Inn penalty: How to balance when the player returns to an inn for healing

[Andar]

If you use maps with limited encounters, how do you balance that against the option of the player returning to an inn for healing?

If inns are freely available, the player could clear a map he's not strong enough yet by killing single enemies and return for healing to an inn after each battle.

Some games solve this by not placing inns or making them expensive, but that would not fit into a real society - I like my worlds to be consistent and not geared toward game mechanics.

Currently I'm considering to count the inn visits and have some monsters revive on not completely cleared maps - but that would make the eventing and scripting a lot of work. (the entire idea/game mechanic description is in my blog: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/blog/92/entry-568-encounter-system-monster-generator-and-inn-penalty/)

So I would like to know what others have done to handle these options. Any comment is welcome

 

[kerbonklin]

Solutions can vary depending on the battle style.  However generally you can make it so that it takes a few kills to get enough money for an inn usage, or control accuracy based on your level compared to the enemy (especially if enemies have their own levels)

Like every "level difference" (can be a sort of variables) represents 2% accuracy decrease. If a lv15 player tries to take on a lv20 enemy, there's a 10% accuracy penalty.

 

[Andar]

Solutions can vary depending on the battle style.  However generally you can make it so that it takes a few kills to get enough money for an inn usage, or control accuracy based on your level compared to the enemy (especially if enemies have their own levels)

Like every "level difference" (can be a sort of variables) represents 2% accuracy decrease. If a lv15 player tries to take on a lv20 enemy, there's a 10% accuracy penalty.

It's not about balancing the battle structure (accuracy) to make battles on some maps more difficult, especially not if they're supposed to be level-based (which has nothing to do with inns or healing).

I would like to know what other options (other than increasing the gold for inn use) are available to balance the number of inn-uses for healing against the battles of a map.

As told in the original post and the linked blog, currently I consider reviving part of the enemies based on the number of inn uses to prevent the player from using inns to clear the map early.

But that requires a lot of complex eventing and/or scripting, and I would like to know what other inn-based penalties might be possible.

 

[The Stranger]

Perhaps the player is given a "rested" state after using an inn. This state would greatly reduce the amount of health and mana restored from using an inn, until it has worn off. You'd need to come up with a way to remove the state after a certain amount of time; perhaps the timer could be based on number of steps taken. You'd also need to make sure that the player couldn't remove the state via magic or consumables. If the player continues to rest at an inn, whilst inflicted with this state, the restoration penalty could become much worse; eventually, they wouldn't be healed at all by resting.

 

[Andar]

That (rest state) is an option that would even fit with a different problem (not only solve the inn problem), but it would require me to implement a time (or at least day/night)-system. Such a system would also make the work with a revive-counter easier as a third plus.

I have been considering a time system as well, but not yet decided on that because I'm already planning with a lot of scripts and events - anything not needed should be left out to reduce compatibility problems.

If no one has better ideas I might go that way...

 

[Casia]

Longer distance between the problematic area and the closest village and inn?

 

[Alouette]

Instead of increasing the cost, why not decrease the gain?

 

[Xypher]

maybe randomly or battle count related have inns have no rooms available or only have high cost rooms available

 

[Cozzer]

Limited encounters, but they respawn when you use an Inn?
(And if you want to limit grinding, enemies you have already defeated won't give any more EXP even after they've respawned)

 

[ShinGamix]

Here is a different idea I had

You could always make an item like "Inn Ticket" or "Inn Pass" (that one is funny) to even use or enter the inn?

This way you could limit how many times the Inn could be visited.

Maybe make a "Bouncer" at the door of the Inn and have him ask for the "Inn Pass" and then he could deny them.

Also you could have a scalper selling fake Inn Passes too!!

Also could make the Inn cost more by variable formula

  "party leader Exp Level" x "Inn Cost" x "Number of ppl in party"

and finally make a super rare item lets call it "Inn Need"

where it automaticly teleports party to a certain Inn for those healing emergencies..

 

[AstoXx]

In the game I'm working on right now, I've really thought about how to make inns different. Players have become reliant on them or expect them to work in a certain way or whatever and I wanted to do something different to something a lot players believe is a fundamental. I'm not sure if you guys think this is balanced or not, but here's what I'm doing.

1. The first change isn't really a balancing thing, but one I think is interesting nonetheless. You pay to book your room, but do not sleep in it straight away. You can go and rest immediately if you want, for a traditional inn experience but you don't have to. When you DO decide to go and rest, that's when your reservation runs out.

2. If you book a room, but do not use it for x amount of time, you lose your booked room anyway.

3. They don't heal everything. No death heals, only some states and they only heal a certain amount based on your current amount. The less you have, the more it heals.

4. I have a variable tracking inn usage. If you use inns too much, enemies get stronger. This might incite a vicious cycle, but I'm aiming for a very hardcore experience. Battle revolves around exploiting states and weaknesses and other things, much like the SMT series or Etrian Odyssey.

 

[The Stranger]

I like the idea of being able to reserve your room and not use it there and then. I also think the inn only removing certain states, and not reviving characters, is great! Though, enemies growing in strength the more you stay at an inn seems a bit harsh. Is the difficulty increase permanent? Do encounters continue to increase in strength indefinitely the more you rest rest at an inn?

 

[kerbonklin]

I find Asto's idea pointless. Who would possibly walk into an Inn and talk to the Inn Keeper, and NOT use it?  That's like if I walked into a pizzeria, ordered a large cheese pizza, walked out and never came back. (and I never paid)

 

[SLEEP]

If inns are freely available, the player could clear a map he's not strong enough yet by killing single enemies and return for healing to an inn after each battle.

Have enemies respawn once you leave the map. But having to grind inns after battle is tedious in the first place and kind of it's own penalty, you don't have to add anything else to that really.

 

[Andar]

I've been calling my current plans for the inn penalty "reviving" enemies to indicate that the maps can regain their original enemies, but not get more than that - to allow anything to improve without limits would create a nightmare for balancing.

The "inn ticket" is basically a way to pay for the inn before you need it - that would only increase the gameplay value if the gameplay has ways to loose gold, because otherwise (if the player has always enough gold to pay) the time neccessary to travel to the inn and back would make not using a reservation pointless.

Using travel time to balance inns is an option - but one with limited usability. If the maps between the inn and the target area are cleared, then this is only a tedious waste of time. If they still contain monsters, then there will be a limit to how far you can get before needing another rest - and if the inns are too far distant from each other, they won't matter in gameplay anymore.

A few interesting ideas so far, but many won't fit with the rest of my game mechanics.

 

[Clord]

I don't see a point to apply penalty for INN usage. After all you want player to enjoy and not get annoyed by crappy gameplay mechanics expected from eighties games. One of typical functions of INN in RPG genre is to prevent player from getting annoyed by not being able to effectively level in the area due costs and the various other reasons.

 

[Andar]

I don't see a point to apply penalty for INN usage. After all you want player to enjoy and not get annoyed by crappy gameplay mechanics expected from eighties games. One of typical functions of INN in RPG genre is to prevent player from getting annoyed by not being able to effectively level in the area due costs and the various other reasons.

That assumes that leveling up is the basic method to gain fun from games - an assumption that I don't agree with.

Some players will probably agree with you, and most probably they won't see fun in the same games that I (and others I know of) play. For example, in a PnP-Campaign (with pathfinder-rules) our group just completed a one-year-campaign with L1-characters, never leveling up in the entire year of game sessions.

It's the same in every type of games - some people like realism, other people like micro-management, still other people like fast games; some want a challenge that they can fail, others want a save railroad to the end and so on.

In my games, I'll allow for limited grinding to level up, but I want to prevent them from leveling up excessively - that's why I need some limits to inn usage.

 

[Clord]

Well, you could for example have a meter for the party which indicates how tired they are overall. Should they be very tired, their resting would have a greater impact. I don't really mind as long it makes sense in a context.

 

[AstoXx]

I like the idea of being able to reserve your room and not use it there and then. I also think the inn only removing certain states, and not reviving characters, is great! Though, enemies growing in strength the more you stay at an inn seems a bit harsh. Is the difficulty increase permanent? Do encounters continue to increase in strength indefinitely the more you rest rest at an inn?

The enemies permanently get stronger, although it's not per 1 usage. It applies whenever you hit certain thresholds of inn usage, like if you use an inn 20 times. Now if you manage to get to, let's say, Arbitrary Chapter 7 in a game with 10 chapters before using the inn 20 times, that first increase isn't actually going to do much seeing as you're quite clearly competent at the game in this regard. It's really all experimental right now, as opposed to me just going "Oh, look, go to inn, get full heal" which I find rather boring now. It will probably change at some point when I get a better feel for how it should work with more playtesting.

I find Asto's idea pointless. Who would possibly walk into an Inn and talk to the Inn Keeper, and NOT use it?  That's like if I walked into a pizzeria, ordered a large cheese pizza, walked out and never came back. (and I never paid)

So, say you went on holiday... you don't book your hotel room before you get there? And then when you do, you sleep then and there and then cancel the rest of your reservation? It serves not only as a form of verisimilitude, but means the inn can function as something more than a place where you go just so the screen cuts to black and you heal up. You die when you have a reservation active? You wake up in the inn instead of game over. It gives me a lot more options to tinker with things and open new paths.

 

[Alouette]

In my games, I'll allow for limited grinding to level up, but I want to prevent them from leveling up excessively - that's why I need some limits to inn usage.

If excessive levelling is your issue, there's no reason to change your inns. There are plenty of other more logical ways to address this. Deteriorating rewards is one.