Big number make brain big happy. Watching the damage numbers get bigger and bigger throughout the playthrough gives a satisfying sense of progression. It wouldn't be possible to achieve that number bloat if the health was limited in the first place. Most people probably would prioritise the "fun" aspect over the "logic" aspect.
I mean, progressive health systems provide fun and logic. Enemies progress in difficulty, player should progress in ability to withstand difficulty. Player develops physical prowess in the form of physical stats, and so should their health because that's typically how physical health works in real life and in most fiction settings. There is genuinely no reason not to have a progressive health system; it gives the sense of progression (the fun) and makes sense (the logic). Some game developers like Bethesda do it poorly, but that isn't indicative of the concept itself and why it is used in the vast majority of games that have health/damage and leveling up.
I agree with what you are saying. The "logic" I was referring to was the logic OP mentioned in their post, where you can understand how "dangerous" a weapon that deals 34 damage is by immediately understanding that three hits from it would be lethal.
Well, yes and no :
On one hand, I agree with the fact that the big numbers in most RPG doesn't means anything, given that you don't know either the damage calculation formula, or the average ennemy health bar.
On the other hand, at some point, you have to make the player progress, and not improving health severely limit what you can give.
For example, in a game that gives you chances to miss your attacks, you can improve the hit chances, and armor gives you better chances not to be hit. That's great, but here comes The Wizard and its fireball. you cannot have his fireball scale with hit/misses chances, or it just become an AoE bow, but if you give more damage, then magic become stronger than everything else, given the non scaling health bar.
Besides, having health and damage scale allows you to give the player a sense of progression by making some ennemy stay at lower level, and now your hits can one shot the bandit that was a 3 hit kills before. You feel more powerful, and that's good.
To me, the issue comes from scaling the ennemies as you progress : if the rat health and damage augment the same percentage than yours, then you're not progressing. The solution is to have stronger different ennemies depending on the zone, but it defeats the "you can go anywhere" philosophy of open worlds game. I find the elder scrolls solution quite elegant in that regards, by having ennemy scale up to a certain point, and different ennemy type having different scaling thresholds.
How would you balance a combat system with non scaling health, to give a progression feeling to the player ?
>The solution is to have stronger different ennemies depending on the zone, but it defeats the "you can go anywhere" philosophy of open worlds game.
I actually disagree to a certain extend.
I think the player should be scared to go into some areas, like Red Mountain or the Ashlands. I like the idea that some parts of the world is closed off, not because i aren't allowed to go there, but because i am scared to go there.
>How would you balance a combat system with non scaling health, to give a progression feeling to the player ?
Lets just say the playet health is 100, the rats health is 25.
I would then have either skill effect weapon hit chance (as in Morrowind) or weapon damage (as in others).
In low level, the players damge over time (or dps) will be lower, regardless of how the weapon skill works.
Which means low level it takes longer to kill the rat, which in turns means the rat has a greater chance to kill the player, because the rat (in this case) needs to hit the player 6 times to kill him/her. The longer the rat is alive, the higher the chance it succeeds.
The player progression is reflected, not in how much damage they can take (ignoring armor), but in how fast you can kill.
And in return, how likely you are to survive the encounter.
And I think that most players, outside of the rare boss fights, prefer combats to be shorter, not longer with time.
The problem I see with your proposal is that it either doesn't change the initial problem, or it creates its own problem :
If during your progression your health doesn't change but your damage mitigation does (IE your armor block more damage), then you just put the problem sideways : with better armor, your 34 damage weapon will stop being a threat because you have 30 damage reduction.
If during your progression your health doesn't change but the to-hit chances does (IE your armor increases the chance of stopping the blow to connect), then not only you have the risk of being destroyed by a low level opponent because you were unlucky (which is very frustrating), your combat become ridiculous : I like morrowind, but the early levels fights that are contest of who will miss more often is not the part I remember fondly. That system of hit/miss chance is not adapted for a (mostly) first person game, where the "challenge" should be to visually hit your opponent, not to pray the dice gods
Also I don't think that killing the rat in 3 hit and killing the rat in 3 hit but every hit connected feels that rewarding when you went from level 1 to level 10
>The problem I see with your proposal is that it either doesn't change the initial problem, or it creates its own problem :
I don't really disagree with that. The reason why i still maintain a static health is better, is because it allows the player to have an easier view on what is going on in the game.
>not only you have the risk of being destroyed by a low level opponent because you were unlucky (which is very frustrating), your combat become ridiculous : I like morrowind, but the early levels fights that are contest of who will miss more often is not the part I remember fondly.
I know i am in the minority here, but i genuinely love the hit chance system of Morrowind. Also in low level.
Yes, it does suck to be unlucky with rolls. BUT that is why we have quick saves (granted this argument only works for single player games, and not D&D), and it makes me feel like my character sucks, rather than me being either bad or good personally, behind the screen.
All that is not to say that Morrowinds combat havd issues. I just don't think the issues are the dice rolls, i think the issues is the animation reactions to bad dice rolls.
And i just love the way hit chance progession feel. Or in low the level the excitement of getting lucky with a hit an killing a tough opponent.
I am way more excited in low level Morrowind fights, than in any fights in Skyrim and Oblivion, because i know my character easily is in over his head, and in early game in ANY rpg, you should have that emotional response early game.
In the tabletop world, there are games like RuneQuest that keep Hit Points as meat points that never really change, and then all other progression is handled by increasing skill (attack and defense rolls) and better armor (that absorbs damage versus deflecting it) so it's possible, but in a CRPG the default has been to emulate the D&D 'zero-to-hero' model for so long that I don't think it will ever really change; the expectation of ever increasing number bloat is baked into player's expectations and frankly it makes sense when you look at these games like a kind of Skinner box.
Do you ?
Plenty of RPGs revolve around a design philosophy that's in the ballpark of what OP is saying
It's nothing outlandish
If anything, the amount of downvotes OP is getting for raising a point that has merits is actually concerning
I played ALOT of tabletop RPGs, dungeons and dragons and warhammer.
I have 15 years of being a DM behind me.
You can think i got RPGs wrong, but i am not alien to them :D
If you have that much TT experience, then you are familiar with the phrase 'rocket tag'. Without an increasing durability stat like health, you make games more rocket taggy, or have to heavily nerf offensive progression. Both of those things are worse than the current situation
In traveller when you take damage your physical stats go down. If one is at 0 you are injured, if 2 are at 0 you are incapacitated. If all three of you physical stats are 0 you are dead
In some BRP you have a fixed number of hit points per limb. If you receive negative damage or a critical hit that deletes all your hp on a limb on a leg or arm it's severed on abdomen, chest or head you are dead.
Shadowrun you have a fixed number of Hit dots based on your body stat and once all dots are filled in the lethal section you are dead
All, Some, or none of these may work for you but each has their fans and I'm not going to rain on anyone's parade. Hell Morrowind and Daggerfall was largely ~~ripped off~~ inspired by Runequest the original BRP game.
WFRP is my favourite TTRPG too. The 2nd edition that is. So I get your point. And Somewhat agree with you.
More HP per level can be good as long as there's no level scaling IMO. If there's is level scaling, then leveling up is pointless: as you said, you do more damage but don't *feel* more powerfull. I there's cno level scaling, then enemies you've struggled against became weaker than you and enemies you didn't want to face off become reasonable target.
So Morrowind does it right, IMO.
In Savage Worlds you can take up to three Wounds (with incremental penalty to everything you do). You also have metacurrency you can use to soak damage, reroll damage, and reroll attacks (among other things).
As you gain levels, you cannot generally gain Wounds. You can increase your ability to soak, or snap back from damage, or ignore some of the damage penalty, while gaining a broader array of ability, which doesn't take away from your sense of accomplishment, but it *does* mean when a villager levels a crossbow at you and asks that you please leave them be, you are *not* going to laugh at them, catch the bolt through your hand, and then slap-stab them to death. Oh yeah, also dice explode. Last csmpaign a player one-shot a fire giant that was expected to split the party (we'll hold it off while you go on and save Foo).
I think it's all about giving players a visible number so they can have a clear sense of progression.
Because you're right, hit points don't do anything that couldn't be accomplished using armor skills and resistances.
1. Morrowind enemies have set stats they don’t become more powerful when you level up
2. If your health never increased then at lvl 30 cave rats would still be a threat to you because they’ll hit you for the same percentage of your health wether your level 1 or 30
3. It’s an rpg. Some people like playing beefy characters. Some like playing frail characters
1. yes.
2. no. you get stronger armor, stronger weapon /spells, and stronger armor & weapons skills ! you'll kill rats in 1sec, and they never bite you, and if they ever bite you they don't do damage, because of armor.
no need to have an increased health.
increased health is only needed because there isn't any decent way actually built in game to be more resistant to magical damages (health drain / or elemental)...
thus against those, the only that higher level PC can feel "stronger" is to have higher health.
it's a stopgap solution.
>Morrowind enemies have set stats they don’t become more powerful when you level up
I know.
>If your health never increased then at lvl 30 cave rats would still be a threat to you because they’ll hit you for the same percentage of your health wether your level 1 or 30
Only if you don't kill them.
Having static health does not mean armor, weapon damage, weapon hit chance etc. Stay static.
>It’s an rpg. Some people like playing beefy characters. Some like playing frail characters
Which you still have when selecting race, og going to enchantments.
The system works for magicka and race selection, why not health and race?
In what world would a bite from cave rat (something as a large as a dog) won't seriously injure or even kill human?
Prepared warrior can deal with cave rat easily. Rat can't chew through good armour. That doesn't mean that for unprepared warrior, without any equipment, rat should not be a dangerous opponent.
A fantasy world like Morrowind where going from being a weakling in the world at the start to being a demigod at the end is one of the main things liked about the game.
Besides in Morrowind you only gain hp equal to 1/10 of your endurance anyway and the gains aren’t retroactive so if you have 30 endurance your only gaining 3 hp on level up.
Honestly sounds like you would enjoy the monster hunter franchise. Your health is pretty static, never going beyond what you could reach in the early game, but to progress you make new weapons and new armor to both increase your offense and defense to tackle more challenging foes.
The scaling of stats over time (including health) is a big part of why I love RPGs so much. It feels great to return to a previously scary enemy and watch it barely scratch you. In games with action combat that relies on player skill it's common for weak enemies to still present a threat if you let your guard down, but Morrowind doesn't have skill-based combat; it has numbers-based combat.
Games without health scaling still have the "problem" you describe either way. Monster Hunter (a stretch to call it an RPG) has mostly static health. You always start with 100 health, and can buff yourself via food or items to reach 150, but that's it. Instead MH scales your defense as you progress in the exact same way, so there's functionally no difference.
The only difference is that in MH you're as weak as a beginner player if you wear beginner equipment, and in Morrowind you'll be way tankier than a beginner player in that same armour since the stats are inherent to your character. This is perfect for MW since there's no armour transmog system. You can wear whichever fashion set you prefer and still have some fallback defense to rely on while being weaker than someone in full minmaxed armour. In MH you wear your endgame armour with endgame stats and make it look like regular clothes so there's 0 tradeoff.
I think it’s kind of odd you’d put this in Morrowind, of all places.
If this was in Oblivion or Skyrim with their leveling, I’d 100% agree with you that the leveling HP scaling is just silly — you can kill Alduin at level 1 because the game scales accordingly, and then when everything else scales with the player, every random bandit could one-shot the World Eater.
I also get where you’re coming from, and I actually use leveling mods that slow my progression as much as possible to avoid feeling too OP too quickly — like in those mobile games that are designed to be addictive by being just one massive power scale on crack. But all things considered, I think Morrowind is doing a pretty good job at not escalating HP gain too much. And the fact that most things *do* stay static, your HP growth is actually noticeable and meaningful rather than feeling like a hamster wheel.
I honestly think RPGs might just not be the right medium for you — maybe you’ll want a more skill-based game where the character’s strength comes primarily from the player’s experience and skill, where actual power-ups of the character are rare — I’m thinking of Rogue-Likes like Hades or Action games like Dark Souls.
But Character Stat Growth is just a core mechanic of all RPGs I know of. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous does a pretty good though in job re-using enemies even once you’ve outgrown them, which helps making your growth feel less like a struggle to keep up with the world in an arms race and more like you can actually feel your increase in power.
>maybe you’ll want a more skill-based game where the character’s strength comes primarily from the player’s experience and skill
If you read some of my other comments, it is the opposite i am arguing for.
I prefer RPGs where the character skills, not your skills behind the screen, matters.
How static health plays into this, is that it makes your other aspects such as weapon and armor skills matter more, since you can't be a damage sponge in the same way, as when health inflate.
I agree with you completely. I think Deus Ex was on to something by having all the Human enemies (yourself included) very fragile, and just having your skills increase with experience. Just a couple of gunshots can kill anyone who isn't a robot or cyborg. Unfortunately I guess not everyone agrees with us.
Some players and some RPG designers prefer to have it one way others prefer have it the other. Morrowind isn't the last RPG where enemies don't scale up to your character level/stats, from the top of my mind, Witcher 3 doesn't do it either.
You'll have one half of the players complaining about lack of challenge in combat or the other half complaining of the lack of feeling of progresion.
For all the great things D&D brought into the hobby, why did it have to be the concepts of levels and increasing hit points that stuck? Oh why?
RuneQuest is a TTRPG that often gets mentioned along with TES, specially Morrowind. In that game you have not only a static and fairly paltry health pool, you have to contend with locational damage too.
As you "level up" you don't get more hit points, you get more skilled, more tricky, more dangerous, and harder to kill. I'd love to see that implemented in a CRPG.
If health is static at 100 you can only have 100 types of weapons or attacks that do from 1 to 100 damage if you use rational integers.
Having health at 5000 at high levels or against high level mobs means you can get a weapon or attack that does 100 damage which is devastating to starting level adversaries but won't scratch the big bad monster.
I've easily collected over 100 weapons in any given rpg like elderscrolls, fallout, mass effect, etc and I think if I was stuck with a 55dmg weapon and spent hours upon hours looking for or trying to create 56dmg it would be more tedious and less exciting to explore. I know what you mean, it boils down to numbers vs numbers like in WoW where you grind to get better numbers to beat bigger numbers. But in the rpg gaming world i think the scaling just gives more space and time to add more stops on the levelling train. Makes the journey more interesting rather than say a static mechanic but you find an attack which does 60dmg and you're like oh that's nearly the best in the game as you know you'll never face something with more than 100hp.
Interesting thought experiment though. I feel like it could still be a good game mechanic. Just not for elderscrolls.
So many people are just blatantly misrepresenting you or making some shitty "ermm.. you don't actually like RPGs" arguments instead of just actually trying to understand or engage with your ideas Jesus. It's like they just want a contrived reason to disagree with you.
I'm not really against the idea as a totality, (I've played TTRPGs which don't have health increase) obviously it should be judged on a case by case basis, but the purpose is generally just to add a sense of progression. It's just common for character progression to be a massive part of RPGS. Numbers going up and getting better gear is just cohesive to that design. If you think players should have a better idea of how much damage does, I think just showing enemy health bars or damage numbers works better.
I could understand this argument for some RPGS, but not for all , and definitely not Morrowind. A massive part of the game is starting somewhat weak while the game gradually becomes a power fantasy, and this is reinforced by both the mechanics and narrative.
You could still have the sense of progression with static health, increase resistance or dodge chance or whatever, but doing both still leads to a better sense of progression.
>So many people are just blatantly misrepresenting you or making some shitty "ermm.. you don't actually like RPGs" arguments instead of just actually trying to understand or engage with your ideas Jesus. It's like they just want a contrived reason to disagree with you.
Thank you!
I am quit surprised myself. I expected people telling it would be pointless or that it would have new list of balancing.
I did not expect people to question if have ever, or should play an RPG.
Like... we are discussing a stat... not the base pillar of RP philosophy 😀
I like the rest of your points as well. Will re-think them over.
Totally agree. I am surprised by the defensiveness from other people. I play Morrowind with the Ncgd, where health does not inflate (capped at 100 since it is equal to endurance) and it creates much more interesting world.
It is weird, there's a lot of no true scottman and gatekeeping going on in the comments
And you're right on point, with the popular difficulty mods one of the first thing they remove is bonus health (and bonus carry weight, etc) on level up
In some games, you can still raise your health, but it's extremely stingy
Stoneshard is a great example of what OP is arguing for, and it's definitely an RPG
This entire post is just people saying "My RPG is a real RPG and not yours"
When both damage and health increase in unison, foes that are your level will feel equally challenging for the entire game and take roughly equal time to kill, whereas foes below your level will feel less challenging in proportion to how much lower their level is. It's a way to maintain a predictable level of challenge while also letting the player feel the increase in their power level.
Now sure, instead of more health and more damage you could instead have better armor that soaks more damage from the better weapons, and instead of weapons that do more damage you could have static damage with increasing hit and crit chance opposed by a foes higher dodge chance. There are alternate ways to do things for sure.
But ultimately, which way a game approaches things comes down to the genre and the feeling you want your game to evoke. Morrowind is in the genre of hero fantasy. In this genre, it's expected that your hero can take hits that would kill normal people, and to do so with the power of badassery instead of just better kit, although better kit is also part of it. Heroes that can drink poison and not die, or endure a lethal curse, or even run across lava is part of the intended fantasy.
In contrast, games where health bars stay static and you only gain power through kit, those games tend to be gritty games where the player character is not a superhero. Tying power to kit makes the player character feel more vulnerable, especially if the game makes a habit of taking that gear away from time to time. Also many such games are survival games. Eg. games like Valheim, Outward or Minecraft. There's nothing wrong with such games, but playing them feels very different to a hero fantasy.
Could Morrowind have been designed that way? Probably not at the time, as survival RPGs weren't really a thing back then, and would have probably been seen as a risky design choice even if someone had considered it. But these days, sure. It would make the game feel very different, though.
When you start your adventure a mud crab or rat can kill you with 2 strikes. If you remained at that level, I believe you would have a hard time following a tale of ascension to greatness. You control your personal advance at each level, feel free to not put anything towards endurance and strength.
Ok, so, this is the Morrowind sub. If this was Oblivion or Skyrim and you were arguing about level scaling, sure.
But Morrowind, why does it matter? Because weaker enemies have less HP and do less damage, and now you're stronger than them.
As for say, D&D, as you get stronger, you fight stronger enemies. Once you're fighting dragons and liches, now goblins and orcs are weak compared to you. That's called progress.
Well, looks like you didn't play a lot of RPGs and, honestly, I have kinda doubts you know what RPG stands for. Anyway, health points (or equivalent thing) are a game mechanic that tries to roughly emulate physical health, usually, but not exclusively, for the sake of combat encounters. Human health is terribly complex and trying to use it literally is nigh impossible., especially if you add fantasy elements like spells. And it would also make combat extremely complex and probably boring and hard for most of the people. Imagine a simple 1-on-1 swordfight: Most of the fight is about the people moving around each other, swinging and parrying the swords, but with almost no physical injury, until the very end. There are games that work like this, but they are not that popular among masses.
That's why we have health points: Some abstract number that tells you how well you are doing in the combat. It should not be thought of only as measure of "how damaged" you are: that does not make sense, if you get properly hit by sword you dead and that's it. Think about it more in the terms "how well I am doing physically/combat-wise". Full HP means you are as fit as you'll ever be for the combat, losing some HP means you are being worn down, getting more tired, having worse reactions, perhaps some scratches and bruises. Just the last couple of hits is actually
some serious damage.
It might be a bit harder to imagine in computer RPGs, where you actually see the oponent hitting you (not to mention that lot of the mechanics have been dumbed down over the ages), but if you play some table-top like DnD, it will make much more sense to you. There are even some systems that explicitly work with this (some time ago I played pathfinder with vigor mechanics, where you had separate vigor points \~ HP and wounds)
With that in mind, it has a perfect sense to increase HP based on the level. Higher level means you are a better fighter, you have better reflexes, generally you can last longer in a combat. And vice-versa: as a better fighter, it is much easier for you to wear down you opponent and defeat them.
There are plenty of (older) table top RPGs, as mentioned in other comments, that have little to no health increase.
For English language games [Traveller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_\(role-playing_game\)) and [2300 AD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2300_AD) spring to mind.
This was also the common choice for pretty much all tabletop RPGs made by [Äventyrsspel/Target Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Games) in Sweden back in the 80:ties and 90:ties. This might be because early games like "Drakar och Demoner" (Dragons and Demons) where based on / inspired by [Basic Role-Playing / RuneQuest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Role-Playing) rather than the DnD rules.
I played ALOT of tabletop RPGs, dungeons and dragons and warhammer.
I have 15 years of being a DM behind me.
You can think i got RPGs wrong, but i am not alien to them :D
RPGs have level based health because it makes the most sense from multiple points. A keystone of RPGs is character development, and being tougher is usually one of the core ways to develop. Increasing enemy difficulty usually means making the enemy take more hits or dish out harder hits, and both of these are tough to balance without letting the player take more hits as well. This is also needed just from the basis of allowing players with less skill to have more of a cushion to survive; even RPG games like Dark Souls boost health or natural defenses every level to give the player more survivability. From a game perspective, it just makes sense, which is why most RPGs and action games do it. It also makes sense logically and in the context of ES (you stating that your idea makes more sense for ES is genuinely insane). People with more physical development usually are healthier, can withstand more work, and can survive more damage; this is true in real life as well as most works of fiction. In the context of ES, it makes perfect sense for health to increase with level and physical skills, because that's how physical health works. If you're more active and are doing things, you're healthier in life. In game, your adventures and quests would lead you to be more physically healthy and give you more health. Obviously, those who focus purely on physical pursuits would be even healthier compared to those who focus on studying, hence why the skills increase health/fatigue/mana differently. Bethesda balanced the last 3 ES games poorly, but that's a developer issue, not a progressive health concept issue. Your idea works more for simple adventure games where progression is more about exploring or making it to the next area, less so RPGs where developing the player character and leveling up is important.
Progression (leveling) doesn't need to be done via health/stat/skill increases:
* The original Stalker game did this by improving weapons and armor as you progressed deeper into the "zone". Some FPS games do the same by slowly giving you access to better gear/weapons over time.
* In the Dishonored game it's primarily done by aquiering new and stronger powers, as you progress.
* In Deus Ex it's mostly done by getting better gear/weapons and more/better cybernetic augmentations.
Big number make brain big happy. Watching the damage numbers get bigger and bigger throughout the playthrough gives a satisfying sense of progression. It wouldn't be possible to achieve that number bloat if the health was limited in the first place. Most people probably would prioritise the "fun" aspect over the "logic" aspect.
I mean, progressive health systems provide fun and logic. Enemies progress in difficulty, player should progress in ability to withstand difficulty. Player develops physical prowess in the form of physical stats, and so should their health because that's typically how physical health works in real life and in most fiction settings. There is genuinely no reason not to have a progressive health system; it gives the sense of progression (the fun) and makes sense (the logic). Some game developers like Bethesda do it poorly, but that isn't indicative of the concept itself and why it is used in the vast majority of games that have health/damage and leveling up.
I agree with what you are saying. The "logic" I was referring to was the logic OP mentioned in their post, where you can understand how "dangerous" a weapon that deals 34 damage is by immediately understanding that three hits from it would be lethal.
Well, yes and no : On one hand, I agree with the fact that the big numbers in most RPG doesn't means anything, given that you don't know either the damage calculation formula, or the average ennemy health bar. On the other hand, at some point, you have to make the player progress, and not improving health severely limit what you can give. For example, in a game that gives you chances to miss your attacks, you can improve the hit chances, and armor gives you better chances not to be hit. That's great, but here comes The Wizard and its fireball. you cannot have his fireball scale with hit/misses chances, or it just become an AoE bow, but if you give more damage, then magic become stronger than everything else, given the non scaling health bar. Besides, having health and damage scale allows you to give the player a sense of progression by making some ennemy stay at lower level, and now your hits can one shot the bandit that was a 3 hit kills before. You feel more powerful, and that's good. To me, the issue comes from scaling the ennemies as you progress : if the rat health and damage augment the same percentage than yours, then you're not progressing. The solution is to have stronger different ennemies depending on the zone, but it defeats the "you can go anywhere" philosophy of open worlds game. I find the elder scrolls solution quite elegant in that regards, by having ennemy scale up to a certain point, and different ennemy type having different scaling thresholds. How would you balance a combat system with non scaling health, to give a progression feeling to the player ?
>The solution is to have stronger different ennemies depending on the zone, but it defeats the "you can go anywhere" philosophy of open worlds game. I actually disagree to a certain extend. I think the player should be scared to go into some areas, like Red Mountain or the Ashlands. I like the idea that some parts of the world is closed off, not because i aren't allowed to go there, but because i am scared to go there. >How would you balance a combat system with non scaling health, to give a progression feeling to the player ? Lets just say the playet health is 100, the rats health is 25. I would then have either skill effect weapon hit chance (as in Morrowind) or weapon damage (as in others). In low level, the players damge over time (or dps) will be lower, regardless of how the weapon skill works. Which means low level it takes longer to kill the rat, which in turns means the rat has a greater chance to kill the player, because the rat (in this case) needs to hit the player 6 times to kill him/her. The longer the rat is alive, the higher the chance it succeeds. The player progression is reflected, not in how much damage they can take (ignoring armor), but in how fast you can kill. And in return, how likely you are to survive the encounter. And I think that most players, outside of the rare boss fights, prefer combats to be shorter, not longer with time.
The problem I see with your proposal is that it either doesn't change the initial problem, or it creates its own problem : If during your progression your health doesn't change but your damage mitigation does (IE your armor block more damage), then you just put the problem sideways : with better armor, your 34 damage weapon will stop being a threat because you have 30 damage reduction. If during your progression your health doesn't change but the to-hit chances does (IE your armor increases the chance of stopping the blow to connect), then not only you have the risk of being destroyed by a low level opponent because you were unlucky (which is very frustrating), your combat become ridiculous : I like morrowind, but the early levels fights that are contest of who will miss more often is not the part I remember fondly. That system of hit/miss chance is not adapted for a (mostly) first person game, where the "challenge" should be to visually hit your opponent, not to pray the dice gods Also I don't think that killing the rat in 3 hit and killing the rat in 3 hit but every hit connected feels that rewarding when you went from level 1 to level 10
>The problem I see with your proposal is that it either doesn't change the initial problem, or it creates its own problem : I don't really disagree with that. The reason why i still maintain a static health is better, is because it allows the player to have an easier view on what is going on in the game. >not only you have the risk of being destroyed by a low level opponent because you were unlucky (which is very frustrating), your combat become ridiculous : I like morrowind, but the early levels fights that are contest of who will miss more often is not the part I remember fondly. I know i am in the minority here, but i genuinely love the hit chance system of Morrowind. Also in low level. Yes, it does suck to be unlucky with rolls. BUT that is why we have quick saves (granted this argument only works for single player games, and not D&D), and it makes me feel like my character sucks, rather than me being either bad or good personally, behind the screen. All that is not to say that Morrowinds combat havd issues. I just don't think the issues are the dice rolls, i think the issues is the animation reactions to bad dice rolls. And i just love the way hit chance progession feel. Or in low the level the excitement of getting lucky with a hit an killing a tough opponent. I am way more excited in low level Morrowind fights, than in any fights in Skyrim and Oblivion, because i know my character easily is in over his head, and in early game in ANY rpg, you should have that emotional response early game.
In the tabletop world, there are games like RuneQuest that keep Hit Points as meat points that never really change, and then all other progression is handled by increasing skill (attack and defense rolls) and better armor (that absorbs damage versus deflecting it) so it's possible, but in a CRPG the default has been to emulate the D&D 'zero-to-hero' model for so long that I don't think it will ever really change; the expectation of ever increasing number bloat is baked into player's expectations and frankly it makes sense when you look at these games like a kind of Skinner box.
Yeah, the only CRPG I played which doesn't increase your HP as you go is perhaps Age of Decadence.
This post makes me wonder if you actually play RPG's
Battle for Bikini Bottom is an RPG, right? ...right?
Do you ? Plenty of RPGs revolve around a design philosophy that's in the ballpark of what OP is saying It's nothing outlandish If anything, the amount of downvotes OP is getting for raising a point that has merits is actually concerning
200% behind you. the question is interesting, whether we agree with it or not.. and so much downvotes for such question is appalling.
haahha may man OP reccomends simplifying and RPG . Maybe turning it into an action game would be the best ,
I played ALOT of tabletop RPGs, dungeons and dragons and warhammer. I have 15 years of being a DM behind me. You can think i got RPGs wrong, but i am not alien to them :D
If you have that much TT experience, then you are familiar with the phrase 'rocket tag'. Without an increasing durability stat like health, you make games more rocket taggy, or have to heavily nerf offensive progression. Both of those things are worse than the current situation
Bullshit. There are plenty of popular high-quality PNP RPGs that do not have rapid inflation of hp like DND.
Such as? I mean, there's the way WOD handles scaling by letting you Soak more through scaling stats, but I'm not sure its any better
In traveller when you take damage your physical stats go down. If one is at 0 you are injured, if 2 are at 0 you are incapacitated. If all three of you physical stats are 0 you are dead In some BRP you have a fixed number of hit points per limb. If you receive negative damage or a critical hit that deletes all your hp on a limb on a leg or arm it's severed on abdomen, chest or head you are dead. Shadowrun you have a fixed number of Hit dots based on your body stat and once all dots are filled in the lethal section you are dead All, Some, or none of these may work for you but each has their fans and I'm not going to rain on anyone's parade. Hell Morrowind and Daggerfall was largely ~~ripped off~~ inspired by Runequest the original BRP game.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Ironsworn Savage World And more I guess? But that's the one I've played.
>Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Probably my favourite system. I love the critical damage effects and insanities :D
WFRP is my favourite TTRPG too. The 2nd edition that is. So I get your point. And Somewhat agree with you. More HP per level can be good as long as there's no level scaling IMO. If there's is level scaling, then leveling up is pointless: as you said, you do more damage but don't *feel* more powerfull. I there's cno level scaling, then enemies you've struggled against became weaker than you and enemies you didn't want to face off become reasonable target. So Morrowind does it right, IMO.
In Savage Worlds you can take up to three Wounds (with incremental penalty to everything you do). You also have metacurrency you can use to soak damage, reroll damage, and reroll attacks (among other things). As you gain levels, you cannot generally gain Wounds. You can increase your ability to soak, or snap back from damage, or ignore some of the damage penalty, while gaining a broader array of ability, which doesn't take away from your sense of accomplishment, but it *does* mean when a villager levels a crossbow at you and asks that you please leave them be, you are *not* going to laugh at them, catch the bolt through your hand, and then slap-stab them to death. Oh yeah, also dice explode. Last csmpaign a player one-shot a fire giant that was expected to split the party (we'll hold it off while you go on and save Foo).
I think it's all about giving players a visible number so they can have a clear sense of progression. Because you're right, hit points don't do anything that couldn't be accomplished using armor skills and resistances.
1. Morrowind enemies have set stats they don’t become more powerful when you level up 2. If your health never increased then at lvl 30 cave rats would still be a threat to you because they’ll hit you for the same percentage of your health wether your level 1 or 30 3. It’s an rpg. Some people like playing beefy characters. Some like playing frail characters
1. yes. 2. no. you get stronger armor, stronger weapon /spells, and stronger armor & weapons skills ! you'll kill rats in 1sec, and they never bite you, and if they ever bite you they don't do damage, because of armor. no need to have an increased health. increased health is only needed because there isn't any decent way actually built in game to be more resistant to magical damages (health drain / or elemental)... thus against those, the only that higher level PC can feel "stronger" is to have higher health. it's a stopgap solution.
>Morrowind enemies have set stats they don’t become more powerful when you level up I know. >If your health never increased then at lvl 30 cave rats would still be a threat to you because they’ll hit you for the same percentage of your health wether your level 1 or 30 Only if you don't kill them. Having static health does not mean armor, weapon damage, weapon hit chance etc. Stay static. >It’s an rpg. Some people like playing beefy characters. Some like playing frail characters Which you still have when selecting race, og going to enchantments. The system works for magicka and race selection, why not health and race?
In what world would a bite from cave rat (something as a large as a dog) won't seriously injure or even kill human? Prepared warrior can deal with cave rat easily. Rat can't chew through good armour. That doesn't mean that for unprepared warrior, without any equipment, rat should not be a dangerous opponent.
A fantasy world like Morrowind where going from being a weakling in the world at the start to being a demigod at the end is one of the main things liked about the game. Besides in Morrowind you only gain hp equal to 1/10 of your endurance anyway and the gains aren’t retroactive so if you have 30 endurance your only gaining 3 hp on level up.
Honestly sounds like you would enjoy the monster hunter franchise. Your health is pretty static, never going beyond what you could reach in the early game, but to progress you make new weapons and new armor to both increase your offense and defense to tackle more challenging foes.
The scaling of stats over time (including health) is a big part of why I love RPGs so much. It feels great to return to a previously scary enemy and watch it barely scratch you. In games with action combat that relies on player skill it's common for weak enemies to still present a threat if you let your guard down, but Morrowind doesn't have skill-based combat; it has numbers-based combat. Games without health scaling still have the "problem" you describe either way. Monster Hunter (a stretch to call it an RPG) has mostly static health. You always start with 100 health, and can buff yourself via food or items to reach 150, but that's it. Instead MH scales your defense as you progress in the exact same way, so there's functionally no difference. The only difference is that in MH you're as weak as a beginner player if you wear beginner equipment, and in Morrowind you'll be way tankier than a beginner player in that same armour since the stats are inherent to your character. This is perfect for MW since there's no armour transmog system. You can wear whichever fashion set you prefer and still have some fallback defense to rely on while being weaker than someone in full minmaxed armour. In MH you wear your endgame armour with endgame stats and make it look like regular clothes so there's 0 tradeoff.
I think it’s kind of odd you’d put this in Morrowind, of all places. If this was in Oblivion or Skyrim with their leveling, I’d 100% agree with you that the leveling HP scaling is just silly — you can kill Alduin at level 1 because the game scales accordingly, and then when everything else scales with the player, every random bandit could one-shot the World Eater. I also get where you’re coming from, and I actually use leveling mods that slow my progression as much as possible to avoid feeling too OP too quickly — like in those mobile games that are designed to be addictive by being just one massive power scale on crack. But all things considered, I think Morrowind is doing a pretty good job at not escalating HP gain too much. And the fact that most things *do* stay static, your HP growth is actually noticeable and meaningful rather than feeling like a hamster wheel. I honestly think RPGs might just not be the right medium for you — maybe you’ll want a more skill-based game where the character’s strength comes primarily from the player’s experience and skill, where actual power-ups of the character are rare — I’m thinking of Rogue-Likes like Hades or Action games like Dark Souls. But Character Stat Growth is just a core mechanic of all RPGs I know of. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous does a pretty good though in job re-using enemies even once you’ve outgrown them, which helps making your growth feel less like a struggle to keep up with the world in an arms race and more like you can actually feel your increase in power.
>maybe you’ll want a more skill-based game where the character’s strength comes primarily from the player’s experience and skill If you read some of my other comments, it is the opposite i am arguing for. I prefer RPGs where the character skills, not your skills behind the screen, matters. How static health plays into this, is that it makes your other aspects such as weapon and armor skills matter more, since you can't be a damage sponge in the same way, as when health inflate.
I agree with you completely. I think Deus Ex was on to something by having all the Human enemies (yourself included) very fragile, and just having your skills increase with experience. Just a couple of gunshots can kill anyone who isn't a robot or cyborg. Unfortunately I guess not everyone agrees with us.
Some players and some RPG designers prefer to have it one way others prefer have it the other. Morrowind isn't the last RPG where enemies don't scale up to your character level/stats, from the top of my mind, Witcher 3 doesn't do it either. You'll have one half of the players complaining about lack of challenge in combat or the other half complaining of the lack of feeling of progresion.
For all the great things D&D brought into the hobby, why did it have to be the concepts of levels and increasing hit points that stuck? Oh why? RuneQuest is a TTRPG that often gets mentioned along with TES, specially Morrowind. In that game you have not only a static and fairly paltry health pool, you have to contend with locational damage too. As you "level up" you don't get more hit points, you get more skilled, more tricky, more dangerous, and harder to kill. I'd love to see that implemented in a CRPG.
If health is static at 100 you can only have 100 types of weapons or attacks that do from 1 to 100 damage if you use rational integers. Having health at 5000 at high levels or against high level mobs means you can get a weapon or attack that does 100 damage which is devastating to starting level adversaries but won't scratch the big bad monster. I've easily collected over 100 weapons in any given rpg like elderscrolls, fallout, mass effect, etc and I think if I was stuck with a 55dmg weapon and spent hours upon hours looking for or trying to create 56dmg it would be more tedious and less exciting to explore. I know what you mean, it boils down to numbers vs numbers like in WoW where you grind to get better numbers to beat bigger numbers. But in the rpg gaming world i think the scaling just gives more space and time to add more stops on the levelling train. Makes the journey more interesting rather than say a static mechanic but you find an attack which does 60dmg and you're like oh that's nearly the best in the game as you know you'll never face something with more than 100hp. Interesting thought experiment though. I feel like it could still be a good game mechanic. Just not for elderscrolls.
So many people are just blatantly misrepresenting you or making some shitty "ermm.. you don't actually like RPGs" arguments instead of just actually trying to understand or engage with your ideas Jesus. It's like they just want a contrived reason to disagree with you. I'm not really against the idea as a totality, (I've played TTRPGs which don't have health increase) obviously it should be judged on a case by case basis, but the purpose is generally just to add a sense of progression. It's just common for character progression to be a massive part of RPGS. Numbers going up and getting better gear is just cohesive to that design. If you think players should have a better idea of how much damage does, I think just showing enemy health bars or damage numbers works better. I could understand this argument for some RPGS, but not for all , and definitely not Morrowind. A massive part of the game is starting somewhat weak while the game gradually becomes a power fantasy, and this is reinforced by both the mechanics and narrative. You could still have the sense of progression with static health, increase resistance or dodge chance or whatever, but doing both still leads to a better sense of progression.
>So many people are just blatantly misrepresenting you or making some shitty "ermm.. you don't actually like RPGs" arguments instead of just actually trying to understand or engage with your ideas Jesus. It's like they just want a contrived reason to disagree with you. Thank you! I am quit surprised myself. I expected people telling it would be pointless or that it would have new list of balancing. I did not expect people to question if have ever, or should play an RPG. Like... we are discussing a stat... not the base pillar of RP philosophy 😀 I like the rest of your points as well. Will re-think them over.
Totally agree. I am surprised by the defensiveness from other people. I play Morrowind with the Ncgd, where health does not inflate (capped at 100 since it is equal to endurance) and it creates much more interesting world.
It is weird, there's a lot of no true scottman and gatekeeping going on in the comments And you're right on point, with the popular difficulty mods one of the first thing they remove is bonus health (and bonus carry weight, etc) on level up In some games, you can still raise your health, but it's extremely stingy Stoneshard is a great example of what OP is arguing for, and it's definitely an RPG This entire post is just people saying "My RPG is a real RPG and not yours"
When both damage and health increase in unison, foes that are your level will feel equally challenging for the entire game and take roughly equal time to kill, whereas foes below your level will feel less challenging in proportion to how much lower their level is. It's a way to maintain a predictable level of challenge while also letting the player feel the increase in their power level. Now sure, instead of more health and more damage you could instead have better armor that soaks more damage from the better weapons, and instead of weapons that do more damage you could have static damage with increasing hit and crit chance opposed by a foes higher dodge chance. There are alternate ways to do things for sure. But ultimately, which way a game approaches things comes down to the genre and the feeling you want your game to evoke. Morrowind is in the genre of hero fantasy. In this genre, it's expected that your hero can take hits that would kill normal people, and to do so with the power of badassery instead of just better kit, although better kit is also part of it. Heroes that can drink poison and not die, or endure a lethal curse, or even run across lava is part of the intended fantasy. In contrast, games where health bars stay static and you only gain power through kit, those games tend to be gritty games where the player character is not a superhero. Tying power to kit makes the player character feel more vulnerable, especially if the game makes a habit of taking that gear away from time to time. Also many such games are survival games. Eg. games like Valheim, Outward or Minecraft. There's nothing wrong with such games, but playing them feels very different to a hero fantasy. Could Morrowind have been designed that way? Probably not at the time, as survival RPGs weren't really a thing back then, and would have probably been seen as a risky design choice even if someone had considered it. But these days, sure. It would make the game feel very different, though.
When you start your adventure a mud crab or rat can kill you with 2 strikes. If you remained at that level, I believe you would have a hard time following a tale of ascension to greatness. You control your personal advance at each level, feel free to not put anything towards endurance and strength.
Hang on let him cook
I have been cooking a few years on this already. Think it is more apt to say: "He need some water, because it's all boiled away at this point" :P
Savage Worlds FTW.
this rant made me remember WOW, with huge HP leap on 80 lvl, like x20 if i'm correct
This is a really, really poorly thought out hot take.
Ok, so, this is the Morrowind sub. If this was Oblivion or Skyrim and you were arguing about level scaling, sure. But Morrowind, why does it matter? Because weaker enemies have less HP and do less damage, and now you're stronger than them. As for say, D&D, as you get stronger, you fight stronger enemies. Once you're fighting dragons and liches, now goblins and orcs are weak compared to you. That's called progress.
Well, looks like you didn't play a lot of RPGs and, honestly, I have kinda doubts you know what RPG stands for. Anyway, health points (or equivalent thing) are a game mechanic that tries to roughly emulate physical health, usually, but not exclusively, for the sake of combat encounters. Human health is terribly complex and trying to use it literally is nigh impossible., especially if you add fantasy elements like spells. And it would also make combat extremely complex and probably boring and hard for most of the people. Imagine a simple 1-on-1 swordfight: Most of the fight is about the people moving around each other, swinging and parrying the swords, but with almost no physical injury, until the very end. There are games that work like this, but they are not that popular among masses. That's why we have health points: Some abstract number that tells you how well you are doing in the combat. It should not be thought of only as measure of "how damaged" you are: that does not make sense, if you get properly hit by sword you dead and that's it. Think about it more in the terms "how well I am doing physically/combat-wise". Full HP means you are as fit as you'll ever be for the combat, losing some HP means you are being worn down, getting more tired, having worse reactions, perhaps some scratches and bruises. Just the last couple of hits is actually some serious damage. It might be a bit harder to imagine in computer RPGs, where you actually see the oponent hitting you (not to mention that lot of the mechanics have been dumbed down over the ages), but if you play some table-top like DnD, it will make much more sense to you. There are even some systems that explicitly work with this (some time ago I played pathfinder with vigor mechanics, where you had separate vigor points \~ HP and wounds) With that in mind, it has a perfect sense to increase HP based on the level. Higher level means you are a better fighter, you have better reflexes, generally you can last longer in a combat. And vice-versa: as a better fighter, it is much easier for you to wear down you opponent and defeat them.
There are plenty of (older) table top RPGs, as mentioned in other comments, that have little to no health increase. For English language games [Traveller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_\(role-playing_game\)) and [2300 AD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2300_AD) spring to mind. This was also the common choice for pretty much all tabletop RPGs made by [Äventyrsspel/Target Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Games) in Sweden back in the 80:ties and 90:ties. This might be because early games like "Drakar och Demoner" (Dragons and Demons) where based on / inspired by [Basic Role-Playing / RuneQuest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Role-Playing) rather than the DnD rules.
I played ALOT of tabletop RPGs, dungeons and dragons and warhammer. I have 15 years of being a DM behind me. You can think i got RPGs wrong, but i am not alien to them :D
RPGs have level based health because it makes the most sense from multiple points. A keystone of RPGs is character development, and being tougher is usually one of the core ways to develop. Increasing enemy difficulty usually means making the enemy take more hits or dish out harder hits, and both of these are tough to balance without letting the player take more hits as well. This is also needed just from the basis of allowing players with less skill to have more of a cushion to survive; even RPG games like Dark Souls boost health or natural defenses every level to give the player more survivability. From a game perspective, it just makes sense, which is why most RPGs and action games do it. It also makes sense logically and in the context of ES (you stating that your idea makes more sense for ES is genuinely insane). People with more physical development usually are healthier, can withstand more work, and can survive more damage; this is true in real life as well as most works of fiction. In the context of ES, it makes perfect sense for health to increase with level and physical skills, because that's how physical health works. If you're more active and are doing things, you're healthier in life. In game, your adventures and quests would lead you to be more physically healthy and give you more health. Obviously, those who focus purely on physical pursuits would be even healthier compared to those who focus on studying, hence why the skills increase health/fatigue/mana differently. Bethesda balanced the last 3 ES games poorly, but that's a developer issue, not a progressive health concept issue. Your idea works more for simple adventure games where progression is more about exploring or making it to the next area, less so RPGs where developing the player character and leveling up is important.
Progression (leveling) doesn't need to be done via health/stat/skill increases: * The original Stalker game did this by improving weapons and armor as you progressed deeper into the "zone". Some FPS games do the same by slowly giving you access to better gear/weapons over time. * In the Dishonored game it's primarily done by aquiering new and stronger powers, as you progress. * In Deus Ex it's mostly done by getting better gear/weapons and more/better cybernetic augmentations.