T4 HEALTH System - Food & Healing Potion & General Discussion

[Viktoria]

Do you want to see the traditional system back in T4 - health potion, fruit and meat etc.
Or perhaps you have other ideas?

Discuss...

[Nate]

I always disliked the idea of 'hmm, I ate an apple and some of my cuts suddenly healed right up'.....

Garrett should only be able to heal by going to a healer or by drinking healing potions. Although, resting between missions should heal him up partially as well.

[StalinsGhost]

Health Potion all the way with Thief. I actually support the health-regen model they're using in DE3, but in Thief you must be vunerable and be forced to plan ahead and for any contingencies. That's part of what makes Thief so awesome

[Thievingtaffer]

I don't think that there was anything wrong in the older games.

[Danie1]

Old system was best! I'm not too fond of "magical healing", but healing potions and food didn't bother me.

[Nate]

Down with food!...I mean in the game of course.

[UrUkUs]

food shouldn't restore health, but Garret can have hunger, so we have to eat from time to time, or his energy will lower.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by UrUkUs

food shouldn't restore health, but Garret can have hunger, so we have to eat from time to time, or his energy will lower.

You know, that actually sounds kind of neat....as long as they don't end up with an Ultima 7 'Avatar, we are hungry, feed us now!' kind of experience. Hehe, I am probably the only one here who will understand that reference.

[cobak]

Originally Posted by UrUkUs

food shouldn't restore health, but Garret can have hunger, so we have to eat from time to time, or his energy will lower.

This could work if they added in stamina for running... similar to Half Life 2's sprinting or whatever. Food could regenerate his stamina. MOST people don't go around sprinting everywhere unless they're doing a speed run anyway, and that way you can't just run away from the guards forever because you'll only be able to outrun them until your stamina runs out.

[nicked]

sounds like it'd be a pain in the ass to heal. There's a big difference between realistic and fun. Healing food isn't realistic, but it's a lot less immersion-breaking than having to leave the mission to visit a healer, or having to eat food every few minutes to not get tired!? It's not the Sims!

[UrUkUs]

Originally Posted by cobakka

and that way you can't just run away from the guards forever because you'll only be able to outrun them until your stamina runs out.

thats why i suggested in weapons thread, about weight system, with heavy bag full of loot you can't run with it, unless you have 1 PS like a horse

Originally Posted by nicked

sounds like it'd be a pain in the ass to heal. There's a big difference between realistic and fun. Healing food isn't realistic, but it's a lot less immersion-breaking than having to leave the mission to visit a healer, or having to eat food every few minutes to not get tired!? It's not the Sims!

when balance is good, you shouldn't get tired quick, and your stamina should restore fast, just hide and sit in shadows for few seconds, then continue your way.

[ByLaw]

My take:
Healer - would be bad in practice because it would force you to break continuity, and couldn't heal mid-level
Food - not realistic, but giving a SLIGHT health boost might be helpful, and could be slightly realistic (eating might give you the energy to carry on, so it would get you from one health bar to two or three, but nothing beyond that to make the game playable but keep the tension)
Regeneration - NO! Damage in thief should be a serious penalty, since if you're playing the game correctly you should not take damage at all. Regeneration makes this too easy.
Potions - worked well for the originals. Higher difficulty should limit the number of potions you can carry.
Self-treating system - now what would REALLY add to the atmosphere is if there were various treatments around each level that one could use on oneself, such as a bandage, sutures, tincture, etc. Not unlike the system in Metal Gear Solid 3. It would force one to hunt for the treating items, and then perhaps a minigame to use them properly - do it right, and you get full health; do it wrong or with only some of the tools, and you get some but not full benefit.

[nicked]

Minigames? Forcing the player to hunt for healing items? I thought the idea was to make the game immersive.

[Princess_Frosty]

Food I think is a good idea, the health potions are OK but maybe make them work over a longer period of time, one of the few niggles I had with the thief games, a more slow release health potion would crush that niggle like a large...er..noggle?

Anyway, yeah have both but more slow release so theres no instant healthpack like heal, you have to hide and slowly regen over time.

[ByLaw]

Originally Posted by nicked

Minigames? Forcing the player to hunt for healing items? I thought the idea was to make the game immersive.

It would be no different than the lock-picking game that is essentially a requirement and doesn't remove immersion but adds to it. Healing oneself could result in greater visibility, prompting you to hurry - maybe you could only heal yourself in the light, so you could "see what you're doing," raising your risk.

[GmanPro]

Just please. No regenerating health. I'll leave it at that.

[Danie1]

From some of the complaints above:

Food in the first two Thief games randomly restaored health, and when they did, it wa only 1 drop worth. Plums always restored two drops worth, but they were associated with supernatural beings.

Health potions in Thief/Thief II were slow acting. It took about 30 seconds for them to fully work.

Does no one here feel better after eating something? I always get an energy boost after having an apple or sandwich after working out. It's not the same as being hurt from a sword or high fall, but it's a natural and easy way to add minor healing to the game.

[ToMegaTherion]

Food shouldn't restore health because it's silly.

Healing potions should operate as they did in the original, since that was the original and there was no good reason to change it. Unless the designers can come up with something better. But if it's a choice between immediate action and slower action, then slower action is better. In fact, even slower than the original might be a good idea for gameplay reasons.

[Danie1]

What makes a potion less silly than food? I'm not trying to rude or anything, but I really think food is a good way to add health to the mission without needing to have an excuse to add health potions.

[TheJoker]

Originally Posted by Danie1

From some of the complaints above:

Food in the first two Thief games randomly restaored health, and when they did, it wa only 1 drop worth. Plums always restored two drops worth, but they were associated with supernatural beings.

Health potions in Thief/Thief II were slow acting. It took about 30 seconds for them to fully work.

Does no one here feel better after eating something? I always get an energy boost after having an apple or sandwich after working out. It's not the same as being hurt from a sword or high fall, but it's a natural and easy way to add minor healing to the game.

Agreed

[AntiMatter_16]

Originally Posted by Danie1

From some of the complaints above:

Food in the first two Thief games randomly restored health, and when they did, it was only 1 drop worth. Plums always restored two drops worth, but they were associated with supernatural beings.

Health potions in Thief/Thief II were slow acting. It took about 30 seconds for them to fully work.

Does no one here feel better after eating something? I always get an energy boost after having an apple or sandwich after working out. It's not the same as being hurt from a sword or high fall, but it's a natural and easy way to add minor healing to the game.

In Thief The Dark Project, the only food that could heal you was the plum, or "healing fruit" as it was actually called and was associated with the Trickster's magic. All other food you could eat with no benefit. It wasn't until Thief II that bread and the deer leg were changed to make them randomly heal the player 1 point about every 1/4 times you ate one. And in Thief Deadly Shadows, food just sat around uselessly. You couldn't even eat it for fun. Which was kind of a downer, honestly.

I'm of the opinion that the player's health points are evaluative of not only wounds, but also fatigue. I honestly hate fatigue systems, I find them very annoying. Eating often does make one feel better to some degree, so I'm for food working as it did in Thief 2. But as the very least, the player should be able to eat food if it's lying around. Why prevent the player from doing so?

[ToMegaTherion]

Originally Posted by Danie1

What makes a potion less silly than food? I'm not trying to rude or anything, but I really think food is a good way to add health to the mission without needing to have an excuse to add health potions.

I guess I don't mind healing potions because they don't exist in reality, but Deer Legs do and they're not noted for repairing wounds.

I see your point from a gameplay perspective. But I'm not sure that making the kitchen one of the best places to loot is desirable atmospherically

[Viktoria]

What about the audio? The 'crunch' of the apple, the 'gulp' of the health potion etc.
Would it be sensible to expect these familiar sounds back in T4?

[cobak]

Originally Posted by UrUkUs

thats why i suggested in weapons thread, about weight system, with heavy bag full of loot you can't run with it, unless you have 1 PS like a horse



when balance is good, you shouldn't get tired quick, and your stamina should restore fast, just hide and sit in shadows for few seconds, then continue your way.

i would support the weight system with 2 conditions:

1) Loot doesn't count. The game is all about stealing stuff so let's don't punish someone for that However, carrying lots of weapons/tools does count.

2) If combined with my stamina idea so that the weight system only effects how quickly you lose stamina when running/moving fast.

As for as stamina goes, I think moving fast/running for a while should effect it as well as jumping 3 times in a row or something (since technically jumping was the fastest way to move in Thief heh). And I completely agree that it should restore fast, even without eating something. I just think that eating something to restore stamina makes more sense than health. Maybe as you get more hurt your max stamina goes down until you eat something?

[cobak]

Originally Posted by VIKTORIA

What about the audio? The 'crunch' of the apple, the 'gulp' of the health potion etc.
Would it be sensible to expect these familiar sounds back in T4?

and yes please! thats really why i ate apples at all... it was a very satisfying crunch