Poll: Health Bar or Regenerating Health, what is your stance on this new trend?
- Thread starter ElArabDeMagnifico
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FarCry 2 and Chronicles of Riddick: escape from butcher bay did the segmented health bar, which I like the most. Health bar divided into four or five small ones. Once one is depleted, it will not regenerate on its own.
There was an old game called Shellshock: Nam '67. Though it was a pretty terrible game, I think it had a great health system. You had a health bar, but also something called a "shock meter".
You begin with about five units of health, and every time you get injured, your shock meter goes up. The greater the injury, the higher it will rise. The shock meter will slowly decrease, but if it fills to the top, you lose one unit of health. The shock meter also shortens for every lost health unit, so you won't be in as good fighting shape in low health as in full health.
You begin with about five units of health, and every time you get injured, your shock meter goes up. The greater the injury, the higher it will rise. The shock meter will slowly decrease, but if it fills to the top, you lose one unit of health. The shock meter also shortens for every lost health unit, so you won't be in as good fighting shape in low health as in full health.
im all for the regen however in games that are supposed to be realistic i dont believe that they should be in it. games like fallout make good use of the realism if you got shot in the leg good luck running away and if you are shot in the arm you can aim as well.
But by taking the health bar out when they went to Halo 2, they could completely remove the first aid kits from multiplayer play. Maybe it was just me, but I thought that aside from removing camping points, getting rid of the health packs also made the game feel less silly. Regenerating shields I can understand, but walking over a health pack and being instantaneously healed through your suit of power armor didn't feel quite right.
The problem with all health systems so far is that they don't really imitate how a real person gets injured and recovers. Eg if I jam my finger in the door, it technically 'injures' me (bruise and pain), however I could jam my finger a million times, and I wouldn't die. However, on a game, ANYTHING that damages you can generally kill you if it happens enough times. Also, if I get injured in real life to a certain extent, I will either heal very very slowly, or slowly get more injured, depending on what happened. Games rarely take that into account.
A realistic damage model would be incredilbly impractical: Who wants to hide in a corner for five weeks while your character's broken leg heals?
A realistic damage model would be incredilbly impractical: Who wants to hide in a corner for five weeks while your character's broken leg heals?
Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth did health well.
I think its all about what you want in a game. I'd argue that games with health bars are certainly harder than games with regen health, but then Bioshock changed my mind on that. I think its really about how you prefer to play, I think that regen health encourages a more shoot and hide technique, but that's not to say that it doesn't work equally well in health bar games.
I think its all about what you want in a game. I'd argue that games with health bars are certainly harder than games with regen health, but then Bioshock changed my mind on that. I think its really about how you prefer to play, I think that regen health encourages a more shoot and hide technique, but that's not to say that it doesn't work equally well in health bar games.
Therein lies the problem - how does one find a health system that is realistic enough to not make you laugh at how silly it is, but at the same time, isn't so realistic as to interfere with flow?
I mean, Left 4 Dead is arguably more realistic than most, but it'd take a good while longer than 15 seconds to patch yourself up from a zombie mauling, for example. Plus, the purpose of games is, at least in some extent, to remove us from reality.
I mean, Left 4 Dead is arguably more realistic than most, but it'd take a good while longer than 15 seconds to patch yourself up from a zombie mauling, for example. Plus, the purpose of games is, at least in some extent, to remove us from reality.
I voted 'other', I like the idea of health regenerating SLOWLY over time (like how in real life you can just say screw the medicine and let your body fight the infection itself), while also having the option to quickly restore health with a single-use health pack or something similar that has a minor negative side-affect(like how you can just bang back a buckleys, with the AWFUL taste being the negative side-affect, and feel better in 10 minutes, as opposed to 10 days).
I like reneging health, but then again I like being an invincible space marine (Halo 3 Easy mode all the way!). Neither are realistic but each have their place (Survival games don't mix with regenerating health). So basically I'm very laissez-faire about health, what the devs decide is a-okay with me (unless you make a health pack system with no health packs like Call of Duty).
Happy Holidays everyone!
Happy Holidays everyone!
Operation Flashpoint health system, yay 
, painful and difficult, but you know what... maybe being under a hail of bullets SHOULD be painful and difficult.
, painful and difficult, but you know what... maybe being under a hail of bullets SHOULD be painful and difficult.The fact that they've taken health packs out of more recent games is ironic to me, because usually the trend has been towards realism (although admittedly this trend seems to be dying out recently, YAY FOR THAT ) It did make sense in Crysis cos of the naonosuit, so OK.
But even so, I don't buy it in a game like COD4. This game aims to be realistic, but there's nothing realistic about practically being able to take hundreds of bullets (and near explosive blasts), between brief moments of hiding behind a sandbag.
Component damage like deus ex did would have made more sense... it's debatable whether this would be less fun, but I think if implemented properly, it would be more fun.
But suffice it to say that if Left 4 Dead had this regen feature, it would've sucked a lot of the fun out of it. Hooray for health packs!!
) It did make sense in Crysis cos of the naonosuit, so OK.But even so, I don't buy it in a game like COD4. This game aims to be realistic, but there's nothing realistic about practically being able to take hundreds of bullets (and near explosive blasts), between brief moments of hiding behind a sandbag.
Component damage like deus ex did would have made more sense... it's debatable whether this would be less fun, but I think if implemented properly, it would be more fun.
But suffice it to say that if Left 4 Dead had this regen feature, it would've sucked a lot of the fun out of it. Hooray for health packs!!
I really don't like health regen. That doesn't mean you have to have a bar as a substitute though. I tend to avoid realistic games because... they're realistic, I could go outside and do it to be honest. But I like the realistic health system where if you are wounded, you stay wounded.
Who buys all those crappy shooters and says theyre good and fresh games? Casual/simple players do. The downside being that in shooters one can actually die and the simple guy just wants to be a hero who rushes through shooting baddies. How do we fix the problem? We make it impossible to die due regenerating health. Less stopping to think, more momentum and more money. Face it mr "I-am-soo-extreme", Call of Duty 2007 was made for the stupid masses full of dough who want nothing more than slightly updated sequel of a ghost train instead of a new and innovative gameplay.
What feels best for the game at hand is most important and if it doesn't feel right it can damage the gaming experience.
In Halo 1 it felt right, you had regenerating shields but you could still take a few hits if they failed and after your shield regenerated you still had to worry about the wounds you took when they were down.
But in Halo 2 you pretty much die if your hit after your shield is down and that makes it feel less like your playing as a super soldier and more like your just "some guy" that just happens to have a high-tech armor on.
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Video Games are the path to the enlightenment of Humankind, or at least Reptitekind.
In Halo 1 it felt right, you had regenerating shields but you could still take a few hits if they failed and after your shield regenerated you still had to worry about the wounds you took when they were down.
But in Halo 2 you pretty much die if your hit after your shield is down and that makes it feel less like your playing as a super soldier and more like your just "some guy" that just happens to have a high-tech armor on.
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Video Games are the path to the enlightenment of Humankind, or at least Reptitekind.