Shock and Awe

So still working on my Doom clone and I'm starting to put some thought into how to encourage "push forward" gameplay, as Doom 4 did with the glory kills.

Personally, I hated that it caused life pickups to drop.

I feel like it became more of a depency, than a reward.

Like at a certain point you HAD to do it if you wanted to live.

As an alternative I'm thinking of doing a "shock and awe" system that causes the enemies to have lapses in reaction timing, and potentially take more damage.

Shock would come in the form of the enemy not reacting when initially seeing you. And the time it takes to react could come from a "Carnage meter" that builds up with combat. The higher it is, the longer the hesitation.

Meanwhile, Awe would occur after killing an enemy. I got this idea from Diablo 2's Fallen. When an enemy died near a fallen it caused them to scatter in fear, and I wanted an enemy to do something similar.

But I'm thinking along the lines of doing:
enemy's max max health multiplied by excess damage on killing blow equals awe value.

That way the game would reward the player for doing a massive finishing blow, rather than encouraging doing big hits first then dwindling down the rest of the health.

Or maybe, yes, finishing moves would also be cool.

What do you all think?

 

Does this have anything to do with scripting?

 

In PUBG when you down a enemy that enemy will try to hide and let a teammeber heal him. Here is a good opportunity to push forward and take out both. Maybe something similar? The AI tries to get into cover and let a fellow member heal him. Dont know if it will fit your theme though, characters from hell seldom care about teammates

 

It does not.

Sorry, I thought I posted in gameplay.

 

I've moved it to game design forum. It's cool you're thinking up gameplay. I suggest you just add it and try it because every game will have a different answer for the suggestions you made.

 

My concern with what you're describing is that you're saying the enemy attacks will slow down as the player's pace picks up, right? That seems psychologically counter intuitive. While the player is going through some epic rampage, you want to make the player feel more and more powerful, but you're making their enemies weaker and weaker.

I would suggest instead of making them run from you, having them act irrationally and simply miss their shots. That way the action keeps ramping up on both sides, even though the player is taking less damage. I already get a sense of terror from the demons in DOOM. They aren't enemies actively hunting you down and trying to kill you, they are trapped in a room with you and they're terrified and trying to survive. An animal is most dangerous when it's cornered and has nothing to lose.

 

Why will the player care? So the enemies occasionally act weird. What about this changes why the player does things? What reasons are there for the player to move out of cover? At best, you've got a system for more efficient play, but there's nothing there to overcome normal tactical sense.

Doom's combat gets people to completely ignore the hail of gunfire because they are doing it to pop a health pack pinata. They actively render (heh) the dangers of combat moot, in ways that make defensive play styles untenable. They made it in the player's best interest to constantly be in the fray. It's not simply a matter of encouraging a style of play, but making a deeply integral, inter-systemic strategy that completely flips the script on how players typically approach combat.

Just thinking that rewarding the glory kills was what made push forward combat possible is completely missing how it worked.

 

^ I like the idea of enemies panicking and acting less rationally, like a squirrel zigzagging in front of an oncoming car instead of just running to one side. They could even run forward (and into the player's fire) to try to help downed teammates when it would be wiser to take cover.

 

I'm wondering if I'm over thinking it and if I should just do extra damage with a combo meter.

Like Hippo said, what I really need to do is to just implement it and play test.

And @RockoDyne , as cool as the "health pinata" was I personally emphatically did not like it. At all. Mainly because it added health into the game that ultimately the game was designed around to make it mandatory. You HAD to do glory kills over and over again to keep your health up.

And anything you HAVE to do instantly becomes a chore, while limiting your options of what you CAN do.

I'd like to gun down these Imps, grab the ammo, and speed run to the door where there's a health pack. But since it's almost impossible to engage in the fight without taking at least some damage, I now have the chore of doing a glory kill before exiting the room, because now there's no health pack.

Where as what I'm suggesting, you move fast and hit hard causes you to take less damage while giving more. The player is rewarded for moving fast, not obliged to do so. Then if they start getting chewed up they simply back off.

 

Here's an alternate idea to encourage push forward gameplay :

have enemy reinforcements spawn behind the player.

Player barges into a room, starts blowing up bad guys. Big, thundering monster yell announces a secondary horde of enemies that will filter in from behind, the flanks -- anywhere and everywhere. Now player cannot put his back to a known "safety corridor." Enemies could be anyhwere. Player has to keep moving. No rest!

Enemy reinforcements can be a common occurrence, or a boss mode thing.You can announce it to be fair or not announce it and teach player through failure. It's simple. You are just denying any safety zones for the player.


About original idea, I think it could easily turn into a cheese tactic or make player OP. Then, having to nerf it, it would become pointless. The best it could be is a clone of "powerups" like you see in asteroid games. Player gets temporary boost which makes killing enemies easier for a time. But if that is just happening anytime player is killing enemies, it's pointless. Maybe killing a big enemy rewards player with temporary power up, but this still isn't having anything to do with "push forward" gameplay.

Bethesda encouraged push forward gameplay with positive reinforcement. I am saying to encourage push forward gameplay with negative reinforcement. Same thing, different style.

Make the enemy seem unrelentingly aggressive and powerful, not the other way around. The game can still be "casual." But in learning to deal with a numerous enemy that won't back down and forces the player to run and leap all over the place, player will feel clever and also be doing something different than they've done in every shooter ever (stay in the initial corridor, backing out whenever health gets low.)
Send the waves at them and force them to jump into the fray. When the play testers whine that the enemy is cheating, show them the big guns and special abilities that will help them overcome the demonic hordes.

 

Forest from the trees. You're complaining about meter management, when that made the style of gameplay you want possible.

Think of it this way: what prevents people from playing in exactly the opposite way? Hell, what makes optimal play apparent as the right way to play in the first place? Most people will never understand how an AI works. Even fewer will figure out how it works in the middle of a fight. What's going to prevent people from thinking that turtling is the only viable tactic?

If you're going to make a bunch of mechanics that you spend a bunch of time on to be cool, actually make it so that the player uses them.

 

You could increase player weapon damage at close range to enemies, or include lots of high spread weapons (shotgun for example) that are ineffective at range yet devastating up close.

You could also consider increasing player weapon damage and/or rate of fire as player health decreases.

 

I find the concept of being pushed into the fray insulting. I am the player, let me play. In the distant past (late 90's) people were capable of self-pacing. If you wanted to give people a reward for playing at a higher intensity, you made time-based challenges and unlockables.

Doom, and many other big games, have a problem and it is that they need their games to be played a certain way. They have to control audience perception on Twitch, YouTube, etc. So they make it so their game has to be played a certain way, the way they envisioned it, so it appeals well and makes money.

This sort of rigidity is why people seek alternatives to mainstream gaming.

Anything you do, in this regard, is either a carrot on a stick or a prod in the butt of the player. You're giving them no choice but to play a certain way. It goes against the fundamentals of fun gameplay, of allowing people to play in their own style.

I found Doom to be distasteful, excessive and indulgent from a design perspective, with flaws ranging from eyebrow raising to outright hilarious (pulse rifle enemy feedback).

If you just want to force people to punch each other to death, make a different game than an FPS, try something based on a gladiator Colosseum or a death match in a closed ring. That's how it has always been done.

 

If player does not have to adapt to a situation, can you say they are even playing a game?

Maybe you don't like time hacks or high-stress gaming, fine. Doesn't mean the game is "insulting" you. That's a flimsy argument as I can easily argue the inverse. "A game that does not force the player to adapt to a situation assumes player is a defenseless baby."

You can rag on Doom all you want, but you are definitely in a very, very small minority there. Most people have seen the game as a fantastic rebirth of actually good AAA gaming. My spidy-senses tell me you have a penchant for contrarianism, more than an actual dislike of Doom.

Maybe you just really don't like the style and pacing, but OP isn't making a tactical shooter here. They want to design a "push-forward" gunfighting game. They've stated that quite clearly. Seeing as how there is a major audience for such games, I see no reason to question the OP's design in a thread that isn't about that at all. The thread isn't a question about design theory, it's about implementation.

 

Then this thread is in the wrong forum.

I was initialially very excited about the Doom reboot, but I was turned off by the gore and its insistence on making the player even more evil and fearsome and ruthless than the demons he is killing. It was all wrong.

I get that people no longer relate to good guys or even heroes in general, which I think says a lot about the times we are in, but call me old fashioned. The good guy should be a good guy, not some demonic hellspawn who guzzles demon blood to gain his power. Gross.

I'll gladly be in the minority, thank you very much.

"Push forward" design will always turn the player into a meter maid, forcing some kind of virtual coin into a virtual slot so he doesn't die. Kill more bad guys or time will run out.

I find it surprising that we now live in an alternate universe where the only two FPS type games one can make are Doom or Rainbow Six. Who knew? We sure have lost variety in 2018.

Anyway, the OP's question has been answered quite well in this thread, wouldn't you agree? What else do you think we should add to the discussion?

 

You missed the point entirely. and you draw false dichotomy's.

OP asked, "what do you guys think about my ideas to encourage such and such gameplay?" And your response is, "well I don't like that type of gameplay, and I have fringe opinions."

So what? Is that useful to anybody? There's plenty of threads where we rant about game designs we don't like. You can even start your own. But I don't see any value to naysaying OP's design in an off-topic way -- it's not like they are way in left field and you're doing them a favor.

 

THANK YOU!

This sort of derailment is exactly why I went year barely touching the forums. I'm so sick of it. You can't ask a damn single thing without someone thinking they're some sort of genius by arguing the premise and derailing the conversation.

"Hey guys, do you prefer real physics or simulated physics in a kart racer?"
"Kart racers are stupid, make an RPG!"

"Do you think I should use a character controller or a capsule for my game?"
"First person games are over done. Do it in 2nd person!"

"Does anyone know if I need to cache a transform?"
"You should do it in Python in blender!"

It's so damned tedious.

No one is impressed. If you're just going to argue the premise, it's clear you have nothing to contribute, but still feel the need to say something.

 

Childish mockery. Nice.

Blocked.

 

I don't see how it follows, but yeah, it seems like this person is bringing personal issues to the discussion rather than just discussing the topic. I might touch that ignore button as well.

 

Yeah, I'm not dealing with such childishness.

ANYWAY, back to the topic.

I currently have the enemies do a random "dodge" periodically to make shooting them more difficult, and to assure that they're more likely to spread out. All it does is every so often it changes the destination to one of four locations parallel to the player.

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. O   O
3.  \ /
4.   E
5.  / \
6. O   O
7.  
8.   P

I'm wondering if I could tweak the stats based on their "fear" level to increase the frequency they're dodging and increase the time spent dodging.

I also think that the death of an enemy could send all the other enemies in the area to go into a dodge state.

 

As a grown up, I am not seeing the direct correlation between enemies randomly dodging and their fear factor. In fact, I find myself lost as to what is really being asked, at this point. At first I thought it was about enemies reacting fearfully to your kills, as a reward incentive for the player to get out there and do some up-front damage. I opined about the game design implications of this mechanic, but I am no longer sure what we are talking about.

 

I think enemies dodging like that just in general is a good idea. Maybe not all of the enemies, but perhaps certain types. I don't think it would read to the player as having to do with them being scared, however.

I do think a wild scattering of enemies after you kill, say the semi-boss in the area, would be a fun touch. Allows you to get a handful more easy kills to ride the high of killing the big guy out for a little longer. Perhaps after the scatter, then they regroup en masse and make a concentrated attack though. That could be a big surprise for the player. Taking that a bit further, maybe after they scatter one random enemy will start to glow or something -- becoming the new leader -- and if you don't take them out fast enough, they will become a new semi-boss and cause all the enemies to make a concentrated attack. So now you have a decision for player to make -- kill the big guy first or save him until the end to avoid more uncertainty?

In addition to enemies dying in proximity to trigger some kind of response, size of enemy groups could effect how likely they are to scatter/dodge more than attack aggressively. Obviously if they have you greatly outnumbered, they'd attack more aggressively.

 

I recommend getting very clear whether you want to encourage, enforce, or just offer "push forward" gameplay as a viable option.

I think enemies dropping resources that disappear after a short time is a solid way to encourage the offensive gameplay, but making that resource one that the player needs to keep playing is the problem that you didn't like. They could drop something else that has a value, but isn't essential for survival, turning it into more of a choice.

Also I want to remind you of the "orthogonal unit differentiation" thing that you mentioned a few months ago. Don't make all enemies behave the same.

And personally I find stuff with "meters" only works if they are visible to the player. Mechanics that build up invisible numbers and then change behaviour at to the player seemingly arbitrary points can be frustrating. I'd rather go for more deterministic and predictable state changes so that concient choices based on observed cause and effect patterns can be made. E.g. one enemy type scared of loud noises that will evade them, and one type that is blind and flocks towards noise or stuff like that.

 

I have a question, did you hate the drops themselves, or did you dislike how it made DOOM feel arcade-like? I loved the mechanic, but feel like it could have been presented in a more natural way. It makes no sense that you rip open an enemy to get healthpacks, but it would make perfect sense if the Slayer simply ate their flesh for more power, or the demons release their argent energy upon their death, which the Slayer could just absorb. I seem to remember something from a game based on Dante's inferno. Every time you killed a demon, it's unholy energy was transferred to the main character, which healed him.

Enemies acting scared when a teammate gets killed is very common and I think makes some interesting gameplay. In Halo, Grunts get scared quite easily and react in a variety of ways depending on circumstances. If you just jump in front of them, they'll be surprised and run around scared for a moment before attacking. If you kill their elite leader, they'll scatter and run around for even longer. If you kill all of their friends in H3, they'll light put two grenades in their hands and charge you, upping them from simple cannon fodder to a major threat that has to be dealt with right away. I also dislike the idea of a fear meter, I prefer when specific events lead to specific, predictable reactions.

I disagree and think it should be the opposite. If you have ten enemies and they're extremely aggressive, you end up with a bullet hell. If enemies shoot less as their numbers decline, you'll have a massive swings in the action. I would expect enemies to have a similar psychology to humans and there would be a bystander effect. Enemies will be less aggressive when they feel secure and think they have an advantage and will act reckless when they feel overwhelmed and desperate. If you put a cat in a closed room with a bunch of mice, the mice would keep their distance, but not really care much because they just have to have another mouse between them and the cat and they're fine. With fewer mice, they have to be way more aggressive with their movement and stay out of the cats way because it's always in it's sights. If the cat corners only one mouse, it's got nothing to lose and will lash out. A cornered animal is way more dangerous than one in a group.

 

Speculation! Everybody knows humans are more dangerous in groups. Besides that, we are talking about hell demons. Why would they never not do the worst thing imaginable?

 

Fair enough, but let's omit the different viewpoints on group psychology, and just think about gameplay though.

The start of the fight you'll not only have more guns pointed at you, but also more of them shooting at once, then as they widdle down, they shoot less often. You'll have a snowball effect here killing demons actually slows down the pace of combat. You'll have quick spikes of bullet-hell level challenge followed by a quick cool down. DOOM tends to have more of a medium amount of projectiles moving around at any given time and tries to keep the pace for as long as possible.

DOOM 2016 nnemies in large groups will not all fire at you at once, where a small group of enemies can. DOOM has a token system where enemies have to get and hold onto a token in order to be able to fire and enemies can steal each others tokens.

 

so when there is more enemies, it gets more dangerous. Seems right to me. When player kills a certain amount, bring on the next wave. Too much bullet hell? Make them fire less overall. Give player more armor. Make player faster. Make waves smaller. Whatever.

Whatever it is, you can balance it out. But if whenever there is more enemies player notices half of them are just twiddling their thumbs, that's lame. Demon's shouldn't be lazy. If player notices all hell breaks lose when enemy waves come, it's a challenge. You can make the game easy or hard, but independent of that you can make it seem unforgiving or not.

 

I'd just like to say, a potentially simple fix for this would be if there was enough "health packs" laying around the battlefield to get by. Or if you could consistently avoid damage, in such a way you can take on hoards of enemies without much health on your side. Of course, both of these would depend on how good the player is, and difficulty setting.

However, it's not possible to completely avoid damage in most shooters. A simple fix for that would be to have the enemy have poor aim, or fire projectiles that move slow enough to react to.

(Haven't actually played Doom 4. But I plan to...! Although, I've played Brutal Doom, which fits this description quite well.)

 

Let's restate the problem. The player finds a spot behind cover where he is safe and has no reason to leave it except to poke around the corner to get some cheap shots, or waiting for enemy AI to feed into his choke point, clearing the room in a boring way. You want him to push out into the battlefield and have a dynamic fight.

The old Doom had simple environments so the enemies were all around you and always coming for you.

We want a solution that involves rewarding the player for getting out there, but it is argued well that this is just some form of penalizing the player for not killing all monsters before a certain resource/time/bar runs out, which isn't what we want.

Make the enemy tactics adaptive.

One example: If the player hides behind a crate, the baddies summon something that spawns lots of little critters that rush you and surround the player, blocking pathing and doing steady damage. So basically they are a root/DoT combo. If you hear a distinct sound of the enemy that spawns them, you know it's time to get in the open and keep moving, because you must kill the spawner or you'll deplete all your ammo on useless mobs or get cornered by multiple successive waves and die.

Another example: A slow moving monster that shoots globs of acid that do splash damage and cause a lingering DoT effect to the ground.

Another example: A slow, creepy flying monster that grabs the player and drags him into the center of the battlefield and drops him, so you always have to be leery of what's above and behind you.

In other words: Make it so sitting still for more than 10-12 seconds takes more nerve than just getting out there and mixing it up.

 

Ah, yes. Those are some plausibly good ideas! : D

Yeah, finding good reasons to get the player out of cover, or out of the same spot is something I've thought about a lot, too. I want to go beyond just destructible cover, and oodles of grenades chucked at you, like most games resort to. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just want something more, and new.)

Here's some ideas: Enemies have weak points in various places, which require you to flank them in a number of ways. A common method is to have the weak point on their back, requiring you to find a way behind them. But one of my favorite ideas I thought of, enemies who are extra tall or giant, (and probably monstrous,) and whose weak points are on the tip tops of there heads, in such a way that the player would need to get a high vantage point to make a shot. There could be various ways to achieve said vantage points based on your environment. Although, it is possible there may or may not be plenty of cover while doing this, my main intention was to keep the player moving.

One more idea I kinda like, is a force field power up that stays at your position, similar to a riot shield. Only instead of guarding only your front side, it would protect only your rear side. It's something I've often felt I wanted when I'm completley surrounded by enemies. Finding this power up would hopefully encourage players to bravely enter a room or location where enemies attack from everywhere.

But of course, the only way to know for sure if any of this will be fun or not, is to try it out in actual game play. (And back to the editor I go... )