What is point of non-rest areas (Lighthouse etc.); simply tedious and punitive

[revjwh]

There is no point to making an area non-rest.  It simply forces me to fight/run back to inn and rest for free/return/fight/rinse/repeat.

 

It's tedious and boring and serves no point..... it simply seems a poor design decision that serves no purpose other than to be annoying.

[kalniel]

I found it added tension and increased my enjoyment of the scenario. I'm glad it wasn't used any more though.

[KingNee]

To an extent, but some of the places do serve general immersion;  You don't go to an inn and make a campfire in front of the bar. 

[pstone]

I always found the ability to saflely rest in non-cleared dungeons highly questionable. In a RPG-session, a sentinent dungeon-dwellers would use the time to create a death trap during your downtime and attack you while most of the party is asleep, but thats hard to recreate in CRPGs. Another problem, most dungeons are not dynamic and timeless, so you can go out, go to an inn, sleep and return to find it in exactly the same state you left it in (also not possible in RPG-sessions).

[Maviarab]

Wah wah wah.....next thread to whine about this?

[b0rsuk]

Flavor-wise, are you so lazy as to use camping supplies when you have a cozy inn (okay, a brothel) right outside ? I know my party would rebel. Hiravius in particular proposed that we watch him having a go with a brothel lady. That surely beats resting in a haunted lighthouse.

 

Can you name some other non-resting areas ?

Edited April 8, 2015 by b0rsuk

[Tigranes]

When an area is non-resting, the obvious solution is not to rest. 

 

If you insist on running back to the inn all the time, then nobody's to blame but your own stubbornness.

 

I suppose some people also walk down to McDonald's every time they want to use a tissue, and then complain that McDonald's should just give us free tissues everywhere. 

[gkathellar]

It simply forces me to fight/run back to inn and rest for free/return/fight/rinse/repeat.

 

No one's forcing you to rest. If you don't like doing it, conserve your resources better.

[RedSocialKnight]

I would prefer to see all dungeons be no-rest zones.

 

By the same token, you should be able to fast-travel back to a safe resting spot from a cleared dungeon level.

[Zorfab]

OP is right. If failure was actually punished by loss of progression, these areas and resting mechanics would be meaningful and you would actually have to know how to play the game and not just fight-rest-fight-rest-fight-rest through the ordeal. Quick saves would not be enough to overcome poor micro and resource management in that case.

[gkathellar]

I would prefer to see all dungeons be no-rest zones.

 

If per-day resources were roughly tripled, that would be fine.

 

By the same token, you should be able to fast-travel back to a safe resting spot from a cleared dungeon level.

 

Most dungeons are single-level, though. In fact, the only dungeon I can think of where this is a serious problem is the Endless Paths...wait.

 

Or what about Heritage Hi...ah.

[Luckmann]

Hassle is it's own limitation. Trying to remove "hassle" in favour of "gameplay" usually leads to shallow and unengaging mechanics. Limitations that "annoy" you are there to make you play the game in certain ways. If you are doing something that is a hassle or boring, instead of avoiding that, that's no-ones fault but your own. It's meant to be an issue, it's meant to be a hassle, and it's meant to be tedious and boring, simply because you are not meant to do that.

Manage your resources and conserve your strengths.

[durbal]

Hassle is it's own limitation. Trying to remove "hassle" in favour of "gameplay" usually leads to shallow and unengaging mechanics. Limitations that "annoy" you are there to make you play the game in certain ways.

Worst argument for bad design.

[76prophet]

OP is right. If failure was actually punished by loss of progression, these areas and resting mechanics would be meaningful and you would actually have to know how to play the game and not just fight-rest-fight-rest-fight-rest through the ordeal. Quick saves would not be enough to overcome poor micro and resource management in that case.

Not sure that's what OP was getting at.  However, to your point, how does this game not provide players with the way to play (relative to progression, rest, and consequence) according their own expectations?

 

You want to set up conditions for "success," such as making it through a dungeon without resting at all or using only the number of camping supplies you initially bring into the dungeon? Cool. You can do that. Make a save at the start and have at it. If that doesn't work, you reload from the beginning and adjust your strategy. Nobody is forcing cheesy over-resting tactics or abstract notions of personal success/progress conditions.

 

Perhaps I'm missing your point.  /shrug

[Luckmann]

 

Hassle is it's own limitation. Trying to remove "hassle" in favour of "gameplay" usually leads to shallow and unengaging mechanics. Limitations that "annoy" you are there to make you play the game in certain ways.

Worst argument for bad design.

 

 

No, the argument was that it's not bad design.

 

I will however say that a better design would probably have been to have people that try to rest in current no-rest areas suffer the consequences of such a terrible decision, such as being attacked by mobs while suffering from Major Fatigue.

[MaxDamage]

Should just make a mod: the party doesnt even need to rest and replenishes everything each time the combat ends. Playing ironman with two rest tents screams "iroll20s rest".

[Zorfab]

"Not sure that's what OP was getting at.  However, to your point, how does this game not provide players with the way to play (relative to progression, rest, and consequence) according their own expectations?

 

You want to set up conditions for "success," such as making it through a dungeon without resting at all or using only the number of camping supplies you initially bring into the dungeon? Cool. You can do that. Make a save at the start and have at it. If that doesn't work, you reload from the beginning and adjust your strategy. Nobody is forcing cheesy over-resting tactics or abstract notions of personal success/progress conditions."

 

No, I`m being serious here. Creating a mechanic in your game that can be trivially circumvented means that it is a superfluous design. If camping supplies are intended to be limited, make them limited. I have no problem with easier difficulties not having the enforcement, but on hard and PotD?

 

Just so you know where I`m coming from: I love games that punish you for failure. Stuff like Dark Souls and Alien: Isolation. Similar things apply for facing a difficult human opponent on Street Fighter IV or leading a successful combat gang in EVE Online. Actual challenge that is not just in my head but ahead of me and opposing me, taunting and goading me to perform better and to experience the exhilaration of a true victory and the bitterness of true defeat.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Zorfab

[KingNee]

I always found the ability to saflely rest in non-cleared dungeons highly questionable. In a RPG-session, a sentinent dungeon-dwellers would use the time to create a death trap during your downtime and attack you while most of the party is asleep, but thats hard to recreate in CRPGs. Another problem, most dungeons are not dynamic and timeless, so you can go out, go to an inn, sleep and return to find it in exactly the same state you left it in (also not possible in RPG-sessions).

 

It's definitely something for the future titles out there.

 

1. Having enemies simply up and leave because you left to sleep, have them go "HEY! GUYS! he left! I thought we were dead! That guy is insane! did you see what he did to Jude and Halfpipe!? JESUS! Let's get the **** outta here!". Later on you might run into some of them in the wild or at a brothel trying to drown their sorrows. (Not enough drunk Xaurips in the game as it is.)

2. Dungeon wide patrols. As in a group of guards are patrolling levels 1-3, with their base being at level 3. Would expand on scouting and stealth and if you got lazy and just charged in, it might turn an easy fight into a challenge when guards walked by and beat your ass.

3. Fleeing enemies. Enemies fleeing down to their base in the lower levels if you didn't properly engage them or cut them off. Fleeing to get backup forces or call the guards would be an issue too if you didn't scout properly. Some of my most fun battles in POE came from wonky pathfinding aggroing other mobs while in mid fight, turning it into cluster**** challenge instead of an easy trash mob cleanup. Emergent gameplay people!

4. Alarms.  Another use for your mechanics and scouting skills. 

5. The ability to "turn" traps to surprise patrols.

6. Noise being an issue, a clumsy paladin in full plate aggroing an entire map. What a douche. Prevent armor swapping by limiting it to inns and strongholds. (anyone tried actually putting on a full plate armor irl? Yes, this change would make sense)

7. Finding friendlies that would temporarily join your cause to beat the big bad dungeon boss. (they sorta did this in D:OS) Becoming Lord of the Xaurips with the proper skill and racial traits check...

8. Competing adventurers, they're not gonna wait for you and your sleepy wizard. (they half assed this in POE with the expeditions)

 

Anyways, I could go on, there's tons of potential for more advanced dungeoneering but it would of course require a more sophisticated AI.

[Volourn]

COME ON.

[Daemonjax]

I always found the ability to saflely rest in non-cleared dungeons highly questionable. In a RPG-session, a sentinent dungeon-dwellers would use the time to create a death trap during your downtime and attack you while most of the party is asleep, but thats hard to recreate in CRPGs. Another problem, most dungeons are not dynamic and timeless, so you can go out, go to an inn, sleep and return to find it in exactly the same state you left it in (also not possible in RPG-sessions).

 

I agree.

 

In uncleared dungeons, I would have preferred if there were specific rooms where you could rest, but it would only be a one-time use... like, "You notice this room can be easilly barricaded for a rest".  Then, after resting, the game tells you that the barricades were destroyed by monsters, but the traps you set killed them before they could get to you.  Something like that.  

 

Leave and come back?  Monsters have set ambushes/traps/called their buddies/an evil wizard/whatever moved in.  Congrats, it's now just as difficult as if you've never left.

 

Try to get closer to what a PnP DM would do (hey, sometimes you do have to flee to live to fight another day, but you couldn't just come back in the same play session and have everything the way you left it).

 

I think the turn-based strategy Stronghold mini-game idea is a decent way to discourage resting while building it up (you want to gather enough loot/coins to immediately start another building another building when the one under construction completes since it's tied to game time not the abstracted turns) -- I'm just not sure they took that idea far enough to matter.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Veynn]

I really don't like the "rest everywhere, all the time" mechanic, especially in dungeons. I do have something in mind.

 

1. Resting in dungeons is okay but, there should be a specific spot where you can rest/camp. For example, an old abandoned area that was used or camped by previous adventurers. In the story, the Erl went beneath Od Nua right? That means he also rested and made camp while going down the Endless Paths. Also in Level 1, Maerwald had a room. It's obviously safe to lock the party there and rest/camp instead of that spider infested area.

 

2. Resting in dungeons should also consume twice the camping supplies.  I dunno.. to discourage rest spamming? lol

 

3. Resting in dungeons should have a Survival roll. You know, you get interrupted while sleeping.

 

 

But that's just me.