Healing Systems and The Games That Love Them

[beatbandito]

Thehey, whatever happened toClassic?
Medpacks/Armor as collectables strewn throughout the world
Your Dooms, Your Steins Wolfen, Captain Forever

The Children of AD&D
Camping/Resting heals directly during a time skip, regardless of other involved mechanics
Basically all cRPGs, Elder Scrolls, Shadow Warrior Trance

The Shooter Looter
Shield Recharges Health Doesn't
Borderlands, Warframe I Think, The Division, Halos without Master Chief

The Shooter Pooter
Auto/Cover Heal Over Time
Halos with Master Chief, Gears of War, Mass Effect Series, Soothing Darkness Perk; WoW (heal while stealth is active)

VGRPGs
Purchase Items (with any resource) That Heal. Potions, Healing with Mana / Mana Potions.
Square's Entire Catalog, Honey Fwash from Super Metroid

Putting On Your Robe And Wizard Hat
Healing Through Magic or Similar which Only Reduces Other Uses of That System Over Any Period

a Vancian magic system. Your day is now ruined.

The Angry Boy
Lifesteal
40K: Space Marine, Blood Omen, Optional in Lots'O'Games, Wario's Mouth Mood

The Joestar System
Passing Progress Between Lives/Characters
Rogue Legacy, The Worst Thing Two People Named David Have Ever Collaborated On, Enemy Mind

that's the name, you need to link that video every time you talk about it.
Healing from Fullness
Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builder, I'm Blanking But I Have More For This

Time is Health
Cooldowns or Mechanical Equivalents
Overwatch, Elder Scrolls Restoration Spells,

Estus Flasks
you know what it is, bitch. Drank up dat Sunny Dee
The Dark Souls of This List, Sekiro, Remnant: of Dark Souls

JRPGs I Can Stand
Heal at Save Points
New Castlevanias, Metroidses, Star Oceanses, Radiata Stories


did I already forget any while putting that together?

add your systems / games and argue about which one of like four of these mushrooms from the mario series kind of fit into

[Thad]

How do we classify the power bomb move in Super Metroid?

[Niku]

I'd put that in the "Resources to Heal" category probably. You're not purchasing them per se, but in most VGRPGs you can grind for items off of monsters as well.

[beatbandito]

I didn't even know that was a thing, but I already did what Niku said while he was saying it, and added Save to Heal.

It's resources to heal because you use ammunition which is really the only resource other than health in the game. Killing monsters to get that resource is the same as killing them for gold to buy potions, as opposed to a lifesteal or anything else directly tied to the monster deaths.

[mharr]

Do bugs / cheesing unintended features count, because I've been playing Exiled Kingdoms on the phone and that one resurrects your companion with full hp if they're dead when you quickload.

Also does Captain Forever count as lifesteal?

[François]

The Shadow Warrior remake has a system where you can use an ability to regenerate your health up to 65% of its maximum value over a few seconds, at any time, in or out of combat, for no cost whatsoever. No timer, no cooldown, no need to take cover or avoid damage for X duration, you keep your various mobility options, and the only compromise is that you can't attack while it's happening.

It also has a couple flavors of typical medpacks that can refill your health to full (or overheal you with a certain upgrade path).

The sequel largely works the same way, but healing is gated by a mana-type resource shared with other powers, so it's less unique.

[Mongrel]

One system which I like and which I figure is possibly already mentioned here, only in a different way, are "Focus" or "Endure" systems where you can take greatly reduced damage or no damage for a period, but once out of combat or after a period of time, the cumulative effects of fatigue/injury have rapid and severe onset such that the player must immediately attend to their health (usually using one of the listed systems in the OP, medkits, rest, designated heal point, etc.) and are useless at that point or nearly so.

It's basically a way to represent the action hero able to take massive damage, but still presents a player with consequences.

[Friday]

The best Healing system in any game I've ever played was Dark Souls 2, specifically.

Estus/Sunny D is the best but in Dark Souls 2 bosses were actually coded to react to you drinking if they weren't in an animation, meaning you'd be punished for healing without first dodging an attack.

Yes, this is the most punishing and skill intensive healing ever, which is why I love it.

Dark Souls 1 didn't have coded bosses and DS3 and Bloodborne's healing animations were so fast that you could sneak one in whenever you want. Only in DS2 was healing slow, the effect over time, and bosses coded to punish you for doing it.

Surprise, the most insanely difficult method of healing turns out to be Friday's favorite...

EXCEPT.

Bloodborne's temporary healing meter you'd get.

See, you could heal like normal in Bloodborne, but whenver you took damage, a certain percentage of it would appear as a discolored bar. Eventually (after several seconds) this bar would fade, leaving you with only the lost HP, but if you attacked the enemy you could regain a portion or even all of that bar by being aggressive and counter attacking. This gave the player a risk/reward tactic to consider. After taking massive damage, do you retreat, gain distance, and blow consumable heals, or do you go on the attack, risking death but getting free healing AND damage to the boss?

Both systems were absolutely amazing.

Other than the Souls genre, the best healing system is probably Guild Wars, where intelligent prevention of damage will trump straight up raw healing in mana efficiency every time. And mana was something you actually had to manage, not a pool of 900 that you could refill at-will with ethers, assuming you could get over your "items are meant to be hoarded and never used" brain tumor.

[Mothra]

The best way to heal so far is to use Wario in the new Smash and like, fucking vore people on the battlefield to suckle life force out of them like they're giant lollipops. It's the most perverse thing Wario has ever done and it is incredibly on-brand.

[mharr]

Now that's a risky Google. (And I can't not hear that in racist Italian stereotype voice.)

[pacobird]

The Shooter Looter
Shield Recharges Health Doesn't
Borderlands, Warframe I Think, The Division, Halos without Master Chief

The Shooter Pooter
Auto/Cover Heal Over Time
Halos with Master Chief, Gears of War, Mass Effect Series

I appreciated how ME3 multiplayer shifted between these two based on what character you were playing. Standard human(-ish) characters had a balanced health and shield pool where shields regenerated but health could only be recovered with limited-use medpacks or between waves, geth had massive shields but negligible health, vorcha had almost no shields but lifeleech attacks, etc. Geth have to be cautious (but can't dodge very well), vorcha have to be super aggressive, turians can take a beating but can't dodge at all...

Played very well with the different types of attacks being more or less effective on different health resources.

[beatbandito]

Not counting exploits and glitches unless a lot of individual types come up. I feel like that'll get messy quick.

Captain Forever I'm putting under The Classic because it appears you destroy ships that drop panels, or find them already dropped, more than actually taking the parts from them during combat. (P.S., these are all my reasonings and feel free to argue them, it's one of the points of the thread)

Shadow Warrior is going under Children of AD&D since, even though it's much quicker and there's no fade to black, it's all still essentially trading time for health directly.

I'm not including damage resistance / avoidance, haste/berserk or anything like that. I would consider a system that's based on immediately recovering lost health, where if you were reduced to 0 you're dead, but reduced to 1 you heal back a percentage of the attack or your total health. But you need to provide a game that uses that system first.

Vore-io added to Lifesteal.

[Niku]

now classify yoshi's island