Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 14,284
There is no real functional distinction with regards to gameplay. The shield is just another name for 80% of your health that happens to regenerate, while the remaining 20% doesn't and can only be restored with medkits. The only difference is damage to the shield doesn't spill over into your other health pool once broken, unless it's explosive damage. At least from what I gather. I'm not a Halo expert but I know enough of the decline.
The shield in Halo 1 is not nearly as strong as health. Like I said its worth more like 20%. If you are at 1 health then full shields means you can take, like, 1 hit and not die on Legendary.
Also Shield/Health have different resistance to weapons, so the balance remains relevant. Shields are strong against hitscan weapons while Health is strong against the plasma/fire/etc. Which is part of the reason why the shield is almost meaningless on Legendary, since your enemies almost all use Plasma and can kill you in the blink of an eye without health.
Garbage excuse also used to justify regen health in a singleplayer game. The solution? good ammo and health management so you don't have to backtrack 10 mins. See some rockets that you can't pick up due to full ammo? Use the rocket launcher for a bit on some nearby tough enemies and then back track for 10 seconds to pick it up.
There's a reason why most linear games tend to simply give you tons more ammo then you'll ever need, thereby making ammo scarcity an irrelevant mechanic beyond the absolute immediate needs.
The reason is called shit design. There are untold amounts of linear games that don't bombard you with health and ammo. I seem to recall in super mario bros backtracking for health not even being an option as you don't know which block is health or not until you smack your head on it, so you inadvertently ending wasting a mushroom here and there.
If you have to backtrack 10mins, stop being shit; git gud fag. If you're playing linear games with shit design, stop.
If any game lets you cap out on the strongest ammo then its guilty of "simply giving you more ammo then you need". So your solution to the problem of backtracking is to make ammo management meaningless by giving you more ammo then you ever need. Great solution.
If you want to name a linear FPS with large levels that still harshly punishes wasting ammo, please do so. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that no FPS has really done ammo management properly. Even in Doom the observation was made that unless you intentionally gimped yourself to start each level with a pistol it was way too easy.
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