THE RISE OF THE COMPLETE HEAL AFTER EVERY BATTLE GAME

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slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
Sometimes offense is the best defense! Like if there's an enemy that's gonna explode next turn for huge damage and you gotta burn 'em down, you gotta drink your power potion.

...of course, sometimes the Dance Commander is gonna cast Firaga-oo-la-la and you can't defeat them fast enough and their guardian puppets are alive and all your quick heals on cooldown, but an emergency shield elixir might be just enough to keep your healer alive!

In theory, anyway. Of course, the idea is that your strategy's gotta be malleable to deal with whatever situation you end up in, and the best potion won't always be the same.
See, as much as I didn't like Dragon Quarter as a Breath of Fire game, I have to give it props for the limitations it placed on the dragon spell, which was the super powerful mcguffin skill. You could use it, sure. Any time, anywhere. BUT it filled up your 'counter' to do so and when that counter was full - game over.

I guess another good example of this is Meteor from FF4. When Tellah unlocked the spell it killed him to use it because it was so powerful and he was so old. If he'd been younger he might have been able to pull it off without dying but the effort required to use that amount of magic meant that its use was limited.

In this kind of battle system, you could have a very powerful skill, but like everything else you need to balance it. So instead of allowing someone free access to the skill, things like limiting the amount of times you can use the skill in-game (say it's very powerful and there's a x battle cooldown so that the character using it doesn't die from overstressing their body) or that certain conditions must be met before it can be used (think lucky 7s in FF7).
author=LockeZ
Come on, don't ALWAYS bet on face punching. Hopefully there's a reason the game gives you both options. Like, I mean, if you're fighting a group of three enemies, and the first one starts dispelling your buffs, and the second one silences your healer, and the third one casts a spell that lowers your HP and MP to 1, then holy shit use the elixir instead of the buff potion you dumbass.

I'm not gonna eat the opportunity cost of not using a skill applicable to most battles that is mutually exclusive that isn't and also entirely reactive unless the game has communicated otherwise. If I don't know what the Three Stooges are gonna do I'm going to assume it won't be a hard counter at using alchemy as a damage boost. Fighting one at a time then all three together is an entirely different story.


e: Added quote because I got distracted by pretty lights before posting


author=slash
Sometimes offense is the best defense! Like if there's an enemy that's gonna explode next turn for huge damage and you gotta burn 'em down, you gotta drink your power potion.

...of course, sometimes the Dance Commander is gonna cast Firaga-oo-la-la and you can't defeat them fast enough and their guardian puppets are alive and all your quick heals on cooldown, but an emergency shield elixir might be just enough to keep your healer alive!

In theory, anyway. Of course, the idea is that your strategy's gotta be malleable to deal with whatever situation you end up in, and the best potion won't always be the same.

But is the reason the Dance Commander still alive due to lacking damage? If you used your instant but mutually exclusive damage buff was it going to be enough to take them out before they use Firaga? If I don't know and have no way of determining I'll assume kicking teeth in is the way to go because a dead Dance Commander can't use Firaga as well as a live one.
You know what's a cool idea? Not having HP be the only deciding factor if an enemy goes down. So, what if, for the Firaga dude can be killed via HP removal, but a faster way is destroying his MP pool (and that is what can retire him from battle faster).
We rely on HP a bit too much when there are a lot of other options out there to explore.
author=Liberty
You know what's a cool idea? Not having HP be the only deciding factor if an enemy goes down. So, what if, for the Firaga dude can be killed via HP removal, but a faster way is destroying his MP pool (and that is what can retire him from battle faster).We rely on HP a bit too much when there are a lot of other options out there to explore.

I'm all in for variety and different winning conditions. We could for example, freeze enemies and then smash the ice once completely frozen.

author=kentona
so anyway, one thing I don't like in this Healed All The Time framework is that skills are nerfed.

Nerfed in power or nerfed in "interesting"? In a way, dealing the big hit makes the player feel awesome and powerful. Guardian forces make a ritual out of that. Some people like it. Ultima skills could still work, but not as a first round instant kill. Why not really make a ritual out of it. Example: "Summon Lord of Doom -> Mark an enemy and kill it while marked makes the lord of doom appear and deal damage." This makes the palyer think which enemy is the fastest to kill, bring it down, mark it and then kill it in time. Imo that adds a lot more depth than just power for mana.

author=kentona
And then the game's battles all devolve into "Guess The Pattern" and react accordingly.
In the classical jrpg, all heros are mana-conservers. Most skills can be used instantly and as long as you have the mana. The pattern comes in form of the enemy, and the party has the tools to react to the pattern.

What if we give patterns to the player too? Action RPGs like diablo 3 give players the possibility to chose from a set of skills and create their own pattern, which is used against the enemy pattern. Defeating enemies with your own creating is awesome. Some people loved powerleveling heros in final fantasy and burst through enemies. It's as dull as it can get, but if works as long as the player knows that its his creation that defeated the enemy. This works even more in every type of game that lets you chose your powers, and in most mmos, its the choice of class that determines the pattern the player can use.

Dropping the "conserve ressources"-philosophy gives room to fill the game with something else, and more choice in developing the character's abilities fits very well with an offensive "smash them hard"-gameplay with short ressource management cycles.


Diablo 3 was very unsatisfying for a myriad of reasons, one of which was I couldn't choose to power up the skills I wanted to use. I just got assigned a new skill or tweak to a skill every level up. (also the way equipment and stats were designed took away all real choice in equipment). The complete lack of freedom to build up the player the way I want to to make him capable of bursting through enemies was a major turnoff.

Being able to craft my creation and test it against the enemy by completely demolishing them is why I like RPGs.

E:
author=Corti
author=Liberty
You know what's a cool idea? Not having HP be the only deciding factor if an enemy goes down. So, what if, for the Firaga dude can be killed via HP removal, but a faster way is destroying his MP pool (and that is what can retire him from battle faster).We rely on HP a bit too much when there are a lot of other options out there to explore.
I'm all in for variety and different winning conditions. We could for example, freeze enemies and then smash the ice once completely frozen.

author=kentona
so anyway, one thing I don't like in this Healed All The Time framework is that skills are nerfed.
Nerfed in power or nerfed in "interesting"? In a way, dealing the big hit makes the player feel awesome and powerful. Guardian forces make a ritual out of that. Some people like it. Ultima skills could still work, but not as a first round instant kill. Why not really make a ritual out of it. Example: "Summon Lord of Doom -> Mark an enemy and kill it while marked makes the lord of doom appear and deal damage." This makes the palyer think which enemy is the fastest to kill, bring it down, mark it and then kill it in time. Imo that adds a lot more depth than just power for mana.
Nerfed in power.

And like Bulma pointed out, some of the cost for Ultima in FF6 is the effort it takes to get it in the first place, therefore you can think of it as a bit of a reward, which factors into its overpowered design. However, I am not saying this is ideal (I would have put more limits on it, or at least a greater MP cost), but I don't hate on the concept of uber-spells.

E2:
Regarding HP and MP, if you are healed after battle, why do you even have MP at all? I've played a few games of Healed After Battle where MP doesn't even exist as a concept. It works.


LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=GreatRedSpirit
author=LockeZ
Come on, don't ALWAYS bet on face punching. Hopefully there's a reason the game gives you both options. Like, I mean, if you're fighting a group of three enemies, and the first one starts dispelling your buffs, and the second one silences your healer, and the third one casts a spell that lowers your HP and MP to 1, then holy shit use the elixir instead of the buff potion you dumbass.
I'm not gonna eat the opportunity cost of not using a skill applicable to most battles that is mutually exclusive that isn't and also entirely reactive unless the game has communicated otherwise. If I don't know what the Three Stooges are gonna do I'm going to assume it won't be a hard counter at using alchemy as a damage boost. Fighting one at a time then all three together is an entirely different story.

But the game did just communicate which one to use. By doing the things I just said. It's not as though the battles end after two rounds like in Dragon Warrior. We're talking about games with full-heals after each fight, which means that each fight is about studying the enemy and watching what they do and responding appropriately. Each battle in an RPG of this type is long enough that it can typically communicate what the enemies do by simply having them do it.

And I mean, no matter what, if you have a limited resource, and you're expected to pick what to spend it on in each battle, you DEFINITELY shouldn't spend it until you've seen what the enemies can do. Start out the battle by using general-purpose skills, not by blowing an unrecoverable resource that has a 50/50 chance of being needed for something else later. Actually higher, because in some battles where the damage boost is useful, you'll want to use it at a specific time. Are you just bad at video games???

author=kentona
Regarding HP and MP, if you are healed after battle, why do you even have MP at all? I've played a few games of Healed After Battle where MP doesn't even exist as a concept. It works.
You can get away with not having MP, of course. You can get away with it in games that are about trekking through a dungeon without running out of supplies too - your HP just becomes your only supply.

MP still helps create something for the player to think about though, and adds some flow and rhythm to battles. They have to weigh the effectiveness of a skill vs. a longer term cost - if they use this damage spell, will they still have enough MP to use a dispel ability if the enemy buffs itself? Maybe they have a meditate command that restores their MP, but it also leaves them vulnerable, and they take extra damage from enemies on the round when they use it. In a typical battle they probably will have to meditate at least once before the battle ends, maybe twice if they take too long. Do they do it now while their HP is relatively high, or do they try to stun an enemy first, or do they keep casting to see if they can kill off one of the enemies before they run out of MP?
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
MP is the standard, but of course there's a ton of other resource systems you can use, and if you're already messing around with healing, why not mess with your skill resource?

I'll bring back the comparison to MMOs again, because they also work on the assumption that you're starting every battle with full health and every possible resource available. You can use MP, of course, but you can also try Energy (smaller pool that regenerates over time), Rage (the more damage you take/deal, the more you can use your skills) and Cooldowns (your powerful skills can only be used once per battle, or sparingly). You could also not limit your skills at all!

Honestly, the whole point is to create interesting choices, so as long as the player has a reason to choose certain skills at certain times - and probably every skill should be useful at some point.

author=Liberty
You know what's a cool idea? Not having HP be the only deciding factor if an enemy goes down. So, what if, for the Firaga dude can be killed via HP removal, but a faster way is destroying his MP pool (and that is what can retire him from battle faster).
We rely on HP a bit too much when there are a lot of other options out there to explore.


Bosses with alternate win conditions... I like that idea. Hmm. Maybe a marathon boss where you just have to stall and kills its minions until it dies or leaves on its own? Or, say, you have to restrain the boss with a spell that each character can cast, but you have to cast it 20 times to finally win (meanwhile, the rest of your characters are doing their best to stay alive)? As long as each character has a use in the battle, that could be really fun.

I remember there was a boss a loooong time ago in WoW that involved healing a wounded dragon and defending her from cultists or something, and when you finally healed her all the way she got up and destroyed them all herself. It felt pretty unique and memorable :)
author=kentona
Regarding HP and MP, if you are healed after battle, why do you even have MP at all? I've played a few games of Healed After Battle where MP doesn't even exist as a concept. It works.
You can get away with not having MP, of course. You can get away with it in games that are about trekking through a dungeon without running out of supplies too - your HP just becomes your only supply.

MP still helps create something for the player to think about though, and adds some flow and rhythm to battles. They have to weigh the effectiveness of a skill vs. a longer term cost - if they use this damage spell, will they still have enough MP to use a dispel ability if the enemy buffs itself? Maybe they have a meditate command that restores their MP, but it also leaves them vulnerable, and they take extra damage from enemies on the round when they use it. In a typical battle they probably will have to meditate at least once before the battle ends, maybe twice if they take too long. Do they do it now while their HP is relatively high, or do they try to stun an enemy first, or do they keep casting to see if they can kill off one of the enemies before they run out of MP?

By the way, what about HP as a mana currency? I believe Paladin's Quest did this, and it seemed acceptable. If you need to heal, healing drains HP equal to the cost, meaning only someone else can heal you, and only by draining from their own hp. This solves both the issue of challenge that I had with this, and gives a purpose to healing potions, despite having healing after battle (magic healing just transfers, and you need to survive the battle).
author=bulmabriefs144
By the way, what about HP as a mana currency? I believe Paladin's Quest did this, and it seemed acceptable. If you need to heal, healing drains HP equal to the cost, meaning only someone else can heal you, and only by draining from their own hp. This solves both the issue of challenge that I had with this, and gives a purpose to healing potions, despite having healing after battle (magic healing just transfers, and you need to survive the battle).


Oh yeaaaaaaaaaahhhh! XD I remember that game!

The system was kinda neat, although it was getting pretty ridiculous by a certain point. I also liked how your healing potions were limited. You had to collect bottles for it a la zelda if I remember right, so you couldn't just stockpile them.
Yeah, I thought Paladin's Quest handled that pretty well. I've seen people bag on that game a lot, but I thought it was pretty sweet. The sequel--Lennus 2--is a lot better, too.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
It's all very situational. Heal after Battle is okay for a dungeon crawl but for a 50+ hour epic RPG? No, it won't work at least not in the traditional sense.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
First of all, how are those two things mutually exclusive? Almost every commercial dungeon crawler I can think of is a 50+ hour RPG.

Second, a dungeon crawl is exactly the one kind of game where it totally doesn't work. I can't believe I'm agreeing with something bulma said, but he's right that it interferes with the feeling of it being a dungeon. It still works mechanically but it interferes with the primary emotions that a dungeon crawler is meant to evoke - those of being trapped deep inside a dangerous location on the verge of death, and knowing that if you fail it's because you were overconfident and stretched yourself too thin, and that if you succeed you are not just overcoming the enemies but the world itself.

Third, go play Dragon Age, like fo shizzle.
author=LockeZ
Second, a dungeon crawl is exactly the one kind of game where it totally doesn't work. I can't believe I'm agreeing with something bulma said, but he's right that it interferes with the feeling of it being a dungeon. It still works mechanically but it interferes with the primary emotions that a dungeon crawler is meant to evoke - those of being trapped deep inside a dangerous location on the verge of death, and knowing that if you fail it's because you were overconfident and stretched yourself too thin, and that if you succeed you are not just overcoming the enemies but the world itself.


Exactly. The ENTIRE point of a dungeon crawler is the management of resources. You have to weigh the use of resources against how much profit you make on each run, PLUS try to go further and further down. It's all about resource and risk management, that "Crap, I can take a risk and go a biiit further, maybe handle one more battle or find one more chest if I'm lucky...But I run the risk of losing an hour of progress...Should I turn back or take that risk?"

If you allow the player to regenerate fully after each battle...Then there's no incentive for the player to retreat. They can just keep charging ahead with few risks to make them want to turn back.
Heh. I have a dungeon crawler that doesn't have any battles. And it works.


Anything can work if you put enough effort into it. Seriously.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
How does that work, exactly?
Quite well, actually. Instead of battles, the idea is to collect treasures. You do have item management because you need to use them to progress and collect the treasures. It's more puzzle-element but you make choices that affect your standing with the other characters in there and there can be altercations (though not battles). You get skills that you can use to find areas (like Earth scrolls which knock down weak walls - though you can just choose to knock the wall down with pure strength if you've enough) and you do have Health and Magic that depletes depending on your actions but you're not fighting monsters.

Dungeon, if you're curious. It's on the site. (And not long since it's still in demo form.)
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I mean, of course that sounds like it could work as a game, but it would feel absolutely nothing like a dungeon crawler, since you're never in any danger.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Am I mistaken or isn't Wine & Roses a dungeon crawler with full heals after battle?
Heh, so you think... You can die in the game - whether by failing puzzles or by making bad choices. There is danger.