DamnedRegistrations said:
Changed the game how? If it reloaded you at some predetermined location instead of where you saved, or with fewer resources than when you saved, sure, but that's not really the usual definition of saving/reloading.
How about:
Game keeps count of reloads (not just loads, but times when the load occurs when there is already a game in progress). This number is stored in a save file when the game is saved. The number is then used to fuck stuff up. Each time the number fucks stuff up, it's decremented. Fucking stuff up would generally consist of automatically overruling successful rolls with failures, autofailing sidequests under the guise of independent factors, crossing out randomly occurring and desirable uniques from droplists, overriding single occurences of valuable items or desirable random events, and so on. Various types of autofail can have different priorities and consume different amount of "fail points". Randomized stuff can fail randomly with probability dependent on the amount of FP, set stuff failing can be determined on the acquisition of respective "FP" and stored in the save file.
The logic behind this system is that reloads are detectable from in-universe POV by having a character or a party with unexplainable lucky streak. They fail less often than their ability would dictate, they don't make mistakes and so on. The proposed system would simply balance the checks - by pairing the lucky streak with an endless train of failures if need be. Good meta-mechanics, like saves should produce no artefacts detectable form within the gameworld, usual save and reload fails in this regard - in the most epic fashion imaginable.
Note that the system can be easily overriden by completely restarting the game to reload with impunity, but this is going to become tedious really quick, also motivating the player to minimize number of reloads.
Benefits of ironman combined with free save and reload? Here I come.
As far as healing in combat goes, I consider it to fulfill the role of a buffer against the RNG fucking you in the skull before you make any decisions. Take a system where you have 1000 HP and 5000HP worth of healing items in 500 HP chunks. Now, you can have attacks deal anywhere from 1 to 999 damage and be survivable, and they can do that kind of damage from the very first round, while still allowing for a very long and complicated fight.
Now remove the healing: You either have the same 1000HP and reduce duration of the battle to match (Fewer decisions per battle, bad compromise to make IMO) or you have 6000HP that the healing pool would have given you. However, now those attacks that deal 999 damage don't really matter.
First, instead of fewer decisions, make the decision more elementary and the simulation deeper - why does no one ever complain about good chance of one hit kills in milsims and semirealistic shooters? Because player has better control of his actions and more options at his disposal. RPG doesn't really mean anything beyond "characters can have different stats and both different stats and decisions made during the gameplay have the influence on the ingame events", there is nothing in RPGs that should preclude higher degree of control as long as character performance can be made meaningfully different.
Games shouldn't be so random, that the player's role boils down to banging his head powerlessly against the RNG, nor as independent of player's skill that the default response to a lost battle would "need moar grindan". Randomness should be used to force player to factor in different possible outcomes of component actions and use strategy that is tolerant to some of them being failures.
From this point of view a pool of healing items, spells or large HP pool simply means padding the "natural" length of a battle resulting from its base complexity.
With a party, you get the additional problem of what if the enemy randomly (either by actions targetting more often or succeeding more often) causes a disproportionate amount of damage to a single character? With combat healing you can use some of your healing pool to prevent that character's incapacitation.
You can just as well shift your formation to protect the wounded or something like that.
Without it, your options are pretty much limited to hoping it doesn't happen, since you can't prepare for random occurrences.
Well, the point of right tactics in a partially random game is preparing for them and minimizing their impact.
Putting that aside, a protective spell/armor/ability that gives you +1000 HP shielding and can be recast is just healing by another name.
No, since it needs to be cast beforehand and may be non-cumulative. Also, the problems with all sorts of recastables isn't recastables themselves, but the fact that the time tends to not matter in games, which encourages constant resting.
Mortal wounds and infections aren't any more or less interesting than curses or broken equipment when done properly. But you never lament the fact that those are missing from combat.
*I* do.
Implementation of healing is generally broken in availability and power relative to other actions, not in principle. I've seen it implemented pretty well in a lot of games with very tense combat. The principle of combat healing is essentially to add a hp pool that the player can strategically use to defend characters with.
I ganerally loathe the concept of HP pool as well, so yeah.
And there's always the option of making it less/non effective for any situations you want to as a game designer. You can add curses that make healing impossible, instant death attacks, diseases that make healing less effective, parasites that become more powerful when you heal their host, etc.
Good, but I prefer my games designed from simulationist perspective, with addition of necessary gamist breaks from reality, rather than from gamist perspective, with simulationist breaks from.. uhh... I don't know what.
Avoidance, tactical planning, protective spells all require anticipating the necessity for such. It'd be boring if you knew when every fireball, rocket, or giant trap door spider was going to rape your skinniest character's ass, so those can't cover everything.
Tactics should be always assumed necessary and player should be prepared for all kinds of encounters. The rest are helped by recon.
Yielding and escape both amount to losing the battle and the enemy not deigning to murder you (Or never having been capable of murdering you in the case of escape). Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it has little bearing on giving the player interesting ways to fight a battle.
But it gives player interesting ways to lose the battle and keep playing. RPGs tend to be designed with wide range of success and only fatal failures. This is just plain fucking wrong - there should be many degrees and types of failure and most of them should allow continued playing.
Armor gets used with healing anyways. It's just a random chance to not take (as much) damage (Or simply a larger HP pool).
Armour can be far more complex than that. Even it's single variable.
Combat is going to balanced around it's use anyways, since you'd have to be pretty retarded to have your knight run around in lingerie when armor is an option.
How about your mages and monks?
Isn't weighing the value of a wand of digging charge against a healing potion and the risk of what may be waiting on the floor you escape to appealing to you?
I'd prefer some other tradeoff instead, besides, healing items that are actually rare and valuable are less of an issue.
Healing potions simply aren't terribly interesting, break immersion, pose risk of hoarding and are a design risk in themselves - of making battles only difficult thanks to HP attrition.
