Should the Head shots kill ?

[[DVB] Avalon.ca]

i voted on this thread ages ago, and as you can imagin it was with the majority vote. however, instead of just bitching about it, how bout i offer an alternitive.

take away all the defibs / slash bee sting (epi pens) kits from the factions. if a squad mate goes down, make the medic patch him for an extended period of time instead of an instant revieve. a medic in the center of road with an epi pen stabbin a guy who is instantly able to run for cover might not be as realistic as we it seem sounds. i know if you give enough epi too a piece of ground beef, might make it quiver (medical humor)
, but it dosn't re-animate the dead.

[[R-DEV]fuzzhead]

since you asked nicely ParadoX I'll chat about this for abit and my opinion on it, but just keep in mind there will be no immediate hotfix on this issue, as its not percieved as massive as many make it out to be, neither is this poll much affect on the change. If we would poll people about removing squad leader spawning, you would find alot of people totally against the idea, as you would over numerous other issues in the past. Polling the public in this way is not how the dev team makes gameplay decisions.

There is 2 things being discussed here, both tie into each other. One topic is about v0.85 medics and the potential exploitability or arcade like environment that can happen, and the second thing is players fixation and obsessiveness with the FPS "headshot" mentality, this mentality I suspect is why everyone has their backs up over new changes.

Lets make some things clear so we dont have to talk in circles:
- Reviving someone in real life on the battlefield is not realistic. If you have a gunshot wound (critically wounded) you are no longer combat effective, your priority is safe removal off the battlefield, it might take months or years to recover from this wound, or you might die from the many complications like organ damage, internal bleeding, collapsed lung etc etc. The effect a gunshot wound has on a human is extremely brutal and immediate, most go into immediate shock immediately. Yes of course there is rare times where targets are hit multiple times and keep going, but were talking about common occurrences here, which is severe trauma usually followed by shock and sometimes unconciousness. I wont go into any further detail but Ill let you read about it on your own time. The point is, what is NOT up for debate here is whether a gunshot wound to the head or body IN REALITY would be crippling to an individual, as yes in most instances it would, and would be making him completely combat ineffective.

On-site battlefield revives and "healing" are in Project Reality as they are an incredibly powerful tool to help bring squads together, reinforce squad cohesion and reward squads that use superior teamwork and tactics. There is nothing realistic about them, and the dev team has acknowledged this since the start of the project. If Project Reality was about TOTAL realism (which it definitely is not and has no plans to), then getting shot in the foot would mean exactly the same as getting shot in the head - you are KILLED. This would be the most "total" realism way of going about it: join a server, hop in the squad, once you are shot ANYWHERE on your body, you are immediately rendered unconcious/immobile. You cannot respawn until the mission is over. This is seen in other games such as Armed Assault, and we can see how it affects players there. Player behaviour in that game is very different than PR, there is (in most public servers) much less cooperation and teamwork, in part because of not having any methods to reinforce positive player behaviour.

PR is about a compromise between "total" realism and behavioural realism, meaning there is compromises that need to be made in order to get players behaving in a more sensible and realistic manner. Of course no system is perfect for this, and PR is continually changing as its playerbase also changes in mentality. Take a snapshot of PR 2 years ago and I think youll see that the PR playerbase has evolved quite a bit, and because of that we are able to introduce more realism elements and use less arcade like elements. All this is possible because of changes that force a players behavior to change, as the "default" behavior of your average FPS player (if you couldn't tell) is just not suited for approaching a virtual environment in a realistic manner.

Now lets talk about what everyone is mainly complaining about, and that is the "Headshot Syndrome" as I call it. This to me is really solely a "Videogame Topic" and has absolutely nothing to do with actual combat realism. Ever since the early days of PC Gaming the almighty "headshot" has been seen by many as the best and usually ONLY place to aim on a target, its viewed by FPS veterans as the easiest way to take down an enemy - always aim for the head, BOOM HEADSHOT! This is further reinforced through alot of hollywood movies, that always seem to place great emphasis on headshots as well.

This mentality I think is based completely on fantasy and ingrained into players minds so thoroughly that they cant seem to think about it much. IRL aiming at a target, you will always aim for center of mass, and most military train their troops with this from early on. Aiming at a head is only really a valid tactic in tight CQB situations and when there is risk that the target may have some kind of remote detonated explosive device.

So my argument here is simply, if you are always complaining about headshots, why are you even aiming at the head in the first place and focusing on it to that degree? "Because its an easy one shot kill, duh!". And thats exactly my argument AGAINST having one-shot "insta kills" for a headshot. Why should we be forcing players to play in an arcade like fashion, where the only and best strategy when firing at targets is to aim for their melon, even though this goes against most common military practice. Why is the headshot so important for you? And dont say because its realistic, as we JUST established that getting a gunshot wound ANYWHERE (enough to critically wound you) is no different than a headshot, in getting incapacitated (combat ineffective) in reality.

Now as for the medics, theres already a huge discussion on this elsewhere but tbh, I dont see a big deal in the current v0.85 with medics. Yes, it can be spammy and annoying at times when a medic keeps reviving the same guy, but is this really to the advantage of the squad getting revived? Most of the time that squad gets wiped out anyways because they are in the shit and have lost fire superiority. Moving on an enemy squad that is all bleeding out and healing each other is simple for even the most green of players. Medics are mainly a hassle on the smaller, more spammy 1km maps. But these maps will always tend to be alot more spammy, regardless of medics, mainly because you are cramming tons of players in a tiny space with respawn points often <100m from each other.... prety much making it team deathmatch and basically the spammiest tactic wins in most circumstances. I've always considered the 1km maps as "seeder" maps and not as the "main course", but many players thrive on this type of action, however PR is focused on COMBINED ARMS mainly, these seeder maps are not the main focus.

There is a few changes already announced for v0.9 to help reinforce the current medic system proper use:
- Limiting medics, 1 per squad.
- Limiting the frequency of revives. If you are shot within 60 seconds of being revived, you will be KILLED.
- Fixing the bleed out screen, so that it once again blocks your vision and limits your sprint (this is a huge factor and was broken due to newer video card drivers).

. . .


So anyways, you asked why dont the headshot kill, I've given you a somewhat descriptive answer but I want to ask YOU a question: why are headshots so important for you? Why are you noticing whether it was a headshot on the target or just a body shot, does not the only thing that matters is that THE TARGET IS DOWN and you are moving on to the next target? Why does everyone have such a sick fascination with popping peoples heads off?

If the only reason you play PR is to get a headshot off on some guy 200m away, then theres many other games out there that does a much better job, try soldier of fortune 2, you will love it. If you think that tactics = BOOM HEADSHOT, then I think your missing the point of PR entirely...

[crazy11]

Well said Fuzz!

[TheParadoX]

Very well, I see your point. Concerning the Medic problem: Your solution seems to be a good approach to solve the problem.

Regarding the headshots, for me there is no fixation, and in a CQB, hitting the ennemy is all that counts. What I have a problem with is that given the fact one player gets a headshot (anyway), he can be insta revived.

As you correctly mentionned, gunshot wounds are rather serious and any hit soldier would be evacuated from the battlefield asap. But PR being a game, there needs to be a certain balance in order to keep the fun. Otherwise I might as well join the real army if I only got one respawn. Considering this, compromises need to be made. PR trying to be rather realistic (compared to BF2), headshots should kill the player instantly and other shots should lead to a short "critically wounded" state.

That way, medics will be used in a more real way (ie. healing the wounded, not the dead), encouraging people to have a strong teamplay. They are going to be extra-careful when it comes to facing the ennemy directly. Just compare US Forces vs Insurgents: The insurgents are much more careful because they know that even the sligthest hit will lead them to bleed out eventually because they don't have any medics (because no one plays civi, but that's another issue). The US forces are much more rambo-ish in their tactics, as they can be revived after taking a RPG...

That way, the balance between fun and realism can be achieved without having utterly unrealistic things going on ingame. This is what PR is about, IMO: Knowing that this is not a conventional game because most details are thought through in order to make it feel more "real". With the 0.85 non-lethal headshots, I lost that feeling...

Another point that has not been mentionned here: clanwars. As opposed to a public game where a lost round could still have been a very enjoyable round, each ticket is crucial. The last clanwar I saw was a revive-fest. It was boring and frustrating. But that's my point of view.

You say that polls are not an official way to make decisions, but as a community member, being listened to is a nice thing. As the official statement on the PR homepage says, "With that said, we would like to say thank-you to all of the community for playing and promoting our Mod" and "Without the continued support from our global community [...] Project Reality would not have been able to evolve into the mod it is today." it is clear that the community is very important to the game.

Yet I know that you can't deal with all suggestions posted on the forums and that it's a lot of work, especially with all the new players who are discovering the game and who keep posting that fastropes would be l33t, the unofficial headshot-poll seems to be a more important one, considering all the people who voted and defended their point of view.

Wow I typed a lot, sry but this is important to me, and as far as I can tell it is to most of my clanmates and according to the unofficial poll, it is important to 93% of the players here

Solong,
TheParadoX

[Jaymz]

Here's a great point of view on the topic of medics...

Originally Posted by Tactical Gaming Done Right , according to Dslyecxi

Medics - Tending to and Evacuating the Wounded

The basic medical premise of Operation Flashpoint - get wounded, find a medic, medic spends a few moments patching you up (during which you're both vulnerable), and then you're good to fight again - is simple, workable, and while not incredibly realistic (but still more realistic than the revival of, say, Battlefield 2), it gets the job done and gives medics a place on the battlefield. America's Army takes a similar approach, and it also has a bleeding system implemented that can kill a player if a medic doesn't stabilize him soon enough.

It is probably too early to start asking for really robust medical models centered not around getting soldiers immediately back into the fight, but instead saving their lives and getting them evacuated from the field of battle.

I think that future games will have the capacity to make this an extremely compelling form of play, but it will likely take a backseat to most other features for the near future. Some day in the not-too-distant future you might find yourself dragging a wounded buddy out of a burning vehicle, slinging him over your shoulder, and rushing him to cover before getting a medic to look after him. Imagine the dynamic, emergent gameplay that could result from calling in helo- or ground-based medical evacuations in response to situations like that - and that's not even looking at all the possibilities that could exist for the medical personnel themselves.

[TheParadoX]

Well this sounds rather good, but I don't see the point of your post:

- We already know everything stated in the first paragraph (especially BF2 being unrealistic)
- This is neither Arma nor Americas Army, and we have to find solutions with the BF2 engine
- IIrc, evac vehicles (jeep / helo) have already been suggested several times, but denied.

[[R-DEV]fuzzhead]

PR trying to be rather realistic (compared to BF2), headshots should kill the player instantly and other shots should lead to a short "critically wounded" state.

Fair enough. But remember the medic system is not a realism feature, its a gameplay mechanic. Arguing about the realism of the medic system is like arguing about the turret detail of a new hover tank n PR - neither is a realism feature so arguing for realism is kind of pointless. Asking for headshots to insta-kill instead of critically wound is only a *marginally* more realistic change, it seems you might have missed my argument that by doing this change, it would actually REDUCE realism (by a greater factor) by forcing all players (whether they want to or not) to aim for the head in order to stay competitive.

Just compare US Forces vs Insurgents: The insurgents are much more careful because they know that even the sligthest hit will lead them to bleed out eventually because they don't have any medics (because no one plays civi, but that's another issue). The US forces are much more rambo-ish in their tactics, as they can be revived after taking a RPG...

Well this all comes down to gameplay experience and what server your playing on, but generally I find it the opposite actually, the insurgents usually seem to be alot more reckless while the US troops seem to be more cautious (for a variety of reasons but then again it all boils down to individual experience).

With the 0.85 non-lethal headshots, I lost that feeling...

Again I ask why are you focusing on your targets heads so much and whether you shot him in the head or not? This only proves my point that players behavior in game is ingrained to shoot at the head, instead of just doing what it takes to bring a target down and moving onto the next target. With all the BF2 hitbox issues, its often that you cant tell whether you hit the head or not, other than he goes down faster or the silly ragdoll flings him alot more stupidly.

clanwars. As opposed to a public game where a lost round could still have been a very enjoyable round, each ticket is crucial. The last clanwar I saw was a revive-fest. It was boring and frustrating. But that's my point of view.

Clan battles has never been a primary focus of PR, and although the medic reviving might have affected it badly, from my experience clans love to use every exploit in the book instead of using realistic tactics, mainly because when your at such highly competitive rounds you cannot afford to give the enemy an inch. The medic changes I've mentioned I think will greatly reduce the unrealistic use of medics in clan battles. If anything, clans expose exploits in our system and thats good because then we find a way to void said exploits

You say that polls are not an official way to make decisions, but as a community member, being listened to is a nice thing. As the official statement on the PR homepage says, "With that said, we would like to say thank-you to all of the community for playing and promoting our Mod" and "Without the continued support from our global community [...] Project Reality would not have been able to evolve into the mod it is today." it is clear that the community is very important to the game.

Without the community PR would of course be boring, but at the same time we know that if we listened to the community about everything, this mod would have gone the same route as every other mod - watered-down, no clear vision and stick with "whats safe". PR has always been about evolving its gameplay and in the end the dev team is creating a game that we would like to play, if some other people find it fun too than thats cool

the unofficial headshot-poll seems to be a more important one, considering all the people who voted and defended their point of view.

This poll is worded poorly, and I think is confusing for most voters. From glancing at the poll quickly you might think that its about whether headshots should critically wound a player with one hit or take multiple hits. The poll should be changed to "Should a small arms projectile critically wound or completely kill a player with one shot?" Also most opinions here are 1-2 sentence responses and not really going into much detail other than the out crying of "its not realistic!".

Maybe you didnt read my whole response but I was trying to notion that the idea of a headshot in videogames is a bit cliche and there is too much focus on it. I dont think PR should have such a focus since this is a game more about realistic tactics and firing and manuevering and combined arms, and headshots dont really have much of a factor in this, but they have a tremendous factor on the very competitive BOOM-HEADSHOT-arcade-twitch-reflex-killkillkill CSS type of player, which PR is NOT catering towards.

Let me put it in another way: I dont think the ability to headshot someone in PR should be a greater factor in victory than your ability to effectively deploy realistic military tactics and movements. Twitch gamers will probably disagree with this, and tactical gamers will probably agree, I guess there is not much to make one see another point of view.

[TheParadoX]

I did read your posts, you got me wrong on the aiming for the head part. I guess that I didn't explain my point well enough (and writing in english isn't helping )

All in all: I agree with your point of view, but IMO the lack of realism generated by headshots being non lethal (by ANY weapon) is affecting the game in a bad way more than the consequences you described would affect it.

Again, I'm also anti-CSS-insta-prone-boom-headshot-l33ts, but if by any chance someone caught a bullet in the head, it should be over. I just can't combine the "effectively deploying realistic military tactics and movements" and "still being able to revive anyone". Does this make more sense to you now ?

It's kind of a black or white choice, and in this case I'd be in favor of the black one. I must admit that this poll might be a bit confusing, but most players know what is meant.

One last thing: A headshot is non lethal, but a knife in the left big toe is fatal ?

[Axel]

Originally Posted by TheParadoX

Well this sounds rather good, but I don't see the point of your post:

- We already know everything stated in the first paragraph (especially BF2 being unrealistic)
- This is neither Arma nor Americas Army, and we have to find solutions with the BF2 engine
- IIrc, evac vehicles (jeep / helo) have already been suggested several times, but denied.

Amen to that, Americas Army atleast is a joke, it was good until they started to listen to the general leeters now it's a bloody mess.

And yeah good point fuzz.

@ Paradox by making headshot insta-kill and much more effective than center mass shots PR would be one step closer to an arcade game.

[Truism]

Fuzz raises some good points, but there was one thing I took issue with: the benefit to the squad doing the reviving. There are certain assets on the battlefield who rely on their ability to inflict casualties in a way that can't be replaced - most particularly snipers, but also marksmen and Insurgents when they defend fixed points. The problem is not so much that headshots are not revivable alone (althought I think they shouldn't be) it's mostly that medics revive and heal too quickly when compared with other battlefield actions, particularly sniping, but also setting up LMGs, rifle mounted grenades and some other weapons systems. All of these actions happen at a speed which is, to my mind mostly "right" - it's reviving and healing that are off the wall fast. Fast revives give a squad the ability to simply bypass certain battlefield threats that would cripple a squad in real life - like a well sighted sniper - obviously against another squad strength element it's a little different, but the advantage it confers over some support weapons, without real co-ordination (ie supressing fire) is unacceptable.

Take how long it takes to Epipen someone back into a mobile state - normally less time than it takes for a sniper to steady his shot - a sniper can kill an Cfficer and barely be resighted before the medic has revived him and has him moving - this is unacceptable. In my humble opinion, the best yard stick for medic revive animation times (the time taken from either the click to the revive action if at all possible) should be twice what it takes for a sniper to sight in and gain minimum deviation after firing a shot. Good snipers will gain the ability to pin a squad in this way (kill the officer, force the squad to try and locate and pin you before reviving, healing and moving on) and medicspam will be somewhat alleviated, as well as making the whole thing a little bit more realistic.