Why every shooter should have leaning

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Please don't start with that realism nonsense. I could just as well point out that the very idea of keeping your eye perfectly lined up with two different sights on your gun at all times when moving even in the slightest is unrealistic. But having your ADS vanish every time you touch any control other than fire is poor game design, so leeway must be allowed. Removing the debuff from strafing is the exact same game design philosophy. Not realistic perhaps, but Gameplay is more important than realism. Every. Single. Time.

You've identified a gameplay issue- over correcting aim. You don't want to add too many buttons to overcomplicate the control scheme. Fair enough. Shooters since the dawn of strafing have had players that use it for fine aiming, especially on consoles. Increasing the fire cone during movement (aim debuff) is a burden to this ease-of-use philosophy. So just get rid of it, or make it only take effect after a meter or two of continuous strafing. No extra buttons needed, and fine aim adjustment using the existing foot controls now work perfectly well.

It really is that simple.​

It's just basic game design of you get better at X while getting worse at Y (basic trade-off). You sprint and you can't shoot at all, you move normally and can shoot but rather inaccurately, you can strafe while being more accurate, and you can be perfectly accurate and not move at all. Leaning fits right between the last 2 offering very slight movement while being still extremely accurate. Same thing like standing and shooting has the most recoil, then crouching lowers the recoil some while prone almost eliminates recoil. And a really good lean mechanic allows you to crouch as well (ala MoH Warfighter). Same thing with a shooter (freaking wacky ass Metal Gear Solid) that lets you run faster with a secondary/grenade/knife equipped vs 2-handed rifle; faster movement but less offensive. It's not really that I love realism but it translates to game mechanics perfectly.

What makes competitive shooters for me is not out-shooting another player just because I have better aim, it's utilizing all the major to minor game mechanics to put myself in a better position to succeed and leaning only adds more elements that I can use to my advantage to out-play my opponent. When you play the best players, it's the little things that win gunfights and games. For example, MoH Warfighter allows you to combo so many mechanics together like I would sprint when getting shot at then slide into a crouched position (quick and fast burst of movement while orienting the camera to the enemy into a position of reduced recoil) and then lean back and forth while over 90% players just stand still and shoot while I'm getting getting less recoil than they are while being a moving target.

I HATE grenade and melee buttons not because pulling a grenade out your ass is unrealistic but having such a powerful attack at your fingertips without requiring any premeditation is not a good game mechanic. Have a grenade button but have an animation play that takes a second or two so that you can't instantaneously just press a button to use an explosive. Even a single player game like Dishonored doesn't let you insta throw grenades and that's a game that lets you stop time as an enemy fires a gun at you, collect the bullet from the air, then shoot said enemy with said bullet. Same thing with melee buttons that usually make super close quarters combat just 2 players running around each other mashing melee hoping to get the kill. Whereas a game like CS or MGO2 makes you switch to your knife first to actually melee someone.

 

[Squilookle]

Please don't start with that realism nonsense. I could just as well point out that the very idea of keeping your eye perfectly lined up with two different sights on your gun at all times when moving even in the slightest is unrealistic. But having your ADS vanish every time you touch any control other than fire is poor game design, so leeway must be allowed. Removing the debuff from strafing is the exact same game design philosophy. Not realistic perhaps, but Gameplay is more important than realism. Every. Single. Time.

You've identified a gameplay issue- over correcting aim. You don't want to add too many buttons to overcomplicate the control scheme. Fair enough. Shooters since the dawn of strafing have had players that use it for fine aiming, especially on consoles. Increasing the fire cone during movement (aim debuff) is a burden to this ease-of-use philosophy. So just get rid of it, or make it only take effect after a meter or two of continuous strafing. No extra buttons needed, and fine aim adjustment using the existing foot controls now work perfectly well.

It really is that simple.​

It's just basic game design of you get better at X while getting worse at Y (basic trade-off). You sprint and you can't shoot at all, you move normally and can shoot but rather inaccurately, you can strafe while being more accurate, and you can be perfectly accurate and not move at all. Leaning fits right between the last 2 offering very slight movement while being still extremely accurate. Same thing like standing and shooting has the most recoil, then crouching lowers the recoil some while prone almost eliminates recoil. And a really good lean mechanic allows you to crouch as well (ala MoH Warfighter). Same thing with a shooter (freaking wacky ass Metal Gear Solid) that lets you run faster with a secondary/grenade/knife equipped vs 2-handed rifle; faster movement but less offensive. It's not really that I love realism but it translates to game mechanics perfectly.

What makes competitive shooters for me is not out-shooting another player just because I have better aim, it's utilizing all the major to minor game mechanics to put myself in a better position to succeed and leaning only adds more elements that I can use to my advantage to out-play my opponent. When you play the best players, it's the little things that win gunfights and games. For example, MoH Warfighter allows you to combo so many mechanics together like I would sprint when getting shot at then slide into a crouched position (quick and fast burst of movement while orienting the camera to the enemy into a position of reduced recoil) and then lean back and forth while over 90% players just stand still and shoot while I'm getting getting less recoil than they are while being a moving target.

I HATE grenade and melee buttons not because pulling a grenade out your ass is unrealistic but having such a powerful attack at your fingertips without requiring any premeditation is not a good game mechanic. Have a grenade button but have an animation play that takes a second or two so that you can't instantaneously just press a button to use an explosive. Even a single player game like Dishonored doesn't let you insta throw grenades and that's a game that lets you stop time as an enemy fires a gun at you, collect the bullet from the air, then shoot said enemy with said bullet. Same thing with melee buttons that usually make super close quarters combat just 2 players running around each other mashing melee hoping to get the kill. Whereas a game like CS or MGO2 makes you switch to your knife first to actually melee someone.

Yeah look I get where you're coming from with trade offs, the whole risk vs reward balance is behind many of the great little touches in games, but you still haven't sold me on leaning in all games.

sometimes it's crucial. Battlegrounds, for example. With such a low time-to-die when taking damage, every shot counts and since a lot of fights take place out in the open between trees, know-how about leaning is utterly vital to outplaying the other guy, especially if they're just sidestepping into your line of sight.

However, outside of peeking from cover, leaning offers nothing that a quick sidestep shouldn't be able to provide as well. Worse, it takes up two extra buttons in spots usually reserved for much more important functions such as accessing a weapon wheel, or using items or doors, and entering vehicles etc. It works fine in shooters where you can die before you have time to react, but in everything else? Strafing gets the job done perfectly fine.

Also the running faster when holding a pistol thing is just stupid. You're still carrying the same weight all the time. If anything having two big rifles clattering around on your back is more likely to slow you down than a holstered sidearm. That's a game feature they really should retire already.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Yeah look I get where you're coming from with trade offs, the whole risk vs reward balance is behind many of the great little touches in games, but you still haven't sold me on leaning in all games.

sometimes it's crucial. Battlegrounds, for example. With such a low time-to-die when taking damage, every shot counts and since a lot of fights take place out in the open between trees, know-how about leaning is utterly vital to outplaying the other guy, especially if they're just sidestepping into your line of sight.

However, outside of peeking from cover, leaning offers nothing that a quick sidestep shouldn't be able to provide as well. Worse, it takes up two extra buttons in spots usually reserved for much more important functions such as accessing a weapon wheel, or using items or doors, and entering vehicles etc. It works fine in shooters where you can die before you have time to react, but in everything else? Strafing gets the job done perfectly fine.

Also the running faster when holding a pistol thing is just stupid. You're still carrying the same weight all the time. If anything having two big rifles clattering around on your back is more likely to slow you down than a holstered sidearm. That's a game feature they really should retire already.

I didn't literally mean EVERY shooter should have leaning but for the majority of the time, having leaning be a mechanic is something that won't take anything away from a game, especially if the shooter already has ADS. If there's ADS, then leaning doesn't have to waste any buttons whatsoever because you can have the leaning controls only become available during ADS (like MGS4) so that no buttons are wasted. Shooters already like to waste buttons like having aforementioned grenade and melee buttons. MGS4 allows for so many more actions without any contextual controls whatsoever because it doesn't waste buttons for no reason, it's a TPS with 1st-person leaning that most FPSs can't even incorporate.

 

[Squilookle]

Yeah look I get where you're coming from with trade offs, the whole risk vs reward balance is behind many of the great little touches in games, but you still haven't sold me on leaning in all games.

sometimes it's crucial. Battlegrounds, for example. With such a low time-to-die when taking damage, every shot counts and since a lot of fights take place out in the open between trees, know-how about leaning is utterly vital to outplaying the other guy, especially if they're just sidestepping into your line of sight.

However, outside of peeking from cover, leaning offers nothing that a quick sidestep shouldn't be able to provide as well. Worse, it takes up two extra buttons in spots usually reserved for much more important functions such as accessing a weapon wheel, or using items or doors, and entering vehicles etc. It works fine in shooters where you can die before you have time to react, but in everything else? Strafing gets the job done perfectly fine.

Also the running faster when holding a pistol thing is just stupid. You're still carrying the same weight all the time. If anything having two big rifles clattering around on your back is more likely to slow you down than a holstered sidearm. That's a game feature they really should retire already.

I didn't literally mean EVERY shooter should have leaning but for the majority of the time, having leaning be a mechanic is something that won't take anything away from a game, especially if the shooter already has ADS. If there's ADS, then leaning doesn't have to waste any buttons whatsoever because you can have the leaning controls only become available during ADS (like MGS4) so that no buttons are wasted. Shooters already like to waste buttons like having aforementioned grenade and melee buttons. MGS4 allows for so many more actions without any contextual controls whatsoever because it doesn't waste buttons for no reason, it's a TPS with 1st-person leaning that most FPSs can't even incorporate.

Well in that case you need to change the title of your topic then, because that title 'literally' means every shooter. I'll agree that leaning doesn't take anything away from a shooter though (unless it moves the usual q and e button functions further away, in which case it does take away).

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

However, outside of peeking from cover, leaning offers nothing that a quick sidestep shouldn't be able to provide as well.

As much as I hate to agree with Phoenixmgs about something, leaning from side to side does do something that sidestepping doesn't. It changes the position of your head.

That's something that's REALLY important. It's one of the reasons that in many shooters players jump out or dive out from behind walls, to make it more difficult to predict where their head is going to be.

When you're just side stepping your head is in the same position it's always in, and it's the same position as the heads on all the other character models. The moment you start playing a game you learn the exact place you generally need to aim to get a headshot. Leaning changes that headshot location just enough to give you the edge over someone who isn't leaning, especially if you're able to lean and strafe at the same time. It moves your head just enough that your opponent either has to adjust their aim slightly to hit you in the head, or has to fire a couple of extra shots to body shot you to death.

Of course I find this more important on PC and on consoles because console auto-aim tends to make such mechanics a lot less useful.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Speaking as someone who's played an ass-ton [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/706.1030964-Since-this-forums-about-to-die-AMA?page=4#24186983] of FPS games, from Ultimate Doom to Far Cry 2 to Halo 3 to Insurgency, leaning sounds really great on paper, but honestly, key space next to WASD is valuable and leaning just takes up too many slots to justify its inclusion. Assuming we're playing a semi-realistic game, we're gonna have the usual suspects for controls on the keyboard which are reload, interact, use grenade, melee, sprinting, and crouching. That leaves three nearby keys for miscellaneous functions which is not much, honestly. And two of those keys are in kind of an awkward place.

But Arnox, you say, we don't need to map them to separate keys. You can just ADS and the 'A' and 'D' keys will become lean keys. To that I say, no, that's a terrible idea. I strafe while aiming down sights ALL THE TIME. Most notably to clear sightlines around cover. Now, in multiplayer for semi-realistic games and otherwise, I suppose leaning can be pretty useful, but for me personally, once again, leaning takes up two keys too many on my keyboard that could be assigned to other more practical functions.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Speaking as someone who's played an ass-ton [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/706.1030964-Since-this-forums-about-to-die-AMA?page=4#24186983] of FPS games, from Ultimate Doom to Far Cry 2 to Halo 3 to Insurgency, leaning sounds really great on paper, but honestly, key space next to WASD is valuable and leaning just takes up too many slots to justify its inclusion. Assuming we're playing a semi-realistic game, we're gonna have the usual suspects for controls on the keyboard which are reload, interact, use grenade, melee, sprinting, and crouching. That leaves three nearby keys for miscellaneous functions which is not much, honestly. And two of those keys are in kind of an awkward place.

But Arnox, you say, we don't need to map them to separate keys. You can just ADS and the 'A' and 'D' keys will become lean keys. To that I say, no, that's a terrible idea. I strafe while aiming down sights ALL THE TIME. Most notably to clear sightlines around cover. Now, in multiplayer for semi-realistic games and otherwise, I suppose leaning can be pretty useful, but for me personally, once again, leaning takes up two keys too many on my keyboard that could be assigned to other more practical functions.

"But Arnox," I say "anyone who doesn't have extra programmable mouse buttons is a huge noob."

In all seriousness, having a nice mouse with some extra programmable buttons solves SOOO many issues. Depending on the game I usually assign a couple of thumb mouse buttons to melee, crouch, grenade, special ability, etc, which frees up other keys. Right now on my mouse I have 3 extra programmable buttons in range of my thumb and 2 extra buttons in range of my index finger.

 

[Squilookle]

However, outside of peeking from cover, leaning offers nothing that a quick sidestep shouldn't be able to provide as well.

As much as I hate to agree with Phoenixmgs about something, leaning from side to side does do something that sidestepping doesn't. It changes the position of your head.

You've got me there. Such a pain in the arse to strafe 5 paces to the left and remember I left my head right back where I started running...

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

As much as I hate to agree with Phoenixmgs about something, leaning from side to side does do something that sidestepping doesn't. It changes the position of your head.

That's something that's REALLY important. It's one of the reasons that in many shooters players jump out or dive out from behind walls, to make it more difficult to predict where their head is going to be.

When you're just side stepping your head is in the same position it's always in, and it's the same position as the heads on all the other character models. The moment you start playing a game you learn the exact place you generally need to aim to get a headshot. Leaning changes that headshot location just enough to give you the edge over someone who isn't leaning, especially if you're able to lean and strafe at the same time. It moves your head just enough that your opponent either has to adjust their aim slightly to hit you in the head, or has to fire a couple of extra shots to body shot you to death.

Of course I find this more important on PC and on consoles because console auto-aim tends to make such mechanics a lot less useful.

Uhh... Thanks, I guess lol

Anyway, a good lean system can allow for the lowering and raising of one's head along with the obvious left/right of leaning as well. It's kinda the same reason why cover systems suck in the competitive environment against human opponents. If I know the other player is using the cover system, I know exactly where his head is going to when he pops out to shoot. But if they just move out from a wall, I don't know how far they are going to move out. Not to mention the greatly reduced mobility of being "stuck" to cover. It's why all the great players rarely actually use cover systems online. Lastly, there's shooters without auto-aim or aim-assist on consoles that make minor movements like leaning very important. Whereas a game like Battlefield 4, I played the beta for an hour and deleted it because its version of aim-assist was basically auto-aim. And, it had the most worthless lean mechanic I've ever seen.

But Arnox, you say, we don't need to map them to separate keys. You can just ADS and the 'A' and 'D' keys will become lean keys. To that I say, no, that's a terrible idea. I strafe while aiming down sights ALL THE TIME. Most notably to clear sightlines around cover. Now, in multiplayer for semi-realistic games and otherwise, I suppose leaning can be pretty useful, but for me personally, once again, leaning takes up two keys too many on my keyboard that could be assigned to other more practical functions.

I'm pretty sure there's a pretty simple lean solution on KB/M. Hell, I don't even know the basic/standard keys for a FPS on KB/M besides for, of course, WASD and mouse to aim and shoot. So I just googled Call of Duty keyboard controls and saw that spacebar is used for jump. You could then use spacebar as your lean toggle when ADS because I doubt you'd ever want to jump when ADS. Then you can use A and D as your lean buttons and strafe buttons just holding down spacebar when you want to lean and releasing it to strafe. That took me like 2 minutes to think of, not sure if it's a great solution but it solves your problem. It's what I've been doing for years on a controller, I have no problem toggling the left stick between strafe and lean in games like MoH Warfighter and Wolfenstein.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'm pretty sure there's a pretty simple lean solution on KB/M. Hell, I don't even know the basic/standard keys for a FPS on KB/M besides for, of course, WASD and mouse to aim and shoot. So I just googled Call of Duty keyboard controls and saw that spacebar is used for jump. You could then use spacebar as your lean toggle when ADS because I doubt you'd ever want to jump when ADS. Then you can use A and D as your lean buttons and strafe buttons just holding down spacebar when you want to lean and releasing it to strafe. That took me like 2 minutes to think of, not sure if it's a great solution but it solves your problem. It's what I've been doing for years on a controller, I have no problem toggling the left stick between strafe and lean in games like MoH Warfighter and Wolfenstein.

What's your problem with jumping? I don't like your solution. It acts as jump when not using ADS? Clumsy. Conflicting. Unintuitive.

Do you ever jump when ADS?

And, it works just fine for me. Hell, MoH Warfighter was the first shooter that I think I played that used the left stick for leaning and I was instantly taking full advantage of it right away. Hold L2 to enable leaning, let go to strafe; worked perfectly. With a keyboard having a slew of buttons and shooters being pretty simplistic mechanically, I'm sure there's plenty of buttons to have a dedicated lean "switch" bound to. The spacebar is so big, it would be easy to press down to enable leaning / release to strafe. Simply move jump to another key then. Or put the "switch" on a customizable mouse button your thumb could easily press. Unless you're going to admit a controller can do something better than the amazingly glorious KB/M that is superior in every conceivable way.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Yes, a keyboard has a lot of inputs, but a good control scheme will have all the important keys easily accessible. You can't just say there are plenty of keys and assign them however you want.

I need to use a switch now? This is staring to sound worse and worse. Besides, I might be using the side buttons of the mouse for something else.

The whole point of having a "switch" is to use LESS buttons. Instead lean taking 2 keys, it's only taking up 1 key while not having to move your fingers off A and D to actually lean. Good controls also involve being condensed/streamlined as much as possible. Standard shooter controls with melee and grenade buttons actually waste more buttons and are less efficient. I doubt there's any shooter on PC that allows for more player actions than MGS4 and it does that all with a controller's measly 14 buttons and 2 sticks.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Better to just replace lean with something actually useful.

MGS4 isn't that good or smooth a shooter. Also, nade quick throw buttons are fun and can make badass moments more badass.

Lean is very useful, it will win you tons of gunfights when used properly.

MGS4 is the most sound TPS to date and the aiming is the smoothest as well with no aim-assist of any kind. What other shooter has good enough aiming to make the competitive multiplayer rely on only headshots for kills?

What's more badass than what Dishonored allows for? And, guess what, not even Dishonored has insta-throw grenades.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Doing a small follow-up here to my last post in this thread. When ADS is used, I can see the space bar activating a leaning mode. Although honestly, it kinda depends on the game. Like, for example, in Crysis when in Strength mode, you can leap really high while keeping firm hold of your gun. Therefore, jumping while using ADS is useful in that game.

I have been replaying Far Cry 3 though and I notice that FC3's intelligent cover system satisfies the need for a lean very well. It simply detects when you're up against cover and when it does, it raises your gun letting you subtly know that the system is activated (as long as you don't move out of cover) and then whenever you use ADS, you will lean in the direction of the nearest corner, or if behind a chest-high wall, you will pop out of cover just enough to aim and shoot. This is a very elegant solution to the leaning problem. You don't need to specify a specific key or keys for leaning now but you still have access to it should you ever need it.

Also, I'm really really happy that Halo invented quick-access grenades. Some of ya'll need to go back and play an FPS like Quake 2 or Perfect Dark where the grenades took up a whole separate weapon slot. You had to stop shooting, clunkily pull them out, and then use them, by which time the opportunity to use them may have already passed. Oh and don't forget, you need to have time to cook the grenades too, assuming the game even allows you to. Most of the time, you'll just forget you have them and they'll sit in your inventory completely unused, making them worse than redundant to the game's rocket launcher. What a waste! And it isn't even realistic. Soldiers usually have them hooked to some part of their armor or clothing for easy access and use. Now, if you're so worried about grenade spam, there's several things you can do to limit them, including just flat out removing them from the map/game entirely.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Doing a small follow-up here to my last post in this thread. When ADS is used, I can see the space bar activating a leaning mode. Although honestly, it kinda depends on the game. Like, for example, in Crysis when in Strength mode, you can leap really high while keeping firm hold of your gun. Therefore, jumping while using ADS is useful in that game.

I have been replaying Far Cry 3 though and I notice that FC3's intelligent cover system satisfies the need for a lean very well. It simply detects when you're up against cover and when it does, it raises your gun letting you subtly know that the system is activated (as long as you don't move out of cover) and then whenever you use ADS, you will lean in the direction of the nearest corner, or if behind a chest-high wall, you will pop out of cover just enough to aim and shoot. This is a very elegant solution to the leaning problem. You don't need to specify a specific key or keys for leaning now but you still have access to it should you ever need it.

Also, I'm really really happy that Halo invented quick-access grenades. Some of ya'll need to go back and play an FPS like Quake 2 or Perfect Dark where the grenades took up a whole separate weapon slot. You had to stop shooting, clunkily pull them out, and then use them, by which time the opportunity to use them may have already passed. Oh and don't forget, you need to have time to cook the grenades too, assuming the game even allows you to. Most of the time, you'll just forget you have them and they'll sit in your inventory completely unused, making them worse than redundant to the game's rocket launcher. What a waste! And it isn't even realistic. Soldiers usually have them hooked to some part of their armor or clothing for easy access and use. Now, if you're so worried about grenade spam, there's several things you can do to limit them, including just flat out removing them from the map/game entirely.

Again, it was a solution I put together in a couple minutes and posted a couple others after the post as well. There's no reason leaning can't easily work on a KB/M.

Those sorta "soft" cover systems suck. Sure, they can work just fine in single player but when playing against human opponents, you can't have the game doing stuff for you that you don't want. Like I said previously, leaning is just as good in the open vs when you have your face up against a wall. Or what if you want to lean around something that you're 5-10 feet behind. Those systems don't allow for such things. As a player, I always want to initiate everything that my character does, I don't want the game doing anything for me.

My online shooter of choice is still MGO2 which you have to cycle to your grenades to throw and there's no issue whatsoever in throwing grenades in the game, grenades are still VERY important. It just takes a little premeditation, is that too much to ask? The reason insta grenades are so bad is readily apparent in shooters with high health where you could know your losing a gunfight and chuck a nade either dying but getting the "revenge" kill a second later or make the other player run without being able to finish the kill. That situation happens ad nauseam in Uncharted's multiplayer.

Only headshots is super lame.

It makes skill win gunfights and makes camping basically useless, that's win-win.

Dishonored is too overpowering and easy to be badass. I need to post this again:


It's mechanical too, in how you have to switch abilities with the number row/radial menu. It would be as if Bayonetta only allowed you to double jump or dodge after switching to that ability through a mini-menu.

Good thing I was in the process of making a Dishonored video from just finishing up Death of the Outsider. What stealth game isn't completely OP? You posted that before and I posted a video of old-school Splinter Cell being played by just running through the level as well. No stealth games are hard because you have the option to avoid combat (the thing that can actually cause the player to die).

Wait... How do else are you going to switch weapons or items in a game? With your mind? God forbid, you have to press a button to switch weapons or items like every other game. Or do you want to hold up say 2 fingers in front of the Kinect to switch to weapon #2?

Arkane makes games for you to be creative, that's the whole point of the games. In any game you can find exploits and easy ways to win. If you're just going to find one thing that works and do it over and over again, then you're playing the game wrong. It would be like building the same exact thing over and over again with a tub of Legos.

Anyways, here's some video highlights from my playthrough of the latest Dishonored.
Guess what? No radial menu in any of the clips, I wonder how I did it!!!

 

[Squilookle]

Ugh now we're going after jumping? Look, I'll admit you don't need jumping to make a good FPS, but if it came down to jumping or leaning, it's jumping all the way. Leaning is a completely non-essential luxury. Jumping can be used to completely change the level design and gameplay of the whole shooter.

I still haven't seen anything yet that refutes that strafing does the job just fine.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

However, outside of peeking from cover, leaning offers nothing that a quick sidestep shouldn't be able to provide as well.

As much as I hate to agree with Phoenixmgs about something, leaning from side to side does do something that sidestepping doesn't. It changes the position of your head.

You've got me there. Such a pain in the arse to strafe 5 paces to the left and remember I left my head right back where I started running...

The point is that when all of the character models in a game are the exact same height people easily learn what height to aim at preemptively to hit you in the head. If your character can lean and you go into a gunfight leaning it'll throw off your opponent's aim because they have to compensate for where they thought your head was going to be versus where it actually is.