Rock, Paper, Shotgun

12/04/2011 at 20:44 RepentantNwah says:

WARNING: OBSCENELY LONG COMMENT

I have a handful of dream games, but I’ll attempt to describe the latest I’ve come up with. I’d describe it as Just Cause 2 version 2.0 or 3.0. meets Fallout3/NV, Mass Effect, and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. It would have a similar sort of story to JC 2, minus all the ridiculousness, but with MUCH more depth.
The player would be the rookie on a team of international, Rainbow 6-ish special ops members going in to an island nation like Panau to figure out what’s going and stop it if it poses danger to the international community. Doing so would involve blending in to the country and setting up an almost completely self-sufficient operation there. The player character’s appearance, gender, race, nation of origin (probably limited to a few “allied” countries) and beginning skill sets would be completely customizable.
When I say skill sets, I do not mean having to pick any sort of class. The RPG aspects of the game would be a combination of Fallout 3/NV and the new system Bethesda is using for Skyrim. At the outset, you can choose a few skills out of 15 or so that might reflect what you ultimately want your character to be, but not restricted to that for the rest of the game. These skills would include all the typical sort of skills a special ops person would have. Small arms, melee (includes any and all hand to hand or held weapon attacks), explosives, electronics, stealth, negotiation, athleticism, driving, helicopter piloting, and plane piloting would be in there among others. Leveling would of course involve using these skills in game. The higher the skill in say small arms, the more proficient that character would be with guns. To keep it slightly more realistic, damage wouldn’t increase a great deal every skill-up. Skill-ups would for instance affect your accuracy, muzzle sway, muzzle jump, and critical hit damage. These would of course lead to more damage done. Driving skill would increase responsiveness, explosives would dictate what sort of types of explosives you can use and your skill in crafting them, negotiations would act as a sort of ‘speech’ skill determining how well you can influence NPCs and their actions and what prices you can haggle from black market arms dealers (more on that later), etc.
As far as an underlying attribute system, I would like to see it kept as straightforward as possible. The only attributes would be Strength, Conditioning, Coordination, Awareness, and Intelligence. Each skill in the 15 would have 1 or all of these attributes attached to it in a weighted percentage fashion. For instance, small arms would be broken down like so: (45% coordination, 30% awareness, 15% conditioning, 10% intelligence). Using the small arms skill by firing weapons effectively would contribute, using a mathematical formula to be devised by the developers, to a separate sort of level-up bar for each attribute. The more you use skills with a certain underlying attribute, the quicker you gain another level in that attribute. Attaining another level in an attribute would of course give the player bonuses in all aspects of the game and would be a much bigger deal than gaining a skill level. Strength would affect damage in melee and how much you can carry, Conditioning would affect how fast you can run and for how long, Awareness would determine how well you perceive enemies in the game world and would also help in conversation, Coordination would affect driving and flying and how well you handle weapons, and Intelligence would give bonuses to electronic skills and also help in negotiation and conversation. I now realize that sounds complicated, but I think it would work.
The game would involve the player doing the same sort of things in they did in JC 2 (minus the grapple-hook). Doing side missions and subsequently gaining favor with factions who can give you discounts on gear, vehicles, and access to certain areas. You could actively subvert government operations across the island(s), but this time actually gaining more than “chaos” like more cash or weapons and gear. Destroying, sabotaging, and maybe even taking over government installations throughout the island would be very cool. You could build up a main “base” or something of the like that you can upgrade and customize. Adding an armory, garages, helicopter pads, and med bays are all possibilities. There would be a main story-line with missions based on it to progress the game, but not at a hurried pace (and wouldn’t end with riding ICBMs like cowboys).
Taking from Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, you could rise in rank or prestige on this team and eventually take it over. You could then recruit new members or customize the members you already have and send them out on a myriad of missions to gather intel or make more money. These team members would have more specialized roles than the player might, so their leveling system would be more simplified. Heavy gunners, wheelmen, pilots, and spies might be good examples.
To add even more of an RPG element, the player can completely customize what they look like by choosing the gear, clothing they wear, and weapons they use. Since this is my dream game, there would thousands of guns that can be upgraded and modded further like adding scopes and laser sights and grips and suppressors or whatever else. Weapons would range from knives to pistols and up to rocket launchers like most FPSs. These guns, however, would be guns taken directly from the real world. CZ, H&K, Colt, Remington, Glock, etc. along with other smaller manufacturers would be represented. Each individual gun would have a base damage and accuracy rating that goes along with the player’s skills and attributes and can be upgraded by using attachments. As far as equipping weapons go, I see it sort of like a modified Halo set up. Players can equip one main weapon, one side arm, one melee weapon, and multiple grenades depending on your armor or clothing set up. These weapons can be switched to on the fly by pressing one button without opening the inventory menu, and can be visibly seen on the player once equipped.
As far as armor goes, things are kept grounded in the real world. Armor would consist of chest rigs or thigh rigs which will allow you to carry more ammo and add space to your inventory. Since I envision the player damage system to be similar to modern shooters like COD where there is a certain “death threshold” to be met for the player to die, body armor like Kevlar and Dragon Scales would raise that threshold depending on quality. Backpacks of small to large sizes can be equipped to allow for more carrying capacity, but the bigger the backpack and the more weight you carry, the more cumbersome you become. Speaking of carrying capacity, the inventory system would work kind of like a hybrid between Diablo and Fallout 3/NV. Your Strength and Conditioning attributes would determine the total weight you can carry before slowing down at one level to not being able to move at the next. This number cannot be changed all that much by other equipment. What can be changed by equipment are the spaces you have to fill up like Diablo. Wearing no pack of any kind will allow you to carry little more than what items and gear you have equipped on your person. Tactical pants, jackets, belts, and chest rigs can add space, but obviously very little. By equipping a backpack from your home base’s armory, which allows for mass storage, carrying spaces are significantly increased. As stated before, however, the more you carry the slower you move. It is a system I believe would make the player think about both how their character operates in the game as well as what a given mission will require. Say for instance, a mission entails meeting a contact in a crowded public area. First off, you do not want to just march into a crowded area in full tactical gear like you were assaulting a bunker. Your character would alert army or security forces as well as spook your contact. You would probably only wear what was needed in this situation; street clothes and a pistol. Each mission would require thought on the player’s part.
To round out the equipment side, the player could also equip 2-3 accessories at any given time, along with an advanced PDA. These would include a lockpick, bomb diffusers, mini camera drone, etc. The PDA would handle communications, electronic locks, and hacking, and the map/GPS function.
Finally, combat, in a dream game would be like Mass Effect 2 really. The only difference would be to add a First Person view to make aiming down the sites more realistic.