Remember that one shooter where you can across a wide space crammed with enemies firing hundreds of bullets at you, and you made it to the other side without getting hit once? Ha, yeah, thats pretty much every shooter. I think its time a game should capitalize on this strange luck of player control, game AI, and hit detection. I call it the Run of Faith. Its a random system of equations that can determine if the player can make a Run without getting hit, making it a Run of Faith. You know in those WWII movies, the character runs from one wall to another, bullets hitting all around, yet he makes it without a scrape? Like that, but in a game, and advertised, so gamers know it can happen. So when they're in that instense battle in the middle of a shelled out town in Europe, they know there's a chance, a small one, that they can spring across the street and make it to other side just fine, all the while exposed to the action packed feeling of being shot at. This could be a really bad idea too, players might try to do it all the time and get killed. Yeah, I don't know, it sounded cool. Anyone want to put a "Luck Meter" in their game? Then this feature would be more plausible. [Edited by - TriplexVirus on November 1, 2004 10:19:57 PM]

You could just count how many times the player has tried that stunt in a given gunfight and kill him the 3rd time he tries it. Or, you could let him get across unshot the 1st time, but then let the normal AI and Physics dictate if he gets shot the following times.

The problem with a 'this happens sometimes' element is that the player can just save before a run and reload until he makes it over. Any game where this is a viable strategy is broken. In Civ3, if you saved before a battle and tried and retried the battle a thousand times, it would happen the sameway everytime.

SO: say you really like this feature and want to use it. Your character should have a 'luck' bar that fills up with time, damage (like the limits in FF7), powerups, or other ways. Then, the player says, "My luck bar is full, so I can make a run for it. But should I do it now or use it later?"

I think we can all agree that that is probably a better idea, as it adds strategy instead of persistance to the game.

If you really want it to be just random, you could have a once-you-die-that's-it-game's-over-saved-files-deleted game, but then the player would almost never use the ability, especially in later parts of the game.

Well, you could have a deck of cards or something. If you're in a situation where you can make an attempt at a run of faith, he could draw a card first. If he draws an ace, that run won't work, ever (the game would have to remember this). Maybe what will work and what won't would be fixed in the level design, with the deck working as an indicator that you would have to use "right" to avoid running out of cards too early. Once you've used a card, throw it avay.