Poll: Tired of killing?

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I liked the way MGS2 did it; killing enemies outright meant that there was blood everywhere, which, when found by an alert guard, would set off a search for you. Using the tranquilizer darts would leave nothing but a sleeping soldier, which you could then hide, dispose of, or just leave to be woken up by the next guard without them catching on that they had anything but a lazy comrade to deal with. However, the tranq darts didn't work instantly unless you were a really good shot, so there was a mechanical tradeoff involved, as opposed to a vague moral tradeoff. I don't really have a problem with killing in videogames, but that's a pretty good example of how to incentivize /not/ killing, if a developer wants to do so.

 

[evilneko]

You can have your entire army go non-lethal in Mount & Blade. XD

 

[Lunar Templar]

no, i would not.

i've tried a few times in MGS and noticed a pesky problem with 'stunning' people. they get back up after awhile.

that, and most the games i favor don't have a 'non lethal' option (also, i don't spend much time fighting humans ether)

 

[Fijiman]

For me it's not so much that I get tired of killing as much as it is that I get tired of killing in certain ways. Got to switch it up every now and then to keep from getting sick of a game.

 

[wintercoat]

We need more FPH: First Person Huggers

Go play puzzle and iOS games if you're tired of violence.

Interesting that you would equate killing with violence. Is a soldier violent? Is a policeman shooting a gangbanger in self defense violent?
I would say that violence is the use of excessive force and in that regard there are very few violent games. Most games give you no option than to kill your enemies so killing them can have no moral repercussions as there was never a choice. I am advocating that more games give you that choice so, in essence, I am asking for MORE violent games.

Yes, as those, by definition, are violent acts.

violence
Noun:

Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
Strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.

The reason for the violence doesn't make it not violence.

What you want is more choice in how the violence is committed(and even whether it's committed in the first place), and those choices to have consequences. And if you ask me, that would be great. I'm always for moving away from "press button > receive reward" gameplay into more involved and fleshed out methods.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

What I dont like about non lethal options in a lot of games is that they feel no different to lethal options, and they arent any more challenging. Its basically just a different animation, the equivalent of a bad english dub of an anime saying that people who got shot are going to another dimension.

 

[Count Igor]

Look out for Dishonoured in the future. That's going to have a way to kill absolutely nobody, and it looks absolutely incredible, to boot!

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

Well I suppose dantes inferno kinda did this?
I mean I found myself absolving everything that moved instead of damning everything so....
I've been saving people to my benefit.

 

[TheVioletBandit]

I wouldn't mind non-violent options in games, and more non-violent experiences like journey.

 

[Dryk]

Deus Ex and Human Revolution make non-killing a pretty viable option. I always thought it would be fun to play another FPS along the lines of the first half of Stranger's Wrath, where you wear down bounties with nonlethal weapons and bring them in. You could have a taser, a gun that bags people a la fifth element, non-lethal bear traps, that kind of thing.

I could never manage to play Deus Ex non-lethal, I found the melee weapons took too many hits to knock out at the beginning and that the tranqs took too long to kick in... I may have just been crap though

It was really easy and fun in Human Revolution too, and it made the times I did kill people carry a lot more weight. I only killed four standard enemies in my entire playthrough:

- I did a non-lethal takedown on a guy too close to the edge in some sewers and he fell into electrified water
- I accidentally held the button too long
- I got really angry when some guys killed someone I liked then tried to loot his storage locker, so I stabbed them both in the back.

I felt really bad when the first two happened and the last one carried WAAAAAY more weight than a usual mook kill. I loved the game for that.

 

[somonels]

I can't say, I haven't tried it.

Can't beat a boss? Go kill some dudes.
Killing dudes too slow? Kill them harder.
Still too slow? Kill some special dudes for having some nifty items and take them.

Death, a base mechanic of life, is much more prevalent than the larger and more complicated struggle for life.
The problem lies in two parts:
Why it exists? Because it is easy, death is the easiest way to convey victory. Deaths of your enemies that stand in your way allow you to progress through the game at a satisfactory speed. Your death is nowadays not even a game over, but a matter of losing some minutes of progress and random drops if any. And the LATTER part we do complain about.
How do we replace a mechanic like that? You can't. Certain very popular genres - FPS, Hack and Slash, aRPG, Action, TPS - are all based on death mechanics, It might not be a literal death, a graphic death, but a variable in a code reaches a certain point and it is destroyed, the code dies. In bad games it does not even get to pass any code that would survive it, in mediocre games their legacy shall be an increased variable and a footnote detailing his class and death... I got way off track, **** **, i'm not deleting or redoing it. Deal with it.

The death of the player... could be lot of things, but what it boils down to is a loss of progress and time. The existence of NPCs is to provide an obstacle of whatever kind, their reason of being is to hinder the player from progressing. Death is just a common representation of it which forces players to fight against it. A game that provides a single solution *coufpsgh* is a bad game.

 

[blackrave]

EDIT: And weirdly enough, you can do a non-lethal run in Postal 2. You'll even get a recognition for that. "Thank you for playing, Jesus" or something like that.

I totally did it, or tried to be more precise
There was one accident when I was on fire and police officer came too close
And for some reason that kill counted (Shy killer, or something like that)

And this game is hard to beat in non-violent way
Not because it is hard, but because most characters are a-holes

It may sound strange, but Postal2 is one of my most favorite games
(Apocalypse weekend was total BS, but it had one good moment- in the beginning they explained what happened with Dude in the end of Postal 2)

 

[Yopaz]

Deus Ex and Human Revolution make non-killing a pretty viable option. I always thought it would be fun to play another FPS along the lines of the first half of Stranger's Wrath, where you wear down bounties with nonlethal weapons and bring them in. You could have a taser, a gun that bags people a la fifth element, non-lethal bear traps, that kind of thing.

I got to agree with this. I liked going non violent whenever I could in both of those games.

 

[Darknacht]

Planescape: Torment has this option, there are 2 fights you must participate in one is against a zombie and the other you can stop partway through and let your opponent leave in peace or convince him that his outlook is wrong and he should turn back towards a less violent path. Also most of the EXP in the game is given when you complete something not necessarily for killing things so its a very viable way to play, though it does require a bit of creativity at times.
I always like it when games give you more options then just hack everything to bits.

 

[AntiChri5]

You can have your entire army go non-lethal in Mount & Blade. XD

Heh, was just about to mention Mount and Blade.

With a blunt weapon equipped, you can take the peaceful option and knock enemies unconscious instead of just killing them.....and then sell them into slavery!

 

[devilofthemist]

that is what i like about metro 2033 even though you do have to kill sometimes there are options to sneak through and kill as little as possible