With Blinders On

[1eyedjack]

Well...can you think of a good example? I mean, a game that does FPV so remarkably well that all other firs person view games look like crap?

I concur with what you said but I kinda got used to it by now. it's kind of an acceptable standard by developers now, isn't it?

There are a lot of things that were acceptable standards at one point. Slavery for one. I'm not saying that sticking to First Person is the same as the acceptable standard in the 1920's to beat your wife in public, but I am saying that being an "acceptable standard" isn't exactly a reason to continue.

It's primarily an issue of FOV, not just first-person versus third-person. Interestingly, third-person games often have a larger FOV than FPS titles on consoles; Gears of War is sporting roughly 90 degrees regardless of screen aspect ratio, while Halo 3: ODST has ~86 degrees 16:9 and ~70 degrees 4:3, Halo 3 has 70 degrees 16:9 and 55 degrees 4:3, and many console FPS are even lower.

The pulling back of the camera adds a little peripherical and rear vision, but it doesn't realistically give you all that much added time to respond to things by itself. If someone comes from right behind you to punch you in the back in Gears, that's only a very small fraction of a second extra time that you get to respond compared with an FPS. Obviously core game design is a relevant factor in how meaningful that is as well.

I have to agree with you. It would be great to have a 170+ degree field of view in games, but nobody seems to make them (or want them apparently) even with the prevalence of large, widescreen HDTVs.

Part of the problem with 170 degrees is that the typical linear projection that gets used in rendering systems weights peripheral area more and more as the field of view approaches 180 degrees. The way this projection situates things on the screen is that, if you sit so that a flat screen fills up degrees of your vision, displaying an image with an FOV of degrees projects the image "accurately" to your eyes. To make an image of FOV 170 lines up "properly" in this respect, you'd need to sit REALLY close to a REALLY large display.

Now, I don't want to exaggerate the important of FOV-matching in this manner; I always found that playing Halo 1's ~110-degree split-screen on a 16"-wide view from 8 feet away works just fine. However:

Spoiler: Marathon with its default FOV of 80

Spoiler: Same spot but FOV set to 170

This just isn't going to be okay on typical displays of non-hilarious resolutions, sizes, and viewing distances. Unless you match screen size and FOV naturally, the standard projection method starts getting quite obnoxious to most people somewhere in the 100-140 degree range. To get really high FOVs looking *somewhat* natural, we'd probably have to resort to other projections that don't go as nuts when scaled, like equirectangular. And this might not be as efficient, though it may be worth looking into.

You have a far better grasp on the subject than most people. I agree that the third person doesn't add all that much to some games but gears of war is pretty sluggish. I don't really consider it a good example for this.

I'm primarily a console player so I don't really have the option to mess around with my FOV in the game. I don't have the time or patience to build a tower for myself and my thumbs are more adapted to a controller than a mouse. That being said, I wish I'd read your post earlier but being the self important jerk that I am, I instead leaped immediately towards the posts that quoted me. I'd like to call attention to this right now while pointing a finger towards it, snarling, "This! This right here! This is why we can't have nice things!"

 

[Bertylicious]

snip

I don't care how realistic it is, we're not going to get the objective done if you spend all day sitting as far away from the combat as possible and very rarely killing anything.

EDIT: As for Jimmy Saville, well... Let's just say he was a bad man and leave it at that.

I'm going to be using Halo as reference since it is what I've played the most multiplayer in.

Sure, if the objective of the game isn't killing, then a sniper isn't as important. But I do my best to only get into games where killing is the only objective. That is one of the reasons I love that 343 took the non-kill objective games out of the big team game type, and gave those games their own game slot and made big team an all slayer objective.

If I have a sniper rifle with a good bit of ammo in it, I'm going to get way more kills with it than I would running and gunning, and since the objective is kills, sniping is better because the enemy has less of a chance to kill me if I'm near my base and looking at them through a scope as they are out of hit range with their weapons. This means that they have one less target get kills from. I regularly pick people of from my base to their base in distance, I have pics and a video of me sniping a guy that is just barely out(in midair) from going through their base's man-cannon.

I get kills on the enemy, they don't get as many if any kills on me. Sniping is only a stupid tactic if you don't know to snipe. It also doesn't hurt to practice, Team snipers is one of my favorite game types on Halo, though I for one think that the "kill cam" needs to be turned off in that game type if not removed from the game altogether. It is down right stupid. "Oh, you don't know who killed you, well here you go, he hit you from over there," the kill cam is one of the most sissy ass game mechanics added to FPS games. It should be that "If you didn't see who shot you, too bad. You find out yourself or just let it go." If you die in a shooter, the game shouldn't give you automatic clairvoyance to see where you were shot from.

On your edit, I said I read up on who the guy was, I was saying that the relation makes no sense because it has nothing to do with snipers, unless it is to say that snipers are bad, but that is wrong because snipers aren't bad, unless they are bad at sniping.

You can Gary it up all you like but at the end of the day snipers are cowards; unwilling to get involved in the hurly-burly fun of squad movement, flanking, acts of heroism, luck and victory where defeat is a real possibility but the cut and thrust of the action is still enjoyable for all.

It is that fear of defeat which makes people snipers. That only-child mentality that if you aren't winning, if you aren't top of the leaderboard, then the game is rubbish and all the toys should be thrown out of the pram. Snipers do nothing to enrich a game; they merely erode the fun for all the other players.

Snipers are poisonous and malign in the extreme. The comparison to Jimmy Saville is, if anything, bringing the reputation of the deceased child rapist into disrepute.

 

[Beautiful End]

Well...can you think of a good example? I mean, a game that does FPV so remarkably well that all other firs person view games look like crap?

I concur with what you said but I kinda got used to it by now. it's kind of an acceptable standard by developers now, isn't it?

There are a lot of things that were acceptable standards at one point. Slavery for one. I'm not saying that sticking to First Person is the same as the acceptable standard in the 1920's to beat your wife in public, but I am saying that being an "acceptable standard" isn't exactly a reason to continue.

Oh, no. I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying "Welp! That's the hand we were dealt! Deal with it!". What I'm saying is that, sadly, I can't think of a single game that has managed to do this right. I'm sure there might be least one out there but tight now, I can't think of any. Maybe figuring out an effective way to deal with FPV isn't that easy. I, for one, can't think of an accurate way to deal with elements like peripheral vision and instant reaction. For example, right now, my head is standing still but my eyes can move around the room and examine everything carefully. To use a controller to do that would require to maybe use one analog stick to control the head and the other to control the eyes?
(I think SOCOM tried that if you played it with the MOVE) I remember I was really confused and angry at that point)

I'm also saying it would be nice to see a game do it correctly, I agree on that. But the way I see it, games nowadays are more or less copypasta of one another. So it might take longer.
We've come a great way since the days of Doom and Goldeneye, though.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

All I can say on 1st vs 3rd is I've never liked 3rd person, it's been a long time since I've given one more than an hour or so of my time. Maybe footsteps or noise could be played if someone runs up to you, depends on how much shooting was going on I suppose.As for increasing FOV on 1st person games, it sounds like a cool idea but I don't know much about the technicalities as presented by other posters so other than that I can't really comment.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Oh default FOV, why are you not 90?
I mean, even BLOPS2 allows 90 now ... it's COD! With an acceptable FOV! My universe imploded!

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

Snip

I read what you put there, though I still say that I feel I can see plenty in first person games.

Now for the reason I responded. Why did you quote that comment of mine? Was it to just quote me and say what you said to respond to the other comment I made towards you, or was it to explain away what I was saying to Skywolfblue?

If it was about what I said to Skywolfblue, then what you said didn't make sense, because we were talking about real life terms and nothing on first person games.

So, I have to ask you:

Looking straight I can see the forward tips of my fingers at my sides, and the tips of my toes. Granted I didn't get all scientific and break out the protractor to make sure my head was perfectly 90º so...

Is that normal? Because, after asking seven people I know so far(of many shapes and sizes), it is not.

I mean no offense Sky, but what you are saying just seems really really weird(abnormal). As I've said, looking absolutely straight forward with everything at my sides, I see nothing of my body.

Hearing that you can see your toes when looking straight forward, that really weirds me out. The reason I say this is that when looking straight forward, the shortest point at the closest point to the bottom of my field of vision is around four feet away. So that means if I could see the tips of my toes like you do, that would mean that my feet would be more than four feet long.

Again I mean no offense Sky, but what you are saying befuddles my mind, and it is doing the same to everybody I talk to that I know in person.

Snip

Wow, with all that vitriol against people that snipe, something tells me that you've gotten a little too bitter about not being able to prance around much in the open while doing battle, because you've been instantly decked by one too many long distance insta-kills.

Deal with it.

I'm not saying that sniping is the only way to play. I do my fair share of battles in the open, head to head, flanking and whatnot, but if I am given the chance to pick up a sniper rifle, it would be stupid of me not to take the opportunity, especially since I've practiced enough with them to have a pretty high success rate on head-shots.

In battle, it is only appropriate to use the tactic that will reap the most reward for the least risk. Basically you take the path that gives you the best advantage.

 

[blackrave]

That is why I usually set FOV to 100-110 when it is possible
Although in defense of FPS games, protagonists usually wear some sort of headgear so that can explain decreased FOV

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

snip

I don't care how realistic it is, we're not going to get the objective done if you spend all day sitting as far away from the combat as possible and very rarely killing anything.

EDIT: As for Jimmy Saville, well... Let's just say he was a bad man and leave it at that.

I'm going to be using Halo as reference since it is what I've played the most multiplayer in.

Sure, if the objective of the game isn't killing, then a sniper isn't as important. But I do my best to only get into games where killing is the only objective. That is one of the reasons I love that 343 took the non-kill objective games out of the big team game type, and gave those games their own game slot and made big team an all slayer objective.

If I have a sniper rifle with a good bit of ammo in it, I'm going to get way more kills with it than I would running and gunning, and since the objective is kills, sniping is better because the enemy has less of a chance to kill me if I'm near my base and looking at them through a scope as they are out of hit range with their weapons. This means that they have one less target get kills from. I regularly pick people of from my base to their base in distance, I have pics and a video of me sniping a guy that is just barely out(in midair) from going through their base's man-cannon.

I get kills on the enemy, they don't get as many if any kills on me. Sniping is only a stupid tactic if you don't know to snipe. It also doesn't hurt to practice, Team snipers is one of my favorite game types on Halo, though I for one think that the "kill cam" needs to be turned off in that game type if not removed from the game altogether. It is down right stupid. "Oh, you don't know who killed you, well here you go, he hit you from over there," the kill cam is one of the most sissy ass game mechanics added to FPS games. It should be that "If you didn't see who shot you, too bad. You find out yourself or just let it go." If you die in a shooter, the game shouldn't give you automatic clairvoyance to see where you were shot from.

On your edit, I said I read up on who the guy was, I was saying that the relation makes no sense because it has nothing to do with snipers, unless it is to say that snipers are bad, but that is wrong because snipers aren't bad, unless they are bad at sniping.

Okay, I'm just going to point out that's a completely invalid comparison because the sniper rifle in Halo is a power weapon. Unless you're terrible with it, of course you're going to get more kills with it. Sniping in Halo is perfectly valid, but it's mainly effective because you engage the enemy with a weapon that's far superior than theirs at most ranges. It's no more a clever tactic than, say, camping a corner with a shotgun or energy sword. There's a difference between using a sniper rifle in a game where sniper rifles are very rare and inherently better than other weapons, and using one in a game where anyone can use a sniper rifle if they pick the class/loadout for it.

Basically, it's not a canny decision to grab the sniper rifle in Halo, especially not on large maps. For a start, unless you know for certain that you're the best sniper on your team you're still going to have a detrimental effect on your team because you're taking the power weapon away from someone else who might get more use out of it.

What I'm getting at is that saying that sniping is a good idea in a game where the sniper rifle is inherently better at killing people, in a game type where killing people is the only objective, isn't saying much.

 

[skywolfblue]

Snip

Snip

I read what you put there, though I still say that I feel I can see plenty in first person games.

Now for the reason I responded. Why did you quote that comment of mine? Was it to just quote me and say what you said to respond to the other comment I made towards you, or was it to explain away what I was saying to Skywolfblue?

If it was about what I said to Skywolfblue, then what you said didn't make sense, because we were talking about real life terms and nothing on first person games.

So, I have to ask you:

Looking straight I can see the forward tips of my fingers at my sides, and the tips of my toes. Granted I didn't get all scientific and break out the protractor to make sure my head was perfectly 90º so...

Is that normal? Because, after asking seven people I know so far(of many shapes and sizes), it is not.

I mean no offense Sky, but what you are saying just seems really really weird(abnormal). As I've said, looking absolutely straight forward with everything at my sides, I see nothing of my body.

Hearing that you can see your toes when looking straight forward, that really weirds me out. The reason I say this is that when looking straight forward, the shortest point at the closest point to the bottom of my field of vision is around four feet away. So that means if I could see the tips of my toes like you do, that would mean that my feet would be more than four feet long.

Again I mean no offense Sky, but what you are saying befuddles my mind, and it is doing the same to everybody I talk to that I know in person.

The approximate field of view of an individual human eye is 95° away from the nose, 75° downward, 60° toward the nose, and 60° upward, allowing humans to have an almost 180-degree forward-facing horizontal field of view.

Doing the math I get about 80º for myself (~5'6" height, ~10inch foot). A few other articles I read seem to indicate the vertical(down) can go up to approx 80º. So perhaps I have a better FOV then most, but given my head probably isn't perfectly straight, subtract 3 or 4 degrees and I'm well within normal deviation. (And I'm more inclined to believe that because my peripheral awareness is below average compared to most other people I've met. (Though that may have to do with a lot of my friends being sportsy-active type people))

Even if you were 7 feet tall and had only 70º of downward vision, you'd still be able to see something 2'4" from your heel. Foot size doesn't scale that much, but it's far short the 4 feet you're claiming.

You might notice a difference if you wiggle your toes or fingers, as peripheral vision is largely motion-tracking.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Oh default FOV, why are you not 90?
I mean, even BLOPS2 allows 90 now ... it's COD! With an acceptable FOV! My universe imploded!

Now that your shocked by that get this: BLOPS2 has choices! There is choice in a Modern Military FPS and COD did it first! My universe exploded at that.

I could really care less about the view point in my games. I will play a 1st person game I will play a 3rd person game. I really don't see anything wrong with either.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Even if you were 7 feet tall and had only 70º of downward vision, you'd still be able to see something 2'4" from your heel. Foot size doesn't scale that much, but it's far short the 4 feet you're claiming.

You might notice a difference if you wiggle your toes or fingers, as peripheral vision is largely motion-tracking.

Well, I'm 5 feet 3 inches.

I did wiggle my fingers and toes, didn't see a thing. While looking straight forward, I had to rotate my arm and hand forward and up from its position at my side. From the fingertips of my hand, it had to come forward a foot and go up two inches in order for me to see glimpse of movement.

For my toes, I balanced on my left foot and had to bring my right foot at least two and a half feet forward and a foot or more up in the air for me to see the beginning tips of my toes.

So basically, my hands have to be a good ways from my sides for me to see them, and I have to do a strained balancing act to see my toes.

 

[TrevHead]

In pretty much any multiplayer FPS there can be a party of enemies behind you dancing to the macarena and they may as well be on the other side of the moon for all it matters. I understand that things are loud in warfare but when things are quiet and no one is shooting each other I'm not so used to gunfire that I'm deaf to everything else. Spinning around every so often to check that I'm not being molested makes me feel awkward more than anything else.

I'm guessing that you're playing with a pad? Due to the low sensitivity in analogs it takes too long to snap a look behind you compared to mouse players where looking behind is very fast and natural. That's why in many console focused FPS games, the SP campaign tend to be more on rails with little to no enemies behind the player.

That's why I tend to prefer 3rd person shooters on consoles or a SP FPS with rather slow gunplay like Starbreeze Studios makes (The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick) I've yet to play Dishonored but it seems to be a game more suited for M&K. (if the game allows you to increase sensitivity, then that might help)

It's a shame that console FPS games don't have a button to turn 90/180 degrees like Mirrors Edge has.

 

[skywolfblue]

Well, I'm 5 feet 3 inches.

I did wiggle my fingers and toes, didn't see a thing. While looking straight forward, I had to rotate my arm and hand forward and up from its position at my side. From the fingertips of my hand, it had to come forward a foot and go up two inches in order for me to see glimpse of movement.

For my toes, I balanced on my left foot and had to bring my right foot at least two and a half feet forward and a foot or more up in the air for me to see the beginning tips of my toes.

So basically, my hands have to be a good ways from my sides for me to see them, and I have to do a strained balancing act to see my toes.

(How far a person can see on the ground) = (Height) * cos(Angle)

If you had an average FOV -> (x) = (5.25) * cos(75º)

= ~1 foot 4 inches.

If we wanted to go the other way:

Angle = cos(-1)(How far a person can see on the ground / Height)

In your case: Angle = cos(-1)(2.5/5.25)

= ~62º.

Of course this being the real world nothing is quite so exact. So there's a LOT of play in the numbers.

 

[Tupolev]

(How far a person can see on the ground) = (Height) * cos(Angle)

You need to fix your trig. Using cosine like that assumes that what you're referring to as "height" is actually the hypotenuse. You should be using:

Distance = Height / tan(Angle)

Due to the extreme angle, the result is of course similar; roughly 17 inches in this case. But given typical human standing posture, that's still way too much for anyone to be able to see their feet while looking straight forward.

It's a shame that console FPS games don't have a button to turn 90/180 degrees like Mirrors Edge has.

Heh, that's a feature in some REALLY old PC FPS titles designed to be playable keyboard-only. Probably a button count/clean interface thing.

 

[skywolfblue]

(How far a person can see on the ground) = (Height) * cos(Angle)

You need to fix your trig. Using cosine like that assumes that what you're referring to as "height" is actually the hypotenuse. You should be using:

Distance = Height / tan(Angle)

Due to the extreme angle, the result is of course similar; roughly 17 inches in this case. But given typical human standing posture, that's still way too much for anyone to be able to see their feet while looking straight forward.

Oops. You're right, my bad.