What if we removed the crosshair?

[dayzisthebest 4]

Am I dreaming?

Clearly of NOOOOOOOO

[Rastamaus 323]

I've always played on servers that have the crosshair disabled.

Here's why:

It stops people firing accurately from the hip. There's nothing more annoying than watching people running around firing DMR's, AS50's and so on from the hip. It's been a bug-bear of mine for a long time and I honestly feel that the crosshair changes the gameplay dramatically (for the worse).

What's the point in having a great ballistic simulator (the Arma engine) and then ruining it by giving people a magical crosshair that negates any reason to learn how to use the many different weapons properly. For me it turns DayZ/Arma into an arcade shoot 'em up.

there it is, right there.

Do we really want CoD with zeds? Another Warz?

Edited January 21, 2013 by Rastamaus

[shadowjack 254]

If it helps fight hacks im all for removing it. Hell you can remove my left nut if it ... wait, let me check with the wife ... ok she said go ahead and take em both.

Remove 3rd person too.

[HKilf 15]

Argument for/against removal?:

I have never fired from the hip IRL but I suspect that the spatial awareness one has of the weapon and one's hands is greater than what can be remade ingame with today's typical input devices. I doubt one is bound to always point the weapon in the same direction as one's chest is facing. I think the crosshair is an option when trying to compensate for this lack of weapon awareness. I do not think it is necessarily the best (or most intuitive) option and it would be interesting to see another. Maybe, instead of having an 'invisible' crosshair (simplification) that bounces around without the player's knowledge, another system could be introduced?

When firing from the hip with some sort of rifle, perhaps it would be possible to hold down (or toggle) a button to lock the front of the weapon (thus, for right handed people, locking both the player's left hand and the character's) and then intuitively move the mouse around to simulate the movements of the character's right 'trigger' hand. I guess this could be used to 'aim' from the hip in an immersive way. The only feedback should be the character's sensory input, as in bullets hitting things and making noise and marks, thus making it possible to aim/compensate after seing your bullets miss. This is similar to a 'no-crosshair' design but would address the issue of player influence, basically meaning it would be difficult as fuck to hit something when firing from the hip BUT it would offer some control over the direction of the bullets. A system like this could be difficult to master and perhaps not so rewarding but I think it would be more immersive and more authentic.

Example: You fire from the hip and the bullets fly all over the place (how you found so much ammo I do not know). You use the method described above and try to compensate for the massive recoil by twitchy mouse movements. Just to mix it up and make it more immersive; dragging the mouse forward correlates with aiming downwards and vice versa (inverted controls).

Note: I am not sure if this would even be possible IRL or if you would break your trigger hand from the recoil and weird angle. I am also not sure if this is a good idea that supports removal of the crosshair or if it is just a stupid/difficult to impement idea that may make us realise the value with crosshairs.

[M3ath3ad 1]

So far I have only seen two real arguments for getting rid of the crosshair. 1) Because of hackers / scripters and 2) Because a lot of players don't like it for whatever tickles their fancy. Both of which are valid to a point.

The problem with removing the crosshairs because of a hacker is that they will simply find another way. All you're really doing is giving them an incentive to try new methods of cheating. That's the way I see it anyway.

For those who don't like it because it's irritating or they simply don't feel the need to use it, that's also fine. I like the suggestions of making this and also third person playing optional for those who want a much more realistic experience. But don't be making those decisions for others who may like to have it, whether or not they need it. I like to use it in DayZ for locating loot that has either glitched, or is camouflaged by terrain texture or colour.

The issue I can see with removing things like third person playing and crosshairs altogether and indeed for a number of other suggestions I've read over the last few weeks is that some people seem to want what isn't real (no matter how bad you wish for it) to be real and that is simply not possible. After all it is just a game that is based on a possible, if not overly probable reality. People should be able to play it how they like (with the exception of hacks).

[Sula 1205]

Other cons: It would confirm the PvP priorities of this game and further discourage those players who have no interest in being great shots and just want to be able to play dayz and survive. Actually, it doesn't matter what I say, I'm sure it's all about the realism. I'm not going to post any more on this other than to say it makes my heart sink and saddens me far more than it should. I feel for the many players who play this game who do not fit the shooter/PvP type. There are so many players in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and up who love the fact we are free to roam, hunt, explore, defend ourselves with a gun without being great shots, and still have a great time while avoiding servers full of CoD kids. We would never play shooter games and things like maps and compasses and crosshairs make it possible for us to succeed and defend ourselves against the PvPers. In fact why have maps and compasses? Let's up the realism. Few of us would know where to find toilet tissue let alone compasses and maps in an apocaypse. Drop it all. That's my view.

Smasht, thanks you point it very well. :thumbsup:

Edited January 21, 2013 by Sula

[m.w. vindicator 880]

I've always played on servers that have the crosshair disabled.

Here's why:

It stops people firing accurately from the hip. There's nothing more annoying than watching people running around firing DMR's, AS50's and so on from the hip. It's been a bug-bear of mine for a long time and I honestly feel that the crosshair changes the gameplay dramatically (for the worse).

What's the point in having a great ballistic simulator (the Arma engine) and then ruining it by giving people a magical crosshair that negates any reason to learn how to use the many different weapons properly. For me it turns DayZ/Arma into an arcade shoot 'em up.

DayZ should reward people that spend time learning the finer details of the game (in my humble opinion). If you spend some time getting used to the "feel" of a certain weapon, nothing is more annoying than being shot from 300 ft away by a noob running sideways with an M14 AIM (that he's never used before) firing from the hip using a magical crosshair. I've seen so many vids of people playing like that and it's horrible to watch. To take an accurate shot from any distance you should have to stop, steady your aim and use your sights as in real life. At close quarters you can still fire from the hip and if caught by surprise you can still open up and surpress to buy yourself a few seconds.

If you remove it, people will cry, rage and whine. There will be tantrums. After a while people that are used to using it will see the benefits of having it disabled as it changes the gameplay for the better and encourages better tactics, more refined gameplay and rewards players that take the time to learn how to shoot properly.

I know it sounds like a rant but I honestly feel really strongly about it. Why spend hundreds (thousands?) of hours refining the mechanics of the various weapons and accuratly re-creating all of the sights and then undo all of that by plonking a magical crosshair on the screen, it's never made sense to me.

A convincing argument. I guess the pro's of removing the crosshair outweigh the con's

[m.w. vindicator 880]

Red Orchestra has a "floating barrel" mechanic similar to ArmA's (if you do not turn it off) and players have no problems hip firing when the distance allows it. If anything i wish the amount of "float" the weapons have could be enforced by the server, this is one of the things that shouldn't be a personal preference because of how it influence hip firing reliability.

Are you talking about aiming dead zone? Because personally I definitely don't like that and I think it should remain optional.

[Feral (DayZ) 622]

A convincing argument. I guess the pro's of removing the crosshair outweigh the con's

agreed...... what are the cons again?

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

How about this?

Crosshairs visible while in first person but no crosshairs while in third person.

[dragonkatol 135]

Yeah, +1 for removing the crosshair. It's a small price to pay for stopping or giving hackers a hard-time for achieving ESP. And being a non-crosshair user since CS beta 4 til now is just a bonus for me.

agreed...... what are the cons again?

"Casual" difficulty would be harder. Not everyone is hardcore like us. B)

[Inception. 9443]

I care not for crosshairs nor have I cared for them in quite a while.

Remove them.

[boneboys 7988]

Of the eight (8) players in "my group" six (6) prefer to play with cross hairs.

I call them noobs and do my best to convince them to follow my example, without success.

This has to be taken into consideration.

Same goes for 3rd person view.

[±Traditore± 17]

+1, if people don't like it they can put gluetack in the middle of their screens and estimate.

[Feral (DayZ) 622]

Of the eight (8) players in "my group" six (6) prefer to play with cross hairs.

I call them noobs and do my best to convince them to follow my example, without success.

This has to be taken into consideration.

Same goes for 3rd person view.

they use it cos they can, take it away and they'd still play.

[DemonGroover 8836]

I don't use them, but if it aids in the fight against hacking and makes it harder for kiddies to shoot me them i'm all for it.

Edited January 22, 2013 by DemonGroover

[boneboys 7988]

they use it cos they can, take it away and they'd still play.

Point taken, you are correct.

[Sozinho 58]

I say remove the crosshair but instead but a sort of faded large circle in the center of the screen (or wherever you're looking). This gives a general idea of where a bullet will go while blind firing much like how it is in real life

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Other cons: It would confirm the PvP priorities of this game and further discourage those players who have no interest in being great shots and just want to be able to play dayz and survive. Actually, it doesn't matter what I say, I'm sure it's all about the realism. I'm not going to post any more on this other than to say it makes my heart sink and saddens me far more than it should. I feel for the many players who play this game who do not fit the shooter/PvP type. There are so many players in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and up who love the fact we are free to roam, hunt, explore, defend ourselves with a gun without being great shots, and still have a great time while avoiding servers full of CoD kids. We would never play shooter games and things like maps and compasses and crosshairs make it possible for us to succeed and defend ourselves against the PvPers. In fact why have maps and compasses? Let's up the realism. Few of us would know where to find toilet tissue let alone compasses and maps in an apocaypse. Drop it all. That's my view.

Smasht, thanks you point it very well. :thumbsup:

I actually think it would discourage certain pvp' ers or at least make it harder for them. As I said in my post, the crosshairs make the game much more accessable to the people that just want to run around aimlessly shooting from the hip without requiring any skill. It would actually make life easier for people like you that want to be left in peace because anyone wanting to shoot at you from over 100 ft away would actually have to take the time to line up a shot rather than just reflex shooting using the magical on-screen guide.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Fraggle

[pink camo 3]

We are not all crack shots in real life , reality is fine but why do I have to be bad in game as well as real life .

having said that I can live with no crosshairs but no 3rd person view and im out of here .

[Feral (DayZ) 622]

We are not all crack shots in real life , reality is fine but why do I have to be bad in game as well as real life .

having said that I can live with no crosshairs but no 3rd person view and im out of here .

you don't.... play counter strike/bf2/cod etc to feel like a pro marksman.

when u get bored of the game doing all the hard work play dayz and enjoy the challenge of having to try

edit - and why the obsession with 3rd person, 99% of other FPS don't have it

Edited January 22, 2013 by wabbit

[Shag 90]

I go out of my way to find servers with no crosshairs anyway, so please lose them.

Regarding climbing ladders etc, it is no harder without crosshairs, but I wouldn't like to try this without the arrows for help. This is not attached to the crosshairs at the moment, I see them on No CH servers.

[wolfstriked 143]

Red Orchestra has a "floating barrel" mechanic similar to ArmA's (if you do not turn it off) and players have no problems hip firing when the distance allows it. If anything i wish the amount of "float" the weapons have could be enforced by the server, this is one of the things that shouldn't be a personal preference because of how it influence hip firing reliability.

This was what I am speaking about in my post.By using the in-game aiming dead zone you can have the floating barrel which evens the playing field of people who will mark their LCD's. ;)

Other cons: It would confirm the PvP priorities of this game and further discourage those players who have no interest in being great shots and just want to be able to play dayz and survive. Actually, it doesn't matter what I say, I'm sure it's all about the realism. I'm not going to post any more on this other than to say it makes my heart sink and saddens me far more than it should. I feel for the many players who play this game who do not fit the shooter/PvP type. There are so many players in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and up who love the fact we are free to roam, hunt, explore, defend ourselves with a gun without being great shots, and still have a great time while avoiding servers full of CoD kids. We would never play shooter games and things like maps and compasses and crosshairs make it possible for us to succeed and defend ourselves against the PvPers. In fact why have maps and compasses? Let's up the realism. Few of us would know where to find toilet tissue let alone compasses and maps in an apocaypse. Drop it all. That's my view.

Smasht, thanks you point it very well. :thumbsup:

Drop compasses?You must have never done circles in Dayz for a few hours to start getting dejavu and feelings of depression.Trust me in real life you have a better sense of heading in a certain direction but in A2 you make a slight turn and everything looks the same.Plus the more necessary loot the player can find the better the experience as its what drives you to look further.

Are you talking about aiming dead zone? Because personally I definitely don't like that and I think it should remain optional.

Try it in game but add only one click than adjust it to half of that.Its enough to give the floating barrel effect without being annoying.Put a small dot on screen as crosshair and your bullets will hit around that circle and it gets wider and wider with distance.You can learn to put dot a bit past the target and then nudge weapon back though so I am ok with no crosshairs also.

[Hetstaine 10852]

Be good to see some opposing viewpoints, I think there are some compelling arguments that need to be considered for keeping crosshairs.

I have not seen a compelling one yet ?

Good point Rista, accessing tents, picking up items, climbing ladders is extremely clunky at the moment and having crosshair enabled helps you to find the "sweet spot"

I find it the same with or without crosshair. Its just roll the mouse while you are slowly moving if front of ladder/tent etc until you find the sweet spot, ch has never made it easier for me.

Well, not so much since the crosshair is also subject to these systems and functions. It moves with gun sway, yada yada. However yes, it would really take away from a big part of the immersion. However, that is something that can be fixed with turning them off, and removing the feature would be unnecessary. The other point, about the hacks, is an example of why it should be removed completely.

In other news, SO MANY NOTIFICATIONS AAAAAAAAAAAGH.

Notifications..mfg.

What if you don't have a gun?

Then you don't have crosshairs anyway.

Just out of curiosity I pulled up dayz commander and sorted the servers based on crosshair usage. Out of 5759 servers 1615 are running with the option turned OFF. 4144 have the option turned ON. Out of same amount 277 have 3rd person OFF and 5482 have it ON. To my knowledge there isnt a way to see how much traffic the servers get in a day verses the other. But based on choice that can be made now, the people setting up the servers are turning the option ON.

Just food for thought.

Please ignore my spelling.

The people whinge about servers being too hard and server owners dumb them down to score more of a player base, sad but true. I miss all of the hardcore servers that used to run back in the beginning. Now i have a choice of whether i want one with 30 helicopters and 300 vehicles (always full) or one with work hard for that elusive set of wheels ( hardly anyone on). The masses go where it is easiest.

I've always played on servers that have the crosshair disabled.

Here's why:

It stops people firing accurately from the hip. There's nothing more annoying than watching people running around firing DMR's, AS50's and so on from the hip. It's been a bug-bear of mine for a long time and I honestly feel that the crosshair changes the gameplay dramatically (for the worse).

What's the point in having a great ballistic simulator (the Arma engine) and then ruining it by giving people a magical crosshair that negates any reason to learn how to use the many different weapons properly. For me it turns DayZ/Arma into an arcade shoot 'em up.

DayZ should reward people that spend time learning the finer details of the game (in my humble opinion). If you spend some time getting used to the "feel" of a certain weapon, nothing is more annoying than being shot from 300 ft away by a noob running sideways with an M14 AIM (that he's never used before) firing from the hip using a magical crosshair. I've seen so many vids of people playing like that and it's horrible to watch. To take an accurate shot from any distance you should have to stop, steady your aim and use your sights as in real life. At close quarters you can still fire from the hip and if caught by surprise you can still open up and surpress to buy yourself a few seconds.

If you remove it, people will cry, rage and whine. There will be tantrums. After a while people that are used to using it will see the benefits of having it disabled as it changes the gameplay for the better and encourages better tactics, more refined gameplay and rewards players that take the time to learn how to shoot properly.

I know it sounds like a rant but I honestly feel really strongly about it. Why spend hundreds (thousands?) of hours refining the mechanics of the various weapons and accuratly re-creating all of the sights and then undo all of that by plonking a magical crosshair on the screen, it's never made sense to me.

I have to disagree. Giving people server-side options is great in some cases but when it comes to things that change the gameplay quite dramatically we've all seen what's happened with private servers. If there was an option for server admins in the SA to double the amount of vehicle spawns for example many would use it to make their servers more appealing to new players and to quickly raise player numbers.

Having options to make the game more accessible is the wrong direction to take IMO. DayZ has become popular by doing the exact opposite, by challenging players to learn a new way of approaching a game. There's some thing's that shouldn't be a server side option and I believe this is one of them.

If it makes life harder for hackers then that's just icing on the cake. Nom.

Fraggle my man, you summed it up well.

[Charb 298]

Crosshairs need to go, followed by player name tags...

I find it interesting people bring up the point of not being able to access tents, ladders, doors, gates etc...

isn't it about time we SCRAP the entire system to begin with? shouldn't there just be a button which acts as "interact" and every door have a radius near it, stand next to a door facing it and press the hotkey and BAM door/gate/tent opens? I've been wishing for an interact key since I've started playing, perhaps now is the time to consider such a thing.