Best health system designs

[Jools]

Win? What are games, slot machines? A racing game?

Is that all you play a game for? To win it?

Uhm, yes? But for a couple of exceptions:

1.Adventure games (and a few, selected, RPGs): I play these for the storytelling (and even then, fruition of the storytelling is bound, subjugated even, to beating the game bit by bit).

2.GTA/sandbox hiking simulators (think Skyrim): I occasionally enjoy just playing this game "relaxed", drive/ride around, see the sights, kill some stuff, hunt foxes, take screenshots of beautiful sceneries I'll delete in a few months.

I usually play games to play them.

I guess we play different games then, and with a different purpose. Sorry for clogging your thread with my health-system brainstorming runoff.

 

[hiver]

No need to apologize.

Im satisfied that you understand the difference in our approaches. That is all that is required.
To me "beating the game" just means that the fun is over. And i dont see what is there to beat at all in games i like. I didnt play Fallout or Planescape to beat anyone or anything. Beating various enemies and the boss is just something that comes out of the story and narrative of the game, but thats not the purpose of it.

Even when i play shooters i dont play them to finish them... if you get what i am saying. I play them to enjoy them (if possible) and beating or winning over various enemies is just a part of that. Not the ultimate goal.



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also, you can all freely continue to discuss the feature. I got what i wanted but that doesnt mean a good idea or detail wont come up.

 

[Outlander]

Yeah, most FPS do have a "decent" mode (when not the default one) where you're dead in one/two hits. And even in those games, if the first hit drops you to 1% health, you're likely to be still 100% functional (although I do remember there were some games which tried implementing some form of realism, where you'd be impaired or your weapon would get knocked out of your hands, or you'd be slowed down, or had some on-screen effects to simulate the hassle of being half-dead).

Your stamina-bound parry/block is an interesting idea, actually, and dodge/evade should also be related to that. Or some form of action points or limited resource, if people don't feel like linking those action to "stamina".

The trick would be to find a suitable balance to it so that enemies are bound by the same rules, this way any fight, from the beginning of the game to its very end, would be a 'kill or be killed' situation. It's very typical that in RPGs you're roflstomping everything that moves by the end of the game, or even sooner than that.

 

[T. Reich]

Yeah, most FPS do have a "decent" mode (when not the default one) where you're dead in one/two hits. And even in those games, if the first hit drops you to 1% health, you're likely to be still 100% functional (although I do remember there were some games which tried implementing some form of realism, where you'd be impaired or your weapon would get knocked out of your hands, or you'd be slowed down, or had some on-screen effects to simulate the hassle of being half-dead).

In terms of FPS games with "realistic" setting, you could sorta pretend that your life bar does not necessarily represent "% life until you die" but rather "% life until you're incapacitated", which would make sense, since it doesn't take much directed force to incapacitate a body and on the other hand an incapacitated combatant is as good as dead anyway.

It wouldn't work well in RPGs since they are quite obviously much more stat-centric rather than skill-based - in FPS/action you rely on your own manual dexterity, so margin for error could be set quite low (like in old arcades, 1 hit is death, but the game is still beatable... usually). In stat-centric systems like RPGs you can't influence the outcome with your own manual skill because you rely on the system to determine the outcome. So, introducing a "realistic" 1-2-hit kill scenario for normal combat encounters will usually result in situations that seem much like gambling.

I don't see any reason to argue with hiver about what you consider important in a game, since he's quite obviously wrong in the head.

 

[Jools]

Even when i play shooters i dont play them to finish them... if you get what i am saying. I play them to enjoy them (if possible) and beating or winning over various enemies is just a part of that. Not the ultimate goal.

As an avid (and formerly competitive) FPS player, I don't think I get this (I only play MultiPlayer, for the record). Do you actually draw any fun from, say, playing a TDM match and ending up with a 1:15 K:D ratio? Do you actually literally just enjoy being in the game? Nothing wrong if you do, but you'd be the first one I know that does! If so, I do envy you for being way past the very essence of such games.

 

[hiver]

I never play MP games and i dont understand that giberish you wrote about them.

I dont enjoy "just being in the game" - thats not what i said, is it?

I enjoy good games, i enjoy playing them, experiencing their content and gameplay, whetever that is - if its good. Getting to the final boss fight is a sad moment for me.
Especially since its all contrived bullshit where player has crazy advantages over enemies and there is no other solution or option but "beating them" and thus ending the game.

Needless to say, ill do my best to do something entirely different in my game, if it ever comes to be.

 

[Malignant Manor]

I remember the Wing Commander (only really remember Privateer/Righteous Fire) series having shields with a somewhat quick regen and then armor for hp. Once the armor was hit, your equipment got damaged to certain points and even destroyed. You could even be reduced to no movement in a direction or multiple ones. The armor had different depths based on location.

 

[hiver]

Armor is a very good feature through which matters of health can be made different, reliant on different things then mere medical properties of human bodies.

 

[Jools]

I remember the Wing Commander (only really remember Privateer/Righteous Fire) series having shields with a somewhat quick regen and then armor for hp. Once the armor was hit, your equipment got damaged to certain points and even destroyed. You could even be reduced to no movement in a direction or multiple ones. The armor had different depths based on location.

Tie Fighter did that too. It was ossom!

 

[Norfleet]

That kind of model would probably apply better to machines than people. PEOPLE frequently keep fighting in the face of grievous mortal injuries off the adrenaline rush, only to then expire after the fight, resulting in combat which is essentially a draw as everyone dies at the end. It is for this reason that combat experts will typically advise that you avoid combats. The sheer number of combats a typical player will get into over the course of a single level of an RPG would, in real life, place you amongst the legendary heroes of asskicking, probably posthumously.

 

[hiver]

"People" dont do shit. Some individuals do, but not "people".

over the course of a single level of an RPG

Only if its a combat focused game.