declined Make health regenerate automatically - as it does in almost *every* modern action-game, for good reasons

[qwds 203]

When health regenerates automatically, it ensures that

• Gameplay is more fast-paced, because players with low health won't hide in cover for long times
• Players can keep playing with their characters/tanks/whatevers intended playstyle - for example a vehicle in a game that is meant to be played aggressively, when it's health is low it might be played like a sniper, therefore it changes "character". A heavy hull is supposed to rely on its health as its advantage, but when its health is low it needs to act like a light hull - it can't do its thing anymore and changes character.
• It's less frustrating! When you're stuck with low health for long times, it's annoying. You can't be effective in battle anymore and wonder if you should let yourself be killed to respawn, search for a health kit, use an expensive repair supply, or just suicide. This is irritating and disrupts gameplay experience.

To be balanced, health could begin to regenerate if the player has avoided taking any damage for a certain amount of time, and should not regenerate instantly, and stop regenerating if the player takes any damage.

EDIT:

To clarify, I don't mean to make health regeneration so quick that it makes gameplay "mindless", and it too hard to get kills. The delay time before health regenerates should probably be about 30 seconds, and only if the player has avoided taking any damage for the entirety of that time.

There could still be use for repair kits, Isidas, and all the other things that heals in the game - they could be a way of healing without having to avoid taking damage for the delay time, and therefore would still be really valuable.

[Dopamine 2,171]

Declined

This Feature would cause a massive change in the gameplay and game balance, which seems rather unnecessary.

Managing your health is an aspect of the which you should be aware of and adjust your tactics and gameplay to prevail in battles.

37 minutes ago, qwds said:

for example a vehicle in a game that is meant to be played aggressively, when it's health is low it might be played like a sniper, therefore it changes "character". A heavy hull is supposed to rely on its health as its advantage, but when its health is low it needs to act like a light hull - it can't do its thing anymore and changes character.

If a tank is meant to be played aggresively, it does not mean it should be able to do so mindlessly, the same goes for heavy hulls.

 

37 minutes ago, qwds said:

37 minutes ago, qwds said:

Gameplay is more fast-paced, because players with low health won't hide in cover for long times

To be balanced, health could begin to regenerate if the player has avoided taking any damage for a certain amount of time, and should not regenerate instantly, and stop regenerating if the player takes any damage.

I am afraid this would yield exactly the opposite effect. It would encourage camping and campers would become very hard to destroy. Also the less tanks destructed per battle, the less income players will receive.

Moreover, this feature collides with the already present resources, by which you can  heal your tank and could render some of them more or less pointless - repair kits, many overdrives (Paladin, Dictator, Mammoth, ares), Isida, Healing emmiters of Shaft.

 

[Maf 32,855]

I actually quite like this idea. A lot of times I find myself hiding in cover just waiting for the repair kit to recharge. That being said, I'm not sure if such a healing mechanic would work in P2W game like Tanki. If everyone were to play on even ground with equally powerful equipment, then a fast-healing mechanic could possibly work, but in a world of drones, overdrives, augments, modules, immunities and 9999 GS tanks, more healing only means it will be harder to fight back against strong enemies.

Fast-healing works in games where the battle mostly consists of isolated 1v1 engagements. Such engagements are most fun when both opponents have equally powerful equipment and both start on max health, so skill and strategy are the only factors that determine the winner. But in a game like Tanki, a stronger enemy will always win a 1v1 against a weaker one, so if a 9999GS player ends up auto-healing after every fight, they will be nearly impossible to kill - even more so than now.

32 minutes ago, frederik123456 said:

If a tank is meant to be played aggresively, it does not mean it should be able to do so mindlessly, the same goes for heavy hulls.

I don't really understand what this means. Are you implying that Tanki isn't meant to be played mindlessly? Because, compared to most other PvP shooters, it is very mindless.

[Dopamine 2,171]

15 minutes ago, Maf said:

That being said, I'm not sure if such a healing mechanic would work in P2W game like Tanki. If everyone were to play on even ground with equally powerful equipment, then a fast-healing mechanic could possibly work, but in a world of drones, overdrives, augments, modules, immunities and 9999 GS tanks, more healing only means it will be harder to fight back against strong enemies.

....

But in a game like Tanki, a stronger enemy will always win a 1v1 against a weaker one, so if a 9999GS player ends up auto-healing after every fight, they will be nearly impossible to kill - even more so than now.

That is the problem, it would just deepen the inequality between players. I am afraid this concept is not applicable to TO.

15 minutes ago, Maf said:

I don't really understand what this means. Are you implying that Tanki isn't meant to be played mindlessly? Because, compared to most other PvP shooters, it is very mindless.

There indeed isn´t much skill involved in MM, pro battles are a bit better at that, but despite that, there still are some principles to play by and some skill to be shown in order to win most battles.

By this logic we might aswell remove turret rotation, make turrets shoot in every direction so you never miss, put hulls on rails so they never flip, sprinkle our keyboards with some grain and put chickens to play the game while pecking on the grain  .

[qwds 203]

13 minutes ago, Maf said:

I actually quite like this idea. A lot of times I find myself hiding in cover just waiting for the repair kit to recharge.

I think if it would regenerate health faster than the recharge time is now now for repair kits, it would be too fast. Also, my idea was to possibly replace repair kits altogheter with regenerating health.

 

[Maf 32,855]

8 minutes ago, qwds said:

I think if it would regenerate health faster than the recharge time is now now for repair kits, it would be too fast. Also, my idea was to possibly replace repair kits altogheter with regenerating health.

Yeah, not gonna happen because the game depends on consumables for revenue. Nice idea though.

[qwds 203]

1 hour ago, frederik123456 said:

Declined

This Feature would cause a massive change in the gameplay and game balance, which seems rather unnecessary.

Managing your health is an aspect of the which you should be aware of and adjust your tactics and gameplay to prevail in battles.

If a tank is meant to be played aggresively, it does not mean it should be able to do so mindlessly, the same goes for heavy hulls.

 

I am afraid this would yield exactly the opposite effect. It would encourage camping and campers would become very hard to destroy. Also the less tanks destructed per battle, the less income players will receive.

Moreover, this feature collides with the already present resources, by which you can  heal your tank and could render some of them more or less pointless - repair kits, many overdrives (Paladin, Dictator, Mammoth, ares), Isida, Healing emmiters of Shaft.

 

While you seem to assume these problems, to that I say that it would have to be balanced properly to avoid these things. Why you assume that it would make the game like this I don't understand.

I imagine that if repair kits were removed and replaced by a carefully balanced health regeneration, you could actually make these problems much less so than they are currently!

Repair kits and these overdrive could still have a place in the game. Maybe unlike the auto-regenerating health they give the ability to have your health be regenerated while taking or right after taking damage. There would be some value in that, if you had to wait say 30 seconds without taking any damage for the health regeneration to begin.

35 minutes ago, Maf said:

I actually quite like this idea. A lot of times I find myself hiding in cover just waiting for the repair kit to recharge.

I did not mean that this would make it easier/quicker to restore health than it is now with the repair kit recharge. That would probably be too quick. I was also thinking about replacing repair kits with this.

[Dopamine 2,171]

4 minutes ago, qwds said:

I imagine that if repair kits were removed and replaced by a carefully balanced health regeneration, you could make these problems much less so than they are now.

It could be done, but it would be really hard to get it right and balanced properly. It would also make it pointless to shoot an enemy unless you are at least moderately confident you can finish him of - because he could just hide and wait to be healed. I know this could be argued about the repair kits aswell,  but for that there is at least that 30s delay between deployment.

 

[Maf 32,855]

19 minutes ago, qwds said:

I imagine that if repair kits were removed and replaced by a carefully balanced health regeneration, you could actually make these problems much less so than they are currently!

Opex said it himself that if he had the option, he would replace supplies with a free-to-use "abilities" system, where you can just use every ability (i.e. supply) as long as it's not on cooldown, without being limited by how many you own. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit into the game's business model.

[qwds 203]

47 minutes ago, frederik123456 said:

It could be done, but it would be really hard to get it right and balanced properly. It would also make it pointless to shoot an enemy unless you are at least moderately confident you can finish him of - because he could just hide and wait to be healed. I know this could be argued about the repair kits aswell,  but for that there is at least that 30s delay between deployment.

 

I've said nothing about delay time for auto-regenerating health being shorter than 30 seconds, or that I want to make the game easier and played completely differently, or played "mindlessly". Sorry if I sound annoyed but it's tiresome to be misunderstood again and again! I've said I want this to be balanced and that could mean a longer waiting time than 30 seconds before auto-regeneration begins!

About campers, if a camper is damaged and want to restore his health he'd have to avoid taking any damage for some time, say 30s. He might hide completely, not wanting to risk having the delay time return to full time, so he would be "neutralized". When he pops out he would have full health though and yes that could be annoying, unless repair kits didn't exist and there was a signficant delay before auto-regeneration began - killing him might be easier than it is now! Because if you've damaged him you know exactly how long time you've got while he's in low health, and you know that the sightest damage you give him after that returns his waiting time to full time  (splash weapons would be very effective) - you could calculate how much time you've got and rush him to kill him.

Now you only know this after you've seen someone use a repair kit, that he can't use another one until 30 seconds has passed.

I imagine that if repair kits was still a thing togheter with this, they'd be used precisely to avoid this situation for the camper - though I'd prefer them to be rarely used luxuries.

40 minutes ago, Maf said:

Opex said it himself that if he had the option, he would replace supplies with a free-to-use "abilities" system, where you can just use every ability (i.e. supply) as long as it's not on cooldown, without being limited by how many you own. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit into the game's business model.

Who is Opex?

That's a good idea, but it's understandable why it's not implemented. I'd hope that tanks had some more way of restoring health though, for the reasons in the OP.

[Maf 32,855]

12 minutes ago, qwds said:

Who is Opex?

@Opex-Rah — previously known as Hazel Rah, he's the lead developer of Tanki and he makes most of the decisions about how gameplay should work (including balance changes).

[numericable 2,398]

Self healing would go against adrenaline augment turret that works well only when your HP is low.

[alkyng 3,137]

I thought many times about it but never suggested, inspired from minecraft.  For me if the healing process will be long, like 30s+, I will just SD myself and respawn with a full health, like in the hopper before the nerf, after every time I capture the flag I just SD myself.  I think it only work in long PRO battles with no supplies.

53 minutes ago, numericable said:

Self healing would go against adrenaline augment turret that works well only when your HP is low.

Adrenaline supposedly work as a compensation of your lost health, not for players who intentionally lowering their healthies (magnum players).

[numericable 2,398]

1 hour ago, asem.harbi said:

I thought many times about it but never suggested, inspired from minecraft.  For me if the healing process will be long, like 30s+, I will just SD myself and respawn with a full health, like in the hopper before the nerf, after every time I capture the flag I just SD myself.  I think it only work in long PRO battles with no supplies.

Adrenaline supposedly work as a compensation of your lost health, not for players who intentionally lowering their healthies (magnum players).

Do you know that there are not only magnum players that use adrenaline? There are alot of no self damage turret that work very good with adrenaline such as freeze or isida firebird tesla shaft vulcan etc. I play with those and when i receive damage, i dont heal if i evaluate that the ennemy won't be able to kill me before i'd kill him so i would get the benefit of the augment, then when im done, i heal myself. So this idea goes against adrenaline augment.

And even for those players that purposely self damage themselves to exploit the damage boost from their adrenaline augments, i want to say, it's not illegal, its a playing style.

[NikmanGT 4,696]

8 hours ago, numericable said:

Self healing would go against adrenaline augment turret that works well only when your HP is low.

This ^

Also, for the fact that since the concept of repair kits and isida healing is applicable in the game since the beginning, TO has been increasing the way by which you can heal yourself, Vampire, Healing Emitters and now Paladin overdrive too, passive self-healing will make all these concept useless.

In long maps, sometimes I travel large distances with medium hulls as my nitro has run-out, by the time I reach enemy base or even a significant distance, I would have auto-healed quickly.

Will make it difficult for players with low GS to withstand such situations where the enemy team comes, takes the flag, and by the team it goes away and caps and then come back, it would have gained health.

[XD_PRO 89]

a new mode be introduced where u cant use supplies and health regains overtime like tdm with kill limits