Weekly Poll 10/1/2018 - The Gunplay!

[Sardukhar]

those weeklies, are they questions the RED's have for the game?

Nope! Although REDs are always interested in forum opinions. And read often.

Isn't Mass Effect affected the same way as Bloodlines?

Yeah, I kinda kicked this around, but not really. Mass Effect (mostly) had abilities that go alongside your ability to shoot/stab. Like Borderlands. In Borderlands you had abilities that existed beside your shooter skillset.

Whereas Bloodliines and Deus Ex 1, your character's skill directly influenced your base combat abilities.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I’m trying to imagine how the combat in the demo would look if it worked like that of Bloodlines, and I don’t think it’d be all that different actually. Shorter bursts and bigger pauses between them; other than that... one’d still be twitching like a maniac.
———————

I voted for tactical, and that stands, but what I think would be more plausible and less of a pipedream (or at least less so than something even semi TB), would be something in between the tactical and bloodlines options.

There’s very little interesting to achieved with FPS combat anymore unless it was to be broken down with RPG systems and different control systems. So what I’d like to actually see would be a system that takes a deliberately slower pace and incorporates a control scheme that clearly is not ”FPS”, allows player action to a certain plausible degree, but leaves crucial results for the characters ability to resolve. Something that’d be tactical and both player and character driven (player and character ability handling different aspects), but did not work like an FPS nor an FPS hampered by some character skill.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

Maybe you were only referring to the original.

 

[EngryEngineer]

I voted for 2, but my ideal is a cross between 2 and 7, stat/skill influenced rewarding deliberate/tactical behavior, but in a fast paced highly lethal (for pc and npc) environment.

 

[Loostreaks]

Two different kinds.

When it comes to weightiness and raw functionality, Imo, something like RPGish version of Max Payne would be best here. It's fast, it's precise, it's deadly and stylish as fuck. Gunfights are brief and brutal and there is not a lot of room for error: it has that sweet spot when it comes to difficulty.
In that sense, every ( char building/ranged skill) incremental improvement would mean a Lot, and feel impactful, without going to extreme to simulate player's lack of skill ( by turning him/her into a drunk person having muscle spams every time you hold a gun: Deus Ex, Bloodlines).

With how rpg mechanics overall affect gameplay/gunplay dynamic, Borderlands TPS Athena build did it best, by far.
Instead of gaining dull +x%, it was designed to encourage more mobile, risk/reward gameplay: perfect timing, weapon switching, bunnyhop+shoot, slamming from the air, etc.
It's one of few ( only?) examples ( in action games) where adding rpg mechanics actually made gameplay better.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

I voted for 2, but my ideal is a cross between 2 and 7, stat/skill influenced rewarding deliberate/tactical behavior, but in a fast paced highly lethal (for pc and npc) environment.

I was thinking of something along these lines too. Real time, high lethality, appropriately character driven combat.

 

[Snowflakez]

Mass Effect was similar, but not the same as Bloodlines. Bloodlines' gunplay was heavily influenced by your stats. I understand some people (many people) don't like that, but it gives you an incentive to actually specialize. Want to pop heads off with 100% accuracy? Specialize as a gun-toting badass. If you are pretty much exclusively a netrunner, it doesn't really make sense for player skill to be entering the equation, shooting enemies with perfect aim.

It's one reason I liked Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Sure, you could get good at everything, but it took a hell of a lot of time, and there's only so much story available, so you need to specialize if you want to actually take advantage of certain skills, weapons, and tactics.

I've yet to see a convincing reason that player skill should outweigh character skill in an RPG, other than preferences. I also reject the notion that because Bloodlines' specific system was flawed, no other system that uses a similar concept can be good. It's ridiculous. The game was made with a lower budget (IIRC), the animations were garbage, and the impact of weapons was garbage as a result of both of those things.

Pretty sure a company with the resources of CDPR could do it better, and make it feel awesome.

 

[Nikola_Nesic]

Stats based combat would be great, let's be honest any guy can take gun and shoot at target, but he won't be good like marksman who train for that.

I would like combat take in account your stats, Tactical combat where stats mean something, upgraded Bloodline system.

From demo that gameplay look like COD it was fun 13 years ago but that is just FPS not RPG.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Pretty sure a company with the resources of CDPR could do it better, and make it feel awesome.

It’s not really a ”money” or ”manpower” thing. It’s just about how far the designer/developer is willing to pull it, one way or another (bigger effects vs smaller effects; player control precision vs character distorting the precision —- and there really is no golden middle road, it’s either deliberate RPG clumsiness or FPS precision that dominates). And it is fairly easy to imagine how it’d work since there are so many examples to look at for reference.

 

[SigilFey]

Aside from the obvious bullet spread, weapon kick, and wobble while using sights, I think it would be cool to have other mechanics involved that don't directly affect "hitting things with bullets" to reflect skill:

- The amount of time it takes to aim straight down the sights. Have the character lift the gun a bit off-center, then slowly adjust over a few seconds until it's properly lined up.

- Fumbling a reload. Not getting the clip all the way in, or accidentally firing off a few rounds because their finger nicked the trigger.

- Forgetting to flip the safety off. The character will pull the trigger, curse, and flip the safety.

- Weapon gets snagged on the holster when drawing it. Character looks down for a second and frantically tugs the weapon free.

- The amount of time it takes to clear a jam.

- Have the character blink or flinch when firing.

- For melee weapons, have the character lose balance when blocking or stumble forward if they miss a big attack.

- Too many attacks in a row might have them nick their own knee with a sword or spin themselves a bit around with a heavier hammer or something.

- Have the character take a little damage and need to rub their knuckles when they punch someone too hard or too many times.

- Time between swings or kicks gradually increases over time as muscle fatigue sets in.

Rather than it directly affecting the combat or damage in a big way, add in a whole slew of unexpected inconveniences that games usually just ignore or gloss over. As a player ups their skill in a given area, these little hiccups become more and more rare.

 

[EngryEngineer]

Aside from the obvious bullet spread, weapon kick, and wobble while using sights, I think it would be cool to have other mechanics involved that don't directly affect "hitting things with bullets" to reflect skill:

- The amount of time it takes to aim straight down the sights. Have the character lift the gun a bit off-center, then slowly adjust over a few seconds until it's properly lined up.

- Fumbling a reload. Not getting the clip all the way in, or accidentally firing off a few rounds because their finger nicked the trigger.

- Forgetting to flip the safety off. The character will pull the trigger, curse, and flip the safety.

- Weapon gets snagged on the holster when drawing it. Character looks down for a second and frantically tugs the weapon free.

- The amount of time it takes to clear a jam.

- Have the character blink or flinch when firing.

- For melee weapons, have the character lose balance when blocking or stumble forward if they miss a big attack.

- Too many attacks in a row might have them nick their own knee with a sword or spin themselves a bit around with a heavier hammer or something.

- Have the character take a little damage and need to rub their knuckles when they punch someone too hard or too many times.

- Time between swings or kicks gradually increases over time as muscle fatigue sets in.

Rather than it directly affecting the combat or damage in a big way, add in a whole slew of unexpected inconveniences that games usually just ignore or gloss over. As a player ups their skill in a given area, these little hiccups become more and more rare.

This would be an awesome way to handle the stat/skill lack, with extraordinary stat/skill you could continue to use this system if you set sort of the average FPS draw/aim time etc to an "adept to expert" skill level, so world class + augmented levels would result in what feels almost super human without being crazy over-the-top.

 

[Poison19]

I'm fine with everything except turn based.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I'm fine with everything except turn based.

I’d pay extra if the game had proper turnbased combat (among other classical RPG mechanics), but there’s no worry about that.

 

[Draconifors]

Don't like guns, so I picked option 6.

 

[Loostreaks]

That really wouldn't work and would only make it immensely frustrating.

N1 rule of action, real time gameplay is: always make sure player is in control ( and 100% knows what specific input leads to) and responsiveness. If you make it RNG or char progression based, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, then entire gameplay falls apart, and leads to unpredictable deaths/reloads.

Action rpg has to show progression on character skill, but in a way that feels consistent, intuitive, without impeding/conflicting on/with player control.

There are not many games that do this well, though: Dark Souls and Gothic, are probably best examples.
With shooters, it's more difficult, since they require less physical skill than martial/"older" weapons ( like bows).

Imo, their current direction is not the best, but also not the worst. ARMA ( realistic simulation) and cover shooter would've been even worse. But this style of ID shooter/Destiny like also has too large room for error/shooting so char progression does not feel as precise/impactful.

 

[SA-Int_Kani]

Somewhere along the lines of Doom (2016) or Shadow Warrior with some skills and abilities thrown in for good measure. Just don't make the enemies into bullet sponges.
Oh, and an option to use holo sights and such from very early on would be greatly appreciated. Hate iron sights in every game that has them...

 

[Snowflakez]

Don't like guns, so I picked option 6.

A woman after my own heart.

I plan to talk my way through just about everything I'm able to. I generally don't like to reload in games, but I will if it means I can find the hidden non-lethal paths through quests that CDPR undoubtedly has tucked away for us.

That said, I also hope we see stuff like stun guns or sleep darts, but they probably won't be in.

 

[Garrison72]

A blend of 1 and 3,

 

[Loostreaks]

8. John Woo gunfights: fast, good visual effects, super lethal and precise: Max Payne

CDPR could take this even further with good armor system: it protects only what it covers, so you'd have to target weak spots in a very narrow period of time. ( making scanning and evaluation of enemy movement, position, etc even more important)

And since it's so fast and lethal, even something small as 5% improvement in character skill ( reload time, recoil, crosshair, etc) would feel really impactful...this is not the case with most shooters where you face dumbies who can barely hit anything in front of them ( so devs "increase challenge" by turning them into bulletsponges).

Plus the action is very brief, but intense: for long hours rpg, imo best approach. And less cover based-> less conveniently placed crates.

I really can't think of better type of core gunplay for translating FNF into modern action rpg.

 

[romantoman123]

I like to be able to switch between stealthy, and fast paced and action packed game play.