Rest-Spamming: Good or No?

[Luckmann]

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?

 

In my recent playthrough of BG2, I somehow ended up sleeping 12 days in a single rest. Not even mad. In BG2, it's best to simply ignore the passage of time entirely, because it's never going to make any sense.

[Whipstitch]

Honestly, I'm all for time limits.

[Devard]

Honestly, I'm all for time limits.

 

Agreed. People should be upset if I accept a quest but then proceed to just put it off. That questline should subsequently be dead (for whatever reasons, NPC doesn't trust me anymore, the bandits have moved to another location, what-have-you) and archived away into a section of my journal. I would love for there to be consequences for not completing quests in a timely manner.

[Doppelschwert]

 

Honestly, I'm all for time limits.

 

Agreed. People should be upset if I accept a quest but then proceed to just put it off. That questline should subsequently be dead (for whatever reasons, NPC doesn't trust me anymore, the bandits have moved to another location, what-have-you) and archived away into a section of my journal. I would love for there to be consequences for not completing quests in a timely manner.

 

 

As already mentioned, this just promotes metagaming to load a save where you haven't accepted the quest yet if you are not able to tackle it immediately.

It's especially bad in a nonlinear rpg where you might pick up new quests with time limit while trying to solve another one with limited time, as this may produce situations where you can't solve both of them anymore, even when playing optimally.

 

If you want to have consequences like this it's easier to just model them inside a quest. A quest may have several objectives in parallel and may give you hints in which order to do them for the best result, and if you do them in the wrong order, it plays out different. This rewards proper prioritizing and decision making instead of frantically rushing through the games content.

 

Personally, I have more than enough time limits in real life. Don't see how additional stress will make my gaming more fun.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Doppelschwert

[Diogenes]

Time limits are annoying in games like this because you want to take your time. You want to read item descriptions, you want to explore all over the map, you want to do every quest in every map, you want to talk to everybody, search everybody's house. If you have a time limit it can feel like you are being punished for enjoying everything the game has to offer and not just dashing from point A to point B.

[Lephys]

Time limits are annoying because the representation of the flow of time in-game is different. Story-wise, "Oh noez! This thing happened! It must be dealt with like RIGHT now!". But, gameplay-wise, "Oh no, I was going to go buy some new armor, because the game kind of requires me to increase my DR rating as I go at certain intervals, so now, just because I hadn't decided to do that yet, and because realism, there's a timer ticking down AS WE SPEAK that leads to failure! But I really need that armor, even though it's kind of ambiguous and insignificant whether or not I go to town to buy some different armor, because I actually could've done it earlier, but I was saving up so I could outfit everyone with at least one new piece of equipment!"

 

That's the thing... it really shouldn't matter how many seconds I take to do something, just as long as I don't decide to do something else that clearly takes time and is significant to the narrative. Or, to put it better, something that would be story-jarring if it did not force game world time to pass. If you go rescue kids from the woods, then the townspeople have to acknowledge that you didn't do that instantaneously. It was a day away, so it had to take you at least a day to get there. Who cares if you fought 17 wolves on the way, or only 5 wolves on the way. It's a fluid story.

 

That, and, what do you set the time limit to? "You have 72 hours." Well, if it can be done in 8, then where's the real urgency? "You can only dilly-dally for 63 and 1/2 hours!" And if you set it to 8 hours? Now it's a friggin' speed challenge. "Aww man, it took me 15 more in-game minutes than most other players, so I failed." Punished for your margin of difference in player skill = not cool.

 

So, a countdown timer is just a very heavy-handed way of handling things.

 

A Wolf Among Us has a very good example. You're investigating murders and such in that game, and yeah, you only get branching choices of where to go next at several points. But, you know if you go interrogate such-and-such, that that's time spent you're not seeing what you can find at the old warehouse or something. So, you know that if anyone's going to cover anything up at the old warehouse, you need to go there immediately to have the best chance of finding more evidence there. But if you do that, you can't go interrogate such-and-such right now. You can jog around on the screen for 73 hours if you want, before actually leaving that place and making that choice. The game doesn't care, because... why should it? There's only so much time you're feasibly going to take jogging around there before making that decision. So, who cares if you take 30 minutes instead of 10? No one. And if the time limit isn't tight enough for that amount of time to matter, then why should any amount of time matter? It shouldn't. Your choices of "I'm going to go affect the narrative in a clearly-time-sensitive manner (not just going to the market for an extended period of time, which might as well be time spent browsing my inventory menu for all its significance toward the story), but not by doing that thing that needs some amount of urgent attention."

[teknoman2]

Time limits are annoying in games like this because you want to take your time. You want to read item descriptions, you want to explore all over the map, you want to do every quest in every map, you want to talk to everybody, search everybody's house. If you have a time limit it can feel like you are being punished for enjoying everything the game has to offer and not just dashing from point A to point B.

not everything needs a time limit and it doesnt need to be too strict. an example would be a quest in Gothic 3. a guy says "you should go to town and speak to our leader within 2 days or we will consider you an enemy". the town is a 5 minutes walk from there (maybe 1 in game hour). it gives a very generous timeframe

there can also be a hybrid version. you accept a quest and can go do it whenever you want, but as soon as you enter the quest map you cant leave without failing the quest

[Devard]

 

 

Honestly, I'm all for time limits.

 

Agreed. People should be upset if I accept a quest but then proceed to just put it off. That questline should subsequently be dead (for whatever reasons, NPC doesn't trust me anymore, the bandits have moved to another location, what-have-you) and archived away into a section of my journal. I would love for there to be consequences for not completing quests in a timely manner.

 

 

As already mentioned, this just promotes metagaming to load a save where you haven't accepted the quest yet if you are not able to tackle it immediately.

It's especially bad in a nonlinear rpg where you might pick up new quests with time limit while trying to solve another one with limited time, as this may produce situations where you can't solve both of them anymore, even when playing optimally.

 

Yes, I realize that people will try to game the system by reloading. I am not a completionist so I am okay with these consequences because it makes the game world feel more real to me. But, I certainly recognize that there are people that enjoy exploring every nook and cranny and finishing every quest that a game has to offer.

 

I think it would be cool to be able to tell an NPC "I'm sorry but I'm busy with something else" and just go do what you were originally going to do. That NPC's problem will then either resolve itself (because of third-party intervention) or evolve into a new problem (those bandits you didn't take care of has tripled in size and is no longer "just a nuisance").

 

I don't know if such a game will ever be made...but hey, that's okay. A man can always dream, right?

[rjshae]

Yes, I realize that people will try to game the system by reloading. I am not a completionist so I am okay with these consequences because it makes the game world feel more real to me. But, I certainly recognize that there are people that enjoy exploring every nook and cranny and finishing every quest that a game has to offer.

 

An interesting cookie might begin by having the player decline an otherwise appealing quest line, then having that choice lead to an even more interesting outcome.

[Lephys]

I think it would be cool to be able to tell an NPC "I'm sorry but I'm busy with something else" and just go do what you were originally going to do. That NPC's problem will then either resolve itself (because of third-party intervention) or evolve into a new problem (those bandits you didn't take care of has tripled in size and is no longer "just a nuisance").

Yeah! Or even, what if you tell them "Yeah, don't worry! I'll TOTALLY handle this horrible situation!", and you know it's time-sensitive, and you don't make it in-time. Instead of "you fail," that person is all "I got really worried, because these goods needed to be retrieved within a week, and I hadn't heard from you in like 5 days, so I found someone else to do it." Like you said, resolved by third-party intervention, OR turn into a new problem. But, you suffer a significant reputation consequence, which in-turn effects even more things down the line.

[Giantevilhead]

It would be great if there could be additional quests/consequences for rejecting/failing quests but that would just exponentially increase the amount of work required to implement all that and they can't even be sure that the players would get to play any of that.

[teknoman2]

why are people today so against having quests that can fail? 

[Sensuki]

I would have preferred campsites too, but it's no big deal.

The less rests per game the better, IMO.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

Time limits for quests are fine; just keep the time reasonable. Give us like... a week at least.

[Namutree]

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

You likely need more experience. Not rest spamming on normal is easy.

 

EDIT: Did you invest in DEX? Cuz' that attribute isn't working. That might be a part of your problem.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Namutree

[CaptainMace]

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 don't understand the logic behind this swift succession of words. You can avoid rest-spamming in a game as long as there is in-game time ? Yet you're telling us you're totally ok to return to the village, spend some real time doing that, in order to get a little bonus ?

[Giantevilhead]

why are people today so against having quests that can fail? 

 

It doesn't really have anything to do with rest spamming.

 

Also, how many games in the past have had mechanics that followed up on quests failing? Sure, games have had consequences for not doing quests or making bad decisions in quests or quests with extreme consequences but how many games have had new quests/stories because you failed a quest? All it really does is make the player reload.

[Ondb]

My opinion now is that this game would be much better with individual cooldowns for every spell / power instead of (per encounter and per rest abilities). I was strongly against it in the beginning (this is the irony of it). 

[CaptainMace]

Cooldowns is the worst thing that could ever happen to a game like this. Dragon Age combat was already soporific because of that.

[Voss]

My opinion now is that this game would be much better with individual cooldowns for every spell / power instead of (per encounter and per rest abilities). I was strongly against it in the beginning (this is the irony of it). 

I wouldn't necessarily advocate for cooldowns  (though if a class was designed from the ground up to deal with it, it wouldn't necessarily be bad), but I definitely think the wizard, priest and druid should have been re-designed to match the finalized combat system and healing/endurance mechanic in much the same way as the cipher and chanter (even though they approach it from opposite directions).   As is they (and per rest abilities) feel like anachronisms simply left over from D&D because it was easier/there wasn't time.

 

Deliberate imitation has led to a lot of design flaws, and they are pretty jarring when the interact with other aspects of design.  Particularly per rest abilities/spells that are wasted because buffs/debuffs/summons were declared to be combat only.  That decision had a lot of knock-on effects, and it doesn't seem like enough effort was put in to deal with the consequences of it.   If a bonus is only going to last seconds, I have no idea how treating it as a per rest resource is even vaguely justified, especially when the two classes standing over there get free recharge on everything, every fight.  

Edited March 2, 2015 by Voss

[Kal Adan]

I was rest-spamming in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and I had no idea it was wrong way to go at the time. I only learnt about rest-spamming being bad when I read discussion about changed camping mechanic, and I have to say it's very interesting idea. I like semi-simulationist elements in games, so I will probably try to use camping cautiously in Pillars of Eternity. It does remind me of games like Dark Souls and Darkest Dungeon, where campfires are also very important.

[Gairnulf]

Cooldowns as an alternative to per-rest abilities tend to lead to reusing the same tactics in every encounter. But if a player relies very much on a given spell or ability, what's to stop him from running back after the first encounter in a dungeon and resting in the town, then returning to complete the dungeon. There are a few options:

 

1. Respawning enemies within the dungeon - that's kind of annoying imo.

2. Making the quest a timed one - the player will fail it if he rests/rests too often.

3. Shutting the door of the dungeon behind a player - he can only leave by completing the dungeon and can't rest while inside.

4. Nothing. Yet, if there are no cooldowns but the abilities are per-rest, the number of players who would go through the grind of returning to the town to rest after each battle wouldn't be as large as the amount of players who would reuse the same tactics every time. If a player who plays for the immersion, like I do for example, finds out he has the possibility of doing it, he would still feel "wrong" about exploiting the game and refrain from rest-spamming. I guess a single player game always involves some sort of "house rules" about how much it will be exploited by the player.

[MReed]

why are people today so against having quests that can fail? 

 

Because it isn't interesting.  As several people pointed out, if there are (say, 75% of the time) interesting things that only happen if you fail a quest, then matters would be different.  People don't mind, for example, quest lines where you can help the paladins or the thieves, because there is interesting content either way.  The point of playing games, after all, is to see and do interesting things, and we are all strongly conditioned to believe that failure results in less interesting game play.

[Lephys]

Deliberate imitation has led to a lot of design flaws, and they are pretty jarring when the interact with other aspects of design.  Particularly per rest abilities/spells that are wasted because buffs/debuffs/summons were declared to be combat only.  That decision had a lot of knock-on effects, and it doesn't seem like enough effort was put in to deal with the consequences of it.   If a bonus is only going to last seconds, I have no idea how treating it as a per rest resource is even vaguely justified, especially when the two classes standing over there get free recharge on everything, every fight.

Not that I'm not on board with you regarding the combat-only sentiments (that's just FAR less than ideal, and really should've been less of a rigid divide in the game's design), but... the whole per-rest abilities are somewhat useless because they CAN be wasted? That's not too big of a deal. I mean, if 90% of per-rest abilities had durations of 3 hours, then sure. That would be silly. But, I think pretty much everything has a pretty short duration. And, what about potions? Potions don't replenish even when you rest, yet you you COULD use them when you thought you needed to, only to win combat 10 seconds later. Then, that potion's effect is wasted (if it's an effect with a duration). Doesn't mean the whole design of potions is wrong.

 

Again, ideally, things wouldn't magically be restricted by some ambiguous "combat state." "Has the enemy already gotten an advantage on you? Then now you can fire up those useful effects! 8D!". It's silly, sure. But, There's still plenty of room for per-rest abilities to be useful. Even duration-based ones. If you can't ever figure out when to not use a 60-second protection ability, only to have combat end within 10 seconds, then there's a lot more wrong with the game than "Oh no, per-rest abilities are obsolete."

[Ondb]

Cooldowns is the worst thing that could ever happen to a game like this. Dragon Age combat was already soporific because of that.

 

It really depends. I would give you following examples to consider:

 

1/ First by making ability per rest, you are forcing some players to rest spam.

2/ By making rest supplies limited you are forcing some player to return to town.

3/ if player have option to rest and get everything back, then you are breaking whole per encounter, rest gameplay.

 

Either way i am not talking about cool-down from 1s-60s. I am thinking about cool-downs from 30s - 60minutes. I am thinking about giving you more options for spells within the same level. 

Example would be level 3 - AoE spell for 30 damage with 5 min cool-down or single target level 3 spell for 30 damage with 30 second cool-down (what would you pick?). Or you could have defensive spells with short cool-down to support spell hard-counters easily. Or you can have Disintegration spell with 60 min cool-down. Players would think twice before using such spells. Would Invisibility with 2 min cool-down and See invisibility with 10 second cool-down be reasonable spell combo to implement?

 

Spells with reasonable cool-downs represent real price for every player. You can metagame around various rules/re-loading game, going back to town for rest and etc.., but you can not metagame your own time. Of course if the cool-down time is trivial, its pointless price to pay.