/games/ - Games

>>38491
>Random pet peeve about NPCs in shooters
<inb4 arcadey shooters that deliberately make the player feel powerful
Play, I dunno, tactical shooters. Or cover shooters. Or F.E.A.R. Or Half-Life games.

>>38495
I really cant think of any that really fits OPs demand. Enemies in FPS games tend to be extremely aggressive, often take cover, only for a short time, and will constantly pop out of it or try to run up to you, flank you. Dont have much in terms of self-preservation. The only example of a game where enemies will sometimes lie down in cover and just camp there, waiting for you to come close, is when under sniper fire in Far Cry 2.

>>38495
Those examples suffer from the same problem when you look at what the NPC wars are like
>>38496
Yeah I noticed that too. It’s obnoxious.

You answered your own question. Real life fire fights in a game would bore most people. Most don't want to play a game where everyone's glued to a waist high wall for an indefinite amount of time so they just run out occasionally so you can shoot them. Most shooter are just ranged whack a mole.

>>38500
Not quite. Look at how all these NPCs behave. All the things I said about how people fight are present in Half life 2’s NPCs, and yet the game isn’t suddenly less fun because of it. If anything, I’d say having NPCs move around more predictably (but intelligently) is much more fun, because it prevents the player from mindlessly steamrolling all their opponents.

I think it would be neat if minecraft skilletons took cover. If you've ever played the Dungeon Crawl mod they sorta do by bugging out at the pillars on the side of each hallway, but they can't shoot while in that state, basically waiting to either unstuck by sheer luck or for a target to walk in their sight. If only they could lean to shoot.

>>38502
They slowly move back once getting into range of the player, which amounts to the same as taking cover in a dense cave or forest environment. This is in addition to the player not having any ranged options themselves, unless they've already slain plenty of skeletons.

>>38501
What is that that video supposed to prove exactly, other than that neither HL2 nor MW enemy AI was made for fighting at far distances.

Just another thing that would require good game design instead of doomping money on assets. We gotta just make moar skins because that's what pays the bills baby.

>>38509
I think comparing how the ai in half life behave compared to Stalker 2 might make the difference much more clear.

Just look at how much further the combine shoots at and how much less combine officers move around. When the combine move, it’s purposeful, but when the humans of stalker 2 move, it feels erratic. Hell, you can find regular instances of the combine’s forces actually staying stationary when behind cover instead of constantly walking around like the NPCs in stalker

>>38515
>When the combine move, it’s purposeful, but when the humans of stalker 2 move, it feels erratic. Hell, you can find regular instances of the combine’s forces actually staying stationary when behind cover instead of constantly walking around like the NPCs in stalker

To be totally fair, those NPCs are modelling Ukrainians.

Processing power, thats it. The more complex NPCs act the more processing power is used. That and the scale or NPCs, working with each other, communicating information or the number of the NPCs involved and in how many layers they are involved in.
The 99% majority of NPC gun fights are NPCs spawned in, they shoot at each other until one side completely dies and thats it, no new units are pulled in, units don’t retreat, theres no fear simulated -> they stand out in the open, no artillery, no drones, no commander, not using geographical advantages. At most theres some scripted flanking.
Then the number of NPCs involved to make it realistic, even the smallest real life skirmishes has hundreds of people involved, advanced NPCs with many layers and all that, even the fastest CPU can’t process it all without exploding.
Wait for graphene chips, maybe you’re gonna see some real life scale battles with lifelike NPC behaviour, but until then its just a dream.

>>38521
If you're individually simulating the NPCs in a tactical situation instead of grouping them as units you're doing it wrong.

>>38495 (me)
You know, now I retroactively understand why the cover mechanic was introduced in GTA IV. Though blind shooting is kinda stupid, it makes no fucking sense at all, who is Niko, fucking John Preston?
>>38496
>Enemies in FPS games tend to be extremely aggressive, often take cover, only for a short time, and will constantly pop out of it or try to run up to you
Well, you do need to be provided an opportunity to actually… shoot them. You usually play alone, with no team support whatsoever, so sacrifices need to be made. Unless it's Brothers in Arms, which is both a tactical shooter and a cover shooter. Two in one.

>>38491
Realism just isn't fun. Mordhau started off purporting to be a more realistic Chivalry, but then it got updated to include midgets and shit.

Hellish Blade was supposed to be realistic, but having 1 hit kill soul calibur turns out to be really boring, and you spend most of the game between rounds because of that. So they added an option to make it more like a normal fighter.

>>38585
meant to say Hellish Quart*

>>38491
>>38495
>Play, I dunno, tactical shooters.
This but play actual tactical shootesrs.
Play better shooters. ARMA the bots are hard as fuck. They always surround you and pop you off from far away.

The biggest problem with shooter NPCs is it's so easy to beat them with the corner trick. Just camp one corner and keep your gun at headshot level and then just pop them in the head when the second they turn the corner. Of course the game doesn't program them to have faster reaction times then the average person so you always get to pop them in the head first. I remember I did this in Metal Gear a couple times when I got caught and eventually you end up with a pile of like 20 bodies, actually I think it goes indefinitely. That's the two ways you prevent the camp the corner trick, you have it that there is an endless supply of enemies in an area so it doesn't matter how many you kill, it's all about getting to the next checkpoint, or you have the NPCs grenade spam a hell of a lot more. Shouldn't really be too hard to detect that the player is camping a corner. Check if like he killed multiple NPCs in the exact same spot and if they're standing in the exact same spot, them make the NPCs chuck a grenade around the corner, or up the next NPC's reaction time who peeks the corner.

>>38591
Dude, from what I’ve learned from modding new Vegas, it is possible to make realistic shooters fun, but you have to be careful about how you design the combat. If anything, being more realistic about gunfights (more specifically, the tactics used in modern gunfights) can make the shooting experience much more interesting.

Historically speaking, modern gunfights involve a lot of people per fight. Usually dozens to hundreds of people can be in one battle at any given time. Obviously you can’t have that many NPCs fight at once in any game, but you can just raise the enemy count lazily in a shooter to keep the fighting going on. Far cry 2 does this well with all the checkpoints and with the nomadic NPCs.

Additionally, most gunfights involve a lot of fortifications meant to protect the shooter. Spamming walls, manholes, and sandbags everywhere ensures that the player is given many options over how and where they decide to shoot. These fortifications also stop the game from ever feeling repetitive given how many ways the player can approach any given fight.

Shooters should include fortifications, they should increase the number of enemies and allies involved in every individual gunfight, and they should encourage combat to happen at a distance. Adding all those interventions to the gunplay design should encourage movement and thinking when aiming and shooting to break up the monotony.

It also helps to make the shooting experience generally difficult by making combat more cutthroat.

I found that adding those interventions to New Vegas myself stopped the gunplay from getting repetitive, and these interventions ensure gunfights last for an appropriate amount of time. However, this does mean that I tend to just blast through much of my ammo supplies.

>>38593
One last thing, make sure the fighting happens at a distance. Keeping enemies spread out ensures that the player is constantly having to decide who to shoot at and is having to constantly adjust their aim. This effect can prevent the fighting from feeling like a game of whack-a-mole.

>>38593
I'm saying if you want to experience realism try ARMA you keep talking about like RPG shooters and shit.

>>38594
In ARMA the shooting is based off real life engagement distances so you are usually so far away you can't really hear the gunshots. Just a lot of crack crack crack of supersonics blasting past your head. But 99% of gamers don't want a realistic gunfight experience.

>>38595
Aight

>>38593
>Adding all those interventions to the gunplay design should encourage movement and thinking when aiming and shooting to break up the monotony.
The problem isn't the lack of realism but rather that most AAA slop is in this bleak grey area between boomer shooters and tactical shooters. People realized this and so we had boomer shooters' surge in popularity. It's all CoD's fault, it made everything too casual, both boomer shooters and milsims both encourage movement and thinking but arcadey military shooters rely on the spectacle alone. And you can do nothing about it, that's just trends.

Realistic gunplay would have the player rushing between cover repeatedly under fire while trying to cooperate with your squad who are doing the same thing, meanwhile the enemy sits in positions playing whackamole. Remember when designing levels that it takes less than an hour to dig a fighting hole, less than two days to dig a trench shallow system.