doesn’t change the fact that it is a bad idea. Reminder this game doesn’t stop you from killing your own allies why would it stop you from killing one random houndeye. No just no.
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Well really i don’t mind, but let’s face it. You could just run through puddles and not realise they are giving you health. I know what the healing pools are, but if you are a first timer to xen and never playef half life… you might not realise it is the new “Health Charger” for this part of the game.
I suppose there will be something to “attract” the eye to the puddles but i did not think it was a bad effort to show what they do for a brief moment.
How would you darkone explain what the puddles do without spelling it out in text format? I think with xen seeing text tutorial messages is not desireable either.
I can see some people who never played before just not understanding the healing pools though initially that is all. Well it happened to me when I played the original game anyway.
I suppose you can look at it like die a number of times then learn if you don’t know infinite lives no big deal…
I would do it in an easy way show the A-grunts or vorts using them from a distance to heal up after a fight.
Or the easiest way Audio log, or white board.
How did we become aware of the healing pools in the original game. It’s so much better when you figure it out for yourself.
Not everything has to be spoon fed.
Besides, 15 minutes after zen is released there will be a million walkthroughs on the youtubes for those that cannot figure out why this pool makes noise and has a weird bubbly myst.
This, also we don’t even know if the healing pools will still be a thing.
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Except a mechanic that recovers all of a player’s HP is the sort of thing a level designer might take into account, meaning that the player would need to know how the pools work, and failing to explain to the player a mechanic that is mandatory to completing the game is horrible design.
Making the player feel like they figured it out by themselves is great design, HL2 excelled at it, but leaving them to a horde of enemies with low health because they assumed the glowing blue goo was toxic is just bad design.
At about the 0:39 mark in the trailer, you can see freeman getting shot headfirst into what looks to be a large healing pool, and I’m guessing that’s the introduction to the pools, which, as I see it, would be an ideal method of introducing that mechanic.
How was the mechanic introduced in Half Life?
I believe on the first xen level you had a “natural” healing pond that made a weird noise and that had particles, so it wasn’t easy to miss. But even if you did miss it, it wasn’t a huge deal as there weren’t a lot of enemies and you were mostly platforming and exploring.
Later levels then showed vorts using the healing showers that had similar sounds and particles.
Well funnily enough you say from a distance… Something that could work is having an observation / wildlife hide with binoculars.
But considering vorts or Agrunts as far as i am aware don’t have injured animations this explaination of healing pools has become rather excessive and I feel out of scope.
All i was trying to do was explain them healing pools quick and easy and you would still fight the houndete after it got better anyway. Because it crosses you after you give it sympathy anyway. Mexican stand off type of affair.
Nuff said.
Just realized something, wasn’t Ronster perm banned from the forums for bad ideas, and reporting none bugs as bugs?
It really does not matter now, the game is practically finished.
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The healing pools are introduced in Half-Life in a way that lets the player discover how they work. You see some oddly colored water with particles coming off of it, and an angelic, inviting tone is playing from it. Of course that gets a player’s curiosity, so they step in, and find out it heals them.
Half-Life is a series that’s at its best when it lets the players do what they want and discover things for themselves. You’re not spoon-fed information like in some modern shooters.
Take the friendly vorts in Xen for example. The only way you can know they’re friendly is if you take a moment to realize they’re not attacking you, instead of going in guns-ablaze. You’re not shown a cutscene of the vorts seeing Gordon and not attacking, and you’re not given a “Entering Neutral Territory” message or anything like that. It’s all for players to discover, and it’s better that way.
But for the sake of argument, I could totally see that limping houndeye being given the lowered gun treatment, like when Gordon looks at a scientist or guard. You can still shoot, but the gun’s not in their face, indicating friendliness.
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Regarding the healing pools, the bms.fgd file in the bin folder defines an entity named “env_xen_healpool”. There is a reference to a model “models/props_Xen/xen_healingpool_full.mdl”, and a parameter called healRate (Healing Rate).
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odds from the steamforums shared this dev post.
What does this picture mean? I don’t know much about the meme, is it related to Xen?
That´s the actor who poses as Anatoly Dyatlov in tv-series Chernobyl. Dyatlov is one of those responsible for the accident.
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Great docudrama. There’s also a 5 part podcast that covers the Chernobyl catastrophe in more depth along with the show.
UPDATE!
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NEW ATTACK… and it scares me.
Looking down at ground it seems to be gap between displacements. Looks like maps still needs some polish to do.