Confused about the Health System

[Kerensky]

Pre-face:

I enjoy the game, I played it 10 hours the first day I bought it! It's frustrating, but addicting and it's a joy to bring back huge hauls of interesting loot and goodies. It's a solid game play loop of constantly 'I'll just do 1 more mission' and then your elite geared character dies and you lose everything, so you need to play even more to get new gear and items and that sweet huge backpack again.

However:

I have to voice some criticism about the player health system. I've read plenty of comments about people being one shot, and having experienced it myself against a xbow boi, yea it sucks. But there are already threads about that, I'll leave that 1 shot 100% crit design decision for those threads.

What I'm noticing as I get further into the game, is that you want to play to NEVER get hit, ever. A good run is a run where you never reach for your medical supplies. Maybe this qualifies as 'beating' the game, since there is no story it's all about procedural gen missions after all, and once you figure out the game to be able to execute flawless missions, you have 'won'.

I don't think this is healthy for the game.

There is obviously a huge amount of effort put into the player health system. Unlike most games where you exist as just an HP bar, this game has a LOT of complexity. You have many body parts, that each individually can get burned, pierced, cut, fractured, and god knows what else. Additionally, there is a wealth of items that treat these variety of injuries. Food doesn't make your HP go up like it's Skyrim, you need specific aids for specific ailments. Bandages for bleeding, splints for fractures, water to put out burning, and on and on. You can even self amputate, which is wild!

But... all of these systems might as well not exist, because your character is so brittle as soon as you take a hit, you're pretty much dead. And of course there is the xbow boi that is a literal 1 shot. So don't bother stocking up on meds and interact with the injury and health systems, just don't ever get hit. Be sneaky, outrange enemies, abuse the AP system, and cheese the hell out of the game and don't get hit.

I don't think the game is meant to be this way, because one thing I noticed is the game absolutely is raining with armor repair kits, but your armor basically never get scratched. You die before even your armor loses even 1/10 of it's durability. Hell, there's even a 'damaged' backpack mechanic where items spill out as you move unless you fix your backpack mid mission. I bet most of you didn't even know that was a mechanic, because it's basically something that never happens, because no one engages with taking damage.

[Kerensky]

Proposed solution:

I actually think a flat HP boost for your character is needed to make them less brittle. I would double or even triple your base HP. I think you should be getting hit, and you should be interacting with all the systems in the game to recover from being stab/shot/burned/infected. With the way the game works, if you're taking a lot of fire and have all these injuries, and cannot cure them, you will die EVENTUALLY. But dying EVENTUALLY gives the player time to interact with the game's systems, start giving yourself first aid during a firefight, or desperately try to run back to a med pod and heal up as a last resort.

Alternatively, and perhaps more in tune with the theme of the game, there should be a LOT of hit point boosting items, so players who want to not drop dead instantly can build like a tank. Example new item: Plates.

Treat body armor like a plate carrier. It's just clothing that has slots where you can put armored plating. Plate up your chestplate, armor your thighs, get a reinforced helmet, and have all of these new addons increase your total HP and also dramatically increase your weight.

Just one idea, but any number of ways to increase max HP will allow players to take some hits and actually engage with the very intricate damage and wound systems.

Or you can just design new threats like a 150 dmg 100% chance to crit xbow boi that one shots players, and teach them to avoid ALL your cool work making a complex health system and instead make players avoid taking any damage at all costs.

[Sir Gura]

That's pretty much my same feelings. The best way to play the game seems to be to not engage with the health system at all, avoid getting shot or hit, cheese enemies through doors and whatnot. And when you dare to not play like that, some enemy will one shot you with a saw cutter crit on your head or a flamethrower. The game gets really boring after swapping stances for the n-th time in the corner of a door.

[pgames-food]

hi it could just be a balance thing that changes over time, for example in an older version, you could find a Feruncle quasi item that you could eat, and it damages you a bit, but increases your max hp by +5

if you see my screenshots here you can see my HP went up into the hundreds:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198047650167/images/?appid=2059170

you can still increase your HP with some farming of close missions (At same planet/location) and/or trading nearby too, and can dismantle organ kits to get feruncles, its just that the drop rate of them is maybe only about 15% of what it used to be.

in 1 game, with 360HP i survived 13 shots from a quasi-boss :) but the 14th got me (and all because i turned my back on his doorway to make a can of food LOL)

hp gains and increases and drop rates are probably still being finely tuned

[Physical Theorist]

The best strategy is indeed avoiding putting yourself in a position where you'll be shot at, at all. Your first line of defense is avoidance, then your dodge stat, then resistances, THEN health. People seem to be making the mistake of relying on/trusting their amount of health points when it really should be treated like a "life" system. (I'm not speaking on whether this is good game design or not, just that it helps if you treat HP as your last line of defense instead of the first like you normally would in a game.)

I hate to shill my own guide so much but it really visualizes what I'm saying here.
Health is not what you lean on. Health is for when you've exposed yourself to the enemy, failed to dodge an incoming attack, and taken a hit your armor isn't able to absorb. At that point it's a tossup whether you'll survive depending on what weapon actually hit you.

[Sir Gura]

Originally posted by Physical Theorist:

The best strategy is indeed avoiding putting yourself in a position where you'll be shot at, at all. Your first line of defense is avoidance, then your dodge stat, then resistances, THEN health. People seem to be making the mistake of relying on/trusting their amount of health points when it really should be treated like a "life" system. (I'm not speaking on whether this is good game design or not, just that it helps if you treat HP as your last line of defense instead of the first like you normally would in a game.)

I hate to shill my own guide so much but it really visualizes what I'm saying here.
Health is not what you lean on. Health is for when you've exposed yourself to the enemy, failed to dodge an incoming attack, and taken a hit your armor isn't able to absorb. At that point it's a tossup whether you'll survive depending on what weapon actually hit you.

I agree that you should try to avoid danger at all points of the game, but it's ridiculous the amount of punishment you get when you fail to do so. It would be fine if getting shot resulted in an injury, and now the player has to decide if he can finish combat or if he has to retreat, but right now, it's a toss up if you die or not.

One shots aren't fun, having to apply the same cheesy strat every room isn't fun.

[Physical Theorist]

Originally posted by Sir Gura:

One shots aren't fun, having to apply the same cheesy strat every room isn't fun.

Oh yeah I hate having to adhere to a meta to get anywhere but them's the breaks in this case and the devs have gone on record saying they won't do anything about OHKs.

I think we're past the point of arguing over whether it's good game design/something that should be in the game at all and should be coming up with ideas on how to make it less of an issue.

[Sir Gura]

Originally posted by Physical Theorist:

Oh yeah I hate having to adhere to a meta to get anywhere but them's the breaks in this case and the devs have gone on record saying they won't do anything about OHKs.

I think we're past the point of arguing over whether it's good game design/something that should be in the game at all and should be coming up with ideas on how to make it less of an issue.

So it's set in stone that OHKs will continue to be a thing? I guess this game isn't for me then.
Hopefully the devs can come up with ways to mitigate the mentioned issues tho.

[Physical Theorist]

If the presence of a single mechanic is enough to get you to drop a game when there are perfectly accessible ways to get around it then maybe you should just avoid games without configurable difficulty settings. Or maybe there should just be a disclaimer on the store page saying that it's going to be "unfair."

[Sir Gura]

Indeed I should avoid those types of games, and the burden is on me to read the store page well to avoid those. But don't be mistaken, I don't regret buying this game, I had a good amount of fun already, just wished I could get more.

[Kerensky]

Originally posted by Physical Theorist:

The best strategy is indeed avoiding putting yourself in a position where you'll be shot at, at all. Your first line of defense is avoidance, then your dodge stat, then resistances, THEN health. People seem to be making the mistake of relying on/trusting their amount of health points when it really should be treated like a "life" system. (I'm not speaking on whether this is good game design or not, just that it helps if you treat HP as your last line of defense instead of the first like you normally would in a game.)

I hate to shill my own guide so much but it really visualizes what I'm saying here.
Health is not what you lean on. Health is for when you've exposed yourself to the enemy, failed to dodge an incoming attack, and taken a hit your armor isn't able to absorb. At that point it's a tossup whether you'll survive depending on what weapon actually hit you.

Yes I'm familiar with the defense onion and its layers, and it absolutely applies to this game. And while that is great, especially for players who want to build with agility to be untouchable by playing with 100% avoidance build...

It feels completely at odds with having an in-depth damage system.

I understand the sense of danger from potentially being one shot after a deep dive into an quagomorph infested mission, people who want to live on that knife edge can built light and rely on dodge/outranging/exploiting enemy behavior.

I just think, given the existence of so many meds and body damage systems, it would also be cool allow more aggressive play. It would awesome be super tense to have a serious gunfight, get injured, be forced to decide between taking another shot to drop your opponent or to run and start applying first aid. And then after the fight, you're wounded, and bleeding and infected, and if you don't have the right meds, so the race is on to get to evac or find a heal station as you're slowly bleeding out. And while you're running looking for aid as you are SLOWLY dying, anything could happen, including running into more enemies which just makes your situation even scarier!

That's so much more engaging gameplay!

And all it needs is a way for players to pack on HP. That's another 'build' to play with, which currently doesn't really exist because your characters are just incredibly brittle. Again, evidenced by weapons such as the xbow boi or opening the door on a flamethrower. You don't suffer any injuries that you have to triage in the heat of the moment, you just drop dead.

[Physical Theorist]

"It feels completely at odds with having an in-depth damage system."

Agreed. It does feel like a bit of a waste.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I just think, given the existence of so many meds and body damage systems, it would also be cool [to] allow more aggressive play."

Another good point, I'd rather see arguments like this than all of the violently angry reviews/forum posts.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It would awesome be super tense to have a serious gunfight, get injured, be forced to decide between taking another shot to drop your opponent or to run and start applying first aid. And all it needs is a way for players to pack on HP. That's another 'build' to play with, which currently doesn't really exist because your characters are just incredibly brittle. Again, evidenced by weapons such as the xbow boi or opening the door on a flamethrower. You don't suffer any injuries that you have to triage in the heat of the moment, you just drop dead."

Ironically this is how it feels when you take a hit and actually survive it. I've had some amazingly tense "how the hell did I survive that" moments and anything to make those more common would be great.

These kinds of discussions are good, it's just a matter of whether the devs are listening or not. I don't blame people for feeling like they aren't being heard but at least be reasonable about it.

[Kerensky]

Okay, so maybe just more HP isn't enough. I was playing some more and grabbed this clip of a 400 HP Baron eating a 1 shot death.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3138967292

How can 1 shot from a saw do so much damage? I checked this Baron and you can see he has full 400/400 HP, and then I take the shot, and the music drops.

I wish the Baron left a corpse for me to inspect what body part damage was done. Was this some kind of insane head crit that decapitated him?

As amusing as this was, and satisfying to one shot a boss instead of being on the receiving end of a one shot... I really do feel like this is a problem.

[stony02]

[quote=Kerensky;

I wish the Baron left a corpse for me to inspect what body part damage was done. Was this some kind of insane head crit that decapitated him?

As amusing as this was, and satisfying to one shot a boss instead of being on the receiving end of a one shot... I really do feel like this is a problem. [/quote]

Wow,

I'm thinking of buying Early Access but other threads were complaining about bows being overpowered 100% crit 1 shot weapons.
Also is it random that some dead enemies won't leave a corpse to loot?
Anyways the game sort of reminds me of an early cyberpunk novel, "Voice of the Whirlwind" by Walter Jon Williams where alien "corporations" are competing with human corporations in earth's solar system

[Kerensky]

I wish this game was moddable, I would luv to experiment with a higher health pool on my characters and see how it feels.

It's crazy to me that your characters have as much HP when they are brand newbies vs a commander with 10+ missions under the belt (one exception with the Scout class who can put on a tiny bit of HP from one of their traits)

[Kerensky]

It's not just the health system, I don't think I understand the resistance system either.
Does it even serve a purpose?

I used the Operative with base 5 all resist, and loaded them up with as much Cold Resist as I could find, which capped out at 18 from 4 pieces of armor and the chain mail vest. Then I tested going up against the Tezctlan and their cold damage weapons. Then I got one tapped by a Serpent Mouth Q rifle.

Why did I built a resist set again...?