Split Health/Stamina

[rjshae]

I just would like to hear more imput on why the change is happening. So far the reason we heard was: "we liked it but some people got confused at first" which is an odd reason to move to a different system, which I see it as inferior. I might be wrong, but a good argumentation can go a long way.

 

I have to think that a Wounds system will actually make things more complex for players, and maybe more confusing. Is this wound serious enough that I need to rest? Which wound is particularly damaging to what combat tactic? Should I reload an easy fight to avoid that one wound?

 

OTOH, a wounds system does give combat damage more of a sense of realism, in contrast to an abstract Health counter.

[Lamppost in Winter]

 

Injuries also reducing max health alleviates one of my concerns; though I'd still prefer the old system.

[oholio]

Last paragraph seems to suggest that nothing's set in stone just yet though.

 

 

If there's enough beta tester feedback in favor of the old Health/Stamina system that is...

[anameforobsidian]

One would argue that people who do not like cheese are free to not cheese, in that case

 

It's like the old debate years ago for devs to implement a respec character option.

Some people somehow managed to say that while it would be an OPTION, its mere presence would offend them and diminish their experience... 'kay...

 

 

 

I appreciate that you liked the mechanic, I for one shan't be too sad to be honest, Monks happened to be amongst my favourite classes.

For example, it's practically impossible to get the achievement to rest < 10 times, with a monk.

You just have to, you're going into fights with 33/105 endurance because you're down to 33 hp.

You're actually getting punished for not resting, even though the core mechanics of your class require you to lose endurance (and thus, HP).

You could always make a CON, RESOLVE, shield wielding monk but then what's the point in playing one ?

 

 

 

I would definitely be okay with the mechanic if we had some way of regenerating it in combat.

Want to last longer in fights ? 'kay, but you need to sacrifice DPS for that.

That's a deal I would take.

I don't get to Bless my party another 30 seconds, but instead I get to regenerate HP, works for me.

 

 

A couple points:

- Using the no rest achievement is a complete and utter bull**** metric.  It's on the outside of what the game system does anyways, and normally done as a special run.  Furthermore, it's easiest to do with a solo / sneaky character and based off skills anyways.  Skills are not class-based.  Murderbot 9000 is not going to get that achievement, regardless of class.  That's why it's an achievement, and not you know, the normal way you play the game.  

- Yes, Monks have to lose health, but the wound threshold is only 100 points of health; 80 if specced for it.  Monks get more far more HP than the average class to make up for it; only Barbarians get more.  A level 16 monk usually has 260 points of health higher than a fighter, and far more than other classes with lower health conversion.  At that point you're talking about reaching full wounds for 3 fights without penalty.  Far more if you build your monk with more Con.  

- If you want to ignore a highly recommended stat, the game shouldn't go out of its way to support your build.  It should allow it to be viable, but yes, build choices have tradeoffs.

- There are not one but two feats that allow regeneration of health, that's pumping 60% of health back in one rest.  On your average monk that's something like 1000 extra points of health; or full wounds for 10 - 13 extra fights.

- It's true that the difference is lower earlier on, however Monks maintain a substantial itemization edge through the game with the potential damage and deflection increase largely nullifying the health drawback.

 

 

Given this evidence, I'd hardly say that health is the liability you assume.

[dam]

 

One would argue that people who do not like cheese are free to not cheese, in that case

 

It's like the old debate years ago for devs to implement a respec character option.

Some people somehow managed to say that while it would be an OPTION, its mere presence would offend them and diminish their experience... 'kay...

 

 

 

I appreciate that you liked the mechanic, I for one shan't be too sad to be honest, Monks happened to be amongst my favourite classes.

For example, it's practically impossible to get the achievement to rest < 10 times, with a monk.

You just have to, you're going into fights with 33/105 endurance because you're down to 33 hp.

You're actually getting punished for not resting, even though the core mechanics of your class require you to lose endurance (and thus, HP).

You could always make a CON, RESOLVE, shield wielding monk but then what's the point in playing one ?

 

 

 

I would definitely be okay with the mechanic if we had some way of regenerating it in combat.

Want to last longer in fights ? 'kay, but you need to sacrifice DPS for that.

That's a deal I would take.

I don't get to Bless my party another 30 seconds, but instead I get to regenerate HP, works for me.

 

 

A couple points:

- Using the no rest achievement is a complete and utter bull**** metric. It's on the outside of what the game system does anyways, and normally done as a special run.  Furthermore, it's easiest to do with a solo / sneaky character and based off skills anyways.  Skills are not class-based.  Murderbot 9000 is not going to get that achievement, regardless of class.  That's why it's an achievement, and not you know, the normal way you play the game.  

- Yes, Monks have to lose health, but the wound threshold is only 100 points of health; 80 if specced for it.  Monks get more far more HP than the average class to make up for it; only Barbarians get more.  A level 16 monk usually has 260 points of health higher than a fighter, and far more than other classes with lower health conversion.  At that point you're talking about reaching full wounds for 3 fights without penalty.  Far more if you build your monk with more Con.  

- If you want to ignore a highly recommended stat, the game shouldn't go out of its way to support your build.  It should allow it to be viable, but yes, build choices have tradeoffs.

- There are not one but two feats that allow regeneration of health, that's pumping 60% of health back in one rest.  On your average monk that's something like 1000 extra points of health; or full wounds for 10 - 13 extra fights.

- It's true that the difference is lower earlier on, however Monks maintain a substantial itemization edge through the game with the potential damage and deflection increase largely nullifying the health drawback.

 

 

Given this evidence, I'd hardly say that health is the liability you assume.

 

 

 

Yeah no I'm gonna have to dislike the "bullshat metric" bit o_O

By engaging in the discussion you're bound by the forum rules to respect other users, including their opinion even if you don't like it.

Calling it (and thus my argument) bullshat is anything but respectful, so would you please edit that and, I don't know, see if you can use a slightly more empathic word ?

 

 

You do make cogent points however and I'd totally forgotten about Field Triage (although I dislike the idea of burning a talent on that), that one's my bad.

 

I still dislike this system anyway, it forces me to rest for no other reason than having been able to survive fights, having spare spells left, but just no hp anymore.

And the worst about that is, again, what actual value does it bring ?

 

See the thing is, camping supplies are plentiful, or you can just return to Caed Nua and deal with 4 loading screens.

 

 

Is the provided value immersion and realism ?

It doesn't work for me to be honest.

I understand how it has appeal for some players who think "Look you just can't be hurt/healed 24/7 and keep going for 8 days".

 

However, I on the other hand, really like the proposed system and traps actually inflicting wounds.

That, would provide more immersion to me than the HP pool depletion.

 

Step on a spike ? ouchie

Get crit to the head and lose 2/3 your life ? son that's got to be leaving a dent eh ?

 

 

Last, back to the topic of CON offering not much value :

All the other stats, every single one of them, has actual use in combat.

CON's value only kicks in IF you get yourself hit and IF you get bursted down (I'm not factoring in the hp/endurance split here because again, you can rest whenever you want basically).

With proper positioning, use of consumables and/or spells, that is not going to be a problem very often.

There is a reason CON has become a dump stat in 3.0.

 

Obviously I'm not gonna try and force anyone to agree with my own, biased opinion.

If we're gonna discuss the merits of the proposed system however, then this is my stance on it

[injurai]

 

Injuries also reducing max health alleviates one of my concerns; though I'd still prefer the old system.

 

I thought they got rid of health. But maybe that was an earlier incarnation of this system? We don't see health in the E3 video, so which is it...?

[anameforobsidian]

I think they refer to it as just health now, not endurance.

[injurai]

I think they refer to it as just health now, not endurance.

 

That was my thought too.

[demeisen]

I haven't been following this topic (or even poe2) too closely.  I did notice in the last gameplay video there was no split health/stamina , though I hope Obsidian might still come 'round.  I'm not arguing it was perfect, or wouldn't benefit from changes, just that it a lot of ways it worked.

​

​However that decision goes, whether 1 or 2 stats, more than anything I hope there is some form of non-auto-regenerating health system.  A whole lot of us don't want a Diablo style game with a HP bar that goes "whooop!" back up after every combat.  "Serious" RPGs even back to pen and paper games don't do that, for reasons well described by others in this and similar threads, and I don't see wounds as being a suitable substitute.  Maybe an augmenting mechanic, at best.

​

I consider POE1 to be the top dog among RPGs of the last decade or more.  The world building and general "feel" Obsidian created is second to nothing in recent times.  I'd be really sad if we start seeing aspects simplified down towards action style mechanics.  Already I lost interest in Tyranny because of its push towards excessive simplification.  Hoping I won't for the POE series...

​

​

[Katarack21]

"By engaging in the discussion you're bound by the forum rules to respect other users, including their opinion even if you don't like it.

Calling it (and thus my argument) bullshat is anything but respectful, so would you please edit that and, I don't know, see if you can use a slightly more empathic word?"

That sounds like some bull**** to me. It sounds like your pissy that he thinks your metric is crap, and want to use the forum rules to make him shut up. It sounds like you just can't deal with somebody strongly disagreeing with your "evidence".

[Sedrefilos]

@demeisein,
In all seriousness, a health bar going down and not coming back up unless you heal is the same thing as having it refilled after combat automatically, in terms of make-sense. Like, you get beat up, your health is at the middle and you still fight like nothing ever happened and when it's out you automatically fall? Is on/off "serious" rpg mechanic? I don't think so. Also I don't see anything Diablo-esque about health bars refilling after combat, considering in Diablo you need to heal via magic or potions.

The only thing that matters is: does this new system works well with resting mechanics? Does it give players a challenge? Everything else is monolithic traditional rpg rationale, imho. I'm a fan of split health/stamina, but, as I mentioned numerous times (even in Pillars 1 discussions), the best other mechanic I've seen in pcrpgs is the DA:O system "survive the encounter or game over and if you fell, you get injured. Get many injuries, can't progress ('cause you're gonna fall easy!) - go heal yourself" that Deadfire is heading to, as it seems.

[FlintlockJazz]

@demeisein,

In all seriousness, a health bar going down and not coming back up unless you heal is the same thing as having it refilled after combat automatically, in terms of make-sense. Like, you get beat up, your health is at the middle and you still fight like nothing ever happened and when it's out you automatically fall? Is on/off "serious" rpg mechanic? I don't think so. Also I don't see anything Diablo-esque about health bars refilling after combat, considering in Diablo you need to heal via magic or potions.

The only thing that matters is: does this new system works well with resting mechanics? Does it give players a challenge? Everything else is monolithic traditional rpg rationale, imho. I'm a fan of split health/stamina, but, as I mentioned numerous times (even in Pillars 1 discussions), the best other mechanic I've seen in pcrpgs is the DA:O system "survive the encounter or game over and if you fell, you get injured. Get many injuries, can't progress ('cause you're gonna fall easy!) - go heal yourself" that Deadfire is heading to, as it seems.

Maybe they could use the Savage Worlds health system?  Or the GURPS health system whereby as long you keep succeeding your Health roll you can keep on fighting on negative hit points!

[desel]

In all seriousness, a health bar going down and not coming back up unless you heal is the same thing as having it refilled after combat automatically, in terms of make-sense. Like, you get beat up, your health is at the middle and you still fight like nothing ever happened and when it's out you automatically fall? Is on/off "serious" rpg mechanic? I don't think so. Also I don't see anything Diablo-esque about health bars refilling after combat, considering in Diablo you need to heal via magic or potions.

 

One of the problems that's elegantly solved by splitting a character's vitality into stamina and health. Nobody's questioning stamina automatically refilling after combat.

That's also why splitting vitality into stamina and health makes for the arguably best abstraction of how it works in real life.

 

I too feel that in terms of mechanics it's something that makes POE stand out from the rest and therefore should be embraced instead of simplified. Dumbing things down never goes down well (see Tyranny or Dragon Age 2).

 

 

Last paragraph seems to suggest that nothing's set in stone just yet though.

 

 

If there's enough beta tester feedback in favor of the old Health/Stamina system that is...

 

Fingers crossed then.

[Katarack21]

 

Dumbing things down never goes down well (see Tyranny or Dragon Age 2).

Tyranny was and is an amazing isometric RPG with a great deal of depth and complexity; the spell system alone makes PoE look simplified and dumbed down in comparison. People like to bitch about Tyranny being dumbed-down or simplified, but what this always seems to come to is "A lot of things have cooldown timers".

[Quillon]

the spell system alone makes PoE look simplified and dumbed down in comparison.

...

[injurai]

Yeah, I don't get that either.

[Katarack21]

You can build spells to do damn near anything in Tyranny. There are some specific effects in PoE that you don't get in Tyranny, but also vice versa--and you don't get near the versatility or flexibility in PoE that you get with the spell-crafting system in Tyranny.

I can't control the exact amount of recovery time of each and every spell in PoE. I can't reshape spells in PoE to specific AoE shapes. I can't change the damage types of my fire and ice spells. I can't control the duration, I can't give spells extra accuracy as needed, etc. Tyranny has a *really* great spell system.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I've long ceased to treat "dumbed down" as a serious argument. It doesn't apply to Tyranny, it doesn't apply to Dragon Age 2 (whose combat is strictly superior to that of Origins), and it doesn't apply to Deadfire's health mechanic. I would also rather they'd stuck with health and endurance. But doing otherwise isn't "dumbing down". It's picking different priorities.

[Wormerine]

 

Yeah no I'm gonna have to dislike the "bullshat metric" bit o_O

By engaging in the discussion you're bound by the forum rules to respect other users, including their opinion even if you don't like it.

Calling it (and thus my argument) bullshat is anything but respectful, so would you please edit that and, I don't know, see if you can use a slightly more empathic word ?

 

 

His words might not have been elegant but he is not offending anyone. And he has a point. I don't believe that the game should balanced around/designed around weird ways of playing it. POE is a team RPG and different classes are designed to work within that framework. You CAN run with a party of the same class, you CAN do solo run but how individual class behaves in each scenario is not really a good argument in a discussion of a game mechanics. It's a bit like complaining on XCOM balance when you do 4 soldier run or oh bad all Mercy comp is in overwatch.

[MaxQuest]

I've been thinking, what if there was a compromise between Health/Endurance split from PoE1 and the proposed system for Deadfire? 

 

PoE1:

- Health and Endurance

- Injuries on Knockout (optional)

- Knockout on Endurance depletion

- Health used as [hard] gating mechanism vs infinite tanking; plus as immersion measure: after a really hard fight you want to rest

- Health used as [hard] gating mechanism vs rushing in numerous battles over and over again without resting at all

- Injuries used as [soft] gating to incentivize resting

- Endurance restored on combat end

 

Deadfire:

- just Health, no Endurance

- Injuries on Knockout (always on)

- Knockout on Health depletion

- Injuries used as [soft] gating to incentivize resting (btw, did they say that injuries will reduce max Health in Deadfire? If so then it's [hard] gating)

- Health restored on combat end

 

Suggested:

- Vitality and Endurance

- Injuries on Knockout (always on; maybe optional on lower difficulties)

- Knockout on Endurance depletion

- Vitality used as [hard] gating mechanism vs infinite tanking; plus as immersion measure: after a really hard fight you want to rest

- Vitality used as [soft] gating mechanism vs rushing in numerous battles over and over again without resting at all

- Injuries used as [soft] gating to incentivize resting

- Endurance restored on combat end

- Vitality restored slowly over time (as a permanent and passive HoT): 10% Health over 1 Eora day (27 hours). (*)

 

* Different classes could also get something that affects Vitality or gets rid of Injuries. For example Priests could get an aura that doubles the Vitality restoration. Empowered Lay on Hands could restore a percent of Vitality. While druids could get some long lasting cocoon spell, which would heal an injury once it's duration expires. Barbarians with some sort of "ignore wound effects during frenzy". And ofc there are wizards with Infuse with Vital Essence spell already.

 

P.S. Reason for using "Vitality" instead of "Health". Health is used in many games, and usually you can heal it. Maybe that was one of the reasons why players were getting confused.

P.P.S. Few extracts from Q&A transcripts:

 

 

Q&A1:

 

Q: Is a characters vitality still split into Health and Stamina, are multiple stages fatigue, injuries, afflictions and different "death" states still a thing in Pillars of Eternity 2, and are those negative statuses still only removable/curable by resting?

JS: Right now, what we are experimenting with is a system that uses injuries as the main way of gating players needing to rest. At least in terms of damage taken. We're not using the Health system, we're using just the—well, we now have, whether you want to call it hit points or health, we have essentially what was Stamina in the first game. If you get knocked out you'll get injuries, and injuries are a thing you want to rest to get rid of. We're keeping all the injuries. Fatigue can be one of those injuries, we abandoned the sort of time-based fatigue a long time ago. The idea is that when you rest that's how you get rid of those things. You can also get injuries from things like scripted interactions, if you miss a check when you do a jump or something like that; you can hurt your knee or your elbow or your shoulder. Things like that. All that stuff is still in place. We're experimenting with a healthless system using injuries primarily as the gating mechanism for it.

Personally, I really liked the Health mechanic. A lot of people found it confusing. We tried various ways of communicating it...I think that injuries do a pretty good job, and so I'd like to experiment at least with using injuries as the primary means for driving resting.

We'll see. Like I said, I was the person who proposed and pushed for that mechanic, but I also don't want a bunch of people to not really understand what the hell is going on.

Q&A4:

 

Q: With Health being replaced by wounds, will Endurance still regenerate outside of combat? An advantage of removing regen is that it'd be possible for relatively easy battles to leave a mark, allowing expensive hit point potions to be used out of combat to replenish Endurance. Would provide a useful money sink.

JS: Yeah, it's going to regen outside of combat. The thing is, there are other classes and things that can give healing too, so unless you were travelling without a Priest or a Paladin or something like that, you'd still be able to get that healing back.

We're trying out our new resting system just to see how it feels. We're probably going to tweak it as time goes on; there's nothing set in stone for it. We're just trying to look at the best way to support the type of flow that our quests typically support. I don't know if there's much else to say about that.

BN: I think trying—again, Josh says we're trying new things, and we are. We have some ideas of what we think will be good, but that stuff is open to iteration like any good new piece of content should be, so we're not married to it. We're pretty confident, but we'll change things as need be.

JS: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, the Health and Endurance system was something that I really liked —

BN: So did I.

JS: Some people really like it, other people really did not. So we're trying something new on that.

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by MaxQuest

[smjjames]

They may still have an option to turn off injury on knockout just for the sake of having the option. They have plenty of options to tweak difficilty in PoE1, so, I don't see why they wouldn't for Deadfire.

[MaxQuest]

Sure thing. I can imagine such an option to be available for Story, Easy and Normal modes.

[Lotti Fuehrscheim]

Isn't there already 'empower' as incentive for resting in Deadfire?

[smjjames]

Isn't there already 'empower' as incentive for resting in Deadfire?

 

MaxQuest said in another thread that the Empowers are per encounter, not per rest., nvm, I either misread or read it before he edited that post.

Edited July 4, 2017 by smjjames

[MaxQuest]

^ Missread But no wonder: I said you can use only one Empower charge in one encounter; but have a few charges per-rest.  
 

Isn't there already 'empower' as incentive for resting in Deadfire?

Depends on how good it is.

Example: Minnoleta's Missiles will fire 4 projectiles instead of 3.
I doubt someone would rest in order to inflict extra 20-50 flat damage.

On the other hand if Empower would greatly increase accuracy of cc abilities, or would condense or substantially increase damage coefficient of DoT spells... now that would be an incentive to rest.

Edited July 4, 2017 by MaxQuest