Health Regeneration Confirmed, This is rather saddening... Options

[Thomas Kaira]

Source.

Q: Is there any form of regenerating health without any perks etc?
A: Health, magicka, and stamina all regen slowly over time.

So there you have it, Skyrim has fallen to the rebounding health cliche. Not too many details yet, but if it allows for full and complete health regen, this is SERIOUSLY not good.

I cannot stress this further, there is no better way to describe dumbing a game down than auto-regenerating health. If they want to avoid being called out on this, and if Bethesda wants to avoid absolutely destroying Restoration magic's prime use they need to place some SERIOUS limitations on the system. Some examples:

- Health does not regenerate while in combat.
- It must be a VERY slow effect, on the magnitude of about one HP every 15 to 30 seconds, real time.
- If your health falls below a critical level (due to the presence of supplemental healing spells in this game, I'll say 25% to 50%), NO REGEN AT ALL. PERIOD.

Fine and dandy for regen to be able to simulate minor wounds going away over time, because that's what the living body is designed to do, but major wounds? Uh uh. You need supplemental healing for those, you cannot "wait out" a broken bone (unset bones heal wrong and can completely disable the use of the limb), or a sword slash wound that is now copiously bleeding (try and wait this one out, you WILL die).

Also, it's the thought that counts here, as well. I am getting sick and tired of rebounding health bars being in EVERY SINGLE [censored] GAME.

I really do hope Bethesda thought this one through. If they didn't, there is going to be serious backlash.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Aug 17 2011, 01:06 AM

[haute ecole rider]

I'm with Destri on this. There are plenty of challenging games out there that meet my occasional desire for some slash-n-smash (or spraying some high-power ammo when applicable) without thinking things through.

But combat is not the reason I love Oblivion and keep coming back to it. Yes, I like my combat to be realistic in terms of what my PC can do and the amount of damage s/he can deliver and take. And I also like it to be simple - no trying out weird combinations of buttons to get fancy moves that are just as likely to impale my PC on an ally's sword as impaling the enemy on my own.

No, I love Oblivion because of the options it gave me, even on the console, to explore the whole world (within its borders, of course). When I first fired it up and escaped the sewer (back when I was playing it on the XBox), the one thing that blew me away was the immersive quality of the environment. When I heard the wind blowing, the trees moved. Sunrises and sunsets were convincingly real - the change in light was hardly detectable. And most of all, I was not limited in where I could go in that beautiful environment. There were no boundaries within all of Cyrodiil - I could go to the left or the right, jump over rocks, even climb them. I could go mountain-climbing if I wanted to. I could even swim entirely underwater. And all of this on the console? Amazing! Up to that point, the most immersive game I had ever played was the Rainbow Six series, and even that had places I couldn't go. And the interactions with the NPC's were the best I had ever encountered.

Those are the reasons I still enjoy Oblivion tremendously. And now I'm exploring role-playing as I've never done before - without regard to the available quests. This time, my character is dictating the story, not the questline. And it's a very different way of playing that I'm not used to. Finding purpose in the game that has nothing to do with the Main Quest or even any of the quests is really challenging my story-telling abilities. Granted, I'm doing this on the PC, which gives you more freedom (not to mention the mods that add more detail - I totally loved exploring Bravil!).

Health regeneration? Okay if it's slow and good only for minor hits. But major injuries ought to remain - well - major. Otherwise where is the drama that comes from encountering enemies bigger and stronger than yourself? I guess I'm echoing TK here.

At this point I'm not holding my breath with Skyrim. I'll wait and see what the general consensus is. I may even wait until the price drops on it (say,during the run-up to ESVI, if there is ever one more).

As a student of business, I can't say that I blame Bethesda for taking the route it's going. This is a very competitive industry, and trends change faster than it takes to get a game through the pipeline. So Beth noticed quite a few years ago that console players were buying up games that brought instant gratification, like GTO, Call of Duty, etc - the action/shooters - in increasing numbers. Can you blame them for wanting a share of that pie for themselves? OTOH, I do sense a growing concern among hard-core roleplayers that the limited choices available to them are becoming stale. I can understand that feeling. After all, I watched Saturn go from being an innovative auto company to being a stifled branch of GMC to being nonexistent. Hopefully good RPG's won't go that same route, and hopefully Beth will remember its RP-gamers and more importantly, respect them by continuing to offer serious RPG's.