Dear Moon Studios
I am personally heavily engaged with the games current design and story, with it holding my interested for this game’s full launch. After completing what story there is available and watching the live stream of the game director ‘Thomas Mauler’ talk with the you-tuber “Zazaran”. One point mentioned was the controversial state that was the healing in the game and I can personally agree to its flaws. These flaws include, running out of supplies they have crafted from pressing on in a fight they wanted to overcome but failed to. Over preparing items and negatively impacting the exploration as they have less inventory slots to fill in with loot discovered and have to leave stuff behind or discard it and potentially hurting there pacing of the game as now they are required to farm what they previously could have earned. We cant have the “Ectus Flask” because that is best for a mistake meter in a single player game like “Darksouls”. It’ll punish players that want to return to a “Whipser” to heal and their comrades that are already out on the field are dealing with re-spawning enemies. We cant have the “Ectus Flask” as-well if the enemies don’t re-spawn like they do now, because the players can exploit it to replenish their flasks after each enemy encounter trivializing exploration.
So, I personally believe that there is another means to have a healing system that I have already played from another game that could rectify these concerns. Its an indie game by “Team Cherry” called “Hollow Knight”. Lets say at death you respawn with a low amount of healing flasks akin to “Darksouls” with a quantity of 1 full and 3 empty ones. The player can damage a enemy to fill up the empty ones, going to a “Whisper” doesn’t refill all the flasks, it only refills one and this cannot stack to limit exploitation, and to encourage the player to not be afraid. Once the player fills up all 5 flasks via dealing damage, they cannot earn anymore afterwards until they spend one flask to replenish their health so that it becomes empty and thus repeating this game play loop. Players can increase the quantity of flasks possible to carry via the “Plague Ichor” in the base game, as it closely resamples the hunger mechanic already present.
This healing system worked well in that metroidvania called “Hollow Knight” where the primary focus was to heal without negatively impacting exploration as every enemy is percieved as a potential health pack that can aid the journey forward. This does not negatively impact boss fights either in the game as just dealing damaged filled up this healing system, so theoretically you can heal back any loss health in the fight as long as you keep playing aggressively. This also lend to the boss fights having more health or lasting longer when compared to this game “No rest Rest For The Wicked” because it was the players responsibility to minimize damage taken while being able to endlessly heal back any damage taken during that fight, where else here the boss fight must cater to the player because the players have a limit on how often they can heal in a fight resulting in shorter fights that feel less satisfactory in my mind.
This hopefully from what i can infer, wont negatively impact multiplayer either as the “Ectus Flask” did because now your party is encouraged to continue fighting and pressing on instead of regressing and having to farm resources to be deemed prepared for the challenge. Creating interesting moments where a team mate tanks so that the assassin class friend can heal up from a bad engagement or vice versa. This feature is already in the game with the “healing rune” and couldn’t see why this wasn’t developed into the base game feature as “Thomas Mahler” mentioned in the live-stream already. They don’t need to convey more information on how to find it, if it is implemented as a core feature, than it can be shown in the tutorial. This also benefits the “dark souls” players where they want to continue to face plant into the boss until they win, as they are no longer reliant on a continuously dwindling supplies.
However, this new implementation negatively impacts Runes in this game, as a mage would be able to chip enemies from afar and replenish their health flasks safely without a sign of threat, spend the replenished health on more “focus” through the rune that provides focus by sacrificing health. Leading to a cycle of dominating the game with no risks and no costs for any actions the mage has had prior. In “Hollow Knight” they made it so that the healing flask charges were spent on the spells and the damage earned from hitting an enemy from a spell didn’t reward any flasks. This is to ensure the player can get into conflict and risk potential damage in order to earn these spells where else there was no risk in the previously explained situation, without risk the game would not be fun. The item “healing rune” if left unchanged will be unnecessary as it is being transformed into this feature, risking players having two means of infinite healing can trivialized potential risks they had to originally worry about.
Finally, with the Chef character “Gordon” would require a shake up as he is currently deemed invalid as healing supplies aren’t necessary in this new potential feature. I don’t want to remove him or have him serve no purpose as I personally love him as a character and and his relationship with “Caroline” the In Keeper. As he stands in the game, he is argued to be the one of the most important npc’s as he requires a quest to complete. But, what he provides in “Sacrement” is too little for this focus of his character, with my only times browsing his wares were to buy the necessary recipes for the building projects and nothing more.
My solution would be to bring in the “Monster Hunter” food eating feature where it provides a huge buff for an hour or any time regulation that varies by a food by food basis, or by your decision. Some of these foods can provide any beneficial effect like for an example to increase the damage of the player or to increase the amount of Points you gained to help fill up the health flasks gathered from a fight and this can be used as an opportunity to bring more importance to “Gordon”. Why prepare a meal by a campfire when you can have a chef to create a meal to the player that has a cut scene play of the player character eating as a means of comfort, relaxation and potential quests where “Gordon” wants to serve you a meal every possible meal to the person who saved his life and would be a enjoyable quest. Benefiting “Diablo” or “Path Of Exile” fans that want fights to be a power fantasy and having another means of buffing their character to be stronger would see to that.
In Conclusion, the current food supplies the player creates causes to many issues to be worth continuing, from negatively impacting resource management to stopping a player from bashing their head against a bosses endlessly. The constant provided feedback that was the “DarkSouls” “Ectus Flasks” wont work here either as it conflicts with the multiplayer aspect that will be available at launch. Therefore my proposition is to use the Hollow Knight method to be a potential solution to this multiple problems. It will create interesting dynamics in a multiplayer setting where they judge the amount of flasks each member they possess and and have to help the member lacking them to replenish flaks without risking potential damage or death upon them. Enabling players to focus all their time they want on a boss fight as they heal from the fight without having to restock supplies. The newly proposed “Gordon” will bring in a better focus towards the character where he previously lack, besides providing recipes for building projects. This is accomplished by bringing in the Monster Hunter Food eating mechanic. To bring in a new aspect to the game that would be another buff for the player while contextually immersing the playing to the setting and characters.
I appreciate it if you take my notes and suggestions to heart, I would love learn how what complications or issues not mention here would arise from this implementation of this new healing mechanic for “No Rest For The Wicked”. I wish you all good luck for the development for the game as your goal was for it to be truly a defining action role playing game and I will continue to play through early access till release. May your health be well for your team and your loved ones, and hope you all have a nice day.
Kind Regards
Brandon Johnson