I have not posted here in a long time, and I have high hopes for the single-player campaign in RO:HOS, here. I'm extremely excited about it, and I just had an idea that I hope receives good reviews. Warning: essay ahead. I'll space it out for easier reading.
I love the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Easily my favorite single-player experience in a game, ever. And that can be attributed completely to the incredibly tangible atmosphere in the game. The atmosphere was created more or less through the use of the 'mental state' system, wherein if your avatar view particularly horrific sights then he would suffer mild panic attacks that got worst as you went on (eventually leading to chattering teeth, your character talking to himself, and even straight-up suicide). If you looked at a flayed body too long, your vision got blurry as you got queasy. If you were too high up, you suffered vertigo and tunnel vision made it harder to balance. If you have played the game, you know what I'm talking about.
Anyways.
I think the streets of Stalingrad would be a perfect place to have a system like this. Nothing extreme like in CoC: DCotE, but certainly noticable. And instead of horrific imagery affecting your playing (since HoS is not a horror game), it would be intense combat that does it. Stuck behind cover, being suppressed should have a lasting effect on your combat. In RO as it is, all it does is blur your vision momentarily and as soon as it stops you're fine. It should be that the more consistently you're suppressed and bullets fly around you, the worse your performance gets until the enemy in question is dead (or you are). You should not be able to pop your head up and shoot back accurately the instant a machine-gunner stops firing, because holy s*** holy s*** he might open fire the instant I expose myself. Making movement and aim shaky while under constant suppression would make it a very effective combat strategy, unlike other games where flanking can be completely rejected because of the uncannily iron nerves of the enemy soldiers.
I wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not something that happens to your character when he is shot at a few times. It is only something that happens when under CONSTANT suppression from, say, an MG-42 or several soldiers with automatic weapons.
Another thought about the mental state of soldiers, is to have strange things start happening to the state of your avatar the more you fight. If you fight ineffectively (suppressed (as explained above) too many times in a row) then you start to do things someone would do in a situation like that. Movements would maybe be sluggish or uncoordinated (to imply terror). You guys can think of ways to flesh this out, I can't think of anything at this time. I just think it would be very interesting to have your character's ability to fight actually be affected over time by how well you're playing.
Now, sense of smell. This one has never been done in a game that I can think of before. I read a thread earlier (wrecked tanks) where someone mentioned using tank carcasses as traps with machine guns, then someone else said they could be booby-trapped with gasoline so they explode. I thought this was interesting, since there's no way to smell gasoline in a game, despite it having a very noticable smell in real life. So, I thought there should be a way to convey your avatar smelling something particularly noticable through first-person animations. Covering up the nose with the sleeve, for example. Obviously this is something that would be purely cosmetic (but still very important to gameplay as it might prevent you from dying) and as soon as you fire your weapon the hand drops and you continue normally. The arm would only go up to the nose if the player hasn't fired his weapon or sprinted within the last 5 seconds. Or if the player isn't under fire at the time.
Anyways. If these are terrible ideas, so be it. It is a suggestion box after all. No harm, no foul.
I love the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Easily my favorite single-player experience in a game, ever. And that can be attributed completely to the incredibly tangible atmosphere in the game. The atmosphere was created more or less through the use of the 'mental state' system, wherein if your avatar view particularly horrific sights then he would suffer mild panic attacks that got worst as you went on (eventually leading to chattering teeth, your character talking to himself, and even straight-up suicide). If you looked at a flayed body too long, your vision got blurry as you got queasy. If you were too high up, you suffered vertigo and tunnel vision made it harder to balance. If you have played the game, you know what I'm talking about.
Anyways.
I think the streets of Stalingrad would be a perfect place to have a system like this. Nothing extreme like in CoC: DCotE, but certainly noticable. And instead of horrific imagery affecting your playing (since HoS is not a horror game), it would be intense combat that does it. Stuck behind cover, being suppressed should have a lasting effect on your combat. In RO as it is, all it does is blur your vision momentarily and as soon as it stops you're fine. It should be that the more consistently you're suppressed and bullets fly around you, the worse your performance gets until the enemy in question is dead (or you are). You should not be able to pop your head up and shoot back accurately the instant a machine-gunner stops firing, because holy s*** holy s*** he might open fire the instant I expose myself. Making movement and aim shaky while under constant suppression would make it a very effective combat strategy, unlike other games where flanking can be completely rejected because of the uncannily iron nerves of the enemy soldiers.
I wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not something that happens to your character when he is shot at a few times. It is only something that happens when under CONSTANT suppression from, say, an MG-42 or several soldiers with automatic weapons.
Another thought about the mental state of soldiers, is to have strange things start happening to the state of your avatar the more you fight. If you fight ineffectively (suppressed (as explained above) too many times in a row) then you start to do things someone would do in a situation like that. Movements would maybe be sluggish or uncoordinated (to imply terror). You guys can think of ways to flesh this out, I can't think of anything at this time. I just think it would be very interesting to have your character's ability to fight actually be affected over time by how well you're playing.
Now, sense of smell. This one has never been done in a game that I can think of before. I read a thread earlier (wrecked tanks) where someone mentioned using tank carcasses as traps with machine guns, then someone else said they could be booby-trapped with gasoline so they explode. I thought this was interesting, since there's no way to smell gasoline in a game, despite it having a very noticable smell in real life. So, I thought there should be a way to convey your avatar smelling something particularly noticable through first-person animations. Covering up the nose with the sleeve, for example. Obviously this is something that would be purely cosmetic (but still very important to gameplay as it might prevent you from dying) and as soon as you fire your weapon the hand drops and you continue normally. The arm would only go up to the nose if the player hasn't fired his weapon or sprinted within the last 5 seconds. Or if the player isn't under fire at the time.
Anyways. If these are terrible ideas, so be it. It is a suggestion box after all. No harm, no foul.
