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Why sci-fi combat RPG are rarely good
Yamota
Member UncommonPosts: 6,593
Is that the techonology used in the so called future are sometimes vastle inferior to what exist right now.
For example, I read about this weapon cooldown nonsense and compared to existing assault rifles. For example the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_AUG which has about 11 rounds/sec and an effective range of 300 metres. How can you then realistically have futuristic weapons with much lower firerate and range?
For spaceship weapons it would work since there is no such thing in RL to compare with but for handheld weapons?
Comments
OP, you make a good point. Think of the film 'Starship Troopers'. The marines were fighting the bugs with machine guns! Any current modern military could do better than they were equipped. They had no air cover (think what four helicopter gunships could have done at the settlement defense). In the book, the Marines had power armour suits. No tanks? Get serious. Hell - WW2 armour and aircraft would have eaten those bugs alive. But, how can you have ANY kind of story when you pit a non-tech race against a high-tech race?
The reason plot-wise for it is that if the gloves were off, the bugs would have had no chance. There wouldn't have been any tension, as Humans would have destroyed the bugs with very few losses. Even a small technological advantage will translate into a huge military advantage.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
As Earthrise was never announced to be an FPS, I guess you got your answer allready.
Earthrise will feature RPG-mechanics behind the fassade of mouse-aiming, so cooldowns and slower RoF are needed to make these calculations.
You don't like it? Don't let the door hit you on your way out.
P.S.: RL-comparisons = allways fail
Earthrise combat is basically a revamp of AO combat.
It was slow but in big groups it was fun.
It's kind of oldschool I agree but I'm personally looking forward to it.
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
The largest reason why you see comparisons to modern day ways of life (see Star Ship Troopers example above) is not because of any military advantage. It's for the simple reason that if you cannot connect to the reader, viewer or player - then the audience won't feel any kind of immersion. Whether a book, movie or game, the audience needs to be able to visualize themselves in the world beyond what the author has presented. If they have trouble understanding or visualizing the world, than the audience won't enjoy the book, movie or game at all.
Star Ship Troopers was written back in the late 1950s. It was a series of short stories that was less focussed around Sci-Fi and more around the wheels of war which was abundant during that time. All of the weapons of the ground troops were state of the art back then and a lot of terminology used were words used by the then current military. It allowed readers to connect and understand what these marines were going through. What was at stake. Hell, it was only 15 years after the end of World War II. Global domination was a well known and public threat back at that time.
Back to Sci-Fi games. This was one of the reasons why Tabula Rasa was redesigned after it was first unvailed as a concept to the public. It was "too out there". Player's couldn't really grasp the storyline and it was felt that it needed to be rewritten with powers and abilities that mimiced super versions of what we have today. Unfortunetly, a lot was lost in translation and too much time was spent on the rewrite, and releasing on time (but not ready) was a recipe for a flop.
I think this is also the reason why SWG (pre-insert change here) was such a success even though it was plagued with problems and bugs from the start. The game actually made me feel like I was part of the Star Wars universe. I was able to connect with a saga that I am already familiar with.
If Jim Henson studios would ever take the chance and partner with a high quality producer, I think that Farscape could easily achieve a theme park MMO built within a sand box giving users the best of both worlds and also have that feeling of immersion. Because even though some of the items and ideas are very futuristic, they all seem to translate well back into modern times.
It is not about RL comparisons but rather immersion. If I am to be immersed in a futuristic sci-fi world it is kinda hard when you are standing 20 metres from each other and firing 1 shot every 3 seconds where you know that existing weapons has far higher range and firerate.
The mechanics you speak of certainly are not what makes the calulcations slow. Todays computers can easily calculcate to-hit, resists and so on, faster than the 3-4 seconds of the cooldown. No, it is something artifical put by the devs for whatever reason. Maybe to cater to people who like slow, tactical combat, who knows?
But why not then just make the combat turnbased?
PS. You dont have to have twitch-combat for the battles to better feel like a more believable sci-fi battle.
My gaming blog
Part of the problem with showing future technology in games. movies, and various other media is that you can't go too advanced without loosing the audience. People (the average person) need a reference point (say, a gun that looks somewhat like what we use now) so that they know what they are looking at.
Almost any Sci-Fi movie, game, or book has manned aircraft/spacecraft. Lets say fighters for example. It is likely that most future fighters will be unmanned. The reasons being that unmanned craft can be smaller (no cockpit, seat, or life support equipment), they are much more maneuverable and can handle vastly more G-forces, and are cheaper (less equipment, no pilot loss if shot down). We are to the point now that a lot of combat missions are flown by UAVs with the controllers being located thousands of miles away. The next American designed fighter may be unmanned. So in the future it is almost certain that these types of craft will be pilotless. But that makes for fairly boring Sci-Fi. If Luke Skywalker had remotely piloted his X-wing to take out the Death Star it would not have been nearly as exciting to watch.
IMO within 30 years most combat operations for technologically advanced countries (USA, Briton, France, China to name just a few) will be automated. The only ground troops may be Special Forces. All aerial and ground vehicles will be remotely piloted or totally automatous. The only naval ships that will be manned would be certain types of submarines (Boomers for one) because communications with subs is still fairly difficult (high frequency radio waves do not travel far under water so low frequency signals are used but they can not carry much data).
Another problem with showing future tech is this: Do you think that someone that was fighting during World War 2 (about 65 years ago) could imagine some of the weapons and sensors that we have now? Now try to imagine what kind of weapons and sensors that we will have in 65 years. Most guesses will be off by a huge margine. Look at the tech that has been placed in the Star Trek movies. They take place in around 300+ years from now. All of the versions of the USS Enterprise still use buttons of some sort. I doubt you would find anything resembling a button in 300 years. That is just too far in the future to accurately guess. So we are back to putting things in Sci-Fi entertainment that have some reference to today so that we know what is going on.
Edit: One other thing, look at 3 major tech items from the orignal Star Trek series: the phaser, communicator, and the transporter. Scientists are still debating if the transporter is feasable. Laser based weapons will be fielded within 10 years. And current cell phones blow away the communicator. So some of Roddenberry's quesses at technology 200+ years in advance are here after only 40 years.
I agree about relating to your audience. They have to portray technology that mainstream is familiar with or can at least associate.
Then there of course is the aspect of visuality. The weapons have to look the part, often quite unrealistically. It does not only affect the look, but also sounds.
Then there is the issue of gameplay. Making more realistic weapon-based combat has been attempted in some games, mainly FPS. You even have some with modern and scifi weaponry. However, a fun combat system does not have to be realistic.
In Mass Effect and KOTOR the scifi combat was done pretty well in my option. Also in EVE.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Well, one good reason for that is that in modern warfare, the individual soldier is nothing more than a number. Not exactly the stuff of legends (or RPGs). The more advanced the tech gets, the less significant the man is.
Imagine the gameplay when each soldier has the ability to destroy a city block. You can allow that in PvE (but you have to adjust the content for it), but not in PvP.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
It is not about RL comparisons but rather immersion. If I am to be immersed in a futuristic sci-fi world it is kinda hard when you are standing 20 metres from each other and firing 1 shot every 3 seconds where you know that existing weapons has far higher range and firerate.
The mechanics you speak of certainly are not what makes the calulcations slow. Todays computers can easily calculcate to-hit, resists and so on, faster than the 3-4 seconds of the cooldown. No, it is something artifical put by the devs for whatever reason. Maybe to cater to people who like slow, tactical combat, who knows?
But why not then just make the combat turnbased?
PS. You dont have to have twitch-combat for the battles to better feel like a more believable sci-fi battle.
Immersion? What immersion?
The guns used need to charge up for every shot, so there's your immersion.
And calculations are not made by your PC... it's all server-side, and there's possibly hundreds of players involved in a single battle, which the server has to handle.
So yes, the gameplay has to be much slower then in your average FPS -> look at EvE Online as comparison.
If you look at the advances that we have made since Gulf War One (18 years ago), we have come quite a ways. During GW1 10-20% of air dropped weapons were precision guided. That went to about 90% during GW2. A lot of that is thanks to GPS and the fielding of more laser designators and weapons that use them as guidance. GPS was available during GW1 but was mostly used for navigation. Remote controlled robots (aerial surveillance, bomb disposal) are very common today. 30 years is a long time as far as technology is concerned. I'm not saying that we will see Terminator type robots within that time. The robots that we will see will be much more mundane but they will be fielded more widely than they are now. Lower tech countries will be at a huge disadvantage if they come in conflict with a high tech country. That was already seen during GW1 and GW2. That gap will only get worse.
Low power lasers have been around since 1960. It has not been until the last 10 years or so that higher power systems have been made that can be used in the field against tactical targets (mortar, artillery rounds, missiles). THEL is a good example. We still need to advance in compact power supplies to make the systems more fieldable. Lasers are not the only weapons that use directed energy, referred to as DEWs. Micro-wave based weapons are here. Supposedly certain modern AESA radars can focus their beams to be used as a weapon (to fry electronics).
A lot of high tech systems are classified so there is no telling what is really in the works. Some systems that we considered cutting-edge were developed 5-10 years before they were publicly acknowledged. The F-117 Stealth Fighter flew for 8 years before the public knew about it.
I would like to get a look at what we will have to play with in 50 years.
LOL thanks! HAARP is old news though. Have you read what the Russians and conspiracy theorists think it is for? Weather control or for igniting the upper atmosohere.
My gaming blog
It is not about RL comparisons but rather immersion. If I am to be immersed in a futuristic sci-fi world it is kinda hard when you are standing 20 metres from each other and firing 1 shot every 3 seconds where you know that existing weapons has far higher range and firerate.
The mechanics you speak of certainly are not what makes the calulcations slow. Todays computers can easily calculcate to-hit, resists and so on, faster than the 3-4 seconds of the cooldown. No, it is something artifical put by the devs for whatever reason. Maybe to cater to people who like slow, tactical combat, who knows?
But why not then just make the combat turnbased?
PS. You dont have to have twitch-combat for the battles to better feel like a more believable sci-fi battle.
Immersion? What immersion?
The guns used need to charge up for every shot, so there's your immersion.
And calculations are not made by your PC... it's all server-side, and there's possibly hundreds of players involved in a single battle, which the server has to handle.
So yes, the gameplay has to be much slower then in your average FPS -> look at EvE Online as comparison.
I need a little better explanation that "it needs to charge up". If so then why not use an existing machine gun that fires 10 rounds/sec? And how do you explain the short range?
An mmorpg is not run by only one server but rather a server cluster. If you are talking about houndreds of people fighting in close proximity to each other then I can guarantee you that the load on the GPU and CPU, for rendering the gfx on the client, is far more than any simple calculations for damage and such run on the server.
So no, the gameplay does not have to be much slower. Atleast not for technical reasons.
My gaming blog
It is not about RL comparisons but rather immersion. If I am to be immersed in a futuristic sci-fi world it is kinda hard when you are standing 20 metres from each other and firing 1 shot every 3 seconds where you know that existing weapons has far higher range and firerate.
The mechanics you speak of certainly are not what makes the calulcations slow. Todays computers can easily calculcate to-hit, resists and so on, faster than the 3-4 seconds of the cooldown. No, it is something artifical put by the devs for whatever reason. Maybe to cater to people who like slow, tactical combat, who knows?
But why not then just make the combat turnbased?
PS. You dont have to have twitch-combat for the battles to better feel like a more believable sci-fi battle.
Immersion? What immersion?
The guns used need to charge up for every shot, so there's your immersion.
And calculations are not made by your PC... it's all server-side, and there's possibly hundreds of players involved in a single battle, which the server has to handle.
So yes, the gameplay has to be much slower then in your average FPS -> look at EvE Online as comparison.
I need a little better explanation that "it needs to charge up". If so then why not use an existing machine gun that fires 10 rounds/sec? And how do you explain the short range?
An mmorpg is not run by only one server but rather a server cluster. If you are talking about houndreds of people fighting in close proximity to each other then I can guarantee you that the load on the GPU and CPU, for rendering the gfx on the client, is far more than any simple calculations for damage and such run on the server.
So no, the gameplay does not have to be much slower. Atleast not for technical reasons.
Try to play a FPS with 100 vs. 100... good luck with that.
I do understand what you were saying in the OP. I was trying to expand the thread a bit by talking about tech in a Sci-Fi based MMO. None of what I said was an attack on you or your post.
I agree that most current Sci-Fi MMO weapons are not terribly effective or realistic. But having melee weapons in, say a Star Wars environment is not realistic although it is canon. Swords and polearms are not used by modern armies (except for ceremonial use). Ranged weapons have taken their place because they are more efficient at killing and the skills required to use them are less.. But for a MMO, removing melee weapons cuts down on the games complexity and player choices. Certain realistic aspects have to be ignored to make the game fun. Plus there is balance. The developers have to make melee professions roughly equal to ranged, again for the sake of fun.
SWG is a good example of some of the problems that have to be overcome when having ranged/melee combat in a game. In this game if you are using a ranged weapon, your target is running all over the place. But if you are using a melee weapon your target has to stay still or you will have to chase it, which is no fun. The targets movement is affected by your choice in weapon type. Its not realistic but it had to be done.
I have played some of the older Star Wars based PC games (I can't remember which ones). One of them had a sniper weapon that you could use at fairly long range. That was fun as hell. But it was single player. If weapons like that were used in a MMO then melee players would not have much of a chance. Ranged players would also have a problem finding you. So the ranges for combat have to be short to even the field some. Its not realistic and some people would find that immersion breaking, but some sacrifices have to be made to make the game fun for everyone. In pre-CU SWG the max range for rifles was around 100 meters I believe (but not totally sure). That's pretty poor when today's sniper rifles can hit targets at over 2400 meters (longest confirmed kill is 2430 meters).
To some people a MMO being too realistic is immersion breaking. To others not being realistic enough is. Again it comes down to finding a balance. No one will be completely happy though.
Better armor and shields can explain why weapons do not kill your targets outright. Protection always keeps up with weapons, and vise-versa.
Someone wondered what we were gonna play in 50 years, answer is Duke Nukem Forever... they started working on it again 1 year from now and finished it 49 years later. I know due to i just bought a time machine on ebay.
The DoD needs to hire MMO developers to run their weapons labs its sounds like lol.
The simple truth is, a Sci-fi story using realistic technology would be no fun to play. Why couldn't a society as advanced as Earthrise's use nothing but remote or autonomous drones? They could, but that's less fun to think about than actually risking yourself, even if you're just going to be cloned. Why couldn't they make turrets that never missed and were powerful enough to destroy an infantry unit instantly? Why couldn't they make cheap suicide robots that exploded on contact with the target killing them instantly? Why couldn't guns aim themselves and never miss at all? They could, but none of that would make a fun game.
It's easy to explain the few seconds of delay between shots if you want (and not break immersion).
In the future personal protection shields are common place, each shield has some form of variable frequency cycle. The laser pistol scans through all shield cycles in the direction of fire and adjusts the frequency of the laser accordingly to maximise the damage.
Clearly you could fire the laser at a near infinite rate, but the shield would easily divert the ray and result in zero damage. The scanning process (which takes time) is done to maximise the possible dps of the laser.
It is possible to come up a plausible (if rather fortunate) reason for a delay between each shot.
That's some mighty fancy figurin', BUT - what about the animals? Do they have energy shields too?
In any case, as players, we shouldn't have to dream up excuses for bad game mechanics.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
That's some mighty fancy figurin', BUT - what about the animals? Do they have energy shields too?
In any case, as players, we shouldn't have to dream up excuses for bad game mechanics.
No, but the animals are infected by the A.S.H.E.S. virus which gives them extreme adaptability/ toughness. And why is it bad mechanics? No one complains that a bow and arrow does not fire continuously, yet people like to play archers. No one complains because that's just how a bow and arrow works. Well guess what, that's just how these weapons work too. Not everyone wants a spray and pray fpsmmo, ER is more of an rpg even if it does have some more action elements than usual.
"Because" isn't much of an answer. People expect guns to fire faster than spells or bows. These aren't muzzle-loading muskets, right? Let reloading take up time, but when an advanced weapon fires more slowly than a six-gun from 1890, you're going to have a problem with believability.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
"Because" isn't much of an answer. People expect guns to fire faster than spells or bows. These aren't muzzle-loading muskets, right? Let reloading take up time, but when an advanced weapon fires more slowly than a six-gun from 1890, you're going to have a problem with believability.
Why is it hard to believe that a laser might have to charge a capacitor before firing a high energy burst? And it's not just a "because". The real reason is technical and gameplay. To insure server stability with high numbers of people fighting in a small area, some things must be slower than they would be in an fps twitch game. Further, a slower ("slower"here is relative, a game can be pretty fast while being slower than an fps) game is more tactical than twitch, which is what ER is aiming for. Those are the real reasons, if you want a lore reason to make them as acceptable as bows, then I've given a few, and given time could come up with multitudes more.