Using 'Human Augmentation' to solve unrealism

[tnk]

Excuse the mind-bendy title, but it does in fact make some sense.

So it seems like there are some pretty enormous hurdles when it comes to designing human-like players and balancing them against highly advanced robots. The kind of fights we seen in GZ would realistically be unwinnable, the robots are far too fast for any human to outrun let alone out-retreat. So we kind of get stuck in a form of the uncanny valley where player physics just feels simply odd.

The player runs faster backwards than Usain Bolt runs forwards, and it makes sense from a game-play standpoint, much like Serious Sam - it’s about the shooting, strafing, retreating. Balancing your WASD perfectly is a skill, avoiding projectiles is a skill, this is probably the best challenge this game presents to the player and respectfully, in my opinion it could improved vastly.

The lore creates a world where the robots have advanced far beyond most of the other technologies we see around us, but it would be unlikely that such a leap in technology occurs without being able to see some middle ground in the immediate world around you, yet our characters are very much set in the actual 1980s, with only technology from that era. Consumer products and in the very least medical devices - such as advanced prosthetics should be at a sophisticated enough level that they could, perhaps be seen in this world.

Right, so that would be my suggestion - go down that path, allow the player to become super-human through the use of “technology augmentations”, research pieces of machine taken from dead robots, design prosthetic legs that allow super high speed movement, high jump, augmented arms could allow for easy reload while sprinting, all whilst giving you an increased armor rating.

Imagine a perk in the current skill tree that, when your armor or health rating dropped below a certain percentage, an EMP would fire from one of your augmentations - it would save you from any immediate threat, yet render any of your prosthetics unusable until repaired.

No matter the future of this game, some of this stuff is fun to think about anyway, so if you could think of any ideas for attachments or abilities for the so called “augmentations” feel free to share them, I would like to hear your thoughts.

Hope you’re all having a great week.

[Saddletank]

Some interesting ideas but I really like the 1980s world and all its limitations (such as no mobile phones). I suppose you might just be able to justify a story where a government had conducted a decade or so of military research and been able to design advanced robotics without impact on consumer society though 80s computing technology would be hard-pressed to deliver anything like we see in the game.

But to add computer controlled super prosthetics (which we don’t even have today while we do very nearly have combat robots of the type in the game) would for me kill the setting.

Yes, there’s all kinds of issues with the game, none of which even bear on what you mentioned, such as no road vehicles working and there’s a lot wrong with the player vs machine physics - for me, one thing that feels weird is the viewing height. It seems like I’m a hobbit with an eye line about 3 or 4 feet from the ground, rather than a human.

What you are suggesting is a cyber-punk theme and I think I’d rather not go down that path, there are CP games out there or soon to be released and I would prefer this game to not be one of them.

[ahferroin7]

though 80s computing technology would be hard-pressed to deliver anything like we see in the game.

Not to quite the degree you might think. A lot of stuff we view as ‘new’ in computer technology far predates when most people really became aware of it. Wireless networking originated in 1971 (ALOHAnet), cluster computing was around at least in 1983 (DEC’s VAXCluster platform, later renamed to VMSCluster, not sure off the top of my head if it was used earlier at any large scale), the rudimentary high-level AI that’s being demonstrated by the individual machines can be trivially run on a small system from that era with a little leg work (it can be easily run on a low end Arduino board that has barely more processing power than all the Commodore systems we see throughout the world), and the robots are mostly pretty easy other than the hunters (all the others should have no issues with the biggest robotics problem, staying properly balanced).

The only thing I honestly think is a stretch if we don’t factor in the insane biotech advancements relative to real life is that FNIX is managing to do all this on what appears to be a couple of Cray-1 supercomputers (maybe Cray X-MP’s if we’re being generous).

[IanForce]

Propulsion! I would love to have a few of those 80’s power cells to power my car forever

[Krausladen]

Honesly, I agree. This isn’t the 1980’s. It’s alt 1980s. If I was in this position, I’d be stockpiling machine components and doing more research than shooting.

[Saddletank]

Discussion is great but I wonder if I might ask that no spoilers to the storyline be given please? Or at least give warnings they’re coming. I haven’t got very far in the main story yet and haven’t even come across the FNIX designation! I’m still working on the premise its those dastardly Russians. I thought at first they could be aliens until I saw they carried Roman numeral designations.