Suggestion: New "Monster Event" Ideas?

[Patacorow]

1. *Most* monsters disappear after you hide for a little while. This isn't such a bad thing, but the music cues give way too much away-- you always know when a monster is looking for you and when it's fully gone. I understand that there are still surprises when the monster first attacks you, but I think it's too re-assuring and easy to simply hide and wait for the music to indicate your safe.

So much yes. I quickly picked up the music cues portion of the game and could tell when I was in danger which kinda took some danger away. In a mod I'm working on, I made a patrol grunt - it's in the hub level, it plays no cues and it never disappears.

In AMFP I'd like to see enemies be more life-like: checking hiding places and changing their path even when not chasing the player. It'd be extremely petrifying to run out of an enemy's sight into a closet and have the creeking terror music stop, then suddenly have the closet doors be completely torn down by that enemy, then the music starts again.

I'd probably pause and not play for a hundred years in a situation like this.

The music shouldn't be used to give players hints about enemies, but just to add to the environment. I can't think of a good way to change between search, danger and attack musical tracks properly without ruining the feel but I'm sure FG can come up with a new musical cue engine.

When I first played Penumbra and heard the dog music for the first time I was in complete terror, but when I kept playing I knew I needed to hide whenever that same track started playing. Yes, it was scary but not as scary as it could've been. (also the Penumbra enemy danger track is scarier than Amnesia's, in my opinion, since it's made of tense instruments and increasing tension. Nevermind.)

Same goes for Amnesia - after the first Grunt encounter in the guest room when I first heard the music - I instantly knew it's the danger music and I should watch out for it. Once it's gone - I knew I was safe. And that kind of ruined my experience with enemies.

I hope I made my point

[Gasjockey]

Sorry, but, with the exception of points 1 and 6, I disagree. All of the other points are either done intentionally by FG, or you are wrong. I don't have the time to write up a proper response right now, but I will do so later.

[xxalucard]

9. Just wanted to say that I'd also like to see some kind of "Boss Fights" in the next game.

I understand that in Amnesia-type games you can't fight back, and that's a very fun aspect of the game that I liked. But it would be cool if there were some kind of "Boss" endless chase scene where you had to accomplish something to trap it, or some kind of "mob" event where there's way too many grunts that keep approaching from doorways/hallways as you try to escape something.

In penumbra there was that grunt who took over part of your mind, and kind of had a semi-boss fight near the end (where you had to remove the stuff in front of the door as he lurked around the small set of rooms you were in.) In Amnesia there was Alexander, which was kind of a anti-climactic "boss" in my opinion, and I think it could've been better. You don't have to give us weapons or guns to shoot them, but put us in some sort of intense situation where we have to go above/beyond the usual tactics to escape one super-enemy or a ton of regular enemies.

Just my 2 cents

[Adny]

1. *Most* monsters disappear after you hide for a little while

2. Get rid of the closet safe rooms.

3. Similar gameplay setups to Justine--

4. There should be some sort of "random monster appearance" system--

1. You could add a sort of path node system, where, the longer the player waits, the closer the monster's node change to a location where the player could possibly hide; and, after x amount of rotations around his nodes, he will definitely find the player, forcing them to either find a way through, or die.

2. You can always scale down closets and put items inside them to add pressure to the player. If you scale back the closet just right, you could probably reach a certain point where it won't close all the way. (similar to the metal closet). You can also try leaning them up against walls, making it even more difficult to enter for safety.

3. I'm sure there's a script for the no-save style, or perhaps its in the config files, and you could include it in a full conversion?

4. Agreed 100%. So many times where I've played custom stories where people won't even add a timer between picking up x item and triggering y monster; Completely ruins the rhythm of the scare. But, more on the "random", do you mean something like, looped into a timer? or still scripted, but in specific, obscure places?

[Paddy™]

I thought the music cues were genius. I can understand the criticism that they make it too easy to know when you're safe, but I think knowing you're safe can benefit the atmosphere; it's important for the player to experience periods of relief and allow them to exhale otherwise the experience becomes stagnant. The constant up and down of emotion rattles you much more than a constant stream of unending threat (or unending safety!). The music cues make this work perfectly. Fear, like any other emotion/sensation, is always much more potent when it's teased out of you. Amnesia's soundtrack is very much the horror game version of sex!

I also adore the screeching audio when you're within a monster's field of view. Again, it makes it obvious when you're successfully escaping because the screeching dies down, but conditioning the player to associate that sound with being seen as opposed to just having been seen makes it all the more powerful when it kicks in - you feel panic and you know you're right to feel that way because you know the sound means you've been spotted, not just generally detected/sensed by the enemy, but actually seen and pursued. When it dies down it provides the same kind of respite I mentioned above, which serves to rattle you further and soften you up for future scares. The "come down" is as integral a part of the experience as the frights are.

When you have an encounter with a monster and hide in a closet, and if the encounter scared the shit out of you, you're extremely reluctant to go back outside and continue on even when the music cues signal that everything is fine (because everything was fine before the encounter, right?). If the monster never left and the music never softened it'd be scary at first but you'd feel much less inclined to hide and would just say "ahh to hell with this" and make a run for it. One of the things about Amnesia that makes it unique is the fact that everything conspires to make you want to remain hidden. I think the music cues actually support that by being extremely dynamic and informational. It's like the music is having a conversation with you, constantly reminding you that the situation is out of your control.

[Mehis]

You cannot really fix the music. Creating a dynamic music system would be pain in the ass.
Only thing what I dislike though and would be easy to fix, is that every time when monster disappears the search music should go on until next map is loaded or when there's another sequence.

Imagine you just got away from a monster and you still hear that creepy brute search music. It would still give the pressure of the enemy being close to you and that you need to take every single step carefully instead of just running around trying to search for another puzzle.

[Juby]

Same goes for Amnesia - after the first Grunt encounter in the guest room when I first heard the music - I instantly knew it's the danger music and I should watch out for it. Once it's gone - I knew I was safe. And that kind of ruined my experience with enemies.

I hope I made my point

I actually thought the guest room was the best execution of a monster spawn in the entire game. It wasn't your traditional "Oh I hear music, let's hide and wait for it to go away" tactic. The music played there was kinda a "hey hide now" type of thing and when the monster went away, you can hear a door open and close. This made me think that they could open level doors for a while. Come to think of it, that would be a great idea to add in custom stories.

Personally, I think monsters should be able to open closet door, but only if they hear you inside of it (low santiy heavy panting, moving, etc) And for the whole random spawning idea; lore-wise, the gatherers are searching for you so this would make sense and plus it would make everyone's experience different and that is a great thing.

I also wish that they trashed the musical cues when a monster spawns and instead only have that spawn roar to tell you that danger is lurking.

[OuroboruS]

I don't know about random encounters where there's no place to hide or hiding spots that still leave you vulnerable. It sounded cool at first, but it could get really frustrating really fast. I don't want to die just because of bad luck. Amnesia always gave the player a fair chance. As long as you payed attention to your surroundings and were smart, you'd most likely survive. If you get killed, you should feel like you deserved it or that you could have done better. I think the game was pretty balanced in that respect. My only complaint is that there were too many predictable encounters where an important pick-up item or solved puzzle was a spawn trigger.

Paddy's comment pretty much sums up how I feel about the use of music cues and how it works with the atmosphere and our emotional response.


Someone mentioned monsters that could pass through level doors. This was actually done in a custom story and it's probably one of my most memorable scares. After escaping a brute via level-door, I believed myself safe and traveled down the hallway. Not much later I hear a tremendous crash from behind me and a message comes up on my screen: "That door didn't keep him out for long"
I peed myself a little.

A boss fight is a cool idea. Abduction had a boss fight and was very clever and engaging despite not being able to fight physically. Even something like that, where it's more a battle of wits and strategy, would be nice.