Flinching

Why do most games ignore this details? I think it's one of the most important aspects in single player action games because it gives tangible feedback to player's successful actions toward the enemy. It also adds the aesthetics of the illusion of pain from the enemies. Therefore, flinching has to be a clear and satisfying combination of good animations and sound effect.

There are some games that do flinching well. Games such as Goldeneye, Medal of Honor, and Virtua Cop have multiple flinching animations that are triggered based on the body part the enemy is hit, coupled with satisfying hit sound effect. Shooting enemies in CoD 1 makes them fall on their knees and try to get up again. Enemies in Rage stumble when getting shot. GTA IV does flinching mechanics extraordinarily well, I don't need to explain it.

However, there are games that outwardly just ignore this. Doom I and II, while having tangible flinch, only does it with a crappy looking one frame animation and no projectile impact sound effects. This makes Doom very boring for many people including me. Half Life, FEAR, Crysis, and such games don't give a rat ass about giving a good flinch animation, they barely react to bullet damage. It's like they don't feel pain at all. Stalker: SoC is the biggest offender of this, enemies literally don't react to player's bullets except when being shot in the head.

What is it that makes devs ignore flinching? Do they forget that people and living creatures in general will stumble down, lose their mind for a second, and scream when they feel a sudden extreme pain?

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You mean where bullets are filled with tranquilizers and make people go numb for a few seconds before being okay again?
And more importantly you may be autistic.

GTA 4 had the best flinching I have seen but ARMA 3 also does alright, it also serves as a great hit indicator without having giant fucking X's on the screen.

Bro. Look at the image you posted.

For MP games, it's forgivable I guess because players don't like being flinched unlike AI's. Maybe CS flinching is the most suitable for MP games.

Meh.

It's completely common to shrug off a bullet in combat when adrenaline is pumping

Pistol rounds yes but rifle rounds have a pretty good chance of making it physically impossible for you to keep going far such as shattering a leg bone so it can't support weight.

It's not shrugging off, it's entirely just not noticing it. If you don't feel it you don't notice it. If you see that you're bleeding you'll probably start feeling sick/pain.

Just for the record OP I've seen npcs in stalker double over when getting shot, although I will admit that this is affected by rng and not shot placement etc.

But then it could be argued that if the npc's could feel it then why shouldn't the player?

Far cry 2's kinda nice now that i'm replaying it.

You are wrong about Stalker though

Cos it wouldn't be fun. Players can't cope with failures and disabilities as well as AI's. It's a simple but sometimes forgotten fact.


Prove me wrong.

most people pass out when they are shot even if its non lethal, so the numbness thing kinda makes sense for a bideo gaem

its not like we can expect TECHNOLOGY like that from the weeb trash you must play

Underrated post.

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Rockstar made Max Payne 3, they made LA Noire, and they fucking made Red Dead to all test new technologies that would ultimately culminate in GTA V being their magnum opus. Instead they fucking squandered every refined mechanic in those previous games to be mashed together in a shallow, lazy mess. They couldn't even fucking improve on key things from IV.

Flinching is an important game mechanic, not just a small detail that exists to look cool or be immersive. If you add in long, detailed flinch animations for every hit the game is going to be a lot easier. Hitstun needs to be tuned to work with all the other game mechanics, you can't just ask for significant flinching in every game because it's not appropriate for some games.

GTA IV didn't have whales.

Shit, you're right.

Because today it done cheaply by adding stagger. I really liked the goldeneyes mechanics

Enemies in STALKER usually flinch in 2 ways, either a small bob or a stun animation that lasts for about a second. Both are also always accompanied by yelling and cursing.
Admittedly, the games aren't incredible in the animation department but it makes up for that in sound cues.

Hitstun was fairly important in Marathon, as close up it'd prevent Troopers from shredding you with their hitscan weapons or grenade launchers. That's why all weapons in the game need to be reloaded, so you can't flinch an enemy forever.

Because most melee combat focused games already have acceptable flinching, unlike shooter games.

It doesn't have to be long and detailed. Like, have you ever played Goldeneye and Medal of Honor? Having satisfying damage feedback animation is all I'm asking.


It's more of a stagger than a flinch, and it's pretty random. Most of the time I can't even tell if my projectiles hit.


My criticism is not on the hitstun, but on the animation and sound effects that accompany it. Hitstun is important in Doom too, but the flinch animation is only a single frame, single sprite animation. It makes the game feel incredibly stiff and boring.

Yeah, it feels like Goldeneye and Medal of Honor have no PC equivalent in this department. It's a shame because both games look like shit and run like shit on console, especially Goldeneye.

What difficulty are you playing on?

killzone 2-3 had pretty cool bullet reactions

i'm with you, OP. its really a bummer to see human type enemies shrug off bullets when really that should be saved for more menacing enemy types

All of them, from easy to master. It's all in the animations. If the flinching mechanics wasn't so bad, I and everyone else wouldn't complain about bulletsponge.

This is one of the reasons I've never gotten around to finishing STALKER. There's no feedback at all. I just shoot at things and at some point maybe they die.

You really dont know jack shit about stalker do you, wew lad

Metal Gear Solid 2 does it extremely well

Monster Hunter has good flinching mechanics. If you break a monster's body part they cry in pain and have animations each part that can break most of the time. You can even shoot the flying fuckers out of the air if you do enough damage and watch them flail around in agony for a few seconds. It's very satisfying.

sometimes doing enough damage will flinch them without a break too, which is always satisfying

do tell what you know

Yeah you've summed up the entire problem with both GTA IV and that video.

Many games have it, it's called "stagger".
It happens in melee combat most often though rather than shooters.

Flinching (actually "pain") is very important mechanic in Doom though

It makes chaingun a viable weapon and makes you think before bringing a rocket launcher into a fight where you can easily be overwhelmed with enemy attacks

He knows that you're talking out of your arse. Nobody is stupid enough to play on a difficulty lower than master and then repeat the mistake to play "all of them".

I've always wanted to see a game try implementing flinch/stagger mechanics in a "natural" way. Usually flinch is done by forcing the player into a canned animation, which takes away player control and can get frustrating. Instead, I think it would be better to add a momentum vector to the player's movement and offset their aim direction dependent on the nature of the attack received. This way the player stays in control at all times, yet is still penalized for getting hit in a naturally understandable manner, and "recovering" from flinch actually becomes a matter of player skill. Forced the player into a canned flinch animation should be reserved only for special cases.

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All those little features and details add up and give the game more life. It also shows a certain dedication from the devs. Something that was clearly lacking when they made V when they can't even add stuff that was present in previous games.

IV is not perfect by any means, but it sure as fuck beats V.

You have to go back

Yeah, but the animation is very boring and repetitive, that's my grudge.