217 réponses à ce sujet

[Bozorgmehr]

Icinix wrote...

I prefer the healing system of tried and true games of yore. Health is down, pop a pill, potion, medi-gel, whatever.

Can you elaborate? How would popping pills or whatever be 'better'? How many pills should Shep have at his/her disposal? Can they be used one after the other or restricted in some way? Should they be available in large or very small supplies? Can you carry them around or do you have to walk over em to get some health back?

I don't know what it is about regen health, but it makes me feel less like I'm playing - and more like I'm watching the game.

I recommend to play ME2 without the regen system enabled - would be terrible if not impossible.

One of the major advantages of regen is the freedom it gives to the devs to create interesting and challenging fights. A system that uses a manual health system is always limited - you cannot make encounters too hard b/c when the player has used his/her supply of pills (s)he's screwed. Using a regen system plus a couple locations giving players a breather to regain their strength is all that's needed and works for all fights (= better = why most games use regen).

Players who are skilled won't have to use those locations often (they will also need less pills using the other variant) - players who are not skilled are going to fight longer and spend more time in those safe spots (or they would be using a lot of medkits and since they need them for every fight will likely result in having too few pills to complete fights in the final stages of the mission/level/game - maybe they have to restart the entire mission just to get to that last fight with enough pills to get them through).

Pills make the game easier for skilled players (up to breaking point) and much harder for those with less skills - the total opposite of what one wants to achieve by it. It also increases (boring and pointless) micro-management which only reduces the overall immersion and action. It's also likely something you want hotkeyed; and we're already short on those.

[Someone With Mass]

If it's going to be true to the lore, then Shepard should slip into a light coma if he's using the medi-gel too much.

So, no. F the lore. It's not always the best thing when it comes to gameplay.

[Icinix]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

Icinix wrote...

I prefer the healing system of tried and true games of yore. Health is down, pop a pill, potion, medi-gel, whatever.

Can you elaborate? How would popping pills or whatever be 'better'? How many pills should Shep have at his/her disposal? Can they be used one after the other or restricted in some way? Should they be available in large or very small supplies? Can you carry them around or do you have to walk over em to get some health back?

I don't know what it is about regen health, but it makes me feel less like I'm playing - and more like I'm watching the game.

I recommend to play ME2 without the regen system enabled - would be terrible if not impossible.

One of the major advantages of regen is the freedom it gives to the devs to create interesting and challenging fights. A system that uses a manual health system is always limited - you cannot make encounters too hard b/c when the player has used his/her supply of pills (s)he's screwed. Using a regen system plus a couple locations giving players a breather to regain their strength is all that's needed and works for all fights (= better = why most games use regen).

Players who are skilled won't have to use those locations often (they will also need less pills using the other variant) - players who are not skilled are going to fight longer and spend more time in those safe spots (or they would be using a lot of medkits and since they need them for every fight will likely result in having too few pills to complete fights in the final stages of the mission/level/game - maybe they have to restart the entire mission just to get to that last fight with enough pills to get them through).

Pills make the game easier for skilled players (up to breaking point) and much harder for those with less skills - the total opposite of what one wants to achieve by it. It also increases (boring and pointless) micro-management which only reduces the overall immersion and action. It's also likely something you want hotkeyed; and we're already short on those.

You know what I love about the internet...

Is when I say I love a hotdog, and would rather have that than a cheeseburger - people come out of the woodwork to write mini essays on why I should dis-regard my likes, and go for the cheeseburger.

[Teknor]

Icinix wrote...

You know what I love about the internet...

Is when I say I love a hotdog, and would rather have that than a cheeseburger - people come out of the woodwork to write mini essays on why I should dis-regard my likes, and go for the cheeseburger.

Well frankly i don't want to eat your hotdog in ME3 and rather go for cheeseburger.

[Icinix]

Teknor wrote...

Icinix wrote...

You know what I love about the internet...

Is when I say I love a hotdog, and would rather have that than a cheeseburger - people come out of the woodwork to write mini essays on why I should dis-regard my likes, and go for the cheeseburger.

Well frankly i don't want to eat your hotdog in ME3 and rather go for cheeseburger.

Tough Break for both of us - Casey confirmed its Pizza all the way. 

[Smeelia]

Icinix wrote...

You know what I love about the internet...

Is when I say I love a hotdog, and would rather have that than a cheeseburger - people come out of the woodwork to write mini essays on why I should dis-regard my likes, and go for the cheeseburger.

If there's something wrong with sharing opinions and information, then why post your opinion in the first place?  It's not like people can force you to change your opinion or prove it wrong and maybe they do have some valid points that you hadn't considered.  Maybe it doesn't even have anything to do with you and people just like to post their opinions and explain why they have them.

It's a bit odd to be on a discussion forum and then complain about people discussing things.

[Bozorgmehr]

Icinix wrote...

You know what I love about the internet...

Is when I say I love a hotdog, and would rather have that than a cheeseburger - people come out of the woodwork to write mini essays on why I should dis-regard my likes, and go for the cheeseburger.

I don't care whether you love hotdogs or not, I do care about one of my favorite games. And I'm hoping cheeseburgers like yourself don't ruin it based on poor concepts

[Beerfish]

Inprea wrote...

I have to disagree with the urgency. I was feeling rather hurried when my shields were down, my health was at half and a Geth Prime was rounding the corner while his little buddies peppered my position. I know that.

Agreed, if a person is lamenting very very very fast regeneration I can understand that but last night I was just getting spanked by the Praetorian on Horizon multiple times and I found that to be quite urgent (with lots of colourful language on my part as well.)

[konfeta]

One of the major advantages of regen is the freedom it gives to the devs to create interesting and challenging fights. A system that uses a manual health system is always limited - you cannot make encounters too hard b/c when the player has used his/her supply of pills (s)he's screwed. Using a regen system plus a couple locations giving players a breather to regain their strength is all that's needed and works for all fights (= better = why most games use regen).

Nonsense. Proper execution of whatever health system with the rest of the game design working in tandem with it makes for interesting fights. Serious Sam did absolutely fine with medkits and had some of the most entertaining fights in the genre despite being the most straightforward shooter imaginable.

Every health system can make mistakes. People keep pointing out that having classic medkit model results in people running out of health and interrupting gameflow (personally never encountered that enough to be bothered by it, but sure, I believe it can happen). The potion model's brokenness can be demonstrated in basically any game where you can stock up on 10+, 100+ pots, reslting in your character effectively having an absurdly higher health pool it has listed.

Personally, I found that "superior" regenerating health systems most commonly fails by keeping player health pools so low that you are stuck in a perpetual "take potshot, go to near death with hyperaccurate enemies, bore yourself to death in cover until regenerate." Whack-a-mole. Yawn. Searching for medkits post-fight has been replaced by drawing out fights with ridiculous amount of downtime within the fights because it is nigh impossible to inflict damage without taking a near fatal amount in return.

ME2 suffers from this problem tremendously, though the existence of various powers alleviates it to create a distinct feeling in combat compared to most shooters. I think it can still use tweaks so that the baseline amount of damage you can take before diving into cover is higher. Weaken the regeneration somehow to compensate. Should help to put more emphasis on tactics in a fight - greater windows of opportunity out of cover, less focus on being a superhuman bullet sponge that can outlast an army by hiding behind a crate.

[Ahglock]

Beerfish wrote...

Inprea wrote...

I have to disagree with the urgency. I was feeling rather hurried when my shields were down, my health was at half and a Geth Prime was rounding the corner while his little buddies peppered my position. I know that.

Agreed, if a person is lamenting very very very fast regeneration I can understand that but last night I was just getting spanked by the Praetorian on Horizon multiple times and I found that to be quite urgent (with lots of colourful language on my part as well.)

And if that happened more than once a level you might have a point. It might not be regenerating health that is an issue, it or health packs have their good sides and bad sides.  But the lack of preassure on the player in well virtually every scene is an issue.  With health packs+regenning shields the only difference in ME2 would be you'd hang out of cover a second less because you could only last the length of the shield and not shield+half health.  If you don;t apply preassure to the player the health system is irrelevant.  

[Zem_]

Bozorgmehr wrote...
What's the alternative? Spamming stimpacks ala FO3 - I was running around with a 300+ supply at the end, putting it on a hotkey meant you couldn't die whatever you did. 10x worse than a regen system. Games in which you can use health boosting/restoring items are always a lot easier to play, those items usually come in large supplies and can be used over and over again without any cooldown, timer, or other limit. It's inferior gameplay.

This is hardly the only alternative.  How about NOT letting you stack up 300+ medigel?  There's nothing wrong with the idea of health "repair" being a limited resource.  Most games treat ammo this way.   Why not health also?  Indeed, why bother having health AND shields if they both just regenerate in the same way?  To me it is more interesting to have regenerating shields but non-regenerating health.  At least during combat anyway.  Let health regen slowly when not fighting so you don't ever get completely stuck for running out of medi-gel.  But running out of medi-gel should be like running out of ammo.  It should be something you have to try to avoid.  

And there's no one right way to balance that.  If the weak shields of ME2 don't make this feasible then make the shields a bit stronger.  The idea is that the shields are there so you can take a few hits but not stand outside cover for very long.  If you take more than a few hits, your health gets damaged and that should cost you something, in my opinion.  That's a more interesting challenge than simply finding cover and regenerating back to brand spankin new condition right in the middle of a firefight.

[Smeelia]

konfeta wrote...

Nonsense. Proper execution of whatever health system with the rest of the game design working in tandem with it makes for interesting fights.

That's a fair point.  Still, if you give the player the option of how many heals to stockpile and and when to use them then that can ruin the whole system.  A manual healing system can work but it's still better if it's predictable so that developers know exactly how tough they can make encounters (and how tough they are making them for every player).

Regenerating only when you're out of combat is a pretty decent idea, it means you always have a set amount of health at the start of the encounter but don't have to bother searching for health afterwards.  Of course that works best if you're not looking to have healing as part of the gameplay and tactics.

[Firesteel]

I personally think we should go back to ME1 or Halo Reach style of health, regenerating shields, with minor health regeneration. Right now in ME2, shields and health act in almost the same way, so it is really like having two shield bars instead of a shield and a health bar. The reason I site Reach is because it gave you slight health regeneration, enough to give you 2-4 bars depending on how damaged you were, which rewarded you for being cautious.

[Akizora]

Without regenerating health you need a large enough amount of healthpacks in the world so a player does not dig themselves into a corner and have to replay several hours of gameplay just to have a chance of surviving. Regenerating health solves the problem, you never get stuck unable to fight because you're low on health.

Baldurs Gate solved it with a wait/camp function as do many other games like the Elder Scrolls series with sleeping/waiting and so on. The only way I can see this working is if you have "bonus-shields" that do not regenerate like normal shields do and require recharge cells.

[lazuli]

Ahglock wrote...
It might not be regenerating health that is an issue, it or health packs have their good sides and bad sides.  But the lack of preassure on the player in well virtually every scene is an issue.  With health packs+regenning shields the only difference in ME2 would be you'd hang out of cover a second less because you could only last the length of the shield and not shield+half health.  If you don;t apply preassure to the player the health system is irrelevant.  

ME2 had some pressure in the form of enemies that occasionally sought out close combat, or staggering effects.  It looks like ME3 is going to have a greater emphasis on close combat.  The developers have mentioned enemies putting more pressure on the players in terms of flanking and proximity.  Yet we didn't really see any of that in the E3 demos.

[Someone With Mass]

lazuli wrote...
ME2 had some pressure in the form of enemies that occasionally sought out close combat, or staggering effects.  It looks like ME3 is going to have a greater emphasis on close combat.  The developers have mentioned enemies putting more pressure on the players in terms of flanking and proximity.  Yet we didn't really see any of that in the E3 demos.

It was all a work in progress, though. 

And parts of the level weren't exactly promoting flanking on the enemies' behalf.

As for the regenerating health, I like some of the suggestions about slow health regeneration, but I don't want to be completely dependent on health packs, so I don't have to be extremely cautious every time I'm out of them.

Modifié par Someone With Mass, 17 juin 2011 - 05:24 .

[Bozorgmehr]

konfeta wrote...

Personally, I found that "superior" regenerating health systems most commonly fails by keeping player health pools so low that you are stuck in a perpetual "take potshot, go to near death with hyperaccurate enemies, bore yourself to death in cover until regenerate." Whack-a-mole. Yawn. Searching for medkits post-fight has been replaced by drawing out fights with ridiculous amount of downtime within the fights because it is nigh impossible to inflict damage without taking a near fatal amount in return.

ME2 suffers from this problem tremendously, though the existence of various powers alleviates it to create a distinct feeling in combat compared to most shooters. I think it can still use tweaks so that the baseline amount of damage you can take before diving into cover is higher. Weaken the regeneration somehow to compensate. Should help to put more emphasis on tactics in a fight - greater windows of opportunity out of cover, less focus on being a superhuman bullet sponge that can outlast an army by hiding behind a crate.

And how exactly do medkits improve anything? Should you be able to stand out in the open and outlast the enemy by consuming medkits instead? If you cannot stay out in the open for long, how then does it improve the experience if one still hides behind cover most of the time?

ME2 also uses a hybrid; health regens after a brief moment without taking any damage, but you can also use medigel to restore health + shield instantly or activate one out of four armor powers (TA, GSB, Fortification, Barrier) or use Charge to get shields back. In ME2 you have the choice to keep going and 'waste' a medkit and/or cooldown OR get somewhere safe to regain your shields over time.

I totally agree with your view on ME2's shield strength; it's silly that two 1 point shields are better than one 200 point shield. I would prefer a system with more emphasis on shields (they should last longer) and less on regen. I, however, don't see why medkits would improve the use of tactics. On the contrary, I believe they will reduce the need to use tactics, especially for the experienced players - who are the ones that don't need them in the first place.

P.S. Despite ME2's weak shields, I never had any issues with it. I consider myself a fairly experienced ME2 player and I usually play Adept (Insanity) - which is considered the most squishy class - yet I don't camp, nor do I have to wait for regen often, and I don't like using medkits on Shep. Point being, you can play ME2 just fine, if you make good use of tactics, without reverting to the tedious and boring outlast the enemy through shield regen strategy.

I also prefer playing without pause; and those moments the enemy did manage to take down Shep's shield (forcing him/her into cover for a few seconds) I use to look around to spot enemies, reload / switch weapons and use squadpowers and/or -commands. If you're spending too much time to regen health and shields, you're likely playing one or two difficulty levels beyond your current skills - which is an entire different matter.

[crimzontearz]

watch "the escapist" they have a piece on regenerating health somewhere. they outline the pros of it nicely

[Eurhetemec]

Wow, I read that whole over-long, smug, self-regarding article, and he just totally failed to deal with the fact well-designed regenerating health allows you to have a more exciting and deadly game as ME2 illustrates! In fact, ME2 is a very good example of how to do regenerating health "right" (it could be improved, but it's good), because even on Normal, let alone real difficulty levels, behaving like Wolverine in the example and just running through stuff and standing in explosions is a very good way to get killed.

It's not like ME1's system was drastically different, in practice. I mean, I just finished a run-through on Veteran (had to re-install after losing all my stuff) or whatever the max pre-finish difficulty is, and I used a grand total of 5, count'em 5 medi-gel in the entire game!

[Ahglock]

lazuli wrote...

Ahglock wrote...
It might not be regenerating health that is an issue, it or health packs have their good sides and bad sides.  But the lack of preassure on the player in well virtually every scene is an issue.  With health packs+regenning shields the only difference in ME2 would be you'd hang out of cover a second less because you could only last the length of the shield and not shield+half health.  If you don;t apply preassure to the player the health system is irrelevant.  

ME2 had some pressure in the form of enemies that occasionally sought out close combat, or staggering effects.  It looks like ME3 is going to have a greater emphasis on close combat.  The developers have mentioned enemies putting more pressure on the players in terms of flanking and proximity.  Yet we didn't really see any of that in the E3 demos.

Yeah there were a couple places where there was some pressure.  The vast majority of places if there was pressure it was obvious and slow moving so it was easy to deal with before it became an issue and then you were back to the pop and shoot system.  In most cases pressure on the player was self generated when you tried to play aggressive.  

[Eurhetemec]

Ahglock wrote...

lazuli wrote...

Ahglock wrote...
It might not be regenerating health that is an issue, it or health packs have their good sides and bad sides.  But the lack of preassure on the player in well virtually every scene is an issue.  With health packs+regenning shields the only difference in ME2 would be you'd hang out of cover a second less because you could only last the length of the shield and not shield+half health.  If you don;t apply preassure to the player the health system is irrelevant.  

ME2 had some pressure in the form of enemies that occasionally sought out close combat, or staggering effects.  It looks like ME3 is going to have a greater emphasis on close combat.  The developers have mentioned enemies putting more pressure on the players in terms of flanking and proximity.  Yet we didn't really see any of that in the E3 demos.

Yeah there were a couple places where there was some pressure.  The vast majority of places if there was pressure it was obvious and slow moving so it was easy to deal with before it became an issue and then you were back to the pop and shoot system.  In most cases pressure on the player was self generated when you tried to play aggressive.  

Also note that the ME3 demo was on "extra-easy", allegedly, so the enemies were probably wildly less aggressive than normally are.

[Parah_Salin]

The thing about ME games is the powers- ALOT of powers give you stopping power so you can make an enemy no damage you for a couple of seconds (Cryoblast, incinerate, reeve, etc..., plus some ammo powers) so you can be alot more ballsy and neutralize an enemy and run back to cover sooner. I'd mainly like to see a power come back that just brought you're normal shields back up.

[lazuli]

Eurhetemec wrote...

Also note that the ME3 demo was on "extra-easy", allegedly, so the enemies were probably wildly less aggressive than normally are.

I wonder if the difficulty level will have any influence on enemy behavior, though.  I believe the only changes in behavior between difficulty levels in ME2 is that enemies use powers more frequently and are more accurate, if that even counts.

[Notanything]

Oh regenerating health, how I loathe thee, and how you've become the standard for all shooting games.

[konfeta]

I am not advocating medkit focus specifically for ME, whenever classic or portable; it wouldn't fit the game style. I was pointing out that to claim that a regenerating system is inherently "superior" for making interesting fights is untrue. It makes fights safer and forgiving for making multiple mistakes mistakes over the duration of the entire fight i.e. focuses the point of failure on making a quick, consecutive set of mistakes rather than on setting a hard limit on how many mistakes you can make in a fight which is what a medkit (whenever portable or classic on the ground) does.

Despite ME2's weak shields, I never had any issues with it. I consider myself a fairly experienced ME2 player and I usually play Adept (Insanity) - which is considered the most squishy class - yet I don't camp, nor do I have to wait for regen often, and I don't like using medkits on Shep. Point being, you can play ME2 just fine, if you make good use of tactics, without reverting to the tedious and boring outlast the enemy through shield regen strategy.

If I may, was this true in the your first playthrough? Any game becomes significantly easier through multiple playthroughs when you aren't dealing with unknowns. I went from insanity adept on the first playthrough to insanity vanguard on the second and the game became dramatically easier/faster because I knew when and where it was safe to move (and this was back when Vanguards "were trash, because a CQC class on Insanity is a suicidal notion.")

To rephrase - when I say more emphasis on tactics rather than being a bullet sponge, I want the game's difficulty to be less reliant on general knowledge of the game (which ultimately makes the game too easy; see something like Diablo 2 where you can rather casually beat it with an untwinked poison dagger necromancer after you played it enough times) and more on player ability from the start. Giving a greater initial margin of error with lesser availability of the recovery mechanism works towards that. As for whenever this would make the game too easy, well, that is a different question. However...

As an added bonus, it would allow to scale better difficulty towards the latter part of the game by allowing you to break out of the initial enemy encounter designs. ME2's combat feels.. scripted. Walk into area, enemies pop in general direction in front of you, and you move towards each other hopping from conviniently placed chest high wall to conviniently placed chest high wall. I suspect this is a majort part as to why enemies like Geth Stalkers or true enemy flanking wasn't part of this game's combat - such situations force you out of cover without telegraphing it with a huge, lumbering heavy hitter ala YMIR mechs. The limited amount of burst damage you can take really shoehorns the kind of combat situations you can be put in.

Modifié par konfeta, 17 juin 2011 - 07:22 .