Warning, very unpopular opinion! Why kill-cam desperately needs to return

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by Wahooo

WHO THE HELL ARE THE PLAYERS YOU ARE TRYING TO HELP AND WHY DO THEY MATTER?

Actually, these are the players that keep this game fresh and in development and prevent it from becoming a dreadful ghost-town for BR100's only: They are called New Players. You might start caring about them as well, unless you want this game to be dead within 2 years of course.

If they can't be arsed to use a feature to help them learn, and obviously dont' have the mental capacity to figure out how to stand back and watch for the massive bright tracers after they, or someone around them died, why do they deserve to be spoon fed such critical information?

This elitist attitude against casual gamers that don't have the time to invest hundreds of hours in a game before getting the hang of it, is for sure the shortest route to a ghost town.

Farming ok, camping ok... camping to farm not ok? You are making no sense.

Let me spell it out for you. Farming should be discouraged in it's current form: It's frustrating for new players and hardly teaches them anything, detracts from objective play and gives way to many rewards/certs with hardly any risks. If these conditions were to be fixed, farming shouldn't be an issue any more.

To think my position is compromised the first time I kill someone? No thank you not for me.

Forcing you to stay relatively mobile might not play as bad as you think in a game that has a zillion camping possibilities.

I can't see them gaining as much as the players that don't need it to whom this type of things becomes a MAJOR advantage.

I see this argument a lot and it doesn't resemble my kill-cam experience. If anything, I've found myself skipping more frequently through kill-cam footage the better I became at a game. Over time, many kill-cam situations become instantly recognizable and doesn't require you to watch the whole footage.

Originally Posted by Mastachief

You are wrong give it up already you are just pissing people off

If you lack the mental stability to stay in a constructive discussion, I suggest you stay away from it.

Originally Posted by Mustakrakish

First, there's the near-total destruction of stealth. I mean, let's think about this for a minute: any kind of ability that reveals enemy locations (e.g. Recon Dart, Proximity Radar) already requires hundreds of certs to be invested before it reaches usefulness. Adding something like kill-cam to the game does absolutely nothing to improve PS2's depth of gameplay or balance, and would instead undermine both of those things.

As told before, these tools have unique capabilities vs kill-cam and who says kill-cam needs to reveal "everything"? If anything, it balances the game against weaker/newer placers, which is much needed. Forcing you to stay more mobile and think harder before shooting/revealing doesn't kill depth in itself. You can still play the stealth game and likely you will come up new tactics to adept to this.

Second, PS2 isn't just an FPS: it's an MMO, too.

Don't fool yourself by comparing PS 2 with traditional MMO's that typically adapt the the difficulty around you to what level you are. What makes PS 2 so brutal for new players is that it lacks such a mechanic. SOE developed this game with the idea that a BR100 should be max 20% stronger vs a new player. The reality of the learning curve however, probably makes a BR100 closer too 200% stronger vs a new player while still putting them in the same arena.

Originally Posted by Dougnifico

Ok...
I am indifferent to kill cams. There is only one constant for me. There needs to be a way to shut them off (such as a perk or implant). This allows snipers, cloakers, and all other affected parties to circumnavigate the extreme disadvantage this brings them. Other than that, kill cams really make no significant difference.

I think this might actually be a good idea. If you are totally convinced that a kill-cam will bring you at a severe disadvantage and you see no way around it, you can invest into a turn-off ability. However, if you don't feel it hampers your play style too much or see ways around it, then you use that slot for another perk/ability

[OCNSethy]

Firstly - No, to killcams... for all the reasons listed on the last 6 pages.

Secondly - So much love for snipers! I dont recall so much support for one of the most disliked classes since... forever

[Babyfark McGeez]

I don't have any objections to a killcam. If you constantly get instagibbed by jokers hiding in dark corners you deserve to atleast know from where that came.
Or lets put it this way; With all the cheesy tactics and cheap one-hit weapons a killcam providing some more info sounds like a fair counter, sort of.

I don't have any problem with the kill-cam-less game as it is though. I think the problem lies rather in the myriad cheesy instagib options avaible.

[almalino]

I was newbie to PS2 at the beginning and was not unhappy being killed constantly and not having kill cam. IMHO, no to kill cam.

Next step would be to enable auto aim for newbies because they cannot hit shit because they are newbies.

Actually, the whole discussion is useless because we do not have statistics on how many people decided not play PS2 because it is too hard for newbies. Is it 1, 2, hundreds, thousands? In last case kill cam might be usefull but we do not have that statistic.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

If you constantly get instagibbed by jokers hiding in dark corners you deserve to atleast know from where that came.

Why? Why should the game reward your failure by punishing someone else's superior planning?

[Gatekeeper]

For the record, I completely agree with Rolfski, and I think he's making a lot of well-reasoned points in this thread. Unfortunately it seems that almost nobody is interested in actually discussing the pros and cons (or even reading posts in most cases), and instead most posts are either a simple "NO!" or a stream of ranting (with optional insults).

It's a shame we can't have a proper discussion about this, and unfortunately this kind of rage reaction from vets means we'll probably never see any development of this kind, regardless of the merits.

[ketarakh]

Originally Posted by almalino

Next step would be to enable auto aim for newbies because they cannot hit shit because they are newbies.

Reductio ad absurdum. How cute.
Nobody asks for mechanisms that play for you, aim for you, run for you etc.
The intent is to provide players with some sort of feedback on what mistake they made that lead to them being shot (excluding leaving warpgate ), to answer all those "WTF?! How?!".
Though I don't support killcams (at least COD-type killcams), I acknowledge this problem exists and caused by abysmally low TTK of some weapons.

[Ruffdog]

Originally Posted by Gatekeeper

It's a shame we can't have a proper discussion about this, and unfortunately this kind of rage reaction from vets means we'll probably never see any development of this kind, regardless of the merits.

Everyone and their dog raged about this back in March 2012 following the GDC reveal.


It got changed to what it is now and got universal backing.

[Dougnifico]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

I think this might actually be a good idea. If you are totally convinced that a kill-cam will bring you at a severe disadvantage and you see no way around it, you can invest into a turn-off ability. However, if you don't feel it hampers your play style too much or see ways around it, then you use that slot for another perk/ability

Exactly. I'm not going to crusade for or against the mechanism. I just don't see it being an issue if a system such as this is in place.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by ketarakh

Reductio ad absurdum. How cute.
Nobody asks for mechanisms that play for you, aim for you, run for you etc.
The intent is to provide players with some sort of feedback on what mistake they made that lead to them being shot (excluding leaving warpgate ), to answer all those "WTF?! How?!".
Though I don't support killcams (at least COD-type killcams), I acknowledge this problem exists and caused by abysmally low TTK of some weapons.

Um... pausing to look around for what killed you and from where and paying attention to the big bright tracers from every weapon IS part of playing the game. Giving a kill-cam that does that for you is a mechanism to play for you.

[Angrytortoise]

(EDITED - I suck at quoting multiple statements)

Originally Posted by Gatekeeper

It's a shame we can't have a proper discussion about this, and unfortunately this kind of rage reaction from vets means we'll probably never see any development of this kind, regardless of the merits.

This was discussed heavily on SoE boards in beta; the large majority of people rejected the concept. And people have given constructive information in this thread as to why they feel it's a bad idea, I wrote a long winded post myself, so to try and make out as if you're the only one trying to rationally discuss the topic is either obliviousness or trolling especially considering you yourself essentially didn't provide any more content than saying you agree with original poster (longer way of saying YES for killcams), and were sad people were responding with things like No! lolol

Originally Posted by Rolfski

"This elitist attitude against casual gamers that don't have the time to invest hundreds of hours in a game before getting the hang of it, is for sure the shortest route to a ghost town."

This isn't about being an extremist hardcore gamer people simply don't want a killcam feature because they feel it will take away from the game experience or/and hurt a playstyle they personally enjoy. A discussion on a totally different webforum (SoE Planetside forums) came to the same conclusion months ago, so it's not like PSU is some vocal minority in this discussion.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

"Let me spell it out for you. Farming should be discouraged in it's current form: It's frustrating for new players and hardly teaches them anything, detracts from objective play and gives way to many rewards/certs with hardly any risks. If these conditions were to be fixed, farming shouldn't be an issue any more."

In a game where the ultimate objective is territory control, fights are going to occur naturally at locations of strategic interest most of the time. How people participate and contribute to that fight is up to them. So killing people is almost never going to be counter productive to the overall goal. So unless you have defenders defending a non-relevant base (not able capture or something) and for some reason a bunch of enemies decide to go there too I don't see how "farming" can exist in PS2, and even less so how a Kill-Cam is in any way the solution to the root of a problem like that.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

"Forcing you to stay relatively mobile might not play as bad as you think in a game that has a zillion camping possibilities."

This is basically just you saying this is the play-style I enjoy and want more to be more prevalent and truth be told I've been spending most of my time in this game as a scythe or a heavy recently so I'm almost never in one spot for very long myself but the fact that this play-style is enjoyable to us doesn't mean that we should shove it down everyone else's throat.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

"As told before, these tools have unique capabilities vs kill-cam and who says kill-cam needs to reveal "everything"? If anything, it balances the game against weaker/newer placers, which is much needed. Forcing you to stay more mobile and think harder before shooting/revealing doesn't kill depth in itself. You can still play the stealth game and likely you will come up new tactics to adept to this."

So your saying that stealth tools in planetside 2 need to be altered so they're less heavily impacted by kill-cams, and that players should just adapt their own strategies to work around this feature?...a lot of work for a feature that very few people seem to want implemented in the first place.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

"Don't fool yourself by comparing PS 2 with traditional MMO's that typically adapt the the difficulty around you to what level you are. What makes PS 2 so brutal for new players is that it lacks such a mechanic. SOE developed this game with the idea that a BR100 should be max 20% stronger vs a new player. The reality of the learning curve however, probably makes a BR100 closer too 200% stronger vs a new player while still putting them in the same arena."

What your talking about has nothing to do with battlerank, your talking about player/fps experience and game knowledge, this has nothing to do with the in game ranking system aside from the fact that most players of high battle rank have played the game longer. You could have someone who has never played PS2 before log on to a BR100's account and play and get totally smoked by a BR1 who has played a bunch of counterstrike or something. So you're mistaken, the difference between a BR100 and a BR1 is probably about 20%, what you seem to be asking for is that player-skill only have about a 20% impact in who wins an engagement and yes, player-skill does make a much larger than 20% difference.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

I think this might actually be a good idea. If you are totally convinced that a kill-cam will bring you at a severe disadvantage and you see no way around it, you can invest into a turn-off ability. However, if you don't feel it hampers your play style too much or see ways around it, then you use that slot for another perk/ability

The entire concept of having to invest to disable this feature puts you at a disadvantage, you've now invested in something someone else hasn't had to leaving the other person free to invest in something else, all for a feature that negatively effects you more than this other player based on your play-style.

[Angrytortoise]

"deleted" -my fail attempt to fix the quotations from previous post

[ShadoViper]

Originally Posted by Edfishy

I've wondered about just having the spinnable enemy character model (while remaining 'pinned') replay the last 5 seconds of movements that lead to your demise.

So you cannot see *where* he was, but you might be able to see what he was doing. "Oh he was crouched and waiting for me apparently before he came out threw some C4 on me!".

This would be good. However, everything else kill cam related is a NO from me.

Also good post tortoise.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Actually, these are the players that keep this game fresh and in development and prevent it from becoming a dreadful ghost-town for BR100's only: They are called New Players. You might start caring about them as well, unless you want this game to be dead within 2 years of course.

This elitist attitude against casual gamers that don't have the time to invest hundreds of hours in a game before getting the hang of it, is for sure the shortest route to a ghost town.

I care about new players, and I am casual, hardly hard core and very far from BR100. But this thing, you are describing the need for it as if these people have no capacity to learn on their own, or that they REQUIRE this information be spoon fed to them and that is somehow a g good thing.

I would counter that the new players that really need this are not the ones we need to focus on and that they are going to find another reason to up and quit as it is.

I also don't see how you can't get that this type of thing is so much more a powerful tool to those who already have the situational awareness. It is a shortcut to knowledge. No they might not need it and bypass it most of the time, but when it is going to be useful? It is going to be much more useful to those experienced hardcore vets you are trying to protect the newbies from.

I've said it repeatedly in this thread, I do stay mobile when it is called for. I also camp a good spot when it is called for. Generally there is much more effort and risk in getting to a good spot and these are places found by trial and error. There is plenty of risk from players who are aware.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Why? Why should the game reward your failure by punishing someone else's superior planning?

Yeah...superior planning...with these weapons and tools there ain't much of planning if you ask me.
I would see it more as a balance to the amount of cheap kill methods avaible. But as i said i don't advocate for killcams, i think the game is fine without one and i personally don't have any problems figuring out from where i just got killed. But i wouldn't object to having one either.
I just don't get the fuzz, some of you sound like you get all your kills from hiding in some dark corner with a sniper rifle and never, ever leaving lol.

Additionally i took the opportunity to bitch about the weapons in general some more. Yeahhh.