What's the point of reviving a knocked-out actor with 1 HP

[Eden019]

Topic. Especially in a turn-based battle system, the actor will most likely be knocked out again in one hit. What do you think?

 

[SpyroFan67]

Yeah, that's bullshit when RPG Maker does that. It's better to revive them with half their health or all their health back.

 

[Tai_MT]

It all depends on what you do with it. The makers give you options.

If you have a party member who has "Cover", they can protect that character.
If you have skills that are more powerful with the less HP you have, that character can have a massive advantage.
If you have states/events/etcetera that trigger at low HP, you can have that now.

Just depends on what you do with it.

You can also, if you hate it, just have your "revive" skills/items heal some HP.

Low HP can be useful for tactical stuff, if you design tactical stuff in your game.

I have a character that does get more powerful with the less HP they've got (and if they use a specific skill in that state). I've got enemies that may or may not target you if you have 1 HP (they may choose not to target you with next to no HP, as part of a tactic or a plot to do really annoying things to do... like wipe the whole party all at once... or force you to waste turns healing rather than attacking).

On and on.

It's all a matter of what you do with it, and what you can think of doing with it.

 

[Cythera]

I'm okay with a 1HP revive. I prefer it if something else is also done to go along with it; could be an ally shielding them, could be an invulnerable phase where enemies can't target them until they take their turn - if you do that, just don't make it so the actor can't die. Enemies attacking an immortal actor is extremely cheesy. Nothing stops me from using that 1HP character to soak an entire fight haha!

But, I can also take a 1HP revive as it is. Especially if I can manipulate enemy AI into constantly focusing on that 1HP character. Always fun
Though, if you're going the 1HP revive route, make sure it's balanced. I should either be able to use it somehow (low HP -> damage boost, or manipulating enemy AI) OR knock-outs are so unusual revives aren't common. If I need to revive then I deserve the puny 1HP revive because I really messed up, kinda thing.

Something I personally do is turn order changes with revives (1HP or otherwise). Any revived characters get to act right away - even if they've already acted this turn. So they can attack, they can use an item, they can flee, whatever.

 

[Ami]

What's the point of reviving a knocked-out actor with 1 HP

i was thinking same, too. that doesn't look good in some scenario (especially in ATB mode where AGI determines on how fast they are & how many times to attack)

i prefer with revive a 25% of HP to make sure that your actor really have a chance to attack the target

covering also acceptable, since the actor must "meat-shielding" the wounded actor, so they have a chance to use healing

 

[SGHarlekin]

Nobody is forcing you to handle revives in that manner. There are plenty of games that do it that way of course and imho it was always sh*t.

Plenty of options available to avoid that:
Revive and heal to x% HP.
Revive and Invulnerability for a turn or two.
Revive character and make it immune to knockout for a few turns.
Revive and program your enemies to not target a freshly revived character
to name a few along what others already said. Your imagination is the limit.

 

[werzaque]

It completely depends on the game mechanics. I personally think that half-health revives take away the risk associated with being knocked out. KO being a huge disadvantage leads to more interesting situations IMO as it makes even minor buffs (like 10% damage reduction) worthwhile, and “keeping HP high” at the expense of party DPS a strategy worth considering.

 

[LuxioCatto]

It all depends on what you do with it. The makers give you options.

If you have a party member who has "Cover", they can protect that character.
If you have skills that are more powerful with the less HP you have, that character can have a massive advantage.
If you have states/events/etcetera that trigger at low HP, you can have that now.

Just depends on what you do with it.

You can also, if you hate it, just have your "revive" skills/items heal some HP.

Low HP can be useful for tactical stuff, if you design tactical stuff in your game.

I have a character that does get more powerful with the less HP they've got (and if they use a specific skill in that state). I've got enemies that may or may not target you if you have 1 HP (they may choose not to target you with next to no HP, as part of a tactic or a plot to do really annoying things to do... like wipe the whole party all at once... or force you to waste turns healing rather than attacking).

On and on.

It's all a matter of what you do with it, and what you can think of doing with it.

I really like this reasoning:
the 1hp revive could play in a lot of ways as u mentioned right here.
I do agree with Eden's opinion aswell, since the 1hp revive is p much used in the very early RPGs and I remember being hella annoyed by the missed opportunities xd
The casual player will not really understand the strategy behind, for example, who has the first turn etc, atleast for me.. the critical strategical thinking comes when the battle starts getting tough.

 

[Tai_MT]

@LuxioCatto

Yeah, I like strategy in RPG's, so my combat largely revolves around it. All my fights are "gimmicks", so I always have to be aware of what my player's party can do... so I know how to annoy them and play with them and force them to do things.

But, I don't even have "revive with 1 HP" in my game. Doing that would make my game too hard as it is. Everyone gets 25% HP recovery and that's it.

There already isn't a Dedicated Healer. There already isn't magic that heals. All Healing has to be done with consumables, which means the player has to spend some turns doing it. Combat is designed in such a way that each character is meant to go down in 5 hits.

So, 1 HP revive just makes things "too hard". Each revive basically giving the characters another 2 hits gives a little bit of leeway. But, it isn't much.

 

[Lord Vectra]

The point of reviving with 1 HP is because, if an enemy attacks them to kill them, that's still them using their turn to kill that character again. Turn-based RPGs are centered around the laws of Action Economy. If you revive them so they can take a hit, then revive becomes an offensive option (defense is best offense in a sense) rather than a rebound option.

I COULD use my attack, but I could INSTEAD revive Billy. And assuming this is default AI, they will randomly attack which means less chance to attack the healthy ones. If they hit Billy, he will survive and he's garunteed to get a turn to do whatever.

You see it in Dungeons and Dragons actually. If the enemy is prone to attack low HP units (which both players and enemies often do), reviving becomes psuedo-provoke where 1 guy revives the dead guy and the other 2 guys attack the enemies attacking the repeatedly-dead guy.

Bottom Line: Revive with 1 HP has it's uses unless your enemy is just pooping out AOEs every turn of which that boss was probably created as an Anti-Revive-Cheese boss. I hope that answers the overarching question here on "whats the point?" and as someone mentioned, there are things adjacent that would make that beneficial like if you had a unit that got stronger as their HP got low or you're like me and have multi-turn death ward spells.

In my current project, what you could theoretically do (assuming you have the correct party makeup) is revive someone, have the next ally give them multi-turn death ward, and have some way to get them with a lot of Threat (which is basically provoke) and while that turns Revive into a very offensive and defensive option, it requires like 3 spells and each has to come from a different person so the revived guy gets it ASAP before enemies start taking turns (team work makes the dream work).

 

[pawsplay]

I generally prefer games where revive is rarely used and represents a bad situation, so I'm generally fine with it. If you want to get them and keep them up, you usually have to over-commit some healing. So it's tactically interesting.

 

[Robro33]

The regular revive item in my game revives units to single digits, and there is a rez sickness debuff that reduces all of their stats some (also reduces their target rate a little, but some enemies will specifically focus people with that debuff on and low hp), but theres also tank skills to cover others and to provoke attacks against the party to themselves alongside status ailments that other classes get that could be used to prevent the character from just going back down again.
Not every turn is going to be a good turn for rezzing someone and IMO no turn should be by default. Ideally for me, a game should give the player some agency in controlling the situation to make it safer to rez KO'd characters if you arent using them as meat shields instead of always allowing it and making each dungeon a race to see whether or not it you geat it and the boss before your phoenix downs run out. When rezzing is forgiving enough to make dying and spending a turn rezzing preferable to healing or defending to prevent a death, I usually feel cheap for thinking about using death as a positive mechanic over an actual penalty

 

[werzaque]

If you want to get them and keep them up, you usually have to over-commit some healing. So it's tactically interesting.

This indeed. It also adds a layer of strategy in that sometimes a slow healer will work better (revive last in the turn after all the AOE spamming has cleared).

Leaving a character KO'd can be the best choice in some cases (like DQ11 at highest difficulty) and I find that sort of thing interesting. Also the reason why I dislike "KO'd characters get no XP" mechanic.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Even having the ability to revive someone at all has a big effect on the game. And whether or not you can do it in combat. For instance, that 1HP revive might not be great in combat but can be immensely useful outside of combat similar to how Cure generally falls off in FF compared to Curaga in battle but stays effective out of battle due to giving a better ratio of healing to MP.

In a particular project of mine, the Purify spell removes all status ailments from the party. This makes it a revive spell, albeit a poor one by putting them at 1 HP (a side effect of removing the state), but still very useful as a whole because it's removing a lot of problems from the entire party (and thus not cheap MP-wise). Having "revive someone at 1HP" be a side effect of an otherwise already useful skill is a niche but useful upside. Add any amount of strategic ability to plan to the game and it's usefulness goes up quickly (FFT's Phoenix Down might as well be 1HP by chapter 2, but TRPGs allow for a lot more forethought in using them).

Of course, this also assumes 0HP is "downed". One game I made doesn't remove control from someone for being "Wounded" but lowers their stats quite a bit and still counts for a battle loss when the party is all Wounded. Bringing someone to 1HP (or even yourself!) has upsides in making them do better, but not in giving them back control (aka they aren't revived and then dead again before getting a turn).

Oh, and "reraise" effects are always fun, bringing someone back to life immediately and once. Those "merely" healing 1HP still have immensely useful applications.

 

[jonthefox]

Topic. Especially in a turn-based battle system, the actor will most likely be knocked out again in one hit. What do you think?

Depends on various things, but it isn't necessarily good or bad. If your goal is to have a game that avoids any sense of struggle or frustration, then there's a good argument for not doing a 1 hp revive. But if the game's goal is to provide a lot of tactics, strategy, decision-making, and challenge, then it might be perfectly fine to revive with 1 hp. Reviving a knocked out player is a big deal - getting knocked out might rightfully be a big deal, meaning you want players to make decisions to avoid this happening. If it does happen, there are ways to revive, but now you have multiple steps involved - revive the character, AND either heal or protect them or draw aggro away from them for a turn, etc.. It can be fun and rewarding to know you're in a difficult spot, but you were able to calculate that you could revive with your fastest character, then heal with your 2nd fastest character, before any of the enemies could get a chance to act. It depends a lot on the mechanics of your game.

 

[ave36]

In my project, Legend of Terra Firma, there is an ATB system so the worst aspects of reviving with 1 hp are mitigated. However, 1hp revival is the worst, cheapest kind of revival, the "Revival" item bought in shops. All more advanced kinds of revival, such as Revi series spells, revive with more hp.