Without a health meter, what does that mean for gameplay? If they make one bit of this like CoD, I swear I will hurt someone...
But really, I am asking you guys. Maybe I don't understand, but you guys answer.

HUDs are for casuals

I have a feeling that health will be represented as an increasingly red screen as you near death. I could see spells just "not working" when you run out of magicka, and then maybe a shimmering or absorbtion of light as you replenish.

AWESOME! Thanks for the info, bro!

You still have health/magica/stamina points.

Most likely the HUD just fades out when you aren't in combat / don't have a weapon drawn / aren't using a spell, etc.

if its done right having no hud actually works very well. far cry 2 is the best example of a hudless game that played very well. for health your screen would darken and you would get colors (not sure what to describe them as) on the outside of your screen. for ammo and stuff if you hit a key your ammo counter would pop up and then disappear again and it would also show if you switched weaposn i believe. im hoping they took far cry 2s approach or something similar because it makes the game much more immersive.

found a link to a video showing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3lp0EiCGuE

They could use sound cues like panting or visual cues like limping to notify the player. That way you get the immersions, which a lot of you seem to like here.

panting was used along with vision blur in far cry 2 as well when you sprinted to much. there was a game that made you limp if you were injured i think but im blanking on the name. i know deus ex would make you crawl on the ground if your legs got to badly damaged.

I think an RPG without a HUD is ludicrous. The HUD is probably toggle-able, or as stated already, it appears at necessary moments.

Why? We're not talking about the inventory screens and whatnot, just the always visible stuff. Technically, we're just talking about moving from a "HUD" (a realtime information system based around icons and bars and whatnot) to a "totally not a HUD" (a realtime information system built around shaders and sounds and things meant to better simulate a person's actual perception of fatigue and so on).

If spells are equipped in your hands, and your hands are visible, you can indicate magicka level there through a variable-strength equipped spell effect or glowing rune or something. Compass/map can be in-game items as in Far Cry. Weapon condition can indicated by visible degradation on the model in your hands.

You probably won't see spell effect icons or enemy health at all. Enemy appearance/sound/animation could give hints of health; if not, such is life. You can probably guess that you're affected by a fire damage spell effect from the fact that you're on fire. You probably can't guess that you're under the effect of a "drain agility 3pts" curse effect, but would a character really be able to intuitively guess that anyway?

It's definitely feasible to go no HUD, though it's anyone's guess as to whether it will be effective or not.

it means no quest markers...maybe

I’m sure all the necessary info will be conveyed using more “organic” methods.

Blood in the eyes and audio queues and what not. Don’t sweat it.

What is wrong with Call of Duty's health system? It lets you know you're dying without having to look at some bar. Now the regeneration, I wouldn't want. but it just seems kind of odd having to look down at a few bars to understand that I'm dying. It takes me out of the experience.

Having no HUD does not mean that you would not have health bars for your opponents, or yourself, and those parameters can be shown in other ways, like player character panting and groans, and the like.

The health and fatigue level of the opponents can also be shown by their movement styles and their sounds like the player if they pant and groan, and so on...

They get low on fatigue, they drop their shield and take the sword by two hands, and their movements become slower, this can happen to player as well, so you are forced to put the shield back and take the sword by two hands, and their groans when damaged, can vary depending on their health level, so fresh wounds can cause them an "oof", but deeper gashes when their health is low, can cause them groan and howl.

You "equip" magicka now, so when your magicka gets low, I can see the crackling ball of fire you are grasping fading, then vanishing, springing back to life as your magic recharges. Health can be shown a number of ways, stamina too. And to replace the compass, I feel like a quick glance at your map will be enough to satisfy everyone, from the most hardcoe of the diehards, to the most casual QwestKompasser.

The UI was compared to what Apple might have designed. I'm curious to see if this translates well to the PC. I love the concept, but we'll have to wait and see how it's executed.

What's wrong with having 1 hp point while running around all fine and dandy, then a rat touches you and you die?

According to the few articles I've read, the HUD is optional...

Now we can equip an actual physical compass in one hand with a weapon in the other. Perhap pick up "enchanted" compasses that guide you to your destination.

Just because the game has no HUD (Does it have no HUD? I read through the features listed in the Game Informer article thread but saw no mention of no HUD being one of the features.) does not necessarily mean a Call of Duty type stealth system. My guess is that they'd use some sort of more natural indicator to show that your health or magicka is getting low, but if you actually open the character screen, you'll still get a more detailed indication of how much health you have left. At least, I hope it's something like that. If they want to have things like health bars not visible on the screen for the sake of "immersion", it may not be a reasoning I necessarily agree with, but it's one I can understand. But there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to see exactly how much health I have from my character screen, and I doubt they're going to try to pull that off without using any HUD elements.



Needing to have blood magically appear on my eyes even if I haven't been hit in the head to know I'm dying is also kind of unrealistic. But the thing that really bothers me about Call of Duty's health system is that health regenerates instead of being healed by health equipment, plus, the screen effects used to show that you're low on health make it harder to see, and when you're low on health, you would need to not have a hard time seeing because if you can barely see what's going on, it's harder to avoid further damage. Other than that, a health bar still gives a more precise indication of how much more damage I can take than an effect on the screen.



It really doesn't, as long as there's still a map in the character screen, and I don't see how you could possibly make an open world game without a map. Then they could just have the quest markers only visible on the map, just because you can't see them constantly doesn't mean they won't be used when you open the map. Although I'd say that would be less intrusive than the way it is in Oblivion because I don't get an arrow on my compass constantly pointing in a certain direction as though the game is saying "Go here! Go here!" when I'm trying to explore.

Khm, Fable...

As far as reddened vision not being realistic goes, people saying that must not spar.

The more exhausted and injured you get the more reddened in blurred your vision gets.

I really dig the idea of not having traditional health/mana bars. Getting progressively worse at things you do the lower your health and mana is sounds great. This also allows for interesting tactics/possibilities - such as having a spell that gives you temporary disregard for disadvantages of having low health/mana (but, mind you, does not makes you immune to damage, you just don't notice it temporary), having the same mechanic of getting progressively worse for the enemies you fight, now you would have to really plan out the attacks and not just blindly attack everything. No more I have 1 hp and I'm having the time of my life sounds great. It's not only realistic (which I don't really care about), but it also sounds very fun.

This also adds a more interesting learning curve and higher skill ceiling to the game. Sure, it would be harder to learn at first, which is something you would need to keep in mind. I'm not sure how you can combine having bars and being dynamic at the same time, perhaps have an option to turn the bars on, in addition to the dynamic effects.

Speaking of regeneration, I think there should be some (albeit very slow) regeneration of, say, hp over time (regenerating up to +10% of your total hp to your current hp). Perhaps having it only at very low hp (so the gentle breeze doesn't kill you).

I play New Vegas with no HUD and it works out just fine. I just need to bring up the pip boy to check ammo etc. I think it's a great idea.

What do you mean we must not spar? Blurred vision and blacking out is one thing, but blood in eyes? What kinda sparring do you do?

I am so afraid of this.