The next idiotic pseudo-realism: Motion Blur

[BFG10K]

I hate motion blur, but I love lens flares. Especially the over the top ones, like in Serious Sam.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Exactly, as I stated in my first post, I'm fine with realistic recoil and the like. That's a "fair" way of doing it. As you stated, in general your aim is already compromised by the very fact that you are moving and most likely aiming at another object also in motion. A skilled player shouldn't be further handicapped by random bullet trajectory.

Perfect crosshairs are unrealistic.
If you were to jump off a 30 story skyscraper, do you really think that you could whip out a sidearm and down 2 helicopters hovering overhead by unloading a clip straight into each of their engines, then turn around and headshot 20 enemies on the sidewalk below before you hit the ground?
In an FPS with hitscan weapons, that's not even a particularly taxing scenario.

Moving doesn't hinder a skilled player's aim at all. We're not playing Doom with the arrow keys here. WASD + mouselook has been out for a while.

Wandering crosshairs is not the answer. That first leads to, "Weaving mouse syndrome." Then you learn that a quick swipe with the mouse will drag the crosshairs over the target, which becomes the de facto aiming technique.
Go fire up a 200FPS FPS and spend an hour walking around while jiggling your mouse and tell me how you feel. "Earthquake vision" is eyestrain central.

The cone of fire is the only way to get realistic aiming without screwing with the visual field.

 

[ScottSwing]

I know screenshots are not the best way to show motion blur, but I have to say the motion blur in dirt2 is probably the best iv seen yet.

The only part of the scene thats blurred are rims on the car, they spin really fast so they would blur IRL

Here, as someone mentioned earlier, in a car if you looked down at the road it would be the only part the would be blurred, not the whole screen. In this screenshot, only the part of road closest to the camera is blurred

No, the whole scene is blurred, just subtly.

 

[Powermoloch]

Not sure about the rest of you guys. I love motion blur when it is done right.

 

[taltamir]

Not sure about the rest of you guys. I love motion blur when it is done right.

I think most of us were saying that it is usually not done right. Even I say that it adds to the picture IF done right, but games don't do it right, they use it in an unrealistic over the top manner.

 

[sandorski]

Next? The feature has been around since the Voodoo5 series.

 

[smackababy]

Perfect crosshairs are unrealistic.
If you were to jump off a 30 story skyscraper, do you really think that you could whip out a sidearm and down 2 helicopters hovering overhead by unloading a clip straight into each of their engines, then turn around and headshot 20 enemies on the sidewalk below before you hit the ground?
In an FPS with hitscan weapons, that's not even a particularly taxing scenario.

Moving doesn't hinder a skilled player's aim at all. We're not playing Doom with the arrow keys here. WASD + mouselook has been out for a while.

Wandering crosshairs is not the answer. That first leads to, "Weaving mouse syndrome." Then you learn that a quick swipe with the mouse will drag the crosshairs over the target, which becomes the de facto aiming technique.
Go fire up a 200FPS FPS and spend an hour walking around while jiggling your mouse and tell me how you feel. "Earthquake vision" is eyestrain central.

The cone of fire is the only way to get realistic aiming without screwing with the visual field.

Except the Cone of Fire is stupid. Attempting to blur the line between the good (usually labeled hardcore, which isn't always true, as a player can play 80 hours a week and still suck) and the bad (usually labeled casual), is what is making games so piss poor easy. I don't want easy games with auto aim and "helpers" to let people who have bad coordination / tactical planning abilities "hang with the big boys". The days of true skill based online challengers is going away. It is all becoming luck so the noobs can feel good about themselves.

 

[dpodblood]

I honestly don't mind any of those things... the dynamic crosshair, the blur, the film grain effect, the lens flares... I really don't mind I actually think they're pretty cool...

I don't mind them either as long as they're well done. I really like the film grain effect in L4D. Motion blur can be OK too but it depends largely on the game. Ex:

Need for Speed Underground: Stupid tunnel vision motion blur, can't tell wtf is going on...

Need for Speed: SHIFT: Good motion blur that enhances the sense of speed without unrealistically distorting your vision.

 

[taltamir]

Next? The feature has been around since the Voodoo5 series.

maybe as a capability, but I have never seen it in an older game, while it seems every newer game now comes with overused motion blur.

 

[sandorski]

maybe as a capability, but I have never seen it in an older game, while it seems every newer game now comes with overused motion blur.

There was a Racing game 8ish years ago that used Motion Blur.

 

[YBS1]

Perfect crosshairs are unrealistic.
If you were to jump off a 30 story skyscraper, do you really think that you could whip out a sidearm and down 2 helicopters hovering overhead by unloading a clip straight into each of their engines, then turn around and headshot 20 enemies on the sidewalk below before you hit the ground?
In an FPS with hitscan weapons, that's not even a particularly taxing scenario.

Moving doesn't hinder a skilled player's aim at all. We're not playing Doom with the arrow keys here. WASD + mouselook has been out for a while.

The cone of fire is the only way to get realistic aiming without screwing with the visual field.

No, but in real life I would only get one attempt at it and then I would be dead. You wouldn't be able to do that in a game upon your first attempt either. The difference is obviously in a game skills can be honed over time, attempt and reattempt with skills continually improving. Also, in game you have little fear of death, makes it a whole lot easier to concentrate.

Right, moving doesn't hinder a skilled player's aim....that is our point. To be more correct though, it hinders it less.

I'll give you a very exact example of why cone of fire sucks. Let's take a generic FPS, say two stationary adversaries at maybe 35ft. Player A (let's say he's very highly skilled) takes aim a Player B (Joe Average) while Player B simultaneously takes aim at Player A, both firing from the hip. Player A's crosshairs are squarely placed dead center of Player B's head, Player B's crosshairs are close but maybe 8-10 inches off Player A's left shoulder. Both fire in earnest, however due to random cone of fire variance, Player A's shot misses by mere inches. Meanwhile that same variance allows Player B's shot to catch Player A in the chin. Now, I'm aware law of averages will of course eventually even this out. Doesn't make it any less frustrating knowing for certain you had them cleanly headshot. A believe me, a good player knows when a shot should have landed.

 

[taltamir]

There was a Racing game 8ish years ago that used Motion Blur.

I don't play racing games

I'll give you a very exact example of why cone of fire sucks. Let's take a generic FPS, say two stationary adversaries at maybe 35ft. Player A (let's say he's very highly skilled) takes aim a Player B (Joe Average) while Player B simultaneously takes aim at Player A, both firing from the hip. Player A's crosshairs are squarely placed dead center of Player B's head, Player B's crosshairs are close but maybe 8-10 inches off Player A's left shoulder. Both fire in earnest, however due to random cone of fire variance, Player A's shot misses by mere inches. Meanwhile that same variance allows Player B's shot to catch Player A in the chin. Now, I'm aware law of averages will of course eventually even this out. Doesn't make it any less frustrating knowing for certain you had them cleanly headshot. A believe me, a good player knows when a shot should have landed.

even for joe average... the one time he aims perfectly and it misses due to cone effect (which is usually completely obvious... especially with precision based weapons such as snipers).
And joe average also sees himself getting that headshot when he knows he missed... Why should he play the game if its just luck? Because the fact that skill is replaced by luck "evens the field" with more skilled players? well, its still just luck so why should he practice and get better?, there is no point to it all.

 

[smackababy]

No, but in real life I would only get one attempt at it and then I would be dead. You wouldn't be able to do that in a game upon your first attempt either. The difference is obviously in a game skills can be honed over time, attempt and reattempt with skills continually improving. Also, in game you have little fear of death, makes it a whole lot easier to concentrate.

Right, moving doesn't hinder a skilled player's aim....that is our point. To be more correct though, it hinders it less.

I'll give you a very exact example of why cone of fire sucks. Let's take a generic FPS, say two stationary adversaries at maybe 35ft. Player A (let's say he's very highly skilled) takes aim a Player B (Joe Average) while Player B simultaneously takes aim at Player A, both firing from the hip. Player A's crosshairs are squarely placed dead center of Player B's head, Player B's crosshairs are close but maybe 8-10 inches off Player A's left shoulder. Both fire in earnest, however due to random cone of fire variance, Player A's shot misses by mere inches. Meanwhile that same variance allows Player B's shot to catch Player A in the chin. Now, I'm aware law of averages will of course eventually even this out. Doesn't make it any less frustrating knowing for certain you had them cleanly headshot. A believe me, a good player knows when a shot should have landed.

I hate the random chance I'll miss because the game decides my shot should be off, when it wasn't. I can understand if there is some recoil that makes my gun bounce, jerking when I squeeze the trigger, but these can be adjusted and compensated for. A skilled player will learn how to overcome these. No player can overcome where their bullets may randomly end up because someone decided that all guns have a "cone of fire" and it stuck because noobs like not getting destroyed by people better than them.

 

[MrK6]

even for joe average... the one time he aims perfectly and it misses due to cone effect (which is usually completely obvious... especially with precision based weapons such as snipers).
And joe average also sees himself getting that headshot when he knows he missed... Why should he play the game if its just luck? Because the fact that skill is replaced by luck "evens the field" with more skilled players? well, its still just luck so why should he practice and get better?, there is no point to it all.

Because he just "pwned a n00b," his score went up, and the game is therefore fun. He'll tell all his friends about it, like Frank Normal and Sam Mediocre, and they'll run around giggling, yelling inane shit into the mic, and generally making a pain in the ass of themselves. The company will sell millions of copies of the game as word of it spreads like wild fire, and meanwhile "srs bzns" gamers will post in threads like this complaining, and then go back to Counter Strike.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Except the Cone of Fire is stupid. Attempting to blur the line between the good (usually labeled hardcore, which isn't always true, as a player can play 80 hours a week and still suck) and the bad (usually labeled casual), is what is making games so piss poor easy.

80 hours a week playing a video game does not make it realistic that you can double-jump off a wall, spin around 180 degrees, and headshot someone a mile away with a railgun in the span of 3/10ths of a second.

And cone of fire came out in single-player games first. It isn't there to balance multiplayer.

No, but in real life I would only get one attempt at it and then I would be dead. You wouldn't be able to do that in a game upon your first attempt either.

You may need practice your movements because you're sitting in front of a silly LCD screen with 2 frames of input lag and 8ms response time.
I have a CRT and skillz.

Right, moving doesn't hinder a skilled player's aim....that is our point. To be more correct though, it hinders it less.

No, in fact, I can aim better while moving than standing still. Since I am always in motion in an FPS, I am used to always compensating for WASD keypresses. When I'm not pressing anything, my mousehand still wants to compensate for something. Since I primarily strafe right, it's natural for me to aim a little left, so I end up missing left when standing still.

Sounds to me like you either play on consoles or just suck at games.

A believe me, a good player knows when a shot should have landed.

No, a really good player knows his game mechanics.
If I'm sprinting in a game which penalizes it with a huge cone of fire, I don't expect to hit anything smaller than half my FOV, because that's how the game is designed. I don't expect 100% accuracy simply because I put the center of the screen over the point where I wish my bullets would hit. The game hasn't given me that kind of accuracy.
To get accuracy I might have to stop, crouch, pull out a scoped weapon, and aim it. Even then the accuracy might not be 100% to give the game realism. (IRL there's trigger pull, wind, bullet drop, and even imperfections in the bullet which can take the point of impact off the point of aim. Snipers can take many minutes setting up a shot and even then they're not perfect -- why should a game which strives to be in any way realistic give perfect accuracy to someone just for pausing in one spot for 3 seconds?)

I hate the random chance I'll miss because the game decides my shot should be off, when it wasn't.

You might have an inferiority complex and need to compensate by being "perfect" in games, but most of us are confident enough not to need that.
If a game says we missed, we missed. It's no big deal. It's not like the other players aren't operating under the exact same mechanics.
Now if someone was running around with a Quake character and railgun in a CoD world, that would change things. Unless he was a a total n00b keyboarder, he would rule all of Earth. There'd be nothing to do but load up Quake and UT.
But that's not the case. These games penalize the accuracy of everybody to the same degree in the same situations, so it's a level field and skill makes the difference.

 

[pmv]

I hate motion blur, but I love lens flares. Especially the over the top ones, like in Serious Sam.

Oh yeah, when I said 'lens flares are only acceptable for flight sims' I forgot SS. He gets an exemption, because he's Serious!

But nobody else does. Duke would have if the useless bastard had ever actually turned up. But he didn't, so screw him.