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[Pookaball]

So, I was on all kinds of gaming&modding forums discussing mods that can make bullets hurt more and a lot of people were saying that high bullet damage is not what a game needs. The opinion was that games need is an injury treatment system since it's better than one-shot kills. So, you know, most mods just make a gunshot kill you even if it hits a leg (a lot of examples out there, for example HL series and/or GTA series). And I personally think that an injury system would be better because you don't always die from an arm/leg shot. I heard people surviving even stomach wounds, and that's the thing : if there's such system in a game, then you don't need powered up guns. It would bring up it's own damage system and you could have only died from a headshot or a leg bleedout, which is much better than istant death from getting your toes shot 5 times with a pistol.

And another thing is health regeneration with no treatment at all. Why do AAA game developers do that? I think this idea isn't retarded just for console gamers (mostly because of different controls not being comfortable for playing a shooter game). I can understand picking up healthkits and fighting again, but I don't see any sense in getting shot, lying 5 seconds in a corner and fighting again.

What do you think? Do games need healthkits? Do they need medics? Do games need to be realistic at least?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think making violent videogames even more realistic about how the violence works is a bad idea -- we don't need to see actual organs flying around or whatever to get politicians even more involved and parents more upset. violence is abstract for a reason: it's a fantasy, escapism, people usually play games to have fun, not to witness the harsh reality of how dying works. a HP bar is more abstract and appealing (to most people) than actually seeing blood come out of someone's mouth because their lungs are filling with it

i think it'd be interesting to try, and might work in a few niche games though. bushido blade did something similar; when you were cut in the arm with a sword you simply couldn't use that arm anymore, if you were cut in the leg you moved slower or lost the ability to stand and had to crawl. but even though fighting games experimented with that with bushido blade, it didn't really catch on, because it's too realistic and gruesome, and fighting games continue to use health bars

[Pookaball]

I agree that violent needs to be abstract, and I actually was talking about an abstract level of "realism", kind of thinking of Fallout and that classic Deus Ex. They invovled a limb-based system, which I liked a lot and I wonder if it should appear more or less often in games.

[s0]

And I personally think that an injury system would be better because you don't always die from an arm/leg shot.

you don't but you're often incapacitated so it comes down to the same thing in game terms.

i think high bullet damage is a great idea because bullet sponge enemies suck and they're extremely prevalent in modern FPS gams for some reason. my personal philosophy is that non-boss enemies shouldn't take more than 3 or 4 hits to kill.

[barley]

I like it when it's like headshot->1 shot dead, body shot->2-3 shots dead, limbs->4-5 shots dead but crippled from the first shot. like games where you shoot someone in the leg and they have to limp around.

I think anything more than that depends on the type of game you're actually making. if you're doing a survival game and not just a straight fps, then stuff like bodypart-specific injuries and bleeding and things makes sense, but it wouldn't make sense in something like CS:S.

definitely hate games where you can put 10+ shots into an enemy and they still don't die. it doesn't make them seem tougher, it makes your gun seem weak.

[Graham-]

Health regen is to create this:

[Panurge]

I wonder what a really realistic depiction of violence would be like? Lots of gore and anatomical detail, yes, but also enemies who don't just grunt and pirouette when they die, but rather panic under pressure, piss themselves, beg, sob, hold up pictures of their families, try nobly to stuff each other's organs back in etc.

I'm not advocating that as a game concept but I do wonder which is the more pernicious - an ultra-realistic approach or the more common and cartoony presentation of violence as simple mindless fun?

With respect to player damage, an arm shot could disable your mouse, a leg shot disable the keyboard and a bullet to the brain would wipe your hard drive clean...

[Mittens]

Bullets need to have high damage because the winning or the gunfight needs to be decided quickly.

Example time;
Halo - you have the element of surprise, you leap from cover, you were first to take aim, you fire the first shot... and continue to spray hundreds of bullets... on and on... eventually your enemy throws a sticky grenade onto your face and ends up winning the encounter.
Or worse, in the time you have been pumping tissue paper ammunition into your oponent another one has appeared to help him out of trouble.

If bullets don't hurt most of the elements of a gun encounter mean nothing;
positioning
stealth
cover
aim
initiative
backup
etc.

all becomes meaningless when you know you still have a good 30 seconds of health left in you after you start getting pounded

[barley]

panic under pressure, piss themselves, beg, sob, hold up pictures of their families, try nobly to stuff each other's organs back in etc.

oh man, this would make deathmatch games hilarious

[gimymblert]

It's all about what is the goal and the gameplay function. Most enemy are just obstacle, so having internal organ simulation is overkill, it only had to the tediousness. I played deus ex, killed all enemy but had my legs broken, tedious crawling ensue

[ThemsAllTook]

Do games need to be realistic at least?

No. Realism and satisfying gameplay mechanics rarely overlap.

[s0]

It's all about what is the goal and the gameplay function. Most enemy are just obstacle, so having internal organ simulation is overkill, it only had to the tediousness. I played deus ex, killed all enemy but had my legs broken, tedious crawling ensue

nintendo should remake deus ex as a sonic game with motion controls imo

Do games need to be realistic at least?

No. Realism and satisfying gameplay mechanics rarely overlap.

depends on the game yo

[Belimoth]

Realism is a dumb goal, but DayZ had high damage and incapacitation which made for interesting gameplay.

[Graham-]

Yeah, reality sucks. Who even invented that?

[s0]

Realism is a dumb goal

u do realize that u say this but in the same sentence praise a game that tries to be realistic for trying to be realistic, right?

[_Tommo_]

u do realize that u say this but in the same sentence praise a game that tries to be realistic for trying to be realistic, right?

do you realize that "but" in a sentence means "despite what I just said", right?

Anyway high damage can be good when it forces players to think about strategy and teamwork, and generally works with people that want to spend more time learning and mastering a game, as instakills are REALLY frustrating for newbies, unless they're random kills from the freakin walls like in COD where anyone can score shooting at random.

[Belimoth]

I guess I have to start making Eres-length posts to explain everything I say. The 'but' is the key word there.

Aiming for realism isn't a good game design philosophy in and of itself because realistic gameplay and fun/engaging gameplay are orthogonal concepts. You could say that an exception to this would be when your target audience thrives on systems that approach the complexity of real-world interactions, in which case I think it's more about the complexity than it is the realism since you can systemize real-world interactions in many different ways.

I don't think DayZ is great because of how realistic it is, I don't even think it's that great. I think it approaches person-with-gun <> other-person-with-gun interactions in a way that is interesting regardless of the design philosophy behind it. High damage projectiles and permadeath-- meaning you lose your inventory and respawn, realistic permadeath would mean you don't get to play anymore --creates an atmosphere of tension and promotes more conservative play than other shooters. Stealth and non-combat options become more desirable in this sort of context which opens up the playspace to new possibilities.

Incapacitation and hunger/thirst maintenance serves the same purpose; it gives you a reason to avoid combat, and it motivates playing with friends or teaming up with other survivors (a non-combat interaction). They are still gameplay mechanics and it would gain nothing from being more realistic, i.e. internal organ simulation, "oh no my character has scurvy I should've looted more fruit," etc.

TL;DR Reality is a source of gameplay ideas just like anything else but it is still the gameplay that matters first.

EDIT:
Yeah what Tommo said.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think there are several different kinds of "realisms" here. most games go for realistic graphics; that's usually what is meant by the word realistic: realistic graphics, physics, etc. -- very few games aim to be realistic in other ways. for instance, very few games have a bathroom meter for when the player's character needs to go to the bathroom (the sims tried it, and even *they*, simulation fans, didn't like it and took it out in later sims games, because it's stupid)

similarly, realism in combat means a lot of sitting around doing nothing. soldiers in real wars don't fight constantly, being on actual battle missions represents maybe a tenth of a percent of the average a soldier's time, even in wars like iraq and afghanistan. for example: my father was in the army for several years during vietnam, and never once fought in battle. i'm not saying most soldiers never see battle at all, just that it happens, and it shows how rare battle actually is. but if you play games where you play as a soldier, about 100% of the time you are in battle, you never have to do the other duties of a soldier, such as training, standing guard, escort missions where you don't actually fight at all

take escort missions. when was the last time you had an escort mission in a videogame and the enemy DIDN'T attack? probably never. yet in real life, escort missions are rarely attacked. but no game company is like "let's make the game more realistic by only giving a 1% chance that the player's escort mission is attacked, most of the time it'll be boring walking from place to place"

so basically there's realism and then there's realism. players want realism if it means realistic looking explosions. players don't want realism when it means standing around for 8 hours doing nothing, and going to the bathroom occasionally

[s0]

(the sims tried it, and even *they*, simulation fans, didn't like it and took it out in later sims games, because it's stupid)

what r u talking about, sims 3 still has it.

similarly, realism in combat means a lot of sitting around doing nothing. soldiers in real wars don't fight constantly, being on actual battle missions represents maybe a tenth of a percent of the average a soldier's time, even in wars like iraq and afghanistan.

i would actually want to make and/or play a game that simulates that. it'd be a welcome change from presenting war as a fantastical hollywood disneyland experience which is what 99% of gams do.

[ALourenco]

   I think realistic and non-realistic games are completely diferent styles and there isn't a better one. The variable here is the Player's preference.
   But there is one thing that we, developers, need to be aware. Or we do a non-Realistic game or a Realistic Game. We can't do an almost realistic game or an half realistic game, because the player will expect reallity and the non-realistic features are going to outstand and the player may get shocked.
   This is similiar to what happens in the called Uncanny valley. If we have a cartoonish character we think he's fun and cool, in the other hand if we have a very realistic character it's also cool. Finaly, if we have a suposely realistic character, since we know how a realistic character should be, we don't like it and we often focus our mind int it's flaws.

Sorry if my english isn't perfect.