Poll: Regenerating Health or Non-Regenerating Health?

[Fourspaces]

I prefer regenerating health in games because it usually leads to more flow and a faster pace, something you can lose in games where you're constantly looking round for health kits.
And I think that if regenerating health is making a game too easy, thats the fault of that particular game, not regenerating health - i've played a lot of games where my health regenerated but enemies could still murder me on the higher difficulties.
Its not exactly realistic to recover from being shot in 30 seconds, but neither is being able to instantly heal a wound in a second with a first aid kit.

 

[MammothBlade]

By default, non-regenerating but with modifications and abilities which grant health regeneration, if it suits the game's setting. Players should have to work for that regenerating health. I guess this is partly a realism gripe, as it is totally implausible that a soldier could just regenerate health independently - at least you have to ration first-aid kits and earn health upgrades; and partly because it takes alot of skill and tactics out of a game. In multiplayer games, you know that an enemy is going to be back to full health if you don't kill them before they escape. So much for hunting people down. It removes that sort of tension to some degree. In single player, it makes things tedious if the game relies on the mechanics of indestructible cover and regenerating health. When I played CoD 4 on Hard, there were a few levels which had so many enemies in a wide open space that it was impossible to get a shot in, and I went through a very tedious process of hiding behind cover and sniping off enemies and then waiting to heal, that just sucked the fun out of it. It seemed like a cheap cop-out on the part of the developers.

 

[renegade7]

To me it depends on the game. For shooters that are meant to be very fast-paced (CoD, Battlefield, ME2 and I did actually like it in those games), regenerating health keeps the action moving quickly. However, with slower shooters that give you more time to think, like Metroid Prime or Marathon, having non-regenerating health makes health a resource you need to be careful with, granted you do have more than in games that let you regenerate, but you need to be more thoughtful than "go duck behind the nearest cover".

 

[Atmos Duality]

Regenerating health. It's much more fun, and healing yourself slows you down.

If you ignore resource management and persistent tension as possible elements for your gameplay, then yes.
Context is important. Left4Dead wouldn't even be half as fun (or challenging, at all) if everyone had regenerating health.
EDIT: Poll needs a 3rd option: "Depends on game" or something to that effect.

 

[WanderingFool]

Like I said many times before in the exact, AND I MEAN EXACT, same thread; depends on the game. Some games work better with regen health, others work better with med kits.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Honestly it depends on the game. I think regenerating health works in games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, however, if games like Dark Souls had regenerating health it would make the game too easy.

 

[Mate397]

no regen, it's a lot more fun when you have to keep an eye on your healthbar, like in DeadSpace or other games, i mean the health regen is a cheap way to save money from the game's budget. not to mention it's just pure crap take a lethal ammount of damage and just hide behind a wall for 2 seconds and you're a-okay (like the COD series for example..)

 

[Jandau]

Both/either, as befits each game. Both are perfectly valid gameplay mechanics with their own strenghts and weaknesses and both promote certain playstyles. The trick is for the developer to correctly determine which would be better for his particular game...

 

[everythingbeeps]

Eh...it depends on the game obviously. I hate having to look around for or manage health packs, but I also agree that regenerating health takes all the challenge out of a game. Well, most of it anyway.

 

[spartan231490]

I hate non-regenerating health, I really do.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Its an easy one.

Non regenerating health should be left to real world game like WW2 or MW.
Regenerating health is for futuristic games like Halo or any with future shield type thing.

Making a modern day soldier with just armor regain health is dumb. But in future games with electric force fields or shields, then it works fine.

 

[Millardo]

They had a hybrid health regen system in both the original Killzone and Resistance Fall of Man. Both games had med kits, but also regened the player to a round off point. Good systems, but I'm still a fan of med-kits going back to doom and wolfenstein. there is no greater tension and terror than running away "The Horde" with 4% health and no packs to be found. If i remember right, extra credits did an episode on this very same discussion.

 

[Fayathon]

Give me a game along FaryCry/Resistance 1's style, or one with Metro 2033's style, both are workable. Health bars (numerical representations, whatever) that need kits as the only way to heal are only good depending on the game, see: Left 4 Dead, where health is supposed to be a commodity.

In a game like CoD or Battlefield where you are a normal soldier, I think the Metro approach should be used: you get a little bit of health, die easily, but you will slowly regen your health. Sitting behind cover will not net you the needed health before you get over-ran by enemies, you need to secure the area to safely recharge your health.

Games like Halo, Haze, Crysis, shit where you're a super-soldier, I think the FarCry method should be used, you take moderate amounts of damage, but can only regen a portion of your health, so caution is advised, but not needed as badly as CoD styled games.

Then games that are over-the-top screwball shooters, like TF2, Serious Sam, Painkiller, etc: Let you soak up the damage, but make you earn your health back with kits or some variation thereof to encourage you to scrounge for health, but allow you to go Rambo on your enemies and use those over-the-top weapons without worrying too badly that you'll get killed the second you step out of cover.

And lastly, survival styled games need to have health that is measured, and hard to recover, where you get weaker as you get injured, but healing yourself all the time is not a viable option: See Left 4 Dead. You can carry health with you in small quantities, but it takes time and leaves you vulnerable to attack while you patch yourself up. Using quick health items grants you a small amount of health that doesn't do a whole lot in the long run other than get you moving again, but are easy to use, big health items getting you back to proper fighting form but are potentially lethal to use in the wrong context.

 

[Booze Zombie]

My personal preference for a really immersive game would be "DIG THE BULLET OUT AND USE A BANDAGE TO HEAL". It'd certainly make surviving a gun fight interesting.

 

[DBLT4P]

ultimately I think its dependent on the intended market of the game:

campaign/single player/offline: non regenerating

online/competitive multiplayer: regenerating