Poll: Should there be a penalty for being knocked out?

[Labadal]

Have a penalty until you rest at an inn. Resting in a dungeon in the wild will not help. Maybe only have 75% full health after being knocked out the first time, then 50%. (Percentages can be adjusted to make it feel better.)

 

That's how I feel about this.

[Gorbag]

 

Well, character gets removed from combat, is it not considered a penalty?

 

No.

That would be right, assuming that you can manage that particular battle without your ko'd character (think about higher difficulties/smaller parties).

 

Side question: Did the Endurance to Health mechanic change? Like when you get up after being ko'd, your maximum Endurance is not limited by your current Health? That question is honest, did I miss something?

[Luckmann]

 

 

Well, character gets removed from combat, is it not considered a penalty?

No.

 

That would be right, assuming that you can manage that particular battle without your ko'd character (think about higher difficulties/smaller parties).

 

[...]

 

The problem really is that often, it is more profitable to just let someone die than to keep them alive. There are numerous situations where you'll probably go "He's dying, so I'll just let him die" simply because it's more cost-effective.

 

This of course assumes that you will manage that particular battle without that character, but if you are making that decision, you've already decided that you'll be able to. It's even a viable tactic. And it really shouldn't be a viable tactic to say "Hey, I'm just going to let him die, because he'll be up and running after the battle anyway, so it's better for him to tie up those mobs for a few seconds extra while I ignore healing him and just blast the enemy."

 

And you totally end up doing that right now.

 

Drunetovich asks a "rhetorical question" that is in no way plain; it is not a penalty to have a character removed from combat. It is a sacrifice; the same way it's a sacrifice to use a Per-Encounter Ability. Arguably more valuable than any (single) Per-Encounter Ability, but it's really the same.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Luckmann

[Gfted1]

I voted: "Hell no, I don't want any more penalties in my PoE". Eh, who am I kidding? Im just going to reload anyway if I get maimed / killed / penalized because of knockout.

[archangel979]

I voted: "Hell no, I don't want any more penalties in my PoE". Eh, who am I kidding? Im just going to reload anyway if I get maimed / killed / penalized because of knockout.

Then will you reload if your once per day ability does nothing? (lets say you will not be using rest infinite mod).

[Gorbag]

@Luckmann: If you already know that you are going to win the battle, then it's not really a strategy. It is a question of conserving healing abilities and items vs. having that character around for the rest of the encounter. If healing is so valuable that you'd prefer to leave your characters to get ko'd instead of spending it on easy encounters, *then* we have a problem.

[Gfted1]

 

I voted: "Hell no, I don't want any more penalties in my PoE". Eh, who am I kidding? Im just going to reload anyway if I get maimed / killed / penalized because of knockout.

Then will you reload if your once per day ability does nothing? (lets say you will not be using rest infinite mod).

 

 

I only reload if someone dies / maimed / etc... I used to do that because I didn't want any dead party members to miss out on gaining xp but due to this "innovative" xp system where you wont earn xp until you turn in the quest maybe it wont be an issue? We'll see I guess. 

 

I will be using the infinite camping supply mod, bless Sensuki, but if that didn't exist I would probably quit the game before I even finished clearing the basement of rats.

[Luckmann]

@Luckmann: If you already know that you are going to win the battle, then it's not really a strategy. It is a question of conserving healing abilities and items vs. having that character around for the rest of the encounter. If healing is so valuable that you'd prefer to leave your characters to get ko'd instead of spending it on easy encounters, *then* we have a problem.

But that's exactly how it is. Like I said, it's about cost-effectiveness.

 

For example, the Paladin can get Lay on Hands, which is 3-Per-Rest.

 

Why would I spend it in an encounter to keep a guy up for another 5-10 seconds if I don't absolutely have to?

 

And it's absolutely a tactic to let someone die in terms of effective time use. Either you spend time keeping someone alive, or you sacrifice the time (and resources, in terms of shared Per-Rest Abilities/Spells) that could be better spent on offensive oomph. There are definitely situations where you will let someone die instead of keeping them alive. Offense > Defence, 9 times out of 10.

[wanderon]

Frankly I don't find it any more immersion breaking to be able to ignore a character that is close to getting knocked out knowing he will rise again than I do to be able to tell at a glance in the heat of battle exactly how close any character is to getting knocked out thanks to those handy dandy markers along side of their portraits - after all wouldn't it be even more immersive if none of those mothers' little helper doodads were available in battle? 

 

I would also disagree that losing a character to a knock out is never a penalty in itself altho I rarely use any potions etc in the Beta so my options to "heal them" are very limited anyway meaning I often have no choice but to let them fall. (and I am not a reloader)

 

 I am also somewhat confused about why people say there are no consequences for being knocked out - now to be sure I am not a number cruncher nor do I pay much attention to exactly why/how the mechanics of the game work as they do but what exactly causes my characters to become more and more drained of health and endurance as we venture from battle to battle until there is no choice left but to rest? It certainly seems to me that the ones who fall more often seem to be in the worst shape?

[Karkarov]

EDIT: They will also get up after battle. Don't need to rest just cuz' you ran out of health.

*edit since when has - _ - been a "sleep" smiley????

 

Even if they do "get up" when they run out of health a light wind will knock them down as any damage at all would put them back at 0 health since health can not be healed by anything other than resting.  So there is no reason to put any kind of penalty on running out of health beyond the fact that if they do get back up at all (depends on settings 0 health can be good old fashioned death) they will have no health to begin with and will fall down like a house of cards.  I guess the weird ass justification would be to prevent you from "death death" since if you keep full stam you would die from loss of health before you ran out of stam.

 

Testing it today I did find this to be the current way it works and it is in a word, stupid.  Why I never noticed before is easy, I never let anyone run out of health .  Running out of health should simply leave you with an unconscious party member, or again settings, a dead body.  Not some useless ass tool who basically has to stay out of combat or die for real.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Karkarov

[Shallow]

It should really be a ticking clock of nonpercentile health loss, that way getting your character out of the way ahead of time, and healing your party members the second you're capable of doing so without them just going straight down again will be far more important tasks.

[Namutree]

 

@Luckmann: If you already know that you are going to win the battle, then it's not really a strategy. It is a question of conserving healing abilities and items vs. having that character around for the rest of the encounter. If healing is so valuable that you'd prefer to leave your characters to get ko'd instead of spending it on easy encounters, *then* we have a problem.

But that's exactly how it is. Like I said, it's about cost-effectiveness.

 

For example, the Paladin can get Lay on Hands, which is 3-Per-Rest.

 

Why would I spend it in an encounter to keep a guy up for another 5-10 seconds if I don't absolutely have to?

 

And it's absolutely a tactic to let someone die in terms of effective time use. Either you spend time keeping someone alive, or you sacrifice the time (and resources, in terms of shared Per-Rest Abilities/Spells) that could be better spent on offensive oomph. There are definitely situations where you will let someone die instead of keeping them alive. Offense > Defence, 9 times out of 10.

 

It's worse than that. It's not just more cost effective in terms of decisions in combat to let them die; it's better on your resources to let them die. Keeping a guy active in battle by healing him will mean he takes MORE damage than letting him die. Even if healing him didn't cost an action it's better to let him die much of the time to spread the damage around.

 

"Good thing I don't heal my characters or they'd be really hurt." Is not something I should ever be thinking.

[Shevek]

I like BrainMuncher's suggestion (minus the maiming stuff). Basically, if you are knocked out you get closer to being fatigued than you otherwise would have been (but not immediately fatigued necessarily). That will force the player to use more camping resources and would reward investment in athletics (as BrainMuncher noted). A nice minor penalty that plays nice with existing systems would work well. It is both gamist and simulationist as well. It should also be easy to implement a fatgue hit.

 

I would keep the fatigue hit small and wouldnt add any maiming mechanics though.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Shevek

[Namutree]

I like BrainMuncher's suggestion (minus the maiming stuff). Basically, if you are knocked out you get closer to being fatigued than you otherwise would have been (but not immediately fatigued necessarily). That will force the player to use more camping resources and would reward investment in athletics (as BrainMuncher noted). A nice minor penalty that plays nice with existing systems would work well. It is both gamist and simulationist as well. It should also be easy to implement a fatgue hit.

 

I would keep the fatigue hit small and wouldnt add any maiming mechanics though.

If athletics is under powered then it could be hitting two birds with one stone.

[Namutree]

Just realized this, but a minor penalty for getting knocked out would make the under powered disengagement abilities better too!

[ruzen]

Somehow I've missed the information about camp supplies are limeted with diffuculty. So in this case: Hard = 2 supplies. I think I can live with that. Cant really sure the healt thing is challanging enough without going dungeons, wilderness though. Also If I'm not mistaken there are no random encounters while camping(?) which makes a bid cheezy. 

 

...cant sure. Have to play first

Edited January 27, 2015 by ruzen

[Hassat Hunter]

I would vote for:

 

Being knocked down gives a penalty (pref. stats). It will stack with the same penalty if knockdowns occur afterwards. Curing them can only be done by rest or special (rare! I look at you Drakensang) items or maybe 1x per rest spells.

I don't think just draining health is a good idea, that wont change that much. Harming offensive capabilities, that surely gives a better incentive to just keep rolling on rather than falling, since you kinda need those each fight rather than lasting several fights without negative effect.

[ElvenRogue]

Some form of penalty to make you think twice about letting members of your front line get knocked out. Might make a lot of people hate engagement more though...

 

eR

[Heijoushin]

I agree, there should be a penalty.

 

As others have said, if there is no penalty, it becomes more profitable to let your characters get knocked out. That takes value from the healer classes.

 

But the penalty must just be a light one. If the penalty is something permanent, people will just reload.

 

It's hard to say what the penalty should be... but it doesn't have to be a combat mechanic. You could have a character that later comments on it in a conversation. Such a small thing wouln't effect gameplay but I think it would "shame" players into keeping their characters alive;) I would keep my people alive if I knew an NPC was going to comment on it later.

Edited January 30, 2015 by Heijoushin