some asshole asked:
How do you feel about abstraction vs models for game mechanics? e.g. having a realistic system for aiming a shot vs “roll to hit”
It’s pretty situational I guess, but I usually enjoy things less the more abstracted or board-game-rulesy they are, especially in a real-time context. But the less that stuff is exposed for what it is, the less I mind it – I probably don’t mind having a 10% chance of headshotting a guy, but I do mind knowing about it, versus just taking the shot if it feels like I can make it.
Half-Life 2 does an interesting thing nobody knows about, where bullets fired by NPCs appear to just be sprayed out, but actually are doing a roll on whether they hit the target or not, based on a value that represents the character’s aptitude with the weapon they’re holding, which is tabled somewhere – eg, cops might be worse at using shotguns than soldiers are. This seems a little overengineered for what HL2 ended up being, and functionally I don’t think it really ends up executing (HL2 gun-wielders are pretty much turrets in the end) but it also hooks into another cool system where if a bullet has rolled a miss, it tries instead to hit something interesting near the target, like a physics object.
Only vaguely related to the question, but here are some old thoughts on ways to make hitscan weapons feel cool and fair in an FPS. but the HL2 thing seems in line with this – considering accuracy to be a person value, not a gun value.
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