In terms of gameplay mechanics, old school zoom aiming achieves the same thing as ADS. Is getting to press your nose against virtual firearms really that important in a game about shooting werevolves and vampires?

I blame this on the proliferation of Call of Duty over traditional scifi and fantasy shooter franchises. You can fucking ADS on an assault rifle in Halo now visible-disgust

  • Using my mouse and keyboard as I walk sideways across the balcony, I hold control key to mantle over the ledge before firing my weapon at the other players, a cool drink in arm’s reach, the temperature a steady 72°F and comfortable humidity. The smell of a dinner preparing in my nostrils.

    “This is about accuracy in gaming, something I take very seriously as a weapons expert,” I state plainly.

    “Who are you talking to?” my older sister asks, looking through the doorway. Her brow is furrowed.

    “His name is ViperKing33 and he’s basically a real commando in real life. He is an expert marksman and builds his own weapons.”

    ViperKing33 later asks if I’ve seen my sister’s boobs before going offline to help his dad with the trash.

  • EmoThugInMyPhase [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    Gun owners and enthusiasts are extremely annoying. Every time a gun is shown, you get a bunch of annoying people virtue signaling about le trigger finger and le magazine NOT CLIP!!

    And they’re not anal about the gameplay mechanics. They’re anal about the animation details which shows the character having a normie understanding of firearm technique.

    Anyway, not even Tarkov is as realistic. I’d say ARMA, Project Reality, and Squad are because the player holds the gun right in front of them at a lowered position rather than to the side like most FPS games.

    • Inui [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      Taking away people’s guns because you want to weaken the proletariat

      Taking away people’s guns because gun owners are also treat brained and annoying on the internet

      • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        That’s basically where I’m at. Got some crazy stuff but I’ve never bemoaned realism in shooters, maybe with a rare exception for something billed for that like ARMA/Operation Flashpoint or Receiver where the whole point was that it’s actual gunplay.

        • Inui [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          To be fair you’ll find the same thing with HEMA people hyperfocusing on sword handling techniques and stuff too. Every game that doesnt have you holding the sword by the blade and using the thing like an axe is a failure. Unfortunately they also tend to get racist and sexist a lot quicker.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            Okay but consider; actual longsword is fast, elegant, and looks awesome, and games would be much cooler if they actually incorporated elements of that in to stylized game combat.

            Plus it’s called “murder-bash” and it looks totally awesome so why not put it in the game?

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Arma (and helldivers 2) is fun because the bullets come from the barrel of your weapon instead of the center of the camera. Doesn’t matter where the weapon is pointed, so bullets can do zany things if you fire while running, or are firing when you get shot or stunned.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Arma allows you to do that, too. And some mods add a safety!

        There’s a vr game called Breachers where your movement speed is partially decided by how you hold a gun. Holstered is fastest, then low ready, then high ready, then shouldered and aiming. The game does it dymanically based on how your vr hands hold your vr weapon.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    Realism in games? Retvrn to Goldeneye where if you had 2 guns the brass flew out of the opposite side on your second gun because the devs just mirrored the models and animations and we liked it that way.

    started-blasting

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    If you know how to aim irons, especially illumated irons, work very well in games. Plus it looks visually neat, it more clearly distinguishes between hip fire and ads, and it’s more diegetically integrated, you’re looking at something that exists in the game and not a cross hair.

    For a horror game irons can also restrict your fov and already limited peripheral vision, increasing the tension when you need to shoot accurately but also keep track of things aroiund you.

    If the game wants you to be a cool special agent “are you a bad enough dude to save the president” then shooting accurate and effectively is what bad special agent dudes do.

    It’s not going to make the game worse, but it is nice to have.

    • a_little_red_rat [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      Yeah, agreed. I know fuck all about guns but well-implemented iron sights can be a blast, it just feels nice. Same with recoil on a more punchy weapon, or good sounds for the guns. Sure you could strip these “unnecessary” features, and keep the mechanics of how the bullets fly the same, but it is cooler with them

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Some games will even give guns “recoil” that’s totally fake, just to make them feel more powerful to the player. It doesn’t effect the bullets but the visual conveys “stronk!”

        Theres a famous example, i can’t recall which game, but players complained that one gun was too weak and needed buffs. The devs said “okay, we fixed it” and players declared it the best thing ever. Behind the scenes the only thing that was changed was to give it a punchier, more satisfying sound effect.

    • correct, they are even wrong about Halo, even modern Halo games (4, 5, Infinite) do literally this exact kind of ‘zoom-in’ no-ironsights aiming. i WISH halo had ironsights, but the halo assault rifle literally does not have any sights to use, it is a sci fi gun linked to ur helmet (i wish we could use a guncam to shoot over cover)

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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        I distinctly remember ADSing on an AR in Halo 5 when I tried it out briefly, like it stuck out in my mind for how weird and out of place it felt

        Maybe I’m misremembering things

        • Philosophosphorous [comrade/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
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          it literally does not have ironsights, 5 and infinite do have a slight zoom with LT (that in 5 adds holographic HUD effects) but no ironsights, some weapons use scopes with that input instead but its a virtual scope built into the HUD. the zoom on non-scoped weapons works nearly identical to RE Village in the OP image, where the screen zooms in and the weapon slightly shifts closer but is not centered. The pistol in 5 is almost held in an ironsight-using position but is held just underneath the HUD crosshairs at an angle

          • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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            I know the lore reason for why guns like the Halo 1 pistol have scopes despite no scope being visible on the model. Actually I think in Halo 5 you could stick different attachments to your guns, one of them being some sort of ACOG dealio you could put on the AR, making it feel more like a gun from COD, which is probably what I was thinking of.

            Besides, in older Halos you couldn’t even zoom in with non-precision weapons, it was all hipfire or nothing

      • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        I feel like this is too pedantic, the AR may not have iron sights, but there are guns in the modern Halo games where you can aim down iron sights.

        edit: I think that was just 5 and not Infinite.

        • Philosophosphorous [comrade/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
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          untrue, the closest is the pistol in 5 but it is held underneath the HUD crosshairs, the physical sights on the gun are not used. arguably the scoped weapons count but you have always used scopes in halo games, this is not unique to 5 and infinite, and the lore is explicitly that the helmet is interfacing with the scope, you don’t acutally look down the sights (the 3rd person character model does not even animate differently, in fact the camera in Halo games is in the character model’s chest, the bullet tracers come from the center of the chest in some halo games if you look closely in 3rd person spectating). the aiming mechanincs in 5 and infinite are a bit similar to COD in controls, you hold the left trigger instead of clicking the right stick, but the gun is not aligned with the center of the screen and the physical sights on the weapons (if there are any) are never used. it works exactly like in the OP post about RE: Village, the screen zooms in a bit and you get slower and the weapon is slightly shifted to the left, but the physical sights on the gun (the ‘iron sights’) are never used in ANY halo game that i know of.

          • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            You’re right, there aren’t any physical iron sights that are used in Halo 5, I watched a video of the guns and it doesn’t seem like many of them even physically have them. The pistol and SMG aiming works very similarly to what you’d see in a game with iron sights, though.

            • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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              I just don’t see why it’s necessary to scope even with guns like SMGs. In a game like COD where you can die from a quick burst it makes more sense, I guess, but Halo was more about strafing and peppering your enemy with hipfire rather than quick potshots

              spoiler

              Though in actuality it was about tossing your SMG or AR in the trash and picking up a precision rifle at the earliest opportunity, at least in multiplayer

            • true, and the gameplay mechanics of the aiming system is definitely more similar to COD than halo CE thru Reach since you have to hold LT instead of toggling with a stick click, so i can see why people get confused. the newer halo games do have some gameplay systems closer to COD like the aim system and everyone getting to sprint, but i still think they retain their halo charm with the floaty jumps and power weapons, my biggest criticism of infinite is probably the lack of playable elites in MP, its weird to me to have so many covenant weapons and vehicles around if its all humans/spartans.

              • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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                biggest criticism of infinite is probably the lack of playable elites in MP, its weird to me to have so many covenant weapons and vehicles around if its all humans/spartans

                I have to assume it’s got something to do with the cosmetics that were supposed to the main avenue for monetisation in that game. Making separate Elite cosmetic items that only a fraction of the playerbase would use probably didn’t make sense

                • myself and many others i know personally would totally have shelled out for some dope elite armor, i wonder if its a smaller part of the player base than i assume or if its also the devs trying to have balanced hitboxes at the expense of cool aliens

              • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                I liked Infinite’s multiplayer quite a bit, wasn’t really a fan of how 5’s most popular mode was based around random item drops and microtransactions.

                • yea, i actually liked everything in 5 except the microtransaction loot drops and the forerunner enemy types in the campaign, the covenant are much more visually interesting and tactically varied imo. also there seemed to be a lot less vehicle sandbox maps in the campaign compared to like halo 3

          • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]@hexbear.net
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            I think this is why some of the Halo games (2 through 4?) had off-center reticules that are lowered on the screen to compensate for the player model/view model discrepancy

        • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]@hexbear.net
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          As far as I can remember, the only literal iron sight ADS in Halo is the Bandit Rifle in Infinite, which is just the Reach DMR without the scope on it. They later added the Bandit Evo which has a red dot optic that works like the BR’s sight in H5

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      I’m indifferent to iron sights but I don’t think they’re necessary at all if you’re not going for extreme realism (or modern warfare gunwank). It’s silly to me that some people are counting lack of ADS as a flaw that needs to be fixed

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    Call me old but I prefer the old firing from the hip approach of older games. Iron sights tend to take up the entire screen, like the shooter is pressing it right up against their eye for some scope bite.

    Hell I enjoy old shooters like Rainbow Six and SWAT 3 which don’t even have gun models.

    • Esoteir [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      100-com

      genuinely this, the advent of universal ADS in the FPS genre has made games slower, movement to get closer to your target has been disincentivized, replaced with aiming down long corridors with zoomed in FOV. I think it mostly became this way because of the popular surge of console gaming, holding LT to ADS essentially becomes a “AUTOAIM, ONLINE!” button, and it standardizes switching between two aiming speeds with non-ADS being fast, and ADS being slow and accurate, whereas on a mouse you can instantly switch between fast and slow aim speeds a lot easier by changing how much you move your arm

      i think they have their place in a few niche games like rainbow six to incentivize moving slower in combat encounters to make the defenses you place down more of a mechanical benefit, but even in that game in like a month tops people were just running into bases and quickscoping everyone to get around the ADS movement speed drawbacks so like lol, lmao

      plus i liked when the gimmick of sniper rifle weapons in games were that they were the only guns that could zoom your screen in, it made them feel unique and powerful

      • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        Yeah I think sights work best in games where you’re engaging targets at a longer range, say like ARMA, where you can also adjust them to based on range (I think or maybe a mod did that). Corridor shooters or games with a focus on CQB feel snappier when it’s firing from the hip.

        • Gucci_Minh [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          If they want iron sight realism they need to go all the way and make diopter sights actually usable, i.e. the ring goes out of focus and you get a nice aperture on the front post, instead of how it usually works which is a giant black disc blocks 90% of your screen and you get a tiny dot in the middle to aim through.

          Same with notch and post sights, no, it’s not just a black rectangle that blocks half your field of view.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Give Splitgate a try. I believe it’s free on Steam. Old school Halo style run and shoot gameplay + zany portal antics like shooting a portal behind someone across the map then jumping out of nowhere to bean them with a bat.

        Solid halo shooter + a really fun portal mechanic that gives you a lot of tranversal power and lets you do all kinds of very silly things like shoot someone behind you from behind them, or juke around someone’s missile and cause it to go through a portal and hit them in the back.

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        genuinely this, the advent of universal ADS in the FPS genre has made games slower, movement to get closer to your target has been disincentivized, replaced with aiming down long corridors with zoomed in FOV

        What? The distinction between something being plodding and careful or twitchy and fast paced is the available movement tech and how janky a game’s hitboxes get when people spam crouch and wiggle back and forth to make them harder to laser down. ADS or its absence is just a style and feel thing at that point.

        Like games like Apex and D2 are twitchy and movement focused despite having ADS and generous controller autoaim.

        • Esoteir [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          having a mechanic that lowers your FOV and slows the player character down makes for a slower, less movement focused game

          Apex Legends is a fast-paced game, but it would be faster, more movement focused game without an ADS system that slows your character down and reduces your FOV

          Destiny 2 is a fast-paced game that has weapon perks that exist just so you can move faster while ADSing, but it would be a faster, more movement focused game if it didn’t have the ADS mobility/FOV drawbacks to begin with

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            Apex is slow as molasses. TItanfall 2 and Tribes 3 are where you need to be if you gotta go fast. Destiny is basically a 1968 Oldsmobile Land Cow Deluxe trying to cough and choke it’s way up a thirty degree grade in the andes by comparison.

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    This is the freeze-gamer equivalent of those insufferable “drums are never animated correctly” videos. If the gameplay is engaging and fun, I don’t care if the serial number on the gun you can see for three frames doesn’t match the numbering system that manufacturer uses.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.netM
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      Rare UlyssesT L.

      You can pry my proper ironsights from my cold dead hands. I will go further to say counterstrike 2 is cowardly pandering to esports purists. They should have gone the route of making a better R6 siege without the garbo ubisoft hud shit.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        You can stand by that that all you like, but if you chant it the way reddit-logo also chants “trigger discipline” and “magazine not clip” for tacticool approval points and Le reddit-logo Gold, I’d call that a rare Nakoichi L in return.

        • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.netM
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          Also I appreciate trigger discipline discourse when it comes to little details like in the x files how Mulder has terrible trigger discipline belying his character as sort of a crank while Scully is the consummate professional with her firearm handling.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            Also I appreciate trigger discipline discourse when it comes to little details like in the x files how Mulder has terrible trigger discipline belying his character as sort of a crank while Scully is the consulate professional with her firearm handling.

            That’s fine.

            geordi-yes “I feel very strongly about my position regarding this topic when that is the current discussion.”

            geordi-no sees picture of gun “Heh… guys… TRIGGER DISCIPLINE amirite?” smuglord someone exists somewhere “I bet that civvie calls it a ‘clip,’ heh.” smuglord

            It’s like those Burgerland Doctor Who fans that just word-drop “DALEKS LOL” and/or “SONIC SCREWDRIVER LOL” at the slightest opportunity.

      • ZeroHora
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        I will go further to say counterstrike 2 is cowardly pandering to esports purists. They should have gone the route of making a better R6 siege without the garbo ubisoft hud shit.

        This. I’m ok with older games without ironsights, doesn’t distract me, but a modern one? Just put that damn thing on your game fuck dammit.

  • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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    I’m fine with not using the iron sights if there’s no further level of aim (counter strike) or if there’s not really any iron sights on the guns (Halo). But if you’re in a first person game, it feels weird to just zoom in when there are iron sights on the gun that the character would be using. For me, it’s about being more immersed in the game play. It’s like when you look down and can’t see yourself. Yeah it doesn’t break the game but it definitely takes you out of it a little bit.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Tarkov is much less realistic than it claims to be. It’s as much of a mech game, with locational damage and armor, ammo types that have drastic effects on gameplay, weapons that all behave quite differently. In a game like, say, arma, all guns are basically the same because outside weight and ergo all modern rifles are basically the same. Ammo does matter, but it’s more about how flat the trajcetory is. The game models armor but there are no magic bullets that can arbitrarily pierce rifle plates.

  • ZeroHora
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    No, my COD brain need the ironsights in modern games.