longer.blue

I low key kind of wish there was more playing around in the design space of "shooting" in games. This is not a judgment on people who love that shit, I can compartmentalize that for elsewhere, but I simply have never found "Move mouse cursor onto target and click" to be fun or engaging. Even at like super high levels. I can certainly appreciate that "move cursor and click" can be an extremely difficult thing to do, requiring good reflexes, situational awareness and fine motor control, in games where they build for that... it is still an unsatisfying thing to be doing with my hands in a videogame to me. If it helps I would apply the same point and click criticism to games like Diablo. Terrible combat, setting aside my nostalgia. It was fine in 1999. It was a novel control scheme when Counterstrike was new. No Rest for the Wicked looks dope btw. Just saying. But point and click is boring when compared to so many other more dynamic control schemes that ask so much more for you. So I largely don't play shooters, unless the shooting is just a single piece of a larger puzzle or the rare event that something just rings all my bells. See Remnant and Remnant 2. The thing is that wasn't always true. And not all shooters, or "shooters", are built around this core point and click design space. Think of 2d games. Megaman and Contra are about shooting. But there's no real aiming involved. So instead the design of those games forgoes any worries about that, you have a gun, it is implicit that you will shoot and hit the enemies, and the fun of the game is entirely designed around everything else. Level layout, enemy abilities and patterns, mobility options, etc. See also the entire schmup genre. But that's 2d you say. Well even in first and third person there's been good alternatives. Metroid Prime is probably the best example. The original game just fully built around easy lockon shooting. There's a 3rd person James Bond game that inspired this spiel that does the same. It's less good. Once more, you are playing as a character for whom it it implicit that they are going to hit the thing they are shooting at. So again, with aiming taken out of the equation the game must look elsewhere to make itself interesting to play. DOOM did not have mouse look aiming. Most of the weapons have some level of distinct attack giving their use dynamism. It's the most important FPS ever made for like the next decade plus after it's release. No aiming. Point, shoot, hit. The gameplay is about, again, movement, enemy composition and management, weapon management, level layout, etc. This is a design space I want to see more experimentation in. I feel like we've hit a pretty solid place with melee combat in games. There's tons of variety and styles of play around the notion of getting up in there and physically hitting someone. But shooting? There's so much more that could be done. Devil May Cry uses guns as an accessory for long range juggling and combo extension. Vanquish, the goat, has aggressive auto-aim to the point of being snap on, and so that entire third person shooter is built and focused around a whole slate of robust movement options instead of the aiming and shooting. Elden Ring has no guns. I know, right? But it has a shit ton of range options of a staggering style and variety, as well as essential just point and shoot ones, that let you play that game like it's a fantasy shoot em up. All lock-on targeting. But most shooters are indeed that same tried and true "skill based" core gameplay style of "being good" and quickly getting the mouse cursor over the targets head and clicking before they do the same to you. Which leaves anyone not interested in honing that skill better off to just find something else to do because there's rarely much meat left on the bones if you don't engage with that one thing. You should still make Counterstrikes. People seem to love that shit. And that kind of gameplay defines that style of shooter. But play around. There's a million interesting ways you could implement ranged combat without needing to aim. Also there's just the immersion factor. You're giving me a named character like James Bond and he can't hit the broad side of a barn because I'm the one steering? Immersion breaking. Samus however never misses in Metroid Prime. Because she's a badass galaxy wide known mercenary. It's my job as the player to run around keeping her alive in the meantime because the baddies are independently threatening regardless of how cool Samus is. But Samus never fails a jump or dodge command anymore then her aim falters. Immersion fulfilling. Mostly I just want a third person Contra(like) where I don’t need to aim anymore then I did in boomer Contra. Headshots were never the point.