Desire for realism, or difficulty?

[Masaq]

Okay, first off - well written post, good to see.

Now, gonna address only one point from your post I think, because it's the biggy.

Recoil.

No, in-game it's not realistic. Whether you think there's too much of it, too little of it, or that it's just right - it's NOT realistic. Game developers have yet to find a way to model recoil in the only way you really can - by providing a 3D control system rather than a 2D one. (Joysticks don't count, in this case.)

PR has basically got two options:

"Realistically" allow in-game soldiers to fire and maintain their target picture without requiring any or little movement from the mouse/keyboard, on the basis that a fully trained and combat-experienced infantryman will experience relatively little recoil from most rifles on semi-auto.

Or, adopt an "unrealistic" (remember we're talking subjectively about a game-based experience) model that indicates a huge level of recoil throwing sights completely off-target, forcing the player to readjust their aim after every shot.

Clearly, the best option lies somewhere in between, right? If you think not, that the first option is the best one, here's why you're wrong:

The game is designed to be played by HUMAN players, and it has to be a GAME. There has to be an element of skill involved, that one person can overcome another given a virtually equal footing through more experience, better tactics, better support etc.

If EVERY weapon in PR was recoil-less, if EVERY weapon fired exactly where it was aimed without any deviation, then the game descends to "who shoots first". That's not what the game is about, and that's not realistic either.

The unrealistic levels of recoil in-game are a way of forcing players to adopt a level of skill - that of pulling the mouse down slowly to compensate for the upwards drift - that exists in the real-world that the game cannot model internally. The game can't TELL how good you are at handling recoil and adjust your avatar/character's weapon characteristics. It can't TELL how fast you can run or how far you can throw a grenade, and adjust your player's abilities.

It gives EVERYONE the same statistics and characteristics, meaning that things that affect the outcome of a battle - from individual 1v1 firefight to 6v6 squad movements to the outcome of the entire round - are determined by how well the HUMAN players utilise the tools given to them.

To adopt anything other makes the game pretty pointless. Running around able to score headshots from 600m on *every player I see* is fun for a while, but gets dull after a while. Having to take the time to line up my shot, wait for my deviation to drop (ie.: wait for my breathing to get steady etc) and then firing and having to control the recoil so I can line up for a second shot- and do all of that whilst under fire from another guy- is far more satisfying. It means that when I land a round on him, I've had to WORK to get that hit, instead of having the game do it all for me.

[jerkzilla]

Masaq hit the nail smack on the head with his post. I'm actually surprised no one has made that point for 4 pages.
Leave the in game character a raw recruit so the players can compensate with they're own ability as best they can.

[Hail_831]

To adopt anything other makes the game pretty pointless. Running around able to score headshots from 600m on *every player I see* is fun for a while, but gets dull after a while. Having to take the time to line up my shot, wait for my deviation to drop (ie.: wait for my breathing to get steady etc) and then firing and having to control the recoil so I can line up for a second shot- and do all of that whilst under fire from another guy- is far more satisfying. It means that when I land a round on him, I've had to WORK to get that hit, instead of having the game do it all for me.

So would you say that the recoil levels in .6 where pointless? Was the game destroyed be accurate weapons? Was there a public uproar over bullet deviation?

I don't know about other forces but the US marines pride them selfs on accuracy even under intense situation. Dont forget where they get the name Devil Dogs. If you don't remember look up the battle of Belleau Wood where United States Marines, destroyed the german ranks from 800m well under intense artillery bombardment. No scopes, just there Springfield M1903 w/ iron sights. Thats ice.

[Gyberg]

@ Hail.... after some quick googling I find that in Vietnam somewhere areound 50000 bullets was spent for every kill... You call that accuracy?

[Gaz]

Is your experience with rifles / squad automatic weapons limited to airsoft?

:}

Is your expereince of soldiering limited to running up and down a range, and PLAYING at soldiers? Airsofters are less of a wanabee than civvis with real weapons doing what looks like suppression fire...While. Advancing. Down. a. Civvie. Range.

I agree with your first post though

@Hail......ever been in a contact? You have? Then you'll have told yourself to shut up then.

Suppression: Fire in general location of your enemy. He's either brave as hell or thick as f**k if he puts his head up. You have negated enemy fire, are winning the firefight, and can therefore advance or maneuvre appropriately while the enemy's head's down. Therefore meaning they aren't therefore shooting at you. Winning the fire fight means putting down more fire than your enemy, and facing them down in that regard. Ammo: expended rapidly.

Accuracy: Fire upon targets when you are likely to get a hit/kill, while conserving ammo. Ammo: Conserved

The two don't go hand in hand, and thats's why sectrion commanders and 2I/Cs control the fire of their combat troops. Especially with an ongoing contact and young adrenaline junkies as squaddies under your command.

So, if you want to talk bollocks Hail, you have spewed it on the wrong forum.

[Hail_831]

@ Hail.... after some quick googling I find that in Vietnam somewhere areound 50000 bullets was spent for every kill... You call that accuracy?

Thats what happens when you don't have a volunteer army.

[Gyberg]

@Hail - And after some more googling I find that it takes roughly 250 000 rounds per kill in Iraq and Afghanistan

[Hail_831]

@Hail - And after some more googling I find that it takes roughly 250 000 rounds per kill in Iraq and Afghanistan

well then the deviation in game is clearly not high enough. lol



Is that for an Infantry man only or .50cal suppressible fire, CAS(rotary and fixed winged aircraft), armor, and infantry.

[bobfish]

Thats what happens when you don't have a volunteer army.

You're a serving US Marine? If you want to take this to the extreme of realism, then few people would die on either side, let alone the 3-400 needed to run out the tickets in a normal match.

Perfect accuracy all the time isn't realistic in a combat situation.

[BeerHunter]

Bejeezus , if you want one shot , dead on accuracy with constant head shots while strafing go play DoD or CS. DoD's KAR98 is an instant kill to an elbow or ankle anyway (been there and done that).

Me thinks the developers put deviation into the game for a reason (realism) and it's here to stay. Might be tweaked a bit but in PRM the days of strafing head shots are over...thank god.

[Hail_831]

@gaz No need to get aggressive. We are here to discuss the game if you would like to personally attack me I think a pm would be better suited.

I may have mixed my message as the posts proceeded but if you look at my original post. my main issue with the new deviation is not really the problem with accuracy its self, its with a lack of visual signs of this loss of accuracy. Can we agree that this new deviation is there to simulate increase heart rate from the intensity of battle, not deviation from the weapons system its self? If so then maybe changes should have been made to the suppression system instead of the deviation of the rifles. Can you understand how some people may have problems with having there sight picture aligned but having your round travel in another direction? maybe some type of quick haze affect could have been added to the scope to simulate getting into a proper shooting position. lets just try to keep it civil.

[joselucca]

@gaz No need to get aggressive. We are here to discuss the game if you would like to personally attack me I think a pm would be better suited.

lets just try to keep it civil.

LMFAO. you who just attacked me in another thread. the pot calling the kettle black.
go figure. :

[Gaz]

my main issue with the new deviation is not really the problem with accuracy its self, its with a lack of visual signs of this loss of accuracy. Can we agree that this new deviation is there to simulate increase heart rate from the intensity of battle, not deviation from the weapons system its self?

Don't worry about the aggressive stance. It's there to counter the sofa-laden SF wanabees with automatic weapons as toys, who know very little about combat and tactics, except what they see on the news. Common on these forums, and I find that a one size fits all approach works for me Read my sig quote and you'll understand.

The deviation is there to simulate the time it takes for a trained Infantry soldier to adopt a suitable firing position, once static. Breathing and heart rate are an issue, when aiming to provide accurate fire against 'watch and shoot' targets of opportunity. These factors also include the 'emotional' side of things. Although not visable or easily portrayed ingame, combatents in a contact will have adrenalin pumping to a massive degree, to the point where they may not feel major truma if hit themselves for a period.

The more 'rapid' nature of suppression fire leaves a soldier with getting more rounds 'down the range' towards the enemy at the expense of (1) ammo and (2) accuracy, as my first post portrays. Ingame, this means that rapidly firing at an opportune target (in conjunction with the deviation system) means you are providing suppression as opposed to accurate deliberate fire, meaning your rounds will land in the general are of the target, but not a first hit by any means.

Ref my first paragraph, the factors that feed into successful accurately delivered deliberate fire are multiplied tenfold when utilising weapon platforms that are primarily utilised as precision fire weapons, ie - sniper & DMR rifles. There are obvious issues with these on the mod side of things, as opposed to users not having the patience to use them, which will be addressed in the next mod update.

Heavy AT assets have the visable deviation model as a placeholder to replicate the level of prep a weapon such as a heavy anti-tank weapon needs prior to firing. Notice the visual sequence while acquiring a lock with the Javelin in this YouTube video here: (btw, it's a really **** track gate solution this guy locks onto imo)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jznPFesMBF0[/youtube]

These are the reasons why the deviation model is in place. WRT to your comments on 'haze effect', it simply isn't realistic. Although for the purposes of ingame, maybe it's something we could think about to communicate with a player that his accuracy will be detrimental until settled into his chosen firing position. My argeument currently would be that soldiers don't have this, and this 'knowledge' is gained from experience in training, and not ops (they do training before ops, and PR only strives to portray ops environments. Although that doesn't exactly help new users who then winge about innaccurate weapons, and that their M4 they have at home does this that and the other

And with this post, I'm officially off for the weekend.

[bobfish]

@gaz No need to get aggressive. We are here to discuss the game if you would like to personally attack me I think a pm would be better suited.

I may have mixed my message as the posts proceeded but if you look at my original post. my main issue with the new deviation is not really the problem with accuracy its self, its with a lack of visual signs of this loss of accuracy. Can we agree that this new deviation is there to simulate increase heart rate from the intensity of battle, not deviation from the weapons system its self? If so then maybe changes should have been made to the suppression system instead of the deviation of the rifles. Can you understand how some people may have problems with having there sight picture aligned but having your round travel in another direction? maybe some type of quick haze affect could have been added to the scope to simulate getting into a proper shooting position. lets just try to keep it civil.

You still seem to think there is a better solution that can be coded, they've said before they can't change what is hard coded. Though I believe they already said they are looking at ways of providing a visual representation for the deviation.

[OkitaMakoto]

I think the hardest thing is that IRL, when you aim, you might THINK its in line, but the front and rear sight could be slightly off. Now, I havent seen combat, far from it but I figure in combat, its harder to be sure/get sure that you are aiming fead center. The problem in bf2 is the static sights, not even sway would really help, but actually showing the front and rear sights differing in position. THAT's why something like the current deviation is needed [w/ some tweaking]

I'd be all for connecting your deviation to your stamina bar [prolly not possible] so you can SEE roughly how much deviation you will have... would like it if that was possible... but there prolly isnt a way to read your stamina/sprint bar and calculate it into your deviation multiplier...

[Sabre_tooth_tigger]

I can kill with all the faction weapons on full auto, I have to be fairly close sure but all the weapons seem still usable to me.
The G3 is the worse by far but even that can kill on full auto with no hesitation if you correct it

The only thing I'd moan about is I havent figured out how to shoot long range really and the saw doesnt correlate to its counterparts, is that because its 5.62mm and the mec one is higher cal. The saw doesnt need you to look down the barrel and the mec auto mg does

[Tostitos]

Is your expereince of soldiering limited to running up and down a range, and PLAYING at soldiers? Airsofters are less of a wanabee than civvis with real weapons doing what looks like suppression fire...While. Advancing. Down. a. Civvie. Range.

Most of those guys are contractors who were back from the sandbox and doing some training to keep their skills intact.

[jOHNNYdOUBE]

BOOOM, . . . Javelin.

[CKneisel]

About crosshairs vs. no crosshairs: maybe you can't judge where the bullet is going to go. I can, along with many others, and I'll tell you: roughly the center of the screen. It's good accuracy up to around where you were talking about (15-20ft). It isn't something you can feel out right off the bat perhaps, but this is a game still, and just because it's PR doesn't mean there isn't a little learning curve for how to function in the game. It's really not hard, just try it out.

On the case of accuracy, I will admit it is annoying to have all the visuals lined up and watch your bullets smack left, right, before and behind your enemy. But that's something you're going to have to get used to. As people have been saying before, the deviation changes require a fairly major change in the game's tactics. I think the majority of the complainers are people who used to get lots of high kill counts at high ranges with their ARs, and frankly that's not what the team wants for the game. You must realize first and foremost that the guy shooting back at you is equally inaccurate, even if it feels like you're getting killed all the time and missing (unless you aren't waiting a second between shots). It is still very easy to take down enemies who are not under some percentage of cover, even at long distances. For the enemies who are prone or covered, suppressive fire is king. In previous versions, simply waiting for the top of their head to pop up was enough. As you know that is hardly realistic. At long range engagements like that you are more prone to simply lay down a lot of fire into that window, cliff, ledge, box, whatever, so that they never peak at all, while your squad makes maneuvers into ranges where you can in fact kill them accurately. That's PR .7, I've been playing in squads that utilize that tactic and it's both effective and satisfying. It also means you don't always get the kill for having good eyes; the guy flanking or throwing the grenade or what have you does. Deal with it.

In my imagination of combat I find that to be a more realistic portrayal than squads of soldiers proning around and headshotting people. I've never been in "the shit" though so I suppose my opinion is invalid. However, I would ask you to try out these tactics with a squad in PR and tell me if you have fun/are successful or not.

[Gigman]

CAS_117;577447']YouTube - FPS Doug - BOOM HEADSHOT Megamix

I really wish I could give you a high five over the internet.

/on topic

Interesting post, I had one up a little while ago talking about people who request ridiculous realism weather or not it is correct. I think a lot of people do think of PR as this kind of proving ground for showing how 1337 they are. To me the main aspect that I enjoy in the game is the communication, while not "militaristicly real" (that would be cool though ) I find that it is effective. There are many games that excel in areas other than this over PR, they also have a entire division of a company working for them. But I still haven't found a game who's fanbase/community is as supportive and just fun to play with than PR. While not a gun-nut,I think that the realism/gameplay ratio currently is exceptional, and helps provide for an overall fun experience.
-Gigman