IMO KillCam killing the Game

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Yes, decent snipers will, very often, try and find a better spot than the gaggle of snipers sitting directly opposite the enemy. Generally any spot other than where the gaggle of snipers congregate is a better spot than where the gaggle of snipers are, because there aren't a gaggle of snipers there.

Sure they will. Probably even score a few kills too, before being seen and taken out/driven off.

Originally Posted by Vancha

Did you watch either of the videos posted in the "Making Snipers useful." thread? Most people don't pay attention to their hit indicators and tracers in the way you're describing. That's why they were able to sit where they were and do their thing for as long as they did.

In almost all of them he was either seen very shortly after shooting and fire was returned. In most of the ones where he wasn't seen, its because there was a bunch of other things right near him(i.e. in the gaggle/on top of the base defending/etc). The ones where it was just him and another person.. the target saw.

And even if you are seen fire may not be returned. I rarely certed sniper rifles. If I got sniped, I stayed in cover. I knew where it was coming from, I just lacked the tools or the will to take care of it, because snipers were not a very big concern. Its an anti infantry unit in an area where vehicles largely dominate infantry anyway.

Most do pay attention. Finding an annoying sniper was never an issue. Snipers are just not the biggest threat, and don't rate dropping everything to go take care of. If they are by themselves, they will be taken care of shortly.

I don't care one way or the other about kill cams, I can take em or leave em. I would love to see them do an experiment in beta. 1 day, kill cams on. Next day, kill cams off. I'm very curious what the difference in K/D ratios would be. My surmise is not very different.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Sure they will. Probably even score a few kills too, before being seen and taken out/driven off.

Yeah, you really rarely certed sniper rifles.

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Most do pay attention. Finding an annoying sniper was never an issue. Snipers are just not the biggest threat, and don't rate dropping everything to go take care of. If they are by themselves, they will be taken care of shortly.

Ah, that explains why targets would take cover behind something and still remain in clear view of my sights (you can see this in AlienMouse's video).

And yeah, no kidding you need distractions to remain unnoticed. People will only assume they're being shot from the direction of the enemy if there's enemies within their LOS.

[MpS]

Originally Posted by RadarX

This has obviously been a very controversial topic for some of you. We want you to know we are of course reading through all this feedback.

If I could delve further though, are there restrictions that would make the kill cam bearable for those who are very against it?

Overall I would say no, I just think the kill cam is a horrible idea for planetside 2 and there isn't anything that could be done that would make it bearable in my mind (assuming we are talking about a kill cam that works like traditional kill cams, I.E. you see where the person is, how and what they killed you with etc, somewhere where it only shows the player model and their weapon could be reasonable). The kill cam is just too much for planetside 2, adding a kill cam just makes it seem like this FPS is trying to copy what the other successful FPSs are doing, but this game isn't just going to be another modern FPS clone, it will redefine the FPS genre. You can't go copying what the other FPSs do here. This is a situation where the ideals of planetside need to be re-imagined into what will be the greatest FPS of our time, not some modern warfare or battlefield duplicate. A kill cam is just not the way to go here.

[Tool]

I guess it really boils down to what type of game ps2 is aiming to be. Is it going to be a more realistic combined arms military experience or lean more to the arcade speedy arena shooters that often feature killcams?

Is it game where intelligence on enemy locations is valuable and generally requires effort and communication to obtain? If so then a killcam in any form is detrimental and unecessary.

Is it a game where the action is non stop with little thought given as to where enemies will be because its generally obvious and the kill is more important. Then a killcam will make little difference.

If killcams are there to aid new players, your going to remove a huge portion of the learning curve ps1 had. That baptism by fire often led to players with better situational awareness in any environment, thus better players.

If killcams are there to show off all the fancy customization and graphics, there's more reasonable ways to accomplish this. An interactive web based profile viewer on the official site can display the same things without the detrimental side effect killcams have.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by Tool

If killcams are there to show off all the fancy customization and graphics, there's more reasonable ways to accomplish this. An interactive web based profile viewer on the official site can display the same things without the detrimental side effect killcams have.

I've actually been toying with this idea. You could have an interactive 3D render of your character (or anyone else) on a website thanks to WebGL, and that would run on any modern browser so long as you have a graphics card. The only problem is because of the way it works all the art assets used for it would be open to the public, and most companies aren't eager to share things like character models or textures.

http://mrdoob.github.com/three.js/ex...s_cubemap.html

[BorgUK]

Kill cam will reduce support for team play by attracting the kill whores, this will of course mean the hacking will start as they go for there 99 to 1 kill ratios.

Like 3rd person inside buildings, its got to be a no.

[Duddy]

I've thought about this for a while, and what occurs to me is that for your general combat situation, a kill cam does not matter as it does not really cause any harm to your killer.

The main complaint comes from those that need to be somewhat conspicuous, which would account to the recon class in PS2.

So perhaps instead of fighting the Killcam, just have a skill and/or implant that can block it?

You could go the other way and make the kill(/info?) cam something people have to pick up themselves. However I think if the intent is to allow people to learn from their mistakes through the use of it, then making it an opt-in would mean a lot of people who perhaps should get it might not.

I think what we need to hear is what the intent of the system is from the team, as that makes a major difference in how to approach it.

[Lunarchild]

To start out, I think the killcam as it is in CoD works is fine. As this game is going to be a lot faster paced than the original Planetside I doubt it is that bad. That said I can understand some of the reservations people have.

That said, almost all shooters have something to show when people die. To give you a breather in between the action. Here's some I remember:

• Death-cam where you see your corpse - usually at an angle at which you can also see the person that killed you. (UT?)
• Death-cam where you see your corpse top-down (Planetside only)
• Cam where you look at the person that killed you (snapped) - (Quake, APB)
• Kill-cam: See the last 5 seconds up to your death through the eyes of the killer. (COD:MW)
• Kill-snapshot: Get a snapshot of your dead body / gibs and the enemy (TF2)
• Spectate your own team (COD:MW - Hardcore, various others)
• Specate the person that killed you from right in front (BF3 :/)
• Just scoreboard

Now there's plenty more. Now the kill-cam is the only one that allows you to learn from your own mistakes. The kill-cam is also the most detrimental against campers and hackers. The worst part about the kill-cam, however, is that it really makes you aware of client-server lag (especially with client-authoritive networking), and actually takes quite a bit of data to stream over correctly.

Originally Posted by Sabrak

Ummm...

What I'm about to say might sound stupid, but yeah... I'll say it anyway.

If KillCam HAS to be in PS2, and that I could choose its form, I'd say: make it so that it doesn't show anything going on "around" the scene.

Don't let us see a foot away from the shooter.
Fill the "holes" with some kind of virtual blur, so you can't see where he exactly was, but still can understand he was hiding behind a rock.

Show him taking the shot, and then follow the last bullet (the fatal one) going to you, still in a "virtual" view, so you have an idea of how far he was, but not of what or who is between you and him.
Then, a view of your guy dieing.

Finally, it could go back to the shooter, showing him in a sort of picture or a slow-mo (virtual stuff all around, you got it), with infos on him like his name, empire, outfit, battle rank, and maybe the weapon/vehicule he used to kill you.


tl;dr: don't show anything substantial around the shooter and his line of sight. Hide it with some kind of stylish sensor-disruptor effect.

That's the only kind of killcam that would be ok to me.
The one that doesn't show you any kind of intel on your enemy's situation on the battlefield.

Now this idea I like. Especially because this can be done so awesomely art-wise.

Another random interresting option: When you die, you see your last kill, as seen from the one who died.

[Graywolves]

Not fine with any killcam. I'd rather look at the map and see how the battle is developing when I'm dead.

I'd say seeing the opponents loadout would be acceptable but seriously, how could that help? In a game like this that's just pointless, you're not going to learn even with a conventional killcam because chances are you DIDN'T die from someone using the same thing as you...



In fact, if anything, Killcam slows down the pace of the game.

[SniperSteve]

Why is there even a killcam?

Since there is rezzing, why not just pan around your body PS1 style, and that lets you see what your squad is doing, and help you make a decision on whether to respawn or wait for a rez.

Pull killcam there and takes that away.

So at first I was in the 'wait and see' category, but the more I think about it and read what other people write, the less I like it. I am now in the "no kill cam" camp.


Just because every other game has a feature doesn't mean its good. PlanetSide is a breed of its own. Just don't bother with the killcam.

[SniperSteve]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

In fact, if anything, Killcam slows down the pace of the game.

That's an interesting concept. In fast-paced games like Quake3 there was no kill-cam. Just respawn, lol.

[BigBossMonkey]

Here is my suggestion on the matter:

Higby (Or SOMEONE) has stated in the past that during the respawn screen you can edit your loadouts, and all that other fun stuff.

So my suggestion is after you die, bring up the edit loadout menu and have as the background (have the menu be slightly transparent) be like 2-3 seconds of a killcam. You can't see explicit details, but its there.

After 2-3 seconds change the background view to the continent map.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Yeah, you really rarely certed sniper rifles.

I generally tried to play stuff that had an impact on the fight.

[SaberMonk]

As a PS1 vet AND an avid player of TF2 I cast my vote against the killcams.

Killcams work for a game like TF2 because it isn't a game that takes itself seriously. TF2 is made for arena-style combat, has cartoonish characters, and does not even remotely try to be realistic. Killcams add something fun to TF2, where taunting your enemy and wearing silly hats is part of the game.

Killcams don't work for a game like PS1 or PS2 because it DOES take itself seriously. It IS just a game, and it's a game set in a futuristic world, but it does have a certain amount of realism. Killcams absolutely don't fit in the world of Planetside. As someone said earlier, killcams provide meta-game information. There is no story reason to explain this game function, and there is no story reason to explain needing a special skill or implant to block it. It simply doesn't make sense in either the story-world of Planetside or for the style of game that Planetside is.

[Oryon22]

Please correct me if I am wrong as I have absolutely no idea how this works. But, does having a killcam eat up computer resources that could be better used towards vehicle enter/exit and holstering animations?