Soystation 5 General

[Old Black Man]

Weighted drops killed survival horror.

SpoilerShow

First survival horror game I know of with weighted drops was Re4. That was the big one. Might have been some before it, but that was the one that dominated the genre. Let's leave aside the fact that RE4 is a perfectly crafted action game, but not very scary. We all know. Point is, it was part of a survival horror franchise and nominally within that genre.

So then every other dev gets the same idea. Add to that, around the time of HD consoles, RE5 comes out and makes a big splash because of online co-op and muh graphics. Gameplay was overall inferior to RE4 and the atmosphere/story were way worse (and re4 had a meme cheese story in the first place.) Then was Dead Space. Another "survival horror" with weighted drops. I think I said all this before.

So, why do weighted drops ruin survival horror?

1) You're rewarded for killing things. There's no incentive to avoid combat or to do risk-reward calculations when you see a new enemy. You don't feel any dread over your dwindling resources. With weighted drops, the ONLY aspect of an enemy that can be "scary" in a gameplay sense is whether or not they will kill you right away. Because if they can't, you can keep plugging away and eventually you will just win. The game will throw so many resources at you, no matter how bad you suck, that you will always be able to muddle through. In a game with nonrandom resources, there is a finite amount you can suck before your playthrough is softlocked and you must start over. Game journos might call that bad design, but how "good" is the design in a game about SURVIVING HORROR, when you're popping everything in the head and grabbing fat loot the entire time?

2) Devs then design the game around the player killing everything. This results in a lot of cheap and stupid bullshit. There's no point in running from fights in Dead Space because each monster is a tiny loot sack waiting to vomit supplies onto you. If you do run away, they'll keep following you in the vents forever. So you might as well just kill them. Since there's no reason to be afraid of dwindling supplies, devs try to instill fear with more instant-kill enemies. Yeah, I know that RE had a few classic instant-kill enemies. But that shit was pretty rare. It was more frightening because of the ink ribbon system and the threat of lost progress. In RE5, a similar type of instant kill enemy exists. Its instant kill animation is super fast, the enemy itself tanks damage like a motherfucker and you won't lose much time if you die because RE5 checkpoints everywhere. Dead Space introduced the little crawling flea guys, who on higher difficulty can kill you in about 2 seconds and pop out of closets. Again, not so much dread/survival horror as you either die instantly or you don't.

Hell, in classic RE, damage was semi-random. So you'd get bit and you wouldn't know how badly you were fucked until you had a moment to check the stat screen. You might have taken a big hit or you might be totally fine! But the game was all about building up the feeling of dread in each encounter. You'd shoot zombies and they'd just keep coming. 1, 2, 3, 4 bullets and then they'd reach you and bite you. OH FUCK! You'd have to decide in future if you wanted to mag dump on every zombie to prevent a repeat, or if running past them was more consistent. Or maybe you'd take your shots carefully and hope for the best.

A big part of making survival horror work is placing the right amount of resources in the game world. But weighted drops are the easy, lazy solution and modern gaym devs don't want to challenge modern gaymers too much. Even Last of Cucks used weighted drops iirc. They gave you so few resources at any given time you couldn't make any meaningful decisions with them, but the game would suddenly drop more if you ran out entirely.

Agreed, although I do enjoy Dead Space. I’d be fine with games like that having their own take on the genre and RE not trying that shit. As much as I didn’t like 7 I could give the coin collecting to get upgrades for weapons a break, although I prefer finding weapon parts by searching. Blue Stinger has enemies drop money which you can use in kiosks to access its varied and incredibly fun arsenal, but there is a risk since using melee is encouraged to shake enemies loose of cash. I love when a survival horror game gives you something like unlimited ammo or special weapons for new game plus, that is a far more satisfying reward than just upgrading stuff.

[Guest]

No, what you want in gaem back is tedium and that's not what made those games great (from 2 onwards). RE1 "remake" is pretty much what you wanted - being more tedious with those crimson fuckers.
You're looking way too much into it, RE1, especially remake, was all about going from room to room ignoring pretty much everything - there was no calculation or other horseshit you say. If you want "calculation", the only one there is it's... saving all the ammo for bosses, because one bullet less or missed shot can cause to get you fucked.
Dead Space did it perfectly and it was great mix of RE2 and 3, but in space. Shame they had to fuck it all up in sequels. They tried to do as little shit scares as possible and instead everything went into atmosphere. Not making entire game on horseshit scenario of "fight with shit controls and pray to Gods you will avoid shit that attacks you, because you need ammo for boss or fuck your progress, because limited saves".

Bringing back tedium wouldn't make RE5 any better or more "survival horror", let alone 6. Those games were shit from the start. Hell, RE5 gave you pretty much what you want with tank enemies, yet it's not good.

[Old Black Man]

I didn’t mind crimson heads, they made clearing a room or often used passageway risky, I always try to pile them up before burning to clear the way. I’m one of those players who can kill every enemy in the game and still have some leftover ammo guest.

[rabidtictac]

The point of survival horror is to be "tedious." Dodging shit is part of the strategy because it's not easy to do. If you fuck up, you get grabbed and take a bunch of damage. Fuck up a bunch and zombies start chaining grabs on you and you die. Then they introduced harder to dodge monsters like Lickers so you have to think even harder about whether or not to kill them.

The fact you get nothing for killing an enemy in a survival horror game is the best thing about the genre imo.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Or do it like Silent Hill 3 and make it so that 95% of all enemies can be beaten by whacking them with your katana.

[Old Black Man]

Or do it like Silent Hill 3 and make it so that 95% of all enemies can be beaten by whacking them with your katana.

Wait you used the katana when you had THIS option? What kind of a weeb are you?


Rabid you get survival horror, it’s just not for the normies.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

I was using the katana for runs where I pretended to take it seriously.

[Old Black Man]

I was using the katana for runs where I pretended to take it seriously.

Suuuuuuure. I don’t remember the SH3 katana very well but the SH1 version makes Harry move hilariously fast. Like old samurai film strikes.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

From what I remember it's not too different from the lead pipe, except it hurts more.

[Kugelfisch]

Complaining about Dead Space not being a true survival horror game is like complaining Need for Speed not being a good Football Manager.

Just because the art style is horror themed doesn't mean it has to be a survival horror game.