Should mobs have a visible health bar in DST?

[Gi-Go]

This question been on my mind lately. Would the game be better or worse if we could see hp of mobs, and should klei add this into the game in a QoL update? 

[QuQuasar]

Bosses only. I've seen what the health bar mod looks like for Webber players.

[Mike23Ua]

Bosses or Mini Bosses only- other mobs die in too few hits to even matter..

But what would be cool is visual facial expressions or even mobs looking more beat up to show their taking damage.

[Kur0u]

No, health bars for either mobs or bosses make it too predictable. Isn't the whole point of DST being uncompromising, unimaginable and dangerous?

[ADM]

I'm really fine the way it is and I guess it goes the same for lots of players. Health bars aren't quite a super important feature in most survival games (and similar types) cause you learn of the mob health by fighting it a few times, you know how many hits it's gonna take to get this mob down and figuring a little how strong your weapons / characters / buffs are you kinda do your own maths, you can't go too wrong.

It's goes the same for boss, I personally don't count hits for them, just the time it takes me and some of them have visual indicators like DF and lavae spawning moments or when one of them gets a new ability like Klaus or Fuelweaver and a few others you will know after doing them the second time. That's just to say leaning is important in many aspects of DST but maintaining that knowledge by yourself will make you a better and happy player.

But to be a little more on the topic of health bars, I don't know a lot of game where I found them interesting at all, it's barely okay when they give away the health of one-time encounter big enemies in adventure games or even get uncomfortable depending how they're displayed. It even seems this tendency is getting rarer in latest indie game released except when they're obviously required for when it comes to check your own health or see many different unit healths as you can't rely on memory and would be an actual lack of info (one example out of many : Wargroove).

Lucky for us that game as mods and people who have different preferences so you can have health bars or any kind in term of display and usefulness (on cursor, on top of screen for big mobs, on all entities??, on console...), find what suits you. As for the game itself, I gave my point already and wouldn't find that a quality of life kind of addition to the game and would even alter the quality badly.

However there could be alternative to health bars, no ? I know games who has gadgets and offer abilities to read mob healths to make it an optional and acquirable gameplay component. DST could have that as an equippable item of some sort to give that bit of information to the player in an original way ? Now in term of usefulness it depends of players and what you want to know, I can't say I use too much the Gardeneer Hat but I'm glad it's here.

[Captain_Rage]

No.

[Mike23Ua]

Most enemies in console games (Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo) actually DO have visual health bars, or if not health bars then visual limping of the enemy with their bodies looking more beat up, maybe limping around with pained expressions on their face.. in fact I don’t think there’s MANY game I’ve played that does not have these visual health bars (on any enemy requiring more then about 15 hits that is)

The only most recent game in memory that doesn’t have some sort of visual cue “Hey this thing is taking damage & dying” Is State of Decay 2- But that goes back to point A- All enemies in that game take no more then 4 hits to kill so having visual health bars would’ve been pointless.

Now I will admit I may be a little bit biased in wanting visual health bars on larger mobs that need more then 15 hits to kill because I GREW UP with games that had them.. And one of my favorite games of all time just so happens to be borderlands..

The TL:DR? Anything that feels like a literal health sponge soaking up damage without dying.. could probably use an on screen health bar or visually appear to be getting hurt more with each Hambat whack.

[Cheggf]

Would make the game worse & be really ugly. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

just for the moments when you stress up because the screen is getting filled with enemies meanwhile you try to keep agro on the boss and thinking about leaving the fight because you are grave wounded just to hit the boss one last time and see his death animation is worth playing without health bars

[Well-met]

No, but I'd like hit text like forge. Toggle option of course.

[GelatinousCube]

No, visual cues that the boss is getting weaker like with crab king though? Yes.

[-Variant]

I don't like the concept of health bars. It takes away from the immersion, and there's far more fun ways of doing it, I feel.
Visual cues to show a mob is weak would be far more interesting than some bar that shrink.

[Mysterious box]

5 hours ago, Kur0u said:

unimaginable and dangerous?

To be fair this describes the survivors more than the creatures they face at this point 

[DajeKotlyar]

No, God, please, no!

If you want health bar - download a mod.

[Theukon-dos]

While there are mods that do it (and I use), I don't think Health Bars would work super well for the game in and of itself. What I would love to see though are visual indicators for bosses. Deerclops and Moose loosing a horn at half HP, Dragonfly's scales starting to crack at 50/25% HP, that sort of thing.

[minespatch]

Only time I used health bars was modding hollow knight during the hollow point mod. Made the game feel like a legitimate shooter.

[Milordo]

No, no, no. Making the health bar visible allows you to be in a more comfortable spot where sometimes you're in tension due to not knowning if it has 2 hits to be dead or 15.  It happens many time maybe during a boss fight to have that adrenaline because you have low hp, or hounds are coming, ecc.....

Not showing health bar is made on purpose and i would be glad to stay that way. Look how overconfident streamers or normal players became when the enemy has low hp, not only for new players it maybe teachs you wrong.