Health Bar?

EventH · Post by **EventH** » 2006-12-25 07:13

I did a few searches, didnt find this issue addressed previously. My apologies if it has been already and I missed it.

Ok, so Ive been playing PR for a little less than a week, and loving it, but theres one little thing that bugs me. The lack of a health indicator.

For instance, if Im running down a hill (or if I fall down a hill) I usually get hurt, but how much? In real life, this would be easy to tell. The injury would range from a bruised shin to a compound fracture of the femur with a twisted ankle being somewhere in-between. In PR though, I have no clue as to what degree Im hurt. Maybe its just (to us a vBF2 refrence) a fraction of one of those little bars, or maybe an entire half of my health, I have no idea what just happened (is my leg snapped in two? Am I just hallucinating?).

I can see why the vBF2 health bar is 'unrealistic' (in that it gives you an extremely accurate indication of your health-status) but at the same time, having NO indication is erring in the opposite direction (it seems to me).

Maybe having a doom-style indication (where the portrait gets more and more bloodied as your health gets less) would be helpful, not necessarily the portrait, but a roughly-gradiated scale of some sort that gave you at least a 'basic' idea of your 'degree of hurt' would be nice.

Wasteland · Post by **Wasteland** » 2006-12-25 07:22

First off, someone's sure to bring up that you do know when you're close to death by the coughing (speaking of which, can an enemy hear your cough? I've never heard anyone elses, but that's probably because when I start killing, I finish killing

) and the eventual (and annoying) shroomy vision.

That said, I agree that there should be some kind of health indication, as you'd know (IRL) how close to death you are, to some extent. If you've got mad pain, you'd know it. If you've got a simple flesh wound, you'd know that.

Maybe you could just break the health bar into quarters, and show what quarter you're in? Unfortunately, I imagine this is hardcoded. And faced with the vanilla health indicator or the current one, I'd pick the current one.

ArmedDrunk&Angry · Post by **ArmedDrunk&Angry** » 2006-12-25 07:33

The damge you take on a mild fall is about 15-25% based on personal experience and use of field dressing. That is RL simulation in that you get to know how much a fall will hurt you although that method is not as reliable when it comes to gunshot/shrapnel wounds.
The best way to learn this is play rifleman often and heal yourself with field dressings to learn the gradient.
When you sneak up on the wall in EJOD it takes at least 2 FD's to heal you back to 100% for instance.

EventH · Post by **EventH** » 2006-12-25 07:47

wasteland.soldier:

Yeah, the 'health in quarters' or something like it is what I'd like to see.

First off, someone's sure to bring up that you do know when you're close to death by the coughing (speaking of which, can an enemy hear your cough? I've never heard anyone elses, but that's probably because when I start killing, I finish killing ) and the eventual (and annoying) shroomy vision.

Except that Im not talking about 'near death' circumstances. Yes, its painfully (no pun intended) obvious when you're bleeding/near death/'High,' Im talking about normal 'non-fatal' wounds that the player isnt totally informed of.

"You got hurt!"

Great, Im not dead...but how much am/was I hurt?

"An un-specified, non-fatal amount."

...Its kindof rediculous.

ArmedDrunk&Angry,

Im not so concerned with the statistical average damage percentages of x-number of falls taken on a certain map at a particular hill whilist running off of it at a specific speed and the number of various packs it takes to heal thyself as a result of said injuries. In vBF2, it will show the 'red crescent of hurt' when you fall, even if there is no detectable difference on the health bar. In PR, the degree of damage can vary wildly (from almost nothing to nearly bleeding) without you knowing. (Where as you would know IRL)

mammikoura · Post by **mammikoura** » 2006-12-25 09:21

But to be honest, as long as you are not bleeding it doesn't make a huge difference. (maybe like takes 1 less bullet to kill you if you are almost bleeding) And if you are bleeding then you will know it.
I think it's fine the way it is now.

Cyber-Couch · Post by **Cyber-Couch** » 2006-12-25 09:30

This makes me wish there was someway to code injuries with hitboxes in PRM. Yet alas, my dreams will be washed away to some other game far far away.

MrD · Post by **MrD** » 2006-12-25 09:53

The uncertainty of exactly how many near hits and hits you can take adds to the tension when you get into engagements.

Move carelessly on your way to the enemy and then you seem to get killed by the first near miss that comes your way, making you concentrate more on movement to the fight, rather than screaming hell and leather to the nearest point where you can start firing.

Remember, movement (especially squad movement) is a large part of PR. Since you can die very quickly in PR unless you have amazingly fast reactions, getting yourself and your squad up silently and out of enemy sight to a good fighting position is most important and throwing yourself off cliffs with gay abandon hurts you to remind you to concentrate more on the movement stage!

IAJTHOMAS · Post by **IAJTHOMAS** » 2006-12-25 13:24

As a general rule, you have so little health its always worth finding a medic if you're hurt. I don't really see a great need for them, although I can see where you're coming from.

I have though seen heart rate monitors in games (inf for UT IIRC) which increases your resting heart rate, although you have to stop for a while to get to resting, running obviously affected it. Not sure if it is realistic or not though, probably not...

Maistros · Post by **Maistros** » 2006-12-25 13:32

No health meters. Period.
Until general infantry get issued vital stats in a personal HUD system, haha.. I think we should get rid of ANY on screen assets like the health, minimap, tickets, etc.

$kelet0r · Post by **$kelet0r** » 2006-12-25 13:44

Actually what would be nice would be a rainbow six heartbeat monitor animation in the corner of your screen, Green and steady for full health, yellow for mild injury, orange and erratic for serious injury and red for near death/dying
you can feel your own heart beat and pain irl and it would be a neat visual effect

IAJTHOMAS · Post by **IAJTHOMAS** » 2006-12-25 13:50

$kelet0r wrote:Actually what would be nice would be a rainbow six heartbeat monitor animation in the corner of your screen, Green and steady for full health, yellow for mild injury, orange and erratic for serious injury and red for near death/dying
you can feel your own heart beat and pain irl and it would be a neat visual effect

Like I said, I'm not bother about it, but if there were to be one this would seem to one of the more plausible options.

It is meant to a "near future" conlfict, so if these things are in development/trial stages and there is an intention to give them to troops then it wouldn't necessarily be unrealistic.

Mekstizzle · Post by **Mekstizzle** » 2006-12-25 13:53

I see where he's getting at, seeing as health is still based on HP it's annoying to find out you've been injured by falling 2 meters or something but not know how much it's done to you, falling that much and not using field dressing could mean that you die one bullet earlier, becuase at the end of the day it's all still based on HP.

IAJTHOMAS · Post by **IAJTHOMAS** » 2006-12-25 13:56

Actually, with the field dressing it has become a bit more important. Before it was a choice of go to medic or not. Now its do nothing, find a medic, or use the feild dressing, which might save your like at a later point. I'm always a bit concerned I'm wasting it on a scratch. But then there's the teamwork aspect of finding a medic to heal or an ammo bag to replace the dressing. Again, I can see both sides.

ArmedDrunk&Angry · Post by **ArmedDrunk&Angry** » 2006-12-25 14:01

my point wasn't "the statistical average damage percentages of x-number of falls taken on a certain map at a particular hill whilist running off of it at a specific speed and the number of various packs it takes to heal thyself as a result of said injuries." but more that you learn how much damage you take by how long the red crescent lasts and that most falls can be healed with a single FD and it takes 4 to take you from shroom vision to 100%.
As you can see the trend is toward less HUD and there is little chance of getting a health bar, breakfast bar or juice bar in the near future.

EventH · Post by **EventH** » 2006-12-25 20:13

'[R-PUB wrote:Maistros']No health meters. Period.
Until general infantry get issued vital stats in a personal HUD system, haha.. I think we should get rid of ANY on screen assets like the health, minimap, tickets, etc.

I dont think you understand what Im asking for, which is "More realism," not less. A real soldier knows how much a wound has damaged him; in PR, we dont. Thats not realistic.

Im not asking for a vBF2-esque health meter, but some sort of very simple/basic/crude indicator of 'general health.' Maybe just some text: 'Healthy' 'wounded' 'dying.' C'mon, real soldiers know that stuff.

As to the HUD-minimalism, I agree that the interface should be kept as basic as possible, only relaying necessary information. Infantry IRL dont have HUD's, but neither do they use a mouse/keyboard. My point: If 'general health-level' is information that a soldier knows about himself, (which I think he does) this information should be in some way given us, the players.

As we cannot look at our characters and see the wounds or feel their pain, that information should be given in another, 'easy to recognize' way. Maybe a pulse, maybe some text, maybe a colored bar (green, yellow, red), or maybe an audio alert.

mammikoura · Post by **mammikoura** » 2006-12-25 20:31

EventH wrote:Im not asking for a vBF2-esque health meter, but some sort of very simple/basic/crude indicator of 'general health.' Maybe just some text: 'Healthy' 'wounded' 'dying.' C'mon, real soldiers know that stuff.

healty = no effect
wounded = bleeding
dying = coughing + bleeding of course

so we do have a very basic indicator. Now I know you are looking for something that would tell the difference between having 99% health and just about to start bleeding. But does it really matter so much? If you are not bleeding then I don't see a need to use the field dressing. And of course all the time it would be ideal to get healed by a medic if you are hurt.
My general rule is:
no bleeding = just keep killing people
if bleeding = throw field dressing. If bleeding stops = kill people, if bleeding doesn't stop = find a medic.

and then of course in every situation a medic would be good, but unless I'm gonna die from bleeding I ain't running 500m for a medic.

SGT.Collado · Post by **SGT.Collado** » 2006-12-25 21:13

'[R-PUB wrote:Maistros']No health meters. Period.
Until general infantry get issued vital stats in a personal HUD system, haha.. I think we should get rid of ANY on screen assets like the health, minimap, tickets, etc.

Those things is still part of a game. This still is a game. Btw Maistros, what's the status of the video?

Lean_Six_Sigma · Post by **Lean_Six_Sigma** » 2006-12-25 21:39

I agree with Mamm. After playing PRMM for some time, I don't really need to know if i'm at 80% or 95% health. I'm not bleeding and going to die. Thus, I'm fine to continue killing. PRMM isn't like vBF2 where you want to heal so you can get shot three more times. If you get hit, you're bleeding, or dead already.

I think with the three areas of health.
1. OK
2. Bleeding
3. Dead.

PRMM does a great job of modeling all three of these areas of health.

EventH · Post by **EventH** » 2006-12-25 23:17

At what level of health does the 'bleeding' start?

Teek · Post by **Teek** » 2006-12-26 00:26

"ouch!", "Im hit, "I hurt", "my blood!!", "So long cruel world..." In RL you can tell the diffrence between, so it is very unrealistic to not know. in PRM you have "am I bleeding?" "magic mushroom- losing blood"