limit access to assets.  That being said, I think that in camp, you have maximum fluidity and control.  In the field, you're stuck with what you brought; if you want to switch things up you better hoof it back to a safe zone.

 

Dialog wise, this is where the script can really breathe when it comes to party interaction.  As I said earlier, I wouldn't want to cram it down a player's throat - but I do believe that for many people this is the most memorable part of a game.  You can't downplay the importance of characters in a party.  They're almost always more compelling than the broader narrative (which is generally predictable), they offer the most sustained relationship with the PC, and their interaction as a group makes the whole story feel more human.  Instead of having your companions pipe up from their place in line and go on a monologue, you can have a contextual environment for conversations, fights, rivalries and friendships.  The players' level of engagement is absolutely up to them.

 

 

Now a footnote on: 

Resting and Spatial Impact

 

This is in regards to some mechanical concerns that might arise about safe zone locations, but it ended up being a bit broader.

 

'Resting' basically serves one purpose in an IE game - the resetting of spell count and activated abilities.  The classics would discourage players from doing this over and over through monster attacks, but such tools were often circumvented by reloading the game.  Since then, there's been all sorts of ways to dictate ability use vs. combat challenges.  It's a crucial part of making the game fun - where do you force players to commit to the their choices, and where are they allowed to change their mind?  

 

I always liked the memorization mechanic in D&D.  A 'mana pool' basically encourages the player to figure out the most efficient spell and just use it over and over again.  That, or it uses a sort of rock/paper/scissor spell mechanic (fire magic beats ice!) that, once the player has deciphered it, is completely predictable and repetitive (which JRPGs do and is TERRIBLE).  By engineering a scarcity to magic use, the designer treats it a lot like gear and consumables - players have to treat magic in a preparatory way.  They develop a strategy that is personal to them, rather than being dictated case-by-case with the enemies they encounter.  It's really one of the best parts about these kinds of games - a gameplay element you can't find anywhere else.

 

By tying resting to spell use, the designers made it temporally independent from other party decisions.  Resting, mechanics wise, is actually a complete misnomer.  It has nothing to do with rest in the human sense, and everything to do with the opportunity to make tactical spell loadouts.

 

If there are eight beats to game segment:

 

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O 

 

You may have the chance to revamp your whole party and gear in two places, say:

 

O - X - O - O - O - X - O - O 

 

But you also have the chance to rest in places, and therefore change up your spells in two other places:

 

O - S - O - S - O - S - S - O 

 

The location of these opportunities is a pretty big deal in terms of how the game is designed.  In a classic IE game, you could pretty much try and rest whenever you wanted.  Players could determine for themselves if they felt like save-scumming in order to have exactly the spells they wanted at all times without having to deal with monster attacks (or just fight off the monsters and rest again).  I'm not opposed to this design choice, though at this point you could view the idea of 'resting' as kind of inconsequential: why not just have spells recharge after every combat scenario?  That's if we're talking strictly mechanics.  In actuality resting is also a cosmetic addition to the game, though it's aesthetics are pretty wonky.

 

So my suggestions draw more attention to the physical activity of resting - linking it with an area and character action rather than a button click.  This can yank the mechanic away from mages and it would seem that something might have to step in to take its place.  Maybe mages went into a meditative state?  Maybe they just get to gather their thoughts and their spells are replenished right away (I would not like this)?  Maybe they can't recharge their spells until you leave that portion of the map, at which point (whether you actively enter camp or not) resting and recharging are implied?  Maybe you can only rest/recharge at certain spots on the map, like little camp sites or lean-tos?  Maybe resting would stay exactly the same.

 

One thing it does is imply a sense of time to an area.  It implies the passage of time in a very specific way - often it actively tells you "You rest for 8 hours."  That's what I mean when I say the aesthetic are wonky.  It feels strange to wake up, walk across a field, fight a couple monsters, and then lie down and pass out for eight hours.  Or to be in a huge field of monsters and find a little hidey-hole, obscured by fog of war, and find eight consecutive hours of peace and quiet.  The implication of time doesn't really jive with the space that is visually evoked.  Then again, who cares?

 

It does get me thinking about the mechanics of party replenishment and where this occurs.  Older games largely put it in the hands of the player, whereas newer games tend to decide when your party is recharged on your behalf.  Depending on when a party gets to heal/recharge - it can really dictate how the developer chooses to carve up the space that they occupy.  I think a lot of designers take the easy way out by just having your party heal up at the end of every battle.  This way, they don't have to think about the challenge of consecutive engagements.  This is definitely easier on the designer, but it's also a missed opportunity for the kind of resource management that defines the best of these games.  Older games had a nice compromise where you could choose to keep pressing forward on a steadily diminishing number of assets.  Getting as far as you can in this fashion was actually a big part of why these games were fun.  You had the opportunity and satisfaction of accomplishing a lot with a little, getting to your destination running on fumes.  When it got to be too much, you could rest up and heal, but you didn't have to.  This is a lost dynamic in many games today, and I hope they endeavor to keep it intact here.  And if I remember correctly there are instances where you weren't allowed to rest, and then you had a great interaction between player and designer in the form of an protracted combat challenge, where you'd have to fight continually without an opportunity to heal.  I'd like to see more of this as well.

 

Reading that last paragraph back to myself, it occurs to me that I really, really like the opportunity for the player to deprive themselves of resting up if they want to.  But I also like the camaraderie of the safe zone.  I'd love to see both, when all is said and done.

 

Oi!  Too much writing!  Thanks if you read all of it.

[HunterOG]

It occurs to me that there is at least one other reason for 'resting' which is to run the clock on the game so as to get to certain events, or wait out certain status effects.  This is something I neglected, but I think it's fairly incidental to the other stuff I was talking about.  Oh well  :-P

[jamoecw]

perhaps whichever companion is the most eager for some R&R could initiate dialog in an 'apparent' safe zone.  that way you don't actually know if it is safe, you might be scattering your party just prior to an ambush.

 

for further role play you could have the party members like you for letting them get some R&R, and if bad stuff happens like it when you swoop in and save them.  likewise some might get annoyed that you let a fellow party member get into trouble, and others annoyed that you denied them R&R.  so that characters with authority issues like it when you let the party do what it wants and then swoop in and save them when they get into trouble, while those without authority issues like it when you deny R&R in risky areas.

 

though i think a toggle option in the options menu would be nice, after all if someone wants just a hack & slash experience why not give it to them?

[Lephys]

It occurs to me that there is at least one other reason for 'resting' which is to run the clock on the game so as to get to certain events, or wait out certain status effects.  This is something I neglected, but I think it's fairly incidental to the other stuff I was talking about.  Oh well  :-P

While this serves as a useful tool, I think it can easily be tied to quest/event completion, instead (like in Mass Effect). I've never really seen any detriments to the way that was handled, while still providing the benefits. If you run around town for 3 days straight, time kind of doesn't really pass, in-so-far as the NPCs and world show. Successfully explore a cave and find a quest thingy, and return it to the person seeking it? Now, that person reacts to you in a different way (to acknowledge both the completion of a task/event AND the passage of time that always accompanies such efforts), so why shouldn't other people? Of course, if it was simple enough (Go and fetch this item from down the street, and come back with it, for example), then other people wouldn't react as though significant time had passed. This could easily be controlled by having different groups of NPCs react after different quests/events.

 

Annnywho, this also (in Mass Effect) provided advancement/progression in the reactions and dialogues of companion characters to both your recent actions AND the relevant goings-on of the world around them, in the down-time areas of which you speak. And, for what it's worth, I don't think the resting mechanic needs to advance time, as far as the narrative is concerned, when all it's really doing is serving as a limitation on spell/health resources.

 

Also, it seems like it'd be a lot easier to handle the logistics of when and where companions feel the need to dialogue with you about what events if you link this to specific locations. i.e. "When you reach campfire A, you've obviously traveled through area A, so downtime interactions should trigger potential dialogues regarding all previous things + area A." The time thing works the same way. If you need to fall back to campfire A, after passing it, purely for health/spell reasons, there's no need for the world to react to that, since that's not really a representation of narrative coherency, anyway. In other words, in the game world, you're not playing along the lines of HP and spells per day. In the narrative, your characters either overcame an obstacle, or didn't. They didn't go rest up for a few days, then clear up some more goblin groups, then travel back and rest up and mend wounds for a few more days, then come back, and repeat. They just traveled through the bloody forest. So, even though the resting mechanic can and does serve the purpose of time passage, it generally only serves one or the other role at any given time. If you've traveled all the way through a given forest, then clearly that took a decent amount of time, regardless of how efficiently or inefficiently you did it (like a minimum time). So, if you entered at morning, then it might now be evening when you arrive at a camp at the end of the forest that mechanically allows you to rest. So, even if you rested a thousand times in getting through the forest, the narrative would be silly to say "And then the group rested a thousand times, and they all died of old age, and the rest of the world fell to ruins because they didn't do anything about it." Because, again, they'd have absolutely no reason to do this, if not for the abstracted mechanics of healing and replenishing spells.

 

 

Annnnnywho, I'm getting a bit wordy now, and a bit convoluted with my words. I shall stop for the time being.

[JFSOCC]

Excellent post, previous posts on this forum have touched upon the subject, but few have managed to write it out as well as the OP does.

 

I like the idea of breaking up the party and having each individual party member have some character exposition quests while "off duty"

Where the game focuses on the specialities of individual characters to help build their character arcs, as well as demonstrate their individual skill sets better.

Downtime seems a perfect moment to do this.

Camp set-up can be a great time to deal with character exposition without it clunkily being shoe-horned in during party quests.

 

For instance, as a rest mechanic, I'd enjoy it if there was something along the lines of (not mandatory) campfire tales, the player gets to act out part of the backstory of his or her companions. The better they are acted out, (game sets the player in the story) the better the results of resting. And the player learns something of his companions, or the companions learn something about the player.

 

Resting itself needs to be improved upon and I've suggested (and others as well) to do something with it. Make it part of the gameplay rather than a restore button with risk involved. I think this would work towards that purpose.

[forgottenlor]

I for one did not like the DA:O camp. I can't really say why, but it felt sort of artificial to me.  I think because I felt like this was the place where I had to forward dialogue. Jade Empire was even worse, because it was basically the same, but arrows were pointing over the heads of the npcs who wanted to say something. The castle in Baldur's Gate 2 was the opposite. You had a reason to be there, but it no way felt like home. One game which I actually thought did a decent job of it was Neverwinter Nights 2. The Inn was in a specific place. It didn't belong to you. It wasn't always convenient to get to. Nevertheless it was "your" hangout, and it was the place your characters went to between acts. Sand and Bishop hung out there anyways. In fact they met you there. It had a much more organic feel.  

Edited August 14, 2013 by forgottenlor

[Jarmo]

One reason why camp scenes were played up so much in many games like FF, NWN2, Mass Effect  or DA:O,

is you had a big party but only had a couple of them around at any time. Without camp or base system,

you might never get around to talk with that totally unlikeable dweeb the game railroaded into your party.

 

PE is going to be different there, all the party at hand at all times, so the importance of camp setting is lesser.

Said that, I do like many of the suggestions here and camping and roleplaying the game in general.

 

Party splitting up when in friendly zone sounds great, companions doing their thing alone, maybe something happening?

One NWN module (forgot which) had one of your party members hit the bar and disappear mysteriously, which was great.

 

Situations like... yeah, we need to talk about this, but not now with the others listening, later when we have the time.. are always great.