New Huxley Gameplay Footage - Looks better than you thought it would.

[Engels]

Having read through dozens of threads in various places about this (Red Orchestra, the Infiltration mod for UT, CS, etc...) when a weapon is fired in real life - it recoils up. Not to the side, not diagonally left or in some random cone. It kicks straight up.

The gun kicks up -after- the shot. And PS does allow for this, since there's kick back on automatic fire on many of the weapons, especially the TR chain gun. The next shot will be a bit higher unless you adjust your sights.

Cone of fire is a different issue, and its just a game convention to make up for the fact that sitting behind a desk with a mouse wil not generate the factors that lead to 'realistic' innacuracies when actually fireing a gun. In 'real life' you would wobble all over the place if you ran around the corner spraying bullets with a machine gun. PS accounts for this by using cone of fire with a relatively steady 'view'. Other games I've played actually make your toon wobble all over the place with the cross hairs going everywhich way till you slow down, and its not as great a game experience. Cone of Fire randomness is a method to ensure some measure of realism without wrecking the flow of the game's motion around you.

You may hate it, since it seems like such an artifice, but lets not get into the odd territory of what would be more 'realistic'.

[Megrim]

Geldon... you are lost. Cone-fire is never a good idea when it comes to first person shooters.

What it adds is a certain odds-based subgame where you have to make some decisions.  Do you fire now while your cone of fire includes a lot of area not taken up by the enemy, or do you attempt to get closer first?  Do you risk firing while moving with a wider cone of fire, or do you stop and crouch, thereby rendering yourself an easier target but with a smaller cone of fire?  Do you fire a controlled burst or do you go full auto and trust to luck to do more damage?  These kinds of choices make for a more cerebral game than just, "Put the pixel over the foe and press the button."

Having read through dozens of threads in various places about this (Red Orchestra, the Infiltration mod for UT, CS, etc...) when a weapon is fired in real life - it recoils up. Not to the side, not diagonally left or in some random cone. It kicks straight up.

I've seen many cones of fire, for example Planetsides and Countstrike, that did this.  However, that just screwed up the Cone of Fire because now half of it is invalid as all the vet players knew that only the top of the cone of fire did anything.  Just consider the bottom side of the cone of fire being your avatar overcompensating for recoil and the sides your avatar's aim being off.  Realism concerns, as out of place as they are in an entertainment pursuit, solved.

Arguing that "cone-fire" somehow automagically balances the gameplay for those that can't think fast enough, aim fast enough and react fast enough in a genre that pretty-much equates itself with individual player skill, is redundant.

There's nothing magical about the concept that people who can't aim quite as quickly and well will find the playfield evened if everybody's fire goes into a cone instead of pinpoint accuracy.

Ok, umm, er.... no offense, really, but your attempts at reasoning give me indigestion. I had to go and buy some antacid just to post this.

"Odds-based" is a bad idea. Anything random is a bad idea. More specifically, in an FPS, anything beyond player control, is a very bad idea. I realise that in this case the meaning of the word odds is slightly different, but i'll try and tie both concepts into one post. Basically, the commonly acknowledged concept behind first person shooters is that player skill is transferred directly into the game. It is as close to a pure equivalence as can be managed. Reaction time, hand-eye coordination, lateral thinking, all of these are key staples of an FPS. Consequently, when discussing game mechanics it is very important to consider just how much player input matters in interacting with other players. And while this does infact extend to other genres (how many times have we heard lamentations regarding MMO toons "missing" things at point- blank range with their pigsticker, simply because the game says so?), thankfully, the FPS genre has largely been able to avoid this kind of stupidity.

First of all, your "oh it's entertainment so realism does not figure" dismissal is stupid. When dealing with lazerpewpewpew guns yes, one could make for an argument that we have no real measure of how they would work (and this is why Quake has different game mechanics to Rainbow Six). However, when dealing with, say, an AK47 - we have very good evidence that when fired, rounds exit out of the barrel in a straight line, and not a 90 degree angle. Therefore, it is expected that the behaviour of the weapon ingame, will to some degree mimic that of it's real-life counterpart. And, in tying in with my point about the importance of skill in the first paragraph, my in-game avatar does not "overcompensate". It does not "lack control" and my aim is not "off" because of an algorithm. My aim, unlike a dice-roll, is based squarely on my own individual player skill. If i, as a player, miss a shot, it is because i am not aiming accurately or not controlling the recoil on my weapon correctly.

Adding cone-fire as a way of compensating for player skill is immeasurably stupid, because player skill is the only thing that differentiates players in an FPS. Differentiation between the "best" and everyone else is the whole point of competition. If a player (not specifically you) is not good enough to compete, then seeking to hold everyone else back via artificial constructs is not the right thing to do. This way, the participants can enjoy the advantage of having a learning curve in player skill, rather than relying on blind luck to see them through. As per nija's example with the tree (?): if a player is running towards me and i fire a shot, however, because the game engine says "oh no no, see, on this particular shot your round is going to exit out to the left of the target at a crazy angle" instead of the target, i end up hitting a teammate in the head, killing him. He was at the time carrying a primed grenade, which explodes, killing several other members of my team. Another teammember, armed with a rocket launcher, is so startled by the sudden and explosive carnage, accidentally lets off a shot, hitting a friendly tank in the weak rear armour and destroying it. The debree from the exploding tank shrapnels out, hitting and severely damaging a nearby plane, which crashes into my team's base, directly into the shield generators, exploding and killing all of my other teammates and losing us the game. On the other hand, if my weapon had of behaved properly (i.e. hitting what i'm pointing at), this scenario could have been easily avoided.

Secondly, the issue you bring up with tactical positioning as a consequence of cone-fire, is not entirely relevant, as normal, reasonable recoil is more than enough to ensure tactical gameplay without resorting to random elements. I do not think that it would be unfair to say that for anyone who has played an FPS, especially a more "realistic" one, that the concept of not moving while shooting is an unreasonable one. Yes, braced weapons are more accurate than ones fired on the move. Yes, being set up and in position is better for fragging enemy players than not. However, this has nothing to do with cone-fire. But this has everything to do with a player's ability to evaluate a situation, the level of support his team can provide, and the surrounding terrain. All of which are present in any decent FPS without having to resort to cone-fire as a magical fix for those who can't perform any or all of the aforementioned tasks.

[Sunbury]

---quote---
"Odds-based" is a bad idea. Anything random is a bad idea.
---end quote---

In a good simulation/game using 'odds' or 'random' is just a coding/modelling technique to avoid taking 10 CPU hours to compute what happens in the next second.

Of course any game/model could have incorrect inputs, or incorrect models (2 dimensional uniform distribution area of uncertainty around a target vs. a normal distrbution for example).  But using random choices in and of itself is not 'bad' or 'wrong' - its almost required to have effects that can not be calculated in any other practical way.

Back in the days when I did professional software simulations to model weapon system effects, we had many many 'random rolls' in a simulation run.  The probabilities were sometimes wild guesses by PHD's, and sometimes the output of a more detailed model, or even from real world tests.  (Of 20 test shots of missle X it failed/went off course  2 times.  Why? probably very specific causes, but in the higher level model that is just turned into a flat 10% sortie failure rate.)

[geldonyetich]

Ok, umm, er.... no offense, really, but your attempts at reasoning give me indigestion. I had to go and buy some antacid just to post this.

No offense, really, but at face value this statement speaks poorly of the health of your reasoning organs.

"Odds-based" is a bad idea. Anything random is a bad idea. More specifically, in an FPS, anything beyond player control, is a very bad idea. I realise that in this case the meaning of the word odds is slightly different, but i'll try and tie both concepts into one post. Basically, the commonly acknowledged concept behind first person shooters is that player skill is transferred directly into the game. It is as close to a pure equivalence as can be managed. Reaction time, hand-eye coordination, lateral thinking, all of these are key staples of an FPS. Consequently, when discussing game mechanics it is very important to consider just how much player input matters in interacting with other players. And while this does infact extend to other genres (how many times have we heard lamentations regarding MMO toons "missing" things at point- blank range with their pigsticker, simply because the game says so?), thankfully, the FPS genre has largely been able to avoid this kind of stupidity.

If you think that most FPS on the market do not have a cone of fire, I recommend going back and checking again.  Do you attempt to snipe with semi-machine guns in most games?  Why not?  Oh, right, they're "inaccurate".  Sorry, that inaccuracy is a cone of fire, and it adds more to the game than it takes away.  Whether or not you noticed, the FPS consensus amongst developers and the players that play their games seems to be that cones of fire are in.

First of all, your "oh it's entertainment so realism does not figure" dismissal is stupid. When dealing with lazerpewpewpew guns yes, one could make for an argument that we have no real measure of how they would work (and this is why Quake has different game mechanics to Rainbow Six). However, when dealing with, say, an AK47 - we have very good evidence that when fired, rounds exit out of the barrel in a straight line, and not a 90 degree angle. Therefore, it is expected that the behaviour of the weapon ingame, will to some degree mimic that of it's real-life counterpart. And, in tying in with my point about the importance of skill in the first paragraph, my in-game avatar does not "overcompensate". It does not "lack control" and my aim is not "off" because of an algorithm. My aim, unlike a dice-roll, is based squarely on my own individual player skill. If i, as a player, miss a shot, it is because i am not aiming accurately or not controlling the recoil on my weapon correctly.

None of the later sentences in this paragraph have anything to do with why I said realism does not belong as the primary concern for games.  If you're going to write berating sentences about how my writing requires antacid to digest, you can at least provide a good example by writing paragraphs that stay on topic.

Reading these sentences where you try to explain to me aspects of AK47 rounds, exaggerate the cone of fire to being entirely off your screen, and attempt to prove how it's justified for you to lay back with your 5oz optical mouse and shoot with pinpoint accuracy with a virtual 10 lb machine gun, I'm afraid that just reinforces that you haven't thought this through. 

More realism does not always generate fun in games.  If it did, we'd have a simulation where we recouperate in a hospital for 7 months after taking a slug.  As a game developer you decide which aspects of realism make for a better game and add those, ignoring a lot of things most gamers prefer not to have to deal with, like guns backfiring and duds.  Your supporting realism is actually counterintuitive to your suggestion that players should be able to do pinpoint snap shots whever they can get their crosshair pixel over something.  For this reason, using realism to justify game design decisions can only be a mistake.

Adding cone-fire as a way of compensating for player skill is immeasurably stupid, because player skill is the only thing that differentiates players in an FPS. Differentiation between the "best" and everyone else is the whole point of competition. If a player (not specifically you) is not good enough to compete, then seeking to hold everyone else back via artificial constructs is not the right thing to do. This way, the participants can enjoy the advantage of having a learning curve in player skill, rather than relying on blind luck to see them through. As per nija's example with the tree (?): if a player is running towards me and i fire a shot, however, because the game engine says "oh no no, see, on this particular shot your round is going to exit out to the left of the target at a crazy angle" instead of the target, i end up hitting a teammate in the head, killing him. He was at the time carrying a primed grenade, which explodes, killing several other members of my team. Another teammember, armed with a rocket launcher, is so startled by the sudden and explosive carnage, accidentally lets off a shot, hitting a friendly tank in the weak rear armour and destroying it. The debree from the exploding tank shrapnels out, hitting and severely damaging a nearby plane, which crashes into my team's base, directly into the shield generators, exploding and killing all of my other teammates and losing us the game. On the other hand, if my weapon had of behaved properly (i.e. hitting what i'm pointing at), this scenario could have been easily avoided.

What I was trying to get at in my previous post is that, in a cone of fire system, you add additional layers of skills to the basic staples of FPS.  The cone of fire does not remove considerations such as hitting foes on particular parts or arcing grenades or using shrapnel constructively rather than destructively.  It takes those considerations and adds further depth to it.  Cones of fire add aspects of movement, weapon selection, use of cover, and others that a simple "what you click is what you get" system can't.  A nightmarish belief that people who have a 5 degree cone of fire (about as big as they get) is going to wipe out your whole team and ruin the game for everybody is nothing short of delusional, and I hope you were just exaggerating.

Secondly, the issue you bring up with tactical positioning as a consequence of cone-fire, is not entirely relevant, as normal, reasonable recoil is more than enough to ensure tactical gameplay without resorting to random elements. I do not think that it would be unfair to say that for anyone who has played an FPS, especially a more "realistic" one, that the concept of not moving while shooting is an unreasonable one. Yes, braced weapons are more accurate than ones fired on the move. Yes, being set up and in position is better for fragging enemy players than not. However, this has nothing to do with cone-fire. But this has everything to do with a player's ability to evaluate a situation, the level of support his team can provide, and the surrounding terrain. All of which are present in any decent FPS without having to resort to cone-fire as a magical fix for those who can't perform any or all of the aforementioned tasks.

"Normal, reasonable recoil" is a cone of fire.  Are we really arguing over it being a triangle or a circle on your screen?  To me they're pretty much the same thing, the only difference being that a triangle is a little easier to exploit because you know the bullets are always going upwards from the starting point at the bottom of point-down triangle.  Either way, we've got some randomness involved, with the cone (this time a triangle) increasing as the recoil and movement factors increase.  To me, if you're saying you want "no" cone of fire, you're simply saying that you want every single shot to go pixel perfect where you're aiming when you click that mouse.  That's abnormal, unreasonable lack of recoil, and I've played enough games where a pistol was as good as a sniper rifle to know that's a bad idea.

[Lantyssa]

Have you ever actually fired one?  I am an excellent shot with a rifle (as in I can hit a tiny, slow-moving target at 250 yards consistently).  With the desert eagle (the things weigh ~7 lbs fully loaded) I could barely hit a six foot target at 20 yards.  Granted I didn't have much practice with it, but holding it steady without something to brace your arms is difficult at best.  The recoil is actually nice compared to a revolver, though, because of the gas-powered action.

Yes. I've had more experience with standard .357's though, and those would be worse, as you mentioned.

Like you, I'm a pretty decent shot with a rifle too, but I could be confident hitting a 20 yard target with a big handgun as well. Do you hunt or shoot exclusively with rifles? Or how much do you shoot rifles while standing up? I'm not trying to knock you or anything, but it sounds like you're used to a more relaxed stance (maybe I'm reading too much into what you're saying, but you seem to gravitate towards the idea of only bracing your arms).
 
Not to say shooting a big pistol is all fun and games. I'll be honest, it's bad enough where I wouldn't want to use one either, if it came down to it. The whole idea behind them is stupid.

I do use mostly rifles.  Well did.  It's been a couple of years now.  I can shoot while standing, but really prefer to be able to rest the barrel or stock on something.  I struggle to lift 40 lbs, so a gun without an ultra-light composite stock can cause a lot of wobbling without a brace.  The rifle at least distributes its weight across three points (shoulder, trigger, end of the stock).  A pistol on the other hand acts as a giant weight at the end of a long lever and the hand cannon of pistols that the Desert Eagle is only makes it worse.

The weight isn't as much a problem for a nice strapping young lad, aiming will be easier, but stance only helps so much.

(With a lighter pistol I might bend my arms some and pull it in closer to my body.  With a Desert Eagle, no way.  My gripping arm will be extended.  Anything else is just asking for pain, in one form or another.)

[Megrim]

Ok, before we continue, could we please settle what is actually meant when we say "cone of fire". Because while i do so ever enjoy having my arguments slippery-sloped into meaning what they don't mean, it would be even more enjoyable if we could actually first settle on the point of contention.

Cone of fire, i take to mean a cone which expands outwards from the barrel of the weapon (or crosshair), within which any of the shots fired have a chance of hitting. This chance increases as more and more rounds are fired in sucession. Cone of fire does not mean predictable & repeatble upwards recoil which can be counteracted by a practiced player.

Right, not that we are clear on this, let's continue  :-D

If you think that most FPS on the market do not have a cone of fire, I recommend going back and checking again.  Do you attempt to snipe with semi-machine guns in most games?  Why not?  Oh, right, they're "inaccurate".  Sorry, that inaccuracy is a cone of fire, and it adds more to the game than it takes away.  Whether or not you noticed, the FPS consensus amongst developers and the players that play their games seems to be that cones of fire are in.

Hi. Would you be so kind (if you are going to continue arguing) to actually address my points, rather than ignoring what i've said and continuing to bulldoze on your own merry way with no relevance to argument? Thanks. Because i was talking about the importance of player skill, and not of a "consensus" amongst FPS developers. Could you provide some figures perhaps? Something to back up this claim? Which "most" games are we talking about in which i can't snipe with a submachinegun?

First of all, your "oh it's entertainment so realism does not figure" dismissal is stupid. When dealing with lazerpewpewpew guns yes, one could make for an argument that we have no real measure of how they would work (and this is why Quake has different game mechanics to Rainbow Six). However, when dealing with, say, an AK47 - we have very good evidence that when fired, rounds exit out of the barrel in a straight line, and not a 90 degree angle. Therefore, it is expected that the behaviour of the weapon ingame, will to some degree mimic that of it's real-life counterpart. And, in tying in with my point about the importance of skill in the first paragraph, my in-game avatar does not "overcompensate". It does not "lack control" and my aim is not "off" because of an algorithm. My aim, unlike a dice-roll, is based squarely on my own individual player skill. If i, as a player, miss a shot, it is because i am not aiming accurately or not controlling the recoil on my weapon correctly

None of the later sentences in this paragraph have anything to do with why I said realism does not belong as the primary concern for games.  If you're going to write berating sentences about how my writing requires antacid to digest, you can at least provide a good example by writing paragraphs that stay on topic.

Reading these sentences where you try to explain to me aspects of AK47 rounds, exaggerate the cone of fire to being entirely off your screen, and attempt to prove how it's justified for you to lay back with your 5oz optical mouse and shoot with pinpoint accuracy with a virtual 10 lb machine gun, I'm afraid that just reinforces that you haven't thought this through.

More realism does not always generate fun in games.  If it did, we'd have a simulation where we recouperate in a hospital for 7 months after taking a slug.  As a game developer you decide which aspects of realism make for a better game and add those, ignoring a lot of things most gamers prefer not to have to deal with, like guns backfiring and duds.  Your supporting realism is actually counterintuitive to your suggestion that players should be able to do pinpoint snap shots whever they can get their crosshair pixel over something.  For this reason, using realism to justify game design decisions can only be a mistake.

Right, so why did you say that realism concerns are out of place in games? Could you please clarify this. Because they way that you've replied leaves me no option but to think that while you take issue with the "later" sentences, you are conceding my point on the "former" (i'm not sure where one ends and the other begins, but you know, whatever...). Secondly, how the hell is this not relevant?! You provided an explanation; saying that the cone-fire effect is a measure of the game dictating to the player what his character is doing. I said that this was a bad idea, because a the more a game starts compensating for a player's skill, it begins to take away from that player's experience. The ai is playing the game for him. So then when firing said virtual machine-gun, the recoil kicks the weapon up, forcing the player (yes, by using a mouse) to drag down in order to compensate. What's wrong with this? And come on...

More realism does not always generate fun in games.  If it did, we'd have a simulation where we recouperate in a hospital for 7 months after taking a slug.  As a game developer you decide which aspects of realism make for a better game and add those, ignoring a lot of things most gamers prefer not to have to deal with, like guns backfiring and duds.  Your supporting realism is actually counterintuitive to your suggestion that players should be able to do pinpoint snap shots whever they can get their crosshair pixel over something.  For this reason, using realism to justify game design decisions can only be a mistake.

Cute analogy, bad strawman. This is an argument commonly used by twelve year olds on Counter-Strike forums to prove why realizm is bad!!1~1 You can do better than this mate.

Moving on:

What I was trying to get at in my previous post is that, in a cone of fire system, you add additional layers of skills to the basic staples of FPS.  The cone of fire does not remove considerations such as hitting foes on particular parts or arcing grenades or using shrapnel constructively rather than destructively.  It takes those considerations and adds further depth to it.  Cones of fire add aspects of movement, weapon selection, use of cover, and others that a simple "what you click is what you get" system can't.  A nightmarish belief that people who have a 5 degree cone of fire (about as big as they get) is going to wipe out your whole team and ruin the game for everybody is nothing short of delusional, and I hope you were just exaggerating.

I'll repost this, because i think you may have missed it the first time...

Secondly, the issue you bring up with tactical positioning as a consequence of cone-fire, is not entirely relevant, as normal, reasonable recoil is more than enough to ensure tactical gameplay without resorting to random elements. I do not think that it would be unfair to say that for anyone who has played an FPS, especially a more "realistic" one, that the concept of not moving while shooting is an unreasonable one. Yes, braced weapons are more accurate than ones fired on the move. Yes, being set up and in position is better for fragging enemy players than not. However, this has nothing to do with cone-fire. But this has everything to do with a player's ability to evaluate a situation, the level of support his team can provide, and the surrounding terrain. All of which are present in any decent FPS without having to resort to cone-fire as a magical fix for those who can't perform any or all of the aforementioned tasks.

And finally, as per the last point, i certainly hope we aren't arguing over a definition, re. my first paragraph.

[geldonyetich]

So, you've answered my request to read what I've written with a request to read what you've written?  Well, seeing as we've apparently reached the point where neither of us satisfied with eachother's reading comprehension, I guess we're at a low attention span impasse of sorts.  So be it.  I'm afraid the time when I had the kind of energy I needed to engage in long thread wars over the deluded belief I could change the way other people think is gone.  Thus, at the moment it become clear I was in a debate, we were done.  Sorry, I've honestly no interest in limiting my scope to two opposing points.

Just in case there was some simple misunderstanding, I'll explain how it seems to me we differ in opinion:

I think our definition of cone of fire, that being a cone extending from the barrel that has some random determination of where within the cone the bullets will land, is adequately correlated.  Not identical, perhaps, but close enough.  Where we differ is mostly in opinion about how much of a cone of fire we will tolerate.  Megrim, to be so bold as to forward my interpretation as his opinion, will tolerate "reasonable recoil" but prefers to play FPS in which success or failure is entirely in his own hands.  I don't disagree, exactly, as I find such a balance to be ideal for some kinds of twitch-based FPS, like Unreal Tournament.  When it comes to a games of a more tactical orientation, like Rainbow Six or Planetside, I find pixel perfect accuracy to be detrimental to the enjoyment potential of the game.  The cone of fire deliberately shuts down total accuracy in the name of creating additional decisions.  Cones of fire allow cover to work, as without you can simply aim at the part of the player not behind the crate.  Cones of fire provide the developers a way to provide the players choices about whether they'd rather have more accuracy or some other advanage.  I've said this before and Megrim didn't agree, but I'd rather accept that he's unable to find value in what I'm saying than try to force my perspective on him.

[Megrim]

Ok, let's try this again.

Why are our definitions not identical. Which part(s) do you disagree with? Then, subseqently, you tell me that you equate the aspects of an FPS which i have previously listed (hand-eye coordination, lateral thinking, reflexes) including proper recoil, all of which amount to a gradation of personal skill, with "twich-based gameplay, ala UT". The weapons in Unreal Tournament don't even have any recoil!! What the hell...

And then again, you repost this fantatic idea about how random shots "allow for the use of cover". I don't know... i'm speechless... I have played, virtually every single FPS since Wolfenstein, and in each and every single one i, along with hundreds of thousands of other players have managed to make use of cover in firefights, cone-fire or not. Do you realise that the concept of cover, generally speaking, is based on a player's skill in positioning, rather than a flat percentage chance that the other guy shooting at you will miss? Honestly, which part of the following do you not understand:

Secondly, the issue you bring up with tactical positioning as a consequence of cone-fire, is not entirely relevant, as normal, reasonable recoil is more than enough to ensure tactical gameplay without resorting to random elements. I do not think that it would be unfair to say that for anyone who has played an FPS, especially a more "realistic" one, that the concept of not moving while shooting is an unreasonable one. Yes, braced weapons are more accurate than ones fired on the move. Yes, being set up and in position is better for fragging enemy players than not. However, this has nothing to do with cone-fire. But this has everything to do with a player's ability to evaluate a situation, the level of support his team can provide, and the surrounding terrain. All of which are present in any decent FPS without having to resort to cone-fire as a magical fix for those who can't perform any or all of the aforementioned tasks.

[Trouble]

All the other BS aside, recoil and cone of fire are not the same thing.

With recoil you can reasonably predict where the next few bullets will go. For example, in Counter-Strike, say you're using the AK47. It has a pretty big kick but an experienced player can gauge distance to the target and usual recoil distance to aim somewhere on to torso and have a reasonable expectation of the second or third bullet landing as a headshot. This is because the recoil goes up. There is a random factor as to how far up it goes, and whether it moves to the left or right, but it is in a somewhat predictable distribution.

A cone of fire does not allow you to predict where bullets will go. There's a --cone-- around the reticle where there's an equal chance of each bullet landing, IE no pattern to consecutive shots. One could but top right, next bottom middle, next dead center, etc. No rhyme or reason to the distribution. Cones may have different percentage chances based on how far away from the center is, but the main defining characteristic is that there's no connection between consecutive shots, no way to predict where the next bullet will go based on the previous one.

Both have random elements, but one is randomness in a controlled and potentially exploitable manner where the other one is much more akin to rolling a dice each time you shoot a bullet. I do see the point to both, and I see the point geldon is trying to make. If you place more emphasis on the twitch skills which are required to get the fullest out of a fast paced recoil based game, the barrier to entry is higher. In general MMOGs want to have the lowest barrier to entry possible because the whole monthly fee thing already drives a lot of people away, as well as other factors. You can make the game still have fun, value, and replayability by introducing more higher level strategic goals and I think that's the main thrust of what geldon is saying.

Personally, being relatively good at twitch, cone of fire annoys the hell out of me. Cone of fire for a sniper rifle would drive me BONKERS because the main essence of a sniper is the fact that he can take aim over a long distance and one shot someone. If a game such as those being discussed does use a cone of fire, they should simply not put any sniper classes in to begin with. I know snipers piss people off, it's a pretty universal thing. Death from "above" with no ability to prevent it or fight back, I don't think it has a place in a MMOG.

[geldonyetich]

I don't know... i'm speechless... I have played, virtually every single FPS since Wolfenstein, and in each and every single one i, along with hundreds of thousands of other players have managed to make use of cover in firefights, cone-fire or not.

In many FPS, to make player skill even more significant, there's a focus to aim at the head.  For example, headshots might do triple damage.  In such a scenario, hiding behing partial cover doesn't help, because their opponents weren't aiming at the bottom part of their body anyway.

Hmm, I said partial cover, perhaps that's where the confusion is.  Yes, in both games with or without cone of fire, hiding behind complete cover while you reload works just fine.  What I'm referring to is a situation where you can attack while hiding being a crate or something.  Without a cone of fire, it's a relatively simple matter to aim over the barrel at a sitting duck - it's not like he was trying to shoot the lower part of the body anyway.

That's a good balance if you want everybody to run around, but is lousy for tactical games.  Campers in a game without cones of fire have the element of surprise, but they can't use partial cover.  If you still don't believe it, I invite you to try.

All the other BS aside, recoil and cone of fire are not the same thing.

They're not the same, but they are two ways to achieve the same goal.  Recoil jerks your whole display in a certain direction and you have to manually reorient your display on your target after letting up on the trigger.  Cones of fire expand outwards as you hold down the trigger, but never do you need to reorient your display.  If you want to get accurate with a cone of fire, you stop firing long enough for it to shrink to acceptable levels.  The goal might be to make full auto less accurate than snap shots, but they're different implementations.

Booting them up just now to compare them, I noticed that Battlefield 2 and Half Life 2 tend to have a little of both.  The actual recoil is pretty minor and is only minorly influenced by the player, as the aim will recenter itself automatically.  Both games feature a cone of fire that determines how accurate a weapon is - a SMG in HL2 is less accurate than the pistol, for example.  BF2 has a fully functioning CoF that increases with movement and fire and decreases with sitting in postures and firing less.  (Oddly, the CoF indicator disappears when you're zoomed in, but still seems to apply because I know my accuracy isn't pixel perfect there.)

Personally, I find having my whole display jerked around in a tactical game to be more annoying as, realistic or not, it's pretty disruptive to the thinking man's focus.  However, that's just one opinion and it's complicated because some games impementation of recoil jerk around more than others.  HL2's recoil doesn't bother me at all.

Personally, being relatively good at twitch, cone of fire annoys the hell out of me. Cone of fire for a sniper rifle would drive me BONKERS because the main essence of a sniper is the fact that he can take aim over a long distance and one shot someone.

I'm in agreement here, actually.  Sniper rifles, being slow firing long ranged weapons, should have a pretty tiny cone of fire.  To the point where they're functionally pixel perfect.  There will be a certain extreme long range where even a sniper rifle's accuracy will fail you, but they should give a clear advantage over non-sniper weaponry.  That this distinction even exists wouldn't be possible without a cone of fire.

[Megrim]

Sooo... your entire argument is based on the fact that you can never quite manage to find a big enough box to hide behind, and get very upset when someone shoots you out from behind your "cover"? You do know that grenades and other indirect-fire weapons are not affected by cover at all, right?






















BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, this is just too good.

Personally, I find having my whole display jerked around in a tactical game to be more annoying as, realistic or not, it's pretty disruptive to the thinking man's focus.  However, that's just one opinion.

Do you, perchance, happen to have difficulty tying your shoelaces in the morning? Is it something you can only manage while sitting down? What about walking and chewing gum?

[geldonyetich]

Sooo... your entire argument is based on the fact that you can never quite manage to find a big enough box to hide behind, and get very upset when someone shoots you out from behind your "cover"? You do know that grenades and other indirect-fire weapons are not affected by cover at all, right?

He said, as though grenades and other indirect fire weapons were what a discussion of cones of fire were about.

Just because cones of fire on direct fire weapons might make indirect weapons more useful does not invalidate the application of a cone of fire.  Quite the contrary, actually, that may be a major reason why a developer would want to add it.

Furthermore, the increased viability of partial cover against direct fire weapons is only one aspect of why cones of fire can be beneficial to more tactically minded FPS.

BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, this is just too good.
[...]
Do you, perchance, happen to have difficulty tying your shoelaces in the morning? Is it something you can only manage while sitting down? What about walking and chewing gum?

I yield to your fabulous rational discourse.

Is this how you try to win most your arguments?  If so, I wonder at the consequences of each victory.  This isn't the vault network message boards, you know: adults post here.  If you really want to start a "your mother's so fat" contest, I'd be happy to humor you over there.

[Megrim]

Sooo... your entire argument is based on the fact that you can never quite manage to find a big enough box to hide behind, and get very upset when someone shoots you out from behind your "cover"?

Whereby we learn that the statement about indirect fire weapons was in addition to the aforementioned point. But it's ok, i know reading comprehension is obviously far beneath someone so above us lowly FPS twich-monkeys. As would realising that the statement about indirect fire weapons underlines the absurdity of claiming that "cone-fire makes gameplay more tactical by making partial cover "more effective" (and that's without examining the idea that partial cover, by it's very definition is less effective then full cover. Which would be why a cement wall is more effective as cover than a small box. Which then in turn has nothing to do with the artificial construct of making player input random as to validate the use of a small box to the same effective extent as a cement wall, but entirely to do with a player's skill to find the right sort of cover as befitting the situation).

So you see, when i start making fun of your deep, highly developed and very cerebral intelligence, it's because you apparently are incapable of actually reading what anyone else in this thread has posted, and instead insist on repeating your magical mantra about how random dice-rolling in a skill-based game is conductive to "better" gameplay. Despite having been told why it is a bad idea.


So how are those shoelaces working out for you? I hear velcro straps are safer!

[WindupAtheist]

MMOFPS need cone-fire because otherwise people who are good would completely own people who suck, and the MMO genre is based around letting people who suck feel adequate so long as they pay their fee.

[Megrim]

Thank you!

[geldonyetich]

you apparently are incapable of actually reading what anyone else in this thread has posted, and instead insist on repeating your magical mantra about how random dice-rolling in a skill-based game is conductive to "better" gameplay. Despite having been told why it is a bad idea.

Oh?

[...]Megrim, to be so bold as to forward my interpretation as his opinion, will tolerate "reasonable recoil" but prefers to play FPS in which success or failure is entirely in his own hands.  I don't disagree, exactly as I find such a balance to be ideal for some kinds of twitch-based FPS, like Unreal Tournament.
[...]
That's a good balance if you want everybody to run around

I've acknowledged your point at least a couple times.  I've yet to see where you've acknowledged my point, and so I find the accusations of poor reading comprehension applying more to yourself.  If you did, I think we'd be done by now.

Just because I'm saying that cones of fire belong in "more tactically minded" FPS doesn't mean I think it is "better" in all cases.  It is, as I have said several times, quite appropriate for games where the developer wants a heavier twitch focus. 

Sometimes, however, the developer wants a more cerebral focus and deliberately sacrifices twitch emphasis to make this happen.  That's where the cone of fire comes in.  This was the main point I was trying to make.

Are we at least in agreement that a developer who wants twitch to have less influence over success will consider a cone of fire a means to prevent it from applying in full?  Actually, I guess we are, because you agreed with this:

MMOFPS need cone-fire because otherwise people who are good would completely own people who suck

At the core level, this is what I was saying.  Our difference may be that I can see why such a thing could be conductive to tactical gameplay.  You start with the twitch skill of being able to put your crosshair where it belongs quickly, but you add to that the skill of knowing when your cone of fire is most effective and what you can do to get it that way.  It's a subtle but solid truth:  Being able to use your cone of fire better than the other guy takes another kind of skill; cones of fire are not all dice rolls and being robbed of headshots.

[Megrim]

Congratulations, you've managed to get as far as the definition posted for the basis of this argument. Now define "twich" for me, since you seem to be using it an awful lot. Name some games you consider "twich". Also, list some FPS which you consider "tactical", just so we are clear. And as far as comprehension goes:

It is as close to a pure equivalence as can be managed. Reaction time, hand-eye coordination, lateral thinking, all of these are key staples of an FPS. Consequently, when discussing game mechanics it is very important to consider just how much player input matters in interacting with other players. And while this does infact extend to other genres (how many times have we heard lamentations regarding MMO toons "missing" things at point- blank range with their pigsticker, simply because the game says so?), thankfully, the FPS genre has largely been able to avoid this kind of stupidity.

This is a point which underlines the concept that: in a genre defined by a range of involved player skills, the addition of random elements is directly detrimental to said player skill. Your response, is a hearty derail into how there is a "consensus" amongst game developers in regards to cone-fire, and that most games on the market do infact implement it. When later asked to actually back this up by naming some (heavens forbid "most") games, you completely ignore the question, let alone addressing the point made.

Or, what about this:

And then again, you repost this fantastic idea about how random shots "allow for the use of cover". I don't know... i'm speechless... I have played, virtually every single FPS since Wolfenstein, and in each and every single one i, along with hundreds of thousands of other players have managed to make use of cover in firefights, cone-fire or not. Do you realise that the concept of cover, generally speaking, is based on a player's skill in positioning, rather than a flat percentage chance that the other guy shooting at you will miss? Honestly, which part of the following do you not understand:

Secondly, the issue you bring up with tactical positioning as a consequence of cone-fire, is not entirely relevant, as normal, reasonable recoil is more than enough to ensure tactical gameplay without resorting to random elements. I do not think that it would be unfair to say that for anyone who has played an FPS, especially a more "realistic" one, that the concept of not moving while shooting is an unreasonable one. Yes, braced weapons are more accurate than ones fired on the move. Yes, being set up and in position is better for fragging enemy players than not. However, this has nothing to do with cone-fire. But this has everything to do with a player's ability to evaluate a situation, the level of support his team can provide, and the surrounding terrain. All of which are present in any decent FPS without having to resort to cone-fire as a magical fix for those who can't perform any or all of the aforementioned tasks.

To which you respond with a strawman about hitboxes. Totally ignoring the dually emphasised points regarding player skill as part of positioning over random dice rolls.

But wait, there is more! I also initially brought up the notion, outlining how in games which model real-world weapons, there was an expectation for the weapons to behave as per their real-world counterparts, which you readily parry with a swift slash of the old "bah, realism does not belong in games!" manoeuvre. However, when subsequently addressed in the following:

First of all, your "oh it's entertainment so realism does not figure" dismissal is stupid. When dealing with lazerpewpewpew guns yes, one could make for an argument that we have no real measure of how they would work (and this is why Quake has different game mechanics to Rainbow Six). However, when dealing with, say, an AK47 - we have very good evidence that when fired, rounds exit out of the barrel in a straight line, and not a 90 degree angle. Therefore, it is expected that the behaviour of the weapon ingame, will to some degree mimic that of it's real-life counterpart.

Your response being that "realism is not the primary concern in games". Different wording from the original to be sure, yet the meaning could not have been anything but. Please take note of the strawman about hospitals (this is important later ). But the fun does not stop here. Not only do you fail to see the link between realism (or-semi realism) and why a round exiting an AK47 at a perpendicular 90o angle is a bad idea, you respond with this gem:

More realism does not always generate fun in games.  If it did, we'd have a simulation where we recouperate in a hospital for 7 months after taking a slug.  As a game developer you decide which aspects of realism make for a better game and add those, ignoring a lot of things most gamers prefer not to have to deal with, like guns backfiring and duds.  Your supporting realism is actually counterintuitive to your suggestion that players should be able to do pinpoint snap shots whever they can get their crosshair pixel over something.  For this reason, using realism to justify game design decisions can only be a mistake.

Note the strong, defining last sentence. An irrevocably worded, iron-clad treatise on just why realism is abhorrent. Of course, you did base your strong, defining last sentence on a fallicy (yes, that's right, the strawman about hospitals), totally invalidating what you have just written, but even that is ok! I'll even tell you why... this gem blew me away upon re-reading:

Where we differ is mostly in opinion about how much of a cone of fire we will tolerate.

vs

Cone-fire is never a good idea when it comes to first person shooters.

Eh? And, in the same paragraph, you hit upon a veritable goldmine:

Megrim, to be so bold as to forward my interpretation as his opinion, will tolerate "reasonable recoil" but prefers to play FPS in which success or failure is entirely in his own hands.  I don't disagree, exactly, as I find such a balance to be ideal for some kinds of twitch-based FPS, like Unreal Tournament.  When it comes to a games of a more tactical orientation, like Rainbow Six or Planetside, I find pixel perfect accuracy to be detrimental to the enjoyment potential of the game.

So going on from the incorrect supposition that we somehow automagically agree on levels of cone-fire present in FPS, you then go on to correlate "reasonable" recoil (by which you must mean the other type of recoil i listed in the agreed definition) with games which are twich, i.e. Unreal Tournament (never mind that we've been talking about realistic, or semi-realistic weapon implementations). Unreal tournament does not have weapons that recoil. You really, really should have used a different (say... valid?) example, no doubt drawn from your vast cerebral knowledge of the genre.

And finally, in relation to your magical mantra bout how random shot rego equates with more tactical gameplay, taking into account "partial" cover:

Whereby we learn that the statement about indirect fire weapons was in addition to the aforementioned point. But it's ok, i know reading comprehension is obviously far beneath someone so above us lowly FPS twich-monkeys. As would realising that the statement about indirect fire weapons underlines the absurdity of claiming that "cone-fire makes gameplay more tactical by making partial cover "more effective" (and that's without examining the idea that partial cover, by it's very definition is less effective then full cover. Which would be why a cement wall is more effective as cover than a small box. Which then in turn has nothing to do with the artificial construct of making player input random as to validate the use of a small box to the same effective extent as a cement wall, but entirely to do with a player's skill to find the right sort of cover as befitting the situation).

Oh yea, and your mother? She is so fat, that when she jumped for joy, she got stuck.  Fatty.

[geldonyetich]

A bit of advice from a forum veteran: Longer messages both test the patience of the reader and convey your meaning in a less coherant manner.  This habit of yours to use giant quote blocks of things you've written but I've already read has got to go.  For this reason, I will not respond in kind, as I cannot see you finding the truth if you insist in muddling your thought processes with so many disjointed and often unrealted details.

Congratulations, you've managed to get as far as the definition posted for the basis of this argument.

Congratulations, you've identified the extent of progress that 99.5% of message board arguments make.  It's extremely rare that anyone ever changes their mind over what they read on a message board, so learn to accept it.  Guess what?  All I'm here to do is define my point.  My interest in this discussion is of an educator to his student, not as your opponent at the debate podium.  You're free to disagree, I don't care, in fact I think I encourage free thinking.

Now define "twich" for me, since you seem to be using it an awful lot. Name some games you consider "twich". Also, list some FPS which you consider "tactical", just so we are clear.

"Twitch" games are those which rely heavily on hand-eye coordination for success.  A good FPS example would be the Unreal Tournament Shockgun Arena mode.  However, for me to say that any FPS is "purely" twitch would be false.  I say this because few things are purely anything, if placed under enough scrutany. 

Therefore, I cannot give you any examples in which you can find no twitch and all tactical and conversely no games which are all tactical and no twitch.  I think that a more tactical example than the Shockgun Arena mode would perhaps be Rainbow Six or Swat 3 or Planetside, but they all have varying distinctions between them so becoming fixated on one or the other would just work to confuse one.

The "Cone of Fire" being a concept in which your shots are accurate within the circle but not beyond, is an antithesis to an "absolute" twitch game.  Because you say that you want absolute player skill, I can see why you take issue with Cones of Fire.  All I'm trying to establish, though aggressively chosen not to believe this, is that the application of a cone of fire can take another kind of skill.  Note I did not say "better", I said different.  I'm fond of calling it "more tactically minded", but your assumption that tactical games iare always better than twitch games is not my own. 

Bottom line: Cones of fire are not the game ruiners you've been making them out to be, even though they may be inappropriate for certain kinds of games.

As for the rest of your message, I'm afraid it's best if I ignore it.  While I'm sure it was fun for you to write, too many details simply work to overcomplicate the message of what I was trying to say.  While I may be capable of tying my shoes and talking, even chewing gum and walking, I choose not to divide my attention overmuch lest I become too blinded by ideas to see the truth.

I do want to say this much however. You're in no position to criticize me over strawmen after writing this:

if a player is running towards me and i fire a shot, however, because the game engine says "oh no no, see, on this particular shot your round is going to exit out to the left of the target at a crazy angle" instead of the target, i end up hitting a teammate in the head, killing him. He was at the time carrying a primed grenade, which explodes, killing several other members of my team. Another teammember, armed with a rocket launcher, is so startled by the sudden and explosive carnage, accidentally lets off a shot, hitting a friendly tank in the weak rear armour and destroying it. The debree from the exploding tank shrapnels out, hitting and severely damaging a nearby plane, which crashes into my team's base, directly into the shield generators, exploding and killing all of my other teammates and losing us the game. On the other hand, if my weapon had of behaved properly (i.e. hitting what i'm pointing at), this scenario could have been easily avoided.

I really hate to point this pint, but look at this.  Wow.  You wrote it, you can't unwrite it: The most ridiculous strawman I've ever seen.  Compared to this, my little suggestion that if realism was automatically fun we'd have simulated recouperation periods was no strawman.  Maybe it never was.  While I can appreciate your flare for exaggeration to some extent, I'm sure most of the other forum denizens found your messages considerable more amusing, lets face facts: exaggerating things runs somewhat counterintuitively with an intent to isolate truth.  Please, don't drink and write.

[Megrim]

Real smooth. So instead of actually backing up anything you say when pressed, you instead wave a magic wand of non-applicability and hop along on your merry way. Word of advice from someone who rarely enters discussions on forums: before opening your mouth on a topic, make sure you have a vague semblance as what it is you are talking about, so as to not look like a complete dropkick.

Have you tried reading books lately? I hear they have really long messages contained in them. If your deeply intelligent and highly cerebral brain is having difficulty following, would you like me to simplify it for you? Maybe repost all of the aforementioned points as separate posts? Perhaps then you'll deign to come down from your throne of cerebral palsy, and actually, you know... back up anything you've said? Or is the well developed "i know you are, i said you are, but what am i" routine working really well for you?

All I'm trying to establish, though it may be having difficulty penetrating your overly aggressive shell, is that the application of a cone of fire can take another kind of skill.

Thank you captain obvious. And all i am trying to establish, is that while application of cone-fire can take another kind of skill, this skill is irrelevant and unnecessary in first person shooters, because the application of cone-fire in a first person shooter is directly detrimental to the enjoyment of the game. Are we having fun yet?

[geldonyetich]

Real smooth. So instead of actually backing up anything you say when pressed, you instead wave a magic wand of non-applicability and hop along on your merry way. Word of advice from someone who rarely enters discussions on forums:

Why would backing up what I said now make any difference compared to backing up what I've written 2 or 3 messages ago?  You didn't read it the first time, you won't read it the twentieth time.   I don't think it's necessarily a failure on your part so much as a simple communication problem.  Maybe I'm a poor writer, maybe you're a poor reader, but clearly you're not swayed by what I'm saying.  Seeing how you can't take my word for it, your best bet is to go out and experience it yourself. 

Is this waving a wand and hopping along my merry way?  Yes, but with reason.  I said I no longer have the energy for long arguments with other people on forums, and this is basically what reiterating my point the 3rd or 4th time comes down to.  I may have been playing the teacher to avoid being stuck at the opposite extreme of a debate, but I'm really under no obligation to educate you.  So, have a nice life.

Besides, you seem to devote over half of each of your messages to finding new and almost clever ways to insult me - you're not exactly asking nicely.   I'm not even sure why somebody would want to get into a conversation with somebody who is in the habit of verbally assaulting them to get his way.  You can call that winning if you want, but if that's your strategy you learn nothing and force falsehood on others.  You might want to consider how many times someone surrenders just to get as far away from you as possible.  You're not the bully of the playground anymore, if it's the truth your looking for then abuse isn't the answer.

before opening your mouth on a topic, make sure you have a vague semblance as what it is you are talking about, so as to not look like a complete dropkick.

If you really believe that I don't know what I'm talking about, then it's no wonder you were unable to find the value in what I was writing.  This in itself perpetuates a vicious cycle, as you won't be able to read enough to believe I know what I'm talking about.  Conversely, I believed you had every reason to believe you knew what you were talking about, but I found certain parts of the story missing which I helpfully provided.  It didn't help I had to constantly fight the effort to retaliate.

And all i am trying to establish, is that while application of cone-fire can take another kind of skill, this skill is irrelevant and unnecessary in first person shooters, because the application of cone-fire in a first person shooter is directly detrimental to the enjoyment of the game. Are we having fun yet?

So, you don't like cones of fire, therefore they are detrimental to your enjoyment of games that include them.  Fine.  Some people do enjoy cones of fire, so cones of fire allow them to enjoy the game more.  The existence of people who do not enjoy cones of fire does not invalidate the opinion of those who do, and vice versa.

Being Captain Obvious isn't such a bad thing, as this one obvious point has kicked off a half dozen or so messages that inevitably could do nothing more than try to explain why we have differing opinions.  I'm not saying I was completely innocent of the resulting wasted energy, but if either of us were expecting our opinions to miraculously change I'm afraid that's not happening.  Perhaps only further life experience will do this as, after all, neither of us are niave enough to believe a stranger we met on a forum.

So anyway, I would prefer Huxley has a cone of fire.  It might, the video didn't make it very clear, but we'll see.  I do think it was perhaps a bit faster than a massively multiplayer can be without having severe latency issues, but that might have been because we were looking at lightly armored recon units.  That instant inertialess strafing the guy in red was doing at the 13 second point was total BS, try hitting somebody like that with 200 ping.  I'd have to use an AOE weapon to do more than lightly tap him by accident.  Fair enough twitch design, but lousy for tactical play.

[Morfiend]

Cone of fire is a different issue, and its just a game convention to make up for the fact that sitting behind a desk with a mouse wil not generate the factors that lead to 'realistic' innacuracies when actually fireing a gun. In 'real life' you would wobble all over the place if you ran around the corner spraying bullets with a machine gun.

Winnar!

I think CoF is pretty important. As Geld keeps saying with out CoF the pistol would be the best weapon in the game, you could snipe some one from across the map with it, and in most games the rate of fire with a pistol is very high, almost machine-gun like in some cases. Its a needed mechanic for FPS games or the weapons become unbalanced.

[Trippy]

Cone of fire is a different issue, and its just a game convention to make up for the fact that sitting behind a desk with a mouse wil not generate the factors that lead to 'realistic' innacuracies when actually fireing a gun. In 'real life' you would wobble all over the place if you ran around the corner spraying bullets with a machine gun.

Winnar!

I think CoF is pretty important. As Geld keeps saying with out CoF the pistol would be the best weapon in the game, you could snipe some one from across the map with it, and in most games the rate of fire with a pistol is very high, almost machine-gun like in some cases. Its a needed mechanic for FPS games or the weapons become unbalanced.

Except in PS there is a pistol (the Beamer) with which you can snipe people from across the map with. And pistols aren't the best weapon in most shooters, even without CoFs/recoil effects, because the damage they do is typically small. There are of course exceptions like the DE in CS but that's why the DE is so deadly in the proper hands.

The problem with PS's CoF system is that they couldn't decide if they wanted to be a run and gun shooter or a tactical shooter like the Rainbow 6 series so they badly mixed elements of both types of games.

[geldonyetich]

The problem with PS's CoF system is that they couldn't decide if they wanted to be a run and gun shooter or a tactical shooter like the Rainbow 6 series so they badly mixed elements of both types of games.

Totally agreed.  They started as the tactical shooter and tried to become the run and gun immediately before release and in doing so totally fudged everything up.  I probably started this whole row with Megrim by ripping the dirty sons of bitches who couldn't figure out what a cone in fire is for and in doing so swayed the overly customer friendly developers to making such an assinine decision, but that's all water under the bridge really.  Planetside is hosed.  Next!

[Margalis]

Can I summarize this discussion?

According to Megrim, all weapons have perfect accuracy. That is realistic. Any deviation, even a single millimeter over a 100 yard distance, is purely the fault of the shooter.

That is how it works in real life. That's why sniper rifles have 2 inch barrels like a snub nose.

Sounds good to me.

Edit: To be 100% clear, cone of fire makes perfect sense. You can always make the cone as skinny as you want, but in addition it allows you as the developer to model natural innacuracies. Which according to Megrim don't exist or something...

[geldonyetich]

I'm okay with realism aspect of 100% accuracy barring user error (even though wind resistance, the effect of gravity, barrel vibration in the case of automatic fire, and misfires can create a deviation that increases with distance).  I was only really suggesting that may not be the best for some game models.  The inaccuracy on behalf of your virtual shooter avatar makes good sense, but it also need only be a plausable excuse for a better game mechanic than pixel perfect accuracy generate.  I prefer fun games over stale but realistic simulations, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I'll acknowledge that's just an opinion and not everybody's taste is the same.  I'm also looking into my magic eight ball and saying that Planetside would have had better longevity with the deeper game model, not that they really give up the cone of fire entirely so much as broke it trying to appease both camps.

[Margalis]

Um I was agreeing with you. Guns are not 100% accurate. Rifles have long barrels for a reason.

[geldonyetich]

Though I misunderstood that at first, I was nonetheless attempting to agree with your agreeing. :-D  I'm just saying that, even if all guns on the planet were incredibly accurate and we were willing to overlook user error, pushing absolute accuracy with the justification of realism doesn't make for a game I'd enjoy anyway.  Some people would, but not I.

In other words, the realism thing is a red herring.  We play games to have fun.  When people start pulling the realism card, whether or not they're aware of it, they're actually saying they're more interested in an accurate simulation than a game.  Ballistic simulations have their uses for some professionals to determine the behavior of a bullet, but the gamer's goal is to have fun.  Call it another a strawman, but if everybody craved realism we'd have a lot better damage trackers in FPS than a health and armor point score.  Of course, if pixel-perfect accuracy is the goal, Megrim's out of luck either way, since (as Margalis points out) barrel length alone is adequate evidence that guns have varying levels of accuracy. 

I think his main complaint were games with gonzo giant cones of fire that make it hard to hit a tree 10 meters away.  That's understandable, cones of fire like anything else can be pushed too far.  However, most games are better balanced and your on-screen cone of fire indicator gives you a good idea how to adapt.  If your cone of fire is too big to hit what you want to hit, you can usually solve that by changing posture, switching to a longer ranged weapon, and/or simply wait until you're closer.  If the cone of fire didn't exist you don't even get these choices: just point and click.

[Megrim]

Besides, you seem to devote over half of each of your messages to finding new and almost clever ways to insult me - you're not exactly asking nicely.   I'm not even sure why somebody would want to get into a conversation with somebody who is in the habit of verbally assaulting them to get his way.  You can call that winning if you want, but if that's your strategy you learn nothing and force falsehood on others.  You might want to consider how many times someone surrenders just to get as far away from you as possible.  You're not the bully of the playground anymore, if it's the truth your looking for then abuse isn't the answer.

You are right. Perhaps i am being overtly inconsiderate to your delicate needs. However, you must realise, that when engaged in an argument by far the best way of getting one's objections across, is to attack the points presented by the other side. Which is what i've been doing for the past page and a bit. If you consider this bullying, then i must confess to being guilty. Oh, and yes, i did make fun of your mother. And call you velcro-boy. But your mother is an easy target, and you are a little slow, so please forgive me 

Also, you made the assumption that no-one can be influenced to change their opinion via argument on a forum. The interesting part about this, it that i'm very much interested in seeing how you justify your position as far as cone-fire is concerned, and am perfectly willing to change my mind - if only you'd do something, anything to actually back-up what you say. However, as your only responses seem to be "oh but you don't get it" or "read what i've said", i'm afraid i will have to remain firmly on my side of the fence. Because you haven't actually said anything.

I mean...

If you really believe that I don't know what I'm talking about, then it's no wonder you were unable to find the value in what I was writing.  This in itself perpetuates a vicious cycle, as you won't be able to read enough to believe I know what I'm talking about.  Conversely, I believed you had every reason to believe you knew what you were talking about, but I found certain parts of the story missing which I helpfully provided.  It didn't help I had to constantly fight the effort to retaliate.

This is an absolutely awesome piece of reasoning. I really have to start using this, because it seems to damn effective. Let's see: I believe that you don't know what you are talking about, because there is nothing of value to find in what you have been writing. This in itself perpetuates a vicious cycle, as you aren't able to write enough to make me believe what you are talking about. On the other hand, i was under the impression that while you certainly are firmly convinced in regards to what you believe, i've helpfully pointed out some flaws in your argument.

Amazing how it works in any situation. And yet you accuse me of not reading what you've written...







re: Margalis

Not quite. The real summary would read something like this: geldonyetich posts in an FPS thread, paying out those who do not agree with his supposed "better" style of gameplay, calling then all sorts of interesting names and generally putting down anyone whom he considers to be a crackbrained twich monkey, insulting some forum goers in the process. Megrim, having seen this takes issue with this attitude and calls geldonyetich out on it, by implying that geldonyetich is just one of those people who is really bad at FPS and likes to use various excuses to cover up his lack of skill; using the concept of cone-fire as a proxy for this argument.

And as far as super-accurate weapons go:

Secondly, the issue you bring up with tactical positioning as a consequence of cone-fire, is not entirely relevant, as normal, reasonable recoil is more than enough to ensure tactical gameplay without resorting to random elements. I do not think that it would be unfair to say that for anyone who has played an FPS, especially a more "realistic" one, that the concept of not moving while shooting is an unreasonable one. Yes, braced weapons are more accurate than ones fired on the move. Yes, being set up and in position is better for fragging enemy players than not. However, this has nothing to do with cone-fire. But this has everything to do with a player's ability to evaluate a situation, the level of support his team can provide, and the surrounding terrain. All of which are present in any decent FPS without having to resort to cone-fire as a magical fix for those who can't perform any or all of the aforementioned tasks.

Oh i'm lovin' this!

[5150]

Bored now

[Megrim]

Please don't hate, but appreciate!

[Hoax]

This is a stupid argument, I dont even understand how you people who accuse fps players of being "reflex whore twitchbunnies" even exist.  How did you get mixed up in this genre?  Aren't there enough stupid auto-attack + hotkey rpg grindfests out there for you?

I'm getting so fucking sick and tired of bad players crying because they are bad.  People who bitch that WoW takes no skill because it is "too fast" are the top of this totem poll of fucking terrible gamers but this silly-ass set of values which would put a game like the original Rainbow6 ahead of Q1, Q2, Tribes or UT because it takes less twitch skill and is therefore more "tactical" is something I have no use nor respect for.

Requiring more skill from gamers shouldn't be a negative thing, stop saying that it is.  There is a point where it becomes a negative, for example if you tried to make Quake2 into a MMOFPS it would be a bad thing.  The top fps players would just be railgunning the fuck out of people and it would be boring.  But tactical gameplay does not entail artificially handicapping everyone.  For example, a Heavy Offensive player, a base-setup guy or Heavy D flag-sitter in Tribes1 didn't need to be a top dog twitchbunny whatever to make a top team.  A light D player esp one using a sniper rifle needed to be a fucking very good twitch player.   I'm all for there being various levels of twitch required to perform different battlefield roles.   Not only do I not see that as a problem but I see it as a positive for gameplay as it will broaden the types of players who might enjoy it.  But please please please fuck off with this whole twitch = bad thing.  Its so stupid.  Why dont we just put auto aim into the fucking games while we're at it?

[damijin]

anger

I haven't been reading this thread since page 2 where it got stupid, but-

Allowing options, so that people can choose the personal difficulty of their gameplay experience (whether it focuses on twitch, stealth, strategic planning, or something else), is no doubt the most important aspect of making an MMOFPS successful.

[Sky]

Sky, I'm not sure if linking to Armed Assault was a gag despite the ROFLCoptor. But I can tell you, just by seeing the 505 Gamestreet logo that it uh, sucks dick. Or rather, the possibilty of it sucking dick just entered Agetec and Majesco territory.

Armed Assault? If OpFlash is any indication, it's the best fps on the market, just not the US market. Not sure what the 505 stuff is that you're talking about.

This is a stupid argument, I dont even understand how you people who accuse fps players of being "reflex whore twitchbunnies" even exist.  How did you get mixed up in this genre?  Aren't there enough stupid auto-attack + hotkey rpg grindfests out there for you?

There is a difference between old-school fast action fps and more tactical (realistic, if you have to) fps. Just because I don't want people bunnyhopping and shooting on the run in my fps doesn't mean I suck. Skill != bunnyhopping and dolphin diving. Also, just to keep it at your level, Hoax, you're a fucking douchemonkey.

There are plenty of mindless shooters out there for you to rocket jump in. All we 'fucking terrible gamers' want it a more tactical game where bunnyhopping or engine exploits don't trump solid real-world tactics like using cover and shooting from prone.

[Zetor]

Not to mention that some of us play from obscure corners of the internet with bad connections. Until a game invents negative ping code, this bad player will stick to 'ezmode autoattack RPGs' thankyouverymuch.

(a consistent 600-800+ ping is really fun when pvp'ing in WOW, even... especially with a rogue kek)


-- Z.

[Megrim]

Well Sky to be fair, it was geldon who went monkeyshit at the "twitchtards"; so it's only fair that us twitchtards defend ourselves. It just seems odd to me from having followed various threads here for some time, that everytime the topic of FPS comes up there is almost always an unusually large amount of bile vented in the direction of the crack-brained reflex retards. But there is no real reason for this that i can see apart from the typical generalisations of "bunnyhopping is retarded therefore..." , which leaves us to conclude that you (obviously not You specifically) just can't hack it and cry.

*shrug* I would like to know why it is that there is so much hatred, because while i play CS competitively and know from experience that it is far from twitch, i feel as equally at home playing Q3 as i do playing Infiltration, not to mention being pretty damn good at both extremes. So it seems unnatural to me when people do go monkeyshit over such a trivial thing as acknowledging that there is far more to it then dolphin diving (which, truth be told was one of the fastest ways to get killed in BF short of grenading yourself).






Also, plz be adding "twitchtards" to the spellchecker thingy.