FPS games! Please stop making me shoot numbers out of things.

[Pifanjr]

I got this article recommended to me by Google:

FPS games! Please stop making me shoot numbers out of things. | bit-tech.net

That's Numberwang.

bit-tech.net

In it, the author complains about FPS games that make you "shoot numbers out of things", like in Borderlands and Destiny. Could someone help me determine whether this is satire, clickbait or someone who somehow cannot distinguish between FPS games and games from other genres that happen to involve a first person camera and guns.

 

[Sarafan]

...

I think the guy is serious. He clearly doesn't like the RPG elements that were incorporated into FPS games over the last few years. As much as I can understand that, I disagree with these arguments. The RPG elements make the FPS genre more diverse and interesting. Do I understand correctly @Pifanjr that you think that FPS games which incorporate RPG elements are not true representatives of the genre? I need to disagree with that as well.

 

[Zloth]

I just read the first paragraph but he's talking about the practice of showing you how much damage you're doing by making numbers appear all over the target (and sometimes fall down, or rise up, or whatever). Like this:

 

[Rensje]

He does have a point that the worlds of games like The Division and Destiny are simply window dressing for an endlessly repetitive skinner box in which nothing you do will ever change anything about that world or how you interact with it. No matter how many missions you finish, how many items you find or how much your character levels up, these worlds are static. Ironically, they are usually advertised as being 'forever changing' and 'evolving'. In reality, these worlds never change until a developer flips a switch somewhere.

Destiny in particular is guilty of this. Having played Destiny 2 through start to finish, it doesn't matter how powerful you or your weapons are. An enemy that takes 3 shots to kill at level 1 will still take 3 shots to kill at level 700. You can beat the story campaign and kill the big bad, but you will still encounter the same enemy fodder everywhere. The Division is a bit better in that certain parts of the world have a certain difficulty level associated with them, so some areas will be too difficult early on but you CAN go back to a starting area later and curb stomp low-level enemies with your endgame kit. Sort of like World of Warcraft, for example. You can feel yourself becoming more powerful as you progress.

That is, until you hit the 'endgame' with its 'world states' and their 'level scaling'. Ugh.

I have an axe to grind with games that scale their difficulty and mobs to your level. It makes character progression meaningless and hard-fought victories hollow. I loved Diablo 2 and don't particularly love Diablo 3 for this very reason. Scaling and number-crunching sucks the joy out of games.

 

[Pifanjr]

I think the guy is serious. He clearly doesn't like the RPG elements that were incorporated into FPS games over the last few years. As much as I can understand that, I disagree with these arguments. The RPG elements make the FPS genre more diverse and interesting. Do I understand correctly @Pifanjr that you think that FPS games which incorporate RPG elements are not true representatives of the genre? I need to disagree with that as well.

In my opinion, Borderlands is a Hack & Slash game with guns (a Shoot & Loot, so to say). Instead of clicking on enemies from a top down view to do damage you're clicking on enemies from a first person perspective.

I haven't played Destiny, but from what I understand it's a hybrid of a FPS and a MMO?

 

[Sarafan]

In my opinion, Borderlands is a Hack & Slash game with guns (a Shoot & Loot, so to say). Instead of clicking on enemies from a top down view to do damage you're clicking on enemies from a first person perspective.

It has all of the elements of hack 'n slash apart from the perspective. There are hack 'n slashes with guns, so you're mostly right. But the perspective makes the game a First Person Shooter as well. We should treat it as a combination of these two genres.

I haven't played Destiny, but from what I understand it's a hybrid of a FPS and a MMO?

That's right. It's a combination of FPS and a multiplayer game. I'd classify it more like a co-op game than a full scale MMO, but that's details.

 

[Pifanjr]

It has all of the elements of hack 'n slash apart from the perspective. There are hack 'n slashes with guns, so you're mostly right. But the perspective makes the game a First Person Shooter as well. We should treat it as a combination of these two genres.

That's right. It's a combination of FPS and a multiplayer game. I'd classify it more like a co-op game than a full scale MMO, but that's details.

My point is that if you're going to play hybrid FPS games, you shouldn't complain about the mechanics taken from the other genre. Nor do I think there's reason to complain that these hybrids are being made, there are still plenty of pure FPS games.

Which seems like such an obvious point that I honestly wondered if the author was being serious.