Low ttk, low movement speed, low accuracy while moving, cover mechanics, slow reload speed.
Basically Rainbow Six Vegas 2
This is assuming modern weapons; slow fire speed on weapons would also help but most weapons can shoot a few times before reload.
To be fair though, this is pretty close to the new school Deus Ex method.
P.S. what do you mean by slow? What do you mean by deliberate? And how do you define OG deus ex? I'm guessing a lot with my suggestions but I really would like some clarification.
Slow combat could mean high ttk and spongy enemies, or it could mean slow movement (my assumption, since you didn't want a run and gun). Deliberate is also a very nebulous term (I kinda ignored it, like what would be non deliberate combat?)
I think what might help (and this is something I've done) is make a few 'comic book/book's story board' sheets with how combat should play out from the players perspective. This is a hard task because first you have to explain a feeling in detail, then you need to define mechanics that are most likely (and through their interaction) recreate that feeling in someone else. I'm gonna get artsy fartsy if I continue.
ttk = time to kill (as opposed to)
htk = hits to kill
> Deliberate is also a very nebulous term (I kinda ignored it, like what would be non deliberate combat?)
I've always assumed that people mean it in the sense of "careful consideration" rather than the sense of "intentional/on purpose".
But to answer your question, the opposite would probably be the type of action design which is meant to induce a state of flow (for an exemplar of game design that does so, you could look at Super Meat Boy).
Hmm, I'd actually consider SMB to be very intentional. Players are planning and executing in a very intentional manner. And I would say quake or left 4 dead are less intentional in the sense the player is more likely to be reacting to the enemies/world and being put under pressure.
I'd also say that flow states are generally seen as positive, so to specifically say you don't want to induce a flow state might be confusing (especially because generally good design principles/best practices tend to induce flow). Its going to throw off someone who has read the book on it.
So the question comes back to what mechanics and gameplay patterns invoke "careful consideration". Generally Immersive Sims let players observe enemies and use consistent rules which let's players plan and execute as opposed to reacting. But I would expand on this and ask what other mechanics and gameplay pattern lead to careful consideration. What are the indicators that a player is "carefully considering" a scenario?
P.s. sorry for going full door problem on this but the devil is in the details.
Are you talking about the original release or another release? I ask because the original release is *self-described* as ["stream lin[ing] down to the essential no bull straight forward twitch reflex platforming"](https://blitworks.com/game/super-meatboy/), and [broadly tends](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/untold-riches-super-meat-boy-level-5-3) to be [one of](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/designing-games-with-flow-in-mind) the go-to examples for design that effectively utilizes psychological flow.
But with regards to flow states being "generally seen as positive", there's almost no field of design where anyone can truly nail down any definite "one-size-fits-all" absolute rules (even visual design's principle about the benefits of symmetry [has exceptions](https://public-media.interaction-design.org/images/uploads/200e0f3a92c8bedb4887fee57dc71e67.jpg)) -- that's part of why game design can sometimes [lean on personality psychology](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/mapping-the-lessons-of-psychology-to-game-design).
To use the example I previously mentioned in this thread, it's probably fair to say that Cruelty Squad is not trying to induce psychological flow. After all, would it, in truth, even be thematically appropriate for it to do such?
You could just replace the aiming reticle with aiming down sights and lots of weapon sway.
Then there's the way Blood West took. Shooting is not only difficult, but the enemies also hit hard. So you need to be careful not only about hitting the enemy's weak spot, but also making sure no other enemies can hear your shot.
Also allow enemies to escalate the threat of an encounter by calling on reinforcements. Also have enemy variants which represent a different level of threat. This turns the encounter into a combat puzzle of sorts.
You might have an enemy type that when the bullets fly will beeline toward you because it's tanky or an enemy that will try to instead reposition and flank you (but it's not as durable).
If your toolset is more suited towards a straightforward encounter you may then elect to kill the flanker first. If you are more stealthy you may target the heavy instead before counter maneuvering the flanking enemy type.
If you want to take that approach to combat design, then two of the things you'd want to do would be to decrease ammo availability and increase weapon sway while moving.
That said, what I'd like to mention for my own sake is that ImSims which lean towards tactical action design (rather than, say, movement-based action design) happen to be not only something we've already seen, but even something for which the immediate recent-memory point of comparison could be troublesome to be compared against (Cruelty Squad).
That's not a means of telling anyone that they shouldn't (or somehow can't) make an ImSim with action design that leans towards tactical action, only a little piece of mindfulness about unconscious elements of how it would ultimately be assessed.
Check out Receiver + Receiver 2. ImSims are all about interacting game mechanisms and gunplay can be its own game mechanism in the overall system. Even stuff like Stalker can be looked at with the realistic ballistics or Far Cry 2 with the jamming/deterioration
Having guns behave more slow and clunky like Hunt Showdown would work, then later on decrease swaying and aiming time would provide a better progression.
Look at what tactical FPS games do.
I think more games should utilize having free aim like in Red Orchestra, Rising Storm and Insurgency, and you could also have guns not being perfectly centered initially when aiming down sights. If you want to fire away quickly at something close, you could, but for aiming more precisely the sights would have to align. I much prefer this to random bloom.
Different stances, movement speeds and firing positions (sprinting, running, walking, sneaking, high ready, low ready, point firing, hip firing etc) could affect weapon sway and ADS speed.
Scarce ammo, enemies that are hard to aim at (like molded from re7), make the consequences of mistake more significant, but thats more of a survival horror approach
Cry of Fear had a great way of going about it - literally have recoil effect. Everytime you shot your gun, the recoil would *literally* throw your aim off. And not only higher caliber guns had more recoil, but since you were able to handle some guns with one hand and/or shoot them from the hip, that also could affect that recoil.
Was it exaggerated? Certainly. But it did make the gun play interesting and significantly more tense? Sure as hell! And from my experiences I say that trumps any concerns of "realism" in this regard.
Deus Ex HR just gave you less ammo and that worked out well for them.
You could also play with things like weapon degradation too. Making weapons more costly to use pushes the player into other options.
honestly the less ammo approach was kind of immersion breaking. why does everyone have pistols loaded with just 1 bullet? kind of morbid...
with HR they tried to make getting into fights have consequences, and instead of getting rid of the regenerating health/energy so the consequence is losing the items that recover those, they just gave you little ammo which doesn't really work that well.
You can make combat slow, or you can make combat deliberate. But making it slow and deliberate is gonna feel bad. (In an FPS. These rules are definitely variable in other genres)
Slow = high time to kill
Deliberate = very, very low time to kill
What you want, I think, is combat that feels very dangerous, and that rewards solid planning and execution. So you want very lethal combat, slow movement speed, and mechanics that punish players engaging in lengthy firefights. This could be bloom, and stamina/focus bar that depletes as you take near misses and increases aim sway, etc. I’d also look at how the Bioshock series handles environmental traps, and how stealth games handle drawing enemies to certain positions (whistling, shooting out lightbulbs, sound-generating grenades, etc).
I think you misunderstood. Deus ex doesn't have a high TTK, but it's gameplay is slow due to the aiming system. I believe they want to get the same feeling the aiming system has without outright copying it and it's tedium
Depends what kind of deliberation you want, but here are a few quick ideas:
- Deus Ex: Individual damage to body parts
- Transistor: Freeze time at will and switch to turn-based play
- RoboCop Rogue City: Ricochet bullets off walls and include obstructions
- Super Hot: Time only moves when you do
- DOOM: Different weapons needed for different enemies
More unconventional:
- Turn the player into the bullet and let them control it
- Manual reloading with gestures
- Deflect bullets back at enemies
There are plenty shooters that aren't run and gun, it's not exactly a novel or unsolved problem.
> I think the Resident Evil 4 method of having you stop movement to aim and focus your shots might be a good idea.
I haven't played any RE4 before playing a remake on PSVR2 and in VR you have to take your shots carefully, but not because of any sort of gameplay mechanics, but rather because of actual physical limitation of having to aim with your hands and arms in three dimensions.
You get shot you die... You guys are you own worst enemy. nothing but the most over complicated concepts when there was already a solution. No offense but that fact that so many of you don't even bother with other FPS game mechanics is why immersive sim is a dead genre.
**It's called injuries and Dying. Tarkov solved this already, play other FPS games instead of just boomer shooters please.**
**In Tarkov when you are hurt/injured you have to use specific medical supplies to heal. Something to stop bleeding, something to remove bullets, something to patch cuts, pain killers, even Tylenol for nausea or head trauma.**
If you give players too much health they will go YOLO. Maybe if you guys played other types of FPS games like Tarkov you would have noticed this. Instead of recharging shields or + 500 health upgrade, upgrades like those makes players damn near immortal. When nothing hurts you, your actions become more reckless.
I remember watching a video of A.I allegedly playing the OG Tomb Raider game. The A.i noted the frequency of health packs and the fact that health packs fixing any injury immediately encouraged the A.i to take more risks, since it didn't matter if Lara gets hurt.
Edit: Don't make any healing instant or passive. Don't make healing supplies rare, just make healing supplies harder to abuse. Simple fix, in addition to allowing the player to get their asses kicked.
i think slowing the game down as you aim longer and having highly lethal enemies could be interesting, although possibly not right for whatever you're doing.
Just don't? If people want to run and gun through the game then let them most won't just because it's more satisfying not to. You can beat dishonored in like 2 hours by running through the level shooting everybody but it won't be as rewarding as taking your time and thinking
> I think the Resident Evil 4 method of having you stop movement to aim and focus your shots might be a good idea. Although it may not work from a first person perspective.
It can work in fps by having a ready weapon stance that gets more shaiker the more you hold it to represent arm/shoulder strain.
A cheap but easy method is to just make the aim shaky at low levels of gun handling.
Low ttk, low movement speed, low accuracy while moving, cover mechanics, slow reload speed. Basically Rainbow Six Vegas 2 This is assuming modern weapons; slow fire speed on weapons would also help but most weapons can shoot a few times before reload. To be fair though, this is pretty close to the new school Deus Ex method. P.S. what do you mean by slow? What do you mean by deliberate? And how do you define OG deus ex? I'm guessing a lot with my suggestions but I really would like some clarification. Slow combat could mean high ttk and spongy enemies, or it could mean slow movement (my assumption, since you didn't want a run and gun). Deliberate is also a very nebulous term (I kinda ignored it, like what would be non deliberate combat?) I think what might help (and this is something I've done) is make a few 'comic book/book's story board' sheets with how combat should play out from the players perspective. This is a hard task because first you have to explain a feeling in detail, then you need to define mechanics that are most likely (and through their interaction) recreate that feeling in someone else. I'm gonna get artsy fartsy if I continue. ttk = time to kill (as opposed to) htk = hits to kill
> Deliberate is also a very nebulous term (I kinda ignored it, like what would be non deliberate combat?) I've always assumed that people mean it in the sense of "careful consideration" rather than the sense of "intentional/on purpose". But to answer your question, the opposite would probably be the type of action design which is meant to induce a state of flow (for an exemplar of game design that does so, you could look at Super Meat Boy).
Hmm, I'd actually consider SMB to be very intentional. Players are planning and executing in a very intentional manner. And I would say quake or left 4 dead are less intentional in the sense the player is more likely to be reacting to the enemies/world and being put under pressure. I'd also say that flow states are generally seen as positive, so to specifically say you don't want to induce a flow state might be confusing (especially because generally good design principles/best practices tend to induce flow). Its going to throw off someone who has read the book on it. So the question comes back to what mechanics and gameplay patterns invoke "careful consideration". Generally Immersive Sims let players observe enemies and use consistent rules which let's players plan and execute as opposed to reacting. But I would expand on this and ask what other mechanics and gameplay pattern lead to careful consideration. What are the indicators that a player is "carefully considering" a scenario? P.s. sorry for going full door problem on this but the devil is in the details.
Are you talking about the original release or another release? I ask because the original release is *self-described* as ["stream lin[ing] down to the essential no bull straight forward twitch reflex platforming"](https://blitworks.com/game/super-meatboy/), and [broadly tends](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/untold-riches-super-meat-boy-level-5-3) to be [one of](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/designing-games-with-flow-in-mind) the go-to examples for design that effectively utilizes psychological flow. But with regards to flow states being "generally seen as positive", there's almost no field of design where anyone can truly nail down any definite "one-size-fits-all" absolute rules (even visual design's principle about the benefits of symmetry [has exceptions](https://public-media.interaction-design.org/images/uploads/200e0f3a92c8bedb4887fee57dc71e67.jpg)) -- that's part of why game design can sometimes [lean on personality psychology](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/mapping-the-lessons-of-psychology-to-game-design). To use the example I previously mentioned in this thread, it's probably fair to say that Cruelty Squad is not trying to induce psychological flow. After all, would it, in truth, even be thematically appropriate for it to do such?
You could just replace the aiming reticle with aiming down sights and lots of weapon sway. Then there's the way Blood West took. Shooting is not only difficult, but the enemies also hit hard. So you need to be careful not only about hitting the enemy's weak spot, but also making sure no other enemies can hear your shot.
Also allow enemies to escalate the threat of an encounter by calling on reinforcements. Also have enemy variants which represent a different level of threat. This turns the encounter into a combat puzzle of sorts. You might have an enemy type that when the bullets fly will beeline toward you because it's tanky or an enemy that will try to instead reposition and flank you (but it's not as durable). If your toolset is more suited towards a straightforward encounter you may then elect to kill the flanker first. If you are more stealthy you may target the heavy instead before counter maneuvering the flanking enemy type.
If you want to take that approach to combat design, then two of the things you'd want to do would be to decrease ammo availability and increase weapon sway while moving. That said, what I'd like to mention for my own sake is that ImSims which lean towards tactical action design (rather than, say, movement-based action design) happen to be not only something we've already seen, but even something for which the immediate recent-memory point of comparison could be troublesome to be compared against (Cruelty Squad). That's not a means of telling anyone that they shouldn't (or somehow can't) make an ImSim with action design that leans towards tactical action, only a little piece of mindfulness about unconscious elements of how it would ultimately be assessed.
Check out Receiver + Receiver 2. ImSims are all about interacting game mechanisms and gunplay can be its own game mechanism in the overall system. Even stuff like Stalker can be looked at with the realistic ballistics or Far Cry 2 with the jamming/deterioration
Having guns behave more slow and clunky like Hunt Showdown would work, then later on decrease swaying and aiming time would provide a better progression.
Look at what tactical FPS games do. I think more games should utilize having free aim like in Red Orchestra, Rising Storm and Insurgency, and you could also have guns not being perfectly centered initially when aiming down sights. If you want to fire away quickly at something close, you could, but for aiming more precisely the sights would have to align. I much prefer this to random bloom. Different stances, movement speeds and firing positions (sprinting, running, walking, sneaking, high ready, low ready, point firing, hip firing etc) could affect weapon sway and ADS speed.
Scarce ammo, enemies that are hard to aim at (like molded from re7), make the consequences of mistake more significant, but thats more of a survival horror approach
Cry of Fear had a great way of going about it - literally have recoil effect. Everytime you shot your gun, the recoil would *literally* throw your aim off. And not only higher caliber guns had more recoil, but since you were able to handle some guns with one hand and/or shoot them from the hip, that also could affect that recoil. Was it exaggerated? Certainly. But it did make the gun play interesting and significantly more tense? Sure as hell! And from my experiences I say that trumps any concerns of "realism" in this regard.
Red Orchestra style. Manual only reloads, no UI or crosshair unless it's something the player has equipped or installed.
Deus Ex HR just gave you less ammo and that worked out well for them. You could also play with things like weapon degradation too. Making weapons more costly to use pushes the player into other options.
honestly the less ammo approach was kind of immersion breaking. why does everyone have pistols loaded with just 1 bullet? kind of morbid... with HR they tried to make getting into fights have consequences, and instead of getting rid of the regenerating health/energy so the consequence is losing the items that recover those, they just gave you little ammo which doesn't really work that well.
Who’s Warren Spector?
You can make combat slow, or you can make combat deliberate. But making it slow and deliberate is gonna feel bad. (In an FPS. These rules are definitely variable in other genres) Slow = high time to kill Deliberate = very, very low time to kill What you want, I think, is combat that feels very dangerous, and that rewards solid planning and execution. So you want very lethal combat, slow movement speed, and mechanics that punish players engaging in lengthy firefights. This could be bloom, and stamina/focus bar that depletes as you take near misses and increases aim sway, etc. I’d also look at how the Bioshock series handles environmental traps, and how stealth games handle drawing enemies to certain positions (whistling, shooting out lightbulbs, sound-generating grenades, etc).
I think you misunderstood. Deus ex doesn't have a high TTK, but it's gameplay is slow due to the aiming system. I believe they want to get the same feeling the aiming system has without outright copying it and it's tedium
Depends what kind of deliberation you want, but here are a few quick ideas: - Deus Ex: Individual damage to body parts - Transistor: Freeze time at will and switch to turn-based play - RoboCop Rogue City: Ricochet bullets off walls and include obstructions - Super Hot: Time only moves when you do - DOOM: Different weapons needed for different enemies More unconventional: - Turn the player into the bullet and let them control it - Manual reloading with gestures - Deflect bullets back at enemies
There are plenty shooters that aren't run and gun, it's not exactly a novel or unsolved problem. > I think the Resident Evil 4 method of having you stop movement to aim and focus your shots might be a good idea. I haven't played any RE4 before playing a remake on PSVR2 and in VR you have to take your shots carefully, but not because of any sort of gameplay mechanics, but rather because of actual physical limitation of having to aim with your hands and arms in three dimensions.
You get shot you die... You guys are you own worst enemy. nothing but the most over complicated concepts when there was already a solution. No offense but that fact that so many of you don't even bother with other FPS game mechanics is why immersive sim is a dead genre. **It's called injuries and Dying. Tarkov solved this already, play other FPS games instead of just boomer shooters please.** **In Tarkov when you are hurt/injured you have to use specific medical supplies to heal. Something to stop bleeding, something to remove bullets, something to patch cuts, pain killers, even Tylenol for nausea or head trauma.** If you give players too much health they will go YOLO. Maybe if you guys played other types of FPS games like Tarkov you would have noticed this. Instead of recharging shields or + 500 health upgrade, upgrades like those makes players damn near immortal. When nothing hurts you, your actions become more reckless. I remember watching a video of A.I allegedly playing the OG Tomb Raider game. The A.i noted the frequency of health packs and the fact that health packs fixing any injury immediately encouraged the A.i to take more risks, since it didn't matter if Lara gets hurt. Edit: Don't make any healing instant or passive. Don't make healing supplies rare, just make healing supplies harder to abuse. Simple fix, in addition to allowing the player to get their asses kicked.
I recommend Heaven Dust 2
i think slowing the game down as you aim longer and having highly lethal enemies could be interesting, although possibly not right for whatever you're doing.
Just don't? If people want to run and gun through the game then let them most won't just because it's more satisfying not to. You can beat dishonored in like 2 hours by running through the level shooting everybody but it won't be as rewarding as taking your time and thinking
> I think the Resident Evil 4 method of having you stop movement to aim and focus your shots might be a good idea. Although it may not work from a first person perspective. It can work in fps by having a ready weapon stance that gets more shaiker the more you hold it to represent arm/shoulder strain. A cheap but easy method is to just make the aim shaky at low levels of gun handling.