There wouldn't be any of this "well I had by firearm lined up with X but the bullet didn't go anywhere close to there! What the heck?"

That is what happens in real life, so -- whether or not it is fun -- it would be accurate. Actually, let me use the word "appropriate" because using the word accurate makes me dizzy in this thread.

In games that choose to model the shakiness/instability of a firing position, do you think it would be more fair/less frustrating if the induced instability was visible?

I shut off crosshairs and use iron sights, so -- to me -- it would look ridiculous if the weapon was perfectly still.

I've done my best to be helpful, but, since these are rhetorical questions (and I only read the bold text and ignored your videos), I'll say Good Luck, Godspeed, and try going to a shooting range sometime (it's fun!).

Edited to Add: I did send a personal apology to TheDarkKnight since he felt I was bashing him. I've refrained from publicly roasting him with vitriolic words even though he called into question my understanding of the word "forum" -- I'm being nice this weekend! I like that this place is welcoming and want to keep it that way (even though I'm a judgemental jerk).

"I shut off crosshairs and use iron sights, so -- to me -- it would look ridiculous if the weapon was perfectly still." That's the point. Some games add extra inaccuracy that would make reasonable sense if you saw the weapon moving around. Instead, the weapon is perfectly still and looks like it is stable, but is incredibly inaccurate. If a player is pointing at a target and fires, he/she is going to see a few inches or even a foot of deviation as normal and reasonable (at least I do). But, if I am pointing at a target in a game, the firearm looks like it is stable and my shot goes 10 feet off to the side instead of 6-12 inches, I see that as an unfair bit of added randomness. If I could see that the weapon was unstable, I could time my shot in order to be more accurate or compensate for it. Anything outside of that (at least in games) relatively minor path deviation is incredibly annoying for gameplay and it is also completely unrealistic and unintuitive.

This would be the same in real life. If you were on the firing range in real life, shooting an M16 at targets 100 meters away in good weather (low wind, etc.) you would expect that the bullet would hit within 5-6 inches of the target you were lined up with. If you stood up, and stayed lined up with that target (yes it would be harder to line it up but you could use compensation methods like holding your breath, timing your shot, etc. to assist you in this) and the bullet would then randomly shoot out into the other lane instead of being only 5-6 inches off then that would almost certainly invoke a "what the hell" kind of response. It doesn't make logical, intuitive sense. It doesn't in real-life, it doesn't in game. It makes even less sense in a game where the game designers usually make the random deviation inherent to the firearm relatively tame.

So, in FPS games, there are a number of things at work that determine your accuracy, as you know.

Excuse me if these terms are something you already know.

Recoil is something you have to adjust for based on the power and rate of fire for the weapon. High power weapons usually have high recoil to reduce the time between shots that they are fired. A high rate of fire weapon has high recoil because each projectile knocks the weapon in a certain direction.

Spread is used to emulate stability of your aim. If you are running, the spread is very high, if you are walking it is low, if you are crouching it is even less and if you are prone and not moving at all it is at its lowest.

This isn't an original idea at all, but wouldn't it provide a better gameplay experience if the concept of spread was replaced with the crosshair moving around? So, if you are moving or stationary, standing straight up, crouching, prone, whatever the crosshair would be the same size. However, to do the same thing that spread does, the crosshair would move around. If you are walking at high speed the crosshair would be moving up and down, left and right. Whereever it was is where the projectile would go, and there would be no randomness or misunderstandings about where you were actually aiming. Like recoil, this would be something that the user could control more directly. With recoil you can compensate somewhat for it if you know how. With spread you can only compensate for it indirectly by reducing the randomness. With a moving crosshair, you would be able to adjust your aim to compensate for your stance or movement speed if you knew how, and there would be no "what? I had the crosshair centered on the other player, what happened?" kind of reactions.

Edit: It seems like some games, e.g. Battlefield 4, have scope sway, which is similar to this, but the scope sway is present along with spread. Also, for games where there is no crosshair or it can be disabled, the rendering of the weapon would have to realistically show that is was bobbing, which it seems to do in a fair amount of games already.

Thoughts? Comments? The only thing I can think of that might make this an issue is that having a moving object that the player constantly needs to track might be annoying or headache inducing for some, similar to motion blur effects.

Recoil is reaction between to masses departing each other, a small and a big one.

And a blast wave.

bullet mass is fraction of the gun. So the heavier the gun the smaller the bullet less recoil.

P90 and MP7 are solution to go for a high speed lighter bullet. You win les recoil and gain range.

Other solution are counter weight and muzzle brakes. KrissV out performs a Mp5 in full auto accuracy.

Barret .50 with muzzle brake is much more doable.

Big bullet more recoil heavier gun better recoil handling but less agile.

Spread is how you handling recoil and weapon stability and much more in RL but for game it would be to RPG ish.

Stress, hart beat, breathing, weapon mass. Your aim fidelity depends on weapon length. Try to keep a laser pointer steady.

Sway is natural but a short weapon has more high freq. sway then a long riffle. Which have a low freq. sway.

Because it more easy to handle small short weapon to different angle then a heavier long one.

Most rifles have barrel above center of mass so muzzle climb.

Most butt stock are below the barrel alignment so muzzle climb.

A M16 it is aligned so faster and accurate follow up shots on target.

This mean small short SMG will spray extreme.

A sniper rifle is accurate from point blank to distance in MOA but it is long so slow sway but lot less agile.

A bull pup sniper gain what agility but looses stability more high freq. sway

Recon sniper with 54kg equipment have M4 and sniper rifle and is not alone Spotter and some.

A SVU-AS make sense to. Shorter barrel although bull pup. More heavy ware out barrel. So high freq. less accurate sniper. But with full auto option. But with 7.62x54R a heavy recoil and limited mag. Suits urban DMR role best.

What I miss in games is this why have snipers sway. Why are LMG so slow.

everything has sway and Weight and blast power and length.

But some weapons have designer made smart choices or use solutions to reduce recoil and get more range.

Some weapons are just better then others.

BF4 uses the Pick up special weapons.

There is also a option to go a symmetrical warfare.

8 special forces vs 32 regular.

4spec + 8 regular + 8 indigious forces vs the same 4 + 8 + 8

To kill a special ops count as 4 kills.

special vs special count as one but non spec 1/4

So there are much more option to balance a FPS game.

Battlefield 4: This used projectile-based physics. Each weapon has a bullet speed and bullet gravity (not sure why they have gravity changing between firearms, should be constant unless some projectiles somehow have anti-gravity thrusters :-P).

Again, I've never actually fired a gun before (), so I might be wrong here... but if the guns are firing the bullets out of their barrels with different amounts of force (possibly because larger calibre bullets have more gunpowder in them?), wouldn't the bullet drop with different curves? Secondarily, wouldn't the different sizes/weights of different calibre of bullets for different guns also affect how gravity pulls on it?

Weight is dependent on the bullet type fired.

Force projected out of the gun barrel would be determined on the bullet type and the gun.

Right? So "gravity" varying per gun might actually make sense.

Not only have I never fired a gun before, but also I'm not very learned in physics, as you can probably tell.

but if the guns are firing the bullets out of their barrels with different amounts of force (possibly because larger calibre bullets have more gunpowder in them?), wouldn't the bullet drop with different curves? Secondarily, wouldn't the different sizes/weights of different calibre of bullets for different guns also affect how gravity pulls on it?

In an ideal, airless environment, acceleration due to gravity is independent of the mass of the object being accelerated, if I recall correctly. As a result, two bullets should fall at the same rate; different exit velocities, however, result in different ratios of horizontal movement to vertical, allowing a faster bullet to travel farther than a slower bullet before hitting the ground. A "gravity" value shouldn't be required for this, I believe.

However, aerodynamics (including air resistance) might have some effect; I honestly don't know whether it would be sufficiently significant to model, however, and bow to anyone with greater knowledge than I on this matter. (Air resistance, for example, should be dependant largely on the size, shape and material of the projectile, I believe, so a larger bullet should experience slightly higher resistance than a smaller bullet of the same material.)

That said, I could see "gravity" being a useful "property" of bullets to have if one wants a unified system for all projectiles, including rocket-propelled projectiles, which might be modelled at "zero-gravity bullets".

I hate view swim in video games. It's pretty much the only option for sniper rifles, I suppose, but I despised it in Deus Ex and every game since then that features it. If you're telling me that I can't hold my gun straight due to fatigue or stance or incompetence, tell me that by having the gun move, not my eye.

Spread is used to emulate stability of your aim.

Yes, it is and I don't get these self-important Nazis. As if you insulted someones real-world aiming skill by saying this.It is used to emulate the stability of your aim AS WELL AS many other inconsistencies in determining the bullet path. For game development purposes it's the correct observation. And no, you don't need to spend your life hoarding firearms or listening to people that did just so you can design a mere game where shooting makes sense and is fun.

center of mass, humidity, gun powder, muzzle break...

I feel like the thread has drifted far away from actual game design into some theoretical gun discussion where you impress people by re-iterating Wikipedia articles you just read. It's beyond being even a resource for a pure gun firing simulation.