So, any word yet on when/if we will get realistic (not random) balistics?

[crazykage 1063]

Anybody?

One of the major issues I have that is preventing me from playing right now is the random dispersal of shots seen with every weapon in game. It irritates me to no end that I can NOT establish an accurate grouping with my shots. I really hope that they at least PLAN to fix that, but if they don't at some point, I seriously doubt I will ever be able to bring myself to play this game with any frequency.

When (in IRL) I shoulder a rifle for the first time, having never fired THAT rifle before, and not having the sights (be they iron or scope) already adjusted to my eyes and method of holding the weapon, I may not be able to hit the "bullseye", but I WILL have a tight grouping somewhere on the target, which I can then use to adjust the sights to move that grouping to the center of the target. In the military, we call this "Battle Sight Zeroing", or BZO for short (most of you are probably already aware of that, but this is for those that aren't).

This is because even though the sights are not yet properly aligned to MY eyesight and weapon handling, the rifle itself will, baring any defects or maintenance issues or really bad ammunition, nearly ALWAYS fire the projectile in the same manner and angle if I take the time to take well aimed shots. I.E. If the weapon is fired once, and the bullet hits a particular spot, firing the weapon again from the EXACT same angle and position will put the second bullet through the first shot hole, or if not, VERY close to it (creating a wider hole, an effect known as a "keyhole"). Other factors, including air pressure, windage, and even humidity can cause deviation, especially at extreme ranges, but at ranges from 100 to 500 meters, the effect tends to be very slight, and in the case of wind, easily compensated for.

Randomizing the shot groupings detracts from actual skillful shooting, and is insulting to the players; including those that understand the fundamentals of marksmanship, those that desire a more "hardcore" realistic experience, as well as those the more casual types. By keeping it this way, you remove the actual challenge of taking a well placed shot, and make a successful one based purely on luck. If I hit my target 300 meters away with a Mosin, it isn't because I took a good shot. Its because I centered my crosshairs on the target and clicked the button and got lucky that THIS TIME the bullet hit where I thought I was aiming.

Many might argue that our characters aren't crack military troops with years of training. You might be right. But you might be wrong. Where does it specifically SAY that EVERY new spawn doesn't have some marksmanship experience at SOME point in his or her life?

The way I see it, if the player knows how to shoot a weapon accurately, then so does his character. If the player doesn't, then his character doesn't, and must therefore learn by doing (which is EXACTLY what people in this situation WOULD be doing realistically), which would enhance the overall experience for them. Nothing should be handed to anyone. Knowledge should be earned, either by personal experience, or through research, or by experimentation.

Christ, I came here to ask about any news about realistic ballistics, and ended up going on a rant....sorry.

[xalienax 621]

+1 agree with this 100 percent

[gibonez 3633]

I just hope they realize the community dislikes the unrealistic qualities and wants simulation back in dayz

[gibonez 3633]

I understand that perhaps they want to simulate a regular civilians inaccuracy with a weapon but the random dispersion is not the way.

Why not use real life things to simulate that?

Such as

_ simulate trigger pull by adding a slight delay of 0.5 seconds or less before a gun fires after clicking the mouse. This would simulate trigger travel and different weapons could have different rates. Hunting rifles with crisp triggers shorter delays bullpups with bad triggers longer ones.

_ simulate arm fatigue by making the longer you hold a gun in aim mode increase the amount of sway unless your weapon is rested or bipod deployed on a surface.

Different stances have different arm fatigue.

These two ideas would accomplish the same thing that dispersion tries to without punishing a players skill.

All we want is real life accuracy for the weapons and weapon parts to be purely cosmetic or affect the handling.

[gqren 49]

I agree, well put. Have some beans!

[Element47 2481]

if this game becomes what many hope it to become, you wont have enough ammo for a 'grouping'.

[xalienax 621]

if this game becomes what many hope it to become, you wont have enough ammo for a 'grouping'.

which is just stupid imho. if everyone had thier way 99% of people would stop playing. As a developer you have to find a balance between realism and fun game play that both imersive and challengeging without being unduly frustrating/aggervating.

 

Games that try to give everyone what they want for the sake of selling more copies end up making no one happy because it ends up into a disjointed "theme park" that has no rhyme or reason and no unique flavor of its own.

[ZomboWTF 527]

agreed, arma 3 does this WAAAAY better,

 

make the gun sway and random sway way higher, to almost uncontrollable levels when walking and ADSing,

but let the bullets actually hit where they should

 

of course, real guns also have some more or less random deviation, because the bullet has some play in the barrel, which is needed for the bullet to fit through, but this is SO minimal, that even with a crappy gun, where maybe you dont have the sights zeroed the right way, once you know where you hit relative to the iron sights, you should be able to take accurate shots to about 300-400 meters without magicpull parts

 

fix the guns. they were good in arma. they should be good in DayZ.

[yorkmorgan 191]

_ simulate arm fatigue by making the longer you hold a gun in aim mode increase the amount of sway unless your weapon is rested or bipod deployed on a surface.

Different stances have different arm fatigue.

I have to say that although i'm torn on the matter of the dispersion, this would be a really great game mechanic.

[Element47 2481]

if everyone had thier way 99% of people would stop playing.

then we'd have 20.000 hardcore players devoted to the game. How would that be a bad thing? :D

[Chaingunfighter 917]

I just hope they realize the community dislikes the unrealistic qualities and wants simulation back in dayz

You're talking as if you represent the entire community, which is not true (There are plenty of people who hate snipers and love the fact that it's impossible to hit anything beyond 1-2 inches away without pure luck.)

And the mod was hardly any better for ballistics. Most of the guns had true-to-life accuracy and bullet drop (or were close to it), but Arma did not have wind, air pressure, and rain did not effect your bullets at all. Also, most of the guns could not be zeroed (in addition to the weapon model quality varying greatly, meaning that some weapons were easier to shoot simply because of their sight quality).

That's not to mention how poorly most of the weapons worked with the old combat system; the pistols were mostly useless The (M9 SD, PDW & G17 were okay, but I digress), a lot of guns had very skewed damage (A 7.62x51mm [DMR/M14] could drop a target in 1-2 shots, whilst it took 7-8 5.45x39mm [AK-74] rounds, and an uncountable number of 9x19mm/9x18mm rounds [it was rare to kill someone with an MP5/Bizon, and with a Makarov, well, a miracle]), and the general weapon variety was not good at all, even for what was available;

 

For eastern guns, the mod had the Makarov, Double-Barreled Shotgun, CZ-550, Bizon SD, AK-74, AKM, AKS-74 Kobra, AKS-74U, SA-58P, SA-58V, SA-58V CCO, SA-58V RCO, SVD Camo & RPK. The RPK didn't come until very recently and the two highlighted SA-58s are completely westernized versions of their guns.

Meanwhile, for western guns, the mod had the M9, M9 SD, M1911, G17, PDW SD, Revolver, MP5A5, MP5SD6, M1014, Remington 870, FN-FAL, FN-FAL AN/PVS-4, L85A2, 4 G36 variants, 7 M4/M16 variants, the M240, M249, MK-48, M14, DMR, M24, M40A3, Winchester 1866 & Lee-Enfield.

 

While not all of those are bad choices (many of them fit well) they were clearly skewed in the wrong direction, and there were plenty of assets available that would've made much more sense (the PKM, other AK-74/AKS-74 variants, AK-107, Makarov SD, Bizon, Saiga 12, etc.)

 

 

Not trying to argue for the new ballistics, but you're acting as if the mod was ever the golden age of shooter realism or something, which it was not

Edited May 12, 2014 by Chaingunfighter

[xalienax 621]

then we'd have 20.000 hardcore players devoted to the game. How would that be a bad thing? :D

because it wouldnt be a diverse comunity with varied playstyles and motivations where you never know what to expect. to me DayZ is what it is because there are no rules. anything thats not a script or exploit is legit (even if its somewhat cheap or troll-y).

 

KoS is Legit

Hero is Legit

Trolling is Legit

Forcefeeding is legit

girefing fresh spawns is legit.

 

you dont have to like or agree with other playstyles but having them all represented in a larger comunity makes a mroe interesting and more exciting expereince.

[Element47 2481]

because it wouldnt be a diverse comunity with varied playstyles and motivations where you never know what to expect. to me DayZ is what it is because there are no rules. anything thats not a script or exploit is legit (even if its somewhat cheap or troll-y).

 

KoS is Legit

Hero is Legit

Trolling is Legit

Forcefeeding is legit

girefing fresh spawns is legit.

 

you dont have to like or agree with other playstyles but having them all represented in a larger comunity makes a mroe interesting and more exciting expereince.

i am absolutely in support of different playstyles. but that has not been the topic here. we talk about the toolset, and not about the ways in which it is used.

i think most are in agreement that DayZ should not become a shooter to compete with arma, cod, battlefield, or any other of the dozens shooters out there. it shall retain its focus on (zombie) survival, with proper shooter mechanics for its combat aspect. so while i absolutely agree that a proper modelling of ballistics and weapon function is desirable, it is imho not necessarily imperative. the milsim friends probably politely disagree wuth me here :)

actually, i think proper modelling of ballistics would even gain relevance when ammo becomes really scarce, as it will become even more important to reduce RNG and be able to trust the weapon and your skill not to waste even a single bullet.

Edited May 12, 2014 by e47

[xalienax 621]

i am absolutely in support of different playstyles. but that has not been the topic here. we talk about the toolset, and not about the ways in which it is used.

i think most are in agreement that DayZ should not become a shooter to compete with arma, cod, battlefield, or any other of the dozens shooters out there. it shall retain its focus on (zombie) survival, with proper shooter mechanics for its combat aspect. so while i absolutely agree that a proper modelling of ballistics and weapon function is desirable, it is imho not necessarily imperative. the milsim friends probably politely disagree wuth me here :)

actually, i think proper modelling of ballistics would even gain relevance when ammo becomes really scarce, as it will become even more important to reduce RNG and be able to trust the weapon and your skill not to waste even a single bullet.

yeah im one of those people you mentioned. To me dayZ is and always shall remain arma with zombies. and the day private hives come out for SA and modders revert to mod like gameplay i'll be all over it.

 

The thing is arma isnt just a shooter, its a combined arms military simulation. (ex. its Planes are no where near as complex to fly as say.. DCS: A-10C Warthog, which i love by the way) so it is for dayZ also. my point (as it's relevent to this thread) is that the Mod and by extension, arma II's weapons are a better system for the combat in dayZ then whats in the SA. proper ballistic values and sway is the only acceptable option. to be frank, if that is not the path they choose i will delete SA permanently from my drive for that alone. it is one of my 100% deal breakers. ther is no alternative for me. ballistics or bust. the other is the zombies not obeying physical barriers as physical barriers. thats a perma delete from drive also.

 

With a game like dayZ, or Arma, that is simulating MANY different aspects of a scenario and not just one (Like DCS) one cant expect 100% exacting relaism to the extent it might as well be used for training purposes. Instead, we have to go with authenticity, thing need to behave in a way that feels relistic. weapon handling should be based on skill and expereince, NOT attachments mechanicly modifying weapon stats.

[Element47 2481]

the issue with weapon handling is, that the virtual representation is not even remotely close to the real deal.

 

real skill: experience, training, routine, ability to control your aim with your muscles on a subconcious level - thats the domain of arena shooters, which milsim friends loathe with a passion. as long as you dont have a physical rifle-shaped controller with high-level forcefeedback, you will not be able to simulate skillful handling of a gun. so it boild down to the skillful handling of the mouse.

 

but a mouse behaves completely different from a gun, thus simulations try to invent artificial barriers to make approximate the hardship of proper aiming. you dont need to excercise a force to keep a mouse pointed in the same place, you just dont touch it. thats a fundamentally different mechanic than holding a gun pointed at a target. - enters: computergenerated sway.

 

similarly, to simulate the increased handling of a gun with ergonomical grips, the simulation 'rewards' the player with a higher accuracy. it doesnt make sense on a physical level, but it is the best possible approximation on a virtual level. enter: accuracy-increasing attachments.

 

you see, there are many challenges to overcome when trying to simulate combat. and thats only a small fraction - there is so much we cannot simulate: for example haptics. i can easily check (and change) the safety setting without looking, something that needs to be visually conveyed in a simulation.

 

so we have to compromise, and one of the compromises is the way how experience and ability is measured and translated.

[xalienax 621]

the issue with weapon handling is, that the virtual representation is not even remotely close to the real deal.

 

real skill: experience, training, routine, ability to control your aim with your muscles on a subconcious level - thats the domain of arena shooters, which milsim friends loathe with a passion. as long as you dont have a physical rifle-shaped controller with high-level forcefeedback, you will not be able to simulate skillful handling of a gun. so it boild down to the skillful handling of the mouse.

 

but a mouse behaves completely different from a gun, thus simulations try to invent artificial barriers to make approximate the hardship of proper aiming. you dont need to excercise a force to keep a mouse pointed in the same place, you just dont touch it. thats a fundamentally different mechanic than holding a gun pointed at a target. - enters: computergenerated sway.

 

similarly, to simulate the increased handling of a gun with ergonomical grips, the simulation 'rewards' the player with a higher accuracy. it doesnt make sense on a physical level, but it is the best possible approximation on a virtual level. enter: accuracy-increasing attachments.

 

you see, there are many challenges to overcome when trying to simulate combat. and thats only a small fraction - there is so much we cannot simulate: for example haptics. i can easily check (and change) the safety setting without looking, something that needs to be visually conveyed in a simulation.

 

so we have to compromise, and one of the compromises is the way how experience and ability is measured and translated.

I was never anti-sway. you can compensate that by anticipating the moememnts of your sight and moving the mouse to counter it. what i do have a problem with is random dispersion cones modified by foregrips and other attachments. sway the player SEES and can CONUTER with practice. a randomized element in the "background" of code you can not. having the balistics calculated based on the position of your gun at the moment of firing means the ONLY factor is your ability to steady the weapon and aim/lead the target.

 

this means the skill celling is very high. it makes someone with good precision/control win, not the guy with the cool scope or the fancy grip.

 

Scopes should help by magnifying the target area allowing for easier aquisition at range.

Foregrips and bipods should reduce sway.

Extended mags/drum mags mean you dont have to reload in the midlle of a firefight.

 

NO where shoyuld there ever be some "majical force" being modified that the player doesnt actually see/expereince/have the ability to compenstae in real time thru practice.

[Element47 2481]

~snip~

i can subscribe to that.

Edited May 12, 2014 by e47

[Axel335 2]

the issue with weapon handling is, that the virtual representation is not even remotely close to the real deal.

 

real skill: experience, training, routine, ability to control your aim with your muscles on a subconcious level - thats the domain of arena shooters, which milsim friends loathe with a passion. as long as you dont have a physical rifle-shaped controller with high-level forcefeedback, you will not be able to simulate skillful handling of a gun. so it boild down to the skillful handling of the mouse.

 

but a mouse behaves completely different from a gun, thus simulations try to invent artificial barriers to make approximate the hardship of proper aiming. you dont need to excercise a force to keep a mouse pointed in the same place, you just dont touch it. thats a fundamentally different mechanic than holding a gun pointed at a target. - enters: computergenerated sway.

 

similarly, to simulate the increased handling of a gun with ergonomical grips, the simulation 'rewards' the player with a higher accuracy. it doesnt make sense on a physical level, but it is the best possible approximation on a virtual level. enter: accuracy-increasing attachments.

 

you see, there are many challenges to overcome when trying to simulate combat. and thats only a small fraction - there is so much we cannot simulate: for example haptics. i can easily check (and change) the safety setting without looking, something that needs to be visually conveyed in a simulation.

 

so we have to compromise, and one of the compromises is the way how experience and ability is measured and translated.

 

This. These compromises are indeed needed, I'd say it's simply too easy to aim and shoot otherwise.

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

So what are you suggesting?

Tweaking the weapons to be more accurate?

Or....the more you shoot at things,the more accurate you become(kind of Rocket's idea of passive skill system)?

[Katana67 2907]

The "spread" values they have now are not only detrimental from a "realism/authenticity" point of view, but also from a pragmatic gameplay point of view as we (i.e. not hitting what you're rightfully aiming at).

 

BF, in my opinion, has a broken shooting mechanic due to this very concept. Random spread. Now, granted, weapons do have natural deviance. But it's not on the order of feet or tens of feet at 300m.

 

I would really like to hear a dev's point of view on it. Because I really don't know if it's a "work in progress" or "working as intended." But either way, I think the community needs to be more vocal on this one.

 

But I think people need to temper the cries for "realism," as making weapons more accurate inevitably puts folks on a more even playing field in terms of accuracy (which isn't necessarily how it works in the real-world). For me, this is primarily a concern of just making the shooting more WYSIWYG vice simulating "realism." However, on the flip side, they've stated they're interested in having wind be a factor in shooting. So I think they'll have to marginalize, or downright remove, any "spread" values when that happens.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Katana67

[pilgrim* 3514]

[sorry - here's another long and boring "but", from a friendly boring person]

 

Yo Crazykage! You talk about "realistic" and "accuracy" ...but....  I'm wondering what that means in a simulation. I'm not against your point of view, I accept you have real life marksman skills (I don't) ... BUT

 

In a computer game, shooting at a stationary target.., you place your mouse pointer on a pixel and press Left click and every bullet will go to exactly the same point - unless a variable of some kind is added to change the trajectory.

It's that simple.

You put your mouse to the same point on the screen and the bullet goes to the same place. You can do that 100 times in a row and you have exactly ZERO dispersion. You are operating a computer - it's designed to give the same result every time for the same input.

 

That's ZERO dispersion - that's (lol) CONSIDERABLY less dispersion than mounting your real life gun on a bench, and bench firing it at the target. (and maybe less fun too)

 

So if you want fun in your game, you have to have some kind of variables that you - with your skills - can learn to overcome, and (maybe) you have to have some variables that are less predictable, so that even with your great skill, and knowledge of the game parameters, and guns, you may sometimes do better than other times. (kind of like it happens in real life)

 

In real life I've shot with guns that were definitely USED.. the dispersion was terrible and it CHANGED too, not even predictable.. ( I mean, ya know, a pretty totally crap gun...) Guns like this really exist. Collectors and shooters would not have forums, events, journals, where they boast and discuss and get excited about the accuracy of a specific gun - not their OWN skill and accuracy - but just how great this ONE gun is by itself, whoever shoots it - they wouldn't do that if ALL guns were 100% ACCURATE now would they? AND gun people ALSO (it's a different thing) have personal accuracy shooting competitions, and sometimes a competitor will win today, and then tomorrow shoot less well.

 

If I found a gun that had been toted around by a squaddie for 3 years, plus a few months of war conditions before he fought for his life and then got eaten by the zombies.. I'd be pleased if the damn thing worked, I'd check it and clean it, and try it out WITH CAUTION.. and if it could hit inside a body shape at 50-70 yards then YES Great, I'm ready to go, dude - and got ammo too.

 

I don't know where -  in real life - people can pick up a second-hand rifle they've never seen before (as you point out) perhaps not very well maintained, put on a sniper scope that they FOUND in a GARAGE.. and expect to hit things 1000 yards away...

 

But sure - this IS a gun game, not just a survival game. A lot of people with gun knowledge like to play, some military or ex-service folk like to play. Guns are important in the game.. Young non-gun, non-military people like to play too, some of them maybe because the weapons are "realistic" to a playable extent

 

SO - what kind of variables do you want in the game? .. are you starving? are you injured? dehydrated? have you just run a long way? are you AFRAID? is the wind blowing? has your gun been sighted in? how's the rifling? is the ammo GOOD quality? did you get dirt down the barrel when you were crawling through the woods? And bottom line, how GOOD is the gun anyway? when did you last clean it? where's it been? is it a standard issue, standard unit, not-very-rich-country, fairly-well maintained rifle? or did it come out of a locked safe in an expert dedicated shooter-collector's country house? (on the internet you find plenty of photos of real-life war zone combatants carrying firearms that I would not feel good about having close to my face to let off a round).

 

you CAN have variables to IMITATE any of those things, or you can have NONE, and hit 100% exactly in the same place every time you shoot - because that's what a computer MUST do unless you tell it different - in the real world you're actually using a MOUSE not a gun in this game, and you DONT have an injured arm, you're not cold or low on blood, etc.. so (with NO variables) you put the mouse in one place and then Dont Touch It and shoot as much as you like and every shot will go to exactly the same point. You dont have to know a thing about guns to do that.

 

So it's really down to what kind of variables you want, to imitate physical and material conditions, and imitate a human being in the country, under stress, in the rain, whatever.. which the player is not ... the ballistics are calculated by the computer and they DONT EVER CHANGE unless variables are deliberately introduced in the calculations, to add unpredictability and difficulty. So what variables do you want?

 

For instance, what variables can we use to imitate the difference between a RL marksman and a 14 year old who has never handled a gun? How do we do that?  Or what variable would give a RL marksman an advantage in a computer game?  If you're over 22, a 14 year old has better eyesight and faster reactions than you. And I've heard that moving a mouse cursor from exactly one point to exactly another point, is something a woman can do typically with higher accuracy and repeatability than a man.

 

(just a note - the one thing computers CAN NOT do is generate RANDOM sequences. It may be "sufficiently unpredictable" to LOOK random to you, but its not. Its a variable, you can check its parameters if you want to, and find out exactly what it does to each trajectory, to make them different)

 

xx pilgrim

Edited May 12, 2014 by pilgrim

[gibonez 3633]

 

Not trying to argue for the new ballistics, but you're acting as if the mod was ever the golden age of shooter realism or something, which it was not

 

No I agree the mod was not completely realistic and it had its faults.

 

However that being said the faults were within the health system not on how the weapons behaved.

 

So the mod had 1 less variable that led to player frustration meanwhile stand alone has both the health system + the great random weapon dispersion to account for.

[Chaingunfighter 917]

No I agree the mod was not completely realistic and it had its faults.

 

However that being said the faults were within the health system not on how the weapons behaved.

 

So the mod had 1 less variable that led to player frustration meanwhile stand alone has both the health system + the great random weapon dispersion to account for.

The mod was lacking in more than just one area in shooting. Granted I don't find the fact that the Mosin can use an LRS to be the end of the world, but still.

[gibonez 3633]

The mod was lacking in more than just one area in shooting. Granted I don't find the fact that the Mosin can use an LRS to be the end of the world, but still.

 

I don't either it just annoys me but more importantly it sets a precedent for other more unrealistic weapon attachments to flourish in the future such as the pu scope on an sks.

[Katana67 2907]

I don't either it just annoys me but more importantly it sets a precedent for other more unrealistic weapon attachments to flourish in the future such as the pu scope on an sks.

 

How is a PU scope on an SKS unrealistic? It can be done in reality, it is therefore "realistic" (however unlikely) for it to be in DayZ. Same thing applies to the LRS and Mosin.

 

 

 

 

You can have all weapons be modular, or you can have certain attachments be marginally flexible (i.e. LRS and PU) for those weapons which are not modular (i.e. Mosin and SKS).

 

Otherwise, it's just more work for the developers to design an optic for every last weapon just to make it fit your definition of plausibility.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Katana67