If there's a second Espire VR Operative game: Here are some things I'd like to put forth. (If any could be done in patches for the first game it'd be delightful!)
First some background. 35 years old, six years of robotics experience, eight years military experience with two years deployed, and a few years developing but never releasing small first-person games.
I played Espire 1 VR Operative on Steam... through an Oculus Quest 2. I wish I got the quest version as I do like to VR on the go, but I got too hooked into the game to make the switch. I may end up buying it for quest 2 as well. I'm still playing it, and have gone far enough to reach a hostage situation.
Second: Keep the ability to adjust the placement of equipment. I'm 6'5", which is often taller than most games can even register for height on an oculus. My daughter, who is a bit under 4 feet tall, was also able to benefit from making adjustments to the equipment. She really got into the hiding element and it didn't take her long to start crawling under desks... which sometimes worked. The ability to adjust equipment is something I have yet to see in another VR game, and it should be a feature of every game.
That said, despite the obvious 'dummy' markers on the weapons, it felt weird putting the weapons back after putting them on. The slightest mention of "these are fake" in any form may have helped.
Third: The challenges were quite fun. This said the larger shotgun required me to further adjust my belt so I didn't accidentally use the repair tool. The respawn rate of shells works at a more paced reload rate, but it isn't fast enough to work with my real reload speed. I found the shotgun worked best if you don't look at the ammo when retrieving it; something that works quite well on the quest, but on some headsets using cameras, this wouldn't work so well.
-----------
Now to the juicy bits.
1) There's mention of an RF jammer. Initially, I thought this was a feature of the Espire prototype, but soon realized it had nothing to do with the machine as I kept the prototype as long as I could and the jamming had long since stopped, and later on it is mentioned it was just something to do with that location. It makes sense for this to become a feature of the machine, with a toggle. Something that if used sparingly can help to reduce the flow of enemy communications, but might be put together by commanding units as a sign of where the intruder is located. I'll admit this one isn't well thought out.
2) Ditch the end of patrol AI bark, make longer patrol routes, or have a frequency mute so that they speak less often.
-It was more notable in the challenges than in the main game, but they just never shut up to the extent they lose all sense of immersion. It's a neat way to let us know they're going to repeat the same loop, but who would hire a force that complains about every square they make around two pylons?
3) Strict patrol routes are great for stealth games, but the "more vigilant" units who are aware that there's something nearby killing them resume the same patrols and don't get paranoid after a lowered alert level... It creates the perception that the game's AI is dumber than it actually is. Under these conditions smart or dumb AI is indistinguishable because the AI's senses are dulled to the point where they could probably see more if they were "blind."
-I understand the frustration that such things can create, but reasonable spontaneity can also go a long way. The more abrasive/less stealthy you are, the more unpredictable the or paranoid guards should become. Check corners, look under things, go to last known locations and look around. During challenges, which is where it should indeed happen to least, I kept imagining little 'Richard' moves that I half expected which never came up, such as a shift in patrol route after passing a certain threshold or location. So far it hasn't and I've been through most of the challenges thus far. This sort of thing should happen in the "real world" aka the campaign. But for some reason, I kept expecting it in the challenges, given that half the time the guards are 'simulated' and half the time the guards seem to be real people following a strict set of instructions. (That and the constant complaining about patroling, another round, etc. made me think they were being put through this day in and day out as training fodder for the Espire operator(s), so it really struck me as the perfect opportunity for guards to occasionally go off script.)
-While actually being more elevated on being constantly reminded the enemy is going to pay more attention is nice, it sort of takes no meaning when they literally walk by you holding a body and a machine gun and keep walking like "Nope, I didn't see anything." (Mind you, it would be hilarious if the guy actually saw me, said that, and kept walking. But no he literally didn't see me because the 'heightened awareness view cones but lowered security level seem to be indistinguishable from the standard ones).
4) The alert level timer is extremely forgiving on the hardest setting.
-Sometimes the operator isn't even able to finish saying that there's an alert before calling off the search. I started to genuinely suspect that there'd be some sort of plot twist about this being training or somehow rigged when I found a point that alerts and searches would be called off before I even finish securing weapons. In one instance after brazenly setting off the alert and killing 2 people, the announcer goes from sending someone to investigate to calling off the search while I haven't even finished stealing the magazines from their XM8s to make sure that a disarmed enemy can't pick them up. (I'm aware that they can't and that they have unlimited ammo, but it's a trained habit, especially when dealing with sleeping enemies).
-At certain points, I dropped stealth altogether because it's more expedient to just walk out in the open and up to someone, knock them out, steal their gun and go full terminator, and just seconds of walking out in the open where new guards have come but they haven't immediately seen me because I'm just outside of their view cone as they go down some stairs and the search gets called off, leaving me to just go through the weapons, reload, and wave as they finish coming down the stairs and start toward me with the forgiving detection alert cone that appears. I started with the hard setting specifically to not have it be forgiving. It effectively ignores whether or not I'm any good at stealth or if I decide to be John Wick. (Which I'm impressed at how well going full John Wick actually works in a game that isn't intended for it.) But ultimately, the game should ramp up the difficulty and reaction to the threat if I persist in not playing by stealth.
5) From a story perspective, there are no signs that the guards have any comprehension that an Espire agent is a machine. No enemy points it out, no one describes it, no one freaks out that one of the robots is alive, there's no en mass reaction to start destroying machines (though many things seem to be disabled, sure). They react to power spikes, cameras going out, but ultimately the Espire agent could be swapped out for a lost toddler or a stray cat for all they care and they'd still refer to it as an "intruder." On the light development side, AI barks that reference this would be all that's needed to acknowledge this, possibly with a flag that keeps track of how many times it has been spotted or if a specific random bark has played into the radio ("It's a robot!" "What the hell is this, Star Wars?" "It's a machine!" "The bots are alive!" "It's one of those things! An Espire!" "It isn't human!"), and from then on the commander might be aware that there's a machine and roll from there.
- In a sequel, if one takes place away from this facility, the existence of the Espire agent should be distinct. There was a point where I observed a conversation and hoped this mechanic would be used more than it actually seems to be. Imagine if we learned that these guys might have no idea what's with the robots, or creeped out Earlier on reactions should be of curiosity (especially if it's pretending to be dormant and not moving or not currently possessed), ranging toward terrified, evolving to determined to destroy it as knowledge about it grows. (The less stealthy you are, the more the enemy learns about what the machine is and what it can do and the more reactive than can be when faced with a belligerent guerilla-warfare player that's trying to live out a terminator fantasy, while stealthy players can enjoy being a mystery and far more forgiving on little mistakes). This also kinda ties back to number 4, but much more Espire specific and intel-on-the-intruder-specific.
6) One more on elevated reactions: Hunting.
- The most ideal hunting AI could probably be seen in Metal Gear Solid 2, on the tanker mission. Breach, clear. It gives the impression that you're fighting a trained force. These guys are equipped, and yet I've seen militant teens with more common sense than the guards in the Espire game. On initial false alarms, perhaps they are a bit less vigilant. False alarm, unlikely that anyone (human) could be there, whatever the case might be. And at certain thresholds of detection or intel gained by the enemy (is there actually an intruder? Has anyone been found dead or just unconscious? Is it believed the intruder is human or do they know the truth? Is there only one intruder?)
- Force an agent to become increasingly creative. At one point I went prone magnetized to a ceiling because the ceiling was too low and I was convinced the enemy would see me. They didn't; I later learned I could hang while using the duck button to get the same effect. But the idea was the sensation that regular human hiding methods likely wouldn't work. And as the enemies become more aware of what the Espire agent is, they could learn to explore the unorthodox as well.
7) Vision cones... They should be larger on harder difficulties.
- I haven't seen who this force is supposed to be yet, but honestly, I can't help but think they were pulled out of Metal Gear Solid 1's "next-generation" soldiers, trained so heavily on primitive VR scenarios that they have next to no eyesight. I can't fault them on hearing because when it comes to environmental sounds they're pretty good at this; though when they discover the sound there's no distinction between a magazine, a cup, the repair toolkit, or a dead body...and no realization that they had been duped.
8) Shifting focus: Abandoned/destroyed Espire Agents.
-I found myself quite impressed that a gunned-down Espire Agent still stands when 'destroyed'. It was interesting to find the guards that killed it linger around....doing literally nothing. I would expect to find the machine that was shot down to be, well, knocked down and no longer functional or malfunctioning. Missed opportunity to have guards speaking about what they successfully took down or being paranoid about it since it keeps moving.
-Dispossessing an Espire Agent but finding that it is still very much doing random movements actually left me expecting to find issues with the agents becoming self-aware or in-universe AI-controlled. I'm aware the story is leading towards this actually being a thing, but to my knowledge, the agents we are controlling early on aren't part of this program and none of the control room personnel mention it as being out of the ordinary. No one mentions how impressive it is to see the machine still standing after losing all function. From the sound of it agents from what I can only guess is the Espire 2 program and location are being outfitted with the possibility of AI control, though they have a VR control box so it doesn't seem like they're quite there yet.
-On a related note, I saw a "fake surrender" thing in another thread; I think that would be stupid given that enemies see a robot. In the military if I saw a robot I wouldn't be trying to arrest it; that thing needs to be broken. But I have found that if discovered I can dispossess the unit, possess another unit and find the guards are still fixated on the original unit. Toying with the guard AI by switching back and forth between units is actually kind of fun, but only in a "seems no one thought of this possibility" sort of way. It is somewhat defeated by the fact that the game quickly begins forgetting about your inventory on each unit.
9) Object permanence. Espire 1 as a game in which the guards have no sense of object permanence when it comes to intruders, has seriously impressed me with its sense of object permanence in terms of bodies and in-world items. Even 'dropped' weapons maintain some permanence, as long as the enemy dropped them. But that's where I hit a snag.
-At one point I was disarming enemy weapons (again a trained habit) as I also found out this can help in gaining even more ammunition when supplies are low. I'm wearing an M9, the tranq pistol, and had been carrying an XM8. I put the gun down on a table (something I'm surprised I can't do more often in VR games), and for an instant, I had looked away from it... and the gun was gone. Completely. I had planned to pick it back up after I finished what I was doing. I wouldn't care about any weapon I had intentionally thrown, as I learned if I don't throw them they have a habit of somehow replacing the weapon already on my chest (have a fully loaded MP9, drop an unloaded one; suddenly I have an unloaded MP9 and no magazines despite all that I had collected). But I had placed it down on a table beside me. As such it was much more noticeable.... and yet guns I toss never seem to disappear. (I suspect this had more to do with proximity to their bodies as the XM8 came from somewhere far from where I was).
10) Use a different voice for the "command" of challenges to the actual invaders. I got "this whole mission's just a training scenario" vibes when I realized the same voice is used in my "year ago training."
First some background. 35 years old, six years of robotics experience, eight years military experience with two years deployed, and a few years developing but never releasing small first-person games.
I played Espire 1 VR Operative on Steam... through an Oculus Quest 2. I wish I got the quest version as I do like to VR on the go, but I got too hooked into the game to make the switch. I may end up buying it for quest 2 as well. I'm still playing it, and have gone far enough to reach a hostage situation.
Second: Keep the ability to adjust the placement of equipment. I'm 6'5", which is often taller than most games can even register for height on an oculus. My daughter, who is a bit under 4 feet tall, was also able to benefit from making adjustments to the equipment. She really got into the hiding element and it didn't take her long to start crawling under desks... which sometimes worked. The ability to adjust equipment is something I have yet to see in another VR game, and it should be a feature of every game.
That said, despite the obvious 'dummy' markers on the weapons, it felt weird putting the weapons back after putting them on. The slightest mention of "these are fake" in any form may have helped.
Third: The challenges were quite fun. This said the larger shotgun required me to further adjust my belt so I didn't accidentally use the repair tool. The respawn rate of shells works at a more paced reload rate, but it isn't fast enough to work with my real reload speed. I found the shotgun worked best if you don't look at the ammo when retrieving it; something that works quite well on the quest, but on some headsets using cameras, this wouldn't work so well.
-----------
Now to the juicy bits.
1) There's mention of an RF jammer. Initially, I thought this was a feature of the Espire prototype, but soon realized it had nothing to do with the machine as I kept the prototype as long as I could and the jamming had long since stopped, and later on it is mentioned it was just something to do with that location. It makes sense for this to become a feature of the machine, with a toggle. Something that if used sparingly can help to reduce the flow of enemy communications, but might be put together by commanding units as a sign of where the intruder is located. I'll admit this one isn't well thought out.
2) Ditch the end of patrol AI bark, make longer patrol routes, or have a frequency mute so that they speak less often.
-It was more notable in the challenges than in the main game, but they just never shut up to the extent they lose all sense of immersion. It's a neat way to let us know they're going to repeat the same loop, but who would hire a force that complains about every square they make around two pylons?
3) Strict patrol routes are great for stealth games, but the "more vigilant" units who are aware that there's something nearby killing them resume the same patrols and don't get paranoid after a lowered alert level... It creates the perception that the game's AI is dumber than it actually is. Under these conditions smart or dumb AI is indistinguishable because the AI's senses are dulled to the point where they could probably see more if they were "blind."
-I understand the frustration that such things can create, but reasonable spontaneity can also go a long way. The more abrasive/less stealthy you are, the more unpredictable the or paranoid guards should become. Check corners, look under things, go to last known locations and look around. During challenges, which is where it should indeed happen to least, I kept imagining little 'Richard' moves that I half expected which never came up, such as a shift in patrol route after passing a certain threshold or location. So far it hasn't and I've been through most of the challenges thus far. This sort of thing should happen in the "real world" aka the campaign. But for some reason, I kept expecting it in the challenges, given that half the time the guards are 'simulated' and half the time the guards seem to be real people following a strict set of instructions. (That and the constant complaining about patroling, another round, etc. made me think they were being put through this day in and day out as training fodder for the Espire operator(s), so it really struck me as the perfect opportunity for guards to occasionally go off script.)
-While actually being more elevated on being constantly reminded the enemy is going to pay more attention is nice, it sort of takes no meaning when they literally walk by you holding a body and a machine gun and keep walking like "Nope, I didn't see anything." (Mind you, it would be hilarious if the guy actually saw me, said that, and kept walking. But no he literally didn't see me because the 'heightened awareness view cones but lowered security level seem to be indistinguishable from the standard ones).
4) The alert level timer is extremely forgiving on the hardest setting.
-Sometimes the operator isn't even able to finish saying that there's an alert before calling off the search. I started to genuinely suspect that there'd be some sort of plot twist about this being training or somehow rigged when I found a point that alerts and searches would be called off before I even finish securing weapons. In one instance after brazenly setting off the alert and killing 2 people, the announcer goes from sending someone to investigate to calling off the search while I haven't even finished stealing the magazines from their XM8s to make sure that a disarmed enemy can't pick them up. (I'm aware that they can't and that they have unlimited ammo, but it's a trained habit, especially when dealing with sleeping enemies).
-At certain points, I dropped stealth altogether because it's more expedient to just walk out in the open and up to someone, knock them out, steal their gun and go full terminator, and just seconds of walking out in the open where new guards have come but they haven't immediately seen me because I'm just outside of their view cone as they go down some stairs and the search gets called off, leaving me to just go through the weapons, reload, and wave as they finish coming down the stairs and start toward me with the forgiving detection alert cone that appears. I started with the hard setting specifically to not have it be forgiving. It effectively ignores whether or not I'm any good at stealth or if I decide to be John Wick. (Which I'm impressed at how well going full John Wick actually works in a game that isn't intended for it.) But ultimately, the game should ramp up the difficulty and reaction to the threat if I persist in not playing by stealth.
5) From a story perspective, there are no signs that the guards have any comprehension that an Espire agent is a machine. No enemy points it out, no one describes it, no one freaks out that one of the robots is alive, there's no en mass reaction to start destroying machines (though many things seem to be disabled, sure). They react to power spikes, cameras going out, but ultimately the Espire agent could be swapped out for a lost toddler or a stray cat for all they care and they'd still refer to it as an "intruder." On the light development side, AI barks that reference this would be all that's needed to acknowledge this, possibly with a flag that keeps track of how many times it has been spotted or if a specific random bark has played into the radio ("It's a robot!" "What the hell is this, Star Wars?" "It's a machine!" "The bots are alive!" "It's one of those things! An Espire!" "It isn't human!"), and from then on the commander might be aware that there's a machine and roll from there.
- In a sequel, if one takes place away from this facility, the existence of the Espire agent should be distinct. There was a point where I observed a conversation and hoped this mechanic would be used more than it actually seems to be. Imagine if we learned that these guys might have no idea what's with the robots, or creeped out Earlier on reactions should be of curiosity (especially if it's pretending to be dormant and not moving or not currently possessed), ranging toward terrified, evolving to determined to destroy it as knowledge about it grows. (The less stealthy you are, the more the enemy learns about what the machine is and what it can do and the more reactive than can be when faced with a belligerent guerilla-warfare player that's trying to live out a terminator fantasy, while stealthy players can enjoy being a mystery and far more forgiving on little mistakes). This also kinda ties back to number 4, but much more Espire specific and intel-on-the-intruder-specific.
6) One more on elevated reactions: Hunting.
- The most ideal hunting AI could probably be seen in Metal Gear Solid 2, on the tanker mission. Breach, clear. It gives the impression that you're fighting a trained force. These guys are equipped, and yet I've seen militant teens with more common sense than the guards in the Espire game. On initial false alarms, perhaps they are a bit less vigilant. False alarm, unlikely that anyone (human) could be there, whatever the case might be. And at certain thresholds of detection or intel gained by the enemy (is there actually an intruder? Has anyone been found dead or just unconscious? Is it believed the intruder is human or do they know the truth? Is there only one intruder?)
- Force an agent to become increasingly creative. At one point I went prone magnetized to a ceiling because the ceiling was too low and I was convinced the enemy would see me. They didn't; I later learned I could hang while using the duck button to get the same effect. But the idea was the sensation that regular human hiding methods likely wouldn't work. And as the enemies become more aware of what the Espire agent is, they could learn to explore the unorthodox as well.
7) Vision cones... They should be larger on harder difficulties.
- I haven't seen who this force is supposed to be yet, but honestly, I can't help but think they were pulled out of Metal Gear Solid 1's "next-generation" soldiers, trained so heavily on primitive VR scenarios that they have next to no eyesight. I can't fault them on hearing because when it comes to environmental sounds they're pretty good at this; though when they discover the sound there's no distinction between a magazine, a cup, the repair toolkit, or a dead body...and no realization that they had been duped.
8) Shifting focus: Abandoned/destroyed Espire Agents.
-I found myself quite impressed that a gunned-down Espire Agent still stands when 'destroyed'. It was interesting to find the guards that killed it linger around....doing literally nothing. I would expect to find the machine that was shot down to be, well, knocked down and no longer functional or malfunctioning. Missed opportunity to have guards speaking about what they successfully took down or being paranoid about it since it keeps moving.
-Dispossessing an Espire Agent but finding that it is still very much doing random movements actually left me expecting to find issues with the agents becoming self-aware or in-universe AI-controlled. I'm aware the story is leading towards this actually being a thing, but to my knowledge, the agents we are controlling early on aren't part of this program and none of the control room personnel mention it as being out of the ordinary. No one mentions how impressive it is to see the machine still standing after losing all function. From the sound of it agents from what I can only guess is the Espire 2 program and location are being outfitted with the possibility of AI control, though they have a VR control box so it doesn't seem like they're quite there yet.
-On a related note, I saw a "fake surrender" thing in another thread; I think that would be stupid given that enemies see a robot. In the military if I saw a robot I wouldn't be trying to arrest it; that thing needs to be broken. But I have found that if discovered I can dispossess the unit, possess another unit and find the guards are still fixated on the original unit. Toying with the guard AI by switching back and forth between units is actually kind of fun, but only in a "seems no one thought of this possibility" sort of way. It is somewhat defeated by the fact that the game quickly begins forgetting about your inventory on each unit.
9) Object permanence. Espire 1 as a game in which the guards have no sense of object permanence when it comes to intruders, has seriously impressed me with its sense of object permanence in terms of bodies and in-world items. Even 'dropped' weapons maintain some permanence, as long as the enemy dropped them. But that's where I hit a snag.
-At one point I was disarming enemy weapons (again a trained habit) as I also found out this can help in gaining even more ammunition when supplies are low. I'm wearing an M9, the tranq pistol, and had been carrying an XM8. I put the gun down on a table (something I'm surprised I can't do more often in VR games), and for an instant, I had looked away from it... and the gun was gone. Completely. I had planned to pick it back up after I finished what I was doing. I wouldn't care about any weapon I had intentionally thrown, as I learned if I don't throw them they have a habit of somehow replacing the weapon already on my chest (have a fully loaded MP9, drop an unloaded one; suddenly I have an unloaded MP9 and no magazines despite all that I had collected). But I had placed it down on a table beside me. As such it was much more noticeable.... and yet guns I toss never seem to disappear. (I suspect this had more to do with proximity to their bodies as the XM8 came from somewhere far from where I was).
10) Use a different voice for the "command" of challenges to the actual invaders. I got "this whole mission's just a training scenario" vibes when I realized the same voice is used in my "year ago training."