Hello everybody!
As you all know, at the moment we are all faced with a rather acute issue of balance in the game. Topics such as the issue of balance, the lack of fear of FT in front of a predator, unbalanced damage, and so on - these are all standard topics on this forum. Also, many people are thinking about the atmosphere of the game itself, that there is no hunting spirit or that the predator and FT are not afraid of each other(for ex. predator can easy jump into crowd or like FT tracking the pred). But…what could be a solution of all this problems? For my opinion it’s fear. Fear ot taking damage, that you will die of one hit and etc. And what game provided us a good example these games? Yes, it’s - Dark Souls.
For people who didn't play it I will explain: Dark Souls series have a unique damage system. Its main feature is that you and your enemies, can kill each other in just a few blows. That means that each character has very high damage and can die in a split second. Therefore, a huge role in this series is taken by dodges, attempts to avoid damage and causing this damage. In general, it does not forgive mistakes.
Does this remind you of anything? How the predator in films tried to never get into direct confrontation, how in the battles with his prey (for example, with aliens) he tries to dodge, bounce off and when there is no way out - then he takes damage. The same situation with humans. If there is a danger - you will try to escape. And imagine this damage system in Hunting Grounds:
Such things as zerker, which jumping into the crowd and killing everyone in few second, or fireteam member which wanted to fight predator 1v1 - that would be never heppend.
For my opinion this system would look great in the game. Why? Because every wrong action will cost you your life or a large number of hp.
- The predator will not attack openly, but will wait for the moment, like a real hunter, to wait for prey to be distracted and only then attack.
- And FT members will also not openly attack the hunter, because he is just stronger than them and can kill a person with one blow.
Also, one of the features of the Dark Souls series was its limited resources. For example:
- Predator has limit of his energy. Let’s imagine that invis and thermal vision doesn’t cost any energy. But for example plasma canon will spend some of it. And instead of shooting without thinking like now, you will need to think through each shot, because you can shoot a limited number of times.
- Same situation can be from humans side. Just remember AvP 2, marine missions. You always run out of ammo, and enemies are everywhere! Yes, their weapon would cause reduced damage to the predator, because all the same it has a different physiology and he is simply stronger, but common, there are four people, which is an undeniable advantage. This will make people save, and not thoughtlessly shoot trees looking for a predator there.
All these factors will make people feel stressed because every blow or shot from the enemy can be the last. A predator needs to act from shadow, waiting for a moment, and for people to work in a team in order to survive. I think that this system would be pretty nice to see… but…
But unfortunately this is not possible because the game engine is not designed for that. Also, there are many details about which I did not say, but these are already details.
In any case, I would like to hear how you would react to the game with a share of realism in damage? One mistake - and you are a corpse)