Realisim should not be a key gameplay feature of shooting games

[MrBlueSky]

Link to original post: [drupal=4352]Realisim should not be a key gameplay feature of shooting games[/drupal]



I have been seeing this too much, and seeing this post made me want to make this blog, the quote is below. PLEASE NOTE: this quote is taken OUT OF CONTEXT! Thee was actually talking about the LACK of innovation in shooting games, which I have a problem with. But the suggestions he made were what I was seeing a problem with today's shooting games. Also note that this is mostly an opinion blog. I will be writing mostly about competitiveness.

Quote:
Originally Posted by theeboredone
Of course team death match will always be the favorite multiplayer mode, but that doesn't change the way how the matches can be executed. I think the game series America's Army involves the use of medics, and if a soldier is shot, there's a good chance he can BLEED to death or slow down considerably rather than having to just run away and be 100% okay after 5 seconds.

I think it would be cool to see kills get a bit more compilicated. It's one thing to run up behind somebody and knife them, but what if he's looking at you? I'm not asking it to turn into some epic fighter with a chance for someone else to run by and shoot you both, but I think it should more than one "button" to knife someone in their face.

And how about injuries that impact your abilities? If you get shot in the arm and haven't re-spawned yet, you can't tell me you will be as good with the sniper rifle compared to having both arms.

Do not make games realistic. We use video games as a way to get away from real life. Why would we want games to be realistic? Does it make it more fun? Would Mario be more fun if you died when you jumped off a high cliff? Would you rather play Gran Turismo than F-Zero? The point Im trying to make is that games should not be limited due to real life physics. How does that play into shooting games? Well, lets look at GoldenEye Wii compared to its 64 counterpart.

GoldenEye Wii has a sprint system, that makes it so you cant run sideways/backwards and also so you cant shoot while running(though you can stop running to shoot). This is considered to be realistic. This also hinders movement, as the developers slowed down player movement to put more emphasis on this feature.

GoldenEye 64, on the other hand, is incredibly fast in movement, especially when exploiting the speed run side strafe glitch. But even without this glitch, the game is faster paced than the Wii version. And more speed makes the game more competitive, as it adds more room for error, therefore more depth.

Back to the Wii version, in this game you have "Weapon Loadouts". They allow you to pick what weapon you start out with. You can choose any weapon you want. Again, a feature to make shooting games more life-like. So lets look back on 64.

In the 64 version you have weapon pick ups. You have to run around the map to find weapons. Many players would consider the Wii versions weapon loadouts to be a massive improvement to the 64 version. Some players would even say this is more competitive as all players have access to the same weapons. Let me just lay down something that Arcade style players already know.

With weapon loadouts, there is no such thing as map/weapon control. For those who don't know what this is, its basically picking up things so that other players cant. This includes weapon, ammo, and health/armor. This is so much more depth intensive than "starting out with a weapon". For a good example of this, go look up competitive Quake matches on YouTube, try finding videos with commentary's(I might link to a good video later). This skill separates the good players from the bad.

Now what about things not in GE64? Because, you know, GE64 is pretty tame compared to Quake/Unreal Tournament. So...how about them rocket jumps? That's not realistic at all, yet it adds so much to the game. And what about Bunny hopping? How is repeatedly jumping make you move faster? Better question, why does it matter? Its another skill that separates good players from bad.

Overall I cant prove to you that unrealistic games are more fun than realistic ones, but I can **** well prove that they are more competitive, and that should count for something...

May edit this later and add stuff, but its getting late. Also namesearch finalark, I would like your opinion on this, seeing as I listed a whole bunch of old games as more competitive than today's games.

 

[Browny]

Well hold up here...

Look at modern FPS vs old FPS and the major difference is actually as far from realism as you can get with regenerating health. You can take a .50cal to the chest, wait 10 seconds and take shotgun to both legs and within moments youre running around fine again.

Theres so many aspects of realism and you cant just make a blanket statement to cover all aspects. For example while I prefer games were you can hold every weapon you pick up, games like Halo with the 1 in arm, 1 holstered for realism really is a very good move for competition.

I think Battlefield BC2 has one of the best mixes of realism I've seen. Adding enormous deviation while moving and shooting, deafening squeals when an explosion goes off nearby and people behind you getting killed if you fire an RPG are great. But they NEED to add fake elements such as regenerating health, being able to survive headshots from low-power guns and being able to commandeer any vehicle and start driving instantly to make the game fast-paced, balanced and enjoyable enough so that people actually want to play it in competition.

 

[MrBlueSky]

Well hold up here...

Look at modern FPS vs old FPS and the major difference is actually as far from realism as you can get with regenerating health. You can take a .50cal to the chest, wait 10 seconds and take shotgun to both legs and within moments youre running around fine again.

Theres so many aspects of realism and you cant just make a blanket statement to cover all aspects. For example while I prefer games were you can hold every weapon you pick up, games like Halo with the 1 in arm, 1 holstered for realism really is a very good move for competition.

I think Battlefield BC2 has one of the best mixes of realism I've seen. Adding enormous deviation while moving and shooting, deafening squeals when an explosion goes off nearby and people behind you getting killed if you fire an RPG are great. But they NEED to add fake elements such as regenerating health, being able to survive headshots from low-power guns and being able to commandeer any vehicle and start driving instantly to make the game fast-paced, balanced and enjoyable enough so that people actually want to play it in competition.

Very good post lol. I do need to rewrite the OP a bit because I did make it seem that games were already realistic. Though you did list some of the things that are "unrealistic" as things that were competitive.

And your right I did kinda blanket term the realism thing, but I would like to see how only being able to hold 2 weapons makes it more competitive? I think it could be argued that an all weapon system would be more competitive. Seeing as you would have to deal with pressure of all weapons, instead of being limited to only two weapons.

 

[§witch]

I like the fact that someone made a new account just for this thread.

Why can't there be realistic games and non-realistic games? America's army is ****ing awesome, but so is serious sam.

 

[MrBlueSky]

I like the fact that someone made a new account just for this thread.

Why can't there be realistic games and non-realistic games? America's army is ****ing awesome, but so is serious sam.

Have you noticed the increasing amount of Modern War games?

Have you noticed the DECREASING amount of Arcade Style shooting games?

This disappoints me.

Not to say there's no more arcade style, but they are losing in popularity, its a dying genre.

 

[Browny]

Because having single high-powered weapons in maps opens up a lot of strategy, especially things like the sniper in Halo. However the dedicated sniper has to have that role, you cant have the sniper running around with every gun for every situation and an extremely powerful one. It is too imbalanced and it forces the team to actually work with the sniper instead of it being 1 person running around with a high powered weapon vs everyone else.

IDK its not that much more competitve, but I come from a long history of competitve Battlefield (2/2412/BC2) and having classes with specific weapons is kind of the same thing. It would be stupid if you pick a class like assault with the best anti-infantry capability, then being able to simply become a tank killer, medic, sniper as the need arises. It forces strategic thinking and actually, the outcome of any match can be affected greatly by what goes on without anyone actually in the game. All the pre-game and respawn tactics with class selections change the outcome of every firefight. If you could pick up every gun, the need for specialised approaches and weapon selections for each player and situation would decrease, turning it more into a basic TDM.

 

[MrBlueSky]

Because having single high-powered weapons in maps opens up a lot of strategy, especially things like the sniper in Halo. However the dedicated sniper has to have that role, you cant have the sniper running around with every gun for every situation and an extremely powerful one. It is too imbalanced and it forces the team to actually work with the sniper instead of it being 1 person running around with a high powered weapon vs everyone else.

IDK its not that much more competitve, but I come from a long history of competitve Battlefield (2/2412/BC2) and having classes with specific weapons is kind of the same thing. It would be stupid if you pick a class like assault with the best anti-infantry capability, then being able to simply become a tank killer, medic, sniper as the need arises. It forces strategic thinking and actually, the outcome of any match can be affected greatly by what goes on without anyone actually in the game. All the pre-game and respawn tactics with class selections change the outcome of every firefight. If you could pick up every gun, the need for specialised approaches and weapon selections for each player and situation would decrease, turning it more into a basic TDM.

Im more of a 1vs1 guy in Warsow(quake based mod) so I wouldn't know too much of team games though it does seem logical the way you put it. Though 1vs1 in Quake you need to be able to respond to any situation, which you couldn't do if you could only hold 2 weapons.

Of course Halo/Battlefield/Quake are all different games, with different styles of gameplay and weapon balance, I don't think you can actually compare them.

 

[Browny]

From my exp, all competitive FPS are team games.

I've never actually heard of a proper 1vs1 competition (as in, with brackets, prizes etc)...

 

[MrBlueSky]

Really? I mean I know modern games are all team based but Quake was heavily 1vs1. I really need to bring up some YouTube links.

Edit:
Rapha vs Cooller, Intel Extreme Master World Championship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58
(gonna add that to the OP later)

And Jimbo vs Trent, a GE64 1vs1 tournament. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUGfCr3b2hw
To be honest GE64 isn't that popular competitively. Most of them play online.

 

[Teran]

I remember old Rainbow Six, my favourite was Raven Shield.

You had a team of expert counter terrorism agents. Your "life bar" was a white circle. If you hit in the body , half the circle went out, if you were hit in the head, you died. So basically get shot twice and die.

It was really good because although you could switch to other team members after the one you controlled died, you obviously don't want to lose someone so you can do the next mission. This made you really survey everything and plan your attacks.

Tactical FPS

Don't think that genre even exists anymore, or if it does people would think it's stuff like Gears of War lol. >.>

 

[Ryu Shimazu]

Maybe Duke Nukem? Lol.

I get your point. It does suck. I hate CoD

 

[Teran]

Duke Nukem is legit though, it was never trying to act realistic. XD

As Browny pointed out, the whole get shot "red screen deep breath take cover" thing is the biggest piece of **** ever. It's just pandering to a newer generation of inept children. Why shooters are aimed at children I don't really know, but then again everything is aimed at children.

I liked Goldeneye Wii because it brought back the classic health bar on the hardest mode. Goes to show that modern games can be challenging and enjoyable.

Man Far Cry and Half Life 2 had health bars, funny enough they're like the last shooters I thought were amazing. Halo got away with its system with me because it incorporated it well and it had a good explanation from the beginning.

 

[Browny]

Aim at children = less likely to pirate games = dont have to worry about spending their own money on things like food = more sales

Also Teran its a lesser of two evils IMO. On one hand, you have non-regen health where players take an obscene amount of bullets to bring down such that the game doesnt degenerate into sniper wars and favours camping. Alternatively, you get regen which brings players down in less bullets for added realism in regards to bullet damage at the cost of its being completely ******** that you simply regenerate health...

Its just too hard to balance non-regen games which involve wide open spaces like BF and Halo. Its impossible to run from cover to cover to approach a sniper/tuber if they only needs to hit you once and then youre dead if you ever try to move out.

 

[MrBlueSky]

Its just too hard to balance non-regen games which involve wide open spaces like BF and Halo. Its impossible to run from cover to cover to approach a sniper/tuber if they only needs to hit you once and then youre dead if you ever try to move out.

I would disagree with this somewhat, but I would just be comparing to quake and as I said before, they are different games. They cannot be compared.

I will say that Quake is pretty balanced imo. I haven't seen one weapon dominate a whole match before. Some may be more important at the time of the match, but you cant expect to win with just one weapon.

Will reword the OP to say "Shooting games should not be limited in design because of strive for realism".

Edit: Cant edit OP, something wrong with the blog site?

 

[Browny]

.... that was taken out of context, almost

As I was saying, "it's impossible to run from cover to cover to approach a sniper/tuber if they only need to hit you once and then youre dead if you ever try to move out" without players taking an obscene amount of bullets to die.

To make it possible for a non-regen health player to approach a camper safely, they need to have a lot of health or they are never going to get there. This makes it ridiculous when you see players taking multiple sniper rounds to bring down or things like 4+ chest shots from an assault rifle. That detracts from realism a lot.

 

[MrBlueSky]

Oh I'm sorry I misread the post :/ I thought you were complaining that sniper rifles were OP lol.

Don't know what to say to that. Its a very good point.

...I think I lost track of what you are saying. Are you saying that balancing in that fashion is bad? Imo its not as ridiculous as you make it seem, at least in quake its not. And its unrealistic as you already said.

 

[Browny]

I'm not considering 1vs1 at all, it represents a tiny minority of competitive FPS.

Im saying that non-regen health was a standard in old games, and now regen is the standard in new games. A perfectly valid argument is this is dumbing it down for children as Teran pointed out. However we also see a massive increase in the amount of team-based FPS and right at the top of it all is Halo. The most competitive FPS there is.

Is it no surprise that other shooters are following Halo (afaik Halo were the first to introduce regenerating health/shields as standard, not an upgrade/buff)? This way the devs can cater for the kids while simultaneously trying to emulate the competitive success of Halo to some degree. Unfortunately, everyone else who doesnt care about team-based competitions and scrims who isnt a child and likes depth to their gameplay loses out...

This is of course operating under the assumption that regen health DOES make a game more competitive. Im not saying it is, but I will say that bullet damage seems to be very hard to balance in a non-regen game while having a very wide variety of guns including various OHKO weapons from any range.

 

[MrBlueSky]

I'm not considering 1vs1 at all, it represents a tiny minority of competitive FPS.

Im saying that non-regen health was a standard in old games, and now regen is the standard in new games. A perfectly valid argument is this is dumbing it down for children as Teran pointed out. However we also see a massive increase in the amount of team-based FPS and right at the top of it all is Halo. The most competitive FPS there is.

Is it no surprise that other shooters are following Halo (afaik Halo were the first to introduce regenerating health/shields as standard, not an upgrade/buff)? This way the devs can cater for the kids while simultaneously trying to emulate the competitive success of Halo to some degree. Unfortunately, everyone else who doesnt care about team-based competitions and scrims who isnt a child and likes depth to their gameplay loses out...

This is of course operating under the assumption that regen health DOES make a game more competitive. Im not saying it is, but I will say that bullet damage seems to be very hard to balance in a non-regen game while having a very wide variety of guns including various OHKO weapons from any range.

I know your not saying regen is competitive, but Im just going to put out that health regen does remove depth from the game. It removes health/armour pickups and makes it so there is no advantage to weakening a player as he will regain all of his health in a matter of seconds.

And Quake doesn't have weapon unbalance imo(emphasis on the opinion part) and GE64 fixes weapon balance by playing in one hit kill mode(though this dumbs the game down, it wasn't too depth intensive anyway).

I take offense to being called a minority...

edit: maaan sometimes I dont think before I post.

It depends on how the game is designed, Halo for instance would have a bigger problem with weapon balance if it was non-health regen. But that's because of how the game was designed, like, for example, the sniper rifle. Because of open maps and considerably low movement speed(you cant dodge a good sniper easily), it would be hard to balance the sniper rifle as being one hit kill.

That's just because Halo is designed in such a fashion. In Quake, a rail gun can kill in about 2-3 hits and can easily change the tide of the match, but because of how the game is designed(close-mid size combat, high movement speed), it is easy to balance for it. Its not like you could camp in one spot with the rail gun and wait for people to show up, seeing as the opponent could go around picking up armour/health and other weapons so they could bully you out. You have to keep moving, using weapon/map control to keep your opponent from getting the upper hand.

I keep saying, they are different games and cannot be compared.

 

[Teran]

Also Teran its a lesser of two evils IMO. On one hand, you have non-regen health where players take an obscene amount of bullets to bring down such that the game doesnt degenerate into sniper wars and favours camping.

See that's what I don't get. People go on and on about wanting a realistic experience, then complain about camping. I'm sorry but in a combat situation, are you going to a be dumb **** and run out all guns blazing or are you going to chill in a safe spot and try to pick people off?

People call camping gay but ultimately it is the best way to play because it is the best way to survive in a combat situation. Tbqh, they don't even have to make much of a great plot point as an excuse for health regen. "You have a shield which blocks most bullets and regenerates" or in Mass Effect where they have the advanced suit tech or whatever. It's a game, you can make things feasible. It's just like wtf @ WW2 super soldiers.

Edit: Also I should make a point that Halo's plot and general themes justified its health system, I thought it was cool and it made sense. I accepted it and still do. As I said before, I don't expect some random frontline soldier in camo gear to have the resiliency of Master Chief.

 

[Lore]

Op, just play Quake Live and be happy.

 

[Browny]

Teran its completely ******** when you play 'lifelike' mods of FPS because in order to be real, snipers have to be OHKO. no one takes a .50cal to any part of their body and walks away. So what happens is you get games full of people who are too scared to approach because its ********, if you do youre just going to get picked off by the dozen enemy snipers who only have to hit you once. So they counter it by playing sniper themselves. Its just a feedback loop until the entire game is full of snipers, or has lots of snipers with the other players too stupid to not use them and get like 0/10 KD's before they ragequit, thus only snipers are left.

Its completely legitimate to complain about camping because whether its an effective tactic or not, when an ENTIRE TEAM is packing OHKO weapons and the only way to counter it is to counter-snipe, the game turns to ****.

 

[Teran]

Yes well obv snipers would be a one shot kill, I thought they were anyway. I mean don't snipers focus on headshots in FPS anyway, and headshots are still one shot kill right?

But quite frankly, if that's a problem then take snipers out of the game. It's really quite elementary. If you want snipers in the game then deal with the fact that they are highly powerful weapons. Alternatively, you could limit the number of snipers per game, sort of like how irl there are only a small portion of competent trained snipers (being a sniper is a very specific craft and takes massive skill). Doing that will limit their centralising of the game, since of course, taking out snipers and then going for the attack is a lot like what would happen in a real combat situation.

There are ways to keep a game realistic and emjoyabe, in fact limiting the number of snipers would make it more realistic, since not just any soldier can be one.

Ultimately, gamers have to make a choice. Do they want more realism or do they want a game? A game doesn't need to be like real life, a game can make up explanations to get around what would happen in real life. Not everyone can be appeased, but I think developers can make an effort to find a solution to these issues.

Personally, I play games to escape, and suspension of disbelief is something I'm very comfortable with in games because well, they're fictional. However, if a game is going to try and put itself across and realistic and try to make me feel like it's closer to real life, then that suspension of disbelief is very much diminished because now I'm being told by the game itself that this is meant to be like real life. If you're going to tell me that, then **** you if you expect me to believe in this "take ten bullets and breathe for 10 seconds" stuff.

I'm not going to complain about design choices unless they contradict one another, and that's the problem with a lot of today's games, there are lots of conflicts with the "realism" aspect and them incorporating completely infeasible mechanics like that.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Teran its completely ******** when you play 'lifelike' mods of FPS because in order to be real, snipers have to be OHKO. no one takes a .50cal to any part of their body and walks away. So what happens is you get games full of people who are too scared to approach because its ********, if you do youre just going to get picked off by the dozen enemy snipers who only have to hit you once. So they counter it by playing sniper themselves. Its just a feedback loop until the entire game is full of snipers, or has lots of snipers with the other players too stupid to not use them and get like 0/10 KD's before they ragequit, thus only snipers are left.

Its completely legitimate to complain about camping because whether its an effective tactic or not, when an ENTIRE TEAM is packing OHKO weapons and the only way to counter it is to counter-snipe, the game turns to ****.

You know you can make a game that's realistic and not ********, right? I mean, you don't exactly see heavy usage of 50 cal snipers in an average battle, it's more 'realistic' to see people using assault rifles and whatnot. For the record, there are shooters with oh ko snipers and guess what? Sniping is still a niche. Sounds like you're *****ing more about terrible design in general, bro.

 

[Spelt]

lol halo.


lol halo player.

 

[Deleted member]

In terms of weaponry, realism would really kill the whole genre. If it was realistic ~90% of troops would be using a rifle, which would really get old fast.

 

[Falconv1.0]

In terms of weaponry, realism would really kill the whole genre. If it was realistic ~90% of troops would be using a rifle, which would really get old fast.

In most shooters you do use a rifle 90% of the time.

But ok, sure.

 

[MrBlueSky]

In most shooters you do use a rifle 90% of the time.

But ok, sure.

I take it you have not played a shooting game with a lot of depth or interesting weapon design.

 

[Falconv1.0]

I take it you have not played a shooting game with a lot of depth or interesting weapon design.

I take it you've never heard of Socom or CS or Gears or Halo (Majority of the weapons usage leans towards THE RIFLES). Oh and I play a **** ton of L4D2 and TF2.

No you're right, I know nothing about shooters-wait what the ****, **** no. Stop being silly. Also, I said most shooters, not all good shooters, I said most shooters, because it's ****ing true.

 

[MrBlueSky]

Probably should have put a troll face in that post...

 

[Arbuckle]

Probably should have put a troll face in that post...

this thread was still on the first page, so it's still cool for me to post in here right?

I guess it doesn't matter because I don't really exist.

 

[Falconv1.0]

I'd be more willing to believe he was being sarcastic if the op wasn't so full of hilariously flawed logic of what makes a game 'competitive'.

 

[Flutter NiTE]

Realisim should not be a key gameplay feature of shooting games

Let me stop you right there. There is no, "what should be" and, "what shouldn't be" in videogames. Some people enjoy the realistic experience, me being one of them. More like, "I don't think realism should be a key feature in FPS because".

 

[Teran]

I'd be more willing to believe he was being sarcastic if the op wasn't so full of hilariously flawed logic of what makes a game 'competitive'.

Favourite part being how Goldeneye 64 was more competitive because the movement speed was faster.

Certainly doesn't help with the sequential respawn points. You can run even faster to shoot down the respawned unarmed mope!

 

[Falconv1.0]

More room for error means more room for depth now.

Where the **** did you learn any of this, Bluesky?

 

[eschemat]

i like CoD :D

btw, in most competitive scenarios people don't use sniper rifles... they use assault rifles or smgs (at least from personal experience in CoD)

guess what, realism can be a key gameplay feature if you want it to.