Fixed HP vs HP Increases every level

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

So me, Hexer and one of his tester have been talking about fixed HP. Jim implemented fixed hp in his mod for Fallout 2, something which has been often discussed in the community.
I think Fixed HP is teh awesome, makes endurance a valuable state and prevents Player Character power-creep to the point of absurd.
Hexer's tester (register already man!) thinks that Fixed HP prevents player progression and can lead to a obssession with gear and drugs to compensate
Hexer himself thinks a mid-way might be best, where HP increases but slowly.

I decided to ask the people what they thought about so we could totally disregard their opinions as the dumb peasant grunts they are fuck democracy man see some opinions by monocled codexers.

Does Fixed HP deviate much from the original Fallout gameplay or is it a welcome change?

For the record, this is the HP formula in Fallout 1/2:

15 + 2 * EN + ST
Every time you gain a level this increases by 2 + EN / 2

 

[Jaesun]

Why does it need to be changed?

 

[sea]

If I was making an RPG today I would go with fixed HP with no increase, and get the same effect through evasion, damage resistance/threshold, etc. HP increases over the course of the game often allow the player to make more mistakes as the game goes on, not fewer. An RPG with reasonably tactical combat should focus on horizontal growth by offering new options to damage or resist enemies with unique protections and attack types. Doesn't mean you can't do HP growth on level-up, but I feel like it'd be easier to manage if you just got rid of it outright.

Specifically for Fallout/2, I think fixed HP works provided you balance the weapons and armour a bit. The game's combat doesn't have many good ways to avoid taking damage and it would get too lethal later on to survive, say, the Mariposa assault, even with Power Armor.

 

[hexer]

I've voted for slowly increasing HP. I understand the logic behind fixed HP but I'm also thinking about what people expect from a classic Fallout game.

Jim the Dinosaur could tell us what was the feedback for his fixed HP.

 

[laclongquan]

About Fallout system specifically.

If I remember correctly, Endurance related to chance to get addicted, in both F2 and FNV. Low endurance mean you are a junkie with disminishing returns from the semi-scarce chems.

You can get over that by using lots of rest, but that smell of really big meta. You can use two perks for lifegivers, or drug-related status, but I can think of a lot of better use for perks than them, both in F2 and in FNV.

So yeah, in term of gameplay, Endurancedump is too big a powerplaying meta tactics that I see no need to be nerfed. For normal players and most powergamers, you just dont care that much to risk low endurance. playing that build is a chore, basically.

A counterpoint toward fixed HP is that the game must, by design, give you more lethal hardware over the time. so it mean you can get killed by one shot at late game, no difference than dying by one shot at early game.

you will get so many criticisms about fixed HP over this aspect of gameplay you will drop your project in disgust.

As for the complaint about tribal village and Brotherhood people, I see no problem. On the one hand you have tribal people who live on the edge of starvation. On the other hand you have Brotherhood personel who enjoy high tech tools, trade far and wide for the goods they almost monopolize. Of course there' s difference in bodies. Just look at a pictures that contain soldiers of South Korea, American, and North Korea, as I am certain there's at least one on Net. You will be struck by how the yank look twice as big/tall compared to the north korea guy. A 100kg gorilla from the US can take a 5.56mm bullet to the body and still keep going but a 60kg small guy might just stop a while.

 

[hexer]

Don't forget we can always have "Normal" (classic Fallout gameplay) and "Survivor" (fixed HPs, etc.) modes.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Slow increases to HP seems fine. hexer, you don't think having two modes is too much work?

 

[hexer]

It depends on how those two modes would differ. It's just an idea, we will see what TBS proposes once he finishes his first draft of the gameplay system.

 

[Gregz]

HP is an abstraction for learned survivability, not growing more skill cells between the enemy and your vital organs.

 

[Surf Solar]

I like when I actually see the progress in my characters stats, i.e "numbers growing". Instead of tweaking the entire system, you could just change the requirements for lifegiver perks (they are indeed overpowered) and lower the general amount of HP that you get per level up. That's atleast what I did

 

[Monstergelo]

How about making the default HP 200 or something, and then for each level you got 5 more or something

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I've voted for slowly increasing HP. I understand the logic behind fixed HP but I'm also thinking about what people expect from a classic Fallout game.

Jim the Dinosaur could tell us what was the feedback for his fixed HP.

Feedback wasn't much different from the tone of the discussion right now.

Main reason I did it was FO2-specific, namely that increasing HP completely throws off the existing armor system (I always use the example of a magnum doing the same amount of damage against one of Metzger's goons as a turbo plasma rifle against an Enclave Trooper; the Enclave Trooper (and you, at that point) just has something like 4 times the HP, so combat'd take that amount more time if it weren't for those blessings in disguise, eye crits - or hugely increased rates of fire).

Second reason was that,

HP is an abstraction for learned survivability, not growing more skill cells between the enemy and your vital organs.

which is why it's more suited for a class-based (or combat-focused) game. Because your talky pacifistic character is increasing in combat survivability just as rapidly as a guy racking up hundreds of kills the abstraction falls apart pretty fast (e.g. in a class-based system like D&D they partially solve this by lowering the HP for classes you wouldn't expect to have much in way of combat survivability, like spellcasters). You're just better off treating HP as health (and therefor fixed, or perhaps even declining in the radioactive wasteland) and handling combat survivability through combat skills (just as you'd handle non-combat survivability through skills such as outdoorsman).

 

[Raghar]

15 + 2 * EN + ST
Every time you gain a level this increases by 2 + EN / 2

Hexer himself thinks a mid-way might be best, where HP increases but slowly.

Are you aware that the above formula is the very definition of a limited HP increase?

The first few terms are to differentiate between born in HP, the second part is for that few HP gained by radiation on wasteland during level up.

 

[hexer]

Are you aware that the above formula is the very definition of a limited HP increase?

The first few terms are to differentiate between born in HP, the second part is for that few HP gained by radiation on wasteland during level up.

We were talking about slowing it down even more on level ups.

Maybe EN + STR / 4 (round down) or 2 + EN / 3 (round down)

 

[Raghar]

10 + 10/4 and 2 + 10/3?
12 per level and 5 per level. Previous was 7 per level. Also I think the STR bonus was supposed to be onetime deal to differentiate between certain types of characters. These characters with bit higher END should eclipse characters with poor END and high STR, the high STR is just making the low END not so atrociously bad.

 

[hexer]

10 + 10/4 and 2 + 10/3?
12 per level and 5 per level. Previous was 7 per level.

Sorry, that's (EN + STR) / 4 (round down) or (2 + EN) / 3 (round down)

So it's 5 per level and 4 per level in your examples.

I won't mind if Strength starts playing some role in your character's health at each level.

I have a personal story to share: I'm an amateur powerlifter and have some strength. I fell from a horse and got up. I was thrown about from 7ft into air and then fell onto very hard soil. A skinnier lad fell in the same place and in almost the same fashion (it was the same problematic horse) but he ended up in hospital because he broke a bone. I can't claim 100% that this was due to more/less muscle mass but that certainly did have an effect.

 

[hiver]

I've voted for slowly increasing HP. I understand the logic behind fixed HP but I'm also thinking about what people expect from a classic Fallout game.

The people should expect some things to be upgraded in natural, appropriate ways.

Fixed HP is a great thing to have, since it directly increses the importance of several mechanics and equipment - AND any medical skill - which were all negatively affected by the original take on the matter - which followed the Easy path of just "making things easy for the theoretical masses" - instead of making the best game it can be.

But that can be excused since it was one of the first games like this and The Team worked for a business company that needs to get profits.

You dont.

Leave HP increase for an Easy mod.

 

[Norfleet]

Hexer's tester (register already man!) thinks that Fixed HP prevents player progression and can lead to a obssession with gear and drugs to compensate

So, exactly like real life, then? Winners don't use drugs my ass.

 

[DraQ]

Why is this even a question?

HP is an abstraction for learned survivability, not growing more skill cells between the enemy and your vital organs.

which is why it's more suited for a class-based (or combat-focused) game. Because your talky pacifistic character is increasing in combat survivability just as rapidly as a guy racking up hundreds of kills the abstraction falls apart pretty fast (e.g. in a class-based system like D&D they partially solve this by lowering the HP for classes you wouldn't expect to have much in way of combat survivability, like spellcasters). You're just better off treating HP as health (and therefor fixed, or perhaps even declining in the radioactive wasteland) and handling combat survivability through combat skills (just as you'd handle non-combat survivability through skills such as outdoorsman).

Also, abstraction clash - on one hand DR/DT per damage type to simulate attacks failing to penetrate altogether, on the other "ololol survivability". My ass.

 

[laclongquan]

In Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas I do play junkie. Especially FNV. JUnkie is a powerplay strategy. You can compensate for its shortcomings with perks and builds.

ANyway, back to HP fixed or levelup.

The only way I can see HP fixed become viable is that a lot of resistance perks for late game. Then manually add that to late game enemies. And lots of tough armor for late game, with very strict control when it become avaible. Ditto with AP ammo guns

On the other hand, I cant think that I am the only one to figure out that. So it must have some reason that nobody ever apply fixed HP in combat games.

 

[Ulminati]

I voted slowly increasing HP. But like sea, I would actually prefer the additional survivability players gain by level would be in the form of damage resistances, evasion and the like. If HP is the only measurement of survivability the system has, I would prefer if a high level character had no more than, say, ~+50% HP compared to a starting character.

On the topic of HP, I also wish more systems had pain penalties. IE: When your hp drops below certain tresholds, you get penalties to evasion, accuracy, skills and the like. It's one of my pet peeves when a character with 1HP is as effective at fighting as one at full health and it encourages focus-firing on a single opponent as the optimal solution in almost every encounter.

 

[DraQ]

On the other hand, I cant think that I am the only one to figure out that. So it must have some reason that nobody ever apply fixed HP in combat games.

Actually everyone has always applied fixed HP to combat games that aren't RPGs.
It's simply yet another stupid case of "traditional" RPG mechanics clouding everyone's mind.

For what it's worth it's much easier to balance everything if you don't have to account for hideous HP and damage inflation, progression becomes more of a question of "how" than "how much grind" too.

 

[laclongquan]

No good or famous RPG ever use that system... That's worth considering why.

 

[Grunker]

I like GURPS' method (surprise): Fixed HP, but with the ability to "buy" limited amounts of HP through other systems like Perks.

EDIT: Also, this:

For what it's worth it's much easier to balance everything if you don't have to account for hideous HP and damage inflation, progression becomes more of a question of "how" than "how much grind" too.

HP inflation is the bane of brisk and tactically focused combat. If you ride alone, you ride with HP INFLATION!

 

[DraQ]

No good or famous RPG ever use that system... That's worth considering why.

Because they are (c)RPGs and therefore rife with derpy cargo cult design.

As for the formula, maybe make STR confer some DR to some damage types (to account for them having to penetrate more tissue) and END affect HPs themselves?

This would be nice as it would differentiate - for example high END character would be more likely to recover from crit, electricity or poison than a character with overall equivalent toughness but conferred mostly by STR.