Why Regenerating Health Sucks
Yahtzee thinks waiting a few seconds to be at full health is bad.
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Yahtzee thinks waiting a few seconds to be at full health is bad.
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Extra Punctuation: Why Regenerating Health Sucks
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Believe it or not, i had a similar idea to yahtzee's about that "luck" system. you could have a character who is considered "very lucky" and as he's getting shot at, the bullets whiz by or he happens to dodge them. once your luck bar runs out though, its close to curtains for you. you would have a very limited health bar and once the bullets started hitting you, it would be realistic and you would die in one or two shots.
depending on the game i can agree, but on online gameplay i disagree, i much prefer each encounter between enemies and myself to have equal health for equal opportunity, when i kill someone in a game without regenerating health all it takes is someone to go around the corner and they have me dead probably 95% of the time, they have to be extremely bad for that not to happen, in which this process just keeps continuing until either someone has the OP weapons and are in an OP spot in the level, or someone is just that good compared to the really bad people in the room.
so depending on the game once again, i can highly agree, especially on single player, but for multiplayer purposes i get annoyed highly when i drop a couple guys only to be taken out by some pee shooter in my foot from having a lack of health.
so depending on the game once again, i can highly agree, especially on single player, but for multiplayer purposes i get annoyed highly when i drop a couple guys only to be taken out by some pee shooter in my foot from having a lack of health.
The luck system is kind of how you're supposed to think of hit points in D&D. It's really just some arbitrary counter representing your skill at minimizing hits that slowly gets taken down as you get tired.
I know that regenerating health is supposed to allow designers to more carefully craft the experience and guarantee's that the player will have a full health prior to each encounter, but the more I look at games, the more I think 80% of the fun comes from things the designer either didn't plan for or doesn't have direct control of. If that's the case, why bother carefully crafting encounters for the amount of health someone has, just throw us in the pit with the game elements and see if we're having fun.
I know that regenerating health is supposed to allow designers to more carefully craft the experience and guarantee's that the player will have a full health prior to each encounter, but the more I look at games, the more I think 80% of the fun comes from things the designer either didn't plan for or doesn't have direct control of. If that's the case, why bother carefully crafting encounters for the amount of health someone has, just throw us in the pit with the game elements and see if we're having fun.
a recently example of this, especially the health by murder/environment system, is arkham asylum. you regained your health by killing enemies, or solving riddles. in a combat scenario, you gain more health by a bigger combo score. points only get added at the end of the fight too, which means when you enter a fight, that is your set amount of health, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I agree with health by murder. In a shooter youre obviously going to have to shoot something to kill or destroy it. TF2 has gotten a number of new weapons that give health boosts on kill, And i will investigate them when i feel like it.
The only question is if we go with on kill effects or health drops.
Then theres the lack of challenge presented by it. I suppose it can be put like this; People who have played God Hand, how much easier would it have been if Gene had health regen?
The only question is if we go with on kill effects or health drops.
Then theres the lack of challenge presented by it. I suppose it can be put like this; People who have played God Hand, how much easier would it have been if Gene had health regen?
I still don't know why developers don't use the segmented health as seen in Far Cry 2, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Chronicles of Riddick.
Your health bar is divided into smaller bars, and each bar regenerates, but only until that bar is full, and never more than that.
Basically, if there's some health left in the bar, the bar will regenerate, but it will only regenerate that bar. That means developers know players will always have at least one bar of health, and can plan accordingly.
Or you could go the Brothers in Arms route and if a player hits a checkpoint with no health/ammo left and they die a few times, they get the option to restart at the checkpoint with full health and ammo. Since, you know, even though war isn't fair, a game should be. And thats the actual message when Brothers in Arms gives you the option. In Road to Hill 30 at least.
Your health bar is divided into smaller bars, and each bar regenerates, but only until that bar is full, and never more than that.
Basically, if there's some health left in the bar, the bar will regenerate, but it will only regenerate that bar. That means developers know players will always have at least one bar of health, and can plan accordingly.
Or you could go the Brothers in Arms route and if a player hits a checkpoint with no health/ammo left and they die a few times, they get the option to restart at the checkpoint with full health and ammo. Since, you know, even though war isn't fair, a game should be. And thats the actual message when Brothers in Arms gives you the option. In Road to Hill 30 at least.
I agree with most of what's said here....regenerating health does take out some of the challenge and it is silly. I much prefer good old health kits. That, along with Resistance's 4 bars system. I thought that worked well.
The health system is one of the best bits of dead space 2, where you stock up some health packs from fallen enemies or from one of the shops, and you think you're untouchable, and then some necromorph bursts out of a wall and gets you off guard, and you panic and blow all your health packs really unnecessarily and you have to be really careful as wounded isaac stumbles groggily around, stopping to catch his breath every few metres.
I'd also like to add that regenerating health has also led to bad AI programming where enemies have ridiculous aiming ability and will basically track you through walls and shoot at you as soon as you're the least bit exposed. In modern games, you know you've encountered a battle because 1/2 your health has been instantly wiped away, but it will be back in 2 seconds!
I've never had an issue with health regen systems in action games because the keep the pace of the game up; but then again, you do lose the tension of being down to your last sliver of health and have that courageous/awesome moment where you defeat the big bad with a single point of life left in you. Now, your walking it off strategy has a lot more merit than traditional regen systems. At least here, you need to be active and need to be quick. When you're hit, that tension that you will soon die is imminent. I think that would be the best alternative to modern regen systems.
I'd like to see a system where the AI gets bolder as your health drops, such as being willing to leave cover and hunt you down after your health drops below a threshold. So, you can stay in a firefight and risk dieing, or cower in cover whimpering to regen but risk enemy soldiers showing up to deliver the coup de grâce.
Seconded.Psychotic-ishSOB said:
One of the most immersive health system even though not that realistic.
But I would suggest the block health system.
Y'know the one in Chronicles of Riddick and Assassin's creed 2
It is pretty cool but only fits in CQC situation instead of shooting.
Heath regeneration is a means to a end. That end being flow of action as new develops think never stopping the action is a good thing. It also allows for quicker level design as you do not need a complex maze beyond the single barrel shotgun of a corridor.
What is really sad is that DOOM have more intricate level layouts than most modern shooters.... its sad really...
What is really sad is that DOOM have more intricate level layouts than most modern shooters.... its sad really...