The Sins of Gaming: Regenerating health (self posted) - General

Regenerating health really isn't a bad thing to an extent. I liked the way wolfenstein rounded to the nearest ten so you didn't get fucked scrambling for a health pack. Scrambling for health kits is NOT a good way to play the game but neither is full on health regeneration. A combo of the two should be how games move forward. Give players more ways to get health like doom or restrict how much the health regenerates. Seems like games are starting to move away from this thankfully.

Also might be a problem if you have to clarify or address things in the thread when they should be touched on in the video itself

Regen health works really well in Just Cause 3 though I will say If you can fuck off and fly away in time you won't die Wolfenstein had the best system above all though. [editline]25th June 2016[/editline] Imagine Dark Souls or Zelda with regen health not unlike your CoD's and your GoW's. The game would be 100% ruined :v:

[QUOTE=J!NX;50594416]Regen health works really well in Just Cause 3 though I will say If you can fuck off and fly away in time you won't die[/QUOTE] Same with far cry having different bars that regenerate by themselves but need bandages to restore the full bars.

[QUOTE=redBadger;50594427]Same with far cry having different bars that regenerate by themselves but need bandages to restore the full bars.[/QUOTE] Having to run away to quickly heal meant you could consistently fly in and out of battle as a tactic, and do it quickly. Unless you screw up bad you can keep doing it.

tbh I didn't like TNO's system taking cover or scrounging for medpacks mid-battle were the last things I wanted to do in that game and it forced me to do both on demand healthpack masterrace fuck static placements

I don't think hardline stances on gameplay mechanics is really a good thing. There's a reason beyond laziness for it to exist

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50594623]I don't think hardline stances on gameplay mechanics is really a good thing. There's a reason beyond laziness for it to exist[/QUOTE] I don't think it is objectively bad but I do believe many devs are putting it in because it's popular and easy rather than because it actually enhances the game. A game like Tribes Ascend and Tyrian decided to do it because they knew it would help their game but I think most devs are just copying already popular shooters.

[QUOTE=cdr248;50594377]That's what I mentioned with brain dead enemies, games often do have these attack delays and slow enemy reactions but that doesn't stop the fact that there's nothing you can do to dodge it when they do fire.[/QUOTE] Then shoot them before they fire. I never felt Doom or Quake cheap because I could always fire before they shot or if I didn't then I deserve to take damage. This is no different than in a fighting game how once someone does a combo on you you generally have to wait for him to finish it if he is good.

I've said this before, but I like segmented systems like halo 1/reach had, and dishonored's mana system. Having a small 'shield' or whatever you want to call it, with a large total health pool takes away the punishment for tiny mistakes here and there, and lets you get a little sloppier with level design. It also means players don't feel punished for trying to play a bit aggressively, while still punishing them for severe fuckups. In the case of dishonored's mana system, the exceptionally powerful abilities limited your mana pool until you used potions. That was the penalty for using them, just the same as spamming basic abilities also limited you. Other mechanics that I've seen work on top of this include long term regeneration of the health/mana pool. Guild wars 1 had this mechanic that was (mostly) exclusive to elementalists called exhaustion (now referred to as overcast). Your mana in that game regenerates very quickly, and has a relatively small pool. As a result good builds/play were frequently about managing mana output over time vs bursting. Eles have a few spells that reduce your maximum mana pool for a while, and the cap regenerates at 1/4th the speed that your mana regenerates at. Many of the abilities that cause exhaustion are phenomenally powerful, and are somewhat spammable. However, using too many skills that cause exhaustion, or just spamming one skill really hard, was a good way to wind up with a tiny mana pool, making it impossible to use many skills. This let you burst for incredibly powerful match swinging effects repeatedly, but meant that you had significant downtime before you could do that again. This added some really interesting back and forth flow to the game. The go to example here is [url=https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shock]shock.[/url]. For warriors, it's an on demand, mostly unblockable, 3 second hard disable, that's available every 10 seconds. Combine that with a bull's strike for another 3 second knock, and a warrior can easily solo kill nearly anyone that doesn't have instant casting defensive buffs, or an ally capable of protecting them. The catch is that the skill really has a 'soft' 30 second cooldown because it takes 30 seconds to recover 10 mana lost to exhaustion. For warriors, with their stunted mana pool of 20, it also cripples their burst power to use it twice in a row. They can't use any mana skills for 10-15 seconds, and if they swap into high mana sets to put themselves into the negatives with exhaustion, they are pretty useless for upwards of a minute. Being at -30 mana basically means that you cannot spike anyone, and all of your good linebacking skills cannot be used. This works well in multiplayer, where time has actual costs and benefits. In single player, it doesn't really do much vs just having no regeneration though, because it encourages you to take things slowly. No regeneration outside of your limited buffer in single player forces you to keep moving and find kits/potions.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;50595268]I've said this before, but I like segmented systems like halo 1/reach had, and dishonored's mana system. [/QUOTE] I liked how Resistance did it best. You had health packs and everything but it was segmented in 4ths if I remember correctly so once you took damage past a certain point you would still need health packs. I wouldn't mind gaming going back to that system.

A game that handles regenerating health fairly well is Exanima. Small blows to non-vital areas or attacks blocked by armor do not cause lasting damage and heal back up, but strong hits to vital areas will reduce your maximum health and will eventually lead to death. In a way it's a bit similar to how MGS3 handled injuries with grave wounds requiring proper medical attention to avoid stark penalties.

I can't imagine mgsv if it didn't have regen health. Probably would be more resupply calls and other such crap. In mgs3 there's super slow health regen that relies on two things A high stamina bar, effected by hunger and physically taxing tasks. It needs to be high for good health regen. It also effects other things, a low stamina makes snake's hands shake while aiming, and losing all stamina makes him pass out. Also serious injuries cap your regen of health to a certain point, until you apply various types of first aid. Also iirc you can use only one or two first aids without fully fixing it and it'll heal the injury on its own slowly and iirc your health bar actually gets bigger from doing this because it builds your immune system and metabolism. I think that's a good way of handling it.

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595851]I can't imagine mgsv if it didn't have regen health. Probably would be more resupply calls and other such crap.[/QUOTE] Ever play Peace Walker? It would probably be like that. You would take/find/ call in rations. In fact I wouldn't have minded that because I loved rations in those games.

Yeah I did but iirc it had the same thing I said would probably happen (happened a lot in boss fights in PW) you'd be calling in tons of supply drops and wasting more time than you would hiding. Plus PW wasn't open world so it works better there

[QUOTE=Metist;50595862]Ever play Peace Walker? It would probably be like that. You would take/find/ call in rations. In fact I wouldn't have minded that because I loved rations in those games.[/QUOTE] That is a peace walker bigboss avatar, i might be reading to far into it though :v:

I do miss feeding on animals and the stamina system though, even though it'd be a bitch [editline]25th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Fr3ddi3;50595873]That is a peace walker bigboss avatar, i might be reading to far into it though :v:[/QUOTE] Actually I grabbed it from the ground zeroes recap of PW, but yeah I played pw [editline]25th June 2016[/editline] OP should do a video on QTE. I hate the torture scenes in mgs for being ridiculous controller breaking button mashes. I've heard suggestions to lock your arm a certain way but I swear that's a recipe for arthritis. Shouldn't have to fuck up my body to win. Plus I played xmen origins wolverine recently and hardest part was this awful button mash to kill a sentinel.

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595868]Yeah I did but iirc it had the same thing I said would probably happen (happened a lot in boss fights in PW) you'd be calling in tons of supply drops and wasting more time than you would hiding. Plus PW wasn't open world so it works better there[/QUOTE] I'm probably a minority but I liked the tension of waiting for a drop while a boss could kill you at any time.

Another subject you could tackle is games that tie their physics to frames per second, it's especially bad when they do it based on 30. Force unleashed games have frame unlocks but it becomes downright broken and unplayable at some parts if you use them

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595915]Another subject you could tackle is games that tie their physics to frames per second, it's especially bad when they do it based on 30. Force unleashed games have frame unlocks but it becomes downright broken and unplayable at some parts if you use them[/QUOTE] Dark souls had weapon break tied to frame rate so PC players were having their weapons break faster.

[QUOTE=Metist;50595912]I'm probably a minority but I liked the tension of waiting for a drop while a boss could kill you at any time.[/QUOTE] Yeah but in MGSV there's fewer legit boss fights (unless you count skulls and tank/heli overkill) and a larger play space. I'd imagine calling a drop every 4 health bars would be mega annoying in the open world

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595927]Yeah but in MGSV there's fewer legit boss fights (unless you count skulls and tank/heli overkill) and a larger play space. I'd imagine calling a drop every 4 health bars would be mega annoying in the open world[/QUOTE] That was my biggest complaint of MGS 5. MGS was famous for it's boss fights and had some of the greatest boss fights of all time and yet MGS 5 had 1 or 2 real boss fights in the entire game and they were meh.

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;50593197]I see your point but this pacing is completely destroyed when you suddenly have to stop what you are doing to put your head down for the next 5 to 10 seconds. While it definitely isn't realistic (but hey, either is regenerating health) a system similar to the new Doom might work because you don't have to stop to look for health and instead get health by killing enemies around you. In this way you actually become more violent when your health is low rather than less.[/QUOTE] Not only is the pacing destroyed but 99% of FPS(or at least military themed ones) have the same mechanic so they all feel similar as fuck. Any game that doesn't have regenerating health instantly feels fresh as fuck for not having it.

[QUOTE=Metist;50595926]Dark souls had weapon break tied to frame rate so PC players were having their weapons break faster.[/QUOTE] God that's horrible. I don't like weapon durability systems in the first place (ballistic shields and silencers are ok I guess, but I dislike it for weapons like in fallout) but that makes it even worse

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595915]Another subject you could tackle is games that tie their physics to frames per second, it's especially bad when they do it based on 30. Force unleashed games have frame unlocks but it becomes downright broken and unplayable at some parts if you use them[/QUOTE] There are many cases where this has caused issues in playing new games. I know you can't beat Call of Cthulhu on a modern machine without a patch because the ending has a time limit based on the frame rate so a modern machine will cause you to lose near instantly. But I was thinking of doing one on how input devices (Controller, fight stick, mouse, ect) have changed genres. Specifically how the controller has changed the FPS genre in how to design for one. I was also thinking about doing one about how going open world has changed many franchises, specifically MGS, Witcher and Batman Arkham city.

My only advice is that you keep the volume consistently audible and level, and that you sound more enthusiastic/passionate when you are discussing your points Other than that I think you did a good job and brought up some wonderful points for discussion. I would definitely watch more of these videos about game mechanics, etc.

I'm glad a lot of video games have regenerating health. There have been multiple times in the past where a game I was playing autosaved when I was at very low health in a very difficult area, so I was fucked and had to start over.

[QUOTE=Metist;50595573]I liked how Resistance did it best. You had health packs and everything but it was segmented in 4ths if I remember correctly so once you took damage past a certain point you would still need health packs. I wouldn't mind gaming going back to that system.[/QUOTE] I prefer the health/'shield' to be fluid personally. The point of shield style things is that you can regenerate from minor scratches, but you get chipped if you go a little to far, or are seriously punished if you go waaay too deep. Having it in 4ths just feels like you are getting seriously punished every single time. Personal opinion though. You can make either system work mechanically when applied correctly. Games like The Witcher also have an interesting take on things with persistent slowly regenerating health. This is harder to balance than a shield system, but accomplishes the same goal in that it gives you the ability to ignore minor mistakes over time questing in a dungeon, while still letting you actually fuck up and die independently of a cover system. Early in the first witcher game with the regen talent, you are more or less fully healed every fight, but later on, since the regen is static, and your hp pool grows, you take longer and longer to recover without resting/consumables. That's a neat passive mechanic that slowly adds difficulty to the game, even if any particular fight takes the same percentage out of you. [editline]26th June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595915]Another subject you could tackle is games that tie their physics to frames per second, it's especially bad when they do it based on 30. Force unleashed games have frame unlocks but it becomes downright broken and unplayable at some parts if you use them[/QUOTE] There's a lot of this in older games too. So many things are tied to clock speed. The original versions of Majesty (pre HD editions) have the scroll speed directly proportional to clock speed. You can regedit around, but yeah, it was a bit of a mindfuck trying to play a 2D RTS game on a 2.8 GHz core duo when the last time I had played it was on something like a 233MHz pentium II. :freakout:

[QUOTE=MightyLOLZOR;50596727]I'm glad a lot of video games have regenerating health. There have been multiple times in the past where a game I was playing autosaved when I was at very low health in a very difficult area, so I was fucked and had to start over.[/QUOTE] There are good and bad implementations of regenerating health. It depends how it affects the pacing (and enjoyment) of the game. For example, some games have you regenerate health up to a minimum point in order to prevent situations like this. I particularly liked MOH: Airborne's implementation (you had four chunks of health and regenerated as long as a chunk wasn't completley depleted, depleted chunks were restored by finding medkits), even though that game was kind of lackluster otherwise. Some other games give you "shields" which regenerate and health which doesn't (as others have mentioned). Even though I enjoy older games I do think that pickup-only health systems are kind of archaic and there are better, modern approaches that aren't just limited to setting aside half of each encounter to time outs. Now that I read my post back I guess I basically just reiterated what the video said. But I agree with what it's saying.

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;50595851]I can't imagine mgsv if it didn't have regen health. Probably would be more resupply calls and other such crap.[/QUOTE] mgs5 does it very well (regen health) because the game doesn't rely on cheap cover systems but instead a massive array of tactics if anything using cover in that game too much only gets you killed [editline]26th June 2016[/editline] biggest reason it's good though is because usually when you survive an encounter you end up fucking yourself even more because the enemy makes noise and thus everyone is put on alert. unless you're running and gunning of course, that's an option too, but even then you're bobbing in and out of more than just cover, you're throwing distractions and bombs and using C4 and sleeping gas and all sorts of things. You aren't sitting behind a wall and occasionally popping out. You can even use sniping tactics and be completely open and it's a lot more rewarding that way. [editline]26th June 2016[/editline] mgs5 without regen health would probably be a nightmare :v: