(almost) no healing items/skills (in combat)

[Countyoungblood]

also be careful, if everyone has a healing skill that can only be used once per battle, players will notice if it's possible to artificially delay battles in order to use their healing skills. This could become an annoyance for the player but one which they feel compelled to do if it's the optimal decision.

Like saving some mobs on the map till they are so much weaker than your party that the battle would be a gain for hp whenever needed?

Interesting strategy...id like to see a puzzle that would require this.

Like a big room full of monsters that you can tell the power of. Gotta kill them all but you can decide to fight something stronger ahead of time to level up faster and get more freeish hp from the lower mobs.

 

[Parallax Panda]

@jonthefox
Sure, but I can't come up with a situation where the player would want to do that though. Were you thinking about anything in particular?

@Countyoungblood
I'm not done with the level design so I can't say for sure. But since the story is linear by the time you'll be much stronger than the mobs in a particular area, you'll probably not be able to go back there anymore. At least the idea is to keep pushing the player along, not allowing for too much back tracking.

 

[Tai_MT]

So I've been thinking about balancing the combat for my game and I've come to realize that one of the things I don't enjoy myself is the abundance of healing items/spells the player have access to in most RPG's. You usually start off with little to no money and TP so it's always challenging in the beginning, but about halfway into the game you more often than not have a decent healer as well as ~x40 healing items in your inventory.

At that point, the only real danger are usually enemies that does massive single target damage or decent AoE damage (unless you have good AoE healing skills that is). Also I guess, enemies who can spam skills inflicting states such as petrify, bind, sleep, blind or confusion that renders your characters useless. Slowly killing your characters while you're waiting for the state to disappear, unable to use items or spells.

So, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to make an RM-RPG without healing potions or healing magic (that can be used in combat). Maybe just add a few very rare powerful HP restore items in the game that could be used that way? Maybe even going so far as not allowing the player to heal whenever they want outside of combat either, just at an inn or specific checkpoints etc?

I can see how this could be a problem and if not carefully planned by the dev, could make the player get stuck. But I'd like to find a way to limit healing that forces the player to be more careful (which I hope would make even mob encounters more meaningful and exciting).

Ideas?

That's something I looked into myself. I started with a design philosophy of "My players need to be spending their money".

It ended with, "No Dedicated Healer" and "You are rarely ever going to get healing items from monster drops or treasure chests".

As such, my combat also had to evolve a little bit. So, I have two healing skills. One of which only works for the user (the main character) and comes at a hefty MP cost. It can heal up to 40% of your health, but that's it. The other is a "side effect" of another Full Party skill that will only recover 8% of HP for three turns (so you get 24% of your HP back). Anything else? You have to spend a turn on a party member to pop a potion. You also have to buy these potions if you want them.

Personally, I just don't like the idea of making it "incredibly difficult to heal", but I do like removing the "easy mode" options that seem to be omnipresent in every other RPG (dedicated healers, tons of money by mid/late game, very little strategy involved in combat, things like elixirs that heal HP/MP full, healing items that heal a ton of HP or work on the whole party, "hit all" skills on either enemies or the party, etcetera).

I'd be interested in playing a game without a Dedicated Healer and where healing is more difficult with healing items being unable to be used in combat. Just adds an extra step to combat preparations in that I'd have to heal up myself between each fight. Though, this opinion largely assumes that you make the system interesting beyond that single aspect and that combat revolves more around strategy instead of "standard RPG combat of mashing best skills to win". It does sound like it could be a lot of fun though, provided everything else is done well.

 

[Failivrin]

My project incorporates large party size and rapid-paced battles. There are few healing spells and no revive spell. In battle players will have to switch characters frequently to prevent knockout. I am experimenting with two ideas to accomodate:
- Outside battle, players can link items to button commands so there is quick healing without menu access, and some resource management is still required. Most healing items apply to the whole party, so after a really tough battle just two or three button-presses should get the party back on its feet. Gameplay involves lots of exploration, so player can forage for items in the field, which reduces the stress of planning ahead.
- Haven't decided whether to implement this idea, but I am trying to think of ways to give switched-out characters a more active role. One option is to allow healing items in battle but only for characters who have switched out.

 

[jonthefox]

@Parallax Panda @Countyoungblood yeah let's say in a battle where most of your party members haven't used their healing skills yet, there's one enemy left that's 1 hit away from dying. Instead of finishing him off, the player's going to want to cycle through everyone's healing skills first, to get use out of them. This unnecessarily prolongs the battle, but the player feels like it'd be silly not to take the opportunity to heal up.

 

[WickedWolfy]

One of the things I've enjoyed about "Shadowrun 1.0" (Yes, the very first one... Yes, I am old), which uses a "Friday Night Fire Fight" combat system, is that its a "one hit kill" in a nutshell. Players die frequently, but in the world of SharowRun you can "back up" your mind before you go into combat.
Characters are also toughened up with attachments or magic:
- Deckers have cybernetic implants
- Mages can use "tough skin" spells
- Shamans can summon
etc.

If you are to drop healing completely, then maybe "taking cover" is a reasonable alternative? You would take cover to "recover your breath" or retreat to change tactical positions.
One of my biggest pet elephant peeves in the room is the requirement to stay in the first until one of the parties is completely annihilated. That's not how it works - if you want to live, learn to dodge.

 

[Frogboy]

The route I was taking in the RPG that I'll likely never finish was to limit MP but make it slowly regenerate while walking around. It encourages you to use your MP because it doesn't do you much good to save it but not use it too much because if you're currently tapped out, you have no magic for the next encounter or two. This obviously only works for systems that employ random encounters.

 

[AMGLime]

One thing to consider is you can always just make damage meaningful. Playing FF6 and FF7 again recently, damage was never meaningful from the enemies. Boss hits my team with an attack, and I just had my "Healer" Curaga the entire party, and I was fine for the cost one party member round making damage not meaningful. Then on the other foot, playing some games like Trails in the Sky/Trails of Cold Steel, some bosses are absolutely relentless. You have your Healer healing, but you're well aware it's not enough in the long run, but you bring two people in to heal and you know you're in for a long fight. The game doesn't have X Potions, and Elixirs common as get out of a bad situation card, so you tend to have to use more creative means to survive. You can spam heal La Tear much like you would spam Curaga in Final Fantasy, but its expensive, and not as efficient as damage has more impact. So you actually have to rely on buffs to reduce the damage you take, and sometimes completely negate a hit on someone to free up your time. Most games, don't make you think like that. You use strong healing items like Elixirs and X Potions, or have someone dropping Curagas all the time, basically invalidating enemy damage.

Anyways, mini-rant aside, instead of limiting the amount of healing you can do, which just feels bad as a player and prevents my favourite "Oh no" moments I've gotten, being I was too defensive and dug myself in to a hole - Just make it so damage is important. If you don't want people to just sit there and spam heal to get themselves out of situations, give them other ways to go about it, and then make enemies change how the player reacts. Light damage? Yeah, Curaga is fine. But heavy, constant damage? Buffs, and other means are likely to take priority in the long run. In the end, I've seen a lot of people like the safety net of a Healer and Healing Abilities, so I wouldn't limit it, or remove it - I'd just alter how the game works around it and don't trap yourself by making X Potions and Elixirs common like I see a lot of RM Games, and even games like Final Fantasy do.

 

[Countyoungblood]

One thing to consider is you can always just make damage meaningful. Playing FF6 and FF7 again recently, damage was never meaningful from the enemies. Boss hits my team with an attack, and I just had my "Healer" Curaga the entire party, and I was fine for the cost one party member round making damage not meaningful. Then on the other foot, playing some games like Trails in the Sky/Trails of Cold Steel, some bosses are absolutely relentless. You have your Healer healing, but you're well aware it's not enough in the long run, but you bring two people in to heal and you know you're in for a long fight. The game doesn't have X Potions, and Elixirs common as get out of a bad situation card, so you tend to have to use more creative means to survive. You can spam heal La Tear much like you would spam Curaga in Final Fantasy, but its expensive, and not as efficient as damage has more impact. So you actually have to rely on buffs to reduce the damage you take, and sometimes completely negate a hit on someone to free up your time. Most games, don't make you think like that. You use strong healing items like Elixirs and X Potions, or have someone dropping Curagas all the time, basically invalidating enemy damage.

Anyways, mini-rant aside, instead of limiting the amount of healing you can do, which just feels bad as a player and prevents my favourite "Oh no" moments I've gotten, being I was too defensive and dug myself in to a hole - Just make it so damage is important. If you don't want people to just sit there and spam heal to get themselves out of situations, give them other ways to go about it, and then make enemies change how the player reacts. Light damage? Yeah, Curaga is fine. But heavy, constant damage? Buffs, and other means are likely to take priority in the long run. In the end, I've seen a lot of people like the safety net of a Healer and Healing Abilities, so I wouldn't limit it, or remove it - I'd just alter how the game works around it and don't trap yourself by making X Potions and Elixirs common like I see a lot of RM Games, and even games like Final Fantasy do.

You made an excellent point about Defensive buffs. I love it. It would be worth it to make sure the damage prevented could justify the mp usage in some situations.

 

[Parallax Panda]

@Tai_MT
Yes well, I'm not trying to make the game's difficulty incredibly hard core by completely removing healing. I do want the game to be somewhat challenging though, something I think most RPG's are not. And restricting healing (much like you've done yourself) is the solution I like the best.

@jonthefox
Oh I see. That IS a problem. I know because I tend to do that myself if I play a difficult RPG and I have a party wide generation buff going. If I feel that it's best to leave one almost dead monster while I guard for a few turns to regain my HP, then I most likely will. I think it's a difficult situation to avoid completely though?

I guess I could give each party member a healing skill with X charges per dungeon which can only be reset by resting at an Inn instead. It would not force that kind of behavior and kind of solves the previous mentioned problem of "how-are-you-gonna-make-boss-battles-longer-and-more-difficult-if-you-can-only-heal-once-every-battle". It's worth considering at least.

@WickedWolfy
That's a cool idea of backing up your mind. If you've ever played Planscape Torment it works the same way... ish. Even if you die, it's not game over since you're immortal. Your body is just picked up by the dusters and you'll wake up at the mortuary again. It works in those games but it doesn't work for my game's setting unfortunately.

I do have one character who has a "tactical retreat" skill though and maybe designing a "take cover" skill (instead of the regular guard) could be interesting as well.

@Frogboy
I like that idea and I'll try to remember it because I want to use it in a game in the future. Not this game though since it has no random encounters. But it's a really clever idea!

@AMGLime
Sure, I could do healing like every other RPG does it (lots of HP potions + a dedicated healer who can spam his or her skills) and instead ramp up the damage. I admit it's not a bad solution and the challenge aspect would be the same.

I guess what I don't like is the feeling you get when you feel like what your healer (or item user in case of potion drinking) does the turn they are forced to heal is a meaningless. Also I personally don't like to have one (or more) characters spend every turn healing/buffing in combat. I want everyone to do a at least a little damage. I was trying to avoid that by not having a dedicated healer but instead giving everyone a limited use healing skill instead.

The defensive buff idea is worth thinking about too I guess.

 

[Wavelength]

As a very simple answer: YES!!!

It can be perfectly good design to create your RPG with very limited healing, or even with no healing at all. Just remember that you have to pull and switch the rest of the levers appropriately. Don't design your RPG with long dungeons, no automatic recovery, and tons of chip damage if you're going to remove the items that players would normally use to handle that chip damage! Don't design bosses that can survive 30 turns of combat and deal 30% of your party's total HP in damage if you're going to remove the healing spells that are usually used to negate that damage!

As always - choose the mechanics that you think will be most important to delivering a great experience to the player - then design all of your other mechanics around those mechanics.

===

Regarding the "Limited Healing Charges" mechanic that's being discussed in this topic: I think this is a fine system. For bosses, you could allow (for example) 5 charges in the fight, whereas in regular encounters you only allow 1. Designers should keep in mind that such a restrictive (if effective) system will remove the wiggle room for making mistakes - essentially, once you've run out of healing charges, you either have enough left in the tank to finish the boss, or you're a dead party walking. High levels of Skill Expression, and ways to get back Charges, are both good ways to counteract this "problem".

===

Speaking specifically to Items, don't forget that the game economy is also a really good lever for solving problems! In most games, yes, you have enough cash by the end of the game to buy 42,000 Potions and 18,000 Revives (or however many you're allowed to hold at once). But it doesn't have to be that way!

You could, for example, design a game economy where the 50 Gold "Potion" (perhaps restoring a % of HP) remains a significant investment throughout the entire game, because the game's "inflation curve" (the cost of "necessary" equipment and items in each part of the game) remains quite flat - so your total budget in Town 3 for new items and equips is 2000G, whereas your total budget in Town 10 for new items and equips is 3500G. The new equips that are available in Town 10 are better than those in Town 3, but they're not that much pricier - let's say you've got 400G left over after you've bought them all... you've got enough cash for 8 Potions which you can use when the going gets really rough. The player is no longer awash in infinite amounts of small items!

(This would require additional design levers to be pulled - for example, so as to not encourage players to grind early-game monsters for Gold, you'd probably want to move most of the gold income away from monsters and into quests and chests - but it's a good example of how rejiggering your economy can solve problems that are normally thought of only in terms of combat mechanics.)

 

[Milennin]

I always like to have very limited healing items, or even none at all (such as in my latest game). Most healing is either done with the use of skills, while recovery items serve more as a safety net for the lesser skilled players, or in case mistakes are made. Since items are limited, they can't be spammed for easy wins.

The items are generally moderately strong, but also the most straight-forward in their use. While skills can range from weak but free to use (only costing a turn), to being strong but only usable under certain conditions, or need to be set up before they can used.

I just dislike it in games when you can spam a bunch of potions for easy heals, or when healing skills are easily available and are nothing but "heal ally for x HP".

 

[Countyoungblood]

recovery items serve more as a safety net for the lesser skilled players, or in case mistakes are made.

Agreed. Especially when you can have 99.

Pretty sure i could fight a dragon too if i had enough little jars of life in my pocket.