Here's a way to manage team health and avoid annoying back and forth.

[tall summit]

What I dislike in pokemon games is that you have to heal your team between fights. If you don't like spending coin in potions, you have to go back in town. In Pokemon, they fixed this issue by making trainers and wild monsters garbage. Nexomon fixed it with the gems that heals to max hp.

Here's my suggestion : a team joy meter. After every fight, the team is healed up to full health thanks to a magical thingy only the player has. However, whenever the player's monsters take a beating, their joy meter decreases. When their joy meter is high, they get full XP and find some random objects for the player. When their joy meter is low, they get fewer XP. That way, people who farm a place to find a particular monster don't overlevel and don't have to go back all the time. Restoring the joy meter can be done with items like fruits or other food. The joy meter could be used to branch evolutions like in pokemon.

[minor valley]

Understanding that its an ambitious add, it can be used a foundation for maybe party tutoring moves as well. Within the constrains of the "Joy/Bond" system - Bonding System also doubles as a 4rth wall break to main character BS - Evolutions tied to it, as opposed to simply lvl up, Healing after battles on a percentage health based on "Joy/Bond" Level, increasing XP gained in the same milestones, Nexomon learning 1rst place moves used in battle if maxed. Addressing both movepools, as well as creating a new "organic" level curve, there can also be events that bypass it. Boss fights and plot related fights. Maybe its a toggle within the extras menu.

Alternative name Joy Keeper - another 4rth wall break JK only MC can jave that abilty... unless main antagonist has a set value that seems to implicate they too? On a sequence of a number of battles within a dungeon where there is no chance to either purchase items/restore health aside from in battle, through the system -

The main point would be an alternative system to circumvent most of the already seen tropes, while piggybackridding the preexisting notions a little bit.

Even Tyrant Nexos can be implied to be on the negative side of the scale. And there could be unique benefits from being on negative JK/BS levels: higher damage on battles, taken and dealt. Exclusive evos. Catch rates increased. With the drawbacks of No healing between battles, lower XP gain, No Diversity on Movepools, even gold lowered to avoid exploiting farm for items.

[acoustic jacinth]

After every fight? Dude this makes the game way too easy

[covert flume]

I'd much rather have a magic bottle like in Temtem. It to 100% heals your whole team but you can only use it once and then it's empty and you gotta refill the bottle by visiting the healing centre

[tall summit]

Since you can buy healing items, this aspect of the game is just a money management simulation. It's juste my opinion, but pressing buttons after each fight to feed healing potions to your monsters isn't very engaging nor very difficult. It just makes you want to save your money for health potions instead of buying other interesting items.

Even with auto healing, you can still build incentives to make the player want to keep his monsters alive during a fight. Happy monster ? Increase its crit chances. Sad monster ? He refuses to attack this turn. Wanna play hardcore ? Make a monster miserable enough and it will run away ! You can also modify npc interactions according to your joy meter. A champion refusing to duel you because your monsters are mistreated. A grandma giving you an item because you party is happy. Make a procedural quest to gain the trust of a runaway monster and make it join your team again. This sounds much more engaging than keep your team alive so that you won't have to backtrack home. Because backtracking home isn't fun nor difficult. It's just annoying.

If there's a tournament of some sort, you can have the game remove the auto healing rod from the players so that he'll have to fight several champions in a row with zero auto healing.

[bleak forum]

I'm all for making the game less tedious, and more fun, so I like this idea. Though, heling was pretty easy in recent games as well (like having to teleport to the right city), just tedious.

[tall summit]

You could even make monsters with different personalities have different bonuses when their joy is maxed out.

[main cloud]

Just my opinion but not a big fan of this system, it replaces healing between fights with giving items that increase friendship so it seems pretty similar, but free healing between fights means that you can pretty much just spam your most powerful attacks with your most powerful Mons without worrying about the consequences (stamina management, whether to keep a mon alive or not for the next battle...)

[jovial flame]

As long as it doesn't make the game way too easy, I'm all in! I'm just worried about bonuses removing incentives to enjoy or feel a thrill from managing items and such. Some grind is good. A balance tough to achieve...

[bleak forum]

You could grind cores 😉

[ivory parrot]

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems… unnecessarily confusing? I don’t get the point aside from making the game ‘easier’ (like how FaTe explains). I hope that doesn’t come across as rude.

[dreamy carbon]

I like the idea of a happiness meter for Nexomon, though not directly related to health. Perhaps a "health jar" would be an interesting alternative. The "health jar" has a set number of hp it can restore and can be distributed at the player's discretion. You upgrade your "health jar" over time as you progress. Perhaps it replenishes over time and can be filled completely at outposts/health centers? I think this would be more freeing compared to potions, it depends on the exact variables.

[tall summit]

I think giving items for happiness isn't the same as giving items for healing. You need health to fight. You don't need happiness to fight. The happiness meter is just here to prevent someone from abusing the auto-health by grinding a spot forever. Grinders are often min-maxer, and these people will want a full joy meter to max their efficiency.
People who abuse strong attacks and deplete their joy meter will suffer from sadness penalty. If sadness penalty includes monsters passing their turn, it could really work as a strong deterent because abusers will actually begin to lose fights.

In the end, it rewards players who keep their team alive by removing the backtracking. People who grind too much or fight recklessly will much less efficient and might even start losing.

[minor valley]

While I agree that the full heal might be excessive, literally there could be additional limitations, such as lowerred catching chances since you are fostering a community within your team. Lower Crit ratios as you are keeping them safe. And only using the negative lvls you get the other side of it.

While stamina regenerates already, no need to replenish Stamina

[tall summit]

Keep your monsters alive to keep them happy and efficient. I don't think it's that confusing.

[ivory parrot]

Perhaps I’m simply having a hard time picturing it, and I don’t mind the idea of some form of ‘friendship meter.’ However, as a replacement for the typical health meter, mostly to avoid having to heal between battles (which can be irritating at times, but I see as part of the regular grinding the genre is known for), it seems a case of ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.’ That’s very much just my opinion and I didn’t mean to offend you if I did so.

[minor valley]

I think the best analogy is to have "parenting" Styles you can play safe, and be overportective. Getting benefits like %max health after battles but also having lowered crit ratios as you ARE playing too safe

and on the other end, closer to almost neglecting, allows for more risky interactions

Crit up, no heal, better catch ratios.

Could be a bar/lvl that grows at the end of the battle by multiple factors that the player can see. i.e: Player party median Hp > 50% +1 point, Used health items the next immediate turn party member received dmg +2, cleaning status immediately +2, switching out on red bar +1

and a bar would fill

effects to be applied starting next battle

and the opposite would be true too...

Left party member as lead on red bar -1, no healing on the battle -1, statused for "n" turns -2, switched in to another red hp bar - 1

Is that clearer? I think I might have failed to elaborate my thoughts on Davids opinion as I think its a very interesting take on removing tediousness.

By no means it offends, actually having opposed points of views helps flesh out the idea better as indeed it either needs to be justified, or a dev bucket list to be in the game.

Not as much as a replacement, but an additional system altogether that interacts with the Hp bar, XP, catch ratios, damage dealt and received.

Heck it could incentivize the solo nuzlocke runs to actually use one single party as the Hp of that one member would make it easier to manage the bar. As well as speedrunning being more intense, as being positive could also lower damage dealt/taken ergo making fights longer but far less risky. But if you want to blitzkreig your way through,you can kinda use the Pokemon GBA Speedrun approach of getting your Hp to red to activate torrent and get more dmg, with the higher risks it entails.

After reading other suggestions this might even work in tandem with/just like a morality system. Honestly the sky is the limit manhours budget is the limit actually

"People who grind too much or fight recklessly will much less efficient and might even start losing." I, however, think there is no need for punishing/expecting karma to hit any playstyle. Instead have it be more intense, if grinding is a mash A contest, the higher chances for random stuff to go baloney and therefore engaging or higher numbers for damage might speed it up and avoid the grindy feeling. This way you dont force players into a corner, and thus everybody can have a positive interaction with the game.

Again, it can be a toggle

Alas some backtraking is nice, as there might be areas you can now reach/interact with that you might have not been able to in the past. Giving routes/sections/towns more impact than "just another corridor". Balance is hard indeed.

[main cloud]

With everything I've seen, it just seems like a round about way to change the requirement to heal in between battles, it's not like healing was a big issue in extinction, the devs even patched healing crystals to make it easier...

[minor valley]

You might be right, ngl

[ivory parrot]

@minor valley
That… honestly makes it sound more complicated, likely because I don’t pay much attention to catch rate, critical hit rate, etc (same with nuzlockes & speedruns).
On the other side, options are always good. Yet, I just don’t see how this could be anything other than a large, unneeded overhaul.
I do appreciate the more specific explanation, so thank you.

[supple vault]

I think this system idea would work best as an option that players can toggle on or off in their settings. It would allow folks who want the added complexity to have their fun, while not making the game inaccessible to people who desire a more relaxed gameplay experience.

[main cloud]

If everything and anything anyone suggests gets in even as an option, the game would end up being a huge mess, it's never a good idea to try to make everyone happy, this idea isn't complexed battle system vs more easy relaxed battle system, it's an alternative way to heal inbetween battles. The complexity comes from the fact that its an over the top method to deal with a problem that the devs already fixed (healing crystals)

[supple vault]

Do note that I was not saying that it should be implemented, I was only saying how it would likely best be done if it was chosen to be implemented. And the word "alternative" inherently implies choice.

I am quite happy with Extinction's version of healing, and the management of healing items has never bothered me. The proposed new healing system is not one that would benefit me, but that does not prevent me from seeing how it could be more fulfilling to other people.

Making everyone happy is not possible, no, but never attempting to reach a compromise between two sides is just as bad as going too far in trying to appease every person. The purpose of my comment was to provide the compromise, the middle ground, so that the third option is at least stated for consideration.