Headshots...

[Sirisian]

I'm against headshots. They don't add anything except make it easier for me to kill people. So instead of trying to shoot a character I'll just aim for the head.

Also stop with the "I want characters to die in 4 hits" idea. You can take damage and still find cover so you can heal and repair.

Also adding more hitboxes to a character doesn't affect performance in any significant way. They're usually handled with a hierarchy of bounding boxes making the process trivially cheap.</programmer>

[Daimond]

this is not a good idea, the game is alreay fast enough at times in death. and no need to have dumb luck added to the mix. This would be a Different matter if , there was not vehicals and smaller maps such as in a normal FPS game where you have 2 sides with 16 people, and maps no larger then a base at most times and no vehicals.

and it was not the fact that people didnt have head shots in the game that made people not play it was stubrenis of people even today still compairing this to Counter strike or Unreal. this is a FPS/RPG on a massive skale that you can have 3 teams on 1 maps each whit 100 guys in the fight. so in compairing a fight of 300 people to a game of at most 32, is not good, even some games that tryed to say they were simular still cant hold a candle to the size and scale of war here.

The fact is to for every Hit box you add to the game on a scale this size the more your comp and server has to track, increasing posable lag. in hence you would have to sacrifice stuff to gane others such as grafix or selection of items to use on field, or even players in field to offset the increase of load. and this is not easy either just haveing 2 hit boxes on a target as to 1 does not sacle load by 2x, the factor is increase by lest 3x depending on weapons tracked and if stray pellets/bullets hit another target the factor can increase by 6x more. would cuase alot of lag.

So if you can have 300 people in your view for the hell of it you would have to with out shooting a weapon keep track of 600 hit boxes let alone the air vehicals, and the demendancies of what weapon your using, and all your resolution and grafix settings.

[Hamma]

I have thought about this quite a bit myself based on conversations in other threads and now this one. At first I was for headshots until i thought about it a bit more.

Now I do think we need better actual hit boxes. But the speed of combat and the way things work in PlanetSide just aren't a good mix with headshots. The reason for my thinking is that in PlanetSide there are just to many bullets flying around all the time, there is far to much chance of just getting randomly leveled by a rogue bullet.

Realistic? Yes, but this isn't a realistic game. You have to think of the fun factor as well when it comes to things like this. And for me in such a massive game it would not be fun to get whacked with headshots all the time.

[Kyonye]

Wow.... I have to admit I'm surprised by the lack of useless argument. This entire thread (besides Basti's idea that his voice counts for all) has been a nice debate.

I'm for headshot's in the sense that getting shot in the head counts more towards damage then getting shot in the leg. I know for me I love the realism in games. I understand that on a large scale it might be difficult to implement this kind of realism. Although, it would be hard to truly know anything unless it were implemented and tested. Isn't that what Alpha and Beta testing is for? Maybe they could test it and see how it is received.

[Baneblade]

The Bottom Line is:

Unless you can guarantee there will be no aim botting of any kind, instagib infantry weapons do not belong.

[Lartnev]

The devs could just as easily make head hitboxes the current damage, and make the other hitboxes take less damage. Food for thought perhaps?

I'd only like hitboxes for the joy of long range marksmanship given the in the open air. It doesn't add to the high-speed gameplay in the confines of a base.

[I SandRock]

Originally Posted by Lartnev

The devs could just as easily make head hitboxes the current damage, and make the other hitboxes take less damage. Food for thought perhaps?

Thats just cup is half full vs cup is half empty really, since damage numbers aren't set in stone to begin with :P

[BlazingSun]

Headshots are probably not a good idea for PS. Just imagine a crowded corridor. Now imagine shooting with a lasher or something similar into that corridor at head-hight. Or Thumper grenades into the group from above! It would be ridiculous.

[ArcticPrism]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

What like all the current FPS games? Sure its a steep learning curve, but its worth it.

If anything a lack of head shots will alienate more players than it will encourage to leave.

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

So halving the amount of servers within 6 months of release is successful?

Head shots are expected in a FPS; can you name any that don't have them?

Holding your crosshair on someone's head isn't a steep learning curve. It isn't even a learning curve at all.

It doesn't matter if other shooters have head shots. Why do so many people want Planetside to be like every other game? Having no head shots isn't going to "halve the amount of servers". There are plenty of people who like head shots in shooters, but there are also plenty of people who don't find dying in 1-3 shots fun.

Like other people said, head shots also promote cheating. There is no need to add more ways for people to cheat to the game. Then there is also the problem of lag influencing that, and then a lot of the time you will just be frustrated because it can often be hard to tell when someone is cheating, is "good" or is getting a lot of lucky head shots. "Is he cheating?" "That guy is fishy." "GM. Please ban this guy for aim bot!"

[CutterJohn]

I would support weakpoints on vehicles and MAXs(like shooting them in the back). On infantry.. They have helmets, which is the best armor on the body.

[Tool]

I think it's safe to say Planetside in it's current state was not entirely successful with regards to the FPS genre. If people want PS2 to have staying power with a healthy subscriber base sacrifices may have to be made in order to compete with current and future games of it's ilk.

With that said I am all for locational damage, like the suggested above it doesn't necessarily mean OSK for infantry weapons but perhaps increased damage for vital areas while decreasing damage for non such as hands, arms, feet and legs. There's nothing random about it just the fact it will reward those who take time to line up their shots.

The downside however which is often overlooked, is something KornD touched on with his post. Regarding AOE weaponry or empire specific weaponry such as the Lasher and how locational damage may affect or be effected by it.

All I know is if Sony wishes to compete in the FPS market, even though it is an MMO, things will have to change in order to bring and keep more subscribers.

[Bags]

PS only failed because of BFRs and Sony gave up on it.

[Tool]

Originally Posted by Bags

PS only failed because of BFRs and Sony gave up on it.

To say Planetside failed only because of BFRs is quite frankly ignorant. Sorry

Giving up on it's future development and advertising my have been the result of many things. Starting development on PS2 may have been one of those if it's actually as far along in it's development as implied.

[CutterJohn]

In other games, there is generally one hitpoint pool, and shots to the head get a multiplier added. Splash damage will simply not invoke that multiplier.

Which, btw, is another thing. There is no reason the multiplier for headshots must be the same for all weapons, so close range things like HA could have very small headshot multipliers.

Another thing that could be done, now that I think of it, is recognizing that the head is the most well armored portion of the body. Well... We have AP ammo, don't we? It could be made that, to do get a headshot bonus multiplier, you have to use AP ammo. This makes the capacity to do headshots a choice that can backfire on you, since missing and hitting the body will result in the normal subpar damage of AP ammo vs grunts. It wouldn't be a random lucky bonus damage if you are just spraying with white ammo.

I also think headshots need not apply for any vehicle mounted weapons. They have enough advantages.

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

What like all the current FPS games? Sure its a steep learning curve, but its worth it.

If anything a lack of head shots will alienate more players than it will encourage to leave.

TF2, one of the most popular ones out there. Snipers are the only ones that can get headshots, and then only with the sniper rifles, and even then only while zoomed.

Of course many current FPS games have tons of instagib weapons. Grenades, rocket launchers, certain shotguns at point blank range, instakill knives. Shall planetside have those too since they are in almost all current fps games, and the lack of them will alienate players?

[Bags]

Originally Posted by Tool

To say Planetside failed only because of BFRs is quite frankly ignorant. Sorry

Giving up on it's future development and advertising my have been the result of many things. Starting development on PS2 may have been one of those if it's actually as far along in it's development as implied.

Subs started dropping when Sony destroyed the balance of the game, ignored the problem, fixed it too late, and then stopped supporting the game. Given the available information, you can only guess that the game declined due to other reasons. Sorry if my informed analysis seems ignorant to you.