Episode #534 – Bullet SpongeBob
Intro: Matt & Mario next week on the Halloween Spooktacular!
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Voicemail #1: (520) FEEL-VGO – R U picking up new Mario Odyssey?
10 sec. spotlight:
Michelle
- Evil Within 2 (PS4) – it crashed the PS4
- Redbox to have Switch games
- Played Destiny 2
- Educating John on the Alt / Scary games discussion
- Drinking: Hot Chocolate
John
- Fetishizing COD and it’s huge content
- Drinking with OJ (song)
- game popularity comparison
- CODumentary – meh
- Golf Story (Switch)(again)
- Gran Turismo Sport – it’s about cars, soulless cars
- Drinking: a waaaaa-ter
Voicemail #2: Feel better John its your Destiny
Destiny 2 Roundtable
Amazon loophole and the physical 20% preorder
- John Streaming – and a fake open world
- Guns don’t feel right, manly women and massive reticles
- Isolating, uninspiring, stupid game.
- If you hate bullet sponges you are going to hate destiny
- we’re gonna play it more – Thursdays
News:
- Nintendo Switch Update – Gamecube support?
- Xbox Backward compatibility – 1st original xbox games this week
- Wake up w/ VGO – set an alarm in the app
- Mass Effect dev. milking you w/ loot crates and card packs
- Single player FPS’s are dead
- Voicemail #3: Ken from Cincy sayz loot boxes up dat ass
- Loot boxes are gambling
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Thought experiment: How would you make a “Shooter MMO(RPG)” WITHOUT having the enemies be “bullet sponges”? You’re either going to have to suspend your disbelief and shoot people in the face fifty times (The Division), make the enemies aliens (Destiny), or cut out the RPG/stats all together… and then you’re basically playing Battlefield or ARMA.
Interesting topic, brought it up on my bonus show which is uploading now!
To do this you need more than the one gun kills everything approach. (Along the lines of Skyrim without the sword combat.) You need like at least six different primary weapons/abilities that can all be used in combination to take down a horde of enemies. 2-3 weapon/abilities for one type of enemy and then 3-4 for another, etc. The problem is weapon switching. An rpg shooter would need good button combination controls on console for casting. Plus various secondary weapon/abilities also crucial in defeating a horde of enemies. Example: Using all the available arsenal would destroy a horde of enemies quickly, using anything less would otherwise prolong a battle or be unable defeat. This is all basic RPG jargon. And for an rpg to be cool it needs to have the rock, paper, scissor mechanics done well. (Water defeats fire, lightning defeats water, etc.) A plus if they’re more complex.
Another thing is loot. Good loot like witcher or diablo or WOW loot. In-game loot containers, some that require meeting certain requisites too. Some that’s hidden.
Customization is also another RPG element that should be in every aspect of the game. Including the world and characters.
Another thing that would be cool is to have is 2-4 different outcomes for each mission that visually change the world around you permanently and maybe even change what missions become available later on.
An idea for a game like this would cost millions to be developed by professionals.
So it sounds like that would be more in the “fantasy” realm of things rather than a realistic/military shooter. Almost like an Elder Scrolls game where everyone is playing as a mage (with guns instead of staffs/fireballs). Destiny does something similar with the elemental damage on the harder difficulties. The loot in Destiny is another story though… (The first one, anyway. I’ve only played a couple hours of Destiny 2.)
My idea would involve perma-death combined with a Rouge Legacy-like inheritance system (weird but I’ll try to explain without becoming a rambling mess). It wouldn’t take much to get taken out, a single headshot if you’re not wearing a helmet.. but even if you were it would just give you a certain percentage to negate the damage. Same thing with armor; the gunplay is always extremely risky and lethal, you’re just trying to improve your chances of survival as best you can. Same with the enemies, though. So almost like an expanded, persistent PUBG I guess (I’ve never played PUBG…).
When you die (and you most likely will), your character is permanently gone. But you can respawn as a relative/descendant of your previous character (similar features/retain SOME stats or traits to a certain point, possibly randomly). You’re starting fresh; no gear or anything besides again, maybe one random piece of loot you inherit or something. If you can make it back to your body before someone else loots it you can recover some of the stuff you had, but hopefully it would be a massive enough world that that’d be nearly impossible.
And to keep it from being ultra demoralizing there would have to be paths for non-combat roles like crafting and shop keeping, etc. and the possibility for building and owning housing so you’re not TOO frustrated when you wipe (shops and houses you could inherit). But there should always be the possibility of someone shooting you in the face and stealing your shit, though that person would then get a bounty placed on him and possibly his descendants afterward…
Anyway, rambling… I’ll detail in my new book, “Games Only I Want To Play, or I’m Too Old and Lazy to Learn Game Design.”
👍