Rest-Spamming: Good or No?

[Gairnulf]

In the IE games, I wasn't rest-spamming because I was shooting for the shortest possible playthrough calculated in in-game time (days and hours).

 

In the PoE BB though, I've caught myself resting before going into dungeons, if needed by means of returning to the village for the better bonuses.

 

I'm aware of the argument that it's up to the player to refrain from abusing the system, but I wonder - could some disincentive from the habit of rest-spamming be added to the game mechanics, and if yes what would it be?

 

Also note that with the game having "fast mode" retreating to a safe area to rest without using up camping supplies is even easier.

[Gfted1]

It already has a disincentive. You must use a consumable Camping Supply and you can only carry a specific amount which decreases based on the difficulty level you select.

 

And Im going to rest spam like crazy.

[Valmy]

The only thing I could think of is a supplies mechanic (which they intended to try right?) where you have to spend resources to rest, or a time limit of some kind.

 

Both are likely to be unpopular.  I just try to go as long as possible without resting since, most of the time in these games, you have the vague feeling you should be hurrying along with rescuing the prisoners from their demonic torturers or whatever.

[Valmy]

It already has a disincentive. You must use a consumable Camping Supply and you can only carry a specific amount which decreases based on the difficulty level you select.

 

And Im going to rest spam like crazy.

 

Ah so they kept the supply mechanic?  Good, good.

[Nonek]

In my own humble opinion it's truly a pity that camping sites were not implemented, but I undertsand that no developer has unlimited funds or the option to implement every wish, hopefully however we will have an option to enable such a feature in future products or expansions.

 

To avoid rest spamming personally i'd only allow resting when tired, say one eight hour period every twenty four hours of game time, and have limited usability at each camping site, whether that be through supplies of water, firewood, rations or discovery of the spot by opposing forces.

 

Edit: To avoid rest spamming at centres of civilisation or strongholds and then returning to a dungeon i'd simply have such places be single instance affairs, so that after entering if one does not complete the dungeon on the first attempt the faction or enemies inside maybe retreat, set up traps and call reinforcements, invade ones stronghold or simply slip away into hiding. Thus we have no time limits, a failure state and perhaps a returning enemy whom is now stalking the players. Far more reactive than the enemies simply waiting to be slaughtered.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Nonek

[Gairnulf]

Speaking from the position of a cheese-er: why use camping supplies when you can safely return to the Dyrford Village?

[Sonntam]

Speaking from the position of a cheese-er: why use camping supplies when you can safely return to the Dyrford Village?

 

It's annoying to run back and forth all the time. Backer beta may not have such large areas for running back to become very burdensome, but I personally have very little tolerance for wasting time, especially for so little gain.

[Valmy]

Speaking from the position of a cheese-er: why use camping supplies when you can safely return to the Dyrford Village?

 

Doesn't it cost money to rest at an Inn?

[MReed]

It costs money to use resting supplies as well, but yes, resting at the inn is more expensive (but you get a buff that lasts until the next time you rest if your do).

[teknoman2]

as i said, time sensitive stuff is the key. if someone tells you "bring this medicine to that village to stop a disease", he should not mean "go around for a month or 2 and the disease will wait for you to go cure it". if you take more than a certain amount of time to get there, everyone should be dead when you do.

quests like the "acorns of the dryads" or the search of Umar hills in BG2 have no urgency. nothing is at stake so whenever you get around the area you do them.

a quest like De'Arnise Hold, should have some penalty for taking too long. the trolls will not wait in the hold for a month for you to go there or for you to go back and forth to Athkatla to rest at an inn or buy supplies. they will kill everyone, loot the place and be on their way.

[Valmy]

as i said, time sensitive stuff is the key. if someone tells you "bring this medicine to that village to stop a disease", he should not mean "go around for a month or 2 and the disease will wait for you to go cure it". if you take more than a certain amount of time to get there, everyone should be dead when you do.

quests like the "acorns of the dryads" or the search of Umar hills in BG2 have no urgency. nothing is at stake so whenever you get around the area you do them.

a quest like De'Arnise Hold, should have some penalty for taking too long. the trolls will not wait in the hold for a month for you to go there or for you to go back and forth to Athkatla to rest at an inn or buy supplies. they will kill everyone, loot the place and be on their way.

 

Yeah but this is something RPG fans despise.  Any time limit of any sort, no matter how reasonable, tends to get them upset.  I remember the reaction to the time limits in Daggerfall and Fallout, which are actually the last RPGs I recall playing that had time limits.

[Gfted1]

Yeah but this is something RPG fans despise.  Any time limit of any sort, no matter how reasonable, tends to get them upset.  I remember the reaction to the time limits in Daggerfall and Fallout, which are actually the last RPGs I recall playing that had time limits.

Im guilty of this. Any kind of countdown mechanic (timer, spirit eater) will usually result in me immediately walking away from the game. Otoh, I also walk away if I encounter a quest bug so I may not be a good example.

[Nonek]

Yet no one seems to have minded all of the countdown timers in BG2, indeed many did not even notice them.

[Gfted1]

Yet no one seems to have minded all of the countdown timers in BG2, indeed many did not even notice them.

 

I know I didn't. Iirc, I had my resting set to something like "rest until fully healed" and sometimes whole days would go by while I rested!

 

What were some of the timers? I don't remember any instance of not being able to complete something because I took too long.

[Nonek]

Companion quests and requests. You could still complete most quests but the companions would leave, sometimes permanently.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Nonek

[Mazisky]

Excuse me but...are there actually ways to rest beasides the inns or the stronghold manor??

 

Is there a "rest button" like in bg?

 

If yes, why should one rest in taverns?

 

I didn't pay attention to this aspect

 

TY

Edited February 25, 2015 by Mazisky

[Gairnulf]

Excuse me but...are there actually ways to rest beasides the inns or the stronghold manor??

 

Is there a "rest button" like in bg?

 

If yes, why should one rest in taverns?

 

I didn't pay attention to this aspect

 

TY

You can rest outside of inns, but this expends a resource called "camping supplies" which you can buy in shops and is capped at 4 as a maximum you can carry.

[Osvir]

I just recently finished Baldur's Gate again, and, there was a moment where I felt "I'm glad what Obsidian has done with the resting mechanic, in comparison to this".

I barely used any potions, I don't even think I used magic very much either. I just went through a fight after fight, when I went down to lower health (50% and below), I rested, then repeated. I just wanted to blast through Baldur's Gate though, to get to the second one with my character. Just got out of Irenicus dungeon and ready to explore every nook and cranny. So much to do in BG2 though, it's pretty daunting just thinking about it

[MReed]

Companion quests and requests. You could still complete most quests but the companions would leave, sometimes permanently.

 

Actually, I have seen people complaining about this -- on this very forum, no less.   Either in this thread or the one linked to in the first post, the OP complained about feeling rushed to complete companion quests by the countdown timer.  This was, of course, in context with the very high content density in Chapter 2/3 in BG2, but nevertheless, people do complain about this even in BG2.

[Lephys]

I think if it's reasonable, it's really not that bad. More-over, though, I think another problem is that a lot of times, it's just a hard switch. Oh no, time ran out... YOU FAILED! Or, oh no, time ran out... A COMPANION LEFT! But, it doesn't really feel like that impacted the world or story much. It just impacted your gameplay session. I think if the effects were more story related, such that "failure" didn't actually mean "the game ends here, RELOAD" or "well, you'll just do without this character forever," it would be a lot better. That, and the time limits can be a little exaggerated for gameplay's sake. I mean, there's still room for "Oh crap, those captives aren't going to survive the night!"

 

But, really, I much prefer it when the recorded passage of time by the game's triggers/mechanics is more relaxed/relationary. For example, you shouldn't be tasked with "Go across the world and find this big fortress, and get in there and rescue such-and-such... IN 15 hours! It takes 12 hours to get there, and time's ticking away whilst you fight your way through the fortress!". In that instance, measuring the exact amount of time that's passing is just plain annoying. Now, if you're near some bandit camp, and you find out people have been taken there and are being interrogated/tortured or something, and it's right there (within a few hours travel of you, roughly, in game world time), then yeah, choosing to jog off somewhere else first should be bad. But, for gameplay's sake, it should probably let you camp first.

 

But, even then, I'm okay with it not counting how many times you camped. OR, at the very least, exaggerating that. If you do have some time-sensitive thing 100 miles away, and you start heading straight there, but you're not as awesome at combat as someone else, so you have to rest a few times, you shouldn't be punished for being less-good at the game.

 

Simply put, urgency should be about your choices on how to handle a situation, not some accumulation of all your precisely-measured actions in the process of deciding to tackle it "as quickly as possible." The "as possible" part should suffice.

 

And as far as captives that you need to rescue go, you could even have it just be "oh crap, we dilly-dallied too much, and those bandits beat a bunch of information out of them. This isn't good." Instead of "GAME OVER," you get "GAME DIFFERENT NOW!" Sure, it's "bad," but it's more interesting bad, because the story has actually changed in a significant way, and not just in an "everyone died" way or "you lost" way.

[Bazy]

Having to make choices that matter = good

Countdown timers = very bad

 

Being rushed sucks. But being able to take 2 months to return some super important item without consequence is also bad. There is a balancing act. 

[Diogenes]

The camping supplies and Inn resting bonuses (boni?) disincentivize rest spamming while not being overly punishing, I think its a good system.

[Giantevilhead]

If you use time limits, then it has to be started at a specific quest area rather than the beginning of the quest or it would just make the quest annoying rather than stop rest spamming. When people take too long to do a quest, it's not because they're rest spamming, it's because they're just putting that quest off and doing other stuff. So setting a time limit at the start of a quest doesn't address the problem at all, it'll only make players reload so they can start the quest later.

 

Instead, the time limit should be implemented in a specific area. For example, in the De'Arnise Hold quest in BG 2, instead of starting the time limit when you first get the quest from Nalia, the limit should start when you actually enter the Keep and start fighting the Trolls.

[teknoman2]

the first time i played BG2 i rested a total of 40 hours in the dungeon of Irenicus. did he really fought against the shadow thieves for 40 hours straight before the cowled wizards came along?

[Zukzuk]

So, I just started playing this, and I have to ask: How the hell do you AVOID rest spamming?
Fact is, playing on normal, I am using a good amount of spells to survive a, indeed, any encounter.
So much so that I will have to rest to be capable for the next bout every 3 to 4 encounters...

How does one not use every camping supply running a medium sized dungeon?

 

Dave Timmerman

Edited February 26, 2015 by Zukzuk