What have gamers got against regenerating health?

[Clive Howlitzer]

I just find it hard to feel any tension when all I have to do is crouch behind a rock to recover my health to full. I also recover to full in between every battle, it kinda resets the status quo each time.
In multiplayer shooters like say, BC2. The idea of getting into a slightly extended gunfight with someone, where you can get them with several bullets and they can hide long enough to recover to full without a medic, and then kill you, is dumb. It also defeats the purpose of having a medic around.
While we are on this topic, I also hate not having a life bar. I like to know exactly what my health is at, not some vague idea based on how hard it is for me to see through my screen.
Of course, I am probably not the best one to talk for people who claim to like "realistic" shooters(An idea I find absolutely absurd). Especially since my favorite FPS is Doom.

 

[CruisingForBiddies]

I don't mind regenerating health at all. Surely if people argue that it takes the challenge away couldn't there just be lower health? Then if you take 1-2 hit you could recover.

 

[BNguyen]

it detracts from the realism when your character can just say "Hold up guys, let me duck down here and magically get rid of these bullet holes scatter across my chest........alright, I'm good, let's fight!"

Surely no less realistic than being able to repair ten bullets to the brain and a rocket up the ass with a band-aid and aspirin...?

it's the whole point of "TACTICAL" shooters, it makes you think wisely before blindly running into everything and to be responsible with what you have at the moment and what you are likely to find. If you just go off and start shooting without a plan, then you're better off dead

 

[Worgen]

Too many games use regen health, its a good method to make sure you can stay in the fight but when a game that is supposed to be tense does it, then it totally ruins the feeling of it, like take Rage, I have a feeling it would have been a much better game without the health regen, it would have made the fights against the mutants much more tense instead of just kinda fun, well certainly better then the fights against the armored dudes, gah, boring.

 

[Lugbzurg]

In the common case (like Call of Duty or Gears of War), regenerating health does not work. It is lazy on part of both the programmer and the player. It drops challenge and intensity to pitifully-low levels. It is also constantly used in games that think they're realistic, when this obvious system is obviously not realistic.

There have been a few rare cases where it has worked. I suppose it really kicked off with the regenerating shields in Halo: Combat Evolved. Now, remember. Master Chief was an enhanced super soldier wearing power armor. On top of that, there were additional "lives" in the health system. If the bar came to zero and you got hit, you'd lose one of these life units and the bar would still be at zero. Lose all these units at zero health and you die. Unfortunately, lots of other companies just took one look at it and went all "Ooooh! Regenerating health! Copypasta!" They completely missed the whole point.

inFAMOUS and [Prototype] did this right, since your health technically could regenerate, but, you really relied on getting health in other ways, since it replenished itself so slowly. (This is especially true for [Prototype]) Not to mention, in [Prototype], your "health units" (that is... people) could be killed before you could even consume them. If you're in a shower of missiles and try to grab someone, the chances are pretty high that someone's gonna fire a missile at you when you're trying to consume someone, killing the person before you've gotten any health out of the deal, and end up losing even more, as a result. Also, in both of these games, you had some attacks that would actually drain some of your own health when used.

Also, while I haven't played these games, myself, I read about this health system found in the Far Cry series, which regenerates your health to a certain point. Your health bar is broken into notches and will only refill itself until it hits a certain line. At least, that's what I read.

I'm surprised we have not yet brought up this article on Extra Punctuation.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/8719-Why-Regenerating-Health-Sucks

 

[Tupolev]

Regen health requires that you get through battles; it eliminates much incentive to get through battles well.

A regen-health shooter balanced like a classic shooter would have no challenge whatsoever. So, to go along with regenerating health, game developers were forced to load enemies up with hard-to-dodge heavy-hitting weapons, so that the player would have some sort of real danger to contend with any time they tried something remotely aggressive.

This poses a huge issue: you're making it very difficult to allow for interesting maneuvre gameplay, and wind up forcing the game toward cover shooting (some shooters try to get around this in some ways, but it's tough).

On top of that, the requirement for very snappy actions means that on regen-health console titles, devs often feel like compensating for the high enemy damage by making the player's own weapons absurdly easy to use.

There have been a few rare cases where it has worked. I suppose it really kicked off with the regenerating shields in Halo: Combat Evolved. Now, remember. Master Chief was an enhanced super soldier wearing power armor. On top of that, there were additional "lives" in the health system. If the bar came to zero and you got hit, you'd lose one of these life units and the bar would still be at zero. Lose all these units at zero health and you die. Unfortunately, lots of other companies just took one look at it and went all "Ooooh! Regenerating health! Copypasta!" They completely missed the whole point.

They also, Bungie included, seemed to have forgotten that Halo 1 plays around a lot with its health levels. For instance, enemies know how damaged you are; there's a LOT of incentive to play well when grunts turn into low-health elites whenever you're down to 1 bar on legendary.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Neither system (regen or health bars) is perfect. I feel the best systems are the ones that try to incorporate the strengths of both. That way regen keeps you in the fight without being a get out of jail free card, while the health bar add some complexity without being frustrating.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

Making health a resource you have to manage adds a little more depth in my opinion. It makes you think a little bit harder about if you should grab that health item if you know some of it might be going to waste. It's small, but it's just a little bit more control the player has when a lot of games almost play themselves.

I fear the day that this topic comes up again in the future as "what have gamers got against regenerating ammo"

 

[Lugbzurg]

They also, Bungie included, seemed to have forgotten that Halo 1 plays around a lot with its health levels. For instance, enemies know how damaged you are; there's a LOT of incentive to play well when grunts turn into low-health elites whenever you're down to 1 bar on legendary.

Enemies that know how damaged you are! That's a good system. I hadn't noticed it, before. But, I only got around to playing the game once, and I didn't get all the way through. I experienced a lot, though. All the same, that's pretty cool. I think it's pretty stupid when I'm a hulking powerhouse at full health and some grunt thinks he has a shot at killing me. (One thing I suppose [Prototype] did wrong.)

 

[Charli]

It can work. But it is often not balanced enough to not abuse, making health a more valuable resource frequantly adds to the intensity of the game.

Regeneration can be implemented fairly but it needs to be extrememly tight with the gameplay, and it's often the case in FPS's or Adventures that the mechanic can be very easily used to never die given the knowledge of dodging/defence/cover. Not exactly heart pumping action.

Too many games implement regen and make it too over-powered in my opinion, huge gaping gashes fade into nothing in a manner of seconds and that... is kinda piss poor.

 

[FoolKiller]

Maybe it fits in with arcady shooters like COD and the like, but it absolutely has NO PLACE in any type of semi realistic tactical type shooters for obvious reasons.

As i was discussing with someone in the GR thread, having it in a game like R6 Vegas was a complete joke and UBI should be ashamed of themselves. (for more reasons than just that, might I add)

Yea. I miss the good old days of Ghost Recon when 1 bullet would kill you, or at least injure you sufficiently. For any shooter mimicking reality, there should be no health regeneration.

I just don't like regenerating health because it reinforces one style of gameplay. Run around and not care about getting shot as long as you hide for a bit. Then repeat.

 

[malestrithe]

Can't speak for all of them, but the FPS players I know hate regenerating health because they got used to how it was back in the 90s. I tend to get a lot of "Damn Kids, Git off my lawn" speak coming out of them.

For my friends, it's a matter of nostalgia. They think that because they grew up in a time when computers were a million times weaker than the cheapest one currently available, that it is somehow better. I'm pretty sure that if computers had enough processing power to do regenerating health back in the Doom/Quake/Unreal Days, it would have been a standard feature back then.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Why people hate it is because, its in many of the games they hate. Moreso, The rise of regenerating health games has left a dearth of good medpack based games. Basically, were seeing a lot less Quakes and a lot more Call Of Dutys.

The mechanical problem of regenerating health is that it causes a game to be very cinematic, linear, and have the player spend a lot of their time ducking behind chest high walls. Unlike Quake or Doom, which has you dodging projectiles and exploring every nook and cranny for Health and Ammo.

It also doesnt help that a lot of games that use regenerating health have really shitty campaigns.

 

[Lunar Templar]

cause it makes games easier when you have high speed regen at the start, note the use of the word 'start'

if its like your main way of getting HP back then it's just kinda fail, but if its the end result of alot of effort into building your character, then it's something more, it's a mark of how much power you've gained over the course of your adventure. (along with all the other stuff you did to make your self an unstoppable force of nature)

which is much more better, i prefer my 'mutant healing factors' to be the result of hard work not as a core game play mechanic (unless i'm playing as Wolverine then i kinda expect it, but that's not the same thing)

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I like the combination of non-regen health and regen shields, like halo reach and borderlands. Thats the way I like regenerating.

Yeah, I'd say that's the best compromise. Or having a certain threshold, like your health only auto-regenerates up to 20%.

Yup, that is what I'm thinking. It's how it works in ME3. Shields go down and two and a half bar sections of health get taken off, then after waiting for a moment, only a half bar of health regens when the shield does.

I find the partial health regeneration in futuristic setting games like Halo and Mass Effect to be believable.

One could think that maybe such future armor has some kind of system that detects when something has went through the armor and into the person, then to stop the bleeding and the wound from getting worse, the armor excretes some kind of medical foam sealant or something to fill the area and seal the wound so that the person doesn't bleed out.

 

[Scow2]

It kills any such scary of dying.Need health run around a corner and you're all healed up you enemies aren't. So there is very little threat of failure. Though it works in some games like InFamous. I mean in that game when low on health you have to be careful to dodge attacks and get to electricity. It makes a happy medium.

Capthca: level playing field.

Oh you. How clever.

Actually, a lot of games with regenerating health give it to the enemies as well (Skyrim and Halo come to mind)

In fact, the "Mutual Regenerating Health" is a big part of Halo's gameplay: You're often faced with a choice where you can recover health: But that Brute Chieftan also will recover health, and he generally has a larger gun than you, and unlike you, does not have unlimited ammo. So it becomes a choice of "Do I pass on my opportunity to kill this guy so that Grunt won't kill me, or do I heal up, knowing that I'll have a harder time taking down that brute?"

That's brings up something else I think a lot of critics of regenerating health tend to miss: Most FPS games don't have regenerating ammo, so there's still continuity between battles. However, future battles when you're at a disadvantage require you to mix up weapon usage and conserve ammo, instead of frequently becoming a case where the game's situation is far beyond your ability to beat (Being left with 5 health, against enemies that do 6 points per shot, where the encounter's designed that you're guaranteed to take at least one hit)

Also, contrary to what a popular game critic has said, there were a LOT of screams from players for slower FPS characters with more limited arsenals and emphasis on cover back in the 90's until Halo.

In fact, Halo probably started the trend, but copycats completely missed a lot of what made it work: There wasn't a "dedicated" cover system: You had to find it and make do with crouching/maneuvering. Also, Cover wasn't "sacred" - Grunts and Jackals are notorious for flanking you while the Elites try goading you into a game of Regenerating Shields Whack-a-mole: And the Elites had better shields and more HP than you!

 

[Tupolev]

I'm pretty sure that if computers had enough processing power to do regenerating health back in the Doom/Quake/Unreal Days, it would have been a standard feature back then.

Computers in the Quake/Unreal days were fully capable of tracking and incrimenting single integer values; think about how much work stuff like the rasterizer is doing. If anything, it's significantly less costly than rendering health packs.

Enemies that know how damaged you are! That's a good system. I hadn't noticed it, before.

It's a little subtle. Rockslider [http://badcyborg.net/Halo/CombatTips/CovieOverdrive.html] was never quite able to pick apart what the aggression system tracks, and I'm not sure either, but it's definitely there. Can't shake a jackal when your shields are low? Ouch. 1 bar left on the second level of T&R's hangar when the covenant pincer at you? Uh oh.

From what I do understand, though, it's actually a fairly simple system; I think Bungie said that each unit effectively has a single aggression variable that gets affected by anything. If they're in large numbers, for instance, they'll be more confidant... but if you kill an elite, it temporarily shoots their aggressiveness down, which can manifest as them suddenly panicking. It's quite elegant.

]In fact, the "Mutual Regenerating Health" is a big part of Halo's gameplay: You're often faced with a choice where you can recover health: But that Brute Chieftan also will recover health, and he generally has a larger gun than you, and unlike you, does not have unlimited ammo. So it becomes a choice of "Do I pass on my opportunity to kill this guy so that Grunt won't kill me, or do I heal up, knowing that I'll have a harder time taking down that brute?"

Of course, Halo 3 has the rather weird situation of the brute armour not regenerating at all if you bring their "shields" down completely. This is especially relevant when plasma pistols (and their instant shield dropping) gets involved. Halo's 1 and Reach might be better examples.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

It kills any such scary of dying.Need health run around a corner and you're all healed up you enemies aren't. So there is very little threat of failure. Though it works in some games like InFamous. I mean in that game when low on health you have to be careful to dodge attacks and get to electricity. It makes a happy medium.

Capthca: level playing field.

Oh you. How clever.

That's brings up something else I think a lot of critics of regenerating health tend to miss: Most FPS games don't have regenerating ammo, so there's still continuity between battles. However, future battles when you're at a disadvantage require you to mix up weapon usage and conserve ammo, instead of frequently becoming a case where the game's situation is far beyond your ability to beat (Being left with 5 health, against enemies that do 6 points per shot, where the encounter's designed that you're guaranteed to take at least one hit)

Disagree. Almost every enemey in an FPS drops ammo and lets you pick it up. Out of ammo for one gun? Here are five guys with a similar weapon who you just killed. There you go. So yeah. Just swap out one weapon for another and you are all set.

 

[gambler778]

Pretty much a combination of the first two responses: it detracts from the realism when your character can just say "Hold up guys, let me duck down here and magically get rid of these bullet holes scatter across my chest........alright, I'm good, let's fight!" This same scenario also utterly derails the action of the game for the same nonsense. You're in the middle of a fight for your life...that "fight for your life" turns out to be more like "A fight for....some chest-high walls." as that's all you need to win thanks to every modern day FPS character being Wolverine without the adamantium.

You complain about realism and yet a tiny metal case with a plus on it is going to fix all your bullet wounds? And that is more realistic than regen health?