I don't mind dropped healthpacks in convenient spots so much, but games like Halo I find kind of boring because there isn't really much of a challenge. I was able to breeze through Halo on normal for the most part without any trouble thanks to the autoregen shields except in areas where I was completeley overran by enemies. I guess it doesn't really bug me too much as long as there's enough health pick me ups to keep you going but not so many that it's just not a challenge. Or so few that it's nearly impossible.Stark wrote:Yeah, the modern world has 'level design', where forcing the player to backtrack is a failure and poor design. I mentioned Halflife because that was the last game I remember not having conveniently placed pickups: Doom and Wolf were much worse.
But remember, this isn't anything interesting like 'long adventure with risks and consequences vs series of small self-contained action scenes with nothing carried over except ammo levels'. It's football-team style 'zomg you said something bad about my favourite health system boo boo hiss hiss'.Some people can appreciate the tradeoffs and see intermediary steps like dropped healthpacks, stored healthpacks, part-regen like Halo etc. Others can't think so clearly. Wait, is this purely a style call?
Preferred player health system in FPS games
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Halo's a bit of a hybrid, with part-regen part-pickup. The problem with modern 'realistic' games is that having a dead demon drop a health pack is a little unacceptable these days. But having a demon ignore the health pack on the floor is fine for most people. 
I remember Blades of Darkness had bad guys that had health potions, and in combat they'd pull back and whip it out and try to drink it. You could interrupt the procedure, though, and if you killed them without them using it you got to pick it up.
I remember Blades of Darkness had bad guys that had health potions, and in combat they'd pull back and whip it out and try to drink it. You could interrupt the procedure, though, and if you killed them without them using it you got to pick it up.
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weemadando
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Call of Duty 2 was the perfect example of how health and gameplay balancing should work for a singleplayer (and MP) action game.
IT LET YOU JUST FUCKING PLAY THE GAME.
You could take a varying amount of damage depending on your difficulty level (so straight away you get a choice there).
"Damage" is "healed" fairly rapidly once you have a chance to cool down.
Checkpoints are SO common that even a quicksave whore like myself didn't notice any significant gaps in the system.
Between this who mechanics, it let you play the game and enjoy the experience without worrying about having to rush out of cover to grab that healthpack, or whether its worth saving when you're only on half health. It made the game a lot more enjoyable and fluid.
On the MP side, it encouraged aggression, which I like, because that's my play style. If you winged a dude and he fell back, then he'd be coming back at you with full health, unless you pressed your advantage. Which again, makes the game a lot more interesting. It also makes it harder for campers (in additional to kill-cam, best mechanic until the Gears of War "Y" button) in that they can't just pin down someone with limited health and wait to wing them again, nor can they cover a health pack and wait for someone to come and pick it up.
CoD2 had the best implementation of that mechanic. Gears of War and Republic Commando did it well, but the checkpoints were just a bit too far apart in both of them for them to rate as genuine competitors in the "just fucking play" category.
IT LET YOU JUST FUCKING PLAY THE GAME.
You could take a varying amount of damage depending on your difficulty level (so straight away you get a choice there).
"Damage" is "healed" fairly rapidly once you have a chance to cool down.
Checkpoints are SO common that even a quicksave whore like myself didn't notice any significant gaps in the system.
Between this who mechanics, it let you play the game and enjoy the experience without worrying about having to rush out of cover to grab that healthpack, or whether its worth saving when you're only on half health. It made the game a lot more enjoyable and fluid.
On the MP side, it encouraged aggression, which I like, because that's my play style. If you winged a dude and he fell back, then he'd be coming back at you with full health, unless you pressed your advantage. Which again, makes the game a lot more interesting. It also makes it harder for campers (in additional to kill-cam, best mechanic until the Gears of War "Y" button) in that they can't just pin down someone with limited health and wait to wing them again, nor can they cover a health pack and wait for someone to come and pick it up.
CoD2 had the best implementation of that mechanic. Gears of War and Republic Commando did it well, but the checkpoints were just a bit too far apart in both of them for them to rate as genuine competitors in the "just fucking play" category.
Doesn't CoD3 use the same system? I can't comment, since I find the CoD games pulp textureless nonsense, but you sound like you prefer the CoD2 system over it. What's the difference?
And I think what works for multi does not always work for solo. Constant respawning and limited maps make health concerns less important (however, the idea of chasing someone while they get their health back disgusts me). In solo, however, it just means you might as well be playing Wario Ware: Shooting. I find the idea of simply waltzing through a game never being concerned about health simply appalling. It honestly sounds like 'just fucking play' = 'is easy', and I don't consider that a feature. Ando sounds like the kind of guy who habitually quicksave/quickloads the same fight over and over to lose the least amount of health, though, so perhaps this mechanic simply removes the need for him to do that.
I'd like to be shown how something like FEAR prevents you from 'just fucking playing', however. I certainly didn't quicksave/quickload at all, and didn't notice the nearness of checkpoints because I seldom died due to healthpack carriage.
And I think what works for multi does not always work for solo. Constant respawning and limited maps make health concerns less important (however, the idea of chasing someone while they get their health back disgusts me). In solo, however, it just means you might as well be playing Wario Ware: Shooting. I find the idea of simply waltzing through a game never being concerned about health simply appalling. It honestly sounds like 'just fucking play' = 'is easy', and I don't consider that a feature. Ando sounds like the kind of guy who habitually quicksave/quickloads the same fight over and over to lose the least amount of health, though, so perhaps this mechanic simply removes the need for him to do that.
I'd like to be shown how something like FEAR prevents you from 'just fucking playing', however. I certainly didn't quicksave/quickload at all, and didn't notice the nearness of checkpoints because I seldom died due to healthpack carriage.
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weemadando
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I'm a quicksave whore as I mentioned, but I don't think that the mechanics I described make it "easy". I think it makes it "enjoyable". In CoD2 or Gears of War, you KNOW when you've hit and how badly without having to look at a health bar, or a goddamn percentage score. Not that doing either of those is hard. But it also means that if and when I do get hit, I don't have to backtrack ten minutes to pick up the health that I deliberately left there earlier so I would have something to pick up after the next fight.Stark wrote:Doesn't CoD3 use the same system? I can't comment, since I find the CoD games pulp textureless nonsense, but you sound like you prefer the CoD2 system over it. What's the difference?
And I think what works for multi does not always work for solo. Constant respawning and limited maps make health concerns less important (however, the idea of chasing someone while they get their health back disgusts me). In solo, however, it just means you might as well be playing Wario Ware: Shooting. I find the idea of simply waltzing through a game never being concerned about health simply appalling. It honestly sounds like 'just fucking play' = 'is easy', and I don't consider that a feature. Ando sounds like the kind of guy who habitually quicksave/quickloads the same fight over and over to lose the least amount of health, though, so perhaps this mechanic simply removes the need for him to do that.
And you do get concerned about health. Its just that the way that they make you concerned about it is to have more intense gameplay rather than just force you to do subsistance agriculture farming healthpacks through a goddamn level. Don't get me wrong, CoD2 is the only game that I've played where I appreciate this mechanic. If it was to turn up in Armed Assault, or SWAT I'd be disappointed as I like the systems in that. But for something so over the top and action hero-esque as CoD2, it works well.
FEAR had different mechanics in it to make the game more enjoyable. I liked being able to take the fucking healthpacks with me and use them as I WANTED TO, rather than having a static "health here" marker that I had to go and pick up when I got injured. FEAR checkpoints were fairly constant, which was good, but I still saved. A lot. Just force of habit.I'd like to be shown how something like FEAR prevents you from 'just fucking playing', however. I certainly didn't quicksave/quickload at all, and didn't notice the nearness of checkpoints because I seldom died due to healthpack carriage.
On a counterpoint, you've got El Matador. Very similar gameplay to Max Payne and FEAR, but with static, non-carryable health. Which means, again, you're either doing subsistance farming and backtracking to pick up the ones you went without, or gorging on them when you have the opportunity. Good game overall, but that mechanic made it hard. Also - the completely random lengths between health caches. Sometimes its one or two in every room, then sometimes its half a fucking level between them. Which makes it hard to assess whether you really can afford to use that 50 health pack to top up when you're on 70 already...
As I said, I haven't really encountered healthpack farming since quite old games like Halflife. I don't really play anything between UT2k4-style (MP, fixed locations, but small maps and respawns) and SWAT 4 style, though - I'm allergic to WW2 shooters these days.
It's strange that the older mechanics persisted so long when I remember Quake and Heretic allowing you to carry around healthpacks in the 'inventory' thing and use them later. As you say, the 'do I pick up health when I'm at 70%' thing is a retarded forced dilemma.
It's strange that the older mechanics persisted so long when I remember Quake and Heretic allowing you to carry around healthpacks in the 'inventory' thing and use them later. As you say, the 'do I pick up health when I'm at 70%' thing is a retarded forced dilemma.
One might think I'd be on your side: I'm an avid CoD:UO player but you might also know that that means I'm biologically predisposed to prefer it over every other CoD incarnation. United Offensive fans are like that.weemadando wrote:Call of Duty 2 was the perfect example of how health and gameplay balancing should work for a singleplayer (and MP) action game.
IT LET YOU JUST FUCKING PLAY THE GAME.
You could take a varying amount of damage depending on your difficulty level (so straight away you get a choice there).
"Damage" is "healed" fairly rapidly once you have a chance to cool down.
Checkpoints are SO common that even a quicksave whore like myself didn't notice any significant gaps in the system.
Between this who mechanics, it let you play the game and enjoy the experience without worrying about having to rush out of cover to grab that healthpack, or whether its worth saving when you're only on half health. It made the game a lot more enjoyable and fluid.
On the MP side, it encouraged aggression, which I like, because that's my play style. If you winged a dude and he fell back, then he'd be coming back at you with full health, unless you pressed your advantage. Which again, makes the game a lot more interesting. It also makes it harder for campers (in additional to kill-cam, best mechanic until the Gears of War "Y" button) in that they can't just pin down someone with limited health and wait to wing them again, nor can they cover a health pack and wait for someone to come and pick it up.
CoD2 had the best implementation of that mechanic. Gears of War and Republic Commando did it well, but the checkpoints were just a bit too far apart in both of them for them to rate as genuine competitors in the "just fucking play" category.
I loathe the "Wolverine" health system but you make a more compelling case beyond one trite fact that everyone else drudges up. Although no one ever gives it a fair shake cause they haven't played it -- beyond JUST the super fast healing is a gameplay system without any armor add-ons and where as few as 2 bullets can CONSISTENTLY kill you. (bolt-action rifles, including the scoped ones) Stark unintentionally hinted at this fact -- "close range deathfests" is as apt a description of any CoD as I've read -- but you do still have to play the game to understand how the mechanics work. I myself knew of the typically short fights in that game, shattering the negative connotations, but you gave it an altogether positive one.
I still like the reward factor of healthpacks in multiplayer though WAY more than single player, where save-whoring is an unfortunate by-product of going stretches of the game trying not to get hit ONCE. But there are worse than Wolverine healing systems I suppose.
