One type of game model that might suit your preference would be the kind where you need to actually control your shield and sword, and deflect incoming blows, and strike vulnerable areas.

Naturally you would encounter opponents of various fighting skills, attack patterns, and attack types. As a player's ability to block and strike increases, the tolerance for not quite being lined up could increase, to make the weaker enemies easier to fight, and the harder enemies more possible to defeat.

[edited by - Waverider on March 14, 2003 7:37:22 AM]

quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham
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 successes.

I''d have to disagree here. Greater risk (true risk, with "consequences") creates fairly timid gamers because they can''t afford the extreme loss (corroboration: quicksaving in difficult games). Complex health statistics increase risk, because you can''t be sure that the enemy is quite dead unless you''ve sufficiently maimed it or killed it more than once. They also are inappropriate in action-oriented games, as opposed to suspense/thriller games (corroboration: even moviegoers find the not-quite-dead - and very cliche - antagonist irritating in "action" flicks, but quite welcome in slashers and other suspense/thriller films).

If the game has a measured pace, and actions are carefully considered before being performed, then a more involved health stat system would probably work. For any frantic action game where you can''t afford more than a cursory glance at counters, this would be a needless complication.

One last thing. In Half-Life, it turns out that AI doesn''t respond to you until it confirms that you have seen it via raycast/line-of-sight tests (an abstraction of the AI routine was part of a GDC 2003 Coverage article on AI Senses on GamaSutra). In effect, "realism" took a backseat to "fun", but in a way that the user never realized. Having an opponent whom the user assumes is dead (probably because of that direct hit with the sawed-off shotgun) make a last lunge at the user would be very frustrating unless the environment and indicators were specifically tailored to that sort of gameplay.

Theres actually a simple model from which HP derives. Take this 1 dimensional variable with two values: Healthy and Dead. We all want to be in the first category, nobody wants to be in the second. In the early days of gaming, thats what we played. Avoid death at all costs. The game ended with death. Very simple model.

Fast forward some 25-30 years to today. We still make the distinction between Healthy and Dead. Sure, we have a few more values, but the state we all avoid when playing games is Death. The HP meter is just a measure of accuracy when deciding how dead you are, based on your actions in combat. I think what you should rather be focusing on is whats causing the death, rather than trying to ditch HP on the grounds that it doesn''t accurately represent life, when in fact is just a representation of oncoming death.

If you want HP to mean a whole lot more, eliminate curative items and spells from your game. HP suddenly means an aweful lot. I learned this after playing Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quater, recently released on the PS2.

If you need a different way of thinking, treat HP as some form of stamina, and mark it against several disibilities. To give an example of what I mean, if I slash you at your leg when you have a lot of stamina, you''ll be able to move your leg so I do minimal injury. Less stamina, more injury. Make a chart then. 50%HP = 50% chance of leg injury. 10%HP = 90% chance of leg injury.

Summary: HP is your line of defense against the game ending. HP is not a representation of your state of health.

Well that would mean that you don''t need to see you''r health only the damage being done to you right? or hear a shortness of breath or something along those lines.

I recognise the problem with complicating or overwhelming the player with tasks or issues that they don''t find fun as bad gameplay but does constantly running for health packs and shield refills sound fun either? I am aiming for the fun factor too, just trying to find another way to achieve it.

Oluseyi: agreed that in single player games your angle on player risk is true. This could not be said though for co-op or team dm. Unfortunately i haven''t played any games that are constantly fast-paced from begining to end, they all allow the player some slower periods to calm down.

Having enemies doing things that they shouldn''t be able to do. You have to really think about this. Is it more likely to occur a: with a static health based system or
b: with a more dynamic one?
Depending too how you visualise a more dynamic health system that is, apologies for my vagueness in that area.

Any user feedback system which gives a quick and understandable piece of information is, on some level, a good idea. I object to the point of oversimplification when health is given numerically.

In Deus Ex there was a diagram of the body which darkened as damage was taken. Good idea! In the menu you hould see the exact percentage of damage. Bad idea!

The math behind it is too transparant and gameplay dependant to be an issue here, ultimtely it''s a numerical problem. The way it is presented to the player should be suited to the game. An arcade shooter benefits from a simple X health left. In a FP RPG, reddening the screen or playing heavy breathing noises is a much better approach.

********


A Problem Worthy of Attack
Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back

While I agree that an onscreen display of damage to limbs is a good thing, I have to wonder if we''re missing the point.

The human brain is capable of working with 7 units of information, plus or minus two, at any given time. (i''ll assume 5). Now, lets design our FPS screen with this in mind.

1. Ammo & Weapons. I consider this a unit, since most games make ammo unique to the gun, and you can''t use an ammo type without the corresponding weapon.
2. Level layout and orientation. We''re in a 3d environment usually, and remember where the walls and doors are is a unit.
3. Enemy positions. This could probably count as two units ifwe have two different classes of enemy wandering the maze, but here, we''ll consider it one.
4. The controller. Keyboard and mouse, or gamepad, the player needs to concern himself with button layouts and what does what. This gets easier, but initially, its a steep learning curve.
5. Objectives. How to get out of this level, the mission way or the death way, and how to prevent the later and fulfill the former.

Now, where do we fit HP? In the fifth category obviously. But lets consider how heavy that 5th category is. Lets look at the mission structure. A basic structure involves finding keys and opening doors and killing enemies. BANG, 3 other categories are linked here, and you can tack on the 4th if you consider that we need to push buttons to get the rest to happen. Now, lets complicate things by telling the player that his left leg is busted, and that he''ll limp unless he keeps the weight on his right foot (by turning right a lot or something). Its an interesting addition, and maybe in a lesser form would work, but we''re adding too much to the structure.

Now, if you want a good idea, lets add in body targeting and kevlar vests. Take your damage constant for a weapon type and multiply it by a percentage associated with each body area. If that area is covered by a suitable armor, reduce it to a different percentage.

quote: Original post by Inmate2993
[...]The human brain is capable of working with 7 units of information, plus or minus two, at any given time. (i''ll assume 5). Now, lets design our FPS screen with this in mind.
[...]
4. The controller. Keyboard and mouse, or gamepad, the player needs to concern himself with button layouts and what does what. This gets easier, but initially, its a steep learning curve.[...]

I''d say 4 is not something any ''real'' gamer concentrates on, at least not in games that alow key configuration. I set them to a default I picked up from a half-life mode and then the only time I think about it is when there is something non-standard in the game (like bandaging wounds) and even then I just have to rember which of the ''extra buttons''(a few easy-to-reach keys that arent bound to anoything else) I bound it too.

In response to Oluseyi's comment about risk, I think he's conflating risk and uncertainty. Risk of course involves uncertainty, but as long as the associated uncertainty is estimable, controllable, and statistically reasonable, there's really nothing wrong with greater risk (assuming that recovery from failure does not come at excessive cost). In fact, just as conflict makes good drama, risk makes games fun.

Of course, a complicated health system could easily obscure the relationship between health and damage so as to reduce enjoyment rather than increase it. Particularly, a health system that incorporates significant invisible, counterintuitive or unpredictable elements is likely to do more harm than good.

There's nothing wrong with simplicity that works. The value of a health system is determined mainly by the way it affects the gameplay. For example, in Mario Brothers the health system is even simpler than a health bar: Big Mario becomes Little Mario if he comes into contact with an enemy, while the same thing will kill Little Mario. It's a simple but effective system that produces the desired gameplay, and the utter lack of resemblance to the health statistics of real-life plumbers is absolutely irrelevant.

[edited by - chronos on March 18, 2003 9:28:35 PM]

Alright then, doesn''t the constant loading and saving during games indicate that the old health system is out of date. Games are about 20 to 30 time longer than they were when the static health bars arrived on the screen. I''ve talked up issues about the problem of people just saving and reloading when they don''t get the results for the game they wanted. Everyone does it imo and its all bleeding out of and old out dated health system that needs so serious looking in to.

I depends, most of the load/save usage in games i play could be cut down by level design and basic game mechanic refinements. I find the health bar to be a wonder of simplicity. It gives the player a very easy way to determing how close to death they are.

Most games i''ve played that try more ''realisitic'' health models never lasted long on my computer. If it takes the player more than about half a second to find out who close they are to death your system needs work.

What you got to remeber is that games are about fun, everything else is secondary. Period.