Go rest button

[narana]

 Right now the only thing keeping me from going to rest after every fight is the tedium associated with it:
- stop having fun
- move 50 tiles at a time to edge of current map, and change to map with camp
- regroup, rezoom out
- move 50 tiles at a time to camp
- rest
- move into buff position, buff, heal, group
- move 50 tiles at a time to edge of rest map, and change to current map
- regroup, rezoom out
- move 50 tiles at a time to current position
- have fun again with exploration and fights

 What I do instead is when I start chugging potions (good thing characters never stop being thirsty btw, my group has swallowed dozens of potions in some harder fights), then after fight go rest. Instead of the previous sequence I propose:
- press go rest button

- move into buff position, buff, heal, group
- have fun again with exploration and fights

 Not only would this increase the proportion of playtime that is enjoyable, but it would help hide some of the more annoying limitations of the game: lack of minimap, unable to walk more then 50 tiles at a time. Since it seems turn count might become an important thing with the addition of some future features, it could have a high turn count cost.

[Cory Trese]

Thanks for the feedback!

[slayernz]

Maaaaaaaaaaybe for explored AND cleared areas on the map, you can long-press a location (no matter how distant), and the game attempts to move you there without the tedious walking. If you haven't cleared the area, a warning toast appears saying "The path you have chosen is not safe".

Also, even with safe paths, there should always be a % chance of an encounter - after all, you are trying to rush to a location so you might overlook another scavenging party of ratkin until you are right upon them. I was thinking 10% - 20%, which means that you don't necessarily want to do the long-press when you are particularly beaten up.

[nolost]

The OP suggestion is more or less to remove the rest points. It's a streamlining that have its positive and negative. As are the areas I have seen the rest points are a part of the design and cancel their usage is questionable. But OP pinpoint an element that, in my opinion, isn't working very well. Let make it clear that stuff doesn't work well in at least 75% of the good and better RPG that tried implement rest. That's more generally the problem of mana/health/rest/potions.

Many modern RPG just gave up on the problem with solutions like auto healing/mana restore at end of combat, or healing and regeneration along the time. Such solution can work but they cancel the rest, ie they they cancel a management element.

I have seen many system that try keep a rest management. From the current base of HS the reason it doesn't work that well is because developers designed it so the player use potions between rest points. In practice there's a lot of possibilities to not discover a rest point and found it very late and then use much more potions. There's also problems coming from the diversity of parties/tactics/player skills that can generate huge difference in requirement of healing/mana restore.

Once the player met such trouble, it's over the rest system is broken for him. He lost confidence in finding in time the new rest point forward, or lost confidence that his management will match the potions drop the game will allow. Then he starts many and long walk back to last check point discovered.

The problem is potions has a too high cost for replacing rest. And more potions drop isn't really a solution because the balance can't be managed for all type of players/parties/tactics. And provide too much potions allow abuse them during combats.

So to temper the problem, the classical solution is to provide secondary resources of healing/mana restore. Either it's a resource allowing rest, either it's a resource allowing heal or restore mana but can be used in combats. It forces build two systems potions/combats and rest/resources but it avoids mix two different problems. For example a system could be to provide rations at rest points or more in shops. But as in Might & Magic series their max number you can carry is limited. Each ration allows a rest, and for example a party could carry 3 when filled from rest point and 5 when filled from a shop. Some players will enjoy manage their rations carefully and some other will use them to divide by three the number of walk back to last rest point. For replays, anyway the rest points are rarely a significant element as the player knows where they are. With such change, it's quite probable that potions drops could be lowdown. This means a replacement need be found, could be one ration, more scrolls, something.

I'm not saying it's feasible in the game in term of time/cost and change in design elements already polished, I have no idea of this cost. If it's out of the limits it could be for a future next game.

EDIT: That post doesn't mean I didn't appreciated the gameplay around the rest points, their positions, finding them, manage potions, use scouting to try localize them, some are sort of gentle secrets ie a little hidden stuff, some more. But I also definitely fall in the problem OP mentions, at least during some parts of the game, and then did long walk back and many, when some alternate system would have figure well the idea of expedition between two rest points, without to involve in it an expensive resource that can be critical is a combat is going bad.

[Cory Trese]

Bookmarked this. With 4X launch and personal stuff I cannot give this one a complete response until later.

I will be back to discuss the game design and respond to the above posts with some clarification and explanations.

Lots of good stuff here and some confusion too. Looking forward to being able to participate more in depth soon.

[nolost]

The first version of my post was starting with a classification of the various systems I quoted in various games. :-) I'm sure that part of the design has been thought in deep. It's also a matter of sensibility and choices to do knowing it can't be perfect.

Modern RPG stripped out so many little managements that isolated seem a bit weird or with significant drawback, but they ended in removing the adventure/expedition aspect of RPG. It's like the combats, I think they are very long, at least many of them, and most modern RPG just gave up do that sort of design choices. I don't mean it negatively but sometimes when playing some more complex/long combat of the game, I have vague reminding of one of the very first RPG I played ie Pool of Radiance. But I don't think many more modern players of RPG could really enjoy Pool of Radiance combats, too long.

One modern game, indie RPG series, also bring back little managements with more or less success, it's Eschalon Book series, very different, and last book even gave up on the rest, more or less. An option allows have a food and drink system and rest cost food and drink. But after few hours of play, it becomes mainly symbolic because the economy break the mechanism and you could just buy enough food and then just need put some little care to refill water reserve.

That point is very complicated and I don't remind much RPG where it was working relatively well.

[fallen]

nolost - I think you hit it on the head. As a game company, we aren't making the compromises in our game design to please the main game market. We design and make games that are a little more complicated, a little more inspired by Pool of Radiance (loved that game!!), and a little less forgiving.

The design choice about resting, potions, and campsites was planned extensively for Heroes of Steel and is deeply embedded in the challenge, pacing, and structure of the game.

[nolost]

Clearly an indie game should try avoid target similar gameplay than the current tendency of AAA games, because they'll have hard time to compete. On another way it's difficult to manage to be totally out of any tendency.

For the difficulty level I think the wheel is turning a bit. It's more in the mood even for AAA or A games to target a higher difficulty.

The pace of games is another matter and seems still pushing more and more to hurry. It's to a point that many games can be rush in few hours. With the multiplication of panels, heavy signs, focused hand-guiding, some players just rush through a game clicking everything the game pinpoints to click, then highlights the new signals to click and so on, skip dialogs/story elements, no puzzles to stop the rush, no tricks to find/solve. And the difficulty, when it's on the target, rely only on actions phases, generally combats or platform like. That's a caricature but there's some truth in it. In fact this rush isn't fully negative, elements like stories, characters, get more focused, and as the game can be rushed the story is more dense, and the gameplay seems more dense. But in fact it's not the same gameplay.

About the thread topic, the rest places and rest system, it's clear there's a lot of design around rests places and resting. That's enough to make difficult to change anything in it. But without to really focus on how change it in the game, the debate could be on how different it could have been and argue on positive and negative.

From a general point of view, I enjoy the design around rests in the game but I don't feel it's the best system. I mean around a system fairly good there's a very good design. At least I feel some system better but I admit I rarely saw RPG with so much care of details on rests and rest places.

I think the key element is for a given challenge what penalty system you want setup for the player. In case of combats, generally win or lost is enough for most players as a reward/punishment system, in fact there are other intermediate rewward/punishement though the usage of more or less consumable during the combat.

With a gameplay element like rest it's more complicated. The lost is more walk back in the game or lower income/gold or even less urgency potions for the next possible very tough fight. There's perhaps a few rare cases in the game where the door behind has been slammed and the penalty is at another scale, but I think it's always because there's a rest forward not too far. Even in some parts where you are warned about provisioning, generally the door in your back isn't slammed.

But I prefer other systems that spread the penalty more. For example, collect some food or drink during travel and if you forgot the walk back is shorter. Temper the walk back penalty by providing to the player more than one rest (limited amount of provisions in backpack). The problem of systems like the game use is some players like me tend be very cautious and such system push them to abuse of walk back and then get some penalty that feel a bit artificial.

EDIT: I didn't finished the explanation, so the system, put in balance more or less long walk back with a precious resource that cost a significant amount of gold. Knowing that gold can be a savior for managing some difficult situations. In that context, very cautious players tend just ignore the system itself and feel forced in choosing the punishment.

EDIT2: In the game itself there's various scheme used, some provide very close rest place even if in a corner of the area, some are clued and used as a small intermediate goal, more, and some are used to push the player into managing provisions vs amount of damages in combats vs number of combats done vs long walk back because the design hesitated put the player in an impossible situation. That's for those last case where such design doesn't work very well with very cautious players.