I think that grinding should be made to a minimum in order to keep a game fun. This is a major design objective on some games. It also should be on FL.
- avoidance of grinding (no scumming)
Anti-grinding
Another basic design principle is avoidance of grinding (also known as
scumming). These are activities that have low risk, take a lot of time,
and bring some reward. This is bad for a game's design because it
encourages players to bore themselves. Even worse, it may be optimal to
do so. We try to avoid this!
This is true. Grinding is very boring. The very existence of grinding material every player feel the need to grind in order to achieve a benefit. In this case healing.
In FL Healing grinding also make other class healing skills have less value. Like someone signature says, when my Battlemage has a crap load of Cure Criticals it crushes the worth of a Atriction class like a Cleric.
So what can be done to prevent this:
- Create a policy/objective stating that this should be avoided in FL design. This will encourage area builders to take this directive to heart when making future areas.
- Set (quantify) an limit/objective to how much healing any class should get from consumables. (ex: 500 or 1000) This allows to maintain balance in this field, by having a set value to compare existing consumables, and to limit progression over this value. (ex value is 500 HP, then a certain staff of 10 cure criticals should become rare). This value can also be multi faceted, imposing a design limit to HP Item recovery per tic. (example 300 hp from consumables per tick. The said 10 cure critical would have to be made 20 charges of cure serious.) With this design tools/directives in hand we can pass on the more mechanical aspects of limiting them. Creating a cool down for curatives healing. For example a Rare scroll of x3 Heal, would have a cooldown. This can be made by putting a fourth spell on the scroll that blocks all healing for 1-2 hours. This would need someone to BITE a new thing on the code. Non rare curative items like the heart should be made scarcer, better (more HP) and harder to get. (and a cooldown) This reduces the time spent getting them, and forces players to risk something to get it. The scarcity can be achieved by making them nodrop/nouncurse. By making them very heavy, needing a special container to hold them. A container which is rare, and that has a limited #space inside it, and a 0% weight multiplier. Coding a shadow HP counter, that counts every Healing from items and that after it get to XYZ value it blocks healing. This would of course need the creation of a special healing spell for items, in order to not FURBAR healers healing groupmenbers. Hum.. perhaps a check for caster class and bypass if not Communer. In my view Mages should have the best access to healing items. Meeles should have a skills to grant some sort of last resort healing. Warriors - Berserk - 100HP, perhaps this should be changed. Removing healing from Berserk and placing it on another skills. My idea "To the Limit" -> 200+-50 HP. (or just old plain Fielddressing) Zerks - Rage - 300HP ??? Rangers - Herb Blademasters - Appucunture Ninjas - Appucunture Monks - Healing Thieves - Steal other classes curatives Wands should be the best healing items on the game. Followed by Scrolls and then Staves. Wands: Invoker,Necro,BMG,DK,Bard. Scrolls: Invoker,Necro,BMG,DK,Bard + Ninja,Thief,Paladin,Monk Staves: Invoker,Necro,BMG,Ninja,Ranger,Monk (Clerics out, because they have Cure crit) I don't know how to make with DK's. They surely should get gimped on healing, but it makes no sense that Rangers are not gimped on healing to. Sell healing in shops. Crap to middle healing, that cannot be hoarded in large scale, but can be used in a pinch by more inexperienced players. Finaly, items of healing that can be put inside a backpack on a massive scale should completely disappear. Balanced into a new item. The sort of Hearts and Red Potion of cure critical.
