World Map Travel

[neo6874]

True that. But, at the same time, I often found myself going to one place, exploring around a bit, then traveling somewhere else (several hours of in-area exploration, since the last rest) for maybe 10-16 hours of travel time, only to arrive with several characters immediately fatigued and complaining about sleep.

 

Same here, though more because "now WTF am i supposed to go ...?" and "maybe that guy is over here .... or over here ... or over here ... "

[Lephys]

The system you mentioned Lephys seems to take it a *little* too far.

A simple "rest?" checkbox should probably suffice, without having to give all that kind of detail.

 

I rather kinda liked in the BG they never explicitely told you how much % weariness your characters had till they got really sleepy and the penalty. It would make the game more gamey I think if it would outright tell you "80% weariness" and you go on that for example...

 

Noted, but I honestly believe you're thinking of it as more complex than it really is. Like I said, imagine the finished product being like the hydration or radiation gauges in Fallout: NV. If you're going to have the "oh no, you're tired!" state in, then it's not a question of whether or not to represent tiredness, so we're already past that. So then, it's functionally the same as the radiation or hydration stuff: it moves by tiny increments, but only when it hits certain thresholds does the penalty take effect/change. So, the game can keep up with exactly how long it's been since your characters last rested, and how much rest they've gotten, and you don't have to. You just look at a nice, intuitive presentation of that information, and decide between a few options for resting and travel (speed, route perhaps, etc.).

 

Most of the old games already had a slider for resting, with one-hour increments. So, being able to pick how much rest you do while traveling wouldn't be any different really. Every hour is going to add an hour onto the trip, and is going to relieve some amount of weariness. It's abstracted, but that's quite literally how tiredness works in reality, in a very simplified form. There's only so awake you can be, and only so weary you can be.

 

Again, it all only really matters if travel time ever matters. If it doesn't, then you don't even have to represent accurate resting times, and travel times are just for funsies (and maybe to determine the odds of random encounters -- a 2-hour trip is less likely to run into something than a 15-hour trek through a forest).

[neo6874]

Even if "travel time" doesn't matter so much (unless "the stronghold is gonna be attacked in 3d" type scenarios), I would still like to have it "matter" insofar as fatigue.  Yes it was annoying to work with, and keep tabs on "how long have we been up now?" but it helped me feel more like a part of the party rather than some guy playing a computer game (because the whole "play as the whole party" thing is a bit jarring to me).

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, obviously the GAME should keep track of fatigue, I just question why you would want to portray this to the player *at all*. It would work gamey situations in hand where people simply go rest at 90%, penalty avoided... and the fatigue mechanic is wasted completely... not good.

 

So yeah, still more for allowing "rest/no rest" for longer travels, and not displaying any kind of weary information or manually adding resting hours.

[Lephys]

Well, obviously the GAME should keep track of fatigue, I just question why you would want to portray this to the player *at all*. It would work gamey situations in hand where people simply go rest at 90%, penalty avoided... and the fatigue mechanic is wasted completely... not good.

 

So yeah, still more for allowing "rest/no rest" for longer travels, and not displaying any kind of weary information or manually adding resting hours.

 

I don't understand. You want the game to tell you when you're injured, right? So, why not when you're tired? Do your characters not realize they're growing weary, hour-by-hour, then, suddenly, they suffer -2 to all stats in a spontaneous fit of fatigue?

 

Besides, you say seeing it would cause everyone to just rest at 90%, and the mechanic would be pointless. But, if you don't show it, you think people aren't just going to paranoidly rest whenever they get the chance (basically at 50%, etc.) and err on the side of caution? Who's just going to go "Well, I can't see the gauge, but I can pretty much rest at a bunch of opportunities... You know what? Let's just keep going and see what happens, 8D!"

 

Besides, I'd like to see it be more of a gradual penalty than a "you're fine... NOW YOU'RE SUPER FATIGUED!" penalty. If it's in.

 

This is all built upon itself. IF you can rest while traveling, then it should add to travel time. If travel time matters, then you should be able to choose to not-rest while traveling. So, if you can choose, then you should probably be able to choose some manner of variable time, so you don't run into situations in which you hit the "need to rest during this trip" by 1 hour, only to tack on 8 hours of sleep to a 7-hour trip (more than doubling the initial trip time, when time is of the essence). IF all this stuff is in place, then you should probably get to see how tired you are when choosing these things, so you're not just blindly guessing. If you can't see how far from fatigue, say, 3 hours of rest is going to put you, then why should you see how it's going to affect the trip length in relation to some urgent matter you're dealing with?

 

So, again, if's. If there's not really a way to feasibly incorporate a weariness mechanic (say, because you'll be resting so often that it won't matter anyway), then maybe it shouldn't even be a thing. *shrug*

 

We started this line of thinking with the example of your characters arriving at a place exhausted, like in BG. Thus, the basis for all this was the already-existing implementation of time-based fatigue. If the fatigue would be rendered moot by the ease of options to rest to avoid it, then maybe it shouldn't exist in the first place. I don't think "let's just remove the characters' awareness of their own tiredness so that the mechanic will be applicable" is a very wise decision.

[Hassat Hunter]

Not really. Can't recall people going superparanoid in the BG's for fatigue. More for spells and healing. Never been a fan of resting all that often myself, but apparently I am in the minority if JE Sawyer makes so many changes to the system due to super-sleepers being a common occurance.

Hitpoints is an abstraction, a necessary evil. An intrigate real life system turned gamey because otherwise, well, actually playing would be hard. Doesn't mean we need to modify other real world factors like that. Imagine if you get poisoned by a fatal toxic (BG1 actually has this quest). It doesn't go 10% poison, 20% poison, than at 100 it gives the player the actual event and tells him they're poisoned... even if technically they should feel it's effects. Or not. But then why is the status effect there.

Going a bit too deep in on the system...

 

Heck, they could even add 'combat fatique' (a real world occurance) if you go into too much battle. With a system hidden you would be unawares of it creeping up on you till it hits you (like... you know, in real-life, I have no 50% fatigue awareness or something). With a display, as I said, I think it will get gamed instead and completely loose it's purpose.

 

I would agree with phasing. That the fatigue penalty worsens over time instead of being one permanent debuff of fixed state.

 

If you're on a rush, and go on a 7 hour trip, and still click rest and add 8 hours... I don't think you really can blame anyone BUT yourself. Don't click rest, don't rest, spend 7 hours. I'm not exactly seeing the problem there. Also would 1 hour restore all spells? No, 8? Why not 6 restore some? All issues that simply are raised by... why are we even want a variable rest-timer?

[Mor]

A little off topic-ish question.

 

So far we were give only those two concepts: World map and

 

 

 

Shall I assume the later is one playable location(looks like defiance bay) on the world map or is the only playable location during Pillar of Eternity?

Following up on that. According to the latest update the second big city is Twin Elms. So i guess it is confirmed that the second screenshot is more or less where Pillar of eternity take place(Twin Elms is on the shore of the lake at the bottom right corner) and what type of map they are going for in PE. While the world map is for the purpose of setting up the lore and all the players(I still don't understand where the damn Aedyr Empire located  ), so lot of space for future titles.

[Lephys]

Not really. Can't recall people going superparanoid in the BG's for fatigue. More for spells and healing. Never been a fan of resting all that often myself, but apparently I am in the minority if JE Sawyer makes so many changes to the system due to super-sleepers being a common occurance.

It was an exaggeration, the "super paranoid" bit. It's a simple question of "why go into combat with fatigue penalties when you could EASILY go into combat without them?" You see, you might go into combat without full health or something, because you had to progress through a series of encounters in order to become injured. SO, in the case of P:E, maybe you don't want to backtrack to a campsite JUST to be at 100% health instead of 70, at the point you've progressed to. Whereas, in BG and such, you just had a "be 100% again" button. With the only detriment being "you might get attacked if you try this on-the-fly."

 

But, with fatigue, you just become fatigued "because time." So, specifically in BG, you became fatigued after a specific amount of time had passed since you last rested. You'd ENTER an area fatigued. So, my question there was, why would you just shrug that off and not rest BEFORE even doing anything significant? It doesn't make any sense to just roll with it at that point, because it doesn't make any sense for you to arbitrarily march all the way to some location to the point of depriving yourself of sleep/rest.

 

Hitpoints is an abstraction, a necessary evil. An intrigate real life system turned gamey because otherwise, well, actually playing would be hard. Doesn't mean we need to modify other real world factors like that. Imagine if you get poisoned by a fatal toxic (BG1 actually has this quest). It doesn't go 10% poison, 20% poison, than at 100 it gives the player the actual event and tells him they're poisoned... even if technically they should feel it's effects. Or not. But then why is the status effect there.

Going a bit too deep in on the system...

Yes, that's going a bit deep into the system. Simply knowing how long you've been awake is not the same thing as somehow innately knowing how far poison is progressing in your system. In BG, the game already kept up with the progression of fatigue. It simply did not show the player. Are you cool with the game keeping up with such a thing in such a fashion, but adamantly against the player having any knowledge of how tired their characters are (or how tired X hours of traveling is going to make them)? And if so, why? If not, please explain.

 

If you're on a rush, and go on a 7 hour trip, and still click rest and add 8 hours... I don't think you really can blame anyone BUT yourself. Don't click rest, don't rest, spend 7 hours. I'm not exactly seeing the problem there. Also would 1 hour restore all spells? No, 8? Why not 6 restore some? All issues that simply are raised by... why are we even want a variable rest-timer?

Whether or not someone clicks "rest for 8 hours" or not is not the question here. Whether or not they should have more options than that, or be limited to that as an option, is the question. Where did I say people could blame someone for willingly choosing to spend an extra 8 hours on a trip when they're in a hurry (for game world reasons)? And how do you not see the problem I'm pointing out? If you have 12 hours (in-game hours) before something happens, and it takes 7 hours to travel to where it's going to happen (to stop it, for example), but you've already not-rested for, I dunno... 12 hours (due to circumstances beyond your control), so that that 7 hours of travel is going to result in your whole party being fatigued, then why wouldn't you want to have the option of spending 7 hours traveling, but rest for 3-or-4 hours (specifically so that you're not tired, +7 more hours of tired)? And, since when was the ability to sleep/rest for not-an-extremely-specific-amount-of-time, ONLY, some kind of complex realism simulation aspect?

 

Plenty of games have had "choose how long you want to rest" interface options, AND had time-limits in-game. Fallout, for example. Was Fallout some overboard reality simulation?

 

Also, I don't know... would 1 hour restore all spells? Maybe it wouldn't. What does that have to do with whether or not an hour of rest would make you less tired, as opposed to non-stop travel/"adventuring" without even that one hour of downtime?

 

"Why would we even want a variable rest-timer?"? I dunno. Why would you want a variable ANYTHING? Do you want to cast ALL your spells, or just one of them? Do you want to wait 'til morning, or just wait in fixed segments until you get really close to morning, then manually sit around and actually wait for 2 more in-game hours until a certain time when something happens? The better question is: "If time is of any importance, and you have the option to pass more or less of it with an action, why WOULDN'T you want it to be variable?"

[Hassat Hunter]

Yes, I am cool with the information being completely hidden. As for why, isn't that clear from my last few posts? If not, I seem to have failed to portray my intention...

 

As for "because it doesn't make any sense for you to arbitrarily march all the way to some location to the point of depriving yourself of sleep/rest." it could if you're in a hurry. It makes sense if you go to your stronghold and rest there instead for bonusses (thanks KS update) rather than randomly in the wilderness instead on the way there. It makes sense if you're in a rush. It makes sense if you're one month away from a game development deadline... eh... well, you get the point.

 

As for the 'why would we want a variable resttimer' I was more adding it adds needless complexity to sleeping. I'm not opposed to variable something else. Just that a variable timer will have to make developers think, and implement options to, for example, restore half a spellbook, put back the fatigue timer x hours instead of resetting it, having to add more factors to health and stamina restored than where you rest at what cost (inn-options), how (if any) stronghold buffs you get.

It's just that much easier if there's a fixed 8 hour timer, and all that stuff doesn't eat more developer time... for what? Nothing I say.

If you travel 7 hours, 12 hour non-sleep, that means you arrive around 19 hours. That would still leave around 5 hours of time before fatigue. Enough for whatever you want to do. If not, then there's your fatigue penalty. Don't want it, rest. Wait, that will fail your timer? Well, DEAL WITH IT. The penalty isn't simply there just to be conviently swiped just because it doesn't quite suit you that time.

And if you're running short on time, and have to fight with the fatigue penalty due to that... well, that adds to the game, tactics, strategy. That's the stuff I *want* to see. Not that the penalty is cheapened by simply allowing it to be circumvented by 'oh, you have a timer... well, let's just get around that with 2 hours sleep. Wouldn't want to have a timer for a reason or something'...

[Jobby]

I do think BG1's method of finding more maps upon exiting maps in a certain direction would add exploration and fun and makes you use your maps to the fullest, more-so than an overhead map instead.

 

Just my 2 cents...

I agree with this, the wilderness tiles in BG1 really connected the map and brought a sense of exploration to the game, I would love to see them bring this back.

[Lephys]

Yes, I am cool with the information being completely hidden. As for why, isn't that clear from my last few posts? If not, I seem to have failed to portray my intention...

I understand your intention. It's the reasoning behind it you've seemingly failed to convey.

As for "because it doesn't make any sense for you to arbitrarily march all the way to some location to the point of depriving yourself of sleep/rest." it could if you're in a hurry. It makes sense if you go to your stronghold and rest there instead for bonusses (thanks KS update) rather than randomly in the wilderness instead on the way there. It makes sense if you're in a rush. It makes sense if you're one month away from a game development deadline... eh... well, you get the point.

My bad, that was poorly worded. "Because it doesn't make any sense for you to arbitrarily march all the way to some location to the point of depriving yourself of sleep/rest for no other reason than that you have less than 8 hours of spare time but are arbitrarily incapable of resting for less than 8 hours." Fixed it.

 

You're suggesting that any time you're in a rush, it makes sense to either sleep as long as you always do, or COMPLETELY forego rest all-together. So, any time you've ever had to work late, or stay up about an hour late for some reason, you just decided "Hmm... I could just sleep for 7 hours instead of 8, and still get up on time to go to work, but... nah, I'll just STAY UP ALL NIGHT! Might as well. I mean, I'm only going to get 7 hours of sleep."

 

You've brought up some valid concerns for such a fatigue system, but, I'm sorry to say that being able to rest for not-8-hours is not one of them. If other factors (such as the frequency of campsite rest points, for the sake of replenishing health and spells, for example) are going to render it moot, then just don't have fatigue in at all. It's NEVER going to affect you unless it sets in after like 5 hours of being awake, in which case you're bending it to suit the mechanic's needs so far that you're not even representing fatigue anymore. You've invented some kind of uber-chronic fatigue that requires resting every 5 hours in an otherwise reality-based world. For what? So that people couldn't easily circumvent fatigue by using sensical rest options?

 

As for the 'why would we want a variable resttimer' I was more adding it adds needless complexity to sleeping. I'm not opposed to variable something else. Just that a variable timer will have to make developers think, and implement options to, for example, restore half a spellbook, put back the fatigue timer x hours instead of resetting it, having to add more factors to health and stamina restored than where you rest at what cost (inn-options), how (if any) stronghold buffs you get.

It's just that much easier if there's a fixed 8 hour timer, and all that stuff doesn't eat more developer time... for what? Nothing I say.

Since when were fractions complicated? Rested for 4 hours instead of 8? Restore total Health/spells * .50. It doesn't exactly require some quantum physics or elaborate inn-resting options.

 

I'm not asking for a system that asks "how long would you like to rest?" and allows you input pi. Just hourly resting. It's in oodles of other games, and yet the world hasn't ended.

 

If you travel 7 hours, 12 hour non-sleep, that means you arrive around 19 hours. That would still leave around 5 hours of time before fatigue. Enough for whatever you want to do. If not, then there's your fatigue penalty. Don't want it, rest. Wait, that will fail your timer? Well, DEAL WITH IT. The penalty isn't simply there just to be conviently swiped just because it doesn't quite suit you that time.

And if you're running short on time, and have to fight with the fatigue penalty due to that... well, that adds to the game, tactics, strategy. That's the stuff I *want* to see. Not that the penalty is cheapened by simply allowing it to be circumvented by 'oh, you have a timer... well, let's just get around that with 2 hours sleep. Wouldn't want to have a timer for a reason or something'...

The problem here is, I'm attempting to present a specific situation in which you should be able to rest for a reasonable amount of time that just so happens to be less than 8 hours, but you're using this example back against me as if I'm suggesting that NO scenario should ever require you to choose between a fatigue penalty and time running out on some objective/situation. That isn't the case. See a reasonable argument might even be "Okay, but here's a bunch of reasons why I don't think the system would ever allow for a scenario in which you wouldn't get to rest the penalty away." But, instead, you're not even acknowledging the fact that, in some situations, it doesn't make sense that you'd NEED to rest for 8 hours, but it might still make sense to rest.

 

That last part? How is 2 hours of sleep always going to allow you to circumvent the penalty? 2 hours of sleep is only going to negate 2 hours worth of weariness. So, in 2 more hours, you're going to be back to where you were. The travel time on the world map is just to get TO your location. Once you get there, you might have a 5-hour (again, in-game hours, just to be clear) situation ahead of you. You're argument assumes that, once you reach your destination, the time limit has been beaten, and you can rest to your heart's content, so there's never a risk of becoming fatigued after you've gotten to where you're traveling.

 

You're arguing against what I'm not even arguing FOR. Please objectively tell me why something's a problem, and not "you SHOULD have to rest for 8 hours or nothing at all!", because I hardly doubt that's the basis for your line of reasoning. I have a feeling its more with the concern that the system will make the fatigue penalty moot, in which case, let's figure out if it will or not.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Lephys

[Hassat Hunter]

I... have a feeling I am loosing a bit what the discussion is about. 5 hours required for fatigue to take affect? What? I lost you...

Also, comparing it to me and real-life... I haven't regenerated any skills or spells or hitpoints yet, that I know of atleast.

 

Fractions sounds easy... but if a spell is yes or no, how do you fraction that? How do you fracture binary? How do you decide which spells to refresh? Lowest (leave their slots clear? Exploit it?)? Highest (exploitable!) Or do none? Why should 7 hours refresh no spells, and 8 hour do all? All those typical questions you need to ask. Or not, if you simply stick to a full 8 hour system, and if you get interrupted, you get nothing!

I think you said it yourself before, there's a difference between complex and conviluted.

Those "oodles" of other games usually used resting as a healing system, or to move time forward. Not a refreshing/buffing and who-knows-what else system resting in PoE uses.

 

I do agree rest should be optimal during traveling to prevent that BG-syndrom of fatigue upon arrival. I just don't agree that you should be able to sleep fractional, with all the difficulties, questions and decions that come with it.

In my opinion... the very uncertain benefit implenting it has seriously outweighs the extra development time and decisions (and potential bugs and exploits) such a system would bring.

[Jobby]

I didn't have a problem with having to rest upon arrival, it kinda made sense and in the cases where they had travelled for 48 hours i just assumed they had already rested midway.

 

Who actually cares about the in depth mechanics behind resting? Surely it is the presentation that matters, I often feel the partys downtime between adventures is an underused area of the narrative, for example, I would love to see your party scattered around the tavern upon entry and checking in, you could talk to folks and see what they were up to or just sleep for 9 hrs and ignore the tiny bit of extra dialogue.

 

I am not advocating a DA:O, ME or KOTOR system where your entire party stands around like spare *****s at camp waiting for you to delve deeply into their personal lifes, I would much rather the experience was more organic and less forced by the player.

 

For example, a Druid you recruit is pretty vague about his past, he is not going suddenly spill the beans once he likes you more as people simply don't work that way, instead you see him drinking with an old aquantance at one of your tavern breaks, this could then open up into quests or even just an extra bit of dialogue to enjoy.

[JFSOCC]

If I were to travel for 48 hours, you can bet your ass I will be resting along the way, there's no way in hell a sane person who is not trying to report on a victory at Marathon or evading hostile pursuit would walk for 48 hours straight without resting.

[neo6874]

If I were to travel for 48 hours, you can bet your ass I will be resting along the way, there's no way in hell a sane person who is not trying to report on a victory at Marathon or evading hostile pursuit would walk for 48 hours straight without resting.

 

That's kinda the point Lephys (and I, I think ...?) are trying to make.  BG1 (and IWD, as I recall) have "you traveled for 1d and 0h" (e.g. from Nashkel to the Friendly Arms Inn) and as soon as you arrive at F.A., your party starts whining about "I am le tired".

 

We're trying to flesh out an idea such that if you choose a trip that's going to take you that long (or long enough that you're "fatigued" at the end) that you can choose to rest along the way so that your party isn't fatigued as soon as you get somewhere and have to fight with fatigue penalties as soon as you get to the area, because "well, we're gonna put assassins in the inn because **** you, that's why"

[JFSOCC]

here's an idea, do away with random encounters. I would be so happy.

[Pipyui]

What if random encounters were introduced in the fashion of the "adventure panels" (You see a waterfall before a murky pool.  Do you 1) Poke around the pool with a stick.  2) ... )  Usually, then, you could ignore the scenario if you were so inclined.  The trouble here is you would need either a big pool of scenario cards, rare encounters, or some random element (There is a cavern before you, with three mouths ...)

 

I don't know, just throwing something out there.

[Hassat Hunter]

What's wrong with random encounters?

Could spice things up... and have story content. Why not?

[Lephys]

I... have a feeling I am loosing a bit what the discussion is about. 5 hours required for fatigue to take affect? What? I lost you...

Also, comparing it to me and real-life... I haven't regenerated any skills or spells or hitpoints yet, that I know of atleast.

... *sigh*... Okay. It's a video game. So, things are abstracted. You can't just get .01% more tired every minute that passes in the game world, and therefore suffer an additional .01% penalty to stats/skills/accuracy, etc., due to tiredness/grogginess every minute, because that wouldn't even register in the gameplay. Therefore, at some point in time you've got to be "tired, but not tired to the point of actually suffering a numerical penalty to anything," then, at another point in time, you're actually suffering from a penalty. And hours are probably a small enough unit to draw the line. Therefore, one hour you're actually not suffering from anything, then after one more hour, you're now tired to the point of some kind of penalty.

 

Hence the "5 hours" example. In reality, you're awake for some number of hours. Then, you eventually reach the point of having trouble staying awake. Thus, in a game, in which we're dealing with abstractly, numerically-represented things, it makes perfect sense that you'd acquire a penalty after some amount of awake time. Again, probably measured in nothing smaller than hours.

 

What isn't making sense about that? I don't know how to explain that more clearly, and if that's insane, then I don't want to play sanely designed games.

 

Fractions sounds easy... but if a spell is yes or no, how do you fraction that? How do you fracture binary? How do you decide which spells to refresh? Lowest (leave their slots clear? Exploit it?)? Highest (exploitable!) Or do none? Why should 7 hours refresh no spells, and 8 hour do all? All those typical questions you need to ask. Or not, if you simply stick to a full 8 hour system, and if you get interrupted, you get nothing!

I think you said it yourself before, there's a difference between complex and conviluted.

Those "oodles" of other games usually used resting as a healing system, or to move time forward. Not a refreshing/buffing and who-knows-what else system resting in PoE uses.

I don't understand... The purpose of a game is to be played, unlike other things that also have stories (books, movies, etc.). So, why would you arbitrarily design your lore SPECIFICALLY so that a full 8 hours of rest is necessary to restore ANY amount of spell "ammo," even though it completely contrasts with oodles of reasons to potentially want to rest for less than 8 hours at a time? It's not like that's something we can blame reality for, and say "well, we don't want to stray too far." No. That's only so if it's specifically designed to be so. So, honestly? I think that's a terrible, terrible excuse.

 

Also... guess where that came from. Yup, DnD. And guess what you could do in Dnd. You guessed it: sleep for a variable amount of time. You were a Mage and didn't get any spells for that 7-hour sleep? Sucks to be you. You could still do it though. And there were reasons to do it. Which is exactly why I think that's a terribly arbitrary design.

 

If I clean an 8-room house for 8 hours, maybe I clean the whole thing. If I only spend 4 hours cleaning, do I clean NONE of it? Name one other thing in the entirety of the universe in which you spend variable amounts of time and effort on, but only get something done after a very specific amount of time/effort, and you get anywhere from the tiniest amount of work done to an INFINITE amount of work done.

 

You know what that's functionally equivalent to? Having the world map say "you don't actually move anywhere unless you travel for at least 8 hours." Then, letting you pick a destination 8 hours away (minimum distance), and having you run into a random encounter at 7 hours worth of travel. So, you fight, and win, then leave to "resume" your travel. Only, you only traveled for 7 hours. So, instead of being 7/8ths of the way to your destination, you're actually just right where you started. You've got to start over again, traveling for a total of 15 hours just to get where you were trying to go. Why? Because the sheer act of travel requires 8 consecutive hours. But once you spend 8 hours traveling, you just teleport to wherever you wanted to go. A village down the road, a nation across the world, an alien planet. Doesn't matter.

 

Yeah, that makes plenty of sense. Not "Okay, I have 8 spells per day, and I only slept for 4 hours, so I only regained the mental preparation to be able to cast 4 spells instead of 8." That would be preposterous.

 

And what does "what if a spell is yes or no" even mean?! We're talking about a VERY simple process here, logistically: You rest, you get spells back. How are you going to have one spell that deals with simple quantity math, then another spell that's somehow magically binary? Maybe 1st level spells refresh at 1 per hour, and 2nd level spells refresh at 1 per 2 hours, and so on? Awesome. That means that if you only sleep for 1 hour, you don't get ALL your spells back. Oh no! The world's over! I'd rather just get NONE of my spells back if I'm not going to get ALL of them back! This is such a major problem!

 

Orrrr, it could be just like you said. If you chose to not-sleep for long enough to get those particular spells back, then you deal with the consequences of your choice. If you DID sleep long enough, then you deal with THOSE consequences (whatever that extra time cost you, versus having those spells). Great. My problem is not with making sure there aren't any consequences for choices. My issue is with making sure the system isn't nonsensical, just to forcibly generate some problems. The levels and quantities of your spells are already variable (you've got more numerous 1st-level spells than you do of 3rd-level spells, for example), so what the hell reasoning is requiring the replenishment of your spells to be completely binary, based on some arbitrary amount of time?

 

Maybe the simpler question is this: Would you want a system to only replenish your HP and/or get rid of (or make progress in getting rid of) negative status effects if you slept for 8 hours? So, sleeping for 7 hours replenishes 0 HP and doesn't get any poison out of your system whatsoever, but sleeping for 8 replenishes ALL your HP (however much it was) and eliminates the poison? The only reason for that to work like that would be if you didn't even have the option to rest for anything BUT 8 hours, and the only reason you've given for why the player shouldn't be allowed to rest for variable amounts of time is "because lots of things take 8 hours, arbitrarily." Notice how that's not on the 1-item list of reasons why you should HAVE to rest for 8 hours or none at all.

 

The only thing valid you've brought up is the potential that this is all just circumstantially too much for them to put in with their limited budget and resources. And that's fine. But, you're acting as though it's some crazy, unreasonable thing, that would be a problem for ANY budget, purely because it's just a terrible, troublesome idea. No, it isn't. Fractions ARE easy, and "fractions would be tricky" is not an actual reason why sleeping per-hour instead of per-8 hours is somehow ridiculous and problematic. You're fruitlessly arguing against the very nature of my proposal/examples, rather than actually exploring and pointing out potential problems that would feasibly arise with P:E's systems. Or, rather, you're pointing out potential problems in the context of not even trying to design the game with variable resting in mind, so the problems don't mean much.

 

And, for what it's worth, yes, "the discussion" was originally just "it's dumb that your characters would willingly travel for something like 48 hours without taking it upon themselves to rest along the way, even at the cost of delaying the trip," and I'm glad you agree with that. Then, AFTER that came up, I (and a few others who've sort of been on the same page) starting simply presenting further explorations of the resting system, and ways in which it could be made quite interested with respect to other aspects that COULD be represented in the game (such as urgency). So, all I'm really saying is "this COULD work," since I don't have enough information to know that it WILL work. Thus, nothing is accomplished by arguing that there's no possible way it could work, unless it's just plain unreasonable by itself. Which, I think I've illustrated, it isn't.

[JFSOCC]

What's wrong with random encounters?

Could spice things up... and have story content. Why not?

Story content, sure. But I hate random encounters with a passion. They are arbitrary obstacles placed in between you and what you really want to do. They're generic, tedious and superfluous. Want to rest? oops, no, **** you, you HAVE to do this first. They're a grind.

 

wall of text

tl;dr

[neo6874]

 

Fractions sounds easy... but if a spell is yes or no, how do you fraction that? How do you fracture binary? How do you decide which spells to refresh? Lowest (leave their slots clear? Exploit it?)? Highest (exploitable!) Or do none? Why should 7 hours refresh no spells, and 8 hour do all? All those typical questions you need to ask. Or not, if you simply stick to a full 8 hour system, and if you get interrupted, you get nothing!

Also... guess where that came from. Yup, DnD. And guess what you could do in Dnd. You guessed it: sleep for a variable amount of time. You were a Mage and didn't get any spells for that 7-hour sleep? Sucks to be you. You could still do it though. And there were reasons to do it. Which is exactly why I think that's a terribly arbitrary design.

 

Well, really the "preparation" time is only about an hour (assuming "all spells" are to be replaced/re-learned) ... but there's actually two components to preparing spells in D&D 3.0 (see way below for the actual text from the rule book). Games just whittle it down to 8 hours, instead of resting for 9 -- probably because the non-AD&D players of BG, IWD, NWN, etc wouldn't understand WHY having a wizard in your party makes you rest 9 hours instead of 8 hours when you only have non-spellcasters. This is ignoring, ofc the fact that you would actually be 'resting' 10-12 hours in a D&D-style game (depending on DM, OFC) because:

• Taking the tack off horses, and any other care (brushing, etc) (0.5h?)*
• Feeding/watering said horses (0.5h?)*
• Removing armor (1h)
• Prep Dinner (1h)* 
• Eat (0.5h)
• SLEEP! (8h)
• Feeding the horses (0.5h?)*
• Breakfast (1h)*
• Eat (0.5h)
• Saddling horses and any other care(0.5h?)*
• Donning armor the next morning (1h)
• Prepping spells(1h)

Stuff with asterisks is "field only" or "optional" -- e.g. if you're traveling by foot you don't have horses to care for; or if you're staying at an inn, it's a good bet the food's been prepped and you've stabled your horses for the night, so you don't have to do that stuff (although, you might end up eating drinking at the inn/tavern longer than dinner while camping out)

 

Although with a 4+ member party, things could overlap when camping:

 

• Horse care & feeding (1-4) (30 mins/horse*, each person cares for 1) - Total Rest Time = 0.5h
• Armor off (2,3,&4) while (1) is making dinner (1h for the armor, 1h to cook dinner) - Total Rest Time = 1.5h
• EAT! (1-4, 30 mins) - Total Rest Time = 2h 
• Sleep (1-4, 8h) - Total Rest Time = 10h
• Spells (1), while (2 &3) are taking care of the horses (2*30 min) and (4) is making breakfast - Total Rest Time = 11h
• EAT! (1-4, 30m) - Total Rest Time = 11.5h

*not sure if this is "accurate" or if it actually takes longer to care for a horse after a day's ride.

 

Now, I'm ignoring time to make & break camp  ... which would probably take another half hour or so (15 mins to setup/tear down the tents, get a fire going, etc).

 

rest:To prepare her daily spells, a wizard must have a clear mind. To clear her mind, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The character does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but she must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If the wizard's rest in interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and the wizard must have at least 1 hour of rest immediately prior to preparing her spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, they still need 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells. For example, elven wizards need 8 hours of rest, even though they only need 4 hours of trance to refresh their bodies (so they could trance for 4 hours and rest for 4 hours and then prepare spells).

 

Spell Preparation Time: After resting, a wizard must study her spellbook to prepare any spells that day. If the character wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller proportion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes, the minimum time required to reach the proper mental state.

[Osvir]

My dream World Map traveling system:

- The Fallout World Map Freedom of Path. Click there, go there. Might get a random encounter, might not get one. But I have the freedom to click anywhere, and my pixel will go there. It's childishly simple and accessible in a very good way.

- Realms of Arkania Traveling Depth. When you travel from one location to the other; Food, Hunt, Camping, Scout, you name it. The little messages you get and the choices you get, "There's a cliff here, do you wish to try and climb it or walk around it?". Climbing it goes faster but at several risks, costs more energy (I think) and you might lose a character (death) or something. Walking around it takes more time, and I think that's the only con of it.

- Ultima Feedback & Darklands Combat. See what's going on in the proximity of where your Fallout dot is going. Maybe there are some bandits lurking about, or a caravan that is going from one location to another. Less random encounters, but more of a choice and allowing the Player to observe what's going on around them on the world map. Choose to engage in various obstacles that pops up or choose not to. Not every encounter needs to give the Player a map either. For instance, one caravan might be a merchant, and instead of going into a rendered map, you could get a window box which allows you to buy and sell items. Or some toll guards which won't allow you to pass unless you pay money, and only when trying to fight them do you get sent into "rendered map mode" and combat ready, kind of like Darklands.

Speaking about Darklands and that last paragraph, let me elaborate:
I traveled the world map, and I got this message which said "You see a hut, what do you want to do?" kind of. I chose to sneak up to it, but I got spotted and then I was sent to "battle-mode" instantly and got to fight some nasty wolves and a crazed wizard who utterly destroyed me. But that's what I'm talking about regarding Darklands in the last paragraph. Travel the world as a pixel, and unless there's a fight or an important story/quest/lore/easter egg/event that's happening, stay on the world map (otherwise get sent into battle mode).

[Lephys]

@JFSOCC:

 

It doesn't do me much good to tell me you didn't read my too-much-text. If you just don't say anything about it or call me by name at all, I'll assume you didn't read it. Either way, I don't think anything less of you. I just thought I'd point that out.

 

@Neo:

 

Exactly! CRPGs just simplified it down to an 8-hour chunk. There really isn't any prior basis for saying "If you don't sleep for 8 hours, you can't prepare ANY spells again!". I mean, maybe if you only got 3 hours of sleep, you'd be too tired to maintain the mental state necessary to prepare ALL your spells, for the full duration. But, that was pretty much up to the DM to handle. And, again, it was pretty simple. Like it said... minimum of 15 minutes, but, otherwise, pretty much just fractions. IF all your spells for the day takes an hour, then half of them probably takes 30 minutes...ish. Obviously it would depend on spells. 2 LvL 9 spells probably take more time than 2 LvL 0 spells, for example.

 

Annnnnywho...

[neo6874]

@Neo:

 

Exactly! CRPGs just simplified it down to an 8-hour chunk. There really isn't any prior basis for saying "If you don't sleep for 8 hours, you can't prepare ANY spells again!". I mean, maybe if you only got 3 hours of sleep, you'd be too tired to maintain the mental state necessary to prepare ALL your spells, for the full duration. But, that was pretty much up to the DM to handle. And, again, it was pretty simple. Like it said... minimum of 15 minutes, but, otherwise, pretty much just fractions. IF all your spells for the day takes an hour, then half of them probably takes 30 minutes...ish. Obviously it would depend on spells. 2 LvL 9 spells probably take more time than 2 LvL 0 spells, for example.

 

Annnnnywho...

 

I only have the 3.0 and 3.5 DMGs here ... (so can't check AD&D to see what it's comparison was for BG/IWD) but they explicitly state that a wizard _must_ rest for eight ( 8 ) hours before they can start studying their spellbook(s). 

 

However, you then only needed 1 hour to study "everything", or a proportionally shorter time (though at least 15 minutes) to prepare only those spells you used up yesterday.

 

For example, a L1 wizard has 3 L0 spell slots and 1 L1 spell slot, plus one bonus L1 slot if they have INT of 12-19 for a total of 5 slots. Each spell will take 12 minutes to prepare, although only preparing 1 spell always takes 15 minutes.

 

at L10 a wizard has up to 24 spells (assuming INT of 19), so each individual spell takes 2.5 minutes to prepare, though 6 spells or fewer will always take 15 mins.

 

at L20 (int 19), a wizard has 44 spells, each individual spell takes 1.3 minutes to prepare, though 11 spells or fewer will always take 15 minutes.

Edited December 6, 2013 by neo6874

[rjshae]

Here's an approach that is part-way between the point-to-point approach of the IE games and the roaming freedom of the NWN2 SoZ:

 

• The world map would be divided into two types of overlaid objects: destinations and milestones.
• As you move the mouse about the map, the system generates an optimum path between milestones to reach your present mouse location.
• If you want to lock a path through a specific milestone, move your mouse over that milestone and right click. The rest of the path will then continue to follow your mouse about, pivoting through the locked milestone.
• You can lock a path through multiple milestones.
• Esc to undo the last milestone lock.
• Left click to target your destination.

This would provide an easy way to get from point A to point B, plus a little flexibility if you want to avoid (or pass through) a specific location.