Should enemies be able to get head shots?

[ServebotFrank]

Halo Legendary had one hit kills. Fuck that. It just means you had to find every little jackal at the edge of each battle before you could proceed and they could head shot you no matter how agile you were being.

 

[Rheinmetall]

It depends how easily and how often they can shoot you in the head. For instance in the Uncharted games, only snipers can kill you instantly with a head shot, but they kind of give you a warning call, with their laser beams pointing in all possible directions for a few seconds just to be sure the game that you spotted them and you will hide somewhere. If that's the case, more or less with Max Payne then it is acceptable for me. What I don't like is what we call "cheap deaths", to be killed with a headshot out of nowhere.

 

[Smooth Operator]

If you want to have your users flip tables then yes, give every enemy a chance to insta kill the player, furniture sales will be higher then ever.

 

[Easton Dark]

I spent about two hours on this one spot before giving up and turning it down to easy, then another 30 minutes to actually move on.

Were you... trying to sneak by at all?

OT: One hit kills are bullshit and should be easily avoidable if they're there at all.

Like I said, there is no sneak by, the only path to get above them is to go directly through them.

No... you can sneak by them, I've done it. You have to be still, not keep moving.

I can't remember if the achievement was for sneaking by them, or killing them all. Fact is, you can sneak by.

 

[Action Jack]

They had no problem doing so in syphon filter. It sure can piss one off but I say yeah, I'm a fair man. If I can pull it off they should be able to as well.

I disagree. The enemies in Syphon Filter 2 would lock onto your head, while they themselves were wearing body armor (meaning you had to stand still and aim a clunky crosshair to find THEIR heads because you could only lock onto their torsos). They never hit you with their first shot and the game would warn you that your head was being targeted, but it became an exercise in tedium as you had to keep disappearing behind cover while you slowly searched for them.

It was fair in the sense that it was never reduced to cheap deaths, but it killed the flow of the game. And why couldn't I lock onto their heads? That would be like only letting the enemies use bullet-time in Max Payne.

 

[ElPatron]

I don't find it a very serious issue. Happens sometimes, but it's not the AIs fault - it's simply random scatter from full-auto fire and shotguns.

To me is seems to be very rare. And when it happens it's not like the punishment for dying is that high.

 

[gravian]

No, I think one hit kills should be limited to specialist weapons (Snipers, shotguns at close range, rocket launchers etc.)

There's little you can do if a random bloke in the corner of the room you didn't spot could insta-kill you.

This sounds like the best idea to me. One-hit kills possible, but only in certain situations if you're at full health. Otherwise it can seem a bit cheap, especially if its a non-regen game with almost no health or respawn near or if there's an enemy almost designed to one-shot you.

Reminds me of the original Red Faction near the end where you're fighting mercs in close quarters, some of them equipped with railguns that could one-shot you at full health if they so much as hit your foot. And could shoot through bloody WALLS if you backed off. Not so much a challenge as instant death if you couldn't see/shoot them in time.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

Personally ...I would fucking hate it

Logically I think it should depend on the enemy/enemy type and also the game play of the rest of the game. I doubt that Joe S. Thugenmeyer should be able to shoot someone square in the head, ya know?

especially when for half the game you're fighting favela kids that havent shot anything except bottles and the odd ignorant gangster or tourist.

 

[monkey_man]

it depends on the game really. In a game like Call of Duty/Battlefield etc("realistic shooters")., Headshots would mean you have to actually play as a soldier, instead of a kid with a gun. It would drastically improve those games. I think. But in a game like, say Duke Nukem, aiming for fun, it'd be weird.

 

[Khazoth]

No. Nonononononono.

Screw this Battlefield era of realism. Games are supposed to be fun, and headshots are not something you can see coming. For gods sake people, yeah, Battlefield 3 was realistic, but what it wasn't, was fun. As much as I hate Modern Warfare 3, at least that seems to be going about itself as some sort of Arnold-esque 90's action movie.


...Let's just make a game where if you get hit once, you get sent to the hospital and the game shuts down for the appropriate length of rehabilitation time. Then when you are finally allowed to reboot the game, the story is over because you spent six weeks in the hospital so the evil plan went off without a hitch.

 

[w9496]

Depends.

Arcade-y style shooters? Probably not. Games like RainbowSix that try for a bit of realism? Yeah.

I still like RainbowSix Vegas 2 with its insta-death headshots, even if I do get a little cautious when the terrorists shout "AIM FOR THE HEAD!!!".

 

[TheEnglishman]

I'd say make it so head-shots are possible on hard modes because otherwise it might throw the game to the wheels of chance.

 

[cthulhlu]

it would be very realistic, but in a game such realism can often come at the cost of enjoyment.
im going to say no on this one, at least on Normal difficulty.

 

[TrevHead]

I'ld say no in any difficulty. Hard modes are bad enough due to over the top bulletspunges, I wouldn't want random deaths due to headshot making it worse.

Although maybe a Hard Mode + would be ok for player who want it in their game

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

It's really hard for me to say.

I'll be using Metro 2033 for this example, but you could substitute Max Payne 3 in and it's similar.

I usually don't have much trouble with the human enemies, pretty much steamrolling it on normal. Though occasionally I'll get in a weird spot, usually where enemies are directly above me, and get dropped in half a second(i guess due to headshots). In most cases there has been a way to get up to their level, but there was on place in particular where you're on the surface about 5 seconds and you run directly into like 20 freaking nazis or whatever they are and they're all over the damn place above you and there's no way up except through them. I spent about two hours on this one spot before giving up and turning it down to easy, then another 30 minutes to actually move on.

It's made extra hilarious because said nazis wear helmets that provide 100% protection against head shots and take like 2-5 shots to knock off. The gas masks they have to wear to survive are a weaker target and ensure they'll die(2-3 shots), but they're very hard to hit and actually have it register on the mask and not helmet.

Tbh it seems to me like going from steamrolling on normal to barely being able to progress on easy, then going right back to steamrolling on normal again would be a design issue(headshots, in this case). Obviously on harder difficulties, you would want to leave it in, but it just seems really weird on easier ones.

Whaaaaaat?
That didn't happen to me. I just sat in a corner with a sniper and placed shot after shot in the Nazi's heads.
Then I walked up the stairs/platforms took out my revolver and headshot'ed my way through.
Every man went down with one shot.

I don't know if this has anything to do with me playing on the difficulty over normal(can't remember it's name).


ONTOPIC: I got a lucky shot in the head while playing max payne 3 maybe twice. Every time a dude sprayed at me with a machinegun, so I just shrugged it off as a lucky shot and went in guns blazing and slow mo when it loaded the last checkpoint.
Mostly the way I went through the game.
That's how you play max payne

 

[WaterDancer]

It's a nice feature that I would like in some games when it comes to harder difficulties. In war games it would add to the immersion that you can't just stand up wand mow down enemies all day. In the first mission of Vietcong, you were attacked by a sniper and had to maneuver your way to the sniper to kill him as he was far away that is not even the end of the first mission.
Syphon Filter 2 and 3 had enemies that would do head shots. You got a warning but they would also be placed among other enemies and the danger meter before your shot would rise fast.

 

[Zetatrain]

Depends.

Arcade-y style shooters? Probably not. Games like RainbowSix that try for a bit of realism? Yeah.

I still like RainbowSix Vegas 2 with its insta-death headshots, even if I do get a little cautious when the terrorists shout "AIM FOR THE HEAD!!!".

If you think R6 Vegas was hard then you'll despise the original Rainbow Six and Rainbow 6 3: Raven Shield and its expansion Athena's Sword. Even with the heaviest armor the max amount of hits you can take is 2 and that's if you're lucky (also no regenerating health). Chances are you'll die from the first shot regardless of where it hits. There are also no checkpoints or save features so you have complete the entire mission in one go. While the levels aren't as long as the ones in Vegas, this is only a small blessing. Last night I got stuck on a level for nearly four hours. If you're teammates die then they are dead for good and their replacements have crappy stats. And lowering the difficultly only slightly delays the enemy's reaction time and nothing more. The first Ghost Recon is also the same with the exception that you can save during the mission.

That being said, for actual realistic games (ARMA, Flashpoint, Rainbow Six 3, Ghost Recon 1, etc) one hit kills, be they head shots or not, are totally legit.

As games such as Max Payne...no unless its optional or an attack you can see coming

This reminds me of the "007 the World is Not Enough" game in which the enemies could not head shot you in the single player campaign, but in multiplier the AI bots could head shot you with ease.

 

[BrionJames]

Absolutely. I find most shooters' to be too easy nowadays. You remember Contra right? BOOM, one hit and your dead. Gradius? Boom one hit and your dead. The whole infinite health/ infinite lives thing gets pretty boring. Not that I'm saying there shouldn't be some sort of password or lives system, games are just too easy.

In Contra and Gradius the bullets are slow moving so you have time to dodge them, sure many oldschool games have instant deaths with no chance to evade like the closing door at the end of Gradius, but those are easily avoidable in the next playthough.

In a modern FPS with bullets it would be just a case of your head exploding in random intervals.

True, and yet there has been a pretty successful franchise that I've found to be a lot of fun. That franchise being Tom Clancy's rainbow six series. One shot kills were abound in those games, but everyone still found them to be very fun. I like the idea of realistic damage in games.

 

[Dogstile]

It's really hard for me to say.

I'll be using Metro 2033 for this example, but you could substitute Max Payne 3 in and it's similar.

I usually don't have much trouble with the human enemies, pretty much steamrolling it on normal. Though occasionally I'll get in a weird spot, usually where enemies are directly above me, and get dropped in half a second(i guess due to headshots). In most cases there has been a way to get up to their level, but there was on place in particular where you're on the surface about 5 seconds and you run directly into like 20 freaking nazis or whatever they are and they're all over the damn place above you and there's no way up except through them. I spent about two hours on this one spot before giving up and turning it down to easy, then another 30 minutes to actually move on.

It's made extra hilarious because said nazis wear helmets that provide 100% protection against head shots and take like 2-5 shots to knock off. The gas masks they have to wear to survive are a weaker target and ensure they'll die(2-3 shots), but they're very hard to hit and actually have it register on the mask and not helmet.

Tbh it seems to me like going from steamrolling on normal to barely being able to progress on easy, then going right back to steamrolling on normal again would be a design issue(headshots, in this case). Obviously on harder difficulties, you would want to leave it in, but it just seems really weird on easier ones.

I'm gonna be that guy again, but its possible to sneak past those guys, if we're talking about that car graveyard place. Its a ***** to do, but you can do it.

OP: Yes, enemies should in games where it makes sense. You should rarely expose your head in max payne, slow motion is awesome like that.

 

[laggyteabag]

I generally don't think that insta kill enemies are fair unless it has a visual/ audio warning, like on Halo 3, on the first level, if you play the game on legendary there are a group of jackal snipers that can kill you in one shot, and there is no warning if they are going to shoot you or not.

INB4 "shoot them then"

They are so far away, that maybe 1 in every 10 bullets will hit with a Battlerifle