Far Cry 2 had it right. You could pull out bullets, clean your wounds, pull out shrapnel and take pain relief drugs.
Extra Punctuation: Why Regenerating Health Sucks
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Far Cry 2 had it right. You could pull out bullets, clean your wounds, pull out shrapnel and take pain relief drugs.
It has its benefits, but the only times when I ever got down to just one party member, it was always because I'd done something dumb, and I find that I enjoy the games that encourage you not to do dumb stuff much more than the ones that let you get away with it indefinitely.Falseprophet said:
Actually, a main reason for regenerating health's popularity is it let the developers know exactly how much health you had at any given moment. I must say though, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R., those games with non regenerating health are systems I miss. It's just so stupidly unrealistic most of the time, getting pumped full of lead and then not dieing. The biggest culprit of this was Army of Two. It just didn't seem... right. Two regular guys taking on armies and getting shot to shit without trouble. The ruff and gruffness of Gears of War sorta made the regenerating health... natural. It doesn't feel off. You're simply too much of a badass. Uncharted 2 did it in a way that it seemed more like you were getting close to hit rather than actually hit, so it felt pretty good there too. The only games I really think make sense using regenerating health are the Halo games. It's just technology! Reach and Halo 1 have medkits too, and one shot to the head kills you once your shield is gone. It's as realistic is you're gonna get while still allowing the player to run in and kill some aliens with little worry.
Health regeneration isn't inherently bad, its just done to extremes. Recovering health rapidly after a battle is fine, recovering health slowly during battle is fine, what isn't fine is recovering all your health super quick after not being hit for 2 seconds.
With regard to the points about different healing systems games could implement, i think Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines has a very good system, combining two possible methods, in that game your health regenerated by itself, slowly and this was supplemented by feeding on humans or blood packs.
With regard to the points about different healing systems games could implement, i think Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines has a very good system, combining two possible methods, in that game your health regenerated by itself, slowly and this was supplemented by feeding on humans or blood packs.
Yes, having a few hitpoints remaining and getting scared over dying soon because there might not be some medipacks nearby was nice and thrilling.
But so was having just one more life in the 9th world in Super Mario Bros, with your lose of that life signifying going all over again with your game, but I don't see Meat Boy or any recent platformer doing something like that. The point I'm making is that even if the challenge was good, it was cheap and frustrating to many people.
But so was having just one more life in the 9th world in Super Mario Bros, with your lose of that life signifying going all over again with your game, but I don't see Meat Boy or any recent platformer doing something like that. The point I'm making is that even if the challenge was good, it was cheap and frustrating to many people.
You forgot to mention the effect regenerating health has on multiplayer games with regard to "reset after each fight". Use to be that if you lost a fight, the opposing player would still walk off with all the damage you inflicted...thereby assisting your teammate in completing the kill himself...Yahtzee Croshaw said:
Nowadays, its not progressive, its all or nothing. Wait a few seconds and your back to full health...
what i heard is that regenerating health is great in a developer perspective because if not they won't know for example how much health you have before a boss fight. for example they must either hope you're a good player or place a stash with health weapons and ammo right before the boss which hints the player that a boss fight is up.
i'm not at all saying this justifies regenerating health and it feels like the developers just hopes we would be fine with it. and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
i also think regenerating health goes hand in hand with a checkpoint system (which is a console offspring) opposed to quick saves (that is more of a PC thing).
i'm not at all saying this justifies regenerating health and it feels like the developers just hopes we would be fine with it. and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
i also think regenerating health goes hand in hand with a checkpoint system (which is a console offspring) opposed to quick saves (that is more of a PC thing).
Nice article, VERY nice ideas! I would love to see them being used someday, like luck bar, walking it off, and more health stations. That would add more strategy and thinking, planning and, for me, fun to games!
I think the 'Health by station' idea would work, but not in games like COD where you die insanely quickly. Unless they put a health station around every corner.
Hey Yahtzee, check out Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I think you may enjoy it; it's an interesting puzzle game. Also, it is pretty scary/creepy.
P.S. Play it with the lights off and volume up. It will test your mind and scare you.
P.S. Play it with the lights off and volume up. It will test your mind and scare you.
I've been noticing a disturbing trend recently Yahtzee, for the last few months you've been saying a lot of stuff that I completely agree with...
Either you're turning into a proper hardcore gamer or i'm going soft ;-)
Either you're turning into a proper hardcore gamer or i'm going soft ;-)
oh yes, the joys of having 10 Hp going into a fights that takes 20 away from you in the first microsecond and having to restart the level beacose the developers were too stupid to put a med pack somewhere
fuck this shit, I <3 my regen HP
and the whole realism argument is a just a red heering, no one invented regenerative health to make it more realistic, they made it to avoid the bullshit I mentioned above
fuck this shit, I <3 my regen HP
and the whole realism argument is a just a red heering, no one invented regenerative health to make it more realistic, they made it to avoid the bullshit I mentioned above
I know that I'm straying away from the discussed genres here (and that my examples have probably been mentioned already), but both Shadow of the Colossus and Portal have pretty impressively fast health regeneration - and I don't think it affects gameplay negatively *at all* in either case.
id say there is only two situation in which regenerating health is acseptabl and that is in multiplayer first person shooters and the second is rpgs (with a regen skill) i hate it when helth regen is in a sp game it ruins the chalange if you make a mistake in hl1 you pay for it if you do it in call of duty 4 onwards you are rewarded there is no chalange in that (i seem to recall the first 3 usin health packs but might be thinking of medal of honor) oh and Yahtzee if you find your self in a dry month or want to iratate dragonage fanboys pleese review system shock 2
Regenerating health, by itself, really isn't so bad, nor is it a bad concept, by default. The problem is that the system has been inappropriately shoe-horned into so many games where a much different health system is needed(game developers decide to be lazy and just copy-paste a gimmick that worked in one top selling AAA game; go figure), or at least modify the rate of regeneration to be consistent with the requirement of maintaining challenge within the game. Honestly, I don't think there is a single health system that works universally. The best health system to implement will depend on the nature and strategies specific to the game being developed, not what wasq used in the last AAA blockbuster.
Off-Topic Rant: I am increasingly of the opinion that the game industry, as a whole, really needs to divorce itself of this AAA blockbuster mentality. It is a model of game design, development, promotion, and experience that, in my opinion, has only served to substantially increase cost(to the publisher, developer, and gamer), completely destroy creativity, and create a burden of risk that only the largest, most consolidated game development conglomerates(like EA) can actually bear. Also, given the cost and time commitments necessary to many of these AAA games, it seems increasingly more difficult for gamers to deal with more than a handful of games, either because they just can't afford them or they just don't have the time to play them. The model was fine years ago when only 1-2 such games would appear in a given year. But, now that this is the expected norm with almost every release and there being 4 or more such releases a year, the whole thing just seems to be collapsing under its own weight. I feel that the idea has just been extended beyond its regime of applicability.
Off-Topic Rant: I am increasingly of the opinion that the game industry, as a whole, really needs to divorce itself of this AAA blockbuster mentality. It is a model of game design, development, promotion, and experience that, in my opinion, has only served to substantially increase cost(to the publisher, developer, and gamer), completely destroy creativity, and create a burden of risk that only the largest, most consolidated game development conglomerates(like EA) can actually bear. Also, given the cost and time commitments necessary to many of these AAA games, it seems increasingly more difficult for gamers to deal with more than a handful of games, either because they just can't afford them or they just don't have the time to play them. The model was fine years ago when only 1-2 such games would appear in a given year. But, now that this is the expected norm with almost every release and there being 4 or more such releases a year, the whole thing just seems to be collapsing under its own weight. I feel that the idea has just been extended beyond its regime of applicability.
