FPS's MOST important qualities.

[Astalano]

There are two main kinds of first person shooters. One is AI based and one is the rollercoaster ride.

The AI based one is Half-Life, Crysis, FEAR. These are the FPSs that are actually based on shooting, so they require:

-Great gunplay. FEAR is an example of this. Guns should feel great to use and sound great. Enemies should also be satisfying to kill, even when difficult to kill (e.g. in what Homefront should have been, you may find it incredibly difficult to kill the Koreans, but the game should still feel satisfying and not have tedious gunplay).

-Great AI. The AI should be trying to outsmart you. An example of this is Crysis.

-Great level design. The levels should be designed with multiple approaches. The stealthy route to flank, the frontal charge with cover that can be made use of and such. Levels should complement the AI and be based around the game's style. Don't add unecessary paths, keep everything as simplistic and clear as possible. One example of this is Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. There are multiple ways to destroy an enemy position and everything is clearly laid out for you.

-Stealth as well as gun crazy. Stealth should always be an option and it should work as well as anything else in the game. However, you should never automate stealth kills, because it removes the player from the action.

-Variety versus quality. Make sure to vary everything but consider quality at the same time. FEAR is a very 1-note game and that works for it because the gunplay and AI are so great to fight. However, even FEAR varies the elements of the game. Crysis, for instance, has far too many unecessary elements. I don't need to drive a tank or a helicopter. The game can be great without resorting to varying up for the sake of unecessary variety or for a bulletpoint on the back of the box.


General points:


-No cutscenes. A great first person shooter will make you do what needs to be done for the storyline. Slow motion should not be spammed and the game should guide you in such a way that no cutscenes are needed, which take you out of the storyline. Half-Life 2 is the best example of this, while Bioshock is a bad example. If I remember right, a cutscene triggers when you kill Andrew Ryan, which is silly. The game should make you want to kill him or make you struggle against the controls. Never take the player out of the action. Ever.

-Never take the player out of first person. Ever. This is a pretty obvious one.

-No quick time events. Base everything around a player's input device. If he needs to avoid an enemy attack, assign to a button an action that allows him to duck or roll, don't boil it down to "press X to avoid attack".

-Great graphics. The game has to be great to look at because the entire point of the first person view is to be immersive. An ugly game is not immersive.

-Don't put in multiplayer unless the game is designed around multiplayer.


Rollercoaster ride:

-A lot of variety. Half-Life 2 is the best example of this again. It's not so much a shooter as it is an empty cube in which the designers spawn whatever ideas they need to fit the situation, whether it be a car chase, physics puzzles, etc.

-Focus not on shooting. Guns should be relatively satisfying, but shouldn't be the focus. The focus has to be the story here and the varied gameplay elements.

-Enemy AI only needs to be as good as the game requires it to be, the target shouldn't be great AI if it doesn't serve the game well.

-Great story or at least great storytelling.


I think that's enough for now.

 

[Xanadu84]

A set of mechanics that compliments the playing style, and the desired vision for the game. There are very few qualities that are boons to ALL shooters.

 

[sylekage]

Just like people said, good maps. But, if you're in the single player, you should be able to go into a small area where you can see a good portion of the map and pick off people until you feel it's safe to move on, without having to worry about people coming around behind you. In multiplayer, there are very, very few spots that you can do that without someone flanking you.

And the two weapon system works really good, but I think it should be a three weapon system. People can carry two rifles, two sets of four grenades, C4, claymores, and maybe grenade launcher ammo, and yet they can't carry a freeking pistol in a leg holster? doesn't make sense.

Fps's are good because of the fast paced "Holy shit" feeling that goes on most of the time

 

[-Dragmire-]

intuitive controls
multiplayer
story for single player

the amount of realism in a fps doesn't add or remove "fun" from the game but is a very important factor in deciding the tone/atmosphere and physics(character speed,recoil, etc..) in it

fun factor can depend on the audience
a stealth based fps would probably need a strong cover based system while an action based one might suffer with one as it slows the game flow in my opinion.

 

[Chewster]

I like that a few of these suggestions are things all games should be doing anyway. Responsive controls? Without them, any game is broken and may as well end before it starts. A solid framerate? Anything that makes the game jerky to the human eye means that the game is messed up in some way (or else it means that your computer is shit, either way, no good). I think we can all accept that all games need those things, and that the FPS is no exception.

But for me? Just the overall package. I generally don't play multiplayer, but like the genre as a rule, but speed doesn't matter, outside of specific firefights maybe. I like to explore the world created, so anything that is immersive and unique is good. I mean, there is no "FPS" formula. Are we talking a modern combat CoD type series, a horror-themed series a la F.E.A.R. or maybe Condemned (sort of) or an elaborate FPSRPG like Fallout 3 or what? Make the experience fun in a lasting way and you've made a good FPS. I mean, look at the FPSes of old (like, the 90s). Most of them were downright bizarre, and creative as hell too. Dare to be different, I say.

I mean, the genre is rather diverse, wouldn't you say? Just come up with an interesting concept and/or a really inventive story and go with it. Besides, if you're going to complain about something technical, complain about the almost always broken AI that games seem to include. Really amazing AI is something I am still waiting for. These days, "functional" seems to do.

 

[Couch Radish]

If you're making a game from a first person perspective, remember it doesn't always have to involve guns and shooting.

Take games like Thief, Hitman, Mirror's Edge, etc. Or even think of something that's never been used before.

 

[jak_of_bees]

For SP good AI, well written story and good pacing. Seriously I don't what to be running and gunning through explosions for 8 hours. I like games that let you stop and breath, games that give me a chance to think about my next actions. I guess that's why I was always a fan of the Rainbow Six series because I could plan my next move and not just sprint and shoot.

As for MP good level design and balance is crucial. Why does Black Ops fail in my opinion? 'Cause the maps are very mediocre. I also don't see how realism would make a game so great? Really if a game was realistic then one shot to the body and your pretty much useless to the team, reloads would take ages and accuracy would be well...a lot worse then what it is in the CoD games. So saying that give me down right bizarre over realism any day.

 

[BENZOOKA]

You're thinking in PC terms here... I was thinking along the lines of the consoles, where most shooters are stuck at 30FPS or below. It just doesn't flow as well as COD's (almost constant) 60FPS and to me it makes a huge difference in how the game flows and feels to play when the frame-rate is that bit higher.

Ah, pardon my simplemindedness (I also strayed a bit too much to competitive gaming in my points)...

That kind of a difference in FPS sounds like an enormous advantage for COD. Haven't got much experience on consoles, but I've been surprised on how effortfully some games run on them. In the same situation you'd decrease graphics settings on a PC for a smoother gameplay; which is more important than flashy graphics.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Double-post. How embarrassing.

Please ignore, or remove.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Triple-post... Now this is a first. Sorry.

The note of "server too busy to view thread" -announcement fooled me completely into posting again o_o

 

[Grond Strong]

For SP good AI, well written story and good pacing. Seriously I don't what to be running and gunning through explosions for 8 hours. I like games that let you stop and breath, games that give me a chance to think about my next actions. I guess that's why I was always a fan of the Rainbow Six series because I could plan my next move and not just sprint and shoot.

As for MP good level design and balance is crucial. Why does Black Ops fail in my opinion? 'Cause the maps are very mediocre. I also don't see how realism would make a game so great? Really if a game was realistic then one shot to the body and your pretty much useless to the team, reloads would take ages and accuracy would be well...a lot worse then what it is in the CoD games. So saying that give me down right bizarre over realism any day.

Realism has many faces. Dead-eye accuracy while being shot and ludicrous-speed reloading are not one of them. But we have way too much realism in our actual lives. (However small they may be for some of us.) So we escape to videogames to bring us out of reality as realistically as possible. The irony of it is amusing.

As for your liking of Rainbow Six... A videogame that only rewards one's emergence from a tough battle with hordes of enemies with more touch battles and more hordes of enemies will be out of my xbox faster than a Justin Beiber music video. I agree with you, moderation is key.

 

[Grond Strong]

You're thinking in PC terms here... I was thinking along the lines of the consoles, where most shooters are stuck at 30FPS or below. It just doesn't flow as well as COD's (almost constant) 60FPS and to me it makes a huge difference in how the game flows and feels to play when the frame-rate is that bit higher.

Ah, pardon my simplemindedness (I also strayed a bit too much to competitive gaming in my points)...

That kind of a difference in FPS sounds like an enormous advantage for COD. Haven't got much experience on consoles, but I've been surprised on how effortfully some games run on them. In the same situation you'd decrease graphics settings on a PC for a smoother gameplay; which is more important than flashy graphics.

Just another question for ya. I know you said you haven't gotten much experience on consols but I am from the opposite side of the equation and haven't really had the opportunity to play my favorite consol games on a PC. Do you play them on PC because you prefer them on PC or because a consol isn't readily available to you? Just curious.

 

[Continuity]

I recently had to come up with a videogame for school to "pitch" for a company that might be interested in publishing it. Naturally I chose the FPS genre because it happens to be my favorite. It also got me thinking. Why do I love FPS's so much? Or, more appropriately, what is the most important thing that I think "makes" an FPS an FPS. So I wanted to ask the community.

Guns, plain and simple, guns. An FPS lives and dies by its guns. That is, the ballistics, the recoil, the reloading, the visuals and sounds, the variety... everything about them... Guns.

Everything else in an FPS is ancillary to the gunplay.

Just another question for ya. I know you said you haven't gotten much experience on consols but I am from the opposite side of the equation and haven't really had the opportunity to play my favorite consol games on a PC. Do you play them on PC because you prefer them on PC or because a consol isn't readily available to you? Just curious.

you'll find that most PC FPS gamers aren't all that made up about console FPS games, the design ethic on the console, plus the limitations imposed by the controller really don't make for a great game on the PC, even if the port is done fairly well.
However as a side note, and as someone who owns two controllers I have to say that FPS is always much more pleasurable with M&K controls, except in the circumstances where the control port is so bad that you're actually better off with a controller... those are always unfortunate situations.

In other words console games dont really translate well to the PC (or at least to M&K controls), they are designed from the ground up to fit the console platform which usually just makes them seem a bit poor on the PC compared to PC exclusive titles.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Just another question for ya. I know you said you haven't gotten much experience on consols but I am from the opposite side of the equation and haven't really had the opportunity to play my favorite consol games on a PC. Do you play them on PC because you prefer them on PC or because a consol isn't readily available to you? Just curious.

I've never had a console, but I prefer PC because:
Better performance. Better graphics (which are customizable). Customization. Faster response. Overall in every way faster, more powerful and better. There's really not an area where consoles are better. And shooters are the epitome of that.

Mouse & keyboard are superior to controllers. Massively better, on shooters (and RTSs and any game that plays better with more than few controls). The only thing controllers are better suited for, are sports games. And even then I really prefer to play on a PC, with a controller (and you can always change the keymapping as well).

 

[josemlopes]

Balanced weapons. I want a pistol that shouldn't be thrown away as soon as I get an assualt rifle.

In Halo the plasma pistol can be one of the best weapons in close quarters, not many people use it though.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Lack of color, it just isn't next gen if you see anything but brown and gray.