rachel on 10/10/2008 at 11:50
Yeah, I was being nitpicky a bit here :)
Quote Posted by DDL
It's usually not financially worthwhile to make a great, memorable, GOTY-winning game of this type when, for a fraction of the effort, you can make an acceptable and highly profitable one.
Well I know it's a business and they're in it for the money, but man, they should aim for exactly that. Certainly recognition is at least equally as important as financial success.
Both blockbusters and oscar-prized directors/actors are
guaranteed to get new projects as a follow-up, but the latter also get the satisfaction to be a leader/example in their field (plus potentially be a game-changer).
Win-win.
Let's get wild, if they do it right it could be a game-changer, oscar-winning blockbuster :p
DDL on 10/10/2008 at 11:53
I don't know if anyone played Pariah (christ knows I wouldn't recommend it), but that had a mix of 'item heal' and 'auto heal', whereby you had five 'bars' representing your health (so, like a 20% bar, a 40% bar and so on), and taking damage started chopping into them one after the other: as long as you got out of harms way before an entire bar was down, you'd recover that bar, but only as far as that bar: a grenade going off nearby might knock you down to one and a half bars, which you'd then recover back to two.
Then there were medpacks that recovered a whole bar at a time.
So in theory you really didn't need medpacks at all, but in practice they were incredibly useful.
Of course, the game itself was shit, but hey.
So something like that wouldn't be too offensive, since you could come up with some semi-satisfying bullshit to explain it away (like "the first few hits simply throw you off balance to line you up for the actual DAMAGE hit, but if you duck before that hit, you recover your balance" or something)...but we'll see, I guess.
rachel on 10/10/2008 at 11:59
Resistance: FoM uses the same system. You get four (iirc) bars and auto-heal is limited to the current bar you're in. Health vials can be used to replenish the rest to full health.
Matthew on 10/10/2008 at 12:12
It sounds like the heal system for Path of Neo too actually - your health bar not only goes down as you're hit, but maximum health also decreases. Neo auto-regenerates after about 30 seconds of not being hit, but only to the new lower limit, unless you grab a medical pack to raise the max health again.
ZylonBane on 10/10/2008 at 12:14
Quote Posted by Ostriig
I don't think this is an issue of in-game explanations, as the devs could easily make up some reasonably consistent excuses for either mechanic within the context of the game world.
Like Call of Duty bothered coming up with an explanation for it? With this sort of game mechanic, the explanation is pretty much, "Because, shut up".
Ostriig on 10/10/2008 at 12:28
Quote Posted by DDL
I don't know if anyone played Pariah (christ knows I wouldn't recommend it), but that had a mix of 'item heal' and 'auto heal', whereby you had five 'bars' representing your health (so, like a 20% bar, a 40% bar and so on), and taking damage started chopping into them one after the other: as long as you got out of harms way before an entire bar was down, you'd recover that bar,
but only as far as that bar: a grenade going off nearby might knock you down to one and a half bars, which you'd then recover back to two.
Then there were medpacks that recovered a whole bar at a time.
So in theory you really didn't need medpacks at all, but in practice they were incredibly useful.
Of course, the game itself was shit, but hey.
So something like that wouldn't be
too offensive, since you could come up with some semi-satisfying bullshit to explain it away (like "the first few hits simply throw you off balance to line you up for the actual DAMAGE hit, but if you duck before that hit, you recover your balance" or something)...but we'll see, I guess.
Actually, yeah, I tried Pariah (it came with a magazine I was buying at the time, and I gave it a spin) and I agree with you - the game was crap, but the hitpoints system was interesting. Not saying that's necessarily the solution for a game like DX3, but I'm open to the possibility of that sort of thing working out, more so at least than a fully regenerating health bar.
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Like Call of Duty bothered coming up with an explanation for it? With this sort of game mechanic, the explanation is pretty much, "Because, shut up".
Is Call of Duty the sort of game you'd expect that sort of attention to detail from? Not to mention that the setting doesn't seem too accommodating for that sort of mechanic, either.
Volitions Advocate on 10/10/2008 at 13:37
Escape from Butcher bay had the same Health system. except you'd have to get healed by stations on the wall.
DDL on 10/10/2008 at 13:58
God, so it did. It's all coming back to me now. Oh, and those huge virtua racer arcade machines that upgraded your total health by impaling your face on masses of spikes...
Ok, so I guess I could probably just about tolerate that kind of health system. Not sure if it would mesh with locational damage, though: having a set of bars for each location seems..clumsy, somehow. And I do love locational damage.
mothra on 10/10/2008 at 15:01
I'm sorry for my uninformed autoheal knowledge about Portal, I just never got hit by a turret in portal, it was so easy :joke:
like others here I hate to see the damage system of DX go, an innovative DX3 that takes the old game and makes it better should have stayed on it but made it better in terms of realism:
- i like the body awareness of FarCry2, Riddick and FEAR
- I don't like over-the-top augs like "kung-fu master" or "kill switch" or whatever it is called, this sounds very gimmick-y to me and stupid in regards of augs a future society would develop
- I love the situational damage of DX1
what i did not like was the fact that you could be on 1% health for all of your body but as long as your arm was 100% you could still shoot with pinpoint precision. this system should be revamped in favor of a mix of having to heal your whole body as well because if not you get the effect of damage "bleeding" over into other systems, much like the "bleed" system in STALKER or MenOfValor. FC2 goes for autoheal coupled with performing surgery with critical hits. the "fix yourself up" animation and a very, very slow autoheal with bioaugs would be much more believable in a DX3 universe than in Africa imo.
concerning playstyles and catering to the masses:
every thread now and then I have to complain about difficulty being only an afterthough in games while I find it to be the MOST important thing decidiing if a game appeals only to 1 crowd ( god-mode ) or many. Devs always say that they don't wanna ppl miss out on stuff only because they play on easy. that's good but in return everyone else misses out on medium/hard/whatever.
like FC2 seems to try to solve the problems of true non-linear plot-advancement DX3 could have pioneered the above discussed multi-plot/playstyle/difficulty scaling/system and tie it into the narrative that should be more focused than in FC2, say like TheWitcher which had a very strong main narrative that (although it had like 3 different endings with a few variations) stayed true to its principles and themes it wanted to explore.
The_Raven on 10/10/2008 at 15:54
Quote Posted by BlackCapedManX
I mean you could potentially run into scenarios where you would be critically damaged, and your only health in the immediate level is through hostile territory, even though there is, say a totally non-hostile bar, and you could be laying on the floor bleeding to death but the game would prefer you go find health kits.
I think you you're forgetting that all non-hostile areas in Deus Ex were chalk full of med-bots, candy bars, wine, and medkits. In fact, IIRC, this was one of the major complaints leveled at Deus Ex when it came out.
<HR>
Quote Posted by demagogue
Also, there's an old debate I remember, to what extent a game should offer more gameplay than a typical player will see. I was under the impression in mainstream gaming, they don't like it when a game has important parts they don't see ... it's like they're going to the movies and they want to hit all the high points their first run. But if you start adding different gameplay styles, it's like a part of the game they don't see, so isn't likely to fly.
Ah, yes, otherwise known as the Valve versus Warren Spector debate. I personally lean towards the Warren Spector side: games are derived from fun simulations and narratives, not roller coasters. This is why I got so incredibly bored with Half-Life 2, why I never finished my second playthrough, and why I have no desire to pick up the thing up and play it again.
As for the division of bars, I wouldn't mind that if the bar were divided into 10 segments. This, however, raises the question that if you are going to divide the health bar so much, then why even bother with regenerating health for such a small gain. Also, I don't find auto health speeds up the game at all. In fact, most of what I remember from Halo 1 is me waiting for the shields to recharge. Not what I'd call progress.
EDIT: ZylonBane, are you going to make a "worst fears confirmed" image for Deus Ex 3? I ask because I found that your one for Bioshock was a perfect representation of the game's focus group and target audience in retropect: people who like Pauly Shore movies.
