COD WW2 doesnot have Regen health

[sageoftruth]

http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/26/15438184/call-of-duty-wwii-trailer-reveal-diversity

You know what? Fuck it. Yes, this is coming from the person who honestly had no problem with black/Indian soldiers in Battlefield 1, but after reading this, I'm not going to complain about "muh diversity" in the near future. And this is from someone who actually sees diversity as a plus, if only for variety.

Anyway, now that I've got that off my chest, and glad that British and French characters will be playable to at least some extent, time to comment:

I don't think realism is the main draw of health packs. Instead, as B-Cell said, it makes every hit you take carry more weight, since you can't just regenerate it, unless you find more health. It encourages you to respond to damage with pro-activity, rather than passivity. If you're low on health, you must take the risk of finding more health either through exploration, or aggression, if enemies can drop health. It forces you to put yourself in danger to get out being in the red zone and that can be a far more thrilling experience than passively waiting behind cover to regenerate your health.

It depends on the scenario.

I played two Medal of Honour games this year (go figure), namely Rising Sun and Vanguard. The former had health packs, the latter had regenerating health. The former had you operating by your lonesome for a lot of the time, or at best, with only a few fellow soldiers. The latter had you as a grunt for the entirety of the campaign, with you by yourself only periodically at the last part of the game. The former had enemies that would miss a lot. The latter had enemies that were quite accurate. The former didn't have a cover system, the latter made use of one.

You seeing my point here? Even within the confines of WWII games, which system is better depends a lot on the scenario. In a game where a significant part is spent infiltrating enemy lines as an OSS agent, a fixed health system makes sense. In a scenario that tries to capture the 'bullet hell' of war, emphasizing cover and squad-based movement, regenerating health makes sense, because otherwise, you're going to die. A lot. And not in a way that allows you to learn from mistakes easily.

A lot also depends on pacing. For instance, also played BioShock, where regenerating health would sink the game, because the game emphasizes resource management and survival - you want health, you need to spend money or loot it. In contrast, scrounging for health packs doesn't quite work in the context of being a grunt in an army - keep moving forward and all that.

True. I've never gotten the appeal of playing a grunt who just follows step by step orders in the machine of war, but if that's the feeling a game's trying to capture, then regenerating health would encourage sticking to cover.

EDIT: Actually, I think regenerating health really isn't that necessary to encourage cautious, wall-hugging gameplay. The fact that you can't dodge bullets and need cover to stay alive seems to do the trick just fine. As I mentioned to JUMBO PALACE recently, I played the original Call of Duty, a game with health packs, and if anything, having health that would not regenerate made me even more cautious and wall-huggy.

However, with Call of Duty's style of play, all those great things I said about health packs won't be true anymore. You won't be responding to damage with pro-activity, just even more caution. Still, it feels pretty tense when you're low on health, and very relieving when you find enough health to get back into the green zone. Also, since it's Call of Duty, Bjj Hero won't have to worry about backtracking in dead zones, since you can't backtrack.

Unfortunately, my talk with JUMBO PALACE reminded me that this new health system is about calling medics, not finding health packs, so it sounds to me like it's just another regen health system disguised as something different.

 

[SmugFrog]

Back when B-Cell and I were on GameTrailers, there was a gun fanatic who said health regen was originally supposed to present how vulnerable you are to gunfire. He said that the more you expose yourself, the more likely you are to get shot. As you take cover, the health regenerates, representing that you're out of harm's way. He said that the blood splatter effects from newer games have it wrong and that there are better ways to present your vulnerability. Basically, you only get shot once, by the bullet that kills you. I find that concept cool.

That sounds like a concept I've envisioned for many years, but since I'll (probably) never design a FPS game I don't mind sharing. I've always thought it would be interesting if the character was, as you say, more at risk to take a fatal bullet by leaving themselves exposed. The enemy gunfire could be given a deviation making them look like Stormtroopers from the early Star Wars films, but the longer the player remains in their line of sight the more likely they are to be hit and killed. I imagine realistic impacts around the player, hearing the bullets whiz by, or perhaps even the character's armor / weapon / helmet being hit. Rather than blood, you could use sweat, heartbeat, and heavy breathing as the character is increasingly stressed at being shot at. Unfortunately what it all comes down to is fun in the gameplay. It wouldn't be fun to be repeatedly killed in one shot, and it wouldn't be very challenging if the enemy couldn't stop you because they're so inaccurate.

I'm not a fan of the health packs though; as if the enemies scatter them around before they get invaded. I imagine the "boss" character, "No no, put some ammo right there and a few health kits there - and don't forget to stack up some red barrels." This often leaves a player clearing an area then backtracking to go find where the health packs were - or perhaps there aren't any and now you go to the next fight where it's near impossible to do without taking any damage and you find yourself in a constant loop of reloading the same part.

I'll take regen health any day over that.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

OP, I'm not sure why you're so against regenerating health. It's a legitimate gameplay design decision.

The idea is that getting out of enemy fire (ie: behind cover) is supposed to replace the traditional floating spinning healthpacks that you would normally find in an 'oldschool' fps game.

Certainly it could be argued that hiding somewhere and wiping away the blood from your vision (which magically heals your bullet wounds after a few seconds) is not exactly very realistic, but hovering floating spinning healthpacks everywhere was never realistic either.

Pick your poison.

I don't think realism is the main draw of health packs. Instead, as B-Cell said, it makes every hit you take carry more weight, since you can't just regenerate it, unless you find more health. It encourages you to respond to damage with pro-activity, rather than passivity. If you're low on health, you must take the risk of finding more health either through exploration, or aggression, if enemies can drop health. It forces you to put yourself in danger to get out being in the red zone and that can be a far more thrilling experience than passively waiting behind cover to regenerate your health.

While this is true, doesn't the health pack system make much more sense in old-school shooters like Doom where due to movement and circle strafing you can proactively avoid a lot of the missiles and damage? We're talking about WWII here. Shooters with regenerating health have that system in place to promote taking cover and highlight the fact that you can't dodge a bullet. Don't get me wrong, I think both systems have their place and work in their respective games.

I don't understand why B-Cell insists that regenerating health is the cancer eating away at shooters, and it doesn't look like COD WWII is really going to fix that problem either. Once you get hurt it says you have to call for your medic- so you're still taking cover behind something while you wait to be healed. It's health regeneration just worked into the squad dynamic.

I like the above idea Ezekiel posted (or rather anonymous forum guy posted). Rather than blood splatter have the screen shaking and getting increasingly unfocused due to incoming enemy fire and to simulate suppression. It's a cosmetic change but it adds a little extra layer that helps with the unbelievable nature of regenerating health.

 

[sageoftruth]

OP, I'm not sure why you're so against regenerating health. It's a legitimate gameplay design decision.

The idea is that getting out of enemy fire (ie: behind cover) is supposed to replace the traditional floating spinning healthpacks that you would normally find in an 'oldschool' fps game.

Certainly it could be argued that hiding somewhere and wiping away the blood from your vision (which magically heals your bullet wounds after a few seconds) is not exactly very realistic, but hovering floating spinning healthpacks everywhere was never realistic either.

Pick your poison.

I don't think realism is the main draw of health packs. Instead, as B-Cell said, it makes every hit you take carry more weight, since you can't just regenerate it, unless you find more health. It encourages you to respond to damage with pro-activity, rather than passivity. If you're low on health, you must take the risk of finding more health either through exploration, or aggression, if enemies can drop health. It forces you to put yourself in danger to get out being in the red zone and that can be a far more thrilling experience than passively waiting behind cover to regenerate your health.

While this is true, doesn't the health pack system make much more sense in old-school shooters like Doom where due to movement and circle strafing you can proactively avoid a lot of the missiles and damage? We're talking about WWII here. Shooters with regenerating health have that system in place to promote taking cover and highlight the fact that you can't dodge a bullet. Don't get me wrong, I think both systems have their place and work in their respective games.

I don't understand why B-Cell insists that regenerating health is the cancer eating away at shooters, and it doesn't look like COD WWII is really going to fix that problem either. Once you get hurt it says you have to call for your medic- so you're still taking cover behind something while you wait to be healed. It's health regeneration just worked into the squad dynamic.

I like the above idea Ezekiel posted (or rather anonymous forum guy posted). Rather than blood splatter have the screen shaking and getting increasingly unfocused due to incoming enemy fire and to simulate suppression. It's a cosmetic change but it adds a little extra layer that helps with the unbelievable nature of regenerating health.

Ugh, I forgot about the "Call a medic" part. As you said, that sounds just like the same system with a new coat of paint. Anyway, I'm guessing (partly from personal preference) that the reason why he derided regenerating health as the bane of FPS games is because they encourage a cover-based style of play.

I think health packs can work for such styles of play. The first of the two Call of Duty games I ever played had health packs, and it definitely made things more tense, since you knew every hit you took was slowly depriving you of a limited resource. In both cases, you were encouraged to use caution, rather than circle-strafing aggression, but of course you were extra cautious when your health was low and extra relieved when you found health.

This feels kind of embarrassing, since I'm basically contradicting myself from the last reply I gave to Hawki. I think I'll edit that one when I get the chance.

Also, since you brought up new interpretations of regenerating health, I actually had an idea this morning. What if you had a special dimension-jumping vest that was able to detect when you were about to be hit by a bullet and "jumped" you to another timeline where the trajectory of the bullets was different? Your health could be the battery on your vest. It's probably too ambitious an idea to make a game out of it, unless it's a game where dimension jumping is already a major part of the gameplay.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Both health packs and regen are unrealistic, and respectively hurt pacing and tactical aspects.

How about oh, I dunno, changing the fundamental formula of shooters to something more realistic in the first place, if that's so important? Introduce a probability factor in terms of how many enemies you're fighting at a time as well as your terrain and vulnerability. Stop making shooters so arcade-like where you're mindlessly mowing down dozens of fools. I think that's a big part of why I stopped playing shooters nearly altogether is most of them are just so boring as-is. They don't have to be Arma, but at least make encounters feel more significant, where every enemy could end you if you're not careful.

Implementing a pain threshold/injury system would be better than 100% health pack or regen. To soften the blow of departure from those tired, mainstay systems, the game could still have bandages and stim-packs to help survivability, but they would only help so much for a given mission. Where you get shot would affect your abilities accordingly, from a graze flesh wound maybe throwing off movement speed or aiming stability by a few percent, to a headshot stopping you dead literally.

Gear would also factor in, where the more protection you had, the more bullet/impact resistance you'll gain, but at the expense of speed, agility and mobility.

There could still be checkpoints within a mission, but you would have to be out of harm's way to activate them, availability would be limited and dependent upon your surroundings, and there would be a risk involved in establishing one. Kinda like radioing or gps'ing in your location, which could be intercepted or picked up on and possibly adding a greater threat of enemy presence, forcing you to change your tactics for the remainder of the mission.


Just some ideas for a genre that I used to love, but that's long overdue for a design overhaul.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Should try Operation Flashpoint. That did player health quite well.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

@OP
So what?
It is still same old Murican battles we even had in COD 1 and COD2. Except those games were better (yes, I am certain) than this new pathetic propaganda piece.

COD1 and 2 were not something amazing. they are just as scripted and linear as any other COD game. they had on rail segments and NPC open doors for you.

 

[Erttheking]

Ok...will it change at all? Because I still don't care about it.

 

[CritialGaming]

I like the excitement around this, because it's literally excitement because they are doing 1 thing different in a CoD game finally.

CoD needs to take some time off, imo. How many WW2 games do we need? I've killed enough Nazi's, I've played through that war so many times I feel like I was there at this point. I'm tired of it. I don't care. COD's are not, and never will be good games. They are junk food games, like non-sense action movies. Fun, but ultimately pointless, which I guess is the point.

I just wish they could do something new.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

Both health packs and regen are unrealistic, and respectively hurt pacing and tactical aspects.

How about oh, I dunno, changing the fundamental formula of shooters to something more realistic in the first place, if that's so important? Introduce a probability factor in terms of how many enemies you're fighting at a time as well as your terrain and vulnerability. Stop making shooters so arcade-like where you're mindlessly mowing down dozens of fools. I think that's a big part of why I stopped playing shooters nearly altogether is most of them are just so boring as-is. They don't have to be Arma, but at least make encounters feel more significant, where every enemy could end you if you're not careful.

Implementing a pain threshold/injury system would be better than 100% health pack or regen. To soften the blow of departure from those tired, mainstay systems, the game could still have bandages and stim-packs to help survivability, but they would only help so much for a given mission. Where you get shot would affect your abilities accordingly, from a graze flesh wound maybe throwing off movement speed or aiming stability by a few percent, to a headshot stopping you dead literally.

It will be an uphill battle getting these systems in to a COD or COD style game, though try out something more Sim like. Maybe not Arma, but you would enjoy the system Red Orchestra/Rising Storm has considering WWII. When you are hit it could be a minor injury or the bullet flying by for suppression. If you take a bad hit then you have to bandage up before you bleed out, and in some cases you just fight to your last breath if you take a hit bad enough, but not enough to kill you instantly. Granted this works better for an MP situation, though there is a Single Player Campaign. I think it uses the old Battlefront style and lets you hop around different soldiers until you win the battle.

Gear would also factor in, where the more protection you had, the more bullet/impact resistance you'll gain, but at the expense of speed, agility and mobility.

You can find these systems in some games already, though you would need to look outside something like COD. Insurgency uses these systems, the decision between no, light, and heavy armor is the difference between 1 - 2 bullets at the cost of a lot of speed. Though in an ambush sense it would improve suitability.

Remember that at this time its a lot of marketing speak. While it is not the fad it was about 5-10 years ago, COD always likes to be "realistic".

 

[Aetrion]

I think it's generally a good move, but my biggest beef with CoD and all it's spawn has been that the TTK is so incredibly low that most encounter are over before you can even call it a fight.

 

[Souplex]

I fail to see how that matters, the CoD series has always had characters so squishy they die in one burst.

 

[Catnip1024]

You need to call upon your squadmates to get health packs, ammunition, or even covering fire.

So what you're saying (the quote, not you personally) is, that this game makes me more dependent on the Call of Duty online multiplayer community. And this is a selling point?

There should be no healing at all. If you get hit, you should have to crawl out of the zone or wait to be stretchered off.

 

[Morti]

Both health packs and regen are unrealistic, and respectively hurt pacing and tactical aspects.

How about oh, I dunno, changing the fundamental formula of shooters to something more realistic in the first place, if that's so important? Introduce a probability factor in terms of how many enemies you're fighting at a time as well as your terrain and vulnerability. Stop making shooters so arcade-like where you're mindlessly mowing down dozens of fools. I think that's a big part of why I stopped playing shooters nearly altogether is most of them are just so boring as-is. They don't have to be Arma, but at least make encounters feel more significant, where every enemy could end you if you're not careful.

Implementing a pain threshold/injury system would be better than 100% health pack or regen. To soften the blow of departure from those tired, mainstay systems, the game could still have bandages and stim-packs to help survivability, but they would only help so much for a given mission. Where you get shot would affect your abilities accordingly, from a graze flesh wound maybe throwing off movement speed or aiming stability by a few percent, to a headshot stopping you dead literally.

Gear would also factor in, where the more protection you had, the more bullet/impact resistance you'll gain, but at the expense of speed, agility and mobility.

There could still be checkpoints within a mission, but you would have to be out of harm's way to activate them, availability would be limited and dependent upon your surroundings, and there would be a risk involved in establishing one. Kinda like radioing or gps'ing in your location, which could be intercepted or picked up on and possibly adding a greater threat of enemy presence, forcing you to change your tactics for the remainder of the mission.


Just some ideas for a genre that I used to love, but that's long overdue for a design overhaul.

The problem with those kind of mechanics is that they don't lend themselves to shooters based on front line combat. They can work wonders on spec-ops scenarios, Rainbow Six and stealth games spring to mind, where you are a small team and face a limited number of foes at once. As soon as you tried to implement such things in an "battle scene" piece, reality would bite and it would either be impossible, Swiss cheese, or unrewarding, you have enough AI backup so that you could probably put the controller down as the contribution of one soldier is usually negligible.

At the end of the day, the mainstream really like to feel like an action hero, that means dodging an undodgable number of bullets, surviving fatal wounds and killing more people than anyone in history.

Thinking about it now though... large, but finite, numbers of friend and foe... realistic damage... but when you die you just take control of another soldier. Could be fun.

 

[Rangaman]

It's a drop in the ocean. Also how did CoD4 ruin shooters, exactly?

 

[Dalsyne]

OP, I'm not sure why you're so against regenerating health. It's a legitimate gameplay design decision.

Does there need to be a reason other than he doesn't like it? We all like to pretend we're being objective and impartial but at the end of the day our sense of fun dictates most of our opinions on video games. And our sense of fun is personal preference for the most part. And that's totally okay.

Speaking in a more design-oriented fashion, regenerating health allows for balancing of the combat systems on a per-encounter basis rather than a per-level basis. There won't be any times where you're forced to explore to find health packs because you're on super low health from that last battle, which could be frustrating for people who weren't very good at exploring. With regenerating health, you win the level by winning every individual fight, not by careful resource management over a larger timeframe. This makes the game more accessible as well as lending itself well to other mechanics such as checkpoint autosaving after every fight, and mainstream homogenization and distillation of game mechanics is what Call of Duty is about.

It could be the devs are making this change because they feel their audience has grown and is now able to take on challenges that were once difficult. Or maybe they just feel people have become bored of the same shit every time. Who knows.

Personally I'm not gonna make any judgements based on this change alone. We'll have to see how it interfaces with the other mechanics and how exactly they implement the alternative before we can come to any conclusions. I do not believe they'll implement this change in multiplayer however.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Some of you noobs need to play Far Cry 2.

Halo: CE had a good health system, yes, but Halo 2/3's was a lot more convenient and just fit better for MP as well in the end. I don't think there's necessarily anything at all wrong with regenerating health but the problem is, like health packs, it's been done to death. Personally, I still don't mind it when it's done well, but yeah. YMMV.

It's a drop in the ocean. Also how did CoD4 ruin shooters, exactly?

No, this is actually a pretty large change.

Technically, CoD4 itself didn't ruin a single thing. It was other publishers who stupidly thought they had to imitate it with everything and the kitchen sink. Including Activision themselves.

 

[Rpground]

As someone who has ALWAYS hated regenerating health, thank you Cod for going back...completely to your roots. A health bar has always been more engaging then hiding behind a wall sucking your thumb until the bullets push themselves out of your body.

Neither systems are realistic, but at least when you have a health bar getting hit actually means something. You actually have a proper representation of how healthy you are instead of the vague splatter of blood on your screen...you never know exactly how much hp you have at any given moment unless you're screen is completely clear, full health.

Though, this begs the question of what's the point? I mean, I don't blame Cod, they did kinda dig their hole too deep once they hit space. They were getting to the point where it was just Halo.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

It's a drop in the ocean. Also how did CoD4 ruin shooters, exactly?

No, this is actually a pretty large change.

Technically, CoD4 itself didn't ruin a single thing. It was other publishers who stupidly thought they had to imitate it with everything and the kitchen sink. Including Activision themselves.

Also, take note of who said it. Anything that doesn't conform to B-Cells rather limited tastes basically ruined gaming forever, regardless of whatever merits those may have when implemented well.

 

[Bad Jim]

It's a drop in the ocean. Also how did CoD4 ruin shooters, exactly?

By being really good but entirely unlike the games B-Cell plays.