GTFO: Generally bad Game Design and Why.

[Infinity]

Stealth vs Loud Mission or Why you aren't Payday and can't have both.

Payday 2 had stealth missions. You could also go loud on some. Some you couldn't. It was a game about clowns shooting cops, stealing money and goat simulator cross overs. It was a dark time in gaming's history, but even so, some of the missions where Stealth was optional still worked because the core gunplay was always around shooting hordes of inexautable members of corrupt law enforcement; that is to say, the mechanics you relied on to fix a problem you created were solid and perfectly capable of getting you out of that mess. Not so with GTFO.

The core gameplay of GTFO is hitting things with the worlds loudest silent mallet and playing Red Light, Green Light with seizure monsters. It is therefore no surprise to anyone that the gunplay is probably one of the worst things about the game. But that's okay...at least it would have been, if guns were the fall back option, a punishment option for failing stealth. Unfortunately in the quest to draw inspiration from other games like say, L4D, a forced meme of an Alarm at 3 points throughout a mission is a forced punishment for succeeding in stealth: You must now use the bad weapons and fight enemies in engagements that are not rewarding, tense or fun, merely tedious, aggrevating and generally excactly the same every time.

Having a flood of enemies all come in at once, hitting you with homing attacks at range, hitting you through doors they haven't broken down, exhausting limited supplies and health...all this for having suceeded in stealth is like giving a safe driver a free car accident for his renewal.

Horror games must always flirt the line cautiously between Fear and Frustration. GTFO is really good at crossing the line almost immediately from "Spooky" to frustrating. This is because absolutely everything about it seems to be designed to mess with you.

Despite stealth being the main go to core of the game, and arguably the only way people should be able to play it, the mechanics for stealth are anything but solid. Sleepers will often wake up for no reason at all at any cardinal direction or distance for one sleeper getting "silently" malleted and sound the alarm. Often enough this happens at INCREDIBLE distances in larger multi-connecting hubs. Likewise falling down 1 inch on a stair system not even causing damage to yourself will also sometimes trigger a full panic attack in your room. You may even experience half the room panic and attack you and the other half remain in blissful sleep. The point is, there's not really a rhyme nor a reason as to why you or your team mates will get detected, sometimes everyone will even be completely still and that sleeper just doesn't like the way you are typing on a computer in the knockoff CMD_Run prompt.

And now you enter the gunplay, with guns that feel more like Nerf Darts than bullets, and enemies that unsatisfying hit you with homing heat seeker tongues and Kirby Star bolt missles at range, you'd be hard pressed not to mistake this for some knock off Doom game. The enemies feel cheap as they hit you with projectiles or their tongues at absurd distances, take a cruel amount of ammo to put down and deal more than their fair share of damage. The guns will give you no satisfaction as you realize the Max Ammo Capacity of a machine gun is 100 rounds including the loaded mag, while the SMG which deals comparable Damage has 40 in it's mag and a 100 reserve to start.

You will be compelled to turn your brain off as the Warden of a prison will not give you 600 rounds of shotgun shells and a bandolier, maybe totalling 250 USD on the excuse of "expense" but then hand over a multi-million dollar bio-Scanner and Sentry Gun for you to take down with you.You didn't notice it but your brain did.

You'll find yourself hating the weapons you depend on since you can't just throw them in the garbage and enjoy a high stakes stealth mission because for some reason, someone, somewhere decided they wanted to force you to fight a horde at 3 scripted points to whiddle down your will power to continue playing this game.

You might have a big brain moment and decide that the mines should be whombo-combo'd at these events with C-Foamed doors only to discover the doors are like GTFO, in theory they exist and therefore take up space, in practice they are merely a suggestion, as a crowd that only Jesus Christ himself could pull simultaneously one shots you from behind a door, then proceeds to flood over your now man down team and hurl christmas lights through their skulls at 300 yards.

GTFO feels like a game I honestly have trouble even getting mad at, it can barely inspire negative feedback in me because of how bland and repetitive the gameplay becomes: Slapping things with a hammer while walking down a hall over and over again until I'm forced to use unbalanced, un-fun guns with very limited ammo to defend myself from scripted alarms I have no way of avoiding and then doing it again on same 4 enemy models throwing Kirby Starbolts at me for another two more times and then leave.

The game would be infinitely more exciting if Stealth was the intended and rewarded method of infiltration and extraction with Combat being the un-fun punsihment factor for not disarming an alarm before you entered a room or not killing Scout before they feel you up. If the integrity of the gunplay is someones child and cannot be put down like the dog it is, many options remain that while considerably less optimal would be easy: Increased ammo spawns to deal with the ♥♥♥♥ ton of horde you insist upon us fighting; improving balance in weapons like damage or max capacity (Machine Gun, Revolver, Pistol etc).

Unfortunately Fallout 76 has taught me there are people who will pay and defend anything, and therefore these suggestions or points, will likely fall on deaf ears...

...But my wallet will remain curiously not-empty.

[KaoZ]

Maybe Ammo is extremely expensive?!
The Warden might be better off the develop a Bio-Tracker-Trebuchet ...

Seriously though, @Infinity I get your idea.
Having not enough ammo for (e.g.) two clips but on the other hand equipment which is able to scan specific lifeforms through walls is very debatable.
(Portable) Electricity on the other hand seems abundant: Bio-Tracker & Sentry run forever -- I hope there will be weapons using these power sources ;)

What makes me really mad is the choice of ammo-caps -- why would I set a cap at a "random" value i.e. not a multiple of the clipsize?!

There should be other possible ways to account for the feeling of "ammo-scarcity", penalty of non-stealth or non-cooperative gameplay and so on ...

Nevertheless, I'm hyped for this game, I will most certainly get it when it hits Early-Access.
Then I will write more feedback; currently it's simply their network-test.

[lockwoodx]

First page replies are personal attacks against the OP, OP's writing, and the opinions of others who agree/disagree. Yep this is a GTFO thread all right.

I think it was good solid feedback. Had my arm twisted into DLing the alpha and the original post is a good summary of what to expect.

[ZiFFA]

I don't get this Payday comparison thing, just because it's a co-op survival.
So L4D is the same game as Killing Floor? who is also similar to Payday?
No

Complain to any other things, but just because a game share a "same" core mechanic (survival) doesn't mean it's the same game.

For the rest, i can agree to OP about bland gameplay.
Still, it's an alpha, they'll add more maps, different objective and probably different playstile.
Maybe even PVP who knows

Fallout76 was just a big example of how hype can manipulate players.
I bet that veterans of the fallout series knowing the bugs ecc... would have just stay away knowing Fallout+Online

[Pizzashot]

Playing stealth doesn't mean that you need to be slow, you can rush through everything if you understand how to not alert enemies. I sprint around with my mallet hitting enemies in the head with ease when they're not too many, no need to play as a snail when you know how enemies work. Sprinting + evading by pressing left/right+shift in fights is awesome. You get gunfights when you do the alarmed doors, conserve your ammo till you actually need it.

[KaoZ]

Jeehao <3님이 먼저 게시:

[...] stealth [...] conserve [...] ammo [...]

How dare you speak of stealth?!
Followed by "conserve" and "ammo" in a single sentence.
There's no room for this preposterous behavior (melee, ammo conservation, cooperation and stealth) in a cooperative survival shooter.
No more of this heresy! Now, GTFO :P

[MyMumIsAstronaut]

Gunplay is weird. Enemies are cheating. UI is terrible. Luckily I haven't been able to progress too much so game didn't feel too repetitive.

A year ago I thought GTFO will be this scary shooter, something like L4D, just less arcade-like. Now I am really disappointed. The gunplay is pain. You don't really have any ammo(even if you have) and it just doesn't feel right. Enemies are weird. Their movement, their homing damage, the feeling is just not right there. And the UI, omg. Also, please get rid of "jump scares" in loading. Normal people are not really entertained by sudden loud noises when you launch the game. In fact, it will probably make then angry, not scared. I want to be scared, but not by cheap and annoying effects.

Why don't you just make a proper game menu? Please don't try to re-invent something that already works well. A normal menu with no "press and hold" would be just fine. This is just ridiculous.

Thanks, but no thanks for me. I was going to buy it because it looked so good, but it just isn't good really.

[Pizzashot]

Enemies are not cheating, you just don't understand them.

[--STYX--]

Jeehao <3님이 먼저 게시:

Enemies are not cheating, you just don't understand them.

a screamer being unkillable while screaming counts as cheating no?
if something ignores heavy sniper shots right to the temple, that constitutes cheating no?

if i have a ranged dude who is so blown apart he only consists of legs and a hip, but can move and shoot normally, that is cheating no?

[Bodean Abernathy II]

Most of what you said is completely untrue. This game was awesome to play. Yes, they had issue in their ALPHA, which was amazing to say the least, especially compared to other games. Many things are being completely re-worked in the game, like getting hit through closed doors (Which happened but for me, rarely) fall damage obviously needed a rework and other bugs I can't think of off the top of my head.

You state many things that you see as an issue that are core gameplay elements. Like when you silently melee a enemy but it alerts another enemy. The reason that happens is because another enemy nearby is in a partially alert mode, meaning that, when you make a noise it will trigger them to attack you.

Another thing you stated was that gunplay is poor and weapons feel under powered. The reason this is is because it (atleast for me) adds another fear element/pucker factor. Most enemies in other games will die with one headshot. The reason I believe they make it different in this is to make gunplay intense. You have to make sure you see a body ragdoll and not get back up. You can see when you kill an enemy they don't seem to have any internal organs except for these odd pustuals inside them. Making it to where you have to physically dismantle their bodies with firearms until they have nearly nothing left to move (unless you take one out in a headshot which happens most of the time)

This game is in Alpha and like I said previously is getting worked on. Did you ever think this game just might not be for you?

[MyMumIsAstronaut]

Most "haters" acknowledged that this is alpha and they don't hate things like bugs, glitches and unbalanced features. They(including me) hate exact core gameplay mechanics you talk about. We hate game design choices, not the fact that it's somehow broken because of alpha.

Everything still counts. There is no excuse to have poor gunplay in FPS game. None. And have that heavily limited ammo. You always want to provide some degree of freedom to players. Things like forced alarm on door opening is just bad design choice. Same with the UI system(press and hold, why?!). The stealth part might be fun if tweaked. But enemy movement is weird, homing damage is weird and punishing for no reason. Sometimes you don't even notice you are getting damaged.

The atmosphere in the game is awesome though. It just feels to me like devs are not really decided what kind of game they want. Reminds more Dead Island than scarier Left 4 Dead. Basically your only way is to stealth through the map with a melee and hope you won't pull too much enemies at once.

Alpha bugs are not problems, game design choices are.

[Jinkos]

yeah i fully agree, OP. very high potential for the game, but at the end of the day the core gameplay is kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as u put it. especially that red light green light ♥♥♥♥, spot on. its not even good stealth mechanics.

[Eudae]

This game isn't horror. It's not scary. All the hostiles are the same lifeless fleshbags in varying sizes and stature.

I agree with OP almost 100%. I was very excited for this game but it's definitely a red light green light simulator. I don't think stealth is necessarily difficult, as you can literally walk through the middle of hordes without them noticing you as long as you stop, go, stop go, stop go, ad nauseum.

It's just not very appealing to me as it stands. I'll definitely keep an eye on it to see if it ever evolves out of this state but with most of the community raging against differing opinions like a bunch of SJWs, I don't anticipate this ever changing.

"You're not the target audience, go away" is a weak argument. I am their target audience - I'm a person with money who was interested in the trailer and is interested in a "4 player cooperative game, with a focus on team play and atmosphere." If that's not their target audience, maybe they should change the game's description to "red light, green light fleshbag horror simulator" and just delete all the trailers because if I ever had as many bullets as they do in the trailer I'd never have any issues.

[Proponent_]

Good summary of the current state of the game. Combat mechanics are awful.

[Donni]

Looks like you just want to change a game that a lot liked to your taste , you had some complains that dont make sense , because you are asking just to be less "hardcore" , yeah the gunplay isnt good and the enemies attacks to , but I succed in stealth and in taking everyone with guns , the way to deal with the enemies is to play like KF2.

[Eudae]

Donni님이 먼저 게시:

Looks like you just want to change a game that a lot liked to your taste , you had some complains that dont make sense , because you are asking just to be less "hardcore" , yeah the gunplay isnt good and the enemies attacks to , but I succed in stealth and in taking everyone with guns , the way to deal with the enemies is to play like KF2.

Define "a lot". No one I gave alpha keys out to enjoyed the alpha test enough to consider purchasing the game, which is unfortunate because I was so excited about it. Anecdotal evidence, sure, but that's 4 or 5 lost sales right there.