Shooter fans -- would you like a game that won't let you get really good at shooting?

Probably this is a moot question, because how can you really know until you play the prototype, right?

I've played shooting games since Wolfenstein and one thing that is consistent across almost all of them is this: with a bit of practice, you can usually get good enough to simply "outgun" the enemy AI. That is, you become confident enough in your ability to react faster and shoot more accurately than them that in order for the game to become more challenging there has to be a ton of enemies, or they soak up more damage, etc.

So my idea is to make a game in which your crosshairs have a realistic amount of bob to them (i.e. a lot unless you are prone), and also the crosshair will never be locked to the center of the screen. Kind of like how some games allow you a certain amount of deadzone. But in this case, the crosshair, which only becomes visible when entering aim mode, is constantly moving around within that deadzone radius, so that when you do snap to aiming mode, you will never know exactly where the crosshair will be. (obviously it is still somewhat centered, but not perfectly enough for accurate snap shots.) So that will eliminate pre-aiming, especially in a third person shooter.

Those two things alone I think could up the realism and difficulty factor quite a bit, because no matter how quick your reflexes are, when you enter aim mode you will have to adjust every time. You won't just know if you are on target by having the screen centered on the enemy.

Furthermore, on top of those two things, I want a very small and not super visible crosshair. Aiming in real life is often not just a challenge of keeping steady, but also having poor visibility and being uncertain of your actual aimpoint.

Obviously this is all for a certain niche of shooting games -- something I'd expect fans of Arma or Squad to enjoy. The question is, would it be too frustrating? My hope is that the lack of reliability in superior aiming skills will result in the player having to adapt and create other methods to defeat the enemy -- mainly by mastering ambush tactics.

Anyway, I look forward to any thoughts on the matter.

 

You must. Start a Unity Connect account and look for a programmer there. Not allowed in the forums.

 

Edited.

 

Personally speaking, I really like this idea - especially if you're planning a multiplayer mode. Sure, I can respect the player who can jump up, somersault and take out the enemy with a perfect headshot while doing so...but damn, if immersion is your thing, it really takes you out of the game.

So yeah, the idea of running/jumping = compromise in aiming ability vs aiming ability = compromise in manoeuvrabilty would definitely be the kind of FPS game mechanic I'd enjoy. I don't know if it's been implemented in any FPS before - certainly not the ones I've played - but for me, it would be a big selling point. Again, especially if we're talking multiplayer.

One thing to think about, though, is how you'd implement it for mouse control. It seems a fine mechanic when it comes to controller input, but for those players who prefer mouse control - I'm guessing it would seem pretty weird and awkward to use. I'd suggest, before you get too deeply into development, that you build a quick prototype based on mouse control and see how it plays.

 

This is my current project, and we are only targeting m/kb in the beginning.

Why do you think mouse would be any different than controller though? I don't forsee any major difference. Joystick would probably be more frustrating, as it is harder to make minute adjustments, which is exactly what this would require.

Most console games have an auto aim helper for this reason, which would go completely against this idea.

 

I do know of a few shooters where exercise/movement effects your aiming ability. In fact, pretty much any tactical shooter I can think of has that. But what they all have in common is that your aim point is always dead centered on the screen. So you play enough, you don't even need crosshairs. You can almost aim perfectly just by centering your target on the screen.

Games like Sniper Elite 4 make this a big harder by moving the screen around after a shot and if you have been running -- but it is still easy to make the first shot perfectly accurate due to your ability to pre-aim by centering the screen on your target before entering aim mode.

So if you enter aim mode, but your crosshair is a couple millimeters in any direction from the center, that eliminates your ability to pre aim and make super accurate first shots. Plus, as in real life, you never snap perfectly on to target. It takes three seconds for a trained shooter to acquire a target and fire accurately. My goal would be to tailor the system so that the best players could accomplish that, but not more.

 

Some games implement this with a widening and shrinking crosshair instead of a crosshair that moves around randomly. The widening and shrinking crosshair tells you the size of the box your shot will end up in, but not the exact location. I think that is better than one that moves around.

I also think you should make the aim less accurate the more the character exerts him/herself. I do target shooting in real life so this is a pet peeve of mine with games. You sprint full speed for like half a mile, and then within a second of staying still you have max accuracy. Not real at all. In real life, unless you use a shooting stand or bipod, you're going to need a good 15+ seconds before you settle down enough to make precision long range shots will any level of confidence. I've never seen a game implement this anywhere close to reality.

You should get superior aim if you're taking it slow rather than running everywhere. You don't see hunters running through the woods at full speed and then taking snap shots at a deer at 300 yards for a good reason. It doesn't work, but in games that is pretty much how every shot goes.

And don't get me started on shooting while looking down a scope while jumping.....

 

Well, that's the thing - m/kb players generally prefer the precision that comes with using a mouse, which generally requires the aim point to either be locked to the centre of the screen (as per the tactical shooters you mentioned) or completely steady. What I'm suggesting is - assuming I've read your description correctly - that an aim point which has a bit if independent movement might feel strange to people who prefer to play these sorts of games with a mouse. Still, if you're pretty sure mouse control won't be a problem, then go for it - as I said, as a gameplay mechanic, it sounds very appealing.

Are you planning on a multiplayer mode?

 

I am a hobbyist artist, working with a hobbyist animator. We don't have a programmer. I know the basics of coding in Unity. If we don't get a programmer to help, I'll have to do it myself.

So, no. Although we have written out a design document and think about the game as a whole, we don't have serious plans beyond finishing out a prototype and seeing how it plays.

I think the mechanic could be cool for PVP, but that is way out of my league as a developer. I think the core gameplay would be great for coop, but again, I am at the stage of just getting my models into engine and making them move.

 

If there's one thing guaranteed to break the immersion of a Star Wars game, it's being headshot by a stormtrooper - a stormtrooper, of all things - in Battlefront while he's in mid-leap.

 

Okay, no worries. Even as a single player game, it still sounds like a damn fine idea - heightens the immersive aspect, and introduces a strategic element in how you trade off movement against accuracy. Defnitely worth going with IMO.

 

Somehow I didn't see Joe-Censoreds comment until you quoted it.


I thought about the expanding crosshair idea because lots of other games do it, but there is something I don't like about it. I don't like having to wait. In real life, if I am tired or shaky for some reason, I can still see my sights. Even if they are dipping and I don't have them lined up perfectly, I can still see them and adjust as best I can.

But if the crosshairs are just expanded and the player has to passively wait, I find that annoying. It is a non-immersive way to restrict the player. I figured if the crosshair remains the same size and always reflects where the bullet will strike, but is moving around, that will still allow the players to develop some skill in aiming whilst exerted/moving etc. They won't feel like, OK, game says I can't aim right now, I'll have to wait.

 

The second piece of this game is in the movement system. As you guys have mentioned, accuracy penalties based on movement kind of go hand in hand in a tactical shooter -- but that is precisely what I want to challenge. People tend to think tactical shooter = slow shooter. But, based on my experience, when bullets are flying the last thing you want to be is slow.

So my aim is to allow the player to sprint, dive, and evade very quickly and easily, and to also make this necessary to survive. (i.e. sit still too long, you're going to get overrun/blown up). And of course all these means you aren't going to be shooting worth a S***. Which is the point. IRL, when you're trying to shoot people who are trying to shoot you back, there's practically never time for aiming. The only way to finish a fight is by staging a proper ambush, or by using bold movement and firepower to overwhelm the enemy.

Anyway, we'll see how it turns out.

 

Think about how the gameplay in Arma always ends up. Really long range firefights that can be a bit of a bore. When the action gets closer range, the controls tend to show their flaws.

So I want responsive controls that allow you to dive, scramble, or roll any direction like your life depended on it, and also allow you to pop up from the prone, sprint a distance, and dive back down, then roll to either side so you aren't right where the enemy last saw you. This is how a Vietnam vet once described firefights in that war to me. Since there isn't anything that stops bullets in the jungle, you've got to move like a madman and shoot like crazy.

Couple that with a densely covered jungle terrain that restricts long range visibility, and the hope is to have really frantic, fast paced, and deadly firefights. Basically, the player will have to learn how to stay hidden and set up ambushes or they are never going to keep enough allied fighters alive to win the game.

 

considering shooting games, I ha e this knowledgeable idea. I was thinking maybe a 2D shooter(4 player local) and it's like a 10-wave system and then a boss at the end of every wave or possibly a survival mode where there is just ifinote waves of enemies

 

I just need a good drawer/artist

 

oh and to include the different classes of shooters, ability, and enemies

 

I think a few realistic shooters already do something along those lines (in regards to aiming, not moving). I remember playing games that has no visual indicator of the center of the screen, other than aiming down the sights, and even then there's still some movement making it harder to aim from the get-go.

I think your idea of making a fast paced tactical shooter is interesting. However if you want both heavy dodging/tumbling and realistic aiming systems, you should be prepared to tweak them a lot, since those two will heavily influence each other. There is a risk of it ending up being random, with people shooting and jumping to whatever extend they can, letting RNG be the deciding factor. It probably won't be that fun.

 

Played a few games with worse aiming while moving, stuff like that. I believe it began with darts sims and got copied for sniper rifles and here we are today

But honestly? not a fun mechanic IMO but if you can make it fun, give it a go.

 

I mean kinda like Bug Butcher
and without the perfect aim part

 

and can aim in all directions, the goal is to not let the enemies kill all players or let them destroy the beacon

 

Note: I'm not a fps shooter player -
As a semi-informed gamer/creator it seems to me the most popular shooters seem to be the ones that are the easiest to aim and shoot. I won't mention any specific games - but from watching others play - the auto aim seems to be over the top in a lot of the last 2 years of most popular shooters.
This might be just my observance from a bystander point of view.

With that said - if you can make the game fun/enjoyable and don't care about the number of players - as long as you have bots available to fill in for live players if player count is low - create something you find enjoyable.

Might consider checking out some of the hunting sims. IMO they seem to have more realistic type shooting - compared to the most popular fps shooters.

 

There's a sizeable niche for realistic-ish shooting games. I've been involved with games in this genre since... probably the first tactical shooter I played was Delta Force on the PC? I think that came before Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six?

But my only goal for this is to 1. learn fun stuff, and 2. see if I can create the game I've been wanting to play every time I play games like Arma of Sniper Elite or Ghost Recon. And if it does go beyond a mere prototype, it will be PVE only unless I get a ton of money somehow and hire some real nerds.

 

Its great you have the knowledge base and experience in hand.
Not to derail - just comparisions of a couple I attempting to get into.
Note: FPS single player game are of interest to me.
Have you played any of the Metro games? I have the second and latest one but have not played them yet.
How does Escape from Tarkov stack up? From watching some of their devlog vids - the weapons actions/reactions are some of the most realistic I have witnessed.

 

I haven't played Tarkov yet. I was interested but I am avoiding anything that may take time away from development right now.

I've played all of the Metro games to date. They are fantastic. But they aren't true shooting games, more like interactive stories -- but the shooting and stealth mechanics are very good. Particularly if you play on high dififculty levels. The art and sound departments are where the metro games really shine. Lots of atmosphere. I typically dislike story based games, but because these come from a book series, which means an actual writer created the story, they aren't bad. Plus, the story's really simple anyhow, and all of the characters are macho Russian dudes living in radioactive sewers -- so yeah. Nothing to much to cringe about.

 

but the more ease equals the less reality, and we want the players to have a more realistic experience

 

My friend, I'm not sure how you haven't realized it yet given that you've been studiously ignored by several people now, but someone else's thread is not the place to try to recruit people for your own project. Go to Unity Connect for that.

As for the thread, one thing to keep in mind about the constant push for realism is that in a video game, both a player's methods of interaction and the feedback they get are severely limited compared to real life. Playing a driving game on PC can be an annoying experience the more realistic the experience gets, not because realism is bad, but because the player's method of interaction and the feedback one gets is inadequate.

As an example, I can't feel the g's I do when I'm rounding a curve IRL ~10 mph faster than most others do, telling me how close I am to starting to slide--I just start sliding in the game. Lacks feedback.

As another example, I'm looking to get a driving wheel, not necessarily for the racing simcades I play, but for American Trucking Simulator, which plays like garbage with a mouse and keyboard and is only tolerable with a controller. It needs more precise controls.

This kind of thing is part of the reason for some of the assists we get in games. It's to account for the ways in which in real life we can interact more precisely than we can in a game.


So. How do you, in real life, adjust your behavior to account for these effects you're intending to implement? And, can you incorporate those things in to your game? Because otherwise it's just making a game harder but not actually more realistic (textbook example--moving the gun around without allowing the player a way to correct for that such as by holding the breath or by going prone).

 

Good points.

I have thought about this, and continue to run thought experiments in my head about what solutions and compromises I will make. But I won't really get to that in earnest until I get the few art assets ready, then I'll get into the actual development.

But the push for realism isn't for the sake of authenticity. In fact, I really don't give two hoots about realism per se. I just want a game that plays different from other shooters -- breaks the pattern I am so used to. And I want it to be immensely satisfying when you get good at it.

Like you said, in real life you can feel your own arms and the weight of the rifle, and even if you aren't holding it steady you are aware of it's movements just by feel alone.

I only want to limit the players ability to out shoot the AI so that they have to learn to respect the enemy, and develop actual strategies for dealing with them that doesn't involve the usual shooting game cheese tactics.

Making the aiming system unreliable is just a means to an end. My hope is to make the only way for the player to succeed is by planning and executing quick ambushes, and then getting away before the enemy inevitably overruns them with superior firepower and numbers.

 

So this is really all about making better AI? You might find this story interesting.

 

Although I agree and understand the point you are making, we can also provide feedback that facilitates the lack of feedback the player is not accurately receiving.
In the example you provided - to give that feedback to the player a 'drift' meter on screen could provide that feedback to let the player know if I increase speed any more through this turn the gforce will be too much for the car and will start to slide through the corner loosing speed.
If it is done well the player will monitor that meter in there peripheral sight whenever they are making fast maneuvers in tight turns. Although the player is not 'feeling' the car to know when it is about to slide we can 'gamify' that feedback and deliver it to the player so it is there to use in-game and it is a bit more fun.

For weight of a weapon - they do this already in shooters by a time based effect. There isn't even an indicator in older cod games - it is just after holding the unrealistic 'zoom' button for more than 3-4 seconds the AI kicks in the heavy breathing motion to make it more difficult for the player to focus on the specific point.
This - personally - is less realistic also - because if the player is prone or has a surface to rest the weapon on, the longer the shooter has to focus on the target - usually with an experienced marksman - the better the kill shot will be. But again this is gamifying the system, the players and developers are creating fast paced games, and want experience of the player to be quick - so forcing quick targeting and shooting falls in line with the core experience loop.

Just some thoughts on making things fun for the sake of entertainment even if it is less realistic than it should be.
We have discussed this before haven't we?

 

Good read.

It is partly about the AI. It's about finding a way to eliminate the very tactics the players took in that article. I.e. hanging back and forcing the enemy to come into their line of sight -- basically turning every game into a whack-a-mole shooting gallery.

So, in an open jungle with little hard cover and an enemy that responds quickly and aggressively, my idea is that the players will have to use stealth and patience to stage an ambush, get the kills, and then retreat before incurring heavy casualties. That first several shots you get while laying hidden should be positive kills, and maybe you have some explosives to get a big effect. But then you've got to get away fast because the enemy always has machine guns and plenty of ammo, whereas you don't. Or at least have them won't very often.

The game would certainly frustrate many players. But for those willing to adapt and overcome, I think it could be a very rewarding experience. But, as with any game, once you "get" the pattern, it's never that hard. I just want to make a new pattern for shooting games.

 

But, as I said, the first part is just getting the controls down that allow the player to move fast and fluidly. I know I can manage the programming for that much, but honestly how I will get this AI with so many rules and reactions and behaviors is beyond me. I hope that I can get a stellar looking prototype so that some highly motivated and damn-near genius programmers will want to jump on board.

 

Shoulda jumped on that Black Friday sale, they had Behavior Designer 50% off.

 

Dammit, don't tell me that!

 

Beyond prototype - there could be several types of mini games (though not structured like regular mini games) for the player/sniper to have to contest with. I could see some bullet/fire ants crawling along the characters arms and the player has to deal with them without moving too much to spook the avians - which would alert the target to the the player as a threat.
A large constrictor drops down from above to search around on the ground for something to eat. How to avoid without becoming dinner and making AI aware of your location?
Environmental hazards depending on the duration of the wait.
Some feral hogs decide to turn your shooting lane into a mud pit for the evening.

Was going to ask if you've checked out BD. I just picked it up to round out my needed dev tools.

 

Looks like BD will be my next big purchase. I took a cursory look at it after the mention of it above and it looks like just what I need to get things started. For a prototype at least. We'll just need basic AI behaviour in the beginning. The more advanced AI is my idea for a complete game that could be derivative from this prototype.

I do have playmaker, but I wonder if I'll be able to get the character controller I need with that. I'm not sure if it's possible to go in and edit the scripts they give you or not, but I'll want to do some things like certain methods of movement, and change the way the camera behaves.

But that's getting ahead of myself...

 

Yes - you will. PM and BD work great together, and I've seen some crazy good character controllers created in PM without even using mecanim states. Some prefer to create the states in Playmaker instead.
@Boredmormon (Kaw?) and @TonyLi sold me on behavior designer explaining how it worked compared to regular FSMs.

 

Imho Milsim realism and having crosshairs at all already doesn't mix. If you want to make a shooter you need to have a "gimmick" that sets it apart from the many established games in the genre. You need to have a unique selling preposition, and you need to make sure that the other mechanics are liked by the kind of player that your gimmick would attract. Bottom line it doesn't matter if anyone here would like it. I don't think I would. I want to "git gud" and I suck at tactics. And I find that games like Squad or Arma just raise the skill ceiling with their ballistic trajectories and stuff, what you talk about sounds more like lowering the skill ceiling for shooting and raising the one for tactics. I think that gets more into territory of wanting to make RPG-like mechanics that scale damage in weird ways. Even in all those fancy milsims with their suppression mechanics I find shooting to kill is still always the dominant strategy, if weapons are inaccurate you just shoot more till all are dead. And something like Insurgency does for hipfire mechanics (does not at all fire to the middle of the screen - very interesting implementation) still can be learned to be controlled to a degree. If you mess with this kind of stuff you're likely to just raise the skill ceiling further (good imho) or make the game random (bad imho).

 

Good points.

I guess one way to think of it is that I want to make firefights random. Random enough that if they go on for very long, you are not going to be able to keep control.

Though, just like the hipfire in Insurgency, that doesn't mean you can't git gud at it (i.e. the shooting and moving and dealing with hyper trigger-happy enemies). It will just always be risky.

So you have to adapt and find the parts of the game that you can control better. Which, I hope, should be getting a good stable firing position in a hidden position, killing a few enemies, possibly working your way close enough to grenade them, and then getting away before things get beyond your control.

The ambush, then, could be the big selling point of the game. Games like Arma or Ghost Recon have the one hit kills, the bullet physics, the squad dynamics, etc., and players like to imagine they are real soldiers and use real tactics while playing these games, but the game itself never actually forces you to use real guerilla tactics like this.

In fact, Ambush wouldn't be a bad title....

 

Maybe check out Homefront Revolution and play it on hardest difficulty with a gamepad. It sort of tries to force a guerilla tactics playstyle with hit and run tactics, molotovs, bombs strapped to RC cars, etc.. Imho the only real way to incentivize such a playstyle sufficiently is to make it the only one available* - i.e. don't give the players (or in a multiplayer game one faction) guns at all.
I also suggest to take a close look at the multiplayer mode of The Last of Us. It played very very differently than all other teambased shooter that I know, incorporating stealth and teamplay to a degree that I haven't seen elsewhere yet. It also had looting and crafting during matches. Everything fit the theme of the game very well I thought.

* If you give players guns that suck they will above all complain that the guns suck and not look for other tactics. The other tactics need to be the only ones if you really want them to be used, otherwise you're sending confusing messages and people will think they're supposed to shoot others as long as they have a gun.

 

I've played TLOU Factions extensively. Love that game.

Good points. When it comes to games, if you give the player a hammer, every problem will llook like a nail.

I think that will be a key point: finding a way to let the player know that the gun is still their primary tool, but it's not the entire solution.

I think a thorough trial by fire type of tutorial would be in store to kind of retrain the average players thought pattern. Like a series of missions that are meant for them to deliberately screw up and not have any serious consequences. A little bit of dialogue could help.

"Hey, what the F*** are you doing? They see us were gonna get killed. Keep your head down."

After you shoot, "We've got to get out here before they figure out where we are." Some kind of script running in the background that times how long the player has made contact with the enemy, and after a certain amount of time the enemy will know where they are and start firing heavily on the position and encircling it.

"Lets wait until dark. Then, we can get in close and put these grenades to good us, ok?" Grenades/explosives will be a rare commodity, and prized because besides the ability to kill multiple enemies at once, they could buy you more time by confusing the enemy or disrupting their advance, etc.

Etc.

 

And then, the lore is that these are farmers/jungle villagers who are defending their home against a professional foreign army, so it would make sense for them to be scouting from a hill or something and discussing how they could possibly fight and win. That ccould be an immersive way to basically spoon feed the player the information they need to succeed.

"Look at those machine guns. And -- my god -- look it's a F***ing tank! How can we fight tanks?"
"Tanks can't go everywhere. We know where they will be, but to them, we will be panthers in the night..."

 

From first principles, I think that it is natural to expect a game to be essentially a set of rules that you come to understand and, as a result, get better at the game. I think far too often developers fail to understand that not only are players inherently suspicious of the integrity of the game experience, in terms of the possibility to consistently achieve winning and avoid defeat, but the quickest way to get rid of them is to provide something that makes it clear that you have added something explicitly to disrupt them.

I know that you talked about the possibility of alternative strategies, which I think is necessary as a minimum for anything where the player is essentially handicapped, but what I don't like is the notion of randomness as a factor of 'realism' or 'novelty'.

In terms of realism, for one thing, I think it's best to see games as illusions that are fundamentally unrealistic, and the moment you introduce anything that aims to make it more 'realistic' at the expense of fun, you reveal not just how annoyingly boring realism is, but also just how ridiculous the idea of associating games with realism actually is, weakening all of the foundations that you're trying to build on simultaneously. And secondly, on the notion of realism, I think that it's also good to understand that the game of life itself, besides being far more valuable in terms of the rewards that it can give, is one that always has the potential to provide any player with any number of ways to easily win, whereas yours is explicitly programmed not to.

In terms of novelty, I think novelty and randomness have nothing fundamentally to do with eachother - I think that players value novelty a lot, but basically dislike randomness as a rule. On a bit of a side note, I think that this is the biggest mistake made with procedural generation - randomness destroys the ability to construct rules of any complexity and coherence, which is why NMS failed as a game, because there was no implementation of (or even much of an attempt to implement, as far as I know) gameplay rules that would run alongside the world-building rules, making both parts of the game appear more superficial. Even though this doesn't seem have a lot to do with something more trivial such as aiming, I would question whether it's not simply a question of scaling the issue.

So instead of randomness I would suggest a clear handicap. Stealth games, for example, handicap players in terms of enemy numbers and firepower, and balance it with a set of rules that allows the player to consistently win once they have deciphered them. If you want your players to explore alternative strategies without being frustrated, I think they should be able to formulate a consistent likelihood of success with any given strategy - and also to understand why that strategy has that likelihood of success.

 

Agreed entirely. When I say randomness in regards to the crosshair movement, all that means is that the player can expect that they will need to take an extra second or two to get on target, rather than knowing the first shot will always be dead center on the screen.

But in fact, it will not be entirely random. More like a wave pattern, to mimic the natural patterns of movement when aiming. It won't be unlike most other tactical or milsim shooters, just pronounced enough to keep the player from easily cheesing the game just because they're good with a mouse.

And, just to reiterate -- I don't give a hoot about realism beyond using a guise of realism to create more immersion for players who get into that. What I really hope to do is offer a new way to play shooting games. One that draws inspiration from several real life factors commonly excluded from most shooting games, but the intent is not just to be realistic because.... well, whatever reason.

Anyway, thanks for the thought out and well worded reply.

Lots of good responses here for me to reference back as I continue working on this awesome project.

 

It might work, but the way I see it is like this: if the player sees something happen on the screen that is not good (crosshairs not aimed at target) and cannot see anything they did to actually aim here instead of there, it's potentially going to be frustrating.

But that's not to say that it's always going to be a bad thing - sniper games have bobbing that doesn't have anything to do with what your hand is doing with the mouse - so as long as you succeed in figuring out where the balance is in terms of a well-known handicap phenomenon (muscle trembling) and playability it might be a really good thing. I would probably start with something like a 1-2 second timer to become still. I think the key is really to lean toward consistency.

 

Fascinating discussion. I'm looking to prototype my FPS style games too, being totally new to unity, I'm doing a lot of learning. But I wouldn't even dream of implementing anything like your mechanics here...

But on the face of it I love what you're proposing, just as long as the player is properly telegraphed that your game is different you could avoid the frustration of the aiming handicap. Stalking and ambushing are immensely satisfying, lining up the perfect shots, C4, and the excitement of scrabbling away, maybe with everything you can carry. I'd play that game if you implement it right. Preferably in single player, unless I'm ambushing of load of deadly bots with some of my online gorilla friends.

The strategy would be very engrossing. And this what unity is about, trying unorthodox ideas (I hope.) If it doesn't work, so what it's a only a prototype. I'd enjoy hearing how things are progressing. As we are in the same boat so it could be mutually beneficial.

But then my wide eyed enthusiasm hasn't been ground down my actually trying to make something yet! So I wouldn't take my opinions at all seriously.

Anyway good luck.

 

Perfect timing. Here's our devlog:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/ambush-guerilla-warfare.510220/#post-3334131

 

Devil's Advocate: That just sounds like an unfun shooting simulator. If you can't really control if you hit or miss, will a player enjoy shooting? How do reward the player for getting skilled?

 

You can control if you hit or miss. But it requires focus, and patience. Not as much as in real life, but more than your typical tactical shooter.

The player can build skill in shooting, but not so much that they can always outshoot the enemy. They build skill in the game by learning how to use their brain to develop tactics to get around the unreliable shooting. Namely, ambush tactics.

 

Just want to point out that this is actually not building skill in shooting at all. This is building skill in other areas to compensate for lack of skill in shooting.

That's not a judgement call on your game, which looks interesting. Just a comment for this thread specifically.