Analyse This: The Concept of Health and Balance in Games (Part 3)

Last time I spent some time detailing what sorts of health systems you may run into within a game and the types of worlds that are implemented for games to control the player's progression in general. In Part 1 I spoke about balance in a more general sense. This time, I'm going to explore how all of those choices can result in less interesting gameplay.

Let me re-state my premise:

Having a game system which requires no thought from the player or little management results in boring or uninteresting gameplay. Worse still, it results in multiple game systems feeding into that specific game system being unfocussed and underdeveloped because less thought is required for the whole thing to function.

As we saw in the previous entry, the level scaling in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion resulted in a flat challenge curve for the player. This is the tyranny of the levelling system in role playing games (RPGs) combined with an open world and is one facet we must consider when speaking about discrete health/armour and regenerating health/armour.

The reason why is because regenerating health/armour essentially invites the implementation of this type of enemy level-scaling. By adhering to a system where a player character (PC) is always at full health, the designer is pushed into a situation whereby they must always provide an appropriate challenge - just like in an FPS that implments regenerating health. Similarly, in situations of an open world RPG with level-scaling, the designer has the same impetus to provide an appropriate challenge throughout the game - resulting in glass armour-wearing bandits as you progress through well-travelled areas.

This is where the argument of level-appropriate areas versus level scaling comes into play and, quite frankly, neither is a nice implementation for the player. On the one hand, level restricted areas rely on players dying and reloading in order to realise that they should not be progressing in this direction yet (I had this experience in Fallout: New Vegas) and it can be very frustrating - as frustrating as an invisible wall blocking your advancement to a new area. On the other hand, aggressive level scaling also breaks the "narrative" of the world the player is exploring through breaking societal expectations on the nature of the inhabitants of the world. i.e. it's understandable that a person who is wearing only a fur thong might want to be a highway robber in order to improve their lot in life whereas a person wearing super expensive armour and wielding very expensive weapons doesn't have the same impetus.

In terms of game balance, regenerating health means that for a player to be challenged by an encounter it must be geared towards being able to defeat them otherwise the game will be too easy. For instance, a PC with a total health of 1000 points needs to be countered by a group of enemies that can actually deal 1000 points of damage (or more in systems where health can regenerate during combat). Any encounter where enemies cannot deal that damage would necessarily result in a win for the player.

This means that in such a game all encounters are binary in nature: they are either trivial or deadly.

This binary nature of encounters results in design scenarios were danger is implied but actually present. You will often see these sorts of "tricks" pulled in story-heavy games such as The Last of Us or the Uncharted series. These scenarios can work to great effect as long as the player doesn't stop and realise that they are not really in any danger. Similarly, the implied danger encounter necessarily only really works in those story-focussed types of games because the health system is opaque to the player and not discrete or managed directly by the player themselves. Hence the player is not really aware of the current status of the player character(s) and can be drawn into the drama of the moment.

Further to this, the player is not asked to manage their character's status over the course of time, only within a specific encounter. This runs counter to our experience in reality and also one of the core tenets of an RPG and is optional in first person shooters (FPSes) - managing a character(s) over time. Since RPGs are generally more "reality-focussed" in their nature (in terms of human expectations, not in terms of setting) and titles which are drama-driven stories tend to work better in the action/adventure genres, removal of consequences and of long-term decision-making in terms of strategy/tactics and danger management results, in my opinion, in a more shallow but focussed experience for the player.

In Darkest Dungeon, management of the player character status effects and health is tantamount to be able to complete missions and advance in the game. These systems interact with each other on multiple levels, leaving space for the player to experiment with multiple "builds".

Games typically ask players to manage particular aspects of their character(s). Management typically ranges across multiple systems: 

• Status effects**
• Health
• Armour
• Ammunition*
• Item quality/durability
• Damage type

* This might be controversial but I'm including attributes which are required for using offensive or defensive abilities within the remit of "ammunition". For example: Mana is used for casting spells, stamina is used for attacks or heavy attacks, etc.

**Sometimes these "ammunition" resources are not utilised in this manner, such as when stamina is used for running or there's a temporary boost for a racing game. In these instances I'm including them as status effects as they refer to the status of the player character(s) as being "tired", which is a status effect. I suppose, you can also make the argument that in regenerating games, health and armour become status effects too.

Not all games utilise all of those systems but by removing health and armour from that list, you've almost halved the character management and thus choice space for players to operate within. Games with regenerating health do not tend to ask the player to consider whether an encounter is difficult and should be avoided or not, it is never too difficult for the player to engage and win, only the player skill and/or strategy/tactics might need to be altered if they do find themselves in a lose state. If the player does find themselves in a lose state, the only way to work out what they did wrong is by reloading and engaging with the encounter once more. Whilst this is also true of games with discrete health systems, in those games the player is also asking themselves whether they should be attempting a particular encounter.

Further to that, games with regenerating health systems will also not apply long-term status effects that last outside of a particular encounter - nor would they ask a player to care about item quality or durability (as these systems tend to be even more complicated than the simple health/armour and status effect systems). This leaves only damage type and ammunition to be considered by players beyond a single encounter. Which is why games that feature regeneration tend to be more action oriented and simple in their mechanics - Knights of the old Republic moved from a discrete system to a regenerating system in the sequel due to the gameplay already being very streamlined. Asking players to heal outside of combat didn't really make a lot of sense - even in the original game.

In fact, you can see the designers at Bioware dancing around these health mechanics in games made during this period - KotoR, KotoR 2 and Jade Empire all had discrete health systems but played around with their healing outside of combat. Whilst players could heal with health packs or force powers in KotoR (with the force points resource regenerating outside of combat), there was also the "free" healing provided when utilising the fast travel system to/from the Ebon Hawk ship. In Kotor 2, regenerative health occurred outside of combat and in Jade Empire, healing was performed as a function of the chi resource managed by the player which could be freely obtained from "fountains" placed around the game world - and which were able to be visited at mostly any time.

These mechanics mean that the player is able to focus on one fight at a time (at least towards the latter part of the game) instead of managing resources over multiple fights - if they used the systems available to them to their fullest. These sorts of systems are usually employed in games in the tactics genre - where positioning and battle tactics are more important than resources over a whole campaign (though this is a generalisation of the genre and there are certainly games that do this - see The Banner Saga series).

To be fair to KotoR and Jade Empire, these games are skewed towards the RPG-lite end of the spectrum and also have other simplified systems such as the way each game handles inventory. What I do suggest is that these games are relatively easy because of the implementation of these mechanics: a player who understands and utilises the systems well is never really in danger of being beaten - even in instances when they are playing "blind" (on their first playthrough). Conversely, players that are not strong at the mechanics of the combat will find easy fights difficult and will die a lot in the more complicated or protracted encounters. Granted, two of these games do not have true regeneration (as the player has to engage in the abilities/utilities in order to get the healing to work) but they are very close to it as a concept.

What this all adds up to is a completely different focus in games with regenerating health - they focus on the moment-to-moment gameplay instead of longer-term gameplay. This also creates the problem (from a design perspective) that these types of games need to be constantly engaging with their players. If the game lets up for too long a time, the player has not been making choices and thus has not been meaningfully interacting with the game. In my opinion, this is what leads to the "mass murder" style of gameplay observed in the Uncharted series, the Tomb Raider reboot series, the Call of Duty series and other similar games.

Titanfall 2 has both discrete health and regenerating systems: the pilot gameplay has full regenerating health whereas the titan gameplay has a rechargeable shield and discrete health. I actually do not like the Titan gameplay at all but I'll save those gripes for my review.

Compare this to a discrete health system with no regeneration. The designer cannot ensure the health of any PC so encounters need to be designed around frequency and thematic concepts* instead. Unlike in a game with regenerating health in the same environment, the designer cannot overload players with constant encounters - all encounters need to be balanced with regards to the entire area and/or required level to attempt the area.

* In this instance, I'm using thematic concept as a shorthand for the encounter having a theme or story or explicit reason for existing within the area it is located. Think of a mummy in a tomb or a lich in a castle that is infested with low-level undead. You cannot have five Lich kings because the challenge rating for the player would be completely unbalanced (well, I guess it's possible, though improbable!) despite the player being able to individually defeat each one in a game with regenerating health

One major upshot of this is that no encounter is a given victory because if the PC has low health, any low-level enemy can present an existential threat. Also, depending on the order in which the player works through encounters in an area, the difficulty may rise or fall. If, say, a player managed to defeat a harder encounter early on, then spend the rest of the time mopping-up lower level enemies, then they may find the area easier than doing the opposite - though this can also be dependent on the items the player has equipped to their character(s).

As a result of this complexity - the designer has to balance each area and fight in accordance with the expected power level of the player character(s) and the distance from the nearest healing/resting/autosave location. This makes the challenge of designing such encounters and areas more difficult than in games with regenerating health. Further to this, the player is now encouraged and expected to manage their resources more carefully - planning ahead and/or knowing when to withdraw when feeling outmatched.

This style of gameplay can result in the player having to reload when they encounter enemies that are beyond their abilities due to level difference or lack of planned resources which is a net negative to the experience. It is also typical in this type of game that status effects can last longer than a single fight and must be addressed specifically by the player in order to nullify them. All of this combined can result in players feeling overwhelmed by the interlinked and demanding game systems... resulting in players quitting the game and, potentially, reduced sales as a consequence.

However, when balanced well, these interlinked player-managed systems can drive long-term engagement with the game. The game does not need to constantly be there, waving their hands at the player saying, "Hey! Look at me!". The quiet lulls between larger events are welcome because the player still has choices to make during these periods whereas in regenerating health games, "quiet time" is associated mainly with exposition.

Daylight has oqaque regenerating helth and non-fail states. It's actually quite a decent game but is completely story-focussed, which fits the mechanics well. I played this for the story and not for the mechanics.

Looking back at the six managed systems I listed above, the player is typically asked to take care of five of them, with item quality/durability sometimes being thrown into the mix as an added "reality" bonus. Personally, I have not observed a game where item durability was implemented in an acceptable manner - even The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's item durabilities were ridiculously set to a low number of uses before breaking and The Elder Scrolls games only reduced durability from combat and didn't appear to take into account material types.

Ultimately, though, complexity in player management of systems as a concept has a place in the discussion of creating meaningful choices and thus providing interesting gameplay. I think I've shown why I think that regenerating health is equivalent to level-scaling in terms of making combat encounters a binary outcome that reduces player choice but also why the introduced simplicity would be an attractive pull for both developers and players.

Without those systems, games do become more shallow as a result and players have less agency in their play. However, I've also shown that increased management of systems can lead to player frustration, though it can also lead to more interesting gameplay outside of the moment-to-moment focus of the regenerating systems. While neither system is terrible, neither system is good either...

You can find analogous discussions for regenerating ammunition/resources as well.

So, is there a middleground? 

Although I've not encountered it in an RPG, Halo: Combat Evolved had discrete health which required health kits to rejuvenate but a rechargeable shielding system that would begin to replenish once the player character was not taking damage for a short time. Similar gameplay systems can be found in various space sims - with or without in-flight hull repair. You could also almost place Jade Empire and the original KotoR in this category too (both well-liked games).

This is an interesting half-measure and one I would like to see explored more in the future. A game where long-term management of players is still present but not solely frustrating for players who want to focus on the moment-to-moment encounters. Whilst Halo's design required it to have health packs located around the maps to aid balance*, an RPG would not necessitate this sort of design, allowing the other resource systems managed by the player to come into play. This could mean that areas and encounters within areas could be more interestingly balanced, resulting (in my mind) to more appealing long-term play.

*In which case the move to fully regenerating health in the sequels made sense since the focus of the game was clearly on a per-encounter basis than long-term management of resources.