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

[lettiv]

 

 

I'm honestly glad that their getting rid of that crappy convoluted system that was in PoE.  Just stick with one health bar like in other games please.

 

No. The health / endurance split was one of the best aspects of PoE's mechanics and added a lot of strategic depth to encounters.

 

 

PoE's battledidn't last long enough for the endurance system to even matter.

 

Yeah, right:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pncy7q5ABEE

[FlintlockJazz]

 

 

 

Put me down as someone who'd prefer the Health/Endurance system of PoE over the new proposed system.

You have my sword...

And my axe...

 

 

Really? Cause I checked around and I couldn't find an axe or sword anywhere in my apartment.

 

You did find my staff though right?  The one with the knobbly bit on the end?

[JerekKruger]

You did find my staff though right?  The one with the knobbly bit on the end?

 

Oh I always know where to find your staff of strength

[FlintlockJazz]

 

You did find my staff though right?  The one with the knobbly bit on the end?

 

Oh I always know where to find your staff of strength

 

Well I do wave it around lots.

[Slapstick87]

It really boggles my mind that they stumbled onto (well... 'worked really hard to design' is probably more accurate) a formula and combination of game mechanics that worked really well, so well in fact that the game was highly successful and beloved, and the devs then go "Right! Obviously we need to change all that!". It works just fine, and the extra layer of strategy/considerations you need to make adds some complexity to interact with. 

 

If it works, don't fix it.Change for the sake of change isn't necessarily bound to be good.

[injurai]

Has Obsidian made any acknowledgement of this concern of the communities. I know for the party size it's basically a "we're set on that decision" sort of thing.

 

But the health change seems more like a response to some minor criticism on PoE1, that the team thought they'd try to address. Less of something they really have their hearts set on. Or maybe I'm mistaken in seeing it that way. Maybe it's one of those things that is still too early for them to nail down, so I can wait on their word. But, I'd hate for this to be a sort of mechanic that needs to be sorted out early, then turn out to be a step back from what we had. What we had was great, really almost optimific in my opinion.

[Baltic]

Has Obsidian made any acknowledgement of this concern of the communities. I know for the party size it's basically a "we're set on that decision" sort of thing.

 

But the health change seems more like a response to some minor criticism on PoE1, that the team thought they'd try to address. Less of something they really have their hearts set on. Or maybe I'm mistaken in seeing it that way. Maybe it's one of those things that is still too early for them to nail down, so I can wait on their word. But, I'd hate for this to be a sort of mechanic that needs to be sorted out early, then turn out to be a step back from what we had. What we had was great, really almost optimific in my opinion.

Don't know if he had any response specifically in regards to criticism but when talking about it they've said they're 'experimenting' with the new system so if doesn't work they'll probably change it back.

[JerekKruger]

Hopefully. Not only do I like the Health/Endurance system, the new system sounds less enjoyable than a traditional health system to me.

[dukeisaac]

 

Has Obsidian made any acknowledgement of this concern of the communities. I know for the party size it's basically a "we're set on that decision" sort of thing.

 

But the health change seems more like a response to some minor criticism on PoE1, that the team thought they'd try to address. Less of something they really have their hearts set on. Or maybe I'm mistaken in seeing it that way. Maybe it's one of those things that is still too early for them to nail down, so I can wait on their word. But, I'd hate for this to be a sort of mechanic that needs to be sorted out early, then turn out to be a step back from what we had. What we had was great, really almost optimific in my opinion.

Don't know if he had any response specifically in regards to criticism but when talking about it they've said they're 'experimenting' with the new system so if doesn't work they'll probably change it back.

 

Josh Sawyer and Bobby Null both said in the 3rd Twitch Q&A that they preferred the POE1 health-endurance split. Presumably, if we keep voicing our preference for this mechanic, we will win the day.

 

Also, there appears to be another Q&A tonight, so it might be a good question for someone to ask (not me, since I'll be in class)

[anameforobsidian]

I too thought the health / endurance system worked really well.  I pushed my characters harder than I had in any other RPG.

[draego]

Yep i enjoyed the health system as well. It did the job of keeping me going before resting. 

[dragubaba]

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.

 

This. The system as it is in PoE is near perfect to handle short/long period survivability. Immediately when I heard him saying something about some people being confuced how the endurance/health system works I got a feeling that's not the actual reason they were considering changing it. Show me these people, I want to see if they have the ability to even start up a computer.

[Valmy]

I really liked the old health system. I thought it was pretty intuitive, I thought it was a great way to make sure you didn't just reload everytime somebody went down.

 

I would prefer that when somebody goes to zero health the consequences would be more severe than 'OMG YOU NEED TO REST RIGHT NOW' and then when you do everything is cool. But since that very rarely happened I cannot complain too much.

[JerekKruger]

Show me these people, I want to see if they have the ability to even start up a computer.

 

I suspect that "too complicated" is actually code for "I don't like change, but want to back up that preference with a further argument".

 

Anyway, in the Q&A stream last night Josh said that they're going to see how their new system holds up in dungeon environments and if it doesn't hold up well they'll change it. He also said that he liked the health/endurance system, so fingers crossed.

[dragubaba]

 

Show me these people, I want to see if they have the ability to even start up a computer.

 

I suspect that "too complicated" is actually code for "I don't like change, but want to back up that preference with a further argument".

 

Anyway, in the Q&A stream last night Josh said that they're going to see how their new system holds up in dungeon environments and if it doesn't hold up well they'll change it. He also said that he liked the health/endurance system, so fingers crossed.

 

You're right, I didn't consider that. But I truly hope they also actually read this forum. Josh seems to spend a lot of time at SA.

[JerekKruger]

You're right, I didn't consider that. But I truly hope they also actually read this forum. Josh seems to spend a lot of time at SA.

 

I am sure they do, they just don't post very often. If forced to take a guess as to why that is I'd say that, strangely, a developers own forums are like a minefield for them, and a developer has to be quite careful what they post.

[Guest 4ward]

 

i‘m not ashamed to admit i did have difficulties with the health/endurance split. For me it wasn‘t that easy to understand when was the right time to rest – which in part is also a fault of not being able to heal as easily as i could in BG2. I do applaud the effort from Sawyer&team to try out the more simple system. IMO it‘ll be a hell of a job to do it right and they might return to their health/endurance thing in the end, but i respect that they‘re willing to try. Drakensang was horrible for me, but BG2 had some interesting things like level drain (vampires) or disease/weakness (mummies, slimes) going on which IMO does add to reactivity in combat.

[rjshae]

To me, the PoE healing system worked well to train the player in how far to proceed into a dungeon before restocking. Over time it tended to incentivize continuing until you were almost out of supplies before returning to the Inn, especially when you found  extra camp supplies in containers. (It would have been nice if the resupply activity had actually meant something besides just a restock.) I'm not sure what injuries added, other than providing a little color and increasing the incentive to rest.

[IamNOOB]

I have played different RPGs and I will tell you this.
There are 4 common ways to manage health in RPGs:
1. rely mostly on potion abuse and ability spam to heal characters - I played dragon age like this.
2. use high life steal to stay alive if you are a melee character OR alternatively do not get hit at all like bow amazons did in Diablo 2 or life steal barbs.......

3. the mass effect system where you regen fully [the shield I mean] if you do not get hit at all for several seconds.
4. looking at HP points but in fact relying on armor more + high resistances cause it matters how much dmg you reduce.

Now in PoE we got a system than is a bit different. It uses Endurance as a second type of health which is like the common health but not exactly, so this is a better system for me.
It is kind of original to have such a system as it says: OK, we want players to be smart and to follow a playstyle where they can allow a certain amount of max damage, i.e. not losing more than 90% of your endurance in a battle. Such thinking means you have to take precautions and use combinations of spells from different classes. It forces you to be smarter, otherwise you rest all the time which sucks. I do not see a logical reason to change a system which works so well. PoE uses the 4. option - you mostly care about deflection and the other types of def, having in mind you can waste some endurance points BUT NOT ALL OF THEM IN A SINGLE FIGHT. I think it is a great system.
I always had the feeling that healing spells are kind of weak in this game and this is OK. I also think that using mostrly life steal is also not cool, like an agility crit based hero in dota could heal most a lot of HP in a single crit or a series of fast hits.


WE GOT A GREAT HEALTH SYSTEM NOW. Why change it ?
Injuries are injuries, they make the game more realistic and I like them as they are presented right now.
 

[Hertzila]

I think the big reason people would like to go back to a single-pool health system is because the dual-pool system feels less elegant and beginner-friendly. Something about a very simple and elegant solution just satisfies people, even if the solution doesn't work all that well. Couple that with people being used to single-pool systems and it's easy to see why people want to change it, despite it working great. While beginner-unfriendliness is an issue, it's nowhere big enough to scrap the system.

 

The dual-pool system means that short-term encounter and long-term strategic management have dedicated health pools rather than the same one and that helps with encounter and level design. There are consequences to playing poorly or hoarding resources for other encounters since you can't restore health resource-free and every point lost sticks with you. On the other hand, you start every encounter with max endurance (assuming health allows for it), so encounter design can always assume you to have some resources going for you.

 

It also fixes a lot of non-mechanical oddities and edge cases. While the potion beer cap and constant healer massages are potentially fun health management approaches if the rest of the mechanics support them, it has always struck me as odd how a guy with a gaping cannonball wound in their stomach can be just peachy with a refreshing sip of elixir or a good clerical neck rub. How is it that the best way to kill a dragon is to either have a very long straw or to eat a lot of potatoes constantly? Moreover if they do lose their (encounter) health, in PoE they'd simply fall unconscious and potentially get badly injured before some medical treatment. In single-pool health systems, they would need a proper resurrection spell or item and that is always too easy, considering how big that ability would be. JRPGs get hit by this the worst; I think anyone who has played a single one has made the complaint of "Why is that guy now suddenly dead when I have about 90 resurrection doodads I could easily use?"

 

The initial confusion and misunderstanding is a necessary evil for a system that works better and has more logic in-universe and I firmly believe they could minimize that with a more thorough tutorial, rather than a little side explanation box. After the system clicks, it works better for the rest of the game.

The injury-only system has the problem of only having consequences if one of the PCs goes down, whereas a full-on health meter allows more depth since a poorly played or a resource-starved encounter will reduce the player's health more than a well played or nuked one. With just injuries, as long as nobody went down, the results are the same and that's a sad reduction of depth.

 

 

As a barely related thing: If you've played Secret Hitler, you might have been confused and wanted to change the mostly redundant Secret Role and Party Membership cards to a solution that doesn't use two seemingly redundant cards. It's only after it clicks that it makes sense and even after that you might want to change it. I think what we are seeing here is the same thing and the end result will hopefully be the same: the current, initially confusing system will prevail, simply because it plays better, despite lots of people offering alternate solutions or asking it to be changed. Here's a post by one of Secret Hitler's devs that explains the design process of their particular confusing system.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Hertzila

[IamNOOB]

Truth is it is not possible to make all gamers happy with a solution. It is better to keep a system than change it, cause changes might lead to other problems. Not to mention my Diablo 3 experience - changes and patching all the time and still people cry non-stop. All the time in every game someone will cry about something.

[injurai]

i‘m not ashamed to admit i did have difficulties with the health/endurance split. For me it wasn‘t that easy to understand when was the right time to rest – which in part is also a fault of not being able to heal as easily as i could in BG2. I do applaud the effort from Sawyer&team to try out the more simple system. IMO it‘ll be a hell of a job to do it right and they might return to their health/endurance thing in the end, but i respect that they‘re willing to try. Drakensang was horrible for me, but BG2 had some interesting things like level drain (vampires) or disease/weakness (mummies, slimes) going on which IMO does add to reactivity in combat.

 

You rest when the bars that don't refill out of combat get concerning low on 1 or more of your party. Or when you have exhausted daily casts. Simple enough.

[FlintlockJazz]

OP should have added a poll, then we could have all voted, seen how many prefer which system, then spent twelve pages debating the interpretation of the poll results, whether forums are representative of the players of a game overall, whether the options gave fair options or split groups up, poll creator's obvious biases influencing the poll options, etc.

Edited March 15, 2017 by FlintlockJazz

[Abel]

Sorry to ask a dumb question. But i started reading these Deadfire fora only yesterday.  You're all talking about a new health system i don't know anything about, although i read every single update on fig. I don't seem to find anything on the announcements forum either. Is there something i missed? Since i had several problems with the health system in PoE 1, i would be really interested to learn more about this idea of Josh.

 

Any idea where i should look for these informations please?

Edited March 19, 2017 by Abel

[Hertzila]

The Q&A streams from Obsidian's Twitch channel might be your best bet. I remember reading the information too, though I forget where.

 

Cliff notes version: They are toying with replacing the long-term health pool with a simpler injury system, where if your guy gets knocked out, they will gain an injury and having 3+ injuries when knocked out will kill / maim the guy. The regenerating per-encounter endurance will stay.

Most of us here are voicing our concerns about it. In my case, the injury system seems too discrete and lacking in depth compared to Pillars' health pool.