SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[67410b0a1a91dZylonBane]

18 keys isn't even that much?

You missed the qualifier: To control your character. Like, basic movement. Look at what SS1 players have to contend with just to get around:
S - walk forward
S+Shift - run
X - walk backward
A - turn left
D - turn right
Z - strafe left
C - strafe right
Q - lean left
E - lean right
W - un-lean
T - stand
G - crouch
B - prone
Space - jump
S+Space - climb
R - look up
V - look down
F - look center
mouse - aim

Dark Engine games, on the other hand, provide player control 99% as expressive with half as many keys:
W - walk forward
S - walk backward
A - strafe left
D - strafe right
Shift - walk/run
Q - lean left
E - lean right
C - crouch/uncrouch
Space - jump/mantle
mouse - look/aim

The SS1 movement controls are just bad design, the very sort of thing people are referring to when they joke about programmer-designed UI. The HUD interface is another manifestation of the same issue. The programmers got stuck thinking like programmers, who love to customize the hell out of things, vs players, who just want the game to show them what they need to know when they need to know it.

[67410b0a1aab0icemann]

From memory I only used the basic movement keys, and used the mouse for the rest. Made movement feel really robotic.

[67410b0a1ac48Nameless Voice]

You missed lean forwards, but fair point, I missed the qualifier.

I still say most of those issues are there because it doesn't have mouselook, and so had to compensate with other keys. [Edit: mouselook would eliminate 5 keys from your list, though would add one extra "use/shoot mode" key.]
They should have eliminated the silly "unlean" key by having to hold lean (like Thief), and replaced all those height controls with one stand/crouch key, though that would only have eliminated three keys.

[67410b0a1adcbKolya]

So introducing toggles and mouselook made a horrible "programmer-designed UI" into the status quo of any modern FPS. I see it now.

Don't you think you're overlooking the more important fact that this sort of body control was almost completely unheard of before and is common place today? And therefore SS1 made huge strides in terms of UI?

This is like saying the invention of the wheel was terrible for locomotion because it wasn't on a hybrid car.

[67410b0a1aec3Nameless Voice]

I thought we were talking about the movement controls specifically, not the UI?
I'm not really a fan of SS1's UI, there's way too much clutter, even in fullscreen mode.

[67410b0a1b327RocketMan]

Was there really that much stuff on the screen?  Or was it just that 320 resolution and lack of transparency made the UI elements seem to crowd out the rest of the view.  I can see how that would seem cluttered.  However, as we've already established, SS1 was ahead of its time and pioneering a new way to play video games. 

Maybe they failed if their objective was simply to provide the necessary info to the player at the necessary time, but perhaps that was not their goal.  It would not have been mine.  I don't just see the UI as a vehicle to the end of the game.  I see it as a part of the recreational experience I sought to have.  I like configuring and playing with the widgets.  I like the cybperpunk'ish feel of having all that shit overlayed on my view.  I like clicking on stuff with the mouse (like Ice said, I didn't use 18 keys lol).  I like scrambling to switch ammo in the middle of a fire fight.  Anybody who's played the original StarCraft knows that the main appeal of the game (and what makes Koreans so damn good at it) is the need to multi-task and manage lots of changing variables using an interface that can't really be simplified because the game itself is too complex.  That's what drives people to become better and what provides satisfaction when you've mastered the system.  Because you're not playing Doom.  When you play doom, you enjoy the lolz of getting monsters to infight and creating jib piles all over the place with a BFG round.  When you play StarCraft, you enjoy out witting your opponent and having enough APM to transfer that to the game faster than they can.  In SS1, at least for myself, I enjoyed "interfacing" with all my tech gear and control systems, solving puzzles, staying ahead of Shodan, and becoming a better designed character than my state-of-the-art enemies.

If by some miracle my life-long wish to pilot the Saturn V launch vehicle was ever granted, I wouldn't be bitching about how many buttons and switches I had to learn, when a simple glass cockpit and Windows 10 would solve the problem.  I'd be ecstatic over the level of control and retro techyness I had the honor of mastering.

[67410b0a1b7d1ZylonBane]

From memory I only used the basic movement keys, and used the mouse for the rest. Made movement feel really robotic.

I get the impression you're meaning this was... a good thing?

So introducing toggles and mouselook made a horrible "programmer-designed UI" into the status quo of any modern FPS. I see it now.

Yes, it did. Don't be disingenuous. You know perfectly well that there can be a thin line between a bad (or at best, tolerable) interface and a great one. The first iPhone steamrolled the smartphone world, but it didn't do anything much different from what previous smartphones had already done. It just tweaked and streamlined its interface in all the right ways.

Don't you think you're overlooking the more important fact that this sort of body control was almost completely unheard of before and is common place today? And therefore SS1 made huge strides in terms of UI?

This is changing the subject to a different question: "Was it an impressive technical achievement?" Yes, of course it was. But it was still a bad interface. SS1's reputation for having overcomplicated controls and UI isn't something that's developed in recent years either. It was always there from the start. People had games like Wolfenstein 3D as an example of an FPS with simple, intuitive controls years before SS1 came out.

[67410b0a1bc17Nameless Voice]

Anybody who's played the original StarCraft knows that the main appeal of the game [...] is the need to multi-task and manage lots of changing variables using an interface that can't really be simplified because the game itself is too complex.  [...]  When you play StarCraft, you enjoy out witting your opponent and having enough APM to transfer that to the game faster than they can.

Honestly, that was the main thing that put me off Starcraft in the end.
It's not really a game about outwitting your opponent, it's more about who can fight the bad interface the fastest.  The interface in Starcraft is intentionally bad in order to allow people to master overcoming it.
But the thing is, I played Starcraft because I wanted to use strategy, tactics, and timing to defeat my enemies, not because I wanted to fight against an awkward interface.

Strategy is an interesting skill. Micromanaging your troops is an interesting skill. Having to click 100 times a minute to perform no-brain tasks that could have easily been automated is not an interesting skill, at least not to me.

[67410b0a1bd78RocketMan]

I have to claim stupidity on this.  What deliberately complicated tasks could have easily been automated?  I mean the workers don't find their own mineral patches to mine like they do in SC2 and they had a 12 unit limit but these do not contribute to people losing.  I mastered both of those tasks pretty easily and my record tends to be 1 win for every 10 losses.  My problem has always been dealing with the unpredictable and constantly changing army make-up of the opponent and how that messes with my build order, which isn't the interface's fault. 

[67410b0a1c23fRoSoDude]

System Shock's movement controls are indeed dated, but with the mouselook mod/Enhanced Edition you can largely separate that from its interface design. While not perfect, it offers the user a degree of tactile management that contributes positively to gameplay. There's the minor customization aspect of choosing what to have open in your MFD side panels, but moreso it's the fact that you have to page through the various tabs in the heat of the moment, which created tense moments where you're cornered and have to improvise a way to get out of a sticky situation.

Moreover, managing the user interface in real time can abstractly simulate the player character performing actions in the world. Take reloading as an example. You need to mouse over to the weapon tab, unload your gun of any remaining rounds, and select the desired ammo type. Each button press in the sequence is instant, but the process will take a variable amount of time depending on the user's familiarity with the controls and preparedness in combat as they mouse to the correct buttons. This simulates the player character opening an ammo pouch, either ejecting or retaining the magazine in case of a dry/tactical reload, and inserting the new magazine. Someone with minimal experience with firearms will perform this sequence rather clumsily, but a trained user will keep their ammo stores ready and be able to efficiently reload their weapon in the heat of battle, just as the player can improve their speed at reloading in the UI.

The same can be extended to the use of patches and grenades, as well as interacting with keypads, wire/grid puzzles, and containers in real time. Managing everything in the midst of danger is what drives the basic challenge of the game in the absence of more intelligent enemies. The Enhanced Edition makes things easier, but the management aspect is mostly still intact if you don't use the additional hotkeys. If the remake's UI is updated to match the slick usability of SS2's UI, then the challenge better be ramped up to match, because SS1's turrets on legs are not capable of handling an opponent who can run and shoot like Gordon Freeman. SS2 accounted for its snappier control scheme and interface with a diverse roster of aggressive and persistent enemies with a mix of hand-crafted encounters and dynamic respawns, all while still maintaining a layer of real-time management that puts you at risk of an ambush while hacking a console or fiddling with your gear. Hopefully NightDive are taking note for the remake -- faithfulness is actually the last thing we need in terms of the enemy behaviors.

[side note, if you ever find yourself playing Ultima Underworld without the mouselook hack, I highly recommend playing mouse only instead of trying to use the keyboard controls. It feels a lot more intuitive to me to move and turn with the mouse. In SS1 this isn't as tenable because you also have leaning and crouching to worry about]

[67410b0a1c56bicemann]

I get the impression you're meaning this was... a good thing?

No. It's a bit of both. From a purely game play perspective it's bad obviously. Story wise it makes sense for the reasons I stated earlier.

In my case I had played Ultima Underworld not too long before it. So similar in some respects.

[67410b0a1cc03Nameless Voice]

I have to claim stupidity on this.  What deliberately complicated tasks could have easily been automated?  I mean the workers don't find their own mineral patches to mine like they do in SC2 and they had a 12 unit limit but these do not contribute to people losing.

I'll admit I was mostly thinking about SC2, but most of my issues apply to both.
The easiest way to win the game is to out-economy your opponent.  Micromanaging your economy is more important than managing your troops.
Production queues are one of the biggest issues in both games.  You have to invest the money for anything you put in the queue right away, so you are actually penalised for using them and your entire economy becomes less efficient because of it.  Your optimal way to play is always to only start training troops exactly when the previous unit finishes.
That 12-unit selection limit was huge in SC1, I generally avoided playing Zerg simply because they had too many units to control within those limitations.
Some of the limitations could be excused for the game being old (though I'm fairly sure even then the designs were intentional), but SC2 retained a lot of this and then added more on top of it.
Spawn Larvae is the ultimate example in SC2.  For optimal economy, you need to have a queen cast it on all of your hatcheries every time it's off cooldown, which means switching to each queen and casting it every 45 (IIRC) seconds.  Even though there is zero decision-making involved in this and the spell could just as easily have been autocast.  They purposefully made it that way to invent forced busywork for players to show off their APM.

Managing everything in the midst of danger is what drives the basic challenge of the game in the absence of more intelligent enemies.

This is true, but it's also basically saying that the poor controls/UI are justified by the poor enemy AI.
Doesn't make either of them less poor.

[67410b0a1ce3dRoSoDude]

I guess I don't really believe in an isolated element being good or bad on its own, just what works or doesn't work in context. SS1's interface is built for its gameplay and vice versa. Streamline the UI by itself and the gameplay becomes trivial. Make the enemies fast and aggressive and the interface becomes a deadly nuisance. As they are, though, they work nicely together and create a compelling experience that can't be boiled down to the quality of individual components. It's like when people say the tank controls in the fixed camera Resident Evil games are bad full stop without putting them in context. The enemies and obstacles are tuned with them in mind, working together to create the challenge, pacing, and tension for which people remember the games fondly. The games wouldn't be improved just by a topdown camera and twinstick shooter controls that let you see and target everything easily, nor just by making zombies harder to run past. Those two combined might make for an interesting experiment (see Darkwood, which I have yet to play), but it doesn't obsolete the prior style. Both can be peaks on the design landscape that are worth exploring.

To clarify, I think SS1's enemies are disappointing even in context. Most of them are slowly shambling hitscanners that differ only in damage and toughness and it's rather dull. I wish they were better differentiated and more interesting to fight without necessarily making them fast and aggressive, which is the distinction I was trying to make between the priorities of SS1 and SS2. There are also some minor things I'd change about the UI, like button placement and item swapping, but not the way you reload your weapon or use items, which I think enhance the gameplay in a unique and worthwhile manner.

[67410b0a1cf82Kolya]

There's a game I played lately - Synthetik, a roguelite shooter - whose reload mechanism requires unloading the gun first. Unloading and loading actions are on the gamepad's shoulder buttons. So they're easy to find and quite satisfying to use.
You can disable the unloading part in the settings, but they specifically recommend to use it, because it adds to frantic combat situations. And it does. 

[67410b0a1d0f1Da9L]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE97vZLC_fA

[67410b0a1d359Marvin]

First thing that came to mind: "How can you not mention at least NewDark?"

[67410b0a1d443RocketMan]

It's not something he can take credit for?

[67410b0a1d62eJosiahJack]

I'm enjoying all of this.  Lots of good points an RoSo's analysis is gold.  Love the balance in context concept.  Especially as I've made it where reloading in Citadel can require unload first then reload, but is an option you can toggle.

I'm not sure how intuitive double tapping the lean keys is to unlean which I have, but simply walking forward unleans too.

[67410b0a1d9c8unn_atropos]

It's not something he can take credit for?

No, but NewDark made the release of the game possible and a lot easier. And if I remember right, NightDive also used SSTool, giving the infamous "tech ninja" quote, which they apologized for later.
In the video he says, that there was no mouselook, and that they added that. But a mouselook mod was released by Malba Tahan in 2010. Three years before System Shock was re-released on GOG.

[67410b0a1db31edx]

July Update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2903458

[67410b0a1dc21ZylonBane]

Oh geeze, not the return of the dismemberment system. I thought that got left behind along with everything else from the abandoned "reimagined" System Shock.

[67410b0a1dd80voodoo47]

ooh, bet this is going to make the pixelated graphics stand out even more.

but it seems like they are also patching SSEESP, and that ain't a bad thing.

[67410b0a1de70JosiahJack]

Ooh look another update on Soldier of Fortuneshock!   Not much there.  A blood splatter, a ragdoll, and a COD gun walk into a clinic...

[67410b0a1df87icemann]

Or Chasm - The Dark Rift which did it the best. You'd be shooting arms and legs off enemies etc.

I just hope that this new system did not come at the expense of something from the original being brought over. We've yet to see any of the hardware get implemented yet. I want my lantern, jet boots and target identification.