Regenerating Health: Difference between revisions
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You remember when you'd get a stitch in PE and the teacher would tell you to walk it off, even though that only made it worse? Now imagine him saying that after you've taken five bullets to the chest. Then imagine it ''working''.
That's the technique that a number of [[First-Person Shooter]] games since the 2000s use for restoring health; if a player finds himself nearing death, all he has to do is go hide somewhere or dodge attacks until health regeneration kicks in. It's still one of the [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]], especially in shooters which encourage slower pace, since the character recovering
Instead of making the game about conserving the resources of the level ([[Breather Level|or game]]) as a whole, the player has to mostly worry about surviving individual encounters. Setpiece shootouts become the order of the day, as does [[Take Cover|searching for and using cover]] which is said to lead to a glorified game of whack a mole; pop up and kill a target, pop under cover and regenerate, repeat until you win. Regenerating health is the most common in shooters which fall near the middle of the [[Fackler Scale of FPS Realism]] scale.
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** Although to be fair, the [[Game Breaker|Health Regeneration aug]] in the first two games makes regen in modern shooters look downright slow by comparison, especially at its full levels. In the first game, it effectively turned any Repair Bot into Medical Bots, sans augmentation installation capabilities, and bio cells into health packs.
* The [[Ur Example]] of the Regenerating Health mechanic was the 1984 [[Action RPG]] ''[[Hydlide]]'', where health and magic slowly regenerate when standing still.
*
* The ''[[Ys]]'' series which began in 1987 also use a similar Regenerating Health mechanic.
* Continuing the [[Older Than They Think]] examples, ''[[wikipedia:Exile (arcade adventure)|Exile]]'' ([[Similarly Named Works|not that]] [[Exile|one]]) had it back in the 1980s. You still don't have a whole lot of it and many enemies will deplete it quickly, but at least you just get teleported back to your last teleporter marker (and lose a lot of points) instead of dying.
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* ''[[Battlefield 3]]''
** Both players and vehicles have it; however, like ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution]]'', it takes a while to kick in, it's nowhere near fast enough to protect a player from sustained damage, and there are ways for attackers prevent it:
*** If shots are fired close enough to a player (i.e. an almost-headshot from a sniper rifle or a long burst from a machine gun), the player is considered "suppressed"
*** A vehicle at half-health is considered "disabled," whereupon they catch on fire and health will actually ''bleed'' out unless the vehicle is repaired by an Engineer, or (for aircraft) the Extinguisher is used (this ability immediately restores the aircraft to 53% health, putting it above the disabling threshold; however if a land Vehicle is disabled it needs to be repaired to full health otherwise it is still classed as disabled and will keep bleeding health.
* ''[[Tribes: Vengeance]]'' has [[Gradual Regeneration]] for anyone equipped with a repair pack, with the rate of regeneration substantially increased and with a limited area-of-effect for a short duration upon activation. ''[[Tribes Ascend]]'' instead gives everyone regenerating health by default, but with a massive delay of around 30 seconds or so before it kicks in (without perks to reduce the delay), thus it cannot be relied upon in the same sense as most other current FPSs and carrying a flag disables regeneration entirely. ''[[Starsiege: Tribes]]'' and ''Tribes 2'', by contrast, do not have regenerating health at all; the closest thing to it is repairing yourself with the repair pack. Otherwise, any carried medkits are all the healing you get in the field, and their use is rather limited.
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*** The [[Walk It Off]] aspects become ludicrous in ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' and ''Black Ops'' multiplayer, where you can take ten [[BFG|M240/M60]] rounds to the stomach over the course of about forty-five seconds and walk away with no real damage, but die instantly when a thrown knife or a small steel hatchet hits your foot.
* ''[[Silent Hill 4]]'' provides regeneration for the player while he is in his apartment - but only in the first part of the game.
* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[
* ''[[Independence War]]'' has a constant auto-repair system on all ships, but it's rather slow relative to the damage that weapons inflict. This is why you want to finish off ships quickly when attacking (firing LDSi missiles if necessary to prevent them running away, taking a time-out for auto-repair to do its thing, and jumping back in), while trying to keep out of range of attack while defending for as long as possible.
* In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' you regenerate health and lose risk (which makes you more vulnerable but also gives you more attack power) continuously when outside of combat.
* ''[[The Getaway]]'' allowed characters to regain health by leaning against walls for a breather. This is perhaps the earliest example of regenerating health in the common modern sense.
* The ''[[Fallout]]'' and ''[[Arcanum]]'' [[RPG
** Additionally, the ''[[Fallout]]'' games had the First Aid and Doctor skills, which let you gain some experience for healing yourself, ''and'' heal crippled limbs without paying a doctor. They could be used a limited number of times per day, however, even without the kits.
** In Fallout's spiritual ancestor ''[[Wasteland (video game)|Wasteland]]'', the Medic and Doctor skills only worked on seriously wounded characters. Normal hit point damage could only be healed by waiting, and the game would tell you so.
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* ''[[Mafia II]]'' made use of the partial regeneration mechanic, which calls for eating or drinking in order for Vito to fully heal when he takes significant damage, either from sustaining too much gunshots or vehicle-related injuries. While this made the game a tad easier than the original game (in fact, Joe Barbaro jokingly [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|broke the Fourth Wall]] for indirectly referring to the health system in Chapter 5), it still won't keep the player from getting killed instantly in a gunfight, especially on hard difficulty.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'''s Naked Snake can wait out his injuries. The rate of health increase is dependent on how high his Stamina Gauge is. If you can't be bothered waiting for his health to rise like that, you can also knock him out with a sedative mushroom or with chloroform - during his sleep, he recovers faster. You can even save, turn the game off, and come back after a day or so has elapsed on your console's clock.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' and the Twin Snakes remake let you recover health if you were bleeding by crouching or lying on the ground. This only recovers enough health until the bleeding stops.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Summoner]]'', the instant you exit back to the world map, whether from a random encounter or a major dungeon area, your health and action points are restored to full, no matter how hurt you were. The only thing it doesn't cure is death. Somewhat justified in that main character Joseph learns at least the basic healing spell pretty much immediately, action point restoration is just a matter of time, and [[Units Not to Scale|world map travel is assumed to take much longer]] than it "actually" takes - in theory, everyone could be healed up and all action points regained in the time it takes to take one step on the world map.
* In ''[[Face Ball]] 2000'', each happy-face character regains one hit point if not attacked for a few seconds.
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** ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' uses sectioned health, where sections regenerate unless depleted, at which point must be recovered with medi-gel.
* ''[[Uncharted Drakes Fortune]]'' relies upon this type of healing method. As Nathan Drake takes damage, the graphics slowly begin to lose saturation, and in order to recover his health he must take cover. [[Word of God]] says that it isn't actually his health, but his luck-only the last bullet that hits you when your luck depletes actually counts for the kill. In other words, if you die, it is not because you were riddled with lead, but because [[Instant Death Bullet|one single bullet]] managed to get you when you ran out of luck.
* Even ''[[
** The Protoss from ''[[
* In ''[[Warcraft]]'' II, the Troll Berserkers can acquire the ability to slowly regenerate health.
** ''Warcraft 3''' gave this ability to all units, but Trolls could learn to do it faster. In addition, Undead units either barely regenerate (in the case of Heroes and some units) or couldn't regenerate at all unless on Blight, while Night Elves heal faster during the night cycle.
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** Not to mention when combined with other passive abilities that restore your MP (for example, damaging enemies or taking damage), you can regain MP fairly quickly. Areas heavy with Mist will regenerate your MP faster as you run around.
** ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' also does the same thing with its magic system. Just walk around the room to recover your magic power.
* In ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Circle of the Moon]]'', one of the spells allows you to heal gradually, but you have to stand still for it to work. This costs quite a bit of MP, but you recover MP gradually
** The Time Heal move from ''Curse of Darkness'' also allows you to heal some of Hector's health gradually. You do get to run around while using it, though.
* In the ''[[Monster Hunter]]'' series, half of the health you lose from hits turns red instead of disappearing. If you can keep from getting hit again, the red portion will regenerate, but no more than that. Of course, potions will be necessary for any consequential amount of healing.
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* This happens in ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'' if you wait long enough but its easier just to find something electrical and drain it as doing so restores health also.
* Scratch Damage (inflicted by all enemies when you have Hero Points left, inflicted by the player characters with machine guns) in ''[[Resonance of Fate]]'' heals automatically, even during combat, especially during Invincible Action (AKA Hero Actions). Direct Damage (inflicted by poison, regular enemy attacks when in Condition Critical, or the players using grenades or pistols), however, is permanent unless you rest or use a Perfect Aid - it also makes Scratch Damage permanent.
* Optional in ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Tooie]]''
* ''[[Water Warfare]]'' [[Justified Trope|justifies]]
* A justified variant in ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'', where Crypto is a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]] with a [[Force Field]]; if you go about seven seconds without being hit, the shield will regenerate even if completely destroyed.
* ''[[The Saboteur]]'' features this, although with a [[Modern Warfare]]-style reddening of the screen. Annoyingly, if you're badly wounded and climb into a vehicle, as long as the ''vehicle'' is being hit you will neither recover nor take damage - meaning you have to try and escape the Nazis through the streets of Paris while being completely unable to see where you're going.
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* ''[[Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath]]'' had an odd healing mechanic. The Stranger could stand still and shake all the bullets, knives, and arrows out of his body, healing him, so long as he had "stamina." Stamina is used for nothing else and regenerates automatically.
* ''Kill.Switch'', one of the earliest games to use a [[Take Cover|cover mechanic]], also had a regenerating health bar. Taking heavy damage over a short period of time, however, could cause the bar itself to shrink, reducing your maximum health and making you increasingly vulnerable until you found a medkit to restore it to its original length.
* ''[[Ace Combat: Assault Horizon]]'' brings this mechanic to [[Ace Combat|the series]] for the first time, including the reddening screen. Some fans were... most displeased.▼
▲* A case of [[Older Than They Think]], the Atari ST game ''MIDI Maze'', aka ''Faceball 2000'', featured regenerating health long before the formation of Bungie Inc., let alone the realization of ''[[Halo]]'', especially considering that the first release of the game was in 1987.
▲* ''[[Ace Combat Assault Horizon]]'' brings this mechanic to [[Ace Combat|the series]] for the first time, including the reddening screen. Some fans were... most displeased.
** Playing on Ace difficulty, however, disables regenerating health.
* This was one of the more controversial features in ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'', since regenerated health implies hiding to heal up, and hiding isn't Duke's style.
* ''[[
* ''[[Command
* The [[Needs More Love|inexplicably]] [[Cult Classic|obscure]] ''[[Medabots]]'' game for the [[GBA]], ''Medabots AX'' (both [[One Game for the Price of Two|versions]]) had a variant of this: while not regenerating health, standing still for a while triggered an [[Idle Animation]] that charged ''your robot's Medaforce move'' faster. [[Game Breaker|A whole lot faster.]]
* In ''[[Minecraft]]'', health works this way as long as your "food meter" is nearly full. When the food meter is completely empty, [[Wizard Needs Food Badly|the exact opposite happens]].
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* In ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'' robots (that is, Demi and Wren) regenerate health as they walk around, to compensate for the fact that most healing magic does not work on them.
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Online]]'' has regen, but it only works outside combat. You need to use Damage Control Packs to [[Heal Thyself]] in a fight.
== References in Other Media ==
=== Web Comics ===
* On ''[[Cracked.com]]'':
** The regeneration in first-person shooters is the 23rd [http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_388_27-science-lessons-as-taught-by-famous-video-games/ Science Lesson As Taught by Famous Video Games].
** One of [http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_586_31-life-lessons-you-can-only-learn-from-video-games/ 31 Life Lessons You Can Only Learn From Video Games] is to "duck and cover and stay put until you are fully healed".
=== Real Life ===
* A certain species of jellyfish, namely Turritopsis dohrnii, is known to be able to regenerate in adverse conditions. Planarian flatworms are just as capable of doing so, too.
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