Poll: Health in games votey vote time!

[Bob_F_It]

I think each system will have its faults, but I think the thing is that each one is better for single- or multi-player. Indeed, a pain in the ass in multiplayer when you nearly kill your opponant, only for them to be fresh-out-of-the-box after a few moments of cover, but the same thing in single player will have you tip-toeing through the level, wondering where the hell that next midkit is. Not that that's a bad thing, but not all games want to go in that direction (certainly a killjoy for Rachet and Clank).

Although sometimes that is what is being offered. Operation Flashpoint was the most lethal game; you can't heal unless there's a medic or hospital nearby, and regeneration is out of the question. It was a scenario where you really didn't want to get hurt, but that made it all the more awesome.

Being a gameplay centred shooter, Black found a great balance of the two: a short peppering of bullets could be shrugged off, but prolonged exposure would mean more permanant damage. You could undo that through touch-on-heal medkits and even hammerspace health packs if you toned the difficulty down.
Yet there was still limited regeneration when you were seriously injured, but not more than around 10% of your healthy self. This ensured that you could still fight a bit, but not without forgetting that you had one foot in the grave.

 

[TheBadass]

As I said, If health regeneration was removed, in a few months everyone would start crying about how they miss it.

I agree.

I was just playing the Killzone 2 demo and can't even begin to imagine how much it would be ruined by a health bar. I default with the HUD off, which is impossible with a health bar, and would therefore ruin the entire experience. Not to mention health packs wouldn't exactly fit with the atmosphere.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Far cry 2's sistem is a step up. For e.g. When you're health bar is low, you could press a button and a little animation showing yourself pulling a bullet out of you're foot or...extinguishing fire from you're body etc. would appear, basicly making you "heal yourself".

You could make a sistem similar to Health Regen, for e.g. You get Shot, and for each 2 seconds you don't pull that bullet out or something, you're HP starts drop.

 

[Finnboghi]

I think a mix of degeneration from wounds, regeneration when staunched, and health packs to turn it around would be great.

Like if you get shot in the upper chest, your health rapidly goes down until you get/use a health pack, at which point it slows, stops, then begins to regenerate. Whereas if you get shot in the foot, it goes down slowly, until you heal and then it rapidly returns.

Just my thoughts.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Regenerating health packs like in Mass Effect. You have health packs, but take a while for you to be able to use it again. That adds a bit of strategy to it instead of hiding under a table for a bit. You have no idea how many times in Gears of War online someone just runs away when they're about to die. That gets frustrating.

 

[ElephantGuts]

I liked the healing system in Far Cry 2. Its use of morphine injections (or whatever it was) which act like health packs, works perfectly and is realistic. It also had the little bit of regeneration mixed in for minor wounds, which was also realistic and good. And, of course, there were the badass pulling bullets/shrapnel out of you animations for serious wounds, which were also realistic, good and even fun. So, I can't really think of a much better health system than Far Cry 2's.

 

[Davey Woo]

My idea is a game where the damage done is relative to where your hit. For instance, someone shoots you in the leg, you fall to the floor, are unable to use any large weapons, but can move around slightly and provided you don't get hit anywhere worse, you'll be able to get back up soon. (Kind of like a mix between being downed in GoW and being incapped in L4D.

That seems like a great idea. I was hoping they were going to do that in Fallout3 as you can target certain body parts, but apparently three shots in the leg does kill a raider

But that might be ok, I havn't played Fallout so I'll ask. Are raiders by any chance scrawny little buggers that look like they'd snap the wind picked up a bit?