I've decided to break away from norms and make my health system in my game something I would like to see in a game. I want to see if the idea is good so critique is my best friend right now. Here we go!

The game is Asymmetric and the characters have regenerating health. The health regenerate at a random time and gives you random amounts of health back. The max time frame to wait for health to restore is about 20 seconds and the maximum health you could potential get is 3 health points when the regen timer finishes it's cycle. This means the slowest a character could heal is 3 health points a minute. There is finally a hidden mechanic I like to call "tenaciousness health". Even when the character's health bar reaches zero they can still keep fighting however special conditions are applied and a Red skull appear where the health bars are. Their tenaciousness health will regenerate and take damage in the back ground.

These special conditions are very special, so here are two of them for 2 different characters. The character Ys will be easier to knock over, a bit slower, his attack will be weaker, and finally he will be stun by attack longer, however his tenaciousness health regenerate fast. Like all characters when his regular health reaches zero there is a 15% chance any attack could insta kill and he must be allowed time to regenerate his regular health and tenaciousness health. His tenaciousness is only 10 points and once that runs out there is a 85% chance any attack will kill him. Powerful attack with damage at 6 and above will take away 1 tenaciousness health point but attacks with damage below does triple damage to his tenaciousness health when the special condition apply. His tenaciousness health and regular oscillate between being heal. When he is not in a critical state he will sometimes be able to take only 1 regular health point of damage from strong attacks as long as he has one tenaciousness health point. The damage will sometime affect mostly his tenaciousness health. Ys must be careful with enemies with combo attacks and cluster bullet storm attacks or he will fall fast. Ys is used to parrying projectiles but his overall block power is weak. One projectile slipping through his parry could be fatal.

The character Cy will lose the ability to parry, and finally she will be stun by attack longer. Her tenaciousness health regenerate slow but it never goes down until her regular health is complete gone. Like all characters when her regular health reaches zero there is a 15% chance any attack could insta kill and she must be allowed time to regenerate her regular health and tenaciousness health. Her tenaciousness is the same as her regular health which is about 20 points and once that runs out there is a 75% chance any attack will kill her. Powerful attack with damage at 6 and above will take away regular tenaciousness health point and sometimes regardless of being blocked but attacks with damage below this does 1 damage to her tenaciousness health and she can sometimes gain invincibility frames to any attack except super powerful attack at 9 and above. when the special condition apply. Cy regular health must be completely gone before her tenaciousness health starts deteriorating. Cy must avoid heavy attack instead of blocking them after she is in critical state or she will fall. Her blocking is very tough and hard to get through even with powerful attack but it won't matter with heavy attack in the critical state.

So any questions? Any improvement? Any feeling regarding my idea?

Well, this sounds somewhat complex, maybe too complex ?

In general you should avoid randomness. Games are about decisions and planing your decisions upfront is heavily hindered by randomness. Additionally to that, players want to understand the underlying mechanism to master them. Complexity will obscure them.

After all, you should put the complexity in relation to the game context. Is your game fast paces (action game) or really slow paced (turn based). Complex mechanism requires complex decision making which requires time.

My personal opinion is, that your mechanism is by far too complex, even for a turn based game. If this is not a game solely about hp regeneration, then you players will have a hard time to unterstand what is going on. The most common reaction will 'It is bugged like hell, I suddenly died from a single hit' or 'Health regeneration is totally bugged, I lost a game because it was suddenly slowed down.'

It seems more complicated, than what it really is.

The health regenerate at a random time and gives you random amounts of health back

What is the intent of the feature? What did you want to achieve with this?

It seems unfair, losing because you were not lucky enough is extremely frustrating.

Even when the character's health bar reaches zero they can still keep fighting however special conditions are applied

This feature, I quite like it, it bring some kind of heroism, and this kind of tenacity is expected of heroes. But the system may be simpler than you describe it.

How about :

- every time a character fall under X% health, he has Y% chance to ignore/reduce the incoming damage. (here you can apply whatever special condition)

- the X and Y values can be modified by stats (for example tenacity)

These special conditions are very special,

Apart from the phrasing (which is very funny), those special condition are kind of odd. If I understand well :

Ys: when in tenacious health, strong attack damage are reduced and weak attack damage are increased

Cy : when in tenacious health, damage below 6 are reduced to one and hit the tenacious health. Every damage taken in tenacious state hit the tenacious health first.

Then Cy has two health bar? I don't really see the intent behind this mechanic.

Do you have any situation/examples/schematics? It would be easier to understand. :)

Well, this sounds somewhat complex, maybe too complex ?

In general you should avoid randomness. Games are about decisions and planing your decisions upfront is heavily hindered by randomness. Additionally to that, players want to understand the underlying mechanism to master them. Complexity will obscure them.

After all, you should put the complexity in relation to the game context. Is your game fast paces (action game) or really slow paced (turn based). Complex mechanism requires complex decision making which requires time.

My personal opinion is, that your mechanism is by far too complex, even for a turn based game. If this is not a game solely about hp regeneration, then you players will have a hard time to unterstand what is going on. The most common reaction will 'It is bugged like hell, I suddenly died from a single hit' or 'Health regeneration is totally bugged, I lost a game because it was suddenly slowed down.'

Before I reply I would like to warn anyone never to attempt to browser this site with an windows RT device. It was not a good experience.

I reading this and I see that you're advising me to avoid randomness however I feel this is your own bias against games with random nature due to bad experiences. With this said my game is fast paced however I don't believe I should avoid randomness even if my game was slow paced and strategic. tenaciousness health is a background mechanic that the player does not see. It has benefits and weakness but overall it is designed to make players try harder by not immediately ending their life when their regular health reaches zero. The Blinking red skull where the health bars are at only appears when the regular health is depleted. The player will see the regular health go down but not the tenaciousness health.

It seems more complicated, than what it really is.

The health regenerate at a random time and gives you random amounts of health back

What is the intent of the feature? What did you want to achieve with this?

It seems unfair, losing because you were not lucky enough is extremely frustrating.

Even when the character's health bar reaches zero they can still keep fighting however special conditions are applied

This feature, I quite like it, it bring some kind of heroism, and this kind of tenacity is expected of heroes. But the system may be simpler than you describe it.

How about :

- every time a character fall under X% health, he has Y% chance to ignore/reduce the incoming damage. (here you can apply whatever special condition)

- the X and Y values can be modified by stats (for example tenacity)

These special conditions are very special,

Apart from the phrasing (which is very funny), those special condition are kind of odd. If I understand well :

Ys: when in tenacious health, strong attack damage are reduced and weak attack damage are increased

Cy : when in tenacious health, damage below 6 are reduced to one and hit the tenacious health. Every damage taken in tenacious state hit the tenacious health first.

Then Cy has two health bar? I don't really see the intent behind this mechanic.

Do you have any situation/examples/schematics? It would be easier to understand.

Apart from the phrasing (which is very funny), those special condition are kind of odd. If I understand well :

Ys: when in tenacious health, strong attack damage are reduced and weak attack damage are increased

Cy : when in tenacious health, damage below 6 are reduced to one and hit the tenacious health. Every damage taken in tenacious state hit the tenacious health first.

Then Cy has two health bar? I don't really see the intent behind this mechanic.

Do you have any situation/examples/schematics? It would be easier to understand.

The regular health is always displayed to the player but once it reaches zero a red skull appears and tenacious health is damaged in the background. Cy must regenerate all of her tenacious health before regenerating her regular health, she loses health in a linear way compared to Ys. Ys oscillate between regenerating his regular health and tenacious health. Taking a hit when not in the critical state is survivable however while in the critical state every hit is a risk. Everyone has two health bars.

This feature, I quite like it, it bring some kind of heroism, and this kind of tenacity is expected of heroes. But the system may be simpler than you describe it.

How about :

- every time a character fall under X% health, he has Y% chance to ignore/reduce the incoming damage. (here you can apply whatever special condition)

- the X and Y values can be modified by stats (for example tenacity)

I considered this but I like the tension instill from knowing you're about to die and you must do something. This seem RPG like which I don't have much experience playing. I'm mainly designing things to make the player feel a certain way and in this case tension and desperation are the goal. Only bosses, commando squads ambushes, or boob traps will ever bring the player health to zero so everytime they get these special features it always a special situation.

It seems unfair, losing because you were not lucky enough is extremely frustrating.

What is the intent of the feature? What did you want to achieve with this?

The player will lose because they weren't good enough. This regenerating health will allow them to not die as easily and the special conditions applied in their critical health state will allow them to be better suited to taking on certain enemies. Ys for example is great for taking on what I like to call "bone crushers" boss because their powerful attacks only do one hit point of damage. These are background mechanics that makes the game easier and the player can't even notice them. All they will know and see is a flashing red skull on the health area and sometimes dies when they get hit. The

I reading this and I see that you're advising me to avoid randomness however I feel this is your own bias against games with random nature due to bad experiences.

Randomness per se is not bad, but it is a difference if you hit your enemy for 10-15 hp or if you can suddenly die "randomly" from a single hit.

tenaciousness health is a background mechanic that the player does not see

The point is, that it is pointless to add a complex mechanism which is hidden from the player. Even if the player will not be able to grasp the mechanism completely, he should be able to rougly understand the underlying mechanism.

The acceptance of the game mechanism depends heavily on transparency. Read some post-mortems about AI. Some observations are, that players accept a AI as more intelligent when the AI agent speak out loud its intentions (ie. "Fire in the hole" when throwing a grenade at the hidden player or "Requesting reinforcements" to warn the player), even if this is more unrealistic. If you dont do it, players feel cheated and have a bad game experience.

Looking them over, I see a few things I can more easily describe as buffs. Does this capture them?

Health regeneration:

• random time (probably bell curve centered at 20 seconds)
• random value (probably bell curve centered at 2 points)

Health Monitor

• Activated at critical value, (tunable) 15% health.
• * Brink of Death buff is added
• Red skull icon to indicate status instead of normal health bar
• When health is recovered beyond critical
• * Tenacious Health buff is reset
• * Brink of Death buff is removed

Permanent Tenacious Health buff:

• Character does not automatically die at 0 health. When damage would be lethal, there is a chance they survive.
• Maintains counter, after (tunable per character) 10 or 20 lethal strikes. After this many lethal strikes, chance of death changes
• Before counter reached, lethal damage has a (tunable) 15% percent chance of death
• After counter reached, lethal damage has a (tunable per character) 85% or 75% percent chance of death
• Otherwise damage is not lethal (perhaps setting life at 0.01 or similar)

Ys' Brink of Death buff:

• Non-lethal (tunable) high-damage attacks may be reduced to (tunable) 1 by consuming one Tenacious Health point
• Non-lethal (tunable) low-damage attacks my be multiplied by (tunable) 3
• Healing splits the health gains evenly between Tenacious Health counter (until full) and regular Health

Cy's Brink of Death Buff:

• Parry tests for this buff. If it exists, Parry action is unavailable
• Stun tests for this buff. If it exists, Stun decays at a slower rate
• Super powerful attacks available, but consume one Tenacious Health point
• Healing first increases the Tenacious Health counter (until full), then increase health.

There are games that have used similar heroic buffs. There are also games that allow players to set a configurable action when hitting critical health. As far as that part goes there isn't anything particularly difficult with a design.

So... why not just always have the player at this "point of death" if that's where all the interesting stuff happens? It sounds as though it's really the point where you go from the player being able to be reckless and the player having to proceed carefully. Except that if it's intended as a sort of heroism thing, well isn't that the sense that the player should throughout?

Looking them over, I see a few things I can more easily describe as buffs. Does this capture them?

Health regeneration:

• random time (probably bell curve centered at 20 seconds)
• random value (probably bell curve centered at 2 points)

Health Monitor

• Activated at critical value, (tunable) 15% health.
• * Brink of Death buff is added
• Red skull icon to indicate status instead of normal health bar
• When health is recovered beyond critical
• * Tenacious Health buff is reset
• * Brink of Death buff is removed

Permanent Tenacious Health buff:

• Character does not automatically die at 0 (REGULAR) health. When damage would be lethal, there is a chance they survive.
• Maintains counter, after (tunable per character) 10 or 20 lethal strikes. After this many lethal strikes, chance of death changes
• Before counter reached, lethal damage has a (tunable) 15% percent chance of death
• After counter reached, lethal damage has a (tunable per character) 85% or 75% percent chance of death
• Otherwise damage is not lethal (perhaps setting life at 0.01 or similar)

Ys' Brink of Death buff:

• Non-lethal (tunable) high-damage attacks may be reduced to (tunable) 1 by consuming one Tenacious Health point
• Non-lethal (tunable) low-damage attacks my be multiplied by (tunable) 3
• Healing splits the health gains evenly between Tenacious Health counter (until full) and regular Health

Cy's Brink of Death Buff:

• Parry tests for this buff. If it exists, Parry action is unavailable
• Stun tests for this buff. If it exists, Stun decays at a slower rate
• Super powerful attacks available, but consume one Tenacious Health point
• Healing first increases the Tenacious Health counter (until full), then increase health.

There are games that have used similar heroic buffs. There are also games that allow players to set a configurable action when hitting critical health. As far as that part goes there isn't anything particularly difficult with a design.

Almost. Every character has 20 health points. They do however have different Tenacious health.

So... why not just always have the player at this "point of death" if that's where all the interesting stuff happens? It sounds as though it's really the point where you go from the player being able to be reckless and the player having to proceed carefully. Except that if it's intended as a sort of heroism thing, well isn't that the sense that the player should throughout?

My game philosophy is punishment. Enemies work together strategically, boob traps, and powerful bosses will drain the player health. They all have a focus on punishing the player for mistakes. I want the player to be uneasy but not completely hopeless when they are tricked and predicted by my AI. I don't want the player to feel competent and fearless, I want them to mess up badly and recover from the worst situation. I believe they will enjoy beating the odds stack against them and I also believe the characters should have abilities that reflect their desire to overcome.

In an action game, where you only control one character, random chances you die instantly from a hit, while other times you don't, that's just going to be confusing and frustrating for the player. Otherwise, the design sounds interesting, though things with lots of quick attacks are likely to kill the player more than super slow strong attacks, at least once they are down in the second tier of health.

I agree also that random health regen, what do you really gain with that? What gameplay does that add? I'm not entirely opposed, as it's not quite as mystifying or punishing as dying sometimes and not others.

It not quite random because the player must decrease to critical health first, this means they already know they're in trouble. In the state of critical health the character become more specific to the type of enemies they can deal with. The only confusion I'm expecting is the confusion they'll think when they survive a BFG 9000 rail gun showered on their face or being pulverized by a against wrecking balls. Finally Cy sometime gets invincibility frames from weak attacks. I have another mechanic to go with Cy invincibility frames but I want to focus on one shaky concept at a time.