[QoL] Polishing Movement & Gunplay Mechanics

I want to talk about a Planetside 2's gunplay mechanics & flow and what I think would help in this department. Planetside 2's gunplay is solid at it's core but it still feels slow, unresponsive, and clunky. I think there are a lot of room for improvement. There's a lot of small adjustments, tweaks, and polishing that can be done that could really take it a step further and make it really feel as smooth as other modern shooters.

I also posted this on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/2g7nlk/qol_polishing_movement_gunplay_mechanics/

SPRINTING RULES:

• CONTINUED/RESUMED SPRINTING:
  • If I'm already sprinting and I execute an action (shooting, throwing a grenade, using med-gun, using repair tool, knifing, throwing down ammo, etc), I should continue sprinting once that action is complete....as long as I'm still holding down the sprint button. Example: If I'm sprinting and I quickly tap the fire button, I should let off 1 or 2 bullets (depending on how long i held down the fire button) then continue sprinting right afterwards.

• INPUT BUFFER FOR SPRINTING:
  • If I'm not already sprinting & I execute an action (shooting, using med/repair tool, placing objects) and I press or hold the sprint button while that action is taking place then I should begin to sprint after that action has been completed.

• SPRINT TO ADS INTERRUPTION:
  • If I'm sprinting, tapping the ADS button should not interrupt sprinting as long as I'm holding down the sprint button. However, HOLDING down the ADS button (whether using toggle sprint or not) while sprinting should interrupt sprinting for as long as I'm holding down the ADS button - when I release the ADS button, I should resume sprinting as long as I'm still holding down the sprint button.

• • Tapping the ADS button should interrupt sprinting, if I'm not holding down the sprint button, and should then bring up my sights.

• ADS TO SPRINT INTERRUPTION:
  • Sprinting should cancel me out of ADS & I should immediately start sprinting.

CoF RULES:

• When transitioning from hipfire to ADS while firing, the CoF should switch from the hipfire CoF to the ADS CoF. As of right now, if you hipfire then switch to your sights then your accuracy will not increase. Actually, the reverse happens...you still have the same accuracy as hipfiring. The only way to prevent this is to stop/pause shooting then start firing again. This causes all sorts of issues and is probably one of the main reasons for perceived "hit detection/registration" because most people dont know that it works like this.

*I also think the CoF weirdness is one of the main reasons why people think there's hit detection/registration issues. I mean, there are but this is probably amplifying the problem 10 fold. If we had some kind of indicator to let us know that the CoF is not the same then it would help out alot*

STRAFING WHILE ADS:

• One major issue I have with the ADS straffing in the game is how the speed varies depending on the gun that you equipped, even if it's within the same weapon class, and how the game does a horrible job at translating this to the player. The weapon descriptions dont mention the strafe speed change at all for most weapons and there isn't a slot for it in the stats. If a weapon increases or decreases strafing speed then it needs to be mentioned somewhere; both in the description and the stats.

MISC:

• When using an ability such as placing ammo or placing a regeneration field, it always reverts back to your primary weapon instead of the last weapon you had equipped. This should be changed to revert back to your last weapon equipped.

WEAPON EQUIP/ADS ANIMATIONS:

• This is the last thing I want to touch on but it's one of the most important. The weapon switching & ADS transition animations have looked janky since release (and I think since beta). They just do not look smooth at all and they are borderline placeholder in terms of quality. These animations need a polish pass badly because the way that they are now, makes the game look and feel like an alpha and not a LIVE game. A huge part of making gunplay feel great is feedback and when it's janky and not smooth then it really stands out and hurts the overall feel of the game.

Wow this explains a lot. Thanks for this information!

Does the CoF penalty apply if you start firing after right click but before fully entering in ADS mode? Does higher latency in large battles mean you have to wait for a bit longer before starting to shoot after entering ADS?

Yep the penalty applies even if you start firing right after a right click. You have to wait until you are FULLY in ADS mode and even then, the animation finishes quicker than the CoF mode change.

They need to either get rid of it or tighten up the thresholds and match up the animation.

Oh crap, that actually does explain why i lose in firefights sometimes.

VERY interesting!

Thank you for informing me of this. Could you possibly give a source on this? Sounds like a pretty serious oversight.

That pretty much fits every core of the game. Meta, Weapon design, bugs, controls, peripheral comparability, engine stability - you name and the above quote can generally describe it some where.


Other than that I read your post 100% and these are all must haves and pretty much EXPECTED of them to "Fix", as that's what most of these issues are - damaged or incomplete implementations.
The ADS bug has ALWAYS bugged me and I found it amazingly beneficial when I found out about. Having to stop, freeze, let the animation come to a complete cycle stop and THEN ADS to get the shots off (Without shift) makes a world of difference.

Sprint controls - yes totally. Tired of my shift button being an active toggle that only works when I'm literally doing nothing else.

Equipment always reverting to primary after "USE" of an Expendable item - YUP. Annoying as hell! Please fix?

Strafing While ADS - I must say I'm not sure if I ever noticed this. Since I only play two classes regularly (HA and Medic) I guess I've just not been exposed enough to different weapon classes to notice my Strafe speeds changing while ADS. Odd.
Why is that even there? Why does the weapon equipped even effect your Strafe Speed?
If it's a bigger/meaner weapon, it'd make sense to effect your Over All speed, maybe even Accel and Decel... but only strafe? WTF?
And because of how one compensates for the latency, that means some weapons are not as good in avoidance when spamming ADAD i bet...


Good post, would spam at the devs again in about a week.

Here's some video examples:

Here is a test I just did for this thread in the VR Room:


Here it is happening on LIVE because I started shooting before it went into "Full ADS Mode" (Disregard the 2nd part of the video):

Sad but very true :/

There's a HUGE difference between how fast you're able to move while scoped when using certain weapons vs others. Take the T1 Cycler & NS-11A for example. The T1 is locked to a snail's pace while the NS-11A allows you to slide around like it's nothing. Shotguns, yes shotguns, move closer to the NS-11A's speed and allows you to move around a lot more than most assault rifles.

I have the same logic as you when it comes to the strafe speed for weapons. Especially when you bring latency into the equation and how that affects firefights (especially 1v1's). Some people tend to slide around and warp a bit more and I'm inclined to see it as an unfair advantage when you're using the same weapon types because of the latency/warping issues. I think they should normalize the strafing speed for most weapons, if not all. Didnt want to dive too deep into that because that's enough for a completely different thread and will bring up back n forth debates rather than focusing on QoL stuff. But thanks for confirming I'm not crazy & alone in thinking like this

Christ that's nuts! This explains quite a bit, and I'll start taking this into account.

Thanks :3

+1 A precise list of clearly-actionable things which would take the game in a positive direction. Well done, sir.

Agreed with everything, except for this:

So, if you're sprinting, but wanted to ADS, you'd have a delay after the pressing RMB and before the weapon sights actually coming up. That would make it more clunky, not less clunky. Accidentally tapping a button is an error, I don't see why it shouldn't be punished.

I never freaking knew.....all that wasted raging. well dang, thanks OP

All I'm saying is that if you're holding down shift and you ADS while still holding shift then it shouldnt ADS unless you hold the ADS button also. That way, if you accidentally tap ADS while sprinting then it doesnt stop you from sprinting and put you into ADS.

I think you might have misunderstood what I was saying there.

I understood perfectly. You want the ADS button to not work unless you're holding it. This means that when you do press it, game will have to wait to check if you're holding it, or if it was an accidental press.

Let's say the threshold for accidental press is 0.2 sec. So if you accidentally press ADS button while sprinting, nothing will happen.
But when you will actually want to ADS while sprinting, you will have a 0.2 sec delay before you actually ADS. I don't want this. This is the opposite of having a responsive combat movement system.

That sounds very annoying. Especially in a game where quick reactions make the difference between winning and losing a fight. Would probably be easier for all involved if people learned not to randomly hit the ADS button.

All this time all of it was explained in my Weapon Mechanics Guide, now reworked into Gunplay Guide. You guys really should RTFM

What I'm describing is already implemented in Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 and it works perfectly fine there without any delay. If you want to see how it works in a game now, then just try it out in either BF3 or BF4 or even COD. Most modern shooters have it like this.

It doesnt have to do any additional checking for "accidental presses" because tapping the ADS button while also holding sprint would always be seen as an accident and holding down the ADS button will always be seen as intentional. If you're sprinting and you let go of the sprint button and tap the ADS button then it will zoom into your sights with no problem. There wont be any delay at all...it'll work the same way as the current "Hold to zoom" option works now.

This mostly applies for people who dont use "sprint toggle" and are holding the sprint button in order to run. I think you're missing out on the prerequisite of having to hold down the shift button in the 1st place.

Good thread .... feel like a real dumb*** now for not thinking to make a bigger issue of these problems sooner

they really have broken the game for me a few times

Well I probably didnt explain it correctly or thoroughly enough since a couple of people seem to be confused about what I meant. So here's a video I made to show & explain how it happens in BF4 and how I think it should work:

That actually does make a lot of sense.