Mercurius on 9/4/2009 at 00:35
Quote Posted by Phatose
I have yet to see a regen fps where the enemies regenerated anywhere near the rate the player does.
Halo.
I find regen and healthpack methods to both be usually flawed in implementation. One is too forgiving, the other is too arbitrary.
Personally I'm a fan of inventory healing.
Nameless Voice on 9/4/2009 at 01:35
Good point to make that distinction between instant-use health packs (like in id games) and carryable medical items that can be used at will (like med hypos in System Shock).
I vote for the latter as well, as they encourage a more strategic outlook to health and healing. I haven't played many games with auto-regen but it already starts to bug me (Vampire: Bloodlines is an exception because it sort of makes sense there).
Mercurius on 9/4/2009 at 02:12
It's also the hardest system for developers to implement while maintaining absolute control over game difficulty. In that light, it's incredible that we got inventory healing in Bioshock.
Halo 1 and a few other games utilized a regen+medkit approach which actually worked pretty well as the two somewhat covered the weaknesses of the other.
Chade on 9/4/2009 at 03:09
But if you are worried about how difficult it is for developers, why the emphasis on inventory healing? In that case, the lack of balance is accumulates ... and usually the player is a walking talking tank by the end of the game.
EDIT: On a second read of your post, am I just repeating what you already said?
Mercurius on 9/4/2009 at 03:26
Quote Posted by Chade
But if you are worried about how difficult it is for developers, why the emphasis on inventory healing? In that case, the lack of balance is accumulates ... and usually the player is a walking talking tank by the end of the game.
EDIT: On a second read of your post, am I just repeating what you already said?
Worried? I'm not so sympathetic. I'm just stating that it is a major factor and probably the reason we don't see it so often, particularly in modern action FPS.
But yes, making the game difficult enough so a skilled player isn't kitted out like a foreign relief shipment by the end of the game while still giving the player margin for error is difficult. Bioshock's strict inventory-medkit limit was clever but that severely annoyed hoarders like me.
On that note I enjoy inventory healing the best as it directly rewards skill and caution with the ability to be less skilled and less cautious at a later time. Granted it can punish just as harshly but regen and medkits are not rewards, just relief.
gunsmoke on 12/4/2009 at 16:08
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
TTLG Raw: Spambot vs RSSBot
LMFAO!
Oh, and for the record...I think Escape from Butcher Bay handled health PERFECTLY. It had regen, but only a block at a time. If you lost a block, you lost it for good. Had to find a med station to regain lost blocks. Flawless system, and yet to be bested.
Papy on 13/4/2009 at 00:41
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
What's more realistic? recharging health or a Quicksave button?
It's not because you abuse a saving system (to a point where it can be considered as cheating) that everyone does. With games like Thief or Deus Ex (and even the first Doom), I saved only at the beginning of each level. If I died, I restarted the whole level. With continuous games it's a bit more tricky, and because of that I think this is a flaw in video game design, but I certainly don't abuse the save function. For example with STALKER I was saving at the starting location or at the bar (although there were a few exceptions, notably I saved in the middle of X18 because the stress was just too much). This is the only way I can find video games fun. Without this fear of punishment, I just find most video games boring.
To me, the problem with regeneration is not that it's not realistic, games are not realistic anyway, it's that most of the time it dumbs down the game too much. Obviously, with health regen, the player doesn't have to think about his health (and less thinking is rarely something good for me as it allows me to think instead about all the stupid flaws of the game), but the real problem is I always have this feeling that I'm just playing a series of short mini-games. I fight one guy, then the next, then the next... and as there are no consequences (on my inventory) that are carried from one encounter to another I feel there is no connection between each ones. I look at the game differently and most of the times it breaks immersion.
Having said that there are a few games where health regen didn't bothered me. Portal is one of them (for reasons I think are obvious), as is STALKER (because the regen was far too slow to be abused).
