I'm sorry, but this game is just bullshit. The difficulty is insane, the first level is almost unbeatable without farming. I don't care what you say, but it is just piss poor game design to make a game where you can't change the difficulty level. Even if the "true" experience is on normal, let the plebians who can't play at that insane difficulty have an easy or very easy and let them know it may not be "as 'good'".

Even after an enemy attacks and I counter, they immediately counter me and take 80% of my health. I've played both Demon Souls and this now and I don't understand where all the talk about the deep combat system is coming from. There are only like 5 moves in the whole game: light, heavy, counter, critical hit (which doesn't look any different in Bloodborne) and running attack.

Instead, take a game like Arkham City, where there are at least 20 different moves. Ninja Gaiden, also notoriously difficult, had probably 30: http://ninjagaiden.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Dragon_Sword_Techniques

Yeah, maybe they are all not required to play the game, its been years since I beat it but they are there. For the people that rave about the games from this developer, at least be honest and say the games are fun because they're sadistically difficult, not because the combat is this crazy innovative system. The PS Move Gladiator game in Sports Champions is the best combat system I've ever used, although I know how unrealistic it is to expect that. At least Skyward Sword made you swipe in different directions based on enemies block patterns, etc.

Also, you spend about half the game slowly walking around, which I don't know if you haven't heard, but it isn't hella fun.

At this point I'm only even playing this just because I'm bored and don't have anything else to do.

Obviously limited by how many buttons on a controller and how "un-awkwardly" you can use button combinations, but for me, something like this (partially inspired by demon souls).

Multiple weapon types:

Short sword, Long Sword, Spear, Mace/Club, Morningstar, Crossbow, Small shield, heavy shield, mail breaker

Combat is heavily influenced by position. If you're in a small room with a short sword fighting a guy with a spear, his attack damage is severely reduced and yours is highly increased. Shield types are limited according to weapon type. You can't use a full head to toe shield and use a long sword, mace or morningstar. Shields have a health rating that influences their stability. Wooden shields will eventually break, and break faster against a mace or morningstar.

Parries, Ripostes: A sword parry against a morningstar will get you disarmed if they are doing a riposte, but a riposte from an initial morning star strike will disarm them (you can pick up your weapons, but now you're in trouble).

Ripostes against spear wielders will result in a broken spear, with the chance of breaking the spear dependent on the weapon (long > short > club).

Wooden shield users get an advantage against spears in that if the spear sticks, they can break it, but there is also a chance of the spear hitting the player through the shield if it is a critical strike.

Enemies wearing plate armor get a movement reduction penalty after strikes from blunt weapons, but mail users are weak to mail breakers. No armor or light armor gets you the fastest movement speed and largest window of time to parry or riposte.

And so an and so forth. Please comment on ideas here and feel free to add more.

It just seems to me that for games focusing on medieval combat, that the wheel is being re-invented many times over, when an in-depth system that mirrors in some ways how it works in real-life would be sufficient for most titles, with only enemy types and stories differing (of course you can throw magic and made-up weapons into the mix for a twist, but yeah)

@3eyedrazorback: I feel like what you're saying is the most common explanation. It seems like big name blockbuster titles are released with much greater regularity these days. Also, the amount of them out there compared to the "good old days" seems much higher.

Is the effective lifespan of a game much less than it used to be 2, 5, 10 years ago? I remember when Halo 2 came out that the active population (at least seemed to be) was large for years. Now, the active population for a game like Halo 4, Battlefield 4, etc. drops off significantly within a couple months.

For single player experiences, I remember back in the day playing the game game over and over again for years, even if I had already beaten it. Seems like these days most people run through it once and then are done forever.

So do games these days have less staying power? Do gamers get bored more easily now? Is there just so much more out there to play that people move on to something else faster? Or, has it always been this way and my perception has just changed now that I'm out in the real, post-college world?

The only reason I liked it in Halo 4 was because it didn't seem to take that much away from the view, at least for me. My guess is that Halo's overall low field of view is what you dislike, as it is a console only game and many of them never go beyond 60 degrees. That is one reason why some people prefer PC games because that is more often adjustable.

I would say that maybe an option to toggle off these kind of view obstructions would be good.

I don't know if you have ever played Battlefield 3 or 4, but the DPV buggy in that game.. if you drive it in first person view, the metal bars of the frame jut into your field of vision at like 30-40 degrees so you have like no peripheral vision at all. It would be like if a foot on each side of the windshield on your car had black bars on it. That is an example of an annoying view obstruction to me (although you *can* drive in in third person, unless you're playing hardcore mode). Having the very edge of the screen show the metal part of the Spartan helmet seems tame to me.

@EPICCOMMANDER: Haha, I was saying that I like reasonable view obstructions in games (single player only). Halo 4's seemed reasonable and I thought it was cool to actually see the edges of the helmet. If a game had you wearing a helmet that gave you tunnel vision though that would be annoying. I actually have this issue with some of the vehicles in the Battlefield games, especially the attack helicopter and the buggies. It is like they restrict my FOV to like 50

Oh, yeah, you should definitely be able to see your feet, legs, etc. when looking down. Agree 100%. I remember watching the pre-release interviews for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway back in the day where they had you being able to do this, and this was actually the way that you checked how many grenades and magazines that you had left if you opted to turn off the HUD for a more realistic experience (something I did in the two preceding it... no suppression indicators, health, crosshair, etc.. made the game much more fun)

So, in FPS games, there are a number of things at work that determine your accuracy, as you know.

Excuse me if these terms are something you already know.

Recoil is something you have to adjust for based on the power and rate of fire for the weapon. High power weapons usually have high recoil to reduce the time between shots that they are fired. A high rate of fire weapon has high recoil because each projectile knocks the weapon in a certain direction.

Spread is used to emulate stability of your aim. If you are running, the spread is very high, if you are walking it is low, if you are crouching it is even less and if you are prone and not moving at all it is at its lowest.

This isn't an original idea at all, but wouldn't it provide a better gameplay experience if the concept of spread was replaced with the crosshair moving around? So, if you are moving or stationary, standing straight up, crouching, prone, whatever the crosshair would be the same size. However, to do the same thing that spread does, the crosshair would move around. If you are walking at high speed the crosshair would be moving up and down, left and right. Whereever it was is where the projectile would go, and there would be no randomness or misunderstandings about where you were actually aiming. Like recoil, this would be something that the user could control more directly. With recoil you can compensate somewhat for it if you know how. With spread you can only compensate for it indirectly by reducing the randomness. With a moving crosshair, you would be able to adjust your aim to compensate for your stance or movement speed if you knew how, and there would be no "what? I had the crosshair centered on the other player, what happened?" kind of reactions.

Note: It seems like some games, e.g. Battlefield 4, have scope sway, which is similar to this, but the scope sway is present along with spread. Also, for games where there is no crosshair or it can be disabled, the rendering of the weapon would have to realistically show that is was bobbing, which it seems to do in a fair amount of games already.

Thoughts? Comments? The only thing I can think of that might make this an issue is that having a moving object that the player constantly needs to track might be annoying or headache inducing for some, similar to motion blur effects.

So, first person games are supposed to make the player "feel" like the character, whereas your average movie or third person game is basically a "view" of what is happening. That being said, there are certain things that make the use of the first person perspective more engaging.

1) [Lack of] motion blur. Motion blur is a purely cinematic effect. It only occurs due to the limitations of viewing/recording devices like cameras. In a true first-person view, motion blur is extremely subtle unless someone is having vision problems for some reason (either as a result of medical problems or being drunk or whatever). In fact, the human brain shuts off your optic nerve many times a day during periods of high motion because it simply does not like blurriness. This is called saccadic masking. Therefore, in order for a game to provide a good first-person experience as opposed to a cinematic one, shouldn't this be used much, much less? Think about it. If there is a lot of motion on screen anyway, your vision is automatically going to focus on certain parts and blur others. Doing it in game **for the purposes of providing a first-person experience** is actually less realistic and wastes processing and other hardware resources which would be better used elsewhere.

2) HUD bobbing: This isn't really very realistic in many implementations. There aren't really a lot of HUDs in real life, but as a proof of concept take a pair of cheap work goggles. Draw a little ammo counter, health meter, whatever on it. Put the goggles on and make sure they fit reasonable well. Now shake your head around. The images on the goggles shouldn't move much relative to your view. If they do that means your goggles aren't tight enough. At the most they should only move like a few millimeters. In games where super soldiers have power armors, etc. that explain the ammo counter, etc. then wouldn't you think that their helmet would be fitted reasonably well since it is used in combat scenarios? For first person games where the HUD is just there to assist the player and there isn't an in-game reason for it then the HUD bobbing is completely pointless and just makes it harder for the player to see the extra information that the HUD exists solely to show them.

3)Six degrees of freedom: In most games with a first person perspective, there are only 4 degrees of freedom. You can look up, down, to the left (turn to the left), to the right (turn to the right). However, in real-life there are two other ways in which you can look: to the left (*rotate* to the left) and to the right (*rotate* to the right). This is in games like ARMA, flight sims, and vehicles in games like Battlefield, but wouldn't it be more immersive if this was present in more games. For example, in an FPS, you are running towards a certain area. However, just to be safe, you turn around every so often to make sure nobody is following you. With 4 degrees of freedom, you have to stop running, and turn to the left or the right and backpedal. Then you turn around again and start running in that direction. Instead, what if there was a button to hold that would allow you to only rotate your view left or right? In the scenario above, this would allow you to look behind you or to the side but still keep you running forward and have your weapon/item pointing forward. In most scenarios turning your view is just as fast as rotating your view, but it would be more immersive and, in very specific scenarios like above be useful. I don't know about you, but it annoys me to have to quit running, turn around and backpedal, then turn around and start running again, especially if you are playing a game where this kind of cautious behavior is needed.

4) Minor view obstructions

So, in games with a first-person view, the view often contains no obstructions. For example, if you are playing a game where the main character wears glasses, the only way you would ever know that is if there was a cutscene.. they do not appear in your view of the game world.

In real-life, most everyone "sees" their nose all the time, but their brain sort of tunes it out. That would explain why you don't see first person views with a nose obstructing the field of vision.

However, I noticed while playing Halo 4 at the end of 2012 that you could actually see Master Chief's helmet in your field of vision. You could see the "bill" of it as well as the sides, etc.

See here: http://www.gamertheory.com/uploads/games/halo4campaign5.jpg

I remember thinking this was pretty cool, especially when running or looking up, etc.you could see more of the "bill" in your field of vision. It didn't obstruct your view too much so it wasn't annoying. Wouldn't it be cool if more games did this? What if the Half-Life games had had Gordon Freeman's glasses in the field of vision like this:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/10/01/article-0-154A31EE000005DC-185_634x423.jpg

If there was an explosion, or you fell from a high distance or some other jarring event, the character might automatically reach up and adjust them. Looking up or down would make more or less of them come into your field of vision (looking left and right would not, in first person games you never actually turn your head, just rotate your body.. unless you're playing a game like ARMA or a flight sim where you get 6 degrees of freedom where you can hold a button down to look around). Or, say your character was wearing googles for some reason. Maybe he is skiing or going scuba diving. Having them visible in your field of vision would be more immersive.

Thoughts, comments?

These publishers exist for pretty much one reason: to make MONEY. They aren't striking gold selling us overpriced medicine that people need to stay alive, they are selling video games, a form of entertainment that some people don't even engage in that much.

I understand that people dislike them ruining franchises, and I personally dislike them because of the things I have heard (and the lawsuits that have been won) where they worked programmers 60 and 80 hour weeks without paying them overtime, but it is completely ludicrous to hate them because they make a lot of money. If they are doing underhanded or even criminal things to do it, then yeah, that is a good reason to hate them. However, if they're adding microtransactions, pre-release DLC, etc. they are doing this to make money. Nobody is making them do this, they are simply going to see how much people will tolerate to pay for a game before they say "you know what I will pass on this one". I personally think the microtransaction crap, etc. actually screws with the quality of some games which is why I don't like it but I really don't understand why people are mad because they are making money. Nobody owes you a cheaper game or free mod tools. If they want to give it to you then that is fine, but there is no moral obligation to do so.