Consumables, Necessary evil, or not?

[freakytapir]

So, as I'm still working on my recent game, a thought popped into my head as I was making my table of consumables.

You know the drill; Potion, High potion, Mega Potion, Ether, Elixir, Megalixir, ...

And a thought struck me.

Why?

I mean, first it was just the different tiers of items that bothered me.

Do I really need a potion that heals a 100; 500, 2000 and Max HP?

I get why this is usually so. Escalating gold rewards in most RPG's mandate consumables rise in price. So bigger effect for a higher price.

But looking at it from the other side of the coin, the immersion side, it seemed weird. The same potion that would have fully healed a fledgling adventurer to full vigor does near nothing for the hero of the land? Why?

Simple solution: One potion. Heals a flat percentage, say 40% of Max HP, modified by the users PHA (Pharmacology) stat.

And now we run back into the problem that multiple tiers of potions are trying to 'fix': Players stocking up on the base ones and never needing anything else. If a potion will always heal a flat percentage, but they keep getting cheaper relative to my income, then ... At what point do you just assume the player has infinite potions?

All right then, why not just give the player infinite potions?

Game balance, you say. But in realistic therms, the only thing that stands between a player and a near infinite amount of potions is some grind work, which will also give him XP, levelling him up more, having all kinds of other effects on game balance.
As a personal annecdote, i cannot remember running out of potions in a game. Usually the game showers you in so many from random loot, just flooding your inventory.

So cut the grind and just give the player infinite potions.
But then what's stopping a player from entering every battle at full health, except for the tedium of opening the item menu between every encounter?
What indeed? I mean, for all the talk about resource management, it all just boils down to 'Buy more potions at the start of the dungeon'.

This lead me to a second ... peeve of mine.

Mage characters, and how usually they're balanced: They do more damage but have limited uses (either through spell slots or just MP) than the physical characters.

It usually breaks down into three cases

1. Them not actually doing more damage than the non MP users, making the whole limited resource point system moot (But that's a topic for another post)
2. There being so many HP/MP recovery points or just such a huge MP pool that MP might as well be infinite (Original Final fantasy 7 had this problem for me), rendering physical characters useless
3. They do more damage, but your MP supply is so small you can never 'have fun' with your characters and just never go bananas, instead twacking enemies with your walking stick to 'conserve MP for the boss', where your increased fragility makes you a liability for not that much more damage.

And here Ethers, (or whatever you call MP potions) become problematic. Often, they're so rare that you never use them, or they're plentiful enough that MP management becomes an illusion, sucking even more life out of the whole 'resource management' side of things.

So, in conclusion to this, I have found an experiment, which I will be conducting during my next round of combat and dungeon playtests: Just have the players start every combat at full HP and MP. How to stop the players from just unleashing their best nukes right away? There's tonnes of ways to do that, but once again, this post is already on the long side, so that's a topic for another post. (Some short examples: The big booms require both MP and TP, they need a warm up period, or are conditional, or even take multiple turns to cast, SMaller but regenerating MP pools, ...)

For combat Potion/Ether use I'll probably put it both on a cooldown, and just limit it to X amount of consumables per combat per character, the 'consumable slots' filled with the items a player has available (Kingdom Hearts style). So a character might have his three 'consumable slots' filled with 'potion, potion, potion', while another might have 'Ether, Antidote, Mega Potion (Multi target potion that heals less per target)', with some classes getting more consumable slots as the game goes on (think an Alchemist/Gadgeteer/Rogue class). Perhaps with a 'Restock potions' option that resets these limited uses in combat, but takes your full turn.

There are some wrinkles I do need to iron out, though.

Like how to explain this in game.
Maybe the team alchemist just gives them a 'supply box' of the items along on their adventures, but it's stowed in their backpack and inaccessible during combat? Eh, I'll fix this when I get to it.
Maybe new 'consumables' are added when the player finds the recipies?
"Before heading into the viper pit, we should try and find a recipe for an 'Antidote'!"
Whole sidequest chains revolving around finding the recipe for more powerful consumables, maybe even having to gather ingredients for a 'prototype'.
Having more powerful items, like an Elixir, take up more 'slots' could also be a good balancing measure for this.
Could also be fun to have 'buff potions' be an option. Or having the choice between a once per encounter Grenade or a Potion. Somehow it also solves the "Who needs ressurection spells when we can just buy more Phoenix downs?"
For balance reasons, players would only be able to change their consumable load-out in 'Safe zones' outside dungeons, off course.

Another problem would be the role of Healers in this.
If every character has plenty potions available, then, why bring a dedicated healer?
Well, on one hand, it does free party composition up a bit more, if healing can be spread among everyone.
But on the flipside, bringing someone who can cast Cure, means the rogue can maybe swap out one of his potions per combat for that 'Vial of Venom'. Which also brings up the possibilty of class or character specific consumables, like Poison needing Poison training, Grenades needing 'Explosives training', and so on.

Then what do players spend gold on, I might hear some of you ask? Well, seeing as I don't plan on having 'the threadmill of gear upgrades' either, I might just do away with gold all-together.

I know, this sounds like an extreme idea, but besides the obvious story/immersion reasons, I do think it could work.

What do you guys think?

 

[SGHarlekin]

What a long post. Consumables are as necessary as you want them to be. In my game, healing for example is very limited. You get to carry 5 aid kits into dungeons. In combat they will give you a 10% immediate heal, and 10% each turn for 5 turns, having a 7 turn cooldown. Fairly large amount of total heal, but spread out, so you will have to watch out to not use it too late. It's not a free out of jail card. The idea is to use timed inputs to negate most damage instead while using taunt to protect the caster. (It's a 2 man party game)

Out of combat, the Kit only restores 30% Health immediatly, and there are fairly expensive campfire kits that give a full heal+buff.

Ever growing player bank account is offset by things they need to buy. Gear is not dropped in my game but purchased at fairly high prices, which can then be augmented with via materials and crafting which also costs a bit of money. Money sinks are also going to be a thing. Spending money on restoring or putting furniture into the player's house. Buying buildings in order to unlock new shops can all be used for that.

Money is also not dropped. You can exchange monster crystals for money, or use them for crafting in addition to money, overall keeping the player's money in check.

I don't have any MP or TP. I have evolving "regular" attacks and strategic skills like stuns or AOE spells than work with cooldowns, so potions are never a necessity.

Imho, the whole 200 consumables thing is just what was used in the past and stuck around for the ages since it's easy. But nothing is keeping you from not doing that.

 

[BK-tdm]

In my game consumables are there, a lot in the wild, but you can carry a max amount of each item, so the intrinsic message is "use them!", some consumables double as "skills" as you can only inflict 3 status effects with skills the rest are tied to items/tools and some of these status effects increase your survability by a lot.

Disclaimer though, mine is a single actor action game so "Turn/action" economy is measured very differently and weaving items/skills/attacks is part of the intended gameplay loop.

 

[Cythera]

There's a lot to unpack here, and a lot of good train-of-thoughts, but at the end of the day, I think you just have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish.

Are you trying to make a game that demands players manage their resources carefully? Limit potions, make them rare, get rid of a healer class altogether.
Do you like the base potion idea of a % heal, but fear it's too cheap and easy to obtain later on? Scale the price at merchants. Use switches to mark game progress, and simply have merchants run different event pages where the potions cost more. Have them comment on the state of the world, rising prices, whatever, if you want to 'justify' this.

So cut the grind and just give the player infinite potions.

I have to disagree; there's a big difference between making something readily available, and just giving it to the player for free.
With enough time, they'd probably beat the game, right? Just skip to the final cutscene from the get-go.

But then what's stopping a player from entering every battle at full health, except for the tedium of opening the item menu between every encounter?

Nothing. And, I don't see a problem with this. If this is how a player chooses to spend their time, why stop them? Like with the potion grind mentioned above. Does it really impact you and your game if the player chooses to min-max, to grind and get those resources and levels? If the player chooses to full-heal their party after every fight? It's their time. I think we as devs need to respect player time, and how they choose to spend it
I have zero problem with people leveling up and steamrolling my game. Heck, one of my beta testers did this. Farmed up to level 50 (from an area level of 15) and fought an optional boss to get powerful equipment before continuing. That's their choice; if that's how they wanna play my game, go for it!

Mage characters, and how usually they're balanced: They do more damage but have limited uses (either through spell slots or just MP) than the physical characters.

This feels different from the consumables topic, but sure, let's take a look ^-^

Them not actually doing more damage than the non MP users, making the whole limited resource point system moot (But that's a topic for another post)

Easy fix: cooldowns on physical skills. Limited uses. Recoil on physical skills. Magic skills get extra bonuses, like self-buffing after attacking.

There being so many HP/MP recovery points or just such a huge MP pool that MP might as well be infinite (Original Final fantasy 7 had this problem for me), rendering physical characters useless

I feel this is where enemy diversity comes into play. Having massive physical tanks that need magic to take down. And enemies with high magic defense that your physical attackers need to hit.

They do more damage, but your MP supply is so small you can never 'have fun' with your characters and just never go bananas, instead twacking enemies with your walking stick to 'conserve MP for the boss', where your increased fragility makes you a liability for not that much more damage.

I feel resource management in itself can be fun, and a core mechanic of a game. If done well, and if meant for that type of game. Sadly, 'resource management' gets thrown in when it's probably not needed, or has poor execution.
I personally get around this by giving my mages ways to self-restore MP. One uses a TP skill, and also has a DoT that drains enemy MP over 4-5 turns. The other can instantly convert some HP into MP, so it doesn't use up his turn. This pairs very well with his low MP pool but massive HP pool.

So, in conclusion to this, I have found an experiment, which I will be conducting during my next round of combat and dungeon playtests: Just have the players start every combat at full HP and MP. How to stop the players from just unleashing their best nukes right away? There's tonnes of ways to do that, but once again, this post is already on the long side, so that's a topic for another post. (Some short examples: The big booms require both MP and TP, they need a warm up period, or are conditional, or even take multiple turns to cast, SMaller but regenerating MP pools, ...)

You could also make the 'big skills' less big? :3 Require players to strategize, buff and debuff, for their skills to have more impact. I find a lot of 'big, ultimate' skills fall into the player trap of 'oh, but what if I need this later?' especially if a skill has a massive cooldown/requirements, or is single-use per battle.

For combat Potion/Ether use I'll probably put it both on a cooldown, and just limit it to X amount of consumables per combat per character, the 'consumable slots' filled with the items a player has available (Kingdom Hearts style). So a character might have his three 'consumable slots' filled with 'potion, potion, potion', while another might have 'Ether, Antidote, Mega Potion (Multi target potion that heals less per target)', with some classes getting more consumable slots as the game goes on (think an Alchemist/Gadgeteer/Rogue class). Perhaps with a 'Restock potions' option that resets these limited uses in combat, but takes your full turn.

Honestly, I like this idea. Just make sure the items are impactful enough.

For balance reasons, players would only be able to change their consumable load-out in 'Safe zones' outside dungeons, off course.

I strongly disagree with this. Don't penalize the player for not knowing what to prep for in a dungeon. If I have no antidotes on me, and it's an all-poison dungeon, don't make me go back just to swap items. Let me do it in the field. Making me go all the way, take 2 seconds in the menu, and then come back to the dungeon isn't respecting my time. It's just gametime padding, ya know? There's no balance reason why I can't change in the field. In combat, yeah, that's different. But in field? Please don't do this.

Another problem would be the role of Healers in this.
If every character has plenty potions available, then, why bring a dedicated healer?

Why don't you have the healer be more effective than items? Or have them do things items can't? That antidote may cure poison, sure, but the healer's 'Cure' removes all negative effects! Then the items supplement the healer class without overruling it completely.
Uh-oh, boss is about to do a big attack on the party, the healer is too slow, and one character is low on HP? Good thing my speedy Rogue has a potion she can use! The healer can come in after and clean up as needed, but now my team has a better chance of survival thanks to that potion.


I hope some of this was useful to you. I think you might be overthinking it a lil though Nobody says you have to follow the 'RPG standards list' or whatever. Make whatever feels right for your game!
I personally have tiered potions that restore different %s, a healer class, and items that are all pretty easy to obtain. This works in my game since every combat encounter is going to eat up your resources. MP, items, whatever. 'Attack' isn't an option; you will game-over if you aren't using skills. Whether you choose to heal in combat or afterwards is up to you, and you're going to have plenty of resources to do so.
But if you try to hoard your resources for the boss, you're going to have a harsh time with the enemies in the area. I personally love giving players a lot of tools to get the job done, and letting them make their own strategies and team configurations.
The downside to that is the absurd amount of balancing and 'what if player built character like X?' scenarios I have to handle

 

[Ami]

for Healing Item, i was thinking about the efficiency of your Healing/Pharmacology Level (via Variable)

let's say: you have a Potion which you just heal 100 HP, but wait 'til your HEAL/PHAR at level 5 or more (max is 10, 25 or 50), you'll granted 150 or 500HP or more than that (depending on how you tuning-up your formula in your project & what augmentation in your Game Time)

it also applies on the Spells you have

i personally, depending on what method you have to use in Field & in Battle, who & what you have to use to heal yourself & the others (using Items or Spells, yourself as the Knight which you just using an Items or Healer using a both method)

that's what i experience & i agree with Cythera

 

[Trihan]

This is how it works in Ara Fell. You begin every battle with full resources; there's never any need to heal outside of combat.

 

[ATT_Turan]

That's...a lot.

I generally agree with @SGHarlekin and @Cythera. To put my own spin on a few things:

But looking at it from the other side of the coin, the immersion side, it seemed weird. The same potion that would have fully healed a fledgling adventurer to full vigor does near nothing for the hero of the land? Why?

You need to figure out your line in the sand. If you're going off that degree of immersion, the idea of HP increasing as you level up makes no sense.

Why would an exploding sphere of magical fire nearly kill a human one day and barely scratch them the next? If you're going to say they're more experienced at recognizing the spell and dodging, it makes more sense for that to be a lesser amount of damage taken, not the same amount from a larger pool of HP.

Simple solution: One potion. Heals a flat percentage, say 40% of Max HP, modified by the users PHA (Pharmacology) stat.

And that's a thing in some plenty of games. First one that comes to mind is Diablo 1 and 2, where you have rejuvenation and full rejuvenation potions.

At what point do you just assume the player has infinite potions?

All right then, why not just give the player infinite potions?

I think that's a bit of a silly leap of logic. If you're going to go from "grinding allows you to accumulate things" to "might as well assume they've done the grinding and have the things," then you'd start your players at max level Not all players play the same. You need to establish for yourself how you expect your game to be played and balance around that. It can always be broken, no matter what you do, and you shouldn't care about that.

As a personal annecdote, i cannot remember running out of potions in a game. Usually the game showers you in so many from random loot, just flooding your inventory.

I've run out of healing items in...well, the aforementioned Diablo games, for sure. Empyrion. Pokémon. World of Warcraft. Probably others, it's not something I have deliberately kept track of.

I mean, for all the talk about resource management, it all just boils down to 'Buy more potions at the start of the dungeon'.

Only if you allow it. It's pretty simple with some common plugins to have limited inventory space, stack size, shop inventory, or all of the above.

Mage characters, and how usually they're balanced

I don't really get the point of this whole section of your post. You seem to be picking specific ways to poorly balance mages, and I don't agree that they are "usually" made this way. It would help if you cited specific games, but even then you're just reviewing what other people have done in some cases.

It seems to me that pretty much everything you list here is a very simple matter of "Well, then, don't do it that way." You have full control over how much MP actors have, what the damage formulae of spells are, whether there are MP restore items, how common they are, what they do, what they cost...like, okay? There are games that have done it poorly? So don't do it that way in yours?

So, in conclusion to this, I have found an experiment, which I will be conducting during my next round of combat and dungeon playtests: Just have the players start every combat at full HP and MP.

Basically every MMORPG works this way. It's generally trivial (or a small investment of time) to rest outside of combat, so all groups of enemies are balanced against a player/group at full health.

 

[freakytapir]

Prefacing this post with: I agree with a lot you guys say, and I feel a lot of my post was just lost in translation.

I don't really get the point of this whole section of your post. You seem to be picking specific ways to poorly balance mages, and I don't agree that they are "usually" made this way. It would help if you cited specific games, but even then you're just reviewing what other people have done in some cases.

It seems to me that pretty much everything you list here is a very simple matter of "Well, then, don't do it that way." You have full control over how much MP actors have, what the damage formulae of spells are, whether there are MP restore items, how common they are, what they do, what they cost...like, okay? There are games that have done it poorly? So don't do it that way in yours?

I admit, this section is probably badly worded, but I was trying to make a point around how the balancing of MP users is easily thrown off by MP potions.

I think that's a bit of a silly leap of logic. If you're going to go from "grinding allows you to accumulate things" to "might as well assume they've done the grinding and have the things," then you'd start your players at max level

I see your point, but, at least in my mind, there is a difference between grinding for levels (which is fun; new abilities, permanent growth, and all of that), and just killing some more bats because you want to buy some potions. Getting a level from grinding makes them dopamine receptors light up in a way getting enough gold for a potion doesn't really, in my experience. So, I don't begrudge my players grinding for levels, but I don't want them to feel forced to grind for potions, if that makes sense?

Basically every MMORPG works this way. It's generally trivial (or a small investment of time) to rest outside of combat, so all groups of enemies are balanced against a player/group at full health.

As an avid MMORPG player (2000+ hours in FF 14), yes, this is where I got the idea for 'just start every battle at Max HP and MP' from. Being able to balance every encounter as if the player enters it at full strength. But not only MMO's do this. FF 13 also did this, and I liked it there too (despite the games many flaws in other areas).
I just think it leads to better encounter design that allows you to go a bit more 'dangerous' in every encounter, and it also makes it so that there are less encounters that are just there to shave off some resources before the boss. Something I also hate in TTRPG's, the encounters that are just there to deplete resources so the boss battle seems more difficult.

I've run out of healing items in...well, the aforementioned Diablo games,

I knew I'd forgotten a game (Ironically the game where you run out of potions the fastest). Yeah, you're right, in Diablo 1 and 2, you do run out of potions (sometimes fast), but seeing as restocking them is a 30 second 'errand' (Open TP, go to vendor, restock, run back to TP, be right where you left off, even if that was halfway a boss battle), and gold is nearly useless and overabundant, the potions might as well be infinite.
Which is what Diablo 3 did. Replace the whole potion belt with a single Potion button on a 40 second cooldown that healed 60 % of your Max HP.

With enough time, they'd probably beat the game, right? Just skip to the final cutscene from the get-go.

See, I think that's a false equivalence. It's the difference between getting your soda freely restocked during the movie and just skipping to the end. They're not the same.

But everyone, thanks for your replies, I just feel I should have been a bit clearer in my original post.

 

[Tai_MT]

I'm not sure how useful you'll find anything I have to say on the subject, but I'll add my two cents. Mostly because I've been playing with these things for like... 10 years trying to build my game. So... I've got some First-Hand experience. Whatever that is worth to you.

So, as I'm still working on my recent game, a thought popped into my head as I was making my table of consumables.

You know the drill; Potion, High potion, Mega Potion, Ether, Elixir, Megalixir, ...

And a thought struck me.

Why?

There are several reasons.

1. The range of healing means you can dynamcially change combat to some extent. While you trudge into Mega Potion territory and no longer need Potions, you would probaby still find High Potions useful to an extent. If a Mega Potion heals 200 HP and the Character has 600 HP, then the optimal time to use the Mega Potion would be after you have lost 200 HP and not before. But, if your High Potion heals 100 HP, you can heal when you've lost 100 HP. Why does that matter? If the enemy has an attack that hits the player for 100 HP of Damage, and then immediately afterwards, hits the player for 500 Damage... now you've got a dead character, and a player who never healed.

Yes, this is a cruel trick I used on my players. It's a gimmick I implemented on several enemies in order to get them to purchase and use the better Consumables. The player may not need 200 HP Healed, but if I hit them with 100 HP and then 500 HP, they lose a person. They learn a valuable lesson... they should've healed the 100 HP when they were down that much.

Is that mean? Yes. Is it unfair? No. I'm here to teach you a lesson as a player. If you're going to get complacent and think the usual rules of RPG's apply, then you're wrong. Like Ivan Drago, "I must break you". Why isn't it unfair? Because neither attack would kill your character at full health. One is certainly dangerous, but the other isn't. A weak attack paired with a dangerous one is important.

It's also not an original idea. Final Fantasy has been doing it for years with its "Gravity" spells that eat a percentage of your HP and then just "basic attack" you afterwards for an easy kill if you're not healing, or think the enemy only knows Gravity. I'm just doing it in reverse. Weak attack first, then heavy attack to kill you from not healing.

2. It's just a means to control the economy of the game. The average Cash most players will end their JRPG experience with is somewhere around 500,000 or more (from the amount of gold drops, gold treausre chests, and lack of anything to ever purchase). The easiest way to make sure players spend more money as they gain more is just to increase the prices for the amount of healing going on. It isn't a perfect system (it has a ton of flaws), but it's the "quick and dirty" way to handle a chunk of your economy and to introduce what I call a "painless gold sink". That is, it's a place to sink gold where players won't even notice they're sinking gold, unless it's pretty excessive.

3. It's a form of "Progression". Ever play a game where there are "direct upgrades" to something? Man, you got the Infinity Sword! But, wait, there's an Infinity +1 Sword out there! AWESOME! Okay, it's not quite that impressive, but you sort of get the point. There's a part of our silly lizard brains that just wants a "direct upgrade" to things. A Potion is nice and all, but I really want something that does the job better than a Potion. It feels good that I no longer have to use Potions and get to use High Potions now. It's a sign I've grown in power. So, it's useful as a "signal" to the player of their growing power in a game. Or, at least, to their "Progression" in the game. To that extent, it can also make some treasures feel "cooler". Remember all those games where you could get something equivalent to a "Max Potion", that you couldn't buy anywhere, except for insane amounts of cash? Finding that in a treasure chest? Sure, you may not ever use it ("But, I might need it later!"), but it's like it's own interesting and unique treasure. Final Fantasy 6 has this with the "Elixirs you find in clocks". Nobody ever really used them, but once people knew to click every clock to get an Elixir, almost everyone inevitably collected them. Every game. Because they're cool. Why are they cool? No idea. Lizard brain stuff. They're rare and powerful. They're a treasure. Just like we must open every single treasure chest in every RPG, we must collect all the Elixirs for the same lizard brain reason.

I mean, first it was just the different tiers of items that bothered me.

Do I really need a potion that heals a 100; 500, 2000 and Max HP?

I get why this is usually so. Escalating gold rewards in most RPG's mandate consumables rise in price. So bigger effect for a higher price.

But looking at it from the other side of the coin, the immersion side, it seemed weird. The same potion that would have fully healed a fledgling adventurer to full vigor does near nothing for the hero of the land? Why?

In situations like that, it sounds like just a "Lore" problem. In practical terms, your "HP" is little more than a Stamina gauge. How much punishment can you take before you can no longer fight? A little? A lot? If you can take a lot, how many energy drinks do you need to feel refreshed? How much sleep? More? Less?

It all just boils down to the Lore of your game. If you frame it as "A Potion can even heal your cut off limbs", then you've got no reason for "Tiered" Consumables of any kind.

But, if it's framed as "ability to fight" or "stamina" or something else, rather than "how many whacks to the face with a mace you can take" or "how many stab wounds to the throat you can survive", then the Tiers can make a lot more sense.

As for needing the potions... no, you don't need to adopt a system like that, but there are reasons you might want one like that (outlined above).

Simple solution: One potion. Heals a flat percentage, say 40% of Max HP, modified by the users PHA (Pharmacology) stat.

And now we run back into the problem that multiple tiers of potions are trying to 'fix': Players stocking up on the base ones and never needing anything else. If a potion will always heal a flat percentage, but they keep getting cheaper relative to my income, then ... At what point do you just assume the player has infinite potions?

The moment they get passed "break even". If I need to fight 20 monsters in order to take enough damage to use one Potion to heal (40% damage), and each monster gave me 200 Currency... while the Potion itself costs 50 Currency... By the time I've used 1 Potion, I can buy 80 Potions.

You need to balance your game well. It's most of the reason I have reworked my "Consumables" so often and frequently. What I settled on for "Balance" was that no matter where the player is in the game... the enemies should kill each character in 5 hits... except for Boss monsters who don't have that rule apply to them (and should burn as many Consumables off of players as I can manage. Letting smart players be able to conserve their resources while weak players will struggle and need to brute force with those Consumables).

In a system where the players lose a character in 5 hits, they typically need a Heal by hit #2. This means in fights with 4 or more enemies, they're consuming 1 or 2 hits every combat (until they get good at the game, at least... which is the hard to balance part... allowing players to "get ahead" without allowing them anywhere near close to an "infinite HP" scenario). So, if they consume 1 or 2 hits every combat, and have to eat like four consumables every combat or every other combat, then I can comfortably give them enough Currency to buy at least 4 consumables each combat. Right?

That's the threshold. The thing you need to watch very carefully as you balance for Consumables. Keeping the player from ever going into a shop and just buying 99 of any Consumable at any given point (except for obsolete ones). It is a nightmare system to balance though, I will tell you that immediately. You have to very carefully monitor how much Currency you're dropping and how much damage you're dealing with every monster hit. You have to very carefully curate the experience to keep the economy rolling so that Consumables are always useful, but don't break the combat.

All right then, why not just give the player infinite potions?

Game balance, you say. But in realistic therms, the only thing that stands between a player and a near infinite amount of potions is some grind work, which will also give him XP, levelling him up more, having all kinds of other effects on game balance.
As a personal annecdote, i cannot remember running out of potions in a game. Usually the game showers you in so many from random loot, just flooding your inventory.

This actually isn't the only problem. There's several problems that conspire against a dev in order to make your anecdote a reality.
1. MP Healing is too efficient. Even if the MP Consumable costs 2x more than a Healing Consumable, it is often still more efficient than a standard Healing Consumable. If you have a Potion that heals 100 HP, costs 200 Currency, and is only single target... it is an effective 100 HP. If you have 30 MP, can get 5 casts of "Heal" out of that pool, each cast restores 80 HP, and the MP Consumable costs 400 Currency (and restores all 30 MP)... Here's what you're looking at:
Potion = 1 HP Restored for every 2 Currency spent.
Heal Spell = 1 HP Restored for every 1 Currency spent.

Yeah, you read that right. I cut the healing by 1/5th, doubled the cost of the MP Consumable, and it is still more efficient.

To make them equal, you would have to basically make each MP restored to cast "Heal" the same amount of Currency spent as buying the Potion.

This doesn't even get into the fact that most RPG's have "multi-target" spells. Even with a 70% reduced Healing of a "Heal" spell... it could be more useful when healing 4 people. That means, you reduce the 80 HP Healing on a single target down to 24 HP on 4 targets... and you've gained ground. Now you're healing 96 HP instead of 80. With Multi-Target. With a 70% reduction in efficacy.

2. "Potion" is the go to "Treasure" option for any random nonsense chest that exists anywhere in a Dungeon. Design some dead ends into a dungeon just to put a chest at the end. What do you put in the chest? Well, it can't be equipment, 'cause you shouldn't get that too frequently... So... Currency or Consumables. Currency seems like it would break the game (at least at first instinct to most devs), so Consumables is the best option. "Got Potion!"

It's also the "Go To" drop for enemies when devs want enemies to carry loot, but have no idea what to give them. 5% Chance to drop a Mega Potion is fine. I'm just going to not think about how many of this enemy the player might actually end up fighting in this location and how many Mega Potions I've just potentially given them for free via 5% drop chance.

It's the "Go To" for "Steal" as well. Same issue as just outlined. Even worse if you get a player like me who doesn't kill enemies until he's taken their loot... Now every encounter is a guaranteed drop of every item every enemy has. Nevermind if you have means in the game to improve "Steal" chances, either. The higher those rates of Steal go up, the more extra loot players have carting around.

Few devs, AAA or otherwise, ever account for how much "Healing" they're giving players in a game. They don't go "5% chance of drop is actually an extra Consumable about every 20 enemies or so... or less... or more... and if you run into 20 of these enemies in 5 encounters... it's like a guaranteed extra consumable".

It's just not habit to think that far head in implementation. One of the reasons I advocate for devs on these forums to do such things. Think ahead, realize problems and potential pitfalls, and work to mitigate them. Everything you put in your game has knock on effects at every other aspect of your game. Nothing you implement exists in a vacuum. Nothing exists "as you imagine it".

A good quote for game design, "No plan survives contact with the enemy".

Las Vegas and the Gambling Industry keep far tighter reigns on their games than most devs do that make games purely for entertainment. They regulate their "prizes" a lot better and understand what "odds" actually mean in terms of profit margin. There's some useful stuff to learn there from studying how "The House Always Wins" in terms of gambling. Especially if you get into how they have the odds of most games set at very specific percentages to keep players playing... but also to keep from losing any profit from every single one of those wins.

3. Combat is often just too easy. Enemies are too easy to steamroll. It's too easy to break the game. Etcetera. Whatever you want to say about it. Combat isn't "resource intensive" enough in most cases tends to be the problem. If all combat can be won by ignoring the player's defense and just jacking up their attack to one shot things... there's a problem. Namely, that the player will never need a consumable as the enemy will never get a chance to inflict damage.

4. States are near worthless. DoT's don't do enough damage (Damage over Time) to be worrysome and often "clear" after combat has ended. When you have 2,000 HP and Poison or Burn is only sapping like 50 HP a tick... you can safely ignore it for a while. But, if it's dropping you 200 HP a Tick... well, now you got a problem. You need to blow two Consumables now. Mega Potion and Antidote. If states are too easily cured (and most are in RPG's), then there's never a reason for a player to use a Consumable. Or even buy one.

5. Consumables are insanely cheap to buy in most cases. I don't think I've ever seen a standard Consumable go for more than 1,000 Currency a pop... and that was in a game where enemies were frequently dropping 400+ Currency a kill. That's insane. If consumables are that cheap, how does ANYONE ever lose combat? How aren't the enemies carrying like stacks of 99 of these things on them at all times like your heroes are?

6. Games usually shower you in free healing regardless. Recovery Springs, free beds, Save Points that heal you up to full, etcetera. Even Inns are usually like a fraction of the cost of a single Consumable in most games. Yeah, I could spend 1000 Currency on 1 Potion... Or I could spend 400 Currency on the Inn, which recovers all my HP, MP, and Status Conditions for the entire party.

7. Equipment often nullifies the effects of combat. If you have equipment that gradually recovers HP or MP... that's more Consumables your players won't be using. If your equipment nullifies Poison and Sleep and whatever else... there's some more Consumables the players will never use.
---
This is the tip of the list. I'm sure you can even think of a few reasons of your own why you don't use Consumables all that much in RPG's that aren't on my list here. Or, even, reasons you end up with pockets full of the dang things and rarely needing to ever buy any.

So cut the grind and just give the player infinite potions.
But then what's stopping a player from entering every battle at full health, except for the tedium of opening the item menu between every encounter?
What indeed? I mean, for all the talk about resource management, it all just boils down to 'Buy more potions at the start of the dungeon'.

This is going to be... tricky. There's two main schools of thought on this subject.

1. If the player starts every fight at Full Health, then the dev can throw more dangeorus encounters at the player and has the capacity to make each encounter more exciting or interesting.

2. If the player starts every fight at Full Health, then the challenge is essentially gone. You can make any mistakes you want in combat as they are all forgiven at the end of combat anyway. The players is promoted into "Brute Force" fights instead of tactical thinking. After all, the reward for a win isn't just the loot... it's free heals.

Now, both of these suppose that the dev is healing the player between encounters. If they are not, and are merely giving the player ample means to do all that consequence free healing themselves... Then yes, "tedium" is your only roadblock. That roadblock may turn off some players and generate poor reviews of your game.

As for "buy more potions at the start of the dungeon", you could frame that any number of ways. I, personally, frame that as a positive player loop. I require my players come to dungeons prepared. Yes, buy more Potions at the start of the dungeon. I will kill your party if you don't. Part of what I want the player to do is to be prepared for whatever is in the dungeon. If they can't even manage basic "resource management", then they should fail.

But, i don't give the player "Infinite Potions" either.

Put simply, I don't see anything inherently wrong in telling a player that the key to success in the game is being prepared. I like it more than letting the players win despite how poorly they've planned and executed any of the gameplay.

After all, combat in the real world is won by people who actually plan things out. People who prepare. I don't even remember where it comes from, but there's a phrase about "The battle is won before any soldiers ever take to the field". I, personally, think this is a valuable thing to teach players. It's useful even in their daily lives.

But, if you framed "buying more potions at the start the dungeon" poorly... then it's just a boring slog. It's just a requirement of going anywhere in the game. Grind in an area until you have 99 Potions to ensure you can get to the next area. Or, give them the infinite Potions for no money...

It's a lot about defining how that gameplay loop looks when you do any given thing with your Consumables. If you don't clearly set out with a goal in mind and a set of objectives you have for the player with each dungeon... Then, that loop might end up pretty bad.

This lead me to a second ... peeve of mine.

Mage characters, and how usually they're balanced: They do more damage but have limited uses (either through spell slots or just MP) than the physical characters.

It usually breaks down into three cases

1. Them not actually doing more damage than the non MP users, making the whole limited resource point system moot (But that's a topic for another post)
2. There being so many HP/MP recovery points or just such a huge MP pool that MP might as well be infinite (Original Final fantasy 7 had this problem for me), rendering physical characters useless
3. They do more damage, but your MP supply is so small you can never 'have fun' with your characters and just never go bananas, instead twacking enemies with your walking stick to 'conserve MP for the boss', where your increased fragility makes you a liability for not that much more damage.

And here Ethers, (or whatever you call MP potions) become problematic. Often, they're so rare that you never use them, or they're plentiful enough that MP management becomes an illusion, sucking even more life out of the whole 'resource management' side of things.

I find that it's less that they're "rare" and more that "you have such massive MP Pools" and "There's so much free MP Healing every 5 minutes" that those MP Consumables are basically meaningless.

My own system tries to limit those MP Pools. But, it's difficult to balance since I want players using their Skills as often as possible. It's why the baseline "Wizard" actually gets like 6 casts before needing an MP Restorative. But, those MP Skills actually end up doing far and away more damage than just hitting "Attack".

It's just... a lot of balancing.

But, I also have "0 MP Skills" as well. You know, in case your mages run out of MP. It lets them cast some spells that do as much damage as "Mashing Attack", except it uses their primary stat of "Magic" to do it. I eliminated the weakness of Mage Characters, 'cause I've never liked it.

Nothing stops you from doing the same!

So, in conclusion to this, I have found an experiment, which I will be conducting during my next round of combat and dungeon playtests: Just have the players start every combat at full HP and MP. How to stop the players from just unleashing their best nukes right away? There's tonnes of ways to do that, but once again, this post is already on the long side, so that's a topic for another post. (Some short examples: The big booms require both MP and TP, they need a warm up period, or are conditional, or even take multiple turns to cast, SMaller but regenerating MP pools, ...)

I've... "solved' this problem in a really mean and evil way.

I have bosses where if you blow your "best skills" within the first few turns of combat... The boss can heal up back to 100%.

You read that right.

Yes, you can hate me for that.

Oh, you blew your Ultra Mega Death Cannon 5000 on the Big Bad and it lost 2/3rds of its HP on Turn 1? Yeah, the Troop Commands says, "If on Turn 1, HP is less than 50%, cast Full Heal".

The Ultra Mega Death Cannon 5000 can still work on the boss... But, you'll probably have to wait at least 3 rounds for it, first. If I haven't done anything else in the game to keep you from blowing it at every opportunity.

But, to be fair, not every boss has an answer for your UMDC5K. So... you know... sometimes it works, sometimes not. It's frequent enough that I think it will deter players from doing it every single combat, but not frequent enough that all bosses do it... I'm hoping about 30% of bosses having this feature is enough to naturally deter players from using that strategy... but we'll see.

Playtesting is important!

You could also just go with "Cooldowns" or "Charge Up" times for some of those things.

But, I like my idea better. Because it trolls players.

For combat Potion/Ether use I'll probably put it both on a cooldown, and just limit it to X amount of consumables per combat per character, the 'consumable slots' filled with the items a player has available (Kingdom Hearts style). So a character might have his three 'consumable slots' filled with 'potion, potion, potion', while another might have 'Ether, Antidote, Mega Potion (Multi target potion that heals less per target)', with some classes getting more consumable slots as the game goes on (think an Alchemist/Gadgeteer/Rogue class). Perhaps with a 'Restock potions' option that resets these limited uses in combat, but takes your full turn.

The big problem you need to look out for in doing this is "How to get the player to actually use the Consumables". Because, if you limit them, the player may go "But I might need it later" and never really use them all that much. It will likely promote either skill with the game or overpowering your characters through grinding, depending on what systems you've got in play to promote or prevent those options.

Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore tried these mechanics out to a small extent.

You can only carry 4 of any given Consumable at any time. So, healing was exceptionally limited. Limited to 4 revives total, before you had to go buy more. Limited to 4 Health Regens before you had to go buy more. Limited to 4 items that heald 50 HP, 4 that healed 100, 4 that healed 300, and 4 that healed 999. LImited to 4 items that could restore 50 MP.

You can guess how useful Consumables are in both of those games. Too scarce to rely on, and too easy to overpower the challenge of both games to make using them even "useful". Even in "Trials of Mana", a remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, rebuilt from the ground up to be a third person camera fighting game... has its limit of 9 of any given item at a time, and no way to restock except outside of combat, if you have spares on hand. Even those Consumables were basically never used by a vast majority of the players.

Limiting how often the Consumables are used only adds difficulty or strategy to the game if you ensure the player actually needs to use those Consumables. Otherwise, they may as well not exist.

There are some wrinkles I do need to iron out, though.

Like how to explain this in game.
Maybe the team alchemist just gives them a 'supply box' of the items along on their adventures, but it's stowed in their backpack and inaccessible during combat? Eh, I'll fix this when I get to it.
Maybe new 'consumables' are added when the player finds the recipies?
"Before heading into the viper pit, we should try and find a recipe for an 'Antidote'!"
Whole sidequest chains revolving around finding the recipe for more powerful consumables, maybe even having to gather ingredients for a 'prototype'.
Having more powerful items, like an Elixir, take up more 'slots' could also be a good balancing measure for this.
Could also be fun to have 'buff potions' be an option. Or having the choice between a once per encounter Grenade or a Potion. Somehow it also solves the "Who needs ressurection spells when we can just buy more Phoenix downs?"

I'll let you work out the Lore reasons for whatever you decide on your own. I have nothing to contribute in terms of Lore. That's your job to make your game internally consistent for the player.

For balance reasons, players would only be able to change their consumable load-out in 'Safe zones' outside dungeons, off course.

Any particular reason you see this option as "more balanced" than any other? Or, rather, any reason you want to go with this option?

I'm asking because it goes back to the old questions:

"What do you want the players to be doing?"
"What purpose does this serve?"
"Does this synergize with anything else in the game?"

The fun old questions of game design.

Another problem would be the role of Healers in this.
If every character has plenty potions available, then, why bring a dedicated healer?

Hence why I deleted mine. A Dedicated Healer and Consumables are basically a redundency. Why have two sources of the same effect? Why have overlap? Unless you're going to make them both serve different purposes, then there's likely not a reason to have both.

If you plan to have both, then it's up to you, as the dev, to figure out why you want or even need both.

My answer is just "remove one" because it's much easier to remove a redundancy, then try to balance around it.

Well, on one hand, it does free party composition up a bit more, if healing can be spread among everyone.
But on the flipside, bringing someone who can cast Cure, means the rogue can maybe swap out one of his potions per combat for that 'Vial of Venom'. Which also brings up the possibilty of class or character specific consumables, like Poison needing Poison training, Grenades needing 'Explosives training', and so on.

The only real pitfall here is...

If you end up with characters who end up as "Dedicated Healers" anyway. As in, they are the least valuable contribution to every single fight, and it's not even a tough decision for you to figure out who sacrifices their slots and turns to heal everyone while everyone else focuses on damage.

Then what do players spend gold on, I might hear some of you ask? Well, seeing as I don't plan on having 'the threadmill of gear upgrades' either, I might just do away with gold all-together.

I'd be curious how you make exploration exciting and how you make "hunting treausre" interesting.

Lara Croft and her new set of games tried to do away with some of that... and "Tomb Raiding" in many of those games was "not worth it" as a result of the lackluster junk you tended to find.

You'll likely have to design the game more like a "Metroidvania" in that case...

But, maybe there's a different way to handle it. I'm curious how you'll handle exploration and treasure if there's no gold to find, nothing to spend it on, and don't plan on giving people many gear upgrades.

I know, this sounds like an extreme idea, but besides the obvious story/immersion reasons, I do think it could work.

What do you guys think?

I think it will depend on execution and whether or not you have answers/solutions to the common pitfalls you might run into. I also think it will depend very heavily on Playtesting. It's all well and good to discuss how cool our systems are and how good our ideas might be... But if you get into playtesting and those systems you spent months figuring out how to get to work EXACTLY as intended turn out to be "very freakin' boring", then all that work to get them to function as you envisioned was a waste of time.

I suggest testing these on small "tailor made" projects for them. I've largely engaged in this sort of testing for the last 5 years or so. Put simply, I put the feature I want into a "new game" that is decently short (about an hour or so of gameplay, no story, just gameplay, that gameplay being the expected loop) and watching how friends and family react to what it is they're playing. Do they smile? Get excited? Engage with the systems more? Complain? Etcetera. I'm watching to see if they're having fun. Trying to see if they want to keep playing the small snippet.

It's useful for Testing. I suggest you put together a prototype of this system and just shop that around to see what kind of feedback you might get out of it.

 

[LordOfPotatos]

I've... "solved' this problem in a really mean and evil way.

I have bosses where if you blow your "best skills" within the first few turns of combat... The boss can heal up back to 100%.

You read that right.

Yes, you can hate me for that.

Oh, you blew your Ultra Mega Death Cannon 5000 on the Big Bad and it lost 2/3rds of its HP on Turn 1? Yeah, the Troop Commands says, "If on Turn 1, HP is less than 50%, cast Full Heal".

The Ultra Mega Death Cannon 5000 can still work on the boss... But, you'll probably have to wait at least 3 rounds for it, first. If I haven't done anything else in the game to keep you from blowing it at every opportunity.

But, to be fair, not every boss has an answer for your UMDC5K. So... you know... sometimes it works, sometimes not. It's frequent enough that I think it will deter players from doing it every single combat, but not frequent enough that all bosses do it... I'm hoping about 30% of bosses having this feature is enough to naturally deter players from using that strategy... but we'll see.

Playtesting is important!

You could also just go with "Cooldowns" or "Charge Up" times for some of those things.

But, I like my idea better. Because it trolls players.

what's even the point of being THAT evil?

 

[Tai_MT]

@LordOfPotatos

A few reasons, if you're actually curious.

I call it "trolling", but it's honestly in the interest of never allowing players to "become complacent". Complacency in your players leads to disengagement. Players not engaged find themselves watching Netflix as they play.

1. If the strategy of "save up all my big attacks and nuke the boss in 3 turns" is viable and players can exploit it every single combat... Breeds complacency. I'm not interested in my players ever becoming complacent. One of the things I'm attempting to accomplish (core design tenant, for those familiar with game design documents and creating them) is to be constantly teaching players thing. If there is ever a "universal solution" to a problem, then they won't learn anything. Knowing what players can do at any given time allows me to "punish" that move via some other method, or other strategy, and teach them something else. It allows me to build some layers of combat. Or, even, control existing layers. I like the idea of most bosses being weak to such a strategy, but I don't like the idea of players constantly trying it on every single combat. I want to discourage the behavior without removing it.

2. A gameplay loop of "let me just always be fully healed and with all TP maxed out and full at the start of this fight to drop nukes" is kind of boring. I want players to use their big skills against normal enemies, too. I don't want to have them engage in "But, I might need it later". I don't want them saving it for the bosses. I want those TP skills to generate decently quickly in a boss encounter where it would be useful (so, a trump card in a fight you're not quite equipped to deal with, and virtually useless in any fight where you'd already have the upper hand), so that you can get one or two uses per boss fight. Grinding up those "amazing skills" to be blown in turn one is also not something I want the player to be actively doing.

3. There are instances where a player blowing all their "big and amazing skills" all at once would remove some of the lessons I'm trying to teach in the combat encounter... or lessons I'm testing the player on. If a boss is meant to be around for about 1 cycle of their entire moveset, and that takes about 6 rounds... If a party of 4 can end that fight in 3 rounds or so... Defeats the point of the combat encounters to a large degree.

4. I don't use "charge up" or "cooldowns", because I also like the idea of some players being clever and waiting until the "window" on combat closes for that Full Heal to blast the boss with all their best attacks. I like the idea of rewarding patience in a player. I like the idea that even though I'd punish blasting the boss on Turn 1 with everything, that same boss can be blasted with everything on Turn 4 and would PROBABLY result in a shorter fight, or even a Boss Kill. I want the player to be able to stockpile these options as a resource to spend, and I want to be able to reward them for spending that resource in an intelligent way, but I also want them to suffer if they don't use their resources intelligently.

Anyway, that's the short list. There's some other weird tertiary effects of doing things this way that I also like, but those things don't really impact gameplay all that much (they are things that typically border on player manipulation or guidance and getting the player to do behaviors that I like and want to promote).

 

[LordOfPotatos]

@Tai_MT that makes sense but why that specific higly evil solution?
"30% of the time rushing on the first turn does nothing" just seems like a very... rough approach.

 

[Trihan]

@LordOfPotatos

A few reasons, if you're actually curious.

I call it "trolling", but it's honestly in the interest of never allowing players to "become complacent". Complacency in your players leads to disengagement. Players not engaged find themselves watching Netflix as they play.

1. If the strategy of "save up all my big attacks and nuke the boss in 3 turns" is viable and players can exploit it every single combat... Breeds complacency. I'm not interested in my players ever becoming complacent. One of the things I'm attempting to accomplish (core design tenant, for those familiar with game design documents and creating them) is to be constantly teaching players thing. If there is ever a "universal solution" to a problem, then they won't learn anything. Knowing what players can do at any given time allows me to "punish" that move via some other method, or other strategy, and teach them something else. It allows me to build some layers of combat. Or, even, control existing layers. I like the idea of most bosses being weak to such a strategy, but I don't like the idea of players constantly trying it on every single combat. I want to discourage the behavior without removing it.

2. A gameplay loop of "let me just always be fully healed and with all TP maxed out and full at the start of this fight to drop nukes" is kind of boring. I want players to use their big skills against normal enemies, too. I don't want to have them engage in "But, I might need it later". I don't want them saving it for the bosses. I want those TP skills to generate decently quickly in a boss encounter where it would be useful (so, a trump card in a fight you're not quite equipped to deal with, and virtually useless in any fight where you'd already have the upper hand), so that you can get one or two uses per boss fight. Grinding up those "amazing skills" to be blown in turn one is also not something I want the player to be actively doing.

3. There are instances where a player blowing all their "big and amazing skills" all at once would remove some of the lessons I'm trying to teach in the combat encounter... or lessons I'm testing the player on. If a boss is meant to be around for about 1 cycle of their entire moveset, and that takes about 6 rounds... If a party of 4 can end that fight in 3 rounds or so... Defeats the point of the combat encounters to a large degree.

4. I don't use "charge up" or "cooldowns", because I also like the idea of some players being clever and waiting until the "window" on combat closes for that Full Heal to blast the boss with all their best attacks. I like the idea of rewarding patience in a player. I like the idea that even though I'd punish blasting the boss on Turn 1 with everything, that same boss can be blasted with everything on Turn 4 and would PROBABLY result in a shorter fight, or even a Boss Kill. I want the player to be able to stockpile these options as a resource to spend, and I want to be able to reward them for spending that resource in an intelligent way, but I also want them to suffer if they don't use their resources intelligently.

Anyway, that's the short list. There's some other weird tertiary effects of doing things this way that I also like, but those things don't really impact gameplay all that much (they are things that typically border on player manipulation or guidance and getting the player to do behaviors that I like and want to promote).

How much signposting/warning is there about this? Because from what I've read here, it seems like what you're doing is giving the player a toolkit you put no restrictions on them using, and then hit them arbitrarily with restrictions out of nowhere that are neither hinted at, alluded to nor consistently applied. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that design as a player.

Generally if a game lets me do something, and doesn't say anything about not wanting me to do it in a particular situation, I'm going to assume I can use it anywhere it lets me. The odd boss healing to full after a couple of turns seems fine, and is an interesting contradiction to the usual assumption of being able to fire off your super-nukes right off the bat. But if you do it just for a curated selection of bosses but not all of them, all you're really doing is forcing your player to hold back just in case this boss is doing that, and at that point what you've *effectively* done is just given the boss a couple of turns to take free pot shots at the party while they're not able to mount much of an offence. And at that point, you'd have been as well just adding 2 turns' worth of HP to the boss and not doing that in the first place, arguably.

 

[Tai_MT]

@LordOfPotatos

The 30% is currently just an arbitrary number. I'm hoping I can bring that down some. I'm hoping it doesn't have to go higher than that. But, that's what playtesting is for.

The intended outcome of the 30% is just to get the players to not rely on it and not be "the first thing tried".

In particular, the reason I chose the approach of removing the damage the nukes do is just because there are interesting mechanical things I could do with it. It opens up options for me as a dev in what sort of challenges I can bring to the player.

Is it the best approach? I dunno. Probably not. There's probably a much better way to accomplish the exact thing (things) I'm doing with this, but it was the best idea I had at the time.

Honestly, this is just a solution to a separate problem that comes up a bit later in the game.

The player, by and large, has no way to "Preserve TP" between fights. The items and equipment that allow the player to do that are very few and far between. So, "stockpiling" for your giant nukes isn't really something that's easily done.

But, some of the mid-game and late-game planned equipment allows players to "Preserve TP" at the cost of other stats. Playtesting revealed that most of my players would gladly sacrifice up to a 25% penalty in Attack and Defense stats (but not HP or MP) in order to have the ability to drop those Turn 1 Nukes on bosses. Keep in mind, that a reduction of 25% in your attack or defense stats in my game is a significant hit to damage output in most cases. However, the "Nukes" often use multiplicative damage since they're meant to be rare powerhouse attacks that can allow for shifts in battle. In a combat system where nearly ever stat point matters, these attacks "break that rule" and only end up marginally affecting the outcome.

So, if you have 100 Attack, and the enemy had 50 defense, you'd do 50 damage to the enemy. But, if you reduced Attack to 75 in order to only deal 25 damage to the enemy, that might be a huge problem. Except, it doesn't end up being that way. There are weaknesses that come into play, buffs that can be used, etcetera. If you're fighting an enemy weak to Slashing Damage, then your 25 damage jumps back up to 50. If your "Nuke" is also "Slashing Damage", then that x3 to damage might actually jump to a x6 damage. I mean, it might have initially done 150 damage, but now that they're weak to Slashing, it jumps another 2x. You've now pushed into 300 damage territory very quickly. A sacrifice of 25 points of Attack to have shots at x6 more damage... at minimum, with your nukes.

But, that all sort of gets into the weeds.

The point is simply that as the player gets more access to "Preserve TP" type equipment, then I begin to introduce the "You can't really nuke the boss in the first turn" type mechanics. It's a new layer to the combat at that point. When can you nuke the boss? First turn? Third? Fifth?

Or, is there something even better you can do?

Since the boss can nullify your Nuke with just a Full Heal, couldn't you nullify the Full Heal in some way?

Silence? Stun? Paralyze? A clever player would see the tools available and work to ensure they COULD use their nukes... or find new ways to get those nukes off.

The Boss being able to nullify the Nukes adds a new level to the combat in a way that I sort of enjoy. Adds a bit of depth. Makes the player think about the other tools they've got in order to do what they want.

At least, that's my perspective on it.

How much signposting/warning is there about this? Because from what I've read here, it seems like what you're doing is giving the player a toolkit you put no restrictions on them using, and then hit them arbitrarily with restrictions out of nowhere that are neither hinted at, alluded to nor consistently applied. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that design as a player.

It sort of depends, I suppose. One of the design decisions I often grapple with is "how much signposting is too much?".

If I tell you what the boss is going to do, does that rob the player from the experience of finding out? Is it okay to have the player learn something through experience, or should I signpost it so that they never learn it through experience? If I tell the player that they can't drop nukes on the boss for 3 turns, does that rob the fight from having any tension? Does it reduce the experience for the player? Is anything valuable to the experience of the game lost if I do that?

Every time I decide whether to signpost something or not, this is what I end up having to ask. Is the experience more valuable when the player is given a challenge they didn't expect, a counter they didn't expect, and have to figure it out on their own since their "best laid plans" now lie in ruin? Or, is the experience more valuable to the player by reducing any potential frustration they may have? How much frustration is "too much" and how much is "not enough"?

"If you remove all the thorns from their path, do you think you're being kind?"

The current signposting I have is:

Every time the player gets access to something new, there are new challenges that revolve around it.

That's it.

Do I need more? Maybe. Is it appropriate to have more?

Honestly, I can't actually answer that question right now. I can't answer if I should signpost these bosses at all. I can't answer if it would be a better experience to not spoil the challenge for the players or not. I have no idea. Is the momentary frustration of losing your nukes something most players will hate? Is it something that makes the victory sweeter when the challenge is overcome?

I don't have enough playtesting data to be able to tell you either way.

But, I like the mechanic and I like what I can do as a result of having it. I also just decided that I think the experience is more valuable when the player is given a surprise challenge, and needs to overcome it.

Currently, the "consistency" is just that the 30% of bosses who employ the mechanic are pretty immediately introduced the moment the player starts finding "Preserve TP" equipment more frequently. Then, when I feel the message has gotten across... I just don't bother adding it to many bosses anymore. Except the oddball one here or there, just to shake things up.

Generally if a game lets me do something, and doesn't say anything about not wanting me to do it in a particular situation, I'm going to assume I can use it anywhere it lets me.

That's honestly what I'm counting on with most players. They find a strategy or something that works, I let it work for a little while, and then start introducing snags. I start requiring the player "expand" that strategy in order to keep using it (or, what I like to term "iteration on the mechanic").

I want to signpost things that the player needs to know for every single fight. If the feature comes into play 100% of the time, I want them to know about it. If it only comes into play for a few fights or in a few instances, then I want the players to discover that by just experimenting.

Nuking the boss this time didn't work. Options are "savescum" now that you know that or fight through the battle anyway. Maybe the player learns that it might be smart to add a layer to the nukes and to cast something that inflicts Silence on the boss before the nukes come down (if the boss is weak to Silence, anyway). Stuff like that.

The odd boss healing to full after a couple of turns seems fine, and is an interesting contradiction to the usual assumption of being able to fire off your super-nukes right off the bat. But if you do it just for a curated selection of bosses but not all of them, all you're really doing is forcing your player to hold back just in case this boss is doing that, and at that point what you've *effectively* done is just given the boss a couple of turns to take free pot shots at the party while they're not able to mount much of an offence. And at that point, you'd have been as well just adding 2 turns' worth of HP to the boss and not doing that in the first place, arguably.

You might be right, but I just find it difficult to let go of the combat depth that is created by such a situation. Or, at least, what I perceive as "combat depth" (maybe you would disagree that it's depth at all). I like that the mechanic itself simply invites a lot of counter play. I want the players to either give up on their "I Win" button or to prove how determined they are to use that "I Win" button and keep finding ways to use it.

I find value in the choices players make (honestly, that's the theme of the game, players making choices and being able to share what choices they did make). If a player finds a way around the mechanic, I think there's value in that. If a player gives up using the mechanic, I find value in that, too. I don't think either choice is "wrong", I think they're just the choice the player made.

But, maybe there's no value in any frustration experienced by the players in such a situation.

 

[TheAM-Dol]

The adage of game design is always "it depends", and really you have a lot of thoughts about the topic, but you should direct that thinking towards how to use items/healing in your own game and what it means for you.

In the case of my game, player healing is almost always readily available with some mindful foresight, therefore your main form of recovery (which, recovery plays a huge part of the combat loop) should be using your healing skill. However, there are cases where either there is bad luck or just poor preparation, so to offset the feeling of unfairness, there are healing items players can use. However, to ensure players focus more on using their healing skill and not healing items, the player can only carry a very limited number of each item. Each item restore a percentage of health and not a flat amount. These values may change as development progresses, but here's what it looks like in its current form:
Player can hold:
3 potions that heal 33%, 2 potions that heal 66%, and 1 potion that heals 100%.
There are also equivalent items for MP. The play can hold the same number of each:
3 "ethers" that restore 33%, 2 that restore 66%, and 1 that restores 100%

Additionally, there are encentives for using the healing skill. Repeated uses can be chained together to create a restore-over-time effect. Additionally, there is a brief period of damage reduction after healing. Since it's a single-actor game, it can feel frustrating to spend your turn healing, then have the enemies undo all of that healing you just did. These benefits are not provided to items, really making them emergency use cases for - again - bad luck or poor preparation on the part of the player.

p.s.
I wouldn't start getting sucked down the rabbit hole of "realism" because practically every game starts to break down fundamentally when you begin looking through it with that lens (outside of simulators and maybe the ball-shrinkage amounts of detail in Red Dead 2). I think @ATT_Turan put it best, which is knowing where to draw the line in the sand. It can also go against your game's natural philosophy. If you game presents itself as something fantastical, then having certain "realistic" mechanics may go counter to what the game is trying to be which could lead to players either feeling disconnected from the game or depending on what the mechanic is and how much against the grain it goes with your game, could be out-right frustrating.
Instead, think of it as "what is 'realistic' within this world I have created?"

 

[Milennin]

The easy solution is the removal of consumables entirely. If you can't find another use for gold, then remove gold too. Easy-peasy. Then just implement an engaging, in-combat HP and MP management system and bam, you're done. Now, your players have to think about how to use their skills in the best ways possible instead of chugging potions whenever their HP or MP go low.

So, in conclusion to this, I have found an experiment, which I will be conducting during my next round of combat and dungeon playtests: Just have the players start every combat at full HP and MP. How to stop the players from just unleashing their best nukes right away? There's tonnes of ways to do that, but once again, this post is already on the long side, so that's a topic for another post. (Some short examples: The big booms require both MP and TP, they need a warm up period, or are conditional, or even take multiple turns to cast, SMaller but regenerating MP pools, ...)

Fully restoring players HP and MP is a bad idea because:

• It allows players to launch their most powerful combo right off the bat, every single encounter.
• It makes encounters feel same-y, especially if the combat system lacks the depth to approach certain types of enemies differently.
• It removes the reward for playing well by clearing an encounter with taking little damage or managing MP wisely.

Personally, I find that restoring a portion of HP and MP is the way to go (I restore the player's missing HP and MP by 50% at the end of a battle). This way, they'll always be in decent shape, but not to the point where they'll always have their best combo at hand when entering the next encounter, which also helps each encounter to feel a bit differently. Good/Careful players are still rewarded with entering the next encounter with more HP and MP encounter than if they'd been playing badly or recklessly.

 

[dennis_the_tennis]

A bit late to the discussion, but thought I'd throw in the obligatory "in my game" post because I actually ran into the exact same situations described in the OP:

My game fully heals the party after every battle, but I still wanted a place for the traditional "item" action, where an "item" is a generic utility available to any member of the party. The solution I went with was to make it so that your items regenerate after every fight too. Basically, once you buy an item from the shop, you have the option to 'equip' that item, up to a maximum of 5. Each of your equipped items will be available to be used once each fight. A bit of an oddball solution, but it worked out in a system built around individual battles instead of dungeon-based attrition.

 

[nbgamemaker]

depends on how much you want it, but i think they're neccesary for the same reason as ammo in shooters to keep things from being too easy and players from just spamming heals indefinitely.

 

[freakytapir]

depends on how much you want it, but i think they're neccesary for the same reason as ammo in shooters to keep things from being too easy and players from just spamming heals indefinitely.

Then again, if your boss can be out-healed indefinitely, your boss design might be off.
Trying to just outheal a boss should lead to death.

Some things that would stop this behavior (assuming a turn based system):

• Escalating boss strength
• Short bursts where you need to DPS, and have to choose how much you heal vs DPS
• Cooldowns on potion use
• Limits on potions per battle
• Boss Turn limits (Basically, a more all or nothing version of Escalating boss strength)
• Mechanics that need a to be handled now, no time for potion use.

 

[Sword_of_Dusk]

Then again, if your boss can be out-healed indefinitely, your boss design might be off.
Trying to just outheal a boss should lead to death.

Depends on the damage output of the boss and strength of the healing magic used. For example, Dragon Quest has the Fullheal spell, which does exactly what it says and puts a target's health to full. There could be a situation where one character could potentially hold out against a boss and win, provided they have the MP to maintain casts of Fullheal throughout the battle.

That said, there are rarely situations like this is DQ. Bosses are tuned for dealing with a full party, and while the Omniheal spell is a party-wide version of Fullheal, the characters who learn it (almost always only the main characters), never have enough MP to cast it more than maybe two times. 64 MP is a lot in DQ.