» Thu Nov 26, 2015 7:07 am Jumping aboard the hype train with some friends on facebook yesterday, I was talking about a few different ideas for F4 and one that came up was the Nemesis system as seen in last year's Shadow of Mordor. I'll copy some of what I already typed, and so I apologize for the more disjointed, conversational nature of this post, but I think it should be clear enough.
So after watching the trailer, I do have to say that I hope we see some new stuff in this one -- while every return to Bethesda's properties is always a welcome adventure, I played more Fallout 3 than any other of their games, so much so that I couldn't even muster the energy to care about New Vegas because it felt like I'd done it all before.
I don't think there's anything wrong with returning to what works -- if it ain't broke and all that -- and I'm not advocating a huge or massive change in the entire game or its style or its genre, but at the same time I want to see a few little things here and there, maybe a few gameplay dynamics, that we haven't seen before.
F4 Nemesis system, anybody?
(somebody mentions they’d like it, but aren’t sure how the game would handle immortality and returning to life after death)
That's one of the biggest troubles to using the system, but there are plenty of clever ways about it, like you can be mortally wounded, left for dead, and wake up in some random shack with a stranger helping you out. You lose your items, which you haveto go back and reclaim from the guy who beat you.
That'd be a more interesting result if you were killed, too: you'd keep playing, you'd have an incentive to continue, rather than just reloading and pretending a chunk of time didn't happen.
Functionally identical, as far as gameplay is concerned, except every death adds bonus dynamic content. The better you are (the less you die), the more enemies want to come after you, providing extra challenge.
Then you have to reconcile only why you get left for dead and miraculously survive so much rather than ever dying, but I see that working two ways: first, it's cheeky sci-fi where you get magical perks (ladykiller, for example, or that one where the mysterious stranger shows up to save your ass miraculously) that seem to operate on fate, so really why should it matter? The concept fits right in.
Secondly, I bet they could generate certain parameters governing when you really die versus when you come back. More enemies of a higher level in the fight might decrease your chances of survival, or if it's a ravenous monster not likely to let up on your corpse. And you could always relegate it to an option, too, or a perk even, like: you always come back (but the price, remember, is losing your items, maybe even for good -- OH, AN ASIDE, BELOW), or you never come back, or whatever.
Nemesis doesn't have to generate when you die, either -- you can get foes for beating them, too; they could come back. Or if you kill a guy really dead (gib his head to little bits), maybe it's not that he comes back, but that his gang gains power, his friends.
ASIDE: What if there was a chance, when you die and come back, for a rarer item (a favorite gun, say) to have been stolen by another bandit or sold, and it generates a quest where you have to go track the item down!
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When your buddies dynamically came to rescue you in Far Cry 2, and then could themselves die and be gone forever, it lent those fights so much more gravity. Those moments were more engaging and interesting than just dying and reloading could ever be.
When you could lose your high-stat character in State of Decay, and all the rare, potentially unique, items they had, it made every fight, every struggle, every close call immensely more intense, more valuable.
Even in Bloodborne, dying isn't a reload: you lose your blood echoes -- ostensibly your items, your progress -- but you move forward, the wiser, the richer, and, just a little bit, the more passionate.
Dying only to have time reset is an old and archaic concept in games which, these days, needn't be in every single game. For some it works, but in many cases, especially where we save frequently, it should be encouraged to see games put more on the line than just (if we're saving diligently) a few minutes or even a few seconds of playtime. That trivializes death.
Put our loot and our items on the line, put the state of the world on the line, put the challenge we can expect on the line. Give us reasons to care about dying, to want to not die -- since at the end of the day it's a game, and dying doesn't really matter, doesn't motivate us.
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Picture this: you're in a losing firefight with some bandits. Your health drops to zero, but instead of just dying, suddenly you turn and a guy you didn't see is there. He knocks you out with a rifle butt to the face.
You've lost the fight. You've died. But you wake up in a nearby unexplored site, abandoned area, or whatever, dynamically chosen, in the custody of the bandits. Wounded but alive, now you have to escape. If your lockpicking skill is high, you can pick the cuffs that bind you. If your speechcraft is high, you can talk your way out. If your strength is high, you can break your restraints. Luck: some monsters come and cause havoc that gives you your chance. You can gamble and wait for dark, hoping to endure their torture for a chance to sneak away (stealthily grabbing your items on the way out), to return later and wreak havoc or encounter these roving bandits another day.
Maybe you screw up, maybe you can't handle their torture and you really do die this time. Well, that's the way it goes. But maybe you get away and forge a new legend. Maybe you see they're mad because you killed their friends awhile back. Maybe they're starving, they have kids and families to feed, and they only attacked you for some food. Maybe you even shot first. Maybe you're the monster, so maybe you show mercy, let them live.
All of these sound more fun than just dying and reloading -- which isn't even off the table, since you always have the option of reloading that save anyway. Dynamic gameplay, all from a random encounter.
