Page 3 of 3

Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:08 pm
by Tristan_Durst
Healing Kits, Potions, and Cure spells is a three part problem. We can not think of an answer for one with out the inculsion of the other two.

- Tristan

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:22 pm
by hylia
To start off, I agree with Wrath on clerics. I played a cleric up to level 21 and she was always loved by the party as a healer. Whereas someone with a level 20 fighter (23 heal skill) will average 34.5 HP per round, a cleric of that level can drop a mass-heal, heal, or restoration. Lower level healing spells will do less, but you have to compare those against people with a lower healing skill. I think in the end its balanced (as at no point in my level 1->21 progress did I feel useless as a healer. Rather, I felt more like a healing dispenser.) Spells could use a slight nudge towards more powerful, but nothing too drastic.

The potion/kit issue is a valid one. Potions cost as much or more than equivalent heal kits, and provoke AoO's. I don't know anyone who really prefers them to heal kits. (Heal kits on the other hand seem to make you break combat and go flatfooted to use them, so they're still tough to use in a heated fight).

But if we make any change to the low-level function of heal kits (in their scripting), we'll immediately change the dynamic of every dungeon. If they're 1 per 4 RL minutes, for example, suddenly dungeons that were very difficult become impossible. Most harder dungeons have been designed for a party with a cleric and heal-kit users. If you take the latter out of the equations, we have an area balance issue that will take a lot more work to fix.

So if a change to dynamics isn't the solution, what is? Price changing. Right now, wealth accumulation is such that an average level 20 character who only spends gold on heal kits will get ~1 million gold by level 20 (there's some distribution, I'm sure, but this is close to the average). This is right around the GP value to buy a +5 item from a player trader.

First we ask: is this a proper wealth accumulation rate? If it is, then heal kits should be kept at their current pricing, and potions should be made cheaper. If its too much gold to have, we increase heal kit cost (and decrease potion cost) to achieve a proper balance.

Clearly, since healing is at the heart of the combat system, whatever change gets made is going to have a very profound impact on gameplay, so it has to be carefully planned. For that reason, its also a good idea to keep away from drastic changes.

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:43 pm
by Celadra
Really, I don't see much of a problem with the healing kits. I mean yeah, I don't think they should be a Take 20 situation. They should provoke attacks of opportunity. (I thought they did, but I must not be paying enough attention when I play.) Wouldn't it be easier to up the DCs of the diseases or make new ones to give to the more powerful creatures with really high DC saves instead of completely overhauling the Healing Kits?

Also, in a lot of places you can make the healing kits if you know how, so I think that increasing the prices of them really isn't going to help anything...just give PCs more money at a much faster rate. (I know I sell my excess healing kits to merchants or other PCs.)

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:46 pm
by dougnoel
Celadra wrote:Also, in a lot of places you can make the healing kits if you know how, so I think that increasing the prices of them really isn't going to help anything...just give PCs more money at a much faster rate. (I know I sell my excess healing kits to merchants or other PCs.)
Yes, but we could add a gp cost to those recipes, rendering them more expensive to make and thus raising their prices.

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:12 am
by Kat
Khaelindra wrote:
WrathoG777 wrote:That there is a perfect example.
.
Actually it's the perfect contra-example, as Kat describes the only situation in which potions -ARE- vastly superior to kits. 8)
Is it not worth balancing though? It makes me cry when I use a potion to try and heal myself (a cure moderate wounds potion) heal about 15hp, or even as low as 9.. and then get killed due to being flat footed and everything around me getting an attack of opertunity.. when I see someone else use a healing kit that cost almost half the price, heal around 40hp and the enemies don't all him him when he uses it.

It seems hard to go anywhere because I can't heal myself (you can't drink them on the spot because you end up getting hit for more damage than you heal as you drink it) and you can't run away and heal because they all run the same speed as you.. people tell me to buy the really good healing potions, but for the price of those I could buy up to 30 or so healing kits that would heal almost the same amount each :(

How do other Shifters with no money to buy expensive potions survive?

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:21 am
by Khaelindra
Kat wrote:
How do other Shifters with no money to buy expensive potions survive?
They party up.

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:01 pm
by Arkonswrath
Khaelindra wrote:
Kat wrote:
How do other Shifters with no money to buy expensive potions survive?
They party up.
Amen

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:33 pm
by Arond
Good debate here, but IMHO, things are pretty good now as they are and don't need drastic changes. Tougher DC diseases would be OK, as well as some small increases in cleric healing spell power, but aside from that, I think trying drastic changes in this area would only cause too many ripple effects accross many areas.

My 2 GP worth.

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:35 pm
by Kat
Arkonswrath wrote:
Khaelindra wrote:
Kat wrote:
How do other Shifters with no money to buy expensive potions survive?
They party up.
Amen
*frowns*
Why do people always say that. Yes, I "party up" whenever I can. But as I'm sure you know, it isn't always possible. I was on Rockhome yesterday and not a single other person logged on for 5 hours. Party with who?

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 4:29 pm
by Starslayer_D
Best fix for the whole issue: remove the 'take 20' from kits. That way, they are alot less sure fire than they are now.
I remember when potions used to always heal the maximum amount of HP's. Allmost no one used kits back then, as potions gave a good price/healing capacity value back then. Each cure crit did 49 pts.... regardless of skill.

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:55 pm
by teleri
Starslayer_D wrote:Best fix for the whole issue: remove the 'take 20' from kits. That way, they are alot less sure fire than they are now.
I remember when potions used to always heal the maximum amount of HP's. Allmost no one used kits back then, as potions gave a good price/healing capacity value back then. Each cure crit did 49 pts.... regardless of skill.
I think that the take 20 should be removed from combat, but not from non-combat situations.

parties

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 9:48 pm
by Apandapion
Kat wrote:
Arkonswrath wrote:
Khaelindra wrote: They party up.
Amen
*frowns*
Why do people always say that. Yes, I "party up" whenever I can. But as I'm sure you know, it isn't always possible. I was on Rockhome yesterday and not a single other person logged on for 5 hours. Party with who?
I agree with Kat. Some people play in groups a lot. Others play in groups only occasionally. Almost everyone plays alone at least some. If there's a problem that means certain classes can't play alone at all, it deserves somewhat more attention than a handwave and a "go party". Projects such as "militant bonuses" exist to boost weaker character builds, and I think that they are good things.

Although, Kat, shifters do get infinite wild shape relatively early... is this really going to be a problem in the long run?

canon

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:04 am
by Apandapion
teleri wrote: I think that the take 20 should be removed from combat, but not from non-combat situations.
I think a "3.5 canon" answer is that you can only take 20 when there are no drawbacks to repeating a roll over and over 20 times. But there is a drawback to rolling a 1 with a kit - you don't heal very many hit points and the kit is gone. Letting a user take 20 with a one use item is like being able to scratch a lottery ticket 20 times and take the best result.

Asthetically, I think it should be taken out, because it's out of line with canon and because it would fix the "diseases and poisons are too easy to cure" problem a bit. From a game play perspective, however, I think fighters (and a few other classes) would feel this hard. They start off healing d20 + 4 (unless you are some kind of freaky high-wisdom fighter), and would have to use half thier skillpoints (unless, again, you are some kind of freaky high-intelligence fighter) to keep heal capped for good heal kit usage. They probably really rely on that free 20 points, wheras my character Malin heals, uh, d20 + 18 (I think) at 9th level and almost wouldn't notice if you took his free 20 away.

Unless someone wants to do all the work as a Avlis subcontractor or on a different world, this is all sound without the fury. And by "do the work", I mean write a full proposal for changing kits, potions, and healing magic, balance the effect of the changes on different classes and builds, get some peer review, then code all three different changes... And if that seems like a high standard of diligence, well, keep in mind that these changes will affect everyone who fights or crafts, which pretty much covers everyone.

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:38 am
by Celadra
Do the healing kits Take 20 in combat? You shouldn't be able to because of all the distractions. I thought you could only take 20 when everything in the game engine was calm. (Ie, no combat or threats in the immediate area.)

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:57 am
by Flakey
There is no take 20 in combat, with heal kits, you roll a d20.

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:21 am
by Khaelindra
Kat wrote:
Arkonswrath wrote:
Khaelindra wrote: They party up.
Amen
*frowns*
Why do people always say that. Yes, I "party up" whenever I can. But as I'm sure you know, it isn't always possible. I was on Rockhome yesterday and not a single other person logged on for 5 hours. Party with who?
If you are alone, and STILL you insist on going to areas that are so dangerous that you need huge amounts of healing pots to survive....you're simply asking for it.

Divinia is level 34. A weak level 34, but still level 34. When she is alone, she will NOT go down the Avlis Rift or the Hala Drow Caves or such places...it's not a place to go alone. Instead she goes to areas that are relatively effortless to her, but are still a fair challenge due to her being alone...Avlis FoM, Hala Felmoran Ruins, such places. A simply question of knowing, and accepting, her limits.

What you are complaining about is that when you are ALONE, you go to a CHALLENGING area WITHOUT a cleric or druid, and the healing costs to replace said cleric by potions are high. Well duh!!!

I strongly disagree with anyone who demands to be able to cheaply solo places that are means for parties of his or her level. If you happen to be solo: go to easier places. If you find a neato party...go to the cutting edge for your level.

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:52 am
by Kat
I don't understand what you mean Khalindra, you seem to speak as if I am trying to go to the hardest places on the entire server. I'm not, I'm talking about anywhere where I get more than 1 experience for each kill, preferbly the easiest places where I get more than 1 experience per kill. Hell, I have a hard time killing stuff that I normally only get 1 for. It's nothing to do with limits, it's the fact I cannot solo anywhere that gives more than 1 exp.

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:39 am
by Baron
Has anything new been said in the last page and a half? Can we put this one to bed...

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:35 am
by Enverex
Just thought of another rather large advantage to Healing kits. You can use Healing kits whilst stealthed, but you can't use potions while stealthed.

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 1:53 am
by Aedrielle
Yes, there are more different 'bonuses' - such as healing someone by clicking on their portrait (party list).
This means also : healing a party member safely, while HE is fighting and YOU are 'dead' in Fuge (or similar place)... :?

From RP point of view - what is a kit? It's not a miraculous pil, you can take instantly a in complete silence. Thus even if a custom healing kit breaks stealth - live with it and plan your battles ;). Most worlds are low-magic, why are healing kits an exception (because of it's 'bonuses')?

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 2:35 am
by Arkonswrath
The bonuses on healing kits are not considered magical bonuses, but bonuses in the way they were created. It's like the difference of putting a piece of paper on an open chest wound and doing a full field dressing on it. Personally, I think this topic got way off point and has basically turned into a let's see how many problems we can decide there is with a given then, thrash it apart, but not do anything about it.

This thread has been going on for a while, there have been good ideas, bad ideas, and wierd ideas. Personally, I say just leave the healing kits alone. If you want to make HEALERS more powerful in the game... then change the code (if it's possible) to make Heal a cross class skill for any class that isn't a healer type class.

If you make it so only Druids and Clerics can put points into heal as a class skill then that ends this problem as you won't see many fighters running around with a 30 heal skill to add to the +10 from the kit.. then the bonus on the kits dont' seem like such a big deal.

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 2:16 pm
by teleri
Aedrielle wrote:Yes, there are more different 'bonuses' -
This means also : healing a party member safely, while HE is fighting and YOU are 'dead' in Fuge (or similar place)... :?
This is exploting and can get you banned.

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 3:27 pm
by Enverex
Aedrielle wrote:Yes, there are more different 'bonuses' - such as healing someone by clicking on their portrait (party list).
This means also : healing a party member safely, while HE is fighting and YOU are 'dead' in Fuge (or similar place)... :?

From RP point of view - what is a kit? It's not a miraculous pil, you can take instantly a in complete silence. Thus even if a custom healing kit breaks stealth - live with it and plan your battles ;). Most worlds are low-magic, why are healing kits an exception (because of it's 'bonuses')?
Reminds me of Max Payne and the painkillers. In regards to healing kits in terms of other healing items, they are like +5 weapons with Regen.