I dont really understand regenerating health.I feel that it lowers the consequences of losing that health, since you can just wait 3-5 seconds and be all better. Does anybody else feel this way?
Health regeneration in video games.
- Thread starter BearCavalry9496
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I prefer it, since that way if I'm in a rough encounter (or some completely bullshit ambush) I don't have to worry about someone breathing on me funny and dying.
it works better for the more run and gun games like cod4 where it focuses more on your own skill but with games like the battlefield series up to and excluding the bad company addition i dont think it will work as well since half that game is more based upon certain classes having more specific specialised jobs within the team(e.g. the medic heals you)
That's exactly why it's taken precedence. It allows developers to hit the reset button every 30 seconds and remove consequence from fights. It definately makes games easier. But also leads to some ridiculous arbitrary difficulty on harder settings, Halo 2's Jackal snipers spring to mind.
Pure health bars aren't perfect either, they tend to overly punish aggressive or inept players. Which is fine except not everyone enjoys sneak and snipe gameplay and not everyone has played fifty other shoot em ups on the way to this one. But they do affect how you play, which they should do, having low health nicely ratchets up the concentration.
Personally I think hybrid systems work best (think Halo: Combat evolved), that way you get a small resetting buffer to play with and encourage aggressive play, but you also have a health bar than directly affects your playing style. Chief with 1 bar health plays markedly different from Chief with full health.
Pure health bars aren't perfect either, they tend to overly punish aggressive or inept players. Which is fine except not everyone enjoys sneak and snipe gameplay and not everyone has played fifty other shoot em ups on the way to this one. But they do affect how you play, which they should do, having low health nicely ratchets up the concentration.
Personally I think hybrid systems work best (think Halo: Combat evolved), that way you get a small resetting buffer to play with and encourage aggressive play, but you also have a health bar than directly affects your playing style. Chief with 1 bar health plays markedly different from Chief with full health.
I would say it depends on the game. For fast paced linear combat like in most FPS games I generally like regenerating health. Sure it's not realistic but that's not why I'm playing the game. I don't want to dick around looking for health. In an RPG, or less obviously a game like Bioshock, health packs are more applicable. Bioshock was a shooter but revolved heavily around the story and exploration. You aren't supposed to just blaze through it.
In the average FPS you're guaranteed to get hit at least once in each battle. Therefore there is a minimum required health to pass any area. Regenerating health works around that. Have you ever been hit, and needed to take a break, but afterwards you felt like you could get back in the action? Same principle unless it's rebounding energy shields or something.
How many of us have ended up 5-6 hours into a health-pack-reliant game, only to find our latest (and possibly only) save is now a character with a meager 10% health, and soon to be surrounded by very pissed off baddies?
I know I've been there...
There's high points to both systems. Really, it just depends on how action-heavy or deliberately-approached a game is to be.
I know I've been there...
There's high points to both systems. Really, it just depends on how action-heavy or deliberately-approached a game is to be.
I'm anti-health regeneration. To be honest, grabbing a nice meaty healthpack that restored 50+ hp after a tough boss encounter or ambush feels very rewarding. An example of this, for me, is Max Payne. After a tough section of corridor shooting, you'd be low on ammo and health. Then you open the room, get your ammo stocked, four packs of pain pills, maybe a new gun. The pain pills felt like a reward for getting so far, having excess pain pills felt like even more of a bonus. I think players need healthpacks in games to work as an incentive. A carrot on a stick if you will, it's a small and necessary reward, but it rewards the player nonetheless.
I also feel health regen cheapens difficulty. You could theoretically wear a boss down by standing up, popping a few shots, sitting down, regen, stand up, pop a few, and so on. Rather than the actual skill of taking the enemy down with a set amount of health. Fighting games for instance would not be fun if your health would regen, you and your opponent would run around the arena until it was full again. You have set life, you have a task to beat the enemy. Shooters should follow this example.
I also feel health regen cheapens difficulty. You could theoretically wear a boss down by standing up, popping a few shots, sitting down, regen, stand up, pop a few, and so on. Rather than the actual skill of taking the enemy down with a set amount of health. Fighting games for instance would not be fun if your health would regen, you and your opponent would run around the arena until it was full again. You have set life, you have a task to beat the enemy. Shooters should follow this example.
I think they work for different sorts of games. In some Health Regen works, in others, health packs do. They're no better than each other really - with regen you tend to be a lot more fragile ("Oh god five bullets! Blargh!") whilst with packs you tend to be more durable ("Hah! Only ten bullets? CHILD'S PLAY!") but have the risk of suffering a Critical Existence Failure on low health ("Oh no, I've been slapped whilst I only have 2 HP! INSTA-GIBBED.")
Regenerating Health makes sense if they increased the time it took to regenerate the health, while simultaneously allowing you to pick up health packs or something of the like. Its mostly something for online competitive gaming that just sorta stuck. DOOM Guy never had to fight another DOOM Guy so he had to get health packs, not just stand there and let his face get less covered with demon innards, his own blood and teeth.
As people have said before, it depends on the game. A fast paced game will probably be better with regenerating health, since it keeps the pace going. On a slower paced games, health packs work better. In a fast paced game, having to scavenge a room for health pack breaks the flow. Regenerating health fixes that. But yeah, there are some games with regenerating health that would be better off with the original health system, like Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway.
I liked the kill.switch version of health better, when it was a mix of both. If you got hit, you'd lose a part of your health overall, and a section of the health you had left would be grayed out, and your health would only regenerate up to that point on your overall health, which could only be fixed completely by getting a medkit.
I find it incredibly annoying when I'm about to enter into a room with 12% health. Rechargeable health is much nicer at these certain encounters.