Aim-Down-Sight is unnecessary for realism

[Treblaine]

I think it very much IS about being a crutch for console players by how the aiming changes fundamentally when "Aim Down Sight" suddenly zoomed, with lower sensitivity and with distinctly higher aim-assist and sometimes even snap-to aiming.

Yes, the fact that first games fully utilising ADS weren't even released on consoles (or ported far later) totally proves your point.

IS that sarcasm because games with ADS were released on console, most successfully with Call of Duty's aim-down-sight and super-strong aim-assist?

That was the central point of my argument... okay... I'm confused. Do you agree or not?!?!

How about learning to read? "first games fully utilising ADS". Few games implemented that. Lots of PC gamers liked it. BAM! It's almost everywhere. And consoles had FPSs long beofre ADS system was invented.

Also, CoD and CoD:UO weren't released on consoles. Vietcong wasn't released on consoles. America's Army was ported later on consoles (and in AA even in ADS you may have trouble hitting). Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis was ported on ONE console few years later. There are probably more examples but I'm not into shooters so that's the extent of my knowledge.

So no, argument that ADS is primary for consoles is complete bullshit. Maybe next you'll claim that bullet-time was invented with consoles in mind?

Oh that's what you meant, that wasn't very clear.

ADS as a mechanic for all guns may have started on PC but didn't spread on PC like it spread on consoles.

Call of Duty 1 (not the first to do it, but one of the first) was really pushing for realism and had loads of stuff like mountable machine gun emplacements and other details the series would drop later for a "different" approach that long standing fans weren't hugely keen on. I remember playing the game and noticing how the cross-hairs were so tight it didn't make much difference whether aiming down sights or not

COD2 was seen as a betrayal by PC gamers, it was dumbed down compared to the last game and the PC version scored lower on average than the console release. Score aggregates don't say inherently of a game's worth, but they are a good measure of the expressed opinions of critics.

Operation Flashpoint and ARMA focused a lot on "hyper-realism", they could not have something representative like a reticule, even though realistically they would be aiming down the sights to shoot with precision and have their left eye open for wider field of view, it needed to go beyond plausible to "exactly as you would see it" even if things got awkward.

I don't think ADS was "invented" as a console crutch but more as a step towards even more realism.

I do think however that ADS was ADOPTED by so many console games FOR how it could be used as a crutch to compensate for thumbstick's slow imprecision when combined with aim assist.

I hope that cleared that up.

 

[Fishyash]

Honestly I wouldn't bring realism into account of the function of ADS. It is there to make FPS games easier to play on console.

I prefer the way counter strike handles it, where your reticle spreads out making you less accurate, so you have to stand still or walk to get the best accuracy. But still, I think ADS is a more effective solution.

Until a new mechanic comes out that makes console FPS even easier, yet makes the game more enjoyable comes out, ADS is here to stay.

 

[Rack]

I was going to point out the reason for ADS but you've more or less convinced me. Of course the fact that it "feels" more realistic is more significant than it being more realistic so I still don't think it is entirely redundant, but I reckon it's more about making games more controller friendly than anything else.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Did you test this? Or are you making assumptions about parallax? You even say your face is just a few millimetres from the rear sight, get that close and the parallax effects are large.

What you say about the left eye being higher supports what I say, as if your left eye is higher then you would see the weapon in lower right field of your vision while the right eye representing the reticule is centred.

I've served in the swedish army and have done my fair share of combat exercises with an assault rifle as my primary weapon. The simple fact is that you can't aim with both eyes open if you are using iron sights and standard procedure is to not "drop down" into aiming until you've acquired a target, in essence you are looking for a target using both eyes and then lower your head and close your left eye once you start firing. Much like how you "use iron sights" in "realistic" shooters.

This "weapon in lower right corner" thing is even more ridiculous when the weapon in question is equipped with a red dot sight or reflex sight which requires you to look through the sight with both eyes open.

My main contention is that the weapon itself is way too small on screen. If you raise a rifle and aim with it, it will obscure most of your vision and not just a fourth or fifth. While I see your point, it is ultimately flawed an wrong because this particular gaming convention does not match real life.

 

[GoaThief]

No one else wants to be badass ninja cowgirls?

It's OK, you're not alone.

I can totally do without the likes of consolised sprint, iron sights, aim assist, pseudo-realisc arcade military shooters (milsims are a different kettle of fish), a barrage of rewards and low skill ceiling titles that cater to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Treblaine]

How do your posts always have Pc elitism in them, it's quite impressive really.

On topic. I have no idea where this ramble about how your eyes work comes from. It's a gameplay thing for being more accurate but making you aim and move more slowly.

As far as realism goes, how many soldiers hip fire? Don't you also close one you when you ADS so your aim isn't thrown off by the other ones perspective?

Anyway, ADS isn't going anywhere in modern games any time soon.

Well it would be dishonest for me to say PC was worse, and disingenuous to ignore the contrast with consoles.

The ramble about eyes? It's called Parallax, it's high school geometry, really basic stuff of what is actually going on. The ammo counter represents your memory of what shots were loaded, the health bar represents how close to death you feel, and the reticule represents what your right eye sees you lining up with.

I hope I made clear what's called "hip-fire" in games isn't hip fire, it's obvious from the view-model that the weapon is firmly in the shoulder and the rear sight very close to the point of perspective and just a few inches to the right (where the right eye would be).

I think ADS is definitely not going from console games, not unless they come up with a new controller design that is quicker and more accurate than a thumbstick.

 

[Shpongled]

Oh that's what you meant, that wasn't very clear.

ADS as a mechanic for all guns may have started on PC but didn't spread on PC like it spread on consoles.

Call of Duty 1 (not the first to do it, but one of the first) was really pushing for realism and had loads of stuff like mountable machine gun emplacements and other details the series would drop later for a "different" approach that long standing fans weren't hugely keen on. I remember playing the game and noticing how the cross-hairs were so tight it didn't make much difference whether aiming down sights or not

COD2 was seen as a betrayal by PC gamers, it was dumbed down compared to the last game and the PC version scored lower on average than the console release. Score aggregates don't say inherently of a game's worth, but they are a good measure of the expressed opinions of critics.

Operation Flashpoint and ARMA focused a lot on "hyper-realism", they could not have something representative like a reticule, even though realistically they would be aiming down the sights to shoot with precision and have their left eye open for wider field of view, it needed to go beyond plausible to "exactly as you would see it" even if things got awkward.

I don't think ADS was "invented" as a console crutch but more as a step towards even more realism.

I do think however that ADS was ADOPTED by so many console games FOR how it could be used as a crutch to compensate for thumbstick's slow imprecision when combined with aim assist.

I hope that cleared that up.

So what? Doesn't change the fact that, as you pointed out in the paragraph right above that one but seem to have already forgotten, many PC games use ADS for completely different reasons. L4D and many other games use the exact same mechanic already in the fact that reticles decrease/increase in size depending on movement. It is the EXACT same mechanic as ADS, the only difference is the fact that ADS displays a visual representation of the fact that you're becoming more accurate whereas CS/L4D etc don't bother.

Whether it's used as a crutch on console games or not is entirely beyond the point. A) Console games kinda need ADS in some ways for obvious reasons, and B) There are a plethora of PC games out there that use ADS to represent the fact that you can't aim accurately when you're running around.

Just as a sort of aside, have you ever played paintball or anything similar? If so, you'll have noticed how utterly pointless it is to fire without aiming down the sights at any range beyond a few feet, and you'll also noticed how utterly fucked you are if you spend literally the entire game actually aiming down the sights. Some video games are going to want to represent this aspect (just as some games aren't, mainly earlier FPS's, but TF2 also comes to mind), and ADS mechanics are by far the most "realistic" ways of doing this. You can use a simpler reticle expanding/retracting as you move sort of mechanic to represent this if you want, but it's merely a cosmetic difference, the same mechanics are going on beneath.

So i'm guessing you're not actually complaining about the mechanic itself, what you're actually complaining about is that you personally don't enjoy seeing iron sights on your screen. Which is completely fine, different strokes and all that, but don't tell the rest of us that just because we like seeing iron sights that we're somehow wrong for our opinions.

 

[Shpongled]

How do your posts always have Pc elitism in them, it's quite impressive really.

On topic. I have no idea where this ramble about how your eyes work comes from. It's a gameplay thing for being more accurate but making you aim and move more slowly.

As far as realism goes, how many soldiers hip fire? Don't you also close one you when you ADS so your aim isn't thrown off by the other ones perspective?

Anyway, ADS isn't going anywhere in modern games any time soon.

Well it would be dishonest for me to say PC was worse, and disingenuous to ignore the contrast with consoles.

The ramble about eyes? It's called Parallax, it's high school geometry, really basic stuff of what is actually going on. The ammo counter represents your memory of what shots were loaded, the health bar represents how close to death you feel, and the reticule represents what your right eye sees you lining up with.

I hope I made clear what's called "hip-fire" in games isn't hip fire, it's obvious from the view-model that the weapon is firmly in the shoulder and the rear sight very close to the point of perspective and just a few inches to the right (where the right eye would be).

I think ADS is definitely not going from console games, not unless they come up with a new controller design that is quicker and more accurate than a thumbstick.

Ah, see this is where i think your argument comes from and also where it falls to to pieces. I suspect the only reason many video games display your gun is in the bottom right is just a way to show you that you've got a gun out. There are games out there that just present you with a completely blank screen until you pull the ADS up, but that just feels odd. I guess developers stick the gun in the bottom right to avoid it feeling weird, and the fact that by default they're limited in places where they can stick the gun because of TV screens means it can sort of seem that the gun is lined up somewhere close to your eyes if you're trying to take this 24" representation of the entire field of vision of the human eyes too literally.

The reason i suspect this is true is because you can't really realistically move at any sort of reasonable speed with a gun lined up anywhere close to either of your eyes. It just ain't feasible. Soldiers don't run around the battlefield with the gun counched in the shoulders, they draw it up to their shoulders when they intend to shoot something.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I'm one of those folks that doesn't give a right (or left) shit about realism in games, so I have to put the question of whether the realism is ever really gonna be real anyway, and if it's not...does that invalidate even the need for this argument?

I'm of pretty much the same opinion. I'm not visualizing myself killing real people, I don't care if I really know how to aim a gun or not. My biggest qualm is when the gun takes up 1/4 the screen -- I need to see what's going on!

 

[Squilookle]

Realism or otherwise, I'm sick of ironsights. The FOV a screen affords is small enough without blocking 1/6th of it up to the horizon dead-centre with useless juddering zoomed in metal.

 

[omega 616]

snip

You quoted the wrong person.

How do your posts always have Pc elitism in them, it's quite impressive really.

On topic. I have no idea where this ramble about how your eyes work comes from. It's a gameplay thing for being more accurate but making you aim and move more slowly.

As far as realism goes, how many soldiers hip fire? Don't you also close one you when you ADS so your aim isn't thrown off by the other ones perspective?

Anyway, ADS isn't going anywhere in modern games any time soon.

Well it would be dishonest for me to say PC was worse, and disingenuous to ignore the contrast with consoles.

The ramble about eyes? It's called Parallax, it's high school geometry, really basic stuff of what is actually going on. The ammo counter represents your memory of what shots were loaded, the health bar represents how close to death you feel, and the reticule represents what your right eye sees you lining up with.

I hope I made clear what's called "hip-fire" in games isn't hip fire, it's obvious from the view-model that the weapon is firmly in the shoulder and the rear sight very close to the point of perspective and just a few inches to the right (where the right eye would be).

I think ADS is definitely not going from console games, not unless they come up with a new controller design that is quicker and more accurate than a thumbstick.

You don't have to do that comparison with consoles though, everybody knows them. Just every time I read a PC elitist sounding post, it's yours. Just a fuel for flame wars.

I know what it is, as a very young kid I thought I could see through shit when it was close to my face 'cos I didn't understand.

You can think of it as some human representation in the game but I don't go that far into it, the ammo counter isn't a memory ... it's an ammo counter. The reticule doesn't represent what the right eye sees, it's shows were my bullets are going to roughly go. Probably just me though.

Firmly on the shoulder? That mother fucker is on the chin, maybe not CS but on COD and battlefield you run round with the gun on your jaw/cheek/chin area.

No, not "ADS is definitely not going from console games, not unless they come up with a new controller design that is quicker and more accurate than a thumbstick" it's ...

"ADS is definitely not going from games", mouse is better at aiming but FPS sells better on console 'cos of COD, even if ADS is due to consoles (which I have to doubt) it won't go anywhere.

Heaven fucking forbid PC gets less or the same amount of content as a console (we want more options, we want mods, we want dedicated servers, blah blah blah), so removing ADS would make all PC players explode with rage.

Don't want ADS? Don't use it?

 

[Signa]

All I know is Borderlands had it, and I only liked how it was handled in there. Other games felt a lot more forced, like it was the fad thing to do. Also, aim assist went WAY up when I didn't turn it off, so there's that too. I guess it depends on the game to convey "feel." It just simply isn't necessary in a lot of games, and I agree where Treblaine is coming from.

 

[WanderingFool]

Oh that's what you meant, that wasn't very clear.

ADS as a mechanic for all guns may have started on PC but didn't spread on PC like it spread on consoles.

Call of Duty 1 (not the first to do it, but one of the first) was really pushing for realism and had loads of stuff like mountable machine gun emplacements and other details the series would drop later for a "different" approach that long standing fans weren't hugely keen on. I remember playing the game and noticing how the cross-hairs were so tight it didn't make much difference whether aiming down sights or not

COD2 was seen as a betrayal by PC gamers, it was dumbed down compared to the last game and the PC version scored lower on average than the console release. Score aggregates don't say inherently of a game's worth, but they are a good measure of the expressed opinions of critics.

Operation Flashpoint and ARMA focused a lot on "hyper-realism", they could not have something representative like a reticule, even though realistically they would be aiming down the sights to shoot with precision and have their left eye open for wider field of view, it needed to go beyond plausible to "exactly as you would see it" even if things got awkward.

I don't think ADS was "invented" as a console crutch but more as a step towards even more realism.

I do think however that ADS was ADOPTED by so many console games FOR how it could be used as a crutch to compensate for thumbstick's slow imprecision when combined with aim assist.

I hope that cleared that up.

So what? Doesn't change the fact that, as you pointed out in the paragraph right above that one but seem to have already forgotten, many PC games use ADS for completely different reasons. L4D and many other games use the exact same mechanic already in the fact that reticles decrease/increase in size depending on movement. It is the EXACT same mechanic as ADS, the only difference is the fact that ADS displays a visual representation of the fact that you're becoming more accurate whereas CS/L4D etc don't bother.

Whether it's used as a crutch on console games or not is entirely beyond the point. A) Console games kinda need ADS in some ways for obvious reasons, and B) There are a plethora of PC games out there that use ADS to represent the fact that you can't aim accurately when you're running around.

Just as a sort of aside, have you ever played paintball or anything similar? If so, you'll have noticed how utterly pointless it is to fire without aiming down the sights at any range beyond a few feet, and you'll also noticed how utterly fucked you are if you spend literally the entire game actually aiming down the sights. Some video games are going to want to represent this aspect (just as some games aren't, mainly earlier FPS's, but TF2 also comes to mind), and ADS mechanics are by far the most "realistic" ways of doing this. You can use a simpler reticle expanding/retracting as you move sort of mechanic to represent this if you want, but it's merely a cosmetic difference, the same mechanics are going on beneath.

So i'm guessing you're not actually complaining about the mechanic itself, what you're actually complaining about is that you personally don't enjoy seeing iron sights on your screen. Which is completely fine, different strokes and all that, but don't tell the rest of us that just because we like seeing iron sights that we're somehow wrong for our opinions.

QFT.

From everything Ive read, this seems to be the point of it all. I personally thought Iron sights appeared in COD W@W, as it was the first FPS I played on the new gen consoles. All FPS I played before didnt have it. I thought it was an actually pretty cool touch. Now I wont say its weird, but it does feel somewhat "off" to not see iron sights when I aim my virtual popgun.

I dont want everygame to have Iron sights, God the though of ADS in Halo is somewhat disturbing to me, but I dont see it as any kind of problem now.

This whole thread seems to be less an arguement about the mechanic, and more about the OPs general dislike of it, and his apparent belief that it should be done away with.

 

[mateushac]

Please, OP, let me hope you're not saying you aim your guns with both eyes open... That would be awkward.

 

[Treblaine]

Did you test this? Or are you making assumptions about parallax? You even say your face is just a few millimetres from the rear sight, get that close and the parallax effects are large.

What you say about the left eye being higher supports what I say, as if your left eye is higher then you would see the weapon in lower right field of your vision while the right eye representing the reticule is centred.

I've served in the swedish army and have done my fair share of combat exercises with an assault rifle as my primary weapon. The simple fact is that you can't aim with both eyes open if you are using iron sights and standard procedure is to not "drop down" into aiming until you've acquired a target, in essence you are looking for a target using both eyes and then lower your head and close your left eye once you start firing. Much like how you "use iron sights" in "realistic" shooters.

This "weapon in lower right corner" thing is even more ridiculous when the weapon in question is equipped with a red dot sight or reflex sight which requires you to look through the sight with both eyes open.

My main contention is that the weapon itself is way too small on screen. If you raise a rifle and aim with it, it will obscure most of your vision and not just a fourth or fifth. While I see your point, it is ultimately flawed an wrong because this particular gaming convention does not match real life.

Cool, what rifle did you use in the Swedish army. Did you ever fire the Carl Gustav M45? I know that's not a rifle but I hear it's a really good submachine gun for such controllable recoil.

Hmm, I don't think it is so much as "aim with both eyes open" but that it's superfluous to have a button that alternates between a left-eye view to right eye (with sights) view but just shows them both at the same time with reticule representation, like how the remaining ammo is always shown on HUD when really you'd at least have to glance down and feel at your bandoleer.

And then you say with red-dot sights you do use the weapon's sights with both eyes open, in fact the reticule then is a very good approximation of what many red-dot reticules look like. So I don't see the problem.

Any "ADS" mode should be instant, like blinking, or closing left eye and opening right. And it shouldn't lock down your movement, hold the walk key as well so move but not so fast as bouncing your sight picture around. And it's not a massive howling blunder to have a target reticule on the screen as I've explained with the parallax thing.

As to appearance of the weapon model on the right there is no point splitting hairs, it's close enough. I held an airsoft M4 Carbine (that is apparently 1:1 scale with the real deal) and after aiming down the sights with my right eye and opening my left eye it looked so much like the perspective you see in video games with the standard "I am holding my weapon" position.

 

[Treblaine]

Oh that's what you meant, that wasn't very clear.

ADS as a mechanic for all guns may have started on PC but didn't spread on PC like it spread on consoles.

Call of Duty 1 (not the first to do it, but one of the first) was really pushing for realism and had loads of stuff like mountable machine gun emplacements and other details the series would drop later for a "different" approach that long standing fans weren't hugely keen on. I remember playing the game and noticing how the cross-hairs were so tight it didn't make much difference whether aiming down sights or not

COD2 was seen as a betrayal by PC gamers, it was dumbed down compared to the last game and the PC version scored lower on average than the console release. Score aggregates don't say inherently of a game's worth, but they are a good measure of the expressed opinions of critics.

Operation Flashpoint and ARMA focused a lot on "hyper-realism", they could not have something representative like a reticule, even though realistically they would be aiming down the sights to shoot with precision and have their left eye open for wider field of view, it needed to go beyond plausible to "exactly as you would see it" even if things got awkward.

I don't think ADS was "invented" as a console crutch but more as a step towards even more realism.

I do think however that ADS was ADOPTED by so many console games FOR how it could be used as a crutch to compensate for thumbstick's slow imprecision when combined with aim assist.

I hope that cleared that up.

So what? Doesn't change the fact that, as you pointed out in the paragraph right above that one but seem to have already forgotten, many PC games use ADS for completely different reasons. L4D and many other games use the exact same mechanic already in the fact that reticles decrease/increase in size depending on movement. It is the EXACT same mechanic as ADS, the only difference is the fact that ADS displays a visual representation of the fact that you're becoming more accurate whereas CS/L4D etc don't bother.

Whether it's used as a crutch on console games or not is entirely beyond the point. A) Console games kinda need ADS in some ways for obvious reasons, and B) There are a plethora of PC games out there that use ADS to represent the fact that you can't aim accurately when you're running around.

Just as a sort of aside, have you ever played paintball or anything similar? If so, you'll have noticed how utterly pointless it is to fire without aiming down the sights at any range beyond a few feet, and you'll also noticed how utterly fucked you are if you spend literally the entire game actually aiming down the sights. Some video games are going to want to represent this aspect (just as some games aren't, mainly earlier FPS's, but TF2 also comes to mind), and ADS mechanics are by far the most "realistic" ways of doing this. You can use a simpler reticle expanding/retracting as you move sort of mechanic to represent this if you want, but it's merely a cosmetic difference, the same mechanics are going on beneath.

So i'm guessing you're not actually complaining about the mechanic itself, what you're actually complaining about is that you personally don't enjoy seeing iron sights on your screen. Which is completely fine, different strokes and all that, but don't tell the rest of us that just because we like seeing iron sights that we're somehow wrong for our opinions.

Please do consider my original post on parallax, how they could very well be aiming using their right eye and that is represented as the reticule in the centre of the screen.

I wouldn't say L4D/Counterstrike style "dilating crosshairs" is exactly the same as ADS though they DO have an equivalent principal. ADS always takes time to enter and obscures your view, while you could just open your left eye to get a clear look around you have to release ADS to get a clear view. I find the countr-strike method much more flexible and intuitive.

Yeah, I agree that console games need ADS for aim-assist and a permanently dilated crosshairs helps that broad to fine aiming, but when you build a game around Console ADS then you're not pulling to full advantage of pc controls, I think there needs to be a more clear line drawn between PC and console on this aspect of games interface.

I don't have the hugest problem with iron sights to be honest, especially when they are low profile like this:

Though all to often they are very obscuring and I wish I could use my in game avatar's left eye to get a better look around.

My problem is in the mechanics of the transition:
-it suddenly changes the shape of what you are trying to line up to aim,
-it always takes time to go into and go out of
-there is some performance limitation that is hard to shake out of like FORCED to go slower, rather than losing accuracy if you try to move fast.
-even with a keyboard of so many different keys, I only have so many fingers that's using up a valuable finger for what should be automatic

I really can't stand COD any more for how the best rampages are ended by some guy hiding in a shadowy corner with his weapon sighted in, no way would I be able to fight back without knowing they were there and sidling around the corner already sighted in.

But games with ADS that:
-Does not have oversized sighting obscuration
-Does not have onerously long sight-in-sight-out time
-Doesn't impose heavy movement penalties that encourage camping
-somehow doesn't complete with "finger space" on controls

Then it becomes really trivial. But the title of this is that you don't need ADS to have realistic shooting mechanic in an FPS game.

 

[WanderingFool]

All I know is Borderlands had it, and I only liked how it was handled in there. Other games felt a lot more forced, like it was the fad thing to do. Also, aim assist went WAY up when I didn't turn it off, so there's that too. I guess it depends on the game to convey "feel." It just simply isn't necessary in a lot of games, and I agree where Treblaine is coming from.

Thing about borderlands though, save for the sniper rifles, you really didnt need to aim all that much. Hipfire accuracy was pretty good there.

Also, Borderlands is awesome.

 

[WaysideMaze]

Think about it, the right eye would be looking down the weapons sights and out around at the enviroment. The left eye would be looking around with a better view at the environment and see the left side of the gun in your hand.

Your left eye would see something like this:

While your right eye looking down the sights sees this:

That's how that makes me feel. I'm already self concious man..

Scrolling down and seeing that, I loled. I loled hard.

O/T I don't like the fact that so many games now seem to rely on ADS, but there are enough shooters out there that avoid it if I'm not in the mood for it.

 

[A3Bf72rVWE5hA]

Please, OP, let me hope you're not saying you aim your guns with both eyes open... That would be awkward.

You seem to be just about the only person to make that point, that when aiming down the sights of a gun you only see (or at least focus on) what the eye you're aiming with sees.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Yeah but in real life you'll still often close your left eye to aim properly down the sight...