Enemies (bosses, mostly) that can take HEAPS of damage before dying and don't have any sort of indication as to how dead they are, or any indication as to whether or not you're doing any damage at all.
This IMHO, was one of the best differences between Diablo I and II. Health meters in D2 = awesome! There are some other examples but none spring to mind.
The system in Neverwinter Nights worked well- Uninjured, Barely Injured, Injured, Badly Injured, Near Dead, Dead.
cheers,
metal
Terrible enemies
One thing that I also don't like is how sometimes extremely stupid enemies are sometimes hard if you fight them the way the the game intended.
In Scarface, enemies either:
1) Stand still and shoot
2) Rush you with guns blazing.
In a hallway situation, they fail because they get into each others line of sight and fire. However, they don't fail because the game lets them shoot through each other, meaning some hallways in the game = instant death.
So, the strategy I have used for the second half of the game is...Wait around the corner and shoot them each in the head once as soon as they come around.
They won't come around the corner while shooting, so you never get shot. They come one at a time because they don't walk through each other. No matter how many enemies are in the next room, you can just let 1 see you, walk back to the doorway, and execute them one on one.
If I saw 10 of my buddies die after going around the corner, I wouldn't walk around the same corner.
In Scarface, enemies either:
1) Stand still and shoot
2) Rush you with guns blazing.
In a hallway situation, they fail because they get into each others line of sight and fire. However, they don't fail because the game lets them shoot through each other, meaning some hallways in the game = instant death.
So, the strategy I have used for the second half of the game is...Wait around the corner and shoot them each in the head once as soon as they come around.
They won't come around the corner while shooting, so you never get shot. They come one at a time because they don't walk through each other. No matter how many enemies are in the next room, you can just let 1 see you, walk back to the doorway, and execute them one on one.
If I saw 10 of my buddies die after going around the corner, I wouldn't walk around the same corner.
Author
Quote:Original post by DantarionX
One thing that I also don't like is how sometimes extremely stupid enemies are sometimes hard if you fight them the way the the game intended.
This caught my attention. I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I've noticed that enemies are almost always more difficult when you approach them the way the game intended. For example, it's always a breeze to slaughter everyone in a stealth mission. And it's usually a breeze to sneak by everyone in an assault mission, if it's possible.
I personally dislike it when games try to push specific strategies on me like that. It just makes me want to go against my good judgment and approach it some other way, so I don't feel like I'm being play-tested in a superhero production factory.
There enemies in fallout 3 weren't all that bad you could see them get progressively more injured as their health dropped, they would run away some times when heavily injured, pickup better weapons when available, and didn’t have unlimited ammo.
The problems were more fundamental flaws in the game design. The fact that damage and crippled limbs had no real affect on game play was a major one. Cripple an enemy’s head and they will grab it stunned for a couple of seconds, cripple and arm and they drop their weapon. But beyond that there was no impact they would be the exact same a few seconds later which meant there was little point in shooting the enemies anywhere other then in the head. If crippling an enemies arm or having your own arm crippled meant you couldn’t use two handed weapons anymore it would have meant something.
There was also no scaling or progression of enemies in terms of the game world because of the free form design, which meant you constantly got better but there were no more challenging areas to progress into. You suffered early on but by the time you got a decent weapon the game became a cake walk. One of plasma rifles in the game that you can get fairly early on basically allows you to kill almost any enemy in the game in 1 or 2 hits, and since ammo and repair parts were plentiful enough later on the challenge dropped to nil.
The problems were more fundamental flaws in the game design. The fact that damage and crippled limbs had no real affect on game play was a major one. Cripple an enemy’s head and they will grab it stunned for a couple of seconds, cripple and arm and they drop their weapon. But beyond that there was no impact they would be the exact same a few seconds later which meant there was little point in shooting the enemies anywhere other then in the head. If crippling an enemies arm or having your own arm crippled meant you couldn’t use two handed weapons anymore it would have meant something.
There was also no scaling or progression of enemies in terms of the game world because of the free form design, which meant you constantly got better but there were no more challenging areas to progress into. You suffered early on but by the time you got a decent weapon the game became a cake walk. One of plasma rifles in the game that you can get fairly early on basically allows you to kill almost any enemy in the game in 1 or 2 hits, and since ammo and repair parts were plentiful enough later on the challenge dropped to nil.
Enemies that scale in power with the player. I’m not trying to turn this thread into a discussion on the topic of dynamic difficulty but if I see a goblin early on, and kill it, it should not be harder for me to kill after I’ve gained a bunch of power. I remember at the end of oblivion, I could go into portals and kill daedra all day but if I saw a goblin, I would just turn the other way because it would take 15-20 minutes to kill it.
Enemies that spawn or resurrect other enemies at a fast rate. I remember this from playing Diablo 2. It was fine in moderation, but when you had rooms full of guys who could respawn other guys who could respawn other guys and there were so many monsters in your way you couldn’t just target the enemies you needed to, it became a point of annoyance.
Stupid enemies. You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones that just stand there and shoot at you while you take cover, pop out, shoot them etc.
And on the flip side, omniscient enemies. I hate it when a twig breaks under my player’s feet and everything in the immediate area knows exactly where I am and can track me to hell and back.
Enemies who just won’t shut up. I’ll also include player characters in this. Hearing the random enemy taunt or player “let’s get them!” is just fine, but when it’s every time, hearing the same small set of dialog over and over breaks the immersion and just simply gets on my nerves.
Enemies that spawn or resurrect other enemies at a fast rate. I remember this from playing Diablo 2. It was fine in moderation, but when you had rooms full of guys who could respawn other guys who could respawn other guys and there were so many monsters in your way you couldn’t just target the enemies you needed to, it became a point of annoyance.
Stupid enemies. You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones that just stand there and shoot at you while you take cover, pop out, shoot them etc.
And on the flip side, omniscient enemies. I hate it when a twig breaks under my player’s feet and everything in the immediate area knows exactly where I am and can track me to hell and back.
Enemies who just won’t shut up. I’ll also include player characters in this. Hearing the random enemy taunt or player “let’s get them!” is just fine, but when it’s every time, hearing the same small set of dialog over and over breaks the immersion and just simply gets on my nerves.
I haven't played Fallout 3, but Oblivion had problem 2, also. The fights were easy but they lasted for minutes. Around levels 10-20, everything would take dozens of arrows or dozens of spells while I backpedal safely from their reach or their spells. That got boring after the, oh, millionth time.
Same problem in Space Rangers 2. The fights weren't hard, but to win a solar system with dozens of Dominators guarding it, you'd have to run away carrying the weakest and fastest dominators with you. Then you'd blast them, slow down slightly. Then blast the next fastest, then slow down and repeat until you circled around the last, large dominators that could barely move and all you'd have to do was avoid its missiles.
I'd end up itching for, say, Counter Strike, where it takes only a couple of bullets to drop someone (including yourself).
Same problem in Space Rangers 2. The fights weren't hard, but to win a solar system with dozens of Dominators guarding it, you'd have to run away carrying the weakest and fastest dominators with you. Then you'd blast them, slow down slightly. Then blast the next fastest, then slow down and repeat until you circled around the last, large dominators that could barely move and all you'd have to do was avoid its missiles.
I'd end up itching for, say, Counter Strike, where it takes only a couple of bullets to drop someone (including yourself).
Quote:Original post by Kest
2. Enemies are too tough. Not too challenging, just too difficult to hurt. I often find myself spraying 20 bullets into someone's face before they finally kill over. There's nothing fun about that for me. I've personally never had a problem with a game because of enemies dying too quickly when I shot them in the face. Has anyone else?
While I agree with the basic point, I haven't particularly found that to be the case with FO3 - I suspect it may be highly build/strategy dependent. I've built my character as a sniper, and under the majority of circumstances, a head shot with the sniper rifle or hunting rifle (with or without VATS) from hiding will one-shot pretty much everything up to a supermutant. And on the occasions where that fails, a combat shotgun to the face usually finishes them off in short order.
VATS also makes an enormous difference; whether for better or for worse depends on the circumstances, and your own skill at twitch games. I've found Big Guns have too high an action point cost for firing and reloading to be much use in VATS. The scope on the sniper rifle is sufficiently good that you can easily get head shots shooting manually that would have been less than 10% in VATS. For most other cases, at medium to short range and especially against moving targets, it's much easier to hit targets - let alone target specific body parts - with VATS than without.
Quote:
Original post by Technogoth
The problems were more fundamental flaws in the game design. The fact that damage and crippled limbs had no real affect on game play was a major one. Cripple an enemy’s head and they will grab it stunned for a couple of seconds, cripple and arm and they drop their weapon. But beyond that there was no impact they would be the exact same a few seconds later which meant there was little point in shooting the enemies anywhere other then in the head. If crippling an enemies arm or having your own arm crippled meant you couldn’t use two handed weapons anymore it would have meant something.
This is true. I was a little disappointed when I tried blowing a molerat's leg off that it carried on coming almost as fast as before. The effects of crippling should really be a lot stronger.
One thing that bothers me in games is careless use of immunities in enemies. While it's perfectly reasonable for some enemies to be resistant or even immune to certain types of attack, it can make some encounters completely impossible, and some character builds completely unviable. These creatures need to be either avoidable, introduced in such as way as to warn the character that he may need to have other weapons at his disposal, or otherwise need to have alternative ways to kill them made available.
Author
Quote:Original post by TechnoGoth
The problems were more fundamental flaws in the game design. The fact that damage and crippled limbs had no real affect on game play was a major one. Cripple an enemy’s head and they will grab it stunned for a couple of seconds, cripple and arm and they drop their weapon. But beyond that there was no impact they would be the exact same a few seconds later which meant there was little point in shooting the enemies anywhere other then in the head. If crippling an enemies arm or having your own arm crippled meant you couldn’t use two handed weapons anymore it would have meant something.
I just assumed crippled parts modified the character's abilities - a crippled head lowered perception, a crippled arm lowered strength and weapon skills - that sort of thing. Crippled legs definitely slow them down. And crippled head/arms on the player definitely screw up your aiming.
I thought it was a pretty dumb decision to make sleeping in a bad repair all crippled parts, though. That seems like one of those last minute tweaks that some wannabe marketing guy threw in to better sell the game, pretty much destroying the dramatic effect of being crippled. I used to limp around for weeks at a time in Fallout 1 and 2, until I could find a doctor. This might just be one of those features that's destroyed by quicksave, but I won't get into that.
Quote:Original post by Sandman
For most other cases, at medium to short range and especially against moving targets, it's much easier to hit targets - let alone target specific body parts - with VATS than without.
That reminds me of another problem. Erratic and jerky enemy movement in the real time game. They move a little too fast for a shooter. Fast enough that switching to VATS in close/medium range is almost always a good idea. Again, this is where realism would have helped. Real humans have to shift weight and turn to change directions. These guys move like rail cars with jet engines.
I found super mutants to be the easiest and most fun enemies in the game to kill because of this. They don't pop around like freaks, breaking my wrists to aim at them. Those Talon merc guys are the exact opposite. Those guys give me a hard time at close range, so I usually just frag them, blowing myself half-up in the process.
I've also occasionally caught some enemies teleporting, but that may have just been a case of the game lagging and catching up with itself.
I've had these similar thoughts for 5+ years now.
I'm a pretty big fan of realism, but I can still enjoy unrealistic games if they are fun. But I despise how many bullet hits it usually takes to kill (usually unarmoured) humanoid enemies in most FPS. It really takes away from strategy and immersion for me. I much rather prefer to take good aim and take them out with a few well placed shots, rather than end up having to spray for 10-20 seconds before they finally fall down.
One of the reasons it feels so bad to me is especially because of how the enemies transition from alive to dead. There is very little decline in visible health between the two extreme states.
In fact, after playing an FPS for some time, I can usually feel the pattern. Let's say it takes 6-8 shots before the enemy dies. I put 4-5 shots in his chest, knowing perfectly well this will have no effect on him and he'll still be shooting at me as if no bullets ever hit him. Then comes that magical 6th or 7th bullet and suddenly he 'transforms' into a dead enemy (by turning into a rag-doll in newer games; it used to play a random death animation in older games).
That's probably why Counter-Strike 1.6 (and older) was one of my fav online FPS games. But even there I felt 100 hp was too much sometimes.
In any case, I still tend to enjoy most single-player FPS (Half-Life 2, Prey, etc.), although rarely for the shooting part, and most often for their story. It's the desire to see what happens next (or maybe even a nice cut-scene, I love those more than gameplay haha) that drives me forward through the repetitive onslaught of health-overinflated enemies.
I've always figured my thoughts on this subject are pretty radical, and most people seem to enjoy the current trend much more than myself. But oh well.
P.S. Some of the games off the top of my head I never played past demo/1st level were COD4 Demo and Gears of War. I especially recall COD4 Demo feeling so much like a stupid shooting gallery, like the ones they use for pistol training where wooden targets popup from random windows, except here each 'target' took 10+ bullets to take down. I might be exaggerating a little.
I'm a pretty big fan of realism, but I can still enjoy unrealistic games if they are fun. But I despise how many bullet hits it usually takes to kill (usually unarmoured) humanoid enemies in most FPS. It really takes away from strategy and immersion for me. I much rather prefer to take good aim and take them out with a few well placed shots, rather than end up having to spray for 10-20 seconds before they finally fall down.
One of the reasons it feels so bad to me is especially because of how the enemies transition from alive to dead. There is very little decline in visible health between the two extreme states.
In fact, after playing an FPS for some time, I can usually feel the pattern. Let's say it takes 6-8 shots before the enemy dies. I put 4-5 shots in his chest, knowing perfectly well this will have no effect on him and he'll still be shooting at me as if no bullets ever hit him. Then comes that magical 6th or 7th bullet and suddenly he 'transforms' into a dead enemy (by turning into a rag-doll in newer games; it used to play a random death animation in older games).
That's probably why Counter-Strike 1.6 (and older) was one of my fav online FPS games. But even there I felt 100 hp was too much sometimes.
In any case, I still tend to enjoy most single-player FPS (Half-Life 2, Prey, etc.), although rarely for the shooting part, and most often for their story. It's the desire to see what happens next (or maybe even a nice cut-scene, I love those more than gameplay haha) that drives me forward through the repetitive onslaught of health-overinflated enemies.
I've always figured my thoughts on this subject are pretty radical, and most people seem to enjoy the current trend much more than myself. But oh well.
P.S. Some of the games off the top of my head I never played past demo/1st level were COD4 Demo and Gears of War. I especially recall COD4 Demo feeling so much like a stupid shooting gallery, like the ones they use for pistol training where wooden targets popup from random windows, except here each 'target' took 10+ bullets to take down. I might be exaggerating a little.
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