Just talking to a friend. Discussing some elements that i think would make the game a lot richer.
1) Don't leave the deployment to be a game you don't play.
The whole idea of sending your troops to do things that affect the game is kinda lame. The RPS article mentions this, and its true. I wish we would do this kind of thing within the game. Actually. i wish outposts and bases or fortress had this included. For example. The comms array and comms links and communication control is a good indication that you can do something to make your life easier, its not an objective, but if you tackle these, then you have more freedom. You not only do it yourself, but you see the ramification of your actions within the game in real time. This is awesome!!! The game needs more of this.
What if there is a base that supplies all of the helmets and upgrades to other outposts? then you can take these out to disable them. Not permanently, but at least until they rebuild it. Its a handicap, and every time you go back to it, they try to adapt to your last gameplay to change things up. Barricades, air support. things of the sort.
BUt lets take this even further. This place sends regular shipments by truck to supply. What if each outpost and base had a space reserved to receive this... you have options now. You can track these trucks, sneak into them, and travel into the place to infiltrate its core. Things branch from here. You can disrupt the truck and cut off the supply. you can steal the truck and reinforce your army. or you can get to the objective, disable the space in the fortress and see things happen.
Lets go even deeper tho!! If you keep disrupting the trucks... they start to supply by air.. using helicopters. you take them down, they send a detail to protect them. you keep going... they send a detail and decoys... to keep you on your toes.
The whole idea is that you are the one that is making the choice to make the game adapt to you. Not the other way around. This makes the gameplay more dynamic, and you feel like the outcome of a scenario is totally based on you, and not of something that is happening off screen.
This post sent me to hell, but we are going even deeper still. ALL FOR THE LUST OF A BETTER GAME!! so... you have all this branching. What if you left them alone... places would get reinforced, what if your actions made the world build things to respond to you. If you keep attacking a place with force they build barricades and trenches. If you tend to hit and run, they build pursue vehicles that chase you until you either engage them or you loose them and be sneaky. Even more fun, a team that is dedicated to hunting you down and ambushing you at times, this could be avoided by collecting intel and going back to some of the places to get data or disrupt or destroy certain outposts. This kind of choices really make the game react to the things you do. Having soldiers just wear a gas mask, or helmets is a great idea, but it doesn't happen as often as it should.
What else... i guess i can keep adding layers of this kind of gameplay. But the truth is... the game needs more things happening around you and affecting you, instead of waiting for you to interact with them. More wild life... like riding your jeep and you see a pack of animals just living their life. Or maybe some hienas taking on a pack of AI. I dunno... keep it fresh. there is plenty of space to make things fun.
i just figured that the game would be a whole lot more unpredictable and fun. Think about you see these two guys at an outpost... they are talking about you infiltrating the suppliers... they said that people are upset and they are putting a group together to hunt you down... bleep.. you get a codec call from Kaz saying "Boss... this new intel, we might want to look into it" a new marker has been added to your map.
Then you can go look for it if you want. But if you stay and listen longer, or maybe on another base, and you never got the data of the new outfit to hunt you, you hear of the path of an ambush.. bleep... you have a new target that talks about the possibility of something happening. It doesn't even need to be marked. Really. Or maybe you find a convoy of enemies going and as you follow them you see them setup camp to set up an ambush or something.
Or if you steal something from a fortress, instead of knowing you can just run away without the enemies pursuing, they have bikes, and jeeps that hunt you down. They send helicopters to track you down and are more effective, than just hiding behind a rock for a few mins until they forget anything ever happened.
I dunno.. i feel like i have to go prod at the game for it to do something. When the game should be the one messing with me most of the time.
Anyways... that is some of the ideas i was discussing and wanted to share. I am prbly full of it. what do you guys think?
TL;DR i just want things to happen.
