Bro, it's the Koolaid man's man juice. He just ejaculated into your face.
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Player Damage signified by tonal shifts or lasting screen effects is a baffling design decision.
- Thread starter Bruceleeroy
- Start date
Bro, it's the Koolaid man's man juice. He just ejaculated into your face.
It really is such a good design choice. If you're going to put stuff on screen that communicates how much in trouble you are, might as well put it smack dab in the middle, where nobody will miss it. At the same time make it so small that it does not obscure the screen to the point where it makes the game hard to read. Side effect is that because you're constantly looking at it, with time you get the feel of how much health you have left at any point, whether to push or hide behind cover, what type of weapon is hitting you right now, etc.
So true !! Maybe the sword could talk to remind us that our health is too low ? Seems like a great idea :)
Please don't
It's like they knew it was shit so they blurred it and lowered the opacity to help it but didn't decide to come up with something else.What, this is distracting or something?
Ehilst I take your point, I hafta say I applaud them for what I feel is a very clear indicator of how badly I'm doing in a fight without blasting me with annoying beeps, klaxons or heartbeats (looking at you, shadow of war!).
All in all I find the uncharted method pretty informative. I don't like my lush colour palette being taken away from me just as much as I don't like being shot or beaten to death. There's an effective symbiosis there that I'm cool with.
I'd say you don't get it, if you think you should just be able to ignore life threatening injuries. :P It beeps because Link is on death's door and it's a problem that needs to be rectified immediately. Link is in extreme pain with unaddressed medical problems!
Wolfenstein 2 definitely has that opposite problem that the OP mentioned, it's driving me nuts. If it were a slower paced game (or when killing most enemies via stealth) the current system would be ok. But when all hell breaks loose it's just so fast paced it's tough to keep track of enemies, where bullets are coming from, and how much health I have left. I usually just keel over before I can get my bearings. This is at the second to highest difficulty mind you, maybe this isn't so much a problem at lower difficulties.
And then put "You are hurt! Get to cover!" Message in the middle of the screen to add insult to injury.
Gee, thanks game.
This stuff is done because 9 times out of 10, during play testing, people keep saying things:
-they die too fast
-they thought they had way more health (and there's no way they could have been taken out with one shot from a pistol)
-they don't have a good idea what their health or status is because the gameplay and HUD are focused on the edges where people aren't necessarily paying attention
The solution is to affect the entire screen and audio to make it obvious once you've hit a lower health threshold. It's a delicate balancing act which it needs to be relayed at the right time and not be obstructive while still being obvious to people.
-they die too fast
-they thought they had way more health (and there's no way they could have been taken out with one shot from a pistol)
-they don't have a good idea what their health or status is because the gameplay and HUD are focused on the edges where people aren't necessarily paying attention
The solution is to affect the entire screen and audio to make it obvious once you've hit a lower health threshold. It's a delicate balancing act which it needs to be relayed at the right time and not be obstructive while still being obvious to people.
Low health screen effects and things like suppression in Battlefield are some of my most hated game design decisions. In some games your visibility becomes seriously hampered, making it hard to zero in on just who is shooting you, or where to go to find cover. In other words: "can't see shit". In some way it feels like you are being punished for playing poorly. Sometimes it's easier just to concede the death and restart from checkpoint/respawn.
I think I've only played one game were the screen changed when on low health and imo it's like an extra hard/troll-mode: hey, I see you are in a bit of trouble there! How about me making it harder for you to see stuff? Will that help?
Tagyhag: lol, what a beautiful idea.
Trails in the Sky changes its music depending on how bad/good you are doing and I'm pretty sure there was another JRPG that did this.
Tagyhag: lol, what a beautiful idea.
Basically.
I like the idea of everything fading except the enemies in the immediate area. If it's an FPS couple it with a toggleable slowdown recovery shot (if it's that kind of game) and you're onto a winner.
Call of Duty's strawberry jam damage screen was always funny.
OP
OP
Yeah that would be great if you aren't playing on the harder difficulties where just one or two shots immediately puts you in danger of needing a tourniquet
I'm partial to this style of health indicator from Quake 3:
As for damage indicators, I think the ones in Half-Life / CS work great, they're not distracting and they're directional.
As for damage indicators, I think the ones in Half-Life / CS work great, they're not distracting and they're directional.
Infamous is so bad with this. You are forced into this sluggish slow motion and the screen becomes blurry.
Who thought that was a good idea? Jesus Christ.
Dead Space handled it brilliantly.
Who thought that was a good idea? Jesus Christ.
Dead Space handled it brilliantly.
I personally think it can increase immersion if used correctly. Also never thought of the "Beep, Beep" as that annoying, especially as you rarely got that low.
Using low health to induce some kind of urgency is a good design element if used correctly of course. Maybe add a movement options that is only available once you reach the state where your vision is impaired and urgency sets in, for example a slight jump or whatever may suit the character.
I agree with other posters that developers should experiment more with the UI/HUD.
Using low health to induce some kind of urgency is a good design element if used correctly of course. Maybe add a movement options that is only available once you reach the state where your vision is impaired and urgency sets in, for example a slight jump or whatever may suit the character.
I agree with other posters that developers should experiment more with the UI/HUD.
What are you talking about? Your entire vision getting blurry and grayscale as you're getting hurt, optionally with red jello, is just like real life.
I have to mute Zelda at this point. I hate that noise.
I prefer a straight health bar also to screen or audio changes
First time I played Zelda ALTTP was the GBA port, and that god damn low health beep while playing in headphones nearly caused me psychological damage. There is no point to a constant beep if there is nothing you can do about it. It just annoys the crap out of you and pisses you off the longer it goes on.
I like the way Battlefield 4 has the player person do a distinct, extra heavy grunt if you take significant damage. It's the "oh crap, get to cover" sound.
Either go with something visible on the character, like Dead Space's rig, or a change in animation, like RE characters holding their ribs/dragging their weapon, just do that without hindering movement/vision.
Just another tragedy of the overuse of the regenerating health mechanic.
Either way, just give us a health bar or HP and leave the red filter or tunnel vision out.
Either way, just give us a health bar or HP and leave the red filter or tunnel vision out.
We learned recently from the twitter developer dump about some of the ways we are tricked into feeling or thinking a certain thing in games. Health bars would ruin some of those tricks. I'm usually not bothered by the visual overlays. in MP, everyone has them, so it's "fair".