Will FPS return (somewhat) to form

[gargantual]

Seeing the DOOM trailer finally during the E3 livestream, I was mostly positive, but a bit sunk that I didn't see wider level than DOOM 3 and larger packs of incoming demons, more akin to the classic doom experience. Ahh you can't have it all, so I'll still keep it on the watchlist.

But getting to the point, with the effect of Titanfall, and CoDs parkour and jetpacks, Wolfenstein TNOs positive reception, projects like Shadow Warrior and Rise of the Triad coming back and the next Unreal Tourney on the horizon, I want to believe that the demand for a faster, more expansive FPS single player experience is recognized, and cover based, regen, two weapon, turret-on-rails, single player FPS has finally outlived its status at the forefront of the genre. I don't mind if a title is expressely modern military, but anything thats hampered for the scripted experience needs a GunCon, or arcade zapper is all. Back when Bioshock Infinite limited itself I hoped back then, the message was getting out about what FPS was missing.

I understand that devs, besides CoD copying were trying to simulate the dynamics of combat more realistically, but this is a crossroads where sometimes reality has to be sacrificed to keep the game engaging. Rainbow Six, Counter Strike, ARMA I think pretty much have that angle of real and tactical covered, and the F.E.A.R. series was a good historic example of marrying those aspects of urban warfare while not sacrificing the briskness and variety of opposition.

Level design, situational weapons, smart powerup placement, resource conservation, smart agile foes, or varied waves of them. All these things suffered IMO last gen from people looking at the Wii or CoD's money and aiming to "gentrify" their userbase with simpler gaming experiences.

But what's your opinion? is a minor rennaisance on the way? Or not? Is there no problem to begin with?

 

[Doom972]

I think that the genre will keep changing and branch out in different directions. Some developers noticed how the long-time shooter fans want something more than the linear experience provided by the likes of CoD and Halo, and that's why we've seen some shooters that cater to that audience in recent years. Hopefully Doom will be another one of those. We'll have different kinds of shooters for different audiences.

 

[gargantual]

Honestly, I doubt it. The big expasive FPS, ala original doom, has a couple of major flaws.

1. The biggest thing now a days is that people are fucking lazy retards. So by putting out an expansive level, perhaps with red, blue, green, and yellow keycards to get through it would mind rape the average CoD dude bro and prompt them to put the game down. Sadly part of the natural evolution of gaming, has been ease of access to casual players. This has led to what you could call "Specicle shooters", your Call of Duty's, Battlefields and so forth, games in which it is more about all the crazy shit going on around you than it is about you doing any actual exploring or even shooting on your own.

2. It is fun to look back on those old school Duke's and Dooms and want that back. But so long as the yearly CoD brings in cum buckets of money, developers really have no reason to try something new. So long as the yearly Call of the World War Zombie Battlefield sell like 25 cent blowjobs from Toothless Amy, then we are unlikely to see any kind of shooter that requires....thought, on both player and developer sides.

On the bright side this new era of shooter does shit out a diamond every once in a while, as with the case of Wolfenstien:TNO.

Yeah maybe not all of it. But I hoped that the limiting returns of special shooters would hit a wall where CoD had to embrace bits of classic action to sustain itself. Especially with the amount of people flocking to battlefield and battlefront.

I think for the impatience of labyrinth levels, there was a solution that half-life introduced. Before, radars and pointers told you where to go, and the answer was always (where the enemies are). Half-life's answer was

use the setpieces as clues for unique obstacles.That tactic can be very intuitive if done right.

The reason I hoped CoD would change a bit (a little bit of course) for black ops 3 is since theyre prioritizing co-op, you're fighting a heavy mech or two head on, and the cybernetic flying exo theme is still here, now theres a narrative reason to take off some of the rails and open the combat up at least to the level of halo, there will require a bit more clearance and movement between goodguys and badguys than cover based exclusively.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I would like to see some more old school shooter tropes make a comeback. Not really sure if it will happen though. The semi big levels would be a hard fit. They are kind of caught between too poles we have today. Like how to you sell 'large' levels as a thing when we have full on open world FPS. They would just look small in comparison.

 

[MysticSlayer]

From what I saw between the two sections they showed off, it looked like it will capture what was great about the first couple DOOM games while learning a few lessons from DOOM 3. The combat was fast and seemed to allow a freedom of movement a little more similar to the first couple games (this was most apparent when they showed the section in hell). In the meantime, though, it seems like they won't be (deliberately trying to) getting the player lost by searching for another key card in a search that felt no different than the last one.

And no, I'm not saying that games should be all action all the time. It's just that, for how good they were, I never felt the first two DOOM games ever found an adequate reason for or engaging way of getting the player lost in a sprawling level on a "find the hidden object" mini-game. It's always been the biggest deterrent for me getting more than a 1/4 the way before losing interest.

But overall, I think we already are starting to get more shooters that want to return to the way things were, and the new DOOM is an example of that. They just aren't blindly rushing in and copy/pasting the whole thing. They're considering what we've learned in the last 15-20 years and using that to improve one of the better foundations for the genre.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Never expect things to go back, only forward. Very very slowly will both ends of this table mix other elements in until every attempted mechanic will get put in the same games, and then someone might come up with new shit.

And so new Doom looks like the old ones, but then we also get neon outlines on important shit so you wouldn't exert any amount of effort figuring anything out, an "I win button" with canned executions, mash button to open door shit, radial menus, weapons cover half the screen, chainsaw actually looked like it's all canned animation, just lots and lots of interruption cimenatics and a very distinctive brown filter so I expect there is even more of the modern shooter stuff stuck in there. And for a giant like id software that is really inevitable, market research clearly shows people want more CoD every year... so they can't just go burn money on stuff that has niche appeal when there is money to be earned from the masses.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

If you are holding out hope for awesome expansive levels with an element of resource management. You are probably very out of luck. I don't think that is ever coming back. What I saw of the new Doom didn't impress me. It looked like just another generic modern shooter.

Also, what is up with the color design? Why are people so terrified of colors that pop nowadays? Everything has to be covered in some dark filter. It looks like everyone took a piss all over everything.

Thankfully, I can always go back and replay the old games and not bother with the new ones. God, I miss games with monster in-fighting. Nothing like having to stage valuable monster to monster battles to conserve ammo.

 

[baddude1337]

It looked very much like Doom to me. Baring in mind you can never really trust E3 'gameplay' fully, but I can imagine we will get levels between the open ended key hunt of classic Doom and the more linear Doom 3.

In the meantime, at least we can enjoy classic Doom and it's huge selection of gameplay and level mods. I'd recommend X Weapon: The Weaponing for a good modern styled gameplay mod without all the OTT gore, and the Back to Saturn X mapset is probably my favourite.

 

[Phasmal]

As someone who's pretty into FPS's (they're not my favourite genre but they're up there), I don't think there's too much of a problem to begin with.

I don't hold out any hope that new DOOM will be anything like classic DOOM, but that's okay, old DOOM still exists. Though I'mma take a moment again to moan about the colours again, c'mon guys.
But I think in general FPS's are doing fine.

 

[Tilly]

I'm not sure when Half-life 3 is coming out I'm afraid ;-)

 

[Something Amyss]

I'd just as soon they keep progressing, rather than return to form.

 

[gargantual]

I'd just as soon they keep progressing, rather than return to form.

Thats what gets me. Gamers know what makes the experience fluid, and its really hit a point of reductionism in game design just to satisfy narrative demands, and pull in the widest general market.

A way forward is for people to see what little things worked in the past, and take it with them.

 

[Evonisia]

Best case scenario: We end up having a wider variety of shooters all vying for attention from audiences (Doom style, Halo style, CoD style) because clearly there's a market for it. The several generations blend together to make more games that combine the best elements of all of them to make a new type of shooter like in the case of Wolfenstein: The New Order.

Worst case scenario: This is just a phase, and we have to rely on indie devs to provide games like Doom or games like Halo, and in the future games like CoD when the new style of shooter takes over.

 

[CaitSeith]

Probably the AAA industry will have to stop seeing them as a sure bet. So more competent people with lower budgets can make them as they used to be: gameplay over plot/spectacle. Just like survival horror did. What I'm almost sure is that we won't get an AAA version of those old school FPSs

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I hope FPSs stop devolving already. I did get into COD4 like lots of people, but the overall gameplay was just so simplistic that I never played another one. A lot of FPSs just have such basic and boring mechanics; it really is just move (with a sprint optoin!!!), aim and shoot, and that's it. The only online FPS of last-gen I even liked was MoH Warfighter because it had leaning and sliding. Just those 2 things alone made gunfights so much more dynamic and skill-based, and both those things could be in every FPS but instead they are hard to come by. The only other FPSs I can get into are the ones that have some kind of powers like a Borderlands or Bioshock because you have more to do than just move and shoot. And, BulletStorm was tons of FUN!!! The FPS definitely needs to implement more movement options across the board like some recent titles have done as mentioned by the TC.

 

[Dizchu]

This might sound elitist, but you know what'd bring FPS games back to their former glory? Prioritising the PC. That's not to say that consoles don't have good FPS games, the Halo series is pretty ambitious and noteworthy. But Halo is pretty much an anomaly, as the most critically-acclaimed and "well-respected" FPS games (Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, System Shock 2) have been on PC (though Doom has been ported to every system imaginable).

The console FPS market is dominated by shooters that have followed the Halo formula, but usually not as well. Big setpieces, an emphasis on the "cinematic", bombastic symphonic scores... which is fine, there's a place for that. But because of the limitations of the gamepad, the gameplay must either be slowed down or simplified to accommodate it. System Shock 2 would be a nightmare to play on a console.

However, I think the neverending drive towards big setpiece-heavy shooters with pretentious military themes and "authenticity" means it might take a while to return to the fast pace of older shooters. Also the console market is lucrative, so only the ballsiest developers can afford to be PC exclusive.

 

[MHR]

This might sound elitist, but you know what'd bring FPS games back to their former glory? Prioritising the PC.

Elitist nothing. FPS with dual stick aiming is practically an abomination.

That was the only thing that was hard to watch about the E3 doom trailer for me. The demo guy missing easy shots and not moving his view because of the giant lead weights shackled to his thumbs.

Well that and the announcer guy mentioning "moving fast" and then moments later we get treated to a trailer where we're plodding along at a leisurely Master Chief pace.

Captcha: the next level

 

[baddude1337]

I'd actually also love to see a return of multiplayer shooters with good bots. Hardly any games have bot support these days and for multiplayer centric titles it pretty much kills them. Most of my shooter time these days bar classic Doom and it's mods is Counter Strike, and BF2 total conversion's Project Reality and Forgotten Hope, which have fantastic bot support and, thanks to being open ended Battlefield maps, are effectively sandboxes are more fun to me than any linear bombastic shooter (and way more replayable).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

This might sound elitist, but you know what'd bring FPS games back to their former glory? Prioritising the PC...

But because of the limitations of the gamepad, the gameplay must either be slowed down or simplified to accommodate it.

FPSs are more simplistic by nature than other games. I'm pretty sure any great FPS could work just fine on a console. Most FPS on a console don't even use every button on a controller.

FPS with dual stick aiming is practically an abomination.

Learn2aim. Aiming is just fine with a controller. The last online FPS I played, I hit with 36% of my shots fired (probably better than most PC players), and I also used the gun with the highest recoil. I also played MGO for 4 years, which required headshots to kill as body shots did shit damage, and there were tons of players that could headshot you across the map (including myself) with only a couple bullets fired, and the game had no aim-assist either.

 

[Dizchu]

FPSs are more simplistic by nature than other games. I'm pretty sure any great FPS could work just fine on a console. Most FPS on a console don't even use every button on a controller.

Which games are you using to support that assertion? Because I am fairly sure you're not talking about Deus Ex and System Shock 2, two games that had later instalments that were simplified for console audiences (I mean Bioshock ditched the inventory altogether). If you're talking about games like Doom and Duke Nukem which are extremely simple, even THEY don't reach anywhere close to their full potential on consoles because of modding. How many people do you think still play Doom on PS1?

There's nothing inherently simplistic or complex about first-person shooters, but when they are complex they tend to work less efficiently on consoles. And even when they're more simplistic, the limitations of consoles works against them. So because developers can't make complex shooters or fun, arcade-y shooters with great user support and modding capabilities, they're generally limited to a very restricted template (which is the Halo/Call of Duty one). Sure you have Borderlands ported to consoles too, but with games like that it's usually a rarity.