What happened to story based tactical FPS games?

[p0mpous]

Series like Ghost Recon, SOCOM, Rainbow Six were all a main stay in the early 2000s and into the 2010s but in the case of SOCOM the series got mishandled and died, Rainbow Six just got turned into a generic hero shooter and Ghost Recon is now like any other Ubisoft game, totally devoid of soul.

The modern tactical FPS games that have "replaced" them are all borderline the same, they are usually nothing more than glorified repetitive room clearing exercises and even the ones that do have story are relatively light on it, the vast majority don't. This means there is no context behind why you are doing what you are doing other than to just do it. A lot of these games feel like they took terrorist hunt from Rainbow Six and that is really their only mode, or they are multiplayer only. I am talking about games like Ground Branch, Ready Or Not, Six Days in Fallujah, Insurgency, Bodycam. These games all sort of merge into one.

A few of them are in early access and will likely remain there for many years to come. Some of these tactical FPS games are basically MP only as you have no AI team mates. These means you are basically just limited to wondering around a map clearing corners and shooting things. All of these games have pretty awful AI, they dont even hurl insults at you like the ones in Rainbow Six did. And after killing generic, silent terrorist in the same hallway for the 500th time what is the point? For actions to matter they need context and reason. Most of these games you kill all of the people, and leave, gather some intel, and leave, defuse a bomb, and leave. Why am I killing these people? Why am I gathering this intel and what is it? Why is this bomb here?

Are there any games today that even come close to the same mix of setting, story and gameplay of the SOCOM, old Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games? Is there anything that you know of that is coming up? Or will it just be the same repetitive room clearing games that basically have nothing else going for them?

[Tiberius]

Because making an AI thats smart enogh to use all the advancement in gameplay is extremely difficult. Take RS:siege for example. A decent ai needs to knw when, where, and how to use more than 30gadgets. The process gets even more complicated when the environment is dynamic. If the floor is blown open, should the ai jump down or not? There are way too many situation and condition to consider to make a barely funcional AI.

Humans alr made so many stupid mistakes in rs:siege, now imagine what kind of mistake a limited ai can make

[p0mpous]

Originally posted by Tiberius:

Because making an AI thats smart enogh to use all the advancement in gameplay is extremely difficult. Take RS:siege for example. A decent ai needs to knw when, where, and how to use more than 30gadgets. The process gets even more complicated when the environment is dynamic. If the floor is blown open, should the ai jump down or not? There are way too many situation and condition to consider to make a barely funcional AI

Ok, but you are telling me in 15-16 years we cant improve AI one iota?

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by p0mpous:

Originally posted by Tiberius:

Because making an AI thats smart enogh to use all the advancement in gameplay is extremely difficult. Take RS:siege for example. A decent ai needs to knw when, where, and how to use more than 30gadgets. The process gets even more complicated when the environment is dynamic. If the floor is blown open, should the ai jump down or not? There are way too many situation and condition to consider to make a barely funcional AI

Ok, but you are telling me in 15-16 years we cant improve AI one iota?

I added a few lines to my original comment. Even humans made so many stupid mistakes in rs:siege, what makes you think an ai would be any better?

[p0mpous]

Originally posted by Tiberius:

Originally posted by p0mpous:

Ok, but you are telling me in 15-16 years we cant improve AI one iota?

I added a few lines to my original comment. Even humans made so many stupid mistakes in rs:siege, what makes you think an ai would be any better?

Ok but what about all the other aspects I mentioned?

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by p0mpous:

Originally posted by Tiberius:

I added a few lines to my original comment. Even humans made so many stupid mistakes in rs:siege, what makes you think an ai would be any better?

Ok but what about all the other aspects I mentioned?

No idea 🤷‍♂️

[RedLightning]

In my opinion, over the years, as a whole it seems that way too much emphasis has been put on graphics designers and 'pretty'. Software development and programming has taken a backseat and it shows.

Great looking games, yet underneath a nightmare of amateur code. I don't even think they know how to do it right... even though it could be done.

They need to put out a casting call for programmers, not graphics artists and game level designers.

IMHO

[lx]

id guess they added realism. its what real tactical people are - a bunch of npc. someone else is the protagonist in their story. ;)
other aspects... same story.

new games? i dont know any.
the people who can potentially make a thing are being strategically... pressed to be unable to do it. one quote comes to my mind, but i dont remember a specific source - "dont try to be a hero".

[p0mpous]

Originally posted by lx:

id guess they added realism. its what real tactical people are - a bunch of npc. someone else is the protagonist in their story. ;)
other aspects... same story.

new games? i dont know any.
the people who can potentially make a thing are being strategically... pressed to be unable to do it. one quote comes to my mind, but i dont remember a specific source - "dont try to be a hero".

They all make these same tactical shooter that look good, the game play is nice and smooth but they lack any soul and they all fail for that exact reason. RoN is ok but it basically has no story apart from the reason for each individual mission.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Live service games.

[McFlurry Butts]

Originally posted by Tiberius:

Because making an AI thats smart enogh to use all the advancement in gameplay is extremely difficult. Take RS:siege for example. A decent ai needs to knw when, where, and how to use more than 30gadgets. The process gets even more complicated when the environment is dynamic. If the floor is blown open, should the ai jump down or not? There are way too many situation and condition to consider to make a barely funcional AI.

Humans alr made so many stupid mistakes in rs:siege, now imagine what kind of mistake a limited ai can make

Totally recommend FEAR 1 for all of this.

[p0mpous]

Originally posted by Doctor Zalgo:

Live service games.

You can have both.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by p0mpous:

Originally posted by Tiberius:

Because making an AI thats smart enogh to use all the advancement in gameplay is extremely difficult. Take RS:siege for example. A decent ai needs to knw when, where, and how to use more than 30gadgets. The process gets even more complicated when the environment is dynamic. If the floor is blown open, should the ai jump down or not? There are way too many situation and condition to consider to make a barely funcional AI

Ok, but you are telling me in 15-16 years we cant improve AI one iota?

Not enough to make any significant difference. People get so enamored with the "I" part of AI that they forget about the "A" part.

AI will always be limited by technology and programming. AI can only mimic and copy based off of that programming. AI cannot have actual emotions. AI cannot be inspired. AI cannot have intuition. These are all things that allow humans to make choices and decisions that affect their actions and outcomes. That is simply something that cannot be programmed into a line of code.