Poll: Regenerating health

[LaughingAtlas]

I prefer to think of regenerating health as morale, LOTRO style. "Your character isn't taking damage until the death blow is struck, it's just their fighting spirit" or something like that. It seemed to me "I'm hurt and used medicine/bandages to patch myself up a bit" usually made a bit more sense than "I R MAJIK MAN"

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Something along the lines of PDZ is probably the best. A mix of both static and regenerative health. The reason static health works in HL and FO3 is because they are designed around static health. Same as static health in CoD or Halo would just make the game too hard. Also I hate the FC2 way of doing it. Especially when you get enemies that shoot you from full health and you lose a little over one sub bar.

I find it breaks from realism. Especially in modern war games.

In BF 1942 or 2142 if you lived after an engagement, you were on the brink of death. No amount of sucking your thumb could change that. Calling for a medic to patch you up, which took time, could.

Regenerating health was one of many things which made war games less realistic.

Again to use BF 1942/2142 as the examples. You had clips of ammo, not this magical "Loose" ammo you have. Fire 9 shots of a 30 shot clip and reload? Congratulations, you just threw away 21 bullets.

Regenerating health, magical clips, all of these were added to shooters and all of them made them more ridiculous. Yeah, I know its unrealistic that a medic on the battlefield can sort you out so quickly. But it is significantly more unrealistic that taking cover for 10 seconds will allow you to recover from just about anything.

This is why I play things like CoD on "One shot kill" mode. It is the only way of making the game partially realistic.

You do know on the ammo thing for it to be realistic it should be like Socom. They don't throw away their magazine they keep them to refill them after. So after reloading a lot you should rotate back to the click with 9 shots gone.

 

[Rayne870]

I vaguely remember playing a game that you regenerated only up to 50% of your health, the rest was up to health recovery items.

 

[A Silent Enigma]

It depends completely on the type of game that is being made. Devs need to pick which system works best for their game and go from there. I don't find one system better then other.

 

[Jordi]

What's the alternative? Stuff like potions and health packs aren't exactly realistic either. It depends on the game what works best.

Personally, I think a system where you have multiple health bars works the best. You can regenerate all of the health in one bar over time, but when a bar is completely depleted, you need some sort of health item to get it back.

This is an interesting idea. A regenerating bar, and when that depletes you take damage from the solid bar, which must be refilled with health items.

I really like that idea. You should publicize this, maybe mail it in to some devs.

Thanks, but unfortunately I didn't come up with it myself. I think I saw it first in the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and others have already pointed out that it has been done in a couple of other games as well.

 

[Snotnarok]

Health kits are the most realistic thing ever to be in a game, let me provide an example:

Spoiler

OT: Both are fine but I'd like to see more variety instead of every shooter having regen health and cranberry sauce on the screen till I'm good to go.

 

[Apauling]

I liked the Dragon Age way of doing things. It did recover in battle, but so slowly it made little difference. Out of battle was when it started to recover faster.

I vaguely remember playing a game that you regenerated only up to 50% of your health, the rest was up to health recovery items.

This is another Idea I like. The difficulty could be set by how much health is restored. Players could, if they wished, turn off regeneration completely or limit it to whatever percentage they wish.

 

[shroomie]

I'd say the best thing to go for would be some kind of compromise. Halo Reach did this quite well by using a shield bar which regenerated and a health bar which didn't, you had to obtain health packs. This gave players who may have started off in a bad situation more of a fair chance whilst still limiting them as they couldnt run out, lose all their shield and soak up 1000 bullets with their health bars and then go cry in a corner til it all came back.

 

[Vohn_exel]

I think it suits some games, but not others. As has been stated, a game that compromises works pretty well. Sort of like Just Cause 2, where it'd regenerate like a third of the way but the rest would have to be done with healing packs.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

I'm against it in most cases, it just makes some games too easy. Especially in CoD games where it happens too fast for my liking.

I'm not a fan of medpacks either though, health regen is fine out of combat. It should take a decent amount of time too, 20 seconds sounds about right for me. But I'm not everyone so I think games should include more user preference (health regen on/off, regen speed, active inside combat on/off etc) if it's not too difficult for devs to implement.

 

[Gigano]

I much preferred health packs over regenerating health; with one, you have to fight on and progress in order to survive, with the other you have to continuously run away and hide.

Which is more fun?

 

[LitleWaffle]

What's the alternative? Stuff like potions and health packs aren't exactly realistic either.

To me, it isn't whether it is realistic or not, since most FPS's are nowhere near realistic.

However, I feel as if regenerating health takes out a large chunk of strategy and common sense to a game.

If you are low on health, you snoop around trying to get some more health without being noticed by the enemy to stay alive, that's a lot of fun and a challenge.

A sniper can than become more effective with non-regenerating health(These examples are not including head shots).
A sniper can support their other teammates by weakening the health of enemies before another teammate gets to him, making an easier kill.
A sniper can also pick off enemies easily that have been injured.

Without regenerating health, you can't just charge in guns blazing and hope you succeed. You need to have more strategy than that.

 

[Neonit]

im all for health regen. but it should be slowed down a bit. right now its basicly "shoot till your screen turns red, sit for a 5 secs, repeat"
i like how it makes game more fluid, but i hate when it dumbs down gameplay.

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

Regenerative health is great for online multiplayer and some shooters. However, I vastly prefer health bars. Just look at Half-Life 2; sometimes, you're stuck with 3 health points and have to figure out "how can i get through this fight without taking damage?" It makes the game a lot harder and also more rewarding -- though its also harder to design, which explains the vast number of regenerative health bars nowadays.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I still think that Halo 1, ODST and Reach did it best. A regenerating shield, with non-regenerating health once the shield has been broken through.

Problem is that that'll only work in SciFi games, possibly Fantasy too if you're willing to go as far as accepting some sort of "magic shield" or "enchanted armor".

It all really falls down to the type of game though. You can't really compare games with static health that are RPG based or exploration themed to the new crop of fast paced FPS games littering the bargain bins. In games like CoD where the bullets are hyper lethal and you're often brought to the brink of death just diving from cover to cover, a static health bar would be detrimental to game play and discourage you from advancing. In the stealth or horror games, conversely, static health works just fine. It forces you to plan each encounter and prepare for snags accordingly. Just made the checkpoint with 1 HP? Tough luck. Perhaps you should've pushed that guard over the railing and made it look like an accident rather than kicking down the door with only a pistol on you and alerting him and his 5 machine gun totting friends.

Multiplayer is a different story. I can understand a rechargeable overshield like Halo uses, or a health bar that partially recharges after taking a breather, but completely rechargeable health just seems kinda cheap. It reminds of two LARPers going at it over whether a protection ward defends against sword-through-torso.

 

[Jordi]

What's the alternative? Stuff like potions and health packs aren't exactly realistic either.

To me, it isn't whether it is realistic or not, since most FPS's are nowhere near realistic.

However, I feel as if regenerating health takes out a large chunk of strategy and common sense to a game.

If you are low on health, you snoop around trying to get some more health without being noticed by the enemy to stay alive, that's a lot of fun and a challenge.

A sniper can than become more effective with non-regenerating health(These examples are not including head shots).
A sniper can support their other teammates by weakening the health of enemies before another teammate gets to him, making an easier kill.
A sniper can also pick off enemies easily that have been injured.

Without regenerating health, you can't just charge in guns blazing and hope you succeed. You need to have more strategy than that.

I agree that realism in and of itself is not necessarily a good thing, and I should have said that. It's just that it is often mentioned in debates about this. The most important thing is of course how much fun it is to play, and although in some cases (and for some players) a little bit of realism may help, it is also often detrimental.

I wasn't trying to say that health items are always bad, just that they are just as unrealistic. I can certainly see how not having health regeneration can add a strategic layer. For some shooters, that is great. For other shooters it might just slow down the action (because if you're low on health, you can't really join the fray). Also, some people don't like scavenging for these items. It all depends on the game.

 

[themrwinkleman]

I would be very interested in playing say, COD Black Ops without regenerating health. Imagine people actually using cover during gameplay? Laying down accurate fire, operating as a section/squad, afraid to run around regardless of their lives? Thad would be intriguing.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

I prefer the regeneration. That's not to say that health packs don't have their place, it's a design choice that will depend on the game. In Half-Life, for example, the health packs encourage exploration and in Fallout, healing yourself is part of the whole "survival" process that makes the game compelling. However, in most shooters I find that the regeneration system works well to keep the action going whilst constantly giving you a sense of peril. I remember playing health-pack paradigm games where you would get down to really low health and have to wander around really slowly because one shot would kill you. Whilst that's kind of exciting, it's also very frustrating and more often than not you lose a lot of progress as a result of actually playing rather well. Like I said though, it depends on the focus of the game. I think regen is best for action-heavy games whilst survival games should favour the health pack. I don't think we should get stuck in one way or the other.

 

[Souplex]

Works for most shooters. Examples where a health bar would be better:
Shooters with a cover system.
Stealth games.
FPSRPGs.
Survival horror.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I would be very interested in playing say, COD Black Ops without regenerating health. Imagine people actually using cover during gameplay? Laying down accurate fire, operating as a section/squad, afraid to run around regardless of their lives? Thad would be intriguing.

You've got to remember though the problem with medkit based health regen is that (in online MP at least) it encourages cheaper players to health-camp, either to quickly heal their own wounds or to pick up easy kills against wounded stragglers. If played with good intent medkits can greatly increase the tactical value of a game, true. But if everyone played with good intent snipers wouldn't overlook spawn points and heavies wouldn't sit on the rocketlaunchers all match long.

Personally I prefer medkits, but it causes problems and regenerating health is currently the best (but still imperfect) solution to those problems.