We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

I am aware. I think it's an arbitrary distinction. It popularized regenerating points that prevent you from dying.

Well, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think the distinction matters quite a bit.

With fully regenerating health, the player can shrug off all sorts of mistakes given somewhere to hunker down. Depending on balance, this can encourage too much reliance on cover, or not enough, but I think this is a very tricky thing to balance because there isn’t much nuance between “alive” and “dead” with such a system. That is, there’s probably either enough dakka to kill you or there isn’t. Yet it’s part in between that you want to be able to tune as a designer. Plus, without a need for health packs, that’s one less thing to encourage players to scavenge for.

With strictly static health, challenge often becomes too centered around making it alive to the next health pack (and where you place things is how it will be for all players regardless of their skill; a one size fits all solution...). A lot of players who find a segment too hard don’t have the willpower to avoid quicksaving through the game, and that eventually gets about as exciting and challenging as godmoding. Still, there is the reward of finding a health pack right when you’ve needed it for the last fifteen minutes.

But with regenerating shield and static health, the risk of taking hits is much easier to balance against the logistics of health maintenance. It’s easier to encourage players to expose themselves to the danger of a few stray shots, and it’s easier to convince the player to stick with punishments they’ve earned, getting rid of a significant temptation towards quickload abuse. If you play your cards right, they’ll even still be encouraged to search for health.

It all comes down to balance in any case, but I think the hybrid approach is much easier to balance. And what’s easier to balance is what’s more likely to have good balance at all. Plus X-Wingness is next to godliness.