Regenerating health?

[Wrath of Dagon]

We know ammo is unlimited, but what about health? I don't think regenerating health is a good idea for this kind of game, as we're discussing in DX3 thread in Computer and Console. Scrounging for healthpacks during a mission isn't realistic, so I would suggest being given a certain number of healthpacks before the start of each mission, and you wouldn't be able to use a healthpack while in combat. You'd still have the problem of an in-game explanation of how healthpacks work, but heck, it's a game.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

So, if you ever run out of medpacks as a combat character, you should just give up and restart the mission?

 

IMO regenerating health is a mechanic that makes good sense in most shooters (or games that offer gunplay of some sort). I missed the original thread, so could you restate what it is about AP that makes regen bad?

[Wrath of Dagon]

The problem is you don't have to be careful about preserving your health through the entire mission, so long as you survive each battle your condition at the end does not affect the next battle, so there's no incentive for you to look for alternate paths which might reduce your damage. Instead of the mission being a single entity you have to find your way through, it just becomes a string of independent battles.

 

As far as running out of healthpacks, that's part of the challenge, it's never really been a problem with games which dole out a certain number of healthpacks for a given amount of progress that you make.

[mkreku]

I don't know, I think regenerating health can work in a RPG also. I mean, we've always had those rings of regeneration after all. I just imagine the regeneration rate to be much lower than in a FPS. I've played Halo and going from just above dead to full health takes like three seconds. A quick rate like that would probably kill any combat tactics I'd usually apply in RPG's, but it would definitely not kill the game.

 

I guess it all depends on if you want the combat to be very FPS like (and concentrate the RPG features to other parts of the game) or if you want the game to have a more standard RPG feel in combat too.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

I can see that as a general argument, but what is it that's unique about AP for that purpose?

 

The last good game I remember that used the approach you describe was Hitman: Blood Money; and the game was specifically designed to reward stealthy play. The game was, in essence, punishing you for going in guns blazing because that isn't the hitman way of doing things. My understanding is that AP is supposed to make each approach viable, so the Hitman style of indirectly telling you the "right" way to play the game doesn't apply.

[Musopticon?]

I expect the devs to provide incentive enough to try alternate methods to combat that we'll never have to experience "a string of battles". It's a super spy game afterall, and not a tedious KotORish dungeon crawl against the same few enemy types who are as distanced from consequences and the world as your ui menus. If the player kills everyone in a mission area in AP, say, an embassy, I expect there to be pretty damn dire consequences. It's supposed to be the real world, afterall, not the Sword Coast or Taris Undercity. You know, an actual embassy with actual staff who aren't chaotic evil stupid and in league with the King in Yellow.

 

Then again, if the player is playing to "win" the game, not to have an experience or roleplay, then who am I to blame them.

 

Anyway, health regen and unlimited ammo are the least of my worries. I intend to do some espionage, afterall.

Edited October 6, 2008 by Musopticon?

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Hey, mass murder *is* an experience of roleplay in my book

[Cycloneman]

I expect the devs to provide incentive enough to try alternate methods to combat that we'll never have to experience "a string of battles". It's a super spy game afterall, and not a tedious KotORish dungeon crawl against the same few enemy types who are as distanced from consequences and the world as your ui menus. If the player kills everyone in a mission area in AP, say, an embassy, I expect there to be pretty damn dire consequences.

It seems likely, considering this:

First, it shows the variations in approach available: this is ostensibly a stealth mission and yet you

[Wrath of Dagon]

It's not really that I want to penalize someone for taking the direct approach (his build would be better equipped to do that anyway), it's that I want an incentive to consider the entire mission as a whole. If you regenerate your entire health back after every gunfight, there's no incentive to be particularly careful about each battle, or to plan ahead. I'm assuming you can save at any time, if you can only save after you finish the mission, it pretty much does the same thing, but I really dislike not being able to save when I want to (unless it's only restricted in combat, which is OK).

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Okay, I can see the logic behind that.

 

At the same time, I find that such a system typically encourages or even requires save monkeying (quickloading until you do each fight perfectly) or, in the case of limited saves, retrying the mission until you get everything perfect. It's fine to have these as an option, but I'm against making retries integral to a certain approach. You may argue that a series of unconnected firefights is tedious, but what about replaying the exact same firefight countless times to take an acceptable amount of damage?

 

I also tend to favor damage systems that are not conducive to deciding how many bullets you're going to eat with breakfast. The advantage of regen is that you can make death an immediate threat without also turning it into a long term number-crunching problem for the player.

 

I still get the impression that you dislike regenerating health in general, rather than as a specific property of AP (which they've made no announcement either way on to my knowledge).

[Wrath of Dagon]

Okay, I can see the logic behind that.

 

At the same time, I find that such a system typically encourages or even requires save monkeying (quickloading until you do each fight perfectly) or, in the case of limited saves, retrying the mission until you get everything perfect. It's fine to have these as an option, but I'm against making retries integral to a certain approach. You may argue that a series of unconnected firefights is tedious, but what about replaying the exact same firefight countless times to take an acceptable amount of damage?

You don't have to get everything perfect, but you have to do well enough to take an acceptable amount of damage. How many times you retry really depends on your skills relative to game difficulty, which is always the case so long as it's possible to die. You may have to retry 1 or 2 times extra to get decent amount of health left, but conserving your resources seems like a good reward for the effort.

 

The advantage of regen is that you can make death an immediate threat without also turning it into a long term number-crunching problem for the player.

But it makes sense in an RPG to have to conserve your resources, I don't see a problem with that.

 

I still get the impression that you dislike regenerating health in general, rather than as a specific property of AP (which they've made no announcement either way on to my knowledge).

No, I'm fine with regenerating health so long as you're fighting a series of unrelated battles, not trying to solve a mission. In particular it works well with more fast paced shooters, less well when there's a tactical element to proceeding through a level.

 

Edit: Note that in Dragon Age forum I actually argued for regenerating health (which is what they're planning apparently) because since combat is normally the only option, the battles would be unrelated, and the rules based nature of battles already imply that you have to think about what you're doing.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Wrath of Dagon

[mkreku]

The problem with this thread is that it's almost impossible to take a stand either way. I've never actually played a RPG with regenerating health the way the original poster meant (fast, not excruciatingly slow). Instinctively it sounds wrong, but what if that's just the human nature of fearing change?

 

I'm trying to keep an open mind until I've at least tried it, which I'm obviously going to do in Deus Ex 3.. If I could preorder that game right now, I would. That's how illogical I am when it comes to the Deus Ex franchise.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

You don't have to get everything perfect, but you have to do well enough to take an acceptable amount of damage. How many times you retry really depends on your skills relative to game difficulty, which is always the case so long as it's possible to die. You may have to retry 1 or 2 times extra to get decent amount of health left, but conserving your resources seems like a good reward for the effort.

 

That assumes that conserving resources is or should be a core part of gameplay in general.

 

But it makes sense in an RPG to have to conserve your resources, I don't see a problem with that.

 

You mean like ammo?

 

My thoughts on the matter are similar: it makes sense that Thornton would bring enough gear for the mission, however much that was. A large open-ended game like Fallout is practically *about* the resource management. There are missions, but you retain control of the character for everything between them; scrounging, travel, etc. To me, that is the sort of game where resource conservation makes sense as a mechanic.

 

No, I'm fine with regenerating health so long as you're fighting a series of unrelated battles, not trying to solve a mission. In particular it works well with more fast paced shooters, less well when there's a tactical element to proceeding through a level.

 

Honestly, the most tactical singleplayer shooters I know of right now (Rainbow six Vegas series, Gears, Army of Two) all have regenerating health systems (and ammo supplies copious enough to be a non-issue). I'm not saying AP should include a chainsaw bayonet, but nor do I really see how counting health packs would = fun. Is there a game I should play that will change my mind?

[Morgoth]

But if there would be regeneration we wouldn't need any healing potions or healing spells in AP anymore.

[Wrath of Dagon]

But it makes sense in an RPG to have to conserve your resources, I don't see a problem with that.

 

You mean like ammo?

Conserving ammo would have a similar effect to conserving health, so it's a bit redundant, plus it's harder to do it with ammo, since you can usually just switch to another weapon if you run out.

 

Honestly, the most tactical singleplayer shooters I know of right now (Rainbow six Vegas series, Gears, Army of Two) all have regenerating health systems (and ammo supplies copious enough to be a non-issue). I'm not saying AP should include a chainsaw bayonet, but nor do I really see how counting health packs would = fun. Is there a game I should play that will change my mind?

At least in Gears there aren't really tactics to going through a level, may be some tactics with winning individual battles. Haven't played the other 2 games. The best example of a shooter where your tactics actually have to include the entire level and you had finite health was the original Brothers in Arms, and it worked very well IMO. And of course that's the way the Deus Ex games worked as well.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

The Deus Ex games required you to scrounge extensively, which is not exactly the system you propose.

 

A significant point about BIA, the first three Rainbow Six games, etc., is that you have fodder. You can order your AI squad to distract the enemy and essentially take fire in your stead. While Thornton will occasionally be able to play factions against each other (US Marines in the embassy vs. mysterious attackers), he doesn't work with a squad as a general rule. As such, he doesn't have the same means of avoiding damage that the player does in squad-based titles.

[Wrath of Dagon]

But this is an RPG, not a shooter, so there should be more opportunity to avoid damage. Plus it's just a question of how much health they provide vs how much damage you can be reasonably expected to take. Also in BiA I didn't normally use my men as fodder, I'd be careful to stay in cover and use good tactics. It wouldn't be a bad idea to require you to keep them all alive, except whenever you ordered them into cover, two would stand behind a wall and a third would stand in front of it.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

But this is an RPG, not a shooter, so there should be more opportunity to avoid damage. Plus it's just a question of how much health they provide vs how much damage you can be reasonably expected to take.

 

Excellent points taken together. You actually have to determine the reasonable amount of damage for stealth, diplomacy, melee, and firearm-based characters for each mission (heaven forbid the many hybrids I plan on playing). If the health distribution is *only* balanced towards, say, Kenpo-ing your you way through missions, then health management would be a joke for the other character concepts.

 

It seems like a lot of work to put into a system that, supposedly, won't disrupt the flow of the game as long as the player is doing reasonably well or using a combat-light character concept.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I would say you base the amount of health on a moderate combat character. The heavy combat character will then have a tougher time, but he's better equipped for combat also. Obviously if you mostly play non-combat, health isn't an issue at all, unless you get discovered and decide to fight it out. I don't see why this would me much harder to implement than regenerating health for everyone.

 

Edit: In HL2, I hardly ever ran out of healthpacks when I needed them. Even so, just the fact that I didn't have unlimited health made me more careful about taking damage and conserving health.

Edited October 8, 2008 by Wrath of Dagon

[Hassat Hunter]

FPS'es: Rainbow Six + Rogue Spear etc. had no regen. health. Half-Lifes didn't. Doom didn't. Unreal didn't. DX and DX:IW didn't, Painkiller didn't, System Shocks didn't.

RPG's: KOTOR1 didn't, BG's didn't, PS:T didn't, Gothics didn't, IWD's didn't. (unless with certain items ofcourse).

 

What's all the fuss for regenerating health these days. Did ANYBODY had problems with above games having fixed healing items (or spells) which had to be taken when health was low? Meh; I don't think so.

 

Personally I would like OE to play DX, then play DX:IW and note everything that has changed down on the "things we should NOT do" list...

Edited October 8, 2008 by Hassat Hunter

[Wrath of Dagon]

Actually I liked that KOTOR 2 had regenerating health, saved me from using up my precious heathpacks out of combat. But that's a very different game from the DX games, I felt that healthpacks and limited ammo worked well there. And yes, I'm the only person in the world who likes unified ammo, for the very reason that it allowed the developers to dole it out sparingly, and at the same time left the choice of weapon up to the player. Plus health packs and ammo clips make for a great exploration reward.

[kirottu]

PS:T didn't,

 

PS:T did have it for Nameless One.

 

I favor partial health regeneration like in Drake

[Kissamies]

Not a big issue for me either. Just like infinite ammo, regenerating health is pretty action movieish. It fits much better in that kind of setting than collecting magic turkey legs to regain health. I'd hate to see it in multiplayer, but I won't mind it in single player.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Its essential.

 

Bear with me though.

 

You have really slow health regeneration during combat, and if the AI si smart they'll flank you before you get to full health (which at that rate should take 30 minutes), but really fast health regen out of combat situations. As in, completely calm environments.

 

Otherwise you search around for medkits and that's just plain annoying.

[Cycloneman]

Remember playing scavenger hunt for every single item of food in the entirety of Deus Ex? I do.