Healing and Reviving in Deep Rock Galactic

[Trashbag]

First off, I really like how health is a limited resource in Hoxxes. The game is all about resource management, and it feels right that health is a part of it.

That said, Red Sugar is the primary source of healing, and it's set in predetermined locations around the cave. Locations that can't be moved. Healing is usually not too hard to come by, but nearby deposits will either get exhausted quickly or ignored because they're still too far out of the way to get without wasting valuable time or leaving your team open. So about 2/3rds through a mission, most of your team is going to be on the base minimum of health until they resupply or leave the planet.

Is this an issue? Of course not. Any decent team is going to be able to chain revives all the way to the end, and health will rarely be the deciding factor between winning and losing. Often it's keeping up with the waves of mobs. If you're overwhelmed, the best a team can usually do is prolong their defeat.

To me it's more of a quality of life thing.

I'd like to see some means of being able to carry a repository of red sugar around on you just like any other mineral - but in a slightly different manner due to its use, of course. Maybe a canteen like the one you use to revive teammates. Any excess red sugar you collect over your health can be stored for later use by holding Q to heal yourself or holding use on a damaged teammate to heal them instead. That way players don't have to double back or go out of their way for healing when they don't need resupplies yet - they'd always have some handy.

Of course, even though health is rarely a deciding factor in a winning game, it will ultimately make the game in some measure easier when you have free (some restrictions may apply) access to healing. That may be fine, though. But I wanted to propose a second potential tweak to increase the difficulty of the game.

Like I said before, revive chains are quite easy and effective in most games as long as everyone is competant. The reason healing isn't a big deal is because your team effectively has infinite health as long as they can keep reviving downed teammates. But what if that was a limited resource too? What if the healing canteen and the revive canteen were one and the same? What if it cost about 20 red sugar to get a teammate back on his feet? It would certainly add a new layer of challenge and resource management to the game.

I'm not sure what the scope of this change would be. For now I'd say introduce it in Haz 5. The jump in difficulty from Haz 4 to Haz 5 isn't very large, and adding an additional resource to manage could work to improve that challenge and encourage stronger teamplay. That said, I could see it being introduced as early as Haz 3 or even implemented thoughout every difficulty.

I really like this idea myself, but I understand that it's kind of a big change to mechanics. I'm already aware it will probably remain a crackpot hypothetical, but I do think that the mechanics would be a lot more fun and engaging for missions. The current system for healing and reviving don't do much to encourage tactical play.

[Chibbity]

A. DRG is intended to be a pretty casual game even at it's highest difficulty, limited revives just wouldn't fit. Maybe as a special mutator?

B. Suggestions forum, is that a-way. --->

[Mage Hand, Wizard Brand]

This just sounds like a healer class in disguise, considering most of those ideas I've seen say "oh the class will just be able to collect red sugar and use that to heal teammates"

[Trashbag]

Originally posted by {Mechanic} - Vasya:

This just sounds like a healer class in disguise, considering most of those ideas I've seen say "oh the class will just be able to collect red sugar and use that to heal teammates"

I considered a class, but that just sounds like WHOLE bad idea. Imagine having to sacrifice the utility of any one of the four current classes for extra healing. I don't think I'd ever want to see more classes in this game. They already fill their niche so well.

[Mage Hand, Wizard Brand]

Originally posted by Atticus Zed:

Originally posted by {Mechanic} - Vasya:

This just sounds like a healer class in disguise, considering most of those ideas I've seen say "oh the class will just be able to collect red sugar and use that to heal teammates"

I considered a class, but that just sounds like WHOLE bad idea. Imagine having to sacrifice the utility of any one of the four current classes for extra healing. I don't think I'd ever want to see more classes in this game. They already fill their niche so well.

Yeah, more classes would just feel weird and the lobbies wouldn't just feel right.
Other than that the idea for storing healing sounds like a prime way for people to hog red sugar with basically no penalty. Also messing with the revive system is a REALLY bad thing and punishes less experienced players (and if someone runs out of revives they're just making things harder for everyone else, so kicking those people will become a common thing). The devs once tried making it so you lose a portion of your HP to revive someone, and yano how that'd go over. If they stuck with it, you'd just see haz 4 and 5 lobbies be extremely toxic to people who die. Doesn't matter if it was a mistake or not, you're out of the lobby.
Best to not encourage toxic behaviour because it will run rampant otherwise.

[Trashbag]

Originally posted by {Mechanic} - Vasya:

Originally posted by Atticus Zed:

I considered a class, but that just sounds like WHOLE bad idea. Imagine having to sacrifice the utility of any one of the four current classes for extra healing. I don't think I'd ever want to see more classes in this game. They already fill their niche so well.

Yeah, more classes would just feel weird and the lobbies wouldn't just feel right.
Other than that the idea for storing healing sounds like a prime way for people to hog red sugar with basically no penalty. Also messing with the revive system is a REALLY bad thing and punishes less experienced players (and if someone runs out of revives they're just making things harder for everyone else, so kicking those people will become a common thing). The devs once tried making it so you lose a portion of your HP to revive someone, and yano how that'd go over. If they stuck with it, you'd just see haz 4 and 5 lobbies be extremely toxic to people who die. Doesn't matter if it was a mistake or not, you're out of the lobby.
Best to not encourage toxic behaviour because it will run rampant otherwise.

The red sugar hogging and the increased toxicity potential were something I considered.

I don't think the former will be an issue, since everything in the game encourages altruistic behavior. A dwarf that doesn't work for his team is a bad DRG player.

As for the latter, I'd agree that one could be contentious. More challenge breeds more tension and more tension breeds more toxicity. But from what I've seen so far, DRG has one of the nicest communities I've seen, and while there will certainly be THOSE people, I do think that the overall attitude would remain civil.

Of course that could still be a valid reason to veto that idea. After all, we wouldn't want to soil the positive atmosphere of the community with too much individual pressure.


...maybe for Deep Dives, since those are already demanding of a capable team. But also I've yet to run a deep dive for myself so I can't say if that would be putting too much pressure on the team either.

[Twinkletoes]

I think your overall measurement of healing is the shield system. Which already can be reinforced with perks and the gunners shield charge utility.

Health is more of a buffer. As you said it rarely decides the game, the most important health point is the last. And ultimately controlling the flow and minimizing damage is key to survival.

You can't be flawless of course but having the waves be bottlenecked, watching each others backs, maintaining good lighting and keeping track of ones ammo pretty much decides if you get swarmed or not even scratched.

I WOULD however like to see red sugar be made EXTRA brittle, so much so that most classes can shoot it down instead of having to hike up a roof just to heal.

[Trashbag]

Originally posted by Twinkletoes:

I think your overall measurement of healing is the shield system. Which already can be reinforced with perks and the gunners shield charge utility.

Health is more of a buffer. As you said it rarely decides the game, the most important health point is the last. And ultimately controlling the flow and minimizing damage is key to survival.

You can't be flawless of course but having the waves be bottlenecked, watching each others backs, maintaining good lighting and keeping track of ones ammo pretty much decides if you get swarmed or not even scratched.

I WOULD however like to see red sugar be made EXTRA brittle, so much so that most classes can shoot it down instead of having to hike up a roof just to heal.

You know what I agree with you there. It's kind of a pain to coordinate your team just to get some health, but somehow it seems to be the mineral that most commonly winds up on the ceiling.

[Petralicious]

You can have a scout just grapple up and smash red sugar out of the ceiling for free.
Maybe expend a platform if it's in a really cursed location, but instead you could burn a use of hover boots or use the M1000 hover overclock/Boomstick rocketjump overclock to recharge the grapple and land safely.
No need to waste valuable ammunition on it.

Also, what you described exists.
It's called the shield system (as someone pointed out above) with Shield Link, and the Vampire perk.

[St. Haborym]

I wouldn't mind being able to store red sugar in molly for later use, but I've personally not had a problem with that, even on haz5 missions.

[Phoenix7786]

I fee like the current health system is fine.

We already regenerate to like 10% health as it is. If extra health is an issue, we already have an armor upgrade option for extra health at the expense of less shielding. We also have the passive for extra healing received from red sugar as well as another passive that awards +5 health per melee kill, which includes the Driller's Drills and Throwing Axes.

Let's not forget that Supply Drops also give out health when you resupply.

[R.-]

I have a different view: The shield (the blue bar) is the key part of your health. It is small in amount, but it regenerates quickly and fully. When a big mistake is made, the shield is depleated, and you're one step closer to death. Depends on how bad the mistake is, it leaves a bad record on your health (the red bar), but you get a chance to reset the record by using red sugar or resupply pod.

The shield is the indication of acceptable amount of mistakes in a short period. Higher hazard = higher incoming damage = less mistakes allowed. If you find it difficult to maintain adequate health in a certain hazard level, try a lower one.

That's why shield disruption is the most hardcore warning: Every single mistake leaves a record. No exceptions.

There are already perks for ones who seek more chances: vampire, sweet tooth and resupplier. I don't taking any of them in usual gameplay, but perhaps you'll find them forgiving.

[Ailen]

Originally posted by Atticus Zed:

So about 2/3rds through a mission, most of your team is going to be on the base minimum of health until they resupply or leave the planet.

There is enemies on Haz5 that can oneshot you if you on minimum HP, like mactera spawn or an acid spitter. So it's important to keep your HP high enough to prevent sudden death. I prefer to spend a couple of secods to get red sugar, to survive in next battle.

[AR-NewRecruit]

I genuinely like the idea of making Red Sugar more dynamic mechanically. While limited revives with Red Sugar is an interesting concept, perhaps a first step such as providing more health (perhaps even applying the speed bonus?) would be more applicable to test out the waters first?

Another topic is brought to light though, unlike other Co-Op horde style games that DRG is akin to, there is a definite lack of tension when it comes to the downed individual's state.

Typically, there's some form of time pressure which will truly put the player out of action unless revived, but still allows for them to respawn. I don't see why DRG couldn't implement this, especially since Miners can already spawn in on their own personal drop pod. We could even go so far as to utilize Nitra to respawn a slain dwarf, basically getting "reinforcements".

[Trashbag]

Originally posted by AR-NewRecruit:

I genuinely like the idea of making Red Sugar more dynamic mechanically. While limited revives with Red Sugar is an interesting concept, perhaps a first step such as providing more health (perhaps even applying the speed bonus?) would be more applicable to test out the waters first?

Another topic is brought to light though, unlike other Co-Op horde style games that DRG is akin to, there is a definite lack of tension when it comes to the downed individual's state.

Typically, there's some form of time pressure which will truly put the player out of action unless revived, but still allows for them to respawn. I don't see why DRG couldn't implement this, especially since Miners can already spawn in on their own personal drop pod. We could even go so far as to utilize Nitra to respawn a slain dwarf, basically getting "reinforcements".

It sounds like the dev team might be hesitant to do this as it puts more pressure on the individuals in the team to not underperform.

[Petralicious]

Originally posted by AR-NewRecruit:

I genuinely like the idea of making Red Sugar more dynamic mechanically. While limited revives with Red Sugar is an interesting concept, perhaps a first step such as providing more health (perhaps even applying the speed bonus?) would be more applicable to test out the waters first?

Another topic is brought to light though, unlike other Co-Op horde style games that DRG is akin to, there is a definite lack of tension when it comes to the downed individual's state.

Typically, there's some form of time pressure which will truly put the player out of action unless revived, but still allows for them to respawn. I don't see why DRG couldn't implement this, especially since Miners can already spawn in on their own personal drop pod. We could even go so far as to utilize Nitra to respawn a slain dwarf, basically getting "reinforcements".

Kinda sucks to be perma-dead and just spectating.
Almost kills possibilities of clutch plays at extraction.
And trivializes reviving teammates that got killed in bad positions if you can simply recall them after they bleed out.

IMO being unable to contribute to the team is punishment enough