[JamesE]

A thread for friends to discuss the FPS - be it a Serious Sam all-out massacre, a non-linear Halo or Far Cry affair, a CoD shooting gallery or even a Deus-Ex inspired role-playing hybrid.

People are still developing innovative Doom WADs in 2010! That's awesome! Halo: Reach finally sheds the terrible lethargy that undercut Halo 3's multiplayer game to become one of the most dynamic and exciting deathmatch games I've ever played! That's rad! Duke Nukem Forever looks likely for release! That's unexpected! Call of Duty... is still boring! That's predictable!

Talk up the shootman games here - genealogy, weapons, tropes, level design.

One thing I am interested in - shotguns. They rose to bread and butter status in Doom, in lieu of the more expected assault rifle (I guess the plasma rifle fills this role, though it is more of a power weapon). Quake, Duke and a million Doom clones pretty much canonized it as the tool to carry around dropping people with, resorting to the rest of your arsenal in more delicate, specialist or overwhelming situations.

It doesn't seem like it was until more realistic shooters - Goldeneye is the first one I really remember, then Half-Life - that shotties took a back seat to the assault rifle. Offering a more linear method of attack with higher utility, they've pretty much ruled ever since.

Shotguns have changed. In Halo: Reach multiplayer, it's a kingmaker in free for all games, a de-facto power weapon capable of fast and efficient killing. In Half Life it's useful but still subordinate to the SMG. Are there any shooters that still use the shotgun as a bread and butter weapon?

Also, what's the best way to give Alien Trilogy another chance?

[culpalibri]

The shotgun in Unreal Tournament was always my bread and butter weapon of choice.

[bza]

I've been interested in FPS level design for as long as I can remember, and I like to make maps every now and then for Source based games. It just boggles my mind how things have evolved, from simple mazes to entire cities with destructible buildings in the time since I first played an FPS. From the dark corridors of Pathways Into Darkess, Doom, Marathon, etc. to the big open levels of Crysis and Halo, it's awesome to see what works for different games design-wise.

In the Marathon series, for example, levels got pretty insane due to the mechanics of the map editors. As a mapper, you could overlap areas as much as the engine could handle and 5D space was just unreal. You could overlap areas to create impossible situations such as two completely different rooms occupying the same exact space that are accessible from different locations. I tried to find a youtube example of this and failed, it's definitely one of the cooler things to come out of '90s FPS level design.

Half-life was the first FPS I ever played with somewhat realistic level design and it totally blew me away. Exploring an office complex overrun by aliens and zombies was beyond awesome. Since I had been mostly making Marathon and Quake levels at that point, the more realistic design of Half-life got me into working with real dimensions and floor plans in my maps. I made a few maps for Counterstrike and other HL mods, but they weren't very good. It wasn't until Half-life 2 that I got serious about map making, and now there's at least one server that runs a map I've made for Day of Defeat:Source 24/7.

In terms of level design theory, I think the flow is the most important consideration. In singleplayer as well as multiplayer, you've got to have the player at least somewhat immersed in the environment. Even if it's a fantasy castle or trippy pile of geometric shapes, if the player is jarred out of the flow of moving around the map it can be a game ruiner. A simple thing like getting stuck on a tiny piece of debris can totally bring you out of the game, and that's something I always strive to avoid. The layout of the level goes along with this, especially in multiplayer; if the map is full of dead ends and areas with only one or two ways in and out, there won't be any flow. This is especially important in deathmatch games where all of the players are constantly moving.

As far as shotguns are concerned:


Killing Floor has some pretty fun shotguns! Not sure if the AA12 was in the game at the time of this video, but it's pretty boss too. As a Support Specialist you can carry both the standard pump shotgun as well as the double barreled hunting shotgun or automatic AA12 at the same time. I really love the powerful feeling of the guns, I wish more FPS had guns that felt like they can actually do some damage. Even the pump shotgun in KF is capable of tearing zombies to shreds, and as you level your Support Specialist perk you gain more damage and penetration with your shots.

On the other side of the coin you have games like Left4Dead and Left4Dead 2 where the guns feel like toys. There isn't much recoil and the firing sounds are pretty quiet for an FPS. The shotguns in particular disappointed me; the pump shotguns have such a random spread that it might take 1 shot to kill something or 3+ depending on your luck and distance to the target. The auto shotguns are a bit better, but only because you can just spam shots until your target dies.

I think I'm gonna play some Killing Floor now :)

[JamesE]

So is killing floor an arena FPS? That genre is relatively new and underdeveloped but I'm super excited to see where it goes.

[bza]

KF is arena-like, yeah. You and your team fight off waves of different types of zombies with special abilities and in between waves purchase guns and supplies. Rather than constantly running through a mostly linear map like Left4Dead, you're plopped down in a big open map with all sorts of routes to use. You can weld doors shut to slow down the zombies' progress and funnel them to your team, or just use welded doors as a way to escape when things get hectic. There's a perk system as well, where each perk gets bonuses to their respective weapons and abilities. The Support Specialist gets faster welding along with his shotgun bonuses, the Firebug is eventually immune to fire damage, the Berserker can't be grabbed by normal zombies, etc.
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[Teflon]

Goldeneye's shotgun was still vaguely useful in multi in that if someone was right in your face and you got a couple shots off they'd probably die. Perfect Dark's shotgun however has to be one of the most ineffective shotguns in any game as even two of it's alternate double-blast shots at point blank range would very rarely put someone down unless you hit them right in the head. Both were further handicapped by some serious pumping-animation between shots.

This pissed a contingent of folks at Rare off so bad they left and formed Free Radical, made Timesplitters 2 and made the Stractics 12-gauge the best weapon in the game. Yup.

I love the dual pistols/shotgun combo in L4D. You've got your free-ammo pistols (limited in firing rate only by how fast you can click in L4D1) to pick off infected at medium and long range then when they get in close BLAM shotgun all up ins. And it allows someone like me without godly mouse-aiming skills to effectively respond in those split second saving throw situations like when you see a smoker's tongue or a hunter flying at you. I'd never make those shots using an AR (well I'd hit the hunter but he wouldn't care). Also I seem to use less ammo than my AR-loving friends so less incredibly hazardous ammo fetching during survival or horde situations.

[Ronnoc]

[CubaLibre]

I think Doom's weapons are still pretty unique and don't translate well to any other games, except maybe Quake. The "standard" pistol/machinegun/shotgun progression (even though superficially that's in Doom too) was pretty much established in Quake 2 I think, and went through Half-Life and Call of Duty into history.
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[Teflon]

It stopped being a linear progression and became more of a tradeoff over the years though.

[boojiboy7]

Plus, in Halo, many people prefer the pistol to the machine gun (plus there is the added battle rifle), and the shotgun is only useful for certain things (for which it is entirely useful).

[Mikey]

I think the utility of shotguns in Doom/Quake had a lot to do with the large numbers of enemy types who were forced to engage you at melee range, where a shotgun is very effective. Additionally in those games (and others at around the same time), ranged attacked from enemies were fairly weak (or were easily dodged projectiles) and health pickups were plentiful, so absorbing a few shots while you closed in to shotgun range was a perfectly viable tactic.

[Dracko]

You've never used the pump shotty as a sniping weapon in DooM?
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[Lucaz]

When I played Halo I usually had a pistol with me as the secondary weapon, it does good damage, works nice in melee, and is the best weapon against jackals

The shotgun in Half-life 2 was my best weapon after the pulse rifle, but only after I noticed the double shot function. I don't think any enemy survives after using it, although the melee range made it only work in interiors or against single enemies. In CoD it's pretty much the same, good and quick but with little margin for errors and only for melee. Also in both you have to change it once it empties, because of how long it takes to reload. I think that's it's main drawback, shotguns don't work well for main weapons.

Thinking about it, shotguns probably became less useful because of the smaller lifebars and predominance of hitscan or almost hitscan weapons. With low resistance and undodgeable enemy attacks, charging at them with a shotgun became unpractical.
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[Mikey]

[evnvnv]

the shotgun in half life 2 is immensely satisfying, and it is the reason why ravenholm is the most fun level
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[Rud31]

I think Halo is boring as hell and find it hard to put Call of Duty in that adjective.
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[JamesE]

[Rud31]

None of the weapons feel satisfying. They don't make me go YES! when I shoot them. I never feel like I'm making great tactical choices in my two weapons.

Yes the enemy AI is varied blah blah blah. That doesn't mean I've ever enjoyed fighting them.
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[JamesE]

OK, you can't. Oh well.

[negativedge]

[negativedge]

Stop being James, James.

[shrugtheironteacup]

The shotgun was my primary weapon in Half-Life. In fact, I stopped playing the highest difficulty level because at that point its secondary fire would no longer kill enemy soldiers with on blast to their headbacks.

This was not acceptable to me.

I never liked the SMG, it seemed weak, rattly, unsatisfying. I felt the same way about them in HL2, only they had to go and cut the number of spare shells you pack down so dramatically that I could no longer rely on the shotgun like I did in HL.

But on later playthroughs I liked using cheat codes to give each shell a metric fuckton of pellets, and up the damage, to see what they would do to enemies/the environment/loose cars.
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[negativedge]

Call of Duty games are the only games where assault rifles and machine guns and the like don't feel shitty

[costel]

[negativedge]

There are probably a decent chunk of those realistic/semi-realistic games where that is the case, actually. I just don't have any experience with them.

[bza]

SMGs tend to feel like peashooters to me. I hate to say it again, but Killing Floor really did it right, even the crappy bullpup feels like you're actually spraying lead. I pretty much never used the SMGs in HL1 and 2 because they just weren't fun to use. Pissy firing sound, middling damage... Counterstrike suffers from this as well, except the MP5 is actually awesome even though it sounds like someone dumped a package of those little firecracker poppers on the ground.

The Specialists, an old HL1 mod, made SMGs feel pretty beefy as well. The recoil was maybe a little too extreme, but the guns were pretty damn satisfying!

[another coma]

Cuba is this the thread in which you list the redeeming aspects of Doom 3?
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[Rud31]

[Rud31]

[Mikey]

[Dracko]

[T.]

[Teflon]

[Loki Laufeyson]

does doom talk go in here? does anyone have any wad recommendations?
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[CubaLibre]

I find the HL1 and 2 weapons all incredibly satisfying with the possible exception of the SMGs. The pop pop pop of the HL2 pistol is great; the HL1 Glock is iconic - I could identify that sound effect a mile away. And in general, both of those games' sound design is so far above the average game as to be notable only for their flaws.

Still, guns make weird noises and they aren't really accurately captured by any games other than hardcore tactical sims like Raven Shield and ArmA. They are both quieter and louder than people think. Emptying an SMG might FEEL LIKE SPRAYING LEAD or it might be a little iron laser with next to no recoil. It depends on the SMG. I'd link to YouTube videos here but I'm at work.

[boojiboy7]

I enjoyed Doom 3 for being a very literal Doom update.

[negativedge]

[T.]

[SuperWes]

Don't Call of Duty games have tons of guns that are all basically the same thing? I'm not a gun guy, so I can't tell.

-Wes
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[JamesE]

Negativedge is wrong - it's completely OK to consolidate Doom WAD discussion here if you want to.

[drobe]

I was going to say something about FPS games and weapons, and how weapons are the user interface to the first person shooter, given that a weapon will dictate to you the parameters of the specific behaviors of your gameplay. And later, I was going to say something about how first person shooters must rely on a variety of weapons that perform entirely different functions, relying on entirely different mechanisms, and thereby elucidating entirely different behaviors in order to achieve true variation in gameplay. Then I was going to say something about Quake and Unreal and the Heretic games, and maybe even serious sam and tribes, and how things started to go down hill with an uninspired HL1 modding community and medal of honor, and now we have world of warcraft.
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