If you designed an FPS, what would it be like?

[OneOfTheMichael's]

If I designed a FPS....it would suck....
Im not really a certified video game designer am I?

 

[Don Savik]

A coop survival rpg-ish game kinda of like..Borderlands in a Castlevania Setting. Where you play as slayers fighting supernatural and mythical creatures. Stuff like crossbows, the occasional pistol, pitchforks?, torches necessary for lighting dark areas (requiring teamwork because you have to have someone hold the torches/lanterns) and good block/dodge/parry melee combat (which can be done good in the first person perspective). Could even just be a straight up survival waves mode if done right. And I want vampires that die from stakes in the heart and werewolves that die from silver (these are the only ways they can be killed). Character customization is cosmetic (no armor with stats) and I wanna say no skill trees, just a reliance on weapon based combat. And no stats on weapons either, they all handle differently.

 

[A Raging Emo]

Probably something a-la STALKER> I'd like a true survival game. Yes, even with the "boring" bits like, say, barricading a building to stop the hordes of enemies outside just a little bit longer.

Ever since playing the first Dead Rising, I've wanted a realistic, first person, zombie-survival game. Dead Island sounded perfect, but we all saw what happened to that.

Question: would they be headshot zombies or 28 days later type zombies. I've always wanted a shooter where the zombies were walking zombies that required headshots to kill them

Imagine "Walking Dead" style zombies. From the comics.

 

[Agayek]

Here's a few general ideas I've had about a multiplayer shooter I've got. Not really sure on balance or some of the other stuff, but things I've been thinking about off and on for a while.

1) It's gonna be fast. Like Tribes fast. I've been playing Tribes Ascend the last few days and I had forgotten just how fun it was to crank the speed up to 11.

2) The weapons are going to be whacky. I'm not talking Painkiller style shurikens-and-lightning type stuff. I'm aiming for Armed & Dangerous style "gun that shoots a shark that swims through the ground and bursts up under people to eat them" or "a giant corkscrew you plug into the ground and the whole universe flips over so everything falls into the sky". I've actually been kicking around a handful of ideas for something like this on the off chance I stop being so ridiculously lazy and do something about it.

The tamest weapon on that list is one that fires bolts of lightning and each shot builds up a charge that dissipates over time. If the charge passes a threshold, the gun magnetizes and every loose object hit by the lightning in the last 20 seconds or so gets sucked into melee range with the player. If anyone wants to know of the rest, I will gladly share.

3) The maps are pretty huge. It comes with the territory of everything being so fast, but the maps really do need to support it and I'd have to take that into account. There'd also be a few close-in maps designed to keep people moving as much as possible and encourage jousting style attacks.

4) It would be quasi-class based. Similar to how Tribes Ascend does it, there'd be "levels" of armor/health with certain qualities associated with it. For example, one of the heavy classes would have an ability to root themselves in place for a dramatic increase in both damage and accuracy, but similarly dramatic decrease in armor, which would make them a good artillery unit but really bad at the front lines. Any class would be able to use any weapon though. The player would set 2 weapons from one of 2 completely separate lists (there wouldn't be complete overlap, you get a list of primary weapons and list of secondaries and can choose from each instead of just a pool of weapons) and be able to use them with any class. I'm not sure if I'd include multiple varieties of grenades. Most likely not, but if so it wouldn't extend past "flashbang", "frag grenade", and "sticky grenade".

 

[PsychicTaco115]

Probably something a-la STALKER> I'd like a true survival game. Yes, even with the "boring" bits like, say, barricading a building to stop the hordes of enemies outside just a little bit longer.

Ever since playing the first Dead Rising, I've wanted a realistic, first person, zombie-survival game. Dead Island sounded perfect, but we all saw what happened to that.

Question: Will the zombies be metaphors for humans? Or just zombies for zombies sakes?

ALSO: Do you support the Undead's right to live a la CURE from Dead Rising 2? They're people too! (except with a hunger for human brains/flesh...)

 

[silver wolf009]

It'd be trippy.

Realistic mechanics, but in a totally out there environment. Space combat with the alien people of Makrakan Six, using acid squirt guns and freeze rays. Jetpacks if you want them, the ability to skate if you don't. Microwave guns. Robot dinosaurs. Space dogs.

Pretty much, nuts and comedic as can be.

 

[A Raging Emo]

Probably something a-la STALKER> I'd like a true survival game. Yes, even with the "boring" bits like, say, barricading a building to stop the hordes of enemies outside just a little bit longer.

Ever since playing the first Dead Rising, I've wanted a realistic, first person, zombie-survival game. Dead Island sounded perfect, but we all saw what happened to that.

Question: Will the zombies be metaphors for humans? Or just zombies for zombies sakes?

ALSO: Do you support the Undead's right to live a la CURE from Dead Rising 2? They're people too! (except with a hunger for human brains/flesh...)

Zombies for zombies sake. I don't think we can ever have too many zombies; I feel that almost every single first person shooter should have some sort of survival mode, and Zombies are an ideal way to implement that.

Yes, I do support it, however once they have turned completely they are no longer considered "Human", and unless loved ones can turn them back to their previous self, they will be treated as non-human, and therefore, a threat.

However CURE will be provided by the NHS to all who require it.

 

[Strain42]

For starters, All of the guns in my game would shoot food instead of bullets.

Instead of terrorists, zombies, aliens, whatever, all of the enemies will be various robot monkeys and apes.

The main character will be the loch ness monster

And the soundtrack will be recorded by the greatest Queen cover band in London.

AND it will only cost $39.95

 

[kouriichi]

It would be Call of Duty MW, but with swords. Swords, and axes, and pole arms.
Shields too. And parrying, and dodging. Oh, and grenades. You can throw your weapon too.

Yeah... and kill streaks would still be in the game. But they cost alot more. If you wanna fly a chopper and shoot people with it, youve gotta hit 20 kills. Care packages are 8.

It would be a very high skill cap with games. Where a single man who knows perfect timings and who keeps his cool can 1v4 and come out on top. And no death streaks. Death streaks get you put on the wall of shame, and stuck in a noobzone till you get good enough to bounce back to the regular zone.

Also customizable armor, that effects your stats and defenses.

 

[twaddle]

Mine would have a bit of a sense of fuck you logic. Also i kinda dislike FPS so you could alternate between FPS and third person. There would be cover but tapping your partner does not revive them. Healing items would not work instantly they would be used on teammates and they need to mates need cover while they take effect. You dash and shoot and to trick shots that involve acrobats and perfectly time shots while doing acrobatic skills, like running up a wall fliping off the wall and when you in mid air directly over an enemy you perform a head shot. Low gravity of course too.

 

[Nooners]

TF2+L4D

Literally the TF2 teams in L4D.

I don't play TF2 much, if ever...but that sounds freakin' hilarious.

MASSIVE SNIP

These are all really nice ideas. I approve.

To add something original to the mix, I'd take Jeffer's idea and combine it with the gameplay from SWAT 4 (admittedly, I've never play it, but I've seen Spoony's LP). Here are the things I'd emphasize:

SINGLE-PLAYER or SYSTEM-LINK/LAN ONLY
Since you'd be a close-knit team of SWAT officers, I'd want the playing environment to reflect that. You and your fellow gamers able to actually communicate with each other effectively, rather than getting stuck with the Leeroys of random matchmaking.

OPEN ENVIRONMENTS
Say a group of bad guys have taken a bunch of school kiddies hostage. Since my example is a school, you would have the ability to enter through any door and proceed through the level in any fashion you wish. Start in the gym, or the auditorium? And where do you go from there? Ideally, the team leader would dictate orders, but you could Leeroy Jenkins off anywhere, you idiot.

INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Along the same lines and using the same mission example, the ability to cut the lights, or activate the sprinkler system, or wheel lunchtables around as mobile cover. Destructable environments, too, so you can blow your way through walls or jump through windows or whatever.

MORE THAN JUST GUNS
Other tools like tazers, pepper spray, flashbangs, lockpicks, NVGs, wire cutters, door wedges, flexi-cuffs, and so forth are all at your disposal. And since your a team of 4-8 men, each person can have a role in the squad.

HARDCORE HEALTH
No regenerating health, and region-specific damage. Shot in the legs? Can't run. Shot in the arms? Good luck aiming. To up the ante a bit, maybe you bleed out fairly quickly upon getting shot, which drastically slows once you place a bandage over it to slow blood flow. Which, since you can't do it in active combat, means you either have to end combat quickly, or take cover to heal while trusting teammates to protect you.

MISSION OBJECTIVES
Rather than "Kill everyone" or "Get to the End", maybe we could mix it up. Things like "Save All the Hostages" or "Hack the Mainframe" or "Capture the Terrorist Alive" would be interesting changes. Part of this would also be the fact that you would have to get in AND out of the level. You start the level in the SWAT van, it ends when you get leave the building and have completed the objectives. In the mission example above, it would end when all the hostages are safe, the wounded hostages and goons are being taken to the hospital/loaded into cop cars, and maybe you could help out by aiding the EMTs on the wounded or something.

MISSION LOCATIONS
Like the above, mix it up. Maybe a simple suburban house one mission, then some tight-knit urban apartments, than a bank, then a skyscraper complex (complete with the option to either use the stairs, elevator, or land on the roof), then a government agency, etc, etc. Depending on the place, other rules apply: you can't destroy the walls of one mission because of its historical/political importance, for example.

COMBAT
Since the health system is so difficult, the focus on combat would be making sure it gets initiated on your team's terms and time. The gunplay would function fairly similarly to most shooters like CoD of BF: left-click to shoot, right-click to aim, other button for attachment, blahblahblah. I would want to mix up melee combat a bit somehow...not sure, though. Make it a bit slower and add the ability to block or something. Of course, you can still get shot while in melee... And you can can also stealth kill/KO enemies if you get too close, of course. Depending on the weapons you use, enemies can either be killed or taken alive, although you'll have to carry them around if you want them to go anywhere else.

ENEMIES
Make them smart. Make them work well together. Make them have the same combat and health system as the SWAT team. Of course, the AI depends on who they are. Random junkies robbing the gas station are perhaps a bit more twitchy and stupid compared to the Mafia crew holding up a bank. Better crews work together better. Also--make them visually different from the SWAT team!
In the school mission, assuming the terrorists are Al-Qaeda-style jihadists, they keep in contact with each other. If they notice a dead body or see or hear you, they call it in so everybody knows, is on the alert for you, and start executing hostages. Then their alert status never goes away.

TLDR, a highly realistic and difficult co-op SWAT game.

Wow, that got to be really long. Enjoyed writing it, though.

 

[DarklordKyo]

It'd be a combination of Doom (secrets, no health regen, general fast-paced...well..pace, overall the stuff that made classic FPSes classic) and Bulletstorm (skillshots for RPG elements, charges, something like the leash, the Duke Nukem-esque Mighty Foot, the boneduster, etc.). I dunno how I'd do it, but I'd find a way.

 

[Sacman]

*Points at Deus Ex...*

Just that...<.<

 

[Lugbzurg]

One day, the craziest videogame idea I had ever thought of popped into my head during one of those "Don't do Drugs" presentations in high school. That should give you some context. It's called "Noble". And it makes no sense at all.

Reginald Noble awakes from his chambers and strolls around the military base. He is the only one dressed casually, and the only one in the entire complex speaking informally.

When war breaks out, Reggie breaks out his three-headed chaingun and charges out against the enemy forces in a brown/gray environment, with plenty of cover, and some extra second gun (like a shotgun, or something). It all seems like your average cookie-cutter shooter for a few minutes, until the freaky monsters start showing up.

Before you know it, you're fighting elephants with machine guns, pixelated things inside a 16-Bit dimension and battling flying textbooks that breathe fire and horrible flesh-hungry food in Mr. Noble's old high school.

It plays in a very oldschool style, reminiscent of Serious Sam, Duke Nukem or Quake. You've got weapons that shoot things like chickens and fireworks. Mines come in the form of wet cats, Reginald's melee attack is a headbutt and you gain health by chasing down anthropomorphic food that screams and runs away when it sees you (mostly doughnuts with eyeballs), all like the cheese or the key in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Did I mention this game makes absolutely no sense and solely exists to be as ridiculous as possible?

 

[PsychicTaco115]

One day, the craziest videogame idea I had ever thought of popped into my head during one of those "Don't do Drugs" presentations in high school. That should give you some context. It's called "Noble". And it makes no sense at all.

Reginald Noble awakes from his chambers and strolls around the military base. He is the only one dressed casually, and the only one in the entire complex speaking informally.

When war breaks out, Reggie breaks out his three-headed chaingun and charges out against the enemy forces in a brown/gray environment, with plenty of cover, and some extra second gun (like a shotgun, or something). It all seems like your average cookie-cutter shooter for a few minutes, until the freaky monsters start showing up.

Before you know it, you're fighting elephants with machine guns, pixelated things inside a 16-Bit dimension and battling flying textbooks that breathe fire and horrible flesh-hungry food in Mr. Noble's old high school.

It plays in a very oldschool style, reminiscent of Serious Sam, Duke Nukem or Quake. You've got weapons that shoot things like chickens and fireworks. Mines come in the form of wet cats, Reginald's melee attack is a headbutt and you gain health by chasing down anthropomorphic food that screams and runs away when it sees you (mostly doughnuts with eyeballs), all like the cheese or the key in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Did I mention this game makes absolutely no sense and solely exists to be as ridiculous as possible?

"Kids, this is what crack does to you. It makes you think of AWESOME IDEAS FOR VIDEO GAMES. So take it whenever you get writer's block at your game development company. That s**t helps."

 

[Lugbzurg]

"Kids, this is what crack does to you. It makes you think of AWESOME IDEAS FOR VIDEO GAMES. So take it whenever you get writer's block at your game development company. That s**t helps."

Well, I'm glad you think so highly of my initial concept. But, I must point out that I have never taken any form of drug in my life, let alone get high or drunk.

I came up with this idea purely of out sheer boredom. That's just how my mind works. We needs more games that are just plain fun. Not with too much focus on context. (I thought this might strike someone's attention...)

 

[josemlopes]

More emphasis on making the player feel connected to the actual game world, rather than simply being a floating camera with a gun.

It sounds a little abstract, but when you look at the mechanics of your average FPS game now, there are so many ways developers could improve immersion simply by tweaking things and trying out a few different ideas. Something like giving your character weight, and allowing them to be thrown around by explosions and such. Remember that Battlefield 3 trailer, and how awesome it was when the player character got rocketed away from that rocket explosion? How much cooler would shooter games be if stuff like that happened outside of set-pieces, and physics had a real effect on the position and momentum of your character. Right now, FPS games feel anchored at 90 degrees. Your character stands upright with his feet flat against the ground, and no matter if you're crouching, or even lying prone, that 90 degrees from the ground will be the standard viewpoint through which you'll view the entirety of the game, no matter how much you should be getting buffeted around by explosions and shaky terrain.

Another thing would be allowing more direct interaction between the player and obstacles in the environment. Right now, shooter games are designed as strict corridors, with certain objects allowed to be scaled by the player, and the rest designed to keep them hemmed in and on the designated path. It creates the feeling that you're not really in a warzone, or a jungle, or inside an enemy base, you're simply on a museum tour with flashier exhibits than usual. I'd like to make an FPS game that actually allows you to scramble around and interact with the environment a bit. For all that it did wrong, Brink was very good at allowing you to overcome obstacles in inventive, creative ways. While I wouldn't want to go down the AC-parkour route, I would love it if players felt an incentive to actually explore and try srabbling round levels, rather than simply following a pre-determined path.

Less emphasis on scripted setpieces. This is one of the things that the Halo games have always excelled at. When compared to Call Of Duty, the setpieces that occur in the Halo games rely much, much more on player input. They are, in essence, directed by the player. This makes them more unpredictable, and potentially more dangerous, but also far more rewarding when something exciting happens. If you invest in a solid foundation of physics, AI, enemy design and weapons, you should be able to get the players to create your setpieces for you. A multiplayer example: me and some friends were playing some LAN Halo CE, deathmatch style. One of my friends was driving a Warthog, saw me, and decided to try and run me over. I saw him heading straight for me and, lacking many other options, lobbed a plasma grenade at him. It stuck to the bumper and blew up right as he was bearing down on me. The explosion killed him instantly, and sent the Warthog cartwheeling up and over me, landing on its wheels a good thirty feet the other side of me.

There was nothing scripted about that. Simply the combination of vehicle physics, weapon design, player input, and a metric shit-ton of luck. No scripted COD-style set piece can match that.

In terms of atmosphere, I'd probably go for a slightly more survival-esque feel than what's around now. Rather than handing players all the guns and ammo they need, they'd have to work to get their guns, and make sure to make every bullet count. Rather than going "Here's a heavy machine gun and 600 rounds of ammo, go nuts!" I'd be more inclined to go "There's a heavy machine gun and 200 rounds of ammo in that stash over there, behind the enemy outpost. Good luck!"

Most definitely iron-sights and reticule bloom. Say what you will, those little metal nubbins are put on guns for a reason.

Story wise... no idea. I quite like the idea of putting the player in the shoes of an average Joe forced to fight for survival as a nuclear doomsday slowly causes society to collapse, rather than making yet another nuclear shooter from the POV of a special ops soldier.

Basicly this, I am really interested in a game that immerses me into it. Most of my interesting experiences with games were when I played it has if I was there. For example:

In Fallout 3 I was going to Washington DC (the city part of the wasteland) and I went to the subway, instead of checking the map of the game I went to a map of the station and I felt really immersed.

In Far Cry 2 I would stop at crossroads, check the ingame map (this is a cool ingame map, he reaches for a paper map and you look at it in real time, it isnt a menu or anything) and if needed check the tablets, its way cooler then just following the gps on the minimap.

I really like minimalistic HUD's, and if the game is playable without one even better.

Also for multiplayer, fucking Mumble, that 3D feature is godlike

Video not by me lol

and

listen at 0:23 when he turns around, first you hear from the right then from the left


Basicly have that turned on all the time so that you can hear enemy chatter and if the player wants to talk to the whole team he holds a button (like some PC games do, and Halo 3 did it too) to use the radio, when using the radio he should do this with his hand

At 0:58

When playing if using the radio he would take out the left hand off the gun and have less acuracy (he would actually see his hand going to his hear the his perspective), kind of forcing the player to use the more "natural" 3D chat system if he doesnt need to speak to everyone (the 3D helps teammates because it gives them awareness of how far away and in what direction you are in relation to their position).