What have gamers got against regenerating health?

[kingthrall]

hmm put it this way, if I shot a rifle in your head your not going to crouch and hide for recovery. The only thing real about regen is that you would have blood all over your face and couldn't see

 

[Xpheyel]

For the most part, nothing. I do like games where you carry around health kits as part of your inventory or something along those lines. Health is a resource you have to manage vs. something free that comes from hiding behind a wall or is tripped over at random.

I don't really care about the realism arguments. First aid doesn't work that way in any event. Gordon Freeman injecting himself with something that was lying around in a filthy alley or half submerged in radioactive sludge could be considered an unsound practice, medically speaking. XD

Just imagine System Shock 2 or Half-Life with regenerating health, it wouldn't work. There would be no worry about those annoying headcrabs hiding in the air ducks, who cares if they nick you a bit when standing still a few seconds mends it all up?

This is something I had not thought of though. I think its a good point.

 

[Aerosteam]

It's a lazy health system.

That is all.

Just so I avoid a low-content post, here is a picture of a cloud:

Spoiler

God doesn't seem to like me.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so meh.

 

[Trivun]

I love realism in games, but at the same time, I like regenerating health for the advantage it gives the player, particularly on the hardest difficulty settings. I actually love the Halo way of doing it, with proper context. Basically, in Halo, you have regenerating shields which fit with the lore because the characters have it as part of their armour systems. The actual health, though, requires health packs to regenerate. Again, it fits with the lore, because in the Halo canon there are things such as biofoam (used to plug body cavities and wounds) and other reasonable medical tools that may not exist in real life but are certainly feasible within the canon. These are, in the canon, confirmed as being enough to keep someone alive on the brink of death (in Halo 3: ODST [SPOILERS!] Romeo is saved despite bullet wounds to the lungs and chest by biofoam, and in the books a minor character is kept alive barely after needler rounds literally explode inside his torso and turn his organs to mush - the biofoam stops him bleeding out while he's rushed to a medical facility~).

So to summarise my view, regenerating health is okay, regenerating health with proper realsitic context is better, a mixture of realism and regenerating health in context is the best case possible here.

[small]Oh, and on a related note, people often seem to wonder why in RPGs a 'Phoenix Down' can bring you back to life after death, yet no character ever thinks to use them during cutscenes when someone dies. My theory: characters don't die in battle, they merely become unconscious thanks to the wounds they suffer. Phoenix Downs and similar items act in a similar way to smelling salts, and other medical items are used that don't appear in the inventory to heal the wounds themselves. When a character dies properly then a Phoenix Down won't be useful at all (the cutscene loophole explained), and when you get a game over after your entire party dies then that's because everyone is unconscious and thus easily killed off without a fight. If it's like in FF13 where the main character dying causes a game over, then that's explained by simply being that the character really is dead, not unconscious like the others. Cure magic and Life magic, for the theory to work, also works in the same way as I just described for the Phoenix Downs and other items.[/small]

 

[1080bitgamer]

In general? It just feels a bit lazy. Regenerating health can be a useful addition to some games (I actually can't imagine Call of Duty or Battlefield being designed without them), but when it is chosen as the default option for health replenishment, it means games must be designed in one of two ways: Either as a sequence of linear, small areas without much chance for exploration, or a small map with very key points of position for shooting and healing.

 

[Eddie the head]

It's ok to a point I like systems like Resistance Fall of man and ME3 where it regenerates up to a point. Overall I would say it just makes the game to easy.

 

[Terminate421]

Nothing, so long as its done right.

The Halo games had the health system perfectly down, take the first couple bullets and your fine but take enough and your power armor really only looks nice. (I should also mention that thanks to Halo 2 and 3, we have morons who still believe its ALL regenerating health)

This doesn't mean its bad in Gears of war's case, it makes sense towards the fast paced cover based gameplay.

Call of duty is much the same but sometimes I feel its relatively pointless.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I'm all for it, realistic games suck anyways.

 

[Terminate421]

Re: Borderlands, that game did something else right with health regeneration - it tied it to mechanics other than hiding. Special mention goes to Mordecai, who heals by throwing a flaming bird in people's faces.

Not to mention grenades that did the same thing. (Those were way OP'd by the way)

I also love Halo: Reach's or Mass Effect 3's, shields for the first couple BS rounds and then actual health. Half Life can suck it because shields are just another health bar in that game.

 

[Valdus]

Because people like to complain. There are plenty of reasons to hate current shooters but regenerating health? In games like Duke Nuken I could understand (he doesn't need a mechanic that encourages him to hide) but for the most part I like it. It means that the game-play keeps flowing, unlike older games where one bad mistake could see you inching forward at a snails pace for the rest of the level because you only need one foe to catch you unaware before you have to start over.

PS - Why is everyone talking about realisim? At no point in shooters are you forced to spend days to weeks recovering from gunshot wounds, so why is stopping for half a sec to pop open a medi-pack suddenly more realistic than regenerating health?

 

[Kahunaburger]

Because people like to complain. There are plenty of reasons to hate current shooters but regenerating health? In games like Duke Nuken I could understand (he doesn't need a mechanic that encourages him to hide) but for the most part I like it. It means that the game-play keeps flowing, unlike older games where one bad mistake could see you inching forward at a snails pace for the rest of the level because you only need one foe to catch you unaware before you have to start over.

The problem many people have with implementation of regenerating health is that it disrupts game flow. Instead of rewarding the player for progress, it rewards the player for staying where they are. Where something like Doom will change in gameplay tempo depending on what health level the player is at, something like CoD will stop the flow of gameplay entirely every few seconds while Soap wipes the jam of his face.

There are exceptions to this rule, of course - Halo 2, for instance, because it features enemies that will flank a stationary player.

 

[DoPo]

PS - Why is everyone talking about realisim? At no point in shooters are you forced to spend days to weeks recovering from gunshot wounds, so why is stopping for half a sec to pop open a medi-pack suddenly more realistic than regenerating health?

Again, the entire premise of the military shooters is that you are an average person. Well, in the military but still not supernatural. being able to shrug off any amount of damage isn't realistic and yet realistic is what they try to look.

I agree that picking up a medpack wouldn't realistically cure you of your wounds but it's more realistic than being cured of all your wounds by sheer will.

However, if the setting does allow it, I don't see why not. In Quake 3, you can play as a friggin' walking eyeball or a skeleton. There are teleports and other weird devices. There isn't much realism to speak of. Eithere regenerative health or healthpacks work in such a setting. But a game that does strive for realism should try something, you know, realistic.

 

[renegade7]

It disrupts game flow, mostly. And it also makes them too easy, or possibly too hard. Instead of needing to avoid taking damage by dodging bullets, all you need to do is crouch behind a wall. On the flipside (the other part I don't like) sometimes it makes your character have so few hitpoints. In Marathon, for instance, your character could take some punishment, not a huge amount but a reasonable amount. You stayed alive by dodging bullets, and sometimes you had to choose which hits you might have needed to take. It added a bit of really quick-thinking strategy. Whereas with modern shooters, all you really need to do is hide behind a chest-high until you regenerate, which kind of disrupts game flow. And if you can't make it to a chest-high wall in time, you only have like 2 or 3 hits before you die, and in most cases things are going too fast to dodge.

 

[shadowseal22]

It feels like and afterthought 90% of the time. If a game is going to have regenerating health, it NEEDS to be worked into the core of every aspect of the game. Regenerating health should not be used as a crutch for bad players just so they can get through the game. A game needs to punish the player for performing poorly, and cheaply implementing a regenerating health system cheats the player out of feedback on his performance. The fact that a player can get shot in the face and be fine a few seconds latter, with no real difference between the two endpoints, tends to dampen a players level of engagement. Unless the game has some form of scoring system (i.e. DMC)directly contradicts the point of even having a health system tends to blur the divide between the skill levels of gamers. If the regenerating health is worked into the core of the game, and doesn't give the player the option of sucking his thumb for to long, then it doesn't matter. However if it is just thrown in for the hell of it, it will diminish the quality of the game. The fact is that there is a difference in how a game with standard health, and regenerating health have to be designed.

 

[MammothBlade]

It removes strategy and tension from fpses. No longer can you corner a wounded enemy, or plan your movements around the map to get to the nearest healthpack.
I find it immensely boring to hide behind cover all the time to regenerate health. On that note, I also find it boring to be restricted to carrying two firearms, a knife, and a few grenades. There is no incentive to be resourceful or think strategically with whatever's in your backpack. See that RPG? No point saving it for later, as it takes up one of your two gun slots. Now I'm certain. I detest CoD like games.