Healing

[Malbourne]

I don't see words like "verisimilitude" in enough web comics. I must be looking in all the wrong places.

 

[Right Hook]

Brothers in Arms almost had the healing system right, usually you'd simply be "At Risk To Being Hit" by stepping out of cover.

Occasionally you'd get shot and take large amounts of damage that you couldn't heal from (unless I'm wrong, I don't think that game had med-packs or they were at least rare).

Sometimes you'd get shot one time and the injury would be to somewhere vital and you'd die on the spot.

I think the perfect system would balance how open you are to damage, slowly upping the rate based on distance and length of time out of cover, which would lead to you getting shot. Sometimes just to wound you, causing permanent ill effects for that level like slowed movement or poorer aim. Other times killing you, especially if you've sustained prior wounds or it just happened to hit a vital. The percentages would all be tweaked based on your difficulty level and this might not work as well in a multiplayer game.

 

[Talvrae]

let's face it, healing never was never will be realist in game. Would not be fun

 

[Muspelheim]

In Zone, we also medkits carry. When you of shot or lick by bloodsucker, you eat medkit. Is crunchy, mother Zone makes your teeth stronk!

If comrade is bleeding, you must of feed him medkit! Help him chew! We are all bratvi in the Zone.

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101101103122/stalker/images/6/66/MedkitCS01.jpg

Imagine is chocolate box. Taste of better. Taste of a true Stalker.

let's face it, healing never was never will be realist in game. Would not be fun

There was an ArmA 2 mod that gave it a go, I think. It was rather amusing, even if it was far too complicated for me to get the hang of. I think I killed more friendlies ending up in my tender "care" than the enemies did.

I don't mind games trying, but I suppose you're right. That shouldn't be their main consideration, put it that way.

 

[Zak757]

Now that we're back to Erin hallucinating video game characters, can we stay here and not be another Penny Arcade? That'd be great.

Oddly enough, I just started playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R (why the periods Ukraine, why?) with the Misery mod, and you actually do use med kits realistically. You lean over, open up the med kit, the screen goes black for a dozen seconds or so, and then you're back. It takes a good minute to heal up past that point.

 

[Brennan]

XCOM:EU/EW actually does it close to realistically (especially with the Second Wave options turned on). If a squadmember gets hurt, you can apply a medkit (some kind of spray, which is unrealistic, but there may be non-FDA-ready super science or alien tech involved), but they'll still be spending the same amount of time in the infirmary afterward either way, so it's implied to be a temporary bandage-and-stimulant stopgap rather than actual healing. One of the Second Wave settings makes it so the soldier's stats are degraded proportionally to their health loss for the duration of the mission, even if they get a medkit. It's IMO actually one of the most punishing options, as it tends to make wounded soldiers as useless as dead ones.

In most games, I never bother thinking about the "real" mechanics of health-ups. In fact I kinda don't understand the mindset. It's clearly not intended to be in any way literal. If the exact same story were being told via a book or a movie, they wouldn't even exist at all (or would be contextually similar/the same as real world first aid). It's like... I dunno... trying to take New Vegas's invisible walls literally, or Leon Kennedy's giant inventory suitcase.

I do prefer non-regenerating health though. Health regen just sucks all the variety and tension out of fights, and turns everything into a samey Rambo-fest. I don't really care about realism, but I've found I really appreciate the depth non-regen health creates.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Holy crap, somebody else who likes Streets of Rage over Final Fight. Most people would just have drawn Cody or Haggar there, and I respect that you took another option.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

I always thought the medkits in Half-Life worked through injection. Unless my memory of them making a hissing noise is from somewhere else.

They do indeed. I actually never thought about it that way in all the years I've been playing those games and Team Fortress 2, maybe because I've always paid more attention to the fact that they also beep for some reason.

With Freeman, I always assumed that 'Health' was an indication of 'how much the HEV is currently equipped to deal with'...a medkit wasn't healing you on pickup, it was re-stocking the suit's internal medical systems, which were frenticly working to keep Gordon upright and mobile all the time. He'd get shot, and the suit would immediately expend whatever it had on hand to seal the leak, and be quietly working on that until it was 'good enough' any time Gordon wasn't actively being shot some more.

That works, until you get up to the later chapters in Half-Life 2 where you see NPCs giving each other medkits to heal with.

 

[VaporWare]

With Freeman, I always assumed that 'Health' was an indication of 'how much the HEV is currently equipped to deal with'...a medkit wasn't healing you on pickup, it was re-stocking the suit's internal medical systems, which were frenticly working to keep Gordon upright and mobile all the time. He'd get shot, and the suit would immediately expend whatever it had on hand to seal the leak, and be quietly working on that until it was 'good enough' any time Gordon wasn't actively being shot some more.

That works, until you get up to the later chapters in Half-Life 2 where you see NPCs giving each other medkits to heal with.

I remember them carrying medkits as supplies, yes, and seeing rebel medics treating injured people with them, rather than 'instahealing' like Gordon. So for me, that didn't upset that illusion. But I could be misremembering...it's been awhile.

 

[Falsename]

THERE ARE 5 PANELS, THE LAST GAME WAS HALF LIFE 2!

5 - 2 = 3

HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!!

 

[Metalrocks]

for some odd reason i just had to laugh all the time. no wonder freeman can wonder all over the place being that high.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

You forgot my favorite kind of healing. The "I found an undefined meat haunch inexplicably stashed in the crumbling walls of a centuries old castle" variety.

Which I suppose one could argue is just a subset of the Magical Barrel Turkey.

While we're on the subject though. Can I mention how much the healing in Space Marine bugged me? The one game where regenerating over time could have been explained away with in game canon and they instead go for an obtuse kill based healing system.

 

[immortalfrieza]

With Freeman, I always assumed that 'Health' was an indication of 'how much the HEV is currently equipped to deal with'...a medkit wasn't healing you on pickup, it was re-stocking the suit's internal medical systems, which were frenticly working to keep Gordon upright and mobile all the time. He'd get shot, and the suit would immediately expend whatever it had on hand to seal the leak, and be quietly working on that until it was 'good enough' any time Gordon wasn't actively being shot some more.

That works, until you get up to the later chapters in Half-Life 2 where you see NPCs giving each other medkits to heal with.

I remember them carrying medkits as supplies, yes, and seeing rebel medics treating injured people with them, rather than 'instahealing' like Gordon. So for me, that didn't upset that illusion. But I could be misremembering...it's been awhile.

You have to remember that Gordon is also pretty much the only one walking around with a suit that's a hazardous environment suit, medical suit, and military combat suit all in one. The rest are stuck administering medkits the old fashioned way while Gordan can just plug em in and have them work.

OT: One of my favorite ways a game made use of healing was how "Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth" did it. In that medkits didn't work instantly and you have to pick up stuff to heal specific injuries. The player had to go into the menu, pick an injury, and then when you left the menu the character would go through an animation bandaging the injuries and so forth that got longer depending on how many injuries you had done at once before the wounds were healed. It kept medkits from being used as insta healing especially mid combat and semi-realistic but at the same time avoided the issue of realistic time.

 

[DataSnake]

With Freeman, I always assumed that 'Health' was an indication of 'how much the HEV is currently equipped to deal with'...a medkit wasn't healing you on pickup, it was re-stocking the suit's internal medical systems, which were frenticly working to keep Gordon upright and mobile all the time. He'd get shot, and the suit would immediately expend whatever it had on hand to seal the leak, and be quietly working on that until it was 'good enough' any time Gordon wasn't actively being shot some more.

That would also explain why poison headcrabs will always reduce your health to 1 but not kill you, no matter what it started at: they contaminate the suit's medical supplies, but it flushes the tainted meds before they can harm Gordon.

 

[Olas]

Making fun of how unrealistically videogame characters heal? How do you guys come up with this amazing stuff?

Yeah. Not very realistic. xD

But "realistic" healing would be kind of boring. Me personally?

I like healing spells. They can be "unrealistic" and still keep you immersed. Because Magic! >

Actually, the idea of a game where you receive damage realistically and can't just heal like magic sounds like an interesting idea. Getting hit in different parts of the body would limit what you could do and you'd have to worry about managing blood loss and maybe even infections. Of course the game would have to be designed with these mechanics in mind, you couldn't have this in your standard action shooter or you'd be torn apart in no time.

With Freeman, I always assumed that 'Health' was an indication of 'how much the HEV is currently equipped to deal with'...a medkit wasn't healing you on pickup, it was re-stocking the suit's internal medical systems, which were frenticly working to keep Gordon upright and mobile all the time. He'd get shot, and the suit would immediately expend whatever it had on hand to seal the leak, and be quietly working on that until it was 'good enough' any time Gordon wasn't actively being shot some more.

That doesn't really mesh with how health works in the game. When you get hurt your health drops instantly, and you die as soon as your health reaches zero. Besides, the game already has an energy bar which works pretty similarly. What would be a neat mechanic is if you had to manually heal yourself by draining the energy bar or a third bar that's like what you described.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Making fun of how unrealistically videogame characters heal? How do you guys come up with this amazing stuff?

Yeah. Not very realistic. xD

But "realistic" healing would be kind of boring. Me personally?

I like healing spells. They can be "unrealistic" and still keep you immersed. Because Magic! >

Actually, the idea of a game where you receive damage realistically and can't just heal like magic sounds like an interesting idea. Getting hit in different parts of the body would limit what you could do and you'd have to worry about managing blood loss and maybe even infections. Of course the game would have to be designed with these mechanics in mind, you couldn't have this in your standard action shooter or you'd be torn apart in no time.

The third Metal Gear game had something like that, it worked a bit like your idea, not everything you said, but a few. I agree, making a more robust system like the one in MGS3 would be neat.

However, what I meant was, like you said, if you had people "realistically" have to heal/get hurt in most games, you'd pretty much just be increasing the number of times they die. ;p
Even in MGS3, I'm sure if you had a doctor watching you play, you'd find out that "No, Snake can't just take all those bullets and hornets out of his skin, wrap himself up, and get on with saving the day".

Granted, some people like that, but it's not for me.

 

[gamegod25]

That Gordon Freeman is an imposter, he NEVER talks! XD

probably the most "realistic" healing system I can recall was the one in Call of Cthulhu where you had to treat each wound and they would gradually heal.

 

[Stu35]

I'm slightly upset Operation Flashpoint hasn't had a mention yet.

There were no health packs in that game, you needed a squad medic if you wanted healing, a shot to the leg would see you crawling on the floor, a shot to the torso or head would kill you.

None of this "charge at the enemy, take 50 bullets, take cover, heal up, repeat until enemy is dead" bollocks. A gamer had to THINK to stay alive in Operation Flashpoint (especially because the AI was programmed in such a way that firing your weapon as the player character made you the target of every enemy weapon in the vicinity, regardless of how much threat you posed compared to the NPC tank that was trundling along nearby).