New health system - poll version

[Silent Winter]

By demand, figured I'd be the one to put this as a poll.

From the discussion in this thread - read for more info on the proposed health system which replaces separate health and endurance with an injuries system (3 injuries then you die) :

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91975-proposed-new-health-system-ie-the-one-time-ill-complain/

 

Secondly I would also really appreciate if someone would set up a poll where we can vote on the health/endurance system of PoE1.

 

Done

[Guest 4ward]

 

voted for 3rd option which i‘d like to be as in the IE games. A simple health system adds more incentive to heal during combat and the abilities of some creatures like disease/weakened in BG2 support this reactivity in combat additionally. It‘s important for me to break free from doing just damage in combat and the decision of healing and when to heal is an addition to combat IMO. An injury system doesn‘t add much except punishment while health/endurance offers less incentive to heal during combat.

[Wormerine]

voted for 3rd option which i‘d like to be as in the IE games. A simple health system adds more incentive to heal during combat and the abilities of some creatures like disease/weakened in BG2 support this reactivity in combat additionally. It‘s important for me to break free from doing just damage in combat and the decision of healing and when to heal is an addition to combat IMO. An injury system doesn‘t add much except punishment while health/endurance offers less incentive to heal during combat.

I disagree. I found IE games to encourage a lot of quickloading. Having a perma death, and one healthpool means you can dies within seconds. That means either adding option to resurect (which is a pain - either making death pointless, or annoying if you have to backtrack.) For me PoE found a sweet spot. Being knocked out mattered (injury upon being knocked out,) but even if a companion or two fell during the combat I could still continue on, but with a consequence of having an injury penalty, which I could remove but spending camping supplies. Also, endurance meant that in longer engagements you could just heal  your tanks' endurance infinitely, as they would run out of health eventually. Overall, I thought it was an elegant solution. Tyranny mechanic though felt weird to me. When I got injury in PoE I knew why, and I knew how I could have avoided it. In Tyranny you would just get them. It felt very artificial for me, and a bit annoying. I just don't see an advantage of using Tyranny's injury system. 

[Ninjamestari]

I've got a better idea. I call them "Hitpoints". These hitpoints represent the overall condition of a creature. When a creature is hit with spells or attacks or otherwise damaged, it loses these "hitpoints". Once the hitpoints drop to zero, the creature dies.

 

An amazing concept, don't you think? I wonder how no one has come up with such a brilliant system before ^^

[FlintlockJazz]

I've got a better idea. I call them "Hitpoints". These hitpoints represent the overall condition of a creature. When a creature is hit with spells or attacks or otherwise damaged, it loses these "hitpoints". Once the hitpoints drop to zero, the creature dies.

 

An amazing concept, don't you think? I wonder how no one has come up with such a brilliant system before ^^

Sorry but as Wormerine pointed out above the hit point system actually leads to more backtracking and reloading annoyances actually.  With the Endurance system I actually carry on playing the game, maybe stopping to rest at the most, whereas with hit point systems I either immediately reload or have to backtrack back to town for a resurrection (which is annoying lore-wise, especially if death is actually meant to mean something in the world).

[Quillon]

What about mushrooms? If a character eats a mushroom or 2 he/she'll be 2 KOs away from permadeath, every character will be able to eat 2 mushrooms max but second mushroom will only empower the character/give the character an ability based on his/her class/multiclass, 

 

Resting will only replenish a characters HP/endurance. Mushrooms will only replenish when resting in wilderness areas, also can be bought or found in brick walls/platforms.

 

aaaand damn it, I remembered it wrong, 1up mushrooms were different. Fuuuu

 

edit: Actually I wasn't wrong, just missed the 1ups so additionally there will be certain number of special soul bound mushrooms that can be found throughout the game which will act as back-up/will only kick in and consumed if there isn't any mushroom left in a character's metabolism. No limit per character, you'll be able to soul bound any number of mushrooms to any character. Long term strategy for you

Edited March 23, 2017 by Quillon

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

From what I understand the proposed systen for Deadfire is HP+Injuries. I like this system in a world where ressurrection is impossible personally, it's a nice balance to the lack of raise dead and better than the PoE1 system.

 

I'd also like HP to be independet of class, so a Barbarian with a con of 4 doesn't have a ****load more health than a Wizard with a con of 16.

[Ninjamestari]

 

I've got a better idea. I call them "Hitpoints". These hitpoints represent the overall condition of a creature. When a creature is hit with spells or attacks or otherwise damaged, it loses these "hitpoints". Once the hitpoints drop to zero, the creature dies.

 

An amazing concept, don't you think? I wonder how no one has come up with such a brilliant system before ^^

Sorry but as Wormerine pointed out above the hit point system actually leads to more backtracking and reloading annoyances actually.  With the Endurance system I actually carry on playing the game, maybe stopping to rest at the most, whereas with hit point systems I either immediately reload or have to backtrack back to town for a resurrection (which is annoying lore-wise, especially if death is actually meant to mean something in the world).

 

 

I don't know, I prefer the having to reload if a character dies over the 'you can let characters go down in a fight' approach quite a bit. Hitpoints only is quite a bit more demanding from the player and presents a far greater challenge. The endurance system on the other hand simply tries to be some weird compromise between characters being completely unable to die unless the entire party is wiped out. Pick either or, as when compared to simple inability to die concept, the endurance simply adds a lot of tedium, backtracking and annoyances.

 

You pick a way of thinking and you stick with it. If you can't stick with the line of thinking to the end, then the line of thinking obviously isn't a very functional one.

 

EDIT: my point is, neither the endurance system nor the wound system offer any meaningful consequences to being knocked down. When compared to simply having HP and characters not dying unless the entire party is wiped out, the endurance system is exactly the same with added tedium; backtracking and such. It adds no real value to the game. With HP only and getting to zero means a character dying, you actually have to play differently, as you can't simply let a character fall in battle, which leads to a completely different way of approaching combat. I understand that some people have grown fond of the endurance system and others like it simply because it was obsidian's brainchild, the system offers absolutely no value beyond that sentiment.

 

EDIT EDIT: what I mean is that, both the endurance and the wound system are 'pretend' - consequences. It's "let's pretend we're playing hardcore when we're really not". A system that is needlessly complicated just so the players can pretend that they're not playing a game without permanent death is just pure idiocy.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[Varana]

The Endurance system does offer additional value - that you can let a charcter go down in combat and still carry on. It has tangible effects on how you approach a battle, a dungeon, and exploration. It adds an additional layer of strategic resource management. (Sorry. )

Yes, you go into combat differently. It reduces the weight of individual battles and lets you explore in a more continuous way, instead of treating every encounter as an al-or-nothing boss fight.

That is intentional. It actually leads to you playing the game differently - that is the point. You may disagree with the intention, but "people like it because Obsidian came up with the idea and it has absolutely no value beyond that" is ridiculous.

[Sedrefilos]

I like DA:O system best: survive the encounter or game over. Helth is then refilled. If any companion fell during combat, suffers injuries.

If not this, I prefer the Pillars 1 system over the new one proposed, but only by the sound of it. I must see it in action first. It might be better than the old one in the end.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[Ninjamestari]

The Endurance system does offer additional value - that you can let a charcter go down in combat and still carry on. It has tangible effects on how you approach a battle, a dungeon, and exploration. It adds an additional layer of strategic resource management. (Sorry. )

Yes, you go into combat differently. It reduces the weight of individual battles and lets you explore in a more continuous way, instead of treating every encounter as an al-or-nothing boss fight.

That is intentional. It actually leads to you playing the game differently - that is the point. You may disagree with the intention, but "people like it because Obsidian came up with the idea and it has absolutely no value beyond that" is ridiculous.

 

No it doesn't, it just adds the hassle of running back for more camping supplies. It's a pretend-layer, not a real one. The point is, either go for the KotOR approach of party members just getting back up, no added bull****, or go for the 0 HP and a character dies. Any compromise is just the former system pretending to be the latter. Unless you're going to restrict resting a lot, but they're not going to do that so there goes. In PoE you go to battle just like you would in a game without endurance and knockout only, as recharging the health bar happens with the press of a button. Sure you can pretend that it adds depth, but it doesn't.

 

You can't have a compromise with these things, as the very nature of the compromise undermines the benefits of both systems. Knockout only has the benefit of being hassle free, zero HP and dead has the benefit of being more challenging and forcing more meaningful combat approach. The endurance system doesn't have either of those benefits, neither does the wound system. If you want meaningful resource management, then you'll have to go down limiting resting and backtracking to inns, which isn't a bad idea, but also isn't going to happen.

[Wormerine]

EDIT EDIT: what I mean is that, both the endurance and the wound system are 'pretend' - consequences. It's "let's pretend we're playing hardcore when we're really not". A system that is needlessly complicated just so the players can pretend that they're not playing a game without permanent death is just pure idiocy.

 

 

Ok, I can't agree that injury + endurance/health system has no consequnce. It is a soft consequnce - we are not playing iron-man xcom campaign. We are playing a story driven game with a very finite amount of written companions. Naturally loosing them so easily means loosing an important chunk of the game. I don't mind reloading, if I fail. However, loosing a combat because my main character had a bad rool on a spell and died pretty much instantly (not so much in PoE but VERY common in BG) was stupid. Same with loosing a companion. 

 

The benefit of injuries in PoE: you played carelessly, you will start the next battle with disadvantage. It might be an unimportant debuff (like a debuff to constitution for my mage) or it might lower and important stat. Failure had different stages, and different punishments. Full party wipe was the most extreme, but if I got careless and got my DPS and spellcaster down, they would get weaker. That would be especially noticable, if a character was "revived" multiple times in one battle. Everytime, he would come back weaker.

 

I don't like Tyranny injury system, because I get punished without really knowing what I could do to avoid it. Getting a health debuff in the first encouter even though I wipe them out completely was annoying. 

[rjshae]

I enjoyed the injury system in W2, but I didn't like the long wait for the injuries to time out. For me, injuries add a level of gritty realism to an RPG. If they do implement it for PoE2, I would like to see a capability to remediate certain types of injuries. Like a magical cold pack for an twisted ankle, for example, or a steak for a bruised eye. Maybe a herbalistic approach?

[Ninjamestari]

A consequence that can be gotten rid of with a single click of a mouse isn't a consequence. If resting had some sort of meaningful limits, THEN the endurance system would add value to the game beyond just being a straight knocked out party members get up after the battle. 

 

The Benefit of injuries in PoE: you hover your mouse over the rest-button in your interface and click it. That's the extent of the consequences you suffer for being careless. This is the same system as just having party members jump up, but with added meaningless hassle. In essence you don't have the benefits of either of the extreme ends, but you have to suffer through the bull**** of both.

 

Oh, and the Tyranny system adds injuries every time you fall under a certain health percentage. If you want to avoid those injuries, you have to be super careful. Then again, a simple resting gets rid of those injuries free of charge so there's no real consequences beyond backtracking there. I don't really like the Tyranny system either, but that is a topic for a whole another conversation.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[Baron Pampa]

I believe that POTD is challenging enough do that most players have to be careful about camping supplies, or backtrack. If somebody is good enough to breeze through POTD, then it's time for self-imposed restrictions, e.g. postponing leveling...or dismissing companions after their first knockout. Nevertheless, system is meaningful for most players. Ninjamestari writes either about edge cases or lower difficulty levels

[Ninjamestari]

I believe that POTD is challenging enough do that most players have to be careful about camping supplies, or backtrack. If somebody is good enough to breeze through POTD, then it's time for self-imposed restrictions, e.g. postponing leveling...or dismissing companions after their first knockout. Nevertheless, system is meaningful for most players. Ninjamestari writes either about edge cases or lower difficulty levels

 

I thought we already established that backtracking is not a meaningful consequence, it's added tedium.

[Baltic]

 

I believe that POTD is challenging enough do that most players have to be careful about camping supplies, or backtrack. If somebody is good enough to breeze through POTD, then it's time for self-imposed restrictions, e.g. postponing leveling...or dismissing companions after their first knockout. Nevertheless, system is meaningful for most players. Ninjamestari writes either about edge cases or lower difficulty levels

 

 

I thought we already established that backtracking is not a meaningful consequence, it's added tedium.

It adds enough tedium that most players won't want to do and are effectively restricted by the limit. Most players will only leave if they really need to, allowing them to make mistakes. I'm not saying the system is perfect, I just don't think the majority of players will leave the dungeon until they've completed it.

[Ninjamestari]

 

It adds enough tedium that most players won't want to do and are effectively restricted by the limit. Most players will only leave if they really need to, allowing them to make mistakes. I'm not saying the system is perfect, I just don't think the majority of players will leave the dungeon until they've completed it.

 

 

Does it though? I hate to sound sceptical (who am I kidding, I'm always sceptical and I love it), but I really don't think your gut feeling on what 'most players' will and will not do is enough an indication on the subject. Especially when my own gut so disagrees with yours. I think that most players will indeed backtrack if necessary in order to avoid facing tough groups at less than full strength.

 

I believe that POTD is challenging enough do that most players have to be careful about camping supplies, or backtrack. If somebody is good enough to breeze through POTD, then it's time for self-imposed restrictions, e.g. postponing leveling...or dismissing companions after their first knockout. Nevertheless, system is meaningful for most players. Ninjamestari writes either about edge cases or lower difficulty levels

 

Again with the same fallacy. If we start talking facts, most people who bought the game didn't even complete the first act. Doesn't sound like the game was meaningful to them, and only about 10% have even completed the game. Statistics like this don't really paint the picture you're seeing, might I suggest that there's quite a bit more tedium in the game than most people are willing to handle. When statistics show patterns like this, it's quite difficult to take assumptions that "the system is meaningful to most players". Yeah, I know, the two issues aren't directly related, I'm merely pointing out a the fallacy of what you imagine to consist of 'most players'.

 

The thing most forum posters don't realize is that people who post on gaming forums are usually people who feel more passionately about the developers, they do not give an accurate sample population for any poll to be reliable. There is a certain level of mild 'fanboyism' in these forums, where people pick their sides in an argument through sentiment rather than reason. I'm not saying that's somehow inherently wrong, in fact it is unavoidable when you have passion for something, but it is something you have to realize and take into account when having an intellectual argument about the subject.

[Katarack21]

 

If we start talking facts, most people who bought the game didn't even complete the first act. Doesn't sound like the game was meaningful to them, and only about 10% have even completed the game. Statistics like this don't really paint the picture you're seeing, might I suggest that there's quite a bit more tedium in the game than most people are willing to handle.

Most people, most of the time, do not finish most games they purchase. This is a fact of the game industry; this is *normal*. That being a given, most people not finishing *this* game cannot be used to say anything about the game, as most people not finishing is normal and to be expected.

[Ninjamestari]

You might want to read the whole comment before responding, otherwise you might end up like you ended up now; quoting out of context.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[Katarack21]

You might want to assume that people who make a post know what they are posting and why, and are deliberately making a statement instead of just spouting random ****. That way you don't insult people by assuming their ****ing morons rather than answering very specific statements that they make regarding certain specific segments of your posts.

There is a difference between "quoting out of context" and "responding to this one point, because it is wrong."

[Baltic]

 

It adds enough tedium that most players won't want to do and are effectively restricted by llthe limit. Most players will only leave if they really need to, allowing them to make mistakes. I'm not saying the system is perfect, I just don't think the majority of players will leave the dungeon until they've completed it.

 

 

Does it though? I hate to sound sceptical (who am I kidding, I'm always sceptical and I love it), but I really don't think your gut feeling on what 'most players' will and will not do is enough an indication on the subject. Especially when my own gut so disagrees with yours. I think that most players will indeed backtrack if necessary in order to avoid facing tough groups at less than full strength.

 

True, most players will want to be fully rested for tough fights. But in most cases tough enough to need rests is probably only going to be the boss fight in the dungeon and maybe a few others, not enough to use up all camping supplies.

[Wormerine]

A consequence that can be gotten rid of with a single click of a mouse isn't a consequence. If resting had some sort of meaningful limits, THEN the endurance system would add value to the game beyond just being a straight knocked out party members get up after the battle. 

And that is why you carry a limited amount of camping supplies. You can replenish all your spells, all your health and remove all your injuries up to two times per dungeon without finding more, or backtracking to buy more. This way you are encouraged to play smart without roadblocking your way. It is there to make you engage with the game mechanics without breaking your balls whenever you make bad decision.

 

I really don't get your reasoning. That way you can complain on anything. Why do we have combat at all when we reload? I imagine devs decided that just killing off your favourite companions and your character and forcing you to restart is not something they want to do. Allowing you to fall constantly in battle and have no effect what so ever is not something they want either. I don't think you can do much else without redesigning entire genre. It is not darkest dungeon where all your adventurers are expandable. 

[Katarack21]

 

I imagine devs decided that just killing off your favourite companions and your character and forcing you to restart is not something they want to do. Allowing you to fall constantly in battle and have no effect what so ever is not something they want either.

There's a toggle to let the one happen, but not for the other. Tells you something about how Obsidian feels about this.

[Ninjamestari]

There is a difference between "quoting out of context" and "responding to this one point, because it is wrong."

Yes there is, and what you were doing is the former.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Ninjamestari