Why I believe that brutality should be focused on.

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Trood
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Re: Why I believe that brutality should be focused on.

Squinto wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:16 am I know that the devs have previously stated that they aren’t going to invest time into building gore or anything graphic related. However, I want the developers to know that by avoiding extremes, you are indirectly glorifying war and de-sensitizing people to what really happened. I understand the argument that “over the top” gore will glorify violence, etc but I need to get this point across. No, I am not asking for a game like doom with excessive gore and explosions. I want realism. War is not pretty. People need to feel the effects of shooting people/getting shot. People need to feel emotions. I also do not believe that players should automatically fail a mission after killing civilians. While they should still be punished, I think it would be more effective for a person to hear the death screams of an unarmed combatant with his leg blown off after a careless grenade throw compared to a black “mission failed” screen. The natural feeling of shock and discomfort is normal. Look at saving private Ryan. That movie is more of an anti war movie, because it portrays war correctly. War is not clean. War is hell. I encourage everyone to watch this video.

I think what author is trying to convey is very similar to the “ Ugliness of War: Anatomy, Gore and death” post I initially posted in the Suggestions Form.

With the developers core “Why” to create the game Being; tell the stories of those who experienced the second Battle of Fallujah. I do agree that a realistic level of gore/death Process will drive home the true ugliness of war and amplify the events recounted in the game. Be it a civilian story, Marine, Army, International Ally, etc. The Death of an individual (friend or foe) does carry immense weight.

I personally do not want a game that “over does” gore but instead one that acknowledges, and does not suppress.

I’ve withheld going into detail but I feel as if “Gore” dominates over the process of death.

Death isn’t always Immediate, In a good portion of death in war it is prolonged. During the process you hear pleas, barging, prayer, anger, fear; you see trembling, loss of breath, paleness, blood, hallucinations, etc.

The body starts to shut down, sometimes there is a lot of blood, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes they have all limbs, sometimes they don’t. It depends how the incapacitated became such. Gun shot, explosive, hit by a car, etc but death in its self is personal, reflective, and haunting. It is not pretty and most often is not quick. There is a difference between wounded, incapacitated, and dead.


Wounded: able and continuing to fight

Incapacitated: unable to fight by cause of physical or mental trauma. Examples of Physical Trauma include injuries sustained by gun fire, explosives, falling trauma, Etc. Examples of Mental Trauma include shell shock, or snapping/unwillingness to fight.

Lastly death: Lifeless, possible body twitches, deification, etc.

The game will be great, I just hope it’s not either, standard death animations or strictly rag doll.

If gore to the extent mentioned above is in the game; there needs to be an “off” feature.

Anyways, this topic is exhausting.

I personally won’t post additionally on this topic, and I think it’s best the remainder put this topic to rest.

Cheers!
Immune
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Re: Why I believe that brutality should be focused on.

Up front, my reply is about mechanics of fratricide or civilian death and is not about the level of gore (for or against).

An idea I think is universally missing from other games is reaction to fratricide or civilian deaths. As mentioned a few times, the game either unrealistically ends and requires a level reload (no emotional impact) or you lose points (again, no emotional cost).

I'll give a real-life example where this is going. Though justified, my Marine killed a civilian who was driving his truck toward us. This occurred near Al Qaim on the Syrian border two months prior to Phantom Fury's kick off. During this time, Al Qieda was extremely active in our AO with IEDs, land mines and VBIEDs. A flare was fired with no response. ROE at the time was the next escalation was a warning shot in front of the vehicle. Unfortunately, the HMMWV hit a bump as he fired and the bullet struck the driver in the head, where his body fell to the right and onto his son (sitting middle) and the child's grandfather (passenger seat).

Seeing the trauma caused to the child and the victim's father was heart-wrenching, even in the middle of war. It made you think of your own family and how you would feel in the same boat. Conversely, a week later one of snipers had to eliminate a person wearing a suicide vest and approaching our patrol. It sucked he was probably 13/14 years old, but there was less emotional damage as he was an active combatant.

That is where most games diverge. There is no value of life or emotional difference between shooting a good/innocent/bad guy or girl. From a mechanics-view, if I had a Marine that did not care who they were shooting at, it would be addressed immediately on the spot. That could be other Marines ganging up verbally explaining in ways only Marines can how screwed up they are for how they currently view value of life, their weapon might be taken from them until we got back to the base, and then sent to HQ for "a chat" with the command. If it were in the heat of battle, they would be redirected to a sector of fire without civilians or taken out of the fight to work some other task (i.e. door kicker, radio, ammo runner).

There are other things that could serve as a penalty or emotional cost/impact to address fratricide or murdering civilians. It should be a teachable moment that both combat veterans can appreciate, and all others can experience how incidents like this are actually handled in real life.

In the moment in the heat of battle, you don't have time to sit and think about what you already done, only what you can do next to save your and your Marine's life. The downtime between action (as in the example above) is where you have a moment to focus on the immediate cost of your actions. There may be some different ways to get through tot he player. However, when you come home is when you really go deep on things you did, or didn't do. War's hell really starts when you come home, which you can't really simulate in a game.
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Re: Why I believe that brutality should be focused on.

Squinto wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 3:42 pm
Kean_1 wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:58 am You paint a picture as if the devs intention was to create a sterile environment without any gore. ....that's simply not true. What we do know is that they don't feel that taking it to an extreme is needed to relay a sense of realism and quite frankly, I agree. I

Fact is that at the end of the day, we are talking about a game that is an authentic, tactical shooter which people will be playing for entertainment. The story and history is certainly a key point but I'll wager most will also be attracted to SDiF for the unit tactics, gunplay, procedural architecture technology for replayability, the co-op feature, the player controlled AI, etc.

I would also have to disagree completely that they would otherwise be glorifying war or somehow desensitizing players to it.

I replied in another one of the other threads brought up on the same subject so instead of typing out a new reply, I thought I would simply cut and paste since it still applies to this one.

My take.....

"I get the desire to make SDiF more realistic in many respects and I for one am all about that. It's what I like in any military, tactical shooter personally. ....but at the end of the day, SDiF is a game and as such will also have to be a fun, enjoyable gameplay experience so there are going to be elements that will need to be balanced, tempered, etc. (to an extent) with that in mind. Even more so in this game given it's reputation.

As mentioned, I think we all know the target that's been painted on SDiF's back. I think they need to take care in bringing too much focus to elements like gore in the gameplay that can be easy fodder for detractors. Besides that, I never considered realistic levels of gore as an integral component necessary for immersion in games. I think they can still come up with a solution that will look / feel believable while not appearing over the top and still make the players feel emotionally involved in the stories they want to tell.
"

As for the ability to kill civilians unabated, again, I disagree. Over the top levels of gore and unabated violence on civilians is not the kind of message I think these folks want to send to people about their game. ....especially the critics looking for anything to justify their criticism of the game.

Personally, I don't think there necessarily needs to be a mechanic in the game where the mission ends but there needs to be a penalty of sorts to discourage players from indiscriminately killing all targets. Again, because it's a game, risk, reward and penalties like that can help add to the tension and immersion IMO.
I agree with most of your points. However, I would like to clarify my statement. I am not saying that the game needs an excessive amount of gore. What I was trying to say is that the game needs to feel brutal and gore would be an easy way to represent the harsh reality of war. I believe that when an average civilian picks up this game and shoots people for fun with no emotional repercussion, that in itself is glorifying violence. I believe that without gore, it is easy to become emotionally distant from your enemies. For example, in call of duty I do not care one bit about the people I kill. However, in red orchestra 2 I would feel bad about shooting some people… especially when they started screaming and crying for their mothers with limbs missing.
I agree with you about the game needing realistic gore, not over the top gore just realistic. Entrance and exit wounds accurate to caliber and round type, shrapnel tares/dismemberment, (once again realistic) and most importantly realistic blood pools/spatter/trails. Example for blood if a enemy is shot in the arm or leg, they should leave a blood trail behind them and even possibly bleed out, depending on the placement and number of rounds took. Operation Flashpoint DR had a great system for damage, unfortunately the tech wasn't there for what they wanted to put into the game, but what they managed was honestly astounding for the time. Also I'd like to know how bullet penetration will work with the environment and body's.
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