Higby Wants Your Thoughts on Iron Sights for FPS.....

[T MAN]

While I've been giving certain FPS design decisions a thought lately, I came across several people talking about their issues with iron sights. One guy in particular was saying that if Half Life 3 is released, it should add iron sights as otherwise it would feel antiquated and lacking. Which is curious as never have I felt that Half Life or TF2 or all valve game needed iron sights.

Also saw the latest planetside 2 video at the9 and the iron sights particularly stood out to me and im sorry devs but i did NOT like them at all. If you cant make them better then I'd say remove them all together and make it like
Halo. they were just too 2d or something i dont know like no movement or recoil. if you go watch the video then compare them to other fps Cod, BF, Crysis 1 or 2 you'll see what i mean.

Iron sighting, from what I've seen, slows everything down. Some games have iron sightng with much more insane recoil even while iron sighting so there is still involves difficulty in aiming. Then CoD, with it's often tiny maps with extremely limited pathways and sluggish movement and iron sighting which has almost no recoil at all and instant deaths, just screams "easy" to me. And in my experience, it is easy.

Although that most likely is the problem with CoD on it's own rather than just Iron sighting. But from what I've experienced, over-reliance on iron sighting mechanics have a very profound effect the flow of gameplay, and it slows it down immensely.

I don't mind iron sights, really, and I can jump right into any of the newer iterations of CoD, BF or MoH and feel right at home. But while playing CS 1.6 the other day after a long time, I kind of remembered what I miss in modern military shooters - mobility while shooting. I did a fair share of strafing and bunny hopping while shooting in CS to make myself a harder target to hit, which I almost never do in CoD (unless I'm using a shotgun) or BF3 because your movement is restricted with your sights up.

While iron sights are a commendable feature for some (mostly tactical) manshoots (it was a welcome addition in New Vegas), I say bring on some FPS titles without it. This is precisely the reason why, which doesn't involve standing around during the shooty bits but a quite a large amount of dodging, running, circle strafing and jumping.

Higby also tweeted talking about adad in fights=fun, with iron sights then there will be no adad fights cause iron sights make mobility slower and combat slower."Skill" wasn't about who could fire off a shot first, it was about who could keep their target under the cross hairs while also keeping yourself out of the enemy's cross hairs. The ability to simultaneously sustain your aim and continuously dodge the attacks against a fast moving enemy who is also fighting back and dodging your projectiles at the same time was a demanding one.

Here's a good explanation of all the aim systems in fps: http://technicalgamedesign.blogspot....-shooters.html

From a purely gameplay perspective, what's your view on iron sights?

Here's some quotes from what other people think about iron sights in fps

"Iron sights generally make combat less mobile, which is more realistic and helps balance stuff like snipers, but can also be a lot less fun. Honestly, I think there's room for both, but some games (bulletstorm, borderlands) would be better served by something like an alt-fire"

"Ever played an old school FPS like Quake, Enemy Territory or Counter Strike that lack ironsights, or even Halo? They take much, much more skill than any of the games that are overly reliant on them such as CoD of BFBC2. It's not the actual act of aiming down the sights that sucks the skill out, it's the way everyone moves slower with them up and can't hit anything without them"

"iron sights make gameplay more camp-happy as opposed to run-n-gun twitch shooters that I love so much"

"Either give me a scope, or lemme shoot from the hip. I don't do middle grounds"

"It depends on what type of gameplay the developers are seeking, you have something like COD where you must slow down to be accurate or something like Halo where you can shoot while you run and still be accurate"

"I'm not fond of Iron Sights. Sometimes they're so badly designed and zoomed up so large on the screen they get in the way"

"Iron sights usually are there to force the player to slow down, although in some other games like Counter-Strike if the player is still not used to the game he will still have to slow down to have better accuracy"

"Iron sights aren't needed at all. Not that they're a bad thing. Just depends what sort of game you want to play, really"

"In my opinion, Iron Sights can define the type of shooter your going for. Include them, and your looking for something that's slower paced and more cover based. Keep them out, and your looking to achieve something that's fast paced and more dodge happy"

"If it works well, like in CoD, then yes, I like it. If it would bring nothing, like if it were added to Serious Sam, then no, never do this shit"

"Iron sights are cool, but you don't need them. See Halo, or as you said all Valve games. None of those feel like they need iron sights"

"Some games are good with iron sights, some aren't. COD is fun with it"

"hate iron sights as they promote slower gameplay. Also I don't think they add much except for "realism". I don't like any game currently that has iron sights"

"Iron sights was only used to create more realism in FPS games, but now it's like all FPSs need to have it by law (I'm looking at you Bulletstorm). I'd prefer if games didn't use it because it just slows the game down"

"cannot stand iron-sights. Here's why - they cover up half the damn screen, aiming is much slower, and movement speed is far slower. It might be more realistic, but I just can't stand it in a shooter"

"I don't mind iron sights, but they do "dumb-down" shooters (aka make them more accessible)"

"It's not a deal breaker for me.I actually enjoy more the red dot sights or the holographic instead"

"I rather hate iron sights,mainly due to the fact is that when you aim and try to look through it,it takes up way too much space in the middle and makes the target that you are trying to hit from a distance barely visible"

"Its ok if a game chooses to not have iron sights, many games don't have them because it makes you ignore 3/4 of whats on the screen in exchange for a blurry gun silhouette, if it does it has to be for a good reason, and the hip firing has to be a reasonable option. I got so fed up with Black Ops after firing a sniper rifle into someones brain from point blank and missing because of the absurd >45 degree spread it got. I like how I can fire on the run in L4D2 because it makes the game much faster paced, I also like aiming down sights in New Vegas because of the sense of realism it provided. I don't like be railroaded into a fighting style because the designer thought that somehow aiming down the sights of a shotgun made it shoot tighter"

"Nope. Actually, iron sights would suck on a game like Halo. It's all relative really. It works on COD because it needs to work on COD"