Wittmann
Member
Hello Everyone,
I'm a new member to the forums today, Wittmann is my name, and I've applied to join the team as a military adviser. You're in store for a long read, make sure to get your snacks beforehand.... xD
I saw in another thread where people were comparing realism to Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad (one of my favorite games), and they had begun to deride it for certain issues in the game, mostly that it turned into a camping trip, not a combat simulation. That was mostly caused by the maps being poorly designed for combat at range, that, and the "perfect" accuracy of every individual.
Accuracy of Weapons and Sway
In real life, that level of accuracy in amazing, I personally have a 73% hit ratio with the Mauser Kar98k in the game. That seems a far cry from the real world. In the War on Terror we use 250,000 rounds of ammunition per combatant killed (source). The accuracy in Red Orchestra 2 is not caused by overpowered weapons, as a real Kar98 (from experience) is a very accurate weapon. Hitting a man sized target at the range from 200m (~650ft) is easy. Hitting a man sized target at 400m (~1300ft) is fairly easy. The difference being that,
1. Nobody is shooting back at me, I don't worry about what's around me and I can take as long as I want aiming the shot
2. I know exactly where my target is (and to an extent can judge its range without time-constraints)
3. I have a clear view of my target, there isn't any cover, dust, or haze that is getting in the way
4. My target is static
5. You are not shooting a living human being (this comes down to a personal thing, some people find this irrelevant, some abhor the idea of killing)
Considering those facts, we should be able to see that the weapon itself is accurate, it's the operator that will cause the shot to miss. This is due to the inverse of the above mentioned reasons, and also fatigue. While we can all experience being exhausted after going for a jog, and having trouble aiming our rifle accurately due to sway and muscle fatigue, what we don't experience is the long-term fatigue of a combat situation. We got a good night's sleep the night before, we're not hungry, or cold, we have nice boots that don't have holes in them, and we are not mentally fatigued from the constant threat of death (to ourselves or comrades) for weeks on end. We also run into things in video games that with modern technology, we just can't simulate well. For example, wiping sweat off of our face, our eyes getting fatigued from staring down the sights for an hour, something getting in our eye (dirt, shrapnel, etc.), dealing with an uncomfortable position where something is jabbing into your stomach, and the simple fact that after two hours of watching a house that should have enemies in it, and nothing happening, you just get plain bored and inattentive. Obviously I'm not arguing for 72 hour ironman matches where we have to worry about keeping warm, and scratching our leg when we get an itch, but we need to find a way to help balance out the fact that rifles are "perfect" and humans are not.
So what do we do to keep the game from turning into about 300 Vasily Zaitsef's and Simo Haya's in Normandy? Well the first thing, that is so often missed in most video games, is that your rifle swaying isn't as based on your heartbeat as it is on your arms being tired from holding a 5kg (12lb) stick of wood and metal in one place. We need to have our weapons sway more (to an extent) the longer we hold them in the aimed position. This can be offset some by kneeling, going prone, or setting your weapon on an object (ie a wall, or what have you).
We also need to stop "zooming" when we look down the sights. In real life, actually seeing a person 400m a way and getting the rifle to line up just exactly to be pointed at them, is more of a challenge than one might imagine. This is one of the biggest causes of "sniper syndrome", as I call it. If people did not "zoom" in when they looked down the sights, it would prevent that perfect accuracy we've been seeing for the last 20 years of shooters.
Stamina and Running
I don't think I'm the only person to have ever noticed that we seem to be playing as a platoon of morbidly out of shape soldiers. Anyone who is in even moderate shape can sprint for at least 90 seconds before being "totally unable to run". Sure, you'll be panting like no tomorrow, but it's not the 15 second sprint timer (that is recovered almost immediately) that we see in video games nowadays. I will lend credit, in that we have not been in combat for the prior two weeks before that sprint, but it's not represented well in video games even with that in mind. I would like to see a stamina system that simulates how people actually get tired. As opposed to simply having 15 seconds of sprint that takes 30 seconds to recover, we need to recognize the fact that each time you sprint you reduce your "maximum" stamina for a good hour or so. My idea would be,
100% Stamina (60 seconds of sprint), for every 1% of stamina you use, it reduced your maximum stamina by 0.5%, so if I sprinted for 30 seconds, and then recovered it, I would only recover to be able to sprint for 45 seconds. The minimum level of max stamina would be 20%, or whatever was decided on for balance. This better simulates the long-term effects of sprinting, and makes it far more tactical, as you couldn't just stop moving for 10 seconds and then go from "not able to run at all" to being able to run.
Wounds and Medic
People rarely die when they are shot, they generally die shortly afterwards. What I mean by that, is unless your brain, heart, or spinal cord is destroyed, going from "alive to dead" immediately is unrealistic and absurd. To understand how people die from getting shot, we also need to recognize what getting shot entails. When a 7.92x57mm bullet leaves a Kar98k it leaves the barrel travelling roughly 820m/s (2,700ft/s), essentially a mile in two and a half seconds (it slows down the further it goes). When it impacts a human body, the bullet expands and buckles at the tip, flattening out and tumbling inside of the body. It also causes a pressure wave to resonate in the body, causing the fluids to vibrate (this is a debatable point actually, but some believe this is where the "instant death/stopping power" comes from), causing trauma to the organs and brain due to the expansion and vibration of body fluids. As the bullet tumbles, it pulls the flesh with it, causing exterior bruising, and interior blunt force trauma. The bullet itself makes a direct path for the first six inches or so, and then often pulls up or down, ripping and shattering anything in its path. The bullet will then either be lodged in the person, or burst from the back of the person, causing a large exit wound, as the bullet will expand to roughly twice it's diameter by the time it exits.
Assuming the bullet struck the lower ribcage, missing the heart and spinal cord, will the person die? In World War 2 the mortality figures due to torso wounds was... about 10%
I know, it's far lower than you imagined. This was due to field hospitals and ambulances (often times a horse drawn buddy) being far closer to the front line than in prior wars. Are you out of action for the duration of what we are simulating in this video game? Yes, most definitely. Generally, the casualty was pulled out of the line of fire, a medic would attempt to stabilize, not treat, their wound. The casualty would then be evacuated to the field hospital. The modern idea of bring treated in the field, is still very rare, and generally only on combat missions where being evacuated is not a possibility. In terms of realism we run into an issue, in that, having a medic pull you back up after 15 seconds of wound care is silly, yet medics are a highly requested feature in this game. at the same time, I still find the idea of someone getting shot, treated, and fighting again within a 30 second period just, absurd. Making medical care logical would require a more realistic, and therefore, slower, game pace, than what we've seen in most modern games. In terms of a compromise, I would support a medic a medic treating extremity wounds, IE, getting shot in the arm, leg, etc. Possibly, when shot in the arm the player can immediately try and call for a medic, or risk becoming a "fatality" (unconscious, totally combat ineffective, etc.) within say 40 seconds. The medic can then try and stabilize their condition so that they are back to a moderate level of combat efficiency. To keep this from being silly or abusive, the medic action needs to take a good 30 to 40 seconds to be done. At the same time, make chest wounds something where stopping the bleeding will not bring the player "to life" but will prevent the death from counting against the team's "resources, lives, spawn points, etc." This makes it so that the medic has to prioritize wounds that they "know they can treat" and that keep their squad combat effective (arms and legs), vs. those that will just save the person in the long run. This all requires a significantly slower and more realistic game pace. The number of lives per team should also be reduced, making the game more tactical and making each life hold a lot more value, encouraging effective, and well respected, medics.
Game Pace and Map Size
Most video games take place (for hardware power reasons) at far far far shorter ranges then real life combat does. This needs to be rectified, in real life, you really don't worry about a whole squad just rushing your sniper position from behind. You can focus, primarily, on the known enemy positions, as opposed to having to take corner camping positions. To do this, the size of the maps needs to be increased dramatically. Combat should be taking place at ranges between 150-300m primarily, and close quarters, room to room, should be rather rare. Because combat casualties will take a long time to treat, and there is a low number of team respawns, or the spawn points are located far away, you should kill the majority of the people in a position you are trying to assault, to have half a platoon sprint in and take up the positions right away. Spawn times need to be increased (slightly) and the distances increased.
We run into an issue though, that we want squads to work together as a team, and not have squad leaders just be code-word for "spawn point". That's where we reach, what is in my opinion, the greatest flaw developers take when trying to design realism. They try to add systems, things, or mechanics to force realism, as opposed to looking at real life. Instead of saying "I want players to work together as a squad, so to let them do that I added XYZ", we need to make the entire game as realistic as possible, so that instead of being pigeonholed into working as a squad, we reach a point where, the reason we work together as a squad, is because it increases our chances of survival, and helps us win. Why do we work in squads in real life? Because.... it's just more effective then working alone.
A player who does well, should be able to make it through an entire round and not die. Can you imagine a full hour long match, where you don't die? I think that's the key to realism, is that the goal is about completing the objective and surviving, and less about killing the enemy. In the majority of games, you can expect to die multiple times per round. As I've mentioned already, making the game take place at range will help with this, but we need to make foilage thick, people shouldn't stick out like sore thumbs when they've crawled under the bushes and through grass, it should not be so easy to spot someone at a distance, and then as opposed to saying "Oh, there's objected Delta, charge, start shooting, etc." the squad leader will call everyone to halt, because the attacker has the advantage of knowing where the enemy should be, he will look through his binoculars, and say "Okay, they've got a machine gun in the top right window, our machine gunner will put some fire on that while we advance down the left hedgerow". Distance, increased fatigue and muzzle sway, no zoom while looking down the sights, will all add to the fact that just because you spot the enemy, doesn't mean an immediate wave of death to them.
Making the game slower, having combat more often occur at range, making people become tired from continuous activity, as opposed to simply a stamina bar, having VOIP in game, and making each life in game something precious and valuable, will add to the overall realism, and encourage people to work together because it makes their chances of not getting killed better.
Well I'm sure I can write more, but that's the gist of it, sorry it was so long, and to the Dev Team, I better get accepted for that position! xD
tl;dr, make the game take place at long range, slow down the pace of combat, weapons are accurate people are not.
I'm a new member to the forums today, Wittmann is my name, and I've applied to join the team as a military adviser. You're in store for a long read, make sure to get your snacks beforehand.... xD
I saw in another thread where people were comparing realism to Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad (one of my favorite games), and they had begun to deride it for certain issues in the game, mostly that it turned into a camping trip, not a combat simulation. That was mostly caused by the maps being poorly designed for combat at range, that, and the "perfect" accuracy of every individual.
Accuracy of Weapons and Sway
In real life, that level of accuracy in amazing, I personally have a 73% hit ratio with the Mauser Kar98k in the game. That seems a far cry from the real world. In the War on Terror we use 250,000 rounds of ammunition per combatant killed (source). The accuracy in Red Orchestra 2 is not caused by overpowered weapons, as a real Kar98 (from experience) is a very accurate weapon. Hitting a man sized target at the range from 200m (~650ft) is easy. Hitting a man sized target at 400m (~1300ft) is fairly easy. The difference being that,
1. Nobody is shooting back at me, I don't worry about what's around me and I can take as long as I want aiming the shot
2. I know exactly where my target is (and to an extent can judge its range without time-constraints)
3. I have a clear view of my target, there isn't any cover, dust, or haze that is getting in the way
4. My target is static
5. You are not shooting a living human being (this comes down to a personal thing, some people find this irrelevant, some abhor the idea of killing)
Considering those facts, we should be able to see that the weapon itself is accurate, it's the operator that will cause the shot to miss. This is due to the inverse of the above mentioned reasons, and also fatigue. While we can all experience being exhausted after going for a jog, and having trouble aiming our rifle accurately due to sway and muscle fatigue, what we don't experience is the long-term fatigue of a combat situation. We got a good night's sleep the night before, we're not hungry, or cold, we have nice boots that don't have holes in them, and we are not mentally fatigued from the constant threat of death (to ourselves or comrades) for weeks on end. We also run into things in video games that with modern technology, we just can't simulate well. For example, wiping sweat off of our face, our eyes getting fatigued from staring down the sights for an hour, something getting in our eye (dirt, shrapnel, etc.), dealing with an uncomfortable position where something is jabbing into your stomach, and the simple fact that after two hours of watching a house that should have enemies in it, and nothing happening, you just get plain bored and inattentive. Obviously I'm not arguing for 72 hour ironman matches where we have to worry about keeping warm, and scratching our leg when we get an itch, but we need to find a way to help balance out the fact that rifles are "perfect" and humans are not.
So what do we do to keep the game from turning into about 300 Vasily Zaitsef's and Simo Haya's in Normandy? Well the first thing, that is so often missed in most video games, is that your rifle swaying isn't as based on your heartbeat as it is on your arms being tired from holding a 5kg (12lb) stick of wood and metal in one place. We need to have our weapons sway more (to an extent) the longer we hold them in the aimed position. This can be offset some by kneeling, going prone, or setting your weapon on an object (ie a wall, or what have you).
We also need to stop "zooming" when we look down the sights. In real life, actually seeing a person 400m a way and getting the rifle to line up just exactly to be pointed at them, is more of a challenge than one might imagine. This is one of the biggest causes of "sniper syndrome", as I call it. If people did not "zoom" in when they looked down the sights, it would prevent that perfect accuracy we've been seeing for the last 20 years of shooters.
Stamina and Running
I don't think I'm the only person to have ever noticed that we seem to be playing as a platoon of morbidly out of shape soldiers. Anyone who is in even moderate shape can sprint for at least 90 seconds before being "totally unable to run". Sure, you'll be panting like no tomorrow, but it's not the 15 second sprint timer (that is recovered almost immediately) that we see in video games nowadays. I will lend credit, in that we have not been in combat for the prior two weeks before that sprint, but it's not represented well in video games even with that in mind. I would like to see a stamina system that simulates how people actually get tired. As opposed to simply having 15 seconds of sprint that takes 30 seconds to recover, we need to recognize the fact that each time you sprint you reduce your "maximum" stamina for a good hour or so. My idea would be,
100% Stamina (60 seconds of sprint), for every 1% of stamina you use, it reduced your maximum stamina by 0.5%, so if I sprinted for 30 seconds, and then recovered it, I would only recover to be able to sprint for 45 seconds. The minimum level of max stamina would be 20%, or whatever was decided on for balance. This better simulates the long-term effects of sprinting, and makes it far more tactical, as you couldn't just stop moving for 10 seconds and then go from "not able to run at all" to being able to run.
Wounds and Medic
People rarely die when they are shot, they generally die shortly afterwards. What I mean by that, is unless your brain, heart, or spinal cord is destroyed, going from "alive to dead" immediately is unrealistic and absurd. To understand how people die from getting shot, we also need to recognize what getting shot entails. When a 7.92x57mm bullet leaves a Kar98k it leaves the barrel travelling roughly 820m/s (2,700ft/s), essentially a mile in two and a half seconds (it slows down the further it goes). When it impacts a human body, the bullet expands and buckles at the tip, flattening out and tumbling inside of the body. It also causes a pressure wave to resonate in the body, causing the fluids to vibrate (this is a debatable point actually, but some believe this is where the "instant death/stopping power" comes from), causing trauma to the organs and brain due to the expansion and vibration of body fluids. As the bullet tumbles, it pulls the flesh with it, causing exterior bruising, and interior blunt force trauma. The bullet itself makes a direct path for the first six inches or so, and then often pulls up or down, ripping and shattering anything in its path. The bullet will then either be lodged in the person, or burst from the back of the person, causing a large exit wound, as the bullet will expand to roughly twice it's diameter by the time it exits.
Assuming the bullet struck the lower ribcage, missing the heart and spinal cord, will the person die? In World War 2 the mortality figures due to torso wounds was... about 10%
I know, it's far lower than you imagined. This was due to field hospitals and ambulances (often times a horse drawn buddy) being far closer to the front line than in prior wars. Are you out of action for the duration of what we are simulating in this video game? Yes, most definitely. Generally, the casualty was pulled out of the line of fire, a medic would attempt to stabilize, not treat, their wound. The casualty would then be evacuated to the field hospital. The modern idea of bring treated in the field, is still very rare, and generally only on combat missions where being evacuated is not a possibility. In terms of realism we run into an issue, in that, having a medic pull you back up after 15 seconds of wound care is silly, yet medics are a highly requested feature in this game. at the same time, I still find the idea of someone getting shot, treated, and fighting again within a 30 second period just, absurd. Making medical care logical would require a more realistic, and therefore, slower, game pace, than what we've seen in most modern games. In terms of a compromise, I would support a medic a medic treating extremity wounds, IE, getting shot in the arm, leg, etc. Possibly, when shot in the arm the player can immediately try and call for a medic, or risk becoming a "fatality" (unconscious, totally combat ineffective, etc.) within say 40 seconds. The medic can then try and stabilize their condition so that they are back to a moderate level of combat efficiency. To keep this from being silly or abusive, the medic action needs to take a good 30 to 40 seconds to be done. At the same time, make chest wounds something where stopping the bleeding will not bring the player "to life" but will prevent the death from counting against the team's "resources, lives, spawn points, etc." This makes it so that the medic has to prioritize wounds that they "know they can treat" and that keep their squad combat effective (arms and legs), vs. those that will just save the person in the long run. This all requires a significantly slower and more realistic game pace. The number of lives per team should also be reduced, making the game more tactical and making each life hold a lot more value, encouraging effective, and well respected, medics.
Game Pace and Map Size
Most video games take place (for hardware power reasons) at far far far shorter ranges then real life combat does. This needs to be rectified, in real life, you really don't worry about a whole squad just rushing your sniper position from behind. You can focus, primarily, on the known enemy positions, as opposed to having to take corner camping positions. To do this, the size of the maps needs to be increased dramatically. Combat should be taking place at ranges between 150-300m primarily, and close quarters, room to room, should be rather rare. Because combat casualties will take a long time to treat, and there is a low number of team respawns, or the spawn points are located far away, you should kill the majority of the people in a position you are trying to assault, to have half a platoon sprint in and take up the positions right away. Spawn times need to be increased (slightly) and the distances increased.
We run into an issue though, that we want squads to work together as a team, and not have squad leaders just be code-word for "spawn point". That's where we reach, what is in my opinion, the greatest flaw developers take when trying to design realism. They try to add systems, things, or mechanics to force realism, as opposed to looking at real life. Instead of saying "I want players to work together as a squad, so to let them do that I added XYZ", we need to make the entire game as realistic as possible, so that instead of being pigeonholed into working as a squad, we reach a point where, the reason we work together as a squad, is because it increases our chances of survival, and helps us win. Why do we work in squads in real life? Because.... it's just more effective then working alone.
A player who does well, should be able to make it through an entire round and not die. Can you imagine a full hour long match, where you don't die? I think that's the key to realism, is that the goal is about completing the objective and surviving, and less about killing the enemy. In the majority of games, you can expect to die multiple times per round. As I've mentioned already, making the game take place at range will help with this, but we need to make foilage thick, people shouldn't stick out like sore thumbs when they've crawled under the bushes and through grass, it should not be so easy to spot someone at a distance, and then as opposed to saying "Oh, there's objected Delta, charge, start shooting, etc." the squad leader will call everyone to halt, because the attacker has the advantage of knowing where the enemy should be, he will look through his binoculars, and say "Okay, they've got a machine gun in the top right window, our machine gunner will put some fire on that while we advance down the left hedgerow". Distance, increased fatigue and muzzle sway, no zoom while looking down the sights, will all add to the fact that just because you spot the enemy, doesn't mean an immediate wave of death to them.
Making the game slower, having combat more often occur at range, making people become tired from continuous activity, as opposed to simply a stamina bar, having VOIP in game, and making each life in game something precious and valuable, will add to the overall realism, and encourage people to work together because it makes their chances of not getting killed better.
Well I'm sure I can write more, but that's the gist of it, sorry it was so long, and to the Dev Team, I better get accepted for that position! xD
tl;dr, make the game take place at long range, slow down the pace of combat, weapons are accurate people are not.
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