I decided to seperate the topics in the "Additions to combat system" thread. The following are quotes of recent comments in regards to a Health Meter.
Zantalos wrote:Although, I have to agree with the other people that say it is hard to know your health. Besides for the health bar to make the game very unrealistic, it actually has a big purpose (actually this is a pretty pointless sentence, rhetorical),and something else needs to take its place.
In Lugaru, lots of the things had to be made to make of for this. There is blurred vision, a swaying camera, side holding, and others that help show Turner's status, but this doesn't seem enough. People are still getting confused their are still request for health bars when there really shouldn't be.
One of the things that confused me alot was the recovery effects, Turner's damage effects would dissapear faster then his health could recover. Many times I would retreat after winning a small fight, and then rest until my vision, aching sides, everything would go back to normal. Unfortunately, I'd die so fast afterwards, it seemed that I hadn't even recovered. Since their is no feeling indicator and keyboard pain stimulants haven't been invented yet, a simpler method should be used instead.
The easiest thing to do that would probably work just fine, is to have longer or more permanent damage effects. If you are feeling dizzy from lack of blood loss, your vision shouldn't return until your blood does. I'm not sure if this is how your body actually acts (I can't say I've lossed alot of blood before), but this would definately clear up alot of my problems.
So what else could show damage besides the regular damage indicator? How about a little 3d graphic of a human heart (bunny heart) that shows pulse rate (obviously) based upon Turners damage and activeness? -Like, if he had just been animal running or recently had to fight. This could be activated just by pressing a button, Turner could place his hand on his neck or chest and feel his pulse or it could be just a loud heart beat noise that you hear when damaged. Their are many other ideas, I know this one isn't perfect. But I think more needs to be done to show your life percent. After all, Turner knows exactly how he's feeling, why shouldn't we?
Bob wrote:I like the heart rate monitor idea. Heart rate gives you some idea of how things are going, but is very dependent on the activity so it isnt a tell tale like a health bar. Also being hit doesnt directly correlate to losing/gaining "heart rate" so it still has the same idea of uncertainity, but with some idea of how things are going.
rudel_ic wrote:An accurate health meter would be less effectiveness in combat, visible injuries, bleeding, fullscreen blur, broken bones, finally unconsciousness and death.
Zip in regards to a three dimension heart idea perviously posted by Zantalos wrote: Sounds like a very good idea except for the 3d graphic, since the point of not having a health bar is because it's a distracting interface element.
Zantalos wrote:Ok, alot of changes would have to be made for the "heart beat" effect to work.
You are right, having a 3d heart would be very distracting, having it appear in the left hand corner would be no better than having a health bar (it'd probably be worse). However, let's just say when Turner is not in a battle situation, all he would have to do is check his heart (activated with some kind of 'check' button, like 'i'), and a little 3d realtime animation of his
beating heart would come up. It would only show up when he checks his pulse and would probably change his
focus since, he'll be occupied with monitoring himself (when the button is let go, the screen is completely clear again).
Another thing is, the heart pulse could only monitor two things. Activeness and blood pressure (permanent damage). And so it would not be able to actually show your cuncussion damage, because, that wouldn't make any sense as Bob had said. and as Turner's activeness increases, pulses would temporarily get stronger and more frequent (messing up your readings). Once your rate calmed down you would get your actual damage amount. Blood loss would make alot quieter pulses and they would appear less frequent, eventually flatlining (I'm actually not really sure what happens with blood loss and heart rate). This would give the players a good idea of how much damage you could take the next time you go into battle.
leDoOd wrote:Why not go Call of Duty 2, and make the screen gradually get redder and redder, more blurred and less detailed, and some sounds of heavy breathing and pain grunting as he takes more hits and his health gets lower, with his heart thumping louder and louder each time he gets hit and his health gets lower until he dies/passes out? Then if he just passes out, a bloom effect could be used, making all the screen fade to white then fade back a few seconds later, to simulate time passing.
Zantalos wrote:I really like this idea.
The idea taken from Call of Duty would be pretty sweet, especially when it would come from some one like David. Maybe it was just because of my settings (they were pretty high though), but the only things that happened would be perfect vision and then real messy vision if you went into some seriously critical condition,
The screen would get blurred, the outside edges would turn red, and he would cough and stuff (I really liked the coughing). I think these would look alot better with Lugaru's damage effects, the blacked out vision is alot more exciting than the red edges, apart from other things. I think you would have to change Lugaru's gameplay for this (change isn't always a bad thing).
Since the regeneration was complete and fast in Call of Duty 2, it wouldn't matter if you couldn't see squat, you would be back in action sooner than you'd know it. In Lugaru, damage has the multiple levels so regeneration is slow and not always succesfull. In the original (the only one), you could be fighting and not even know the damage you're in, that is until you're dead. If no change was put into the regeneration (if every thing was the same), you would be running around, blindly tripping over youself only to realize that there would be no way to cure your health. The damage would be permanent and now you couldn't even fight back (very well), with the constant blur. I still like this idea though, even if it would make things harder (I think there are going to be ways to heal yourself, so this could actually make things easier), at least it would feel more realistic, give more control in Turner's health.
leDoOd wrote:True... I didn't think of the permanent knife damage.
Maybe there could be a sort of "rest" feature, where the character sits down, bandages his wounds, naps... takes some morphine...
I always thought that it was a little cheap to have been sliced earlier in the level, then later a single punch could kill you. If it was easier and more accessible in L2 then there would be more incentive for casual gamers like myself to sit down and play through a level without breaking the keyboard in half in frustration.
hasn't happened to me, but ya never know...
bob wrote:Jeff posted earlier, and I can't seem to find it, that there will be food. It is very possible that this food, along with time, and maybe bandages will help you heal all wounds.
From what I have gathered about the playing style of L2 there won't be set levels in the same way as L1 (this is from both forum posts and conversations with Jeff). That being said there will have to be some way to fully heal since there won't be major breaks, although there are many ways this healing process could happen outside of food.
Albab wrote:Maybe something like a healers hut?
That would be good. Also, you could get various drugs from there.
) The currency could be anything from some kind of island paper money (maybe not. Some kind of coin?), or it could be something entirely different like enemy scalps and you could get things like store credit instead. It wouldn't even have to be money it could be somthing like simple trading instead (like in amazon trail 3 and stuff, "Wierd Worlds").
DEFINITELY
