Cone of Fire?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Rovertoo, Sep 28, 2014.

  1. Inex

    So if we make it both more and less like Borderlands, we'll be set!

    Or better yet: instead of having recoil just be a screen jitter that you compensate for with your mouse, SOE can hire some big guy to repeatedly punch you in the shoulder whenever you fire your primary.
  2. Aaren

    :rolleyes:

    What this person said.
  3. patrykK1028

    Is there ADS CoF in Battlefields, CoDs or ARMAs?
  4. Zotamedu

    The very nature of the game cannot survive if it is too competitive. The point of the game is large battles. If you make it too competitive, you lose the more casual players and when you lose too much of your player base, you lose the large battles. Without that, the game will die. You might not find it desirable but when considering game design and balance, it is in fact highly desirable.

    Recoil is not a very practical mechanic to use as a skill equalizer. The vertical part can be countered. CS and some other competitive FPS has this. The recoil increases the skill ceiling and punishes newer players. Like strafe jumping and power up timing punishes new players in Quake Live, a game with no recoil and no real CoF. It's also a game that was slowly dying because it only attracted a small community of a couple of hundred hardcore players. They recently made it a lot more casual and released it on steam in order not to have the game die out completely.

    For recoil to fully fulfil the same role as CoF, you need to introduce a bit of random horizontal recoil and at that point, you are basically doing the same thing. PS2 has both random horizontal recoil and CoF because it gives the devs more variables to balance guns around and make them fit different niches.

    Another point that is mentioned above is range compression. By regulating the CoF, you can quite easily manage to range of a gun. The Vulcan is a great example. They nerfed the range by only increasing CoF and CoF bloom. How would to change it to get the same effect? The only other way would be to change a lot of damage modifiers and damage drop off. So it would lose a lot of damage at range and then increase the resistance against infantry greatly. Something like CoF is needed to balance the short range guns. The thing that makes most close range guns useless at longer ranges is the CoF. Without CoF, how would you balance the different LMGs?

    So CoF is a very important mechanic in modern games. If you don't like it, then there are some old school shooters out there for you to play instead. Quake Live recently launched on Steam.
  5. Zotamedu

    No there are many different factors that affect the size of the player base. Making it more hardcore will not really help the population because it's guaranteed to scare off any new players pretty much instantly. Go play some tournament level Quake and then return with your experience. Did it make you want to play the game more?

    You are highly exaggerating the effect. It's an equalizer, it is not a replacement for skill. There are also many more skills than twitch shooting in this game. Small arena shooters reward twitch reflexes and accuracy. This game has much more focus on positioning and large scale tactics. You are not fighting in a small flat and closed map.
  6. Aaren

    There is still a difference between Planetside becoming a twitch shooter and loosing all teamplay and simply having more accurate guns.

    Look at ARMA. You routinely have engagements out to 300m with regular infantry, yet the game is still heavily reliant on tactics over twitch 360 no scopes.

    I can't be the only one who gets a little tired of people constantly thinking in terms of either 'casual' or 'hardcore'. As though the two arn't simply tropes of mechanics that can be freely intermingled for a more interesting and divergent experience.
    • Up x 4
  7. Inex

    Following that thought, you could get an even better game by removing the randomness of recoil entirely.

    ADS + COF creates a good hybrid system. You have the same lack of control when going full auto, but you don't shake the player's screen like an epileptic seizure, and the recoil is a more manageable straight line mouse drag instead of "Just give up and stop firing to reset your aim".
  8. Moody One


    I haven't played a CoD since MW 1 so I have no idea there but all the Battlefield titles have CoF.

    ARMA on the other hand has no COF
  9. Aaren


    Epileptic seizures is precisely how I would describe the current recoil and CoF values - at least for the TR arsenal. I'm not suggesting that Recoil and CoF should never go hand in hand. Simply that the blend in Planetside's current build - feels needlessly frustrating to master.

    It bugs me when in a game - bullets spread randomly due to CoF in a way that I simply cannot practise or step up my game to improve. In the real world - the divergence of bullets leaving a rifled barrel is minimal - 2.5° at the most. Yet a lot of games have CoF that get's far beyond this point - to where you'd almost feel you were trying to shoot ball bearings instead of spitzers.

    I maintain that unless you're going for crazy, off-the-wall gameplay (Like Borderlands) - Then:
    1. CoF belongs on hipfire to simulate the difficulty of controlling recoil with your wrists.
    2. But recoil should be the main problem in ADS to compensate for the narrowed feild of view and the fact that you now have a shoulder to brace against.
    Currently PSide does have different ADS and hipfire cones of fire - but the ADS one still feels way waay too wide on nearly every weapon in my opinion.
    Random recoil is acceptable as a means of trying to level the playerfeild - but there is a problem if I can't stand still, switch to semi and hit moving targets reliably out at 100m+ with a combat rifle.
    • Up x 1
  10. Jaedrik

    You contradict yourself. For, you say that a game's nature must die if it be 'too' competitive, then you state a game that is both competitive and survives to this day, namely Quake Live. Granted, there are degrees of death and competitiveness, but it is odd to suggest that an arbitrary degree be the threshold for one or the other. As another example, let us point to Melee, the greatest of the Smash Bros. games, as even the casual acknowledge. It is, by many accounts, 'too hard' or 'too competitive', and yet it has survived for 13 years, and sold millions. Even further, it has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few years, and looks to do so well into the future even through the coming schism that is Smash 4. So, it is inconsequential to distinguish that which is 'too' competitive, since there seems to be no criteria that would make a game both too competitive and not survive.

    Again, a false dichotomy is supposed between casual and competitive. Fortunately, I have expounded on this subject previously.

    ---

    (There is a custom filter on the site it was posted on, so, uh, stuff like Touch Football means 'hardcore'.)
    "One does not simply become competitive. Competitive and casual is a false dichotomy. It is a sliding scale with boundaries and goals. We must refer to so many abstract notions such as skill ceiling, curves, make graphs to visualize what we mean, and so on.

    What would motivate a casual player to improve himself? Presumably, a desire to defeat superior opponents, or to improve himself. Yet, in that very statement we see that equality is an irreconcilable sentiment to competition, for without inequality there would be no superior opponent.
    For the sake of improvement, one must measure himself to the inequality.
    One must acknowledge the inequality. It is inevitable.

    The higher the skill ceiling of a game, generally, the larger the gaps between levels of players.
    The lower the skill ceiling of a game, generally, the smaller the gaps and the less frequently they appear.
    When the scale changes, when the scope of knowledge about a game increases, ranges that were slight curves beforehand become much flatter. Whence one views what could happen, and what ought happen, compared to what does happen, the gaps become readily apparent.
    In this way we say that the gap between certain players is distinct. It is clearly definable. In games with lower skill ceilings, it is more difficult for an individual, who is putting forth effort to improve himself, to actually improve himself. It is more difficult to observe what they ought improve on, what skills they should practice, what they should expand on.

    Then what of the people who do not have the same level of passion to do whatever it takes to improve themselves? Why ought those more passionate to improve themselves be hobbled so that those who put forth less effort would for longer enjoy the fantasy that they are decent players, where those that put forth the effort will still beat them save a smaller gap between them? Surely, there is no place in noble thought for appeasing this jealousy, this arrogant baseness. Being a generalization, it is the general nature of their plight. They are not genuine in their intention to improve themselves. For we have those that clearly stood above the rest, and it is inevitably so. Those of less skill and effort and passion will, no matter the game, always be edged out by those who have more.

    It might seem cruel, but it is the natural and inexorable implication of human action. I assure you that it is not cruel, it is noble and just that equality is not part of the natural law, for otherwise there would exist no differences among mankind at all.

    If a game designer be magnanimous, there is no other choice other than to design a game with a high skill ceiling if his intention be to provide fun for both the casual and Touch Football audiences.

    Now, the only other perspective that can be taken is this: the core mechanics and basic mastery of skills which everything else builds off of ought not be difficult to learn.

    However, if basic is an absolute term, then it cannot be set at an arbitrary percent of the various techniques of a given game. As for what other absolute it could be set at, I am confounded, since there seems none. If basic be an absolutely relative term (hon hon hon, it seems an oxywacky guy already!) then how can we know on any basis ever that any distinction we make is reliable in the slightest, are we not groping in the dark for illusory absolutes? There is a third way. That which is a basic skill seems relative to each level. Put another way it means the techniques and skills that clearly distinguish one level from another are the basics of that level. The more subtle things we can put aside as not as immediately integral to the upward journey of progress.

    One cannot see that which they have no knowledge of. One cannot perceive or conceive of those who are of a higher skill level without the observation of them. Therefore, for those who do not observe the skill levels which are outside their limited scope are stunted in the fact that they do not know the capacity of the game, in that they have no canon, no measuring rod, no saint, no lodestar. But, those that do not observe higher skill levels are ultimately unconcerned with it, for it cannot enter into their consideration except by deliberate abstraction and intense analysis, therefore it is said that the segregation of casuals and Touch Football players is both viable and admirable. It is not the sole intention of matchmaking, however. That might be a discussion for another time.

    With the above two facts, it is plain that 'casual' is a subjective term, but also normative in that it implies a standard. That is, the distinction between casual and Touch Football is found within the observer who has for his object another player. Casual is generally those who are in the lowest known skill range. A Touch Football player is to the observer generally he who is in the highest known skill range.

    It is shown, in the above, that designing for casual and Touch Football players can be done at the same time, and it is a false dichotomy to suppose that one cannot cater to both. Further, it has been proven that equality is not part of the natural law, and the nobility of it in the positive law was called into question. Lastly, it was demonstrated that there are multiple levels of skill, each of which have their own entrance requirements."

    ---

    I admit, the analogies used above are more difficult to apply to MMO type games, since there is no skill based matchmaking to segregate the two fields neatly. This is why it is imperative we further develop games with in the game, the most notable of the absent ones being the infrastructural role generated by the ANT further resource revamps. Human action dictates that one will choose that which benefits them most, subjectively, so many people who have low k/ds dedicate themselves not to slaying but the other support roles, such as Galaxy Pilot, or healer, or repair man and ammo provider, or recon. Heck, there's even a guy I've seen on the forums that's .48 k/d or something and rank 90 something, self-described as a repair-man extraordinaire. Further, there are many who are content with being cannon fodder. I find myself in no frustrating circumstances, personally, when I endlessly throw myself against an enemy fortification in an effort to break their entrenchment.

    There comes apparent to me now another point. That of the entrepreneur. If it be true that reduced randomness leads to easier production of competitive players, then would it not logically follow that a greater proportion of said 'casual' players seek to become competitive when faced with overwhelming opponents? Then would not the comparative advantage that repair-men and healers have also increase by a huge amount? It follows that they would. Therefore, by segregation yet reliance, we have perhaps even more superior methods of segregating the skill levels than even skill based matchmaking. It has an incredible depth and richness to it, no one can deny. One cannot merely appeal to the animal sensations of 'punishment' and declare that a game must die because it punishes its players. It is contrary to human action.

    More variables to balance around does not necessitate a tighter control of balance. It is a false cause fallacy to suggest that the number of variables creates the variance of balance. I do acknowledge, however, that the quality of CoF gives them another essentially distinct and consequential field to balance around. I do not believe it is necessary, however, since there are many games which have many weapons and no CoF, yet achieve some semblance of balance anyways. MW2 was one of the best examples of these that I have seen. Every weapon (besides the F2000 foxtrot that gun) had a niche use which was competitively viable, and it lacked CoF and velocity.

    Do not misinterpret me. I believe you are correct in that it is useful for range compression to create unique gunplay mechanics. On the other hand, I believe that it ought, on principle, be reduced if not removed, for I desire a faster game with more accurate weapons, and this is not contrary in any way to the sentiments of your balance concerns.
  11. LibertyRevolution

    I hate COF.. bullets should always go where my crosshair is.
    Recoil is enough, COF limits skill and should be removed.

    You say BF3 has COF.. When I shoot at people in BF3 and they are in my crosshair they die, when in PS2 they don't.
    Maybe its the size of the COF or how fast it blooms, or whatever, but the gunplay in this sucks compared to BF3.

    I seems I really should be playing ARMA...
    • Up x 1
  12. Inex

    And yet in PS2, to get a 2.5 degree COF while ADS you need to fire off more than 40 rounds. Most guns just don't have magazines large enough to get that much spread.

    My point was that Borderlands does the same ADS & COF system, but instead of just spitting out the rounds randomly they jerk the gun to match the next trajectory. It's just as impossible to compensate for and looks much worse.
  13. Rovertoo

    Maybe we can come to a compromise? Since I do agree with all points here.

    My thoughts are we do away with ADS CoF (barring perhaps a base inaccuracy cone that won't bloom), and increase side-side recoil by such-and-such a percent in order to simulate a facsimile of current cones? And, possibly, add a random downward recoil element to make vertical recoil more difficult to reliably counter?
  14. Inex

    What does that get you beyond the current system though?

    Unlike real guns, there is no tactile feedback to recoil in the game. So where you might be able to react in <100ms to the shake of a gun, the only way to react to game recoil is to see where the bullets are going and compensate accordingly; that can take upwards of 200ms and the gun will have fired more bullets you need to react to, 200ms later you're even farther behind.

    In the current model, recoil is a largely predictable straight line. With some training you can nearly completely eliminate it's effects. That's good from a 'learn to deal with recoil/game feel' sense, but means that higher level players get laser guns. So you need some level of randomness that can't be compensated for to keep some players from headshotting people from 75m with the CARV. Thus why there's COF on ADS. Make it bloom, and now you have a reason to burst fire as well.

    The PS2 (and just about every other game) system is the compromise.
    • Up x 1
  15. Rovertoo

    Side-to-side recoil I think, since it's largely unpredictable, would server as a suitable skill equalizer (assuming that we increased it accordingly) and allow for the removal of CoF in ADS. Bullets would go where the gun was pointing, as it should be. Since side-to-side recoil knocks your gun around wildly during sustained fire anyways, I doubt the need for burst fire would change much. Honestly I feel that this change wouldn't alter much in the way of balance (at least in regards to skill) but would simply feel more realistic (as much as that matters in a sci-fi game) and fair to the players.
  16. KnightCole

    I hated borderlands lol.

    It was like if Everquest had guns, but the player is stuck at lvl 1 while the first mobs you fight are lv45 boss mobs and the actual level boss mobs are epic rank lv100s......I was playing with some other dude who spent prolly 30 minutes firing into this one robot boss, and he was the lvl of the monster......
  17. ColonelChingles

    I like Borderlands... but it's just a very different game than PS2 in almost every respect.

    Gunplay in Borderlands is all about circling mobs and doing "crowd control". This means that accuracy and recoil isn't all that important, so you might as well just blast away at enemies non-stop. And since many of them are melee opponents anyhow, you're almost always in CQB.

    I mean yea sure you can go for "critical hits" or try and stunlock opponents... and there may be occasional enemy "sniper" at range... but ranged combat isn't anything special.

    So definitely I don't think the gunplay in Borderlands is anything to like. It's really... basic. It works because your goals never require you to be precise. Granted PS2's gunplay is a bit better than Borderland's... but not by a whole lot. A lot of it still run-n-gun spazziness. And unlike in Borderlands, precision does count in PS2 because your opponents are not mindless AI.

    What Borderlands did well though was it had personality and good art design. The characters were relatively new and interesting (though by Borderlands 2 you see some of the tropes wearing thin), and the cell-shaded colorful designs were a breathe of fresh air during the "brown period" of CoD/BF videogames. Its art design is more "unified" than PS2's for example. PS2 doesn't have the cartoony or cell-shaded look of TF2 or Borderlands... yet it's filled with garishly awful colors. It'd be as if you took BF4's more straight-played character models and then colored them in bright blue.

    And of course the randomly generated gazillion guns helped Borderlands become fun too. :p
  18. Taemien

    I'm going to have to agree, Cone of Fire while Aiming Down Sights is just ridiculous. I'd support an increase in recoil across the board if they got rid of the CoF.

    I was just at the range the other day and fired a variety of weapons: AK47, Mini 14, .357 Mag (2" and 4" barrels), .38 Derringer, and a .44 Mag Ruger Blackhawk (10" barrel). I can put consistent shot groups in even while rapid fire. The shots GO where my sights are and as long as I have a proper sight picture, I'm hitting within 1-3" of each other.

    The only exception is the Derringer, but if anyone's fired one of those two shot handguns, you're not always going to get great results. But everything else will put rounds where you point it (assuming proper sight adjustment, ect). So why not do this in PS2?

    Its almost like the 1700s never happened and we didn't get rifled barrels. Or maybe not even smoothbore. Its like we're stuck with blunderbusses and firing nails and ball bearings at each other.

    As others have said, it would probably lead to more fun gameplay as our shots would go where we're aiming them. Let the recoil get crazier with sustained fire. Weapons should be fired in bursts so we can control them easier. Not because they're going random directions.
    • Up x 3
  19. Wildclaw

    Recoil isn't all there is to firing a gun in real life. Aiming is much more difficult when you have to use a 3-dimensional object (weapon) instead of a 2-dimensional cursor on a 2-dimensional screen. And it is even more difficult when you are firing a weapon and have recoil affecting your vision.

    CoF can basically be seen as a representation of your avatar's ability to line up the weapon properly. Now, it goes without saying that CoF is a simplification that isn't a realistic representation of things. If you want realism it would make more sense if CoF was represented by a vector that constantly change as you play the game.

    But then again, in reality you don't run around with an assault rifle at your hip pointing forward just in case you want to fire it at a split second's notice.
    • Up x 1
  20. Zotamedu

    That is basically just changing the name of COF and nothing else.