Getting into FPS Games

Gaming
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Hi everyone,

I have never been into FPS games, probably because I can’t see my own feet in them. I started playing games in arcades, looking at 2D side-scrolling Beat-em-ups, vertical shoot-em-ups, brawlers. In home consoles, my first games were Dig Dug, Ice Climbers, Super Mario Bros., etc.

So that background pretty much ensured I always had a sprite on screen where I could see where I was, and I was maneuvering in the 2D environment. Gradually 2D platforming became 3D and I got kind of used to it. But I always needed to see my character. When FPS came about and got popular, it was just something I avoided. I think it was because I tried it briefly and got slaughtered a ton by other people, or maybe I made no progress, I can’t remember. But I put it down pretty quick. For years while the FPS scene was growing, I was burying myself in RPGs and the like, completely separate from the genre. I stuck to some simple platforming games too, and I still enjoy those to this day.

Recently I played Valley on Steam, and I had a great time. Probably because I could see my feet, it felt more natural. When I try to play other FPS games and i look down and see nothing but ground, it just feels weird. I really enjoy Ziggurat, but I often die when I am unable to do the platforming aspects of the game when it comes to FP perspective. I haven’t even beaten the game on Easy mode yet, not to mention Normal or Hard, or whatever else comes after.

I really think it has something to do being able to see my feet. I have been thinking left and right about it for quite a while not and that seems to be fairly accurate. I don’t know why, but when view down is just whatever is below me, it gives me a strange idea of where I am physically.

I have all of these FPS games that I want to play, for one reason or another, but I have trouble getting over this hurdle. Anyone have any good advice, or maybe anything you want to share about your experience that may get me over this? I was talking to a couple of other people about this recently, mainly @onLooSe, who told me to just do it, don’t think about it. And then just a couple of days ago, @Pylinaer sent me a message telling me to rectify the situation that is me not having played Left 4 Dead, despite having it in my library.

Any advice is good advice, and I think I would probably enjoy this genre more if I could have some guidance in this regard. Also, free free to browse my library on Steam and let me know which games I should dive into for perhaps a FP experience and perhaps not too difficult to make my way around.

It’s not just FPS, of course, I have trouble with the platforming parts of Portal as well. At @Gnuffi’s recommendation about a year ago, I tried Bioshock, with similar feelings of FP inadequacies that I had to pull away from the game. I started and then dropped the first Half Life game, thinking of going back to the Valve fundamentals. I tried to dig into Dishonored and got nervous and stopped it kind of quickly. Maybe it’s that sensation of myself being injured with the HUD turns red indicating damage, and not knowing how to react.

What is the panache I am missing or how do I develop it?

Thanks for you help, I think I would love to play a lot of these games, but somewhere inside, I am a little daunted by trying them and maybe carrying them through.

(The reason I think it has to do with feet, if not entirely, but partly, is that I got through Valley fine, and I can even over-the-shoulder perspective games where I see the character in front of me a lot better. I managed to get my way through all of the Uncharted games… :man_shrugging: )

Anyway, I will stop droning on and on, any help is appreciated!

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Just get rid of your legs, then when you look down and see a legless person it will look normal to you.

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I’d like to know this too. For instance, I could have entered for the Sanctum giveaway that’s on, but arg, the FPS. Even watching makes me a little dizzy and unbalanced. It IS a lot to do with not seeing my feet or the floor.

If there’s any dealing with that, would love to know.

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this might warrant a longer/more thorough thoughtful reply
but for now, i’d almost say just begin with 2d fps, and “power through”
like, old doom, hexen, duke nukem, wolfenstein. stuff where you’re in “first person perspective”, but not really have any movement or mobility other than 4 directions and where platforming/body position-space recognition is non-existent
hell, even CoD might slightly fit in that :smile:
but if you have such strong sensation of it, i don’t think you should start with “hectic” fps, which dishonored probably could be a bit…

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It’s mainly getting used to the genre. I started with doom 2, blood, quake and shadow warrior mainly… waaaaaaay back in the day. I was like 8-10 years old, so I guess the older you get the stranger the genre will feel for a person without experience, because as a kid you get used to stuff easier.

I can’t imagine your orientation issues at all at this point, but I really feel is just lack of getting used to it and how those games tend to feel and work. As in everything else - practice makes perfect here, but I would suggest you to try to go through the old school stuff first, which are way more about the flat 2D plane you walk and have barely any vertical aspects.

Doom 1 and 2 or even Shadow Warrior Classic is F2P on steam as well, which is amazing game.
You picked up SEUM : Speedrunners from Hell as well which is amazing starting point for FPS platforming! Give that a go first!

It will be great if you can do some Ziggurat vids btw and show what in particular troubles you there, because it’s pretty much flat plane game except for the Chest jump segments we talked about :slight_smile:

P.S. I told you I struggle a lot in Enter the Gungeon and the issue is kinda similar to yours - I have trouble getting used to dodge in 8 directions and shoot at the same time, even being on a flat plane. FPS is way simpler for me in that regard even though it includes vertical aiming, because I can dodge only left and right there while shooting.

P.S.2 If they start to put legs in every FPS game I will quit them if I don’t kill myself instead :smiley:. Rocket jumping while seeing legs? C’mooon…

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I would never have expected that the “no legs” thing is actually an issue for some people. I’ve been playing FPS since I was in my early teens and looking down without seeing my legs was just mildly funny at best :smiley: but thanks for the insight, might consider that if I ever make a FPS game.

I don’t really have a suggestion. The only FPS I’m playing regularly is Battlefield 5 and even though you can(!) see your legs in this game and I’d offer you any help I could provide, it would certainly be a jump into freezing water because of its competitive nature. I’d assume you wouldn’t want to deal with the stress of facing other players on top of everything else.
(for everyone else: it’s a great game and its BR mode Firestorm is awesome too, so check it out :slight_smile: )

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this also make me a little curious about how do you feel in regards to flight games, 6DOF(6 degrees of freedom) games, space combat games etc?
Descent (hmm can’t find the new one on steam, seems it was removed i guess)

sublevel zero Sublevel Zero Redux on Steam
everspace EVERSPACE™ on Steam

if you ever tried such games that is, do they give you the same sorta wonky feeling?

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BTW seeing your legs in FPS will render something like the following clip way… way harder! All the straight down look checks and rocket, plasma jumps you have to do and to be careful from what exactly part of a particular platform to jump off from… damn. #nofeetpls

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how about trying out some halo for the first time on pc? they have legs, great fun, does not have to be too hectic
what is there to not like (price?)

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Looks like I gotta go really back to the basics to find out. Thanks for the suggestions. :smiley:

SEUM I just picked up recently, because of this whole trying to get into FP games hope that I have.

I know it is a problem for me, but I haven’t encountered too many people who have this problem. Seems like @Danacscott is more or less in the same boat.

For me the starting point of my friends really all playing FPS was installing Counter Strike on the school computers and playing on the LAN during recess, lunch, and after school. This got shut down really quickly by the school, but I remember loading in, buying a weapon, and dying, over and over again. Never could see where I was getting hit from, and it was pretty brutal. So yeah, definitely not planning to jump into action against any other people at the moment.

Oh my, you hit right on the nail… LOL… I lose my sense of direction so quickly, don’t know where I am going, and quickly spiral out of control. Soooooo hard for me.

It’s funny it’s not the first time you are showing me this clip, but I get it, your vision would be obstructed. But I am having a great difficulty finding my footing, no pun intended.

I am trying to get used to the standard FPS games, not trying to weasel my out of what’s there to play the few that have feet.

With Valley, I had to look down sometimes to see where the feet are… False sense of security, I know. I just don’t feel comfortable right now any other way.

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What is your opinion of Third Person Shooters? I personally used them as a sort of ‘FPS’ primer.

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Well i’m not really sure what to suggest about the feet as i never really had that problem, but i do notice height issues if there is any. As others have said, if you play enough you might not really notice it, but that depends, we’re not the same.

As for games, if you haven’t played them in a long time i’d suggest getting into fps games with story or something first, like Battlefield, Halo, Doom, Super Hot, Left4Dead2, Borderlands, Call of Juarez Gunslinger, Medal of Honor, SEUM for some platforming fps or some CoD games, and when you feel comfortable, go ahead and jump into some multiplayer too. As CS:GO is free now, you can play with that too.

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this reminds me, fallout3+nv has that fps/3ps zoom switch, where you can jiggle between the two cameras as you see fit/please, if say you prefer one over the other, or just feel like some situations are better with a wide angle full body/3.ps view and you’d like to use fps other places

this could also maybe make it a decent practice ground, as you are not “stuck” to fps to where you might want to just ditch the game, but can take a break and “zoom out” when you feel like it’s too much “wonk” in first person mode

(might also be something to keep in mind for you @Danacscott)

tho ofc, depending on “game preference” YMMV in regards to your overall sentiments towards fallout 3/NV

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I am having a blast playing Risk of Rain 2. Does that count? Or what does that count as? lol

I tried The Division on UPlay, it’s so ridiculously difficult for me, that I think it became less fun. Too many enemies taking 50 bullets to kill was just not really the right kind of game I want to go into.

Like I said before, I played through all of Uncharted on Playstation, that was great fun. It was challenging, but I got through them all, on hard too. Though with a ton of deaths.

Will definitely look into these, thanks! :smiley:

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I would count that… I personally prefer 3rd person shooters to a FPS, but @Gnuffi makes a valid point to use games that offer you the ability to switch between them…

Star wars Battlefront (the originals) had this option so the list I would recommend to ‘try’ would be: Fallout 3/4/NV, and Starwars battlefront 2.

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Darn right I did lol.

How far did you get may I ask? The Division is kinda meant to be a multiplayer game.

Only 50?

Sounds like you’d like a sniper honestly.

I highly recommend starting on something Co-op. Like L4D, Payday 2, The Division, Borderlands, etc.

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oh boy, imagine him, with what he’s said his experience with fps is, jumping into a csgo server… u’d forgive a person for immediately concluding that fps just isn’t their thing

@YQMaoski as u’ve already seen, best is u stay away from competitive shooters atm; that’s something u can consider once u feel very comfortable with the genre

I’d say single player games is the best option to start with, or some coop might be fun cuz u can play with others ofc; i’ve never played through the whole campaigns of L4D either, and would love to jump in sometime with u and @onLooSe or whoever else would be willing

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A friend took me in his game, he was level 30, I was level 4… he leveled me up to 14-15, then I came back to my game, and haven’t been able to make any progress. Do need to try to try some more. Just haven’t had time to yet.

On my own, I basically got to Manhattan and got the home base. Hadn’t done much more beyond that.

50 bullets or more, lol, I don’t remember, they are bullet sponges, all of them, especially the ring leader enemies, I feel like they are more durable than Superman.

Yeah, my first experiences was what I had described. Would definitely do more coop stuff, but nowadays I feel like I am just dragging people down, so I try to figure things out on my own.

Yeah, definitely what my plans are for now.

I do have L4D on my list now, I did install it after @Pylinaer mentioned it. :smiley:

I did play a bit of SEUM earlier this evening, just to get some more experience with footing, jumping, and I find that the platforms are not where I think they are… lol… I think it will get better with time. So I will keep hacking away at this game little by little, good thing that the levels are so short.

Will be for another day though. It’s 9:30 PM and I slept an hour last night, so going to go crash… ZZZzzz… :smiley:

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Didn’t read the whole thing – tired – and I don’t like/play FPS games myself.

Out of the few I’ve tried, however, I’ve enjoyed Spec Ops the Line and Mafia II (does Mafia count? I guess). Borderlands is fun too, if you play with friends that let you take it easy and get the grip of the game instead of shitting on you, that is.

Some people like BioShock Infinite. I don’t, but if you own it and like the series it could be worth a shot, I guess.

Mass Effect is also pretty nice, but if I remember correctly – long time ago and didn’t play much – some of the missions are absolutely annoying FPS-wise. I could be misremembering.

Sorry if I’ve repeated something that’s already been said or if these suggestions are shit based on something I didn’t read.

Good luck and have fun getting into the genre.

Gonna go to sleep myself.

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That is really strange issue you have there , friend. Never really thought about that to be honest … that might be because my first FPS games there Wolfenstein and Doom both didint have ’ down ’ or ’ up ’ since they werent true 3D games just an illiusion of one.

And in First Person games there you could see your legs/feet it was just a 'aha! that’s a nice touch ’ moment more than anything affecting my gaming experience in any way.

My advice? I dunno… you should play something like new Doom reboot. I’m pretty sure you cant see your feet there ( as far as i remember but correct me if i\m wrong ) but it has such a fluid and precise movement and sharp controls in general it should give you are good feel of ‘where you are’ in space without any need to track your legs . That just might put you on a right track.

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