mothra on 19/8/2007 at 22:19
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
HL2: This isn't really an escort mission. She can die but it's not likely (and I played on the hardest difficulty). I'm talking about those "escort and protect" missions. I've not played EP1.
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Now that location damage is standard there should be no excuse for unarmoured headshots not being instakill.
the hardest difficulty in Half-Life2 + EP1 is ridiculously easy.
it's a joke.
i used some mods which made the enemies give one-shot-head-kills and
even more damage but I just had to alter my playstyle to avoid the zombies more and use more grenades. but that was it. Half-Life1 was harder.
it's nothing like COD on veteran or realistic.
the elevator sequence was the only hard part on "hard" b4 they nerfed it. I mean they argued that "oh-so" many ppl could not survive it on medium. well shouldn't they then just revert to "easy" ? and not the developer taking more away from the non-existing challenge.
I want my games to have at least one difficulty setting I have to work for/train to beat.
Bjossi on 19/8/2007 at 22:38
What exactly changes between difficulties in HL2? I hardly even notice an increase in damage.
cadaver on 19/8/2007 at 23:56
Ah, this one: NPCs who are normally immune to death, but become vulnerable for certain "exciting" sequences. This may be combined with game over upon the NPC's death.
Examples: Oblivion, possibly HL2 (not EP1): Alyx can die in the Anticitizen One shield hacking+defense sequence, and possibly in the Entanglement teleport sequence (the level layout there looks like a homage to Project IGI's last mission ;) ) but what about anywhere else?
This is not as bad for (boss) enemies as for friendlies: I can sort of understand that in Deus Ex the characters become vulnerable one by one as the storyline allows. But the ideal would be to not have it at all.
Btw. in Deus Ex at least some enemies have limited ammo and start hacking you with knives once they run out. What they drop is another thing...
Toxicfluff on 20/8/2007 at 00:11
Regenerating health shields. Y'know, just in case things ever get tense.
Arbitrarily opening doors, arbitrary blocking of passageways and other such scripted crap that ALWAYS just HAS to happen right the moment you walk in.
Bosses that have tons of tiny little irritating minions that actually provide the bulk of the challenge.
Any invisible blocks on scenery. Can't stand this. Think of a better way of stopping me getting somewhere. Like an arbitrarily placed pile up of junk, or a randomly collapsed ceiling. Yeah, this one's a bit tricky to get round.
Enemies that teleport around you every couple of shots you land. Always guaranteed to never be satisfying.
SubJeff on 20/8/2007 at 00:21
Quote Posted by mothra
the hardest difficulty in Half-Life2 + EP1 is ridiculously easy.
Your point being?
Quote Posted by mothra
I want my games to have at least one difficulty setting I have to work for/train to beat.
I want my posters with a realisation that the forums already have auto word-wrap and an ability to use capital letters.
NamelessPlayer on 20/8/2007 at 02:40
Quote Posted by dethtoll
the thing about headshots in DX has to do with a screwed up hitbox system. in the face, sure, instant death. same for the back of the head. however, in the ears, the hitbox is connected to the torso, so a shot that won't kill in the torso will do the same amount of damage if you shoot for the side of the head.
if you knew this already, then apologies. :)
I actually never noticed that.
That issue aside, Deus Ex still has a better damage system IMO than the vast majority of games on the market. The only exception I could think of would be Operation Flashpoint/Armed Assault, as they're supposed to have effects like reduced accuracy and movement depending on where you get hit, much like Deus Ex, but it's not noticed as much because in those games, shots that hit you generally kill you outright.
Oh, and here's another weird one: when playing Die by the Sword, how come a kobold's axe or shield can block the heavy swing of an ogre's club, sending said club bouncing back? I would have expected the little guys to be sent flying, weapons in the way or not. Maybe if Treyarch would quit making bastardized console Call of Duty sequels and make a sequel to this game of theirs on the Wii, VSIM controls and all, they would correct this...
Finally, I've noticed that in the vast majority of games with ragdoll physics for corpses, the ragdolls never gib. Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 are a bit of an exception, but once they enter the ragdoll state, any parts still attached will stay attached no matter what. However, Postal 2 with some mods seems to allow dismemberment of bodies, even in ragdoll mode, so I don't see why it isn't possible with today's tech. (I'm not some sort of psycho sadist or anything, but when I see someone in the middle of an explosion, I expect to see bloody red chunks with good physics effects, not an intact body with no bloodstains or other marks whatsoever. Same for when they get cut with bladed weapons.)
mothra on 20/8/2007 at 02:56
good observation. this seems to be a general problem for games.
e.g. Enemy Territory Quake Wars has no real ragdoll effect for corpses and no gibbing. Why ? because medics can revive downed players and strogg can use them as spawn hosts even when completely dead. therefore they had to ensure that each and every corpse is the same and can be "used". everything else should have been a programming nightmare and would have needed serverside calculations which every multiplayer game tries to avoid because of resulting problems with lag, ping and overall performance.
I don't know why it's like this with FPS. at least those are the reasons the devs stated.
I think Crysis made some steps in that direction since everything is interactive AND destroyable and you can then interact with the destroyed foliage as well as AI can recognize it as cover....
I don't know if they did the same with "corpses" but I think if the technology is there for trees, why not for "humans"....
in the end I think it's still a programmer's nightmare :)
cadaver on 20/8/2007 at 22:26
Mmm... remembered another one: "activating" a stationary gun or going near it results in a wave of enemies being spawned, but if you avoid the gun, they won't appear. SOF2 does this most heinously as far as I remember.
Malf on 21/8/2007 at 10:04
Going back to respawning, I'm playing Call of Duty 2 on the xbox 360 on the hardest difficulty at the moment, and respawning there is REALLY annoying.
The game's hard enough as it is (one 3 round burst is enough to kill you), but when that's paired with buildings that continuously spawn Nazis, it just becomes an exercise in constantly respawning yourself until you get that one lucky playthrough.
It's all compounded by the fact that your AI teammates are absolutely fucking useless when it comes to providing cover.
I can guarantee that no matter how many people I have covering my back, a Nazi will somehow manage to slip past un-noticed and club me with the stock of their gun.
I know it's on the hardest difficulty, but in my eyes, making a game difficult shouldn't exclude fun.
Oskar Cruo on 21/8/2007 at 12:10
First person shooters with enemies that can take more damage than tanks. Example: Chronicles of riddick: escape from butcher bay. I liked the game overall, but the weapon efficiency is riduculous. You can kill a guard with screwdriver, but it needs atleast two shots from shotgun to head to kill them.
That's why I prefer more realistic shooters.
