Healing skills.

Own

Moderator
People keep asking and asking and asking if the game will ever have a healing skill. There doesn't seem to be any real way to balance the game with this taken into consideration given MP is infinite. But what if a healing skill didn't make MP infinite? Would a healing skill be balanced if each use of it gradually lowered your maximum MP? Start off with 100 MP, cast basic healing, gain 10 HP and go to 97 MP. Silver charge, gain 25 HP and regeneration 1% of your HP each second for the next ten seconds, 100 MP goes to 75 MP. Gold charge, completely replenish your HP and gain a temporary 'Goddess Blessing' buff lasting # seconds that revives you with 1 HP on death, 100 MP goes to 25.

Rough sketch numbers, of course. Returning to a safe town (so not Winter) or stepping on a safe telepad (so not Pumpkin Woods) would restore your MP to maximum.

Does this sound even remotely balanced?
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
Do you intend to have a cap on how low you can decrease your max mana? I mean it would suck if you panic healed to much during a fight and all your fighting power just depletes. Maybe your max mana would have a cap so that it won't go lower than 5mp below the cost of the healing spell?
Example:
Healing spell costs 30 and max mana can decrease until it's at 25. That way you can still fight but not heal.
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
I think this is a great idea from a balance perspective, but I wonder if it's worth the hassle of introducing and explaining a new type of mana usage. I personally don't think a healing spell would improve the game at all, and suspect that many (though not all) players ask for it mostly because they are used to such a spell existing. For me, healing is a must only in games where taking damage is not optional, such as most MMOs, diablo and its clones, etc.

The necessity of a healing spell aside, I personally have a beef with many systems that cripple the player instead of having them fail. Transistor had one of those, where instead of dying you would lose the ability to cast a random skill, which at least to me only served to make the game much less interesting until a new save point was reached. I understand that this healing spell would be player activated, but the effects would be roughly the same.
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
How about making a healing item instead of spell? However not an ordinary potion, but something like Estus Flash in Dark Souls.
It would restore HP and could be used few times (like 2-3). Then to use it again, you have to go to town to restore it. Using the item has a small delay, so you have to wait 1-2 second, during which any enemy attack may cancel your action, and then HP is restored gradually, but with reasonable speed. And in later game you can upgrade the potion to have more uses or restore more HP.
This way seems balanced: you can't just buy 10000 potions and tap the button to instantly restore HP while being attacked, but they may still be useful in dire situations without braking gameplay.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
To be honest I haven't really felt the need of a healing potion while playing the game on either normal or hard. Fights don't last as long as in Dark Souls and the health orbs are not only enough to keep you going in a fight but also makes the combat more interesting. If a way to heal other than the orbs was added I would use it but that would just be because it's a feature, not because I need it.
 

Own

Moderator
I don't really feel the need for a healing skill either, but practically everyone who plays the game seems to ask "Where's the healing skill at?"

Given there's zero penalty for death I don't know why they want one, death immediately refills your HP. Hopefully in the future there is some sort of reason not to die, even if it's just sending you back to the last save point you stepped on. =P I'm still holding out for a difficulty mode that only saves the game when a save point is stepped on, someday.

As a side note, I've also noticed many people seem to be under the impression you can only teleport while on a teleport plate. I wonder if that will become official someday, and teleport-anywhere is currently just for ease of testing?
 

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
I'm against a healing skill or healing potions in general, but i can think that there are some things that could be improved.
1) Sometimes when a healing orb drops, it is in a location i cannot reach. This happened twice in the woods as they landed in the friendly scarecrow. This is a problem because, no further orb dropped until i stopped farming and reentered th area.
Orbs should despwan after a minute so a new one can be droppe in such cases.

2) You could have a special shield which can be obtained later in the game and which restores 1hp/sec. I have around 700hp with my current char, so it would take a while to replenish all my life.
It should not be thought of neither as a replacement of healing orbs nor as a viable substitute for potions. An item that has a really slow hp regeneration can be a life savor sometimes.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
I would rather see a shield that heals you for maybe 10Hp for every Perfect Guard you perform. This would not only be useful because of the healing but also because it would encourage more players to actually use the shield. For someone like me who depend on the shield a lot in my do-or-die playstyle it would be amazing to heal some hp back after failing to block the first attack. If any form of healing aside from the health orbs gets added then make sure it's not added to the Arcade mode before you beat the whole thing atleast once to just make sure that the experience is kept intact for the first play through.

And please don't change the teleportation to just work on the tele-pads. I don't wanna spend time walking just because of a RP aspect. Travel time is just boring and can kill the fun in games. Games like WOW where the world is huge and there is limited ways to travel quickly between areas (especially before you can use a mount) just end up with 90% walking 10% playing.
 
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Own

Moderator
Is it really that hard to perfect guard? I get tons of perfect guards off of probably every boss and mob in arcade mode, to the point where one spin of the Giga Slime could max my HP out.

edit: Oops, I completely overlooked the arcade mode qualifier. But I think this might reward those who are already godly at the game a little too much. Those who can perfect block every time like me never die, and those who can't see no real benefit. =P

And please don't change the teleportation to just work on the tele-pads.

You could have an item that takes you back to the last tele-pad you walked over, a small fee for fast travel. Like most games have. Even Skyrim has a gold cost for it.
 
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GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
Is it really that hard to perfect guard? I get tons of perfect guards off of probably every boss and mob in arcade mode, to the point where one spin of the Giga Slime could max my HP out.
If any form of healing aside from the health orbs gets added then make sure it's not added to the Arcade mode before you beat the whole thing atleast once to just make sure that the experience is kept intact for the first play through.
That's why I don't want it in Arcade mode before you've completed the whole thing. Adding healing other than the orbs would ruin the whole concept of Arcade mode. It could even be left out completely. There are some things in Arcade that can't be found in the Story so I'm sure we could have items in Story that's not in Arcade.

You could have an item that takes you back to the last tele-pad you walked over, a small fee for fast travel. Like most games have. Even Skyrim has a gold cost for it.
Why would you have an item that teleports you to the closest tele-pad so that you can teleport from that tele-pad to a new tele-pad? Why not just put the cost on the teleportation straight away and keep it as it is? I mean teleporting to be able to teleport sounds confusing and counter productive. If you had to interact with the tele-pad then this would make sense but now it's in the menu so that's why I don't like this concept.
 

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
Adding healing other than the orbs would ruin the whole concept of Arcade mode.
You mean like:
Binding of Isaac
Tower of Guns
Paranautical Activities
Spelunky
and lot's more? Having an Arcade mode doesn't mean you have to exclude healing items/armour/drops. It means you have to balance it properly.
Ok maybe not a shield as you can heal yourself up when you're a little patient and don't speedrun
what about a sword though that gives 5% of the HP from a killing blow to an enemy?
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
So many things to reply to!

You mean like:
Binding of Isaac
Tower of Guns
Paranautical Activities
Spelunky
and lot's more? Having an Arcade mode doesn't mean you have to exclude healing items/armour/drops. It means you have to balance it properly.

I don't know about Tower of Guns or Paranautical Activities, but Binding of Isaac and Spelunky don't have readily available healing at all. I'd argue Spelunky has much less healing than we do in Arcade Mode, even!

Regarding healing with perfect guards, Own's edit reflect my thoughts more or less exactly:

I think this might reward those who are already godly at the game a little too much. Those who can perfect block every time like me never die, and those who can't see no real benefit. =P

Basically, the more you actually need a healing mechanic, the less likely it is you can get it!

We've no intentions of changing up the "teleport for free from nearly anywhere"-system. I can see good things with doing so, but for all of us in the dev team, we feel the benefits of letting the player move easily across the world are much greater.

I'm still holding out for a difficulty mode that only saves the game when a save point is stepped on, someday.

I actually wanted this to be how the game worked by default, but Fred and Vilya convinced me of our current system (them filthy casuals)! The closest we'll get is probably the hardcore mode... unless semi hardcore would work like this. Hmm...
 

Own

Moderator
I actually wanted this to be how the game worked by default, but Fred and Vilya convinced me of our current system (them filthy casuals)! The closest we'll get is probably the hardcore mode... unless semi hardcore would work like this. Hmm...

Ah, that's a pity. If I could make an addition to the game for a hardcore mode, it would be these two items, especially to add a goldsink:

Goddess Tears - Allow you to restart the room after death, giving you another chance before (sending you back to town / putting you back at your last teleportation plate, progress unsaved). Maximum #.

Goddess Feathers - Allow you to teleport from anywhere in the menu, otherwise requires being on a teleportation plate. Maximum #.

But I can see how they would be annoying to casual players. The game isn't necessarily broken as it is right now. =P

What's hardcore mode?
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
Hardcore: You have one life and if you die you lose your character and items.
 

Aurophobia

Halloweed
I would prefer a shield that dissipates after soaking X amount of damage or X amount of time has passed. Make it a ground target spell like Meteor.

Silver Charge = User gets a shield as well as the person nearest to the spell cast location.

Gold charge = Adds slightly better shields to caster and Target & Adds slight lifesteal (but adds to the shield no higher than Shield Maximum HP / Shield still dissipates after soaking X amount of damage or X amount of time has passed) That effect applies to TARGET ONLY / Target self to change spell to PBAoE shield to yourself and allies within X range from caster.

I feel this would bring more to the table then the Support skills that come off as a passive thing. I would rather play Support as an active role, not just a side thing.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
That's a good point. Having a temporary shield instead of healing could be a lot more balanced in Arcade since you can't just stay in a room and fully heal and then move on. It would also be good if you know that you're going into a phase in a boss battle where you will take damage (GUND4M's bullet hell?). Is the lifesteal just adding on to the shields Hp? So 100 damage hit would heal the shield by 5 hp or something like that? I wouldn't mind that at all. :p
 

ssfsx17

Green Slime
A healing skill like this would be good:

Hold down a button, causing you to sit still. At first you only gain a few HP, but eventually your HP regain rate accelerates, until it is full again. By the time this happens, your MP will have been drained entirely. This cannot really be used in intense battles, but is good for casual travelling.

IMO, denying the existence of any healing entirely is only useful for games that are trying to be realistic and which are not trying to attract the fans of the Seiken Densetsu series.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
A healing skill like this would be good:

Hold down a button, causing you to sit still. At first you only gain a few HP, but eventually your HP regain rate accelerates, until it is full again. By the time this happens, your MP will have been drained entirely. This cannot really be used in intense battles, but is good for casual travelling.

IMO, denying the existence of any healing entirely is only useful for games that are trying to be realistic and which are not trying to attract the fans of the Seiken Densetsu series.
But being able to heal to full hp all the time during an Arcade run would be so over powered and would ruin the current feel of Arcade mode. For Story mode it would work fine as health is not a problem in most cases anyways and walking in to a boss fight with 10hp and die just to get back to full HP isn't very fun. Maybe there could be a way to heal up before the boss fights? Like a small shrine or something that you walk up and talk to to restore your health.
 

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
I'm against healing as a skill or ability. When you you're mid Dungeon it would take away some of the tension if healing gets too trivial. I love the way KoBeWi suggested it.
Be it Secret of Mana or Dark Souls, the limited healing ability gives the game balance and makes it feel more intense.
If you had to put additional healing into the game, arcade or story mode, it should be limited and be rare(arcade) or have disadvantages to use in battle.
In SoM healing is limited to three items of each kind, but there virtually is no disadvantage in usage, as the time is stopped during the handling of the menu. In contrast to DarkSouls, where healing is less limited but slow and combat cannot be stopped while in the inventory.

I know that SoG is not aiming to be a 2D DarkSouls, but in some way the Arcade Mode should be hard(getting harder). I think a limitless healing, even a slow one, would break the system.
You could implement a potion that rarely drop and can be stored and used in battle, but is one-time-use. Of course you could get multiple drops and they'd stack.

For Story Mode i'd implement a mix between multiple system, where you can have up to 3(or so) healing potions, but they're very expensive and can only be obtained at the potion shop of course. Also usage leaves the player vulnerable for a really short period of time which either suggets drinking it between battles or when the player times it right even in battle.


If you ask me, an additional healing skill/method to the orbs we currently have, is more than unnecessary.
But what about the mentioned methods?

OWN - Using MP / having a skill --> Far to overpowered, as MP are unlimited and the game could get trivial pretty quick, even on higher difficulties or the arcade mode

KoBeWi - Limited healing potions --> For me this seems the only viable option

ssfsx - standing still and slowly regenerating health --> this seems balanced when you think about battle, but outside of each battle, it would be op and also be slow and boring.
 
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