Why do westerners not play trad shooters?

[Strolls]

I'm fairly new to gaming (within the last 2 years or so) and picked up Alien Hominid a while back. Not a shooter, I know, but maybe it shares this in common with many modern shooters - it was just too darn hard.

I got to the first little boss in a couple of minutes, but just couldn't get past it. It just gets real boring real quick having to repeat the same stuff time & time again, only to get killed in seconds when you get to the bit you're trying to practice.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but this is how I perceive modern shooters - they're made for people who have been playing shooters for years, and if you're not already an expert then the difficulty level is too steep. To me, that's not fun to get into.

I recently played Galaxian, which I was too young for when it was in the arcades. Coming back to it with a mature perspective made me appreciate it & appreciate the genre. If I wanted to get into shooters then I'd probably try starting there and exploring others once I got good at that. But for me it's the first-person perspective that captures my imagination, and I like to have a story to a game, too, so that I can complete it. Perhaps this is untrue, but I tend to perceive shooters as "just getting faster" until they're impossible, not ending neatly as I'd expect (and I don't really expect any "story" to them to be convincing, anyway).

Stroller.

[SharkSkin-Man]

I think because of the nature of VS play SF can afford to have a shallower initial learning curve. I think STGs have to be that strict to work in the long run because once the game is mastered to a certain extent the early stages of the game would be too simple(?)

Meh, I dunno. I'm happy the way things are

[endo]

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but this is how I perceive modern shooters - they're made for people who have been playing shooters for years, and if you're not already an expert then the difficulty level is too steep. To me, that's not fun to get into.

I think that's a fair point- your average shooter-producing studio doesn't generally do itself any favours in terms of attracting newcomers to the genre. I don't think it's necessarily true that all new shmups are impenetrably difficult for noobs (Death Smiles isn't as difficult as quite a few Cave games) but rightly or wrongly they seem to have this image, which does put people off.

I don't think the 'scene' helps itself much either. I remember someone on here yonks ago had posted they'd bought Radiant Silvergun in the retro thread only to be berated by someone else (can't remember who it was now) for buying it in the first place (something along the lines of it's not an extremely common game- leave it alone for the 'real' shmup fans). Obviously, that's not representative of everyone who is into shooters, but I do think as a genre it attracts more than its fair share of elitist knobheads.

[eastyy]

think with the hardcore cave shooters.....alot of them later on are really just torture to play

Saying that there game death smiles is one of my fav shooters ever cos bar the last boss its only as hard as you make it

[JamesS]

To me, the biggest problem is that shooters have gone down this hardcore-only niche and made themselves completely closed off to casual play. It used to be that shooters looked like this:



But these days, they tend to look more and more like this:



I imagine that goes a long way towards putting people off. They're never going to attract a new audience if they keep trying to appeal mainly to a shrinking hardcore market.

[abigsmurf]

How to fix shooters:

Make a story play out in the game, rather than just have waves of ships attacking you, make it feel like you're really assaulting a base or flying through an ongoing battle between two fleets of ships.

Don't focus on the scoring, focus on the experience, then work on scoring.

A great example to follow is Lylat Wars. It's an amazingly cinematic game that's a blast to play. However once you finish it you then focus on the scoring and more advanced aspects of playing.

To me a fundamentally wrong approach is being taken to the design of these games.

A high concept approach to a shooter shouldn't be "you shoot enemies by order of the colour they appear in the rainbow to wrack up points", it should be "you are a pissed off leprechaun, flying through fairy worlds chasing various folk lore characters for your pot of gold". These could both be describing the same game but to me, the latter sounds a far more interesting game and if you concentrated on that aspect, you'd create a far more appealing game.

[msm13579]

(edit - this was above - endo: "I don't think it's necessarily true that all new shmups are impenetrably difficult for noobs (Death Smiles isn't as difficult as quite a few Cave games) but rightly or wrongly they seem to have this image, which does put people off.")

^ that's a good point about deathsmiles, it would be a great introduction to manic shooters, i'm sure people wouldn't find it too hard and would probably enjoy it, but they don't have the chance to even try

A total newcomer to Espgaluda 2 is going to get shot and die over and over again before they get even remotely close to working the system out, and lots of people are turned off before they get to that point. You could credit-feed your way through, but that's no fun either.

the bit about dying lots is probably true as it's a pretty hard game but you don't need to know the system to have fun, newcomers would be best off ignoring the scoring system and just using the slow-down mode to aid survival....but sorry thats sort of OT. i'm crap at understanding the scoring systems in these games and usually just have fun dodging the bullets

[Kubrick]

It used to be that shooters looked like this:



But these days, they tend to look more and more like this:



I imagine that goes a long way towards putting people off.

I reckon this pretty-much sums it up. The games are probably too complex for their own good. Everyone understands playing for survival, but when you throw in all the other stuff like chaining, score multipliers, rank control, tiny hitboxes and billions of bullets etc, only a minority is left that can be bothered to make sense of it all.

It can't be a coincidence that the games which seem to garner mainstream appeal (Gradius V, Ikaruga, R-Type etc) are relatively simple.

[MisterBubbles]

gradius 5 simple, you meaning relatively easy and if so since when it rock hard to me.

[Kubrick]

Simple as in you fly through bits of scenery and you shoot stuff, that's it.

[Vince]

I don't think shooters are particually popular anywhere really, even when i was in Japan earlier in the year the acades seemed pretty quiet and people were mainly playing the fighting or mah-jong games. I do kind of agree that they are too hard now, but they are trying to appeal to a hardcore audience, if Cave released a really easy shooter then the fans would most likely complain about it.

I guess in one way that is the real problem, Cave are the only big player left in the scene, Milestone don't release many games and they are pretty samey, G-Rev also don't release much although i wish they would, a Border Down 2 would be nice. Even Cave don't release much now, so far this year there has only been Deathsmiles 2, which is getting awful feedback, hopefully the next game will be good. I personally miss Raizing and games like Toaplan used to make, where they weren't quite so crazy but still hard.

I hope the genre stays around, and i also hope it keeps its arcade roots. For me the idea of a cinematic shoot-em-up experience is something i really don't want to see, as far as i'm concerned the obsession with making games realistic or like movies is what has taken a lot of the fun out it for me.

[Finsbury Girl]

The only reason I don't play these any more is that no console peripheral gives me the same level of control and feel as an arcade cab. To me you need a fixed, solid joystick and button combo. This is also why I don't play streetfigher on console.

[averybluemonkey]

I think G-Rev had the right idea with Senko No Ronde, taking the formula and moving it forward in a novel, interesting direction.

I think they should also make a game using the perspective shifting off that Wii Mario game where you are playing in 2D and then switch to a different angle to reveal a 3D playfield. It's also criminal that there weren't any Zero Gunner followups that utilised it's rotation mechanic.

[Super Monkey Balls]

The only reason I don't play these any more is that no console peripheral gives me the same level of control and feel as an arcade cab. To me you need a fixed, solid joystick and button combo. This is also why I don't play streetfigher on console.

I think that was a valid argument 10 years ago but if you're prepared to drop the cash there are arcade perfect sticks out there and console ports have never been closer. Yeah, its not quite the same but theres no reason to completely dismiss console versions any more.

[Goemon]

Haven't read the whole thread but I'm a believer in it idea of reward and the feeling of progression to keep people interested. Trad shooters do not have this in any way, they kick the sh!t out of you constantly from the very beginning and you really have to persevere to get anywhere.