Why modern fps aren't fun, or rather why some people feel they aren't.
- Thread starter bobtheorc
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I think that having a variety of enemies would be nice, or at least multiple ways to tackle a situation. Halo does this well, with each enemy having their own AI directives. Grunts will run if their leaders are killed. Taunting a Brute causes them to charge at you. Jackals will soak up damage as the enemies in the back shoot you. Skirmishers can jump around the map and snipe you from afar. And so on.
For me it's about outwitting and beating human opponents. I can see why many people think that most FPS SP sucks but I tend to never play them anyway. I've spent an ungodly ammount fo time playing MW2 but only sat and played the campaign recently when my internet was down.
Or put down a bubble shield, kill their friend, run away. These things can incite rage in them.imnotparanoid said:
The debate, at least as I've read it, isn't necessarily about the "fun-ness" of the FPS genre, but more about how quickly a game gets stale, or whether it simply turns into a long and drawn-out grinding mess as you strive to just unlock little decorations for your tags.
The Call of Duty series is simply built around selfish play. It encourages you to look out for just you and only you, and the reward system (both in-match and out-of-match) is designed to give you props for doing well individually. There is little to no incentive to help your teammates, and frankly, you're competing against them almost as much as you're competing against your opponents, because at the end of the match, whomever got the most kills tops the leaderboards.
The unfortunate trend that has been occurring since the massive release of the original Modern Warfare is the the genre has yet to truly break itself out of this paradigm. Most every FPS since 2007 has focused on this aspect of rewards, providing incentives almost solely to benefit the individual player.
There are some notable exceptions, however. The Battlefield series, especially in Bad Company, has focused more on team-based operations. Medicine, ammo, and vehicles help to encourage aspects of teamwork, especially when your team is trying to push towards objectives.
Killzone 2 and now 3 have some minor teamwork elements, but getting together to work as a team is not as easy as some other games. The series still suffers from self-enrichment quite a bit, and as a consequence of games like Call of Duty and Halo, players will not wait to be revived when fallen, but will instead respawn because there is no real consequence to it. (Especially when you know that another spawn point has just been captured nearby.)
MAG. This is a game that, while not necessarily the most-praised game ever, has truly created something remarkable in the FPS genre. MAG is a team-centered, focused game that encourages players to focus, not necessarily on their own stats, but on helping the team to win. This is one of the few games, especially on consoles, that promotes teamwork in an environment that was designed to do so. Large-scale, objective-focused infantry battles that almost REQUIRE teamwork to succeed.
If developers would stop simply cloning "what has been successful" and take some risks, perhaps we would start getting games that aren't "like Modern Warfare but..."
The Call of Duty series is simply built around selfish play. It encourages you to look out for just you and only you, and the reward system (both in-match and out-of-match) is designed to give you props for doing well individually. There is little to no incentive to help your teammates, and frankly, you're competing against them almost as much as you're competing against your opponents, because at the end of the match, whomever got the most kills tops the leaderboards.
The unfortunate trend that has been occurring since the massive release of the original Modern Warfare is the the genre has yet to truly break itself out of this paradigm. Most every FPS since 2007 has focused on this aspect of rewards, providing incentives almost solely to benefit the individual player.
There are some notable exceptions, however. The Battlefield series, especially in Bad Company, has focused more on team-based operations. Medicine, ammo, and vehicles help to encourage aspects of teamwork, especially when your team is trying to push towards objectives.
Killzone 2 and now 3 have some minor teamwork elements, but getting together to work as a team is not as easy as some other games. The series still suffers from self-enrichment quite a bit, and as a consequence of games like Call of Duty and Halo, players will not wait to be revived when fallen, but will instead respawn because there is no real consequence to it. (Especially when you know that another spawn point has just been captured nearby.)
MAG. This is a game that, while not necessarily the most-praised game ever, has truly created something remarkable in the FPS genre. MAG is a team-centered, focused game that encourages players to focus, not necessarily on their own stats, but on helping the team to win. This is one of the few games, especially on consoles, that promotes teamwork in an environment that was designed to do so. Large-scale, objective-focused infantry battles that almost REQUIRE teamwork to succeed.
If developers would stop simply cloning "what has been successful" and take some risks, perhaps we would start getting games that aren't "like Modern Warfare but..."
Looking at all the varieties of comments I'd say most people play bad shooters because according to them they are good. Also have you ever noticed that most people who play shooters only play the campain once and replay it only for achievments? If a game, movie or book is good it should have a lot of replay value. If you claim that you like the game but don't ever play it after one completion then you just proved that you do not want to play it again. Does that justify a good game? I think not. Also I'm not talking about playing it all the time everyday, just on occasions.
It all comes down to originality. The popularity of FPSs has waxed and waned somewhat as with all genres, but with this type of game it's so analogous to hip hop it's sickening. Every once in a while a new mechanic or visual style is introduced (cover system, pervasive grimy earth tones), and just about everyone in the genre jumps aboard the new bandwagon and generally throw away all that's been learned over the course of FPS history. Some of the copycats occasionally do it better than the original but a matter of months down the line everything congeals into blase boring crap with what seems to be little to no enthusiasm for creating something fun. Then it's back to Wacka Flacka Flame and Souljah Boy and all the other creatively devoid garbage out there.
In other words, all that really remains is the unadventurous, safe crap in between the moments of glory. Couple that with (EA's) dedication to dicking over the customer every time they have an excuse linked to sales, and you have a recipe for BORING. Some examples:
Split screen. Where'd it go? Your system has 4 controllers for a reason, yes? You would prefer multiplayer to be an actually social experience with real people in your real life, yes? Friends you can punch in the arm when they snipe at you while camping? I called EA about this after buying a game that had the 4-controller logo on it(a typo). Apparently they don't think people will buy the game themselves if they can play it at their friend's house. Morons.
10-second health regeneration. Though I'm sure it's every geek's fantasy to be Wolverine, it really just smacks of the growing trend of dumbing down games by making them easier.
In other words, all that really remains is the unadventurous, safe crap in between the moments of glory. Couple that with (EA's) dedication to dicking over the customer every time they have an excuse linked to sales, and you have a recipe for BORING. Some examples:
Split screen. Where'd it go? Your system has 4 controllers for a reason, yes? You would prefer multiplayer to be an actually social experience with real people in your real life, yes? Friends you can punch in the arm when they snipe at you while camping? I called EA about this after buying a game that had the 4-controller logo on it(a typo). Apparently they don't think people will buy the game themselves if they can play it at their friend's house. Morons.
10-second health regeneration. Though I'm sure it's every geek's fantasy to be Wolverine, it really just smacks of the growing trend of dumbing down games by making them easier.
Realism is a lie, there is only logic.ShatterPalm said:
Through logic I gain understanding.
Through understanding I gain tactics.
Through tactics I gain skill.
Through skill, I will pwn the noobs.
The logic shall free me.
(I can haz cookie nao?)
Really what the OP is pointing out the lack of logic in controls. Players can sprint as fast as possible and instantly stop, then quickscope, then jump 4 feet in the air while being weighed down with about a hundred pounds of gear and without any form of effort (since when was jumping an instant thing? Try jumping without bending anything...go on, try it), AND not to mention flying around a corner and landing sideways, or worse, bellyflopping on concrete.
Remember those sports games like skating and snowboarding where if you landed wrong you crashed? That's what needs to happen. Bunnyhopping couldn't ever happen if they had to actually land and not just stop floating. Logic, not realism, needs to be the defining point of a game.
Example: Arma 2: Logically, if it's realistic then it's supposed to be realistic, because it wants to be.
UT3: It's not real, therefore what happens with all the famous frantic button mashing makes perfect logical sense.
What shatters the logic is games in the middle like the CoD series. Games where it looks realistic and in the single player it's supposed to feel realistic, but makes no sense when someone gets on multiplayer because there's UT tactics.
I don't think there's anything intrinsicly wrong with the controls, developers spent enough time figuring out which system works best, maybe there will always be an element of similarity in the genre, maybe it would just be better if developers made fewer of them, gave us a chance to distinguish between what they are producing.cowsvils said:
The difference with the platformer genre is that it didn't really survive as a major genre for as long, shooters have been a major player in the market for much longer, other long standing genre's like rpg's have had to vary their gameplay much more in the interim.Owyn_Merrilin said:
You're right that personal preferance regarding pacing and the variety of weapons is important to ones enjoyment of a game. Obviously personal preferance is what it is, nobody can be right or wrong about it but i wonder if someone did make a true spiritual sequel, taking the old principals and updating them successfully, to the older games you're talking about would everybody really be happy with it. There'd be a contingent who would enjoy it for what it was, I'd hope I'd be amoung them but I can't help but feel some people would look at it and feel it was altogether too familiar territory for them to get into in quite the same way they did with the classic games that drew them into the genre.
I agree with whoever said that they're just different. Look at horror movies of the 30s, 50s, 70s, 90s, and horror movies now. They aren't the same at all. Likewise, look at Wolfenstein, Quake, Goldeneye, Halo, and FP Shooters now.
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You know the funny part about that? The one on the right is half-life 2, which is considered by many to be considered one of the best if not the best FPSs of all time.Irridium said:
May also be another factor in why most seem rather... boring.
Think I'm going to go play DOOM now.
Because HL2 came out seven years ago, and games now are following the same formula?Dirty Hipsters said:You know the funny part about that? The one on the right is half-life 2, which is considered by many to be considered one of the best if not the best FPSs of all time.Irridium said:
May also be another factor in why most seem rather... boring.
Think I'm going to go play DOOM now.
The few moments I saw of Brink at PAX were not encouraging -- but they were in some random dark spot and those look the same in every FPS...pyrosaw said:
OT: One of my gripes with modern FPS's is that they don't use much of the palette. Honestly, MoH is all tan, and they ripped half of their models straight from BF:BC2, but at least some of those maps overlooked water. Graphically, I think we need to back away from realism. Give me some more contrast, more color. Bulletstorm had some color, I'll give it that (it was also better than I thought and less gratingly juvenile than the demo made it seem).
Anyway, that's my take. I want to stop squinting at my screen from way too close trying to distinguish between two shades of tan to see where the enemy is.
Trivia: Burned out on CoD games. Got sick of MoH in less than a week. BF:BC2 I would probably get back into if I had a large enough community to always have a squad to join and work with.