Do i really have a bar of health hanging over my head everywhere i go? This is so pointless to have characters in games having their health based on a value between X and Y. With all the work being done on different combat, economic system designs in games why does all this work end up being gauged at the end of the day on a 1 dimensional scale (X,Y). What is killing characters and enemies in not the that their health reaches 0.. All your work being done on a game ends up being measured 1 dimensionally. Isn''t that an insult to your own work? The way a character is behaving could be the obvious way to determine that characters health. The need for food should not replenish them instantly. I think that a lot of the game design problems are created by the over-simplification of games. The original idea of using health points was created to substitute the fact that this was ''basically'' a form of measurement of reality using like 4 bit computers.

Lifebars are not a bad idea in themselves. They provide a quick visual indication of something a character would know for himself, but we as outside observers can''t necessarily see. What the lifebar represents is the character''s answer to the question "Are you OK?". Full means "Yes, I''m in tip-top condition." Half empty means "I''m not so great." Near empty means "I''m hurt bad and I can''t go on much longer."

I think your problem is not so much with the health bar, which as I said is a great piece of easily recognizable and understandable UI, but the simplicity of the math behind it. What the health bar could be doing is summarizing a fairly complex set of variables. Instead, it reports the value of a single variable: HP.

A more complex health system could account for the effect of bleeding, bandaging, movement opening wounds, fatigue and system shock, poison, disease, malnourishment, unhealthy climate conditions, and so on. Furthermore, these factors would in turn affect the character''s physical and mental condition in an adverse way: reduced strength, speed, endurance, focus, critical thinking skills, and other hindrances.

Effects and devices which simply increase HP in simpler games could have more complex effects on the character''s state instead. For instance, taking strong stimulants could dull pain and provide a false sense of energy, increasing the character''s perception of his health and allowing him to function despite severe damage - but eventually the drug wears off and the character is worse off than before, thanks to reopened wounds and the aftereffects of the drug.

That''s how it works in real life, and if you really wanted to you could go ahead and simulate it. But before you do, you may want to ask yourself what you will gain from this. Sure, we all realize that HP are a silly and unrealistic abstraction from the days when processors were slow and memory was small. However, they also work very well for many games. In a frenetic action game, it really sucks to be slowed down by injuries. If performance degraded with HP it would be impossible to come back from a losing position. Simple HP means that even a guy with 2% health is still dangerous. Complex HP means he''s practically out of the fight. You have to decide for yourself whether this is what you want for your game.

I''m not saying a more complex status system is a bad idea; I''ve thought about it myself on more than one occasion. But I generally recommend following the "is it fun?" criterion for adding features. If adding the feature makes the game more fun/interesting, do it. If it doesn''t, why waste the time?

- STC

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

I think you two are wrong in assuming hitpoints were created to simplify things... hitpoints were created because they are basically necessary in games where you can get hit by 50 bullets or 10 bombs or 20 swords without dying. If the game was realistic, in that you could easily get killed or knocked out, then hitpoints would be unnecessary even when dealing with blows that only hurt you -- it's when it takes a lot to kill someone that the effects of a single hit are far too slim to notice unless you have a health bar.

Does Counter-Strike have health bars? I can't remember. I think it does, but it certainly doesn't need them -- that's a good example of what I'm talking about. That game can ditch the health bars. Hitpoints are still fine if used internally for calculations though.

~CGameProgrammer( );
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[edited by - CGameProgrammer on March 13, 2003 3:34:36 AM]

Programmers have to find solutions for everything, and I think lifebar is a good and really simple solution...

If we had to take in consideration a player''s blood quality, the state of his brain, if he''s ill, its genetic....... Programmers would be like Gods !!!

So try to find a better way to consider "life" in computers and we''ll talk of it !

I''m currently working on a game where each character and each animal is living on his own.
I want to implement the idea of "fooding", hunting, working and etc...
It seems really nice with words...But when you have hands on the keyboard you have to simplify many things...And so using numbers is really obliged ! I''ll have to use an need_food variable (value between X and Y !), a has_food var...etc

Don''t forget that computers are only big calculators and not a divine way to create living things !!!

I have to pretty much agree with what SpittingTrashcan said- while life bars may be an oversimplification, they''re not neccecairally a bad one. In a fast-paced game, abstracting health to a one-dimensional life bar makes it easy for the player to figure out what kind of shape he''s in with little or no difficulty.

While I have nothing against introducing a more complex way of measuring health, the key questions to ask yourself are, "Is this fun?" and "What does it add to my game?". If the answer to the first is "no", or the answer to the second is "nothing", then you may want to reconsider.

- HC

-- EMail: cloweh@rpi.edu
-- AIM: SeigfriedH

Lots of games model unit morale. Some games even give you some influence whether over reducing morale or health (Close Combat, Shogun and Sid M''s Gettysburg come to mind) depending on various factors. For example, in close combat, you can lay down a heavy suppressing fire on an area with enemy troops. You are unlikely to kill many, but they will stress and eventually rout. If you are playing a campaign game, it might be more important to actually get in there and kill the poor suckers so you don''t have to fight them another day.

I''m not sure if your comment was ''all games treat damage superficially'' (disagree), ''some games treat damage superficially'' (agree), or ''no games should treat damage superficially'' (disagree)

An older game called Dungeons of Daggorath, which was for the TRS-80 Color Computer, didn't have a life bar. Instead, it had a beating heart that beated faster as you ran, swung heavy weapons in combat, and got hit by attacks. You could even pass out - hopefully a creature wasn't nearby. If the heart beats too fast, you die. The only way to slow it down was to stop moving and do nothing for a period of time.

If a game was truly realistic, it would deal with blows to the arms, legs, abdomen, torso and head in an appropriate way. You should lose the function of those areas as you take more damage. I'm not sure how much fun a game like that would be. You could die with a single arrow shot to the heart, then reload the game and instead get shot in the arm and have enough strength left to dispatch your foe, only because they missed a vital area the second time.

[edited by - Waverider on March 13, 2003 11:26:01 AM]

Among other the Fallout series deals with called shots. Think Arcanum does too. In Fallout you could shoot off limbs (or get them shot off), didfferent spots would have diff critical chances etc.

I understand what u''r saying but think of it this way. Why should a player be running into combat without concern for the outcomes, and doesn''t the limited amount of outcomes such as i lost 50 health again limit the enjoyment alot of players get out of many games.

There''s no problem with simplicity in the user interface to make the game easier to play, i think we all agree on this facet of game design, but i disagree that players should be just running headlong into danger with each round, level or whatever and recieving the same result from their actions everytime.

Knocking an enemy to the ground with a volley of hits and not having to worry about them getting up with a fraction of life that comes pumping back into their system a few seconds later creates imo static gameplay. Just being able to take out an enemy does not imo portray any differing skills that players can identify themselves with.

The fun of games that involve combat seems to me to be arising from an old game element called the ''ante'' as in poker. By having more at risk this encourages players to take greater concern over their actions and potential reactions of their actions. All in all increasing the excitment generated by their success''s. To finish with an example; the issue in Counterstrike where the player that gets killed and has to wait until the next round has been an issue of much debate for a long time. This is an ante in game design terms right? and its what is responsible for a lot of good and bad points in the game like camping and teamplay. By adding or expanding the health system there is going to be negatives but as long as you can make the postives outway the negatives isn''t this an improvement to gameplay?

I''ve been considering new ways for your character to replenish their health. I don''t see how a plate of food, for instance, can instantly replenish your health. A better model would be to have performance enhancing drugs that have natural side effects.

The idea is that your character will become dependant on the drugs and will have to go through ''cold turkey'' when they cant get them. Whilst going through ''cold turkey'' they will have a drop in performance and the only way to get it back is ride out the ''cold turkey'' period or take more drugs .This will punish those who reckless with their health and reward those who are more careful, especially if the supply of drugs is limited later in the game.

You could also implement this with ''quick save'' also being drug. This will reducing the amount of quick saving a player does, but they will still be able to do it if they need it.