Blogs Thoughts on Regenerating Health

Ok, so you do all that mention, but you still get winged by a Gladiator, knocking most of your health off (Railguns hurt!). It happens, doesn't mean you're bad at games, just that you're not superman.

As you're now nearly dead, do you continue playing knowing the next hit will kill you, or do you quickload and try it again without being hit?

Someone who places their own limitations on the game might not, but everyone else will just reload. It's easy, painless and avoids a future situation where a bunch of low level enemies become impossible to pass because you're on 10% health.

Regenerating health done properly doesn't make the game easy: two hits from a Gladiator will still kill you whether your health regens or not. If you die, you still need to reload. It just means that if you get hit but don't die, you don't feel the need to reload to get it done properly.

Reloading ruins the immersion, nothing kills the flow of a game like redoing sections repeatedly. I'd much, much rather have regen health than use quickloads.

On the other hand, the Bioshock respawn chambers were a terrible idea. If death holds no fear, as oppose to just losing some health, then all sense of caution is removed. If I died in Bioshock, I'd reload before using a Bio-Chamber.

 

It does depend on the game. The early Rainbow 6 games were brilliantly unforgiving and suited the style of play. One hit and you were usually down. It really meant you had to think out your tactics before hand etc, you couldn't just do run and gun.
From memory the R6:Vegas games had a regen system and that sort of dulled the experience. That being said a regen system suits a game like say, Halo as you aren't backtracking for health kits or whatever and it's always about pressing on to the next big battle.

 

M'eh. To me it's a case of finding a balance that suits the health style. Just because Halo is really easy and has regenerating health doesn't mean that all games with regenning health are easy or wimpy games and, at the end of the day, games with percentage health can still be exploited around in a similar way to just waiting behind a rock for your shield to recharge - such as leaving medkits behind in cleared areas for if you really need them, or exploiting poor AI to reduce combat difficulty.

But, yes, Vita-chambers were terrible.

 

Ninja Gaiden II had a good health system, you had the classic "Bar O' health" and each attack would take of health, but it would also take some of your max health, so while it did regenerate, the more you got hit the less and less total health you would be left with. This could be healed with certain items and at checkpoints to restore you to your "proper" max health, and i felt was a good balance.

 

True rail guns do hurt and true getting clipped by one just as you are about to go into a room full of nastys is a pain in the rear end. But I've never had an issue with reloading when I die. If anything, knowing 1 more hit will kill you forces you to up your game. And then when you do die and reload you will likely do better the next time. The end of Quake 4 is pretty frantic I will admit. Not something to play when you're tired

But it's like others have said. What system works depends largely on the game. But there does seem to be a move towards regenerating health.. and I'm not to sure that's a good thing.

And I will add my name to the long list of people who disliked the vita-chambers.

 

I am ok with a healthbar/diablo style orb/health %

Depends on the game though. A real life shooter like Rainbow 6 where you get killed in one shot or walk slow after getting shot makes sense but for most action/shooters it would just be overly frustrating.

 

I say concentrate on those idiotic perks they add to games making them "rated for children" instead of "M"...... No perks and your equal ability against whomever else is in the game with the same weaponry.
As far as health "renew".... take it away and the game isn't a game anymore and the fun disappears. KILL THE PERKS, KILL THE PERKS........ we should get Al Sharpton to stand on a soapbox in front of EA's head quarters with 10,000 bussed in demonstrators holding KILL THE PERKS signs..... think anybody would listen ?

 

I found the hardest bit to be a few rooms before the end, where you end up fighting about 4 gunners and some heavy hovertanks. There I think regenerating health would be harder as there wasn't really anywhere to hide to allow the health to regenerate, and it doesn't feel like you can take as much damage at one time with regenerating health. The actual ending wasn't that bad IMO as you could just concentrate on dodging one target.

I'm still waiting for MS to remodel Minesweeper with regenerating health though.

 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different games are meant to be played in different ways.

There's so many people here lauding stealth games where the goal isn't to get shot, but would gaming be fun if every single game was like that? There are some stealth based games, and they're a lot of fun, and they need a different health system to fit the playing style of the game. I always like when FPS games throw in a couple of stealth missions where you can't alert the guards, because it really changes up gameplay.

But would it be fun if every single game was a stealth game? No! We need variety. Some games are meant to be played where you can take a chest full of lead and keep on chugging. Take TF2, for instance. The characters are generally hard to kill, taking multiple seconds of point-blank damage to die. But because of this, the game is able to structure so that the more cumbersome weapons do more damage. If two rounds from the pistol could kill you (like in real life), why would anyone try to use the Huntsman or the Ambassador or the Stickybomb Launcher or the Flare Gun? The game is set up so that the most awkward to use weapons do the most damage, so they are balanced with the more point-and-click "spray and prey" standard bullet weapons. If you died very quickly from any type of gunfire, the entire balance of the game would be destroyed, as it needs a wide range of weapon damages, from fully charged Huntsman or Sniper Rifle headshots that will take you down in one hit, to the weak Pistol and Syringe Gun that require 30+ hits. This makes the weapons with tiny clips, low refire rates, long charge times, and odd projectile trajectories balanced with the fast firing standard guns. And the health system is great - just enough medpacks that you can heal if you don't have a good medic, but generally located so that you can't do it while directly in combat. No regen except on the medics, which IMO is needed because they are very squishy.

Gaming needs variety. It doesn't need realism. If you want your character getting shot to make you lose the game, go join the Army. Games are fun because they're different from reality. A very realistic combat simulator wouldn't be any fun, because real life combat sucks. We as gamers demand something that is better than reality, something that is balanced and fun and challenging. Real life combat isn't balanced and fun. You drive down the road and an IED kills you. Game over, press F9. There is a Taliban fighter in the building across the street, and a lucky shot from his AK-47 hits an artery. Game over, press F9.

As for the complaints of "Oh, it makes the game stupid, because you just duck for cover for three seconds then you're fully healed", seriously? Name one mainstream FPS that gives your character enough regen that he can reach full health in 3 seconds. Every game I've played that had innate regen took 1-2 minutes to heal, and if the enemy soldiers just ignore you when you hide behind a wall for 1-2 minutes after shooting at them, the game AI sucks and regenerating health is the least of its problems.

The converse of this is playing games like Half Life, which have no regen but medpacks, where you just whore out quicksave and quickload. Without regen, if I kill an enemy and then determine that I lost 'too much' HP during the fight, I quickload and try it again until I am happy with how much damage I took. That doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

I do like health regen in DotA and similar games. It's just enough that you don't have to constantly run back to the base to heal, but "harrassing" is still a good strategy, especially early in the game. It 's enough regen that it prevents all of the fights from being just drawn-out attirition battles, but it's a small enough amount of regen that it is still worth chasing an enemy below 25% HP if he tries to run, as you can usually kill him before he can heal or get back to the base.

 

@Altron, I'd argue that not all games have to be fun. Some should be serious or tense. OFP, ARMA 1, 2, are very punishing, but it is also very rewarding to complete goals, because you really had to think, move with caution, observe everything around you,use tactics. Should a game like Halo, or COD have regenerating health, yeah I think so. They are fast paced arcade games, and there so similar all the way through that if you kept dying it would get boring really quickly, but some things need that sense of urgency, panic, that only a limited health system can bring.

 

+rep

 

Resident Evil has an awesome health system. Although it doesn't focus on specific injuries, if your injured your ability to run away from hordes of undead, and if your health was 'critical' you were extremely vulnerable to catch a sudden case of death...

I think it would be better if you can only use health regenerating items when you're not in combat situations. Being able to tend to your wounds between slaying multiple in the real world would take some serious multitasking...

 

In multiplayer FPS the regen is bs. If I were to choose, I'd still go with AQ2's way of bleeding until you bandage yourself. One shot in the chest or head kills you, unless you wear kevlar. Shot in the kevlar leaves you with ~30 HP and the HP counts down until you spend the required time bandaging yourself. When shot in legs / fall from a great height, you lose HP, drain HP over time and also can't jump before you've bandaged yourself.

Feel free to disagree. http://losias.net/imagehost/images/hatersgonn.jpg

 

I agree that for most multiplayer FPS regen is stupid. Situational awareness of being able to find a strategically located medpack, or having a talented medic teammate would be undervalued if everyone had regen. I'm sure there is a way that it could be used well, but I haven't seen a good system for it implemented.

However, I would disagree with your one chest or headshot kill. That would be fun on a game with a larger map, fewer players, and a slim variety of weapons. Manuevering and evasion and accuracy would become very important. I'll stress my point again, however, that many games would be completely ruined with a health system like that. On the smaller, faster, crowded maps, the characters would be too fragile to have any real combat going on. It's all about what fits with the game. From the sounds of it (I've never played AQ2), that health system works very well for that game. But it won't neccessarily work well in every FPS game. Using my TF2 reference again, that is an excellent and popular game that would suck if the characters had "realistic" combat damage. It's focused heavily on teamwork and big group fights with bullets flying anywehre, and if a random stray bullet could kill you, it wouldn't be fun at all. It's meant to be played so that you can take a lot of damage, but you can dish out a lot of damage too. The bread and butter of the game are epic team CP pushes, which only last for under half a minute, and require good coordination and use of medics, and where both teams do a TON of damage to each other. If non-fatal damage inhibited your combat abilities, it would not be the team that played better during the fight (more accurate, better medics, better at evading projectiles), it would be the team that shot first.

Is one type of game better than the other? Absolutely not! Some people prefer a wide open game of accuracy and evasion and mostly solo combat, others prefer a big crowded team battle, but most of us enjoy playing both styles of games. That's the beauty of PC gaming - you can have dozens of different games installed at the same time, and play whichever you are in the mood for. If a game has some goofy health system, with regen or not, and it fits the gameplay and makes the game fun, who cares if it's different from the "usual" health system we are all used to?

 

I found the most difficult bit and some rooms for the end, where you fight at the end of round 4 "Gunners" and some heavy tanks float. I am of the opinion that regenerate health would, if there not really harder to hide, so that health was to generate anywhere, and it does not feel so much at once can use with regenerating health damage. Actual end of file handling, bad IMO, if you can focus just on an objective Dodge.
I found the most difficult bit and some rooms for the end, where you fight at the end of round 4 "Gunners" and some heavy tanks float. I am of the opinion that regenerate health would, if there not really harder to hide, so that health was to generate anywhere, and it does not feel so much at once can use with regenerating health damage. Actual end of file handling, bad IMO, if you can focus just on an objective Dodge.