Proposed new health system, i.e. the one time I'll complain

[Mygaffer]

OK, so Josh has said they're playing around with the idea of a new health system centered around injuries.

 

I hate this idea.

 

Why?

 

First of all I hate having characters knocked out. It feels like failure to me. I almost always reload when it happens.

 

Second, I hate playing with negative status effects. Swollen eye? -2 perception. I'm trying to build my character to get the most effectiveness out of them and now my rogue or ranger is less effective. Is the overall effect huge? No. But it feels disproportionately punishing to the player because they've been doing everything they can to max out this character and now some of that is undone. This is one of those times where a designer thinks, "-2 perception isn't too big a debuff, players won't mind" while players will think, "this totally negates my Helmet of Darksee/resting bonus, how lame." 

 

Third of all I really liked the endurance/health system. It makes you manage your endurance throughout a combat, meaning you have to be careful not to take multiple big hits, you have to have ways to restore some endurance, but if you do then you can continue to fight because you have a much larger health pool. While you are managing endurance throughout the combat you are managing the health over the course of several combat encounters. It is a really good system.

 

So I'm totally on board with all the other changes but not this one. Why take a great system that works well and throw it away in favor of a system that I have to believe a lot of players will end up hating. I know the players who want to rest anywhere, anytime will hate it. I know the players who liked the existing system will hate it. And I really know the people who hate to have their characters knocked out will hate it.

 

I hope the design team thinks long and hard before throwing away a really good system to put in something completely off the wall that won't feel good to players.

 

That's my one complaint.

 

EDIT: To be clear I don't want the injuries to go away. Especially on PotD where I might have just got through a battle I won't necessarily reload because I got knocked out. I just don't want injuries to replace the endurance/health system.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Mygaffer

[Boeroer]

But you can go on forever if you don't go down. No depleting health bar means no need to rest. That makes healing abilities/spells a lot more powerful than in PoE1. I think this new system will be a whole lot easier to abuse. Stack a lot of healing and healing bonuses and you won't need to rest because of health/injury issues.

[drgonzo]

Agreed. I think the health/endurance system was excellent. Injuries are annoying.

[Ganrich]

But you can go on forever if you don't go down. No depleting health bar means no need to rest. That makes healing abilities/spells a lot more powerful than in PoE1. I think this new system will be a whole lot easier to abuse. Stack a lot of healing and healing bonuses and you won't need to rest because of health/injury issues.

Are we sure that an NPC falling in combat is a requirement to gain an injury? I only ask because it isn't that way in Tyranny. You only had to lose a good bit of health. That said, it not requiring falling in combat made it a bit muddled and confusing in tyranny. So, I hope it does require losing all health to gain the injury status.

 

Anyway... I like the old system, but I am neither here nor there about the change. I personally think an injury system will likely be just as confusing to the players that had issue with the health/endurance system. I guess we will see.

[George_Truman]

I think the whole resting system is pretty cool but feel it will always cause balance issues in a free roam game like this.

 

I sort of wish that the game would "lock" you into certain situations so that a series of battles/interactions could be built around a fixed number of rests. Maybe a limit to the amount of interactable tools you can carry as well (prybar, grappling hook, etc).

 

Otherwise, I wouldn't mind them scrapping resting altogether, maybe instead making abilities turn based to encourage progression, or all per encounter. That allows the designers a consistent power level to work with and build encounters around.

 

The healing I am not super worried about because different enemies can be made to outlast grindy comps or burst down too fragile of comps. Obsidian can tweak the opportunity cost of healing now that health is not working against it.

[Madscientist]

- I liked the health/endurance system of PoE and I see no reason to change it.

 

- I disliked the injury system in Tyranny. I made a suggestion in the tyranny forum to make it better. At least you should see at which point will you get an injury.

 

- I agree with the OP.

DA:O had an injury system and I always reloaded when a char got K.O. unless it was in a long boss battle and I was about to win (Don´t want to have the whole cut szene and the long battle again.)

 

- The health/endurance system forced you to think more about stategy. You could not put one tank in front of the dragon and let him drink 100 large potions in a row. He would run out of health at some point. I think this is good.

[oddrheia]

Origins also had easily accessible injury kit consumables that instantly got rid of one or multiple injuries. Getting knocked out was a  non-issue, unless your whole party died.

 

I also liked PoE 1 system. Will have to wait and see, I suppose.

Edited March 4, 2017 by oddrheia

[rjshae]

The injury system worked fine in Drakensang. They're already in the game, so I have no problem with it.

[Guest 4ward]

 

i believe i never expereinced anything worse than Drakensang‘s injury system. Even with my char having a good amount of hp he‘d still die because he quickly accumulated injuries during one single fight. At least with a simple health system like in BG2 using health potions/spells is not the only thing you're doing in combat. Particularly in the boss fight against the gigantic rat and her respawning minions i was reduced to time it right between applying bandages and hitting. Boring and annoying.

[desel]

First of all I hate having characters knocked out. It feels like failure to me. I almost always reload when it happens.

 

Second, I hate playing with negative status effects. Swollen eye? -2 perception. I'm trying to build my character to get the most effectiveness out of them and now my rogue or ranger is less effective. Is the overall effect huge? No. But it feels disproportionately punishing to the player because they've been doing everything they can to max out this character and now some of that is undone. This is one of those times where a designer thinks, "-2 perception isn't too big a debuff, players won't mind" while players will think, "this totally negates my Helmet of Darksee/resting bonus, how lame."

 

Lower the difficulty and/or check "No Knockout Injuries" in the difficulty settings.

Sorted.

 

 

 

As a proponent of the way health and stamina management was (imho) brilliantly handled in POE I also fail to understand whenever Sawyer brings up the argument that some people had a hard time understanding how it works.

 

Can it get any more clearer than this?:

 

 

Or this?:

 

 

All they have to do for POE2 is to come up with an even more idiot-proof way of communicating what that green bar represents or why characters aren't dying despite their portraits filling up with red and just stick with the long-term health and short-term stamina mechanic from POE.

[rjshae]

i believe i never expereinced anything worse than Drakensang‘s injury system. Even with my char having a good amount of hp he‘d still die because he quickly accumulated injuries during one single fight. At least with a simple health system like in BG2 using health potions/spells is not the only thing you're doing in combat. Particularly in the boss fight against the gigantic rat and her respawning minions i was reduced to time it right between applying bandages and hitting. Boring and annoying.

 

Different strokes for different folks. Injuries make combat more realistic, which I appreciate.

[Sedrefilos]

I never understand why powergamers play rpgs. There are other games that do this well. Diablo-likes for instance. Anyhow, I really liked health/endurance system and the injury system. I have to have an excuse to rest (except re-charge spells - oh, I hated that one!) since the game uses rest mechanic.

[Madscientist]

The injury system worked fine in Drakensang. They're already in the game, so I have no problem with it.

 

I must say that I also liked Drakensang. For those who did not play it: When you got hit and you took more damage than your constitution value, you must make a saving throw with your self control value (not sure about the english name, I played in german) and if it failed you got a wound which lowered all your stats. Getting more than 4 wounds killed you in any case.

 

So if I liked this, why am I against the changes in PoE2. Well, it is not the case that I hate injuries in principle. Its just that I like health/endurance system from PoE1 and I see no reason to remove it.

 

So lets make a compromise: We take the health/endurance system and also have injuries (Which is actually the system of PoE1)

[Boeroer]

It's the same mechanic as in the pen & paper version (The Dark Eye - germany's most popular RPG). I think it's a very good solution for p&p and it gives CON some meaning, but I don't know if I'd like that in PoE.

[NegativeEdge]

 

 

First of all I hate having characters knocked out. It feels like failure to me. I almost always reload when it happens.

 

 

 

What's wrong with failure? failure is interesting and can lead to new emergent and unique situations. 

I love jagged alliance 2 mainly because of its combat but one of my fondest memories was tackling a difficult mission without a star merc who took another contract because I hesitated to re-up him. Failure on my part sure, and I really wanted him on the mission but my ragtag scrubs pulled it off and turned something routine into an under-dog triumph of bigly proportions.

 

Failure and defeat make for superb drama and excitement, success stretched any longer than momentary is tedious - Veni, Vidi, Vici. Now what Julius, nice cup of tea? yawn.

[George_Truman]

^ I usually like to save after a fight where I sustain unnecessary injuries then go back and see if I can beat it without knockouts/phat health loss to make myself feel better.

[injurai]

Yeah, I don't think the health system needed to be changed. The injury system doesn't really give me much confidence. Going for a continuous system to a discrete and further low-granularity system doesn't sound all that great to me. It will actually limit how they can balance the injury system which will force changes to it to be made to the mechanics that interface it, not the system itself.

 

It's one the one system I'm not sure I want to "wait and see" how it plays out first.

[tinysalamander]

 

The injury system worked fine in Drakensang. They're already in the game, so I have no problem with it.

 

I must say that I also liked Drakensang. For those who did not play it: When you got hit and you took more damage than your constitution value, you must make a saving throw with your self control value (not sure about the english name, I played in german) and if it failed you got a wound which lowered all your stats.

 

Sounds like spiral of death.

[draego]

 

But you can go on forever if you don't go down. No depleting health bar means no need to rest. That makes healing abilities/spells a lot more powerful than in PoE1. I think this new system will be a whole lot easier to abuse. Stack a lot of healing and healing bonuses and you won't need to rest because of health/injury issues.

Are we sure that an NPC falling in combat is a requirement to gain an injury? I only ask because it isn't that way in Tyranny. You only had to lose a good bit of health. That said, it not requiring falling in combat made it a bit muddled and confusing in tyranny. So, I hope it does require losing all health to gain the injury status.

 

Anyway... I like the old system, but I am neither here nor there about the change. I personally think an injury system will likely be just as confusing to the players that had issue with the health/endurance system. I guess we will see.

 

 

I am pretty sure i heard Josh in one of the streams that the injury system is not like Tyranny. I believe you have to be knocked out to get an injury unlike Tyranny. I also felt like a failure when multiple characters got knocked out with injuries in POE1 and i would either reload or rest but i would rarely play with them unless i thought the injuries were not to consequential. But i would push my luck with the health bar going down. There were a few close calls with my health below my endurance during fights. It helped me ration my camping supplying in a fun way. Not sure how POE2 will feel. I have got to shake the perfectionist\completionist play through. It seems like i would enjoy the game more if it stopped caring about that stuff. 

Edited March 4, 2017 by draego

[Mygaffer]

 

But you can go on forever if you don't go down. No depleting health bar means no need to rest. That makes healing abilities/spells a lot more powerful than in PoE1. I think this new system will be a whole lot easier to abuse. Stack a lot of healing and healing bonuses and you won't need to rest because of health/injury issues.

Are we sure that an NPC falling in combat is a requirement to gain an injury? I only ask because it isn't that way in Tyranny. You only had to lose a good bit of health. That said, it not requiring falling in combat made it a bit muddled and confusing in tyranny. So, I hope it does require losing all health to gain the injury status.

 

Anyway... I like the old system, but I am neither here nor there about the change. I personally think an injury system will likely be just as confusing to the players that had issue with the health/endurance system. I guess we will see.

 

Josh said in one of the livestreams that  yes, the new injury system would require characters to be knocked out a lot more often. The good thing is that he said they haven't committed to this system, it is just something they are playing with.

 

 

 

 

First of all I hate having characters knocked out. It feels like failure to me. I almost always reload when it happens.

 

 

 

What's wrong with failure? failure is interesting and can lead to new emergent and unique situations. 

I love jagged alliance 2 mainly because of its combat but one of my fondest memories was tackling a difficult mission without a star merc who took another contract because I hesitated to re-up him. Failure on my part sure, and I really wanted him on the mission but my ragtag scrubs pulled it off and turned something routine into an under-dog triumph of bigly proportions.

 

Failure and defeat make for superb drama and excitement, success stretched any longer than momentary is tedious - Veni, Vidi, Vici. Now what Julius, nice cup of tea? yawn.

 

Well it's not actually a failure state. Like in Torment when you fail an attempt at an action it can still result in an interesting outcome. So I'll continue with it. A knockout injury isn't actually a failure in game, you just win the fight with your other characters and continue with the injuries. It feels like a failure, at least for a lot of players, which is where the design flaw comes in. In the Torment system I mentioned failing your skill attempt or conversation attempt doesn't actually feel like a failure because you are still seeing an interesting outcome to your actions.

 

I never understand why powergamers play rpgs. There are other games that do this well. Diablo-likes for instance. Anyhow, I really liked health/endurance system and the injury system. I have to have an excuse to rest (except re-charge spells - oh, I hated that one!) since the game uses rest mechanic.

I don't want them to get rid of the existing injury system, I think it can give you an interesting choice to make when you just eek out a win in a tough fight, do you want to reload and try to get less knockout injuries, knowing it is a really tough fight, do you want to use one of your camping supplies to rest, or do you want to push through a few more encounters first.

What I don't want is for that to become the health system, when I really like the endurance/health system and the "this encounter/multiple encounter" management of health it brings.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Mygaffer

[lettiv]

Don't forget that nothing's set in stone yet.

Considering that both Josh Sawyer and Bobby Null have confirmed their preference for how health and endurance were implemented in POE we might just end up with the same system in Deadfire.

 

Why would they change it anyway? It's working as intended.

At least that's how I see it.

Edited March 4, 2017 by lettiv

[Madscientist]

 

 

The injury system worked fine in Drakensang. They're already in the game, so I have no problem with it.

 

I must say that I also liked Drakensang. For those who did not play it: When you got hit and you took more damage than your constitution value, you must make a saving throw with your self control value (not sure about the english name, I played in german) and if it failed you got a wound which lowered all your stats.

 

Sounds like spiral of death.

 

 

It is. That means if you get a wound you should heal it ASAP or soon you will have more wounds.

It means you should always have a healing spell and some herbs ready when you go to combat. Makes sense to me.

 

This is a good way to kill ogres or other enemies with lots of HP but little defense.

And just in case: No, I do not suggest adding this system to PoE2.

[tinysalamander]

 

 

 Sounds like spiral of death.

 

 

It is. That means if you get a wound you should heal it ASAP or soon you will have more wounds.

It means you should always have a healing spell and some herbs ready when you go to combat. Makes sense to me.

 

This is a good way to kill ogres or other enemies with lots of HP but little defense.

And just in case: No, I do not suggest adding this system to PoE2.

 

 

I think it is bad design, personally. In computer-based games at the very least. Those ogres wouldn’t mind getting wounds and die, that’s their role in this game, to appear fresh and to die. You, on the other hand, will have plenty chances to be caught in the spiral of death.

 

It also heavily penalizes those who aren’t good at the game in the first place while potentially doing nothing or not much at all to those who are good which seems countproductive in computer-based game to me. At least at this scale.

[Fardragon]

There is no way to design a "perfect" health system. The current PoE system aint broke, I wouldn't waste time trying to fix it.

 

 

In particular, I would not want to see a system based arround the idea of frequent face-planting.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Fardragon

[Ninjamestari]

I seriously don't understand what was wrong with the old, tried and true, "once your hitpoints drop to zero, you die" approach.