THE RISE OF THE COMPLETE HEAL AFTER EVERY BATTLE GAME

I've been thinking about dungeon design in a Heal-After-Battle game. It's tricky, 'cuz you can't really treat it the same as you would in a typical RPG. No resource stress means that there's not much keeping you from easily hopping between points of interest (chests, fights) and that could definitely dull down the exploration. I remember that sticking out in Wine & Roses - while the items & skills you find all give you a little story and character, there was a decent amount of walking back and forth, especially if you had to go explore to find an easier fight to handle. I haven't gotten a chance to play The Heart Pumps Clay, so I'm interested to see how other Heal-After-Battle games handle that.

I think dungeons can still be interesting in this kinda game, though! MMO raids are a good example of this - there's a setting to the overall dungeon that echoes throughout (an old troll temple full of shamans, a volcano full of dragons and their servants) and there's a chain of progression too. You could set up dungeons in such a way that the early, easier fights teach you some basics or new mechanics, and the later fights put that to the test. Having a more linear, less "wandering" dungeon layout lends itself pretty well to the lesson > homework > test style of gameplay design.

Not only that, but since you're likely focusing on quality over quantity of battles, you can use them as an opportunity for storytelling or characterization. Rather than a boss just being, y'know, a big spider, it can be a spider queen with her own personality and quirks. MMO raid bosses usually do this really well - the boss will shout quotes and taunts as you fight, and sections of the dungeon may lead up to them thematically - for example, webs and spider enemies leading up to the spider queen herself.

i don't know why you guys keep intereacting with bulmabriefs

slash: yeah the wandering was WaR's biggest weakness :<

author=unity

author=bulmabriefs144
It isn't about the battle guys. It's about the dungeon. So, given the full restore and no gameover, how would you make the dungeon challenging?

If you want a game of resource/item management and attrition over the period of a dungeon, then yeah, this style of gameplay isn't for you. But you're asserting that it's "horrid" and "does not induce strategy" even though people constantly keep explaining to you that the strategy is switched to managing battle-to-battle rather than dungeon-to-dungeon.

I guess not. But I think now we understand each other. I find this type of thing kinda "meh". I do however, think it can be done well. I liked Essence Enforcer.

And yes, I think dungeon crawling is more than that, and I like the exploring. I just found that to be a very key part of the tension factor for dungeons. I do believe one could have this system and still induce dungeon angst. I just don't know how to do it.

I concede to your point, unity. It is important to try stuff, and if you can make it meaningful then yea, I'll check it out. I'm not sure I'll ever prefer that style (too many MMOs and old school rpgs), but I'll check out The Heart Pumps Clay.

Crystalgate, you've not played my game have you? I like grind. I have grind to such an extent that some monsters are rated at level 150 with scan, and have crazy stats. It does not matter what kind of game I have, I grind.
The point is I see it as an invitation to camp out. The average grindy game would have you periodically buy supplies at decreasing intervals. This breaks the "well I'm gonna stay here" monotony if you are underlevel to survive the boss (or need more skills). You occasionally have to do X (rest, buy supplies, whatever), and this creates a stopping point.

Yes, gauntlet style fighting is one solution. But there, you would need to gradually increase the difficulty, the further you get into the dungeon.

author=LockeZ
In I&V, I tried to solve this by making the dungeons be like Zelda dungeons. Puzzles, locked doors, tools you could get, objects that could be interacted with via those tools.

I like this approach. In the off-chance the player is like me, and doesn't appreciate full-heal, they would still get the challenge they need from puzzle-solving. Then again, I like hybrid games (Okami is a favorite).

Final hallway 13? What's this?

Oh.

http://knowyourmeme.com/videos/55728-jontron-jon-jafari

I love it.

The classic jrpg is about conserving ressources. If you just put autoheal after every battle in a game that is all about conserving ressources, that may not work very good. The average jrpg-trashfight is in itself very very boring and can hardly be lost at all. How could you lose with your 87 life potions and your 65 mana potions and and enough ressources to fight for the next 3 hours? The average jrpg-trashfight is something that takes away some ressources and what the player wants is to get to the boss with the most amount of ressources left. This also leads to passive gameplay. If the awesome skills cost precious mana, its best to use them as rarely as possible.

Does this system work? Sure, it did for 30 years now. Were the games fun? Sure.

Can we do something else? Yes! Why should we? Because even if dragon quest was fun, other things can be fun too, and sometimes more fun (opinion).

I prefer battle systems that are more about smashing the enemy in the most effective way, instead of the most cost-effient. That does not mean, that you always use the same skill, well if there is a skill that does the most damage and costs the most mana, then yes, but why should you even create that kind of skill in a game like this? Monster Groups can be different and combining different types of monsters creates different scenarios for skill-usage. Ressource systems don't need to be about conserving ressources for a dungeon or the rest of the game, they can be about managing ressources for the next 6 turns. Heros are not required to have a pool of mana, they can also have a little pool of energy that regenerates quickly.

The best way to beat those battles is to kill the enemies by combining the powers you have and using the right ones. Autohealing and autoreset after lost battles can make them fast and challenging as well, because youre losing the battle when you failed to use the right skills, not because you used all of the 245* heal items you had.

*not really made up number.

Oh look... you FINALLY FREAKIN' UNDERSTOOD WHAT WE WERE TELLING YOU!!! orz

...
you...
I...
ugh


Bed. Need bed.

so anyway, one thing I don't like in this Healed All The Time framework is that skills are nerfed. Without any longterm costs, the game's balance has to made elsewhere (otherwise why not just spam Ultima?), which means that there either are no more Ultima-like super powerful spells OR all spells have deficiencies or counters.

And then the game's battles all devolve into "Guess The Pattern" and react accordingly.

Not sure if that was brought up yet as a counterpoint to the desirability of Healed All The Time (I tried reading the last handful of posts but it was too painful to continue), but there it is.

author=unity

author=bulmabriefs144
Huh? I was telling you this for the last seven times.

It's just I meant "Look I don't think we should do that unless X, Y, and Z are implemented" and you guys heard "Look I don't think we should do that-" and proceeded to take everything else I said out of context. It's not my fault I can't speak properly. Wait... ^_^;

I have no problem with the encounter powers system. I have a problem with programmers who are munchkins. Who want their game characters to be invincible and don't program against completely broken balance. Sorta, like, if Housekeeping and a few of the main people who make such games get copycats, and they just steal code without understanding how it works to make games where they can beat easily but everyone else is bored. That I'd have a beef with.

If you do this system, you have to make it believable as a challenge. If you can't do that, yea, people like me will complain.

That's not what you were saying earlier. It's really not. You plainly said that it "does not induce strategy" and is "horrible" but are now claiming that you were misunderstood the entire time? Is it so hard for you to say "Maybe I was wrong?"

I could spend like an hour showing how you said, specifically, how this system is bad. But rather than go back and quote you and highlight your hypocrisy, I think that time will be better spent working on my own game, so I'm ignoring you from now on. Not just in this subject, but perhaps everywhere. Because you pull this nonsense all the time.

It is what I said earlier. It really is.

"Complete heal does not induce strategy" (when handled incorrectly and/or because your idea of strategy is single-battle, which is not a correct definition because there are actually multiple components to a battle, including what happens after it, which is about the long game of attrition)
"It is horrible" (when you put this together with no gameover, because you need to have some drawback to defeat)

I'm pretty sure I said something along these lines. Several times. But yea, sure, if all you heard was a sound bite, go ahead and ignore me. But that was never what I was saying. So no, I'm not apologizing, because that's not what I was saying. For the record, my game has fairly easy after battle healing. It does not have after battle healing, but it has renewal for physical attacks. It is possible to run out of MP, and this can make things tricky. It relies on MP potions however for stretches in between battles, and despite this you can get to the point where you are slogging through with no mp. The battle gets easier if you fight more, basically.

Since you don't believe me:

Hate 'em. Well, actually, I've only played Wine & Roses, but yea. Horrible mechanic. Mainly because of both being in battle. You can have auto-restore. You can have games with no gameover. But to have both is like the creator is afraid of disappointing his own players with a loss.

As in, the fear is that both was unbalancing. Not that complete heal by itself was intrinsically bad.

I've played a Sailor Moon RPG called Another Story, which had auto-heal. It was okay. Actually, I liked the game. But I couldn't see the mechanic going mainstream, and I believe it may have been MP restore only.

The point of an RPG is balance and resource management.

I talked in depth about what this would look like. And I did cite at least one game that had restore after battle. It only had MP restore though.

Not "using the best spells for the situation." I mean, "using Ultima every battle, because you know the next battle you'll have the mana." This is the inherent flaw in such a system, and it's compounded by no gameovers. But hey, don't let me convince you of anything.

Part of the selling point of the rpg game is resource strategy, knowing when to head back to the inn because you are breaking even or slowly losing, or when to buy items, or when to whatever else. If you can effectively camp because battles are not using resources, you're cutting off a core part of the game.

As in, you will need to flatten spells to make there not be some super non-element spell in the absence of mp restore. You would also need to have pretty much no items.

If there are no physical attacks, I would agree. Restore magic fully every battle. I played one of the games where everything was a skill, and there was some restore mechanism when you spent everything. Sure, fine. In a game where there are no physical effects, this would be true. In a game with no items, yes, that works too. But in a game where physical effects are a fallback, this makes magic (and later Limits) your trump card.

In cards, are you always able to use your trump? No, sometimes you have to play the cards you are dealt. In an rpg, the cards you are dealt usually has to do with what you have left from previous rounds, and what you have prepared for.

There should also be some limiters to spamming stronger abilities. Either they replace existing abilities (see Pokemon), or maybe they have special conditions for when you can use them.

Strategy is... winning despite the appearance of being outmatched, by using knowledge and planning. To this effect, there are actually three types of strategy:

Logistics (understanding things like movement, materials, and planning)
Strategy (understanding the larger plan of battle, such as "break its armor")
Tactics (course of action, such as on the larger level whether to attack or retreat but also what to do this turn)

Did any of you actually read what I was saying? Either I was pointing out some patently wrong assumption on your part, or usually agreeing with you. I gave you the military definition of strategy. You gave me Oxford dictionary or something, and tried to pass it off as right. That is... a horrible definition. That definition is more like Scooby Doo or something saying "we need a strategy!" I'm talking actual battle strategy instead and you guys. are. missing. the. point.

If the battles are well designed as a whole, then sure it makes sense to restore every battle. But if battles are viewed as something self-contained, and the maker doesn't care that the player was bored out of their skull grinding, since individual battles tested hard, yea, there's a problem.

I actually said this. Yes, it's okay to have restore every battle. If you make it well designed. If you make it so the player doesn't even notice that you'd done it. If you make it so they can't abuse OP attacks.

I like this approach. In the off-chance the player is like me, and doesn't appreciate full-heal, they would still get the challenge they need from puzzle-solving. Then again, I like hybrid games (Okami is a favorite).

And that brings us up to speed. At no point during all of this, did I say "complete healing is completely horrible and should be banned." I said that I (as in, yes, me personally) hated it, especially if it was poorly done. I said it can potentially be well done, but it is probably beyond the skill of a new programmer.

I usually have poor luck with hide feature (as in, it eats my post), so I'm whiting it out instead. Okay slash, let's read what you got.

The balancing factor of Ultima was that it was near endgame and/or hard-to-find spell. Until that, the game depended on the game's rock-paper-scissors of elemental theory. #1 can be done. Effectively. But if it wipes out monsters, pretty much you would be required to make creates that could withstand one hit but not 1 1/2 and were physically nasty. As in, weak enemies or even medium 1/battle is too much, but stronger, yes that helps.
#2 You mean once per battle, right? Although if you really wanted to balance a skill out, you make it used once. I like the idea of late battle damage.
#3 Has been done with some mass damage spells. And with the whole Dark Knight class. Generally, it's tested well as a balance.
#4/5 Never seen this, but it has potential.

I like this notion of back and forth. And I agree that the biggest by far problem with this battle style is once the player figures stuff out. Monsters should be able to react to your plans, and do some of their own. Even if the monster's same strategy is always "Drain MP and power attack the party once it's gone" they can conceivably do so by outright casting Osmose. Or they can have Celes Runic effect, and have spells give them MP instead of dealing damage. It might take the player a while to notice "hey wait, I beat this guy easy last time, why is it lasting so long?" Well ummm, it cast Runic 10 turns in a row. Counters are nice to have in the game too.

author=GreatRedSpirit
If you want something the player will never, ever, use just make it like an elixir. Or even better: an alternative use for an elixir! Add an achievement for never using said ultimate elixir and I expect 99.9% of players will only use them to fill a slot in their inventory. Problem solved!

One of the ideas I'm messing with for my current game is an "Alchemy" command that gives you the ability to use one of several potions. They're pretty powerful and can be used instantly, so they don't even use your action - but each hero can only use them on themselves, and can only use one potion per battle. Hopefully it'll create some tension - do you use one to heal at the last second, or do you use one to buff your ATK and commit to offense?

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.