Can't Die and Can't Kill

[JuGhur]

It's a little immersion breaking. Looking at the game as a story sim, the fact I have so little agency in the world disconnects me from it. Obviously there should be massive penalties for killing (if you get caught), but not being able to at all just makes little sense.

[accident]

Set a security system on a busy floor to "not player" and you'll become a killer pretty quick

[WILLHOU]

What would killing peds add to the game?

[四畳半主義者]

Yeah, I'm waiting for mods to fix this as well. It feels like nothing I do in this game has any consequences. Death is just a non-existent concept for the player or the world, which immediately breaks any immersion. There are no mistakes you can make or accidents you can cause. Did you break into somebody's apartment and accidentally wake the tenant? No worries, just beat the guy senseless with a hammer or slash him once with a sword and it's all good! Oh... Don't forget to repeat the process every minute or so while you methodically gather the evidence you came for, and don't feel bad about it because the guy is an immortal being who can't be harmed by you in any way. Not only is he immortal, but he and the world will forget about these crimes the moment you step out of the apartment/building. How exciting! So I definitely agree with OP, the game severely lacks player agency.

Originally posted by accident:

Set a security system on a busy floor to "not player" and you'll become a killer pretty quick :gaper:

To my great disappointment this is false, unless there was an undocumented change. Anyone "killed" by the turrets will just wake up like nothing happened in a minute or so.

Originally posted by WILLHOU:

What would killing peds add to the game?

Meaning and weight behind your actions. Currently, the optimal way to play the game is literally to just incapacitate everyone who is in your way, as there is no concept of death from the player's perspective. Yes, I can pretend and come up with fake roleplay reasons to not play in such a way, but it doesn't solve the issue. Sometimes you do make mistakes that force combat on you, and if I were able to actually kill citizens, I might choose to run away instead or continue my story as a killer instead of being mildly irritated by the temporal inconvenience of the situation.
Not to mention, that being able to kill citizens would open up a whole new way to play the game as a serial killer, which can also be exciting.

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by 四畳半主義者:

Originally posted by WILLHOU:

What would killing peds add to the game?

Meaning and weight behind your actions. Currently, the optimal way to play the game is literally to just incapacitate everyone who is in your way, as there is no concept of death from the player's perspective.

This is indeed a massive issue.
Just punching everyone's lights out has absolutely zero consequences and it really hurts the game.

For now I am able to refrain from doing this because I prefer immersion and roleplay over just going for the "most efficient way", which would indeed be what you describe.

But, why would I even consider bribing someone for hundreds of credits when I can just punch his light out and search his apartment and get all the info I could ever need including the ability to search his body, knowing when he wakes up there will be zero consequences for me whatsoever, as long as I am not around anymore... or I just punch him out again.

They saw our face.
Why are we not wanted by police?
The game definitely needs a significantly deeper and better crime system so the player actually needs to worry about breaking the law. From breaking and entering an apartment, to resorting to violence, this needs to mean something drastic but it just doesn't.

Leave the building for a minute - all is forgotten.

Also, say you break and enter, get caught, you fight the home owner, you run away, they chase you. A second after they stop searching/go back to normal, you can stumble into them and they have not the slightest clue who you even are.

Come. On.

Have NPCs remember you.
Have NPCs press charges.
Let the player pay fines according to that.
Let the player receive mail from city hall/court where one is sentenced to pay a fine until date X or the game is over because not paying means prison.

Hell, there is a TON that can be done with this, that was just on my mind right now without even thinking much about it.

Anti-gun players always bring this straw man argument that adding guns would ruin the game because "it would get too easy", completely ignoring that what they claim we would do, we already can do with melee weapons just fine and unlike guns they do not even have the consequences of death attached. It's hilarious.

[KDR_11k]

I don't think having the player kill would make too much sense, you could end up e.g. killing all the enforcers and then what? I think it's an acceptable tradeoff. The game happens in a very short timeframe, it'd be weird if new people moved in super quickly to make up for your killing sprees. Guns don't seem like they'd be a problem with the current immortality tho, handguns are clearly weaker than some melee weapons and if shooting a gun would make anyone within a wide area immediately reach for the alarm (or even have gunfire detectors as a new security device) you wouldn't want to use them recklessly anyway. Though IMO long rifles should be considered illegal and anyone carrying one should be visible and get flagged by security systems even in public areas.

Fines should definitely be stickier if you get caught. Way too easy to just run out of the building and have your record wiped clean. The game works best when you're scared of getting caught.

[Zothen]

Yay, another gun-nut dance circle...! Annoyingly loud minority makes me sad.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Player initiated violence should have harsher consequences.

I'd like to see the game having a proper jail you can be dragged into if you are caught for crime.

Losing DAYS of investigation would be a suitable punishment; the killer kills again, evidences disappear, CCTV footage rolls over, a key witness disappears, etc...

[Lfod]

I'm over here just amazed at how well this game is put together and I never thought about being able to kill or be killed.

Is paying a fine for murder or a game over if they catch you adding that much depth to the game? Is your character getting killed and it's game over add that much depth to the game? I like the idea of throwing some higher stakes in the game for losing fights or getting caught beating on somebody for higher difficulty but not really sure how kill or be killed makes that much of a difference.

I just wish people would suggest ideas that might actually add some good depth to the game instead of more mundane things like "I want to be able to kill" or "I want to be able to be killed". I want to shoot a gun or I want to drive a car. All stuff that would be cool but I want the developer spending time on expanding the detective side of the game not wasting time trying to fulfill murder hobos fantasies.

I want to be able to set a fire and burn a whole block down and see the fire trucks roll up to the house and pull out a person that is on fire save them bring them to the hospital so I can follow them and then roll that person down a flight of stairs. That would really help my immersion and the feeling like I have impact over the world.

[tynian87116]

Originally posted by accident:

Set a security system on a busy floor to "not player" and you'll become a killer pretty quick :gaper:

I actually did that for a company that pissed me off because their employees wouldn't let me yeet some of their snacks on a visitors pass. 10 out of 10 will compromise corporate security again.

[tynian87116]

Originally posted by Lfod:

I'm over here just amazed at how well this game is put together and I never thought about being able to kill or be killed.

Is paying a fine for murder or a game over if they catch you adding that much depth to the game? Is your character getting killed and it's game over add that much depth to the game? I like the idea of throwing some higher stakes in the game for losing fights or getting caught beating on somebody for higher difficulty but not really sure how kill or be killed makes that much of a difference.

I just wish people would suggest ideas that might actually add some good depth to the game instead of more mundane things like "I want to be able to kill" or "I want to be able to be killed". I want to shoot a gun or I want to drive a car. All stuff that would be cool but I want the developer spending time on expanding the detective side of the game not wasting time trying to fulfill murder hobos fantasies.

Not to mention that PC killing NPC's drastically reduces the opportunities for murder cases to occur since a potential murderer/murder victim/mission target/mission giver would then be dead and thus removed from the pool which could potentially screw things up on a huge level in a way that the PC would never actually get to see other than having more infrequent murders.

That murder hobo statement gives me flashbacks to the D&D campaign I was apart of that went from OK to canceled in the second session. This dude got added in on the second day. DM knew the dude and usually excluded him from play because of his murder hobo fixation, but, dude swore up and down that he wasn't going to be that way, so, he rolled up a peaceful cleric. DM allowed it, dude dropped into the game, we were level 1; that broken 3.5e encounter rating system ended up tossing a juvenile red dragon beside camp, it was aggro-ed... we tried fighting it and realized "Oh, ♥♥♥♥... not so good an idea we need to stop this now." one of our PC's knew draconic and was in the process of trying to talk peace with the red dragon... negotiations just about finished, and the murder hobo showed his same old stinky colors, running in, agro-ing the red dragon again, and this kept happening until the DM got sick of it and just called the game and perma-banned murder hobo from all games. One of the things that murder hobo used to do whenever rolling up characters was to laud over how their "character concept" would be "so original" and would "add to the game" because he "loved immersing himself into the character".

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by Lfod:

I just wish people would suggest ideas that might actually add some good depth to the game

Try actually reading these threads, you might be surprised how inaccurate your post is after the fact...

[tynian87116]

I mean, if we're going to talk about adding to immersion: I want the game to include sh*t physics, so that whenever someone has to go into the basements that're clearly flooded by sewage, it sticks to their legs. Since we're talking immersion, might as well add on sh*t buoyancy mechanics, and since there's bowel medicine in the game, fecal hardness that's determined by what people eat and, WTH, lets make it so that there's a chance that one of the residents takes a dump on the streets, and force the player to also have to take a dump. I mean, it would be very very immersive to simulate that entire process seeing as it's something we all do and there's toilet paper and toilets in the game. It's okay, sure, PI's take dumps too, and, okay, sure a PI could murder someone, but, at the same time, they can take dumps too; might as well rebrand the entire sim as "Muder and sh*t flinging simulator" while we're at it. That's some hardcore immersion right there. I mean, at that point, we can even just ask game dev to give the game to murder hobo's to craft more immersive non-realistic murder mechanics since, obviously, realistically, murder is something that every citizen does on a regular basis. Hell, I mean, I murder like ten people the other day in public (parody), a police officer was there and they asked "Did you just murder those 10 people directly in front of me?" I nodded my head and then murdered the cop (once again parody). Hell, it's soooo realistic and immersive to just murder everyone in a city because it's (realistic).

[Kyle]

realistic and immersion are different

immersion is when you are immersed, it can be in a fantasy world, it can be via roleplay, etc

if thomas the tank engine went through mainstreet at mach 11 loudly, it'd be disjarring and disconnect me for my immersion, it just doesn't fit with the theme

not being able to die or kill makes a noticeable gap because 'hey wait, didn't i literally cut your head off with an extremely sharp sword', albeit i would say this is more of a consequence of the combat system which i hope gets reworked in the future

[GOONTHEMIGHTY]

What depth do eating and drinking add to the core gameplay? None whatsoever. Having consequences for being a crap detective would add positive depth towards the core gameplay loop. You’d have to be careful and utilise all of the current mechanics they tell you are important.

[四畳半主義者]

For those who a wondering, a mod allowing the player to kill NPCs has been released by IgnizHerz. You can find it on official discord of the game or here: https://github.com/IgnizGitHub/LethalAction/releases/tag/v1.0.0

You'll need BepInEx to run it, it's here: https://github.com/BepInEx/BepInEx/releases/download/v6.0.0-pre.1/BepInEx_UnityIL2CPP_x64_6.0.0-pre.1.zip

1. Extract BepInEx to the root folder of the game
2. Put the .dll file of the mod to the BepInEx/plugins folder
3. Run the game and it should be working