Shooting in games

ShinRa

ShinRa

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Consider me an evil person, but there's something I need to vent about that I'm not quite sure if anyone will agree with me....

I let this go while playing Far Cry 3...Dishonored...and almost every modern FPS I could grab during the steam sale....but now while playing Human Revolution and it being the worst culprit of my nagging complaint, I have to voice this and see if I'm the only sicko.

When you shoot people in games, it's incredibly unsatisfying. You shoot people and there's no bullet holes on their bodies...no blood on their bodies showing you how they died. Bodies just go limp like ragdolls as if they died instantly from a leg wound. Human revolutions shooting is straight up boring, which prompted this rant, but I've been feeling like every shooter is somewhere in the same category. There's nothing satisfying about shooting people....in first person shooters!
 
No, I completely agree. Man, play newest rendition of Wolfenstein to see some outrageous killin' people gore. Also Soldier of Fortune 2. I really do miss crazy violence in vidjeo games.

in SoF I/II/The Darkness II and Wolfenstein I know folks who won't watch. The bad guys beg for their lives, crawl around, display massive exit wounds, lose limbs or parts of limbs, etc
 
Sniper Elite, not the new one, was great with this.

Also people maybe disagree with me, but Dead Space is great with this issue. Blowing legs/arms/appendages off, then have the enemy react and attack accordingly. It's great.
 
Funny you should mention Far Cry 3, since the first one did have bullet hole decals on bodies.
 
The only thing Fallout 3 did right is the gore system.
 
RAGE managed to make killing satisfying. As evil as that sounds.
 
I would argue that the specific aspect of shooting that you're saying should be satisfying, I don't think has to be for a game to be fun.

Yes, it was entertaining in games like Soldier of Fortune, but in the end it added nothing to the gameplay, and was essentially just eye candy. Similar to what fancy graphics do for a game.

Shooting is satisfying in games when you successfully aim and hit your target at whatever pace you're going at. If you have to break that flow by missing too much or if the target has too much health and doesn't 'react' to being shot, that's where "game-feel" is affected and satisfaction is lost. Not all games need this flow of course, but almost any shooter that isn't stealth or milsim relies on this.

Also
Does shooting...actually...matter?
 
Watching the other digital represntation of a human suffer from your bullets is awesome. Not just the animation, the sounds, the graphics of the wounds themselves and behavior reactions to the pain and deformation.

It's incredibly important toward enjoying the sort of shooting game I play.
 
I remember when Half-Life 2 came out, one of the few things that bothered me about the game was the way in which the Combine soldiers dropped to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. It didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game at all, it was just noticeably different from how things had been in the past.

I know this will seem a bit silly nowadays, but I still get a big kick out of fighting pinky demons with a shotgun in the original doom. There is just something simple and responsive about the way they flinch, even if it consists of a one frame sprite and a repetitive grunting sound, its just nice to have clear visual and audio confirmation that you're hitting anything.

I think its true of most aspects of any game that I want feedback from every action. Nothing bugs me more than hitting a switch in a game and having it make virtually no sound or movement to show its happened. Well apart from maybe fighting a midget wearing shorts only to have him absorb five hundred bullets.. that bugs me too.
 
This kinda thing doesn't bother me overly much to be honest. Like Vegeta said, to me its more about the satisfaction of aiming and hitting with that aim. Though it is cool to see the target recoil from the damage, it isn't essential to my enjoyment of the game.

One thing that does piss me off though, to a completely irrational degree is head shots! If I have a high power sniper rifle, aim-shoot-headshot, dead on, they should not be still standing! Or with a magnum or similar, shooting someone in the face point-blank.... DEAD. Not, 'gnnngh' then keep coming with half their frigging health.
 
bobtheskull said:
One thing that does piss me off though, to a completely irrational degree is head shots! If I have a high power sniper rifle, aim-shoot-headshot, dead on, they should not be still standing! Or with a magnum or similar, shooting someone in the face point-blank.... DEAD. Not, 'gnnngh' then keep coming with half their frigging health.
Click to expand...
It's necessary to balance the game somehow when the damage ratio of you vs. enemies is so disproportionate in most popular shooters. If you're allowed to stand in front of an enemy and soak in a volley of bullets without dying, the game would be too easy if you could take them out too quickly. I guess that's why games have to move in different directions and have you doing more things than just pointing a rifle and shooting.

I really enjoy the shooting in arma because the damage you inflict is the same as the damage you can take from enemies. You feel just as vulnerable as they are, so it forces you to be careful. And shooting isn't a simple case of pointing and clicking, nor is there an arbitrary/artificial accuracy reduction system. Your accuracy is reduced by your sights actually jumping around from fatigue/stance, and if you're skillful you can get lucky shots off if you can control your weapon. And of course the weapon itself has its own accuracy, but the gun always shoots where it's pointing, so if you happen to click while it's pointed at an enemy, you can get a hit, instead of it just picking a random spot in the 'expanding reticle' like in most other shooters. What's also cool is that even without jittery aim, every shot you take causes recoil (the amount of which is affected by your stance), but your sights don't return exactly to where you shot, so you have to compensate each time. Plus there's bullet drop and travel time, etc.
All these mechanics serve to make the shooting aspect of arma require more skill, which fits nicely with the gameplay of feeling vulnerable. You spot a squad of enemies, it's not going to be as simple as pointing and clicking on each of them. If you're going to shoot them you'd better have some cover to get behind when they return fire, because you're not going to be able to take them all out before they react. And when they do return fire, your suppression raises and this reduces your weapon stability when you peek out to return fire. I love the panicked feeling when I'm trying to get my weapon under control to take a shot. I'm not relying on some randomly chosen spot within my reticle, I'm relying on my ability to time my shot with the swaying of my gun.

/gushing over

Unfortunately enemies in arma don't have any kind of 'getting shot' reaction, other than if the shot kills them, or if it's a leg hit that forces them to the ground. There is a blood spray which is visible from a good distance if you have a keen eye. I'm wondering if this aspect will be improved in Arma 3.
 
Vegeta897 said:
It's necessary to balance the game somehow when the damage ratio of you vs. enemies is so disproportionate in most popular shooters. If you're allowed to stand in front of an enemy and soak in a volley of bullets without dying, the game would be too easy if you could take them out too quickly. I guess that's why games have to move in different directions and have you doing more things than just pointing a rifle and shooting.

I really enjoy the shooting in arma because the damage you inflict is the same as the damage you can take from enemies. You feel just as vulnerable as they are, so it forces you to be careful. And shooting isn't a simple case of pointing and clicking, nor is there an arbitrary/artificial accuracy reduction system. Your accuracy is reduced by your sights actually jumping around from fatigue/stance, and if you're skillful you can get lucky shots off if you can control your weapon. And of course the weapon itself has its own accuracy, but the gun always shoots where it's pointing, so if you happen to click while it's pointed at an enemy, you can get a hit, instead of it just picking a random spot in the 'expanding reticle' like in most other shooters. What's also cool is that even without jittery aim, every shot you take causes recoil (the amount of which is affected by your stance), but your sights don't return exactly to where you shot, so you have to compensate each time. Plus there's bullet drop and travel time, etc.
All these mechanics serve to make the shooting aspect of arma require more skill, which fits nicely with the gameplay of feeling vulnerable. You spot a squad of enemies, it's not going to be as simple as pointing and clicking on each of them. If you're going to shoot them you'd better have some cover to get behind when they return fire, because you're not going to be able to take them all out before they react. And when they do return fire, your suppression raises and this reduces your weapon stability when you peek out to return fire. I love the panicked feeling when I'm trying to get my weapon under control to take a shot. I'm not relying on some randomly chosen spot within my reticle, I'm relying on my ability to time my shot with the swaying of my gun.

/gushing over

Unfortunately enemies in arma don't have any kind of 'getting shot' reaction, other than if the shot kills them, or if it's a leg hit that forces them to the ground. There is a blood spray which is visible from a good distance if you have a keen eye. I'm wondering if this aspect will be improved in Arma 3.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I get what you mean. The whole balance thing makes sense, and to be honest I don't think I've really thought about it that way.
I liked the Battlefield games for the equal damage rules. I think it was Americas Army that I played where you had to time your shots with the sway of the scope/breathing thing too - though its been a long time since I played that.
I've not played Arma, but like the look of it.
 
I agree about it not adding anything to gameplay, but it DOES add something to the satisfaction of the game. For instance, I'd love to make a separate save file in Human Revolution where I just shoot people point blank in the face and not GAF. But the impact of bullets to the characters, the way they react to being shot, and the fact that there isn't a mark on the body no matter how many bullets I unload, leaves me no desire to shoot them. It also leaves me no desire to shoot enemies either, and I have been stealth killing people the entire game as it's the only thing satisfying about engaging enemies.
 
I don't care for gore much, but I wish NPC's still had death animations.
 
F.E.A.R. anyone? I loved it from every aspect especially this one...
 
Yeah, it was good fun tearing guys apart in FEAR. Though even that suffered some bad gamefeel moments in the harder difficulties, where blasting someone point blank with a shotgun didn't seem to have any effect if it didn't kill them.
 
SOFII, nobody will ever touch you and that G.H.O.U.L. 2 addition to the Q3 engine. <3 Raven
 
I still think the combat in FEAR 1 is one of the most satisfying in any FPS to date.
 
GTA IV was pretty good with its use of Endorphin.
 
Endorphin brings a whole new level to gameplay, especially in a game like GTA. In a typical FPS it's not that important, just entertaining.
 
It definitely made running over peds much more satisfying.
 
Vegeta897 said:
n a typical FPS it's not that important, just entertaining.
Click to expand...
That's not a rule. It could be important, if only FPS games designed it to be. And I think the point of the thread is that yes, it is entertaining, so it should be in more games. Most games would be better with it, so its saddening to see that few developers even attempt it.
 
Krynn72 said:
That's not a rule. It could be important, if only FPS games designed it to be.
Click to expand...
Hence 'typical fps'
Krynn72 said:
And I think the point of the thread is that yes, it is entertaining, so it should be in more games. Most games would be better with it, so its saddening to see that few developers even attempt it.
Click to expand...
I don't think we should hope for more developers to be worrying about implementing things that don't actually affect the overall gameplay, just like I don't think we should be encouraging superfluous graphical effects. And if you're talking about Endorphin specifically, it's expensive as hell.
 
Overall gameplay is all well and good, but I'd enjoy most FPS games a hell of a lot more if it wasn't for floppy ragdoll deaths.
 
Speaking of ragdoll deaths, there's one thing in particular that I hate, and I keep noticing it more often. In most FPS nowadays once an enemy is killed his corpse becomes a "non interactive" object. Meaning ragdoll physics is turned off, no bullet hole decals if you shoot the corpse, hell no feedback at all, as if it's not even there. What's even worse than this is when the bodies just vanish.
 
morgs said:
I don't care for gore much, but I wish NPC's still had death animations.
Click to expand...
Did everyone just miss my post about RAGE? That game did death animations and all that stuff to brilliant effect. Made it so much more satisfying than it probably should have been.
 
Remus said:
Speaking of ragdoll deaths, there's one thing in particular that I hate, and I keep noticing it more often. In most FPS nowadays once an enemy is killed his corpse becomes a "non interactive" object. Meaning ragdoll physics is turned off, no bullet hole decals if you shoot the corpse, hell no feedback at all, as if it's not even there. What's even worse than this is when the bodies just vanish.
Click to expand...
I think it's a performance issue. If they're interactive object, and also if there are like 500 of them in a stage, it becomes a problem and will lag. I agree, I like that stuff too, but I'd rather my game run properly.
 
Dog-- said:
I agree, I like that stuff too, but I'd rather my game run properly.
Click to expand...

That's what video settings are for. I would like the option to have that interactivity present regardless of the impact on performance. And I'm skeptical of how much of an impact a few bodies could have. FEAR 1 had fully interactive ragdoll corpses, that you could slide kick all over the map, and it had no impact on performance...
 
I don't know dude, I'm not too informed on the technicalities of it. FEAR is also an older game, as well. It also had a lot less going on with it at one time, being rather linear. I notice this non-interactive ragdoll trend is newer, as many older games (HL2, Bioshock, etc) have interactive corpses. Maybe the technology of current gen systems are reaching their limit. Devs are trying to get the most they can out of them with better graphics, so the resources have to come from somewhere.
 
I'm with Remus and Krynn. It's not a sadistic request to be able to shoot dead bodies and see bullet decals. It literally takes you out of the game when you kill someone and their body becomes a static object on the map. Can't shoot it, can't move it...it's literally just a piece of the map. Older games have done it, and that's why I don't understand as technology improves and games get better, this aspect has become worse, or even non-existent.
 
Doesn't sound like you've played Max Payne 3@ShinRa? It used the same Euphoria thing as GTAIV and RAGE, so enemy deaths were pretty satisfying. Graphic exit wounds and post-mortem bullet wounds also present.
 
Luckily, Max Payne 3 made up for whatever enjoyment you might have felt shooting people, by adding copious amounts of CUT SCENES! Oh and switching your weapons at random. Easily one of the most annoying games I've played in recent years.
 
One of the biggest disappointments in gaming for me was moving on from half life and realising that hitting corpses repeatedly in other games didn't gib them.
 
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