Health regen vs health packs

which do you prefer and think is better?

Health packs, medikits mainly old school and imo made the game harder and you had to think more.

with health regen you can sneak out of cover and go gunhho until amost dead, hide for a bit repeat x infinite.

When needing medikits you had to be more careful abot taking damage.

Then again with health regen the developers can now create more and better baddies i guess

i dont like hunting around for health packs much... so i like how most games changed it to a regenerating health thing. Although i did like the original Halo how you had shields combined with health which added some strategy to keeping your health full incase the shields dropped.

I like first-aid kits. Or making potions, herbs, etc.

I prefer regenerating health myself instead of having to hunt down health packs.

Depends on the game. I found with the health packs it came to memorizing the levels (Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D). In some games that's fun, others not so much.

it added another element to the gameplay, if you low on health you play safer, if you full health youd play more open

One is not better than the other. It all depends on the game design. If you design your game around either one well the gamer would not care either way.

No shield or health packs. Amount of hits till you die.

Health kits are a hassle to develop a game around, because you have to carefully plan where to place them and how many, in order not to make too easy or too hard. Even then, the player can find himself in a situation where he doesn't have enough health to finish the stage, which breaks the game. It's not worth the effort, regenerating health makes it all much simpler.

However, since so many people hate it, I think a mix of the two is the best compromise, essentially what F.E.A.R. or Prey did back in 2005: your health does not regenerate at all until you drop below 25%, at which point it regenerates up to 25%, which is enough to survive a firefight (if you're skilled enough) while waiting to find a health kit. That way you can't find youself in a "one hit and I'm dead" situation, but the tension is still present.

Alternatively, what Bioshok Infinite did: you have a regenerating shield which depletes itself in just a few shots, at which point you take health damage that needs to be healed with medkits. It's enough to absorb the consequences of a single mistake, but not to negate them when you're playing poorly.

A third option would be a medpack system, but with health stations scattered at key points around the level, far from combat situation as not to be exploited, like in Half-Life, but without the stations running out. This would allow you to backtrack and heal up in case you end up in a bad situation.

Good question! As some others said, I think it depends on the game. But I am definitely biased towards health packs/potions/alchemy-where-it-makes-sense, etc. As some noted, this tends to add an additional element of strategy to the game and can even shift play strategy depending on your status. I did think the hybrid approach in Resistance was interesting

For shooters, I generally prefer regenerating health. But even then it depends on the pacing and design of the game and whatnot. I look at BioShock, for instance, and didn't really mind that you had to heal with health kits and edibles. But that game was more open and you could carry around several health kits at once at your disposal. So it made sense to me. Then I look at something like the most recent Wolfenstein that played mostly like a modern day FPS except you there were health kits and even bits of armor you had to pick up. I felt like I had to spend too much time running around finding these things in between and during battles.

I'm more interested in going and finding health. Just regenerating health as soon as it gets lower isn't as fun for me. I'm playing Overwatch right now and I almost forgot how much I enjoyed the gameplay involved in finding my own health.

The number one reason I like finding health more is because you can choose to risk it whenever you want. Maybe I'm almost dead, but I want to take a chance and keep fighting just as a personal challenge. Health regeneration ruined that aspect of gameplay for me. Some of my favorite gaming moments came from getting that perfect shot or shots when I'm almost dead. It can happen with regenerating health, but it's more rare and less up to the player.

I personally think the ultimate version and most "realistic", if there is such a thing, is being able to carry a few packs on you. Max Payne's pain killers is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It just combines the two and still leaves it up to the player. You still need to find each one, but you also get the convenience similar to regenerating health.

The problem with regenerating health is that you can hide and recover.

The problem with health kits is that you are force to stop playing the game and walk around hoping you find more kits. It added worthless padding to the game.

I find that mixture of the two to work out great. A meaningful amount of health regeneration's and health kits to go up to full.

I say that Halo CE done it right by having it both at it's time though. Regenerate Shields+Health Packs was an interesting thing having it both but in Halo 2, it made more sense to having just regenerating shields and I like that of any shooters.

Healthkits offer more strategy, imo. So many times I've been at a low health with enemies ahead, and a health pack to my right; it's often a choice of topping off my health and charging in, or keeping my health low and saving the kit for an emergency.

I thought FEAR did it right; they let you keep so many health kits on your person for you to use whenever, and it was a nice approach.

I don't mind regeneration, it's just kind of lame because all you need to do is duck behind cover and you are essentially invulnerable.

yeh i agree the 25% fear type health regen is best idea..or the halo sheilds regen thing..with ability to carry x amount of medikits also..

Generally, I like health regen with shooters and health packs with 3rd person games like platformers and action RPGs. It really depends on the game as there are games who have done a good job with either system and other games that have done terrible jobs with either system.

Health packszzz cos health regen is too easy. The Halo shield system was great hybrid.

Yea, (full) health regen takes away the resource management aspect because you're basically starting off each individual 'fight' with a full health bar, so to speak, so it's always the same mentality...not a good thing. Sometimes when you're really low on health, you have to be more on the defensive. and fight differently. This alone adds more variety to the gameplay.

Not only that, but it takes away the challenge and usually makes it too easy.

I've been playing CoD 2 recently with the merciless matador mod which removes the health regen and the game is like 100x better without that crap.

me too

Regenerating health is just a poorly implemented crutch.

Health pick ups. Auto regen health is one of the most laziest features I've ever seen. Sure in some cases it makes sense but mostly it affects the gameplay and experience negatively.

Health regen is a million times better. Would go with regen any day.

It depends entirely on the game and how it is implemented.

You have no standards if you generally dislike one system entirely. There is more to game design then just health systems. Encounter design and the save/checkpoint systems play a greater role in dictating how well a health system is used.

Both are not realistic at all, so I guess it depends on the type of game. Really linear FPS lend themselves well towards health packs. More open world games do better with regenerating health or shields, with potions or health packs as a bonus IMO.