As mentioned I love how Far Cry 2 did this, especially in MP Get critically wounded? You take care of the wound or die!
Extra Punctuation: Why Regenerating Health Sucks
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
to the people complaining about reaching a checkpoint at low health with no healthpacks or whatever around... that's just poor game design. half lifes (all of them) knew to put a health station or a bunch of kits right before a fight where they knew you'd probably take a lot of damage, or right after a big fight. the devs don't need to "know" how much health you have before a fight, they just have to provide you the tools to make sure you have it.
this works especially well when you lose access to the charger when the big fight starts so you can't recharge to full mid-fight and trivialize the encounter. it's not difficult to manage the placement of health kits, so if you found yourself in that 1 health no kits can't go back situation blame the developers
that said, it's also possible that you're just playing poorly and if you stopped getting shot so much you wouldn't die. just saying
this works especially well when you lose access to the charger when the big fight starts so you can't recharge to full mid-fight and trivialize the encounter. it's not difficult to manage the placement of health kits, so if you found yourself in that 1 health no kits can't go back situation blame the developers
that said, it's also possible that you're just playing poorly and if you stopped getting shot so much you wouldn't die. just saying
You know, I'm rarely a person to do this kind of thing to people whom I consider actually know what they're talking about BUT: Wrong. Guess again.
Two main flaws in your reason:
Being punished for experimenting or having fun doesn't seem like a good mechanic does it? I can go through most games barely taking a hit, most of them I can go through barely using healthkits (I remember getting to the end of Max Payne and constantly full of painkillers). However that forces me to play defensively. To play it carefully, and safely... and what the fuck is the point? Honestly if I wanted to play "safe" I'd go outside. What the fuck is the fun in playing a game designed to let you do crazy shit... so you can be afraid of doing said crazy shit? It's like letting you drive a Ferrari that'll self-destruct if you go above 60...
That's one thing the original Assassin's Creed did better than ACII. Despite having to sit through a fucking 10 minute long speech every single fucking time I wanted to play the game, when I did, I never felt I was being punished for actually having fun and experimenting in the game.
There are few things more utterly rage inducing in a game than the feeling that you're suddenly screwed by a mistake you did 5 minutes ago... Or for not having the clairvoyance to know what you should expect before finding a new health pack/station/source. What's that, you didn't think you'd need more than 45 health 2 rooms ago? Well fuck you then, here are 10 elite soldiers. Either cower like a ************ or GG. What? You had the audacity of trying a different approach than cookie cutter safe approach? Ok then, here are your options: a) Reload your last saved game (IF you have one) and play it our way, or b) go suck nuts and bolts, and try to slog through to the next health source with low health!
If you're gonna punish someone for doing bad punish them WHEN they do bad. If they're not performing up to standard kill them and let them try again. Don't just let them push along for 10 minutes until they realize that they're suddenly fucked (extra fucked if they didn't keep a previous save). How much would you enjoy it if your mom walked into your house right now and slapped you across the head over something you did 20 years ago?
I honestly don't see why in the world you'd think this is "fun".
The other advantage of having regenerating health is that it lets the developers pitch more intense and harder encounters at the player, knowing that:
a) They can't simply press an item key or run over an item and instantly reset whatever damage they've taken. While you're in the fight, you're in the fight. You can't regen health while taking damage, so you have no way of recovering during an encounter. It's do or die.
b) They can punish the player as much as they want at the moment, knowing they can regen it for the next battle. There isn't a "wait, if we throw this shit in now, most of them will get stuck later".
Not much of a strategy involved in planning for something you don't know. The only strategy is "try to have as much health and ammo saved up as you can". Not exactly strategy...
Two main flaws in your reason:
This is absolutely right, which further confuses me on how you seem to ignore it for the remainder of the article.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
Being punished for experimenting or having fun doesn't seem like a good mechanic does it? I can go through most games barely taking a hit, most of them I can go through barely using healthkits (I remember getting to the end of Max Payne and constantly full of painkillers). However that forces me to play defensively. To play it carefully, and safely... and what the fuck is the point? Honestly if I wanted to play "safe" I'd go outside. What the fuck is the fun in playing a game designed to let you do crazy shit... so you can be afraid of doing said crazy shit? It's like letting you drive a Ferrari that'll self-destruct if you go above 60...
That's one thing the original Assassin's Creed did better than ACII. Despite having to sit through a fucking 10 minute long speech every single fucking time I wanted to play the game, when I did, I never felt I was being punished for actually having fun and experimenting in the game.
There are few things more utterly rage inducing in a game than the feeling that you're suddenly screwed by a mistake you did 5 minutes ago... Or for not having the clairvoyance to know what you should expect before finding a new health pack/station/source. What's that, you didn't think you'd need more than 45 health 2 rooms ago? Well fuck you then, here are 10 elite soldiers. Either cower like a ************ or GG. What? You had the audacity of trying a different approach than cookie cutter safe approach? Ok then, here are your options: a) Reload your last saved game (IF you have one) and play it our way, or b) go suck nuts and bolts, and try to slog through to the next health source with low health!
If you're gonna punish someone for doing bad punish them WHEN they do bad. If they're not performing up to standard kill them and let them try again. Don't just let them push along for 10 minutes until they realize that they're suddenly fucked (extra fucked if they didn't keep a previous save). How much would you enjoy it if your mom walked into your house right now and slapped you across the head over something you did 20 years ago?
I honestly don't see why in the world you'd think this is "fun".
The other advantage of having regenerating health is that it lets the developers pitch more intense and harder encounters at the player, knowing that:
a) They can't simply press an item key or run over an item and instantly reset whatever damage they've taken. While you're in the fight, you're in the fight. You can't regen health while taking damage, so you have no way of recovering during an encounter. It's do or die.
b) They can punish the player as much as they want at the moment, knowing they can regen it for the next battle. There isn't a "wait, if we throw this shit in now, most of them will get stuck later".
No. I just reloaded the scene and played it "safe mode" so I could go through mostly unharmed, so I could be sure not to get locked out of the rest of the game due to not having the clairvoyance of knowing I'd need more health up ahead.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
Not much of a strategy involved in planning for something you don't know. The only strategy is "try to have as much health and ammo saved up as you can". Not exactly strategy...
I agree with this completely. Halo 1 really did have the best health system and while it's not entirely realistic (as Yahtzee says, that's a BS argument anyway) it makes perfect sense within the game world.Scow2 said:
I like the luck idea. Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway already has something rather similar. You can only take one shot, then you're dead. Instead of health, the screen will turn red. The redder it gets, the closer you are to finally getting hit. Now if you want a REAL challenge, turn off the red screen and play the game on hard. No hint as to when you are about to be hit, so you better be good at covering fire.
I've always thought hank-n-slash games suffered from this too. Instead of constantly beating an enemy with a sword that can slice them in half in a cutscene, how about in the actual game you have to break their guard--as in the guard is their life bar. Once broken, one hit from the sword/spear/whatever, will kill the enemy.
I've always thought hank-n-slash games suffered from this too. Instead of constantly beating an enemy with a sword that can slice them in half in a cutscene, how about in the actual game you have to break their guard--as in the guard is their life bar. Once broken, one hit from the sword/spear/whatever, will kill the enemy.
I think health packs are fine for linear games, but for open world games like GTA, it gets really frustrating to have to go sleep off a wound or chow on a burger every so often. When you're on a linear path, you can guess at how much health a player will have at any point, but with sandbox games all players play differently. Some might be careful and take almost no damage in between missions, others like to drive like crazy and occasionally smash through a windshield. In the case of the reckless windshield smasher in GTA 4, he gets money taken from him for dieing, and in the case of GTA:SA and all other previous games, he also gets all his weapons taken away. I can't imagine playing Just Cause 2 without the partially regenerating health that it had, unless they made the health bar 5 times as long.
First off, I really like the "luck" system proposed in the article, as well as a handful of examples and ideas in the various comments.
That said, I don't think that the idea of regenerating health is inherently bad. It's just been lazy in its implementation so far. Sucking your thumb behind cover for a few seconds to regain your health kills tension at any difficulty level other than insane, and discourages exploration for medkits and whatnot.
Poor Bungie. They go and make the concept of regenerating health popular, expecting other developers to adjust and improve on it. Instead, they all do it worst than the first attempt, and THAT was far from perfect.
Some ideas for improving it.
1) Make it *slow*. The article gave inFamous as a positive example. If you recall, there was automatically regenerating health; however, it regenerated at a snails pace, especially if you were in combat. If you were desperate and wanted to regenerate your health, you had to run, and the army of mooks would *chase you.* All of the tension of limited health without the stupid flow-breaking back-tracking. This could also be combined with the "walking it off" concept.
Oh, inFamous, you are so awesome
.
2) Reward the player for excess health. This article also gives Prototype as an example, but this concept probably would work best in a third-person super power game, rather than the shooters that really screw the concept up. In Prototype, your health slowly regenerates. Like inFamous, this is not tactically useful, forcing you to either eat people or do a tactical retreat. However, at full health (beyond which you had no regeneration) you could eat people to boost your health over 100%. Besides acting as an additional buffer, this extra health was a resource for the super moves that could kill a ton of enemies and save your ass, at the cost of making you more vulnerable.
This is easily applied to shooters. At full health, or even bonus health, your speed and accuracy can get a boost. You could use bonus health as fuel for bullet time or whatever gimmick you want.
There are a whole bunch of other ideas that I could base around these concepts. Perhaps at full armor, you are slower and pack more of a punch, and then when your armor breaks, you become faster, weaker, and gain regenerating health. In this fragile state, you are then forced to find armor so to continue to have a chance.
There's a reason why designers got rid of health kits. While the exploration, tension, and use of health as a resource were awesome, it really screwed up flow, balance, level and encounter design. Simplifying that by making health regenerate is a step in the right direction, but without finishing the concept, it just makes things patronizingly simple.
That said, I don't think that the idea of regenerating health is inherently bad. It's just been lazy in its implementation so far. Sucking your thumb behind cover for a few seconds to regain your health kills tension at any difficulty level other than insane, and discourages exploration for medkits and whatnot.
Poor Bungie. They go and make the concept of regenerating health popular, expecting other developers to adjust and improve on it. Instead, they all do it worst than the first attempt, and THAT was far from perfect.
Some ideas for improving it.
1) Make it *slow*. The article gave inFamous as a positive example. If you recall, there was automatically regenerating health; however, it regenerated at a snails pace, especially if you were in combat. If you were desperate and wanted to regenerate your health, you had to run, and the army of mooks would *chase you.* All of the tension of limited health without the stupid flow-breaking back-tracking. This could also be combined with the "walking it off" concept.
Oh, inFamous, you are so awesome
.2) Reward the player for excess health. This article also gives Prototype as an example, but this concept probably would work best in a third-person super power game, rather than the shooters that really screw the concept up. In Prototype, your health slowly regenerates. Like inFamous, this is not tactically useful, forcing you to either eat people or do a tactical retreat. However, at full health (beyond which you had no regeneration) you could eat people to boost your health over 100%. Besides acting as an additional buffer, this extra health was a resource for the super moves that could kill a ton of enemies and save your ass, at the cost of making you more vulnerable.
This is easily applied to shooters. At full health, or even bonus health, your speed and accuracy can get a boost. You could use bonus health as fuel for bullet time or whatever gimmick you want.
There are a whole bunch of other ideas that I could base around these concepts. Perhaps at full armor, you are slower and pack more of a punch, and then when your armor breaks, you become faster, weaker, and gain regenerating health. In this fragile state, you are then forced to find armor so to continue to have a chance.
There's a reason why designers got rid of health kits. While the exploration, tension, and use of health as a resource were awesome, it really screwed up flow, balance, level and encounter design. Simplifying that by making health regenerate is a step in the right direction, but without finishing the concept, it just makes things patronizingly simple.
man i /agree so hard it makes my pants tight
regenerating health is so lazy it hurts my feelings
halo 1 did the hybrid system more or less right, you had a health bar and a shield bar, shield regenerated, health required pickups
halo 2 screwed it up by having an "elegant" system with no visible health bar and everything regenerated
americas army had (still has?) the realistic system where you die in 1-3 hits, if you get hit and don't die your movement rate is slowed and your aim starts to suck (more), and it was extremely fun
regenerating health is so lazy it hurts my feelings
halo 1 did the hybrid system more or less right, you had a health bar and a shield bar, shield regenerated, health required pickups
halo 2 screwed it up by having an "elegant" system with no visible health bar and everything regenerated
americas army had (still has?) the realistic system where you die in 1-3 hits, if you get hit and don't die your movement rate is slowed and your aim starts to suck (more), and it was extremely fun
A health system that I've seen a few times is one that slowly regenerates only the bottom 20-30% of your health. for example, after a big firefight, the player would be left with only 10% health, over 30 seconds it would regenerate to 25% and stop there leaving the rest to be healed by health packs. it gave a sense of danger and caution when you were wounded without the feeling of despair when you have only 2% health and anything larger then a mosquito will kill you in 1 hit (mosquito would have to hit you twice at that point).
The game that I think has the most annoying regenerating health is Alpha Protocol. the player's "Endurance" (Armor) seems to take a long time before it even starts coming back but this was not the big deal for me. The big deal was that the Bosses had the same regenerating armor. I remember fighting the Russian boss and getting frustrated because I'd take down his armor and start doing actual damage, then he'd chase me around the room some, I'd get blinded, and he'd back on the balcony above with his armor back.
But my problem with the "traditional" health system is that I'd find myself back tracking every time I got seriously wounded. it wasn't so bad when I needed to go back down the hall and down the stairs, it was when I was near the end of the level and the only health packs left in the level were the ones I passed at the start.
The game that I think has the most annoying regenerating health is Alpha Protocol. the player's "Endurance" (Armor) seems to take a long time before it even starts coming back but this was not the big deal for me. The big deal was that the Bosses had the same regenerating armor. I remember fighting the Russian boss and getting frustrated because I'd take down his armor and start doing actual damage, then he'd chase me around the room some, I'd get blinded, and he'd back on the balcony above with his armor back.
But my problem with the "traditional" health system is that I'd find myself back tracking every time I got seriously wounded. it wasn't so bad when I needed to go back down the hall and down the stairs, it was when I was near the end of the level and the only health packs left in the level were the ones I passed at the start.
You know, I actually do agree with you mostly, shooters with regenerating health sure seem popular at the moment, and I never minded the Health Meter, t'was great fun in Bioshock.
Only thing is that's just for shooters. I think there are some games where it fits. Look at TWEWY, you got all your health back at the end of a battle, but you were severly limited to how you could heal DURING battle. Plus, it meant the developer could make the battles tougher.
Only thing is that's just for shooters. I think there are some games where it fits. Look at TWEWY, you got all your health back at the end of a battle, but you were severly limited to how you could heal DURING battle. Plus, it meant the developer could make the battles tougher.
I feel the exact opposite. Regenerating health is a godsend for letting me get through a game with a consistent difficulty level.
Managing health was the worst part of Half-Life: always being afraid there wasn't a health station anywhere near me, or even worse past a fiddly jumping section that was going to get me killed anyway. Down to 15% health? Better reload, because there is no way I'm leaving the next room alive. Goodbye, immersion!
When you play a game with limited health, you are magnifying the player's skill level. A very bad player who just barely clears every encounter will find himself trapped in a huge difficulty spike, while a very good player will think "Another health pack? This game is so easy! I don't have to use your cover mechanic / creative weapons / etc. I can just stay on the assault rifle forever. Lame!"
Ultimately, the choice is whether your game is about the difficulty of individual encounters or cumulative encounters.
Managing health was the worst part of Half-Life: always being afraid there wasn't a health station anywhere near me, or even worse past a fiddly jumping section that was going to get me killed anyway. Down to 15% health? Better reload, because there is no way I'm leaving the next room alive. Goodbye, immersion!
When you play a game with limited health, you are magnifying the player's skill level. A very bad player who just barely clears every encounter will find himself trapped in a huge difficulty spike, while a very good player will think "Another health pack? This game is so easy! I don't have to use your cover mechanic / creative weapons / etc. I can just stay on the assault rifle forever. Lame!"
Ultimately, the choice is whether your game is about the difficulty of individual encounters or cumulative encounters.
When I started thinking about how health( or lack of it) added to the experience and how regenerative health would have ruined the game I instantly thought of the Max Payne series. Regenerative health would have destroyed the meaning behind the constant downing of painkillers and when you were low on health you knew that it all it would take is one of the pellets from a baddie's shotgun hitting their mark to take you out. While regenerating health would be useful, I fear it would end up becoming just as much of a crutch as quicksave and quickload thus killing the experience.
heres ideas(realistic death if these arent available/used):
TELEFIELD that ports bullets on the other side of you when theres enough phlebotinum
INFINITE REWIND
DEFLECTIVE SHIELD that doesnt autoregen.
ACTUAL FRAKKING ARMOR with pieces that need to be replaced when damaged
you guys here are right, I absolutely hated that bulletstorm had autoregen as much as i hate it elsewhere, wraps the gameplay around the cowardy stuff. Perhaps the skillshots only fulfill the same role of not having autoregen.
Serious proposal: we gotta make a show on gametrailers where we discuss all the possibilities that are blatantly ignored, in the face, lazybrains!
TELEFIELD that ports bullets on the other side of you when theres enough phlebotinum
INFINITE REWIND
DEFLECTIVE SHIELD that doesnt autoregen.
ACTUAL FRAKKING ARMOR with pieces that need to be replaced when damaged
you guys here are right, I absolutely hated that bulletstorm had autoregen as much as i hate it elsewhere, wraps the gameplay around the cowardy stuff. Perhaps the skillshots only fulfill the same role of not having autoregen.
Serious proposal: we gotta make a show on gametrailers where we discuss all the possibilities that are blatantly ignored, in the face, lazybrains!
I totally agree.
In Fable II, my character was a fat mother fucker because I always used to eat whatever I could get my hands on to re-gain health.
But in Fable III, they introduced gaining health by waiting, so I never ate, and my character looked exactly the same as everyone elses.
I literally just rolled around until my health was full.
Fable III was so goddamn shite. ¬_¬
In Fable II, my character was a fat mother fucker because I always used to eat whatever I could get my hands on to re-gain health.
But in Fable III, they introduced gaining health by waiting, so I never ate, and my character looked exactly the same as everyone elses.
I literally just rolled around until my health was full.
Fable III was so goddamn shite. ¬_¬
That would be glorious and I second this idea.ssManae said:
I love it when enemies do more than pop up from cover and fire. I like it when my enemies are scary because they're smart, not because of some gimmick like having more HP.
HL1 marines were scary to fight because they flanked you and tossed grenades. Imagine behavior like that where if you took too many hits you'd hear them communicating to each other that they scored a hit and calling to their compatriots to press the advantage.
It'd combine the notion of regenerating health's "resets" while still providing the "get health packs" notion of "you're in a really bad situation, are you a bad enough dude to salvage this and survive by the skin of your teeth?" Because you're wounded and they're coming, but if you're good enough you can compensate for your earlier mistake and buy some breathing room.
Well, discussions like this get to the root of the whole problems with "casual" gamers and how much the lowest human denominator is getting involved. Simply put these guys want to play the same games as the rest of us, but don't want to have to get seriously invested in things to actually become good at them, backtrack, or manage resources. Regenerating health is a decent way of ensuring that any gamers who wants to be persistance is going to be able to finish the game, if nothing else through absolute dumb luck and atttition since he can regenerate while the enemies probably don't recover their health or numbers as as reliably. Regenerating health might make the game too easy, or seem ridiculous to serious gamers, especially when overused, but it let's casual gamers feel they they are doing really well as opposed to being held by the hand with their replentishing "I Win Button".
We're also looking at the issue of game development having become a sort of grindhouse. It's rare for companies to be able to focus on one project at a time, I mean even Bioware is being forced to keep a bunch of balls in the air at once. Replentishing health can be a design crutch because it means you don't have to take as much time to balance out all the encounters to be challenging, but not frustrating and unbeatable. Health regeneration means that they can skimp on the actual game design parts of the game since if they make things too hard or whatever they can rely on people being able to bull through with regenerating health. What's more people tend to think it's a sign of an intense fight when they are taking damage, regenerating health allows them to mine this feeling, giving the illusion of intensity,
when it doesn't matter so much because the health comes back.
To be entirely honest, I think the mechanic works in some cases, but it too frequently exploited. I think a lot of games use it well, but most suffer because of it. I'd like to see it done away with, because honstly it seems to make "shooter" games which were always kind of the ghetto of game design to begin with, even relatively easier to churn out.
We're also looking at the issue of game development having become a sort of grindhouse. It's rare for companies to be able to focus on one project at a time, I mean even Bioware is being forced to keep a bunch of balls in the air at once. Replentishing health can be a design crutch because it means you don't have to take as much time to balance out all the encounters to be challenging, but not frustrating and unbeatable. Health regeneration means that they can skimp on the actual game design parts of the game since if they make things too hard or whatever they can rely on people being able to bull through with regenerating health. What's more people tend to think it's a sign of an intense fight when they are taking damage, regenerating health allows them to mine this feeling, giving the illusion of intensity,
when it doesn't matter so much because the health comes back.
To be entirely honest, I think the mechanic works in some cases, but it too frequently exploited. I think a lot of games use it well, but most suffer because of it. I'd like to see it done away with, because honstly it seems to make "shooter" games which were always kind of the ghetto of game design to begin with, even relatively easier to churn out.
I agree, I rememberd when I first played COD... uh 2 was it? that I thought "what the hell! this is stupid!" and from then on just got used to the fact that every new fps had it... Again its a matter of game companies going with "what's popular" even if its not that specific feature that is popular to us gamers...
I really can't say what was going through the devs minds when they came up with the regen idea... all I can think of is "its going to be a console game, which is harder to control.. so we have to make it easier"... or possibly that they wanted to throw more enemies your way and didn't believe a sustained fight like that could possibly be won without health kits... or like you said, maybe they just got annoyed with having to make healthkit items...
but like many things, game companies need to evolve, not just copy... so i'd say its about time to move on
I really can't say what was going through the devs minds when they came up with the regen idea... all I can think of is "its going to be a console game, which is harder to control.. so we have to make it easier"... or possibly that they wanted to throw more enemies your way and didn't believe a sustained fight like that could possibly be won without health kits... or like you said, maybe they just got annoyed with having to make healthkit items...
but like many things, game companies need to evolve, not just copy... so i'd say its about time to move on