Now with the Duke Demo out and it's release imminent, many old school gamers cry out in dismay because the Duke features regenerating health (slightly glorified as "Ego" in game) over the traditional healthpacks the originals had.
As I see it, both systems have advantages and disadvantages.
The main advantage of healthpacks is that they add another ressource to manage, and the scavange for healthpacks make the players search the maps more thoroughly. Basically having low health is a state which encourages activity from the player.
But healthpacks can cause frustration, for example pitting you against great odds when you're down on health and no packs available before difficult passages.
Regenerating health on the other side prevents said frustration, as full health is always just a cover away. As RH systems generally tend to kill off players faster when not in cover, RH promotes more "realistic" approaches to encounter and advancing more cautiously in firefights. thus it shifts the focus more on the actual battles than the scavanging for ressources.
The downside is that gampleay becomes more static, and in many games you spend as much, if not more time staring at a chest high cover wall until your healed than actually shooting stuff. Thus, it's basically a mechanic that encourages passive behaviour.
IMHO hybrid systems rather combine the downsides of two than the upsides...
EDIT: An explanation of hybrid systems, as seen in Far Cry 2 and the Riddick games: the health bar is segmented: each segment will refill after a certain amount of time, unless it's completely depleated. You need to use a healthpack of some kind to regain those depleated segments.
So conclusively, I prefer games with no health meter, where one or two hits kill you (original R6, Red Orchestra, ArmA...)
Now, what's your take on this?
As I see it, both systems have advantages and disadvantages.
The main advantage of healthpacks is that they add another ressource to manage, and the scavange for healthpacks make the players search the maps more thoroughly. Basically having low health is a state which encourages activity from the player.
But healthpacks can cause frustration, for example pitting you against great odds when you're down on health and no packs available before difficult passages.
Regenerating health on the other side prevents said frustration, as full health is always just a cover away. As RH systems generally tend to kill off players faster when not in cover, RH promotes more "realistic" approaches to encounter and advancing more cautiously in firefights. thus it shifts the focus more on the actual battles than the scavanging for ressources.
The downside is that gampleay becomes more static, and in many games you spend as much, if not more time staring at a chest high cover wall until your healed than actually shooting stuff. Thus, it's basically a mechanic that encourages passive behaviour.
IMHO hybrid systems rather combine the downsides of two than the upsides...
EDIT: An explanation of hybrid systems, as seen in Far Cry 2 and the Riddick games: the health bar is segmented: each segment will refill after a certain amount of time, unless it's completely depleated. You need to use a healthpack of some kind to regain those depleated segments.
So conclusively, I prefer games with no health meter, where one or two hits kill you (original R6, Red Orchestra, ArmA...)
Now, what's your take on this?
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