Croatoan
They/Them A-10 Warthog
There is something wrong with modern multiplayer shooters, and I don't think I am the only person that thinks this way. Over the years developers have, for whatever reason, molded their experiences into something that just doesn't feel good anymore. I am going to lay out what "I" think the problems are to get us started, but I imagine many of you have your own ideas and griefs so lets hear them!
*A note on "Realism" : To me a game should be challenging (high skill ceiling) and fun. Unless you are making a 100% sim it doesn't matter how realistic your systems are if they are challenging and fun. That doesn't mean the real world doesn't have some good examples to choose from though (as I will point out).
*A note on Negative Fun: Negative fun, or annoyance factor, is a term I will use, and I want to not confuse anyone. Basically, multiplayer shooters are conflict oriented and cannot avoid negative fun because one player will always kill another and that dead player will experience negative fun. That said, it is my belief that developers should provide the best possible experience for the dead player that they can. What I mean by this is that the losing player should know why they lost, and that the reason why they lost is due to the other players skill, and not bullshit (more on what I believe is bullshit later).
*A note to any dev that might read this: Please never add things into your game that lower the skill gap.
Low Recoil Spray to Win.
First on our tour of the Shooter Sins are games that play fast and loose with the laws of physics. Recoil is one of the areas where using realism helps game design. Guns should have realistic recoil, and firing full auto at a player 50 meters away should not end well unless the the shooter is a super human (or laying down with a bipod). You see, recoil mechanics are one of the best ways to have a high skill ceiling in a shooter. It takes time and practice to learn recoil in games that do it right which allows the good players to stand out. This gives gunplay depth and makes it less of a boring full auto grindfest. Unfortunately both COD and Battlefield have dumbed down recoil to the point that you can full auto spray someone from across the map and win. It is exceptionally bad in blackout, and battlefield 5. Even with modern firearm advances, real world operators don't really use full auto that much, but I bet players rarely take their weapon off full auto in battlefield 5's WW2. Don't get me started on Battlefield 1's recoil....
This sucks for me as a battlefield fan because I remember when the game took skill to be good at. Now anyone can log on and spray to win. Pretty much the only mainstream, non sim game, that still has rewarding shooting is PUBG, and when PUBG is doing something better than you, well, you know you've fucked up. You might think I am crazy here, but ask any of the big BR streamers and they will point to games like PUBG and ARMA as having the best, most rewarding, shooting mechanics. Hell, Dr. Disrespect and Viss mention it quite a bit though they tend to not be big fans of PUBG in general.
TLDR: Having more realistic recoil is good for a game because it adds depth and a high skill ceiling.
The Sixth Sense
This one is easy, fuck directional hit markers in multiplayer shooters. Not all good ideas for single player games belong in multiplayer games. The only way a player should instantly know what direction they are being shot from is from seeing the muzzle flash, or hearing the gunshot. (Yeah, I know, asking a game to have good sound design is like asking Bobby Kotick to be a decent human being).
This one pisses me off so much in games where I make a great flank and hit someone only to have them instantly swing around and hit me a few times before I kill them. Now I am low on health and have a lower chance of killing their buddies. And not because I did something wrong, but because the game gives the outplayed player information they should not have. Devs should reward outplaying, and flanking, not make it frustrating. There is no real reason for this other than coddling bad players. It doesn't even remove negative fun because the flanked player still dies.
TLDR: Directional Hit markers are a terrible idea for multiplayer shooters.
Yo Bro, I got a grenade that shoots out more grenades!
If I had my way multiplayer shooters would not have grenades, or any splash damage weapons, but I will settle for them being limited. These crutch weapons are one of the biggest suppliers of negative fun in the entire genre because their use requires almost zero skill, and they reek of trollish bullshit . Shame on the call of duty dev that came up with the cluster grenade, shame of the idiot that put anti-personnel mines in ANY game, and shame on DICE for battlefield 1 grenade spam. These weapons are only there to frustrate, they provide no depth to gameplay and can only lower the skill gap (never lower the skill gap). It doesn't matter that explosives exist in the real world, they are the very definition of negative fun. This goes for crazy, no skill, killstreak rewards in COD as well.
The only games I can think of that did grenades right were the early halo games, PUBG, and other sims.
TLDR: Splash damage weapons are bad mmkay. They lower the skill gap and only serve to troll.
Laser Beams Everywhere!
Dear DICE (and other shooter devs),
Guns don't produce tracers like you think they do. No military would go to war with every single bullet fired being a tracer round. It is complete stupidity and your error either shows how little you know about the subject you are making a game about, or how stupid you think the average player is (or both). Having visible laser beam bullets in your game needs to stop. Why should firing my weapon give away my position on the battlefield by having a clearly traceable bullet to my location? You realize this is part of what makes snipers so prevalent and obnoxious right? Sorry, but Battlefield 5 should not have the same laser beams as Battlefront 2. The only weapons that "might" have tracers are mgs, and even then tracer rounds are not fired every bullet. Stop coddling us.
Thanks,
Croatoan
TLDR: Bullet tracers are dumb and serve no purpose other than giving away players positions on the map to snipers. Remove them except for the few instances they are actually used for.
It takes how long to die?!?!
Last of the sins that I am going to highlight today is one that is kind of new, and anyone who has played Battlfield Firestorm will likely know what I am talking about. When I die, or enter a downed state, as a player, I want to do so quickly. Long drawn out animations, especially when someone can still attack in a downed state, are super obnoxious and legit piss me off. It takes way to long to get "downed" in firestorm, and because of this its easier to game ruin someone before they can use any of their downed abilities. I mean, I already lost, why make me go through this stupid animation for what seems like a decade? That said, DICE is horrible about animations and has a lot of unneeded ones in BF5.
I think of all the BRs I have played Apex is the only one that really gets the downed state right. Their entire death mechanic should be copied into every br out there. I will say the battlefield 5's team revive mechanic is good for base multiplayer though. But I think we are getting off topic here.
TLDR: If I am going to die, do it quickly. Also pay animators to not show off sometimes.
So what about Super Bullets?
Super bullets (1 frame deaths) are actual programming or networking limitations or errors which have become a hot topic particularly with battlefield 5. Super bullets in general lead to a lot of negative fun because they add to the perception that the person that killed you was cheating. Which ups a persons bullshit meter and can lead to them dropping the game. Of course I want developers to fix these issues but this isn't really a game design failing, and I am mostly talking about design with this OP.
So what about TTK?
IMO TTK (Time To Kill) should be set where it makes sense for the game and setting. TTK is also a personal preference and having a high or low ttk does not make one game better than the other unless the ttk flies in the face of setting. An example of a bad ttk would be a ww2 game with the high ttk of apex legends, unless of coarse that WW2 game was cartoony or something. See the complexity of TTK?
I personally like low ttk games like pubg and battlefield 5. If I ever say Apex Legends is bad its likely because I just dislike the TTK and feel like being an asshole that day.
*Note: I am an asshole most days...
Anyways, I am done ranting. Lets discuss...
*A note on "Realism" : To me a game should be challenging (high skill ceiling) and fun. Unless you are making a 100% sim it doesn't matter how realistic your systems are if they are challenging and fun. That doesn't mean the real world doesn't have some good examples to choose from though (as I will point out).
*A note on Negative Fun: Negative fun, or annoyance factor, is a term I will use, and I want to not confuse anyone. Basically, multiplayer shooters are conflict oriented and cannot avoid negative fun because one player will always kill another and that dead player will experience negative fun. That said, it is my belief that developers should provide the best possible experience for the dead player that they can. What I mean by this is that the losing player should know why they lost, and that the reason why they lost is due to the other players skill, and not bullshit (more on what I believe is bullshit later).
*A note to any dev that might read this: Please never add things into your game that lower the skill gap.
Low Recoil Spray to Win.
First on our tour of the Shooter Sins are games that play fast and loose with the laws of physics. Recoil is one of the areas where using realism helps game design. Guns should have realistic recoil, and firing full auto at a player 50 meters away should not end well unless the the shooter is a super human (or laying down with a bipod). You see, recoil mechanics are one of the best ways to have a high skill ceiling in a shooter. It takes time and practice to learn recoil in games that do it right which allows the good players to stand out. This gives gunplay depth and makes it less of a boring full auto grindfest. Unfortunately both COD and Battlefield have dumbed down recoil to the point that you can full auto spray someone from across the map and win. It is exceptionally bad in blackout, and battlefield 5. Even with modern firearm advances, real world operators don't really use full auto that much, but I bet players rarely take their weapon off full auto in battlefield 5's WW2. Don't get me started on Battlefield 1's recoil....
This sucks for me as a battlefield fan because I remember when the game took skill to be good at. Now anyone can log on and spray to win. Pretty much the only mainstream, non sim game, that still has rewarding shooting is PUBG, and when PUBG is doing something better than you, well, you know you've fucked up. You might think I am crazy here, but ask any of the big BR streamers and they will point to games like PUBG and ARMA as having the best, most rewarding, shooting mechanics. Hell, Dr. Disrespect and Viss mention it quite a bit though they tend to not be big fans of PUBG in general.
TLDR: Having more realistic recoil is good for a game because it adds depth and a high skill ceiling.
The Sixth Sense
This one is easy, fuck directional hit markers in multiplayer shooters. Not all good ideas for single player games belong in multiplayer games. The only way a player should instantly know what direction they are being shot from is from seeing the muzzle flash, or hearing the gunshot. (Yeah, I know, asking a game to have good sound design is like asking Bobby Kotick to be a decent human being).
This one pisses me off so much in games where I make a great flank and hit someone only to have them instantly swing around and hit me a few times before I kill them. Now I am low on health and have a lower chance of killing their buddies. And not because I did something wrong, but because the game gives the outplayed player information they should not have. Devs should reward outplaying, and flanking, not make it frustrating. There is no real reason for this other than coddling bad players. It doesn't even remove negative fun because the flanked player still dies.
TLDR: Directional Hit markers are a terrible idea for multiplayer shooters.
Yo Bro, I got a grenade that shoots out more grenades!
If I had my way multiplayer shooters would not have grenades, or any splash damage weapons, but I will settle for them being limited. These crutch weapons are one of the biggest suppliers of negative fun in the entire genre because their use requires almost zero skill, and they reek of trollish bullshit . Shame on the call of duty dev that came up with the cluster grenade, shame of the idiot that put anti-personnel mines in ANY game, and shame on DICE for battlefield 1 grenade spam. These weapons are only there to frustrate, they provide no depth to gameplay and can only lower the skill gap (never lower the skill gap). It doesn't matter that explosives exist in the real world, they are the very definition of negative fun. This goes for crazy, no skill, killstreak rewards in COD as well.
The only games I can think of that did grenades right were the early halo games, PUBG, and other sims.
TLDR: Splash damage weapons are bad mmkay. They lower the skill gap and only serve to troll.
Laser Beams Everywhere!
Dear DICE (and other shooter devs),
Guns don't produce tracers like you think they do. No military would go to war with every single bullet fired being a tracer round. It is complete stupidity and your error either shows how little you know about the subject you are making a game about, or how stupid you think the average player is (or both). Having visible laser beam bullets in your game needs to stop. Why should firing my weapon give away my position on the battlefield by having a clearly traceable bullet to my location? You realize this is part of what makes snipers so prevalent and obnoxious right? Sorry, but Battlefield 5 should not have the same laser beams as Battlefront 2. The only weapons that "might" have tracers are mgs, and even then tracer rounds are not fired every bullet. Stop coddling us.
Thanks,
Croatoan
TLDR: Bullet tracers are dumb and serve no purpose other than giving away players positions on the map to snipers. Remove them except for the few instances they are actually used for.
It takes how long to die?!?!
Last of the sins that I am going to highlight today is one that is kind of new, and anyone who has played Battlfield Firestorm will likely know what I am talking about. When I die, or enter a downed state, as a player, I want to do so quickly. Long drawn out animations, especially when someone can still attack in a downed state, are super obnoxious and legit piss me off. It takes way to long to get "downed" in firestorm, and because of this its easier to game ruin someone before they can use any of their downed abilities. I mean, I already lost, why make me go through this stupid animation for what seems like a decade? That said, DICE is horrible about animations and has a lot of unneeded ones in BF5.
I think of all the BRs I have played Apex is the only one that really gets the downed state right. Their entire death mechanic should be copied into every br out there. I will say the battlefield 5's team revive mechanic is good for base multiplayer though. But I think we are getting off topic here.
TLDR: If I am going to die, do it quickly. Also pay animators to not show off sometimes.
So what about Super Bullets?
Super bullets (1 frame deaths) are actual programming or networking limitations or errors which have become a hot topic particularly with battlefield 5. Super bullets in general lead to a lot of negative fun because they add to the perception that the person that killed you was cheating. Which ups a persons bullshit meter and can lead to them dropping the game. Of course I want developers to fix these issues but this isn't really a game design failing, and I am mostly talking about design with this OP.
So what about TTK?
IMO TTK (Time To Kill) should be set where it makes sense for the game and setting. TTK is also a personal preference and having a high or low ttk does not make one game better than the other unless the ttk flies in the face of setting. An example of a bad ttk would be a ww2 game with the high ttk of apex legends, unless of coarse that WW2 game was cartoony or something. See the complexity of TTK?
I personally like low ttk games like pubg and battlefield 5. If I ever say Apex Legends is bad its likely because I just dislike the TTK and feel like being an asshole that day.
*Note: I am an asshole most days...
Anyways, I am done ranting. Lets discuss...
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