Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the ballistics and deviation within PR. I've played PR since 0.5, so rest assured I do in fact have a little experience in the area.

 

What I've chiefly been thinking about is the real lack of lethality of PR weaponry. I'm not just talking the retardedly long waiting time for your assault rifle to become accurate (though that can be a problem). I'm talking about the fact that it takes three whole 5.56mm rounds to the chest to kill a man. Or two 7.62mm rounds, either way it's a little silly imo.

 

Forget suppression effects, forget cones of fire - if every bullet that hit me in the chest killed me, I'd be ducking for cover like a real soldier in no time. Playing PR, I feel a real lack of fear for the bullets. Back in 0.5/0.6, firefights were stupidly accurate (one guy could use an AK47 to mow down a room full of people in an instant) but at least in mid-range infantry engagements, I felt a genuine fear of being clocked in the head by a timely bullet. Nowadays, players rarely use cover. They lie down and aim at each other's faces for a few seconds and then start slugging away. There should be a genuine fear amongst players of hastily aimed rounds still killing them - surpressive fire, anyone?

 

I love PR, it's by far my favourite game. However, the assault rifles currently - despite 0.85 deviation changes - still feel like rusty old air rifles. When I lie down and aim calmly at an enemy for 3 whole seconds, he deserves to die. He's obviously not being stealthy enough, or I've outmaneuvered him. Either way, he deserves what's coming to him, and the fact that (disregarding a miraculous headshot at medium range with a scoped rifle) it's going to take multiple rounds to center mass to kill an enemy is frustrating and "gamey". Players are going to have to sneak, flank, avoid charging around in the open so much.

 

Now I know people like to exhort the brilliance of modern body armour, and I agree. That stuff stops bullets. However if we were really going to go for that angle, headshots should take just as many rounds to kill as chest hits at the moment - after all, modern kevlar helmets can take just about any rifle round and just give the owner a headache. I think we should disregard body armour. You get shot, you're down.

 

So really, what I'm proposing is this:

 

1. Keep the current deviation system if you must. I don't love it, but it isn't terrible.

 

2. Rifle rounds should down you (regardless of calibre) when they hit you in the chest hit box. A dude deserves to be rewarded for his careful aim, or punished for exposing himself to enemy sight.

 

3. Hits to the limbs knock you down to a heavily wounded state (about 30% health for 5.56mm, 15% for 7.62mm). This would ensure that patches now get used realistically - as something to hold you over until the medic comes around. This would fix medic gameplay, too!

 

I dunno, maybe we could try a test build on a server if one of the coding gentlemen could help out.

 

Comments, death threats

Worship every word, but im afraid it aint gonna happen.

I kind of agree but am not sure how the game play would pan out.

 

I mean, I'd sit on a flag with 5 other guys and wait till the enemy attacks one shot kills FTW. It would make the game quite hard without out air/artillary support available at all times.

1. Professional soldiers in modern conflicts wear very good body armour. Body armour that can stop 5.56x45 (M16) and 7.62x39 (AK-47) rounds and even a 7.62x51 (G3) round. Why should a shot to the chest kill instantly? Sure it would hurt like hell and might incapacitate the victim but it would not kill him in most circumstances. Ballistic helmets BTW are not as effective as body armour, making it to the same standards as body armour would make the helmet way too heavy to wear comfortably.

 

2. The reason the guns feel a bit inaccurate in game is because they are. This is because the ranges used in the game have been scaled to fit the size and layout of the maps which are (compared to real life engagements) very small. IRL an M16 is effective up to 400-500 meters. In PR it is effective up to about 200 if you are lucky. This same rule applies for tanks, and aircraft which should be able to engage at thousands and thousands of meters but can't. This is why the weapons are so inaccurate, because if they weren't you would be able to kill players halfway across the map with a standard rifle.

 

3. You really really really need to play ArmA or ArmA 2 (when it comes out). ArmA is built from the ground up as a realistic military simulator. Guns are accurate to their real world counterparts, bullets do realistic damage, tanks and aircraft can engage at thousands of meters away, the maps are huge, etc, etc.

Edited May 13, 200915 yr by mrchickenfool

Without the ability to lean or peek, without the ability to use undergrowth as cover at any distance, without the other BF2 'lackings', I think we need a couple of chest hits and some minor inaccuracy to make the game half playable.

i agree hitting a man in the neck of chest should realy do more damage. But on the other hand as SOP said if you where ta make these changes it would be the spwn screen you see most YOUR DEAD RESPAWN IN 35 SECONDS pffft (goodbye)..

 

Captain Wolf is right Arma is fantastic and realistic. you get shot in the arm and you cant use it properly or at all.. its fantastic.

 

I enjoy PR most days. But the easy answer is this

 

If you want a medium paced arcadish game than play PR. if you want a slower paced but absolute realistic game than Arma is the go.

I've tried ArmA before and it played alright, just kind of clunky, and the difficulty in setting all the patches and mods up means I've uninstalled it.

 

I appreciate the fact that there has to be a factor that allows rifles to be not instantly lethal as soon as someone sees you. That was the problem with 0.5 ballistics. I'm all for a deviation system, but it in itself has to be balanced by some sort of trade-off. Right now, you can run right through enemy rifle fire from about 200m away. At that kind of range, even a single rifleman should be able to kill you fairly easily.

 

At the moment however, a 200m-distant target first requires about 3 seconds of proning and keeping your gun almost deadly still. If your opponent hasn't disappeared by now, you then have to content with (admittedly smaller than before) the cone of fire, and try to land three consecutive shots on your enemy. That is incredibly hard to do, and the randomisation of the ballistics means even if you land a great shot on a distant enemy, they just drop and patch and they're fine. I'd love PR to get some of the old zing back into gameplay, and I wouldn't mind current deviation if it meant when I did shoot my opponent, they died.

Aim for the head

What you don't realise is that:

 

1. The hit rego is shocking. Even if you SEE your bullet hitting the enemy, many times it will just harmly bounce off and do nothing. Thanks EA!

 

2. If guns were extremely lethal in PR, CQB would be ruined. It wouldn't suffer, it would be become totally tasteless, with people simply spamming auto fire everywhere and if one of those bullets hit you, your down.

 

3. Again, as Wolf said in PR not everything is to scale. The weapons are toned down to allow for proper use of marksman and sniper rifles to be of any use.

 

4. There is a little thing called balance. If all rifles were one shots, MEC would suddenly become defenseless chickens, running around attempting to aim. The heavy recoil and damage of the G3 is balanced with the accuracy, lower recoil, higher reliability and lower damage of the M16A4/M4. Remove this very important feature and you will have an extremely imbalanced killing spree in favor of the US and USMC, every, single time.

 

5. It is IMPOSSIBLE with the Battlefield 2 engine to split the hitboxes of a soldier into more than 2 segments. There is the head, originally in place so snipers could one shot, and the body. Limbs count for just as much as the body. The DEV's may be experimenting with gear however to make it so if you aim for specific places on the body (center of mass) you can kill them. This is purely speculative ATM though, don't trust me.

 

6. Firefights would last for less than a few seconds, the game would lose much of it's combat intensiveness, and generally it would just degrade from there. Your rewarded in game by taking the time to line up a headshot ATM, or two-three shots in quick succession will bring a guy down. I really don't notice it playing for so long, even across versions. It has always been like this, and it probably always will be. It's just the engine and I doubt it will be fixed.

ArmA2 is the answer to all questions...

 

Not getting enough vitamins in your diet?

 

Cat won't shut up?

 

Screen door broken?

 

Feeling tired all the time?

 

Trouble with a girl you like?

 

ArmA2 is the answer.

Edited May 14, 200915 yr by mojito22

You really really really need to play ArmA or ArmA 2 (when it comes out). ArmA is built from the ground up as a realistic military simulator. Guns are accurate to their real world counterparts, bullets do realistic damage, tanks and aircraft can engage at thousands of meters away, the maps are huge, etc, etc.

 

You really really really need to play Crysis. Crysis is built from the ground up as a realistic simulation of my holiday to Indonesia the other year. Everything in that game is accurate to my real world trip, I can kill people with thrown chickens, turn invisible, can break a building down with my fists, etc, etc.

Do you manage to get spotted 200m away hiding in a bush?

You really really really need to play Crysis. Crysis is built from the ground up as a realistic simulation of my holiday to Indonesia the other year. Everything in that game is accurate to my real world trip, I can kill people with thrown chickens, turn invisible, can break a building down with my fists, etc, etc.

 

that game is a total dream. MAXIMUM STRENGTH

 

as for body armour. what ive read, centre mass (chest/back/sides) is the most protected part of kit for a modern soldiers kit out. Heavy ballistic plates over the top of heavy multiwoven kevlar, which is designed to stop most common military rifle rounds.

 

the helmet is kevlar. but not designed the same. as such, i think theyre rated to 9mm rounds, and shrapnel, not rifle calibre rounds. tho there are plenty of stories out there to support them doing just that...

 

For PR, you simply are not going to get what you're asking for. Given the restrictions placed on the game engine, the size of the maps, and the style of play that PR is centred around...if it were as you suggest, then everymap would be a super ranged mexican standoff... which it is often enough anway imo...

I like what you're saying fondue.. in theory. However gameplay wise I prefer the current mechanics purely just for the sake of gameplay/firefight longevity and interest.

 

I don't know if anyone played the old Rainbow:6 3 - Raven Shield, but pumping that bad boy up to max difficulty where the enemies had some rather extraordinary reflexes and all it took was 1 shot to down you... I can say definitively that it gets kinda old pretty fast to be downed by some rambo with one shot each time. With the deviation + the fact that you can get hit and retreat [bleeding of course] I find that it keeps engagements going for that little bit longer and IMO, makes the kills you do make that bit more rewarding.

 

As captain wolf mentioned, PR would play out quite a bit differently if hit rego was correct 100% of the time. If you don't have single player I suggest you grab it... it's extraordinary how easy it is to double tap those bots because you know your shots will register. Online, I'd say hits register on the high side at a rate of about 75%, low of about 60% (I've shot stationary targets in the head twice without damaging them... ask gruAnch )

Twice psyrus? Far out you have awesome rego! (This isnt sarcastic either)

With the deviation + the fact that you can get hit and retreat [bleeding of course] I find that it keeps engagements going for that little bit longer and IMO, makes the kills you do make that bit more rewarding.

 

most likely an engine limitation, but would be good if the whole 'bleeding' thing wasn't just reflected on your screen. by that i mean, you shoot someone, they bleed and run away leaving a blood trail of sorts, (not necessarily a massive streak of red on the ground, even just a few drops etc would do) so you can track em. THAT would be cool and add to the game i reckon.

That does sound interesting however in my opinion a different tact would be [if the prone changes introduce a prone code aspect which is currently lacking] to make players automatically prone when hit to reflect what SD, Chiefryza and Captain Wolf said about it not killing but incapacitating (like knocking you down) so they'd be unable to return fire immediately (due to the new prone delay in 1.5 BF2) and would be lying on the ground as if knocked off their feet by the impact.

 

Thoughts?

that would be fantastic....

even if they did that, the hitbox would still be a fail :)you can shoot a guy several times beofre any of them actually register.

yeah thats not a bad idea that one as i'm sure the only ppl who can take the impact of a 7.62mm or even a .50cal round to the chest without so much as flinching are John Rambo, John Matrix, Blain, Billy, Dillon, Mac and of course Dutch

And the predator

doesn't count cos he's not human so would never be put in PR . . .

No way!

 

That's it, I am starting a new thread to rectify that right now!

yeah well http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq306/McDethWivFries/useless.gif

an i'll hear no moar about it so as not to http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq306/McDethWivFries/ejpg.gif

: ( my poor thread.

 

Eh, OPF2 is the answer anyway