Realism in FPS can be fun

[Teddy Roosevelt]

I see all of these people bashing realism in games because they think it would kill the atmosphere, but I find that, if combat in real life is exciting, albeit incredibly frightening, then it can be exciting in a game, and if you think about it, doesn't the fun of an FPS tie in to the excitement of it?

Before I go any further, I want to prevent people from telling me how tedious 100% realistic games would be. I totally agree. In real life, despite even modern US military body armor, only pistol rounds will have significantly reduced effect, but rifles will cut you down in a few shots, if you can even handle that. Having been shot, you'd be lucky to be able to heal within any reasonable amount of time. If games acknowledged that kind of realism, an had no healing mechanism, consider yourself dead on the spot. So, yes, 100% accuracy would mean dying a considerable number of times within minutes. Don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that a certain level of realism can make FPS online gameplay incredibly exciting, and since it's a game, that kind of excitement will be in no way bad. Let's say that the guns had realistic effects, and various armors provided different protection over different areas. Bullets would have different effects on penetration and things, and your health would be based on an overall trauma and blood loss system as well as a body part, area damage system, but, unlike in Fallout 3, you wouldn't have time to worry about where you are damaged more, meaning your purpose would be, like it is with most FPS anyway, to dodge bullets in general.

Medkits could stay, since hospitalization would, of course, be stupid. They might work similar to Left 4 Dead, letting the computer automatically decide where more health will be healed, as far as body parts. Maybe the game would be devoted to online play, like MAG, so that the development team would have 100% effort to online play. There would be large maps, realistic cover, and maybe even a fully destructible environment (maybe).

I would have the radar system be a kind of mix between HALO and Call of Duty, where all unsilenced gunshots within a certain radius of the player reveal a static colored area on the map, like CoD, but not a specific dot, and fast movement or heavily equipped players within a certain distance would show up as moving dots, that, depending on movement speed and things would be dimmer/brighter and disappear faster/slower. They could even add a mechanic to make a person blur slightly on someone else's screen depending on how close they are to the person and where they are in relation to the person's reticle, and if they are sighting or not, to break up the person's outline to make camouflage more realistic.

Maybe even add a squad mechanic to divide up teams and add an easy to use command type system to add map markers and label them as ambush chokepoints and things, basically help coordinate small pieces of your overall team.

Yes, this is a mouthful, but if you think about it, the only things you'd be conscious of while playing would be the usual: Take cover, go for objectives, and don't get shot. You would just have to be on your toes more and watch out for people lying in ambush and, only if you want, watch your squad markers or place them. Sure, squad markers are probably better to watch than not, but when did teamwork hurt a game's appeal?

Take this, throw in a Battlefront-style system of strategic points and some resupply points scattered here and there, serving whichever team controls that slice of land, plus maybe weapons caches open for anyone to raid (with limited yield), and I honestly think you have something really good, and the only complex things about it, really, would be the programming. Gameplay would be just fine, and most likely much more exciting and intimate. It would be about as close as we can practically get to a fully realistic combat sim, complete with the chaos, multitudes of running soldiers, and very visible bullet impacts all around that would keep us on our toes.

Edit: Wow, that's longer than I thought.

 

[Amarok]

I don't know much about real combat, but surely every soldier isn't equipped with his own personal radar?

 

[crimson5pheonix]

You said it at the beginning and it's my problem with "realistic" shooters like COD, I like not being killed in 2 or 3 shots. I see the appeal of those kind of shooters, but they aren't for me.

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

I don't know much about real combat, but surely every soldier isn't equipped with his own personal radar?

Interestingly enough, that is kind of a technology that isn't that far fetched. Before I get into it, by radar, I mean a map of the local area around you, as seen in most games, and then showing nothing else except team mates. That makes sense, since you can see most of the area around you.

Anyway, back to what I was saying, there was something in development until... I think 2007 for the US Army called LandWarrior, which, if I remember correctly was designed to make the individual infantryman more potent by giving him a system connected to a radio network to communicate with the rest of the unit, as well as a series of scopes mounted to his rifle which let him hold his rifle around a corner without exposing himself and while aiming through an eyepiece. The LandWarrior was also to have a sort of radar type gadget probably based on satellite reading and other forms of recon on the local area, plus indicators locating all known friendlies whose signals register with the system and indicators for enemies, even, but that would mainly be for locating static MG nests, I assume, since constant intel on each known enemy is a bit hard.

Now, I might be very wrong, and someone correct me if I am, but I believe my memory serves me correctly.

Most likely because of cost issues, since a fielded model would mean maintaining streaming of in depth information on an area and sending the information to literally tens of thousands of men around the globe, and keeping information on hundreds upon hundreds of different area simultaneously around the world at that, would be a pricey gem, funding was suspended in February of 2007.

 

[WINDOWCLEAN2]

For me Farcry to got the realism done well, Mainly because of the scale and animations...so much detail

 

[Capt. Crankypants]

There is quite a few ways to implement realism into a game. I like the ones that help the immersion and atmosphere. Far Cry 2 for example. No crosshairs, no radar, pull out paper maps if you want to see where you are in relation to landmarks. Condemned, you actually remove the weapons magazine to check how many rounds you still have. I think removing HUD displays can do alot for a shooter. Make you rely on your sight and hearing to detect enemies, rather than mysterious red blips on a radar.

That is the kind of realism I support...whereas combat and injury realism? It can't really work.

Now I'm wondering...does 'realism' apply to any other genres other than FPS? I can't really picture that.

 

[Sephychu]

Hey, as long as my sniper bullets can feasibly penetrate vehicle cockpits, I'm for all the realism that comes with that.

In fact, that opens up a whole new plethora of ideas. Sniper missions would take days instead of mere minutes, calculators would be needed, trigonometry would be indispensable, and wind measuring devices would be needed.

Is it wrong that that excites me?

 

[Angry_Bosmer]

The problem is two things;

First multiplayer is the moneymaker since nothing gives highschool rejeacts more achievement than beating real people using cheap tactics. So this realistic combat wont come as single player campagn because the ai is hard to do and no one will play it.

Second people are lame, they will not do squad tactics, they will find a glitch allowing them to camp inbeded in a gallery and will mercilessly kill you with one shot of their barret 50 cal.

 

[Angry_Bosmer]

Now I'm wondering...does 'realism' apply to any other genres other than FPS? I can't really picture that.

Racing?

 

[Pielikey]

ARMA II was supposed to be realistic, but I don't think in reality you have to push forty-seven buttons just to enter a vehicle. And in reality people don't all sound like robots either.

EDIT: But I'm sure realism done well wouldn't suck quite as bad as ARMA did. Far Cry 2 pulled it off alright. (Okay, it's pretty far from realistic but it's as close as I can think of.)

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

There is quite a few ways to implement realism into a game. I like the ones that help the immersion and atmosphere. Far Cry 2 for example. No crosshairs, no radar, pull out paper maps if you want to see where you are in relation to landmarks. Condemned, you actually remove the weapons magazine to check how many rounds you still have. I think removing HUD displays can do alot for a shooter. Make you rely on your sight and hearing to detect enemies, rather than mysterious red blips on a radar.

That is the kind of realism I support...whereas combat and injury realism? It can't really work.

Now I'm wondering...does 'realism' apply to any other genres other than FPS? I can't really picture that.

HUD could be an option, but this is supposed to be a fast paced battle zone, not a place to dump ammo out of your magazine and count the bullets. HUDs are fine in general, though. Like I said, 100% realism can't make a good game. Anyway, RADAR would be more of a representation of your awareness of your surroundings, and, in the same interface as the squad based marker system, would be a sort of GPS based map.

Hey, as long as my sniper bullets can feasibly penetrate vehicle cockpits, I'm for all the realism that comes with that.

In fact, that opens up a whole new plethora of ideas. Sniper missions would take days instead of mere minutes, calculators would be needed, trigonometry would be indispensable, and wind measuring devices would be needed.

Is it wrong that that excites me?

Forgot to mention that. The game might also have an indication system for snipers. One option can be an automatic aiming assist option, making the game calculate for you the area which the bullet will hit at the range of the enemy closest to your reticle. The area would be shaded grey, size depending on whether you are standing, crouching, or prone, how stable your rifle is during firing (recoil), whether it is mounted on the bipod or tripod, and how steady you are as far as aim (wobble). Or, you can be daring and go without, using basic indicators as part of your HUD while aiming as far as how far your bullet will drop at the range of that closest target and the wind speed.

 

[Sky Captanio]

I agree. But the main thing (and I really can't stress this enough.) Don't make it TO realistic. It's boring and annoying and frustrating. (Flashpoint I'm lookin' at you.)

 

[pirate64]

If you want something close to real combat then play paintball. you try not to get shot because not only will you be out be also.. well it hurts and that adds to the realism.

OT. that have been games like that but that mostly suck because in online no-one plays with squad tactics as everyone just wants to get kills to e.g. level up.

 

[MR T3D]

son, you want realistic FPS, may i suggest you just pick up battlefield 2 for PC and download the project reality modification.
its my absolute favourite compromise between realism and videogames.
its big enough that finding 50-64 players on a server is easy, and its small enough to not be sullied by less patient and less mature players, though it is not immune.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

You said it at the beginning and it's my problem with "realistic" shooters like COD, I like not being killed in 2 or 3 shots. I see the appeal of those kind of shooters, but they aren't for me.

HAHAHAHA COD REALISTIC? hahahahaha, cod is definantly not realistic. Try americas army, insurgency, arma, any of those games. cod or mw, not realistic at all

I don't care, my point is still there and would apply to the other games as well.

 

[Wolfram23]

Honestly, CoD Hardcore team deathmatches are excellent because you do die in 1 or 2 hits from pretty much any gun, there's no HUD, and you only have a map if you have a UAV up. I'm not saying it's "realistic" but it's pretty fun. Only, you don't get all the little exp bonuses for payback/headshot/etc so not as quick to level up.

Anyway back on topic, I think a neat radar type map would be the way to go - so if you hear a gunshot it'll sorta kinda tell you where it came from, but somewhat hazy like the heartbeat sensor. At closer ranges, it could work with hearing footsteps. I think it would be good if getting hit in the leg doesn't kill you, but slows you down, and getting hit in the arm would reduce your accuracy. That is, until you bandage up (medics in BF, for instance). Body shots would be a more perma HP loss - say you get shot once from small arms, you can keep going but pretty much 1 more shot kills you, alternatively you lose blood/HP till you die unless bandaged. Headshots are insta kills.


And as to realism in other games, I think racing could do with some. Not in the physics - that's covered pretty well. But it would be cool to have a pit crew that gains exp and as they get better you gain boosts to your car performance. I think racing games can do without the pitstops tho. Also I'd like if racing games - or really, most sport games - featured mostly exclusively online play (so not much of a single player game) and basically you only race people close to your ranking/skill level to keep things fair. Possibly in long races, it would be prudent to allow pitstops to repair all car damage but generally you don't need fuel or tires.

 

[boxcat]

Realistic looks are fine by me, realistic physics are not.

 

[Souplex]

The thing is, videogames aren't real life. As such, they can never fully, and completely simulate it. As such it will never be as fun as going out and knocking someones teeth out.

 

[_Serendipity_]

I really enjoy some realism in games. Red Orchestra, for example, was amazingly fun when it was going well. It can be annoying, but overall it's worth it.

However, I wouldn't want it in all my games...