With so many Engine upgrades, shouldn't we start moving away from hit-scan?

[Revenant0713]

So I've been playing WF on and off since 2013. And for the most part, we've used hit-scan systems for firearms. And I can see the advantages. Hit-scan in general places less load on the system than projectile weaponry. And it's easier to get into than projectile. But I feel like we have to start moving away from hit-scan weapons. I'd like to justify the reasons why.

First, let's address the idea that projectile trajectory calculation takes up more resources than hitscan. The concern would be that 4 players surrounded by hundreds of grineer firing at you would demand a lot more from your computer if they all had to calculate projectile arc and flight time. To this I'd like to point out that I mean Battlefield 2's Refractor engine did projectile physics in 2005, and we know Evolution Engine is more powerful than that. We also know that the game in its current state can actually handle that stress since we have 4-man squads surrounded by hundreds of Corpus, and Corpus use projectile weaponry. I get that some people are on potato PCs, and projectile physics might be too much for them, but given I'm still capable of running said corpus Sorties and Toroid farms on an i3 and i5 laptop without any real hardcore graphics chipset (granted, at minimum settings), I'd say Evolution is well-built enough and generous enough to previous generations it would make no difference. And even if it did, I'd argue that Warframe has been keeping its engine up with the times enough to warrant saying "it's time to get a better machine."

Second, from a gameplay perspective, I think bullet drop and physics matters as well. Adding bullet drop and travel time encourages mobility to avoid damage. We're getting damage scaling updates soon, and enemy accuracy is being looked at as well. If the goal is to address scaling, then it is best to increase difficulty through mechanics rather than raw numbers. This would matter most in open areas like Plains and Vallis, and I think would go well with the adjustments we're getting. It just feels unfair to have Grineer hit you with sweet sweet accuracy despite the fact you're 300 meters away and mid-bullet jump. It would be great for consistency, and it may open up avenues for projectile speed mods in loadouts while also making the range indicators on scopes feel useful.

Third, most people use projectile weapons anyway. The Ignis, the the Lenz, the Catchmoon, the Boltors, Corinth... so I don't think it would make anyone particularly mad just because they had to aim a little bit more for the sake of actually challenging gunplay.

And on a personal level I feel it would be more immersive. Yeah I get the argument of "If you want realism, why are you playing a game about space ninjas and magic?" Immersion is about internal realism and consistency; how well the content follows the rules of that content. And we know bullets travel. They don't teleport. They even have projectile art even if they are hitscan, so it feels inconsistent to see the impact before the art makes contact.

 

Anyway, just a few points. I'm probably not alone in this, and honestly I'm not sure how many people actually care. But this is a feedback thread so... here goes.

[DrivaMain]

Agreed on NPCs, but a big no no on removing hit-scan from players. Not many players in Warframe has higher than average aim and taking that away will enrage "my aim succ" players and only push the AoE meta even further.

[Pizzarugi]

10 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Agreed on NPCs, but a big no no on removing hit-scan from players. Not many players in Warframe has higher than average aim and taking that away will enrage "my aim succ" players and only push the AoE meta even further.

And goodness forbid you're a client. You can expect everyone will set their ping limit to the absolute lowest for matchmaking, and even then you might see more people drop out upon joining just to try and be host.

Either that or everyone will go shotgun meta or Amprex+Kuva Nukor and absolute tank frames.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Pizzarugi

[GPrime96]

21 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

And goodness forbid you're a client. You can expect everyone will set their ping limit to the absolute lowest for matchmaking, and even then you might see more people drop out upon joining just to try and be host.
 

^^ So annoying. When i'm matched with a bad Host, my Bramma would shoot out, then nothing happen for about 5 - 7 Secs, and it would send the Explosion after which ends up me killing myself while killing the enemies inside or when i'm using the Ogris and the Projectile be slow because of the Ping.

[Revenant0713]

35 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

And goodness forbid you're a client. You can expect everyone will set their ping limit to the absolute lowest for matchmaking, and even then you might see more people drop out upon joining just to try and be host.

Either that or everyone will go shotgun meta or Amprex+Kuva Nukor and absolute tank frames.

Good point. Though complaints about random pubs have been around for the longest time, so in theory that can be avoided by having a better recruiting system than chat.

[taiiat]

i love Projectiles to Weapons, Ballistic Trajectories is always a thumbs up for me
but i don't expect Warframe to go this direction, i expect a mixture like it has now.

[Aadi880]

Fun fact i noticed with the quellor.

The projectile FX is both Hitscan AND projectile. Upon firing, the bullet leaves the barrel as hitscan. But after a certain distance, the bullet becomes projectile. You can see this in Captura with the time slowed to 0.1x

What if something similar could be implemented?

ie, upon a certain distance from the target, the bullet becomes projectile from hitscan. Insurgency Sandstorm does something like this. The Devs say its to balance short ranged weapons compared to long ranged ones, defining their role.

[DatDarkOne]

59 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

The projectile FX is both Hitscan AND projectile. Upon firing, the bullet leaves the barrel as hitscan. But after a certain distance, the bullet becomes projectile. You can see this in Captura with the time slowed to 0.1x

I recommend that you go back and double check what Hitscan really is and means.  

[Aadi880]

47 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

I recommend that you go back and double check what Hitscan really is and means.  

I recommend you to properly read my post instead of skip reading it.

[DatDarkOne]

14 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

I recommend you to properly read my post instead of skip reading it.

I did read the whole thing.  I only quoted the part that doesn't make sense when you know what hitscan really means and how it really works in games.  

Meaning Hitscan doesn't travel any distance at all.  Let that sink in a bit.  

Edited March 2, 2020 by DatDarkOne

[CopperBezel]

So it hitscans within a given range, and if it's hitting open space at the end of its range instead, produces a projectile? 

4 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

Agreed on NPCs, but a big no no on removing hit-scan from players. Not many players in Warframe has higher than average aim and taking that away will enrage "my aim succ" players and only push the AoE meta even further.

The trouble with the AoE and six-meter melee meta is that those things are very good for a horde game and that's what we have now. I can't help thinking there's a solution to this problem that also involves weapons all having projectiles. Fast projectiles like the Battacor's seem easier to hit things with than zero-dimensional points. 

[Aadi880]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

I did read the whole thing.  I only quoted the part that doesn't make sense when you know what hitscan really means and how it really works in games.  

Meaning Hitscan doesn't travel any distance at all.  Let that sink in a bit.  

Sigh...

Look here. This guy gets it:

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

So it hitscans within a given range, and if it's hitting open space at the end of its range instead, produces a projectile? 

Yes. that is indeed what happens. You can look into insurgency sandstorm, which is the first game I know of that pulled off this mechanic. Insurgency sandstorm is a realistic game, so the devs tried to emulated bullet terminal velocity while using as little resources as possible. The weapons are hitscan. Upon exceeding the effective range of the weapon, a projectile will spawn where the hitscan range would end. This was done to SMGs so that they are viable at cqc, but loses effectiveness at longer ranges. It makes it easier to balance too.

 

In warframe, the quellor has a particle effect that emulates this mechanic. It looks like a straight line, but at the end of it, it starts to extend. This is only a particle fx. Quellor is hitscan. But the particle fx is hitscan and projectile at the same time. Its an interesting detail.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Aadi880

[MJ12]

17 hours ago, Revenant0713 said:

And on a personal level I feel it would be more immersive. Yeah I get the argument of "If you want realism, why are you playing a game about space ninjas and magic?" Immersion is about internal realism and consistency; how well the content follows the rules of that content. And we know bullets travel. They don't teleport. They even have projectile art even if they are hitscan, so it feels inconsistent to see the impact before the art makes contact.

What's the expected travel time and drop on a projectile for a future super-high-velocity round over the typical combat engagement distances in Warframe? As a note, the Steyr ACR, a 1980s prototype weapon, fired rounds that had effectively zero drop to a range of ~600 meters, plus because of their ~1400 m/s muzzle velocity had negligible travel time on those scales (at the expected maximum point engagement range of an assault rifle, roughly 300 meters, it would hit 0.21 seconds after firing). Bullet drop physics/drag physics generally are only useful in games where multi-hundred meter engagement distances are typical because otherwise they're just kind of irrelevant.

Realistically, most Warframe projectiles honestly will have near-irrelevant travel time over almost any realistic combat distance, and given that Warframes themselves are cyborged superhuman combat platforms, the Warframe's own instincts/targeting software should take care of the ballistic corrections that are necessary for longer-range shots, so it would practically speaking be the same as giving everyone hitscan guns.

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

No, absolutely not.

[CopperBezel]

I do find it kinda funny how energy weapons in games universally have slower travel time for their projectiles than bullets. Normally including things referred to as "lasers", which should realistically be much more instantaneous than even bullets are.

But for a game of this kind, projectiles of various properties are just inherently more interesting for gameplay than instantaneous paths are.

[trndr]

On 2020-03-02 at 3:43 AM, Revenant0713 said:

Third, most people use projectile weapons anyway. The Ignis, the the Lenz, the Catchmoon, the Boltors, Corinth... so I don't think it would make anyone particularly mad just because they had to aim a little bit more for the sake of actually challenging gunplay

You know this isn't the case. 

1 Ignis is not projectile, it's beam with aoe. 

2. Catchmoon is barely used after getting nerfed into the ground. 

3. Boltors haven't been seen in the wild for 4 years. 

5. Corinth is not popular and never was. 

 

Khom on the other hand is a weapon that got changed from projectile to be hits can and is popular at the moment and has been so for 4 years.

 

Just because you like projectile weapons doesn't mean everyone does. 

Having diversity is good, most weapons have their tradeoffs given their minimum MR requirements. 

My Supra and my Gorgon should be different. 

[Aadi880]

Just now, trndr said:

2. Catchmoon is barely used after getting nerfed into the ground. 

Not true for my region. It still is present in 50% of my lobbies

[Mephane]

I prefer the current situation with a mix of both. There are simply weapons where it fits better - both play style and aesthetic wise - as one or the other. For example, Supra - this is basically your Star Wars style gatling blaster cannon, of course you want to see the plasma bolts fly around as visible projectiles. But then you have the Opticor, which is designed to give you that "literally laser" BFG feeling, which wouldn't really work if it just shot a projectile.

[CopperBezel]

19 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

Not true for my region. It still is present in 50% of my lobbies

Also, could anyone who genuinely thinks that the Catchmoon was "nerfed into the ground" when its ranges were reduced to just under the Arca Plasmor's please just forma their exilus slots for Lethal Momentum, which means .7 the range in .5 the time, and remember that we got wexilus after the Catchmoon range tweak

For icing, I rerolled my Catchmoon riven after the heat changes (you know, the 50% armor strip that was added to Catchmoon's base element) to get rid of a Cold damage buff, and it has projectile flight speed on it. So.

Edited March 4, 2020 by CopperBezel