Functional iron sights and virtual reality

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

Functional iron sights and virtual reality

As a kid, I was a huge fan of light gun arcade games.It would be really nice to have functional iron sights in the game as well as independant gun/eye movement for virtual reality. Like this:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/08/oculus-rift-hydra-demo/

This would introduce much much more enjoyable firefights mechanics.

In a game of counter-strike (whose aiming system I never really liked), I wouldn`t be surprised if amongst regular players, the accuracy would be around 70% or more. It would probably be much much higher for RPGs like Fallout 3 (even discounting slowmo mode) or shooters like Rainbow six Rogue Spears.

and for good reason... clicking on something with the mouse and missing solely so that in-game firefights resemble real ones would make for frustrating gaming experience because it would be an arbitrary limit rather then a matter of player skill.

But the truth is it is not always shoot to kill. Sometime it is shoot to gain terrain and better positioning but with such high accuracy, in most FPS everything but point and shoot is more or less useless.

So in a nutshell
1-Such a system would introduce actual marksmanship into the game without frustrating the player with hard limits on accuracy.
2-With realistics ballistics, it would drastically change how firefights are experienced in the game. Tactics and intelligent playthough would (I hope) now have more importance as player accuracy approaches those found in real life also as the oculus rift have slightly larger field of view then computer screens
3-Cover would have a lot more importance without having unrealistic mechanics. In FPS in the traditional style (Arma, Medal of Honor,Rainbow six, etc) Often you might still find yourself exposed in spite of your best efforts to hide behind that car engine/priceless indestructible china vase/propane tank, I might be wrong, but I hope it will lessen the problem with the advent of the hydra/oculus
4-Now people who want to do atrocious things like fire assault rifles in akimbo fashion can suffer the consequences for their actions!

Going back to the light gun games comparaisons, there was one in particular though who was hugely popular but always got on my nerves : Time Crisis. The reason being:

the iron sights were purely cosmetic and didn't work!

We know that if (heaven forbid!) the devs don't have native occulus/hydra support, someone is going to make a mod for it.
So please, do not make the mistake of the Time Crisis series and have iron sights that don't work on the virtual gun!

 

[Sardukhar]

I doubt that CDPR's focus is on the virtual reality aspect so much.

If they put First Person in at all, that is.

Iron sights, I like in video games, but they aren't realistic. And iron sights do not improve accuracy - which is why we went to red dot and all that good stuff.

Some day we will have smart gun style cross hair sights on your smartshades or cybereyes.

2077 - well, a smartgun is the first thing most shooters get. That bonus is pretty nice, not to mention ammunition and range readouts.

So it's arguably a game where the crosshair will actually make sense.

 

[LexiiO]

If they put First Person in at all, that is.

It was confirmed in that little presentation, didn't you know? The one with the picture of what to expect?

Other than that, no, don't think this will be a big topic.

 

[gregski]

It was confirmed in that little presentation, didn't you know? The one with the picture of what to expect?

Other than that, no, don't think this will be a big topic.

I wouldn't really treat is as any official confirmation at this point. The game is probably in early prototyping stage and every concept might be subject to change.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

I doubt that CDPR's focus is on the virtual reality aspect so much.

I doubt it also.

But you know what they say, it never hurts to ask and this is kind of thing that could be fairly easily implemented as the big questions are more of a gameplay nature then a technical one.

There are compromises as well. If CDPR doesn't do it, It will happen through the modding community, I just hope that the design decisions the team makes leave the door open for it.

If they put First Person in at all, that is.

I can't possibly think of a downside to the inclusion of first person and I don't understand why the community seems to be convinced it won't (should not?) be included.

A forced third person perspective would feel too much like playing the say Ghost Recon 1 in third person --- cool for screenshots but massively awkward otherwise.

Iron sights, I like in video games, but they aren't realistic.

And iron sights do not improve accuracy - which is why we went to red dot and all that good stuff.

I'm all for optics as well. The more the merrier.

I would still want the choice to have iron sights if I so wished.

Red dots is indeed better for reflexive shooting but considering that iron sights are still used in precision rifle competitions,
it is a pretty big claim that red dots are more accurate then the latter.

Some day we will have smart gun style cross hair sights on your smartshades or cybereyes.

2077 - well, a smartgun is the first thing most shooters get. That bonus is pretty nice, not to mention ammunition and range readouts.

So it's arguably a game where the crosshair will actually make sense.

I have a hard time imagining that this cross hair system will completely replace the way guns are fired. You still need to be in a position where you hold the gun steady and absorb the recoil for follow-up shots.

I think a smartgun would calculate things like how far your bullet trajectory and correct your reticule accordingly but it can't help if you can't hold a steady aim.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

There is a thread full of banter that amounts to the 1st/3rd debate. The concensus is that there will probably be a combined view though 3rd will probably take precendent. This is not an unreasonable assumption given the fact that the red engine is currently geared for 3rd person and many of the maneuvers that we, (the community,) wish to see look best in 3rd person, (like melee, taking cover and other activities.)

That said, aiming down the sights is pretty much what I expect from the 1st person perspective anyway.

I have a hard time imagining that this cross hair system will completely replace the way guns are fired. You still need to be in a position where you hold the gun steady and absorb the recoil for follow-up shots.

I think a smartgun would calculate things like how far your bullet trajectory and correct your reticule accordingly but it can't help if you can't hold a steady aim.

The Smartgun in question uses a camera like sensor to show the shooter, (via a hardwired neural interface link or a visual display in a set of Smart-Goggles/Smart-Shades,) exactly where the weapon is pointing and it will only shoot when the weapon is pointed at the desired target. It really does change how weapons are fired on a very fundamental level.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

The Smartgun in question uses a camera like sensor to show the shooter, (via a hardwired neural interface link or a visual display in a set of Smart-Goggles/Smart-Shades,) exactly where the weapon is pointing and it will only shoot when the weapon is pointed at the desired target. It really does change how weapons are fired on a very fundamental level.

Ok, I can see how this could be extremely useful but man, this would take most of the fun out of an FPS.I always disable auto-aim whenever I can.

It would be like playing counter-strike with an aimbot.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

It would be like playing counter-strike with an aimbot.

Yeah, t'would suck big fat munkee ballz. I am hoping that they find a new means of operation for the smartgun.

 

[Suhiira]

I'm VERY biased on this subject so please don't think I'm trying to troll anyone else's thoughts.

I really, Really, REALLY hate games that substitute my personal skills (or lack thereof) for my characters.

If I want my character to be Dead Eye Dick and give him the skills necessary to be the god of shooting why should my personal inability to track my mouse to a target and click in the fraction of a second it's visible make my character the worlds worst marksman?

Obviously most people playing the game aren't RL programmers.
Should we require the players to actually write program code to play a Hacker?

Your characters skills should matter FAR more then your personal ones in a game.

 

[Sydanyo]

Anyone who can move the mouse can move it adequately enough to hit a certain hitbox, especially if the game is in first person, and the engine is smooth and accurate as it should be. The way character skill, smartguns and such should work is that without any of those it takes a lot of real world mouse finesse to hit anything accurately, and the more skill in that particular gun your character gets, and the higher his potential/average die roll gets, the easier it is to get headshots off, even if you're the worst possible FPS player on the face of the planet.

Games which require absolutely no aiming on the player's part are done as we say here in Finland "perse edellä puuhun"; climb a tree ass first. Having said that, you can still make a fun FPS game that doesn't require you to be Fatal1ty by making the mechanic take into account both the player and the character.

If you absolutely don't want to move your mouse to hit anything, then I suggest trying Pac-Man or Tetris. I hear those are awesome games.

No but seriously, there are games for those who need a 100% aimbot to have fun. For example, in WoW you click on a target, then all your spells hit that target automatically from thereon out. Or you could play the original Doom and Doom II; just face a monster and shoot, it'll hit.

As far as Oculus Rift goes, I hope it (the idea of developing otherwise great games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, also for Oculus Rift) gets buried soon. Why? Well, it's hardly going to replace the monitor any time soon, and so you'd buy an extra $500 gaming appliance for a handful of games. Games the development of which will have been hugely gimped and hampered by having to develop the game for the Oculus Rift, which will be used by around 0.00001% of the gaming populace.

 

[Suhiira]

I'm a big fan of the way Fallout handled this.

The FPS crowd could ignore the Pipboy.
The rest of us could use it.

Best of both worlds.

 

[Garrison72]

How could you ignore the pipboy? It was your only inventory screen.

 

[thewarsend]

How could you ignore the pipboy? It was your only inventory screen.

I guess he ignored the pip-boy, fought with his bare hands and the vault jumpsuit the entire game... Yeah.. A real hardcore gamer..

 

[Sardukhar]

I did that.

Yes.

 

[zombiestubble]

I've got a hypothesis that could work.

Third person ironsights. Never been done before this way, as far as I can tell.

If the game is strictly third person, an aiming animation like FO3 would happen with the character, and an outline or transparent picture of the sights would appear where the crosshair used to be. It would look a little something like this:

View attachment 1137

Sights would still bounce according to skill and movement, and they would change according to each weapon. For scoped weapons, large area of the screen would create a magnification effect similar to that of some Source mods, with a scope outline surrounding the effect.

A thought.

 

[Mikedudeh]

I'm a big fan of the way Fallout handled this.

The FPS crowd could ignore the Pipboy.
The rest of us could use it.

Best of both worlds.

How could you ignore the pipboy? It was your only inventory screen.

I believe she means the VATS system. Which is a good example of how smartgun-like mechanics have been used before.

 

[Suhiira]

I believe she means the VATS system. Which is a good example of how smartgun-like mechanics have been used before.

Yup.

 

[Sydanyo]

If you know anything about Cyberpunk 2020, you will know that if this game allows for solos and similar killing machines to even exist and allows for the player to play those characters, then having some kind of a V.A.T.S. or at the very least bullet time is pretty much mandatory; solos can have such asininely high reflexes and initiative, that you can't in any way represent that without slowing the world down tremendously. A fully maxed-out solo would be able to basically draw, aim, empty a magazine on a target, reload, and do it all again before their target even drew his weapon. That's assuming the weapon itself could keep up, of course.

So, either you have a system which represents that, or you forgo that very integral part of this game and world.

As far as iron sights go, third person iron sights are utterly ridiculous. I'm not up on whether there was or wasn't official information on this game being 3rd person or 1st person, but if it goes by the 3rd person route, then I surely hope there's absolutely no aiming of any kind involved. Because why bother? Just have it be a point and click; choose a target, hit if your guy hits, take out the player from the equation completely. No scopes, no Times Square or other kinds of HUDs, nothing like that. Just a 3rd person UI and point-click no-aiming-involved -style of combat.

 

[Mebrilia]

And again..... I am for a TTP/FPP switchable not for a forced FPP not in a game where should be a lot of costumization....

 

[Mikedudeh]

A fully maxed-out solo would be able to basically draw, aim, empty a magazine on a target, reload, and do it all again before their target even drew his weapon. That's assuming the weapon itself could keep up, of course.

Your limbs would need to be able to apply and withstand C4 level force to handle the inertia of moving that fast. It makes me grin to think of a character that powerful it would be very humbling, motivating, and frightening to meet a NPC or two like this.

I'm all for a VATS or bullet time inspired mechanic for characters with the right cyberware, or something like Splinter Cell Blacklist where you "tag" the player you want dead.