Poll: Healthpacks vs. Regenerating Health

[cp.06]

I think the main appeal of regenerating health is that the players can keep moving forward instead of backtracking through the stage repeatedly...

But if the levels were less linear, there would be no need for backtracking...

I agree with Extra Credits, health packs (Or as someone brilliantly suggested; Morphine) lend themselves toward better level design. I detested the Halo series because of it's level design and requirement for you to sit down and hide for twenty seconds every time you took a few bullets to the face.

More realistic? Certainly.
More fun? Hell no.

 

[ColeusRattus]

If you had watched Extra Credits you'd know that regenning health has another upside, it results in better level design due to the dev team knowing exactly how much health the player will be at any given time and not having to guess...
i can't explain, just watch extra credits

... but i prefer hybrid

Despite how much I like EC, I have to disagree. Not only is health basically just another "ammo" meter, which would make that argument valid for unlimited ammo guns, I think the opposite is true:

Because the scavanging has to be fun, the levels need to be made with much greater care and attention to detail. Also, it breaks up the pacing, having intense moments of fights alternated with calm moments of finding supplies, while RH games like COD race along with a constant breakneck speed.
It gets even worse when regenerating health is paired with a chest high wall cover system, which makes games have very basic layouts of squarish rooms with those walls, where all the nice and beautiful things are either in te background or between encounters.

Also, I am generally opposing the idea that level designers should be like movie directors, pacing our game. I'm more for the notion that the game should be designed in a way that allows players to pace it themselves how they see fit.

Not to mention that by placing healthpacks, level designers can influnece and "know" (which is basically: the player has full health all the time for RH games) how much health a player has at any given point.

 

[ThePirateMan]

Regenerating health is better suited for ultra realism cover based shooters.

Ultra realism.
Regaining all your health after being blown up/shot/stabbed/etc in about five seconds.

These things do not go together.

 

[Still Life]

Generally, I prefer regen health -- if balanced correctly. Running around looking for health packs is tedious and in shooter-based gameplay, it takes me out of the action. Having said that, I like hybrid/segmented health systems and I'm not against traditional health-pack systems, so long as it fits the gameplay and is balanced correctly. id did health packs best with all the Doom games, as they know how to balance levels.

 

[cp.06]

Regenerating health is better suited for ultra realism cover based shooters.

Ultra realism.
Regaining all your health after being blown up/shot/stabbed/etc in about five seconds.

These things do not go together.

Truth.
This man speaks it.

When did we start using the word realism in place of brown?

 

[Knusper]

The hybrid in Farcry 2 was ideal for me because being hurt was still a problem and you were rewarded for seeing a cringingly painful healing action.

 

[Choppaduel]

Both systems can work, regenerating is harder to get right. COD 4, for example, does it completely wrong. Halo:CE, with its hybrid, does it pretty well. (imo)

 

[Searlero]

I prefer healthpacks, it adds another challage to the game.

The best health system I found was in Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. When your hit you start bleeding you have to stop it or you'll bleed out and die (you can stop that yourself). But to get fully healed you have to call your medic over. If you aren't fully healed, your aim can be worse or you can't run or you are more suspetable to damage.

 

[ColeusRattus]

Updated the OP with 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."

 

[Tourmeta]

Hybrid, yes

 

[Frybird]

I like the Hybrid Approach best, with games like Riddick or Halo or Far Cry 2 where you can always regenerate enough health to get (barely) through the game, although it would be pretty tough, and have Healthpacks on top of it to regain full energy.

What i hate most are "run over only" Healthpacks. It's just inconvienient and in most games silly. If Healthpacks are the only option, at least let me use them when i need them, like the Painkillers in Max Payne 1/2 or in FEAR

EDIT: That said, in the end, it always depends on the game whats best for it.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

If health packs win, we have some liars amongst us; regenerating health wouldn't be in video games if people didn't like it and therefor by into it.

THANK YOU.

The poll results are ridiculous, regenerating health is commonly used in console shooters, so therefore its automatically hated despite any advantages it may bring.

As for what I reckon, I don't really care.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Generally speaking I'm on Team Regenerate. I've never been a big fan of tripping over first aid kits. It just means I have to run around before and after every fight looking for pickups. Little more than busywork in my opinion.

However, Far Cry 2, for all it's faults, had the best health system I've ever seen in a game. I wish more developers would use it.

I like the idea of having a charge that regenerates your health and when it runs out you have to wait.
Still for realisms sake if you are a normal human character one shot kills.

 

[Kasper Gundersen]

Isn't there a game where your health do regenerate, but at a very slow pace, while the option of health packs for quicker health, is available?
That would be the best I guess

 

[Megacherv]

Generally speaking I'm on Team Regenerate. I've never been a big fan of tripping over first aid kits. It just means I have to run around before and after every fight looking for pickups. Little more than busywork in my opinion.

However, Far Cry 2, for all it's faults, had the best health system I've ever seen in a game. I wish more developers would use it.

They used it in the first Resistance (can't remember Resistance 2), but the cleverly made it so that you don't have it until you get infected with the Chimeran virus, which I thought was pretty cool.

 

[tzimize]

Healthpacks! It makes Health meaningfull. Not long ago I played Singularity, which featured not only healthpacks but also a bandaging animation when you used it.

Made it hell of a lot more exciting, and could be very dangerous if you got low on hp with many mobs around. Bandaging while fleeing...exilerating. Goddamnit. Regenerating health sucks monkey ass.

 

[Sir Boss]

If you had watched Extra Credits you'd know that regenning health has another upside, it results in better level design due to the dev team knowing exactly how much health the player will be at any given time and not having to guess...
i can't explain, just watch extra credits

... but i prefer hybrid

Despite how much I like EC, I have to disagree. Not only is health basically just another "ammo" meter, which would make that argument valid for unlimited ammo guns, I think the opposite is true:

Because the scavanging has to be fun, the levels need to be made with much greater care and attention to detail. Also, it breaks up the pacing, having intense moments of fights alternated with calm moments of finding supplies, while RH games like COD race along with a constant breakneck speed.
It gets even worse when regenerating health is paired with a chest high wall cover system, which makes games have very basic layouts of squarish rooms with those walls, where all the nice and beautiful things are either in te background or between encounters.

Also, I am generally opposing the idea that level designers should be like movie directors, pacing our game. I'm more for the notion that the game should be designed in a way that allows players to pace it themselves how they see fit.

Not to mention that by placing healthpacks, level designers can influnece and "know" (which is basically: the player has full health all the time for RH games) how much health a player has at any given point.

you do have some points in those blocks of text, however the better level design argument is from purely a combat standpoint, as back in the days of the old health system the developers had to predict what health th player would be at, making encounters easy or difficult accordingly, surely in older games you've had moments where you've had more or less health than was expected of you.

I Know exactly what you mean with your whole chest high walls paragraph, i cannot argue with you there.

 

[Weealzabob]

Both the health pack, and the regenerating health styles have significant flaws and advantages. The health pack system can be unbalanced, either causing you to flee combat in search of health, or leave you so overflowing with health items you don't really have to worry about death.
While regenerating health kind of hurts the constant pressure of combat, knowing you can just hide for five seconds and Wolverine yourself. (Unless the game's got really good AI that will flank, and press the attack.)
I think they're just needs to be more experimentation, and blending of the two. Cause it just gets boring hoarding potions, or waiting for the color to come back to the screen.