About stamina/health and an idea how to fix it

[PrimeJunta]

Or...you could make time passing actually matter and affects events around you? Cult finishes the ritual, Ogre keeps eating more sheep, bandits cut trade even more, etc.

Anyone tried resting for month at the inn, see if that changes anything with the quests?

 

Been tried. Does not work very well. BG1 had timed companion quests. Fallout had a timed first phase of the main quest. Most people didn't really think they were drastic improvements; instead, they just led to massive metagaming (e.g. be careful NOT to recruit party members until you've finished the quests for the ones you have.)

 

Also, to do that everywhere would require a LOT more scripting, and the experience would not be a lot of fun; you'd have to metagame the bejeezus out of it or simply lose quests.

 

To make it really work you'd need to go full Dwarf Fortress and have a procedurally generated world which dynamically creates and expires quests for you.

[Shevek]

The PoE system is good because it avoids the 15 minute work day issue that plagues even pen and paper games (when run by an inexperienced gm). In a crpg, rest exploits trivialize pretty much all strategic (as opposed to tactical) concerns.

 

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?286349-A-Discussion-in-Game-Design-The-15-minute-work-day

 

The PoE system could use some minor tweaking. Mainly, I would double the stamina:health ratio for everyone and rework the ai so it doesnt focus fire as much. Thats really all that needs to happen.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Shevek

[Matt516]

So here's my ideas:

 

- remove the linear dependency of health to stamina and instead, make it based on the current stamina of the character

--> while the character is above 75% stamina, he loses no health at all when being hit

--> if the character is between 50% and 75% stamina, he loses health at an 8 to 1 ratio.

--> if the character is between 25% and 50% stamina, he loses health at a 4 to 1 ratio (current ratio).

--> if the character is below 25% stamina, he loses health at a 2 to 1 ratio.

- losing all stamina and dropping on the ground will result in health being reduced to 1, no matter where it was before.

 

So what does this do?

1) it makes stamina regeneration and stamina healing spells much more useful

2) trivial encounters won't be as annoying anymore

3) it makes more sense from a lore perspective (light wounds heal faster than strong wounds)

4) Heavily wounded characters are not per se useless in combat anymore, as they won't get further health damage unless dropping stamina too far again in the next battle ... there's more "RNG protection" for heavily wounded characters

5) Overall less RNG.

 

Imho, this would be a quick and easy fix that can be done by just shifting some numbers around.

 

 

There's still be some meta, like stacking stamina on characters and kiting to avoid dropping stamina below the 50% margin, but hey, that's better than the current frustrating meta of having to rest almost every second battle.

I love everything about this except the last one - I like the "temporarily KO'd but can get back up without insane wounds" thing they've got going on right now. But everything else is fantastic. A nonlinear scale really brings the system more in line with what (as I understand it) they were trying to accomplish in the first place. Good work.

[Sensuki]

It makes High DT *really* strong though - and any more compensation by slowing down recovery time would be really bad.

 

If DT was % rather than a flat number, it would be cool though, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Sensuki

[mutonizer]

The PoE system is good because it avoids the 15 minute work day issue that plagues even pen and paper games (when run by an inexperienced gm). In a crpg, rest exploits trivialize pretty much all strategic (as opposed to tactical) concerns.

Just like many exploits trivialize tactical concerns (AI exploit, pathfinding exploits, pre-igniting fireball, etc).

 

It doesn't mean you have to use them however, it's 100% personal.

In 20+ years of P&P RPGing, "15 minutes work day" has never been even thought about, let alone an actual thing, simply because I never played (or GMed) with anyone who wanted to play that way. I don't mind people playing that way, nobody's forcing them and it doesn't affect me either. What affects me is a rule limitation that, because it tries to solve THAT problem (which isn't even a problem in the first place), then starts to affect me (the "only one long rest per 24 hours rule" for example and other stuff like that).

Well, when I say it affects me...I just house-rule it out (or mod it out) really

 

I mean, look, have you seen how many people just max out all stats to 18 in BG1 & 2 let's plays and the like? Or to exploit AI and do range kitting, or farm random encounters (think it was Sensuki who could quote the actual loot of good random encounters to farm in BG!), or just dump stat CHA because they KNOW they can get that cloak early on? Nobody's forcing them to do it, the game certainly doesn't force them to do it, and it never forced me to do it either. So why would anyone even try to "fix it"? It's NOT a problem.

 

If DT was % rather than a flat number, it would be cool though, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

Yea, doubt it but would indeed be pretty cool and make much more sense I think Edited September 1, 2014 by mutonizer

[Razsius]

It should be noted that armor isn't even working correctly right now so i'd probably put this thought on hold.  Still I rather like the general idea of it.  Would rework the mechanic so that you aren't so punished for using your high DT shield equipped characters to you know.. tank?  I find it rather stupid that having my wizard or ranged rogue being beat on is actually beneficial to me rather than a detriment.  I mean why hold the line at all?

 

 

It makes High DT *really* strong though - and any more compensation by slowing down recovery time would be really bad.

 

If DT was % rather than a flat number, it would be cool though, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

 

The plate mail *already* halves the total amount of actions you'll be able to do and the tradeoff is a flat 12 damage reduction.  When you eat a crit for like 60 the 15 less damage your fighter's going to take doesn't suddenly make high DT armor op.

[mutonizer]

I find it rather stupid that having my wizard or ranged rogue being beat on is actually beneficial to me rather than a detriment.  I mean why hold the line at all?

Because holding the line is playing "badly" now. To play "clever", you indeed would want your wizard and rogue getting beat on, while the fighter on low Health (and full stamina, with priest waiting with all his healing spells available) runs around the map with mobs on his tail to keep them occupied

 

Joking aside, I think the Fighter class will be pretty much immune to critical hits (due to very high DEF) and will end up getting mostly graze hits, unless seriously debuffed or something.

Edited September 1, 2014 by mutonizer

[Yonjuro]

The PoE system is good because it avoids the 15 minute work day issue that plagues even pen and paper games (when run by an inexperienced gm). In a crpg, rest exploits trivialize pretty much all strategic (as opposed to tactical) concerns.

 

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?286349-A-Discussion-in-Game-Design-The-15-minute-work-day

 

 

 Thanks for the interesting link.  I suppose another simple way to avoid the 15 minute workday would be:

 

 Give an XP bonus for each encounter completed without resting. E.g. finish a quest with no rest get 3% more XP. Finish a second one, get 6% more. Etc. (The bonus probably needs to depend on the length of the quest - would also work for a kill XP system (no, let's not argue about that in this thread)).

 

 Fatigue already puts a soft limit on this and the bonus could also have a cap so as not to give perverse incentives.

 

 Would that work?

[Razsius]

Yea adding more deflection is pretty nice to say the least 10 - 15 more is rather noticable if i do say so myself.  Still, my fighter does take the occasional crit and it's not like DT protects against everything (screw poison damage).  Would definately be nice though if my listed 15 DT on my fighter was acutally 15 rather than 5 right now .

[Elerond]

It should be noted that armor isn't even working correctly right now so i'd probably put this thought on hold.  Still I rather like the general idea of it.  Would rework the mechanic so that you aren't so punished for using your high DT shield equipped characters to you know.. tank?  I find it rather stupid that having my wizard or ranged rogue being beat on is actually beneficial to me rather than a detriment.  I mean why hold the line at all?

 

 

It makes High DT *really* strong though - and any more compensation by slowing down recovery time would be really bad.

 

If DT was % rather than a flat number, it would be cool though, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

 

The plate mail *already* halves the total amount of actions you'll be able to do and the tradeoff is a flat 12 damage reduction.  When you eat a crit for like 60 the 15 less damage your fighter's going to take doesn't suddenly make high DT armor op.

 

Plate armor that BB_Fighter has is weakest of its type in the game. You find lighter armors with same DT in beta. And you can stack items that you find in beta your DT to be over 20. And you take only one forth of damage that you take in your health. So that 60 damage hit does under 10 points damage against character's health. And many critters don't do any or next to nothing damage against character with such DT. And you can make your fighter's defense so high that most enemies can't do critical hits against him.

 

EDIT: One thing that I would like to see is DT penalties that armor suffer different type attacks, instead of needing to remember by hearth. 

Edited September 1, 2014 by Elerond

[Sensuki]

Plate armor doesn't halve the amount of actions you take. It adds 50% to your recovery time, but not the weapon animation.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Sensuki

[Shevek]

mutonizer:

By your rational, one should just give players infinite stats at level one and let them use what they wanted. Why not let players start at any level they like or with as much gold as they like?

 

Look, this is a game. A game is basically a player overcoming challenges. If the challenges are subverted by a poorly designed mechanic then the game (or aspects of it) becomes meaningless. Essentially, if the player were to fail to exploit a mechanic, then he wouldnt be doing his utmost to win and, therefore, the game will have lost intrinsic value and the player would be supplanting that with extrinsic challenge. That would be poor game design. A player should never work outside the rules to add depth or challenge. Those should be supplied by the core game.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Shevek

[Razsius]

I still don't get it though.  Wasn't the point of adding the health mechanic to *increase* your adventuring day or in other words to make it feel like you don't need to rest spam in order to progress during play?

 

In all the IE games i've played i would rest really, really, REALLY rarely.  I'd blow all my healing and damage spells sometimes potions in order to make it longer before I had to take a rest.   Now i have the health mechanic defining when I "should" rest and it manages to make my spell and ability use feel somewhat frenetic rather than tactical play on my part.  Blow them *all* EVERY fight.  I don't mind the camping supplies thing I might add but it would be nice to do well... anything to extend my adventuring day.

 

 

Plate armor doesn't halve the amount of actions you take. It adds 50% to your recovery time, but not the weapon animation.

 

From what i've seen and experienced recovery time seems to dictate when your next attack will land as well but it's a (really buggy) beta so.. who knows? Ah nevermind! You're saying it's less of a penalty.  It's still pretty noticable though.

[redneckdevil]

It makes High DT *really* strong though - and any more compensation by slowing down recovery time would be really bad.

 

If DT was % rather than a flat number, it would be cool though, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

I dont think making DT a % would be very good unless ur talking about a number and a % of bleed thru? Reason being is im reminded of a certain game where the high end armor had 1st lvl enemies doing as much dmg as high end enemies and u can get into some wonky situations.

ex. Armor has 10% DT. A tiger swipes u for 10 dmg and ur armor blocks 1 point of dmg. Using same armor a dragon swipes u for 100 dmg and the armor blocks 10 dmg. U start getting things like "if the armor blocked 10 points of dmg why didnt it block ALL the dmg from this tiger? Etc etc. When dmg goes higher and lower it starts getting a bit wonky when u start comparing whats more dangerous when u add in different atk speeds and what not.

can work but its a very slippery slope if they dont design around that

[mutonizer]

mutonizer:

By your rational, one should just give players infinite stats at level one and let them use what they wanted. Why not let players start at any level they like or with as much gold as they like?

Not at all, this is off the point. Rather, the issue is the equivalent of a design team trying to prevent players from exploiting the system by having extreme dump/max stats (18/18/18/3/3/3) instead of reasonable distribution, and go out of their way to artificially limit the range of stats you can get (for example in IE games, forcing a limit to stats at character creation between 8 and 16 or something).

Or another example, this is like putting "spare boots" as a new resource to limit the amount of time you can travel between areas, because some people abuse the random encounter system and farm loot/xp

 

Essentially, if the player were to fail to exploit a mechanic, then he wouldnt be doing his utmost to win and, therefore, the game will have lost intrinsic value and the player would be supplanting that with extrinsic challenge.

This is 100% a matter of personal opinion and should therefore be left as an open choice to players, especially in a cRPG.

This is not how I play games nor do I play them to win, but because of the journey and experience they offer (which can involve over-coming challenges as I go). Also, I quite often choose options in story or even items that are not "optimal" because of look, feel, character story development, etc. For example, you could put ALL the insane crazy boost and bonus and insta-kill functions you want on an ugly hat, I'd NEVER have any character use it (well, unless it can be hidden!)

Edited September 1, 2014 by mutonizer

[Shevek]

mutonizer:

Whether or not YOU play a game to win is totally immaterial. It remains a game and must be both judged and designed as such.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Shevek

[mutonizer]

mutonizer:

Whether or not YOU play a game to win is totally immaterial. It remains a game and must be both judged and designed as such.

Ok then

[Elerond]

I still don't get it though.  Wasn't the point of adding the health mechanic to *increase* your adventuring day or in other words to make it feel like you don't need to rest spam in order to progress during play?

 

In all the IE games i've played i would rest really, really, REALLY rarely.  I'd blow all my healing and damage spells sometimes potions in order to make it longer before I had to take a rest.   Now i have the health mechanic defining when I "should" rest and it manages to make my spell and ability use feel somewhat frenetic rather than tactical play on my part.  Blow them *all* EVERY fight.  I don't mind the camping supplies thing I might add but it would be nice to do well... anything to extend my adventuring day.

 

 

 

Health is strategic resource which purpose is to pace player's adventure time by forcing them to rest when player's characters health starts to get closer zero. This need to rest is added with per day abilities and characters' exhaustion status which causes them to get several minuses in their stats, exhaustion status is controlled by athletics skill.  Addition to these there is unlimited stash inventory that can be accessed only during resting and places that developers are marked as safe (inns, shops, stronghold, etc.)

 

To prevent players to abuse rest system game has limited camping supply resource which limits player's ability to rest in the woods addition to this inns and player's stronghold offer rest bonuses that last until next rest. There was also plans that resting can be done only in specific places but it seems that is removed.

 

Stamina is tactical health resource which purpose is to add intensity in fights and make it possible to characters to be knocked out  fight without them being death or removing strategic use of health resource, like for example in NWN2 did.  Because stamina is meant to be tactical resource characters will lose it much faster than they lose health, but as it is per encounter resource player don't need to worry about it between fights, although currently stamina recovery between fights isn't instant, which gives it bit strategic meaning but as its recovery rate is very high, that meaning is very minimal. Stamina is also only health resource that can be restored with spells and other abilities, which makes healing spells to lose their strategic importance to make it possible to play parties that don't have healer and not to be heavily punished for it.

 

Lessening healing power that spells, abilities and items have, serves also purpose in lore and world design wise, as designers don't have to invent reasons why people in world of Eora don't use healing magic to cure all the illness and even death in the world or how world would work when such things (illnesses and death) are rare occurrences. 

[AlekzanderZ]

Here my idea to fix it:

 

- Keep the limited camping supply

 

- Scrap the health system as it is AND replace it by a fix number of time you can go down in a fight relate to your class. example: fighters could be 5 times and Mages would be 2.

 

-You have to rest to get your point back.

 

See! so simple!

[Razsius]

 

I still don't get it though.  Wasn't the point of adding the health mechanic to *increase* your adventuring day or in other words to make it feel like you don't need to rest spam in order to progress during play?

 

In all the IE games i've played i would rest really, really, REALLY rarely.  I'd blow all my healing and damage spells sometimes potions in order to make it longer before I had to take a rest.   Now i have the health mechanic defining when I "should" rest and it manages to make my spell and ability use feel somewhat frenetic rather than tactical play on my part.  Blow them *all* EVERY fight.  I don't mind the camping supplies thing I might add but it would be nice to do well... anything to extend my adventuring day.

 

 

 

Health is strategic resource which purpose is to pace player's adventure time by forcing them to rest when player's characters health starts to get closer zero. This need to rest is added with per day abilities and characters' exhaustion status which causes them to get several minuses in their stats, exhaustion status is controlled by athletics skill.  Addition to these there is unlimited stash inventory that can be accessed only during resting and places that developers are marked as safe (inns, shops, stronghold, etc.)

 

To prevent players to abuse rest system game has limited camping supply resource which limits player's ability to rest in the woods addition to this inns and player's stronghold offer rest bonuses that last until next rest. There was also plans that resting can be done only in specific places but it seems that is removed.

 

Stamina is tactical health resource which purpose is to add intensity in fights and make it possible to characters to be knocked out  fight without them being death or removing strategic use of health resource, like for example in NWN2 did.  Because stamina is meant to be tactical resource characters will lose it much faster than they lose health, but as it is per encounter resource player don't need to worry about it between fights, although currently stamina recovery between fights isn't instant, which gives it bit strategic meaning but as its recovery rate is very high, that meaning is very minimal. Stamina is also only health resource that can be restored with spells and other abilities, which makes healing spells to lose their strategic importance to make it possible to play parties that don't have healer and not to be heavily punished for it.

 

Lessening healing power that spells, abilities and items have, serves also purpose in lore and world design wise, as designers don't have to invent reasons why people in world of Eora don't use healing magic to cure all the illness and even death in the world or how world would work when such things (illnesses and death) are rare occurrences. 

 

 

Yes, yes that's all fine and grand and all but my question was never actually addressed.  Here, let me put it another way.  With the current implementation of the health/stamina ratio, fights on a non-trivial difficulty level devolve into doing the most possible damage while preventing the most possible damage you can for EVERY fight.  If a wood beetle is headed toward your fighter and he's already tanking 4 beetles and your mage still has spells there is no choice involved on whether you should throw out a big spell to nuke it.  The "choice" is 1) use resource or 2) pay consequences (ie shorter adventuring day.. or worse).  Instead, "choice" involves rotating out characters who aren't built for or probably shouldn't be tanking in order to spread out health damage because it's beneficial to do so.  Not only does this break every single form of game and rl logic but it also rewards bad play.  So not only does this system not do what it was originally stated to do which was allow a longer adventuring day while still setting a hard cap on how far you could go, but it instead rewards terrible play(ers) with additional benefit.  That's not "strategic" by any stretch of the imagination.

 

If a group of professional poker players went to a tournament and suddenly found that the rules of the game became that the worst hand wins the pot the players would be (rightfully) pretty pissed off.  Really, the more i think about the stam/health system the less it makes any form of actual sense.  I certainly didn't pledge money so obsidian could collaborate with Stoic to make their design decisions.

 

Note: It should be noted that although I am not a professional poker player i'd like to think that poker is just a little more than being the best liar at the table.

[Yonjuro]

....

If a group of professional poker players went to a tournament and suddenly found that the rules of the game became that the worst hand wins the pot the players would be (rightfully) pretty pissed off.  Really, the more i think about the stam/health system the less it makes any form of actual sense.  I certainly didn't pledge money so obsidian could collaborate with Stoic to make their design decisions.

 

Note: It should be noted that although I am not a professional poker player i'd like to think that poker is just a little more than being the best liar at the table.

 

 

 

 I know this was only an example but, here you go:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-low_split

[Razsius]

Well i'll be.  Hmm bad example then (makes sense though now that I think about it).  Point still stands bad example or otherwise.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

If you need to rest after every second battle you do something wrong, once per map is usually enough if you know how to deal with the enemies you encounter.

 

And yet in the recent video, Rose does just that.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51zR9lKu21s

 

7.21 beetle fight (2 beetles)

8.55 beetle fight (2 beetles)

 

10.37 Rest (Fighter at half health after encountering 4 enemies / trash mobs)

 

10.56 Spider fight (1st spider outside cave entrance)

12.00 Spider fight (2nd spider outside cave entrance)

 

13.01 Spider fight (2 spiders)

 

13.42 Rest (Fighter at half health after encountering 4 enemies / trash mobs)

 

Two Camping supplies used on a fairly simple FedEx quest with the Ogre quest. The Fighter lost half his health after a couple of easy battles and the group had to rest for the fighter. You'll also notice Rose avoided the two beetles at the top of the screen at 7.20 and the one spider in the bottom left corner at 8.42 (presumably to get on with the demo and to get to the Ogre cave) and it shows it's not worth getting involved with fighting trash mobs as the Fighter's health will just go down even more while the rest of your party are on full health.

[mutonizer]

You get no XP or any reward but trash loot anyway so might as well just try your damnest to totally avoid most fight and just do the quest/encounter ones. Wonder if they disallowed combat mode zoning because one of their tester started just completely ignoring trash mobs and just train/sprint toward the zone out areas or something

Edited September 1, 2014 by mutonizer

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Rose also metagamed and took the most optimal route to get to the ogre cave. Avoiding the beetles at the top of the screen at 7.20, the spider at 8.42, avoiding the wolves in the SW corner, avoiding the adventurers near the dragon's egg, and knew where to go. A new player would have been going in other directions and probably have rested a couple of times before getting to the spiders outside the ogre cave. And then in the cave, Rose metagamed again knowing the optimal route to get to the Ogre, avoiding all the other spiders in the other passages and also the spider queen.

 

Not having a go at Rose because she's showing the demo and needs to get on with it. Just showing that metagaming a map and going the optimal route to avoid most trash mobs but still encountering some enemies shows you need to rest for your tank more than once, despite the rest of your party on full health.