[SUGGESTION] Do we want to play Super Mario World or a Clancy-game with tension? | Forums

[Ghost-Ami]

Well, I do think that an articulated and thoroughly discussed suggestion has a better way of going to get implemented. I hope.

This issue has always been the biggest thing in Wildlands that bugs me. You're in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. But you can't die.

Seriously, why? A tiny fix would solve this. And add so much to the gameplay. I'm truly astonished it has taken Ubisoft over a year and still no solution (other than Ghost Mode, which is flawed).

"Can't die" is the standard for games for a couple of decades now really. Or, more accurately, the canon is that your character just doesn't die, and if you as a player got them killed it's not something that canonically happened, and you just go back to an earlier point in time.

Between autosaves and quicksaves and checkpoints and so on there are very few major games that even include an "iron" mode with permadeath, let alone a story system that can handle multiple protagonists, some of whom can be killed off while the story continues.

Ubisoft games are often glorious technical achievements with rich worlds but tend to demonstrate extreme narrative laziness. Year after year gives us another Tom Clancy and/or Assassin's Creed and/or Far Cry game with maybe an open world but a still railroady story and set characters with not so much as a dialogue wheel, let alone agency to make different narrative decisions.

I admire your passion, but the bittervets among us have been learning to manage our expectations for a while now. Ubi aren't done supporting this game, and there's probably a lot more great content to come, but we have to learn to love the game and its devs for what and who they are.

We can expect great things out of them, but they will be a certain kind of great things in line with Ubi's demonstrable patterns of behaviour.

I too thought Ghost mode represented unparellelled responsiveness to community request and the start of something new, but the months after have brought a sense to a lot of us that "just because they gave us x doesn't mean they'll give us y".

Maybe you're right that I'm being overly pessimistic. But a bittervet's attitude will tend to be informed by a cycle of expectation and disappointment going around just one too many times for their little heart to take.

In the immortal words of George W Bush, "Fool me once, shame on...shame on you? Fool me... Can't get fooled again." XD

[Kean_1]

I completely agree with your points on the character pool in the original R6 and some of the later iterations. I'm totally on board with you there and several others (including myself) have mentioned that we wish this was how GRW would have been designed for many of the same reasons you mentioned. ......mainly so you would actually give a crap about the welfare of the characters in the game. ......but you lost me on the rest of it.

Personally, I have zero interest in resets in stats, etc. for my main character in this current format. It would be more frustrating than exciting for me. The problem that GRW has is that these 4 specific characters are integrated as part of the story. You can't simply kill off permanent characters like this and to change that in a game like GRW would take a ton of rework.

.....but let's say we can change it or recommend a new system for GRW2. In that case, I'd say that if you're going to bother implementing a character pool like the early R6 games (which I agree with), then do it like they did. Don't make the characters unique in the dialogue, story, etc. If you're going to make a character pool with permadeath, wounding, etc. then make it apply to ALL character slots.

Soul swapping should also be included as your team leader (you) could also be killed and someone else would have to take over. ....or if you wanted one of your team in a specific spot to cover an area, provide overwatch, etc., then you could take over and place them there.

Allow players the option to give similar, individual commands like we could in those games. This is what made those early games so fun IMO and this is what really made you care about keeping them alive. It also provided a deeper tactical element to the gameplay.

Another nice thing about the pool is that while a death of your favorite character might be a huge blow, you will have others that you've grown attached to as well. .....who are also leveled up, better trained than others, etc. IIRC, you could even change the names of characters in the pool, country of origin, etc. so if a player wanted to, they could create a character to represent themselves (e.g. their own name, choice of face, etc.).

I say, bring back what made those games fun. .....but let's not neuter the crap out of it..

[redsept]

Between autosaves and quicksaves and checkpoints and so on there are very few major games that even include an "iron" mode with permadeath, let alone a story system that can handle multiple protagonists, some of whom can be killed off while the story continues.

That's because few games can handle killing off its characters. Nameless ghosts are not a rare commodity, there's always more where they came from. Sandbox games normally have a lead character that has a personality and a distinct look. You can't kill and replace him/he. Wildlands has a generator to create new characters, let's put that to good use. And the leveling system makes you want to keep that experienced ghost alive, no matter what. It creates tension and the game becomes much more exciting.

There shouldn't be a story system in my suggested game mode with ghosts permadeath. You can leave all of the story away from permadeath modes, I saw the story already on the first go.

I too thought Ghost mode represented unparellelled responsiveness to community request and the start of something new, but the months after have brought a sense to a lot of us that "just because they gave us x doesn't mean they'll give us y".

Maybe you're right that I'm being overly pessimistic.

Yes you are. They already know that permadeath is the way to go. And they have signaled that they're bringing some Ghost Mode options to the main campaign. It isn't very hard to make an assumption that they're looking for the best solutions.

My suggestion is probably relatively easy to implement and would transform the game into a more serious and mature game. Just one little option.

[Ghost416]

Ghosts dying and being replaced by new ones hasn't been a thing since GR2 introduced Mitchell and his team. There have been in-story deaths like Jennifer Burke and Joe Ramirez, sure, but that's something completely different. With the amount of work that went into creating Nomad, Weaver, Holt, and Midas, I don't see them being discarded like that.

Besides, the clandestine nature of Operation Kingslayer doesn't exactly make a steady stream of reinforcements a viable option. It's not a publicly known conflict like Korea in GR2 or Mexico in GRAW, it's a secret one that isn't supposed to be happening. If Nomad and his team get captured or killed, the whole operation is FUBAR.

[Ghost-Ami]

There shouldn't be a story system in my suggested game mode with ghosts permadeath. Leave all of the story away, I saw the story already on the first play go.

Ruh roh, now I'm horrified. XD

I'm usually more of a Bioware/Bethesda fan myself, so I actually want more story in all my games including Wildlands. And choice. I want dialogue options in every conversation. I want to be able to make decisions that affect the ending. And I want all characters including my own to be fully voiced and fleshed out as people who are who they are through a perfect fusion of the developers' canon and my own headcanon. I want tonnes of cutscenes, and I want to see the player character that I customised doing things in those cutscenes and speaking with the voice of a Bioware tier actor.

To wit I want a cinematic experience, and I want to live it and have an impact on it. I don't want "characters" that are just cards with stats on them that may be more or less valuable in gameplay but are interchangeable otherwise and don't stand out as actual "people" without an extraordinary amount of imagination and/or reading.

I should think it'd be terribly difficult for a developer to make both of us totally happy, no?

[redsept]

I completely agree with your points on the character pool in the original R6 and some of the later iterations. I'm totally on board with you there and several others (including myself) have mentioned that we wish this was how GRW would have been designed for many of the same reasons you mentioned.

Personally, I have zero interest in resets in stats, etc. for my main character in this current format. It would be more frustrating than exciting for me. The problem that GRW has is that these 4 specific characters are integrated as part of the story. You can't simply kill off permanent characters like this and to change that in a game like GRW would take a ton of rework.

This is an artificial excuse. Leave the story away or call every new ghost recruit Nomad. The story shouldn't be in the way, it has already been "broken" anyways with the ability to play solo without teammates, and the game gives a warning about that. Simple solution, the story is not a problem.

Allow players the option to give similar, individual commands like we could in those games. This is what made those early games so fun IMO and this is what really made you care about keeping them alive. It also provided a deeper tactical element to the gameplay.

I agree. And this would be complimented by giving more urban areas like cities and bigger industrial areas. If Wildlands had an expansion that included one province with several huge oil refineries and harbors, and the other province with malls, big airports and other developed urban areas, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Wildlands should have more urban and indoor locations.

One of my favorites from Rogue Spear:

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But bringing permadeath into the mix also immediately leads to a more strategic gameplay, as you really want to keep your ghost alive. And the fact that if you die and your level drops from 30 to 1, you have to adapt to the new situation and you may have to find new way to fight the enemy, as you now don't have access to all the gadgets and skills anymore. This makes the game more tactical, you have to adapt more and think more.

[redsept]

I'm usually more of a Bioware/Bethesda fan myself, so I actually want more story in all my games including Wildlands.

Ok, so keep playing the main campaign or Ghost Mode. I'm not sure why you're even talking about this, I've said in many posts that the plot can be thrown away IF it doesn't work with the gameplay. I'm not sure why you're making this point anyways, as Ubisoft has already made changes to the game that are inconsistent with the plot.

[redsept]

Ghosts dying and being replaced by new ones hasn't been a thing since GR2 introduced Mitchell and his team. There have been in-story deaths like Jennifer Burke and Joe Ramirez, sure, but that's something completely different. With the amount of work that went into creating Nomad, Weaver, Holt, and Midas, I don't see them being discarded like that.

Did you know Ubisoft already removed Weawer, Holt and Midas from the action when they let single player gamers remove them? The game pops up a warning message that says that narrative inconsistencies may occur now. So Ubi did it already, they're not slaves to the plot anymore and they wont let the plot stop them from improving the gameplay.

Besides, the clandestine nature of Operation Kingslayer doesn't exactly make a steady stream of reinforcements a viable option. It's not a publicly known conflict like Korea in GR2 or Mexico in GRAW, it's a secret one that isn't supposed to be happening. If Nomad and his team get captured or killed, the whole operation is FUBAR.

Lets say there is a ghost hub on the border and there are a few ghosts always there ready to join the action. And reinforcements come if necessary. All the ghosts could have a codename Nomad and they're untraceable back to the States, maybe all from other continents. I'm sure there are a million ways to make this at least as believable as the plots in Clancy's books and games. It's not very hard with a little bit of imagination.

[Kean_1]

But bringing permadeath into the mix also immediately leads to a more strategic gameplay, as you really want to keep your ghost alive. And the fact that if you die and your level drops from 30 to 1, you have to adapt to the new situation and you may have to find new way to fight the enemy, as you now don't have access to all the gadgets and skills anymore. This makes the game more tactical, you have to adapt more and think more.

....again, in the way those earlier R6 games were designed, I love the idea. I simply don't agree with your solutions regarding a player's character. I want to bring back those elements too but more the way they were.

There's no wrong or right here and to be honest, no way to convince me that that I would find some of those twists you presented on permadeath for the player's character particularly fun. I simply don't agree with everything you said.

[Ghost-Ami]

Ok, so keep plaing the main capaign or Ghost Mode. I'm not sure why you're even talking about this, I've said in man posts that the plot can be thrown away IF it doesn't work with the gameplay. I'm not sure why you're making this point anyways. Like why not add a fun game mode, why are you coming up with reasons it's a bad idea? What does this option take away from you and you campaign with a story in it?

Ohhh, I thought you were talking about a hypothetical game with no story. Like that in general principle the story and characters should be sacrificed to this sort of game mechanic. That would be why I'm "even talking about this", gutchurning fear that games from IPs I like might fall back into old less cinematic patterns. XD

But, yeah, as you mentioned to Kean when you do lone wolf you get that "narrative inconsistencies" warning. So if you just want to tack more game modes and options on to what we have already---with anyone who wants to play them just accepting similar inconsistencies---sure, that totally works.

I suppose all that's left is to wish you luck getting the devs to listen to you. And if they do please ask for me if they'd fix all those broken meshes and textures and animations I brought up. ))))