Regarding game design, do you like customizing guns in games?

(watsyurdeal) #1

If so, do you like being able to set their stats? Or just the cosmetic aspects? Like the sight and skin of the gun?

I was wanting to take some inspiration from Blacklight Retribution and allow players to customize their guns, by changing the Barrel, Receiver, Stock, Sight, and Magazine. But I don’t know if it can truly be balanced like I want it to, and it ultimately may come down to a few meta builds that everyone uses anyhow.

But then again, I want to offer as many options to the player to build and mold a specific class to their style of play. So, what exactly do you look for personally? What is the stuff you absolutely have to have, and what can you live without?

(Bestfinlandball) #2

I feel like dirty bomb doesn’t need it.
It would also be difficult to implement since the game uses loadout cards.

(watsyurdeal) #3

This has nothing to with Dirty Bomb btw, this is something that I want to work on. It’s a separate game.

(SteelMailbox) #4

I like the option to choose but not when it is too advanced.

(gg2ez) #5

I like gun customisation especially when it goes into really deep detail. Skins, Stats, Sights, Gun mods, everything.

(Sir_Slam) #6

Well, yes and no. In reality, Im actually a gun nut. Customizing guns is something I do as a hobby when Im not on the computer.

So when I start up a game of whatever, and I have all these crazy skins, I end up sitting in there going “…I just want a damn handstop”.
Ive never been a cosmetic whore.

Now if we’re talkin stuff like swapping mag types, barrel lengths, sight pictures, lighter weight receivers, hair triggers ect. I’m totally down with that. But as far as fancy skins go, I couldn’t care less. The issue here is that a lot of the stuff that effects a gun in reality is very, very nuanced and likely wouldn’t translate well into a video game. Stuff like grip angle, weight, trigger reset, pull length, SA or DA, controls, and furniture cant be modeled into a game easily.

For example, 1911’s. I cant stand them. That damn grip safety makes me want to rip my eyes out of my face. They’re stuck head to toe in buttons and safeties and shit that just doesn’t need to be on my gun. Youre also pretty much stuck with single stack mags, meaning around 7-ish bullets. They’re also heavy as shit, which helps with recoil some, but…meh.

Glocks meanwhile dont have any external safeties save the trigger safety. Nothing to press. Nothing to mess up when you need it. I def perfer glocks. HOWEVER. The stock glock trigger is fucking awful and the sights aren’t much better.

How would one implement all of this into the game in a way that feels solid, without it being arbitrary stat boots? Thats up to you.

(watsyurdeal) #7

Well, as far as stats go, I’m looking at these

Damage - nuf said, two types, standard and critical multiplier.

Rate of Fire - nuf said as well

Accuracy - the maximum spread

Recoil - how much spread is added per shot

Stability - how much spread is reduced per tick (milisecond)

Range - the maximum distance at which you are guaranteed to hit a target in the head, it’s also the initial starting spread of the gun

Handling - Affects all the weapon draw, raise, switch, and aim times

Reload - Measurement in seconds of how long it takes to reload

These are just the basics, I may go more in depth later on, like changing the range to include differing values for when you are strafing, crouching, aiming, jumping, etc,

(Sir_Slam) #8

Thats interesting. Handling is a part that you can play with a lot, and its a part that is over looked a lot in reality. Range noobs with too much money often show up with an AR thats got 20 useless pieces of equipment stuck to it.

“Oh yeah, I totally need a foregrip, flashlight, laser sight, bi-pod, two dot sights a toiletpaper rack and tactical spork mount. I think it’ll be a house gun.” Have fun lugging that around for more than 30 minutes.

Or worse, when a handgun has sights or safeties that tug or get caught on your clothing when drawing from concealment. From a holster its not a big deal, but theres a reason you see a lot of very slim carry guns with no external safeties.

If you’re going for realism, its all stuff worth looking at.

Stuff like damage calculations…we’re going to have to start talking about physics and bullet design, as well as powder charge, pressure charge and a bunch of shit that I dont even bother with. Some of the long range shooters really get into that kind of stuff, I just shoot cans.

Again, thats if you really want to dig into reality. But honestly, I dont think most people would even notice. They’d go “which one hurts the most”.

(watsyurdeal) #9

@Sir_Slam

Well, I’m using Dirty Bomb’s gun mechanics as my base. The massive use of hipfire, the slower ttk and overall slower rates of fire, etc.

The way I see it, fire rate and damage are pretty easy to understand, accuracy and spread are tricky. How games typically simulate accuracy is through angles, the guns are never typically pinpoint accurate. Your spread is basically a circle, that expands and retracts depening on what you do. It’s how you simulate a cone of fire.

The very edge of your cone of fire, is the maximum spread, and the very middle is obviously your intial starting accuracy, effectively depending the range at which you could accurately hit a target the size of say, someone’s head. The difference here is I’m not sure I’m going to use projectiles, probably going to be hitscan, it really depends on the map sizes to be honest.

If I do use projectiles, no bullet drop, just travel time so I don’t have to make any complex equations for damage drop off or ramp up.

I want to give players room to play around with their gun to better fit their style of play, maybe they prefer a M14 like gun that they can spam a lot of bullets down range, like the Dreiss, or a more accurate, harder to control weapon that hits like a train, the Grandeur.

Maybe they want a heavy hitting machine gun that requires you fire in bursts, K121, or just a blitz of bullets that you just unload into people, Hochfir.

I feel like this will make the game more interesting, and a bit more balanced as well since you have to make tradeoffs, and each gun will have it’s strengths and weaknesses.

In other words…I got a lot of fucking math to do. -_-

(Sir_Slam) #10

Oh christ. The amount of trig and calc would make me shoot myself. That sounds like no fun.

(watsyurdeal) #11

Yea, plus, there’s just the various netcode or latency issues associated with projectiles.

Hopefully by the time I make this game though those sort of things will be mute, internet speeds will be ridiculous I hope by then.

(Sir_Slam) #12

What engine? Unreal?

I wonder what Source 2 is going to be like. They say its going to be specially made for homebrewing, but I cant help but wonder.

(watsyurdeal) #13

I really don’t know for sure but probably Unreal 4 since I am used to Unreal Script already.

And I wouldn’t get your hopes too much, it’s likely a decade away.

(Frogteam) #14

I generally like it when I can go full customization, optimizing each gun for my engagement style. But I don’t think I’d care about it in a Dirty Bomb like environment, I realize this isn’t about DB, but you mentioned DB’s gun mechanics as a base. With the emphasis on hip fire, the fine tuning of handling, spread, and similar mechanics often aren’t as big of a deal.

Why trick out your stability and iron sights and recoil reduction, when the guy across the map can hit you without ads-ing in the first place. It’s why the Dreiss is already a tricky gun to use.

(watsyurdeal) #15

[quote=“Frogteam;100546”]I generally like it when I can go full customization, optimizing each gun for my engagement style. But I don’t think I’d care about it in a Dirty Bomb like environment, I realize this isn’t about DB, but you mentioned DB’s gun mechanics as a base. With the emphasis on hip fire, the fine tuning of handling, spread, and similar mechanics often aren’t as big of a deal.

Why trick out your stability and iron sights and recoil reduction, when the guy across the map can hit you without ads-ing in the first place. It’s why the Dreiss is already a tricky gun to use.[/quote]

Because this is why

If you notice, the guns have an accurate range, meaning that there is range you are guaranteed to hit a headshot 100% of the time assuming your aim is on par. This can be a differentiating stat that changes based on the gun you are using.

Sure you COULD get lucky, but it’s not consistent. Now compare that to a gun like the Grandeur, which has damn near perfect hipfire accuracy on that first shot, he’ll nail you in the head and deal massive damage.

I know this adds a bit of luck to the game but then again…the game already has that in it. The difference is recoil patterns, where the gun will tug you in the same direction every time. Spread will however make it so your bullets won’t always go in the same spot after a certain point, so there is room to make things more interesting, it’ll just be very subtle.

So, really it just depends on where I go with this, I could potentially have a set of parts, and certain parts come with certain perks. Like a Folding Stocks that come with slight differences in stability, accuracy, and recoil, but all improve handling, or hard stocks that all improve scope in time, etc.

If it ends up not being worth it, I’ll just make damn good guns that are all amazing in feel, but very different for playstyles. But I like the idea of having a lot of options, because it makes the player feel like they have a lot wiggle room to play with, especially since I’ll likely just have a few guns overall.

Auto Rifle, Burst Rifle, Scout Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, and Grenade Launcher are the ones that come to mind, and each of those can have sub groups. Like the Auto Rifle could be like the XM 8, it can be an M16, or a submachine gun, or a full blown lmg, etc.

(blisteringOwlNest) #16

I think gun customisation is awesome. I literally spend all my time in customisation in any game, the more the better.
But from a design perspective, if your going to have a class system like db, then your most likely going to want them to play a certain way e.g. Shotguns in db for small fast classes like aura and Proxy.
However if you make it loud out based like COD, you can have a lot more variety in the guns.
I’m sure you could figure out your own system depending on your character system, but it depends on how predictable you want engagements to be. Unless you were talking purely cosmetically, then just all the things. All of them.

(CCP115) #17

I’m no game designer or gun nut, but gun customization is incredibly hard to balance. Blacklight Retribution got it right, and Loadout was close but the meta builds became staple.

It’s cool but gimmicky and hard to balance.