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论游戏设计中恢复命值与治疗物品的联系

发布时间:2011-07-28 09:07:58 Tags:,,

作者:Josh Bycer

这个问题涉及不少电子游戏相关的争论:游戏机vs.电脑、电脑RPG vs.日式RPG、守旧派vs.革新派等,这是其中几项。现在我要谈的是恢复命值及其对游戏设计的影响。回想一下,第一款普及恢复命值的游戏是《光晕》。从那以后,这种机制就在FPS游戏中就普遍运用。然而,许多玩家认为取消寻找治疗物品的设定会破环游戏的设计。

有一张著名的屏幕截图显示了上世纪90年代和现在的FPS地图设计,每次有人提出本论题,就要搬出那张截图。玩家提出的观点是,FPS地图设计因为再也不需要寻找治疗物品而被简单化了。我谈论守旧派的难题时,我提到我们首先必须研究游戏困难的原因。针对玩家提出的观点,我的解释就是:如果探索世界的唯一意义就是寻找位置不定的急救箱,那这种地图设计对我而言也不怎么样。你仍然可以为玩家提供治疗的隐蔽区和秘密场所。如,在游戏《Condemned》系列中,玩家在每个关卡都可以找到一些收集物品或者有助于完成游戏的休整物品。

个人认为,我支持恢复命值,特别是在动作游戏中。我的理由是,恢复命值为设计师创造极端环境留有余地,而不必担心玩家在上一场战斗中损失太多命值。不过,我也看出了许多玩家不喜欢这种设定的原因。

call of duty(from nicksgamereviews.com)

call of duty(from nicksgamereviews.com)

大多数游戏中的恢复命值问题是,它让人感到莫名其妙——这种机制很突兀地穿插到游戏中,与设计并没有彻底融合。例如,有没有人能做一下解释:为什么在《使命召唤》中,一个人挨了20颗致命的子弹,却只要靠在墙边休息10秒钟?

大多数带有恢复命值功能的游戏都把决定权完全丢到玩家手中。玩家知道在下一波攻击来临时,要花多少时间治疗。当恢复命值的设定运作良好时,治疗时间和安全时间也是游戏设计的一部分。

一个取自《超世纪战警:逃离屠场》(Chronicles of Riddick:Escape From Butcher Bay)的范例能为我的观点提供佐证:其中,玩家的命值条是由若干位于屏幕上方的方块组成的。玩家每受伤一次,方块就受损一点,直到那个方块完全耗尽,下一个方块就开始受损。当玩家摆脱险境,已受损但未耗尽的方块就会慢慢恢复。而那些已经清空的方块,玩家得去治疗才能恢复。

恢复命值之所以奏效是因为它是一种两全其美的设定。玩家可以恢复命值,但前提出是玩家坚持战斗直到获胜。对于要求完全恢复命值的游戏,将这种设定整合入游戏的机制也不无好处。

在游戏《恶名昭彰》中,不战斗时,玩家的命值会慢慢恢复。当玩家给角色Cole充电以恢复超能量,也能迅速治疗他。这样,在能源附近与敌人对战时,玩家可以随时进行紧急治疗。

在最近的《子弹风暴》,设计师居然找不到将恢复命值与使出技能(skill-shots)相联系的方法,反而走上“躲墙角”(治疗)的路线。这让我很惊讶。如果设计师能够解释如何将技能融入游戏的现实中,为什么他们不能进一步将其作为一种治疗形式呢?

当我对《子弹风暴》作出我的分析时,对于它的开放世界版本,我要谈谈另一个想法。我想出如何把恢复命值更好地与射击技能联系起来。我甚至进一步想到,玩家可以通过持续使用技能来“过分装载”他们的命值,使命值条超过100%。

你给予的控制越多,玩家就越可避免过度恢复命值。执行这个方案的高明办法太多了,我们还没有完全开发出来。比如,玩家可以用止痛药来恢复命值,但如果不断地嗑药,他们也会因为药物的副作用而越来越虚弱。

如果游戏允许玩家选择不同的级别或力量来塑造角色,为什么不据此来设定不同的恢复方式?比如,如果玩家玩家是火属性,就允许玩家站在火焰中恢复命值,而火焰可以由敌人爆破的手榴弹引起。或者如果玩家使用水,他们可以跳进水体中进行治疗,或者携带便宜的水瓶子,受伤时喝上一口有利健康。

恢复命值就像其他游戏机制,合理使用时可以增加游戏的深度、完善游戏;但不恰当地使用,也会拖游戏的后腿。此外,恢复命值就像能够靠吃果实或使用急救箱来治疗火箭筒造成的伤口,或者火球砸到头形成的伤痕一样合情合理。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Great Game Design Debate: Regenerating Health vs. Items edition.

by Josh Bycer

There are many video game related arguments out there: Console vs. PC, CRPG vs. JRPG, and Old-School vs. New-School to name a few. Tonight, it’s about regenerating health and its affect on game design. Thinking back, the first game that popularized this mechanic was Halo. Since then, the mechanic has become a major staple in First Person Shooters. However, many gamers argue that by removing the need to find health items that it has hurt game design.

There is a now famous screenshot showing FPS map design back in the 90s and today that gets mentioned every time someone brings up this discussion. The point that gamers bring up, is that FPS map design has become simplified due to not needing to find health items anymore. When I talked about old-school difficulty, I mentioned that we need to examine why the games were hard in the first place. That same kind of examination I’m going to apply to this matter. If the only point to explore the world was to find errant first aid kits, that doesn’t sound like good design to me. You can still offer players hidden areas and secrets without the need to heal. In the Condemned series, every level has collectibles for the player to find, or objects to break that contribute to game completion.

Personally, I’m for regenerative health, especially in action titles. The reason is that it frees up the designer to create insane situations without worrying about the player not having enough health from a previous battle. However, I can see why many gamers don’t like it.

The problem with regenerative health in most games is that it feels like the odd man out; a mechanic that is just plopped into the game without being thoroughly integrated into the design. For instance, is it ever explained why in the Call of Duty games, that someone can take twenty lethal shots to the chest, and is fine after sitting behind a wall for ten seconds?

Most games that feature regenerative health leave it completely out of the player’s hands. The player knows how long it takes to heal and how long before they are in danger. When regenerative health works best, is when it is a part of the game design.

The first good example in my opinion comes from the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. Here, the player’s health bar is represented by several squares at the top of the screen. Each time the player takes damage, a square will begin to drain out, when it completely runs out; the next square in the line begins to drain. Once the player is out of danger, the square that still has filling will regenerate. For those that were emptied, the player has to find a healing station to recover.

What makes this work is that it offers the best of both worlds. The player can regenerate health, but it is capped requiring the player to still play well to succeed. For games that want full regenerative, integrating it into the game mechanics can make it more rewarding.

In Infamous, the player will recover health slowly when not in combat. When the player recharges Cole’s energy supply by draining electricity, it also rapidly heals him. This sets up the dynamic of fighting enemies near sources of power to have emergency healing on standby.

Recently with Bulletstorm, I was surprised that the designers couldn’t find a way to link restoring health to making skill-shots, and instead went for the “hide behind the wall” style. If the designers went as far to explain how making skill-shots fit into the reality of the game, why couldn’t they take it a step further and use that as a form of healing?

When I did my analysis on Bulletstorm, I started talking about an idea I had for an open world version of it. For that idea I thought up how regenerating health could work better tied to skill-shots. I even went a step further and figured that the player could “over-load” their health be constantly performing skill-shots to take their health bar over 100%.

The more control you can give the player over regenerating their health the better, and there are so many more clever ways of implementing it that we haven’t explored thoroughly yet, for instance, a game in which the player can take painkillers to restore their health, but if they constantly take it, they’ll become weaker due to damaging their body.

If the game has the player choosing from different classes/powers to build their character, why not have different models of regeneration based on that? Such as, if the player is imbued with fire, allow the player to recover health by standing in flames, such as ones caused by grenade explosions from your enemies. Or if the player uses water, they can jump into bodies of water to heal, or carry inexpensive water bottles that they can drink to rapidly recover their health.

Regenerating health is like any game mechanic, when used properly it can add depth and make the game better, but used improperly, and it can drag the game down. Besides, it makes just as much as sense as being able to eat fruit or use a first aid kit to patch up hits from rocket launchers or having a fireball hit you in the head.(source:gamasutra


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