Big Ideas: On healthpacks and hitpoints

Posted Dec 17th 2008 2:00PM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Culture, Features, Opinion, Meta BD

Many of us play games to escape reality for a while, so we don't want to see it repeated in a game. This typically means that you get to play characters who are physically super-able: they can run for hours without tiring, absorb horrific amounts of damage without it affecting their ability to function, and expertly wield any weapon they happen to come across. This also usually means that your character inhabits a world that, when the inevitable occurs and he's so damaged as to be near death, there's always a handy magical healthpack lying around in plain sight to take care of him.

Let's say you're a developer, working on your first game. It's an adventure game, and combat is a focus. You want your players to feel empowered and tough, but you also want to avoid the standard deus ex machina of health recovery. Where do you find the balance between simple entertainment and gritty realism?

The means of managing mundane mortality are many. Wolfenstein 3D gave us the medical kit, which somehow regenerates living tissue immediately and without cost, which is fine as far as it goes. But it's about as far from reality as you can get, in a game which otherwise refrains from anything wildly outlandish. Mind you, I'm not complaining. Damage has to be dealt with somehow, and the whole thing is just a game to begin with. But I'm the kind of guy who likes a bit of consideration with my mechanics -- a little Why thrown in with the How.

So, my question truly is: Isn't the actual game just a kind of race between medkits? If you're going to negate all the damage taken anyway, why not enable full healing as a series of checkpoints instead? Let's say you incur 80% damage as you travel from Point A to Point B, where Point A is the beginning of the game, and Point B is the location of the first medkit. Why not take that statistic as an average, and build something new with that as a given?

I think what I'm visualizing would be a lot like Mirror's Edge, where it's more about running the gauntlet and avoiding damage than it is about confronting a series of enemies. I mean, medkits basically just give you the option of continuing to take out more opponents, which is the entire reason you play an FPS. Let's face it: shooting bad guys has nothing to do with health management, so whether you do or not has no effect on healing yourself. Might as well try something new, and either find a way to make the loss of health actually affect gameplay in a meaningful way, or create a game that's simply about killing your enemies wherein you take no damage. 'Cause when I'm in the zone, there's nothing more annoying than having to run around avoiding shots just so I can find that miracle cure to bring my health back up to full.

Now, one series that makes that last idea actually sort of work is Halo -- the conceit being that it's not your body's health that's being whittled down by enemy fire, but rather your powersuit's energy shields. Take too much damage, and they're down for a short period of time, during which you're very vulnerable. You can then take cover and wait it out to allow the shields to recharge. This is certainly a step up in consideration from medkits, and at least it has some internal consistency. There's finally a reason for this mechanic, and it makes narrative sense. That's really all I want from a game; to know that someone else is thinking about these things like I do.

But then on the opposite end of the spectrum we have the typical RPG, with its "hit points" measurement of a character's life, and that's a whole other kettle of fish.

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Tags: big-ideas, bushido-blade, damage, featured, halo, health-packs, hit-points, joystiqfeatures, wolfenstein-3d, world-of-warcraft, zelda

4 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ok, I'm sorry about being the pedantic jerk here, but

"It's an adventure game, and combat is a focus."

Adventure games are typically devoid of any player-controlled combat whatsoever. That's one of the things that makes adventures interesting and different from other genres. Wolfenstein 3D is pretty much the opposite of what an adventure game is. There are some adventure games which feature combat, like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Penumbra: Requiem, but most avoid it completely.Posted at 3:04PM on Dec 17th 2008 by angry internet man

^ LOL, nice to see I'm not the only genre naming purist out there. I've more or less gotten used to the mangling of the description 'adventure game' over the years but sometimes I can't help but cringe.

Genre semantics aside, I though it was a pretty good read. I really love the line "Many of us play games to escape reality for a while, so we don't want to see it repeated in a game." because it perfectly encompasses why I despise in-game ads.

Personally, I like the Halo system which keeps you in the action and is perfectly logical. The issue with it is when that same logic is applied to non-sci-fi games like CoD and wounds just wind up magically healing by themselves.

Given the option though, I'd rather not deal with the matter of health AT ALL. I derive no enjoyment out of dying so why not take it out of the game altogether? (or at least for those of us who don't want it) I can have just as much fun (usually more) with an FPS or third person shooter played on God mode than I do constantly worrying about dying. I play games for the experiences they offer, not as some sort of test of skill. Also, why should I ever be kept from enjoying all of the content I paid for? If I pluck down $50 for a game, I want to see the ending and finish the plot. I shouldn't be denied that right because some joker in design thought it would be funny to toss in ridiculous overpowered bosses.

...bysmittyPosted at 3:49PM on Dec 17th 2008 by bysmitty

Hmm, well I like games for the challenge it offers. This encompasses puzzles and the sort of course, but I also like going up against a hoard of baddies and being able to say afterwards "wow, I can't believe I pulled that off without dieing, I'm amazing" or something like that. Gives me a heightened sense of accomplishment :).

Once again, a good read.Posted at 2:07AM on Dec 18th 2008 by Gripen40k

I am a big fan of the old D&D way of explaining Hit Points.

As you level up or progress in a game, it is not so much you can absorb more damage but simply that you dodge, feint or lessen the effect of damage as a benefit of experience.

Things like pain, loss of mobility and other factors have real world examples - boxers don't lessen the force of each punch, they roll with it, dissipate the energy or simply are not effected immediately. Well trained soldiers can continue to fight with mortal wounds and missing limbs but not forever.

When it comes to ranged weapons, a more experienced character will have better penetration protection, pain control, knowledge of treatment of wounds or just thicker muscle structure.

Thus some types of damage still kill even the best players: head shots, falling damage or poisons.

Do I think games should be more realistic? Sure but in the end how you deal with damage taken is at least as important as how much damage you can take.

I'd like to see players spending more time in medical wings and missing out on critical missions if they get hurt too much. That would force developers to make double or triple content to keep the story intact and explain what happens when you are healing up.

Fallout 3 is a good example - crippled body parts can happen but they are easily sidestepped by stimpaks. Truth is no-one likes to waste hard to earn caps on stimpaks and repairing your armor because you didn't check for landmines or traps.

Sidenote: Getting hit with a sniper round or shotgun slug will hurt like hell, even if the bullet proof vest stops the round.

I'd like to see realistic damage but then the player might face far less enemies, far less accurate enemy fire, or less intelligent enemies because most players are not that good in dealing with real world situations of life and death.

Everyone wants to be Rambo, no-one wants to do surveillance for hours or days and hope their plan works.

The best example is driving simulations: No one likes a 100% accurate driving simulation of a super cars or even F1 cars since, well they are hard to drive at all, let alone drive fast and they are very easy to damage.

I look forward to someone smarter than me coming up with a creative solution.Posted at 6:45PM on Dec 18th 2008 by LaughingTooHard