Thoughts about abusing the "rest function"

[Norfleet]

The yardstick on whether you've used a mechanic "reasonably" is whether or not they nerf it. So long as it continues to go unnerfed, it's clearly reasonable.

Honestly, rest function "abuse" occurs because they've mapped a ruleset meant to be played against an intelligent opponent in a dynamic and proactive world into a game run by a dumb computer AI in a static world that can only react to direct player actions. The orcs will just stand there in the next room until you go in and fight them. They don't get hungry and leave, or go to sleep, or sally forth to go do orcish things, they just wait passively for the player to act. No DM would run the place like that, nor would you be expected to fight your way through a few hundred of them.

 

[Lhynn]

I get a kick out of not resting, and when i do have to rest, not only does it feel earned, it feels like i can relax too.

Random encounters on rest where the enemy has an opportunity to get one or several free attacks depending on how long it takes for your guys to prepare would be good, i dont think its ever been implemented tho. (well, maybe on neo scavenger).

 

[Ellef]

Every RPG has something you can exploit to trivialise content. Anyone with a degree of self control can limit themselves to one per dungeon, for example, while others can rest every encounter if they want; who cares? I usually had limited myself to one rest before the boss when I learned the game, while I might have used a few while I was learning the game and didn't want to reload every time I took too much damage.

 

[Norfleet]

To me, resting before you go to the next room in an RPG that doesn't apply kind of penalty to this is equivalent to reloading your guns before you storming the next room...why would you NOT do that? Especially given that in CRPGs, you're generally expected to fight your way through dragon-filled rooms of dragon-mooks, whereas in the PnP equivalent there would only be one dragon who doesn't just sit there in a room, and probably isn't something you just storm in and chop into dragonburgers.

In a grand total of zero dragon encounters I have ever fought in or run does one typically just go in swinging with swords. Dragons can fly, and they're smart enough to know this. You're not taking them down without antiaircraft weapons. Dragonslaying swords are for morons. You need dragon-slaying ballista bolts.

 

[Daemongar]

You know, Pools of Radiance had a mechanical rest function where you had to heal your party. It took nights of game time to cast the spells to heal everyone. Then, they added an automated rest feature that would rest until healed, but the game would go through the motions. Overall, resting and healing is monotonous and boring. If you want to do it, knock yourself out, but game makers have adapted to this "abuse."

Game designers have given players diseased/cursed/poisoned/broken armor features that don't allow you to get it all back. Might and Magic did this well, until you were high enough level not to worry. Same with BG - they added level drain, poison, disease and other things. Sure, these weren't "invented" to deal with rest-scumming, but the effect is the same: the party is continually weakened until they get to the end of the dungeon. Then they hopefully finish off the boss, then return to their temple/whorehouse/whatever.

It's only when they started making games impossible to not lose that this all became a problem.

 

[Jaesun]

Ray Dryer's stranglehold on rest mechanics in all his FRUA Modules (which also follow the PnP setting) is excellent.

 

[octavius]

You know, Pools of Radiance had a mechanical rest function where you had to heal your party. It took nights of game time to cast the spells to heal everyone. Then, they added an automated rest feature that would rest until healed, but the game would go through the motions. Overall, resting and healing is monotonous and boring. If you want to do it, knock yourself out, but game makers have adapted to this "abuse."

In PoR, it was easier to just heal at the temples, at least as long as you were in Phlan. It took lots less in-game time, and there was no shortage of gold.

 

[Daemongar]

You know, Pools of Radiance had a mechanical rest function where you had to heal your party. It took nights of game time to cast the spells to heal everyone. Then, they added an automated rest feature that would rest until healed, but the game would go through the motions. Overall, resting and healing is monotonous and boring. If you want to do it, knock yourself out, but game makers have adapted to this "abuse."

In PoR, it was easier to just heal at the temples, at least as long as you were in Phlan. It took lots less in-game time, and there was no shortage of gold.

Yeah, temples in games have always been around. He's not bitching about temples, but the rest mechanic. The thing about temples is that you have to leave the dungeon and tromp back, then head back into said dungeon. In earlier games, it meant starting from the beginning again. It's been a while since I played PoR - I know the slums stayed "cleared" but ... did you have to finished off all the creatures first, or did the parts you cleared stay cleared?

 

[octavius]

They stayed cleared. So it was quicker both in-game and real time to just head back to town for healing, since the Fix command hadn't been implemented yet in PoR.

 

[Waterd]

Most CRPG are not built with the idea of designing a challenge to the player, so they have this degenerate rest system. ¨controlling yourself¨ is terrible, because how much is, ¨enough resting¨ and ¨too much resting¨ if its up to the player to decide, then the designer role is shifted to the player, the moment that happens, the game designer job failed.
One of the reasons i dislike most CRPG is that the rest system is broken.

 

[zero29]

I get a kick out of not resting, and when i do have to rest, not only does it feel earned, it feels like i can relax too.

Random encounters on rest where the enemy has an opportunity to get one or several free attacks depending on how long it takes for your guys to prepare would be good, i dont think its ever been implemented tho. (well, maybe on neo scavenger).

realms of arkania, without a designated guard you could even get your stuff stolen during a rest.

 

[Sykar]

Does anyone remember the butthurt caused in the IE community with the release of the Tactics mod, which allowed only one initial rest in the Prologue (to memorize spells)? Thereafter, the whole dungeon was flagged as "cannot rest" or whatevs. This was in a dungeon in which Ilyich summoned a Deva. Ah, fond memories..

I rested once only anyway...

 

[nomask7]

how much is, ¨enough resting¨ and ¨too much resting¨ if its up to the player to decide, then the designer role is shifted to the player, the moment that happens, the game designer job failed.

This.

Some games (Gothic 2, Fallout 3) only allow you to rest in a bed - these are of course carefully positioned in the game world, so you know if you find one you're supposed to use it.

In Fallout 3, there's fast travel between visited known locations so some amount of excessive resting is possible, but you can never abuse the system effortlessly when you're exploring a new area (before you find a new location there that you can use to fast travel there).

 

[octavius]

Most CRPG are not built with the idea of designing a challenge to the player, so they have this degenerate rest system. ¨controlling yourself¨ is terrible, because how much is, ¨enough resting¨ and ¨too much resting¨ if its up to the player to decide, then the designer role is shifted to the player, the moment that happens, the game designer job failed.
One of the reasons i dislike most CRPG is that the rest system is broken.

What is the alternative? Different difficulty levels, perhaps? Too severe resting restrictions will chase away little kids, their moms, and other casual consumers.

 

[Norfleet]

The alternative is "don't use a ruleset that adapts poorly to CRPGs". "Little kids, their moms, and other casual consumers" don't buy games with D&D labels on them anyway. Given that you can make your own damn system, there is no reason to make a system that even requires/has resting in the first place! Note how this is pretty much a uniquely D&D CRPG phenomenon. This is because systems designed for the computer DON'T REQUIRE RESTING. The typical reason to rest in D&D is because the spell selection and ammo limits thereof were made with the expectation that a typical party would fight maybe 4 or 5 encounters, only one or two of which will be really serious, and none of them will contain the absolutely huge numbers of enemies that are typically encountered in a video game. Is it any surprise that when you're expected to take out 10x the number of enemies you would normally encounter in the game the ruleset was intended for (yes, they typically cut combat XP by a factor of 10, thus where the 10 comes from), that you will probably run low on ammo and want to reload way more often? When you're burning through ammo because you're killing 10x the number of enemies you'd normally encounter, generally in encounters that allow little in the way of creative and efficient usage and must be powered through by brute force, constant resting is pretty much expected by design. In a normal D&D game, the party is expected to carry the spellcasters through the 1-3 trash actions so they can unload on the boss in the final action. In CRPGs, you pretty much have to nuke your way through everything because you're going to get about a dozen fights, each of which will contain several times the number of enemies you'd fight in PnP. This is not what the system was designed for.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Infinite resting is silly both in terms of realism and difficulty. Random encounters are a bad solution, since they encourage savescumming aka degenerate gameplay

Best solution is supplies like in M&M games.

Fallout did this rather well...

 

[rezaf]

There's no cheating in a single player game. Play it whatever way you enjoy most.

QFT.

While I really understand the reasoning behind people who complain about more or less unlimited resting, it is pretty much a neccessary evil, imo. Well, in most rulesets, anyway.
For example, in (A)D&D games, limiting the opportunities to rest up only results in being overly careful and not using this spell that might be really useful but ... what if it would be even more useful in the next encounter or the one afterwards?

In general, I hate steamlining, but I think the best approach from a gameplay perspective is actually to steamline away the need to rest - at lest to regain spells/mana. I liked this a great deal in D:OS - who in their right mind wouldn't spam spells left and right in this system - they'd be available again after a short(ish) cooldown! Spellcasters were (and felt) powerful, which is a good start...

 

[Maschtervoz]

I like it when resting requires spending some sort of resource and/or finding a safe place, but I'm a big resource-managingfag and I enjoy getting autistic about fighting through encounters with minimal use of spells or other per day abilities. Stuff like what PoE seems to be implementing, or KotC's fireplaces, or other similar systems are a nice fit for my tastes, but I can deal with unlimited resting too, I just challenge myself to see how far can I make it between rests and avoid yelling at people about how they play their single player games wrong.

 

[taxalot]

This thread.

"Hi. I'm enjoying my games very much this one way but I'm not sure it's okay. Please validate my fun."
"No, you're having fun wrong."
"Oh "

As it was said before, play the game how you fucking want. Use fucking god mode for all I care. (Hint : I don't.) .

Personal exemple : I play my games on the highest difficulty level. Yet, there are evenings when I feel tired and just want to make progress without struggling at all. I don't think it makes me a subhuman beast to switch to easy for a session or two.

 

[Lilura]

Some games (Gothic 2, Fallout 3) only allow you to rest in a bed - these are of course carefully positioned in the game world, so you know if you find one you're supposed to use it.

Beds are "carefully positioned" in Gothic/Fallout 3 game-worlds? How amusing!

 

[nomask7]

Some games (Gothic 2, Fallout 3) only allow you to rest in a bed - these are of course carefully positioned in the game world, so you know if you find one you're supposed to use it.

Beds are "carefully positioned" in Gothic/Fallout 3 game-worlds? How amusing!

Would be funny to find a bed lying beside the small dirt road to Valley of Mines, say, just before you enter through the gate guarded by the knights. That would be funny.

 

[octavius]

Some games (Gothic 2, Fallout 3) only allow you to rest in a bed - these are of course carefully positioned in the game world, so you know if you find one you're supposed to use it.

Beds are "carefully positioned" in Gothic/Fallout 3 game-worlds? How amusing!

Would be more amusing if those beds were Mimics.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

This thread.

"Hi. I'm enjoying my games very much this one way but I'm not sure it's okay. Please validate my fun."
"No, you're having fun wrong."
"Oh "

As it was said before, play the game how you fucking want. Use fucking god mode for all I care. (Hint : I don't.) .

Personal exemple : I play my games on the highest difficulty level. Yet, there are evenings when I feel tired and just want to make progress without struggling at all. I don't think it makes me a subhuman beast to switch to easy for a session or two.

It's the same thing like with the saving frequently. You are playing it WRONG goddamit ! Stop triggering me. There are many creative or less creative ways to break some of the games, but it's always resting/saving problem...

Although I agree that resting after every encounter feels lame. But the player with more two brain cells would know that his playstyle is lacking something and should be changed. I typically rest before boss encounters and when my party is going almost on fumes (1-5 hp and no mana for healing).

 

[GlutenBurger]

"Hi. I'm enjoying my games very much this one way but I'm not sure it's okay. Please validate my fun."
"No, you're having fun wrong."
"Oh "

As it was said before, play the game how you fucking want. Use fucking god mode for all I care. (Hint : I don't.)

Regardless of how much fun they have with it, everybody occasionally pauses to wonder whether their penis size is up to par.

 

[glasnost]

Abusing the "rest function" is the highlight of my mornings. And afternoons, frankly.