Conceptualising Deviation

[Truism]

This thread is not a rant/***** thread about deviation. I want to discuss the theory and logic behind deviation of all sorts in this thread, so that it can later be linked as the reference point for all subsequent threads questioning why deviation needs to exist.
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Before we continue, it must be understood that it is not possible to code weapons sway or swing into the BF2 engine.

Therefore, the possibilities to reflect inaccuracy are as follows:
Random Deviation.
Random deviation with a crosshair type thing that shows your relative accuracy (gets bigger when you're inaccurate, like the HAT) only while scoped.
Perfect accuracy, with a scope animation that moves too much to be used for perfect shooting (until you hit a target, and then back every shot up to the same place).


Why aren't soldiers perfectly accurate?
On a battlefield, numerous factors implicit in using a rifle, in the battle field and related to the condition of the individual soldier negate the ability to fire exactly where intended. They are discussed here.

Firstly
Fundamental differences between actually shooting a rifle, and aiming in a videogame;
The aiming of a rifle isn't as easy as moving a mouse over an icon. Firstly, a rifle has inertia - it is a relatively large object which requires extreme control to point in an accurate way. Secondly, the control mentioned in the point before must be generated by balancing the rifle at two different ends with different arms - this is a far less stable arrangement than a mouse already rested on a flat, smooth surface has. Thirdly, as the rifle is dependant on the movement of the entire body (which cannot itself be stabalised), and not just the wrist, involuntary movements (breathing, muscle shakes (accentuated by combat stress and adrenaline), and even heartbeat) detract from the stability of the rifle, meaning that a soldier may not be able to aim the rifle consistantly where he wants to. Fourthly and finally, some points which are easy to aim at as a PR avatar are actually physiologically impossible or difficult to aim at in real life (high/low angle shots being two good examples, but firing flat from just behind the crest of a hill is another).

This point may be practically refuted by pointing out that Tanks, APCs Light Vehicles and Aircraft have no deviation whatsoever, despite being at the mercy of many of the same effects, such as inertia, variations in controlability in different weather conditions and so on.

This point may secondarily be marginally refuted by pointing out that a soldier is more able to understand when he is able to shoot accurately, and will often forgo shooting until he knows he does have a perfect shot, something the game does not model at the moment (discussed in the third section).

Secondly
Differences between the Project Reality gameworld, and a real battlefield;
On a real battlefield numerous factors negate an individual soldier's ability to fire effectively. Disorientation from explosions, fog of war (no minimaps, remember?), unstable firing surfaces, realistic ballistics (bullets actually don't fly straight, or even on a parabolic arc, while different ammunition behaves in very different ways in differing conditions that the soldier may not have dope charts for), sights may (rarely) be incorrectly zeroed, guns may jam (not firing at all, on average reducing the number of shots fired on target) and finally visual distortions caused by heat are all factors on the battlefield that limit the ability of a soldier to shoot exactly where he intends. This list is by no means complete.

Thirdly
The state of the individual soldier on the battlefield;
This is the only piece of logic behind deviation which is contestable. I will explain it, and then explain the counter-arguement.

When a soldier is on the battlefield, his ability to make rational, intelligent decisions is limited by the high levels of stress inherent to the environment. Additionally, as there are no "respawns" his willingness to move out of cover to aim a perfect shot is likely to be much lower than it is in a video game. Because of these factos, a soldier on the battlefield isn't as likely to care about whether his shots are hitting the target or not, so long as the enemy is being suppressed, he is doing his job, and he is not under unnecessary danger. This is why the number of bullets fired to total kills remains so low - in a combat, individual soldiers are not concerned about their kill count, or KDR, normally speaking they simply want to survive, and the best way of doing that is to shoot at anything and everything so it can't shoot back.

The problem with this argument is that by modelling the individual soldier's tactical predilictions, the player's role in the game is usurped. The entire point of being the player is that he retains his bodily functions, and you take over his consciousness, using him as your avatar. In many situations the right tactical choice's effectiveness is inhibited by the avatar's excessive deviation caused by this modelling - a soldier who has managed to flank an enemy and is under no stress to take a shot will be able to make his shots count more than one who is under fire, but both have the same deviation models.

Summary on the realism of deviation.
After that section, only the most die hard of anti-deviationists would argue that there should be no deviation at all in PR. There are obviously iron clad reasons why a real life soldier can't use a rifle the same way we use a mouse, and that that should be reflected in the game. After this, the question becomes more one of how much deviation there should be, and in what situations. At the moment, there is something of a community schism about how much deviation is realistic, and how this amount compares to how much there is in game. Few argued that CQB was realistic in the .7 family, and likewise, few argue that sniping is realistic in either .7 or .8. These points have their reasons that are covered in the next section, but standard infantry weapons are still open to debate. Before you form an opinion on the matter, consider the following thing that may have been responsible for not hitting your target:

BF2 Hitreg: The BF2 engine is probably the worst modern FPS engine in terms of handling whether someone shot someone else or not, which some might think would be important to a shooting game. The critical factor here is how the engine places models with relation to lag. Basically, the game assumes you have a static ping of 100, meaning that if your ping is anything lower, objects will appear in front of where their hitboxes are by the amount your ping is less than 100 in milliseconds, and if you are on a higher ping, they they will be in front of the models you see. There are console commands you can do to minimise this effect, and a perfectly legit program that helps you set them called Bf2HitFixer. Some might argue that BF2's **** hitreg alone negates the need for random deviation, as real life soldiers always hit what their bullets physically land in, however this is an invalid arguement, because this effect usually only happens when a target is moving, or has very recently moved, a stationary target at 500 meters would be fair game for a rifleman without deviation (which is unrealistic) - no dice Johnny.



Reasons that do not relate to marksmanship in Reality


The Style of Gameplay Desired by the Devs
This is probably the primary reason deviation is as significant as it is.

A common criticism of the 0.6, no deviation style of play was that the player with better reflexes could expect to win a vast majority of engagements, in spite of tactical decisions made by either side. The counterpoint to this is that ultimately some soldiers are going to have better reflexes, that will give them an edge in battle - moreover, by diminishing the role of reflexes, you are merely emphasising the "metagame" aspect discussed above - that the player's role is being diminished in order to accomodate a more "tactical" style of play. The pro-deviationists counter again by saying that reflexes are still important to the game, while the former group points out that tactics were still important before. The debate continues with many unsubstantiatable claims from both sides which do not resolve the issues.

Secondly, the dev team has consistantly talked about the style of firefighting they want to be "epic" and "intense". Certainly in real life, static gunfights tend to last for a lot longer than they do in video games, usually for hours, with only low double digits dieing on each side unless fire support assets are used. Some of the reasons for this are discussed above, in the state of mind of the soldier section.

To this end, the Dev team also introduced a suppression system where a soldier being shot at, even in cover, would be unable to return fire, and would basically be forced to hide (the system isn't perfect, but it works well, despite there being workarounds). There are a few things that could be said to counter this focus on suppression (which so far very few have tried), there are either that suppression is "too much" (soldiers aren't suppressed as severely as they are in PR, and are able to return fire more accurately (which is itself rebutted by the fact that they are also more afraid of losing their life, and are thus less likely to take the risk of dieing just to get a "kill"), and secondly, that suppression doesn't neccesarily play as large a tactic in all war as the Dev team has made out. This second arguement assumes that different armies conduct war in different ways, and so for example while a US centric tactical doctrine might focus on always pinning an enemy and then flanking him, an Australian infantry doctrine might revolve more around remaining in cover and concealment, and waiting for the enemy to enter range so riflemen can engage accurate fire, using machine gun assets to break up concentrated enemy attacks. In this second arguement, by making infantry rifles less accurate even while totally concealed and stationary (or moreso while tracking a target), you actually diminish the effectiveness of all tactical doctrines that do not conform to the Dev's vision of how combat "should" be.
(Disclaimer, this was a poor example. If someone can provide a better example of another tactical doctrine that would fit here, please do.)

What is not open to contest is that when there is no deviation (0.6), a run and gun style of play is encouraged, as there is no reason to adopt a hard-point defensive stance to wait for others to enter your killzones. When this occurs, battles do not happen anything like they do in real life, and this raises a more philosophical design question - should Project Reality impose unrealistic restrictions on the individual soldier (sights that don't represent where the gun is really pointing) in order to force the overall shape of the battle to be realistic, or vice versa?

(At present, other factors make the battle's shape significantly unrealistic, such as rally points, which are the in game representation of reinforcements, which logically should have to be set at a boundry of a map but presently may be set anywhere subject to the risk of being overrun, or Forward Outposts, which represent a defended position which has a constant presence at it, but are largely unable to defend themselves without squads dedicated to doing so, and even then, only to a limited degree because of the largely ineffectual nature of the defenses that can be erected there. However these are side issues, largely unrelated to the issue of deviation, and continuing with them runs the risk of tu quoque fallacy, such as the Vehicle Deviation rebuttal above).

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(Additionally, it is worth pointing out that many of the original design goals set out by the PR team have been reversed - criticisms that rifles were too inaccurate in vBF2, that they didn't do enough damage and that aircraft were unkillable are again being bandied, only this time in the PR forums. However gameplay remains remarkably different to vBF2.)

Please discuss.

Please try not to talk about your personal opinions, but rather talk in hard facts. (So not "I think deviation is too much because I can't hit things in XXX....." but instead "There is too much random deviation from the prone position, because in PR you are unable to hit a standing target at 100 meters, with five timed shots, which a real soldier can do.")

[davetboy_19]

I like the Deviation...to a certain extent. It brings a new depth into the game, and just like you said (almost) it promotes safety and a value for your life just a little more. It makes the players think a little more about there next shot. Brings real life human error and stress to the game.

I also enjoy the longer times to getting your scope up, This makes it ALOT more realistic. And remember people, its not just you. The other guy takes the same amount of time to get their scope up, The DEVs haven't just made it so YOUR scope is slow...EVERYONE has the same thing.

These things also get you more 'into' a game, Since it is more complex and realistic to play PR than ever before it does get your heart racing in fire fights.

[Masaq]

Excellent post, really well thought out.

Let's see some responses that are just as carefully constructed, please?

[<1sk>Headshot]

Good post.

[Water_Is_Poison18]

I think part of the reason why there has been so much debate around deviation is that the game logic is adding all these different factors into your shots to simulate said fatigue and battle stress. However, the game presents no visual or auditory cues that this process is occurring. So people see a gun that is perfectly steady with their sights perfectly on target and they keep missing. Players are receiving contradictory sensory input and it confuses them. What can be done about this? I'm not sure, but I think that's the root of the issue when it comes to what seems like completely inaccurate weapons.

[wardlemjw]

I agree with the posts here, the longer aim times and the deviation certainly promote more "thought" around whether to take a shot or not, particularly if you are the last squad member alive and you are potentially shooting at 2 or more enemies who would otherwise not have noticed you.

I personally think the changes have improved gameplay, althogh I have yet to be convinced about rally points being "overrun" when 3 enemies are within 50 meters.

[Jog]

Well I just love the new system. It really makes game more tactical and not based on reflexes. For example just yesterday a was playing Qwai river on the US side and our whole squad was wiped out by Chinese squad and I was the only one left and they didn't notice me. Now in 0.75 a would try to kill them (there were 3 of them left I think) but now I didn't even try because I knew that it won't be possible (I was out of grenades too) so I just stayed low and waited for my squad to come over again and help me.

[willgar]

Well written and interesting post. But BF/PR (for many people) is simply just a enjoyable game and elements that make the game challenging and fun should always take precedence over pure simulation. Yes, many are attracted to PR for the Reality part but other (myself) play because it is more mentally challenging and satisfying than vanilla. Dwelling to much on the reality and you may end up with a sterile and in my opinion pretty dull version of ARMA

(Fire warning: I am not dissing the beloved ARMA - just my opinion)

Another poster talked about the lack of cue's to highlight the state of the shooter and i think this is a very good point. I assume that when i am bleeding out or after i have just run 100m that i will shoot poorly. I, like many others, have carefully lined up shots from prone position at ranges of only a few hundred meters, let the sights settle and missed with considerable deviation. Does that bother me? well not really to be honest, i just take it as part of the game. For every one of those easy shot misses, i get half a dozen good kills where i hit my target. So personally, i don't really understand why deviation is such a big issue - it is just a game mechanic that i need to take into account when playing the game.

The whole deviation question, i think, is part of a tug of war between developers and community. If you want the biggest audience share then you just go down the desert combat route (BF with some skins and a topical location) or even just plain old vanilla which has a player base that is probably 100 times the size of PR. From reading these boards, it seems that the devs at PR have always (although less recently) explained that PR is a game they as a collective wanted to make for their vision of what a good game should be. If you shared that vision, climb on board and enjoy the ride. Yes they dabbled with things but the core game has progressed in a foreseeable fashion. Would adding another layer of complexity around targeting and firing weapons add to the enjoyment of the game? i don't know but i doubt it.

I play another Mod (a strategy game) and the lead designer wrote a long post around his design philosophy which rang a cord. Within this strategy game mod there is a core of players that want more, more,more - features, units, game mechanics etc and recently, the mod team actually removed a lot of unused features and complexity from the game. They made the game easier to play but actually more tactically challanging.

After many complaints from within the forum (pre-release), the actual player base started to post very positive comments about the current version of the game(post release). This highlights a key point, the hardest design choice is to build something that is how you want it to be and then leave it alone. Deviation should be like that, the devs get it to where they want it to be, then leave it alone. Once we have a system that is stable and unchanging from release to release then players can get on with the more interesting part of the game.

(NOTE: Personally, i cant actually tell the difference bewen .75 and .8 in terms of deviation but clan mates swear it has changed - guess i am not hardcore enough )

[hiberNative]

while i agree with a lot of what the OP is saying, a lot of his/her post annoys me. they whole "reality vs game" characteristics of movement and stress has been worn to the pulp on these forums.
i don't think people like being told how they feel in the game, and that being the excuse for them missing a target.

i've been shooting handguns and i feel if it was a good shot before and after i've pulled the trigger, even under stressful situations (like time).

what i'd like to see in pr is an upswing of accuracy after 1 or 2 shots. if you're familiar with a rifle and after shooting ~2 rapid shots, you often feel what you're doing wrong, and can adjust accordingly.
this would be great to implement in pr in the future. the 2 or 3 first semi-auto shots from static being under the current deviation variables, and the following ones much more accurate. the first (less accurate shots) would also work as a warning to the enemy at the recieving end to take cover.

[Psyko]

i cant yet point out the problem in the current deviation model, but i have recieved extremely accurate headshots, while i myself had tryed my hardest to do the same and failed. Sometimes i can get a very lucky kill, and other times the round misses signifigantly. a recent suggestion was that a fade-in black-screan could be used to simulate a soldier adapting his eye to the scope within a couple of seconds. but i have shot weapons in windy conditions and they are very similar to the current deviation model, are we to assume that every map has absolutly no wind or environment effects. another person said, that because of the new deviation model, PR has come full circle and was a lot like Vanilla again. i find it to be more accurate to realism as it is now...a fellow sprinting to cover and firing a shot at a target shouldnt be able to get the first shot to hit the head. Some people dont understand, but afaik, the deviation ring increases everytime you take a shot...when you move the reticle it grows, when you move using "ASDW" it resets to the outer-most edges of the scope or close to the edge of the screen however when you move the reticle while unscoped, it grows more slowly. so there are aspects of deviation that may need to be focused on more.

In the many months that i have been part of the community, i have seen thousands of suggestions, but none of them came close to the DEV's current model, so i dont see how this thread will uncover a very special suggestion. I say make do with the current deviation model, tweak the TANK and APC MG deviation, and keep the suppression. I dont think it can get closer to the mark than this. The only way faward from this is to make more advanced 1p animations. and im not being closed minded about it, i just dont want to see a good thing ruined.

[Human Shield]

Visual indicators.
Visual indicators
Visual indicators

People aren't mad when they miss firing full auto, they are mad when they wait between shots aiming at an unknowing stationary target and still miss. The HAT has indicators why doesn't everything else, a small green dot on the corner of the screen that says your all setup is enough.

[Celestial1]

Visual indicators.
Visual indicators
Visual indicators

People aren't mad when they miss firing full auto, they are mad when they wait between shots aiming at an unknowing stationary target and still miss. The HAT has indicators why doesn't everything else, a small green dot on the corner of the screen that says your all setup is enough.

Here soldier, here's your standard issue contact that tells you when you've got maximum accuracy.

Here's a hint: The only reason the HAT indicators are really needed, is so that people don't shoot the ground and kill everyone near them.

[gazzthompson]

Here soldier, here's your standard issue contact that tells you when you've got maximum accuracy.

IRL there is visual way of seeing where your aiming. FYI i love the deviation but a visual indication would be good

[hiberNative]

Here soldier, here's your standard issue contact that tells you when you've got maximum accuracy.

well... right now my my standard issue contact is secretly rubbing my tummy and biting my foot, making me miss a lot.

[Human Shield]

Here soldier, here's your standard issue contact that tells you when you've got maximum accuracy.

You mean lining up the sights?

The reason for the weird deviation is that BF2 doesn't have weapon sway, so either visually show it with something else or go pre .7 and have shots go where you aim.

[HughJass]

Visual indicators.
Visual indicators
Visual indicators

there is a thing for that, called sway.

maybe sway can be implemented as a way of telling the player that you should shoot now?

But then again, this just makes shooting routine, boring, repetative. It would take no skill of the
player.



great post btw, i enjoyed reading trough it

[SleepyHe4d]

^Read the post above yours.

You mean lining up the sights?

The reason for the weird deviation is that BF2 doesn't have weapon sway, so either visually show it with something else or go pre .7 and have shots go where you aim.

Agreed. Lol @ the guy not knowing that in real life your gun shoots where it's aiming.

[justman2005]

wicked post truism...
in short i believe the devs have managed to find an equilibrium in this release. your right, it isnt realistic to have a soldier who can make a shot on a target a 100 metres away make that shot every single time. and it isnt realistic to have a soldier who never makes a shot on a target 100 metres away. but the wait and fire mechanisms the devs added find this realistic balance where by if you are under heavy fire from someone you are going to be moving your mouse fairly erratically to get out of fire, and with the added suprression fire effect gives a whole new facet to a game whose concept was origionally was to simulate modern urban warfare which is not a run and gun affair but a tactical and strategic slow and steady, point A to point B type of situation. if you have gotten yourself into a position where you are being fired upon and you jump around and happen to find your crosshairs on the opponents head, and then proceed to rage quit, you have missed the whole point of this mod. to out strategise the opponent. you probably were not behind cover or you didnt look down the alley that you passed or the other person had seen you a couple minutes before and had been hunting you down since.
this seemingly unrealistic accuracy fix that .7 and .8 aqquired may have made it alot harder to kill someone but it also made it alot harder to be killed. it also essentially made many other things such as much more realistic then they previously were.
i dunno i've forgotten what i was trying to talk about here and im kinda tired and probably missed the whole point of the post but its just my two cents.

peace