Goals and Storytelling

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The threshold is twofold and very simple - obviously as you stated the fake difficulty is an issue. For new gamers it creates a threshold you have to know that health kits might be hidden everywhere and know how to find niches where they are. Take a competitive game - the experienced players will know where the health kits are or where they are likely to be or spawn, the new players will not. The experienced players have a distinct advantage causing a niche of "hardcore" players (they're not really, they have the upper hand due to repetition and not skill) to form an ever increasing threshold as the metagame evolves that no new player can enter into causing a stop of new dedicated players and make sure the game experience gets abandoned over time. It keeps out the casuals, yes, but it also keeps out everyone with the potential to be something more. Using the traditional healthpack system is guaranteeing the death of your game as a multiplayer experience.

Second way the threshold works is towards non gamers who are potential gamers. You show someone a game, they're interested in trying it out, they're getting immersed in the experience, they feel the stress of getting hurt in the game, how do I solve it? I shoot an exploding barrel and there's a completely intact medkit in there? Immersion is gone, the game gets ridiculed, the person won't play it again. Non sequiter game mechanics such as this are the main reason why games were never taken seriously as art and still aren't.

Another problem I have with health kits is the fact it more often than not removes the experience of the game. Players who get low health essentially drop all other game mechanics and tactics as far as possible until they find a health kit. It makes finding an item the primary goal for a player in a game where this is not the focus.

I have to clarify some things - I'm not defending auto-heal or regeneration, and that I'm not saying health kit systems never work. But health kit systems have been misused for years just as regeneration systems are being misused to heck now. They both have proper uses - in fact I find Amnesia itself uses both quite well.

I am also not defending spunkgargleweewee games such as the Modern Warfare games, because like yourself I truly, truly despise those games. Disliking one system does not equal liking the alternative by default - I honestly can't think of an element I like in those games, and while I don't agree with you that gaming is dead, I do feel that the majority of FPS gaming is definitely in a slump since hiding behind chest high walls was introduced. I myself was always more into fast paced arena shooters, preferably with an instant kill mode (health kits are for casuals, haha), but those went the way of the dodo.

I do not disagree with you on shooting accuracy however, console shooters destroyed that. I am also interested in your ideas to improve upon broken gameplay mechanics but I'm still not convinced that health kits work in a games' favour.