THQ's Homefront 2/Health System

**Document Status: Yellow [Requires a revisit post-Gate 3]**

## Goals

* Give clear feedback to the player for all health states but in a contextual manner
* Not to handicap the player too much when in a critical state
* Avoid situations where the outcome of future gameplay sections is hindered by ‘poor’ player performance in a previous section
* Convey a sense of self-preservation in the player
* Avoid a reliance on health pick-ups and subsequent difficulty spikes / balancing issues

## Proposal

* It would be preferential to use a regenerating health system as a foundation due to the issues of managing a finite reserve of health
* Health regeneration (rate and delay) is generally slower than in most other games
* Players can regenerate to full health over time providing they are not taking damage
	+ Potentially the regeneration rate could be greatly reduced in combat scenarios
* In addition to regeneration player’s can supplement health restoration by using Battlefield surgery at any time (rather than on death)
	+ Battlefield Surgery will quickly restore the player to full heath (very fast regen)
	+ Specific Battlefield Surgery animations are used based on player health bracket (the lower the health bracket the longer the animation)

## Feedback System

* Screen effects and a HUD display are used to convey the current health state to the player
* A combination of a blood mask screen effects and a condition (heart monitor) style HUD display with absolute health amount (%) would be preferable
	+ No health bars
	+ No monochrome effect
	+ No full screen blur or occlusion
* Additionally, non-linear blending of the screen effect would help avoid situations where the player has the blood displayed on-screen for too long
* A heart monitor style display could also be used to help convey the regeneration rate, the more relaxed/optimal the heart rate the better the health regeneration (e.g. improved regen when out of combat)
	+ Colouration could indicate this stress level

## Multiplayer

* SP and MP health systems should be as consistent as possible
* SP regeneration is likely to be faster than MP
* Only the medic class has the ability to perform Battlefield Surgery (Heal)
* MP healing systems:
	+ Standard health regeneration (slow regen)
		- E.g. Health regains slowly over time
	+ Revive interact (instant full heal)
		- E.g. Medic revives a fallen team mate
	+ Heal interact (very fast regen)
		- E.g. Medic heals an injured team mate
	+ Passive heal object (fast regen) – finite health kit/station
		- E.g. Injured team mate heals in proximity to a placed object

## Body Armour

* Body armour is an equipment item craftable by the player from salvaged materials
* When equipped it acts to reduce a percentage of the amount of incoming damage
* It is gradually degraded by receiving damage, when it becomes too damaged (zero health) it will be discarded by the player
	+ Body armour will provide full effectiveness until it is destroyed
* When equipped the player will receive audio/visual feedback of an equipping animation in addition to a HUD icon
* When receiving damage with body armour equipped the audio feedback of bullet hits will be subtly different
* Upon the body armour being destroyed there will be a distinct discarding sound, if the player is not performing another action this will be accompanied by a quick animation
* If used for MP body armour would need distinct bullet hit audio feedback to help convey that the target is wearing body armour.