1st vs. 3rd Person: Let's Brainstorm!
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I don't think you are aware of how FPS games are traditionally played on PC. That is you sit CLOSE to a relatively large screen (20 inches diagonal) so it actually fills most of your vision, PC games normally have a "Field Of View angle" set to something like 90-degrees, whereas console games (even in widescreen mode) may have as low as 50-degrees wide field of view. I find this setup, 1.5 feet from a 24-inch widescreen and 90-degrees wide view to be very VERY close approximation of natural vision, and the immersion of some good high quality headphones... probably better than virtual reality.SomethingGiant said:
So what I'm saying is PC's method of FPS does not have really significant sacrifice in Field Of View. Before you say "Ah, but increasing Field OF View is like zooming out, you lose viewing distance" well PC has that sorted with VERY HIGH native resolution of +1080p and from how on PC you sit close enough to the screen to actually see all that detail, it is no real sacrifice at all. I can understand how on consoles they settle for lower field of view, as they typically sit so much further from the screen the actual screen fills a smaller Field of THEIR view. My problem is I try to play console games on my PC monitor, they all have such low Field OF View, I feel like I'm walking around with a scoped sniper rifle.
Platforming is fairly easy on PC just due to how fast AND accurate a mouse can be, you can easily just "twitch look" down for the ledge.
I have a LOT of experience with 3D platforming from Tomb Raider 1996 to Tomb Raider 2006, 3D as it is today (unlike side view 2D) is in fact really hard, as with the camera following behind you it is almost as hard to tell where the actual ledge IS!
Tomb Raider (1996-2000) solved this by having a special jump mechanism as in you run towards a ledge while HOLDING the jump button, then your character AUTOMATICALLY jump at the ledge. You could do just as well with a First person perspective. So 3D platforming ain't all that great. The Tomb Raider Reboot (2006) had another trick up it's sleeve it le you jump even if your foot had in fact stepped OVER the edge! You can see it if you record gameplay and go frame by frame.
Short of these "cheats" to only way to truly platform effectively in 3rd person is as you move to a jump the camera moves to a top-down perspective, to put the ledge in profile, bit that's no better than on PC FPS, quickly looking down. Check out the speed-run of Half Life on PC, the crazy jumps people are able to pull off with that. PC FPS controls have ALWAYS had jump bound the the space, the thumb ALWAYS ready to press it (unlike on console where normally placed on a face button) because PC FPS, jumping precisely remains important.
As to melee, well Boxers and other combat sportsmen don't need VR goggles and a camera behind them to fight. I have been melee-ing my way through many first person games such as:
-CoD series' tactical-knife
-Team Fortress 2's ever important melee weapons
-Left 4 Dead 2 would be impossible without mastering the "shunt" manoeuvre, also the entire melee weapons class.
Really melee in third person is so good because it lets you CHEAT! You can run TOTALLY PAST an enemy, misjudge it and you will still be able to see their position right over your shoulder. It lets you see what you shouldn't be able to see.
Now my major problem with third-Person is the issue of Parallax Trajectory. Consider an on screen targeting reticule, what does that actually MEAN? It supposedly says where a bullet will go, but hang on, your perspective is 1 meter up and 2 meters back away from where the actual gun is firing the bullets from.
The way FPS games actually calculate bullet trajectory is the bullet is fired FROM THE RIGHT EYE (which is also calculated as the point of focus for your perspective) so you are looking directly down the sight path of your gun. Now the bullet may raise or fall due to the arcing trajectory, or blown side to side by unstable gun, but all the points of aim are in line. This is great for when you expect your bullet to pass through multiple enemies or through cover into them.
On third person aiming what has to be done is the third person line-of-sight must be lined up with the gun trajectory as your aiming reticule. This is a complexity I personally would rather no have to deal with, in a shooter especially.
The big appeal to me of third-person-perspective is in the storytelling aspect, it can give a very unique personality and mannerism to your playable character, rather than an "immersive" one. This is a different approach to gameplay storytelling, it has pros and cons. Consider something like Uncharted, how much they are able to infuse onto Nathan Drake by pulling the camera back and seeing how he acts when fighting, hiding from gunfire and traversing deathly chasms. It makes him seem more human, more like a real being, though less immersive, Immersion is not the be-all-and-end-all of game storytelling.
Third person can never be that good for intense and immersive combat, third person is best for a very DISTINCT type of video game narrative.
I've always preferd it when games allow you to access both persons, like Oblivion and Fallout 3 (Go Bethesda). This way the player has the option to switch when they get bigged with certain issues.
I massively prefer 3rd person. I can count on one hand the amount of 1st person games I enjoy. People often complain about the camera in 3rd person games. In my experience, only very few games screw up the camera and the tunnel vision of 1st person is far more limiting. I also get more invested with my character when I see him/her as a person and not as a floating camera.
I liked the system they had in the Rainbow 6 Vegas games where they were first person, but switched to third person when you were in cover. More games should do that.
I usually game on PCs. Natural vision is close to 200 degrees horizontally and 70 degrees vertically. No flat screen can possibly simulate that.Treblaine said:
Easy? Arguable. Natural, intuitive? Not a chance. It's a functional system, but it needs improvement. Fisheye lenses are okay, but I'm not sold on them.Treblaine said:
Excellent system. I'd go farther with that mindset as a designer and continue to automate movement as much as possible. Clambering over two, three foot tall ledges shouldn't require the use of an extra button IMO.Treblaine said:
Are you on commission from Microsoft or something? I think having the camera shift to look down (just slightly) is sufficiently natural, but platforming can't reach its full potential until we get to do it in 3D, which is oh so close.Treblaine said:
It seems silly to say that those systems feel natural or immersive. In CoD especially, it's just a button press to kill anything in an area in front of you. That isn't anything close to an actual analog of knife-fighting, and doesn't feel like it. Not that it's a bad system, but it's not immersive/natural.Treblaine said:
Could you fix it by introducing a fog of war everywhere outside your LoS?Treblaine said:
y u so self limiting? Just because it doesn't exist now doesn't mean it can't exist.Treblaine said:
VanillaBean said:
From what I've seen, 3rd/1st person basically occupy completely separate niches. If the transition were smooth enough, wouldn't a system that incorporated both be best? What if - for example - there were a dynamic in-game system that locked to 1st person when aiming down sights and 3rd person when platforming?Omikron009 said:
I think it would be jarring if too many separate elements from 1st and 3rd person games were incorporated into one game. I only ever used the 3rd person camera in Fallout 3 and New Vegas to look at my character. If you've never played either of the Rainbow 6 Vegas games, they were first person shooters, but they had snap-to-cover mechanics like most current 3rd person shooters do, and when you went into cover (by holding down either the left trigger on consoles or right mouse button on PC) the camera transitioned to third person so you could see what's going on. It worked great because they didn't try to add in too many third person elements or overcomplicate anything.SomethingGiant said:
Personally I feel that first person lacks something, usually in first person you only play as a gun with arms, and occasionally if you look down, legs.
IRL First person view, however is well, it's not like that at all. I'm not sure it's just a problem with peripheral vision either. To put what I'm trying to say in basic terms, In the real world you can account better for where you are on any given area and what's in your general vicinity better than in FPS games.
If that makes any sense, I'm not even sure it does, I know what I'm trying to say, I just can't think of how to say it.
ON 3rd person, I actually prefer it, and I think it works well enough as it is.
IRL First person view, however is well, it's not like that at all. I'm not sure it's just a problem with peripheral vision either. To put what I'm trying to say in basic terms, In the real world you can account better for where you are on any given area and what's in your general vicinity better than in FPS games.
If that makes any sense, I'm not even sure it does, I know what I'm trying to say, I just can't think of how to say it.
ON 3rd person, I actually prefer it, and I think it works well enough as it is.
Third person over the shoulder with a transparent body (or at least head) would be a good solution. You end up effectively getting peripheral vision but not an unrealistic ability to see behind you. Have the camera locked behind the head, so that when you're moving the camera in typical third person mode, it's your head that's turning.
200 degrees? Realise that figure may come from the MOST BASIC peripheral vision, as human vision doesn't have an "edge" per-se, it's just detail and "perceptibility" drops off to nothingness, so at the "edge" you may be able to tell if a very bright light is on or off but that's it. 200 degrees is very VERY wide, wider than half of a circle. I've done an experiment just now holding my hand 100 degrees around from my point of focus and I can't see shit, certainly not how many fingers I'm holding up. I find I can't really make anything out till 45 degrees off of centre... that's a 90-degrees wide USEFUL field of view.SomethingGiant said:
I don't know where you got that "200-degrees wide field of vision" "fact" from but it is definitely lacking context.
Natural? Nothing is "natural" about video games, want natural games then throw rocks in a pond. Intuitive? That sounds like casual talk! We've had enough of that with the Wii, it may be "natural and intuitive" to point with a Wii mote but in actual speed and precision it is far less capable.
Point is, my experience with actually jumping over gaps, I don't wait until my foot "feels" the edge, otherwise I'd have already dropped over the edge! No, I simply look down at the edge to see how close I am and time my movement. And as an experiment I've done this with one eye patched (lol, no stereotopic effect, surely I can't tell how close anything is durp) and did just as well. I know from experience how much of a chore it is to merely glance around in a console FPS, but on PC with a Mouse, it's so easy you do it without thinking.
Microsoft? Huh? Microsoft HATES PC GAMING WITH A BURNING PASSION, if they could stop it THEY WOULD! See they don't get a single penny off PC gaming, unlike their cash cow of Xbox. Sure you have to buy the OS and THAT'S IT, everything else other people make and sell. What Microsoft wants is Xbox style exploitation and control that they have tried and failed to get on PC.
Are you seriously a PC gamer? PC gamers and Microsoft are on their worst terms in a decade. We only use Windows because they have a monopoly as the "standard" OS. That, and as much as Microsoft hates PC gaming, Apple hates it even more.
"but platforming is can't reach its full potential until we get to do it in 3D, which is oh so close."
*Shudder* not more of that stereoscopic 3D crap, that only causes MORE problems with parallax aiming not to mention every method of implementation is a human-interface nightmare, with migraines and double-vision abound unless every single variable is perfect. I cannot be bothered with it as it is an UTTER MYTH THAT YOU NEED STEREOSCOPIC VISION FOR DEPTH PERCEPTION! It's right up there with "toilets flush the other way in Australia" and it PISSES ME RIGHT THE FUCK OFF!
This current 3D fad is an ignorant and reductionist approach to how human visions works. One eyed people HAVE depth perception as there are half a dozen ways other than binocular-vision to do that.
Simple experiment:
(1)Put glass on table
(2)Cover one eye
(3)reach out to pick up glass
If you miss it, that only proves you are a part of an extreme minority who is either prone to the "nocebo effect" or you have some brain defect of spatial organisation as I know for a fact everyone I have tested this on has no problem at all.
Frankly I find this whole 3D fad a massive insult to people who lack full vision in both eyes.
"natural and immersive"
You keep saying that...
It's the rules of the game, knife = one-hit-kill. Nature and immersion have nothing to do with it, it merely has to be plausible within the game world, it's pretty plausible that being stabbed with a giant ass knife puts you out of the fight quickly and for good.
Anyway, I did give several other examples that you conspicuously ignored like Team Fortress 2, most of those melee weapons require multiple solid hits to take an enemy down.
I guess partially. Still, if you did that then I don't think people would prefer that perspective for melee any more. Still doesn't solve all the other problems.
Doesn't exist? Uhhh, Uncharted? That's a good third person shooter, I like it so much BECAUSE it takes its removed perspective to infuse Drake with a really compelling character.
If you mean totally-action, well Max Payne did a really good job though again that third-person perspective served much more to the narrative of Max Payne and depiction of his character. If they hadn't chosen to make such a distinct central character for the overall narrative then on balance it would have been better in a 1st person perspective.
Think is immersion is a key aspect of making action more intense, and first-person is great for that. Of course this is all general, it's not hard ans fast and the move from 1st person is inevitable at points and beneficial at times.
Consider the Half life mod; "The Specialist", that has a crapload of close combat all in 1st person. Also Zeno Clash and many others.
Fixing third person around corners would be simple. For a shooter, simply make it to where clinging to cover offers a serious reduction in likely hood to get hit, and make it so as soon as you stick to the cover, your view changes depending on where you're facing. Thus you'd be looking out ahead from against the wall. It'd require leaning out to shoot (Or shooting blindly with a free fire around the corner system) while keeping the range of vision realistic.
The cover bonus would even keep cheesers from peeking without using the cover.
The cover bonus would even keep cheesers from peeking without using the cover.
It would make for a very interesting game if there were a back story for it. Like if you're playing an assassin and either have to consistently stay in their field of vision to know where you're going, or make sure that you have yourself way hidden so there's nobody finding you standing perfectly still. Bonus points if the game makes use of 3D sound so you can still hear what's going on around you.righthead said:
Alternately, have the ability to pick a target and see out of their eyes to be able to see how well hidden you are, as well as hearing what they hear so you know if you're making a sound.
Being one of the people growing up with the Quake series I can't let go of the first person genre.
As for disadvantages of the FOV one could implement a really wide angle FOV (just like people have in real life), and just blur out the sides, that should fix it.
Third person games certainly can be good and immersive just see GTA IV, KOTOR series, Mass Effect series. They can also fail horribly, see Terminator.
Both views have their places. Modern Warfare or Bad Company 2 wouldn't have been the same game in third person, and it would certainly change the way people played it. On the other hand if you made GTA as a FPS it would lose some of its arcade-like charm.
Amnesia - The Dark Descent is a good example of a great implementation of a first-person view that really gives you the impression you ARE the guy (mainly through the mouse gestures that feel a little more live-like than pressing 'E').
I usually split the genres up in to the platforms I own. Third person games are played on my Xbox 360, PS2, Xbox or what other console the game runs on. First person games, especially shooters, I only play on the PC due to the mouse and keyboard makes the games a lot less frustrating.
As for disadvantages of the FOV one could implement a really wide angle FOV (just like people have in real life), and just blur out the sides, that should fix it.
Third person games certainly can be good and immersive just see GTA IV, KOTOR series, Mass Effect series. They can also fail horribly, see Terminator.
Both views have their places. Modern Warfare or Bad Company 2 wouldn't have been the same game in third person, and it would certainly change the way people played it. On the other hand if you made GTA as a FPS it would lose some of its arcade-like charm.
Amnesia - The Dark Descent is a good example of a great implementation of a first-person view that really gives you the impression you ARE the guy (mainly through the mouse gestures that feel a little more live-like than pressing 'E').
I usually split the genres up in to the platforms I own. Third person games are played on my Xbox 360, PS2, Xbox or what other console the game runs on. First person games, especially shooters, I only play on the PC due to the mouse and keyboard makes the games a lot less frustrating.
Have people so easily forgetten Dark Messiah of Might and Magic?Some of the best melee I have ever seen in a game,and all that in 1st person.
Now,third person is great if you want to show the player how the character acts in the world(ie:Commander Shepard,Nathan Drake),but otherwise,first person is much more intuitive,considering we don't live our own lives in third person,but rather first.
Now,third person is great if you want to show the player how the character acts in the world(ie:Commander Shepard,Nathan Drake),but otherwise,first person is much more intuitive,considering we don't live our own lives in third person,but rather first.
1st person can be good for psychological or horror games, so you feel like you are the character and that every stab he gets you get. But I really have no preference in any other genre, although 3rd person view can mess up big time, everyone remember fallout 3? I guess for intense combat 1st person is best, but I really am not worried.
Some games work better in first person, some in third. It depends on the game and setting. And I think we need both for diversity in games. If every game would be first/third person, it would start to sck.