first off, shakiness due to not enough kills is pointless. ussually most "realistic" games tend to have the first shot or two go almost exactly where you shoot. the spray area increases as you shoot to simulate recoil action of the gun NOT shakiness of the player''s skill. personally i hate the way most "realistic" games handle targetting. while running, accuracy will drop due to body movement, but some games drop it WAY too much (ie cs with its every changing randomness). sof and sof2 are more forgiving allowing the skill of the player to account for more.

bullet locations mattering? this has been done since action quake (ie a quake1 mod).

in the real world, any shot to the face, leg, chest (without armour, since most shots would hit a lung, heart, or stomach thus be very devestating without immediate medical attention. the person would not be able to fight) is pretty much fatal if on the battle ground. especially if an artery is hit. you might as well shoot yoruself, since you wont stop the bleeding yourself. it requires ppl to hold the wound open, and to clamp the artery. the pain the person feels is immense, and there is no way he could bandage it, let alone limp or even crawl.

considering the player is getting shaky aim just standing still, it would seem that he would not even be able to fight after a single hit from a bullet. a rifle shot that hits bone would kill (or blackout) the target due to the shock (and possible shattering of the bone).

to me, any execess screwing with aim (ie like in cs) is to allow beginners more of a chance. it lets the game be played like at a casino where its a roll of the dice.

the main reason i use cs as the bad example is due to the constant changing of the guns to be less accurate (a clear shot to the chest is registered as headshot, quite pathetic). it causes the player to aim at the feet since guns tend to recoil up. the entire "realistc" aiming is difficult. it is very frusterating to miss because of some randomness in the gun. games are for fun, not to mimic reality. though most "realsitic" games cant even do that.

face it sharp shooters trained in the military could hit targets while standing with ease. aa single handgun can take anyone out with a single head shot, or double tap to the chest (assuming no body armour). with body armour the target would be stunned (quite serverly) as well as fall down. the target may even blackout for a few seconds. in attempts to model the real world, most "realistic" games overdo the accuracy problem and underdo the damage. i understand the damage reduction for longer matches, but i dont understand the accuracy problems.

play rainbow six, sum of all fears, ghost recon which are all considered as combat simulators with itter realism. they dont have th accuracy problems. instead they only deal with recoil of the gun, and running (though crouch vs standing vs prone is different, standing does not reduce accuracy to a degree as in other games, and is quite accetable) as it should be. i enjoy them, and do quite well. at cs, i consistently miss targets do to shoddy collisiden detection and too much randomness in the guns. i still do well if i play the game as its mean to be played (ie slow movement, strategic gaurding, etc). unfirtunatly too many players play the game as a team deathmatch thus i am left with no squad against multiple targets. leaving me high and dry trying to complete the map objective.

quote: Original post by terminate


Being shot in the eye and getting your vision decreased would be real annoying. This would be particularly annoying if you were decent and had to go half-blind for half the game after getting hit with a freak shot.

Actually that sounds really cool. I think maybe what you are missing is that this would be a major feature and playing with injury would be one of the major skills, and would happen frequently.

Imagine somebody throws a grenade at your group, once of you dies, one of you is limping, and one has fuzzy vision. It would add a lot of urgency and variety I think.

If you are so good, just don''t get hit! The game would be about minimizing damage and damaging situations, and dealing with damage. I think you have to imagine it in the proper context. Yes it would be dumb if you were playing Quake and randomly one out of every 50 times you got hit you went blind. That *would* just be annoying. But if the game is based in part on this injury models it wouldn''t be annoying, dealing with it would be fun and part of the point.

quote: Original post by munkie
I still see no sense in artificially simulating shaky aim in the game. Why not simply leave this to the player? If the player can keep his cool during a scary/nerve-wrecking/tense situation in the game, then good for him. If not, then let the twitchy hands be the fault of his own wits. The game should respond to a player''s own skill with the mouse, it shouldn''t force it, or alter it, on him.

Well, the answer is that it''s just a game! When playing a FPS you have no chance of actually getting killed. If you''ve lost blood in the game you aren''t turning white in real life. Your aim isn''t going to shake much, its a computer game!

Deus Ex is a good example of this. The sniper scope wanders a bit and you have to compensate. Obviously if the player had full control it wouldn''t wander at all.

Something I *would* avoid is having shots fly at a different location from where the crosshairs was. (Other than a predictable way like sinking or bouncing off walls) If someone has the crosshairs over the target and fires they should hit it. I think it is much better to move the hairs around due to recoil or shakiness than to simply make bullets fly off-aim. If I see that the target is pointing someplace and I press the button, I would feel cheated if I totally missed.

Whereas if the crosshairs are moving, I can see that my timing is bad and that I shot when they had wandered a bit. Then I know exactly why I missed and how I can do better next time.

The "leave it up to the player" argument doesn''t really work out because a mouse is very different than a gun. A mouse has no recoil, a mouse is basically weightless compared to a gun and generally players have a perfectly accurate crosshair in the middle of their screen. Shaky aim isn''t really a bad feature (even though I think Deus Ex over does it a little at lower levels.) I think any realistic or semi-realistic FPS should have some recoil effects. Once again, it''s not for every game, but it works in a lot of them.

try SoFII double Helix!
its a game with 30 or more goals in the body. Its called the Ghouls-engine orsomething like that, its really good.

I think Anon''s idea is hitting a bit closer to practicality.

It''s downright unfair for the game to completely tinker around with your aim. Like I said before, if you have steady hands, it''s your right to be able to shoot.

Of course the mouse isn''t a gun, but it''s the only way for you to interface with the game. So the gun is merely a portal for your hands to move the gun. Hands = Mouse. Steady hands = steady mouse = steady aim.

But the "recoil" factor is good idea, although it has been done in numerous games. For instance, in Quake 2, the machine gun would kick back up into the air, and you have to compensate by lowering your aim as you shot. Things like this work. But if I wanted to rail an enemy, and the game was forcing my aim to be bad, I would be pissed, and probably would toss out the game.

I think the best way to add a challenge is by adding drawbacks to the guns themselves, not your player. YOU are the player. The game shouldn''t dictate how good a player YOU are at the particular game, by limiting your ability to aim!

i think that the topic on recoil of the gun will fade away once the popularity of force feedback mice has risen. with forcefeedback you can send the force of the recoil straight to the player at let them deal with it rather then simulate it.

Break out of the paradigm!

FPSs are typically DIRECT point-and-shoot affairs.

Imagine INDIRECT FPSs premised on demo-guy (plant bomb and run) gameplay.

Example, each player would exist rocky area either side of a ravine, each player would have control of an artifact(/s) that they could move to any new location they want, and each player would have access to one fixed mortar. The aim would be to keep your artifact out of harm''s way WHILE setting up your own mortar on a timed/instant release to attack your opponent''s artifact.

I''ve always thought the idea of an artificial crosshair painting the exact location of your aim was pretty retarded. Do I still use it? Yeah. Heh heh.

But seriously, if you wanted to simulate skill more, remove the crosshair. Don''t impose some artificial randomness that would frustrate the players, just remove the crutch and force the players to actually get better themselves. That way their frustration would be entirely their fault. Do you know how much harder it is to hit things without the crosshair? Turn it off sometime in your favorite FPS and see.

Leave the crosshair for the sniper rifle view.

Just a thought.

Take care.

Florida, USA
RTS Engine in Development
http://www.knology.net/~heaven
Jesus is LORD!

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
i think that the topic on recoil of the gun will fade away once the popularity of force feedback mice has risen. with forcefeedback you can send the force of the recoil straight to the player at let them deal with it rather then simulate it.

I doubt force feedback will catch on in multiplayer, simply because not using it would provide an advantage. People will go *extremely* far to get an advantage. For instance, at a large LAN party the top players in the Quake III tournament all had their graphics tweaked so that the walls had no noticeable texture, the gun models were gone, and just about any other "distraction" was gone in an effort to make sure that the opposing players were extremely conspicuous against the environment. Personally, I think it''s sort of cheating in a sense, but the point is that player''s will go extremely far in order to maximize their advantage even if it detracts from the overall quality of the game.

----------------------------------------
"Before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
Then, when you do criticize them, you will be a mile away and have their shoes." -- Deep Thoughts
"If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it''s done." - Scott Adams
FaceHat Software -- Wear the hat.