Blogs Thoughts on Regenerating Health

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2010/06/22/thoughts-on-regenerating-health/

 

Speaking of blowing up limbs and the AI responding in a corresponding manner, do you remember Soldier of Fortune?

 

it has to suit the game basically

a percentage system works well in RPG whilst regeneration works well in Halo

however in a sniper simulation i would want the most accurate portrayal of what would happen if i was shot in the shoulder / foot /head

I didnt like the regeneration effect in crysis and would have much preferred a realistic approach to match the attempted realism of the rest of the game

 

It would be interesting to have Crysis include a permanent suit damage system, where if the suit suffers enough hits, it stops working as good as default. Then we could have some items which could be used to fix it. I think it would add to the sense of vulnerability that Joe has mentioned in the article.

 

Oh no! we are talking about Crysis again!

 

Project Reality has the best health system I can think of. Many shots are instantly lethal, but often you're hit and bleed out over time; yelping and blurring your field of vision. You can be revived within a certain time limit, but grenades are fatal if I remember correctly. Feels like the right balance to me of ensuring the game is fun (but bloody hard) but still looking toward the mystical idea of "realism".

 

though I agree that developers should choose the right method for the life system, and must suit the style and feeling of the game, Personally I feel that the regen system tends to ditract me. also tactics go stright out the window with regen health, as you sit there going "ok, 10 guys in the room. I'll just stick my head in, kill a few, then back out to regen. rinse repeat."
However, having 10% life, no medkit/food/whatever, trying to avoid any major battle so that you survive, I find, to be far more satisfying.

having said that, after plaing Mass Effect 2 again, I can easily see that a medkit system to heal as well as revive would be too irritating to the gamer.

/2cents

 

Haven't played Fallout, is the health system like Deus Ex's?

 

I like different methods depending on the game. In half life (and similar) I like the percentage method because it adds tension when you're on 5 health (or whatever) with no medkits in site and dark passge to go through.

In sandbox 3rd person games I like regenerating health because its a pain having to go eat a burger every time you get shot up -another reason why Saints Row beats GTA.

Then there is the hybrid percentage/recovery like in Far Cry 2, a game which is kind of a hybrid of the above 2 genres anyway. I like the way your health meter can only partially restore, it encourages you to take cover but forces you to come out eventually. I also like the way that if you're down the the last health block you will actually die over time.

In RTS games I like it when units can repair over time. You would expect in a real battle that a tank crew or whatever would make an effort to patch up a damaged machine if the opportunity arose

 

Actually, in real life the crew are actively encouraged to bail out as soon as possible as an imobolised AFV is a sitting duck.

 

I think it's silly that in games like Modern Warfare 2, notwithstanding its relative realism otherwise, it is possible to receive dozens of bullets in your body in a short period of time and still continue running about as if nothing's happened. I think that the further games move toward realism, the more glaring the unrealism of health systems is going to get.

I would like to see a war game where you really couldn't get hit even once without seriously impairing your ability to function, and that the injury wouldn't just subside in a few seconds after a few red flashes of the screen. If you got shot in the leg, you couldn't walk; if you'd get hit in the head, you'd die; if you continued to bleed profusely, you'd die - or the very least lose consciousness.

Of course the developers would need to offset such extreme realism with something in order to not make the game impossibly difficult. Or maybe we'd need to accept that in a realistic game you just can't run carelessly around the battlefield without being killed - as you couldn't in an actual war. This would probably move the gameplay away from arcade-type shoot-'em-ups into a more strategy-based gameplay: you'd need to plan your moves and tactics on the battlefield carefully so that you wouldn't die in an instant.

Having a few months or so of in-game time in between levels/maps would realistically make it possible for the characters to heal from their injuries. That way you wouldn't need to sacrifice realism by miraculously having the character in full health by the next level, or make the player limp their way through the entire game with only one leg after losing the other in the first map.

 

Go play Arma II?

 

I hate health regen systems like cod's with a passion however in crysis it worked because of there being a plausable explinaton behind it + it wasnt a "hide for 5 seconds" job.

hell i used to quicksave on doom with only 5% health when I was young forcing me to use skill and wit to overcome rather then being a ***** and hiding.

kids these days cant game for ****.

 

I really like regenerating health for the most part - it keeps everything nice and fluid. It doesn't necessarily make a game easier - it means that tactics change. For instance in Gears of War, on the insanity setting, poking your head out for more than a second or two will have you dead.

Personally I like Metro 2033's way of handling health - it does regenerate but you can quickly use a stim to get back to 100% if you're caught out.

 

I don't know why they don't combine the two forms of healing. While health is 75% and above it regens, as no significant damage has been dealt. But if it drops below that then you need to seek out a medkit or aid station. That would make more sense than just regening everything.

 

I think regenerating health is fine. If you're careless, you'll still die fast, but it avoids the absurdity of general lameness of having to search for medkits.

Also, I tend to think of it more in terms of the enemies getting a bead on me, with their gunfire getting closer and closer until it hits and I'm dead, or with me managing to get to cover and evade their aim. It makes a bit more sense that way.

In some ways, I think the debate on regenerating health is a lot like the one over the "you-can't-die" gameplay of Prince of Persia 2008. The result of falling and being saved by Elika is basically the same as dying and restarting at a checkpoint. It's no more or less absurd. But because it's presented differently, traditionalist gamers go insane.

 

I'm another regenerative helath hater but I think it really applieso n the context as for example as well laid out in the blog post, an RPG-styled game like Fallout 3. Where I think it has no place is the multiplayer FPS as it ruins any real challenge in a sense as if your not killed outright you can jsut duck away as its been explained above. My prefered health system for FPS multiplayer is the one well used in Red Orchestra, where you have location hits with effects. Such as shooting an enemy player in the leg will cause him to slow and no longer be able to run, the arm/hand for them to drop their held weapon and terminal hits for a torso or heat shot (though if not an outright kill it tends to apply wound effects like no running etc but i digress).

Bascially, i'm just wittering on that its all about the game and the setting as I can find the regenerating health disrupts the flow of a game and really ruins the tension in certain games (compare trying to attack an machine gun in CoD: United Offensive and CoD2 for yet another FPS example) and therefore getting into the games and throughly enjoying them (in my own heavily baised opinion).

 

I agree with having target-able body areas and to have limits placed when a limb has sustained enough damage or even to be knocked unconscious from a head blow.

The problem isn't so much health in itself, for me it's as much to do with the prospective damage of firearms, a 3 round burst from a semi-automatic weapon should leave you in dire straights and running for cover, stem the flow of blood and work out the best tactical way of taking out enemies.

I dislike standing toe to toe with an opponent and emptying a full mag into them before them keel over and die.

By making use of hit locations and making damage more realistic especially from automatic weapons or those that claim to do huge amounts of damage encourages a different style of game play and games like Metal Gear, Thief and others have both made good use of Stealth as part of the game mechanics and subsequently added depth and atmosphere.

Having health regenerate slowly or finding safe havens where you can rest properly for a period and tend your wounds to recover are certainly better options that the apply med-kit back to max health approach.

A lot of people here have said how much difference it should make based on the genre of game, but is that really necessary, surely a realistic but fair system that adds tension is better for any game genre.

If we look at FPS being shot in the leg and being crippled and unable to run is no different from playing a fantasy based RPG and getting an arrow in the leg. It's still going to hurt and slow you down, stop you from jumping, make climbing more difficult/dangerous, etc, etc

 

This whole regenerated health has some problems, especially when playing online where the aim is teamwork. Take the Battlefield series as an example. In BF2 you either need to make sure that you had a Medic in your squad, you played as a medic, or your squad leader was in comms with the commander who would deploy an ammo/health crate when required.

In BFBC2 (non hardcore so your health re-gens) you don't need to rely on Medics so much which means you often end up in a squad full of snipers, there is no point spawning on them as they're often too far away from the objective (especially when attacking) and the other squads are locked when clan members stack the teams/squads.

Personally, I prefer hardcode mode but then you have to rely on teamwork for meds/ammo, make sure you have a medic in your squad, because you can't see **** when you're low on health as you've got blood and dust obscuring your view. Trying to take out a tank in the distance with a rocket seems almost impossible.

 

In the FPS games I enjoy playing (e.g. Far Cry, Far Cry 2, Thief series), I personally consider it a failure when I suffer any damage whatsoever. I like to play the games almost as if I was really in that situation - that heightens the tension and experience, and makes playing sneakily really rewarding.

The trouble is that most games don't cater for the recon, planning, evasion, strategy and tactics required to complete objectives with minimal risk of damage.

I'd be happy with one or two hit kills in games, so long as the design was also appropriate.