Regenerating health

[Zantos]

This is an issue that comes up every time someone brings up, well pretty much any shooter game, and I'm just wondering

Did I miss the memo where regenerating health automatically makes a game bad?

Now I know a lot of it is down to personal taste and all, and fair play to you if you prefer health bars, a lot of good games use them. Seriously though, there's quite a few games that get dismissed on here simply because it has regenerating health. It happens whenever someone brings up Halo, Call of Duty and most recently Duke Nukem.

A special mention also has to go to the "it's not realistic at all" argument, clearly from people who seem to believe bullet wounds and blunt force trauma can be cured by some morphine, a few bandages or a power nap. A few games have tried realistic, turns out one shot and you're dead or crippled doesn't make for a particularly popular game.

 

[MercurySteam]

Some games utilize it just as it should be done like the Saints Row/Red Faction games. I really don't see the issue.

 

[Couch Radish]

This is an issue that comes up every time someone brings up, well pretty much any shooter game, and I'm just wondering

Did I miss the memo where regenerating health automatically makes a game bad?

Now I know a lot of it is down to personal taste and all, and fair play to you if you prefer health bars, a lot of good games use them. Seriously though, there's quite a few games that get dismissed on here simply because it has regenerating health. It happens whenever someone brings up Halo, Call of Duty and most recently Duke Nukem.

A special mention also has to go to the "it's not realistic at all" argument, clearly from people who seem to believe bullet wounds and blunt force trauma can be cured by some morphine, a few bandages or a power nap. A few games have tried realistic, turns out one shot and you're dead or crippled doesn't make for a particularly popular game.

The problem with regenerating health is that low health encourages people to try different approaches to situations or to search to solve the problem of low health.

Say that you're going to break into an enemy stronghold, but you don't have enough health to storm in. You could try being sneaky, take them down from far away, find health, etc.

But as Yahtzee mentioned in his Extra Punctuation "Why Regenerating Health Sucks":

What regenerating health also does is effectively reset the game between every fight. Nothing is carried over, it's just a sequence of unconnected and yet eerily similar gunfights. Without health restoratives, you're also limiting the means by which the player can be rewarded for exploring or finding secrets. All you can offer is more ammo, which they can pick up all the time from fallen enemies anyway.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/8719-Extra-Punctuation-Why-Regenerating-Health-Sucks

 

[Johnnyallstar]

It doesn't make them bad, but it's an easy convention for games. I've always liked the life bar, but having the health packs, or healing stations can really screw up a game's atmosphere if done incorrectly.

I like how Halo: Combat Evolved, and Reach had the regenerating shields and the life bar because in games like Half Life 2, neither shields nor life regenerate, and both required pickups or stations to refill, so they were basically the same thing, just different bars.

 

[Ninjat_126]

In Half Life, the shields shielded you from damage rather than being another health bar. Same as in Doom with armour.

I like the idea of health regen bringing you back up to full if you've only suffered some minor scratches or taking you a little further from the edge of death, but not bringing you back up to full.

The Last Stand: Union City (A flash game currently in closed Beta) has partial regen, where you can regenerate most of the damage you suffer if you wait for a long time. However, every hit does permanent damage and you'll need to use medkits to survive assaults.

Resistance:FOM had a health bar in 4 regenerating quarters, with health packs to refill quarters.

Metro 2033 had health regen slowly, so in battle medkits really helped you stay alive as well as giving a regen boost.

 

[kidd25]

for casual gamer it would be like this in a shooter, shoot-shoot-shoot-hide-shoot and they like that formula, but if dev took that away from casual gamer most of them would be like shoot-shoot-shoot-hi wait AGAIN i need another health pack but im running out why is this game so hard it suck. While i may be pushing it a bit that is how i see the casual respones would be.
side note: i like the health bar system in bioshock cause it keep my heart racing when i was low on health and i wanted to little sister. i may have died twenty times, but i finally did it, now where can i get some health?

 

[Zantos]

This is an issue that comes up every time someone brings up, well pretty much any shooter game, and I'm just wondering

Did I miss the memo where regenerating health automatically makes a game bad?

Now I know a lot of it is down to personal taste and all, and fair play to you if you prefer health bars, a lot of good games use them. Seriously though, there's quite a few games that get dismissed on here simply because it has regenerating health. It happens whenever someone brings up Halo, Call of Duty and most recently Duke Nukem.

A special mention also has to go to the "it's not realistic at all" argument, clearly from people who seem to believe bullet wounds and blunt force trauma can be cured by some morphine, a few bandages or a power nap. A few games have tried realistic, turns out one shot and you're dead or crippled doesn't make for a particularly popular game.

The problem with regenerating health is that low health encourages people to try different approaches to situations or to search to solve the problem of low health.

Say that you're going to break into an enemy stronghold, but you don't have enough health to storm in. You could try being sneaky, take them down from far away, find health, etc.

But as Yahtzee mentioned in his Extra Punctuation "Why Regenerating Health Sucks":

What regenerating health also does is effectively reset the game between every fight. Nothing is carried over, it's just a sequence of unconnected and yet eerily similar gunfights. Without health restoratives, you're also limiting the means by which the player can be rewarded for exploring or finding secrets. All you can offer is more ammo, which they can pick up all the time from fallen enemies anyway.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/8719-Extra-Punctuation-Why-Regenerating-Health-Sucks

Thanks for the link, I was going to read that but totally forgot.

And although I'd like to agree in principle, last games I played with health bars really limited your approach to situations to the point where it was just "which gun will you use?". Plus the one I was playing recently (Half Life 2, maybe) I was tripping over health packs to the point where my health might as well have regenerated between battles.

Can you give me a game where the health bar is done well? I'm interested to see how it affects it if it's done properly.

 

[Katana314]

Screw regenerating health, my pet peeve is now people who complain about an opinion that not many people have even spoken in a long time.

-Regenerating health = bad
-PC gaming is far superior to console gaming
-DNF is bad simply because it wasn't worth the wait, and not because it's a bad game on its own

etc.

 

[Meggiepants]

Regenerating health is not a bad thing.

Not having regenerating health in a game like Fallout for instance, just forces the player to carry around a bunch of "health potions." I hate this. It's not tactical, those things don't weigh anything and by the end of the game you have hundreds of them. It's just annoying. The health doesn't have to regenerate as fast as all that to still be something that makes you plan your fights carefully. It just means you don't have to carry potions everywhere with you.

In games like GTA4, this is extremely fucking annoying. It's added tedium. I don't care if health doesn't regenerate when you are in active battle, but for fuck's sake, don't make me hunt down a chicken shack to heal after I finish my gunfight.

 

[KimonoBoxFox]

-Regenerating health = bad
-PC gaming is far superior to console gaming

*coughPortalcough*

That is to say, regenerating health isn't as bad as shooters where all the action in the game boils down to a protracted game of "Red Light Green Light" where you die from snipers that instantly ascertain your position if you don't draw and pick them off faster than they can pick you off.

That's right, I'm looking at you, Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Also, I sort of miss Deus Ex's "head, limbs, and torso have seperate health" thing, where you could lose use of an arm or leg, or suffer from a concussion, and still survive. It at least took the health-points system and made it effect your gameplay, so you're not simply an immortal, unstoppable refrigerator-man until you pass the threshold between 1 health and 0 health.

 

[Mr. Omega]

I don't mind regenerating health.... when it makes sense.

In Halo, it makes sense. You have high-powered space armor and are the result of a super-soldier program. The thing that did most of the regenerating was the shield.

In Duke Nukem, it makes sense for the most part. They don't even call it "Health". So it's not like his wounds are healing instantly. But you what? Even if it was health, it'd still make sense for Duke Nukem. There's a ton of excuses they could use. Rage makes him ignore the pain. He's so manly, bullets don't hurt him. He's so awesome that he can undo the damage. So on...

In CoD, there's a simple matter of choice. Health in video games in general destroys the "realism" thing they're going for. So it was a choice. I think health packs might have encouraged more straightforward run and gun in the single player. But it would have seriously encouraged camping in Multiplayer.

Personally? I prefer the Bad Company 2 multiplayer method (I'm using the most recent Battlefield as the namesake...). You regenerate health... to a certain point. If your health went under 75%, it only regenerates back to 75%. If it goes under 50%, it regenerates back to 50%. The only way to regenerate back to 100% is to use a medic's med-kit.

 

[dyre]

I like regenerating health in fast-paced, linear shooters. When I'm being forced to run from the broken truck to the building while an MG team blasts away at me, I don't want to have to reload the game because I'm at 10 health.

In exploration-based action-RPGs though, I'd much rather have a traditional health system.

 

[KimonoBoxFox]

The problem is, that the health pretty much always regenerates too fast though.

It would have to regenerate VERY slowly, (so it wouldn't even have any impact on that current fight) to be somewhat acceptable. (depending on the game)

I don't entirely agree with this. Realism does not contribute to fun if it becomes a constant burden that forces you to detour from the game. Games like Portal or Prince of Persia do not mandate realistic, slow regeneration, because the emphasis is not on survivalism, but puzzling and platforming, with combat elements sprinkled in between. In those sorts of games, having to spend hours to heal ends you up stuck in combat situations, or navigating traps, where you have neither access to healing, or a way to avoid damage--sticking you in a situation where you're constantly dying a lot.

On the flip side, games like Call of Duty or Battlefield, which emphasize only being able to take a few hits, to try and emulate real life, end up detracting from the action by forcing you behind a wall every two seconds because of the ridiculous precision and accuracy of the AI, along with their ability to single you out of a crowd of useless AI partners.

Then the problem is between getting stuck in a tight spot with low health, or being forced behind cover every few moments to recover.

So you have to weigh the two situations, and decide which a game is more likely to run into, to really decide whether regenerating health is called for, or not. Let's keep in mind that some games, like the Resident Evil series, are actually improved for the way they ration healing items, and make you strategize their use in order to make it through tough situations. In that sort of game, being stuck at a point with not enough health to make it past is a sign that you're not playing the game well.

 

[Gralian]

I remember the first time i played the original Halo at a friends house. I was like, wtf is this weak shit ?

Little did i know that all these bs ass current shooters would adapt that trash.

Ahem, the original Halo (Combat Evolved) had med-packs and no regenerating health. Only the shields regenerated. On Heroic and Legendary it was vital to keep your health above the red at all times. It didn't come back on its own.

Regenerating health is not a bad thing.

Not having regenerating health in a game like Fallout for instance, just forces the player to carry around a bunch of "health potions." I hate this. It's not tactical, those things don't weigh anything and by the end of the game you have hundreds of them. It's just annoying. The health doesn't have to regenerate as fast as all that to still be something that makes you plan your fights carefully. It just means you don't have to carry potions everywhere with you.

In games like GTA4, this is extremely fucking annoying. It's added tedium. I don't care if health doesn't regenerate when you are in active battle, but for fuck's sake, don't make me hunt down a chicken shack to heal after I finish my gunfight.

I do agree with this. However, i think health should only regenerate after an encounter is over, rather than regenerate during the encounter. Let's say you take the Fallout example, and you come across a party of 4 bandits. If you get hit, you can't bring it up with a stimpack and it doesn't regenerate on its own, but after everyone is dead your health goes back to normal after about 5 seconds of non combat. That way the fight would still hold some challenge (the threat of death) without letting you cheap out (spamming heal items) and leave you ready for the next encounter.

For all the things i really disliked about FF13, this is one thing it did right. After every encounter your HP was restored and MP wasn't even an issue because it wasn't required for spellcasting. It made the encounters fair (no health regen in combat, health restored via healing magic) and left the player ready for the next fight without having to worry if they have enough potions or have to faff about using one of the x99 in the pause menu each time.

Teal deer version: No regenerating health in combat, instead have regenerating health out of combat.

 

[ChupathingyX]

I prefer Resistance: Fall of Man and Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction method of health.

In R:FOM you have 4 quarters of health, your health regenrates each quarter but will not regenrate the whole way, you have to find health packs to regenerate the other quarters individually.

In Mercenaries: POD you had 100 health and when it went below 20 it would regenerate but only back up to 20. To heal it back to 100 you had to find a medkit.

Captcha: How they hell do you write Chinese characters?

 

[SouthpawFencer]

This is an issue that comes up every time someone brings up, well pretty much any shooter game, and I'm just wondering

Did I miss the memo where regenerating health automatically makes a game bad?

Can you cite some examples of this, please? Preferably with hyperlinks so that the context can be considered.

I have NEVER heard anybody say "this game sucks solely because it has regenerating health". I often hear something like "amongst the derivative, stale, uninspired gameplay elements that this game ripped off of far superior games is regenerating health", however.

I think the biggest problem people have with regenerating health is that it always leads to the EXACT same tactic:

WHILE (enemies > 0)
{
TAKE(cover);
BREAK(cover);
current_target=most_convenient_enemy;
enemy_health=current_health(current_target);
WHILE ((player_health > "Oh crap, I'm about to die!") AND (enemy_health > 0)) {SHOOT(current_target);}
IF (enemy_health <= 0) {enemies = (enemies - 1);
}

(Yes, perl coders, I know: the string comparison should be "gt", not ">", and I could have said "--enemies" in that IF STATEMENT; I'm sacrificing realism for accessibility)

Unless I see some examples to the contrary, I have to disagree with your basic premise that regenerating health is a game-breaker for a large number of people. At the same time, a third-person, cover-based shooter with regenerating health had better bring some sort of significant (and functional/enjoyable) gameplay innovation to the table, or else they'll deserve the "Gears Of War did this already, and did it BETTER" criticism that they'll inevitably receive.

EDIT: the SHOOT function was calling an incorrect variable ("enemy").

 

[aarontg]

I never liked the segmented health system. I always cursed to myself when I caught that stray bullet that would knock one pip of my health off. Perhaps if you wanted to be realistic you could implement in a free-roaming game for example. You're health regenerates very slowly but you can do things to help it regenerate faster but never instantly re-appear. You might get punched in the face and decide to let it heal on it's own or you could find an ice pack (just an example) and apply it to make it heal quicker. Then maybe you could have factors that work towards or against the healing process. Maybe a wound got infected and now the healing process is drastically reduced. Or maybe you ate recently and now that speeds up regeneration for a small period of time.Id'e think that would work really well as a fallout mod or something along those lines.

 

[AgentNein]

I don't mind regenerating health all of the time. I certainly mind it in Duke Nukem though, as this is being anticipated rightfully so in some ways as a throwback to another age of game design, and regen health, like it or not fundamentally changes the pacing of a game. In fact, I'd say that regen health and linearity/nonlinearity are the two BIG changes in the history of FPS design, responsible for practically giving us a different genre of game. Old FPS's had more in common with survival horror than modern FPS's in some ways.

This isn't a judgement call on one being better than the other though. I like both styles at times. Regen health helps keep the pacing as the creator intended, and helps pace the difficulty as well (a designer never has to ask "can the player get through this next part with 25% health? Maybe I need to nerf it abit"). And any argument that regen health is 'unrealistic' is just silly. Health packs that cure bullet wounds is unrealistic too.

 

[Netrigan]

Regenerating health works at the two extremes.

In a game like Saints Row 2 or Prototype, it encourages the player to fuck because you're not going to get ***** slapped for experimentation. There are tough fights in the game, but generally its about cutting loose and having fun.

In Crysis 2 and the Not-Iraq levels of CoD4, I found recharging health made me feel extra vulnerable. You can take precious little damage and being forced behind cover reinforces the basic gameplay. If you were in a major firefight, you wouldn't be charging at enemies in order to head-butt them, you'd be hiding behind walls, planning how to advance to the next position.

And no matter how much Halo fans talk about the system being "logical", I find their recharging shield system to make the vast majority of encounters too easy. I'm never over-whelmed by enemy numbers and most of my deaths come from insta-death moments. Watched some walkthroughs on-line as someone worked his way through on Legendary (his first play through, so plenty of deaths) and I noticed him dying in exactly the same ways I was. Charging elite with a melee attack. Rocket fire at him. Etc. Seems a fair bit of trial-and-error is needed to learn where these situations are.

 

[AgentNein]

There's also this whole fallacious concept that regen health has made the standard FPS an easier game. But most pre-regen FPSs have resorted to quicksave sysems, to keep the difficulty manageable. Quicksaves, as much as I DO use them, I think that they've always had more potential to break solid gameplay than any regen health.