Realistic Military FPS - Gotmadskillzson's Blog

Gotmadskillzson's Blog

Realistic Military FPS

Posted on October 31, 2011 at 03:10 PM.

(9)

Maybe it is my military background and my own military biasness, but I am tired of seeing 1st person shooters that are unrealistic. Damn near every 1st person shooter you can simply ignore the mission objectives and just go rambo through the whole level, kill everybody and pass the mission.

Also I for me I hate games where you just magically show up at the mission location. This is one thing the Operation Flashpoint series does right, especially in Red River. You actually see yourself and your fireteam being flown into the area of operation and flown out of it.

But I want to go much further, I want the user to have total control. Where as you can pick the insertion method and extraction method. You even pick where you want those 2 things to be done at. This would add a more strategic element to the game.

Another thing that always bother me, is in most FPS games, on some missions you have other fireteams helping you out, but you can't control them at all. I like the Brothers in Arms approach. Where as you have total control of the other teams and you can tell them where to go and what to do.

Then the player should be able to decide how many fireteams they want to bring with them and have the ability to choose the weapon load out for every team member in the different teams. Now how great would it be to bring 3 teams into an area of operation, use 2 of them for attack and the 3rd one staged just at the edge of the area of operation for reinforcements if need be or use simply as a decoy to draw the enemy away from the area you trying to sneak in.

Another area of change I would do is the whole mission outline. 1st person shooters are too linear. I would have it as what you do in one mission directly effects what mission you do next and how hard or easy that upcoming mission will be. Where as if you do really good in one mission, don't get spotted, gather a lot of intel, then you bypass 3 or 4 missions. However if you do bad, try to go rambo and don't gather intel, you have to do 3 or 4 missions extra, that are hard because now the enemy knows you are in the area and have changed locations. Therefore you have to track them down again.

I got this idea from the Wing Commander series on the PC back in the 1980s, early 1990s. Where as you were rewarded for collecting intel in an area, but punished for trying to rambo your way through the game. Also I would make it impossible for you to kill everybody in an area if you set off an alarm. I would have wave after wave of reinforcements flooding that area you triggered an alarm in. Therefore you would be forced to make a tactical retreat because you won't have enough bullets to kill everybody. To me that is more realistic.

Finally, I would make deaths mean something. In the sense if one of your teammates die, they are gone for good. So once the mission is over, you would have to select a replacement for that person. And that replacement won't be as experienced.

Because to me, everybody on all teams would gain experience with every mission they do. So come mission 10 and you have to have a replacement, skill wise that replacement will be weaker and slow down the effectiveness of your team. The old Rainbow 6 games had it like this and I always loved that idea.

Plus this would discourage people from blindly sending their teammates into harms way, using them as cannon fodder. Also the more often you get people killed, the least likely your fireteams would quickly obey your orders. Meaning everybody will have a morale meter and have a sense of self worth. Your reputation of leader will follow you from mission to mission.

Why I would even go as far as you could lose your spot of team leader and be demoted to just a team member. Which would mean you lose control of telling other people what to do, lose control of insertion and extraction methods, lose control of fire support.

Eventually if you are a good team member, few missions later you could be reinstated as team leader again. All in all, I think this would make an excellent FPS game.

Comments

# 1 robbiedizzle @ Oct 31

Couldn't had said it better myself. But again, must be our bias.

# 2 dcal @ Oct 31

Nice article. I play Arma 2 on the PC for this reason. It is about as customizable as you can get. In the mission editor there are so many possibilities and the game has tons of user created content that keeps the game fresh. It is more a mil-sim than a point and shoot to win game.

# 3 Eski33 @ Oct 31

You have some great ideas but remember these are games. If a game is too realistic it takes the most important mechanic of the game away - gameplay. Not many people will want to be flown or driven to every mission. Same thing goes when your character gets hit. One shot deaths create frustration.

I think BF3 does a great job of creating a more realistic war scenario with immersive sights, sounds and well placed shots can result in immediate kills.

# 4 wepr3 @ Oct 31

I haven't played them, but from what I understand, the Operation Flashpoint series is very realistic. But it doesn't seem, commercially at least, that this series has been a huge success. I think what you're talking about would be even more realistic, and the number of options might turn off the casual gamer. Seems that something you're suggesting might be viable on the PC, but not consoles.

# 5 DaReapa @ Oct 31

Nice points. Almost sound like a hybrid of FPS and RTS elements. Thing is we live amongst a casual gaming market, and something as hardcore as what you've described is rarity. Like someone mentioned earlier, I primarily use Arma X (which is essentially every Arma released to date) as my FPS fix. That along with Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which is IMO, a much better game than Red River.

# 6 Gotmadskillzson @ Nov 1

Really ? I liked Red River more then Dragon Rising due to the fact you were able to upgrade your weapons. Plus the teammate AI was a little bit more smarter in Red River as well.

Overall I think we are getting to the point where it can survive in the console market. With the success of Battlefield 3 and how Modern Warfare 3 is now starting to shift from a lone wolf everybody look at my kill/death ratio to more of a help your team mentality in their online game.

# 7 Galarius @ Nov 1

not sure about 'absolute military realism', but Killzone 3 slays COD and Battlefield when it comes to physics and rewarding patience and smarts over mindless running and gunning

# 8 bfindeisen @ Nov 2

Have you ever tried playing Project Reality, the Battlefield 2 mod? It captures many of the aspects that you're talking about here, and easily the most realistic mil-sim I have played. In the same vein as ARMA and Operation Flashpoint. Check it out on YouTube.

# 9 seanhazz1 @ Nov 2

I used to play America's Army for PC, which featured many of the realistic elements you speak of. It was free and was used as a recruiting tool, as it was given out for free. It featured objective based scenarios and dying forced your team to continue on without you. I played it alot before being deployed over seas.