The Generic FPS: How Would You Change it For the Better?

[TheAngryKoala]

With Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 peeking their gritty, brown, bullet ridden heads over the fence this coming autumn/winter, the gaming community is faced with yet another sequel in a franchise that deliver pretty much the same thing we've bought regularly every year. For example, the single player campaign is always the same; you're guaranteed to get on a chopper with no doors, the Russians/middle-eastern terrorists/PMCs fill in the role of the baddies... again, protagonists show as much emotion as a brick shithouse and can take as many bullets to the chin as one. I could go on. As for the multiplayer, Bad Company 2 brought something different to the genre, making players make tactical decisions and think about taking objectives unlike CoD where you needed the reaction times of an ADD on an IV drip of popping candy and Redbull; yet CoD still takes the FPS throne in terms of sales. Games like these need to start being different because the 'selling formula' is bound to get stale if everyone makes games in the same way. And here's my Ideas:

1) Have more 'Quiet' moments in the game: There's just too many explosions and gunfights going on at any one time, making the experience jarring at times. It needs to be juxtaposed to a calm moment; say the protagonist's squad getting ready before an operation or taking a break. It would make the action sequences more exciting since there's something to compare to.

2) Have characters with emotions: I'm sure even the hardest of soldiers would have some notion of fear while peeping a barrel of a tank so why don't the PCs? Its a human character you play after all, not some robot. It also makes the game more compelling, you'd start to care for the character and also adds depth to the story. I mean, who in this world isn't flawed?

My points down, feel free to add how FPS' could improve.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

Lots and lots of customization options for your character and guns.

 

[Ahomelessman]

Characterizations (if there is one) beyond Fist Rockbone the Roider Though that's a problem with most shooters And from what Ive seen of Skyrim it will probably fit the Muscled manly man who eats bricks and craps 2 by 4s mold but i could be wrong though. Women as well need better characterization beyond tight latex suits and boobies

 

[Limecake]

I think they should have taken a page from the CoD4 book and start basing their shooters in the future, seeing them come up with 'future' tech might actually bring some creativity back to the series.

and I do agree that Quiet moments would make the game more interesting, when explosions and gunfire go off every 30 seconds it gets old quickly.

also why haven't we seen a soldier in any CoD game that is actually concerned or frightened about anything going on around him? or you know a Woman! since there ARE women in the military.

 

[Nathan Twist]

Two things:
1. Like you guys have said, characterization. Make characters interesting, relate-able, funny if possible. I don't mind having a meathead for a protagonist, as long as he's an interesting/funny meathead.
2. More guns. For years i have firmly stood against the whole "Realism shooter" thing. There's a fine line between realistic and fun. I don't care if it isn't realistic, i want to carry an entire goddamn armory in my pants. More guns at once = more variety. I realize this might be the wrong place to make that argument, but I thought I'd just throw that out there.

 

[TheAngryKoala]

The objective should really just vary from simply "Shoot some Dudes." It'd be good to have a mission where you are keeping peace rather than slaughtering Russians all the time. The SR-71 mission in Blops was that rare moment when I had fun without having to actively shoot people and there should be more missions like that.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I think variety is the key ingredient to a good FPS. It needs quiet moments, to give you a break in game and contrast the craziness of battle. It needs simple areas, where you can run in, gun down people and feel like a badass supersoldier. It needs hard areas, where you have to use strategy to defeat all the guys, picking your targets, flanking positions, hiding and even tactically retreating to draw some soldiers away. And it needs murderous areas where all you can do is run away.
A linear corridor shooter will always benefit from having larger areas that you can choose multiple routes, or even multiple strategies to get past certain stages. Just giving the player a bit more freedom to get through a level the way they want to.

A good shooter needs to keep your adrenaline up and keep your attention, but a great shooter should also give you something higher to think about, for example there's a moment in Medal of Honor Frontline at the end of the penultimate level, where you hear a Nazi guard up ahead of you on the radio to his girlfriend in Berlin, and he tells her how much he misses her, and to stay safe he'll be home soon. Then you have to get past him and a few other soldiers to get to the end of the level, but do you kill him the same way you did with every other enemy in the entire game? I know I didn't. That's a moment that stays with you.

Also gameplay should be mixed up, people always say that a great thing about MW that MW2's campaign misses was the stealth missions, because that gave the player something new to do, not just run and gun down a corridor. There's no reason why you can't have a vehicle section, or a stealth section, or some other mix-up of the gameplay formula during a campaign.

 

[Zer_]

Spoiler: Give players the ability to punch snot nosed kids in the face over the internet...

Okay for real. I agree with most posters here. Characterizations and excellent pacing are a must. Add in a few little RPG elements to spice things up.

 

[Seishisha]

Im gonna come in on the mechanics side of things, take cover based shooting for example. its pretty dull even when done perfectly, with a simple change it could be way better heres my example, make the cover destructable so you have to dive in an out of place all the time instead of just "camping". I am fully aware this has already been done in certain games anyway but not the majority. Another example of a mechanic that could be improved terrian dammage, again some games have this already but most FPS/TPS you throw a grenade and it kills somone but doesnt do anything else to the ground with the exception of some scorch marks, imagine if instead it made its own little crater and the flying debris also dammage things like a nearby car or smacked your staight in the face, realy anything you can do to improve the immersion of a game is a way of making it better, if you can truly draw your crowd in and make them not only feel enjoyment but also a fundamental level of fear abd respect from the mechanics you've got yourself a winner, ofcourse this is much easier said than done.

 

[razelas]

1) Scrap single-player for co-op campaign. I'm sick of useless "friendly" AI. Ideally, the story-driven part of the game would be similar to GoW Horde mode. Maybe then the game devs can focus on decent, original war stories instead of resorting to cliches.

2) Give players more things to do besides shooting/blowing shit up. Personally, this is what made Bad Company 2 so fun for me: making sure allies were well-supplied, vehicles repaired, players healed/revived, or scouting with motion sensors. And I want more. I want to cut openings in fences and barbed wires and sneak through, I want to be able to make trenches and foxholes [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKnihf8N_bs].

3) Give players missions/objectives in multiplayer that have a real effect on gameplay. Capping objectives and demolishing M-COMs/weapon caches are not enough. I want to destroy MG and TOW gun emplacements, clear and demolish enemy-controlled buildings.

 

[Snake Plissken]

Every half an hour, I'd cause gameplay to stop and replace it with some good old hardcore pornography videos for 10 minutes or so. BAM! Instantly better.

 

[6_Qubed]

Bearing in mind that it kind of goes against the "shooter" part of "first person shooter," I had some of the most I've had in a video game bashing motherfuckers' heads in with a wrench in Bioshock, so I would suggest making melee something more than that thing you do when you run out of bullets. Speaking of, Bioshock Infinite is looking to have a characterized and emotional protagonist, if that's what you're looking for.

Another thing would be trap setting, and I'm not talking about hiding behind a corner with a shotgun either. Landmines and satchel charges are a good start, but if there are a ton of loose objects in the level to show off the nifty physics anyway, why not rig them up into something useful? Hell, make it a part of item-crafting, another lovely thing to see in a video game. My one caveat here would be to either have a menu of what traps you could make, or instead go the Dwarf Fortress route and don't limit it at all. Nothing ruins an item-crafting experience like trying to guess what specific kind of pointy thing the developers meant for you to have in their "pointy thing trap."

 

[TheAngryKoala]

A good shooter needs to keep your adrenaline up and keep your attention, but a great shooter should also give you something higher to think about, for example there's a moment in Medal of Honor Frontline at the end of the penultimate level, where you hear a Nazi guard up ahead of you on the radio to his girlfriend in Berlin, and he tells her how much he misses her, and to stay safe he'll be home soon. Then you have to get past him and a few other soldiers to get to the end of the level, but do you kill him the same way you did with every other enemy in the entire game? I know I didn't. That's a moment that stays with you.

I agree, and this should apply with the main characters in the game. e.g. The squad leader's tour is almost up and he can't wait to return home to his kids, your best friend in the squad has a pregnant girlfriend to return home to, there's a budding romance between the woman in the squad with the sniper, the possibilities are endless. With this, it'd pair well with something similar to ME2's final mission, where you can receive different endings depending on who survived the mission. That would add depth and replay value.

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

A short biography of everyone you shoot, ranging from 3-7 seconds depending on how they die. Also, relatable women and a full sci-fi atmosphere, not some BS last second tack on. Also, LESS FOCUS ON MULTIPLAYER MORE ON SINGLE. And no rank-based weapon system. Things were better when everyone had an equal chance of victory, no matter when they started playing.