rektasaurus
Squire
I want to be clear, this post has to do with precision and not accuracy.
I have loads of rl experience shooting both guns and bows since I was 10. I have even more experience playing scoped games both in competitive leagues for games using hitscan as well as casual play, starting from Wolfenstein 3D all the way to Arma 3, the absolute pinnacle of shooting simulation, I mean they got it perfect, even if bullets have a flatter trajectory than arrows. Point is, I love lobbing things in the air, and it’s one of the very few things I’m good at.
I first thought that archery was very well done in this game. The animations are accurate enough. Typically, with a gun or a bow, aim starts high and drops until you’re at the target but small matter. The sounds are stellar and even the damage is modeled well for a game. I had absolutely no complaints except minor things like the stupid decurve on the hunting bow, and the strange ways some of the recurve bows are strung, I mean why make use of that extra power at the tip of the bow that’s already there right? Khuzaits are archery dummies?
That is, until I starting trying to apply some sports knowledge to training up my skill and consistency.
I’ve seen a few charts floating around which describes how vertical aim compensation works so I’m very familiar with it, and it’s a clever bit of engineering to solve for the change in camera height, but it is all wrong and doesn’t work because it lacks any semblance of consistency where one can train the skill, and almost ruins the game. Shame.
I noticed shooting down from above my arrows were behaving in a way that didn’t make sense, they would fall far above the crosshair in an unpredictable way. I decided turning off the compensation would fix things and that’s when I really discovered some poor engineering. It did fix a lot and shooting became consistent, the issues around shooting down at extreme angles disappeared, but trying to hit straight ahead any further than 10 feet made the crosshairs completely useless. I mean I had to ignore the crosshairs completely except to get the lateral aim correct. Forget trying to use thrown weapons, I’d have to aim so high my head and body blocks the thing I’m aiming at. Once again. Any precision at range was thus thrown out of the window. No way to hit anything first shot, we need a first reference shot and hitting anything smaller than the torso comes down to pure luck. Literally impossible to shoot without aim compensation. Garbage.
First person shooting remains consistent, the only problem is my arm and bow always blocks the thing I’m aiming at. Once again. My arms would have to be coming out of my ears for that to be the case. But minor complaint. I can live with it though since your hand does end up blocking your target when applying elevation irl.
The best solution for this would be to completely redesign the crosshair. Move the camera off-center when drawing the bow (very slightly to the left please, to simulate looking down the shaft of the arrow), and change the crosshair to a Y or A shape which moves laterally to depict accuracy. You can get real fancy with this. There’s no need at at for longitudinal accuracy reference since we’ll have internalized the trajectory before the first quiver is finished.
Alternatively, let the crosshair float independently to the center of the screen depending on elevation.
Learning and internalizing the arc of an arrow is fun and rewarding. I want to hit that headshot first shot every single time on every target that doesn’t see me. Changing the angle of the arc with reference to my crosshair on a 2d screen is frustrating and stupidly hard to learn at anything other than fixed distances.
If that is more work than was done to design the vertical aim compensation, please just drop the crosshair down an inch and a half on our screens. So that it’s right below our neck area. With our head blocking the thing which we’re aiming at. Is there a recurring theme here?
I realize the devs have a lot on their plate but I don’t appreciate our intelligence being insulted. Some of us understand the game, what it’s trying to do, and how to accomplish those goals, in a much deeper way than is being expressed or being given credit.
Can I please get others, developers, mods, sp players, competitive players, to weigh in on this?
I have loads of rl experience shooting both guns and bows since I was 10. I have even more experience playing scoped games both in competitive leagues for games using hitscan as well as casual play, starting from Wolfenstein 3D all the way to Arma 3, the absolute pinnacle of shooting simulation, I mean they got it perfect, even if bullets have a flatter trajectory than arrows. Point is, I love lobbing things in the air, and it’s one of the very few things I’m good at.
I first thought that archery was very well done in this game. The animations are accurate enough. Typically, with a gun or a bow, aim starts high and drops until you’re at the target but small matter. The sounds are stellar and even the damage is modeled well for a game. I had absolutely no complaints except minor things like the stupid decurve on the hunting bow, and the strange ways some of the recurve bows are strung, I mean why make use of that extra power at the tip of the bow that’s already there right? Khuzaits are archery dummies?
That is, until I starting trying to apply some sports knowledge to training up my skill and consistency.
I’ve seen a few charts floating around which describes how vertical aim compensation works so I’m very familiar with it, and it’s a clever bit of engineering to solve for the change in camera height, but it is all wrong and doesn’t work because it lacks any semblance of consistency where one can train the skill, and almost ruins the game. Shame.
I noticed shooting down from above my arrows were behaving in a way that didn’t make sense, they would fall far above the crosshair in an unpredictable way. I decided turning off the compensation would fix things and that’s when I really discovered some poor engineering. It did fix a lot and shooting became consistent, the issues around shooting down at extreme angles disappeared, but trying to hit straight ahead any further than 10 feet made the crosshairs completely useless. I mean I had to ignore the crosshairs completely except to get the lateral aim correct. Forget trying to use thrown weapons, I’d have to aim so high my head and body blocks the thing I’m aiming at. Once again. Any precision at range was thus thrown out of the window. No way to hit anything first shot, we need a first reference shot and hitting anything smaller than the torso comes down to pure luck. Literally impossible to shoot without aim compensation. Garbage.
First person shooting remains consistent, the only problem is my arm and bow always blocks the thing I’m aiming at. Once again. My arms would have to be coming out of my ears for that to be the case. But minor complaint. I can live with it though since your hand does end up blocking your target when applying elevation irl.
The best solution for this would be to completely redesign the crosshair. Move the camera off-center when drawing the bow (very slightly to the left please, to simulate looking down the shaft of the arrow), and change the crosshair to a Y or A shape which moves laterally to depict accuracy. You can get real fancy with this. There’s no need at at for longitudinal accuracy reference since we’ll have internalized the trajectory before the first quiver is finished.
Alternatively, let the crosshair float independently to the center of the screen depending on elevation.
Learning and internalizing the arc of an arrow is fun and rewarding. I want to hit that headshot first shot every single time on every target that doesn’t see me. Changing the angle of the arc with reference to my crosshair on a 2d screen is frustrating and stupidly hard to learn at anything other than fixed distances.
If that is more work than was done to design the vertical aim compensation, please just drop the crosshair down an inch and a half on our screens. So that it’s right below our neck area. With our head blocking the thing which we’re aiming at. Is there a recurring theme here?
I realize the devs have a lot on their plate but I don’t appreciate our intelligence being insulted. Some of us understand the game, what it’s trying to do, and how to accomplish those goals, in a much deeper way than is being expressed or being given credit.
Can I please get others, developers, mods, sp players, competitive players, to weigh in on this?