It's just that I watched a developer walk-through from E3 last year I think, going through the start of the game, and Lara was totally inexperienced and bad at shooting arrows at first (missing etc). Did this get cut out of the game or did Brad simply miss it?

Here's the link to the only video I can find that sort of indcates this, but it's not the one that i saw... I defienetly rember seeing it but I guess they must have cut it.
http://www.gametrailers.com/e3/videos/ow5yec/e3-2012--open-world-walkthrough

I can't speak to whether or not the beginning of Tomb Raider is like Alpha Protocol, but it was likely that the developer was missing shit on purpose. Or the developer is just bad at video games.

The thing is, the reason that kind of premise presents cognitive dissonance in the player is because while the character (Lara Croft) is terribly new at this killing people thing, the player isn't. If you were bad at video games there wouldn't be an issue.

@agent47csim2: Mind giving up a link to the video?

Its also the emotional removal. Its really hard to tell a good emotional story about remorse for killing in a shooter, because the way shooters play. I think Spec Ops the Line did a very good job ( with out giving any spoilers ). I am still looking forward to Tomb Raider, but it is a hard set up to begin with.

Well it isn't in the game so either it was cut or maybe the dev was playing badly to sell a planned feature that got dropped before it was developed.

What like you were given the impression that Lara's guns had crazy recoil in the beginning stages?

You can't really have that because people would be pissed that they were capable of shooting fine, but the gameplay was hindering them. Didn't the original Mass Effect make you miss and they changed that in the 2nd game?

That'd been really cool if it was in the game. Like a "I'm new at killing dudes"-handicap that gradually faded as you advanced. (I haven't tried the game yet).

When you see bullets hit, and they don't register, that's terrible. If gameplay surrounding the actual shooting, like a more floating aim or more sense of recoil makes the bullets not hit, then it becomes more acceptable.

Yeah, we've seen drunkenness in video game being implemented like that before. I don't think I would mind a floating aim scaling ever down until it that went away a hour or so in.

@funkydupe said:

I'd like that, but I don't think this it would get a great response. Killzone 2 had a deliberately bigger dead zone to make the aiming feel heavier and people were losing their shit about it.

@linkster7: Do we know whether Lara has had archery lessons or went to a pistol course ever? I guess we don't know her background that well. But firing a bow efficiently as a weapon with the purpose of killing stuff that moves takes some serious skill and practice.

@ghostiet: Also probably true. :)

@funkydupe: I agree, not really sure why you directed the response at me though. But I'm tired so I may have missed something.

lara would never be able to do the kind of punches she does in the game her huge female tits would get in the way every time and squish around and her nipples would pop out and ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh why did they make such a sexist video game ohhhh yesssssss

We've seen this idea in other games (Alpha Protocol?) where it turns out it is no fun to suck at executing skills. Pointing ranged weapons at a target like one would in so many other games and missing because of a "dice roll" causes lot of cognitive dissonance.

It would not be interest or fun for Lara in this game to suck at shooting just because "she is inexperienced". No one is missing anything since that is not how this game works.

@extomar: I remember when they were saying this on the bombcast, and I think it misses the obvious - why can't they just have Lara not shoot people for a while? In all the press for this game I thought the first few hours would be purely survival. Avoiding enemies, running from them, trying to stay alive in the jungle, and building Lara up to the point where she's finally shooting enemies. Maybe just shooting animals for food first. It would make a bit more sense for the theme of the game it seems to me. Half Life 2 does that really well. There's no real need to put a gun in the player's hand straight away.

@9cupsoftea: Depends on what you mean by first few hours. The first hour or so of the game is just mucking around getting your bearings before you ever get a gun. After that it's one intense situation where you're forced into combat and then it's more exploring. They pace these fights really well.

People lost their shit over KZ2 because it was implemented terribly and made no sense whatsoever. They effectively chose to add the character's reaction time on top of the player's reaction time... which is just lag by any other name. The game was broken by design (at least until they acknowledged it was fucked and fixed it).

They tried to replicate something which doesn't even exist in real life. Snapping an assault rifle to a target is not difficult or cumbersome at all.

I actually thought it worked pretty well in Alpha Protocol, but they did a bad job of explaining how it worked to the player. They probably shouldn't have let people think it was going to play like a regular TPS in the first place.

The bullet would always go somewhere in the reticule in Alpha Protocol, it just wouldn't necessarily go dead center. You'd always hit your target if you were close enough for the enemy to fill the reticule. Once you understood that you could allow for it and play accordingly.

I disagree. It would be an interesting and organic way to add challenge to the game and make the player feel a notion of danger due to the protagonist's lack of skill.

Still, if Lara got more experienced over time that would probably mean the game would get gradually easier, which isn't the way these things usually intend to go. The game could probably find a way around that though.

The closest video I can find is this one from Gametrailers and he sort of alludes to that being the case, but it doesn't seem to have that much impact... I'm sure I've seen it though but i guess i must be crazy lol http://www.gametrailers.com/e3/videos/ow5yec/e3-2012--open-world-walkthrough

I disagree. It would be annoying when your trying to be stealthy and then miss your shot and all the guards just kill you. It would just come down to a dice roll and in a stealth game that is a bad mechanic.

They could always try to do the shaky hands thing like Resident Evil 4. And then lessen it as the plot progresses. But that would probably lead way for frustration.

They absolutely do that when you first get a gun. You also naturally get better with the games aiming mechanic as you get used to shooting dudes. The same for the bow. The wildlife is very dodgy and you miss a lot in the beginning, but you start to get a sense for knowing when to shoot at animals. You learn to shoot wolves when they start to charge since they lunge at you in a straight line.

That's a reductive, myopic view of how that game mechanic cold play out. I think it could be well implemented and make for tension as opposed to frustration.

Well, so far with how the skills and upgrading equipment goes I have felt like it has changed a fair bit from the start. At first kind of awkwardly stealth killing, having no melee options and the weaponry not being overly accurate. Compared to now where I can rather efficiently creep through the dark picking people off one by one like a predator rather quickly and brutally. Also if things come down to close quarters I can fairly easily handle most enemies in melee, even heavily armoured sorts. The shooting is much more reliable now as well as I am more used to it and have upgraded the accuracy of my weapons a fair bit.

I've not finished the game yet, but I have felt like the skills both as a player and in terms of earned rewards from exp and salvage have made the pacing and approach to combat change a fair bit.

Well after the first kill dubbed 'emotional' you go on a rampage for the rest of the level and has to kill about ten more guys without much thinking like any other shooting games.

I'd say that it escalated quickly, but you know how it is.

To be clear, I like the mechanism but "skill checks" but the way they were presented in AP was flawed. A game that pulls this off very well is X-COM but they take care to imply "the character is shooting". When the game pulls the player into the character's view and ask them for a target to shoot by putting sights on it and you miss then that causes issues.

Also this thread seems to be built upon an erroneous idea. It shouldn't have been that a young and inexperienced Lara is having trouble firing a weapon but that she is inexperienced in this type of brutal "Lord of the Flies" situation.

Your view is an overzealous way of how it could play out.

Just finished. And the pacing is really well done. You do not just start fighting baddies out of the gate. And she does have training. A lot of it. Not at people of course but with weapons and the like.

She does have the level system that does make her a better killing machine. Way better.But it does need to be pointed out once again. This game is not the first time she picks up a bow or a gun. The green aspect of her char is how she kills humans. At the start she is very basic. By the end of the game she has the skills to be much more effective.