Nobody likes arbitrary health management

I'm satisfied with the current system myself. Not saying it couldn't be better, but it's a lot better than it was before upbeat giraffe.
It would be cool if hunger were to return somehow, but I don't really care any more if it doesn't. The new foods are pretty cool, I just wish I could see the details of what each one does.

Terraria.
In Terraria, you mostly use potions which are on a long cooldown to heal in dangerous situations, the game does have lifesteal effects later as well however.
But besides potions, you regenerate extremely slowly, but the regen slowly picks up pace as you avoid taking damage. You end up with a pretty big health pool, so the regen system works well.

But again, I would rather have no regen, which encourages me to use beds, farm, and collect plant fibres. If I didn't want to use items, I'd take the regeneration Tech.
But ya know how I love me some Morphball. So yeah.

 

@Lazer that's... pretty circunstancial. More a product of certain elements combining and culminating in a fun situation than one mechanic delivering that experience. Plus I'd have to commend your fast thinking abilities if you made such deep considerations in the split second it would take for you to kill each other.

As for enemies dropping health or healing throught combat, fair enough. That can be fun. If the combat is fun as well, that is. It falls on the combat mechanic to be engaging and well made, the health management then leechs off of that success. And unfortunately Starbound's combat is not in a place I would call "fun". I don't think random health drops works very well against bosses or mini-bosses that doesn't spawn endless waves of enemies for you to farm on the go.
It is also worth mentioning that healing is not the sole function of combat. It is almost a side effect, an occasional bonus you receive. Unless you are playing Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. The brutal finishers were the only means of healing, so orks were pretty much walking medpacks that could hit back.

By that token, any activity that provides fun and other benefits and also heals you in the process is a fun health management mechanic. I feel that we are getting somewhere now.

Edit: to clarify, git gud is no health management. Avoiding damage, while motivated by a health bar, does not involve said health bar at all.

 

I really have to question the idea of fun in this instance... Health = fun. I personally don't ever see that no matter what you do with it. It is not the health management that usually makes something fun, or contributes to the fun. I may pay attention to health, but never once thought much on the health mechanic beyond I just need to heal. Might be just me, but I am more interested in other things within the game.

I am one to enjoy the combat currently, but keep in mind I am easily entertained. So it can be simple. I am not a fan of regen health when there are soooo many items to use that does that purpose. Sure it could work, but really the question is should it be put in. Even if balanced, what purpose would it serve. Like many have mentioned, it might makes beds practically like a chair, or mess with the current item mechanics to where it all becomes mindless in the view of combat.

I don't know about anyone else, but I prefer combat to not be mindless. I am not a fan of pvp if you are wondering, I just not really all that competitive with others. I more competitive with myself than others.

I do like the idea of an occasional health orb drop, as long it is not so common that bandages and other items become useless/less feasible. I don't min/max, but I do pay attention to what works over what, and how it is crafted. I mean I can convert all my bandages to medkits if I wanted, but haven't so far; just have not gotten around to it.

I may view fun oddly to some maybe, but I just don't see how health management could contribute to fun or be fun. It is not something i donate that term to, as it is just a mechanic to well... manage, simple as that.

Yes I do like management games, but I don't find the management aspect fun; it is always something withing the games themselves that makes those sort of games fun.

Also note: Minecraft you really don't manage health, you manage hunger. Not everyone used potions, especially in the beginning. Keeping an eye on health and managing health are two separate things... Well in the way I see it.

Anyway that is my thoughts on the topic...

 

Worst part of that game. I loath its existence.

Thanksfully Starbound is so modder friendly, I can remove it once it is re-added. =D

 

YES!!! Regenerating health for all!!!

 

Well in that game it somewhat works... I don't mind hunger mechanics, as it adds some things to the game in way of management aspect. Even if trivial. Health in that game it makes sense, as it is a simple game. There is a bit more to starbound than that game, which even though is also simple, but has some more complex aspects to it beyond generation, if not more in general.

Regardless though it is know when and where to put in these type of mechanics, and how it is managed within the game.

And yeah, thank goodness for easier modability.

 

True, but the health / vitality mechanic of that game is pretty much the main draw of the experience, rather than just another aspect of the game. The health bar is the entire measurement of success (or tragic failure) in the Trauma Centre series.

One thing I never understood in Starbound is the health bar remains the same size, no matter the max HP your character has.

Everyone knows that any RPG-like game worth your time must have increasing health bars to show measurement of character progression. Dark Souls, Zelda and many, many others. The bar doesn't stretch across the top of the screen to provide a representation of your god-like character and his (or her) increased vitality.

 

Bloodborne, for all of the difficulty involved, has a very engaging health system - the strikeback system.

When you take damage, your health bar's "cap" decreases, but the bar itself doesn't deplete for a few moments. In those moments, if you land blows on enemies, you regenerate some of the lost health, raising the "cap" back up. You still die if the cap hits zero on the health bar, of course. Naturally there are also healing items to directly restore lost health regardless of whether or not the bar is depleted, just like the estus flask from the predecessors, the Dark Souls games.

I mean, I can't imagine a system where you don't manage health, because that seems to me to be a very integral feature of having health in the first place, but Bloodborne's strikeback system allows a player to engage in some interesting risk-reward gameplay. It makes combat more visceral (and if you've seen Bloodborne combat, then "visceral" is an understatement) and encourages players to go on the offensive, rather than playing it safe and waiting for an opening.

How this could relate to Starbound, I don't know. Maybe this could be a feature of a unique, late-game armor set, or a passive tech.

 

Health management isn't "arbitrary." It's just...a thing. It's a part of any video game that's meant to be any challenge at all.
For auto-regening health to not completely break the game and make you OP as all shit, it has to be a game in which you're
CONSTANTLY either under attack or running through obstacles to avoid your attackers.

There's only one sandbox building game I can think of that does that system with a certain amount of technical success: Castle
Miner Z. And it isn't fun, because the enemies really, really never let up, and as a result you never actually get a chance to build anything.

You mentioned TF2 and healthpack, but that, once again, really wouldn't work in a game like this. Things like that have to be placed with
a certain sense of strategy, which isn't exactly the kind of thing that RNG excels at.

For the moment, the current system seems to work just fine.

 

That is to say, regaining/keeping health in the Trauma series is more than just preventing a failure state. It is actually the endgame too. It also helps that the series are very unique in how they approach each patient's ailments and how you manage their vitality. Think Surgeon Simulator but much less wonky and silly.
After reading the answers here and pondering a bit by myself, one way to make health management fun is to tack it on another mechanic. Preferably one that serves to further your progress as well. The aforementioned Bloodborne's strikeback is such an example.

Now, how would that apply to Starbound? I won't bother to think about farming/building paths, unless they somehow intend to make something akin to stamina that depletes as you work (or job accidents like falling off high places). So injuries will be mostly due to adventuring.

Tacking a health regaining system on combat while keeping healing items more scarce seems to be the most logical choice. The problem with that is that most healing items can be crafted (meaning that whoever complains about having a surplus of bandages have only themselves to blame). So I currently see two options: you either jack up the cost of said items, or remove their recipes altogether. That way you will depend on capsule drops or purchase them on Infinity Express, which aren't very cheap. And them you have food.

Chucklefish went to great lenghts to provide a multitude of recipes with benefits to them, chiefly health regeneration. Removing said attributes from those foods would render many recipes useless on casual (if the old system returns for higher difficulties, then that is a different matter). With how fast they are making energy regen for the next update, the recipes that provide a boost to it are almost moot. We are left with recipes that provide other forms of buffs. It reduces the number of useful recipes by a substancial amount.
We could make their health regen slower but then you would have to make their effects longer too, otherwise they are not much better than not healing at all, as you would have to sit around waiting for that "filled" status to dissipate in order to have another bite. Aaaaand then we have beds.

You don't even need items for the most part outside of missions. There are few places with shield generators that forbids you from placing a tent or a bed and regain your full health in no time. And those that have shields often provide some form of bed early on. Starbound really does not leave you wanting for means to regenerate...

So those are the foremost points I see with changing the current system. I am of course missing a lot more, so let's bring them up as we speak.

 

Regenerating health has a lot of drawbacks really, most of which has been said so I won't repeat them.

As for the other point in this topic, health management honestly boils down to, as you said, a system to let you fail. No one likes to fail, and unless your main focus is ON your health, the game treats it as a terms of failure. Even in games mentioned above, this still stands to some degree. In the Bloodborne example, combat is extremely fast, so keeping your hp up is a must, as if you don't you'll die quickly. There needed to be a fundamental change in From Software's painful formula to acclimate to the change, and I don't see Starbound doing that, however awesome it may be...

Another point would be that if you HAVE no health bar at all, there is no means of failure in this game. You could just stand there, with literally no drive at all to learn to dodge or fight properly, or use other items (the multitude of healing items, beds, one stim among a small number of stims, shrines, even those random capsules lose something...) and makes a shield completely redundant. So while an HP bar isn't exactly "fun" to manage, the simple fact it exists stimulates a lot the game can offer, which means that to have a means of failure is also a means of stimulation for other things to use, i.e cooking, shields, etc. With that in mind, if you were to tack it onto something, you'd also need to think of how it effects the items above, which creates a massive storm of changes and takes rearrange an entire formula, which means the same problem as stated above ends up being an issue - to many tiems, to many ways, to much to change. :/

That being said, Starbound seems to have, in my opinion, failed to really make anything of considerable value. Two-handed weapons one to two shot almost everything late game, meaning using shields is arbitrary, finding that one legendary gun sets you up for life usually, and there doesn't feel to be a particular drive to use most foods, other then the SECONDARY effects, not the regen effects. Early game there is an enormous abundance of fiber in the tunnels, especially on the first planet you spawn in. mid-game you get kits, which become simple to make by just walking on the surface of a planet swinging your sword, and in late game you get the printer and the best bandages. All of which is fairly simplistic and boring.

So basically what I'm saying is unless the main focus is health, it's near impossible to make fun as it is meant to, yes, be your limitation. And considering what Starbound Dev's want Starbound to be, this would be an extremely dull game if the main focus was on HP.

It would be nice to have health and energy linked together in some way. As in you can use your health when out of energy or something.

 

I can see the value in your opinion. It may be immersion breaking though, which i wouldn't enjoy. I would rather have a channel time on use of higher tier health items.

 

What about this game is survival? I've played survival games in the past and let me tell you, this sure as heck isn't one of them.

 

It isn't really one any more. It used to be closer to one though. Healing early game was difficult, or very time consuming in the case of beds.
Getting too cold was a thing. Even on the starter worlds, you would freeze to death at night unless you stayed near heat sources or had some armor.
Hunger as well, was once a thing. Weak foods didn't heal you much if at all, bread (IIRC) healed you like 5 instantly, but other than that the healing from foods was weak until you had found the best recipes in villages.

There was a real need to build shelter so you could recover from fights and stay warm, night time monsters were a lot stronger as well, so again, a reason to build shelter (to hide from the things that could nearly one-shot you even with your first set of armor).

 

Yeah except the ship is the perfect shelter and it's already built.

Back on topic: To be honest, I don't mind if healing itself isn't especially fun, as long as it doesn't get in the way of having fun.

 

Except to use the ship, you have to be in the ship. In the ship there is nothing to harvest, and when the game was more survival based, there were surface ores.
You can't just harvest things really close to spawn, because you'll run out of stuff very fast. So you can't just beam up constantly.

But it doesn't matter because the game isn't survival any more at all. No starving to death, no freezing to death, night time monsters are barely stronger than day time monsters. etc.

 

I liked it better this way too.

Healing is too easy now... there is no need for constant regen, and there is already a tech for it, if you so wish.

 

This is more of a suggestion for a new mechanic (health regen) rather than feedback on current mechanics. Moving to Suggestions.

 

When I wrote the post, I had not played in a long time. I thought hunger, freezing, night was the same still. Sad it was changed.

 

They were removed for the time being, but are supposed to come back at some point.