What I hate about Gears of War (Hint, it doesn't actually have to do with the game!)

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

So, people hate Gears for some pretty awkward reasons, some for it's super manliness, some for the armor, and some hate it simply because they play it wrong*.
But let me tell you the one thing I hate the most about Gears of War, the haters. That's right, I hate you. But, you may hate it and be past my ire. You see, the one thing that made me realize that I hate the haters, was when I was in my local gaming shop the other day, watching a Warhammer 40K match.
One of the players was a close acquaintance of mine, and we started talking about vidjeo gamez. He started talking about GeoW, and what was wrong with it.
The one thing he mentioned that he hated the mst was the stupid, oversized, and ugly armor (verbatim). I looked at hime for a moment, and apparently he was dead serious. So, I picked up one of his marines, and held it up to him.

Me: "Big ugly armor eh?"
Him: "This is different."
Me: "How?"
Him: "This is the future."
Me: "And Gears isn't?"
Him: "Well yeah, but it's still on Earth."
Me: "No. No it's not. At all."
Him: "Well, whatever, this is different."

After which I slapped him across the back of his head....
Guess what 40K fans: Gears of War is Warhammer! Muahahahahahahha!



* The proper way to play Gears of War is to play Co-op with Duran Duran playing. Trust me, it fits, give it a try and marvel at the pure genius.




NOTE: NOT SERIOUS! THE AFOREMENTIONED GOOFY STORY WAS FRIENDLY JOKING BETWEEN ME AND A FRIEND. YES THERE ARE SIMILARITIES AESTHETICALLY BUT I REALIZE THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO.
It was a joke people, a joke.

[Oslecamo]

Gears of war doesn't have enough oversized swords, and the armors aren't all shiny and filled with useless paranheplia.:smalltongue:

(mind you I never player GoW just saw some screenshots)

[Cristo Meyers]

Gears of war doesn't have enough oversized swords, and the armors aren't all shiny and filled with useless paranheplia.:smalltongue:

(mind you I never player GoW just saw some screenshots)

But it does have chainsaw bayonets. :smalltongue:

[d12]

For some reason OP's story struck me as one of the funnier Luke-I'm-your-father moments I've ever heard of.

"Warhammer is Gears of War."
"That's not true..that's impossible!!"

I don't really know anything about Warhammer or Gears, just a random observation. :smalltongue:

[SlyGuyMcFly]

True, but late's face it, the chain-bayonet has nothing on chain-axes. The mini-gun is a fun weapon, but I´d take a heavy bolter over it any day of the week, and so on and so forth. If GoW has a problem, it's not being over the top enough compared to 40k.

The rift-worm in GoW2 was pretty good, though. Big enough to be a 'Nid Biotitan, and with enough hearts to compete with one on the "most redundant organs" category. It's digestive system couldn't compare to Tyranid bioengineering though. :smalltongue:



Edit: I just noticed this is the 4th post in a row that ends in a :smalltongue: face. I can't help but find this vaguely amusing.


...



:smalltongue:

[Name_Here]

Wait am I not allowed to love both? Because I really do.

[ufo]

Gears of War doesn't have the charm.

Also, I agree that it's different, but it's not the look of the armours. It's the look of the armours combined with the look of the characters and their behaviour.

When you see a WH40K Space Marine, you get the impression of a deadly religious fanatic, willing to utilise his advanced weaponry to slaughter those who oppose the almighty Emperor.

The GoW guys (dun' remember what they're called) look more like a couple of beer-swelling pals who load up on the coolest and most violent weapons to save humanity in a conflict that contains no shades of gray.

[ZeroNumerous]

Show me Orks in Gears of War. Give me a decent WAAAGH!!! Show me a choppa with 100 different applications!

I rest my case.

EDIT: To clarify, you may be right that Smurfs = Gears. You are utterly wrong that Gears of War = WH40k though.

EDIT #2: This is sarcasm.

[Oslecamo]

EDIT: To clarify, you may be right that Smurfs = Gears. You are utterly wrong that Gears of War = WH40k though.

Ah, now it makes sense! Everybody hates smurfs as well!

Other chapters died protecting the emperor from waves of demonized traitors.

Smurfs die trying to clean their own home from bug infestations.:smalltongue:

[LurkerInPlayground]

Gears of War is crap because the writing sucks, the characters suck and the gameplay sucks and is utterly broken. It's horribly generic and steals the regenerating health idea that Halo 2 did (which is a dumb gameplay mechanic anyway).

WH40k is deliberately over-the-top and exaggeratedly grimdark on purpose.

Gears of War, as far as I can tell, is over-the-top because it's trying to be the cool kid. Which is to say that it's gimmicky. It's the very definition of a dumbed-down console shooter.

I mean, wow. Context sensitive game mechanics. Nobody has done that. Ooo! A crossbow that shoots an explosive bolt that sticks into somebody. I'm astounded.

The fact that the Empire of Mankind in WH40k destroys billions of lives merely because of bureacratic rounding errors on tax returns or because of minor sectarian religious differences is humorous on a level that none of the GoW gimmicks could ever match.

The Orks are a bloodthirsty war virus. The Locust are just . . . funny looking humans that act as a generic antagonist. The former has more personality than the other, even if that personality is almost completely a caricature.

Anyway, since this entire thread is an ad-hominem that doesn't actually care about the merits of the game itself and even resorts to the "haters" argument, it pretty much instantly fails.

[Oslecamo]

The Orks are a bloodthirsty funny-speacking commical self-parody war virus.

Now it's fixed ya git!

No, seriously, even ork fluff says that their techonology worcks based on the rule of lol! They take the weapons of the other factions, glue it with spit and wooden plancks, and they worck!:smallbiggrin:

[Maxymiuk]

Anyway, since this entire thread is an ad-hominem that doesn't actually care about the merits of the game itself and even resorts to the "haters" argument, it pretty much instantly fails.

I usually stay out of arguments like these, but then I saw you complaining about someone who complains about other people's complaints concerning a video game, and I found it just too deliciously recursive not to comment on.


Concerning the paradox the OP pointed out: the way I see it is, people aren't very logical creatures. Whether they like something or dislike it, the emotional response comes first, and only then do they formulate the reasons for said response. Thus you get contradictions like those seen in the first post, and all over the internet for that matter.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Gears and the Adeptus Astartes are very different.
The armour is completely differently aethetically. With the Gears it looks bulky and useless, like the missing link between Astartes Armour and a flak jacket.
Astartes armour is big and bulky, but it doesn't look useless.

The Gears armour design bothers me alot. 40k? Not so much.

[EleventhHour]

After which I slapped him across the back of his head....
Guess what Gears of War fans: Gears of War is Warhammer! Muahahahahahahha!



Fix'd. Warhammer 40,000 came first.

[Revanmal]

Gears and the Adeptus Astartes are very different.
The armour is completely differently aethetically. With the Gears it looks bulky and useless, like the missing link between Astartes Armour and a flak jacket.
Astartes armour is big and bulky, but it doesn't look useless.

The Gears armour design bothers me alot. 40k? Not so much.

So because their armor is shinier, it should somehow work better? You're confusing Space Marines and Orks. :smallamused:

[Thanatos 51-50]

So because their armor is shinier, it should somehow work better? You're confusing Space Marines and Orks. :smallamused:

No, it just looks like it isn't useless, thats it. I'm not saying it should work better ebcause it looks better, I'm saying that it looks like it works, as opposed to GoW armour which, frankly, doesn't look too different from kevlar.

[Stormthorn]

I dont know why i dont like it. But i dont. I wont say i hate it, but i would rather be playing Halo 3 or even Half Life Squared.

[Revanmal]

No, it just looks like it isn't useless, thats it. I'm not saying it should work better ebcause it looks better, I'm saying that it looks like it works, as opposed to GoW armour which, frankly, doesn't look too different from kevlar.

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1167/1233793978.jpghttp://www.kodama.ch/cms/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/space_marine1.jpg

To be honest, the SM armor seems so much less useful in my opinion. The oversized pauldrons, ridiculous boots, it seems almost impossible to move in, even if you are a 400 pound mountain of muscle and bone like the genetically altered Space Marines.

[Thanatos 51-50]

But the Astares armour actually, you know... covers something.
The Gears Armour just has so many soft-spots it's ridiculous. Not the least of which are the inner arms and their entire lower body.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

The thing about Space Marine armour is that it's Power(ed) Armour. You don't need to move the armour, the armour moves itself quite handily.

The pauldrons hdo bugged me a bit though. It just looks like it should restrict arm movements to a degree that fighting in hand-to-hand should be quite impractical.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Show me Orks in Gears of War. Give me a decent WAAAGH!!! Show me a choppa with 100 different applications!

I rest my case.

EDIT: To clarify, you may be right that Smurfs = Gears. You are utterly wrong that Gears of War = WH40k though.

Whoa, it wasn't supposed to be serious. Cool your jets, you're not on the (insert random sci-fi reference.)
And I'm surprised no one had anything to say about Duran Duran. :smallfrown:
Oh well, time to edit OP for people who can't take a joke.

[LurkerInPlayground]

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1167/1233793978.jpghttp://www.kodama.ch/cms/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/space_marine1.jpg

To be honest, the SM armor seems so much less useful in my opinion. The oversized pauldrons, ridiculous boots, it seems almost impossible to move in, even if you are a 400 pound mountain of muscle and bone like the genetically altered Space Marines.
As a complete and utter tangent, SM armor is powered armor.

[Revanmal]

Yes, it's powered armor, but it's still rigid and needlessly bulky. I am not a 40K player, but I read somewhere in the Lexicanum that SM bases have to built specifically for oversized individuals - their armor makes moving in tight spaces very tricky, and as Ferrus said, the pauldrons look like they'd inhibit flexibility even with enhanced physical attributes due to the powered armor helping them.

The thick armor no doubt provides quite a bit of protection, much more so than the Gear armor at any rate, but I'm fairly certain the Gears at least can move and take cover much more effectively than a SM, and while armor is good, not getting shot at all is better.

[chiasaur11]

Yes, it's powered armor, but it's still rigid and needlessly bulky. I am not a 40K player, but I read somewhere in the Lexicanum that SM bases have to built specifically for oversized individuals - their armor makes moving in tight spaces very tricky, and as Ferrus said, the pauldrons look like they'd inhibit flexibility even with enhanced physical attributes due to the powered armor helping them.

The thick armor no doubt provides quite a bit of protection, much more so than the Gear armor at any rate, but I'm fairly certain the Gears at least can move and take cover much more effectively than a SM, and while armor is good, not getting shot at all is better.

Why I like the armor in Halo, really.

Looks like it boosts strength and speed without cutting into manuverability.

[ufo]

The thick armor no doubt provides quite a bit of protection, much more so than the Gear armor at any rate, but I'm fairly certain the Gears at least can move and take cover much more effectively than a SM, and while armor is good, not getting shot at all is better.

Not getting shot at all is good, but not an immediate concern if you are packed in an amount of metal equal to a tank - especially not if you are fighting, say, Orks, whose standard weapons consist mostly of low-grade projectile weapons. In that case, you should be able to charge in, take down quite a large number of enemies and be out/have annihilated the enemy before any serious damage is taken.

Also, I get the impression from watching people play GoW that mobility isn't exactly a concern due to the health-regeneration system.

[An Enemy Spy]

W00t! MJOLNR pwns!
Seriously though. I don't see what's wrong with the Gear Armor. In GOW the soldiers aren't trying to takie as many hits as they can without dying. Their trying not to hit at all. That requires mobility. And mobility requires armor that doesn't nessasarily cover the entire body

[EleventhHour]

But reading the fluff, SMurfs can roll around, sword duel like a Spanish 17th century fencer, and move silently in thier 3 and a half tons of armour. :smalltongue:

[An Enemy Spy]

But reading the fluff, SMurfs can roll around, sword duel like a Spanish 17th century fencer, and move silently in thier 3 and a half tons of armour. :smalltongue:

They also live in a universe poulated by people that can operate a gun that's missing several important parts.

[ZeroNumerous]

Oh well, time to edit OP for people who can't take a joke.

I'm surprised you failed to see the sarcasm. I'm basing an argument on an entire race of Cockney Football fans. I referenced the semi-infamous "Wonders of Ork Technology" image. It couldn't be any less serious.

Time to edit my response for people who can't detect sarcasm.

Psst. This is sarcasm.


They also live in a universe poulated by people that can operate a gun that's missing several important parts.

Hammers! Triggers! Sliding reloading mechanisms

Ork guns are canonically just slabs of metal that fire other bits of metal attached the bottom of the gun.

[Indon]

Meh.

If there were a Warhammer shooter game with the same cover system/interface, I wouldn't like it either.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

I'm surprised you failed to see the sarcasm. I'm basing an argument on an entire race of Cockney Football fans. I referenced the semi-infamous "Wonders of Ork Technology" image. It couldn't be any less serious.

Time to edit my response for people who can't detect sarcasm.

Psst. This is sarcasm.



Writing in white space, how clever of you. [/sarcasm]
See, the problem with sarcasm is it's hard to convey through type. As for your picture, I don't know the first thing about 40K, so, if that helps.
The point is, my post was ironic. I can see that a lot of times people take things at face value, maybe that's why Janeane Garofalo is always so pissed.
Whatever, social experiment failure I guess....If you could even call it a social experiment.... Which may just be the entire point of the interwebz.

[ufo]

If your point was (as someone said) that people's first judgments are based on emotion, you are right. But your example sucked.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

If your point was (as someone said) that people's first judgments are based on emotion, you are right. But your example sucked.

Yeah, my examples tend to do that. :smallannoyed:

[Name_Here]

When you see a WH40K Space Marine, you get the impression of a deadly religious fanatic, willing to utilise his advanced weaponry to slaughter those who oppose the almighty Emperor.

No that's what looking at it with the fluff fresh in your head gets you. If you look at it without knowing the fluff the only impression you get is "oh cool a space marine with a chainsaw sword." Which is suprisingly close to "Oh cool a space marine with a chainsaw bayonet."


The GoW guys (dun' remember what they're called) look more like a couple of beer-swelling pals who load up on the coolest and most violent weapons to save humanity in a conflict that contains no shades of gray.

Really? The government uses lasers and orbital bombardments on the cities of the world without evacuation and without even attempting to hold them and you say no shades of gray?

[Thanatos 51-50]

No that's what looking at it with the fluff fresh in your head gets you. If you look at it without knowing the fluff the only impression you get is "oh cool a space marine with a chainsaw sword." Which is suprisingly close to "Oh cool a space marine with a chainsaw bayonet."

To be fair: I was introduced to Gears before 40K. and when I was first exposed to Gears, I did not think "Space Marine with a Chainsaw Bayonet". I thought "Likely mediocre shooter brimming with over-the-top sickening machismo. It will sell more copies than there are consoles."
I never thought of the Gears as Space Marines in any sense of the noun, and in fact, still don't.
To also be fair, my first exposure to 40K was from DoW, at which point, I was thinking "Oh, these guys are'nt my first teir units? That explains why they're stronger per unit. Their squad size is still tiny!"
(I played Imperial Guard - It was Winter Assault)

[Myrmex]

Man, I can't believe you guys don't appreciate GoW dialogue. Some of it is priceless!


Gears of War is crap because the writing sucks, the characters suck and the gameplay sucks and is utterly broken. It's horribly generic and steals the regenerating health idea that Halo 2 did (which is a dumb gameplay mechanic anyway).

You don't regen health in Halo. Your shields power up over time, which isn't really zomg original. But is certainly a nicer mechanic than picking up health pacs, a la DOOM.

And who plays Gears for single player? It's all about pwning online. If you're 14 and need auto-aim, stick to you cartoongames, I guess.


No, it just looks like it isn't useless, thats it. I'm not saying it should work better ebcause it looks better, I'm saying that it looks like it works, as opposed to GoW armour which, frankly, doesn't look too different from kevlar.

And Kevlar doesn't work? Huh.


But the Astares armour actually, you know... covers something.
The Gears Armour just has so many soft-spots it's ridiculous. Not the least of which are the inner arms and their entire lower body.

COGs aren't walking tanks, though. They fill a different combat role than the Space Marines.

[BloodyAngel]

Personally, I never really got into Gears OR 40k. I'm a big fantasy buff. I'm not making fun of the people who like either game. To each his own, but they're just not my thing.

Of the two however, I would pick 40K, if tied down and held hostage. But that's mostly because warhammer has been out for far longer, and has come out with a bunch of books, novels, and so on... that expand and deepen it's fluff and setting. Gears is a video game... it doesn't really have the time to put into all that, and trying to do so, would have driven away it's fanbase of people who like action and shooting things. BOTH are needlessly macho. Both have huge, steroid-laden men shooting aliens. Both have chainsaws.

Warhammer 40K is incredibly over the top, yes. The only way I can get into the setting at all, however, is to laugh about that. I find it impossible to take seriously because of that. I also don't like the game, because it seems to me like having 12 different kinds of space marine, with a smattering of other armies here or there is kinda... boring. I never liked how 40K played. I never really got into the armies... And I think it appeals more to boys.

I also never got into Gears because... well... it was over-the-top ruggedly manly. ALSO clearly meant for boys. It played alright... the cover system was pretty innovative, compared to just soaking up bullets like a sponge. (although you could still do that if you wanted, and a friend could just fix you up with a firm handshake) The characters were literally dribbling testosterone, and the only real story I saw was "aliens bad. Shoot 'em".

The writing WAS worse than 40K, because 40K is essentially a bunch of books! Writing was all they had. It has pages and pages of fluff. Some of it good, some terrible. Gears was a video game. It had to worry about graphics and controls and so on and so forth. Writing is secondary in an action game. Both appeal to the same target audience (boys who love sci-fi action) in different ways. I personally didn't care for either of them. Give me my army of dark elves any day. (No, dark eldar are NOT the same) But I don't see the point in arguing that one blew and one sucked.

I know this is the internet, people... but try and remember this. If you're sitting alone at your computer crapping all over someone else's opinion, their opinion isn't gonna change... so all you're really managed to do is soil your pants.

And for the record... ALL of this post should be taken as the sarcastic rantings of a girl who just likes to... well... rant. :smallbiggrin:

[LurkerInPlayground]

You don't regen health in Halo. Your shields power up over time, which isn't really zomg original. But is certainly a nicer mechanic than picking up health pacs, a la DOOM.
Believe it or not, GoW is copying Halo 2 in that regard. The shields/health were really just the same regenerating nonsense. Your health regenerated normally even after your shields go down. So it's really just a two-step process with two separate bars of regenerating health.

Health packs are a game mechanic that works best for shooters if you are a game developer who doesn't know what he is doing. Why? Because health acts as a resource.

It limits how far you can travel and makes terrain more important as a means of preserving health. You have to achieve more over a limited amount of health. The placement of health packs also acts as a resource that people can fight over or plan their moves around. Stealthy ambushes are also rewarded because the damage incurred from such a fight tends to be crippling, if not decisive.

Health usually adds depth. Regenerating health generally works best in games where combat isn't the focus or for games where you don't want the combat to be too punishing. (Portal is a prime example where combat isn't as important.)

When you apply that to shooters however, it really messes up the pacing for a game. Some utterly mindless Leeroy Jenkins wanders into your spawn for no good reason at all. Or you could spring a trap and thrash somebody within an inch of his life but if he gets lucky, he won't pay for the long term consequences. You're reduced to a situation where there isn't really actually a battle going on, so much as there are a series of floating independents bumping into each other.

Regenerating health pretty much makes a FUBAR of the notion of attrition and it's the main reason why console shooters are typically as bad as they are. People who defend the mechanic won't admit that it dumbs down the game.


And who plays Gears for single player? It's all about pwning online. If you're 14 and need auto-aim, stick to you cartoongames, I guess.
You honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The multiplayer is wretched as well.

There is no weapon balance to speak of. The assault rifle doesn't work like an assault rifle. If you shoulder the weapon it doesn't get much more accurate (just shoot a wall in both modes). The rounds also travel so pathetically slow that there's also no point trying to lead the weapon or even make use of it at midrange when it's simpler to pray-and-spray at pointblank.

The regenerating health coupled with inaccurate weapons makes long/mid range combat indecisive and pointless, unless you happen to have a sniper rifle. The chainsaw animation is amusing, but doesn't exactly add a whole lot of metagame since it's just a context-sensitive coin flip.

Auto-aim works fine if we're playing with joysticks instead of a mouse-and-keyboard. Part of why Halo 2 was so bad however was that the autoaim was too high.

Cartoon games. Fourteen. Right.

You do know that random insults not only fail at being offensive to anybody, but that it also makes you look like a tool?

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Believe it or not, GoW is copying Halo 2 in that regard. The shields/health were really just the same regenerating nonsense. Your health regenerated normally even after your shields go down. So it's really just a two-step process with two separate bars of regenerating health.

Health packs are a game mechanic that works best for shooters if you are a game developer who doesn't know what he is doing. Why? Because health acts as a resource.

It limits how far you can travel and makes terrain more important as a means of preserving health. You have to achieve more over a limited amount of health. The placement of health packs also acts as a resource that people can fight over or plan their moves around. Stealthy ambushes are also rewarded because the damage incurred from such a fight tends to be crippling, if not decisive.

Health usually adds depth. Regenerating health generally works best in games where combat isn't the focus or for games where you don't want the combat to be too punishing. (Portal is a prime example where combat isn't as important.)

When you apply that to shooters however, it really messes up the pacing for a game. Some utterly mindless Leeroy Jenkins wanders into your spawn for no good reason at all. Or you could spring a trap and thrash somebody within an inch of his life but if he gets lucky, he won't pay for the long term consequences. You're reduced to a situation where there isn't really actually a battle going on, so much as there are a series of floating independents bumping into each other.

Regenerating health pretty much makes a FUBAR of the notion of attrition and it's the main reason why console shooters are typically as bad as they are. People who defend the mechanic won't admit that it dumbs down the game.


You honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The multiplayer is wretched as well.

There is no weapon balance to speak of. The assault rifle doesn't work like an assault rifle. If you shoulder the weapon it doesn't get much more accurate (just shoot a wall in both modes). The rounds also travel so pathetically slow that there's also no point trying to lead the weapon or even make use of it at midrange when it's simpler to pray-and-spray at pointblank.

The regenerating health coupled with inaccurate weapons makes long/mid range combat indecisive and pointless, unless you happen to have a sniper rifle. The chainsaw animation is amusing, but doesn't exactly add a whole lot of metagame since it's just a context-sensitive coin flip.

Auto-aim works fine if we're playing with joysticks instead of a mouse-and-keyboard. Part of why Halo 2 was so bad however was that the autoaim was too high.

Cartoon games. Fourteen. Right.

You do know that random insults not only fail at being offensive to anybody, but that it also makes you look like a tool?
Regenerating health is a bit of a double edged sword. It makes the game easier in some aspects, but in others makes it rather difficult.
Let's take the Halos as examples of it all.
Halo:CE legendary was difficult, that can be denied, but going from Goldeneye to Halo, it was difficult on legendary for me for a while.
Now, you could get some serious planning and tactic when you can remember where the health pick ups are, but adversely, I can't count the times where I'd die, only to re-spawn at the latest checkpoint, and find out the latest checkpoint was being in the middle of a fire fight, with only two health bars left.
Health as a resource makes for a decent element, but more often than not it only hurts people.

Halo 2 took away our health, and gave us two hits from zero shield to die.
Now, that both upped the difficulty, but also made the game much easier. My shield was much more durable, came back faster, and I no longer had to worry about health pickups. The problem became however that as soon as my shield was gone, I was dead, because 9:10 times, when my shield was gone, I was caught in what I have come to call, "Eff your couch" situations. Yes my shield regenerated faster, but I'd still have to find cover first, and in run and gun games like Halo, I wouldn't be the only one going for that cover.

Halo 3 sort of lamp shaded the problem by throwing in the shield regen' pickup, but they were few, far between, and were rarely applicable as using them would put you at not shooting for long enough to die by the time it activates. Finding an area to drop them out of fire wasn't exactly hard, but then the problem became, if I can avoid being shot, why would I need this item? I mean, there was always the option to put down the re generator, and just stand there shooting, or try to snipe while they shoot at me, but it was a "fix" as much as band-aid is a cure for cancer. The bubble shield was much better, had far more uses, and was pretty much the be all end all omni-tool.

Adversely, health pick ups wouldn't work in Gears, they might, but the game would need a complete combat overhaul, and that's not fun.

Personally I would prefer a hybrid like Half Life 2. Health pickups, a shield that with as often I can fill it up practically is re generating, but you can still get effed in Half Life with checkpoints and no resources.

There really is no fix for the problem, and it will all come down to the gameplay. Don't put regenerating health in a game where health pickups would be better, and vice versa.
They both have their merits and de-merits, there is just no way to solve the issue half.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Regenerating health is a bit of a double edged sword. It makes the game easier in some aspects, but in others makes it rather difficult.
Let's take the Halos as examples of it all.
Halo:CE legendary was difficult, that can be denied, but going from Goldeneye to Halo, it was difficult on legendary for me for a while.
Jackal snipers.

That you have to tell me that its debatable whether Halo: CE was too difficult pretty much ends the point before you made it.

Besides, I never liked playing on "Hard" mode in most games. It usually ends up as an exercise in frustration, rather than posing a legitimate challenge. Although, I could make a point that regenerating health exacerbates the problem since I found Halo 1's Legendary mode playable.


Now, you could get some serious planning and tactic when you can remember where the health pick ups are, but adversely, I can't count the times where I'd die, only to re-spawn at the latest checkpoint, and find out the latest checkpoint was being in the middle of a fire fight, with only two health bars left.
So? I'm glad you died there because you deserved to. You don't get to progress beyond that point due to some cheesy mechanic that launches instant reinforcements at an enemy. Having a limited number of health packs means that your team can't rely overmuch on being instantly reinvigorated. Your team actually has to do well as a whole.

The health pack can theoretically patch some wounds or reward a lone holdout who is forced to utilize guerrilla tactics to prevail. It really shouldn't provide a full set of reinforcements unless that is explicitly your goal for the map design.


Health as a resource makes for a decent element, but more often than not it only hurts people.
Why? It's easy to assert it but you don't give me any real reason to take you at your word.

What's frustrating is that enemy players aren't punished for playing badly while I did sensible things like flanking, ambushing, stealthing around, turtling, chipping away at health with grenades or making use of high ground. There's less of an incentive to do these things when every Leeroy Jenkins you've ever met just rushes you with three of his buddies and they all come out of it without a scratch.

Regenerating health deadens the impact of some tactics or stratagems. It also irritatingly removes the consequences of falling off of high ground. Altitude makes a substantial barrier. Which is one of the things that regenerating health steals from gameplay depth.

One of the things I found apply to Halo 1 that applies to Halo 3 is that defensive drivers are fantastically devastating. They're capable of outflanking enemies with the superior weapons they have and are difficult to even land a hit on. But most Halo 3 players don't act defensively in a vehicle because they've never been punished for being too reckless.

Ironically, this is probably partly because vehicles have limited health in Halo 3.


Halo 2 took away our health, and gave us two hits from zero shield to die.
Now, that both upped the difficulty, but also made the game much easier. My shield was much more durable, came back faster, and I no longer had to worry about health pickups. The problem became however that as soon as my shield was gone, I was dead, because 9:10 times, when my shield was gone, I was caught in what I have come to call, "Eff your couch" situations. Yes my shield regenerated faster, but I'd still have to find cover first, and in run and gun games like Halo, I wouldn't be the only one going for that cover.
Actually, you had another smaller bar of regenerating health that came back as soon as your shields started charging again. You could take a larger number of SMG hits or a smaller number hits from some more powerful weapon.

But the fact of the matter is that, if you survived the fight, you got free health back. In Halo 1, you would've had to retreat or sacrifice yourself for an effect, giving the other team a small reward for injuring you.


Halo 3 sort of lamp shaded the problem by throwing in the shield regen' pickup, but they were few, far between, and were rarely applicable as using them would put you at not shooting for long enough to die by the time it activates. Finding an area to drop them out of fire wasn't exactly hard, but then the problem became, if I can avoid being shot, why would I need this item? I mean, there was always the option to put down the re generator, and just stand there shooting, or try to snipe while they shoot at me, but it was a "fix" as much as band-aid is a cure for cancer. The bubble shield was much better, had far more uses, and was pretty much the be all end all omni-tool.
Eh. Your assessment of this is probably correct and really only serves to prove my point.


Adversely, health pick ups wouldn't work in Gears, they might, but the game would need a complete combat overhaul, and that's not fun.
GoW is a badly designed game throughout. A complete overhaul would actually be a good thing. The game apes every other FPS without actually making those elements work. (What's the point of a sight-down-the rails mechanism when unsighted spray-and-pray works and leading targets is laughably impotent?)

Halo 2 didn't consider the consequences of regenerating health. GoW saw Halo 2's success and thought that it would be as easy as stealing the idea wholesale. It's basically a case of the blind leading the blind.

And you throw in another unquantifiable statement by saying that it wouldn't be fun.

My obvious rejoinder to this is:
Yes, it would be more fun that way. GoW pretty much did nothing right.

The fact that you didn't notice just means that you wouldn't be able to discern the difference between a well designed GoW or a badly designed GoW. You'd probably enjoy it either way.



Personally I would prefer a hybrid like Half Life 2. Health pickups, a shield that with as often I can fill it up practically is re generating, but you can still get effed in Half Life with checkpoints and no resources.

This is more or less my point. Health pickups work fine, distributed as often or scarcely as you want to create a narrative effect. Ravenholm never gave you suit charge. Which gives our proceedings a more survival horror flavor.

If they want to wrack up tension, they'll give you less health.

This pretty much invalidates the notion that regenerating health is better for achieving a cinematic feel. No it isn't. You can achieve that feel by other design elements if you really needed to.

Regenerating health is a trendy novelty that doesn't work on multiple levels. If a developer does implement it, they need to give serious consideration on what they want achieve with it and tweak it accordingly. If they give no thought at all, then they should stick to health pickups.


There really is no fix for the problem, and it will all come down to the gameplay. Don't put regenerating health in a game where health pickups would be better, and vice versa.
They both have their merits and de-merits, there is just no way to solve the issue half.
It has more demerits than merits. And it is a definite demerit for a competitive FPS. Period.

It works fine for games like Portal, Research and Development or the Kong tie-in game; because those games didn't want to emphasize combat.

But it pretty much says something when the mechanic is only ever used to dumb-down something. Because all those games I just mentioned would still work with health pick-ups because those games have merits that don't depend on the health system it uses.

FPS's do depend on the health system it uses.

[Myrmex]

stuff

I love the health recharge mechanic. Most of the combats between players on the leaderboards is downright lethal. Active shotgun spray in GoW 1 will down someone with two rounds and a punch. Normally you fire, reload, punch, fire. Shotgun combat feels more like a fighting game than a shooter (I tend to dislike shooters because they're silly), which is really cool. If I wanted to play a game where I had to manage resources, I'd play Resident Evil or Starcraft. If you're having problems with Leeroy Jenkins coming at you, and they leave alive, you're a bad player. An active pistol clip has a decent shot of taking off someone's face, for instance. You just need to aim well.

GoW also has more aggressive, close up combat, due to more cramped maps and the active cover system. Halo is mostly bouncing around empty arenas and pew pewing with lasers. If the latter is your thing, that's cool. It's really boring, though. The health regeneration system rewards aggressive play styles, and I like that.

As for the assault rifle, it's more of a thing you use if you haven't mastered shotgun combat (or can't snipe). You use it to lay down suppressive fire while your teammates run in and lay down the hurt. I've seen bad players using assault rifle tactics take down good players who don't teamplay well. It's normally what I do when I play with my friends.

[LurkerInPlayground]

I love the health recharge mechanic. Most of the combats between players on the leaderboards is downright lethal. Active shotgun spray in GoW 1 will down someone with two rounds and a punch. Normally you fire, reload, punch, fire. Shotgun combat feels more like a fighting game than a shooter (I tend to dislike shooters because they're silly), which is really cool. If I wanted to play a game where I had to manage resources, I'd play Resident Evil or Starcraft. If you're having problems with Leeroy Jenkins coming at you, and they leave alive, you're a bad player. An active pistol clip has a decent shot of taking off someone's face, for instance. You just need to aim well.
Or Leeroy Jenkins got lucky. Which happens more than it should for a "skillful" player who tries to play intelligently in a game like Halo 3. Which is to say that regenerating health narrows the skill gap. It's a softcore shooter. It's worse when it's literally just "give me your hand and the hole in your face will go away."

Shooters aren't silly. They actually have an headcrushing amount of depth that rivals fighting games. But hey, it's not like i actually care for your opinion if that's what you get out of GoW.


GoW also has more aggressive, close up combat, due to more cramped maps and the active cover system. Halo is mostly bouncing around empty arenas and pew pewing with lasers. If the latter is your thing, that's cool. It's really boring, though. The health regeneration system rewards aggressive play styles, and I like that.
No, Halo is a balance of close-in and ranged encounters. But since your argument is essentially the equivalent of a "lol, Halo has nerdy lasers" . . . well, frankly, GoW isn't exactly a looker either, with its palette of dull grays and its insipid cast of buff guys.

"LOL! GoW runs around with pew-pew lasers while CoD4 is realistic."
See how this works?

And no, health regeneration doesn't reward aggression or melee anymore than Halo does, which still features melee as a substantial part of the game. It's odd that you should like Gears but denigrate Halo for not being "close-up" enough, especially since GoW is cribbing Halo in that respect.

But putting that aside, regenerating health is in Call of Duty 4. Which, has ranged combat that is lethal. Melee is far less important in CoD4 than being able to shoot first. In this case, aggression just means something different than merely being able to melee or shotgun at close range. The regenerating health isn't what makes that gameplay style possible. It's based on how precise and damaging the weapons actually are designed to be.

I don't have a problem if you enjoy GoW, but comparing it to Halo just because you view it like some butthurt fanboy who hates it for not being GoW or because you pretend to know about shooters when you obviously never gave a crap about them, doesn't mean you actually have an opinion worth listening to.

If GoW happened to one of the better designed shooters, I would say so. But it isn't.


As for the assault rifle, it's more of a thing you use if you haven't mastered shotgun combat (or can't snipe). You use it to lay down suppressive fire while your teammates run in and lay down the hurt. I've seen bad players using assault rifle tactics take down good players who don't teamplay well. It's normally what I do when I play with my friends.
Which still means that a part of the game is broken and that some weapons are still inferior.

I don't honestly care if there is a skill curve to that style of play, because frankly, it's shallow. There is no all-around flexibility weapon that a "skilled" player could really make shine. The extremes hold all the superiority. That's boring.

A fantasy shooter will probably incorporate decisive melee and close-range elements anyway.

In fact, Team Fortress 2 is pretty much a perfect example of a shooter that rewards this style of play, where the sources of healing are the Medic class, health pickups and dispensers. No regenerating health.

And even then, it provides more incentive to actually aim at things even if you aren't playing Sniper. The classes are generally more lethal in close-combat than they are from a distance.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

That you have to tell me that its debatable whether Halo: CE was too difficult pretty much ends the point before you made it.

That right there, that invalidates everything you just said.
"you're wrong because you suck at teh game noob lol."
How very clever of you.

[Thrawn183]

Just one time I ran through the first level of Halo on legendary single player without dying. that made me very, very, very happy.

[LurkerInPlayground]

That right there, that invalidates everything you just said.
"you're wrong because you suck at teh game noob lol."
How very clever of you.
No, you're wrong because you can't specify any difference in difificulty in spite of a change in health systems. Also, even presuming that regenerating health makes things harder, it doesn't mean that it's actually challenging, as opposed to simply being frustrating.

Halo 1 Legendary is about unloading as much raw force as you could muster in the shortest amount of time. Or in other words, shoot and shoot then shoot some more. Nuke everything before it even has a chance to hurt you.

Halo 2 Legendary just struck me as schizophrenically frustrating. The Elites behave like a bunch of gimps in that game anyway.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

No, you're wrong because you can't specify any difference in difificulty in spite of a change in health systems. Also, even presuming that regenerating health makes things harder, it doesn't mean that it's actually challenging, as opposed to simply being frustrating.

Halo 1 Legendary is about unloading as much raw force as you could muster in the shortest amount of time. Or in other words, shoot and shoot then shoot some more. Nuke everything before it even has a chance to hurt you.

Halo 2 Legendary just struck me as schizophrenically frustrating. The Elites behave like a bunch of gimps in that game anyway.

Ah, I see, your post was a little, glib, if I'm using the term properly. Also it was insulting, which never helps a case, trust me I know.

As far as the changes in difficulty go between then games, Halo: CE is definitely easier on Legendary than Halo 2 is. But that's not something I would completely attribute to the health systems.
It took what, one shot to drain your shield, then three to kill you in CE?
Then in 2 it was inconsistent on what would and would not kill you.
Sometimes a well placed shot with the plasma pistol wold straight down you, while others it would take that and a second shot no matter where the enemy hit you.
But the difficulty curve actually has nothing to do with the health system. In reality the type of difficulty is not affected by the health system, it's what we will call beside the point.

However in some aspects the health system will play a part in the difficulty. Health pick ups make any game a war of attrition. Regenerating health requires you to output more damage over a shorter amount of time.
Think about it, if Halo 3 still had health pickups, it would be very different play. Think about it logically, the only time you truly strategise (not a word I know) is when you have one hit kill weapons. Other than that it's charging around spraying bullets into anything that moves. It's true, trying to deny it is like denying Halo being Sci-fi.*
The entire objective is just dealing damage.
In GeoW you still have to put so much damage into people, but in many cases you have to strategise (still not a word) because simply charging in can get you severely overwhelmed. Either by superior weapons, or by simple exposure.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but all health systems really do is set the ground work for the play style. Re-gen means you can't attrition it out, you just have to go in and kill or be killed. Health as a resource is more attrition, you can wait your opponents out, or as in Halo 1, you can die, just to have your friend spawn you. It works in Halo 3, but you usually get more damage out when you can take more damage.



* This is of course ignoring modes of play wherein you HAVE to be tactical, such as CTF. Because we already know running in and shooting won't get you the win.

[warty goblin]

I suspect that a large part of the move to regenerating health has to do with changes in the sorts of weapons used in FPS games. Look at a game like Tribes where you are trying to hit a rapidly moving target at long range using relatively slow projectiles, and a game like CoD 4 where you are hitting relatively slow moving targets (who are only moving in a plane, not actually in 3d space) with very fast, fully automatic projectiles at close range. The first is simply harder to do.

This means that the difference between a skilled player and an average player is much less. In multiplayer this means that most of the time a skilled player in CoD 4 is likely to take reasonably substantial damage even against an unskilled enemy, whereas in Tribes or Quake the unskilled player would be rocket fodder delivered by a jumping, circle strafing god of destruction who would escape unharmed. Thus in older games a skilled player would start his next encounter pretty much as good as new (sans a bit of ammo), but without regenerating health, the CoD player would be in serious trouble because he's already half dead and has a much harder time evading enemy fire.

Now there are a few possible responses to this from a design point of view. One could go the CoD route, which I personally find the weakest, or one could make hitting targets require substantial skill again. This means modeling bullet drop more aggressively (even to the point of unrealism), make combat arenas larger so engagement ranges are longer, model suppressing fire and positional damage, etc. The last one would be very nice, as done right it could really give medics something to do- who do you bandage first, and where? In short make FPSs more like ARMA II.

Either that or hybridise the health systems, and allow players to carry health packs. I've contended for a long time that non regenerating health bars don't leave enough room for mistakes, and the persistance of every firefight is too high. Being unable to proceed because I screwed up minorly half an hour ago is realistic, but poor gameplay. The problem with completely regenerating health is that it renders all events older than five seconds irrelevant. This is stupid, since it means you can do stupid things knowing that if you get away with them, you'll be as good as new.

Far Cry 2 gets this exactly right. Your health bar is divided into five blocks, and any partially emptied block will refill on its own. Emptied blocks require medical supplies, which you have to carry, require time to use, and are limited in quantity. This leads to interesting decisions about resource management, but allows a player to continue at maximal efficiency for minimal, but definitely extant, cost.

[AstralFire]

As someone who's never played Gears of War or Warhammer, I think the Warhammer armor looks much more ridiculous and useless. When you have pauldrons that big, you really don't have room to call other games out for their issues of tech realism.

[Thrawn183]

I have to say that I now see the relationship between the two, and it just makes me love Gears that much more. Heck, I might even get into the warhammer fluff now, instead of arbitrarily hating it because of the fanboys.

[Myrmex]

some butthurt fanboy

Ok, I got it. You aren't interested in any discussion. Sorry.

[Cyrano]

Ok, I got it. You aren't interested in any discussion. Sorry.

*Wild applause*

[Leon]

..
Guess what 40K fans: Gears of War is Warhammer 40K!


Fixed

from what Ive seen of the game GeoW is above the black powerder/magitech line

[imp_fireball]

Also, I get the impression from watching people play GoW that mobility isn't exactly a concern due to the health-regeneration system.

Not if you're playing insanity. Grubs are at least three times as strong as a human on insanity and twice as strong on hardcore - melee them three times to kill them... they melee you once to kill you.

Also, GoW = Unreal Tournament since it was created by the same guys.


Show me Orks in Gears of War. Give me a decent WAAAGH!!! Show me a choppa with 100 different applications!

Locust drones are essentially orks. Big, strong, dumb and redundant. And they have different weapons, including flamethrowers, just like orks. Am I seeing a pattern here?

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Far Cry 2 gets this exactly right. Your health bar is divided into five blocks, and any partially emptied block will refill on its own. Emptied blocks require medical supplies, which you have to carry, require time to use, and are limited in quantity. This leads to interesting decisions about resource management, but allows a player to continue at maximal efficiency for minimal, but definitely extant, cost.
Escape from Butcher Bay did segmented regen health first. It also had pickups to refill med stations.
I quite liked that form of health, but unfortunately I don't see it working in games like Halo, as in Butcher Bay, you health only regen'ed when you were out of combat, which meant hiding and sneaking during boss fights.
The main problem behind the hybrid health mechanic is if it's implemented wrong it will make a game too easy. In other implementations it will make it too difficult. Let's take Chronicles of Riddick games, they had a very annoying spider drone. It was hard to see, it could shoot the wings off a gnat from half way across the world, and on the easiest difficulty took out three segments of your health with one shot.
The problem with that became, that it was no longer difficult, and was just an exercise in frustration. It was insanely annoying.
Implement this health system into Halo, and we have a problem. It's a good mechanic, but it certainly requires certain gameplay elements.

[warty goblin]

Escape from Butcher Bay did segmented regen health first. It also had pickups to refill med stations.
I quite liked that form of health, but unfortunately I don't see it working in games like Halo, as in Butcher Bay, you health only regen'ed when you were out of combat, which meant hiding and sneaking during boss fights.
The main problem behind the hybrid health mechanic is if it's implemented wrong it will make a game too easy. In other implementations it will make it too difficult. Let's take Chronicles of Riddick games, they had a very annoying spider drone. It was hard to see, it could shoot the wings off a gnat from half way across the world, and on the easiest difficulty took out three segments of your health with one shot.
The problem with that became, that it was no longer difficult, and was just an exercise in frustration. It was insanely annoying.
Implement this health system into Halo, and we have a problem. It's a good mechanic, but it certainly requires certain gameplay elements.

I think Far Cry 2 improves this slightly, since you can regenerate health bars anywhere, so long as you have the medkits, you don't have to worry about refilling a machine. It makes you a little more vulnerable than waiting for your shields to recharge does in Halo since it requires both hands, but that's about it. Furthermore, since every medkit refills all your health bars, there's very good reason to not use them unless you get very low on health. You'd certainly have to jigger Halo's gameplay a bit to make them work, but I don't see it as being fundamentally unworkable.

Although honestly, the health system in Halo: Combat Evolved is also pretty close to ideal, particularly since at least some of the enemies play by the same rules. I always have a healthy amount of respect for a game that keeps me on a level playing field with my foes. Makes my wins feel like actual wins, and not hollow victories handed to me by the game mechanics being skewed in my favor.

[ZeroNumerous]

Locust drones are essentially orks. Big, strong, dumb and redundant. And they have different weapons, including flamethrowers, just like orks. Am I seeing a pattern here?

You'd be hallucinating to see a pattern. Locust are big and strong, but not dumb unless you're playing on Easy. Further, any species has flamethrowers. No, orks are unique because of what they are, not because of their weapons. But that doesn't mean everything that's big and strong are orks.

The comparisons utterly fail on any level other than the superficial. Heck:


The Gears are essentially orks. Big, strong, dumb and redundant. They have different weapons, including rocket launchers, just like orks. Am I seeing a pattern here?

[banthesun]

Man, I can't believe you guys don't appreciate GoW dialogue. Some of it is priceless!

Thiiiiiis!

Also Zero, your previous statement about Gears being orks, though I strongly suspect you were joking, is right! This game is about picking it up, running round, shooting things, hitting them with chainsaws and pretending you have some kind of blunt object lodged in your head like the protagonists. The chainsaw and orbital laser are really what this game is about. It's not about thinking or challenging yourself, it's about listening to your über-soldier yelling "NICE!" as he splatters himself with gore. And it's actually plenty of fun (not that I'd want to play it regularly, but as a party game it's great).

And on the whole power armour debate, space marine armour is completely impractical, but they are much cooler. I think if they weren't copywrited the game would be about them.

[AstralFire]

I dunno. To me, Space Marines look like Fisher Price figures gone horribly wrong, not killing machines.

[Lord of Rapture]

I dunno. To me, Space Marines look like Fisher Price figures gone horribly wrong, not killing machines.

I fail to see the difference between the two.:smalltongue:

[ZeroNumerous]

Also Zero, your previous statement about Gears being orks, though I strongly suspect you were joking, is right!

I was indeed joking. The argument that "X has W, Y, and Z attributes just like A. Therefore X = A" cannot be taken in any way other than a joke.

I do agree that the game is predominately designed to just be picked up, played with and then set down like many shooters.

[KBF]

I do agree that the game is predominately designed to just be picked up, played with and then set down like many shooters.

There are many shooters that ask to be played nonstop for months before becoming competent in them. It's just that game developers realized what they were doing and grew competent, and proceeded made games that are meant to be fun. Like Gears. Like Halo 1, 2, & 3. Like Team Fortress 2. They decided to reduce arbitrary punishment (to differing degrees) and it made a huge impact on the success of gaming outside of what were essentially mental sadists, seeking retardedly arbitrary challenges. And I say this as a gamer.

A game where you have to practice at to have any fun at all is ultimately a failure. Only aforementioned gaming sadists (myself included) stick around to find the enjoyment, thus NOT being fun for 80% of the populace. The very fact that you can make mistakes in Gears and Halo 2 & 3 is what makes them fun, as opposed to obstacle courses run nearly blind.

I feel the need to mention that I am insinuating that games I like don't have to be and maybe shouldn't be popular. And no, maybe I'm not as hardcore as most gamers, I didn't run Halo on Legendary. Did not appeal to me. Learning to pistol snipe from the side seat of a Warthog was far more relevant to my interests. On the PC, because I suck at aiming with a controller. :smalltongue:

[ZeroNumerous]

There are many shooters that ask to be played nonstop for months before becoming competent in them.

I didn't mean to imply that every shooter had the same gameplay or that they were easily learned. I simply said that many shooters these days are designed for "pick up and play" in mind. Generally speaking, you're able to quit at any time while retaining your general location in the game or because the game is designed with multiplayer in mind and thus only lasts for one or two 'maps'. Either way, many shooters are designed with the idea of "pick up and play" in mind to reach a larger audience than before.

[Myrmex]

The grubs aren't the orcs; the protagonists are. Did anyone actually pay attention to the hilarity that came out of them?

[LurkerInPlayground]

Ah, I see, your post was a little, glib, if I'm using the term properly. Also it was insulting, which never helps a case, trust me I know.
The insult is entirely in your head. I merely stated that I found Halo 1 Legendary playable. Halo 2's Legendary really wasn't.

I'll admit It was amusing to head shot everything, but that's not really a challenge when you can edge around enemies with infinite health and have ridiculously high auto-aim. But for the most part, it felt like I just was working a chore because all I had to do was grind away at the opposition then obligatorily take cover.

Then there are the insta-kill Jackal Snipers, which more or less highlights the frustration of Halo 2.

Whether that frustration actually results from the game having regenerating health is irrelevant. Halo 2 was pretty badly designed for many reasons.

No, what's more pertinent is that you've given me any reason to believe one is more difficult/challenging/frustrating than the other because of the health system.

I'm actually convinced of the opposite of what you believe. Halo 1 Legendary was varied and interesting to somebody who is an FPS buff. Halo 2 Legendary was frustrating to the same type of player.

But I didn't really feel like elaborating on this point since it was sort of your argument to frame the difficulty problem as you did.


As far as the changes in difficulty go between then games, Halo: CE is definitely easier on Legendary than Halo 2 is. But that's not something I would completely attribute to the health systems.
It took what, one shot to drain your shield, then three to kill you in CE?
Then in 2 it was inconsistent on what would and would not kill you.
Sometimes a well placed shot with the plasma pistol wold straight down you, while others it would take that and a second shot no matter where the enemy hit you.
But the difficulty curve actually has nothing to do with the health system. In reality the type of difficulty is not affected by the health system, it's what we will call beside the point.
Fine, I'll buy that. But one is frustrating, the other isn't.

Halo 2's health system always seemed to break-down in higher difficulties. Jackal snipers was the example I gave.


However in some aspects the health system will play a part in the difficulty. Health pick ups make any game a war of attrition. Regenerating health requires you to output more damage over a shorter amount of time.
Think about it, if Halo 3 still had health pickups, it would be very different play. Think about it logically, the only time you truly strategise (not a word I know) is when you have one hit kill weapons. Other than that it's charging around spraying bullets into anything that moves. It's true, trying to deny it is like denying Halo being Sci-fi.*
I'm not entirely sure I gather your point. Regenerating health doesn't necessarily require you to output more damage.

Logically, if you have limited health and your enemy has limited health, it behooves you to end the encounter as quickly as possible to preserve resources. So your claim strikes me as patently false.

Halo 3 only requires you to strategize when you have one-hit-KO weapons? Okay. You'd think that would prove my point more than it would prove yours. Less-than-instant-death is still crippling because it limits your further usefulness in a non-regenerating health scenario.

My actually claim is a bit more nuanced. You can still strategize with things like battle rifles in Halo 3. I just feel there's less incentive and reward for doing so under its health scheme.


The entire objective is just dealing damage.
In GeoW you still have to put so much damage into people, but in many cases you have to strategise (still not a word) because simply charging in can get you severely overwhelmed. Either by superior weapons, or by simple exposure.
So what? My point is that GoW has a shallow metagame. That it requires *some* strategizing doesn't really interest me. Because that strategizing is boring to me.


There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but all health systems really do is set the ground work for the play style. Re-gen means you can't attrition it out, you just have to go in and kill or be killed. Health as a resource is more attrition, you can wait your opponents out, or as in Halo 1, you can die, just to have your friend spawn you. It works in Halo 3, but you usually get more damage out when you can take more damage.
You're not grasping my point. Halo 1 is extremely lethal. Three-headshot pistol kills occur. Rockets insta-kill. Sniper rifles insta-kill with a headshots and can kill within two bodyshots. Shotguns can end an encounter close-up with one headshot.

The small conflict isn't the point. It's the big picture. Once the stand is made, it's a question of whether or not you go onto more conflicts or your retreat. It's also a question of how effective you are down the road.

A good player can milk every less bit of health and will actually have better morale with low health as they become motivated to try and kamikaze you once you corner them.


* This is of course ignoring modes of play wherein you HAVE to be tactical, such as CTF. Because we already know running in and shooting won't get you the win.
Well running in and shooting things is sort of the point. It's just a question of whether you're being smart about it.

[Dracomorph]

The real difference between WH40K and GeoW is that Adeptus Astartes are smart enough to wear helmets.


...


Take that, Momtok!

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

I'm not entirely sure I gather your point. Regenerating health doesn't necessarily require you to output more damage.

Actually, it does. It requires you to output as much damage as quick as you possibly can.
Say you have 100HP in Halo 3, a single bullet from a battle riffle does 5 DP. Your health regenerates at 10HP per 0.5 seconds of not being damaged, with about six seconds required of no damage before regen is started.
To kill someone in the shortest time, you have to put twenty bullets in them without missing a shot, and having no 8 second period of rest between each shot. Which means you have to output 1 shot and connect with the player about, every second at a minimum, anything else and he regenerates. That means you have two options. Go for the one hit kill, which proves my point of needing to output more damage, or shoot the effer as many times as possible, which proves my point of outputting more damage.
Regenerating health DOES require you to deal more damage over a shorter period of time, because slow fights don't occur. You can't really expect to shoot someone, then wait five seconds, shoot again and expect them to die. You HAVE to deal as much damage as possible, which means yes, head shots and the like. For all intents and purposes a head shot is dealing MORE damage. 1 hit kill IS more damage than 5 hit kill if you are hitting the same area.

[Thrawn183]

Halo was actually better at teaching me to aim for the head than counterstike was.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Actually, it does. It requires you to output as much damage as quick as you possibly can.
Say you have 100HP in Halo 3, a single bullet from a battle riffle does 5 DP. Your health regenerates at 10HP per 0.5 seconds of not being damaged, with about six seconds required of no damage before regen is started.
To kill someone in the shortest time, you have to put twenty bullets in them without missing a shot, and having no 8 second period of rest between each shot. Which means you have to output 1 shot and connect with the player about, every second at a minimum, anything else and he regenerates. That means you have two options. Go for the one hit kill, which proves my point of needing to output more damage, or shoot the effer as many times as possible, which proves my point of outputting more damage.
Regenerating health DOES require you to deal more damage over a shorter period of time, because slow fights don't occur. You can't really expect to shoot someone, then wait five seconds, shoot again and expect them to die. You HAVE to deal as much damage as possible, which means yes, head shots and the like. For all intents and purposes a head shot is dealing MORE damage. 1 hit kill IS more damage than 5 hit kill if you are hitting the same area.
If you're going to quote one sentence out of context, there's no point to this discussion, as I've said more than that. And I'm getting tired of your rather inconclusive assertions.

No, there isn't more incentive to output more damage in a shorter time for either scheme. If you have a limited amount of resources and your opponent has a limited amount of resources, it's wise to kill them as quickly as possible to minimize the damage to your resources. An opponent who you leave alive for too long has the chance of launching a lethal counterattack or doing some damage before going down. Dragging out a fight should also theoretically eat out of your ammo reserves.

I've said as much, but you didn't bother with the courtesy of including it as a part of why I made that claim.

It's also probably fallicious to measure efficiency by speed anyway. Pistols in Halo 1 allowed for 3-headshot kills. That's maybe ~2 seconds before death, assuming that the person scoring the headshots maneuvered himself into a place where this was possible. A shotgun blast could end a fight instantaneously with a heashot. Sniper rifles worked the same. As did rockets.

You could theoretically bleed someone to death over a longer span of time under a health based scheme. But if anything, this provides an incentive for the wounded player not to putz about. In a regenerating scheme, this merely translates into a player retreating to make another attempt later from scratch, rather than with weakened players.

The differences in this respect are minimal at best. At worst, it means there's no reward for beating somebody within an inch of his life. If they get lucky, the pay no price at all. There's no such thing as a Pyrrhic victory in a worst case scenario.

You are correct in saying that you have to be constantly engaged to get the kill under a regenerating scheme. However, for the reasons given above, it's rarely different even under a different health system.

[Myrmex]

The real difference between WH40K and GeoW is that Adeptus Astartes are smart enough to wear helmets.


...


Take that, Momtok!

Yeah, but if they're wearing a helmet, they always die.