Sleep scumming.

[Varana]

Time limit on main quest - oh gods in hell, no.

 

---

 

I'm not quite sure what the original proposal is trying to accomplish. If I want to rest, I'm going to rest, easy as that.

If you throw random encounters at me like BG, I'm either going to try again until it's successful, or save/reload.

If there are debuffs for resting somewhere, I'm going to deal with them if they're not a real cost, or go back to where I don't get them if it's really necessary.

If you force me to wait until I can rest again, I'm either going to hit the Wait button until I can do it, or go make me a pot of tea while the game is running, cursing that dumb system all the way to the kitchen and back if there is no Wait button.

 

"Realism" is secondary. This is a game. Every part of it has to work as part of the game. How you do your rest system has nothing to do with being "realistic", and everything with decisions that the player has to make and how you want your game to flow and your abilities to work, and so on. You can write up some pseudo-realistic stuff later to justify it, if you're so inclined.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Varana

[eselle28]

And this whole discussion is probably why we have camping supplies and random attacks and other imperfect mechanisms, as clunky as they can be. People are all over the map on this issue, and a lot of the options that veer in one direction or the other are more elegant but alienate large portions of the player base.

[Sedrefilos]

Sleep scumming is the new save scumming?

Lots of scum playing rpgs you see...

[rjshae]

 

The BG1/2 rest mechanic is a total kludge anyway. Realistically, you'd need several weeks to rest up following a brutal combat, and you'd want to do that somewhere reasonably safe.

 

This is how the BGs work, though: the natural recovery rate of a character without superhuman constitution is minimal. It just happens that the setting has lots of readily available magical healing, so 1-2 rests worth of spells will fix whatever ails you (up to and including death once you unlock those spells).

 

The IE games had their own sleep restriction though in the form of frequent random encounters when you tried to rest in hazardous areas. Your choice was to backtrack to a safe location, or keep reloading until you had a successful sleep cycle. Either way it penalized players who slept after each battle. I'd argue that camping supplies are a less cumbersome substitute that create more interesting choices for the players.

[Katarack21]

That mechanism also led to the phenomenon of sleep grinding.

[anameforobsidian]

Camp supplies beat the **** out of random encounters, and time limits take the fun out of open-world games.  I really think it's a fairly elegant solution.  The only problem I see with them is the dissonance between stash and camp supply mechanics.  That could be better solved by having a Torchlight 2 style animal messenger, or limiting stash access to certain times.

[Katarack21]

Stash acess limitations are a toggle. Limit them if you want.

[Ninjamestari]

And this whole discussion is probably why we have camping supplies and random attacks and other imperfect mechanisms, as clunky as they can be. People are all over the map on this issue, and a lot of the options that veer in one direction or the other are more elegant but alienate large portions of the player base.

 

Which is precisely why you should pick your audience instead of trying to make a compromise that doesn't satisfy anyone. Eloquent solutions grow on people, even the naysayers, and most people don't know what they want before they get it. People who want strategic resource management are people who have experienced the excitement and the sensations involved with it. Limited resources generate stronger emotions and feelings, unlimited resources merely shield you from those feelings. You can only make a true universally praised masterpiece if you go in all the way and give a finger to all the naysayers; the more you try to satisfy everyone the less you can satisfy anyone.

[Duskshift]

 

 

The BG1/2 rest mechanic is a total kludge anyway. Realistically, you'd need several weeks to rest up following a brutal combat, and you'd want to do that somewhere reasonably safe.

 

This is how the BGs work, though: the natural recovery rate of a character without superhuman constitution is minimal. It just happens that the setting has lots of readily available magical healing, so 1-2 rests worth of spells will fix whatever ails you (up to and including death once you unlock those spells).

 

The IE games had their own sleep restriction though in the form of frequent random encounters when you tried to rest in hazardous areas. Your choice was to backtrack to a safe location, or keep reloading until you had a successful sleep cycle. Either way it penalized players who slept after each battle. I'd argue that camping supplies are a less cumbersome substitute that create more interesting choices for the players.

 

Which begs the question of why the supplied camping system is not thought through.

 

I mean i am fine with needing supplies to rest, but why make those available only to vendors and also why not offer different supply tiers that you can also craft yourself? Change the flat fatigue reduction and healing to be a chance that is getting progressively better with supply quality and you have a solid system right there...

 

It would be a lot more sensible also, if this would have been integrated with the food system. I'd rather go through great lenghts (in terms of ingredients / gold used) to make a 'dragon slaying resting supply' for example, than just buying camping supplys and dragon meat(plus crafting the food and eating it after resting) at a vendor.

 

I understand that there needs to be some penality. But that the penalizing itself is done via the 'supply management' of camping supplys (how many do i have and where can i buy them..) is kind of .. well .. not the best solution.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Duskshift

[Gfted1]

"Sleeping" means different things for different classes. Where a Wizard will be completely out of spells (their primary function) after a few battles and must resort to the thrilling game of Returning Frost Dart, a melee class can utilize their primary ability (punching stuff) for an unlimited amount of times. I bet if melee weapons broke every 3-4 battles, suddenly "resting" wouldn't be a problem.

[Wormerine]

I did like how PoE handled resting. I thought it made sense, was thematically appropriate, and well... worked. There is one good thing, which comes from rests - there is an element of resource management. I do remember sleep scumming when I played BG back in the day. With pillars I found balance quite well done. I never run out of supplies (even though I never played below hard/PotD), however limitation on rests allowed did force me to think more carefully about what I am doing. Not overcasting if I don't need to. I liked it. It wasn't an issue, but it did encourage thinking, befoe activating limited use abilities. More involved mechanic might be welcome, but not necessary needed in my humble opinion.

[Varana]

Not every game is made better by "strategic resource management". Not even games where strategic resource management is an important part of gameplay in other areas.

You cannot just tack on systems and gameplay mechanics until you can't think of any anymore. If an elaborate resource management for resting takes away focus from where you want the focus of the game to be, it should be scrapped.

Complicated resting mechanics are a core aspect of a survival game. PoE isn't one. In PoE, resting is a subsystem of encounter balance and dungeon design. Making it too time- and attention-consuming blurs the focus and hurts its purpose in the context of the game as a whole.

Adding complexity doesn't necessarily add depth. Often, it just adds bloat.

 

---

Crafting supplies yourself doesn't solve the problem in any way. If you want to make supplies worth the effort, you've got to tightly control distribution of the necessary resources, like they did with the components for highest tier crafting. Which means that there isn't much difference between being able to find supply crafting resources only in certain spots and in a certain amount, or just distributing the traders that sell camping supplies as you like it.

[kensu]

"Sleeping" means different things for different classes. Where a Wizard will be completely out of spells (their primary function) after a few battles and must resort to the thrilling game of Returning Frost Dart, a melee class can utilize their primary ability (punching stuff) for an unlimited amount of times. I bet if melee weapons broke every 3-4 battles, suddenly "resting" wouldn't be a problem.

 

Careful there, you're teetering on the verge of the  "non-regenerating, regimented action points" system of Tides of Numenera.

[Gfted1]

Careful there, you're teetering on the verge of the  "non-regenerating, regimented action points" system of Tides of Numenera.

Hehe, I'm not familiar with that system.

 

Its just weird to me that people go out of the way to hamstring casters under three layers, two of which are caster specific, that other classes don't have to deal with: "You have a finite amount of casts, and you shouldn't be able to replenish them whenever you want/need, and it shall cost you a resource (that for some reason is limited in carrying).

[Duskshift]

... [stuff] ...

Very true - i stand corrected. Replacing tedious with tedious doesn't really make sense. But then again would the system - if transfered it in the current state to Deadfire - even make any sense at all? From what i can tell the amount of per encouter abilities will only increase in Deadfire (due to level limit, multiclassing, ...). And all that is disregarding that some casters (hello cipher / chanter) don't have the need to replenish their spells too.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Duskshift

[MountainTiger]

 

Careful there, you're teetering on the verge of the  "non-regenerating, regimented action points" system of Tides of Numenera.

Hehe, I'm not familiar with that system.

 

Its just weird to me that people go out of the way to hamstring casters under three layers, two of which are caster specific, that other classes don't have to deal with: "You have a finite amount of casts, and you shouldn't be able to replenish them whenever you want/need, and it shall cost you a resource (that for some reason is limited in carrying).

 

The reward is that you get more powerful and versatile abilities. If casters can regenerate their abilities with the same ease as other classes, they need to be radically powered down.

[rjshae]

 

Hehe, I'm not familiar with that system.The reward is that you get more powerful and versatile abilities. If casters can regenerate their abilities with the same ease as other classes, they need to be radically powered down.

 

One of these days we'll see a cRPG based on Ars Magica and then all those mage junkies can go hog wild...

[PugPug]

- If the player sleeps more than a given percentage of a day (for instance if they deplete their fatigue intentionally using booze or something so they can sleep again), they'll end up getting infected bedsores, which they'll need a doctor to treat.

 

It takes much longer than a day to develop bedsores, and the typical movement during sleep prevents them. It only happens to people who can't move, and even then nurses can mitigate or prevent them.

[Guest Blutwurstritter]

I guess i'm in the minority but i like time limits and always thought it is severely underused especially in games with resting mechanics. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 had quests with time limits, which worked out well. I like time limits since it is a "hard" resource which you can't bypass and actually forces you to adapt. I am not arguing for time limits in Pillars since i don't think they would enhance the game as it is and resource management is only a very minor aspect of the game. 

The resting mechanic in Baldur's Gate was mostly pointless since it could in almost every case be bypassed either by save scumming or backtracking. Pillars does it better to a degree since it stops save scumming. The biggest problem in my opinion is the Vancian casting system which requires resting. I assume that this was also the reason why you could almost everywhere sleep in the infinity engine games.

Overall the current system is no true resource management since you can always bypass it, neither does it add tactical depth since you can always use all spells in your spell book like a sorcerer, in Pillars. This tactical aspect was actually better in the infinity engine games since you had atleast to pick a multiset of spells for non sorcerers, limiting your access to spells in an ongoing combat. It would have made much more sense with resting supplies to keep this part of the casting system as it actually had some impact especially at lower levels.

At the current state i feel like it is only part of the game since it was promoted as game resembling the infinity games, although it doesn't contribute much to the gameplay.

[rjshae]

I guess i'm in the minority but i like time limits and always thought it is severely underused especially in games with resting mechanics. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 had quests with time limits, which worked out well. I like time limits since it is a "hard" resource which you can't bypass and actually forces you to adapt. I am not arguing for time limits in Pillars since i don't think they would enhance the game as it is and resource management is only a very minor aspect of the game.

 

Time limits are the enemy of exploration. It just takes away an important element of the game, as I always feel like I have to blow through the plot without looking around. FO1 felt like that -- I couldn't just go randomly off somewhere, but had to constantly stay on mission. For me that ruined the experience, so I prefer to play it with the mod version that eliminates the time limit.

 

They could add time limits as a game option, with a default of off, but then they would need to include failure consequences.

[rjshae]

Sleep scumming is a nuisance; I have to thoroughly wash my face in the morning in order to flush out all the little bits stuck to the eye lashes...   

[Varana]

I mean, time limits can make sense if they are used very sparingly, in specific circumstances, and are clearly communicated. But for the main part of a game like PoE, I think they'd be a very bad idea.

 

As for resting, I think that the system in TTON (only specific places where you can rest, and you have to pay money to do so) wasn't that bad, in theory. But that is specific to that particular game where you basically can't get stuck in a fight, and you need the same resources (your stat pools) not only for combat but also during dialogue and various interactions with the world, and you don't really die except in a few situations. (The idea basically defeated itself by introducing free resting in the more important areas, and the usual CRPG problem of having truckloads of money in the end, anyway.) It wouldn't really work for PoE.

[eselle28]

 

I guess i'm in the minority but i like time limits and always thought it is severely underused especially in games with resting mechanics. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 had quests with time limits, which worked out well. I like time limits since it is a "hard" resource which you can't bypass and actually forces you to adapt. I am not arguing for time limits in Pillars since i don't think they would enhance the game as it is and resource management is only a very minor aspect of the game.

Time limits are the enemy of exploration. It just takes away an important element of the game, as I always feel like I have to blow through the plot without looking around. FO1 felt like that -- I couldn't just go randomly off somewhere, but had to constantly stay on mission. For me that ruined the experience, so I prefer to play it with the mod version that eliminates the time limit.

 

They could add time limits as a game option, with a default of off, but then they would need to include failure consequences.

.

 

Time limits are also pretty brutal for gamers who aren't able to finish their first time through the game in a weeklong binge. I know it's more realistic when a character has to be on their toes at all times, but that does meet up with the reality of human gamers who have exams or business trips or sick kids.

 

I don't mind time limits for a side quest or two, if they're explicit, but for the main path that's just punishing - especially since it wouldn't be clear how many saves back a player would need to go.

Edited March 22, 2017 by eselle28

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

"Sleeping" means different things for different classes. Where a Wizard will be completely out of spells (their primary function) after a few battles and must resort to the thrilling game of Returning Frost Dart, a melee class can utilize their primary ability (punching stuff) for an unlimited amount of times. I bet if melee weapons broke every 3-4 battles, suddenly "resting" wouldn't be a problem.

Wizard abilities are going to be per encounter in PoE2 so that's a moot point.

[Gfted1]

Wizard abilities are going to be per encounter in PoE2 so that's a moot point.

Well in that case, those meatshields need to stop resting so often to recharge that Clear Out ability.