Every bad innovation is corrected by another bad innovation.

[Wyrmlord]

Here is the hierarchy.

1. You add health regeneration to remove medkits.

2. In order to prevent the game from getting too easy, you add two-shot instant deaths, just like Human Revolution.

3. In order to prevent the player from abusing the save feature to move around the two-shot instant death problem, you add respawning enemies, just like Call of Duty 4.

4. In order to reduce the frustration of respawning enemies, you add a compass telling you where to go.

5. In order to make the game less tedious in the circle of respawns and following the compass, you add scripted events to add variety.

6. In order to get the scripted events to have their maximum impact, you remove save and add autosave only.

7. In order to minimize the overlong time spent on reloading from the exact same autosave over and over, you make the game two hours long.

Working backwards: after increasing the game's length, bringing back manual save, removing scripted events, removing the compass, removing respawning enemies, making deaths less arbitrary, and removing health regeneration, you get a better game.

You also go back to the year 1999.

 

[Oriebam]

Spoiler

bullshit

 

[I.C. Wiener]

I don't think many of those follow sequentially in the order you presented (except regen health and instant kills, which is dead on), but all of those things are definitely lazy solutions to problems caused by laziness in the first place, and end up making worse problems of their own.

e.g.: Regen health.
Pros: The challenge can be made more intense in the short term, making it more pass/fail than a continuum. Not really an unconditional pro, but it could work for some games I guess.
Lazy solution for: Actual game balance. Also health packs as you mentioned.
Problem presented: Entire game is very flat and lukewarm as exciting segments only last briefly, if at all.

Most of the innovations on your list can be more easily attributed to proper level design, game engine, balance, and enemy and object placement taking time, money, and design talent when there is a convenient and cost effective back door.

I would go as far as to say that a game being too easy is itself a necessary pseudo-solution caused by bad design. Given how cheap, unbalanced and poorly tested most games are, there's no way in hell I would play them on higher difficulty than normal (if I'd want to play it at all). However when something that is truly hard but fair comes out I have no problem taking punishment while going up the learning curve on higher difficulties.

 

[Angthoron]

As said by the previous poster, you've got your sequence messed up.

What happened to your decline.txt, man?

 

[Destroid]

The funny thing is medkits can regular health per encounter much more effectively than health regen does, as a designer controls where the health is gained (for example, immediately prior or after an encounter) where with health regen the player has control of this aspect, allowing them to duck behind cover and fill their health during the encounter.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

1. Wyrmlord stops posting.

2. Wyrmlord starts posting again.

Repeat until infinity.

 

[Suchy]

2-shot instant deaths are neither bad nor innovative.

 

[MetalCraze]

That depends where they are used.

If they are used in a game where enemies won't soak dozens of bullets before going down and you aren't getting attacked by dozens of them at once it's alright.

But FFS almost every console shooter has this fucking retardation - they give you a health regen and then they start throwing waves of 20-30 enemies at you. Because obviously otherwise you won't get killed with regen. Considering that in console shooters you can't just run around dodging bullets but instead being forced to sit behind the box to not die these amounts of enemies are not fun at all.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I was also a bit confused what place the instant deaths had in this list.

I believe the game that introduced me to instant death was Operation Flashpoint. It was draconic the first few times it happened, but neither you nor your enemies could take any unrealistic damage. Once you realized that, you also realized the gameplay would have never worked without it. I think it makes every game more realistic, if done right.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I think it's more correct to say that designers that approve of bad (or 'accessible') features are likely to add more of the same features.

my evidence for this hypothesis: peter molyneux

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I think it makes every game more realistic, if done right.

Then again, more realism in every game isn't necessarily a good thing. I'll take medkits and their insta-heal over having to undergo facial reconstruction surgery every time I get hit by a stray arrow in a fight.

 

[MetalCraze]

Depends on the game design. If a game has you dodging bullets strafing and double jumping but as soon as you get hit you start bleeding and crawling it's of course stupid.

Basically that's the thing about many modern shitty shooters.

Your soldier can take 1000 bullets thanks to a regen but can't run fast with MG and usual weapons have 30 bullet clips

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Yeah. It depends on style of the game.

 

[Twinkle]

they give you a health regen and then they start throwing waves of 20-30 enemies at you

Care to name an example? Because in my experience it's always 4-5 guys simultaneously, only respawn rate is so high that it often seems you fight bigger numbers.

Insta-kill deaths were there in completely arcadish Outlaws and worked fine. Ironically, it also did weapons much better that all the "realistic" console shiters out there. Shotguns are deadly and accurate at distances much higher than "balanced" 5m, the revolver is a killing machine despite being starter equipment, and enemies drop from one-two well-aimed hits but so do you.

 

[MetalCraze]

RF Guerilla is a good example of a shit design like that.

Also respawn rate or not that's how it is - the game desperately tries to overflow you with enemies instead of providing fair challenge.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I think cover based massacre is also another way of making the games they're in power fantasies for modern gamers and pandering to their notions of having elite skillz

having tense firefight against 3 guys with great AI, not as awesome as killing 30 people from behind a crate

I would honestly like to see the gears of war generation take on average difficulty Q3A bots in a FFA deathmatch

 

[Destroid]

It would be funnier to put them on UT, instagib, superhuman bots, 150% speed, playing with a controller and no aim-assist.

 

[MetalCraze]

I would honestly like to see the gears of war generation take on average difficulty Q3A bots in a FFA deathmatch

I've seen GoW generation guy take on less than average bots in UT (I played with him).
He was constantly getting his ass handed to him because he was simply standing in one place trying to kill them while they were running all over the place.

In the end he said "I can't run and shoot at the same time - it's hard"

 

[sgc_meltdown]

"I can't run and shoot at the same time - it's hard"

funny that the same people who have trouble like this usually think turn based games are 'too slow'

too slow for what, your fire button spamming brain?

 

[CorpseZeb]

Two words: "Instant Gratification". And: "No Penalty For Mistakes". That's five words. And: "Easy Access". That another two words. And: "Fun". Final word.

Ps. F...k it.

 

[DraQ]

Re: Every bad innovation is corrected by another bad innovat

Here is the hierarchy.

1. You add health regeneration to remove medkits.

2. In order to prevent the game from getting too easy, you add two-shot instant deaths, just like Human Revolution.

3. In order to prevent the player from abusing the save feature to move around the two-shot instant death problem, you add respawning enemies, just like Call of Duty 4.

4. In order to reduce the frustration of respawning enemies, you add a compass telling you where to go.

5. In order to make the game less tedious in the circle of respawns and following the compass, you add scripted events to add variety.

6. In order to get the scripted events to have their maximum impact, you remove save and add autosave only.

7. In order to minimize the overlong time spent on reloading from the exact same autosave over and over, you make the game two hours long.

Working backwards: after increasing the game's length, bringing back manual save, removing scripted events, removing the compass, removing respawning enemies, making deaths less arbitrary, and removing health regeneration, you get a better game.

You also go back to the year 1999.

1. Wyrmlord fails at chronology.
2. Wyrmlord fails at causality.
3. Wyrmlord fails to make a point.

2-shot instant deaths are neither bad nor innovative.

Also this.

I would honestly like to see the gears of war generation take on average difficulty Q3A bots in a FFA deathmatch

I've seen GoW generation guy take on less than average bots in UT (I played with him).
He was constantly getting his ass handed to him because he was simply standing in one place trying to kill them while they were running all over the place.

In the end he said "I can't run and shoot at the same time - it's hard"

"I can't run and shoot at the same time - it's hard"

funny that the same people who have trouble like this usually think turn based games are 'too slow'

too slow for what, your fire button spamming brain?

That's ironic, since TB would certainly help them play proper FPS games on pad.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I would honestly like to see the gears of war generation take on average difficulty Q3A bots in a FFA deathmatch

I've seen GoW generation guy take on less than average bots in UT (I played with him).
He was constantly getting his ass handed to him because he was simply standing in one place trying to kill them while they were running all over the place.

In the end he said "I can't run and shoot at the same time - it's hard"

Jesus fucking Christ. Does it mean that playing these games gave us some special mental and manual skills ?

 

[MetalCraze]

funny that the same people who have trouble like this usually think turn based games are 'too slow'

too slow for what, your fire button spamming brain?

The lulzy bit also was when he tried playing ArmA2 - "a realistic tactical shooter? Oooh I like games like these!"

He didn't make it past tutorials - his head exploded from controls (you need to memorize and use like 30 buttons pretty often)

Much like KC he was also unable to find graphics settings

Apparently "a realistic tactical shooter" turned out to be CoDMW and CS lol.

I kinda understand and pity "GoW generation"

In their games all you need is WASD, LMB and a button to toss grenades and then you pretty much stand in one place trying to score headshots as fast as possible. That's their fun in arcade shooters.

And for me fun was trying to learn how to do rocket jumps in Quakes

 

[DraQ]

I would honestly like to see the gears of war generation take on average difficulty Q3A bots in a FFA deathmatch

I've seen GoW generation guy take on less than average bots in UT (I played with him).
He was constantly getting his ass handed to him because he was simply standing in one place trying to kill them while they were running all over the place.

In the end he said "I can't run and shoot at the same time - it's hard"

Jesus fucking Christ. Does it mean that playing these games gave us some special mental and manual skills ?

It gave us the ability to hate.

 

[MetalCraze]

Jesus fucking Christ. Does it mean that playing these games gave us some special mental and manual skills ?

Not so long ago I had a LAN game of Quake 3 with 6 other guys. Half of them never played it.
I haven't played Quake 3 for 10 years (not counting Quake Live beta which I wasn't able to play in any reasonable way due to 100+ ms pings). To my surprise I actually owned the fuck out of all of them in FFA.
One of the dudes who also played Quake3 a long time ago (and was top2 frag-wise) said it's like riding a bike - once you get those "skills" you don't forget them ever.

So maybe you are right lol