HP Gauge only: Tips and Opinions

[Alyon93]

Hi guys!
This time around I'm not asking for any help, only some Tips or Opinions about an idea I had in mind.
 

I'm making a game without magic and the abilities are the most similar to reality(things like shield bash, feints, moulinet and so on).
In my game, every action uses some amount of Energy(even the base attack and defend actions) so I've made a battle command "Rest" to let the character recover some Energy in order to attack again.

Then I had this thought:
What about having a gauge only for both Energy and Health? Like in real life basically.
The thing is, in real life if you get hit or if you keep doing things without  resting, the result is the same, you're weak.
Also when HP reach 0 the character gets Knocked Out(death state) which in my game is much different from death itself.

So:
I was able to remove both MP/TP gauges from both Battle and Menù leaving only this Energy gauge(HP).
Also I know how to damage HP after every action(with formulas like a.hp = -x).

This works for both heroes and enemies and can add some particular tactics in battle such as waiting for an enemy to attack and become enough weak to be countered and so on.
 

Also I'm planning to add some Injuries so if you get an arm broken you can't have the maximum Energy and also the actions you make should waste more Energy than when you are fully healed.

The question is:
Would you find attractive to play a game with such realistic rules?
Or should I remain with the two gauges(HP/MP) like in most games?
If so, do you have some tips for a better way to realize this?

As always sorry if it's the wrong section and for my bad english(I'm Italian).

Thanks to those who'll have the patience and the courtesy to read this long text and for answering! 

 

[Seriel]

Would you find attractive to play a game with such realistic rules?

Yes. i would love it.

Or should I remain with the two gauges(HP/MP) like in most games?

Nah, its a good idea, lets you be unique.

 

[Bribolox]

I'm not sure how "realistic" it is, but I would be very interested to try out a system like this!  I've thought of making a game with just combat skills and no magic, but then i think "oh - but the healing" and go back...

 

[Rikifive]

Yes, I would play a game with that idea.

That's the point of game making - you can set your own rules, what is more it sound like a good idea anyway.

 

[Celianna]

I've moved this thread to general discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

 

[Alyon93]

Celianna Sorry for the error, but this forum is full of sections and sometimes is not so easy to understand in which one your post should be.
Thank you anyway, I'll be more accurate next time.
 

I'm not sure how "realistic" it is, but I would be very interested to try out a system like this!  I've thought of making a game with just combat skills and no magic, but then i think "oh - but the healing" and go back...

Well about the healing you can do it with food or items, maybe having a character which know how to produce a medicine from herbs and things. It would add also more depth to the character than the usual:
"I'm a Cleric, my prayers to God heal the others."

In my game this actually works. My idea infact is that the items you use recover Energy only.
Seems a bit odd yeah but think about wasting a lot of energy during a battle, if you drink some water sure you'll recover some strenght in order to keep fighting.
Add to this an injury system in which some damage cannot be recovered during battle or in dungeons, but only with a proper medic or remedies outside battle(thinking about bandages to only be applied after a battle).

Anyway thanks to everyone who answered and liked my idea. I appreciate it!

Since you liked it, what would be, in your opinion, a good way to manage this?

I thought this one:
fixed damage(i.e. base attack wastes 30 HP) so if a character gets stronger with Level Up he gets more HP and so more attacks without being threatened by enemies attacks.
Since this rule must be applied to enemies too, a weak enemy like a rat would knock itself down attacking the heroes 2/3 times while they only keep their shields up which make sense somehow, but it seems a little bit unfair to me.

It came to my mind to think some examples to evaluate all together this strategy.

A Bat uses his drainblood attack so he wastes some energy in doing that(i.e. 20 HP) but he manages to hit one of the character and in sucking his blood he gets some energy(i.e. 100 HP) would that be fair for it to use it?

A character defend for one turn. In real life keeping a shield up would waste some energy, but the whole point of defending is to reduce/nullify the damage received. 
If Defend command would waste 15 HP and you receive 50 HP of damage instead of 200 would you still decide to use that command?

All numbers are simplified and I didn't really thought about the exact amount. 

Just basing upon them let me know what you think and if this would really work for you or if you have a better idea!

 

[Wavelength]

There are a lot of people who think this will be a good system, so maybe I'm simply wrong - but I foresee such a system as being a horrible experience for the player, at least if you don't include other major battle mechanics in conjunction with the system.

Here's why: either the player will be able to "Rest" in battle to restore more energy than the enemy can dish out in a turn, meaning the battles will be infinitely easy, or they won't be able to do this (in other words, they take more damage than they restore by Resting), meaning their health will keep dropping every battle and they will eventually die without even being able to attack enemies because their HP is too low.

Either HP goes up or goes it down and the same result will probably happen in every battle.  This is the problem when you only have one resource.  You can't have one go up and the other go down; you can't have loops of three or four resources interacting with each other.  You lose "balance levers" as a designer.

There might be ways you can find a middle ground between these two extremes, such as having Rest be a powerful command with a 3-turn cooldown (you'd still have to be really careful about abusable Rest-Guard-Attack loops), or having a small, fixed number of battles in each dungeon (which would make the dungeon about strategic use of your HP in each battle to kill enemies efficiently), or having each enemy drop specific healing items 100% of the time (so that you can sometimes gain HP after the healing if you play the battle well).

I suppose one other way you could make it work would be to give a Full Heal after every battle, and make each battle pretty challenging on its own.  That would prevent the "death spiral" since you only need to worry about dying within a battle - you don't need to worry about how much HP you lose winning that battle.

 

[Alyon93]

Actually right now I was thinking to remove "Rest" command at all.

Leaving the energy recovery possible with food and items only.

This means that if you keep farming for enemies in a dungeon you might end without consumables. So you have to think about every action and battle and avoid wasting items.

Also, I already removed random encounters, so once you cleared the area from enemies they won't appear again until you change map and come back.

Of course enemies actually drop something you can use.

For example: rats drop "rat meat" that you can eat but has the risk to transmit some illness to the user. So you bring some coal with you in order to cook the meat making it eatable without risk.

This means that even in a place where your party is much stronger than the enemies you still have to think about getting food and sleep in tent and so on.

I actually thought about a Full Heal after battle, but I don't like it at all for these reasons:

1) where do you get the energy to completely heal? Only taking a long breath can't remove thirst or hungry in real life and for sure can't heal scratches.

2) if so you would be able to fight every battle you want so long you're able to defeat your enemies.

Maybe I'll add a small energy recover after every battle(like 25% maybe). That would totally make sense.

Basically I want to do a survival RPG the most realistic possible.

 

[Wavelength]

Don't worry about realism - only worry about making a fun, interesting, strategic game.  In real life a single good blow with a sword would be enough to end your life (if not immediately, then by infection or blood loss afterwards) - in most RPGs you can simply drink a Potion and shake it off.  That's completely unrealistic, and that's a good thing.

I think the system could possibly work with no Rest command (or a very restricted one), and the "cleared until you leave the dungeon" encounters you're describing.  Again, though, you run into a very tricky balancing act: in a system where you are almost guaranteed to lose part of your only resource (Energy) as you fight, how do you encourage the player to fight instead of avoiding every single battle?  And if you plan to have bosses, how do you balance the boss at the end of a dungeon when you don't know whether the player is going to start that fight with 20% Energy or 100% Energy?  Think hard about these questions - because if you can answer them in a way that will be satisfying to the player, you might have a really good idea on your hands.

 

[Alyon93]

Of course I'm not going to make a boring game(the thing one blow can kill you) I try to use fantasy there thinking that maybe every sword attacks you get, is deflected by your own weapons and armors with the drawback of wasting a lot of energy(the HP loss) and some injuries exceptions.

The actual killing blow would happen only if you lose the battle(game over).

As for the other part of the comment:

Well it's very difficult to avoid every enemy since when they spot you they start following you until you get them off of the screen. Of course it's possible but while running past them you could find yourself surrendered by enemies and be in danger that's why you should avoid fighting only to refill your energy or escape the dungeon.

Also you get Exp as usual so avoiding battles would only mean not growing up to fight harder enemies and also you really have tons of possibilities to refill your energy with only some attention to wasting items(if you drink water when you're around 90% of energy of course you wasted it).

Of course I'm planning to have bosses in my game but I think that having only one gauge instead of two doesn't really change the concept here.

Think about how many times playing a Final Fantasy or similar you started a boss fight with no Mp and less than half of your HP.

Usually you have a couple of turns to prepare for the battle before being defeated and if so in my game would be rather easier since you only have to refill a resource only.

Also if you happen to not be able to heal in battle you sure would have a save point near the boss battle in order to prepare yourself better.

It's like in many other games:

is the environment that tells you whether there is a boss battle or not.

For example the first boss fight in my game starts like this:

You control a couple of civilians who happen to end in a cave once inhabited but now abandoned.

You can't walk back from where you came and so you push further to find an exit.

At some point you need to find a way to get to the layer below.

Searching in the cave you find a rope but around you there are webs and corpses.

Now taking the rope is an important event since allows you to continue your journey and you have all these informations that this is a special area.

At this point, in my opinion, having only HP or Hp/Mp or whatever doesn't really change the outcome.

If you understand that there's a boss battle you refill yourself.

If not you start the battle unprepared knowing that if you lose you would have to be much careful in reaching the rope next time and be prepared for the battle.

Anyway thanks for all the tips you're giving me.

They help me think about every possible outcome.

 

[Wavelength]

You're welcome!  Best of luck putting the system together

 

[Alyon93]

Thanks Wavelength. I'll do my best to make it working.
I'll probably release a demo afterwards so you and the others can check this out if it really works or not.

But I must ask you:
Have you changed your mind about this idea now?
Do you think that with those features it will be a good system? Or you would still go for the two resources as usual?
Your feedback is important because you were the only one until now to actually don't like the system at all(at least in its first concept and without proper explanations).

Now I'm talking to everyone:
I started to apply the ideas and I thought that I have to make it impossible to use some skills or commands when you don't have enough energy (like it happens with Mp or Tp).
It's just that RMVXA doesn't provide an HP cost.
I can remove the HP at every action using formulas, but there is no way, at least without a script to check if you have enough HP to use a skill(also in the skill menù it wouldn't show how much HP you need like it happens with MP/TP) and lock that command/skill.
Think I will ask in another post in the proper section. If any of you has another idea let me know.

Also in the same way, when you don't have enough HP to act in anyway, I might unlock the "Rest" command to recover a bit of energy.
In this way rest would only exist as a last resource before being beaten.

Does it make sense so far?