Jacksinthe
Banned
I still prefer to engage the player and make stuff like this active instead of passive, tbh. I just prefer choice/consequence as options. I use regen for our player's main energy pool but there is an ebb and flow to its use when you attack or zip around. There are ways to regain energy faster for your main pool which ties into your secondary pool for alt weapons so the better you get at utilizing generators the more you can pew pew.It went great! Better than I hoped.
There's varying types of regen you can do, though. I'm planning to only allow you to regen up to half health. This way, the player has to be careful because several hits can end their life if they play reckless. However, they have a baseline they can return to and more health if they play cautiously. My levels right now are kind of long so losing progress due to reckless gameplay punishes the player.
If you are keeping passives, it might be fun to introduce some choice by having the player seek out various artifacts which apply different boons, but limit use to only 1 active at any one time. Breaking it down to easiest mechanics: increase your damage throughput, increase your damage mitigation or increase health regen or total health. This way you can still give the player "if X, then Y" style choices and invite the player to participate in that process, making them feel like they have more input. Doesn't have to be much but people play games differently and if you can give just an inch, it can be perceived as a mile and still clamped within your game's rules so it doesn't break anything. I just prefer looking for ways to include player decision making, even if it's just a tiny bit.