Why do people hate realism in shooters?

[Lieju]

I don't find CoD or Medal of Honor 'realistic' enough. It's idealization of a war and how you need to kill countless humans just makes me sad. Real war is not like that, and I don't like the game wanting me to feel good for murdering a ton of people recklessly.

I like my shooters fun and interesting. I think Metroid Prime is my favourite FPS, because I loved exploring the environments and finding new enemies just to see what they're like.

EDIT: I'm aware there are more realistic military-shooters than CoD, and they bother me less, but they also aren't as popular.
Still, I can just not play CoD. (Although I am concerned of it's popularity making other devs ape it.)

 

[Jandau]

What exactly do you mean by realism? Because CoD is most assuredly not realistic. If we're talking about something like ARMA, then sure, but most Modern Military FPS games are about as realistic as Pikmin...

 

[irok]

Its just so boring and monotonous, there's like a new one out every other month with like a billion clones of the leading title and the variety just isn't there to keep them interesting, if you've played one you've played them all , there's really no difference. I could never stand bigotry field 3 I found it was rather painful to play through , couldn't stand dumbed down Cpt. fuckyeahmuricas fighting racist stereo types in unspecifiedistan, the multiplayer was better but it was still about as good as a modern military shooter can be , which isn't much.

Oh that and media tends to gravitate towards these things every time a shooting happens and then proclaims all games to be evil , its an easier target then most even if that isn't the case.

 

[VodkaKnight]

Realism is fine.
OVERREALISM is irritating.
I mean, if you die if a fly coughs on you, your health regenerates too slowly to be effective, you can only hold one weapon, etc. then it's annoying.

 

[Eve Charm]

Well they still have to be fun is the problem. Ghost recons and rainbow 6's. Realistic and fun, Operation flashpoint, Realistic but set up to be not fun with bad checkpoints in insane open distances to get shot from.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

I don't hate realism. I just get slightly annoyed when it's used as a game's main selling point.

 

[Talvrae]

Probably in my opinion of that kind of game bein over saturated in the market... Just have to see how CoD and the clones are dominating the game sales

 

[kasperbbs]

I don't really hate it, i just want something else for a change. Fighting cyborg aliens in quake was a lot more fun than shooting fucking muslims or russians in every goddamn game these days. Personally i prefer fast paced shooters where you try to avoid fire by moving and not sitting behind a conveniently placed boulder while waiting for the enemy to stick its neck out.

 

[Ninjat_126]

Well, considering there is no such thing as a realistic FPS I guess you can't complain to much about them.

Seriously, show me the FPS where as a sniper you sit down bored out of your skull for 9 hours waiting for a perfect shot, where your in the middle of the desert riding around looking for IEDs, where one bullet makes you unable to fight and if your lucky you can get back to the hospital, have months of physical therapy and be able to walk again, etc. etc. etc.

Not to say adding some aspects of realism is bad, it can be used to good effect like adding immersion or depth to gameplay.

Red Orchestra
Arma
Operation Flashpoint

To half the thread: The OP was referring to realistic shooters, not "realistic shooters."

Realistic Shooters: Careful progression and long duels, suppressing fire, long ranges quick deaths and slow bleed. Lots of waist high walls.
"Realistic Shooters": Slow progression due to messy fights, AARRR PEEE GEEE, short ranges quick deaths but no consequences to taking 98% damage. Lots of chest high walls.



Playing RO2, I found myself trading rifle fire with a single enemy for surprisingly long amounts of time, each of us trying to judge the range and bullet drop, and occasionally bandage up after a graze. Also, I struggled with framerate issues because my laptop isn't built to run RO2.

 

[LAGG]

Realism? Get your chocolate out of my peanut butter. Give me UT2004 where maps have low gravity and I can fire a laser beam into a concentrated ball of energy and kill EVERYTHING.

Exactly what I was going to say. What can be more awesome that this?

 

[FFKonoko]

Wow, what a loaded question and a ton of stuff following on.
What many people dislike is BORING shooters, and boring games in general. And shock, after the umpteenth time it gets a little dull trudging around a sandy brown/grey area, popping in and out of cover and being immersed in shallow jingoism.
It's nothing to do with realism though, I got sick to death of Halo, thanks to being enlisted to trudge through legendary on 2 and 3 with a friend (persistence rather than skill won the day) and after a few brief tries of ODST and Reach I basically figured, no, done with this shit. I love the voice work in one of those games, I just really didn't want to play them.

 

[BarkBarker]

Because so MANY MANY MANY developers don't know when to implement and where, I dislike a world where bullets can shoot through most materials, because this is a game, and I am not supposed to be a fucking tactical expert, but then there are times where a walk off a building does 60 damage out of a total 100, when I jump down the stairs on a regular basis and the most that happens to me is....well fuck all, a drop from that height don't hurt a bit, but then I want to approach from the water but I need a gun that doesn't fall the fuck apart when it gets hit by a sprinkler in the yard, and then we get things like a knife kills me instantly, but a fucking shotgun to the chest and they are still moving, or a fictional shooter where the big aliens can take SLUGS to the fucking face and not move, but I take one to the ankle and I need some fucking Calpol, the rules MUST be within some coherence or the game falls apart, and a lot of the time reality isn't really playable unless you tweak a lot of it, so they just sprinkle realistic every now and again.....but on a more personal level I'd have to say that human designs of weapons are always so very human, a fictional, fantasy one has more variety as a game to implement something without a previous measure, sure you may have played games about shooting guys in the head, but what about shooting guys in their top left shoulder where their heart is located with my boomerang saw blade shooter.....yeah welcome to a whole new game friends.

 

[Greg White]

I can only think of a handful of 'realistic' shooters, ARMA being the top one, Metro possibly being considered another, and frankly...they're a bit dry as far as games go. They're kinda like flight sims for shooter fans.

Arcadey shooters, like CoD and Battlefield, have more general excitement to their action, but no one in their right mind actually believes either one is realistic...or at least I hope not. They are, however, close enough in appearance to real life for them to not be mistaken for full on fantasy. They're more or less the action movies of gaming.

Then we have those that are full on, no way in hell any of this can be real, fantasy shooters. Halo, Borderlands, Rise of the Triads, Serious Sam those sorts of games. You're just here to kill stuff, preferably something alien and with massive weapons.

All that said, most people play games because they're not like real life.

 

[bug_of_war]

Is there any particular reason people hate realism in shooters?

First off, there really isn't any shooter out there that have realistic shooting. Why?

1:Because nearly any gun shot from every weapon can kill a human being/severly wound them to the point where they would lay on the floor not being able to move much.

2:Shotguns and sniper rifles would be instantly over powered. Shotguns would have a MUCH longer range, and in the case of the Battlefield bullet drop, it would take MUCH further distance to cause a military grade sniper rifle bullet to experience drop.

3:Only the fastest firing automatic/semi automatic weapon would be used due to point 1.

4:Weapon modification would be limited AT BEST.

Shooters are fun because there are some tactics. Call of Duty and Medal of Honor for instance forces a player to think how best they play and therefor what the best selection in weapons and modifications. Battlefield has 4 different classes, all of which need to be distributed evenly in order to have a successful team.

Don't get me wrong, Realism≠boring, but in the case of shooters, there needs to be some fantasy.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

Because I play games to escape reality, not get muddled in more of it.

Seriously, I work in an oppressive atmosphere at my job, I deal with the bullshit of navigating the "correct" courses for college, and I deal with people who are so stuck in their backwards-ass ways that they won't even acknowledge that there is a future.

So when I want to play a video game, I want to be a god damn super-powered dickhead who can kill everyone and everything with nothing being more powerful than me.

 

[Rariow]

It's not as much "realistic shooters are bad" as "There's been fifty realistic shooters released this week. Can I please play a shooter where I can use my telekinetic powers to fling a guy into a botomless pit now? No, because the last one was released half a year ago? Awww.".

Besides, the so called "realistic shooter" is far from being realistic. I'm pretty sure soldiers in real life don't each take down half an army thanks to their ability to absorb fifty bullets and then be completely fine after huddling in a corner for a couple seconds. The only really realistic shooters are stuff like ARMA or those old "Hidden and Dangerous" games where you drop after a couple shots, and even those take a bit of artistic license.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Clearly you've never played Red Orchestra 1, the old Operation Flashpoint games, or ARMA, because if you did, you would realize that many of the things you said occur in the game. You often fire from 500m away in Arma and Red Orchestra 1 (Not really 2), and mortars and artillery are usually necessary to make gains in ground control some scenarios. You rarely see the person who shot you in these games, even in red orchestra 2 in some scenarios. And while you don't get carried off the field in a stretcher, as I don't see how that would be possible from a gameplay standpoint, you do experience everything else you've said; people play these games so some people must think its fun, just not the majority of people.

Seriously, do you think that the developers of these games make them this way to insult the lives of real soldiers and veterans and exploit their struggles as an attempt to sell more games? You're delirious. Maybe Call of Duty and Battlefield market themselves like that, but then they are not realistic games. To think that they make these games to falsely portray what war for a quick buck is quite a stretch to believe.

No, they do not make these games to insult the lives of real soldiers. They make the games in order to make money off of the lives of real soldiers and real conflicts, which is not so much insulting as it is thoughtless and callous. You miss my point: Reality can never exist within a fictional space, not ever. That is an objective fact. And any pretense to reality is arrogant and manipulative.

I have played Arma II. I understand what you are getting at with the game's mechanics, the more careful and thoughtful play can be more fun, but never refer to it as "realism."

 

[gargantual]

Back in the days of CS.S the distinction was simple. Either you were a more aesthetic, strafing run and gunner, and the tactical distinction was Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. Not saying that you can't establish a middle ground, but the legacy of CoD does kinda look a little mechanically silly, advertised as a serious visceral military experience, and plays like 1/2 shooter fantasy.

Maybe it's just the coat of paint or the advertisement. Can't have it both ways. If it claims serious, it's gotta play serious. Serious Sam to me is a better balance of real guns and unbelievable but fun monster action.

 

[Alarien]

As someone who was actually in the Army, I can say that I am somewhat averse to "authenticity" in shooters because there is simply:

No. Such. Thing.

Yep, no such thing as authenticity. It doesn't matter how much you try to portray realistic combat situations with realistic behaving weapons and damage (which is basically one shot... if you take one in the leg in combat, you're going to be looking for the medic/exit, not limping forward to gun down your next enemy), in the end, it is not realistic because, as intense as it is for you, it is never real. This means that you are far more prone to do something inanely stupid and, hey, if you fail, you die/respawn/sitout/observe. It's not life, where if you do something like that and die, it really is game over. Hence, you'd be a LOT more cautious in an "authentic" situation.

This bothers me because you'll get games where the dev is going for something "realistic" like, laughably, Battlefield or, more appropriately ARMA, and you will still see people (on the ARMA side), leaving cover without fire support and sprinting through an LDA (linear danger area) or absurdly (on the Battlefield side) leaping out of a moving aircraft only to land on another one and "activate" enter it.

This is not authentic, whether just mildly annoying or wholly absurd, it is still not something you'd do in real life.

That said, I don't hate these games, the people who make or play them, and have even jumped in myself occasionally. However, they just aren't my thing primarily. This is partially because of the wave of idiots who actually do equate this to how awesome their "mad skills" would be if it were real (mostly 13 year old boys) and partially because I like to have fun, and... frankly, it's more fun to run around with a giant flamethrower on a cartoony character laughing maniacally or shoot a "bazooka" at the ground to give yourself a high leap.

To each their own...

 

[-Dragmire-]

So I play a variety of shooters, everything from Halo and Battlefield to Red Orchestra and ARMA. Sometimes I prefer some running and gunning, while other times, (Most of the time in my case), I prefer to play a more tactical and challenging game. And whenever I read topics about shooters on other forums, almost every time the word realism is mentioned, someone follows up with, "If you want realism, go join the army!" I don't understand what's so wrong with wanting a bit of realism in shooters. If you don't like realistic shooters, you don't have to play them. They obviously won't be replacing arcade shooters any time soon.

Is there any particular reason people hate realism in shooters?

I don't like realism in shooters. However, that doesn't mean it bad or anything like that, they just cater to different tastes than mine.

The Shooters I've enjoyed tend to feel floaty so you seem to glide across the ground, makes it so running and gunning is a viable tactic. I hate recoil and love bullet spray, it's less tactical but keeps everyone moving. Having no fall damage makes it so there's no real stale mate where both teams can't get by each other because a vertical layout is not a limitation to movement. You can probably see a pattern here.

tactical gameplay vs quick mobile gameplay.

So, to answer your question, I don't like realism in shooters because playing them in the way I am accustomed to is a really fast way to rack up a high death count and I don't find that fun. But like you said, I don't like realistic shooters so I don't play them. Also, I don't consider realism to detract from the value of a game, it merely detracts from the fun I can get out of it.