A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again
I was recently discussing Farcry 2 with some friends and how cool the fire spread system was - And how it essentially was never used again after that title.
Is there a cool feature or mechanic you've seen in a game and hope to see more of?
Nemesis system. But Wanker Warner Bros tossed a patent on it and no one else could use it.
The nemesis system patents and Namco's loading screen mini game patent are two examples of why game mechanics and features should never be granted an exclusive patent.
Of course Namco's patents expired in 2015 at a time when seamless load screens had become the industry standard.
Who knows what the gaming landscape will look like when people are finally able to get their hands on the nemesis system again?
What's that?
There's plenty of better deep dives on YouTube, but basically it's a system in Shadows of Mordor (and moreso in Shadows of War) that would take a random NPC you were fighting and were joined by (or almost killed,) and elevate them thematically. If one knocked you down there's a chance they would pick up your sword and break it, smack talk you, and walk away. That guy, of his name was Doug, became Doug the Sword Breaker. Never time you saw him, he'd get a short introduction and a quip or two to remove you of who he was.
If you died, since you were a spirit they'd just mock that they already best you before. But if you were killing them, they might get a scene where they manage to get away to amplify the story. Or maybe you'll just kill them. It was random and happened with random NPCs, elevating them in the enemy army.
I believe in the second one you could even mind control someone, and take out the people above them, and have a spy in the upper ranks.
Imagine an action game with some Crusader Kings plot drama happening.
Honestly I think there's probably enough prior art to get away with using whatever you wanted from it. But a) I'm no lawyer and b) I'm not risking millions of dollars making a game.
Basically a pseudo random system that'd generate orcs for you to meet-fight-recruit they'd have very fleshed out intros
It didn't really take off to begin with but dual screen support like Supreme Commander had with the real-time map overview on the 2nd monitor. It could be a skirmish map or live track map for a racing game, live scoreboard, player status or inventory system.
I would love if Civilization or Crusader Kings implemented this.
Racing sims typically support telemetry that can be used to display info for the driver or overall race info. E.g. a dashboard on a phone mounted to the wheel stand, or a realtime online display and timing. People even make devices like wind simulator or ass-shaker for immersion.
Check out SimHub for customizable widget software that supports many games.
Wasn't there a game 5 years or so ago that you used your phone to play it as well I'm xbox or playstat?
Fun unlockables by doing some cheat.
Imagine telling a FIFA player that you used to be able to have a dog as referee by doing the Konami code. And it was not behind a fucking paywall.
International Super Star Soccer for SNES had this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYaHPm-yDl8&t=63
Dude I miss unlocking fighting game characters. Now they're all purchaseable... Like you literally can't just earn them from beating the arcade mode - that is if the game has an arcade mode to begin with these days
I miss cheats too, I remember my friend at school had cheat codes for gta vice city and I copied them down and took it home.
The number of "cheat codes" that were actually just bonus content. Like I remember there were codes in Diddy Kong Racing where you could change all the power-up balloons to any color, like all red or all blue. I also remember there were codes in Mechwarrior II that unlocked a few mechs. Like, there were NPCs in a few missions that were a Tarantula, a Battlemaster, and there were elementals in one level. You could cheat to play as them, but the Battlemaster crashed the game.
Good times.
Split screen coop/multiplayer
Way too many games only let you do multiplayer with one player and have online only coop campaigns
Used to be pretty standard that a guest could play with you online
The thing new games don't have that I miss from old games is friends to play the game with 😭
I want to see puzzles that are implemented using the physics engine. And I don't mean "toss the axe in the proper arc to trigger the gate" physics. I mean "stack the bricks on one end of the seesaw to balance it long enough to make the jump to the next platform". Or "use the blue barrels' buoyancy to raise the platform out of the water".
Yesss and more destruction physics. I miss watching cars crumple and get torn apart like in the burnout games. There was a really old ww2 dogfighting game where the plane wings could get sawn off and you'd see this smoking plane spiralling into the ground while the wing flew off in the opposite direction before the plane exploded on the ground.
I think those were mind blowing when I first played hl2, just because real time physics and destruction was novel, but now I think they grind the pacing to a halt. I think they just don't work in an action shooter IMO.
My opinion is the exact opposite. Narrative games, even action shooters, need to have high action and low action parts in balance. If high action segments are excessive, it can lead to combat fatigue. If low action parts are excessive, the player gets bored and the pacing dies.
Half-Life 2 E1, the "Low Lives" chapter, has probably the most stressful combat in the game because the player has to balance so many things. Shooting the zombies attacking Gordon versus helping Alyx fight. Helping Alyx versus keeping the flashlight charged. Firearms versus explosive props. All of that in oppressive darkness. Combat fatigue sets in. The short puzzle segments, even as simple as crawling through a vent to flip a switch, are opportunities to take a breath, absorb the environment, and prepare for the next segment -- especially at the end of that particular chapter, when the player escapes the zombies and has a chance to wind down.
At the same time, puzzles, by their slower nature, are excellent for delivering narrative and player training, and to let the player absorb the atmosphere. Alyx's first encounter with the stalkers in "Undue Alarm" wouldn't have had the same emotional impact if the player could just pop them in the head and move on.
In contrast, most of "Highway 17" is just a prolonged vehicle-based puzzle. By the time the player reaches the large railway bridge, they might be sick of driving. I know I was. It's a relief to finally engage in some platforming and long-range combat while traversing the bridge.
So what are the narrative values of my two examples? The cinderblock seesaw in "Route Kanal" is just player training. A show, don't tell method to let the player know that physics puzzles will be a factor. It's also a short break after the on-foot chase, before the encounter with the hunter chopper. In "Water Hazard", the contraptions serve a larger narrative purpose: they're the tools of the rebels' refugee evacuation effort. The player utilizes them like one of the refugees would have.
When I was replaying ‘HL2’ around ten years ago, I ran around the whole map looking for where I can get outside of the plot course, especially in the slower parts of the levels. This culminated in me driving the hoverboat up a three-meter-high wooden platform, falling from that platform myself, and not being able to climb up again to get the boat. After which I had to run from the attack helicopter on foot, and swim by myself later on that level.
I use about the same approach in the original ‘Deus Ex’, which I've been replaying recently: investigating every nook and cranny, being 100% stealthy, trying to go where the game shouldn't allow me to be. I actually found an exit from a scripted part of a level where only one path is normally possible — though there was nothing to do outside of that part. The game also gives experience points for getting into some remote or secret places.
A grapple hook
Just cause 2 with infinite distance grapple hook and chuck Norris character model. Too fun
there's a grappling hook in ARC Raiders (called the snap hook) and I have one but have never bothered using it. I should change that some day.
Palworld has craftable grapple guns that make for easier exploring... Unless you prefer your fire-breathing flying mount.
The grappling hook was a common mod in the original QuakeWorld scene and was included in the official Quake II CTF game mod. I'm surprised it didn't become a mainstay in games afterwards, it was so fun to use. Shogo: Mobile Armor Division had it built in and was one of the most fun FPS games I had ever played until cheaters took over.
Sekiro
dying light (1, 2, the beast)
I played on a Half Life (the first one) deathmatch server that had a grappling hook mod. It was awesome.
Just cause 2 with infinite distance grapple hook and chuck Norris character model. Too fun
Mods and self hosted servers
Arcade racers that aren't just... Bad.
Burnout Revenge was a beloved game of my childhood. You had bonuses from wrecking your foes, got bonuses for creating wrecks, and for near death experiences. And there was an awesome mode where you would launch your car into a scene to cause as much damage as possible.
Midnight Club 2 where you could customize your cars and race them on fun tracks, but could also just beep around the open world.
Maybe it's nostalgia, but I would love a fun racing game that doesn't have a GTA attached to it.
This is literally why people spend $500 on a switch 2; it has the only arcade racer on the market worth playing. If you don't want a single-game console or Mark Kart isn't whst you're looking for, tough luck.
SuperTuxKart is alright, from what I understand. They're also making a new version apparently. Though I'm not into karting arcades, so dunno for sure how it compares.
Try ‘Wreckfest’: it's similar to ‘Burnout’, but with better physics. Also ‘Circuit Superstars’ for a top-down racer with decent physics, pit stops, and multiplayer.
There are also ‘The Crew 2’ and ‘The Crew Motorfest’, ‘Tokyo Xtreme Racer’, ‘Asphalt Legends’, ‘Formula Legends’, ‘iRacing Arcade’, and of course ‘Forza Horizon’ 4/5 — but I haven't played any of these, so ymmv.
Check out Trail Out.
Destructible buildings like in Red Faction: Guerilla.
That's the thing I miss the most. We have such insanely powerful hardware now and yet we never exceeded 2009 in destruction tech.
Teardown scratched that itch a little bit but it lacks proper building physics.
I was recently discussing Farcry 2 with some friends and how cool the fire spread system was - And how it essentially was never used again after that title.
In case you didn't know, Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have a very similar fire spread system.
It's 2D, but the fire mechanic is pretty fun - Wildfire
Mechanics from the Mercenaries series. Destructible buildings, getting weapons and vehicles dropped to you anywhere at any time. Being able to ally with different factions. Oh, and the ability to call in airstrikes. Bunker busters, cluster bombs, artillery barrages, etc. Just Cause and Metal Gear Solid V are the closest things to that. But they just aren't the same.
And the ability to just fly like Superman. I'd like that in more games.
whyd you write my comment for me
I wanna see games going wide again. Get me something like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle again where we got racing, going fast, a creature battler/care system, multiplayer. I miss when games were full of a wide variety of shit.
Kirby Air Riders definitely feels like it keeps that spirit alive. The game could've just been City Trial and I would've paid $70 just to play City Trial, but they packed everything else in there too because they could.
Star Garden appears to be "Kirby Air Ride with a chao garden" and a deeply Dreamcast art style. Might be worth having on your radar
Thank you for that. Wish listed asap
Tanking with shields (force/kinetic shields in sci-fi games, not physical shields)
I liked when games let you face-tank damage with your shield (like in Mass Effect, before Andromeda where they made shields weak af and even removed shield gating) and not having to care for healing (unless you lose all your shields)
I don't know if it's due to the souls-like trend, but it feels like game developers need to make punitive games nowadays
Battlezone II had force shields. They used your vehicle's weapon energy. The shields used energy, and also taking hits would drain your energy. You needed a ship with fast energy regen to make the most use out of them. One ship from the X-Mod mod, the Jade Falcon, could actually regenerate faster than the shields drained. So you could keep them on all the time, and still shoot some. It wasn't invincible by any means, but that regen speed plus the fact that the radar ping twice as frequently made it my absolute favorite ship.
A mechanic to permanently gain new attacks and/or abilities by mastering equipment. I haven't seen that many games have this mechanic and it's mostly been adult games for some reason. I think Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is the only non-adult game I've seen to have this mechanic.
I just remembered another one. The Gambits system from Final Fantasy 12. I've always liked this mechanic because it almost completely automates battles, allowing you to focus more on exploration and treasure hunting. I have only seen two games do this and, once again, FF12 is the only non-adult game I've seen with this type of mechanic.
Clair Obscur Expedition 33 kind of has the gaining abilities from mastering equipment thing you mentioned, it's not really equipment in that you can't see the items being put on, but you equip items that give abilities and after a few battles with it you master the ability and can change to another item but equip the ability through a separate resource pool.
That is actually part of what I meant by having permanent access to the ability. One of the games I didn't mention in my comment does it like that, where you get the abilities by mastering equipment but then you have to use AP to actually activate it like how abilities were in Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I've actually been interested in playing Clair Obscure because I've heard that it's one of the best RPGs to exist. The only problem is that, because it's a modern game, I don't know it it'll run on my computer and I don't have another way to play it.
Final Fantasy 9 had you learn skills from equipment.
Have you played Tokyo Mirage Sessions?
Weird game in general, but some of my favorite turn based combat ever. I think you permanently learn abilities from weapons if I recall.
The control scheme in Total Annihilation where you can que up lots of commands for units has largely been ignored by RTS game makers except in Supreme Commander and Spring/Recoil engine games such as Beyond All Reason and Zero-K. I think it is a perfect example of why the RTS genre in many respects died after hyperfocusing on making Starcraft-likes resulting in the stagnation of innovation in a genre that progressively catered more and more only to a very narrow range of brains/players who enjoyed simplistic explicit rock-paper-scissors unit relationships and endless fiddly micro.
Can you explain what you mean? I never played TA, but being able to queue commands is pretty common in RTS games. Did TA have some kind of system to further facilitate that, or was it just taken to an extreme?
In TA you could select a unit factory then issue move orders and set up patrol routes and then any units constructed by that factory would follow those orders. Also, if there was a unit executing a repeating move pattern, you could select it, hold shift and give it a new order. It would execute that order, then when done it would return to its original pattern.
To add to what the other guy said, Supreme commander allowed your units to synchronize shots, for example for the big guns on battleships, useful for punching through shields.
They also allowed you to queue orders, display them and then edit them. So you could set up one big patrol path for 100s of helis and fighters and defend your territory that way, and when you want to expand you can drag the patrol points and all of those 100s of units would automatically adjust.
Also there were heli transports with lift and drop points and you could use that to ferry units quicker than they would walk. So you could set the drop point closely behind the frontlines and advance the drop point with the front line, allowing for quicker resupply of troops.
Quite a bit more advanced than you would see in starcraft or AoE2 overall.
I'm working on a game like that, but it's far from completion.
Well know that you have outed yourself as a cool indie dev you must eventually post some sneak previews of your game to a gaming/game development community on lemmy/the fediverse!
I really wished there are more games that implement something like the gambit system from FF12. My dream game is some monster / pet collecting and battling game plus the gambit system from FF12. now if only n*ntendo wouldn’t be such an @ss…
Check out Unicorn Overlord (I know, awful name).
Definitely a different kind of game than FF12, but the way the combat works reminds me quite a bit of gambits. Really fun game too, with beautiful art style.
Horizontal progression. Relatively flat power curve, but you gain more options.
Guild Wars 1 is a really good example of this.
Fun fact: some mechanics never came back cause they got copyrighted and the studio with the copyright went "no, we're not doing that kind of game anymore" and as soon as anyone goes "okay, can we try?" they sue them into oblivion for copyright infringement
You mean patent. You don't choose to copyright things or not, all media is inherently copyrighted. This comment is technically copyrighted once I hit send. It sounds like your referring to Shadow of Mordor's/War's Nemesis system being patented.
Take a look at Half-Life 2's old Face Poser software. I feel like you don't see that sort of action-level control much anymore.
Indie studios are evading the need for lipsync entirely, by making simple models, giving people masks, putting them on radio overlays, etc. AAA studios are overengineering it, putting a $4,000,000 actor in a motion capture suit for each of their cutscenes to capture every fine detail as they stare in wonder at the white ping-pong ball in the studio with the sign written; "LOOK HERE".
Face Poser was a good median; it's where the director gets control, but you don't need a vast technical setup beyond animations, some vowel extraction, and some basic know-how. It means that if the director wants to add a criticism "No, character B should give a dubious, unsure look when character A says that", it's something they can apply directly rather than ask the animators to do by hand.
For some reference, old machinima like Clear Skies, or my own "AS" made use of Face Poser.
The scrolling health bar in Eartbound/Mother
The Fiend's Cauldron from Kid Icarus Uprising. At the start of a stage, you have to wager currency on how high of a difficulty you want to attempt, on a sliding scale from 0.0 to 9.0. Higher difficulties cost more to play, and if you fail, you lose your bet and the difficulty drops if you choose Continue. It's an interesting system for how it forces you to check your ego and self-evaluate just how much you think you can handle.
Goddamn this game is just so good that that cauldron is a really fun little mechanic for it
I really want to see a god game with gestures, like black&white, make the jump to VR
I've tried some indie attempts at it, all either so buggy as to be unplayable, terrible controls, or both
Maybe one day there'll be a good one
Did you know Shadows of Mordor copyrighted the Nemesis System and then proceeded to never use it in any other games ever again despite people calling out for it?
That's one I'd like to see
Patented, not copyrighted, but I think you double posted.
Nah, they're different comments
The vehicle damage modelling from GTA 4. The fact that it hasn't been surpassed is tremendously disappointing to me.
In an open world game that isn't about racing*
Games like wreckfest have pretty great damage modeling. BeamNG too.
I couldn't be bothered to come up with a neat way to say "GTA-like games" and decided to hope that the reader could intuit that context.
Not the same genre, but have you tried BeamNG? That tech should be in every game with cars.
For me this is more about open world games losing cool features than wanting to play a game with that feature. In GTA 4 it affected the choices I'd make whilst driving as it was entirely possible to make a vehicle nearly impossible to drive without coming close to blowing it up.
I miss casual flight sims that were designed to be played with a joystick. Not so much Janes F-15 1997 or whatever, i'm more talking about Crimson Skies. I want more Crimson Skies.
VTOL kiiiinda fits, maybe?
Destructible environments like in silent storm. You could remove walls and floors with grenades or mines. Unfortunately it was a bit buggy and slow. Teardown is fun, but it feels like a tech demo.
Like in the finals, kinda?
No, it was more a turn based game with npcs, and you had to extract people, kill targets, or return objects from the map. By strategically placing mines on windows or doors you could take out enemies, and remove cover for other enemies, or accidentally start a chain reaction that would blow up other barrels nearby.
The downside was that the game was terrible slow, with what feels like 5seconds per npc to make a turn (even when they where not revealed yet), which is annoying with sometimes 20 npcs per map, who can take sometimes multiple rounds to finish if you are unlucky and miss. And any explosion that would destroy the environment would also bring even modern PCs to a grinding halt. The game was from 2003, but only runs on a single core.
Vehicle combat games. Which I guess is more like a genre than a mechanic.
Right now it's basically Mariokart or nothing.
Grip came out in 2018, but the physics were really unforgiving (clipping a corner could cost you like 10 seconds as you tumble) and there weren't enough players online.
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Which is a real shame because it's gorgeous, fast paced, with effective power ups, and amazing tracks. And a hell of a sound track.
My friend made this top down racing game with guns. It's free to play in the epic store: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/auto-drive-c2db17
The instant i read farcry 2 i thought of the fire too.
The fire was amazing and gave me interesting ways to burn out enemies in outposts etc.
Cross game integration. I was recently playing Last Command B-Side, and in a certain part, the game picked stages themed around the games I have installed and it blew me away.
Whoa, that does sound cool. Psycho Mantis-y.
randomization of stats, on weapons and gear. i feel like that adds interesting elements, diablo 2 for example.
But that is also the worst part of boarderlands
NFL 2K5 gameplay in a newer football game
Magicka 2 combat in some 3rd/1st person action RPG
A Spider-man game with the swinging mechanics of the PS2 Spider-man 2 game. Or just a remake of that game. The new ones are fine and fun but the older game absolutely nailed the web swinging.
Tf2 nemesis System in pvp shooters
Dodge offset from Bayonetta, boost from Vanquish, and make your own moveset from God Hand.
Fun
Trade Runs from silkroad online.