Are Estus Flasks good design?

[Cipher]

DDO rest points are also different — and objectively better design because they're limited to one usage, but it's also very different type of game because it's mission-based. You can(and will) hit points where you cannot progress in DDO, tough cookie, leave the mission.

I can't really think of a good way to incorporate this into a more traditional CRPG structure. It's much closer to the new Shadowrun games where you go on missions, which does not facilitate something like say… Fallout or Arcanum design.

Camping equipment could fit the bill. You have 1 camping set, that's it. You can replenish the food and other supplies that allow you to setup a camp and rest, but they will go into that 1 set. Meaning, only once "per adventure" or can only be replenished in an "town" or "settlement". This is one is clunky but the easiest way to 'dress up' the mechanic.

Another option is to make the camping set too heavy/large in terms of inventory management to realistically carry more than 1. This one is immersive and moderately hard to balance as it heavily depends on the encumbrance rules and if the inventory uses slots or what not. Also, if comments are to be believed, people absolutely hate encumbrance rules and the first thing they cheat is unlimited encumbrance to loot everything under the sun.

Another option would be something like BG3 where someone has to carry the tents, bedrolls, healing/medical supplies, cooking supplies and food. Make the food required for a full rest very high. Balance the game around the availability of replenish that food so at most 2 rests are possible if 1 or 2 more people go overburdened with all the stuff. Another way, depending on inventory and encumbrance rules, may be that the supplies are just too numerous and/or heavy to pile on someone even at max Strenght/Carrying capacity. Like, perhaps the inventory space is limited and the tent and bedroll alone take a lot of space, so everyone has to carry their own tent and bedroll and then the Player needs to balance who is sacrificing encumbrance/inventory space to carry the various amounts and types of supplies, which don't perish and then the food, which is consumed after use, as well as medicine/bandages whatever is used for healing, which is also consumed after use. This approach is the hardest but I believe the most rewarding and immersive.

[rusty_shackleford]

Camping equipment could fit the bill. You have 1 camping set, that's it. You can replenish the food and other supplies that allow you to setup a camp and rest, but they will go into that 1 set. Meaning, only once "per adventure" or can only be replenished in an "town" or "settlement". This is one is clunky but the easiest way to 'dress up' the mechanic.

Pillows of Eternity did it, all it results in is you running back to town mid-adventure then continuing.

[Cipher]

Camping equipment could fit the bill. You have 1 camping set, that's it. You can replenish the food and other supplies that allow you to setup a camp and rest, but they will go into that 1 set. Meaning, only once "per adventure" or can only be replenished in an "town" or "settlement". This is one is clunky but the easiest way to 'dress up' the mechanic.

Pillows of Eternity did it, all it results in is you running back to town mid-adventure then continuing.

What would be different from estus? Ran out of estus? Just run back to the town mid adventure and continue.

I've said it before, but that's a problem with the game design itself. You shouldn't be allowed to do that without consequences. I mentioned this when we were discussing having day and night cycles. I said that the game should run with an internally consistent clock, with day and night cycles. And as such, quests should have timers so you can't do what you describe. Either that or at the very least time the quest as soon as you accept it so you can't just go back to the "ship" like in Rogue Trader and its wound system.

If going to the bonfire doesn't have consequences, then its unlimited healing. If we take Dork Souls solution, to respawn the enemies, then it opens the door to grinding and overleveling the challenge away.

Something like: "The Baron's daughter may not survive if we leave the cave now." So you have to press on and slay the goblins and save her or you fail the quest. Ideally, this would be time based so leaving and/or resting is a valid option, but if not the dirtiest and easiest way is once you enter the cave then you cannot leave without the quest/time progressing. So you either press on or you essentially abandon the quest.

In that conversation I also mentioned that this doesn't need to be a binary situation, maybe if you take too long the Baron's daughter gets traumatized by torture, then she gets sick due to lack of proper food and then she gets maliciously maimed by one jealous goblina and eventually succumbs to her wounds. If the quest is time based, then depending on how long you take to save her the outcome would be different. But that requires too much programming and man hours for stuff that 'gAmErS' are going to ******* hate because they can't be bothered to make decisions. They have to sweep every single nook and crany in the dungeon, loot everything, take their sweet *** time and never be denied any amount of content due to their own actions, FOMO is law.

[rusty_shackleford]

Camping equipment could fit the bill. You have 1 camping set, that's it. You can replenish the food and other supplies that allow you to setup a camp and rest, but they will go into that 1 set. Meaning, only once "per adventure" or can only be replenished in an "town" or "settlement". This is one is clunky but the easiest way to 'dress up' the mechanic.

Pillows of Eternity did it, all it results in is you running back to town mid-adventure then continuing.

What would be different from estus? Ran out of estus? Just run back to the town mid adventure and continue.

I've said it before, but that's a problem with the game design itself. You shouldn't be allowed to do that without consequences. I mentioned this when we were discussing having day and night cycles. I said that the game should run with an internally consistent clock, with day and night cycles. And as such, quests should have timers so you can't do what you describe. Either that or at the very least time the quest as soon as you accept it so you can't just go back to the "ship" like in Rogue Trader and its wound system.

If going to the bonfire doesn't have consequences, then its unlimited healing. If we take Dork Souls solution, to respawn the enemies, then it opens the door to grinding and overleveling the challenge away.

Something like: "The Baron's daughter may not survive if we leave the cave now." So you have to press on and slay the goblins and save her or you fail the quest. Ideally, this would be time based so leaving and/or resting is a valid option, but if not the dirtiest and easiest way is once you enter the cave then you cannot leave without the quest/time progressing. So you either press on or you essentially abandon the quest.

In that conversation I also mentioned that this doesn't need to be a binary situation, maybe if you take too long the Baron's daughter gets traumatized by torture, then she gets sick due to lack of proper food and then she gets maliciously maimed by one jealous goblina and eventually succumbs to her wounds. If the quest is time based, then depending on how long you take to save her the outcome would be different. But that requires too much programming and man hours for stuff that 'gAmErS' are going to ******* hate because they can't be bothered to make decisions. They have to sweep every single nook and crany in the dungeon, loot everything, take their sweet *** time and never be denied any amount of content due to their own actions, FOMO is law.

Ironically, pillows also had limited XP for each mob type. Once you maxed it out in the codex(? whatever it's called), it stops giving you any XP.

[Demonic Fate]

Cooldowns are a valid and more tactical alternative to per-rest (or per-whatever charges). See ToME4 for a good implementation.

Per-rest still allows you to do a bit of hoarding and then chug them down fast when fighting a boss. Cooldowns means you get free healing out of combat, but if you make a mistake against a boss, you're up against the ropes for a while.

I don't think either design is strictly better - harder isn't always better, otherwise I Wanna Be The Guy would be the greatest game of all time. Sometimes you DO want to give the player a limited number of "oops" buttons, while sometimes you want to require them to be able to hold their own for at least a set amount of time.

Personally I enjoy cooldowns because I hate taking chip damage for stupid reasons, and then having to choose whether to waste most of a potion or to start a boss fight down 8HP.

And in general I think that resource management fits best in very open games where you get to freely plan the length of your sorties: if you enter a dungeon and have no way to guesstimate how long or how difficult it will be, it makes no sense to ask you to "manage" a set of limited resources, you might as well be gambling. That might be a subject worth its own thread though.

You can also combine the two, Cyberpunk switched to that system in the 2.0 patch. Limited charges, with a cooldown between uses, but also a much longer recharge timer so you can heal to max out of combat.

[Cipher]

Pillows of Eternity did it, all it results in is you running back to town mid-adventure then continuing.

What would be different from estus? Ran out of estus? Just run back to the town mid adventure and continue.

I've said it before, but that's a problem with the game design itself. You shouldn't be allowed to do that without consequences. I mentioned this when we were discussing having day and night cycles. I said that the game should run with an internally consistent clock, with day and night cycles. And as such, quests should have timers so you can't do what you describe. Either that or at the very least time the quest as soon as you accept it so you can't just go back to the "ship" like in Rogue Trader and its wound system.

If going to the bonfire doesn't have consequences, then its unlimited healing. If we take Dork Souls solution, to respawn the enemies, then it opens the door to grinding and overleveling the challenge away.

Something like: "The Baron's daughter may not survive if we leave the cave now." So you have to press on and slay the goblins and save her or you fail the quest. Ideally, this would be time based so leaving and/or resting is a valid option, but if not the dirtiest and easiest way is once you enter the cave then you cannot leave without the quest/time progressing. So you either press on or you essentially abandon the quest.

In that conversation I also mentioned that this doesn't need to be a binary situation, maybe if you take too long the Baron's daughter gets traumatized by torture, then she gets sick due to lack of proper food and then she gets maliciously maimed by one jealous goblina and eventually succumbs to her wounds. If the quest is time based, then depending on how long you take to save her the outcome would be different. But that requires too much programming and man hours for stuff that 'gAmErS' are going to ******* hate because they can't be bothered to make decisions. They have to sweep every single nook and crany in the dungeon, loot everything, take their sweet *** time and never be denied any amount of content due to their own actions, FOMO is law.

Ironically, pillows also had limited XP for each mob type. Once you maxed it out in the codex(? whatever it's called), it stops giving you any XP.

That would be an immersive and dirty hack to make sure that even if enemies respawn you cannot just grind the challenge away. But, then again, enemies didn't respawn right? They just couldn't commit. I think that would be the most easy approach for a cRPG that most gamers would accept, since they already love the idea of bonfires respawning enemies.

I still don't like it and I believe is inferior to every other option but that would be an option that I think most would find acceptable.

[rusty_shackleford]

Per-rest still allows you to do a bit of hoarding and then chug them down fast when fighting a boss.

I see this as a reward for being able to get to the boss without using any consumables.

You can also combine the two, Cyberpunk switched to that system in the 2.0 patch. Limited charges, with a cooldown between uses, but also a much longer recharge timer so you can heal to max out of combat.

Interesting.
I think WoW began introducing a similar mechanic around the time I quit where some abilities had charges, a short timer after using the ability, and the recharge for each charge was much longer.

[rusty_shackleford]

But, then again, enemies didn't respawn right?

Yes, it was fixing a problem the game didn't actually have. Pillows 1 & 2 do a lot of this, along with identifying problems and the fixes being worse than the problem itself.

[Cipher]

Per-rest still allows you to do a bit of hoarding and then chug them down fast when fighting a boss.

I see this as a reward for being able to get to the boss without using any consumables.

I agree and this is why I like resource management in these types of games.

[Cipher]

But, then again, enemies didn't respawn right?

Yes, it was fixing a problem the game didn't actually have. Pillows 1 & 2 do a lot of this, along with identifying problems and the fixes being worse than the problem itself.

And then people complain that the reason they didn't sell was because they used RTwP. Such a shame but a deserved downfall for Obsidian.

[DemoGraph]

DDO rest points are also different — and objectively better design because they're limited to one usage, but it's also very different type of game because it's mission-based. You can(and will) hit points where you cannot progress in DDO, tough cookie, leave the mission.

I can't really think of a good way to incorporate this into a more traditional CRPG structure. It's much closer to the new Shadowrun games where you go on missions, which does not facilitate something like say… Fallout or Arcanum design.

Rest points are dungeon entrances, because you can't take a whole field hospital to the dungeon with you. This probably should be paired with dungeon inhabitants slowly recapturing rooms you've already cleared, so that you're on a timer.

[rusty_shackleford]

DDO rest points are also different — and objectively better design because they're limited to one usage, but it's also very different type of game because it's mission-based. You can(and will) hit points where you cannot progress in DDO, tough cookie, leave the mission.

I can't really think of a good way to incorporate this into a more traditional CRPG structure. It's much closer to the new Shadowrun games where you go on missions, which does not facilitate something like say… Fallout or Arcanum design.

Rest points are dungeon entrances, because you can't take a whole field hospital to the dungeon with you. This probably should be paired with dungeon inhabitants slowly recapturing rooms you've already cleared, so that you're on a timer.

only works with older style RPGs that are about dungeon crawling

[DemoGraph]

I can't really think of a good way to incorporate this into a more traditional CRPG structure. It's much closer to the new Shadowrun games where you go on missions, which does not facilitate something like say… Fallout or Arcanum design.

Rest points are dungeon entrances, because you can't take a whole field hospital to the dungeon with you. This probably should be paired with dungeon inhabitants slowly recapturing rooms you've already cleared, so that you're on a timer.

only works with older style RPGs that are about dungeon crawling

Well, theoretically, you can make the same with portals to astral realm or Chernobyl zone running, if you're making "survival RPG" like Subnautica or Pathologic.

[rusty_shackleford]

Rest points are dungeon entrances, because you can't take a whole field hospital to the dungeon with you. This probably should be paired with dungeon inhabitants slowly recapturing rooms you've already cleared, so that you're on a timer.

only works with older style RPGs that are about dungeon crawling

Well, theoretically, you can make the same with portals to astral realm or Chernobyl zone running, if you're making "survival RPG" like Subnautica or Pathologic.

Yes, it becomes mission-based, like how shadowrun uses the subway system.

[TKVNC]

One of the main problems is that most games don't punish the player for 'leaving' to return later.

Mount and Blade meanwhile, other groups can hunt down bandits or lords, capture castles you've been siegeing. Caves you leave will repopulate, so on, so forth.

So if you don't actually plan, you will suffer for it, and there's not really a way to cheese it. Emergent gameplay is what makes an RPG. Without the problem solving, it's just an arcade game.

[Norfleet]

Are you aware of any non-dork souls/soulslop games that use a similar mechanic? What about with things other than healy potions?

Yeah, this is old news. Dates WAY further back than even graphics.

Your ship left Spacedock back in Text MUD days with a given number of repair parts and torpedoes on board determined by your ship class, with only slight variations in how you could influence this, and basically the only way to replenish these was to return to Spacedock or rendezvous with a resupply freighter. Once you used them, you were not gonna get any more for the battle (because if you run out of supplies in the middle of a battle, the supply freighter is at minimum half an hour away and the Klingons and the Romulans will have killed you long before, and if you even try, you're gonna lead them back to the freighter and they'll kill that and everyone will be even more screwed). So, both "healing" and "ammunition" are covered here.

What effects did this have? Well, you USED 'em, for sure. You weren't generally shy about your ability to get more in the long-term (unless some jackwagon did the above), but you clearly had a finite number you could use in the here and now.

[7Trickster]

I would say it's fine, because there is an animation that leaves you open for damage (and killed since you use it when low on HP). So you have to be aware of your surroundings.

I heavily disliked it in Elden Ring because the mobs were too obviously programmed to be extremely aggressive whenever you pop one, even from far away. Special mention to bosses.

In most games I hoard **** and never use them, unless there is a hard wall that prevents progression and it forces me to look at all the **** I collected. Often there are too many items that are just not very impactful and you wonder why the **** they wasted dev time to implement them in the game.

[Norfleet]

You can also combine the two, Cyberpunk switched to that system in the 2.0 patch. Limited charges, with a cooldown between uses, but also a much longer recharge timer so you can heal to max out of combat.

You could end up with a weird "worst of both worlds" where healing is on a cooldown, but you're not allowed to use such abilities out of combat. Way too many games like that, where you have to arbitrarily prolong a fight just so you can conclude the fight in good condition.