Poll: Health Bar or Regenerating Health, what is your stance on this new trend?

[Anton P. Nym]

I think the health system should be tailored to suit the game's pacing and style. As others have noted, regen works better for some games and health bar works better for others.

I would like to strenuously object to the idea that health bars are more "realistic". They're not. In real life, if you're hit by a bullet or grenade odds are that you're out of action right then and there. Slapping a band-aid(tm) on and gulping some pills won't put you back into the fight "good as new"... even if you're not down, you've got some sort of impeded function.

Treasure the unrealism. It's a lot more fun than instant-out without ever seeing who/what took you down, which is historically the most common way to exit a battlefield feet-first.

-- Steve

 

[knumpify]

i'm a sucker for a health bar, usually because you have to guesstimate just how much damage you can take before you need to dip out for cover.

ooh, I took one bullet and the screen's red, hmm... i'm now being riddled with bullets, so to show this new damage, my screen turns red. wow, that was... useful

it's a little better to be able to turn around and go: oh, i've got 1/4 of my health left, i'd better take a potion/medkit/suit charge/random pill from a medicine cabinet, in my opinion.

 

[Dark Wingstalker]

I personally really liked the health bar from Condemned 2, where it is in my opinion a pretty fair balance between the two.

Quoted for truth, its the best health bar i've seen in a while.

 

[squid5580]

I couldn't find an option in the poll that suited so I'll just put in my 2 cents.

Either system has issues. And depending on the game at hand it can work fairly well or is broken. Also there is the SP and the MP aspects to consider.

Regenerating health has to have some type of balance. If it is to slow it slows down the game. If it is to fast then it takes all the challenge of the SP and makes for a lame MP experience. Turok is the best example I can think of for a bad MP experience. Using a shotgun and a machine gun blasting the snot out of the guy chargin at you with a knife and they just don't die. Yet all they need to do is walk up to you hit a button and you are pwned.

As for an SP game with this problem is Dark Sector (haven't tried MP yet). I was in the middle of a game and wanted to die. I walked up to a machine gunner and stood there nose to nose with him. A few minutes later I was finally dead. Sure bosses are a different story (chaep buggers) but there is no reason for it to take minutes for a grunt to shoot you to death.

Now on to health packs and bars.

The main problem I have with them in SP is not with the health pack system itself. It is more of a problem with the save/checkpoint system. So you are in the middle of a firefight eat up all your packs and kill all the enemies. As soon as the last body hits the floor a little message appears "saving" or "checkpoint reached." So if there is no more healthpacks left in the level you aren't gonna make it through the next big firefight without alot of luck. Even better is when you have no HPs and are in the red when the message pops up. So some games will allow you to restart the entire level where others aren't so generous. They are the ones that make you replay the entire game. Gee thanks devs.

In the wide world of MP games there is also some issues that do come up. FEAR and FEAR Files are the only games I can think of off hand that use the HP system. FEAR allows a player to carry up to 10 HPs at any given time. These are scattered over the level and dropped by an enemy when you (or someone else kills them). So unless you get off a headshot or use an uber weapon you could end up killing the player 10x over before they finally die. The best example I have seen of this balance problem is we had a 8 on 2 team deathmatch. And the 8 player team got smoked. The reason was that the 2 had alot more chances of getting the HPs due to the numbers. And if a skilled player gets a hold of some HPs they can become almost invincible.

Now in FEAR Files they use a different and more acceptable MP system IMO. When an enemy drops they drop a HP. The difference is you can't store it. If you need the health then it heals you. If your life is full then nothing happens. That seems fair as opposed to the first games system where a good player can get better easily but a new/less skilled player is doomed. Since the skilled player will be able to kill get the HP and spam them when in trouble where the noob is just gonna keep helping the skilled player get better by dropping the HPs.

Bottom line is either system can work but there needs to be some type of balance. And since I have yet to find a game that uses either perfectly (or a reasonable facimile of perfection) it is really hard to say this one is better than that IMHO.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I liked the Bioshock route, honestly. You had a health bar, but you also had health packs that you could carry, health stations on the walls, and health pack vendors every few feet. And dying regenerated your health as well.

The thing to realize here is that games aren't hard anymore. They aren't. Anyone saying they are either wasn't there or is a liar. Between quicksaves and health regen and more gameplay options (cover, blind-fire, the ability to simply sidestep something) video games are less about controller-snapping difficulty and more about having a fun ride through to the end. To that end, I'd say that, while Bioshock's route made it too easy, the choice here is really only between easy or still easy but slightly longer.

Now, if some company is going to make a game where the purpose is to be difficult, and I mean really difficult, as in "there are many gamers who will never beat this title" difficult, then we have an argument for a more intense health system.

But that doesn't happen anymore.

- J

 

[MindBullets]

Health bars all the way.

Some of the most intense moments are when you're low on health and have to skillfully avoid getting shot until you find a medkit.

 

[sequio]

Regen health destroyed the challenge of FPS for me. I'm remembering all the way back to Contra when 1 hit would kill and my 10 yr old mind worked furiously to figure out how to dodge 6 incoming bullets in midair. To get the same feel for regen health games, i try to eliminate all enemies at every fight sequence without resting/taking cover.

 

[christhe1der]

I'm not a huge FPS boy, but what I do know is this- Ducking behind a wall and fixing yourself after You just lost 96.5% of your health from a poorly thrown grenade is bullshit. Especially for those people like myself who aren't that experience in this regard, to have all of my "more experienced" friends just heal themselves then kill me. I'm a health bar man, plan and simple

 

[irishdelinquent]

The thing about non regenerating health bars, is that it prevents game designers from precisely planning out challenges for the player because they dont know how much health they will have at any given point, so the challenge will either be too easy or too hard...or just right (maybe).

I'll agree with you that it is hard for a developer to plan each level precisely (i.e. it is hard to tell when you've put too many enemies in a section of a level, forcing the player to replay a section several times). However, it sounds to me like you're kind of nit-picking. Yeah, it sucks when you come across a group of grunts (generic enemies, not the annoying little Ewok wannabes from Halo) and they take you out by attrition. Oh well. You reload at the nearest checkpoint and try a new strategy. It's easy to plan out battles in regenerating health games, because you can assume that the player is at 100% health. To me, this takes out part of the fun...what's more fun, playing on an even playing field or overcoming a handicap?

Also while regenerating health makes for symetricaly balanced encounters in multiplayer, with health bars, battles can be completely un equal.

This is the big thing that bothers me about regenerating health bars, especially online. It bugs me when I've emptied a magazine into someone, only for them to run and hide behind a rock (me being conveniently out of grenades). All my effort and ammunition are all for not in about 5 seconds, and the bullet-riddled body is no worse for wears. It just breaks gameplay IMO. With health bars it's simple...when you're shot, there no healing it with some kind of first aid. You can't just hide somewhere and twiddle your thumbs until you feel better; you've actually got to either suck it up and play through the pain, or find some health asap.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Health bars, possibly ones that regenerate if it's appropriate*. Easier though to just put some healing items/a save station in between each major gunfight. Worrying about the amount of health players have left should never inspire a developer to make any given battle easier- just the opposite, in fact.

*- All the same, regeneration should not occur quickly either way. Maybe include a 'Rest' feature where the Player becomes slow/immobile and weaponless for a small period in order to regain their health. This would prevent them from cheesing it mid-battle unless they found a spot of cover they were 100% positive would be safe in the coming 10-15 seconds.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I kinda don't get what people mean by "pace of the game" - I mean, Gears had only one direction to go, and that was forward, a health station or checkpoint every now and then wouldn't have made a difference (to me at least), and, the first CoD had scattered health packs and that still worked out fine.

I guess I'll just never see a necessity to completely omit a health bar.

 

[PTTG-10000]

I'm partial to semi-regenerating hitpoints, I suppose something like Halo's handling of health. However, given free choice, I'd want a game that had rougelike health, or more specificaly Dwarf Fortress-like health, where each body part has several states and can be chopped off, burned up, and much more! Add in factors like blood loss and exaustion, and you've got a rockn' cool game. Of course, I am an E-machocist, so most might not find that a lot of fun. All I really want in a game is to feel like I can be blown away at any moment, and it is only my skill that's keeping me alive... weather that's the true case or not.

 

[ImperialPyromancer]

Why not have medics? Pretty successful formula in a fair few games. Battlefield and such, TF2 even HL2 had medics at some points, with the squads that assisted you. It's pretty much the same as health regeneration I suppose but possibly appeals to people hellbent (I say hellbent, but it's probably not enough for those who go around playing Hearts of Iron 2) on more realism (not including the medic gun from tf2).

Imagine CoD SP with medics? It would be virtually the same as helath regen, but solve some realism issues i.e. wait a couple of seconds/minutes/days/months/years depending on "realism" preference and then get back to fighting. And MP medics work, Battlefield series being a case in point. They've even come up with a "credible" way to resurrect dead people (defibrillators), necromancy on todays battlefields!

 

[mwhite67]

Regenerating health makes the games pace faster. Health bars make the games tension higher. I prefer the recharge just because I like a faster pace in my FPSs it may not be as realistic, but I think it's more fun.

 

[Alan Au]

The concept of "health" in games is just an abstraction. I had prepared this long post about how to use various systems (some realism, some regeneration, etc.), for various types of experiences, but now I think I'll just go off in a completely random direction and suggest that more games use the "Sonic the Hedgehog" model. You get a reward for careful gameplay, a minor penalty for minor mistakes, and a major penalty for consistenly poor gameplay. That seems about right to me.

- Alan

 

[The Potato Lord]

I think a combination a regenerating health and bars would be fantastic, Monster Hunter Freedom did this well though it isn't a shooter.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I am an E-machocist, so most might not find that a lot of fun. All I really want in a game is to feel like I can be blown away at any moment, and it is only my skill that's keeping me alive... weather that's the true case or not.

"E-Masochist" - wow, that is an awesome term lol, mind if I use it too? (I just hope it isn't misinterpreted.)