Game Idea, need opinions

[tho121]

My team and I are trying to refine an idea of ours for our graduation project. Originally, the concept was online team deathmatch, first person shooter where the guns wouldn't directly kill the player (i.e shoot bullets that damage them) but could apply forces to them which would lead to them flying into level hazards, colliding with walls or being knocked off the level. A few example weapons include a "gravity" beam that pulls players and objects toward you, a "grappling" beam than pulls yourself towards targets, and a push gun that shoots balls that explode on contact with players or level geometry, pushing objects/enemies/yourself from the epicenter. You would pick 2 weapons and dual wield them with controls like skyrim. Other ideas for weapons include shooting a bounce pad the applies force that collide with it in the perpendicular direction, a large ball that zero's force and velocity on touch and a spray that makes surfaces more slippery.

You would also select a passive ability and a special ability. A passive ability would be something like run 15% faster and a special ability would be like having a jetpack. You also have a melee attack that pushes enemies very, very far.

I was going for a large emphasis on twitch shooting/targeting with massive movement capabilities, using the physics weapons to also help yourself move around the level and equipping 2 of them to allow players to try to find a synergy between them. Think if I had the orange paint from portal 2, sprayed it on the floor around me, then used my "gravity" beam to pull an enemy into that area; they would slide into what ever hazard is around or off the map, or if they reach a high enough velocity, into a wall and die.

Essentially, I wanted to create something different in the FPS genre with the indirect combat idea, much like super smash bros is to fighting games. However, half the team feels that there needs to be the traditional weapons that do direct damage because they feel that most people wouldn't get the physics aspect of it and how to use it. They brought up a good point where, what happens if 2 guys meet in a corridor. It is assumed the corridor has no hazards that the player can try to throw the other player into and the space is limited, so that it is very difficult to apply enough force to knock someone into a wall and kill them. They feel very strongly that if you see a player, you should be able to kill them despite the situation, hence the need for guns that do damage.

My solution that I came up with is to implement a system like the super smash bros "health" system. For example, in the corridor, I would use my "grappling" beam to pull myself towards the enemy and then use my melee attack to push them away. The melee attack also applies a force multiplier on the enemy (for like 15 seconds). Next time I melee them, the force of my melee attack is multiplied by 3, hopefully generating enough force to knock them into a wall and die. If not the multiplier would stack, increasing the likelihood of that happening next time.

My issue with guns that do damage is that I feel it takes away from the cleverness and importance of using the physics weapons. The physics weapons is what makes our game different from other FPS games and to downplay them so that we can appease an audience or a perception that a FPS needs to have these elements to be successful, I believe, is not innovating. At the most, having guns that increase the force multiplier per hit instead of doing damage is not ideal but a compromise I could live with.

Any opinions on the matter would be greater appreciated. A third-party perspective would really help me see what direction we should take our game. Also, if I'm totally wrong, go ahead and let me know. Better to know now than to insist on a idea that doesn't work or have appeal. Or if I'm totally right, let me know also I wouldn't mind a few suggestions for physics based weapons either.

[chonglee]

Pull and push, well, that sounds like Bulletstorm, in which you can use the environment + physics to kill enemy, but very soon the whole mechanism becomes repetitive and kinda boring.
And, it's very tricky to implement it in MP.

[tho121]

You're right, it does resemble bulletstorm alot now that I think about it. Having played it, I would say the difference would be using those mechanics to move yourself around in addition to moving other people around too, such as grappling a wall and propelling yourself in that direction. I guess I want to make the competitive multiplayer version of bulletstorm with more interesting physics weapons that could add to the whip and boot, such as the shooting the bouncy paint or slippery paint from portal 2. Also, I would limit the loadouts to having only 2 physics weapons so that a player can experiment with combinations to see which ones are most effective together and hopefully make it less repetitive.

[Fartuess]

Well... Limiting amount of weapons is imo bad idea in arena shooter. It just horribly limits player. In Bulletstorm for example i found myself in given situation many times "Argh! Weapon X would made perfect use in this paricular place" but i never tooked it because i would had to abandon other more universal weapon. In MP shooter it would become pain in the backside because having weapon A and B wouldn't "cover" the whole level or enough of possible situations. Lets say that player will find out that set of three particular weapons would allow him to use cool technique but he is limited to have only two.

For me Quake isn't repetitive or boring despite using same techniques over and over again and moving through level with similiar patterns. It is because game itself is engaging and enforce being cutious. When you start playing in repetitive manner without thinking you're not elastic enough and start losing. Game requires paying attention and deciding when you have to play in a little bit different way to gain advantage.

[tho121]

We have actually brought up being able to switch between loadouts on the fly so that the player has more to work with. For example, having the push and pull beams in one loadout, then hitting q to equip the bounce pad and repulsion gun in the alternate loadout. Also, playing teammates could lead to interesting combos too.

What do you guys think of adjusting the weapons that were proposed by the other guys in my team so that instead of doing damage, they would add a force multiplier to the target. Therefore, to actually kill someone, the person would need to use the physics weapons on the afflicted target to finish them off. For example, I can riddle someone with bullets, increasing the force multiplier on that guy up to x5, then use my repulsion gun to blast them into the wall or off the map. I would make it so that the multiplier decreases over time, decreasing faster if the multiplier is higher, and I would probably cap it at x5. I think this would emphasize the use of the physics guns more, but still allow players to use a familiar mechanic that would fill in the gaps between situations when the physics weapons aren't the ideal choice. I appreciate the replies guys, thanks.

[chonglee]

Well... Limiting amount of weapons is imo bad idea in arena shooter...

That depends. Limited weapon slots works fine for arena shooters like Gears. It just seems not a good choice for fast-paced non-team-based arena shooters like UT or Q.
I think the reason is, in UT/Q, you can move so fast that in less than half minute, you can reach anywhere in the map from your current location. This means the geometry situation is changing very fast. One second you are in a small room which only connects to two doorways, the next you are standing in the large outdoor backyard where anyone can shoot you from above. And also in UT/Q, players usually play like a lone wolf, not like in Gears, you like to stick with your buddy because when you get knocked down you have someone to save your ass. Without teamwork play style, limited slots are troublesome.

But I am not saying limited slots is evil for fast-paced shooter, you know in many Q maps, not all of the weapons are available in the map, but still ppl can have fun. Even in UT99, you can see that, but the latter UTs go to the extent that in every map, you have to give players all of the 7 standard weapons otherwise your map seems weird or not fully "balanced" or something. This is kinda ridiculous but this was the fashion back in time.

[chonglee]

We have actually brought up being able to switch between loadouts on the fly so that the player has more to work with. For example, having the push and pull beams in one loadout, then hitting q to equip the bounce pad and repulsion gun in the alternate loadout. Also, playing teammates could lead to interesting combos too.

What do you guys think of adjusting the weapons that were proposed by the other guys in my team so that instead of doing damage, they would add a force multiplier to the target. Therefore, to actually kill someone, the person would need to use the physics weapons on the afflicted target to finish them off. For example, I can riddle someone with bullets, increasing the force multiplier on that guy up to x5, then use my repulsion gun to blast them into the wall or off the map. I would make it so that the multiplier decreases over time, decreasing faster if the multiplier is higher, and I would probably cap it at x5. I think this would emphasize the use of the physics guns more, but still allow players to use a familiar mechanic that would fill in the gaps between situations when the physics weapons aren't the ideal choice. I appreciate the replies guys, thanks.

Don't make thing over complicated. My gut tells me when dealing with physics, you better keep things simple and pure fun and don't overlap each other.
Try focus on providing smooth movement/control, and based on that, to talk about fancy tricks, but keep in mind a shooter is not an acrobatic show. Player always care about shoot ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->and kill.

[tho121]

I guess my issue is deciding whether to go for a fun, familiar, easy to pick up hybrid of quake weapons + my own physics weapons or go for innovation (imo) and do something like take bulletstorm/smash bros multiplayer to the next level. I'd prefer the latter, but I can see why my team is adamant on having damage weapons in the game.

[OneShot]

I like it...but u should make it 3rd person, and use cover. One of my most major complaints with games like COD and Halo, is that they don't use cover, and therefore don't play like real firefights (this is why I love gears so much )

[tho121]

Third-person is something we'd at least try out. I would help, especially if you're being pushed and pulled around, to give you a better sense of direction. My only beef is that then the character model takes up a big part of the screen and gets in the way of twitch aiming. A cover system might be a bit much for us and would probably slow down the pace of the game. Kinda like how Battlefield Bad Company 2 didn't have prone. Thanks for the input though.

[Fartuess]

But I am not saying limited slots is evil for fast-paced shooter, you know in many Q maps, not all of the weapons are available in the map, but still ppl can have fun. Even in UT99, you can see that, but the latter UTs go to the extent that in every map, you have to give players all of the 7 standard weapons otherwise your map seems weird or not fully "balanced" or something. This is kinda ridiculous but this was the fashion back in time.

Well... In Q3 many earlier maps you cant find lighting gun despite fact that this weapon is very usefull. Many popular maps like Campground didn't had this weapon. In QL they fixed this issue. In UT it would be strange not to put lets say shock rifle on the map. As long as weapon have purpose on map it is better to place it imo. Always you give players more techniques to use and make gameplay richer. We can argue that the longest yard is fun map despite having only shotgun, RL and railgun but this map is more "4tehlulz" map not map for competitive matches.

About physics weapons. I would agree with chonglee. Making it overcomplicated is the last thing you want to do. Weapons should be efficient and making them too complicated can result in weapon having no actual purpose at all (using other weapon would be easier and more efficient so our weapon wouldn't be used at all). The simplier weapon - the better. Probably classic weapons would work great. I mean RL, shotgun and railgun where all weapons push other player. Shoot enemy with RL and then shoot him with railgun when he is in midair to push him out of the map.

[chonglee]

The problem is, not everyone plays shooters like a professional competitor. Play for fun is way more important than that. And I don't think it's really necessary to put every weapons in a map just because it's a weapon (a weapon has to have purpose in a game environment, that's for sure, right? Can't imagine a weapon to be used in Menus). Maps should have different characteristics, designed for different play style, sometimes some weapons, especially powerful ones, should be chosen carefully. And it's more fun to let players to replace the current available pickups with something else, like what Gears did.

[tho121]

Hmm, I'm not a fan of picking up weapons, but I see your point. Players like to have alot of options available to them. Something I'll discuss with my team. Thanks for the post guys!

[OneShot]

Third-person is something we'd at least try out. I would help, especially if you're being pushed and pulled around, to give you a better sense of direction. My only beef is that then the character model takes up a big part of the screen and gets in the way of twitch aiming. A cover system might be a bit much for us and would probably slow down the pace of the game. Kinda like how Battlefield Bad Company 2 didn't have prone. Thanks for the input though.

But Gears is mostly based around the idea of cover, and the simple one-button cover system works incredibly well. Can't u use the same principle here? (If I sound critical, don't get me wrong, its a gr8 idea and I love it! )

[GwendolynF]

Thanks a lot for your answers! I find it pretty useful!

[mooror]

I like the idea of a game that doesn't use guns to kill people in bloody ways but instead lets physics do the damage.Cool idea man it like to see it done.