Fighting Using The Environment

[Mister Pink]

Sleeping Dogs brought us great entertainment in the fighting department, something that Rockstar has seemingly not really developed much over their titles.

 

I want to strictly speak about using the environment in fights. We seen it in The Warriors where you could smash someone's head in to a wall. Or in Sleeping Dogs where you can repeatedly close a car door on people's heads. You can grapple people and finish them off in unique set ups such as the one in the video below..

 

You can smash heads in to urinals, glass tables, cars, walls, throw people over balconies, in to a furnace, in to a cauldron type thingy, death by chandelier, dropping a car engine on someone and many, many more..

 

This could be great for GTA, having more evolved combat etc.. What do you think?

 

 

 

 

[Dawg37]

I think first and foremost they need to get just the melee combat right first. A cross between VCS/IV/SA to get things moving. If they made a character who is some specialized agent/mercenary gone rogue, or had nothing else better to do, then I can see the idea of environmental kills being something that makes sense for the GTA world. Like John Wick and a pencil.

 

Rockstar has all the money in the World right now, so for them to implement such a system shouldn't be so restricted. They can do it if they want to do it, but I'm not sure they even will consider it.

[Mister Pink]

Yeah I agree. I mean I'm happy to have melee combat sorted first too. If there was a hierarchy of features that need to be brought up to par with games from even 2005 in GTA, it's melee combat. What kind of puzzles me is that the melee combat seems like an afterthought. It's not considered by Rockstar really. It's more there to check a box. It seemed to peak in SA then regressed ever since. I'm also surprised that Rockstar would implement character switching before fixing the melee combat.

 

I hope they address it. I hope they make the fundamentals, driving, melee and shooting, competitive with modern games.

 

Having said that, I don't think our protag would need to be some specialized agent to pull off environmental kills. I think anyone can smash someone else's head in a car door or throw them off a balcony. But I see what you mean. Essentially a grapple feature could open up a lot of possibilities.

 

It will be interesting to see where the budget is spent on the next GTA. I just hope they really address the melee stuff and worry less about novelty features like switching characters. Get one character perfect rather than spreading thin.

[DOUGL4S1]

I commented on a thread that this would be a cool feature to combat, taking down enemies by pushing them over ledges or into scenary. Rockstar has more money than ever. Let's see how it is spent.

Edited May 17, 2017 by DOUGL4S1

[Dawg37]

I never understood why they went backwards with V. They seem to kind of fluctuate with the melee combat. VC then SA then VCS then IV now V. Before V's release I really expected and hoped for the combat to be superior than IV, but nope that did not happen. I never understood R* decisions in the melee area.

 

I just hope that they (what I hoped before V's release) that each individual protag, if they do multiple protags again, will have a unique fighting style. So to me, it makes sense to have some idk navy seal, sas some specialized person to have such a style concerning the environment brutality to pull it off. That's just what I think anyways. Also, I've been wanting a grappling system for the gta series since VCS. (Because I had never heard of warriors before).

 

They have a f*ck ton of money. I feel like there is a 50/50 chance they'll improve on IV's melee combat in the sequel (since V ain't exactly a benchmark lmao). But idk, they'll probably add in wing-suiting and random activities and such.

[Mister Pink]

Yes, I wonder that too why the fighting fluctuates between titles. I thought it was basic in IV but the ped-reactions in IV are great so it makes up for it. And IV does really trump V's melee. Peds fight back in an interesting way where you could have a round of fisty cuffs that lasts more that 5 seconds!

 

I can also understand why you think an ex Navy Seal or something a long those lines might be better suited for environmental kills. I wouldn't turn my nose up at such a characters backstory like that if it meant we could have that feature. I guess I'm willing to suspend my disbelief if it was a regular criminal pulling off such moves in favour of the satisfaction of it all.

 

If always think that if Rockstar could deliver a true fighting experience, being on foot would be more enticing again. Of all GTA's I think III and San Andreas were the games that enticed me out of the car the most. Also some real stealth could be great. GTA always seemed like games within games. I think now they may have the tech, the manpower and the budget to be able to deliver stealth, fighting and great driving. Like Forza, Sleeping Dogs (fighting) and Hitman within GTA. I don't mean purely to the full extremes of those games but something on par with those games for an open-world game that doesn't specialize.

 

Imagine the multiple approach system. You have to enter a building in GTA. It's heavily secured. Upon scouting the alleys nearby you find a sewer entrance, a dumpster that gives you access to a fire escape ladder, a drain-pipe you can scale in to an unlocked window, ledges to climb etc. Once inside you can use stealth and not kill the guards or you can pick them off with a suppressed pistol. Once you meet your target a fight may ensue and you could possibly throw them out a window. Or just kill them with the pistol. Choice is your yours. You could also plant C4 on the car of the target, parked outside. Blow it up and slip in the back. While the security are checking out the explosion, you take out the target.

 

I'm going completely off topic but my main point is that Rockstar could develop "deeper" gameplay like this, including environmental kills or at least grappling to throw targets off ledges or in to car trunks.

[Dawg37]

IV still had some room for improvement but it was still good nevertheless. A smoother defense/counter button would be nice, it was very difficult to get that LC champion title/achievement in TBOGT lol.

 

You better damn right you're gonna suspend your disbelief!

 

Yeah, for me it was SA, VCS and IV that got me out of the car. SA gave me plenty of things to do, it was brilliant for its time. It would be great if they added stealth like Hitman but I'd be fine to settle with Mafia 2's way, like in that stealing govt. papers mission (Haven't played 3, I'm guessing its superior to 2) though with more added methods to do stealth like you said with entering buildings. I want to use that pipe climbing thing you said, like Team Bondi did it so I'm sure R* would implement such a feature. There just needs to be more methods of pulling off certain missions. I'd be happy if they make at-least 60% of the missions being capable of succeeding with the use of stealth, it'll make it more challenging.

 

Yeah, they have all the money in the World to develop and implement it, I just don't know why they won't go through with it.

[dyspoid]

Agree with you all, especially OP.

 

Sleeping Dogs was an absolute gem. It had some issues, but was a very solid game. Rockstar could learn a thing or two from its developers.

 

To mirror your sentiment, the fighting was amazing. It was exciting and fulfilling, especially when you managed to take down a group of armed thugs who were almost as proficient at hand-to-hand combat as the protagonist.

 

The fight rings were lots of fun, and kept you on your toes. While it is hard for a game to mimic real life fighting, it got it right by highlighting the value of timing and the utility of moves that would temporarily stun your opponents.

 

More spefic to this thread, the environmental aspects of combat were really satisfying. I definitely think rockstar should go down this route.

 

I wish the owners of the SD intellectual property and the former staff would start a kickstarter campaign or something for a sequel. I would actually donate to that.

Edited May 17, 2017 by dyspoid

[Dawg37]

I wish the owners of the SD intellectual property and the former staff would start a kickstarter campaign or something for a sequel. I would actually donate to that.

 

It's owned by Square Enix and they never gave UFG the green light to make another since the first one, "Didn't come close to their expectations." But the Fast & Furious producer guy is planning to make a movie with it with Donnie Yen so hopefully SE would consider a sequel.

 

Anyways, yeah what you said.

[Sonny_Black]

Ha! I clicked on your thread with sleeping dogs in mind. Yes for that.

[VictorVance1239]

The sleeping dogs system was amazing but realistically I think Rockstar would have a better shot at combining features the GTA series has already had with the elements from the WWE games.

 

In Vice City stories all you had to do was aim at someone from behind then press the button to grapple them and then snap their neck. So you could have that but when you aim at them you get different attacks with the combination of attack and different directional pad buttons

 

Taping the grapple button for a weak attack while holding the aim button on them or doing the same thing but hold the grapple button for stronger grapple attacks. These attacks all being able to be countered so you have to be careful.

 

You'd also have a certain amount of seconds (depending on how damaged the person you're fighting is) to drag them over to different objects like Walls, Cars, or Bar tables to name a few to slam heads into them or to toss the person into it such as the trunk of said vehicle or off the roof top of a building.

 

Holding someones head down under water to force them to drown to death.

Crashing heads through car windows

Throwing them out in front of a moving train.

 

Another thing. Ground moves. First of all the person you're fighting should not be as easy to kill as how GTA V made them out to be. In reality someone can survive a gun shot for quite a while and can be down but not completely done.

 

When they're down this is the time where you can finish them off with a Curb stomp.

 

Lay them out on the train tracks and then sit back and watch the show. (Train running said person over) Hell you could throw the person into the back of a car. Park the car on the train tracks and get an even better show out of it.

 

All types of possibilities

Edited May 17, 2017 by VictorVince1239

[Racecarlock]

It would no doubt be cool, but you have to remember something. Besides melee combat, rockstar was also working in pedestrian interaction, other interactions (grab ladder, get in car, use drugs, use computer), weapon switching, walking and sprinting controls, cover, the camera, and so on.

 

Presumably, they're going to be expected to fit all of that in the next game as well. So, I wouldn't expect a plethora of advanced fighting moves, because they have to balance it out with the other 3,506 controls. That's not to say I wouldn't WANT this system, because it would kick all kinds of ass. But there simply might not be enough controller real estate for it.

[VictorVance1239]

I'm not buying that at all.There's no telling when the next game's coming out so I don't see why they don't have enough time to work on stuff like this.

 

The Nolan movies, Batman Begins video game and Arkham series also does a great job with showing the Mind your surroundings with environment attacks. Something GTA could also put its own spin on.

 

We already have knifes so we should be able to throw it not only into the heart of an opponent but to use it to slice down all types of objects and watch it come crashing down on them for a brutal kill, or into a pile of explosives that'll turn the opponent into nothing but ashes.

There's trucks in the game that carry logs. Well while in a car if you can get a clear shot off you could send those logs off of that truck into another player during a race or just whenever.

[SMC TBane]

They need to change the melee combat and make it better. V was litteraly sh*t with that.

 

Maybe diffrent fighting styles like SA has and Sleeping Dogs have with envirement fights

 

Executions is also i like to see. What the Godfather 1 and 2 have and the grappling

[DexMacLeod]

I wouldn't mind if they actually pared down the melee combat. There's never any real reason to fight someone hand-to-hand in GTA apart from that mission or two in every game where they make you do it. I'd rather see them focus on the gunplay, which has also never really been on par with the rest of the industry, and make it so stealth is a viable option.

 

I think a combination of Watch Dogs' stealth and close combat takedowns mixed with Sleeping Dogs' environmental takedowns would be pretty awesome. Maybe throughout the game we can unlock different takedowns.

 

If they do try to implement fist fights again though, I wouldn't mind them just bringing over an improved version of RDR2's system. It was stiff and laggy but I think, if they could smooth it out, it would be serviceable enough. 

[ventogt]

On 5/15/2017 at 11:24 AM, Mister Pink said:

Sleeping Dogs brought us great entertainment in the fighting department, something that Rockstar has seemingly not really developed much over their titles.

 

I want to strictly speak about using the environment in fights. We seen it in The Warriors where you could smash someone's head in to a wall. Or in Sleeping Dogs where you can repeatedly close a car door on people's heads. You can grapple people and finish them off in unique set ups such as the one in the video below..

 

You can smash heads in to urinals, glass tables, cars, walls, throw people over balconies, in to a furnace, in to a cauldron type thingy, death by chandelier, dropping a car engine on someone and many, many more..

 

This could be great for GTA, having more evolved combat etc.. What do you think?

 

 

Totally agree.  One of my favorite games for Wii was the Godfather, the fighting and being able to throw people into objects/through windows/over balconies etc adds a lot of depth to the game 

 

[Guest Billy Russo]

Rockstar could learn a lot from Sleeping Dogs. I think that's one of the most fun open-world games I've ever played, not to mention one of the best game worlds. There's a ton of quality of life updates that I hope to see in VI that just makes the game feel more immersive & responsive. Being able to use the environment more to your advantage is definitely one of them. Aside from IV, which was pretty good, I've always found hand-to-hand combat very underwhelming in GTA. Hell, even shooting sometimes is awkward, I definitely feel as though it could be refined more. For such a heavy action game series, the gunplay & fist combat has always been very lacking. 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Billy Russo