What happened to health meters?
- Thread starter retyopy
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"Boohoo it's all Call of dutys fault for being so popular"
Health meters still exist, they just have no place in modern shooters. If you want your game to be a mixture of speed and tactics, why suck them out between fights to make them hunt for some health?
Contrast this to genres that still use health meters, mainly survival horror, and you see why they are so important there, they are the main reason you will explore, and when you're confronted with a dark side passage, you really don't want to go down there, but your dwindling health forces you too. And if there's anything scarier than going down a dark corridor, it's having to decide to go down that dark corridor
But hey, modern shooters are clearly all that matter [since people get so upset about regenerating health ruining them]. So let's all look back at the latest shooter I played with health meters, Operation Flashpoint: Red River-
Ah yes, I've been shot, I sure hope it regenerates. Oh no it doesn't I'm bleeding out, I'll just hold A to heal myself...
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...
...
...
20 Seconds later, after about 30 Chinese people all bumrush me and I have to kill them, and start healing again, I'm better. I love the fluid gameplay that health meters generate.
Another example? OK. Half Life 2. "Boy that firefight sure was intense, I have 1 hit point left, but I'm still walking despite my grievous wounds, how realistic*. Now I need to wander around and look for a health kit, but since this is a shooter and not a tightly made, claustrophobic horror game, the levels are large and I have to look in every nook and cranny to find some health, Whoopee I love fluid gameplay."
If both games had regenerating health, you would duck behind cover, be back out in a couple of seconds and continue playing your game. Isn't that what you paid for? To play a game, and not play hide and seek between each interesting bit?
*That's for all you folks who care about realism in games in any way, neither is more realistic than the other, since a bullet will kill most people. So shut up.
Health meters still exist, they just have no place in modern shooters. If you want your game to be a mixture of speed and tactics, why suck them out between fights to make them hunt for some health?
Contrast this to genres that still use health meters, mainly survival horror, and you see why they are so important there, they are the main reason you will explore, and when you're confronted with a dark side passage, you really don't want to go down there, but your dwindling health forces you too. And if there's anything scarier than going down a dark corridor, it's having to decide to go down that dark corridor
But hey, modern shooters are clearly all that matter [since people get so upset about regenerating health ruining them]. So let's all look back at the latest shooter I played with health meters, Operation Flashpoint: Red River-
Ah yes, I've been shot, I sure hope it regenerates. Oh no it doesn't I'm bleeding out, I'll just hold A to heal myself...
...
...
...
...
20 Seconds later, after about 30 Chinese people all bumrush me and I have to kill them, and start healing again, I'm better. I love the fluid gameplay that health meters generate.
Another example? OK. Half Life 2. "Boy that firefight sure was intense, I have 1 hit point left, but I'm still walking despite my grievous wounds, how realistic*. Now I need to wander around and look for a health kit, but since this is a shooter and not a tightly made, claustrophobic horror game, the levels are large and I have to look in every nook and cranny to find some health, Whoopee I love fluid gameplay."
If both games had regenerating health, you would duck behind cover, be back out in a couple of seconds and continue playing your game. Isn't that what you paid for? To play a game, and not play hide and seek between each interesting bit?
*That's for all you folks who care about realism in games in any way, neither is more realistic than the other, since a bullet will kill most people. So shut up.
Because it's pretty much an old system that deserved to go away. Think about it. You're about to go on rainbow-colored-unicorn-made-of-canadian-bacon segment, but you have to to backtrack because your health is low. Sure, for the first few times, you feel the rush of staying alive. However, it quickly fades off.
Think about it...Would you rather wait 10 seconds while you're hurt or search for a health pack/ammo during 10 minutes?
What? You think that I don't like health packs? I think they're fun in games like Team Fortress 2 or a game where survival is the key to winning. TF2 gives you ammo from guns of the dead and gives you plenty of ways to heal yourself. A survival horror game would lose a good portion of its fear factor if you had regenerating health.
I'm just saying: "If you want health packs, you better know how to design so it doesn't break the flow of gameplay".
Think about it...Would you rather wait 10 seconds while you're hurt or search for a health pack/ammo during 10 minutes?
What? You think that I don't like health packs? I think they're fun in games like Team Fortress 2 or a game where survival is the key to winning. TF2 gives you ammo from guns of the dead and gives you plenty of ways to heal yourself. A survival horror game would lose a good portion of its fear factor if you had regenerating health.
I'm just saying: "If you want health packs, you better know how to design so it doesn't break the flow of gameplay".
I would think that taking cover to regenerate health constantly is just as analogous to hide and seek as searching for health packs. I know hyperbole is fun, but please stop making it sound as if every health pack in a game requires 20 minutes of laborious scrutiny to find. Most games have plenty of health laying out in plain view or require no more than 10 seconds of searching to open that closet door.SammiYin said:
My biggest problem with regenerating health is that it removes something very important to a game: consequence. There's significantly less reason to play intelligently or employ caution with regenerating health. You can play as sloppily as you want, taking 99% damage in every encounter, and it won't matter beyond the 4 seconds it takes to regen. Tactical decisions went from weighing various levels of damage taken vs the reward, to "will this kill me, yes/no?" With no reward (an abundant supply of health) for playing intelligently, and decisions reduced to a simple yes/no formula, it shouldn't be surprising that some people do not have positive opinions on regenerating health.
Edit:
To the guy above me: You have one of the best forum names I've ever seen. My hat is off to you, sir.
Gears of War has a health meter. What do you think that big red gear in the middle of the screen is? Fills up when you get shot, goes away when you don't. Screams health bar to me.Cridhe said:
Using a regenerating health system allows you to assume that the player will enter every battle at full health, rather than having to balance it around whatever health the player may or may not have found.
It's laziness. Nothing necessarily wrong with it, but that is what it is.
It's laziness. Nothing necessarily wrong with it, but that is what it is.
You can find one in your Escapist profile. tee hee hee.
All kidding aside, there's really nothing I could say that hasn't already been covered. It's all about the realism. Although if you ask me, fuck realism. Besides, I find the regenerating health less immersive than the bloody health meter anyway.
All kidding aside, there's really nothing I could say that hasn't already been covered. It's all about the realism. Although if you ask me, fuck realism. Besides, I find the regenerating health less immersive than the bloody health meter anyway.
Sounds like someone sucks at shooters to me. And, yes, engage in hyperbole much.SammiYin said:
Regenerating health serves as a good band-aid for crap design. They can swarm you with enemies and as long as there's a rock to hide behind, there's no need to worry about how outnumbered you are. It eliminates any challenge or sense of tension. It lets those Riddlin addled kiddy tards to get back to PEW PEW PEW PEW LAWL TEABAG without having to actually be decent at anything, they can just hide.
Some of the most intense experiences I had in Half-Life 2 were when I was limping around with a few points of health. Constantly on my toes, searching every corner for a box of health but still having to carefully clear the rooms because if I got sloppy, I was a corpse. Was there some downtime if I had to backtrack and look for a med pack I skipped by? Yep. Was I not "playing" the game? Nope, it had a sense of urgency that was almost on par with the actual fire fight while I hoped and dug through boxes, praying I didn't accidently miss a trooper or a headcrab zombie.
The irony if it is less people would ***** about regenerating health (in Shooters, since that is really the only genre where this argument comes up) if it wasn't so omnipresent. If there were a few more big ticket games that came out and did it the "old fashion" way, there'd be far less hostility. Hell, I'd even argue that the smartest thing that a game could do is make two modes, one with regenerating health, one with health packs. Balancing it may be a bit tricky but it would likely be a pretty minor issue compared to having MASS appeal. But like I said above, why would they bother. They can pump out mass produced garbage way faster if they have regenerating health since there's no need to even bother with game balance; everyone is basically playing with a stripped down God-mode.
I don't know, but I really do wish they'd make a come back in a smart way.
For example, I decided to replay Bioshock on the hardest difficulty. Even though the game has a health bar, the vita-chambers make death a temporary setback instead of something to fear. When the vita-chambers were on, I felt no real tension as I was playing despite the harder difficulty. It was only when I turned them off that I actually felt as if I was trying to fight for survival. Suddenly, all the props in the environment were mandatory to gaining an advantage against Big Daddies or groups of foes. It almost makes me wish that vita-chambers weren't in the game at all, as the experience is a lot better without them.
It's the same with regenerating health. Sure, dying still sucks but there is no real sense of strategy or tension. You just become a temporary bullet sponge, derp all over the place, and eventually you'll pass the level. Take away regenerating health, suddenly you aren't charging into bullets like a moron and you will need to exploit the environment around you to stay alive.
For example, I decided to replay Bioshock on the hardest difficulty. Even though the game has a health bar, the vita-chambers make death a temporary setback instead of something to fear. When the vita-chambers were on, I felt no real tension as I was playing despite the harder difficulty. It was only when I turned them off that I actually felt as if I was trying to fight for survival. Suddenly, all the props in the environment were mandatory to gaining an advantage against Big Daddies or groups of foes. It almost makes me wish that vita-chambers weren't in the game at all, as the experience is a lot better without them.
It's the same with regenerating health. Sure, dying still sucks but there is no real sense of strategy or tension. You just become a temporary bullet sponge, derp all over the place, and eventually you'll pass the level. Take away regenerating health, suddenly you aren't charging into bullets like a moron and you will need to exploit the environment around you to stay alive.
Everyone bemoans recharging health meters. But I remember the difference from Halo 1 and Halo 2. In Halo 1 it was a drag and a pace killer to stop going forward and walk back to find a stupid health pack. In Halo 2 it was unnecessary and the just got rid of it. It's not laziness. They keep them because the keep the pace of the game up, if that is what they are trying to achieve.
efeat said:
I'll answer both here since I'm such a swell guy. Yes I was exaggerating, but imagine how it would be for someone completely new to games, would they know the signs to look out for as to goody lairs? but also if the reality, as you say, is that health kits are close together and just require a tiny bit of digging [which, in Half Life 2 I find, they are pretty darn obvious to find [Hmm that hut that I don't need to go in, there's bound to be health in there!] and you almost always turn out right, then how is that even any[/]different from regenerating health? At least [I'm just going to say RH now] has the time factor to recharge, but health kits you just need to walk over, so you can ignore everything shooting you to pick it up, then you can go back to blasting foo's. That's not tactics, it's a blind rush to get the thing before you die.Sylveria said:
Hang on? that sounds like RH where you make a mad rush from cover to cover ignoring everything shooting you.
Oh and the "health meters are a much bigger challenge brah" thing...just stop. I'm playing through Half Life 2 and you know what? It's incredibly easy, sure I've died a few times [mainly when my pc was playing up], but as long as you do a little rooting in between fights [which I don't find particularly nerve racking, since zombies are absolutely no threat, and they're the only things that hide] then you can just walk through the game.
RH on the other hand [in my nooby, "new school loving" opinion anyway] require much more though and skill than HL2s "Hurr I will run at you and kill you all with my shotgun because bullets bounce off my face and you're next to a health kit" . Why? Because if you stay out in the open for 4 or more seconds, you are going to die. This means you sit back in cover, poke your head out for the next best spot, who to kill to increase your chances of getting there, do you sprint or crawl? who can you see from that next area and who can see you? To me, that's a hell of a lot more nerve racking than "The hardcore's" way of wading through bullets with little penalty, mopping up the room, taking the health in it, repeat.
But maybe I'm just one of those weird, darn fangled losers who thinks health meters are an antiquity in shooters, only appreciated because cod doesn't use them, and everyone knows how cool cod hating can be.
Because the HUD is now a bad thing, everyone wants to be like CoD, and getting stuck on low health before a big fight and having used up all your medpacks was a *****.
Still, there's gonna be one in Skyrim, and that's basically the centre of my gaming world at the moment, so it's worth mentioning.
Still, there's gonna be one in Skyrim, and that's basically the centre of my gaming world at the moment, so it's worth mentioning.
