A quick FPS poll

[ICEE]

In all FPS games is the issue of health regeneration. There's no realistic way to balance player damage and health without utterly thrashing gameplay, so I'd like to find out what your opinions are as to the solution to this problem.


Edit: GRRR I didn't get to post the actual poll. Oh well, I guess I'll do this manually.



Option 1: Auto regenerating health (a la halo 2 or 3, Gears of war, etc)
Option 2: Health pack regeneration (fairly classic and typical, I think you know what I mean)
Option 3: health pack-autoregeneration hybrid (like halo 1)
Option 4: healed by your team mates (like clive barkers jericho)
Option 5: Healed by an item or tool that can only be used safely when outside of the action, like in battlefield bad company (auto injector)
Option 6: realism all the way. If I get shot I will die.
Option 7: I'm a smartie pants and I have my own idea (post it)


I'm not sure why I didn't get to post the literal poll so if a mod could fix it for me that would be great. Please think this through by the way.

[Cortexian]

Realistic solutions. If you get shot you die, none of this half-a-clip before you kill someone bull crap.

[Con]

It really depends on the game. For any game with shields or a significant amount of health, there should be health packs or a packs/regen combo like Halo 1. For a more realistic game I'm torn between battlefield 2 vs CoD4 styled health. I think that in CoD4 it's important to keep the game fun for both experienced and inexperienced people. That means novices get their health back and pros can continue their killstreak without dying too easily during the next gunfight. BF2 however is more tactical, vehicle based, and large-scaled, so field medics as a class makes sense.

[Sel]

Personally I really enjoyed the halo 1 system. Having a set health, and a shield that could only take so many hits before depleting was a lot of fun and worked great, making the gameplay balanced between the occasions you found health packs, and the travels in between.

As for halo 2 and 3, they worked fine too, but I still preferred the halo 1 method.

[Pooky]

I liked the Halo system. Because while having a health meter meant being wounded did affect your survivabiity, having a permanent health buffer in the form of shields made it always possible to survive your current situation.

I also like the system some games (FEAR, Condemned) use where your health regenerates up to a point, then you're on your own.

As for 'realistic' health systems, I think they're all pointless. No amount of messing around with HP values is ever going to make games anything like actually being shot.

[Zeph]

It's a game. It should be treated as a game feature in the design. I'm a huge fan on the health/regenerative armor method Halo 1 used.

With games like Counterstrike, you're just shooting someone until you deal 100 damage to them. There's no benefit to run away from someone who's shooting other than to stay alive for a short while longer.

With games like Halo 3, running away will give you the benefit of allowing your, and your opponent's, shield to recharge. This will allow you to go at it again as if it were a completely new encounter. The thing I hate about this system is that health is hidden. You have no way to know the status of your health below the shield. Because of that, there's a lot of guesswork and theorycrafting as to how you died but your opponent didn't.

I do enjoy the battlefield style of damage and healing. 2142, for instance, would allow you to be healed anywhere thanks to the health pack. It was literally a mobile solution.

I absolutely despise the 'hit and you're down' method. It's a game, not real life. If I'm going to go down from one bullet, I want to be able to shoot in constantly tight groups at extreme range. I also want the subconscious alignment of my weapon from the center of the screen to nearby targets to make up for the disconnect between my brain and the mouse.

So yeah, I think the best method is from Halo 1. It allowed you to have regenerative shielding for those new encounters in the middle of the field, but it gave people incentive to take you below shield since your health didn't regen without a medpack.

I think the whole stigma about weapons in games and damage would be gone completely if human weapons weren't used. The counterstrike weapons, for instance, dont make sense. If they were alien weapons, it would be believable.

[Sargent_Hawk]

I think there should be some sort of mix.

For a realsistic game, you should be able to find body armor, then find some more as you go along, in the battle feild you can find med kits, it should take a little time to heal, not instantly. When at your own base, you should have medics heal you, and without armor it would depend on the weapon, and where you where shot to determine how fast you go down.

For a non-realistic game, basicly like halo 1, sheilds regenerate over time, except it should be slower, pick up med kits, again, shouldint be auto heal, it should take a little time, to cover wounds and such, but if it's just something crashing into you it should heal fairly fast.

[kenney001]

call of duty 4 Hard-Core mode has it right...

[ima_from_America]

option 5

[Needles]

I like the health system in quake 4 and UT3. Up too 199/200 health max, and you get amour for extra protection (kind-of like shields), and you get amour pieces and health packs to heal. Also, you can lose health and shields very fast.


I absolutely despise the 'hit and you're down' method. It's a game, not real life. If I'm going to go down from one bullet, I want to be able to shoot in constantly tight groups at extreme range. I also want the subconscious alignment of my weapon from the center of the screen to nearby targets to make up for the disconnect between my brain and the mouse.

I don't like that too much either. I have Call of Duty 4, and the whole game is nothing but grenade spammers and campers. I like head-to-head combat.

[CN3089]

I'm fine with any system. Guess I'm just pro like that vhttp://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c251/CN3089/Emoticons/emot-c00l.gifv

[Warsaw]

Option 7.

Kind of a spin-off of Option 6.

Head=death
Chest=death
Stomach=slow death unless healed
Leg=cripples you (how this is implemented is up to the developer)
Arm=can't use two-handed weapons for longer than a minute, if at all

You would be healed by either going to a first-aid area, or applying dressings (if this is a sci-fi game, other implications are possible, such as nano-medibots that the player can inject, which will proceed to repair the body from the inside out and continue to do so for a finite amount of time until they pass out of the system).

Armor can be placed to reduce the effects of damage in certain areas, most noticeably the chest.

[Boba]

Would you really want to die with one shot every time? Jesus fucking christ, they're games people. I hate heeling manually because it's just another peice-of-shit necessity stacked on piles of other piece-of-shit objectives. http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg319/BobaTheFett76/Other/colbert.png

[FRain]

New:

AA styled, where you can take about 3 hits before dying, and if you do not get a medic to heal you you will slowly bleed to death. If the medic heals you, it does not give you health, it just stops bleeding.

[Warsaw]

Would you really want to die with one shot every time? Jesus fucking christ, they're games people. I hate heeling manually because it's just another peice-of-shit necessity stacked on piles of other piece-of-shit objectives. http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg319/BobaTheFett76/Other/colbert.png

If it is a game, you will likely have some kind of protection from the outset...only way to really die in one shot therefore is by headshot.

Also, blame piece-of-shit objectives on piece-of-shit developers.

[Rentafence]

Perfect dark zero had an interesting health system. Your health would regenerate up to the point that the first shot took away from your total health. In other words, I start with 100 hp. The first hit on me brings me down to say 65. I keep getting shot but don't die. My health will then regenerate back up to 65. At least that's how I think it worked.

[Zeph]

For a realsistic game,

no such thing

[Timo]

Each one works for different games. For me, none really hold a higher level of greatness over the other, they're all awesome (provided they're with the right game). COD4 hardcore is fun because one or two hits will kill you, but you do recover health over a decent time length which doesn't interfere with each individual encounter, which means you can stay alive for longer and rack up some more kills. Halo 3 is good because the shields give you time to react to someone surprising you, and fight back. Same goes for the rest, I guess.