Make an insignificant change to improve a game.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-01-04 08:03pm

I was thinking over the past few days about tiny little things that if put in a game would make them a lot more immersive, enjoyable or fun. I'm not talking about fixing controls, improving graphics or anything. I'm talking about TINY little changes.

eg:
Putting in Madden, FIFA etc a positive/negative reaction control to calls/events akin to Top Spin Tennis. Could make for a little bit more immersion in the game and some great scenes in MP.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-01-04 08:48pm

Taking out the crosshair in all FPS games.

Brian

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-01-04 08:57pm

I'd say a minor change that I'd love in CoD2 - if you're going to put in iron sights, make it so that using them makes you more accurate, not giving you the same amount of accuracy while reducing movement speed and field of view. Its fucking pointless as noone in MP uses them (except me due to OFP instincts) because they're a net loss tool - and for no good reason.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-01-04 09:06pm

There should be no crosshairs at all unless you go into ironsights and when you do it should be far more accurate, you should move slower and everything except the circle around the ironsight should blur.

Hipping it should be extremely inaccurate especially for full-auto weapons that have a lot of recoil and need to be braced against the shoulder. Rifles should be highly accurate in iron-sights.

Hipping should result in such poor aim that it's a bad tactic except within five to ten feet.

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-01-04 09:28pm

brianeyci wrote:There should be no crosshairs at all unless you go into ironsights and when you do it should be far more accurate, you should move slower and everything except the circle around the ironsight should blur.

Sorry, I just stuck clear sticky tape to the centre of my monitor. Autowin!

Hipping it should be extremely inaccurate especially for full-auto weapons that have a lot of recoil and need to be braced against the shoulder. Rifles should be highly accurate in iron-sights.

Hipping should result in such poor aim that it's a bad tactic except within five to ten feet.

Come to me, jump or shoot BF2 patch...

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-01-04 09:50pm

Sorry, I just stuck clear sticky tape to the centre of my monitor. Autowin! :Smile:

A smart way of making it would be firing without ironsight mode would be totally random within a box.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-01-04 09:50pm

Melting down all the MOO3 CDs in the world and burying them in New Mexico, across the street from where the Atari ET Carts are.

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2006-01-04 09:59pm

A story/campaign mode for BF2!

I think Spartan: Total Warrior would have been neat if the missions were done similar to DW4, but that's just me.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-01-04 10:17pm

brianeyci wrote:There should be no crosshairs at all unless you go into ironsights and when you do it should be far more accurate, you should move slower

Good...

and everything except the circle around the ironsight should blur.

Wrong. Iron sights should be blurry, not what you're staring at. If you're looking at the irion sights, you're going to miss, because you're not looking at your target.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-01-04 10:43pm

brianeyci should have wrote:Taking out the crosshair in all realism-themed FPS games.

Brian

fixed

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-01-04 10:45pm

I would've liked it if the Jedi robes in the first KOTOR game actually looked like Jedi robes. The Jedi robes you got just looked stupid. Also, the Star Forge robes (light side) looks like a dress.

Manus Celer Dei · Post by **Manus Celer Dei** » 2006-01-04 10:52pm

Tasoth wrote:A story/campaign mode for BF2!

There is one for the Xbox

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2006-01-04 11:09pm

Trogdor wrote:I would've liked it if the Jedi robes in the first KOTOR game actually looked like Jedi robes. The Jedi robes you got just looked stupid. Also, the Star Forge robes (light side) looks like a dress.

Seconded. Now if they could somehow combine KOTOR 1's story with some of KOTOR 2's gameplay (i.e. the look of the robes, skills being useful, almost everything being upgradeable, etc), you'd get an awesome game.

McNum · Post by **McNum** » 2006-01-04 11:17pm

One for Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones:

The Dark Prince would still bleed health, but would stop at 1 health and not die. Well, not until you'd be swarmed by sand monsters, as is par for Dark Prince areas. This would make it so you'd be able to make longer, more spectacular chain stunt areas in the game without having to plop down a convinient pot of Sands of Time in the middle of nowhere. They did it with the Sand Wraith in Warrior Within (although said Wraith was seriously overpowered), and the Dark Prince doesn't even regen Sand like the Wraith did.

And one for Mario Kart DS:

When you have done one powerslide there would be a minor delay before you can do another. Yes, this is purely to kill the snaking part of MKDS. I'd do it to vastly improve the balance of the individual karts instead of having Egg 1 and Dry Bomber be the undisputed kings due to their low drift and high turning stats.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-01-04 11:55pm

Remove the stupid fucking Cone-Fire from FPS games. Make accuracy bassed on what your doing, not some automatic accuracy rate that stays the same for everything. Half-Life and Halo are prime offenders of this.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2006-01-05 12:30am

Nephtys wrote:Melting down all the MOO3 CDs in the world and burying them in New Mexico, across the street from where the Atari ET Carts are.

I sitll fail to understand the intense hatred harbored for this game. Granted I don't play it anymore and I want at least half my money back, but the horrid hatred... maybe it's because I never played MoO2.

On that note, and relating to the OP. I'd make the research trees in Master of Orion 3 considerably smaller. Not exactly a small change, but it's nothing that big either.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-01-05 01:14am

Adrian Laguna wrote:
Nephtys wrote:Melting down all the MOO3 CDs in the world and burying them in New Mexico, across the street from where the Atari ET Carts are.
I sitll fail to understand the intense hatred harbored for this game. Granted I don't play it anymore and I want at least half my money back, but the horrid hatred... maybe it's because I never played MoO2.

On that note, and relating to the OP. I'd make the research trees in Master of Orion 3 considerably smaller. Not exactly a small change, but it's nothing that big either.

MOO2 was a brilliant triumph in form and function. Simple, yet deep. Strategic and tactical. Complex, and easy. A game one falls in love with and Does. Not. Let. Go.

MOO3 was the Matrix Reloaded of computer games. It's the Star Trek Nemesis of computer games. It... it..... *kills something*

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-01-05 01:34am

Better weapons balance in IWD and BG series. BG:II, in particular, was so appalling that after playing through it once it became clear that all weapons in the game were crap compared to the Crom Faer. The expansion simply transformed Crom Faer into an off-hand weapon, used in conjunction with the Ax of the Unyielding. No fighter should ever use any other weapons, except possibly to free one or both of them up for another character to use. Similarly, all Paladins should be designed to use the Carsomyr. Period. This situation made for little variety between different characters, and damaged replayability.

In addition, all of the NPC's should have had their story-lines completed, with a system sort of like the one used for Sarevok to allow you to help guide them to one destiny or another (the system which was pretty much used in the KotOR series). How cool would it have been for Nalia to be able to turn into a lich, or for some of the good or "neutral" characters to become evil over the course of the game?

Medic · Post by **Medic** » 2006-01-05 01:48am

Beowulf wrote:
brianeyci wrote:There should be no crosshairs at all unless you go into ironsights and when you do it should be far more accurate, you should move slower
Good...
and everything except the circle around the ironsight should blur.
Wrong. Iron sights should be blurry, not what you're staring at. If you're looking at the iron sights, you're going to miss, because you're not looking at your target.

If you focus on the target then the front-sight post will be blurred and you won't know you're placing your shot as close to center-mass (or with most video game "laser" bullets goes, wherever is desired).

That's my own pet peeve, put gravity and wind in too. Headshots will drop precipitously. Until Koreans caught up with the those rules too.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2006-01-05 02:23am

weemadando wrote:I'd say a minor change that I'd love in CoD2 - if you're going to put in iron sights, make it so that using them makes you more accurate, not giving you the same amount of accuracy while reducing movement speed and field of view. Its fucking pointless as noone in MP uses them (except me due to OFP instincts) because they're a net loss tool - and for no good reason.

Actually iron sights are substantially more accurate in CoD2 than firing from the hip. My improvements would be limited more to introducing more severe movement penalties. If you are firing from the hip on the run, accuracy is nonexistent. Your firearm will go out of action while you are jumping or changing to and from the prone position. Finally, after throwing a grenade you will have to wait 2-3 seconds before you throw another, to prevent rampant 'nade spamming (which was absurdly prevalent on a couple of servers I played on).

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-01-05 02:59am

Concerning the lack of crosshairs - no. Make it an option, default to off. In multiplayer, all that will happen is that people will tape the crosshair on their monitor. Completely undetectable by cheating programs, and it achieves the same effect. If you want to immerse yourself, fine, but don't take the option away from everyone else.

If you want, why not make it a graphical effect, like in Full Spectrum Warrior, where there's a circle where everything is clear, and everything else is blurred out - as you move and such, the circle expands. That way, you are given a general idea where your bullets are likely to go, no crosshairs, and a nice visual that adds to the situational awareness aspect of the game.

As for my tweak - make RTS game menus a fucking grid on the keyboard. Fuck them and their retarded letter shortcuts that make no sense or are contrived. You have a 3x4 grid menu? Here's a thought!

QWER
ASDF
ZXCV

It's not hard, and it does the job. It works no matter how fucked up you make the tech tree, it will work equally well for units, buildings, or anything. Hostile Waters managed to do this, why can't anyone else figure it out?

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2006-01-05 03:12am

Something to do with wanting the shorcut-key to be connected with the action it does? Like "Map" being "M", "Guard" being "G", and "Napalm" being "N", etc.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2006-01-05 03:18am

2 things I can think are

a)remove bosses that aren't related to the story in FPS
b)Better Friendly (and in some cases hostile) AI.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-01-05 03:35am

Meanwhile, the moment there is a command that starts with the same letter, suddenly that convention goes out the window, because now you're using another letter in the word. It's stupid, and completely counter-intuitive.

I'll give you some examples from Starcraft

Command Center
Control Tower
Covert Ops

SCV
Science Vessel
Starport
Science Facility

Goliath
Ghost

Factory
Firebat

Marine
Machine Shop

Barracks
Battlecruiser

That's not counting upgrades or unit commands, either. It's retarded. You can't build a barracks at the building where you make Battlecruisers, so why do you need another letter? The only reason is to keep from confusing you. The only way you wouldn't be confused is if you memorized the shortcuts, which, by the way, are different for every race. M might build a Marine, but it won't build a Zergling or a Zealot. The only letter all those words share, by the way, is "e", the most common letter in the english language.

Meanwhile, with a grid, you can easily map every command on the menu to twelve keys...compared to how many dozens of keys by the way it's currently done. Hell, TGB could be used for cycling through Research Buildings, Unit construction buildings, and idle building units.

Makes me want to throttle the devs of most RTS games. Supposedly there was a user mod to WC3 that allowed for this sort of alteration to the system, but WC3 had already irritated me beyond the point of no return by then.

What's worse is that with RTS games, unlike FPS games, your options for remapping the controls are extremely limited.

Anyway, yeah.
</rant>

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-01-05 03:39am

People have made some good points, but most of them are still on the far too grand scale - ie radically changing gameplay or significant alterations.

Another one I thought of:
Give me the option to save fucking replays again - why does this option not exist anymore?