FPS games campaign mode needs serious change

It seems, that for games like Call of Duty campaign part has barely changed in time. They literally have added very little in that period. There are some new ideas and the setting change. I barely see anything fresh in there. All they have done is adding a different setting and some better graphics to same old. But in general, there is barely any change at all. be it Modern Warfare or World War 2 or something else, makes no difference - it still feels like the same old, same old. Me personally would like to see some serious change - agree or not. Altrough the "same old way" can work to some extent, but right now its like the only way to play a campaign mode.

*This is my "serious change" -
For instance, i hate the pace of a games. You usually just rush trough the game environment, you run your own personal mini-blitzkrieg. Think about a game, where player can easily get stuck in a same level for a very long time instead. And that this is not just some weird in-game glitch, but purposely added gameplay element. Players always expect to be able to defeat all the enemies right away. They expect, that they suppress the enemy in seconds, charge over to the other side, finish off the remaining troops and carry on at the same pace throughout the most of the campaign all the way to the end. But what if they can't? What if enemies are so persistent, well dug in and so perfectly placed? And above all, completely random so you never really even know how many of them are there, or where exactly they are located in the first place. Or where more of them could come into to the gaming environment as reinforcements.

Think about an open world game, where fighting AI is so hard, that getting across the first street alone feels like a mission of its own! And there are dozens of streets! That you never really know, when its clear to run from one house to another or not. You have no idea, if some sniper or loads of units open fire on you, from a position you thought was surely a cleared. That enemies can come back and retake areas, that you already cleared out. Yes, it would be so easy to die in this game, so it would maybe evoke some sort of respawning with or without limited number of extra lives. But so what, be it that way. At least its different in terms of a gameplay. Besides, I'm done with the "downed mode". Its way too overused!

The sheer fact, that enemies are often dug in and use crossfire, makes some positions very persistent. They don't have to break cover every 5 seconds, like they did it in Modern Warfare 2. In fact some of them should never move outside of they're "perimeter", should never really break cover. This all makes rushing to enemy occupied house to flank a them very risky business. But it also evokes cooperative gaming elements, such as suppressive fire. Some players have to lay down some cover fire, force enemies to take cover. While others take a risk and try to cross the open space. Some other person might look out for flanks and possible counter-attacks. Even if everything is perfectly planned, battle can turn very quickly from success to a total failure. And it can eventually end up with enemies counter-attacking and taking the players position altogether!

Think about this - easy comes, easy goes. If the winning is so easy, the sense of accomplishment is very low, sometimes it barely exists at all. Sometimes it even feels totally dull. In fact too often it feels dull. Thats why people stop playing cooperative mode, thats why nobody really played trough World At War campaign more than a few times. I think finishing some extraordinarily hard mission will feel like 1000x more accomplishment, than getting trough yet another dull and boring campaign, where average enemy AI lasts about 10 seconds. I think this would be a perfect game for a cooperative gaming. And especially perfect for the LAN party! A something that actually demands a cooperation, not rushing.

I just hate the current state of campaign gameplay. F*** it, I'm not gonna get next Call of Duty. I'm mainly a singleplayer/cooperative fanboy and i don't see anything new coming from these sections. They probably put theyr focus mainly on some dumbf*** zombie mode, messed up spec-ops or who knows what :( Also, there should be differently ****s and/or ability to choose which weapons you want to use in your missions, before the mission even starts. And not use some pre-selected sets. I also like stats, especially the individual weapon stats like "shots fired", "kills". Could make some excel document ****page, where you can also see, which enemy types killed with which weapon. And that all should add-up on some main stats page :D

Tell me what you want to change regards to campaign mode in games like that? I'm especially talking about gameplay mechanics, not about setting.

Stop playing Call of Duty and play Crysis and S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

Open world where you don't know where to go with snipers and enemies popping out and surprising you and frustrating the player? NO **** WAY! I want to have fun, not get lost, frustrated, and throw my controller through the window. After reading the first 2 paragraphs, I'm really glad Call of Duty hasn't changed.

Everything you listed sounds like it would infuriate the average player, not challenging them, making campaigns even worse and NOT fun. Campaigns are fun as they are. I don't want a ridiculous challenge ruining the fun in any game.

a. if you like open world games, like above poster play crysis and stalker

b. realize there are people (like me) that don't like open world games but instead i like better the streamlined campaign like call of duty and bfbc

i agree but Killzone compaigns are great

I think your primary mistake is playing Call of Duty for its campaigns. It's the epitome of easy, straightforward, simplified FPS. If you want an experience closer to what you describe, quit even looking at CoD, as it would undermine the basis of the success of that game. It has always been about simple, accessible, uncomplicated gameplay, and although I agree that CoD has changed so little over the years that an overhaul of some sort would be in place, expecting it to turn into a hardcore shooter is just plain unreasonable.

As a previous poster said, start playing games like Crysis and Stalker if you want good single player. Especially the latter actually comes pretty close to what you've described. It's an open world game in a dynamic environment, and you can make it pretty much as hard as you want to, especially with mods.

Call of Duty sucks. End of discussion. TC, I agree with what you said.

Stop playing Call of Duty and play Crysis and S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

UpInFlames

Actually in vanilla Stalker, all the AI is so predictable. You know exactly where the members of every faction are operating at and where to expect whos attack. There is almost no upredictability at all. There either is some good mods for this, or there is nothing. This game also has too many factions, i would rather remove most of them and keep like just a 2 sides all together. Makes game more interesting for me at least.

As about Crysis, it has horrible AI and very short battles.

Open world where you don't know where to go with snipers and enemies popping out and surprising you and frustrating the player? NO **** WAY! I want to have fun, not get lost, frustrated, and throw my controller through the window. After reading the first 2 paragraphs, I'm really glad Call of Duty hasn't changed.

Everything you listed sounds like it would infuriate the average player, not challenging them, making campaigns even worse and NOT fun. Campaigns are fun as they are. I don't want a ridiculous challenge ruining the fun in any game.speedfreak48t5p

And as about my idea making CoD too hard, well - people die constantly in multiplayer too and they don't make a number of it. I don't see any problem by adding a respawn fuction to a singleplayer or cooperative element and it makes my idea more accessible. But you didn't read that part, didn't you? You know whats frustrating? That the missions are so super-short! Its damn frustrating! And there is almost no replay value at all in there! Rushing from one objective to another is a dull gameplay, thats it!

Besides, you are still thinking in a linear way, that there must be a quick-to-reach objectives constantly on the horizon, or you are instantly "lost". VEry short thinking indeed. The fact, that you don't know where enemies are means you need to take more risk, you need to actually work things out. Plan a strategy, scout for the area. For now, the CoD is like babysitting, where they basically tell you everything what you need to do. It simply is a dull game for dummies.

Actually in vanilla Stalker, all the AI is so predictable. You know exactly where the members of every faction are operating at and where to expect whos attack. There is almost no upredictability at all. There either is some good mods for this, or there is nothing. This game also has too many factions, i would rather remove most of them and keep like just a 2 sides all together. Makes game more interesting for me at least.

As about Crysis, it has horrible AI and very short battles.BattleforAzerot

ARMA II then.

Crysis has some of the most advanced AI in gaming. Very short battles? You literally fight against dozens of enemies at the harbor and excavation site and in Warhead you have to traverse an entire airfield TWICE which is one giant battle against both the Koreans and the aliens.

Seems to me you're being much too particular.

play goldeneye 007 , that is the way a campaigne should play

Excellent article, sir. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If anything, I'd say you're a little like me. In a war game (at the very least), crossing a street should be the most difficult thing to do. It's not about getting the biggest gun and blowing past small armies, it's about keeping your head down and battling it out street by street, or hedgerow by hedgerow.

When you were talking about the risk of running across the street with a ton of enemies, I instantly thought of Road to Hill 30. If you turn off suppression indicators and put it on authentic mode, it's a struggle and a half. If you charge headlong into situations, it'll most likely result in your squad's death as well as your own. And dancing in front of an MG nest is no joke. If you're exposed for a couple of seconds, you're done.

And I like having to make decisions about the situation. In Earned in Blood, there was a section where I had to take out an 88 on top of this hill. There was probably a safer way to take it out, but at this point of the level, I was ready to finish up and quit after getting gunned down so many times. So I ordered my guys into a charge. Normally the 88 would have picked me off, but this time I actually saw the shell fly right over my shoulder. We ran up the hill, firing and tossing grenades. Even had to bash one German with my rifle, that was how close it got.

There were maybe five or six guys up there, but at the end, there was a real sense of accomplishment, whereas in COD, there are five or six guys in every room you come across... you shoot 'em up and move on without thinking about it.

Excellent article, sir. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If anything, I'd say you're a little like me. In a war game (at the very least), crossing a street should be the most difficult thing to do. It's not about getting the biggest gun and blowing past small armies, it's about keeping your head down and battling it out street by street, or hedgerow by hedgerow.

When you were talking about the risk of running across the street with a ton of enemies, I instantly thought of Road to Hill 30. If you turn off suppression indicators and put it on authentic mode, it's a struggle and a half. If you charge headlong into situations, it'll most likely result in your squad's death as well as your own. And dancing in front of an MG nest is no joke. If you're exposed for a couple of seconds, you're done.

And I like having to make decisions about the situation. In Earned in Blood, there was a section where I had to take out an 88 on top of this hill. There was probably a safer way to take it out, but at this point of the level, I was ready to finish up and quit after getting gunned down so many times. So I ordered my guys into a charge. Normally the 88 would have picked me off, but this time I actually saw the shell fly right over my shoulder. We ran up the hill, firing and tossing grenades. Even had to bash one German with my rifle, that was how close it got.

There were maybe five or six guys up there, but at the end, there was a real sense of accomplishment, whereas in COD, there are five or six guys in every room you come across... you shoot 'em up and move on without thinking about it.

Sharpie125

Sounds like a real epic moment, that you don't get every day!

[QUOTE="BattleforAzerot"]Actually in vanilla Stalker, all the AI is so predictable. You know exactly where the members of every faction are operating at and where to expect whos attack. There is almost no upredictability at all. There either is some good mods for this, or there is nothing. This game also has too many factions, i would rather remove most of them and keep like just a 2 sides all together. Makes game more interesting for me at least.

As about Crysis, it has horrible AI and very short battles.UpInFlames

ARMA II then.

Crysis has some of the most advanced AI in gaming. Very short battles? You literally fight against dozens of enemies at the harbor and excavation site and in Warhead you have to traverse an entire airfield TWICE which is one giant battle against both the Koreans and the aliens.

Seems to me you're being much too particular.

Arma 2 sadly does not take place in a concealed spaces, i would rather have more indoor and less outdoor. And the controls are very difficult, they are not based on wasd. So i have to figure them all out from start. Maybe i should try it once day. I wonder if there is any stats or respawning in a scenario mode.

I didn't see any how Crysis AI is like best, all they often just run cicles around the trees and other dumb things. I did download some mod, that adds many times more enemies, than there regularry is, but it was just for the first level. But i played the whole thing without invisibility and wasted at least like hour or two getting trough the level. Had to fall back halfa way trough level, because they kept pushing me on.

The problem is that you call the single player portion of an FPS the "campaign" as if it's meant to be consumed, digested and deficated out as part of our training for the drone warfare of MP.

Games like Quake I and II, Half-Life-1/2/ep1/ep2 simply don't seem to exsist anymore - FPS are specifically designed all the time to specifically function as multiplayer games so theirs really nothing about them that can't be recreated in next years shovelware.

Even Borderlands, so wildly popular is just a storyless game that only becomes "playable" once you get some buds into the arena, otherwise it's just a vacant and lonely experience.


I have high hopes for RAGE because..well, to be quite blunt, if iD Software can't save us from 10 years of playing army man, then the FPS genre as we know it is dead.

Stop playing Call of Duty and play Crysis and S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

UpInFlames

[QUOTE="UpInFlames"]

Stop playing Call of Duty and play Crysis and S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

wizdom

i agree but Killzone compaigns are great

AbusedMajesty

I don't have PS3, besides i hate controller for FPS.

FPS is all for online you want campaign play something like an RPG and when u wanna do some online play go for FPS.. FPS arn't made for their campaigns anymore....

Open world where you don't know where to go with snipers and enemies popping out and surprising you and frustrating the player? NO **** WAY! I want to have fun, not get lost, frustrated, and throw my controller through the window. After reading the first 2 paragraphs, I'm really glad Call of Duty hasn't changed.

Everything you listed sounds like it would infuriate the average player, not challenging them, making campaigns even worse and NOT fun. Campaigns are fun as they are. I don't want a ridiculous challenge ruining the fun in any game.

speedfreak48t5p

That's what the radar is for. The one in Crysis is pretty long-ranged enough. When enemy blips show up, you still have time to take cover and survey the situation. I wish there was a way to turn off the radar though. That would add an element of unpredictability.

If you take the time, you'd actually see the patrol pattern the KPA and aliens take and find the best place to ambush them.

One of these things that is overlooked by almost any player in this topic is the idea, that player has to constantly move on. I would love a game, where you could visit same levels or areas constantly over and over again and there is always something happening. For instance, take a swamp area from Stalker: Clear Sky and built a 20+ hours gaming experience around just THAT area and nothing more. Player will always be in the same swam, he could move around within the borders of that swamp, but swamp would be like only area in the game.

Thats what made me mad about Clear Sky. The swamp faction war was so horribly short, i expected just THAT kind of an experience and i don't know any game that would allow it. Clear Sky clearly did not have that. Another thing with Stalker series in general, is that NPCs have fixed routes, they tend to stick to certain areas only. If you play the game long enough (I usually played same game like 100+ hours without starting a new game) you will notice a certain pattern.

One idea would be being in enemy territory, that is occupied by large number of units. And you literally have to sneak around and plan your attacks. In addition, some areas would be so heavily defended, that taking these objectives in 1 got is a 1 in a million success rate. And i would like respawning in this kind of a game, with heavy penalty coming along with it. Rather than reloading from old checkpoint. That would make a game, where you spend hours and hours wearing down the enemy. Rather than rushing into every outpost, defeating every opponent in 20 seconds and moving on like in Far Cry 2.

clearly youve not been taking a look into non brand-name fps titles :P

halo, mw2, and bfbc2 dont make a genre..

stalker

serious sam HD

half life 2 (assuming you count ep. 1 & 2)

left 4 dead 1 & 2 (technicality)

sniper: ghost warrior (despite it being a bad game)

bioshock

singularity

rainbow 6: vegas

fallout 3

look at this list.. look at it very little of your rant applies to such titles..

One of these things that is overlooked by almost any player in this topic is the idea, that player has to constantly move on. I would love a game, where you could visit same levels or areas constantly over and over again and there is always something happening. For instance, take a swamp area from Stalker: Clear Sky and built a 20+ hours gaming experience around just THAT area and nothing more. Player will always be in the same swam, he could move around within the borders of that swamp, but swamp would be like only area in the game.

Thats what made me mad about Clear Sky. The swamp faction war was so horribly short, i expected just THAT kind of an experience and i don't know any game that would allow it. Clear Sky clearly did not have that. Another thing with Stalker series in general, is that NPCs have fixed routes, they tend to stick to certain areas only. If you play the game long enough (I usually played same game like 100+ hours without starting a new game) you will notice a certain pattern.

One idea would be being in enemy territory, that is occupied by large number of units. And you literally have to sneak around and plan your attacks. In addition, some areas would be so heavily defended, that taking these objectives in 1 got is a 1 in a million success rate. And i would like respawning in this kind of a game, with heavy penalty coming along with it. Rather than reloading from old checkpoint. That would make a game, where you spend hours and hours wearing down the enemy. Rather than rushing into every outpost, defeating every opponent in 20 seconds and moving on like in Far Cry 2.

BattleforAzerot

So you basically want an open world FPS with AI that defies all reasoning and just keeps randomly spawning over and over again just for the hell of it. Yeah, there is no such game and thank God for that.

So you basically want an open world FPS with AI that defies all reasoning and just keeps randomly spawning over and over again just for the hell of it. Yeah, there is no such game and thank God for that.

UpInFlames

Actually there is nothing against reason to attack and recapture a lost territory, in some certain context. In battle of Stalingrad, one train staion really changed hands at one point like 24 times. Besides very good AI does not act same way every single time and also the situation is never the same. Already the very basic fact, like the number of enemies is very different every time, sometimes its 50, sometimes its just 5. Sometimes they are around to stay, sometimes they are just passing by. Sometimes they are already engaged with someone. Sometimes they have MG or mortar team with them, sometimes not. Sometimes its just single sniper.In additon, there could be happenign some sort of global war, where one side tries to capture one are and other side tried to capture it. But either side could ever relly win. Like Mamayev Kurgan was in Stalingrad. But i doubt you know any basics about that battle.

What i suggested is that at the same time as you are playing, you also observe how same area transforms or changes over the time. Its not, like its gonna be exactly same every time. Not like in Far Cry 2, where you can enver to every are you like every time you wish. Altrough i have played that game to a point, where i have raided every outpost/base on average like 25 times!

If you play the Stalker in a way hardcore players do, you will understand. Because they don't just go trough all of the missions and then finish game and stop playing. Some of them constantly visit same areas, for atmospheric reasons for example. Its more fun than that dumba s s Call of Duty campaign, which has absolutely 0 replay value!

edit:

For some who want to read more, i have posted some of my ideas to

http://www.gamespot.com/users/BattleforAzerot/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25879278&tag=all-about%3Bblog1