New Game Design/Gameplay needed for dealing with Enemies in future games

[EnDash]

I disagree with this. The fact is that people can already avoid the enemies if they want to just by running around a lot, and more than a few people have commented on how boring and stale that becomes, and how it ruins the carefully crafted atmosphere of horror.

i actually agree with you on this one, i commented before on this forum saying the enemies were the worst part of soma.

Providing well structured in game opportunities to delay or avoid enemies would give greater depth to the gameplay, without reducing the sense of horror. They in no way reduce the sense of horror than the situations the game already provides in which you're able to avoid enemies, like when

Spoiler below!

you climb through the lab's broken window and you're able to spend all the time you want in it, while the proxy can't reach you.

maybe it's different for you then for me, but every time i "outsmarted" the enemies in soma i was no longer scared. when

Spoiler below!

i was crawling in the vents or crouching under a desk looking directly at the monster, counting the seconds until it got away, i was bored, and then annoyed. the monsters were scary the first couple of times but after i figured all the hiding places and running routes, i was literaly checking my phone waiting for the monster to go away, and dying became an annoyance, not a jumpscare.

All they provide is a temporary respite, which is completely necessary (and built into the game at many points), in order to allow your tension levels to fall from peak to a lower plateau. This gives the game the opportunity to build up that tension anew, which keeps the game lively and engaging, and refreshes the sense of horror instead of it becoming stale.

monsters are definitely a tool you want to use, but only if you do it right. in soma many times i was chased by an enemy while trying to access lore stuff or explore the area, and when i died i often had to wait for doors to open or the monster to go away before getting to what i want, and the monster always came back way too quickly. the monsters were a hindrance.

contrast that with amnesia, where the monsters spawned dynamically based on a number of parameters, like how long the player has gone without solving a puzzle or how much sanity you had. and if you died often the monster would despawn so you could have a chance to explore. there was an attempt to make the monsters an engaging part that would come and go unexpectedly and would be there to support the player's actions, instead of directly opposing them.

it wasn't perfect either, but to me the enemies in amnesia were much scarier and were scary for far longer then the enemies in soma.

The mechanic in A:TDD is powerful evidence against this. All of us spent plenty of time hiding in closets, knowing we were safe while doing so. Yet the tension and sense of horror did not diminish, and in fact the close proximity to the enemy and the fear of sudden exposure (however likely), only heightened the fear. It did not make us any less terrified of the enemies, even when we saw them repeatedly in the game, and used the same mechanic to avoid them.

again, it's probably different for me then it is for you. after a while of playing amnesia the monsters became a routine part that wasn't scary. they were still a solid gameplay part but i wasn't in tension or afraid. when i realized i can just run right past them it became a game of cat and mouse that i knew i would win every time, and was not scary.

i urge you to go back and play amnesia again, get to the parts of the game where a monster is chasing you and tell me, now that you know it are tuned to how it works, it still scares you.

if it does, well then the audience is split.