A Look Behind GTA 5's Weird Gameplay Design 

Few useful links to mods I used and one source of info: gist.github.com/justGesha/037c850f1b38acaf94e90b28138c931f Posting it here cause barely anyone reads the description anyway 😅

I find it baffling that they replace crouch button with a "stealth" button but they only allow us to be stealthy on certain missions, while on any other situation, killing one NPC will alerts everyone in the area of our position

If a tree falls in the forest and no one around it hears it, did it make a sound? Well yes, the police in GTA 5 did, and they will give you a 6 star wanted level

Great video man! Especially the editing, learned a lot of interesting stuff. 7:22 If you get out of your vehicle in some place crowded and hang around, someone can eventually get in it and drive away. I think police can steal vehicles if they lose their car in order to chase you down. There is also the random event where the criminal points a gun at you and steals your car. I wouldn't consider any of these to be 'random events' like what you are asking after though, so yeah I don't think I have ever seen it either.

one weird thing ive noticed about gta 5 is that police seem to just be constantly aware of your exact location at all times. for example, if you hide in a spot where you would never be seen no matter where they looked, they walk straight towards you and jump right in as if they already knew you were supposed to be there. the same happens during chases, theyll always spawn right next to you as if they know where you are, even when theyre supposed to be searching for you

V is such a bizzare entry in the franchise, yes it's probably the most iconic and to some, the best one. But damn some of these development choices kind of ruin it a little.

10:53 When GTAO brought out vehicle exports, I swear this modifier was ramped up. This is because your payout is dependent on vehicle health, so more crashes=less money=higher chance of buying shark cards

V's map always did feel a little lifeless and i never knew why, this makes perfect sense as the reason

animals reporting crime is crazy 💀 this video is already a classic, excellent work!

It always shocked me how GTA 5 downgraded a lot of GTA 4 mechanics :/

The lack of gang violence among street gang members is also what I noticed while playing GTA 5. Back when I played GTA 3 I remember how there were separate territories for each gang and there would be shootouts starting if they cross the territory For example If you brought Leone mafias near the Triads then they would start gunfight or fist fight with each other it was hilarious to watch just stand there and watch all the rage on street between different gangs I hope they bring something like this back in GTA 6.

ngl, i do think gta v is pretty good and all, but rockstar really did make some pretty strange decisions when developing it. like, aircraft in the game actually have some pretty good deformation. however, you mostly never see it because planes will explode if you even nudge something slightly. stealing the large jet from lsia is incredibly challenging before getting a hanger, because taxiing means that a police car or two will probably run into your landing gear, which pretty much means instant death. and can i talk about the explosions? explosions honestly feel so much less powerful than in gta iv. gta iv had massive explosions with flaming flying debris, it’s awesome! not the case in v, helicopters will have one tiny explosion and then just fall down split in two, it doesnt even look destroyed. even sa was better than that, when helicopters were hit with an rpg, they would produce tons of smoke and explosions, they would start tumbling down, then when they hit the ground there would be tons of explosions and an actual destroyed looking helicopter, with so much fire surrounding. gta v plane crashes also suck, if you nosedive into terrain you will legitimately just stop in place and explode in the most nonsensical areas. the cockpit? wings? vertical stabilizer? why didnt the entire plane explode? honestly probably would have been better if they split all the main plane components (wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers, fuselage..) then split those parts into fragments that would either just be gone or intact depending on where your plane crashed. anyway, great video gesha, welcome back!

This video made me realize just how ambitious GTA 5 was and how much content was likely lost to lack of resources or time. It looks like the game was supposed to have so, so much more, just like GTA 4 did. Makes you wonder how much content we saw in the GTA 6 leak will even make it into the game, if they don't scrap everything because it got leaked.

The world needs you to remaster GTA IV like how you did San Andreas. You're a legend and we love you man 💕

Funny enough, GTAs drivers are pretty realistic. Most people in my area don't even seem to comprehend what a turn signal is.

The intentional crashing could be the game trying to slow you down so that you don't outrun the level loading/ LOD change. But there's definitely an argument to be had in Online; in the import/export missions to be exact, where every dent is accounted for, the driving of the AI is just brutal.

In regards to a civilian stealing a vehicle, it does happen in GTA V, but feels more like a scripted function to clear the road and save memory. Leave a car in the road, let it block traffic and cause congestion and a random ped will take the car and drive off. The thing is though, it will be a random ped of any kind (not even a criminal ped) that takes off with it.

03:06 is also supported by specific audio files made for these crimes

What really sucks about the broken stealth is how many missions have a "stealth option" but make it impossible to actually do it. Like putting in way too many npcs so you cannot sneak past them, or just randomly breaking your cover for no reason. Also, I am certain that enemies in online have way better health and aim than ones in single player.

Man, I haven't played GTA 5 since 2016 and I still remember how annoying the traffic was in that game and how it felt like NPC would intentionally try to crash into you. My most vivid evidence of this is when you're getting ready to cross an intersection and a car would significantly and not-so-subtly speed up and slow down just to cut off your path through the intersection. That shit never failed to piss me off. So, I'm glad this video confirms to me that I wasn't crazy about it all those years ago.

The AI can also change their rate of fire for some of the guns. I've seen them use AK's like miniguns and pretty much almost kill me from full armor in a single burst.

There's an in-game reason for the gangs not being a thing - they're completely outlawed in the game, as mentioned a few times in the story line. Also notice how in the story you've got a Balla talking with families in one of the missions without guns instantly blazing.

Your frequent use of examples is what elevates this from an opinion piece to serious criticism. Good vid.

if i'm not mistaken, the pedestrians reporting crimes feature is probably an actually finished feature from GTA: III that was cut during the development processes. according to erorcun, if you commit a crime in that game, pedestrians will reach the nearest pay phone and report the crime they just witnessed and the game will give you a wanted level. it's fun to realize this feature is actually properly done this time but only after 12 years... or not.

10:50 As far as I am concerned, this didn't use to be the case until the Vehicle Cargo Missions were added. Rockstar felt that delivery and source missions would be too easy, so to chip away at player's profits, they made cars swerve into you, so you would be forced to pay for repairs. I think that to keep parity between Online and Story Mode and to avoid raising suspicions, they chose to change both traffic systems and rewrote the game code

For those who want to say that they're not random events, here are some more random events that occur in SA: Police chasing an Criminal Car, Police chasing an criminal on foot, Pedestrains talking randomly without knowing the other person or knowing the other person (this is the most random one because the talk always changes and response is random aswell), Removed but existing in a buggy state is the Street drunks have their own special animations and features, Police Helicopters flying over the city that is going for some kind of crime we don't know.....

The deformation is still in the game but it's hard to get it to work now. You need a huge vehicle to be able to deform a small vehicle. Like one of those construction vehicles.

I've been waiting for someone to make this for YEARS. I felt like I was crazy when I tried talking about how broken/non-existent stealth is in this game. Not a big deal on its own, but the heists that use stealth are the most inconsistent and annoying missions in the game. Great video!

In GTA IV the “writhe” thing was so much better. It was actually permanent and they wouldn’t die unless you shot them continuously or shot them in the head. Otherwise they would writhe and try to get up occasionally and switch the side they are laying on and they would give voice lines begging for t their life and eventually sometimes they would get up and start limping away from the scene, or an ambulance would take them and drive away

Wish you covered the npc random rapid fire bug + 100% accuracy

I’m glad you mentioned gangs and the lack of involvement in story and actual fighting

Things I noticed about GTA V's AI, both playing it and reading the files: • There is a small chance a jumbo jet will crash when entering Michael's safehouse. • When entering any safehouse, the chance of a spawned police chase increases greatly. • Wanted level thresholds are determined by a numerical meter, which resets when you die/lose the cops. Taking down helicopters gives the highest value to the meter. In this way it is possible to get 4 stars and have the dispatch send out NOOSE for punching someone if you're bordering the 4 star threshold. • NPCs in an area will have different 'moods', making them more likely to run away screaming or to simply speedwalk away if you are insulting them. • NPCs outside restaurants, bars, and landmarks are typically more aggressive if insulted and are more likely to fight the player. • Homeless NPCs walking on busy streets in richer neighbourhoods have a higher chance of being aggressive then when found elsewhere, like underneath the Olympic freeway, but only if you insult another NPC near to them, which usually is what results in aggression. Which is also true for my previous point. • All NPCs have recorded dialogues for different actions (greeting, agreeing, dismissive, telling a story, making a comment, threatening, insulting, etc.,), though you will never hear some of these without using mods to change the behaviour (female NPCs will basically never fight you unless glitched). When walking past two or more NPCs, they are programmed to either argue, with one 'winning' and the other walking away, with the winning one using the 'victory' dialogue, or one will simply tell the other stories or make a comment, the other NPC will play the 'agree' or 'dismissive' dialogue randomly.

My theory on intentional car crashes is that they happen to slow the player down so that the map has time to load. Since it was released for ps3/360, if you went too fast on the road you could start running into map loading issues where the higher LODs didn't have enough time to load in.

Nice vid! I also discovered that in GTA V cops actually know where you last were for 20 seconds, it seems like it should be impossible but they always find you, meaning you should either hide in a hard to access spot or keep on the move.

Awesome video. Been working with the in-game files modding and im glad someone realized at 11:00 the SWAT AI is broken af inside interiors. There are interior flags put in the game which if removed fixes the AI, not sure if its an unfinished feature or what but its fixable.

Your videos are actually quite well made, I love the editing and effort. Keep it up, I didn't expect to stick around for so long on a seemingly random video :)

Yesterday, I was playing as Trevor driving near the hills of Vinewood and a blue dot appeared on the map. I thought it was a random event so I stopped. However, it was a pedestrian that jacked my car and drove away😂. I’ve played the story mode 6 times with ~75% completion and it was the first time I saw something like this.😅

A game with a ton of potential that due to laziness and or intentional bad design ends up being far worse than previous games. What a shame.

holy shit I've always wanted a deep gameplay analysis of something about GTA V and here we are, thanks for your work

Looks likes they didn't got the time to work of those stuff and thought to leave it as it is because they thought that they are not important things that will affect the game. Although they brought back those details in RDR2 which makes me believe that they will fix those issues in GTA 6

The king has returned

I don't think I've watched a GTA V video which actually shows the code in the game as evidence. Much more refreshing from the bunch who speculate.

I thought nobody would bring this up. This is the biggest game of all time and barely anyone understands how it even works behind the scenes. Very peculiarly.

The car cutting you off can be really funny sometimes. Once i was driving down the highway in first person and basically reached an off ramp to exit the highway to somewhere. I remember the NPC infront of me just going spastic and swerving right to left until it crashed into me. I really wish I was recording that.

4:20 the color filter and hitmarker the second someone decides to die (especially without you even moving and shooting) is so cringe.

I’m so glad this video was made. Gta 5 did enough to depart itself from what made rockstar titles unique. The game is so streamlined and player focused that nothing ever happens that isint predetermined. Once you finish the main story, it’s over. The world of Los santos stops being a world. It just becomes an interactive simulation of Los Angeles. A good game should put the player in a living world that exists outside of you. Not a world that revolves around the player.

GTA V's traffic has a few issues that cause them to constantly jump in front of you. Rockstar never properly coded in the right of way for left turns - traffic will stop to allow left turns into Chumash's side roads for example, meaning that left turners will just blindly cut you off. There's also a vastly simplified movement system when traffic is outside of a specific distance threshold, which is why traffic sometimes just changes its mind when you're approaching an intersection and gets in your way. There's also seemingly weird scripting to allow things like right turn on red, and poorly mapped out traffic routes (which can be seen with mods) cause traffic to erratically move into turn lanes, and take absolutely nonsensical paths through intersections. The wide triangle intersections you see throughout Blaine County are really bad offenders for this. I think it's poor NPC/pathing design that causes so many of the collisions that people blame on the NPCs being coded to get in your way... aside from the traffic that rushes into intersections to block you, that seems to be totally intentional lol.

7:35 Pedestrians can in in fact steal other pedestrians vehicles, as well as your own if you carjacked them. DarkViperAU covered this in a facts and glitches series video. Basically, in any car that has 2 pedestrians in it, you can make the passenger get mad at the driver, run around the car, and carjack them lol. It's pretty funny to watch honestly.

it's nice to have a lot of these annoying things summarized in a well edited video. i wish that rockstar considered that everytime the player notices these things, it takes a lot away from the game. every time i think about playing this game, i remember most of these things and either crack my knuckles and get to modding, or just sigh and think of something else to play (not surprisingly, it's usually one of the older titles of GTA) great video

This is really interesting stuff! I really hope the next entry in the series has much more realistic driving and car damage mechanics and the cops are much more realistic.

Hey gesha great video, I'm so glad you did tis as this game has some incredibly baffling game design that has just been ignored and instead praised, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, of NPCS with laser aim, aimbot etc

Just found this channel but your editing style, writing, and content is top tier. Hope you make videos more frequently

High-quality video. Great job!

Never heard of your channel before but your quality, effort, dedication and much more has left me more than impressed! Keep it up!

Need a pt2 this was very interesting and damn right the NPCs intentionally try to wreck you in my experience it's so blatantly obvious they made it like that pretty annoying

Gta 4's vehicle handling was horrendous, especially with motorcycles since they slide too much.

Please make more videos like this! I love seeing these types of analysis videos and this one is specially great, so please continue doing this kind of stuff! Me and a lot of people would appreciate it, I bet haha

8:55 Oh, so that's why I crash so much. I thought I was a shitty at driving

I believe that the NPCs desire of cutting you the road might be something coming from the old-old gen versions of the game: possibly because at higher speeds the map would load slower and this wouldn't allow you to see the unloaded textures, by directly blocking you.

This kind of gta v content with this level of production is almost never seen, so you have a new sub. Great job boss!

i just peeped this and your SA mod video and i wanna say one thing to you: you have a very effective understanding of how to utilize camera angles. i love it

9:57 do the NPC’s drive into you at higher speeds because Franklin has the slow time ability?

Npc injured and wasted system are also a downgrade compared to GTA 4 or even GTA SA. In GTA 4 when you hit npc with melee or gunshot on body parts until health goes zero, the npc will lie down appeared to be dead but actually still alive, and will wake up and run away albeit running injured. Npc will only die when, beaten too many times, headshot, burn alive etc. In GTA SA, it is almost the same except paramedics will arrive and revive only for those who "killed" by gunshot on non-head body parts, melee, run over by cars, probably explosions that don't decapitate the head. Paramedics cannot revive npc who are killed for the same reason from GTA 4, and obviously you can't revive people with severed heads. In GTA 5 this feature seems to have disappeared, and while there is paramedic, they are useless, they do nothing, they come just to observe the killed Npc and then return to hospital once they are done. This system fortunately reappears in Red Dead Redemption 2

Very well edited and extremely informative. Thank you. That was a great video.

My man cannot upload such a banger like this and have the upload schedule he has, I NEED MORE, THIS WAS SO GOOD...

7:35 I've done a test where I spawned a couple of parked cars on the side of the road to see if they got stolen and some of them certainly did get stolen, it just rarely happens.

Many peoples are calling GTA V's stealth a joke but I disagree, jokes at least have meanings.

The intentional car crashes thing made me hate those driving NPCs so much, I sometimes ended up getting out of the car and shooting at whoever decided to switch from lane 1 to 7 because they saw a fast shiny car closing in to them. Like seriously, it's not even fun

I freaking KNEW the other drivers were out to get me when I'm flying 200mpg down the highway

Amazing video. Knew 90% of the things brought out, but still enjoyed it a lot. Good job! By the way, whatever57010 has a couple of videos of NPCs driving into him. A few clips there would make anyone 100% sure, that they indeed do it on purpose.

I'm glad you made this video, the first time I actually played GTA 5 for myself was back in 2021 and I've only been watching videos of it since 2013, before 21, I played GTA 4 like crazy and the older gta games aswell, so when I played GTA 5 for the first time, all I could think was how crazy different it is from every other GTA game, from music in the background, to health system, to the removing of crouching, to the 5 stars instead of 6, the special ability system, the rectangular hud, the weapon and radio wheel, all just soooo weird to a classic GTA player, personally I think GTA 5 is a freak accident, it has such a different formula from the other GTA games that I bet if it wasn't for GTA online, it would be remembered as a really weird and insignificant GTA game.

I'm pretty sure once you reached 4 star wanted they increase cop accuracy even more

With intentional car crashes, I've seen vehicles ignore game physics and literally slide to another lane, because the vehicle didn't have enough acceleration, to block my path and cause me to crash.

Awesome video bro, bro!! Such a unique style & topic. 😇

These are interesting finds, also thank you for explaining everything!

To be fair, this game was made in 2013. I think they've managed to overcome the stealth system, as well as the wanted system with NPC's reporting crimes with RDR 2. Hopefully because of RDR 2's success, GTA VI will be much better and have a better AI system.

You actually knew some things about GTA I didn't, and that's rare (like the rooftop deformation thing!) Subscribed.

The tiny details like these make the difference between a great game and a perfect game

Great video. Please make more of these 🤲

Terrific vid, love these sorts of deeper dives

Wow, what a beautiful cinematic shots!

crazy to see how unfinished 5 really is

HE IS BACK!!!! THE LEGEND

I loved all the cinematics featured in this video :-) really well editited also!

Killing two random guys in the middle of desert in meelee, and earn 1 police star, were a thing that KILLED my immersion in this game. Since I knew that this happen, I start to see the police in this game with another eye (And in not a cool way) It still, the best game that I played, but there's a lot of room to improvement in the next game.

Ah yes, quality content as always.

Glad that you're back :D!

1:48 Exactly two. If you just have punched two persons you automatically have a wanted level no matter if you are on the middle of the desert

What annoys me the most in GTA V is the ai and this unrealistic Rapid fire(Aimbot)/assisted aim whatever you want to call it)like take NOOSE and Merryweather security when they open fire on you bottomline i love your videos

13:30 So now I understand why on PS3 you can flatten cars with the tank but not on PC

Absolutely brilliant! Great editing! Yeah, driving be annoying sometimes as they definitely try to make you crash and it's really annoying especially when during missions and the fact they have weird npc traffic behavior. Like I never even see them use turn signals! 😅 goof stuff, man!

I love the cinematics in your video!!!

This was a superbly detailed analysis. I could never quite put in words why 5 felt like the weakest entry in the franchise (to me anyway), but you broke it down flawlessly

I knew it. I knew something was off in the way this game worked. Replaying some old games I'm impressed at all the details, especially with the 3D era games. Burglars can actually steal your car in all games, and in GTA3 they even steal money off you on foot (and you can get it back too). Good citizen bonus in VC, pretty much everything in San Andreas... even VCS has gangs fighting against each other and taking their businesses. And you can see them in the middle of it sometimes. I just don't get why they downgraded this game so much. Also cars exploding upon landing on the roof. One of the dumbest things in this game by far

Amazing video! This deserves more views

Hey dude, the whole segment with like the NOOSE Edit was sick!

I didn't know GTA V was this badly coded. Damn.

@justGesha please make Remastered Games in Android for gta Sa Gta 3 and Gta VC

Really good editing 👍

Damn editing is really cool man, well same as video itself💪🔥