Hmm, I thought of another possibility. You regenerate health, but only to a certain maximum figure. Getting injured lowers your maximum health, e.g. max health = average of 100% health and the lowest your health has gone since you've had a medkit. A medkit brings actual and max health back to 100%. If you let yourself get beaten to near death you either need to complete the level with only 50% max health, or find a medkit. Consequences, but not too bad. Thoughts?

Just Cause 2 has a health system similar to this. Getting hit a couple times is just a "flesh wound" and heals back after a couple seconds of not being hit. Getting hit more than a certain amount before regeneration occurs will lower the point that the flesh wounds will regenetate to. Stationary 'health cabinets' would fill you back to 100%. Typically there is only one health cabinet per military outpost, so you're encouraged to occasionally use cover, but allowed to fight like rambo if you want.

The regeneration point is clamped to a minimum of about 25% of your maximum possible health, so if you're in a really tight pinch, you're forced into cover fighting, but aren't necessarily doomed.

It seemed to work pretty well, I have no major complaints about that system.

I've been messing around with an idea for a first person shooter where taken damage places strain on joints; take too much, and you'll lose an arm, leg, or your head. Otherwise, health regenerates CoD style.

So it's a different take on the 'health regenerates TO AN EXTENT' system.

I've been messing around with an idea for a first person shooter where taken damage places strain on joints; take too much, and you'll lose an arm, leg, or your head. Otherwise, health regenerates CoD style. So it's a different take on the 'health regenerates TO AN EXTENT' system.

Dwarf Fortress is famous for this type of health system, its anotomical detail is amazing. You can end up cutting tendons and muscles, breaking bones, etc. The system even lets you target body parts as well. Toady did an awesome job on it.

Dwarf Fortress is famous for this type of health system, its anotomical detail is amazing. You can end up cutting tendons and muscles, breaking bones, etc. The system even lets you target body parts as well. Toady did an awesome job on it.

It sounds like such a fun (and realistic?) system, but how taxing is something like this on a game's resources? I mean, I can't imagine a AAA FPS using such a detailed system without becoming unplayably slow every time you get shot at.

From everyone's name-drops it's clear there are loads of different options, but to the "injuries cause lower maximum health" list I'd like to add Metal Gear Solid 3 (and, possibly later editions, I haven´t played them). Different types of attacks cause different types of wounds (bullet wound, burn, broken bone) which cause injury, reducing max health until you use your medical supplies to heal each individual injury (using the correct individual medical tools for the appropriate wounds).
It was excellent, but I hated it. After every fight I'd spend 10 minutes working my way through menus trying to remember whether it was "knife, antiseptic, bandage" or "antiseptic, knife, painkiller, bandage" for a bullet wound... then again, that could just be me ;).
I'm a fan of the modern "no regen in combat, near-instant regen out of combat" systems, I feel that encourages quick gameplay without making firefights risk-less.

However, at the end of the day, Tiblanc's got it right with "It depends on what the focus of your game is." to be honest. In a murky horror game focusing on conserving limited resources over long periods, I wouldn't expect my health to regen at all - for example.

Wyrm.

An issue with that is defining it in a way that allows power progression. We can assume an expert archer would be able to deliver more pain than a novice archer, which means he can get the 2 arrows in the arm effect with a single shot. When would he switch from 2 hit required to 1 hit? And after he can disable everyone with a single hit, what's left? This creates little room for progression. It's fine for tabletop RPG style games, but for standard RPGs where power growth is the name of the game, that wouldn't work well.

For this scenario, I would do something like factor in armor durability into providing protection. Better armor providing better protection, and better archery being able to increase the chance of hitting weak-points in the armor. Better armor having less weak-points, and better arrows causing more loss to armor durability, or a better chance at penetration (critical hits).

As soon as the armor is either penetrated or broken, you start hitting the underlying body parts, and cause more significant damage/impacts.

The problem of detailed damage models is

[quote name='Net Gnome' timestamp='1332414584' post='4924267']
Dwarf Fortress is famous for this type of health system, its anotomical detail is amazing. You can end up cutting tendons and muscles, breaking bones, etc. The system even lets you target body parts as well. Toady did an awesome job on it.

It sounds like such a fun (and realistic?) system, but how taxing is something like this on a game's resources? I mean, I can't imagine a AAA FPS using such a detailed system without becoming unplayably slow every time you get shot at.[/quote]No, a very accurate damage model would take practically no performance. Visually representing the damage could take a bit of performance, but mostly just work to create the content.

I'm a fan of the modern "no regen in combat, near-instant regen out of combat" systems, I feel that encourages quick gameplay without making firefights risk-less.[/quote]I haven't played many modern FPSs, but I know most of them allow you to regen in combat as long as you just duck behind cover for a while. That specifically encourages risk-less and boring grinding down the enemies until there are none left, getting randomly and instantly killed and quickloading, or both. I find most of the time this design is either by bad designers, for bad players, or both.

If you had to actually leave combat in order to regen - whether by killing all enemies in the area, or really breaking contact so that enemies aren't after you anymore - that is generally going to be more interesting.

I haven't played many modern FPSs, but I know most of them allow you to regen in combat as long as you just duck behind cover for a while. That specifically encourages risk-less and boring grinding down the enemies until there are none left, getting randomly and instantly killed and quickloading, or both. I find most of the time this design is either by bad designers, for bad players, or both.

Yes, I agree that regen "in-combat" often leads to "I'll just sit behind this rock until my health is back, then shoot some guys, then repeat".
However; Mass Effect 3 attempts to get around this with "Smart" AI that will flank you while you're in cover... Gears of War has those ink-grenades that negate an area of cover. There are certanily systems in place in many games to stop you just sitting in cover - but they're hit-and-miss in terms of whether they work or not.

If you had to actually leave combat in order to regen - whether by killing all enemies in the area, or really breaking contact so that enemies aren't after you anymore - that is generally going to be more interesting.
[/quote]

"More interesting" - 100% agree. Plus, an easier solution than trying to stop the cover-camping whilst maintaining in-fight regen. WoW does it and I have a shooter in my head that does it too - I just cannot remember what it is for the life of me. (Going to bug me all day now).

Wyrm.