Healing spells/items are lazy game design for RPGs.

[Excidium]

Again, healing systems are pointless without meaningful punishment for death. You can do whatever you want if you just have an anytime save / load system.

No. Just because the player can be a loser and reload everytime something goes wrong doesn't mean the game should be designed with that in mind. "Oh, some people will just reload if they miscast a spell, I guess implementing rules for spellcasting is pointless then.".

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It's also pretty easy to get rid of intoxication in Twitcher by drinking White Honey, but it's more the ideas I'm talking about, not the implementations.

White Honey sounds like a chick in geralt's neverending stream of bimbos :D

Actually it sounds as an old euphemism for cum.

"And then the gates of his loins opened and he flooded his wife's chamber with white honey. - Bloberto, 23:12"

 

[Excidium]

It's also pretty easy to get rid of intoxication in Twitcher by drinking White Honey, but it's more the ideas I'm talking about, not the implementations.

White Honey sounds like a chick in geralt's neverending stream of bimbos :D

Actually it sounds as an old euphemism for cum.

"And then the gates of his loins opened and he flooded his wife with white honey. - Bloberto, 23:12"

It would be quite overpowered, as Geralt's fountain never runs dry.

 

[malichaixx]

It's also pretty easy to get rid of intoxication in Twitcher by drinking White Honey, but it's more the ideas I'm talking about, not the implementations.

White Honey sounds like a chick in geralt's neverending stream of bimbos :D

Actually it sounds as an old euphemism for cum.

"And then the gates of his loins opened and he flooded his wife's chamber with white honey. - Bloberto, 23:12"

Lol I didn't even think of that!

 

[J1M]

I think it is interesting and a little ironic that the 'grand decline' of 4th edition D&D actually handles this mechanic rather well, and I would argue, better than 3rd edition.

Each player has a number of 'healing surges' which are determined primarily by class and constitution.

It's anything but handling it well. It's completely abstract, gamist shit, dissociated from any sort fo in-universe meaning or sense.

Slow acting potions make sense, or at least more sense than instahealing ones, potion toxicity may make sense, same with other ways of limiting the amount of potions that could be ingested at once.

Exactly, and that's the main issue of D&D 4th, it's full of completly made-up bullshit like "once a day/encounter" powers/skills, for puny GMs that can only control the players by bashing the rulebook around.

Seriously DraQ? You cant make a connection between healing surge limit and "the body can only handle so much magical repair in a certain time frame"? It's exactly the same fucking thing as potion toxicity!

And felipe agreeing with you...

I expect more from this prestigious magazine.

 

[Metro]

As much as I like Risen it's pretty easy to chug potions in combat by simply backstepping/retreating for a few seconds.

Risen 'fixed' the potion drinking problem in the first 3 Gothics where you cannot move and drink. Potions are infinite but I don't think money is.

Money is pretty easy to come by in Risen once you hit the midway point of the game. After maxing strength, alchemy, blacksmithing, and swordfighting along with sneak I had around 3,000+ gold. And that isn't counting the forty or so vendor items I had in my inventory like gold/silver plates, goblets, etc., the half dozen or so sword blanks and the pile of ore I could have made even more sword blanks from and made them into swords to vendor.

One thing I think crpgs need to implement in their difficulty system is that when you switch to hard not only do enemies become more difficult but resources become more scarce. There's just way to much stuff in Risen but that's no different than the first Gothic games: it's only really challenging in the first ten or so levels.

As far as the saving/reload goes I don't think it matters. So long as encounters are challenging what difference does it make if you don't have a 'penalty' for losing them. The penalty is you lost and can't progress.

 

[7hm]

Again, healing systems are pointless without meaningful punishment for death. You can do whatever you want if you just have an anytime save / load system.

No. Just because the player can be a loser and reload everytime something goes wrong doesn't mean the game should be designed with that in mind. "Oh, some people will just reload if they miscast a spell, I guess implementing rules for spellcasting is pointless then.".

In CRPGs with anytime save / reload, anything other than "full heal between battle" like in DA is just larping. Combat in (newer) CRPGs is fucked because the developers can't balance it around people min / maxing with saves. No kidding you have shittons of healing potions, you didn't use them on all the little battles because you knew it didn't matter. You could just reload if anything bad happened. Save before every fight, in some games save DURING every fight. Tactics schmactics.

This is why combat in a lot of CRPGs is garbage. Spellcasting and damage rolls are also fucked because of the same player behaviour. You can't balance around players cheating, but few people view it as cheating to just save every couple minutes (even though that's what it amounts to).

Developers end up making boss fights and absurdly stupid fights to create some semblance of difficulty, but without a solid foundation they just seem out of place and annoying.

tldr: all (true bro) games should feature punishment for failure. resources like healing will then become important, and the particular resource used (healing potions, doctor skill, resting, whatever) won't really matter that much.

edit: DA actually did it properly. They balanced their fights against the assumption that you would have full health. They knew you would, because they made it that way, and that gave them some semblance of ability to dictate the encounter difficulty. I'm not saying DA is a good RPG or anything (gay elf sex!!!!) but I at least credit them for making the right choice there. If you're going to make an ARPG you should try to balance the combat, and given how people play nowadays that was probably the best way to do it.

 

[Excidium]

Again, healing systems are pointless without meaningful punishment for death. You can do whatever you want if you just have an anytime save / load system.

No. Just because the player can be a loser and reload everytime something goes wrong doesn't mean the game should be designed with that in mind. "Oh, some people will just reload if they miscast a spell, I guess implementing rules for spellcasting is pointless then.".

In CRPGs with anytime save / reload, anything other than "full heal between battle" like in DA is just larping.

No.

Combat in (newer) CRPGs is fucked because the developers can't balance it around people min / maxing with saves. No kidding you have shittons of healing potions, you didn't use them on all the little battles because you knew it didn't matter. You could just reload if anything bad happened. Save before every fight, in some games save DURING every fight. Tactics schmactics.

Combat in newer CRPGs are shit by design. Adding some artificial punishment wouldn't change a thing.

Balancing the game around the fact that the player can reload is just stupid. It fucks up with everything that makes a CRPG good, that's probably why it 'works' in DA:O.

This is why combat in a lot of CRPGs is garbage. Spellcasting and damage rolls are also fucked because of the same player behaviour. You can't balance around players cheating, but few people view it as cheating to just save every couple minutes (even though that's what it amounts to).

Developers end up making boss fights and absurdly stupid fights to create some semblance of difficulty, but without a solid foundation they just seem out of place and annoying.

Combat in a most CRPGs is garbage because most CRPG developers can't design good combat.

tldr: all (true bro) games should feature punishment for failure. resources like healing will then become important, and the particular resource used (healing potions, doctor skill, resting, whatever) won't really matter that much.

What kind of punishment for failure? Hopefully something that can't be exploited or cheated out, lest you are forced to start balancing the game around cheaters.

 

[7hm]

In CRPGs with anytime save / reload, anything other than "full heal between battle" like in DA is just larping.

No.

Yes. You don't need to use healing potions for the vast majority of encounters because of the horrible balance issues. The only reason to use healing potions / rest / whatever is because you choose to pretend like your characters actually have to. Or because you don't want to save / reload despite the fact the game was designed with this in mind.

Combat in newer CRPGs are shit by design. Adding some artificial punishment wouldn't change a thing.

Balancing the game around the fact that the player can reload is just stupid. It fucks up with everything that makes a CRPG good.

That's probably why it 'works' in DA:O.

Combat is shit by design? Most developers do give it their best effort. Their best effort might be shit, but that doesn't make it intentional.

I agree you can't balance the game around reloading, but the reality is that with that "feature" in place, game developers have the choice between trying to find some kind of solution for it to maintain difficulty levels, or ignoring it. Either way they're fucked.

It worked in DAO for the reason I stated - they had the opportunity to balance against a known fact. They knew you would have full health for every fight. It wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than in most other combat systems since the mid 90s.

This is why combat in a lot of CRPGs is garbage. Spellcasting and damage rolls are also fucked because of the same player behaviour. You can't balance around players cheating, but few people view it as cheating to just save every couple minutes (even though that's what it amounts to).

Developers end up making boss fights and absurdly stupid fights to create some semblance of difficulty, but without a solid foundation they just seem out of place and annoying.

Combat in a most CRPGs is garbage because most CRPG developers can't design good combat.

Of course. Everyone who develops CRPGs has no conception of combat design / tactics. That is much more likely to be the reason, as opposed to an imbalanced save / load system that makes tactical combat meaningless.

tldr: all (true bro) games should feature punishment for failure. resources like healing will then become important, and the particular resource used (healing potions, doctor skill, resting, whatever) won't really matter that much.

What kind of punishment for failure? Hopefully something that can't be exploited or cheated out, lest you are forced to start balancing the game around cheaters.

For non-permadeath games I like the idea of having save / load restricted to town locations / home base type concept. Not a big fan of save points because they force linearity on you, but old style MM or Wizardry where you had to make it back to the town to save makes the combat much more meaningful. See: Dark Spire.

Or design for permadeath.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

For non-permadeath games I like the idea of having save / load restricted to town locations / home base type concept. Not a big fan of save points because they force linearity on you, but old style MM or Wizardry where you had to make it back to the town to save makes the combat much more meaningful. See: Dark Spire.

Isn't that pretty much a save point system, only without the glowing ball saying "Save Point"?

 

[Excidium]

In CRPGs with anytime save / reload, anything other than "full heal between battle" like in DA is just larping.

No.

Yes. You don't need to use healing potions for the vast majority of encounters because of the horrible balance issues.

I agree.

The only reason to use healing potions / rest / whatever is because you choose to pretend like your characters actually have to. Or because you don't want to save / reload despite the fact the game was designed with this in mind.

No. You use them because you don't want to be the save scumming motherfucker that spends half an hour saving and reloading until he gets the most satisfying result possible.

Combat in newer CRPGs are shit by design. Adding some artificial punishment wouldn't change a thing.

Balancing the game around the fact that the player can reload is just stupid. It fucks up with everything that makes a CRPG good.

That's probably why it 'works' in DA:O.

Combat is shit by design? Most developers do give it their best effort. Their best effort might be shit, but that doesn't make it intentional.

Regarding modern RPGs, it is intentional.

I agree you can't balance the game around reloading, but the reality is that with that "feature" in place, game developers have the choice between trying to find some kind of solution for it to maintain difficulty levels, or ignoring it. Either way they're fucked.

Best option is just ignoring. If the player wants to exploit to make the game easier, let him. It's only his computer and him, why should anyone give a shit?

This is why combat in a lot of CRPGs is garbage. Spellcasting and damage rolls are also fucked because of the same player behaviour. You can't balance around players cheating, but few people view it as cheating to just save every couple minutes (even though that's what it amounts to).

Developers end up making boss fights and absurdly stupid fights to create some semblance of difficulty, but without a solid foundation they just seem out of place and annoying.

Combat in a most CRPGs is garbage because most CRPG developers can't design good combat.

Of course. Everyone who develops CRPGs has no conception of combat design / tactics. That is much more likely to be the reason, as opposed to an imbalanced save / load system that makes tactical combat meaningless.

if they are trying to balance the game around save scumming than they really have no conception of combat design or tactics.

For non-permadeath games I like the idea of having save / load restricted to town locations / home base type concept. Not a big fan of save points because they force linearity on you, but old style MM or Wizardry where you had to make it back to the town to save makes the combat much more meaningful. See: Dark Spire.

Having to climb all the 23 dungeon levels so you can go save in the INN sounds like a pain the ass when you just want to quit the game.

In my opinion only allowing saving in safe areas is good enough.

Or design for permadeath.

Permadeath works wonderfully well in some genres, but not in CRPGs where most of the content is fixed. Sure, an iron man run is fun as hell, but being forced to go through the same unchanged content over and over everytime you died would be awful.

 

[7hm]

For non-permadeath games I like the idea of having save / load restricted to town locations / home base type concept. Not a big fan of save points because they force linearity on you, but old style MM or Wizardry where you had to make it back to the town to save makes the combat much more meaningful. See: Dark Spire.

Isn't that pretty much a save point system, only without the glowing ball saying "Save Point"?

It's a restricted save system. When I think save point I think linear quest with occasional spots where you can save. Regardless of what you call it, I'm definitely in favour of a restricted save system. If the intention is to have meaningful combat at least. For some games it's not, and that kind of system makes a lot less sense for those games. It also doesn't make sense to complain about the combat in those games though.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I really like the system you see on certain hand held RPGs.

You can only create a true save in a few limited spots/times, but you can create a suspend save at any time.

The suspend save allows you to quit playing whenever you want without losing your progress. But it is deleted when you load it again, meaning you can't reload the suspend save when you die, you have to reload from your last real save.

Best of both worlds, none of the convenience is lost, but challenge is maintained.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Jagged Alliance 2 does it pretty well.

Getting hurt usually means you will bleed and need to bandage. Lost HP can't be healed during combat but have to be treated by a doctor or slowly regenerate on their own later. This makes healing important, since if you don't bandage your wounds you'll just bleed out, but it doesn't allow you to get back to max HP easily after fucking up your tactics.

Yeah, it was quite good.

 

[Excidium]

That solution is good too, PorkaMorka.

Jagged Alliance 2 does it pretty well.

Getting hurt usually means you will bleed and need to bandage. Lost HP can't be healed during combat but have to be treated by a doctor or slowly regenerate on their own later. This makes healing important, since if you don't bandage your wounds you'll just bleed out, but it doesn't allow you to get back to max HP easily after fucking up your tactics.

Yeah, it was quite good.

Indeed, and also if you take too long to apply first aid you can get your maximum HP permanently reduced. Or was it just in JA1? Anyway, it's a good idea.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I really like the system you see on certain hand held RPGs.

You can only create a true save in a few limited spots/times, but you can create a suspend save at any time.[...]

Useless trivia: That system was present in N64's Majora's Mask, only there are a few statues you have to talk with to make the suspended save. Even though you could teleport to places near them so it was almost "at any time", I don't think anyone ever used it...it wasn't as simple as a handheld game so you were just confused as fuck when you loaded the suspended save and all that shit was going around you. Much easier to just save properly, I think it even took less time.

 

[someone else]

Darklands & JA2 have nice natural healing. But both also have healing potions.

 

[Metro]

I just think having to redo portions of stuff you did before getting back to the 'save spot' just adds tedium rather than a challenge or difficulty. I'd rather have some experience/gold penalty.

 

[Gord]

For non-permadeath games I like the idea of having save / load restricted to town locations / home base type concept. Not a big fan of save points because they force linearity on you, but old style MM or Wizardry where you had to make it back to the town to save makes the combat much more meaningful. See: Dark Spire.

Isn't that pretty much a save point system, only without the glowing ball saying "Save Point"?

It's a restricted save system. When I think save point I think linear quest with occasional spots where you can save. Regardless of what you call it, I'm definitely in favour of a restricted save system. If the intention is to have meaningful combat at least. For some games it's not, and that kind of system makes a lot less sense for those games. It also doesn't make sense to complain about the combat in those games though.

You might just end up with the much beloved checkpoint system...

IIRC Realms of Arkania had a system were you had to pay exp when saving outside of temples, or something like that.
Or you can force the player to exit the game when saving.
Whatever the solution, I'd like it to be tied to an optional "hardcore/bro"-mode.

 

[Storyfag]

IIRC Realms of Arkania had a system were you had to pay exp when saving outside of temples, or something like that.

I kinda like that one, but it penalises the player and people don't like to 'loose' anything. How about a limited number of availible savegames, restored after praying at a temple/sleeping at an inn, whatevah?

 

[Gord]

pay exp when saving outside of temples

I kinda like that one, but it penalises the player and people don't like to 'loose' anything

Yes, I think that's the point behind it...

Of course you can also limit the number of saves, but then again, how much is enough, when does it get too much?
It feels a bit like a needless complication. To balance against people that don't like to loose anything I propose to make it part of an optional harder difficulty you can choose at the beginning.

 

[Zomg]

You can balance for full non-combat saving - no trash fights at all, and have the entire game's combat be about a small number of deeply designed and intentional set pieces.

Also whenever anyone talks about restricting saving systems a roguelike-style "save and quit" option available at any time should be assumed, no one thinks you shouldn't be able to control when you stop playing. Hard saves you can reload at will are what is at issue.

 

[visions]

In CRPGs with anytime save / reload, anything other than "full heal between battle" like in DA is just larping.

No.

The only reason to use healing potions / rest / whatever is because you choose to pretend like your characters actually have to. Or because you don't want to save / reload despite the fact the game was designed with this in mind.

The reason to use healing potions instead of loading every time something goes wrong in a fight, is that I don't want to waste my real life time on redoing the same battle if I don't have to, when I can just waste an in-game item instead. Nothing to do with larping. Reloading every time something goes wrong and re-doing the same battle over and over would be tedious and would waste my time.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah, it's not like I'll feel better about finishing the game with a hoard of healing pots than without. In most singleplayer games the challenge pretty much amounts to how fast I can complete a game. Do I want to grind, reload, or use some 1-use items to get past a certain point? Just judge which is the most convenient/fun option for you, I usually pick item use unless I really feel I'll save more time later by preserving the items for a future encounter.

 

[7hm]

Also whenever anyone talks about restricting saving systems a roguelike-style "save and quit" option available at any time should be assumed, no one thinks you shouldn't be able to control when you stop playing. Hard saves you can reload at will are what is at issue.

This, absolutely. I don't want to lose an hour of play time, especially in a non-randomized game, because I needed to go somewhere.

I also think autosaves (one slot, loadable as a "continue" option) are good to help prevent against lost playtime from power failures, crashes, etc. They need to be frequent enough that you can't use them as get out of jail free cards though.