First vs Third Person Discussion (Dslyecxi video)

[DemonGroover 8836]

Arma vet and Youtuber Dslyecxi has released a video regarding the always controversial first person vs third person debate. I think he has some very decent arguments.

Rocket elaborated on the subject a bit today after touching on it in one of the Gamescom interviews here
We're still toying with what to do with first person/third person, we have a few plans around that. Whether we do context sensitive and force players to not use third person in certain situations for example maybe when you go prone on the ground the camera moves in really close or forces you into first person. However, sometimes you are running around and you want to be in third person because it's just a good way to see your character and what's going on.

Q: I really dig the idea that if you prone, the camera goes into first person. It's logical and stops something that's been a bane to the ARMA series, also crouching could zoom in / go over shoulder a bit.
It's going to be hard to get it right, but I really want us to try. I find I am using third person alot in DayZ SA while running long distances, or to "check" my character (like to see where I am shot to check direction of firer), but then third person is so exploitable in prone. So we are going to try both forcing first for prone, and the "sucking camera in close" and see which works best.
Agree too, crouching would really benefit from a more "over the shoulder", we'll try that and put some previs up for people to comment on. [source]

Q:Third person can still be used to look behind corners and over walls while standing..
I'm comfortable that enough rational has been established for the absolute and complete removal of third person from the standalone. I also believe that third person allowed servers, by virtue of demand, are more popular in the mod than first person ones. I think that it has been demonstrated that there is a "problem" with the allowance of third person, and the proposed solution is the best I can come up with. It's not perfect, but if we just allow servers to turn it on/off then I think demand will dictate that people gravitate to 'third person allowed" servers - despite them acknowledging the exploits.
This is a long winded way of saying, so what do you suggest given the evidence at hand? [source]

Q: What about yanking people out of third person when they get close to objects like trees, bushes, rocks, cars, trash piles, walls, buildings, etc
From a technical standpoint, this is very nasty because its going to either involve constantly polling for nearby objects and possibly raycasting also. It will have to be done serverside, adding to the poor servers increasing load. It will also result in a massive array of false positives and false negatives - as many map objects have no "object" status and are thus... not real objects to the game. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach at the minimum, at the maximum I'm proposing we put some context related limitations to 3rd person. Stance is easy to poll, and can actually be controlled in animation. [source]

Q: Why compromise and allow the exploit, why not remove third person all together?
Because I can see (and employ myself) many legitimate uses of 3rd person. The servers are also far more popular than 1st person ones. What I'm doing is acknowledging the problem, acknowledging that server-demand will drive in favor of third-person allowed servers, and proposing a compromise that perhaps eliminates the worst of the offending, at the very least taking the edges off it. In short, because removal of a feature should not be taken lightly, and I'm just not convinced we should remove 3rd person at the game level. [source]

Q: I'm curious about what you think third person adds to the game.
I find it gives me a sense of my character, especially when running long distances. As stonedlemming noted: it gives you an excellent idea where you are bleeding from. This is particularly relevant with standalone where the particle source is bound directly onto the mesh in the exact position you were hit. During an interview I used this to realize where someone shot me from, and I then killed them. Overall, perhaps it's just my intuition that I just don't feel convinced yet that deleting the feature at the game level is the best solution. Players choose third person servers, and I don't think they are all choosing that so they can cheat. I found I hardly ever used third person in the mod but I am using it very regularly to check my character for many things in the SA, especially because of the range of different clothing. [source]

Q: I feel like all of that can be accomplished in first person using freelook, especially hit location...
Tried the free look thing. It doesn't work. You can't see most of your body. You can't see your back, butt, in fact your whole back of body and the sides. Even when i used TrackIR not only could I not see most, but it was unnecessarily irritating. My friend was shot in the ass, he knew he was shot in the ass, and he knew exactly where he was shot. I'm not pulling all this from thin air, I felt like I really tried to consider all sides of this. And I'm just not convinced that removing it at the game level is the way to go. I think that the compromise will solve the worst of the offending. [source]

Q:  I think at the very least you should consider changing the 3rd-person camera so that:

• It's closer to the character and lower, so that you can't suddenly look over a high wall when in 3rd person. See Last of Us for an example. Put it over the shoulder, rather than hovering behind the character like a magical floating camera.
• Limit the ability to look up/down to about 30-40 degrees, so that you cant easily look over objects and see things on the other side (which your character shouldn't be able to see).
• Pull the camera in even closer when prone and crouching, to limit the amount of exploiting. that way you'd have to stand up to check youself for injurires or use the inventory system to check yourself.

Here's a couple of screenshot of modded 3rd-person cameras in arma2: http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q295/macmeister92/arma22010-04-1016-17-17-33.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll246/bla212/in.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll246/bla212/out2.jpg
and a video of another mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1vW_0vjsqc
Note the awesome transition from 1st to 3rd-person as well, looks much better than going through the characters head.

This sounds like a good idea to me. Ill look at it more tomorrow when back from germany source

 

 

My 2 cents: apart from it being nice to see your own character i think 3rd person should be completely scrapped from Arma and DayZ. For me a military sim should not have a 3rd person perspective, at least not one with such obvious exploits.

I know this has been discussed before but we haven't had a proper debate for a good while. Please discuss.

Edited August 25, 2013 by SmashT
Added Rockets recent comments etc

[Imafighter 236]

First person, anyday everyday.

 

I agree with all his points.

[alphamat 116]

Well with the less robot-like movement in arma I wouldn't mind playing first person only in Arma3. All it needs is a FOV slider and we're set!

[OrLoK 16185]

1st person all the way here too.

 

L

[shadow ghoul 17]

But I like looking around walls

[SoulHunter (DayZ) 233]

FP FTW

[terrvik 2409]

Even if third person remains it should always be off in vehicles. There is NO argument supporting why it should be possible or has a place whilst driving or flying.

Anyways, third person is easy mode. Get rid of it! :)

Edited August 20, 2013 by Terrorviktor

[Henryllex~ 407]

If we have a FOV slider on dayz, i will always play on first person, but for now third person because of the disadvantages i get if i play in first, but in vehicles i always go in first.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Henryllex~

[DemonGroover 8836]

I think a lot of us play along with 3rd person because the vast majority of populated servers are 3rd enabled.  If you don't use it you put yourself at a massive disadvantage.

 

If 3rd person was totally disabled for the SA would players be turned away or would they persevere and play on?

 

Is 3rd person only good for being able to check out what clothes you are wearing and how bad ass your weapon looks?

[terrvik 2409]

I'm using a phone so I'll be short.

When I started with DayZ there were ONLY first person servers. At least the ones near me.

I was very surprised to find that this was an issue. Of course people want 3rd, its easier and less scary. DayZ is a competetive game now so you want every advantage

EDIT: aw, fuckit, that didnt make a least bit of sense. I'll jump into this discussion when Im back on a PC. Have fun y'all! :)

Edited August 20, 2013 by Terrorviktor

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

 

In general I think the majority of DAYZ servers are just watered down sandboxes and dont really represent pure DAYZ and 3rd person goes along with that.

 

Im a Vanilla kind of guy.

 

!st Person FTW.

 

Rdgs

 

LoK

[Statik (DayZ) 2695]

I'm going to be the first in this thread to say that I do utilize the exploits of 3rd person. I much prefer 1st person only, but finding a good first person server is rare. I would much rather 3rd person be removed, but an actual concern of mine is looking at my character. Every time, and I mean EVERY TIME, I pick up clothes, a gun, backpack, etc, I always go in 3rd person to see how awesome/stupid I look. Where as in arma you can't really do that.

 

In regards to 1st person only in the SA, I don't know. As much as I would love to see it, I feel it would drastically drop the player count.

[DemonGroover 8836]

I utilise the 3rd person exploits also, i am sure everyone here does or has.  You cannot really compete with another player if one is 1st only and the other is utilising 3rd.

 

As far as i can see the only reason 3rd is good is for checking out your character.  Other than that i would love to see it gone but you may be right - it could effect the player count.

 

I think what is needed, and Dslyecxi has said this himself, is players need to understand the differences and how much more immersive and interesting 1st person makes Arma and DayZ.  It is fine to check out your gear, but afterwards slip back into 1st and stay there.

 

But then again, if there is an option to quickly peer over a wall how many of us would resist the temptation?

[terrvik 2409]

Won't there be character model in the inventory screen in the SA where we can look at our gear?

[DemonGroover 8836]

There is indeed.

[Deneme 8]

I would not mind having the stand alone in FPV, though I know there would be quite a few DayZ players who would disagree to such.  As much as you want to play in FPV, if its a TPV enabled server, then you are just handicapping yourself sadly.  Its one of those exploits which pretty much everyone ignores because everyone uses it, and that is not right considering the arma series at its core is supposed to be a realistic simulator.

[Fonebook 126]

I just completely disagree with the FOV slider demand. If you double tap minus (-) you get quite a bit more of the world on the screen. Furthermore, with the free look mechanic in DayZ, if you look around you can be aware of a lot of things in a short amount of time. There is no FOV that could ever fully emulate human vision. We see more IRL than what can ever be represented on a rectangle. Besides, if you are arguing that the FOV needs to be larger for the purpose of realism, keep in mind that the human eye is really only good at detecting motion in peripheral vision. I think the FOV is just fine and people want the ability to look over walls and around corners, plain and simple.

 

I also noticed that you see your character model in the current standalone gear menu. This takes care of the only worthwhile reason to have 3rd person. Maybe there could be a mirror as well for checking out your guy? For the vain among us... Unfortunately a large majority of players have become dependent on 3rd person and removing it would cause the largest uproar yet. We thought they were upset about the AS50s... I feel it should be removed from the game completely in the name of immersion, but sadly I don't think the devs would have the guts to do it.

 

Time will tell.

[brzator47@gmail.com 524]

Dslyecxi is spot on. Although there is obviously lack of spatial/situational awareness compared to real life with DayZ being a game played on a computer monitor with a mouse and keyboard, 3rd person view is not a solution for that either. It doesn't even have a wider FOV compared to 1st person perspective. And it really is almost impossible to find a DayZ video on youtube without someone using 3rd person exploits. I use them as well, everyone does. This is why it being "optional" is not a good thing.

In short, 3rd person view makes PvP a rather cheap experience and should be removed. Sadly I don't think rocket would dare to do just that.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

Well that was better than most anti-third person arguments, even though it's basically the same argument without the abusive idiocy that comes with most threads.  I didn't hear any name calling or trolling.  kudos to Dyslafaksnfski.

 

I had a blast playing first person with a bunch of insane gents but the server died off rather abruptly as there was no interest in it.  Sort of how servers with vanilla cars and night cycle die off or struggle.  I'm not sure what that means but I do know I personally, being a hardcore-to-the-point-of-being-annoying 3rd person supporter, would only really accept this change if the admins ability to set 24/7 daylight or constantly reset the time of day was removed.  I also really hope access to the server files is gutted as this almost universally leads to bad servers run by bad admins.  

 

I know there's tremendous interest in SA private hives, for various reasons, but granting people the ability to create 2394027 vehicle, 24/7 daylight, admin abuse servers out of the gate would only take the SA right back to where the mod currently is.  Which is pretty atrocious if we're going to be honest about it all.  I'm willing to put up with server hopping loot farming bandits if we can get some realism back to the world.

 

Oh, and we'd need the ability to remove a broken windshield.

 

Anyway, my two pesos.

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

I want it cut completely - first person or BUST

 

Play Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm and you will know the brutality of a hardcore-first-person-only game...it is amazing

[Heiduk 265]

As usual Dslyecxi sums up the issue perfectly. Its all about risk versus reward. I really hope rocket is listening to the likes of him and CHKilroy more than he is to ones likes Frankie and Sacriel.

 

All that needs to be said to 3rd person players has already been said by the late great George Carlin.

 

 

[Skat3rat 1633]

To be honest I like 3rd person. 1st person does add realism but 3rd makes several things easier.

For instance, I'm lucky to get over 20 fps in DayZ. On average I get 10-20. It is very annoying to play in first person with that low of fps.

3rd person also makes things like landing a chopper easier. You can only turn your head so much inside a chopper. In reality I would be able to lean over, actually use the side mirrors, and maybe even look out of the chopper.

[plexico 386]

Yes! I love first person, especially in DayZ it adds so much to the immersion.

 

Sadly most of the community doesn't give two shits about immersion or realism, otherwise private hives wouldn't all consist of huge amounts of vehicles and spawning with military grade weapons. I recently played on a first person only server on DayZero, it had no side chat and proper dark nights. It was extremely scary to loot Cherno, and I almost shat my pants when someone fired their m16. I haven't had an expierence like that since the early days of DayZ.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Plexico

[Siberian (DayZ) 527]

i only ever play dayz in 3rd person..

 

remove the ability, you remove my coins from the table.

 

as has been said millions of times, if you dont like 3rd person, dont play there..simple.

 

but plz stop trying to tell others people HOW to play.

 

/endthread.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Siberian

[DemonGroover 8836]

One thing i miss about 1st person only is that you can actually frigging hide from someone behind a wall.