Player health recharge

It's basically the LO's job to make the HoF's life a misery

yep and in legions they got too much health to do this! HoF cant keep them off if they keep hiding and healthing up...just means only super experienced/dogmatic players will play HoF

its unbalanced imo
 

Dreamer

New Member
...Divide the health bar in 4 or 5 parts, and if your health goes below one of the lines you can regen your health only to that line and if you want your entire health back you're forced to use a health kit. But this may be unbalancing the game because it recharges your full health instantly. (emphasis added by Dreamer)
Just my thoughts.

Not gonna lie...I echo Serket's concerns with being able to instantaneously get full (or even parts of) health back via things like packs. It feels cheaper and less effective than the current system as it's been, creating other issues like health camping and hogging, while not fully fixing the original issues already at hand. Also, being able to save and use a health pack as needed is worse than slowly recharging when not being hit. That would mean you could recharge *while* being hit at a much faster rate, which would extend duels longer and make strategic shooting less effective.

"giving them health recharge makes base camping too easy".
That's seems to be the main issue people have brought up in regards to health regen as it's been in the past, other than snipers…and Serket's idea (which is really good) would fix both of them. With regards to the bases, the simplest solution is often the best. Even if Serket's idea isn't effective enough, then simply implementing no regen while in the enemy base is possible too.

Personally, complicating the game with a whole new health system without trying more minor tweaks first wouldn't feel like the Legions I know. Let's not move too much too fast from where it was before? =/ That said, I'm still grateful you guys on the developing team are bringing it back at all, so thank you. A lot.
 

Royalty

The Aussie
Yar, I agree, the health system needs a revamp.

Some things that I've seen suggested have been 'health kits' (usable items that restore some health), health regeneration (but more limited; ie: 50%).

What kinda repair system would the community like to see?

I'd prefer to just see the old healing system in place. I think it's perfect. But if the rest of the community wants to change it I'm not phased. However I recommend if the health system is changed, that it is done so after Overdrive has been running for a while, so users can think again about whether it really needs to be changed.
 

Strife

Moderator
yep and in legions they got too much health to do this! HoF cant keep them off if they keep hiding and healthing up...just means only super experienced/dogmatic players will play HoF

its unbalanced imo

Our team ran 2-4 (dependant on map) players on defense so our HoF was never alone, which eliminated the problem of LO hiding and killing our HoF opportunistically and still would if health regen was implemented.

Not gonna lie...I echo Serket's concerns with being able to instantaneously get full (or even parts of) health back via things like packs. It feels cheaper and less effective than the current system as it's been, creating other issues like health camping and hogging, while not fully fixing the original issues already at hand. Also, being able to save and use a health pack as needed is worse than slowly recharging when not being hit. That would mean you could recharge *while* being hit at a much faster rate, which would extend duels longer and make strategic shooting less effective.

There are negative and positive sides to both health packs and steady health regen, but honestly I think the health packs would have less of a detrimental effect on balance. If I remember correctly, the health packs that spawn are generally placed adjacent to the bases on small platforms or near key conflict points, making players go out of their way to collect them, or kill someone to get them. To be fair, killing someone to receive a health pack is completely reasonable and according to the people I asked in #legions the health packs only restore ~1/4 of your max health, which really isn't that big of a deal. It's just enough to keep you in the fight if you've gotten low on health and not so much that it's going to be a balanced fight for the next person that comes along to attack you, which is fine as you shouldn't be able to face multiple opponents and suffer no penalty for taking damage. But, if you're killing enough people to fully restore your health alone, then you've pretty much deserved it.

On the other hand, passive health regeneration would allow you to fully recover your health while waiting, especially if you're a sniper at long range. Now, I do like Serket's take on the idea but I still think it health packs are the way to go. I'll outline some of the reasons I believe health packs to be the better of the two choices.

  • You're not gaining from a passive mechanic, instead you're forced to take action and are rewarded accordingly.
  • These actions can be completely stopped by another player who's doing his job well, whether it be defense, offensive sniping, etc while health regeneration for the most part cannot be.
  • While it may contribute positively (though the act itself is generally negative) to camping/turtling, it provides another good point to hold from the enemy, which correlates to the above statement.
  • Health regeneration contributes positively to things like tower camping snipers (which is fine, but it doesn't fall in with the rest of my points) and rabbits. Whereas if healing was exclusive to health packs, a rabbit/sniper would have to go to a predictable area to receive a health pack or attempt to kill another player and someone could exploit this fact to kill them.
I'm also against being able to save health packs, though, I don't think it would work well for balance as a few of you have pointed out here.

On to my next point. I'm all for health packs over health regen, but I'd rather see some sort of healing asset added instead of health packs. This would contribute massively to the team play aspect of the game, as defense is required to defend it by whatever means and the offense required to act accordingly. It would also only support camping in the base and would require osnipers, rabbits and so on to return to their base if they needed the healing, where they could be intercepted (unless their team is turtling as well, at which point the fact that he's rabbiting is probably the least of your worries) and dealt with. In all honesty I would just like to see more base play with assets and the like, with people working together to achieve a common goal instead of supporting people pissing around midfield killing each other for health packs and the like in a CTF game. If you put critical assets at the base, you'll have people there.

To clarify, I'm not saying anyones points are bad, they're all good options to consider but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents. It's good to see people discussing mechanics and the like though, keep it up.
 

mausgang

Puzzlemaster
Heavy on Flag, Light Offense.
Your HoF is the one guarding the flag from cappers, you're LO are distracters and emergency grabbers. It's they're job to make sure the HoF is either dead, or looking the other way when a capper comes through.
It's basically the LO's job to make the HoF's life a misery
Yes, Hawk, that is the basic strategy. LO (I know some people, including myself, call them llamas) are a necessary part of keeping CTF going. If a capper goes through and the HoF is looking, it sucks to cap. Llamas may be a pain for the HoF, but they are only there because there's an HoF. Really, its economics, supply and demand. The strategy of the game relies on LO and yes, its annoying when LO goes off to regen by hiding somewhere, but as I've stated earlier, you attack and they either have an interrupted health regen or they die. Nivosus and moonshine are a little more difficult for this because the LO can go into the base, but with Forgotten or Nivosus or most of the other maps (Quarry falling under the moonshine category of good hiding spots in the base) its easy enough to send a few rockets their way. They're just doing their job, and if they weren't, defense would fail. Think about it this way, the LO are annoying you, but your team's LO is doing an equally excellent job of ticking off the other defenders, so really, if you want to make it a better game for the defense, the points won't rack up, cappers will become frustrated. I'm more of an offensive person, but I've spent plenty of time on defense, and I don't personally have a problem with the LO doing some health regen. They have to make the decision about whether or not to do it, and then where and when. Its an informed process and the careless ones bite the dust anyways.
 
Think about it this way, the LO are annoying you, but your team's LO is doing an equally excellent job of ticking off the other defenders, so really, if you want to make it a better game for the defense, the points won't rack up, cappers will become frustrated.

i think its fairly accepted that offence in legions is easier than defence...making it annoying to play crucial roles is not good for gameplay

i used to HoF then by the end of the map i had 3 LO constantly circling the base...LD ignores them alot cause they havent touched flag

pls believe me
 

Mhi200

Member
Maybe two layers of health, the first recharges, the second doesn't? Though that isn't a very original idea...
 

Strife

Moderator
I'd be willing to bet there'll be some testing and theorycrafting done on it within the development team as it's a popular topic. There aren't alot of original ideas available for restoring health as passive regeneration (with the "layer system" as well), health packs, healing, etc have all been used quite a bit. Whatever is decision is made in the end will be made taking alot of these ideas into consideration and of course be the most natural and balanced choice for Legions.
 

57thEnryu

Member
O_O ZOMG, IDEA!!!! we could have regenerating shields as a weapon!!!! Where you would chose a 3rd weapon, you could chose a shield that hold up for 150 damage, then dissipates. When you switch to it from another weapon it pops up (so u can't have the shield up and fire at the same time) until it takes 150 damage, then it becomes useless. And only from the front, if ur hit from behind ur gona take the damage. It recharges only after you go to the reload stations.

That could make some really interesting strategy, as if a rocket is about to hit you you could whip out the shield and your safe, then put it away and keep fighting. And cappers would have a little more protection when going in. Even further, this could integrate one team strategy with one shielding other firing, produce some extra defense help, this could work nicely :D
 

mausgang

Puzzlemaster
what would constitute as 150 damage? 1.5 x the life of an outrider, a raider, or a sentinel? I don't know what to think about deployable cover yet. If it goes in with the old style of health regen, then the HoF would really hate it, so I think if the shield is down, health couldn't regen for that player.
 

Volt Cruelerz

Legions Developer
Also, few people would use active shields... They'd just jet.

Passive Shields: good
Active Shields: worthless

The above isn't entirely correct, but is if you are intending to return fire at any point... If you are about to cap, it makes sense to activate an active shield, so that defense fire doesn't kill you. Its gonna be worthless on defense for the most part.
 

Homingun

Member
I think being able to regenerate health passively for not doing anything except running away is a broken mechanic. With this mechanic, I have noticed the people just shoot and kill others opportunistically and run away when attention turns towards them. They would rarely die since they could regenerate health while running away or hiding. I don't think guerilla tactics are lame or not honorable or what not, but rewarding this sort of passiveness is like rewarding camping.

One mechanic that I thought up of was some sort of health core drop. Everytime a person is killed, a health core would be part of his gibs. Picking up the health core would heal around 33-50% health (should be tested). This would reward actually killing someone and picking up the core. This core could also be implused away with rockets and such to create a nice focal point.
 

discord

Private Tester
I think being able to regenerate health passively for not doing anything except running away is a broken mechanic. With this mechanic, I have noticed the people just shoot and kill others opportunistically and run away when attention turns towards them. They would rarely die since they could regenerate health while running away or hiding. I don't think guerilla tactics are lame or not honorable or what not, but rewarding this sort of passiveness is like rewarding camping.

One mechanic that I thought up of was some sort of health core drop. Everytime a person is killed, a health core would be part of his gibs. Picking up the health core would heal around 33-50% health (should be tested). This would reward actually killing someone and picking up the core. This core could also be implused away with rockets and such to create a nice focal point.

Something we used to do in tribes was to dj towards our capper and suicide in flight so that he could catch our ammo and repkits in midair and continue on about his business with a refill of his expendables. It added a neat little bonus for awareness and teamwork.
 

mausgang

Puzzlemaster
cool yes, balanced, I don't know yet. It would create more teamwork and awareness, and while that's great for PUGs and clan games, there isn't much awareness in PUBs. I think it could work for killing somebody and gaining some health from that, but it would have to be accessible only by the person who did kill, or it would fall prey even more heavily to opportunism, with people just grabbing health drops left and right that they didn't earn. Also, this doesn't fix the opportunity kills, since the killer would get the health pack. MA suicides would be public, but everything else should go to the person who earned the kill. Also, this doesn't account for fall damage, and I'm staying by fall damage as it helps players become better skiers. The current health regen system is a reward for being passive. However, as I've argued and reiterated, passive is easy to kill, especially in a game like Legions. Inflict the tiniest bit of damage and the regen is halted for another period of time, so either they rabbit, or stand and fight and hopefully die. The current system encourages making decisions based on the current conditions so that people have to think about whether or not to retreat, how long to retreat, and how long they can stay passive before heading back into the fray. I have no problem with the old system of health regen, and while I understand all of the concerns, I hate to say this, but I'm afraid people are blaming their inability to cope with a situation not on their skill level, but on the game and how others are mindful enough to use the resources provided. Light defense can easily deal with people camping to get health back because the reason they do this is because they are low on health. One or two rockets towards the person stupid enough to stay in place in an enemy base to do some health regen deals with the problem. If they retreat, I wouldn't complain, it makes defense lighter work by a bit for a little while. I don't play DM on legions and maybe people have a different opinion on health regen in that game, but for CTF, I honestly don't find the system broken.
 

Hypnotoad

Member
I don't have a problem with the way things are. Maybe one thing I would change is not being able to recharge health whilst in an enemy base, as the op mentioned. Health packs are a nice concept though, will be interesting to see how it plays out.
 

A2

Member
We can have something like the quick health pack in Alien Swarm.
You have one kit that can be used once throughout the game - activating it refills your health slowly until either your health is full, or till the capacity of refill in the health pack is over.
 

Mhi200

Member
I think if health packs are implemented, they should not be instant, but repair-over-time, and cancelled if you're hit, otherwise it may not actually help the LO problem (as much), and people would just use mid-combat to prolong duels, as has been previously mentioned.
 

Alex

Member
so this is when legions comes to puberty and will bear a striking resemblance to tribes....sad...I hope that health kits won't be put in the game at least in the first few weeks...it would just spoil all the excitment for me at least
 
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