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.
