Remove Restrictions and let this game breath

[Valci]

 

How does it change tactics? In both Pillars and Baldurs Gate after the battle you end up with full health. However in BG you have to spam rest button couple time before that happens. There is no limit to resting, there is no danger in resting (unless you are really low on health and some people could die in an ambush).

 

In Infinity Engine games it definitely didn't heal you after a fight and it didn't remove any negative effects until they ran out normally and things like level drain from vampires required you to see a cleric or temple.

 

In fact if you tried resting with poison and your character was low on life that character would probably die.  All the effects of fighting didn't just disappear because the fighting was done.

 

 

Because it requires so much "intelligence" to know to have an antidote, and elixir of health or a scroll of restoration (or their respective assorted divine spells) right?! It's a "tactical" thing right? ... hogwash. It's a chore... i did it cause i didnt have a choice but it doesnt add anything to the game. It was a time sink basically... In tabletop its fine cause its just a roll of the dice... Ironically, you waste more time in the computer game where you need to wait for each casting animation to finish. In PoE you have injuries as a consequence that are permanent debuffs of various sorts (until you rest, if you have camping supplies)... And it's good enough. No need to make more of a hassle of it in my opinion. Certain specific status effects that are hard to get rid of are fine if they make sense story wise and for me should be related to a quest (like when you were poisoned and had to get the 2 components of the antidote in BG1)... But for me, they shouldnt be stuff you have to deal with every second fight...

Edited October 20, 2017 by Valci

[daven]

 

 

How does it change tactics? In both Pillars and Baldurs Gate after the battle you end up with full health. However in BG you have to spam rest button couple time before that happens. There is no limit to resting, there is no danger in resting (unless you are really low on health and some people could die in an ambush).

 

In Infinity Engine games it definitely didn't heal you after a fight and it didn't remove any negative effects until they ran out normally and things like level drain from vampires required you to see a cleric or temple.

 

In fact if you tried resting with poison and your character was low on life that character would probably die.  All the effects of fighting didn't just disappear because the fighting was done.

 

 

Because it requires so much "intelligence" to know to have an antidote, and elixir of health or a scroll of restoration (or their respective assorted divine spells) right?! It's a "tactical" thing right? ... hogwash. It's a chore... i did it cause i didnt have a choice but it doesnt add anything to the game. It was a time sink basically... In tabletop its fine cause its just a roll of the dice... Ironically, you waste more time in the computer game where you need to wait for each casting animation to finish. In PoE you have injuries as a consequence that are permanent debuffs of various sorts (until you rest, if you have camping supplies)... And it's good enough. No need to make more of a hassle of it in my opinion. Certain specific status effects that are hard to get rid of are fine if they make sense story wise and for me should be related to a quest (like when you were poisoned and had to get the 2 components of the antidote in BG1)... But for me, they shouldnt be stuff you have to deal with every second fight...

 

I don't agree it requires any strategy or whatever to carry some antidotes, but I do think something has kind of been lost getting rid of these kind of things, Level drain, poison persisting after battle etc. It just makes the world feel a bit more dangerous, if you don't have the potion or a heal spell. (Is it heal? can't remember).

 

So... not sure overall. Yeah it's cut out some hassle but there is something lost.

[Sedrefilos]

 

 

 

How does it change tactics? In both Pillars and Baldurs Gate after the battle you end up with full health. However in BG you have to spam rest button couple time before that happens. There is no limit to resting, there is no danger in resting (unless you are really low on health and some people could die in an ambush).

 

In Infinity Engine games it definitely didn't heal you after a fight and it didn't remove any negative effects until they ran out normally and things like level drain from vampires required you to see a cleric or temple.

 

In fact if you tried resting with poison and your character was low on life that character would probably die.  All the effects of fighting didn't just disappear because the fighting was done.

 

 

Because it requires so much "intelligence" to know to have an antidote, and elixir of health or a scroll of restoration (or their respective assorted divine spells) right?! It's a "tactical" thing right? ... hogwash. It's a chore... i did it cause i didnt have a choice but it doesnt add anything to the game. It was a time sink basically... In tabletop its fine cause its just a roll of the dice... Ironically, you waste more time in the computer game where you need to wait for each casting animation to finish. In PoE you have injuries as a consequence that are permanent debuffs of various sorts (until you rest, if you have camping supplies)... And it's good enough. No need to make more of a hassle of it in my opinion. Certain specific status effects that are hard to get rid of are fine if they make sense story wise and for me should be related to a quest (like when you were poisoned and had to get the 2 components of the antidote in BG1)... But for me, they shouldnt be stuff you have to deal with every second fight...

 

I don't agree it requires any strategy or whatever to carry some antidotes, but I do think something has kind of been lost getting rid of these kind of things, Level drain, poison persisting after battle etc. It just makes the world feel a bit more dangerous, if you don't have the potion or a heal spell. (Is it heal? can't remember).

 

So... not sure overall. Yeah it's cut out some hassle but there is something lost.

 

Making encounters really challenging or making resources sparse can give you that feeling of the dangerous world out there without having you repeat clicks in a sequence every minute.

[Wormerine]

I don't agree it requires any strategy or whatever to carry some antidotes, but I do think something has kind of been lost getting rid of these kind of things, Level drain, poison persisting after battle etc. It just makes the world feel a bit more dangerous, if you don't have the potion or a heal spell. (Is it heal? can't remember).

 

 

 

 

 

So... not sure overall. Yeah it's cut out some hassle but there is something lost.

 

That is true there was something about those mechanics even though I wouldn't classify them as "good" or "engaging".

 

I think that while mechanicly they weren't very good, they added to a fantasy of adventuring. I did like that vampires would suck out your "lvls" and the rest mechanic, even though technically pointless, did reinforce the theme of adventuring and danger. I would categorize them in the same shelf and the need of buying and manufacturing ammo in original XCOM. It wasn't an engaging part of the game. Ammo was cheap and easy to buy/manufacture, you just had to do it. While it was a chore gameplay wise, and didn't add any strategic/economic depth it did play into a fantasy of running a military organization. You had make sure those were available or soldiers would be deployed with empty magazines. All of the moders remakes (Firaxis, Xenonauts) streamlined this element, and I while I believe they did the right thing, there is a part of the "simulation" that is missing.

 

Modern cRPGs tend to flat those "not good" mechanics out. I felt PoE had a fine balance, while games like Dragon Age went a bit too far. It is all a matter of taste & preferance. While I would like to see those really unique and dangerous enemies to return, and inventory management and pre-combat preperation to return I think it is possible to do it better than IE games did.

[daven]

 

I don't agree it requires any strategy or whatever to carry some antidotes, but I do think something has kind of been lost getting rid of these kind of things, Level drain, poison persisting after battle etc. It just makes the world feel a bit more dangerous, if you don't have the potion or a heal spell. (Is it heal? can't remember).

 

 

 

 

 

So... not sure overall. Yeah it's cut out some hassle but there is something lost.

 

That is true there was something about those mechanics even though I wouldn't classify them as "good" or "engaging".

 

I think that while mechanicly they weren't very good, they added to a fantasy of adventuring. I did like that vampires would suck out your "lvls" and the rest mechanic, even though technically pointless, did reinforce the theme of adventuring and danger. I would categorize them in the same shelf and the need of buying and manufacturing ammo in original XCOM. It wasn't an engaging part of the game. Ammo was cheap and easy to buy/manufacture, you just had to do it. While it was a chore gameplay wise, and didn't add any strategic/economic depth it did play into a fantasy of running a military organization. You had make sure those were available or soldiers would be deployed with empty magazines. All of the moders remakes (Firaxis, Xenonauts) streamlined this element, and I while I believe they did the right thing, there is a part of the "simulation" that is missing.

 

Modern cRPGs tend to flat those "not good" mechanics out. I felt PoE had a fine balance, while games like Dragon Age went a bit too far. It is all a matter of taste & preferance. While I would like to see those really unique and dangerous enemies to return, and inventory management and pre-combat preperation to return I think it is possible to do it better than IE games did.

 

Yes, basically this. I was having a hard time explaining what I meant.

[Goddard]

 

 

How does it change tactics? In both Pillars and Baldurs Gate after the battle you end up with full health. However in BG you have to spam rest button couple time before that happens. There is no limit to resting, there is no danger in resting (unless you are really low on health and some people could die in an ambush).

 

In Infinity Engine games it definitely didn't heal you after a fight and it didn't remove any negative effects until they ran out normally and things like level drain from vampires required you to see a cleric or temple.

 

In fact if you tried resting with poison and your character was low on life that character would probably die.  All the effects of fighting didn't just disappear because the fighting was done.

 

 

Because it requires so much "intelligence" to know to have an antidote, and elixir of health or a scroll of restoration (or their respective assorted divine spells) right?! It's a "tactical" thing right? ... hogwash. It's a chore... i did it cause i didnt have a choice but it doesnt add anything to the game. It was a time sink basically... In tabletop its fine cause its just a roll of the dice... Ironically, you waste more time in the computer game where you need to wait for each casting animation to finish. In PoE you have injuries as a consequence that are permanent debuffs of various sorts (until you rest, if you have camping supplies)... And it's good enough. No need to make more of a hassle of it in my opinion. Certain specific status effects that are hard to get rid of are fine if they make sense story wise and for me should be related to a quest (like when you were poisoned and had to get the 2 components of the antidote in BG1)... But for me, they shouldnt be stuff you have to deal with every second fight...

 

 

 

The variety of spell effects yes it was tactical.  If you had a full party those potions and scrolls didn't last long.  Spell effects in PoE are all short lived.  Petrification is a joke in PoE where as in Infinity Engine it was to be feared.

 

I have nothing to fear in this game besides not resting because my character will get chunked.  That is boring in my opinion and is very simplistic in comparison.

 

This game revives my character, removes all harmful effects and has no pre-combat tactics.  It is more Diablo style game play in my opinion.  Only thing they would have to do is remove resting and you couldn't tell much apart from the two beside the obviously better story line.

[Abel]

In, the end, Wormerine sumed it up pretty well i guess.

 

While pre combat tactics, managing ammos, healing after combat, getting rid of status effects and many other mechanics like these added something interesting to a RPG experience, the way you had to handle these elements, requiring many repetitive clicks, was far from optimal.

 

In the end, if there was a way to handle all these without this repetitive/time consuming aspect, things would be for the best. Am i wrong?

[Goddard]

In, the end, Wormerine sumed it up pretty well i guess.

 

While pre combat tactics, managing ammos, healing after combat, getting rid of status effects and many other mechanics like these added something interesting to a RPG experience, the way you had to handle these elements, requiring many repetitive clicks, was far from optimal.

 

In the end, if there was a way to handle all these without this repetitive/time consuming aspect, things would be for the best. Am i wrong?

Entire games are produced with these elements.  Some people like constant game play(Diablo) and story line(PoE), but also a lot of people like strategic management along with story line.  That isn't to say it was required in Infinity Engine games.  You could play the game without using a potion or scroll or even having a mage, cleric, or druid.  Although no healing potion is gonna be rough ;D

 

Personally I don't understand everyone's hatred for moving their left finger and clicking a mouse.  :D

 

It wasn't repetitive firstly.  Your character/party is constantly changing and growing.  You discover new items and face new enemies.  If you click the item in combat or before combat that doesn't change the fact you have to click the item.  What it does change though is many more complicated aspects of combat if you also think about the other choices that were made in conjunction with that dynamic.  Also often times you didn't want to pre-buff before combat because some wizards, or creatures would dispel your magic and your stuff would be wasted.  It added many more things you had to worry about.  I like stories as well guys and I listen to audio books, or read a book off the shelf, but when I play a game I want to do the work and thinking.

 

Games are time consuming.  Why is this a problem?  Why is organizing your inventory of cool items you have found bad?  Why is organizing tactics before a monster fight bad?  Why is thinking critically about tactics and items bad?  PoE adds enchanting so obviously people liked the idea of thinking critically about their characters strength and optimizing items.

 

I am not saying some games have boring aspects to them that may not be your favorite.  I am saying that in Infinity Engine games you could play how ever you liked.  You were not required to pre-buff, but you could.  You didn't get insta-healed and effects had real long term consequences.  

 

My wife and I love playing mystery games.  My daughter also doesn't really like fighting games.  Because of this should they remove having to fight in PoE?  I mean it is repetitive after all.  You fight monsters and they die and you progress right?  Why not just solve puzzles?  Or why not just watch a video game movie instead?  I am being slightly sarcastic so I apologize, but just trying to prove my point here.  Although watching video game movies can be fun :D I am sure that is not what we want. 

 

For myself, I want complex fighting systems and character effects and progression so I can have a unique character that can move through a larger world and develop a story based on my actions.  That is always what I though was really cool with Infinity Engine games.  Obviously some aspects cared less for your "evil" or "good" deeds, but still it was fun to get different responses and it added to the play styles.  Trying to play a fun character that was harder to play vs a character that was just the most powerful you could possibly be was different styles of play and it was fun.  Not every class or character has to "balanced" and when I say that I mean exactly the same "power".  High level mages in D&D for example were insanely powerful, but it was a struggle to get to that point.  Rouges could more easily gain tons of coin and fantastic items.  Rangers have an awesome pet and spells and could also fight.  I mean all these different characteristics make things different which makes things new and fun to understand and play with.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Goddard

[Valci]

To each his own I guess... For me a lot of these things (though not all) were just a massive time sink and added very little. And yes, healing post combat was just a repetitive series of click that you had to do over and over for no good reason. It added nothing to the game. Now, maybe for you the party was ever changing but for me once I got the NPCs I knew I wanted they stayed the same throughout. And I always did my best to get the NPCs I wanted as early as possible. Gear does progress that much is true but it's true for PoE also. I guess it's a matter of perspective... A lot of the things we've talked about were interesting for me the first time around m maybe but the more playthroughs I did the more tedious they got... But like I said, to each their own. I do agree about adding more non combat stuff to do like puzzles and such though...

Don't get me started on the "good" and "evil" thing... Worst system ever. It's a chore to play as an evil party. Tons of quests give you reputation just fire competing them (even if you're not overly benevolent)... And while you can increase rep at a temple, decreasing it requires saying stupid action like senseless murder of some innocent... Instead of building a character that for instance simply puts himself before others, punishes betrayal, is motivated by money etc. you have to go whack commoner nr.371 or risk your evil companions leaving you...

[Lephys]

*sigh*... The objective points are getting made on both sides, but keep being danced-around in the main debate.

 

Yes, pre-buffing can be interesting, in a tabletop context in which 73,000 different things could be affected by which buffs you had in place and when. Even that has its limits, though. For example, if you could easily just have 19 beneficial effects on your party all the time, "just in case," then the baseline "power" of your party goes up exponentially. All those things that were inherently designed to be obstacles (poison, spell damage, etc.) for you to tactically overcome, you aren't tactically overcoming. You're just opting to bypass dealing with them altogether.

 

Then, there's the matter of, when you're all pre-buffed like that, what is the best way for a foe to deal with you? By dispelling all your pre-buffs, of course. Now what? Wow, that's sure interesting. Does my party go into a dangerous scenario protected by everything I can think of, or do they not? Does the enemy decide to remove those things, or do they just let all their effects fall flat?

 

It starts to become silly. Not because I think its silly, but because the purposes of the components of the game mechanics actually start cancelling each other out. So, in this case limitation is completely necessary to keep silliness levels down.

 

Aside from any of that, ideally the game simulates all those spiffy tabletop checks and intriguing dynamics. But, if it cannot/doesn't, then all the prebuffs and manual reviving and whatnot that Goddard keeps praising become negligible. In a tabletop game, it's super interesting if someone dies and you have to revive them, because the DM's going to make an adventure out of it. If the whole party's still poisoned, or is cursed and rotting, that'll become an adventure. But, in a CRPG that happens to not be so dynamic, it's just a bland, passive effect on the math of your survivability. Reviving someone is just a matter of travel time and possibly an extra cost. Being poisoned is just something that makes you hate your gameplay time until you can remove the poison, OR a tax on your healing items, unless you just reload and try to avoid poison.

 

So, I'm not saying there's one right way to do things, but it's not all just subjective taste and preference. You can't subjectively desire something irrational and that be okay. You can't want tactical depth, AND the ability to pre-emptively avoid all negative status affects and boost all your combat numbers whenever you'd like, just so you never have to enter combat and deal with a lesser state of defense/protection. These things measurably, factually cancel each other out. So if you want anytime buffs, you have to have a way to maintain their significance. Maybe you limit the number that can be active at any point in time, and/or they become toggleable/channelable spells that still allow other spells/abilities to be used, but lessens their power in some way?

 

Basically, there's got to be a way to maintain tactical depth. There are several options for that, and brainstorming on that front would be great. And you're not wrong, Goddard, about how cool a bunch of this stuff can be. But, you're simply reminiscing about this stuff, then saying "it's great so it should be in," with absolutely no context of how it should work inside of Deadfire. We can't just:

 

Step 1 -- Insert pre-buffing

Step 2 -- ...

Step 3 -- Profit!

 

A lot of these things, when not properly supported by the context of the game's mechanics and systems, do become just added time sinks. They cost you stuff, but don't end up actually adding anything. And it has nothing to do with their inherent value as game mechanic ideas. It has to do with the circumstances in which they are implemented.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Lephys

[DigitalCrack]

*sigh*... The objective points are getting made on both sides, but keep being danced-around in the main debate.

 

Yes, pre-buffing can be interesting, in a tabletop context in which 73,000 different things could be affected by which buffs you had in place and when. Even that has its limits, though. For example, if you could easily just have 19 beneficial effects on your party all the time, "just in case," then the baseline "power" of your party goes up exponentially. All those things that were inherently designed to be obstacles (poison, spell damage, etc.) for you to tactically overcome, you aren't tactically overcoming. You're just opting to bypass dealing with them altogether.

 

Then, there's the matter of, when you're all pre-buffed like that, what is the best way for a foe to deal with you? By dispelling all your pre-buffs, of course. Now what? Wow, that's sure interesting. Does my party go into a dangerous scenario protected by everything I can think of, or do they not? Does the enemy decide to remove those things, or do they just let all their effects fall flat?

 

It starts to become silly. Not because I think its silly, but because the purposes of the components of the game mechanics actually start cancelling each other out. So, in this case limitation is completely necessary to keep silliness levels down.

 

Aside from any of that, ideally the game simulates all those spiffy tabletop checks and intriguing dynamics. But, if it cannot/doesn't, then all the prebuffs and manual reviving and whatnot that Goddard keeps praising become negligible. In a tabletop game, it's super interesting if someone dies and you have to revive them, because the DM's going to make an adventure out of it. If the whole party's still poisoned, or is cursed and rotting, that'll become an adventure. But, in a CRPG that happens to not be so dynamic, it's just a bland, passive effect on the math of your survivability. Reviving someone is just a matter of travel time and possibly an extra cost. Being poisoned is just something that makes you hate your gameplay time until you can remove the poison, OR a tax on your healing items, unless you just reload and try to avoid poison.

 

So, I'm not saying there's one right way to do things, but it's not all just subjective taste and preference. You can't subjectively desire something irrational and that be okay. You can't want tactical depth, AND the ability to pre-emptively avoid all negative status affects and boost all your combat numbers whenever you'd like, just so you never have to enter combat and deal with a lesser state of defense/protection. These things measurably, factually cancel each other out. So if you want anytime buffs, you have to have a way to maintain their significance. Maybe you limit the number that can be active at any point in time, and/or they become toggleable/channelable spells that still allow other spells/abilities to be used, but lessens their power in some way?

 

Basically, there's got to be a way to maintain tactical depth. There are several options for that, and brainstorming on that front would be great. And you're not wrong, Goddard, about how cool a bunch of this stuff can be. But, you're simply reminiscing about this stuff, then saying "it's great so it should be in," with absolutely no context of how it should work inside of Deadfire. We can't just:

 

Step 1 -- Insert pre-buffing

Step 2 -- ...

Step 3 -- Profit!

 

A lot of these things, when not properly supported by the context of the game's mechanics and systems, do become just added time sinks. They cost you stuff, but don't end up actually adding anything. And it has nothing to do with their inherent value as game mechanic ideas. It has to do with the circumstances in which they are implemented.

It could be cool to have dynamic quests appear for permanent negative conditions. If its a semi-rare occurence that say you get level drained which would add a new quest log to your journal that would kick off a mini adventure. Obviously all depends on your ability to keep it interesting if it happens more than once and how often it can happen and what not. I mean if its a 4-5 times average that it comes up in a playthrough could add some fun little impromtu quests.

 

Edit: maybe make those conditions something only a boss level monster can potentially cause. So then you will see these serious conditions come up more than once but not have to worry about every fight adding a mini quest to your "to do" list.

Edited October 20, 2017 by DigitalCrack

[Lephys]

Indeed, DigitalCrack. There are lots of cool ways to make these things be more than mathematical penalties. It mainly comes down to budgetary constraints, as you have to do a bit of expansion on some of the game systems to support such things, and I have absolutely no idea what they can and cannot do within their budget. Ideally, it'd all be super supported, and we'd have all kinds of crazy stuff in there. I would love for 2 days worth of poison to be something interesting that can happen to your characters and prompt differences in your adventure, other than "your characters are constantly taking damage and could die, which would be annoying for combat and/or just cause you to miss out on all the rest of their companion content." Hopefully at least some of that stuff can be done, with whatever they're able to get put into the game.

[Tigranes]

Look, many people who played BG/etc spammed rest and played each battle like it happened in a vacuum, and they hate being forced to do meaningful resource management or attrition. And many people also played these games conserving rests, and they hate games where HP loss or spell resources or even death doesn't matter anymore. 

 

As crude and problematic as the 'ambush' mechanic was in BG, and as controversial as camping supplies are in POE, it's hard to come up with better solutions because ultimately those are two groups you can't please perfectly at the same time. So I'm OK with the compromise mechanics we have, because I just need enough to be able to play my way, and I don't need to forbid others from playing their way.

 

Beyond that, it's easy enough to cheat in more camping supplies or houserule yourself less, for example. Making hyperelaborate theories about why everybody should spam rest because that's how it was always meant to be, or why everybody should never rest, is rather pointless. 

[Goddard]

Look, many people who played BG/etc spammed rest and played each battle like it happened in a vacuum, and they hate being forced to do meaningful resource management or attrition. And many people also played these games conserving rests, and they hate games where HP loss or spell resources or even death doesn't matter anymore. 

 

As crude and problematic as the 'ambush' mechanic was in BG, and as controversial as camping supplies are in POE, it's hard to come up with better solutions because ultimately those are two groups you can't please perfectly at the same time. So I'm OK with the compromise mechanics we have, because I just need enough to be able to play my way, and I don't need to forbid others from playing their way.

 

Beyond that, it's easy enough to cheat in more camping supplies or houserule yourself less, for example. Making hyperelaborate theories about why everybody should spam rest because that's how it was always meant to be, or why everybody should never rest, is rather pointless. 

 

Infinity Engine games had resource management and attrition campaigns.  Sometimes it was important and some times it wasn't, but it always effected party members that didn't have their requirements meet.

 

IE games was also much less each encounter is a vacuum in one regard because some of the effects of that fight carried over and only you could fix those effects.  So many areas didn't allow resting.  The idea you need a special camping equipment doesn't track especially when you are in the woods with twigs aplenty :D

 

I agree in IE games the AI wasn't as intelligent as it could be and kiting and other things could of been solved.  If you initiate an encounter they fixed some of these issues in other games with a "hearing" check.  If a monster "hears" the encounter then they would come running.  This adds tons of options for Rouges or Stealthishness fighting.

 

That same level of intelligence of enemies is still present in PoE though.  You can still kite enemies, but they do have a rudimentary limiter that prevents them from being kited too far away.

[Tigranes]

The point is that while IE games tried to simulate resource management and attrition via multiple means (random encs, res costs, a few no-rest areas), they never made it strong enough to really prohibit rest spamming. And that worked out in a way that we have a huge amount of players who love rest spamming and hate scarcity, and also many players for whom resource management is super important, both of whom were able to more or less enjoy the games. POE has had to carry over this difficult job of satisfying both camps, which is why while you have camping supplies, injuries, etc., none of them are too strict. And tilting it very strongly in one direction or another is really going to piss off a lot of players.

[rjshae]

The idea you need a special camping equipment doesn't track especially when you are in the woods with twigs aplenty :D

 

This setting doesn't have much in the way of Cure Health potions, so I like to think of the "camp supplies" as a logistics marker that's a stand in for providing whatever perishable healing broths, balms, and medical aids you need to cure their ills while the party rests up and recovers. It's not really a set of twigs and logs. It could easily be made much more complicated by providing specific supplies for specific injuries, but why overcomplicate the process and make it more tedious?

[Valci]

This setting doesn't have much in the way of Cure Health potions, so I like to think of the "camp supplies" as a logistics marker that's a stand in for providing whatever perishable healing broths, balms, and medical aids you need to cure their ills while the party rests up and recovers. It's not really a set of twigs and logs. It could easily be made much more complicated by providing specific supplies for specific injuries, but why overcomplicate the process and make it more tedious?

This guy has it right imho. Despite camping supplies being depicted as a campfire it's "metaphorical". Those supplies entail much more then just firewood. Hence the idea that you can treat your wounds while camping... Personally I really enjoy what they've done with resting in PoE. You have limited resources in camping supplies, permanent conditions in injuries etc. and ask without the hassle of having to manually heal the endurance (keep in mind that it's endurance and not the more valuable resource which is health for which you still have to manage camping supplies or use talents). I genuinely love the balance of it. But we've veered quite a bit from the original topic in truth which was pre-combat buffing...

[Abel]

 

In, the end, Wormerine sumed it up pretty well i guess.

 

While pre combat tactics, managing ammos, healing after combat, getting rid of status effects and many other mechanics like these added something interesting to a RPG experience, the way you had to handle these elements, requiring many repetitive clicks, was far from optimal.

 

In the end, if there was a way to handle all these without this repetitive/time consuming aspect, things would be for the best. Am i wrong?

Entire games are produced with these elements...

 

 

I pretty muh agree with you. I was never really bothered by clicks or time consuming spell casting, or anything like that, because while it was indeed repetitive, i really liked these mechanics, and never found them bothersome.

 

Here, i was merely trying to find a middle ground for this thread. My point is that from my understanding, people are not opposed to the mechanics themselves, but find that the hassle they implied was not worth it. Which would mean that it these mechanics were added to the game in a way that don't create any such hassle, not many people would be opposed to see them in a more modern game.

 

In the end, maybe the true debate here would be to imagine ways to implement them in the game without them implying these hassles (waiting times, repetitive clicks or tasks, or ways to abuse).

 

As an imperfect example, how many people would be opposed to the concept of healing after combat with spells if you had an option to check like "automatically use healing spells after combat" which would, in just one second, automatically use healing spells or potions on the party to fill them up, without any click needed? Or anything in the same trend.

[Valci]

@Abel

 

Yup, that about sums it up for me at least... I actually liked some of those mechanics and as said before and if tied in to story elements etc. all the better... Having a disease that needs special components to cure and such. But as far as healing goes yeah, having it autocast after combat would be fine. I'm OK managing the resource of "nr. of casts available per day" I'd just rather not do it manually for each character...

Edited October 20, 2017 by Valci

[Goddard]

@Abel

 

Yup, that about sums it up for me at least... I actually liked some of those mechanics and as said before and if tied in to story elements etc. all the better... Having a disease that needs special components to cure and such. But as far as healing goes yeah, having it autocast after combat would be fine. I'm OK managing the resource of "nr. of casts" I'd just rather not do it manually for each character...

I take it you never used the default AI script for healing clerics in BG?

[Valci]

Honestly no and I've played the game dozens of times. I turn off party AI generally cause casters don't know what they're doing in combat so I'd rather manually do that part ... And I always forget about it after that...

Edited October 20, 2017 by Valci

[Goddard]

Dang you should of told me, I would of made you a script that would automatically cast healing spells after a fight and only in those instances and you can control it the rest of the time.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Goddard

[Lephys]

Here, i was merely trying to find a middle ground for this thread. My point is that from my understanding, people are not opposed to the mechanics themselves, but find that the hassle they implied was not worth it. Which would mean that it these mechanics were added to the game in a way that don't create any such hassle, not many people would be opposed to see them in a more modern game.

 

 

 

In the end, maybe the true debate here would be to imagine ways to implement them in the game without them implying these hassles (waiting times, repetitive clicks or tasks, or ways to abuse).

 

This, so very much so.

 

No one is (rightly) faulting anyone for having preferences, but standing around having a preference-off does no one any good. The reasons that are the basis for our opinions are what matters most in collaboratively figuring out ways in which we can build the game such that we can all enjoy it as much as possible. I don't think anyone here really has a problem with the general idea of casting buffs, or resting to heal. Again, if they were playing a tabletop game and had to decide on some place to rest, with a DM deciding what happens based upon when and where they rest, and it led to interesting gameplay for them specifically because of the choices they made, then they'd most likely enjoy it a lot more. But, CRPGs give people a lot of reasons to not enjoy many of the things that have been implemented over the years, largely because they're carry-overs from tabletop without the meatiness that tabletop brings.

 

I love roleplaying, but I'm not going to play a game in which resting purely replenishes your spells and health and such, then PRETEND that all the other factors are there to actually support much more meaning in when and where I rest. There are plenty of other games that actually support that roleplay. I'm not going to go play Checkers and pretend that all the pieces are the characters in PoE, when I could just play PoE and have to pretend a lot less to achieve awesome roleplaying.

 

Don't use a hammer to take out a screw when you can just use a different tool. If you want to use a hammer, find a goal that the hammer's good for, THEN use the hammer.

[Guest 4ward]

 

so IE games were cool, different kinds of people were serviced

 

hyperactive folks (spamming, mouse-clicking)

 

laid-back folks

 

anarchists

 

romanticists (relationships weren‘t that deep though)

 

role-players

 

[Goddard]

 

Here, i was merely trying to find a middle ground for this thread. My point is that from my understanding, people are not opposed to the mechanics themselves, but find that the hassle they implied was not worth it. Which would mean that it these mechanics were added to the game in a way that don't create any such hassle, not many people would be opposed to see them in a more modern game.

 

 

 

In the end, maybe the true debate here would be to imagine ways to implement them in the game without them implying these hassles (waiting times, repetitive clicks or tasks, or ways to abuse).

 

This, so very much so.

 

No one is (rightly) faulting anyone for having preferences, but standing around having a preference-off does no one any good. The reasons that are the basis for our opinions are what matters most in collaboratively figuring out ways in which we can build the game such that we can all enjoy it as much as possible. I don't think anyone here really has a problem with the general idea of casting buffs, or resting to heal. Again, if they were playing a tabletop game and had to decide on some place to rest, with a DM deciding what happens based upon when and where they rest, and it led to interesting gameplay for them specifically because of the choices they made, then they'd most likely enjoy it a lot more. But, CRPGs give people a lot of reasons to not enjoy many of the things that have been implemented over the years, largely because they're carry-overs from tabletop without the meatiness that tabletop brings.

 

I love roleplaying, but I'm not going to play a game in which resting purely replenishes your spells and health and such, then PRETEND that all the other factors are there to actually support much more meaning in when and where I rest. There are plenty of other games that actually support that roleplay. I'm not going to go play Checkers and pretend that all the pieces are the characters in PoE, when I could just play PoE and have to pretend a lot less to achieve awesome roleplaying.

 

Don't use a hammer to take out a screw when you can just use a different tool. If you want to use a hammer, find a goal that the hammer's good for, THEN use the hammer.

 

 

 

 

I really liked how everything translated over in BG personally.  The over controlling or lazy might disagree.

 

I am not worried about clicking a couple buttons to heal players after a fight.  Resting is always more important in time limiting factors which I think should be explored.  I mean again you could of always put it into a macro, script bound to a hot key, or if you are really smart you could just have the computer play it completely and you could go have a sandwich. :D

 

Adding more dynamic systems makes things more fun.  Limiting things makes them less fun.  It might be easier for a developer to manage or a lazy player, but much more creative to see how far you can push things.  If a player wants to be lazy enable a god mode and just follow the story.  No big deal with a single player game.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Goddard