/v/ - Video Games

>le realism

nice thread op

What games are you even talking about?

>>15004545

>play serious sam

>have to reload the double barrel all the way

>cant switch back and forth between single or the knife and double

this really pissed me off

Increasing the opportunity cost a decision carries makes it more meaningful.

In a single-player action game that's built around comboes, maybe switch speed is too annoying a mechanic to merit inclusion, but in multiplayer shooters, they reward prediction, situational awareness, and ammo management.

Probably to punish you for bad ammo management, poor weapon selection, and adding weight to your weapon decision. But largely because instant switching would look abrupt animation-wise, and realism too.

>>15004545

Might as well be instant in FPSes because all weapons are pretty much the same boom boom gun so there's no reason to penalize you for reskinning your boom boom gun.

>>15004568

There's literally no shooter on the market wherein instant weapon-switch would create imbalanced multiplayer.

Why are you a nigger?

>>15004622

Not what that anon was arguing.

>>15004655

Well his other point (that removing choices is good because it makes other choices more meaningful) was retarded.

>>15004562

The double Shotty's only existence to kill Kleers in 1 shot. Mayeb kill bulls in 2 or a few other mediums sized enemies. For everything else you use the single shotty or something bigger/more appropriate.

It was instant in RE5 but the kicker was that you couldn't move while shooting so it really didn't make a difference.

Because, when weapon switch speed is instant, there's no cost involved with switching weapons. In a game like Doom, or Serious Sam like >>15004562 mentioned, you've have to judge the cost/benefit ration of making yourself vulnerable, for a short moment, to arm a different weapon. It not only increases the necessity of tactical thought, but it also rewards preparation. By having an appropriate weapon out before an enemy encounter, you don't have to spend time switching weapons before dealing out damage.

it was good in DMC because you had to juggle or immobilise them before switching

>>15004810

> but it also rewards preparation

how do you reward preparation in a game like serious sam where every encounter is a monster closet? That's justifying trial and error which is undeniably a bad thing. Quake style weapon switches are the best, encourage creative play with the weapons and still have a recovery time for each weapon that is appropriate and brings out very snappy tactics from the player. It's a flat out improvement from the system doom had.

>>15004822

>where every encounter is a monster closet?

Except it's not? The games generally follow a pattern of alternating between enclosed areas and wide-open arenas. Just going by that, you can predict that you'll probably want a shotgun or tommy gun, while avoiding explosive weapons, for the enclosed areas, while bringing out the minigun and rocket launcher for the more open sections. There's also looking at the pickups around the level and where they're placed. If there's a lot of a certain kind of ammo around, the developers are probably hinting that you're about to hit an encounter where the weapon that uses that ammo will be very useful. Many arenas have enemies charging you from far away, giving you time to read what's coming and appropriately prepare.

Instant weapon switching is appropriate for some action games. Combo-heavy ones, like DMC, benefit greatly from it. Most shooters aren't combo-heavy, though. There's no benefit to shooting an enemy with a shotgun, then quickly switching to a machine gun to take out the rest of its health. With shooters, it can be better to reward tactical play and forethought over snappy reaction-times and quick thinking. It depends on the game.

There's no problem with being able to interrupt reload animations, so there shouldn't be any problem making a game with normal weapon switch times that can be interrupted immediately.

>>15004810

It makes no sense to reward preparation in a single player game where the level layout/monsters are arbitrary. In Doom there's really no way you can know what weapon would be best to have out before the next set of monsters you encounter. Weapon switch times just reward memorization.

>>15004879

Apparently you just blanked out over all my mentions of the designers signposting various encounters with level design and pickups. Sure, a game can have arbitrary design where it will throw anything at you with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but that generally makes it a bad game. Level design, the sounds of nearby enemies, the kinds of nearby weapons and ammo, and other cues can give you a pretty good idea of the kind of encounter that's coming up. And you're completely ignoring the other thing I mentioned other than preparation, you know, tactical thought in the middle of battle. Instant weapon switching gives you complete freedom, at the cost of losing any kind of punishment for pulling out the wrong weapon, or pulling out a different weapon at a bad time. If a demon is close and about to attack you, in Doom, it's probably a better idea to, first, shoot it and make it wince in pain, then switch to a better weapon, but that only applies with weapon switch delay. Instant switch would just mean you could switch weapons all willy-nilly, only having to think about which weapon is appropriate right then, rather than also having to think about when it would be best to switch.

>>15004798

I just looked it up to make sure and while it isn't actually instant it's less than a second at least. It's still pretty much useless outside of the rare occasions where you need to down a bunch of guys in front of you with a shotgun then quickly switch to a machine gun or magnum to take out the big guy for you in the back. Pretty convenient though and kind of jarring in a game filled with overly drawn out animations.

>>15004977

It's always a pleasure to see dregs quieted. Thanks for the quality analyses.

>Rewards planning ahead

>Decisions feels more meaningful

These are the exact same arguments casuals use when a new installment of a game comes out and it turns out being stripped of all mechanical skill and speed.

only tangentially related but

>play metal slug

>weapon switch has a delay

>landing lag

>crouching lag

>turning around has no lag while crouching

>spam left, right and the fire button while crouching

>mash the brain of the final boss of MS3 into a mushy paste in seconds

now I just need a way to survive the third boss when he shoots the piss rain in his second phase.