The on-foot FPS aspect is actually one of my biggest gripes with Odyssey.
If you're going to put on-foot aspects into your spaceship game, at least put some quality into them.
Odyssey seems weak in the departments of;
- General gunplay - the cliche viewpoint of gun up to your eye as soon as you draw it and run around like an action figure stuck in that position.
- Enemy AI - Functional at best. Reminds me of enemies in Front Mission Evolved.
On-foot CZs are a good example of it. They will mindlessly move from point A to point B and you can basically just walk past them and they won't care until you shoot. But once you shoot at them, they ignore all other enemies, even if you're 100m out they will just zone in on you. No real use of cover, just that silly little dodgeball duck and slide thing. No strategic maneuvering or flanking.
- Weapons, weapon selection and variety - You're telling me, the year 3308, humans live in thousands of star systems.....and there are only 3 gun manufacturers that make.....11 guns.....?
- Gun weightiness and "punch" - As far as the audio and gun heftiness and kickback and gunfire, they feel more like airsoft and lasertag guns than combat ready firearms.
- Damage - In desperate need of some reworking. Ballistic weapons do barely any damage to shields? And energy weapons barely shave off slivers of 'armor'? Kinda silly guys....
Us CMDRs are paper dolls, while every NPC you fight takes a full mag each.
And treating on-foot combat like ship combat with the philosophy of;
"shoot shields with lasers, then switch weapons, and shoot 'hull' with ballistics" is a lazy, horrendous, tedious, and immersion breaking mechanic.
And on-foot small arms can take down the shields of my ship that is designed to take ridiculous caliber weaponry of other ships? Kinda silly.
- Melee - What melee? A weak and useless punch or gunswing, while NPCs will just gun you down in half a second as you attempt to swing at them.
No melee weapons, no reason to even attempt engaging in a melee fight.
- Character movement - generic, cliche and not very smooth or dynamic. Like a PS2 or Xbox shooter game quality.
i.e. - character moves on a rigid 8-point turn directional and snaps to each animation, there's literally one jump animation, can't even go prone, you can slow walk but you can't slowly crouch walk, no leaning.
- Shadows and lighting - I know it's more than just the FPS segment, but I can't help but notice when I'm on foot that shadows are smudgy and lighting seems to have this delayed auto-exposure adjustment that makes everything ridiculously dark.
But also: Your shadow is autonomous and it's disturbing. Find a sunny spot with good lighting and look at your shadow, then draw your weapon; your character will bring up the weapon and 1 second later your shadow will do the same. Same thing happens with reloading or holstering your weapon or movement. Your shadow is this creepy entity that mimics your movement in some weird delayed action. It's silly and I am amazed that FDev just said "screw it, green light it."
- The POV - You're basically playing from the perspective of a go-pro on the chest of your character. Pretty awkward once you realize the perspective they ended up with.
- General "Halo-esque" feel - The overall feel of Odyssey gives off a sort of early 2000s, Halo quality run-and-gun, 360-no-scope vibe.
There are a plethora of first-person shooters to build a solid "boots on the ground" experience off of:
The Metro Series - Not the most amazing in terms of shooters, but the feel of gunplay and the HUD are excellent examples of how to give players information about their weapons and the world around them without breaking the immersion of the gameworld with gaudy and interruptive full-screen menus.
The Mirror's Edge games - Very enjoyable parkour and character movement in a first-person view, with some well done melee that works in a first-person view.
Arma 3 - It's janky and buggy, but the first-person view works and puts the player "behind the eyes" of your character. Lots of detailed and intricate milsim mechanics.
Leaning, reposition your stance from a raised standing position to a low crouch or even sitting with your gun up or going prone, different angles of gun position, ballistic physics, weapon attachments and accessories. (Just don't expect the vehicles to behave right. "Getting Arma'ed" happens a lot and if you touch two vehicles together, you never know what might happen. Bohemia is trash at vehicle physics.)
Escape from Tarkov - Good gun sound and impact. Even reloading feels enjoyable.
Squad - Another game with decent character movement and very nice audio and feel of gunplay. (walking and sprinting feel like you're moving through jello though. Kinda silly)
Killzone Series - Guns felt destructive and when you hit an enemy you knew you were destroying them in a satisfying hail of lead. Melee in KZ2 and KZ3 felt nice, and offered good takedowns and stealth. And enemies were smart. If you played on hard mode, be prepared for enemies to flank you and find cover while moving up on you.
Star Citizen - Again an FPS POV that works and feels accurate and properly proportionate, and as janky as SC is, the feel of gunplay is there and is believable.
Just some examples of things I've noticed and what could have been drawn from if FDev really wanted to actually put effort into it and drew from inspiration to give that real "Armstrong moment" that never happened.
