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Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

Kind of off topic, but I've really lost interest in a lot of "traditional" FPS games like CS and even CoD over the course of lockdown. Myself and my friends who played Halo for years have since migrated to more tactical and realistic games like Arma and Escape from Tarkov. EFT especially offers a lot more depth than these types of games. CS just felt formulaic after a while and there was an element of discovery that was missing. EFT is still in Beta and this analysis would be pretty cool to see for that eventually (site is gorgeous btw), though there's a lot more weapons combinations available in that game.

Maybe it's part of getting older, and if we're still going to play video games they need to be more of an extreme technical challenge for them to be fun for us.

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> CS just felt formulaic after a while and there was an element of discovery that was missing.

I think that's the whole point, actually. The game itself is pretty known, as well as it's strategies; to get good, it really requires raw mastery and someone with a feel to know which strategy to apply when. The simplicity of CS is, in my opinion, it's main selling point.

CS is basically an alternative to the Quake formula of arena shooters, yet both types of game are still arcadey arena shooters.

Games like Arma can't really be compared to CS. They're completely different games with only superficial similarities (same camera angle, and the presence of guns).

> Maybe it's part of getting older, and if we're still going to play video games they need to be more of an extreme technical challenge for them to be fun for us.

This is definitely a factor. Games like CS, Street Fighter, etc are highly skill and knowledge based, but lean very very heavily on reaction times and stamina.

Even though there's absolutely nothing stopping older players from competing in those (and there are many that do), I think most people just don't find that's something they want to bother with as they age. I'm still in my 20s, but I'm finding the intense pace of CS hard to keep up with compared to when I was in my teens, even though the game hasn't changed (if anything, I'm more skilled today than back then).

Games like Tarkov, ARMA mods (DayZ, breaking point, etc), and EVE are just not fun for casual players though.

It just isn't fun if I have an hour to play and I immediately die to someone who has played 18 hours/day for the entire lockdown and I permanently lose the item I worked several days to get.

I agree with you, Tarkov isn’t fun for a casual gamer. But my friends and I who still game are all vets and we appreciate the realism. Also, the difficulty of Tarkov is pretty uniform... you can be a noob and still get lucky and get a solid kill on a veteran player just as easily. Maybe it’s the chaos I appreciate so much because it echos the reality of war. Luck, and all of that.

There really needs to be a better way to level match people in online games.

If you liked OW or UT (or any arena fps), maybe you would like Quake(and 2 and 3), Openarena, Xonotic, Sauerbraten or Assault Cube. Those are nearly free these days ;) (at least the online part). Maybe not current AAA quality, but nothing better than the raw speed and fraggin everything you can see (and where the crosshair sees it) with no waits and respawning every time...

Seriously, try one of them. Sauer or xonotic would be a nice start. They are open source too,

I'm making an FPS game right now that is comparatively an extreme technical challenge for players. You're a first person tentacle monster with a mechanical typewriter, and the words in your heart, as your weapon.

No multiplayer planned yet (besides what people can do with copy/paste and email) need to carve the niche first.

Just put your game in my steam wishlist! I love typing games, and its nice to see new ones getting created.

Haha thank you :)

I wish that the big studios would find a market for games with more depth. There is soooo room for innovation! Imagine what a AAA budget could do for a game like EFT.

I have a love of battletech and mechwarrior.

I want to see mechwarrior add a Natural Selection/Battlefield mechanics IE one person is a commander with top down overview. Even if that top down commander is only for enemy AI to give them a bit better intelligence it would be nice.

Or add infantry units, tanks, hovertanks, airsupport roles.

I would love to see space battles and the larger galaxy strategic map come into play and have it play out on multiple levels.

So much they could do. But likely won't.

CSGO feels “solved” in a lot of ways, with regards to tactics and the meta-game. EFT and similar games have a lot more churn with regards to the meta.

I wonder if the churn in EFT is partially introduced by the wipes. In some ways I hope they keep that feature around when the game actually launches. Forces players to really experiment and try new things, plus there's a skin in the game factor with risk you take bringing in top shelf gear to a raid.

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