Why is it so hard to hit anything?

I've never known a game be so difficult to hit a target. I'm getting toasted with ease by everyone and I cant get any hits on a damned thing - even if the guy is right in front of me I fire maybe hit twice out of 10 bullets and I die in 2 hits while the guy is running .

Playing today for an hour I scored 3 kills. My KD ratio is around 150 deaths to 22 kills. I also find it very tough to know who is enemy and who is friend as the text is too small and friendlies don't always have a tag over their heads. By the time I've hit Q i'm already dead.

This game looks like fun but I just cant seem to play it - I wish I knew what I was doing wrong. I've seen online gameplay videos and I seem to be doing everything those uber players are doing but I guess I'm out of sync or something...

At least I can play a medic or engineer I guess since I have zero aim for some reason.

I guess you're a new player? Well the first thing you need to do is learn the lay of the land. Try playing in bio labs for a while, they are more or less all the same inside. Also check your frame rate, you should be able to hit Alt-F to see it in the lower left corner. PS2 is famously unoptimized so you may be having framerate issues. And finally, try practicing in the VR Training with different guns and attachments to see what works best for you. Above all though, aim for the head!

i sucked at first also but practice makes perfect. especially as a infiltrator i sucked so much at first. but after a while i got better so eventually your aim will get better and you get used to the mechanics of the game. Don't let this discourage you. have fun. spend some time in vr training room and practice shooting at the npcs. and with enemies go to options and change the colors of your enemies. so NC would be yellow on the tag and TR would be red. pm me if you wanna know anything else i can help you out. anything for a new player

Are you using the iron sights beyond 10 meters?

Hmm, I know this. I'll suck too at shooting. I'll be a lot better on long range maps like amerish. To best decide if its enemy or not look at the helmets. Go to vr and look at them. If all fail get som busters on a max. I'll hit with them

Are you playing TR?
If so, you must learn, not to aim at the enemy, for that would be impossible to hit, instead realize there is no enemy, and aim where they are not.

There's nothing that comes more with practice than good aim...keep trying.
About confusing friendly with foe - shouldn't happen, unless it's a friendly with ridiculous camo.
Short range: You see faction color (or notice something faction specific about the player), and know whether he's friend or foe.
Medium range: You see labels above the heads, so you know whether they're friends or foes.
Long range: no labels, but you got the time to press Q.

Just like IRL, Some people just aren't cut out for the trenches.

Find your niche, Help your empire the best you can and enjoy yourself.

Do you play competitive fps games other than this.

I had never played a multiplayer fps game outside of Perfect Dark back on the N64 with a couple of mates before playing this and when I started I sucked also. My kill - deaths was probably worse than yours and coupled with the fact I had never played a fps game at all on PC before I sucked bad.

Bottom line just keep practicing, it will come. You probably won't be a pro gamer but you will get more than good enough to hold your own against most players which is where I feel I am now... holding my own. No dirty jokes please

There are a few things to keep in mind..

1) at first, blow off K/D.. just learn the mechanics. And there are some roles (especially Medic) where your K/D will never look good. Worry about K/D later.. and if your stats are THAT important to you.. create a new toon after you know the game well.
2) full auto with most of the guns you can shoot is very difficult indeed, since there is a random horizontal recoil component that makes them very hard to adjust when firing full auto. Quality time in the VR will help you see which guns do this. Try to engage at distance and use controlled bursts for a while. And do your engaging from corners or crests of hilss where you can peek-a-boo your targets. And before peek-a-boo-ing.. listen for suppressive fire on that corner/hill.. and look for tracers. If you hear it/see it, find another place to look out or expect to get an express ticket to the respawn.
3) In CQB, your best friend is either an SMG or a shotgun or a short distance LMG as heavy. You want damage at maximum when close to your opponents. Sometimes as medic or engy I'll travel with an assault rifle or long distance carbine through close quarters areas.. and when I do that I die a lot to folks with shorter ranged higher damage weapons.. When that happens I'll switch to shotgun on respawn. In this game, your death should be an indication of what to do on your next respawn .
4) most folks who excel at this game are aiming for headshots close up.. When I run through a base I always try to keep my sights at head level.. the chances for head shots go up tremendously when doing that.. and since there are always multiple folks you are facing, engagement time for a single target must be as low as possible. A semi-auto shotties up close will down targets REAL fast with headshots. It takes practice, but its well worth it.
5) hang with your faction mates. Multiple guns firing at a single target are better than just you against 3. You won't get all the kills.. but you'll stay alive and contribute to winning.. and that is where this game shines the most.

Out of curiosity, what kind of framerate are you having? If you're playing with below 20, you'll have a pretty hard time hitting things (though with practice, you can still do well even with subpar performance). Also, latency (internet "lag") can certainly affect hit detection, etc.

One thing that might be fun would be to do some vehicle (particularly MBT) play. Precision isn't as key, and if you can be the second gunner for an experienced player's tank, you won't have to worry too much about dying.

But as to your question... any number of things could make it hard to hit things. You could try fiddling with the sensitivities to find settings that better suit you. And as control-z mentioned, practice in the VR to figure out what guns/attachments fit you best. The 3 factions have slightly different mechanics, so you might just be in the wrong faction.

What class are you playing? Also what faction?

When I started, I started out using the infiltrator. It helps to learn how to hit I guess. Though, I used a crappy machine to play with low FPS(like ~10). I was still able to get .6KDR after a few thousand kills.
If anything, I'd only play it for a very short while until you get a good grasp on what is going on around you. Then switch to something more useful as the rifles really suck bad IMO.

Then I'd switch over to an engineer killing, not being a pet to some MAX.... Put some ammo down, repair when needed, and kill. You wont run out of ammo and you'll get a decent amount of certs. Then I would try other classes to see which you really like.
Also, put in at least 1-11 certs into nanoweave armor on whatever class you're playing, or the FLAK if you seem to die from explosives more often.

I would say, by then, you'll be able to kill people and not feel like you're now.

A lot of this game isn't really tailored to your play style. I don't know what your play style is... it's something you have to discover and then exploit. What I mean is... there is something in this game that will suit you well and you'll be great at but the rest of the game you'll find to be frustrating or just not your style... and that's OK; it's not a flaw of the game or a problem with your style. You just have to figure out what works well for you and is a lot of fun. Maybe you're better with sniper rifles or shotguns or tanks with big splash damage or a dedicated driver or whatever. You gotta spend some time using each weapon, class, vehicle, and really learn what you like to play and what just feels right. There's a lot of different roles you can play with out necessarily having super twitch reaction or having uber aim. If you are getting frustrated then switch it up.

You may find you really love, and are good at, base defense. With an ENG you can unlock anti infantry mines. You can put scout radar on your Flash ATV which everyone in the range of the ATV can utilize. It's more about setting up a good defense, keeping your mines up when they go off, keeping generators repaired, keeping a radar up all the time. A lot of guys really appriciate these things, it helps them do what they do even better, and you are a valuable asset to your team without even shooting your gun. It's not all about KDR and putting bullets into bad guys.

I totally sucked when I first started. I mean you are describing my experience to a T. I still run into plenty of ppl who kill me so fast, I get 1 or 3 hits on at most, and I think "NO F'N WAAAY!" However I have gotten a LOT better. It's all atributed to practice. Don't think you're going to unlock some gun and be like "oh man THIS was the problem ... I just needed this gun!" Now you may find one that really fits your play style and it will be noticably better but don't expect a miracle here.

Try the different factions. I honestly wished I had tried VS first and not spent so many months playing TR. The default VS guns just feel so ... right. They aren't better ... they just... feel better in my hands. Hard to describe but it goes back to your play style. You may find the NC weapons really suit you well.

Sometimes the names on friendlies can even lag and not show up instantly. I can't read them anyways... like you... the text is too damn small. The little triangle or dorrito SHOULD appear even before their name BUT not every time... sometimes that is lagged too. Honestly just shoot first and figure out who's frendly later; if you see no triangle then shoot. Again you'll just get better at this. Some of the cammos really suck; meaning if there's a VS cammo that has some blue in it... dude looks NC to me at a distance and likely will get a few rounds in him before I figure it out =) Don't rely on Q to spot your enemies... just shoot... soon as you see the red crossed out circle stop and appologize over proximity or /say. Eventually you'll just be better at identifying the subtle, faction specific, differences. Be it colors or shapes of ESFs and MBTs... there are some subtle ques.

Miliseconds count in this game.... don't waste time hitting Q... trying to figure out who's friendly... your goal is to shoot first. He who shoots first is 90% to winning the engagement. It's not a garuntee but it's pretty rare that the guy who fired last actually wins. Pump action shot guns and dumb fire rocket launchers are an exception here... as is skill =)

Oh and don't discount the ENG and Medic dude. Many great players are medics. Plenty of great players are ENG. Again it's not always all about KDR and pewpewpew the bad guys.

Start here:

Also spend some time just enjoying the game, learning the maps, and how the different facilities work. I can't remember how many weeks it took for me to figure out all the damn bio labs. They are all a LITTLE different... it takes a while to learn where the teleporters are... where the jump pads are... what's the quickest way from where you are now to get inside the bio lab; is it the jump pad or the teleporter?

Indar and Essamir are pretty easy continents to navigate. They are wide open and planty of ways to get from one base to another. Amerish... just stick to the roads man. Don't think you are going to be clever and find a short cut. You'll just waste more time trying to get over some stupid ridge then if you'd just stuck to the road. I'd say fly from point to point but lets not add more frustration by trying to learn flying right now =)

Spend some time as a gunner. Let them do the driving.. the navigating... figuring out where to go next. Just run their gun and put the pointy things in the bad guys. Watch the map and see where they are going. I've learned lots of little short cuts and hiding spots just running guns on other good drivers vehicles. Plus you are making their vehicle more effective. A vehicle with every gun manned can be a potent force in this game... you running that gun is an important part of that!

I'm TR, I've tried all the classes and none of them seem to be great for me shooting wise although as I said you still contribute quite a bit healing and repairing. I used to play online shooters all the time like Half Life 2 (played that for years) but I've gone a long time now without playing any because of headache issues. Now armed with glasses its not as bad. I'll try that VR practice. As for my frames - I loaded up the game on my three monitors and it was a slideshow. Tried it on low settings with three monitors and the fps are passable but you cant see the minimap well in three monitor mode. I use just the middle one now on medium settings and get ok rates. I'm guessing a consistent 60fps will help aim a lot. I didn't know you could change the team colours - I'll have to try that.

Maybe you have bad fps, or you're just new and it'll take some time to get used. Press Alt+F and it will show you near the minimap your fps. If it's lower than 20 it's really hard to aim.

What kind of frames per second are you getting? Having a higher fps and less lag makes it much easier to hit targets.

OP, what's your FPS? Edit: Tommyp beat me to it.