Inflation and item usage? ^_^

[Burnsaber]

(This is the second time I'm typing this. Internet Explorer rocks!    )

So if i got it right, the game will have 1-3 "remedies" (sorry for the usage of FF term). Something like this:

Lesser Remedy
Greater Remedy
Mighty Remedy

So i was thinking maybe status effects could be of different ranks? Like This:

Lesser Poison/Blindness/[Status Effect]
Greater Poison/Blindness/[Status Effect]
Mighty Poison/Blindness/[Status Effect]

It seems inituative to me that Lesser poison can be healed by lesser remedy. But the catch i'm getting to is that lesser remedies & healing effect wiil have effect on Greater/ Mighty status effects.

Allow me to make a example.

Claudius is hit by the Dire Octopus's "ink" attack and gets himself "lesser poison" and "lesser blindness". He uses a potion of Lesser Remedy and all is well.

On a other fight, scorpion hits Claudius with his stinger, inflicting "Greater Poison". A team member uses Lesser Remedy on Claudius, and the Scorpions poison is milded to "lesser poison". Greater (or mighty) remedy would have gotten rid of the whole thing.

This might also allow for status attacks to be cumulative. Casting "Lesser Confusion" succesfully two times in row makes the status a "Greater Confusion". If you manage to do it three times, its "Mighty Confusion".

Some negative sides i see on this:
- The game must inform whenever your character is hit by "lesser Blindness" or by a "Mighty Blindness". If the game uses the old FF trick "symbols above the characters head" - way, the coloring of the symbols might be different depending on the status. (Green= Lesser, Yellow= Greater, Red = Mighty)

Some positive sides i see on this:
 - Even your lesser potions always have effect on sick character, allowing lesser healing items & spells to be atlest of some use in higher levels.
 - This allows for more "flavor" in opponents. Some random run-of-the-mill scorpion causes lesser poisonings, but Durk, the master assasin hits with mighty ones! (In FF the final boss causes just as severe poisonings as the random Giant Bee in the first dungeon. Just... wrong if you ask me.)
 - This also brings some stragedical element in to the game. "the opponent got lesser blindness from Claudius's Drakness sword. Should i go for straight damage or make his blindness more severy by the "lesser blindness" spell.

[visage]

I don't have much to say  other than that I think you are onto a pretty cool idea there.

[Roots]

I'd make potions something that you generally don't buy in a shop.  By extension, I'd make battles something that you actually have to run away from if you're getting wounded.

I can't say I like this idea about not being able to buy potions too much. But I do agree that some battles the player should actually have to run away from.

I also suggest that potions/spells take time to do their thing, and if they overwhelm the effect they're cancelling out, they provide temporary immunity.  No "instant heals".

I absolutely concur with you on this. That's one of the things that made Diablo II (IMO) more interesting than it could have been (potions take time to heal you).

Blah blah RAWR!!!

I like the ideas you proposed here BS (that's your new niickname here, I just decided it)! You're right that the only flaw I can see with this is that we have to indicate how "bad" a status effect is, but I think the green/yellow/red coding scheme is simple and intuitive enough that it shouldn't be too much of a problem.



Okay, time for us to re-evaluate. It seems that everyone is of variable chances for healing, so we'll officially drop that idea. Here's an outline of our other main ideas right now (I may be missing some, correct me if I am). So give a , or to these.

> No "instant heals" for healing potions

> Variable degrees of status effectiveness (lesser, greater, mighty, maybe more?)

> Some status potions grant temporary immunity in addition to curing

> Some status potions may be able to cure multiple status' in one shot

> Some status potions, when used, take effect on the whole party (could be useful for granting temporary immunity on the party to something!)


That's all I can think of for now anyway. Here are my votes as of right now (I might change my mind later you know )

> No "instant heals" for healing potions

> Variable degrees of status effectiveness (lesser, greater, mighty, maybe more?)

> Some status potions grant temporary immunity in addition to curing

> Some status potions may be able to cure multiple status' in one shot

> Some status potions, when used, take effect on the whole party (could be useful for granting temporary immunity on the party to something)

[Burnsaber]

Those  :approve: points prove much. This game is so going to kick ass!

> Some status potions may be able to cure multiple status' in one shot

I believe that this ought to be in all potions. I don't know how often it happens that the same character has 2 or more status effects, but IMO it seems a bit overkill to have completely different types of "remedy" potions for those cases.

Besides if a normal only heals one status effect, who is going to choose which one? Does the game give you sub-menu where you choose which status effect to heal with your normal remedy or does the computer pick at random?

> Some status potions, when used, take effect on the whole party (could be useful for granting temporary immunity on the party to something)

This sounds like a possible skill for some Healer/ Alchemist type character. Something like "Medical Mastermind" or "Potion Master" that allows you to use potions on all of your characters for some SP.

[Steu]

> No "instant heals" for healing potions

> Variable degrees of status effectiveness (lesser, greater, mighty, maybe more?)

> Some status potions grant temporary immunity in addition to curing

> Some status potions may be able to cure multiple status' in one shot

> Some status potions, when used, take effect on the whole party (could be useful for granting temporary immunity on the party to something!)

I like all the ideas.  I was thinking about how to handle temp immunity, and amount of status effects to remove.  Here's my idea.  Each level of "Remedy" has a certain magnitude associated with it.  i.e. like 15 for lesser, 30 for greater, 60 for mighty.  Each status has it's own magnitude on it as well, like 10 for sleep, 15 for stone, whatever.  When you use a remedy, your charaters get this magnitude as points so to speak, and then the game starts removing status effects until either a. you run out of points, or b. the status effects are all gone.  If the status effects are all gone, then however many points are left become a temporary immunity, that could either last so much time and then end, or degrade over time until gone.  

I hope this makes sense  :heh:

[gorzuate]

> No "instant heals" for healing potions


> Variable degrees of status effectiveness (lesser, greater, mighty, maybe more?)


> Some status potions grant temporary immunity in addition to curing


> Some status potions may be able to cure multiple status' in one shot
, leaning toward

> Some status potions, when used, take effect on the whole party (could be useful for granting temporary immunity on the party to something)
If done correctly, like how Burnsaber mentioned only being done by a Potions Master, then

P.S. I'd like to see how Jetryl pulls off his no hit points trick. That could be intriguing.

[Roots]

> Some status potions may be able to cure multiple status' in one shot

I believe that this ought to be in all potions. I don't know how often it happens that the same character has 2 or more status effects, but IMO it seems a bit overkill to have completely different types of "remedy" potions for those cases.

Besides if a normal only heals one status effect, who is going to choose which one? Does the game give you sub-menu where you choose which status effect to heal with your normal remedy or does the computer pick at random?

No, I didn't mean that there is an individual item that only cures a single status condition. I meant that maybe some potions can cure more than one condition with one usage. For example, if I have a character who is poisoned, blind, and mute, using a powerful remedy potion can cure all three in only a single hit. (There are many games like FFX-2 where you get hit with so many status conditions, it really sucks ass trying to cure them all in the midst of battle). Sorry for the confusion.


And yeah, we'll need to somehow determine what specific conditions are healed if we do this (either by doing it randomly, statically, or allowing the player to specify which conditions to heal).

> Some status potions, when used, take effect on the whole party (could be useful for granting temporary immunity on the party to something)

This sounds like a possible skill for some Healer/ Alchemist type character. Something like "Medical Mastermind" or "Potion Master" that allows you to use potions on all of your characters for some SP.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Then it essentially becomes a support skill that also consumes an item in addition to SP.



I actually thought about doing an HP-less system before as Jetryl suggested, but thought it would be too much work and not enough gain. Jetryl said it perfectly when he said Allacrost is evolutionary RPG and not a revolutionary one.

[Zorbfish]

This seems to be a common schism among RPGs: the eastern vs. western style of curatives.

What this all reminds me of is Bioware's Baldur's Gate (if you haven't heard of it shame on you!). Yes, it's D&D but if you can look past that you can find some really great design ideas.

#1. Gold is a scarce resource and so no inflation occurs no matter what level of power the player has.

D&D makes you work for your gold. "Random youth" couldn't just proclaim himself an adventurer and go get filthy rich by killing stuff. There's no way to just go mob hunting and gold farm the hell out of Gold Golems  :D. Thus when you recieve a large monetary reward not only is it appreciated more it instills actual value. Sure you can sell loot you get from enemies, for instance a bow and arrows, but the 10-20 gold pieces is too few to buy that 260 gold shiny piece of plate mail.

#2. Inns are all the same...

...except when it had to do with the story. And inns weren't cure alls. You could spend 12 gold to spend the night and only get maybe 4 hit points recovered. You had the option of like 6 rooms choices from the free "sleep in the stable" to the aristocratic suite each with varying recovery rates.

#3. Healing costs you a lot.

In BG only churches and magic shops sold healing items, and usually for hefty prices (127 gold a pop for the weakest heath potion). Churches offered clerical healing and purification for cheaper, and also you could buy scribed healing spell scrolls from them. The point of this is that healing wasn't a luxury, and this played out in battle. If you're knee deep in some dragon cave and you just quaffed you're last potion... uh, you're screwed. Sure you can walk all the back to town but who knows what could happen along the way.

For instance the above happened to me. I was out in the middle of nowhere over 2 days away from the nearest town. I hid my guys in the cave, hasted my rogue, and sent him for supplies. He died in an ettercap web trap.

#4. Status as Strategy

Charm and confuse are deadly as hell. If a knight in your party gets charmed you either dispel it ASAP or run like hell because one hit to your mage and he's dead. Then you have to drag his ass back to town to be ressurected (that's right no life spells, unless you wanna buy an expensive scroll to do it).

Status ailments shouldn't be about "damn I got poisoned I gotta drink the orange bottle", but about critical decisions. If they are though of this way they become less of a trivial annoyance and more of a gameplay issue in battle.

Some ideas in all that rambling perhaps  :heh:

But yea, rant aside, everything mentioned in this thread has been  :approve: for the most part.

[visage]

Well, I think it comes more down to how realistic you want to make it.  Cure alls are not very realistic.  Immediate health gain is not very realistic.  Being able to carry 200 herbs and potions is also not very realistic.  Nor is holding 100000000 gp (why don't RPGs have banks.  seriously.)

Peronsally, I like the idea of weaker and stronger ailments.  I like the idea of weaker and stronger cures.  Think LOTR -- "Shit, frodo is poisoned...get some herb and stick it in his wound until we can get him to a real health clinic."  

Truly, it comes  down to how realistic you want to make things.  I mean, it *is* a fantasy world, and anything can be real in a fantasy world if you want it to be.

So, I give thumbs up to the first three (non-immediate, different levels, partial immunity), and thumbs down to the last two.  

First off, I don't understand why one potion would be able to be a "cure all."  It just doesn't make sense.  Think of modern medicine: for serious ailments, there are specific remedies.  Yes, you can take tylenol and aspirin for many things -- but none of them are like what we are discussing here.  We are talking about burns, poison, freeze, sleep, confusion, et cetera.  The only two I can possibly see being clumped are sleep and confusion ... but even that is a stretch.  Personally, I think that each thing needs its own form of heal.  Though, perhaps there could be some "general" remedies that work well for some things, and only mediocre for others.  For example, Stench Weed may work wonders for poison, but also has the ability to wake up those who are sleeping lightly because of its pugnant smell.

Also, I don't like the effect on the whole party thing.  I am using a potion or remedy on a specific person (I envision them drinking it...), and therefore it should affect them.  The only time I can see this possible happening is a "range effect" type remedy, like some sort of smoke screen that you drop and everyone inhales.

[Rain]

Truly, it comes  down to how realistic you want to make things.  I mean, it *is* a fantasy world, and anything can be real in a fantasy world if you want it to be.

true...at the same time, what sometimes makes a fantasy world more appealing than the real world is not having to deal with little annoyances that are continually burdensome in the real world, in the fantasy world setting.

True...its more realistic to have a potion that works over time...but it would be simpler and perhaps better to have something (in the form of a potion) that gains the trust of the player as something that is consistent and gets the job done when they need to heal.  I think item usage would be better off geared towards combinations and acessability and not limitations of duration.  That might increase frustration.  

Anyways, At what point do things become too realistic that they don't become a welcome or FUN portrayal of the reality of the allacrost world?   Everything is relative.  Its a difficult balance to measure accessability with complexity.

[Roots]

Anyways, At what point do things become too realistic that they don't become a welcome or FUN portrayal of the reality of the allacrost world?   Everything is relative.  Its a difficult balance to measure accessability with complexity.

I haven't read the last three posts but this talk about realism caught my attention. Allow me to share my thoughts on the matter.


A good game, IMO, should be designed to be fun over being realistic. Part of the reasons that games are fun in the first place is because they are an escape from reality, which often can be very boring (paying your taxes, cleaning your car, etc.). Simply put, I am 100% willing to sacrifice realism if it results in making the game more fun for the player. That should be our purpose in designing this game, and that is a fact.


That is my dictator statement to the public for tonight.

[Guest]

No, I didn't mean that there is an individual item that only cures a single status condition. I meant that maybe some potions can cure more than one condition with one usage. For example, if I have a character who is poisoned, blind, and mute, using a powerful remedy potion can cure all three in only a single hit. (There are many games like FFX-2 where you get hit with so many status conditions, it really sucks ass trying to cure them all in the midst of battle). Sorry for the confusion.


And yeah, we'll need to somehow determine what specific conditions are healed if we do this (either by doing it randomly, statically, or allowing the player to specify which conditions to heal).

Hmmm.. I'm a bit confused, i'll make a few examples to see if got it.

Claudius is hit by "ink" attack and has Lesser Blindness and Lesser Poison. Someone uses Lesser Remedy on him, and only one of these status effects are healed (IMO i'd like if the player could choose which one to heal, if for example in this fight the opponent was on low HP i'd rather loose the blindness to hit him in melee. I'd hate it if computer "chose" for me that the poison is to be healed.)

Claudius has again lesser poison and lesser blindness, do you mean that they both could be removed by greater remedy?

[Burnsaber]

That "guest" post is mine. Forgot to log in...