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Regeneration (Research on this subject)

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Tue, 01/24/2017 - 10:55
X3M
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Where to start?

Knowing that some of my idea's have a mild RPG side to them. I was wondering how much board games actually use [Regeneration]. And in what forms?
For the unit (or player) itself, like in RPG?
For the unit by help by other units, that is common in wargames?
Basicly, restoration of lost Health after a battle has taken place. This could be automatic. But I am going for the opportunity kind of thing.

Also, are there any wargames that go with self regeneration?
Healing and repairing falls a bit in the same category. But I think, they are used more. But I can't find those games either.

So, my main question would be:
Are there games where self restoration is used alongside healer/repairers? Or at least one of the 2?

I think I will treat both concepts separate. An unit either helps others, or itself. If it can do both, it will follow the same rules as units that have multiple weapons.

There will be no consumable options like potions. It will be an ability that is part of the unit (or player).

Other than that, google didn't offer much, regarding this subject.

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Tue, 01/24/2017 - 15:42
#1
Daggaz
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You should probably define

You should probably define what you mean by regeneration specifically in the OP.

If you mean passively remove damage to hitpoints over time, then Eclipse has this both for some of the enemy ships and for alien artefact technology that the player can pick up.

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Wed, 01/25/2017 - 11:08
#2
X3M
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I updated the first post a

I updated the first post a bit. Hope it is more clear now on what I mean.
The best examples of what I mean would be the regeneration of the Zerg in Starcraft. But also regeneration by the medics in that game.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into it.

Edit: Whoaaah!! That game looks nice. Never saw it before in any store here. (Why do I live in such an isolated corner of the world?)

***

I have read the manual of the game. And page 21 mentions removing all damage. It seems that ships are completely healed in this game. And there aren't even costs to it.
Frankly, that is not what I am looking for. But thanks any way. More suggestions are welcome for investigation. But in the meanwhile, I am brewing a list of all possible ways of how healing/repairing might be done.

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Wed, 01/25/2017 - 14:25
#3
Daggaz
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Eclipse is an incredibly

Eclipse is an incredibly well-designed game and is great fun if you are into reasonably quick strategy games. Worth every penny and I recommend rise of the ancients expansion too.

EDIT I forgot to mention, the regeneration mechanic is a special ability available in the expansion.

Something to keep in mind, and something this game rewrote the book on, is that making the players track information is a time consuming chore that drags the fun down. Minimize as much as possible. This goes doubly for damage- or healing-over-time effects.

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Wed, 01/25/2017 - 15:43
#4
X3M
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my brain has g-forces right now

Any idea where I can find the rules for the expansion?
I agree on the well-designed part.

Still looking at this globaly, while detailed decisions are a waste of time. Until now, I have discovered a lot of failures in my own idea's regarding this issue. And it is important that all abusements are removed. There for, what do other games have? And are those healing measurments usefull?

If I where to share information. It would be a rollercoaster right now where my train of thoughts are. Perhaps a page or 3 is what I need.

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Wed, 01/25/2017 - 18:28
#5
X3M
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Several notes on regeneration

The first question should be: Is it useful to apply healing in a game?
I guess, I am trying to answer this question right now. And am going to look at several factors, now that I have the time.

Health
The most important factor will be health. Not to mention, low health entities will always have the least use by healing. And this 1 last health that doesn't even get healed is also a thorn. In addition, how much enemy fire will occur? Because health doesn't mean hit points if you think about it. Most war games don't have healing, because of this.

Game progress
If entities will start low with health. But can gain more health later on by experience. Than healing will have not much use in the beginning. But much more in later games. It is for that reason, that healing is linked more to entities that are used in a higher tier of the game. Or added as an extra ability, once the entity has reached a certain level of maturity. This tends more to RPG.

Forms of healing
There can be healing/repairing.
It can take time, action points, resources, magic, or even a form of XP.
Perhaps you need to have it as an ability given at the start. Or one that you can get when you level up. Maybe it can level up too.
But the most important would be, will it be healing others. Or the entity itself. If it is on others, you can use it on any entity that was harmed. But if it is on oneself, you need that entity to be harmed more often, or it is a waste of design.

Does it have to be healing?
After pondering and considering the factors. One other option remains that could even be used in a game like Risk or A&A. And in fact, the timing of "after" is discarded with this method.
Shields/Armor.
Simply reducing the damage. If the entities have a low amount of health, they can have a better durability. And you deal with that last 1 health issue as well, since even that 1 health is now protected(healed).

But this doesn't get you, your health back.

First conclusions based on my war game
Using shield generators in a war game offers so much more than medics and mechanics. But as mentioned, it doesn't get health back. So, these medics and mechanics are still needed for actual healing. They are tertiary for sure, so they are used later on. Especially on entities that have gained much more health through XP.

Both shield generators and all round medics will cost the same. Shield generators can mix in armor types, most medics will be armor specific and there for can be cheaper.
That was primary and tertiary. What about secondary?

The first healing methods will be through XP. But why do I call this secondary? Shields can be used right at the start of the game. XP needs to be gathered through combat.
In general, this method means that when an entity will return home for increasing all statistics, it will also increase maximum health. With this maximum health increase, they automatically get extra health. So, it would be logical, if healing would also cost XP. But then at a lower cost, perhaps about half. In return, you could only spend XP on higher maximum health, but not getting this maximum health. Things get interesting now.
However, higher maximum health and also healing this health, means a cumulative cost increase. And this is where the tertiary, finally, come in handy.

Now only the 4th healing method remains. Self regeneration. It is tremendously stupid for me to think that self healing would actually be worthwhile. According to calculations (that I like to do a lot). It would not only be very expensive. But also rarely used. The lower the health, the worse the use. At first, I made several mistakes in calculations. The costs where based on body statistics. While healing should be regarded as damage, even if it is self healing.
No doubt, the specific makes it cheaper once again. Which I also forgot at first.
Ok, so healing is worthwhile eventually. Self healing has the exact same use, but is even rarer. The only reason why I can think of that self healing is useful. Is that one super duper huge tank, that is all by itself, doesn't allow for healers to be nearby.....
Right, healing can have Range. So I honestly don't think it will have use at all.

I guess, a list of factors is needed. To compare the 4 types.

- Shield generation
- Experience effects
- Healing/Repairing
- Regeneration

I am going to take at least another week of pondering on this one. Maybe a fifth form will take place.

X3M out.

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Thu, 01/26/2017 - 05:59
#6
Daggaz
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Ok so a ship has hitpoints

Ok so a ship has hitpoints equal to the total value +1 of hull-technologies you have upgraded it with. You shoot the ships with weapons that do various amounts of damage (bonuses and malus to land a hit is by +computers and -phaseshields), and each point of damage destroys one hull point. Eventually a ship runs out of hull points and one more shot will destroy it.

To track that, its either something you can do in your head, or players will put an extra d6 by the ship and turn it to show how many hitpoints it has left.

With the regeneration special, after each round in battle, if a ship that can regenerate is not fully destroyed, you simply turn the die so that it regains 1 hitpoint. So it is pretty simple.

Regardless of what expansion you may or may not be playing, all surviving ships automatically repair themselves fully after a battle, with no cost to the player. Both of these allow for the minimal amount of tedious interaction regarding battle resolution. Especially auto-healing afterwards. Its way more fun to just get moving and not have to do the work or even pay for it. Winners win.

An additional simplification in Eclipse is something they won some awards for: players dont actively have to track their resource income. In eclipse, you claim planets that can produce one of three resources. In many games, you would have to count those planets all the time. In eclipse, the markers that you use to claim the planet sit on a number track; when you remove a marker, you reveal increasingly larger numbers. The largest number is how much resource you are gaining that turn. Not only does this mean you dont have to count yourself, avoiding the inevitable mistakes (oh man i forgot to count that planet over there for like three turns!!), but now the game can 'hardcode' a non-linear distribution into the system. So you can for example have the first planets give a big bonus, and decrease that bonus incrementally as more and more planets are settled, and the player doesn't have to look it up in the rule book or anything, it's just there on the board automatically.

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Thu, 01/26/2017 - 06:27
#7
Daggaz
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One mistake Eclipse made with

One mistake Eclipse made with the resource markers: they are all identical. You have three tracks with a ton of little wooden cubes that are your player color, sitting right next to each other. If you jostle your card, those cubes get kicked off the track and now you cant be sure how far out each track was uncovered without counting through all of your planets.

They could have marked each cube, but that would require marking each side so it wasnt a huge pain in the ass for the player, and the cubes are pretty small so that is getting both annoying and expensive. The best way to do it is to not color the cubes according to player, but according to the resource they track. Then it wouldnt matter if the card got jostled, you could just set the cubes on the right track and it would automatically correct to the right number. And the cubes wouldnt get messed up on the main board, because each claimed planet system (hex) also has a big influence marker, and this marker has the player color on it.

There is a strategy that revolves around switching your resource cubes from one track to the other that would no longer work, but this strategy is extremely gimmicky and of limited use, and frankly the game would be better without it.

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Fri, 01/27/2017 - 08:08
#8
X3M
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Further exploration

Simple mechanics like a +1 health, can have devastating effects on the balance of a game. It is very important to map out costs versus effects on the game.

I never like auto heal, it is one of the most troublesome effects. And it slows down the game by handling, while it might not have the desired effect like true healing instead.

Daggaz
While a 100% healing after battle occurs in the game that you have described, unfortunately it will not fit my game. Let's just say I hated that instant healing that is used in O-game. Which in turn, has the same healing rules as Eclipse after the battle. I made sure that injured or damage units have to do something about their own situation. And that enemies can counter the decisions of the weakened.

This same role needs to be true one way or another for every healing method. It has to be countered one way or another. And one of those ways is a cost that a player needs to pay. While I didn't thought of it before, thank you gxnpt. "It does deepen strategy to decide whether or not to pay to save a life." PS. You could have posted that PM here in my opinion, but I have a hunch why you didn't. :)

***

I am going to share my train of thoughts on the 4 "healing" methods that might take a role in my game. Albeit summarized. NOT. It should be self explaining. And perhaps it is useful as idea material.
If read and questions remain, feel free to ask.

Quote:
Next post will be an actual play test result on one of the 4

Shield generation
-Effects
The players are going to be allowed to activate shields. This can be done from anywhere. And doesn't have to be done with the same squad.
At first there was no use for ranged shield. But then I thought of them as support material that is allowed to act at the same time. This allows me to think of shield generators like the Iron Curtain from Red Alert.

-Costs
AP for activation
Shield generation will cost exactly the same € as a weapon with the same statistics.

-Strength/Weakness
When the number of squads attacking are less than 3, the shields will have much more potential. But the weakness at the same time would be that the shield using player might as well used the money on combat forces.
Any way, using shields costs AP as well, and this AP might be important if a player needs to run away eventually. In the end, using shields is just another choice, but widens the possible strategies.
When playing with shields, the handling of pieces on the board will be less. This is a counter effect on the supposedly longer game play. It cancels each other out.
Upgrading the shield generation should be possible with XP.

-Problem
The game normally contains armor types through numbers. If I am using the same rules for the shields. It means that all shields would be of the lowest class only for the best effects. A shield of 1, still blocks a projectile of 100. And I can't say, you need 100 shields of 1 to block a projectile of 100. It has to be either hit or miss. The same goes for a shield of 100, blocking a projectile of 1. It should not disappear right away.
I need to think of slightly different rules regarding this. And perhaps it will require to show a hint of the secret mechanic in the game.

Experience effects
-Effects
Once placed within the range of any scientific object. Units can be upgraded with XP. This also included increasing health. And thus it is decided that for fewer costs, the unit can be healed this way as well.

-Costs
Indirectly € and AP
XP, which is half of upgrading that same Health. Expensive Health will cost more XP, either by a higher rank or a faster, more durable body point.
The how and when of paying XP is troublesome in balance!

-Strength/Weakness
You need to have battled an opponent. Or consumed some own or allied units. For gaining XP. These actions already costed AP and whoever paid the €. But in times of rest, the healing will be relatively cheap for simple units that are slow.
Expensive units better make use of other healing methods.

-Problem
I almost forgot that the first upgrade level costs only 1 time the XP. This regards health 4, 5 and 6. Health 1, 2 and 3 don't cost XP by logic. At first I thought that shifting the entire level for healing would help. But with that logic, healing would cost just as much XP and upgrading.
No thinking situation: XP/healXP; 0/0, 1/0.5, 2/1, 3/1.5 etc.
Shifted situation: XP/healXP; 0/0.5, 1/1, 2/1.5, 3/2 etc. Which makes even less sense.

Healing/Repairing
-Effects
After a battle, units with the healing ability can restore health of others.

-Costs
€ for the healer, it is going to be relatively cheap when using specific rules. Eg. Medics only heal infantry.
AP for giving the order to heal (it might be the cheapest AP in the entire game)

-Strength/Weakness
It's after. It costs a lot for the simple units. Although, durable or fast units that are expensive per health, might benefit much better from this than spending XP on healing.
But most important would be, why even build medics if the starting infantry only have "3" health? An infantry vs infantry battle shows that a medic would only have use for about 10% of the time.
However, if multiple squads are battling. I think I should allow a squad of medics to heal multiple squads.
Healing/repairing is going to follow the armor type rules. This means that several different repair units are needed in an army for optimal results. :)
Healing can have range.
Self healing? I think that I should say NO to that. You can't operate yourself. Place at least 2 medics together.

-Problem
It is going to be a late tier solution for players. Especially when hero's arise from the population. Unless I do the stated above regarding AP. 1 Squad is able to spend 1 AP on healing multiple Squads. It requires a balance check!

Regeneration
-Effects
Exactly the same as healers. But then, always carried with the unit itself.

-Costs
Errrr. It should be regarded as a specific weapon. € at least. If it is going to be auto? I don't think so.
AP, definitely AP.
or....

-Strength/Weakness
You now have the ability to operate on yourself.
What's the use on the weakest units?

-Problem
Will players accept that it is not automatic?
I figured out that it is much cheaper than expected.
Zerglings!!
Also including specific rules etc. And the range is all time 0. But this will still...errr. I don't know. Maybe the cheapness is a hint of uselessness..ssssh.

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Tue, 01/31/2017 - 04:03
#9
X3M
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No playtest on shields

X3M wrote:
Simple mechanics like a +1 health, can have devastating effects on the balance of a game. It is very important to map out costs versus effects on the game.

That said, and the calculations that I performed on shield effects. I can only conclude: The shields as described above, no matter what form (RPS or not). Not going to happen!

I almost typed a new topic regarding this "problem". Just to ask for help. But everytime, I made some more last minute calculations. Eventually, I made all the calculations needed to reach the conclusion.

Sure, it was easy to apply in the game...eventually. Fun factor, medium. Handling, minimal. But balance?? None apparantly.

They are simply OP compared to their weak spot. And if I make them just a little bit more expensive. They are immidiately useless compared to normal health.

The intended workings would be the same as armor in any other war game. A simple substraction. But here lies the problem.
100% minus 100% is division by 0. I can't do that.
Nor can I stack the shields, which is how they work. And if the shields remain personal. It is the same as 1 extra health point that returns immidiately after. Which is useless in my game.

If I were to apply shield as a damage modifier. I am far better of with the durability/agility factor and the accidental suggestion of Eamon regarding selective armor on incomming projectiles. A plus 100% together with a min 100%.

The latter still needs to be calculated AND tested for balance, playbility and fun. But it is still on my wish list.

Shields as intended for damage prevention described in the previous post... DISCARDED!!
The alternative, has notching to do with healing.

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Wed, 02/08/2017 - 06:13
#10
X3M
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Calculations and succesfull Playtest on XP as healing method

I had some trouble finding the balance in this. But I think I have found it. And my personal play test showed that it has a good place in the game. Those few soldiers that become hero's, will now remain alive with the help of XP spending. This however, requires the player to remain active.

I also left open, the option to only increase max health. And then wait for the medic, to heal further.

Not going further into detail with calculations. But the XP costs for each level is going to be displayed on the Units Statistics Card, from level 0 to level 3. Then a delta is displayed for further simple calculations. This for health, max health and the sum. A table of 4 by 5.

Example for basic infantry:

Level 0 1 2 3 +Delta
Xp’H "0" 60 120 180 60
Xp’h 20 40 60 80 20
Max h "-20" 20 60 100 40

The "" will be replaced by a big N/A for players.

I know that more health will slow down the game. But the current mechanics and Event Cards, allow players to specifically target hero's any way. You simply need to gather the right resources to do so.

I wonder how the play test will turn out with the group.

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