Decline Health regen is popamole...

[DraQ]

...even as rest until healed.

Butthurt much?

Ability to rest until healed is a shitty mechanics.

It's shitty, because it reduces resource management.
It's shitty, because it creates pacing problem.
And, while the above could be mitigated by various kinds of smart design making passage of time costly and meaningful, it's also shit because when you get shot full of arrows or bullets, or stabbed in the gut, you generally can't just sleep it over.

OTOH body does have some healing capabilities - bruises and small lacerations will generally heal without aid, so maybe, unless game is very limited in scope, we shouldn't just throw regen mechanics out of the window. But how?

What if we defined a percentage threshold (regardless of actual health system used, it doesn't have to be single global HP counter) and make regen rate depend on some function of difference between actual health percentage, and threshold value. With health high above threshold (scratches, bruises, other minor injuries) regeneration would be fairly rapid, slightly above threshold, long recovery would be necessary for natural healing, while the more the health would dip below threshold, the faster it would actually deteriorate instead of regenerating.

Any thoughts?

 

[agentorange]

What, like, the exact system Jagged Alliance 2 has?

 

[DraQ]

Actually, I was going to ask if anyone knew of any games using this mechanics, actually, because it seemed logical.

 

[Grunker]

a shitty mechanics.

this mechanics

 

[Weierstraß]

More resource management in every aspect is not necessarily a good thing.

 

[DraQ]

More resource management in every aspect is not necessarily a good thing.

Is popamole an ideal then?

Hide behind something and get free refill?

 

[Weierstraß]

Read it again until you get it right.

 

[DraQ]

Read it again until you get it right.

Why so glum? I'm, trying to provoke you into being more specific and relevant to the topic at hand.

 

[Weierstraß]

I'm glum because you don't love me.

Add a shoelaces mechanic to an RPG. Shoelaces break by a random roll, the more worn they are, the more likely they will break. Having broken shoelaces halves all the stats on the shoes.

Does having this mechanic make it a better RPG?

 

[Commissar Draco]

In Jagged Alliance 2 You used first aid skills and first aid packets to stop bleeding and dress wound. Mayor wounds borked your fighting ability and you had to leave such casualties with Doctor for a day or two to fully recover. I agree with Codexer above unless some resource shortage is tied to story line and setting like expensive ammo in Fallouts more resource management in RPG is waste of time; don't want to loose my game to gather wood for fire, mending my Pantaloons, repairing armor and going into bushes every fricking day.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What if we defined a percentage threshold (regardless of actual health system used, it doesn't have to be single global HP counter) and make regen rate depend on some function of difference between actual health percentage, and threshold value. With health high above threshold (scratches, bruises, other minor injuries) regeneration would be fairly rapid, slightly above threshold, long recovery would be necessary for natural healing, while the more the health would dip below threshold, the faster it would actually deteriorate instead of regenerating.

Any thoughts?

Kind of useless because it only heals you when you don't really need it, rewarding you with health for not taking damage. And if it takes too long to heal serious injuries, I'll just go to a safe place to rest until then, which makes the speed of recovery irrelevant unless you're in a timed quest.

 

[DraQ]

*sigh*

You guys know that I'm not exactly proposing any new and exotic resource mechanics, right?
That both health and healing supplies are not exactly a new innovative idea, mine or otherwise?

So given that we already have some layer of resource management that is pretty much universal, wouldn't it be nice to make it work?

So far we have a bar that means nothing in longer term, trash mobs that are irrelevant and spamming rest button.
None of those confer particularly interesting gameplay.

Kind of useless because it only heals you when you don't really need it, rewarding you with health for not taking damage.

Actually, it would for example discourage needless HP tanking.

And if it takes too long to heal serious injuries, I'll just go to a safe place to rest until then, which makes the speed of recovery irrelevant unless you're in a timed quest.

So combine it with any mechanics making time relevant. You don't need timed quests. You may have food, hostile reinforcements or re-colonization of area by monsters, whatever.

The thing here is that the relationship between recovery time and injury is no longer linear. Few scratches won't even call for setting up a camp.

Another thing is that it reduces "exploitable" part of health pool, making for tenser gameplay, instead of making HPs just expendable, self renewing resource.

Finally, you could always add another layer to it by making healing supplies only work on injuries below their severity threshold - for example bandaid is not going to confer any meanigful improvement for a bad case of partial evisceration, but automated nanotech surgery kit or some other magitek piece of technobable may still work.

 

[deuxhero]

The easiest and still one of the most effective fix is adding some form of time limit to the game (like Atelier or Fallout 1), changing the world as time passes like the enemy growing in strength (JA2) or even just a straight up penalty for taking "time off" (reputation drop in Darklands). Even an incredibility generous time limit, low enemy strength gains or easily counteracted reputation penalties are HUGE incentives against wasting time.

 

[Weierstraß]

I don't disagree with the idea, I disagree with the reasoning that more resource management is more hardcore and less is popamole.

I don't want to seem like I say the exact same thing in every thread, but in your potential game with this system, what would the purpose of having health system?

 

[Lorica]

Making health recovery a more interesting mechanic than "time heals all wounds and you have all the time in the world" doesn't necessarily mean adding resource management layers to the game.

JA2 v1.13 puts greater emphasis on ability damage, which can only be quickly healed by characters with the right trait(s) (or recovered at all, if not put under medical care?). That requires you to build your team to include dedicated doctors, with associated opportunity costs. In combat, it's more interesting because you're not just calculating the chances that a character will die/fail/succeed at a task, but also whether they'll take the kinds of damage that'll really put them out of combat in the future as they go to get healed.

Do you take a doctor into the field with your strike team? Do you prioritize taking the hospital sector? Do you press on with weakened characters or send them home and how does that change how you play? Do you play fast and loose with their health and risk getting caught out by an enemy patrol/counterattack with wounded mercs?

That change has a hand in reinforcing the existing systems. There's no micromanagement that wasn't already there. I think it's akin to the OP's suggestion, except ability damage is the representation of graver wounds and regular HP 'flesh wounds'/shock.

Not that I disagree with the claim that more resource management is an unqualified good. I do think more planning considerations and greater mechanical responsiveness to your decisions is generally a delightful thing, and I think JA2 vanilla vs 1.13 shows that a slightly more robust health system can bring that to a game.

 

[DraQ]

The easiest and still one of the most effective fix is adding some form of time limit to the game (like Atelier or Fallout 1), changing the world as time passes like the enemy growing in strength (JA2) or even just a straight up penalty for taking "time off" (reputation drop in Darklands). Even an incredibility generous time limit, low enemy strength gains or easily counteracted reputation penalties are HUGE incentives against wasting time.

One doesn't exclude another.

in your potential game with this system, what would the purpose of having health system?

And what is the purpose of having a health system in nearly every other game?


I may say what *else* does it accomplish, though:

-More meaningful reward/punishment system for combat performance.
-More realistic player behaviour from both narrativist and simulationinst PoV (wounds are srs business, you see).
-Counteracts healing resource accummulation to some degree
-Makes more sense.

All those qualities get further amplified if you add healing supply adequacy check.

Making health recovery a more interesting mechanic than "time heals all wounds and you have all the time in the world" doesn't necessarily mean adding resource management layers to the game.

Precisely. Those layers are already in.

JA2 v1.13 puts greater emphasis on ability damage, which can only be quickly healed by characters with the right trait(s) (or recovered at all, if not put under medical care?). That requires you to build your team to include dedicated doctors, with associated opportunity costs. In combat, it's more interesting because you're not just calculating the chances that a character will die/fail/succeed at a task, but also whether they'll take the kinds of damage that'll really put them out of combat in the future as they go to get healed.

Do you take a doctor into the field with your strike team? Do you prioritize taking the hospital sector? Do you press on with weakened characters or send them home and how does that change how you play? Do you play fast and loose with their health and risk getting caught out by an enemy patrol/counterattack with wounded mercs?

That change has a hand in reinforcing the existing systems. There's no micromanagement that wasn't already there. I think it's akin to the OP's suggestion, except ability damage is the representation of graver wounds and regular HP 'flesh wounds'/shock.

Not that I disagree with the claim that more resource management is an unqualified good. I do think more planning considerations and greater mechanical responsiveness to your decisions is generally a delightful thing, and I think JA2 vanilla vs 1.13 shows that a slightly more robust health system can bring that to a game.

I definitely wouldn't object to injuries diminishing performance as another layer of health system.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Actually, I was going to ask if anyone knew of any games using this mechanics, actually, because it seemed logical.

Well, dragon's dogma has a interesting health system.

You take damage, you lose some life but also have a certain amount of grey life remaining. This is the amount healing spells can heal you up to. Curitives can heal you past this and up to your max HP, but they have weight and are limited.

Dragon's Dogma did get easy after a certain point, but I liked this health system. Also, no auto-rest anywhere and there was only one ability that auto-regened... like 1 HP every 3 seconds when you have hundreds of HP.

http://dragonsdogma.wikia.com/wiki/Regeneration

Thoughts?

 

[DragoFireheart]

I don't disagree with the idea, I disagree with the reasoning that more resource management is more hardcore and less is popamole.

I don't want to seem like I say the exact same thing in every thread, but in your potential game with this system, what would the purpose of having health system?

I don't like this. I like to explore at my leisure. No time limits, but make it risky in choices I make but not because I took too long.

 

[deuxhero]

Also from Dragon's Dogma was that healing items were either perishable or significantly heavier than perishable ones. It frees the game of both "can't use this, need it latter" and "buy x healing items, no reason not to".

 

[Horus]

In Jagged Alliance 2 You used first aid skills and first aid packets to stop bleeding and dress wound. Mayor wounds borked your fighting ability and you had to leave such casualties with Doctor for a day or two to fully recover. I agree with Codexer above unless some resource shortage is tied to story line and setting like expensive ammo in Fallouts more resource management in RPG is waste of time; don't want to loose my game to gather wood for fire, mending my Pantaloons, repairing armor and going into bushes every fricking day.

They're not bad but they should be optimal.Like hardcore mode for FNV(Even though it was not that realistic)
Actually every developer should make customisable difficulty options so we can change the sliders to make game to our liking.(Like flight simulators)
Damage to PC:%75 %100 %125 Damage to enemy: %75 %100 %125 Food and items:On Off and their customisable time tables.....
This is the best option to make everyone happy from hardcore fans to casual gamers and i don't understand why nobody uses it.

 

[DraQ]

In Jagged Alliance 2 You used first aid skills and first aid packets to stop bleeding and dress wound. Mayor wounds borked your fighting ability and you had to leave such casualties with Doctor for a day or two to fully recover. I agree with Codexer above unless some resource shortage is tied to story line and setting like expensive ammo in Fallouts more resource management in RPG is waste of time; don't want to loose my game to gather wood for fire, mending my Pantaloons, repairing armor and going into bushes every fricking day.

They're not bad but they should be optimal.Like hardcore mode for FNV(Even though it was not that realistic)
Actually every developer should make customisable difficulty options so we can change the sliders to make game to our liking.(Like flight similators)
Damage to PC:%75 %100 %125 Damage to enemy: %75 %100 %125 Food and items:On Off and their customisable time tables.....
This is the best option to make everyone happy from hardcore fans to casual gamers and i don't understand why nobody uses it.

Apparently, as one of the gaming luminaries from BW enlightened us, toggles are bad because dumb gamers may fiddle with them without knowing, causing them untold frustration and butthurt.

No, I'm not joking.

 

[Declinator]

Actually every developer should make customisable difficulty options so we can change the sliders to make game to our liking.(Like flight similators)
Damage to PC:%75 %100 %125 Damage to enemy: %75 %100 %125 Food and items:On Off and their customisable time tables.....
This is the best option to make everyone happy from hardcore fans to casual gamers and i don't understand why nobody uses it.

System Shock 1 had customisable difficulty. You could set puzzle, combat, cyberspace and mission difficulty separately. I think mission difficulty even introduced a time limit at the highest setting.
It would be kind of funny if you could set story level so the game would automatically skip all cutscenes and dialogue or maybe only skip exposition and lore.

About the Jagged Alliance system, it really didn't seem all that fun even if it makes more sense. It's better than the rest system in a game like BG but I personally prefer just the good-old no regeneration whatsoever + health packs. FNV broken leg/broken head system really just seemed to unnecessarily complicate things with the Doctor's bag (if I remember correctly?) being a different kind of a health pack for the fractures. I can see someone enjoying things like that but I did not. Same thing with bleeding out really.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Actually every developer should make customisable difficulty options so we can change the sliders to make game to our liking.(Like flight similators)
Damage to PC:%75 %100 %125 Damage to enemy: %75 %100 %125 Food and items:On Off and their customisable time tables.....
This is the best option to make everyone happy from hardcore fans to casual gamers and i don't understand why nobody uses it.

System Shock 1 had customisable difficulty. You could set puzzle, combat, cyberspace and mission difficulty separately. I think mission difficulty even introduced a time limit at the highest setting.
It would be kind of funny if you could set story level so the game would automatically skip all cutscenes and dialogue or maybe only skip exposition and lore.

About the Jagged Alliance system, it really didn't seem all that fun even if it makes more sense. It's better than the rest system in a game like BG but I personally prefer just the good-old no regeneration whatsoever + health packs. FNV broken leg/broken head system really just seemed to unnecessarily complicate things with the Doctor's bag (if I remember correctly?) being a different kind of a health pack for the fractures. I can see someone enjoying things like that but I did not. Same thing with bleeding out really.

FNV system was watered down Special from the original Fallouts with Trash mobs fights every 5 meters courtesy of Bethpizda awesome engine and game design. Liked to Play as Doctor in Fallout's but ''hardcore mode'' in FNV which forced you to drink, eat and use Doctors bag was something I always turned off rather quickly. The Awful mediocrity of compromise.

 

[Horus]

FNV system was watered down Special from the original Fallouts with Trash mobs fights every 5 meters courtesy of Bethpizda awesome engine and game design. Liked to Play as Doctor in Fallout's but ''hardcore mode'' in FNV which forced you to drink, eat and use Doctors bag was something I always turned off rather quickly. The Awful mediocrity of compromise.

I agree hardcore mode was not implented very well but this is for stock game,you could use mods to bring it closer to what you wanted and adjust it to your liking.
Actually mods are doing what i'm recommending by adjusting setting to player liking by using little tricks.I just don't see why most developers doesn't make adjustable difficulty sliders instead of forcing us to use these mods.
I used lots of survival mods for skyrim and it was kinda fun trying to larp as an actual adventurer that gets hungry,thirsty,cold.... but as you said not everyone can go with it for all the game so i closed it down sometimes when i didn't want to bother with it.

Apparently, as one of the gaming luminaries from BW enlightened us, toggles are bad because dumb gamers may fiddle with them without knowing, causing them untold frustration and butthurt.

No, I'm not joking.

It's quite sad that self proclaimed real gamers who try to make games something more than what they by saying it's art are the same people who can't handle complexity of games.
They remind me of modern art hipsters that are amazed by simple writings on the urinal.They can't compromise real artworks and try to go with easier to understand modern art garbage.
Sad part is they are trying to force greater meaning into that garbage while thinking they are smart.Just like those butthurt gaming journalist.

 

[Cassidy]

What, like, the exact system Jagged Alliance 2 has?

But you have to pay mercenaries and the enemy will assault everything you have liberated while they are resting.