What have gamers got against regenerating health?
- Thread starter WhyWasThat
- Start date
Makes the game too easy and boring in my opinion. You can take an infinite amount of damage and not got penalized for it. The typical CoD game for me is basically popping out of cover to kill a few people, then going back in cover waiting for my eyes to stop bleeding. Repeat about 1000 times and you beat the game!
It depends on the game really.
The main problem with health regen is that you wind up avoiding gameplay (ie: having fun) until your health is replenished. A good example is first person shooters where you sit behind a wall until your health is replenished again. That is, you quit playing the game until your character is back at full health. This is a very poor system, as it breaks the game's momentum.
Health regen works in some games however. Shadow of the Colossus uses health regen. However,there aren't really any places to take cover. You're constantly moving and dodging, regardless of what your health is at, due to the immense range and power a lot of the colossus possessed.
In Guild Wars, when you were out of combat, your health regenerated at a very rapid rate. This decreased the time between fights, and removed any need for a food/potion system. It allowed players to focus on combat.
In Halo, you became extremely vulnerable when your shields were down. While you were still able to just sit in cover until the shield recovered, I found that in multiplayer, those few seconds for shield regen were extremely tense. This kept a constant feeling of suspense during the game (never played single player, so I can't say if it worked there or not).
The main problem with health regen is that you wind up avoiding gameplay (ie: having fun) until your health is replenished. A good example is first person shooters where you sit behind a wall until your health is replenished again. That is, you quit playing the game until your character is back at full health. This is a very poor system, as it breaks the game's momentum.
Health regen works in some games however. Shadow of the Colossus uses health regen. However,there aren't really any places to take cover. You're constantly moving and dodging, regardless of what your health is at, due to the immense range and power a lot of the colossus possessed.
In Guild Wars, when you were out of combat, your health regenerated at a very rapid rate. This decreased the time between fights, and removed any need for a food/potion system. It allowed players to focus on combat.
In Halo, you became extremely vulnerable when your shields were down. While you were still able to just sit in cover until the shield recovered, I found that in multiplayer, those few seconds for shield regen were extremely tense. This kept a constant feeling of suspense during the game (never played single player, so I can't say if it worked there or not).
I would like to ask how you know the content of the health kits? I know in HL2 its a questionable green fluid that could (and probably are) be some crazy nano robots that repair tissue. Just because it has a red cross on the outside doesn't mean its a typical first aid kit.WhyWasThat said:
I don't hate regenerating health, but I really don't like it much either.
When it's used exclusively, it tends to make games ludicrously easy to me. When a shooter comes out now with Regenerating Health, I don't even bother with any of the difficulty levels other than the highest, simply because that's the only one that might offer a challenge from time to time, maybe. Usually it doesn't. And I'm really not even all that great at shooters.
When it's used exclusively, it tends to make games ludicrously easy to me. When a shooter comes out now with Regenerating Health, I don't even bother with any of the difficulty levels other than the highest, simply because that's the only one that might offer a challenge from time to time, maybe. Usually it doesn't. And I'm really not even all that great at shooters.
The advantage of regenerating health is that the combat can be tuned to be faster and more lethal more easily. You have a reasonable expectation of how long the player can live in a given circumstance, because you can assume they'll be at full health transitioning from fight to fight.
The disadvantages include it stifling exploration and reducing the chance of a player fearing for their well-being. Players will just tunnel in on the enemies in an area and progressing to the next area. It also removes the point of other game mechanics, like a combination of health and armor, and generally makes it less interesting to survive, as all you have to do is hide behind a low wall for a few seconds before you go back into the fight gun blazing. You don't have to fundamentally alter your strategy beyond taking short breaks.
The disadvantages include it stifling exploration and reducing the chance of a player fearing for their well-being. Players will just tunnel in on the enemies in an area and progressing to the next area. It also removes the point of other game mechanics, like a combination of health and armor, and generally makes it less interesting to survive, as all you have to do is hide behind a low wall for a few seconds before you go back into the fight gun blazing. You don't have to fundamentally alter your strategy beyond taking short breaks.
Borderlands and ME1 pulled it off well though. Health regenerated slowly, but you had more of it. That way combat still flowed well, you still have to be quick enough to get out of the way but you aren't made off tissue like you are in something like COD. So you get the quick-reflexes focus of a more old school shooter, but without having to spend half an hour desperately searching for a first aid kit during low action segments.WanderingFool said:
First aid kits versus auto-healing. Oh, goodie.
Honestly, I find this debate to be rather pointless. I don't care how health is regenerated in that sort of context. To me, the problem is the context itself, namely you have to survive in order to make progress.
That's the actual problem to me. The fact that you have to survive in order to make progress. That kind of game design draws the player away from things like narrative, thematic messages and aesthetics.
Instead, I'd like to see a game that makes progress the only way to survival, it est health can only be regenerated through accomplishing tasks and moving the story forward. In fact, requiring the player to get invested in the story to ensure the survival of his/her avatar, could be an essential component for successfully expressing narratives through gameplay. But then the story actually has to be good and worth investing in, so I can see why not taking this route is the cheaper and safer route for AAA studio.
Honestly, I find this debate to be rather pointless. I don't care how health is regenerated in that sort of context. To me, the problem is the context itself, namely you have to survive in order to make progress.
That's the actual problem to me. The fact that you have to survive in order to make progress. That kind of game design draws the player away from things like narrative, thematic messages and aesthetics.
Instead, I'd like to see a game that makes progress the only way to survival, it est health can only be regenerated through accomplishing tasks and moving the story forward. In fact, requiring the player to get invested in the story to ensure the survival of his/her avatar, could be an essential component for successfully expressing narratives through gameplay. But then the story actually has to be good and worth investing in, so I can see why not taking this route is the cheaper and safer route for AAA studio.
Played the first Halo.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
Apart from being frustrating at times and convincing me I wouldn't make it trough, I found that I only died if I really fucked up.
The Flood levels had some tighter rooms and hallway but if I noticed I was failing, I would toss a grenade at the floor, grab the shotgun and run back to the previous room. So I figured I could stay stationary near the entrances and fall back when the shield was down.
Bam, all I had to do was run back, recover, and then wait for them to pass trough the choke point. Might not be chest high walls, but it still allows cheap strategies.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Halo and I believe that CoD has a legit system. It just gets old, fast. Maybe not in CoD's case because the campaign can be played in a very short time, but most games with regenerating health have a strategy along the lines of "do X,Y to not die".
In games like F.E.A.R. there is no X or Y. The AI has literally all the time in the world and won't look for you on your camping spot. If they feel like it, they'll toss a grenade at your position and force you out. Not really a good example, but I think I made myself clear.
Because gamers, being made up of an incredibly diverse group of people, hate everything, even good things. By that i mean that some gamers hate it, get vocal about it, and BAM gamers hate it.
yes, regening health is a good thing. No, it doesn't cheat you out of feedback, it allows you to play the damn game, not run a small business of resource management. I'm playing a shooter, not eve online.
yes, regening health is a good thing. No, it doesn't cheat you out of feedback, it allows you to play the damn game, not run a small business of resource management. I'm playing a shooter, not eve online.
There is this mmo called Ragnarok Online, and you have to make your character sit to regen HP and SP. It really sucks because it causes downtime in the game, where you fight a few enemies and then have your character sit. So you might just sit at your keyboard for 5 min waiting to play again.
That's why I don't like it.
That's why I don't like it.
Regeneration encourages you to hide when hurt. While you're hiding, you're not playing the game. Health packs encourage you to press on and hope you don't die. I prefer the system that keeps me playing.
I haven't actually noticed regen making games easier. Challenge wise, it's an improvement on old RPGs that allowed you to buy huge quanties of cheap health potions and spam heal. Minecraft switched to regeneration for exactly this reason.
I haven't actually noticed regen making games easier. Challenge wise, it's an improvement on old RPGs that allowed you to buy huge quanties of cheap health potions and spam heal. Minecraft switched to regeneration for exactly this reason.
regenerating health gets rid of 90% of all survival aspects of the game, as you can go in guns blazing, and then wait behind a wall for a few seconds, and then go out again doing the same thing, and it's just stupid.
Get shot in head, wait for jam to drop of face, continue as if nothing happened.
What's wrong with adding in health kits, or a proper permanent damage system like ARMA II? It just seems that they're will fully making their game less intense, fun, and logical.
Adding health kits rather than regen is excellent for making the player actually use a single iota of his/her brain to come up with a decent strategy.
Get shot in head, wait for jam to drop of face, continue as if nothing happened.
What's wrong with adding in health kits, or a proper permanent damage system like ARMA II? It just seems that they're will fully making their game less intense, fun, and logical.
Adding health kits rather than regen is excellent for making the player actually use a single iota of his/her brain to come up with a decent strategy.
To be fair, med kits aren't remotely realistic either. Stomping on a white box with a red stripe doesn't usually patch wounds. Downing potions--sorry, inventory medkits--is also implausible. For the sake of discussion alone, though, what's the most realistic shooter you've ever played? And what health system did it have?Anthraxus said:
It has been mentioned plenty times already in this thread, but it's because it reduces any tactics, skill or challenge to "Duck for a few seconds when there's blood on your eyes."
The nicest way I've seen it implemented was in "The Getaway". What happens is that if you get below a certain amount of helth, you can regenerate a little. Maybe 20% ish of your total health. This meant you'd never have so little health that it would be near impossibly hard to get to the next healthpack, but running around haphazardly soaking up damage still had consequences. The regen also was near impossible to do in combat, had to go lean up against a wall for a few seconds and there was only a limited amount of it you could do through a mission.
The nicest way I've seen it implemented was in "The Getaway". What happens is that if you get below a certain amount of helth, you can regenerate a little. Maybe 20% ish of your total health. This meant you'd never have so little health that it would be near impossibly hard to get to the next healthpack, but running around haphazardly soaking up damage still had consequences. The regen also was near impossible to do in combat, had to go lean up against a wall for a few seconds and there was only a limited amount of it you could do through a mission.