Hello /v/. Let's have a civilized discussion about the benefits and downsides of regenerating health as a mechanic in FPS/TPS games.
>Con: Slows down games; when a player lands an excellent shot on you which does a lot of damage, instead of fighting your way to a health pack, a few seconds of hiding will heal all your health back.
>Pro: Allows skilled players to continue killing sprees, even if the enemy is camping said health pack or there are no HP packs. Chip damage from enemies who suicide-charge you to kill you will heal over time, meaning lucky shots are rewarded less.
>Con: Damage being a reduced threat messes with weapon balance.
For example, light machine guns (whose purpose in real life is partially to lay down suppressing fire, as nobody wants to take even a single bullet if it can be helped) are less effective in video games with regenerating health, as health regen makes small chip damage inconsequential. Thus LMGs are shit in Cowadoody, and burst damage reigns supreme.
>Pro: Simplifies and streamlines the game. Not having to look at a health bar for specific HP numbers, or work out health pack placements, is easier on developers and on players' available attention. (To some, this might be a con, as it attracts casuals, but from a development point of view it's a pro.)
List some more arguments for and against for me.
>>334575892
It depends on how lethal the game is in the first place, and how fast the health regenerates. If you die in two hits and have to go 20 seconds before your health regens, it's not nearly as much of an issue as if you die in 1000 hits and health regens every 2 seconds.
Do you see how you can't just put this issue in a vacuum without any numbers? Because like most if not all things to do with video games, this is purely a numbers issue.
>>334576596
This is true, so I'll use Cod's system as a yardstick, considering most health regen systems are similar.
http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Health_system
Gimme a sec to look up rough damage numbers and compare them to other games.
Are there any games you think do the regen health system well?
>>334575892
>Pro
>Allows skilled players to continue killing sprees
Pick one.
>>334577241
>>334576596
Okay, so in Cod, damage multipliers range from 1.5x to 0x damage depending on where you hit the enemy, from the head to the gun.
If the player's health is below 100, after 5 seconds of not receiving damage, health regenerates at a rate of 1 every 0.05 seconds.
Picking some weapons at random (though the Vesper is the highest RoF SMG):
>LMG- 30-22 damage/shot
>Sniper- 99 base damage
>Assault rifle- 40-29 damage/shot
>SMG- 30-19 damage/shot
Basically it seems you can die in about 3 to 6 hits from most weapons, bar snipers, which take 1-2. Your health takes about 10 seconds to regen fully (I think, my maths is awful).
>>334575892
>Pro: Allows skilled players to continue killing sprees
Bullshit, it isn't a "spree" if you have to stop in the middle of it to hide behind a rock every ten seconds
Regenerate health by killing enemies is objectively the best system.
>>334578495
What I mean to say is, if the enemy is camping a health kit or periodically suiciding at you on maps without health kits, you're not going to unavoidably die to undodgeable damage over time, because you regain hp.
Consider the following situation- you're a good player with great hitscan aim pushing into an enemy base, while multiple enemies are rushing out of it to attack you one by one.
You can't dodge their hitscan, only make yourself more difficult to hit, so if they spray and pray you're guaranteed to get hit by some bullets.
With normal health kit systems, this would eventually bring down even the best player in the world. With regen health, you're retrieving some HP inbetween every kill on an enemy, even if you don't stop to hide.
>>334578734
In multiplayer games being a one-man killing machine because you have a slight skill edge is cosidered a bad thing and notfun.
>>334578734
These are contrived, unconvincing situations. If you can't manage the health kit the enemy deserves the advantage. If you get whittled down once by a team you've been mowing down in fours and fives, I don't even see how that's a bad thing. If it is, just drop health on kill. If spray and pray is an issue, fix the gun.
>With regen health, you're retrieving some HP inbetween every kill on an enemy, even if you don't stop to hide
Camping and turtling is going to net you huge health gains over the guy out there in the fray actually playing the game.
>>334575892
It's acceptable in single-player games to have regenerating health. It's not ideal, and is a bit lazy, but it works as a way of preventing the game from becoming unwinnable for the player, which in a single-player game can be frustrating and unfun. This is not to say that a game being difficult is bad, but if a player has very low hp and no access to a means of getting more(no regen and no nearby healthpack), he might just restart then and there. A player feeling the need to restart a level/game without having actually lost is to me a failure of game design(or enormous autism on the part of the player).
It is for the most part unacceptable in multiplayer games, because other players should absolutely be able to create a situation for you in which you cannot win. That is practically the whole point. You shouldn't be able to just stand around and regain health, there should be something you have to actually do to get it back, and your opponents should have the ability to stop you from doing it.
With that said, I'd say the best solution is a happy medium: your health regens up to say 25%, but to get it higher than that you need to pick up healthpacks or at least do something other than just stand around.
>>334579901
>if a player has very low hp and no access to a means of getting more(no regen and no nearby healthpack), he might just restart then and there. A player feeling the need to restart a level/game without having actually lost is to me a failure of game design
This is important to remember but I think encouraging the player to sit and wait in a single player game is even less fun than forcing a restart. The real fun is healing on enemy kill/boss damage, so you get nothing for running away and huge gains for running out there with 2 health and fucking everybody up at once.
>>334580404
>This is important to remember but I think encouraging the player to sit and wait in a single player game is even less fun than forcing a restart
Like I said, it's a lazy way of fixing that problem, but it's acceptable, and I'd say that having to sit around for a bit and then carry on to new stuff is slightly more fun than having to restart and do all the same shit again. There are definitely better ways of doing it.
I feel like a balance is needed. Like, you can regenerate up to 50% of your HP but you need med kits to go higher than that.
You can't just play hide and seek all day, waiting for your HP to recover. But it's not going to make you die from a thousand cuts or get you into unwinnable situations either.
Heath packs became 100% useless the day games introduced quicksaves.
There is literally no reason to have them anymore.
Also, you forgot the second most hated thing in video games; backtracking. Health packs greatly increase the amount of backtracking you're doing.
>If you don't get hurt that much you don't have to backtrack!
If you don't get hurt, it doesn't matter how you recover health then!
>>334579901
Or the player can stop being casual scum and git gud. If you wasted ammo or took avoidable damage you should have to face the consequences of your ineptitude.
I hate health regeneration. If you kill someone perfectly and take no damage you're no more punished than the half wit who took 3 in the chest.
>>334580661
I think the whole problem with "unwinnable" situations is caused by giving the players these gigantic fucking health bars that let them tank everything for days. Until suddenly they run out and players realize they're so used to blocking bullets with their face that they might as well give up and try again with a full bar.
Give the player low health. Nobody's going to restart at 1 HP when their health maxes out at 2. That way you can give the player proper full health restoration at reasonable intervals and it won't break anything because they're still two inches away from dying.
>>334580807
This to be honest, for singleplayer. For multiplayer, though, those upsides don't apply though (except for health packs sometimes involving backtracking to areas where combat currently isn't).
>>334580909
?????
>>334581182
That'd work for single player. For multiplayer not so much. You'd basically get games where everyone dies and has to respawn all the time which can be very annoying.
You could always make respawns really fast but unless the goal is just to kill the most dudes or there's something to prevent people from immediately jumping back into the action (like the respawn point being far away) then I'd imagine most objectives would be really annoying to do.
