Improvement: Health system ideas

[Goldoche]

I don't know how health will work in the full release of PS2, so I'll assume they'll keep the same system as the e3 demo. Hopefully regenerative health was just for the purpose of the demo, the same way they let MAXes entering vehicles.

I don't really like regenerating health because I think that it keeps people from using teamwork. It doesn't encourage people to play together and it removes some purpose to the medic class. That's why non-regenerative health is better. The major problem with it is when someone is nearly dead, it's often quicker to kill himself than to seek a medic. The solution to this is a regenerative shield that takes damage before your health bar. Now, someone nearly dead can still take some punishment thanks to his shield but he's not as tough as a fresh soldier. This shield is already in the game. Personally, I think that this system is perfect because the medic stays very useful and and a player that nearly died will still be able to take a few hits.

I do understand the advantages of regenerative health, though. Because it's free to play, the game needs to be dumbed down to similar, more popular shooters to attract the most players possible. If the game is hard to get into, it won't be able to attract enough players to fill those 6000 player servers. Also, regenerative health works very well in high paced games because it encourage players to take risks.

If the developers won't change the health system to regenerative shield/non-regenerative health, I tought of a few "happy middle" solutions. I'll start with the simpler ones and go on.

#1 Buff the shields, nerf the health bar so you'll have the same amount of total hitpoints. Use non-regenerative health. This is self explanatory.

#2 Make your health only regenerate to a X amount of HP. You'll still need a medic to be back at full health but less dependent on him depending on the amount of hp you can regenerate.

#3 Use the same health system as Mass Effect 3 / Halo reach / Resistance. The health bar is separated by a X number of points and you can only regenerate health to one of those. (Exemple : My health bar is separated by 4 and I'm at 40% hp. I'll regenerate to 50% hp. If I'm at 55%, I'll regenerate to 75%) This is similar to idea #2 but more punishing.

#4 This the most complex one but my favorite. Each class except MAXes would have an additional equipment slot for a morphine shot. When the morphine shot is used, the player will regenerate a percentage of missing health over a few seconds. If you use your morphine shot when you're close to dying it'll be more useful than if you use it when you have 80% of your health. It would work like the med-kits in left 4 dead. You can only have one or two with you maximum, a medic two or three times that amount. Using a morphine shot would require an animation of 2-3 seconds. If you already used your morphine shot, you can ask a teammate for his. The standard medic's healing gun would still be relevant because the morphine shots will never be able to heal you fully and because they would eventually run out since they are limited.

This idea is great for many reasons :

-It encourages teamwork unlike regenerative health.

-Medics are even more useful. They don't need to baby-sit players to help them.

-It reinforce the "logistics" idea. Morphine shots would be a limited resource so eventually squads would run out and they would need to be resupplied.

Other idea: Care-packages could be included into the game, dropped via liberator. If a squad runs dry of ammo, they could request a drop via VoIP. A liberator would load a care package from a facility and drop it near the squad. The care package would provide ammo, morphine shots and the box itself provide cover. It would self destruct 1 minute after used. This idea reinforce the "logistic" aspect of Planetside, communication and team work.