Where have all the health bars gone?

[Outright Villainy]

It's just a balancing issue, although it's not really a series where I think I want a really difficult challenge; you are a master assassin afterall, shit should look easy!

I'd have liked it if you had less health, but enemies did too. It looks a bit silly when you have like 6 guys around you and you're just standing there most of the time. I think it just needed a faster pace in general, killing guards in one or two hits, but easily overwhelmed if you don't have room to move around. Would have made the stealth more neccesary too...

 

[Woodsey]

It's just a balancing issue, although it's not really a series where I think I want a really difficult challenge; you are a master assassin afterall, shit should look easy!

I'd have liked it if you had less health, but enemies did too. It looks a bit silly when you have like 6 guys around you and you're just standing there most of the time. I think it just needed a faster pace in general, killing guards in one or two hits, but easily overwhelmed if you don't have room to move around. Would have made the stealth more neccesary too...

They're changing the system in combat now, so that counters still play a role but you're encouraged to finish them off quickly.

And yes, I do hope the social stealth is developed further: they haven't quite gotten the balance right between the the "3 pillars" of the game.

 

[thahat]

The best system is the one they use in both the Chronicles of Riddick games and Assassin's Creed 2 (although AC2 gives you far too many health squares): lose part of a square and it regenerates, lose a whole square and it's gone.

id actualy think to get the best one you'd have to combine the whole 'slow regen' thingy with the americas army style system..on crack XD

so yes, you do regen, but slowly, but if your HIT you start bleeding, which is disables the regen and lets you bleedout, you can bleed a lot, or a little, and it is visable HOW hurt you are.
also, it has an effect on how well you shoot/run/can handly heavy weaponry.
( bipods aleviate the matter )
medics can patch you up, you yourself can slow your bleeding when out of fire by aplying 'bandaids on steroids' XD or first aid :3

 

[thahat]

There is only one reason.

Halo did it.

Luckily, Bad Company 2 introduced the best health system ever for a video game.

and what system is this? -doestn know the details of the bad compay 2 system-

 

[Outright Villainy]

It's just a balancing issue, although it's not really a series where I think I want a really difficult challenge; you are a master assassin afterall, shit should look easy!

I'd have liked it if you had less health, but enemies did too. It looks a bit silly when you have like 6 guys around you and you're just standing there most of the time. I think it just needed a faster pace in general, killing guards in one or two hits, but easily overwhelmed if you don't have room to move around. Would have made the stealth more neccesary too...

They're changing the system in combat now, so that counters still play a role but you're encouraged to finish them off quickly.

And yes, I do hope the social stealth is developed further: they haven't quite gotten the balance right between the the "3 pillars" of the game.

That does sound promising. And while I'm at it, I've to complain about notoriety being ridiculously easy to counteract. Or that your notoriety goes up, even if you kill with no one around. It's unbalanced on either side. It needs to reward stealth, not punish a clean kill and reward deep pockets or taking down posters, which takes up all of about 45 seconds.

Heh, it's great besides all those hundreds of isssues though...

 

[Snor]

because it sucked donkey balls?

how i loath the times I had to find a box with a big red cross on it... although how gta4 does it for example I am fine with it

 

[Casimir_Effect]

Yeah, cuz it's so realistic to stand behind a chest high wall, restore blood loss and tissue damage, and not even have those wounds affect you at all. Probably the best health system I know of was the old RE games, a heart beat monitor, and as you got more damaged, your character showed it.

At least with a health bar you have to find medical supplies to fix yourself up instead of sitting aside and waiting for your body to do that. That's more realistic.

You know what's even more realistic? Getting shot once and then slowly bleeding to death on the ground.

Realism fucking sucks. The further from reality, the better.

This, This, a million fucking times This. Games are better off being fun. Then people can make a realism mod for themself and the 20 other people like them.

That being said I'm not a huge fan of the typical method of health regeneration. especially combined with the CoD4 crap of infinitely respawning enemy, leading to having to synchronise your recovery and a new wave spawning.

Favourite regeneration method so far is from FarCry 2. 5 healthbar segments, each will regenerate unless it's totally empty. The first two can be restored back to full health via bottles of water (can't be carried) or syrettes (can be carried). The last three require a syrette to get back to full health, but if you're down to the last two then you have to perform some first aid before using the syrette. At the last segment (possible 2nd last as well) you bleed to death slowly too, ie. lose health constantly.

Favourite healthbar method was in Vietcong. You carried a single medkit on you which will fully heal you, and you can pick up new ones from enemy positions if lucky. Otherwise, there's a medic in your squad who will patch you up on command (he can also be called over to you if you can't make it to him). This cannot be abused though, because each healing causes your maximum health to drop. So doing it for every little scratch will ultimately punish you. I long for another squad-based game to do this.

 

[meowchef]

There is only one reason.

Halo did it.

Luckily, Bad Company 2 introduced the best health system ever for a video game.

and what system is this? -doestn know the details of the bad compay 2 system-

I apologize.

It sort of combines the two. You can regenerate health really really really slowly (and not at all in Hardcore modes) or can wait for a medic to toss out a health pack which speeds up the healing process.

 

[The Fork of Truth]

They all got closed down. HAR HAR HAR!

OT: Because it's considered more realistic I suppose.

 

[NoseDigger]

I really want to see games employ (at least an optional mode) where the health you have when you start a level is all you're going to get. No regeneration, no health packs, no cutting the grass for hearts.

L4D2 Realism Versus is pretty much that. They recently got rid of all the medkits and pills, leaving you to what you start with.

 

[Hawkseraph]

Favourite game employing no health bars: Mirror's Edge. The colour just got less saturated the more hurt you were. The only problem may be that this is hard to do for the usual dull-coloured games (another reason to love ME).

Bad Comapny 2's system also worked well for me... I generally dont really care if I got a health bar or not. Both works...