An idea for an improved vision system

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

A directional vision system.

Right now the player can see in all directions simultaneously, which makes a zombie surprise attack impossible. The player doesn’t have to worry about what is behind his back because he has no back! He can see in all directions at once, and he is always facing forward. I know that this system is standard for a roguelike, but it’s also unrealistic and counterintuitive to immersiveness, atmosphere, etc.

I propose that a directional vision system would make the whole game a lot more suspenseful. If you could only see in one direction at a time, then you would always be looking over your shoulder nervously; occasionally (especially with poor hearing) you would get bit in the ass by a zombie brute without you even knowing he was there. It would add another facet of fun-difficulty to this awesome game.

I hope this post inspires someone to make a mod of this. It may be really difficult to create. I’ve never coded anything before so I don’t know. Good luck to anyone who tries.

I searched the forum, so I don’t think this has been posted before. But, if it has been, then my apologies.

Thanks for reading.

2

Every tile movement is 6 seconds, so the player easily looks around in those seconds.

This has been suggested before, and shot down.

3

What does the artificial timing of the tile movements matter? That’s completely unrelated to gameplay.

Can anyone give me a valid reason for why this is a bad idea?

4

Take for example if I am running from a zombie brute, and like you suggested I am only facing forward, so I don’t know how far behind it is. If it was a realistic situation I would be able to turn my head around over my shoulder, without my complete body. But from what I understand of your description of a new system would be that the head has a 0 degree rotation and that all looking around would also include turning your whole body.

Basically I am in support of the current system.

5

It would require changing the movement system to let you look around without having to actually move in a direction to be able to see in it. The change in gameplay would ultimately boil down to having to pirouette your character constantly to check behind you. It would be more cumbersome than suspenseful, I feel.

6

Basically this right here. Since each turn is 6 seconds you can easily look around, and forcing the player to manually do so would simply lead to a cumbersome effort required on the aspect of the player in exchange for little reward in gameplay value.

7

Basically this right here. Since each turn is 6 seconds you can easily look around, and forcing the player to manually do so would simply lead to a cumbersome effort required on the aspect of the player in exchange for little reward in gameplay value.[/quote]

I hadn’t thought of that. Now that you put it that way I can see that it would be cumbersome and equally unrealistic. Thanks you guys for the constructive posts.

I had thought it might be a cool idea for a mod or something but nah better the way it is.

Might be cool if someone made a 7dRL in the future with a realistic view system.

8

Or some super-coder-robot-overlord could turn the game into and FPS in a matter of days.

9

Someone did do a 7drl this year with directional views, and he recently posted a post-mortem in which he said it didn’t really work.

10

Or this could be a negative trait/mutation.

Injured Neck/Neckless Mutant: Due to a recent neck injury/a horrible mutation, you can only see in the direction you’re facing.

It could be cool, but it has been mentioned that this would require much work.

11

As it is, with the amount of time it takes to cross a road, I assume it’s my char looking around.

12

[quote=“gtaguy”]Fuck everyone who thinks this is a good idea.
That’s right, if you think this is a good idea: fuck you. I hope you die in horrible agonizing pain with lava running through your veins, only to be kept alive to extend your suffering for the crime you have commit.[/quote]
Dude.

13

Ok, gtaguy’s been temp banned for a day. For this and a few other recent happenings.

If you dislike a suggestion, calmly point it out, don’t start swearing and yelling.

14

UnReal World has a view system like this, if you really want to see what that kind of system is like. But that game is more survival than fighting. The vision system can get quite annoying if you’re trying to clear out a village of redshirts though. Actually, it can get quite annoying just trying to pick stuff up since you have to keep turning in circles since you can’t strafe.