IMO KillCam killing the Game - Page 3

Figment · 2012-01-31, 07:46 AM

Okay, let's first define what these killcams are exactly used for and pull it in a broader perspective (Cutterjohn made a start with that). In which situation you would and wouldn't want to be known about the kills.

Let's start with a killcam overview:

PS post-death cam
PS had a post-killcam spiraling around on you, which was very, very, very regularly used for scouting. In fact, in some cases after you'd get yourself killed at an AMS, you'd use this location to pinpoint for an OS either by yourself or someone else. Of course you could only scout the immediate area around you and see who was trampling or teabagging your corpse, if people were placing new boomers in your direct area and some other things.

However, it also gave you a short time to look at the radar map for three specific things and to make a decision: respawn here/now, or wait for that medic nearby? Would it be worth respawning here or should I go somewhere else? The third of course is that you could look at where all the dots are moving without having to worry about getting shot or having to go there instantly. As such, it definitely helped you plan your next move.

On top of that, as some already mentioned, you got some information about the killer: the hit indicators, the weapon sound, tracers and finally the killspam with name and weapon used. Ultimately though, no specific location unless it happened to be so close up you could see them move of a couple meters in the post-kill killcam. However, it didn't provide specific locations aside from those you already knew from the close quarters engagement.

Note though, that this is not as much a Killcam as it is a Deathcam. Also note that in PS you did not control the cam and that it would eventually stop to spin and forced you to respawn to stop giving you information on that location's area and because it assumed you went afk.

Showing who killed you last with what kind of shot.
Basically this is a kill replay. Games like CoD use this feature. What you can learn from it is what you did wrong and what the killer saw, from which you can derive where he was located. You also get an idea of the weapon used and effort put into the shot and whatever else is seen on screen.

As these replays are typically a set amount of seconds, you get a good idea of what the player was doing prior to killing you. You basically gain more information if an engagement was shorter than killcam time than if it was long as you probably returned fire or took cover in between, making the killcam spend more time focused on the engagement with you rather than other things.

Showing what you did before you died
Rather than showing you what the enemy did, it is a recording of your death from a point of view close to you. It could be a third person view, it could be a rotating or rotatable cam. If it is rotating, you can make out some more details than from a fixed point of view. You can use this to analyse the situation a bit more indirectly to derive similar information as most of the above. It wouldn't always quite show you what the opponent did or does and is therefore more an in between of the CoD killcam and PS deathcam, as it can give you situational awareness you did not have during your death.

It's actually a bit like FIFA and other sportsgame goal replays. Of course the level of interactivity can be changed to even have control over it.

Cam on detected post-death enemy
This is where the camera, rather than providing a replay of the kill or your own post mortem corpse, shows you the player who shot you, typically from the front. World of Tanks does this, but ONLY if the player that fired at you had been discovered by the team or yourself already. In other words, only if its position was already known and you can only see the enemy as long as your team is able to see it and knows its location.

This is actually a pretty reasonable thing to me in their context, since your team was already aware where the player was located and it was also known what they were using. Besides, after you died, you can only ping the general grid location of the map and have to describe it in words. In WoT you can't respawn to do something with the information after all, you take it to the next match. If however the tank in question was out of view range, it was invisible and you do not get to see who shot you and where you were located.

Once you're out and stop looking at the enemy, the cam rests on your corpse in third person. In WoT, since your unit is now out of the match and can't do anything else, you can switch to the views of allied players in order to be a second pair of eyes for them, or use your corpse to scout from. Much like the post-death cam in PS, but with actual control by the player.

In a PS context, this would mean that both cloaked units and units not on radar or spotted would not be zoomed in on, but others would for as long as they would be detected by players on your empire.

No post-death- or killcam
There's also the option to not have a cam at all. Of course you wouldn't know if a medic is coming, nor be able to receive or pass any other up-to-date information.

One consequence this leads to players having to guess more about what happened. In itself shouldn't be a problem, but the more players guess the more they are inclined to yell at the enemy for cheating.

Especially children, teens and immature adults in free to play games... Consider that as well.

There are probably some other hybrids possible as well and they all relay different amounts and types of information. I'd like to know what they have planned so far, for now we can only share what info we think is reasonable and what isn't. I heard the suggestion before that you would get an implant to blurr the killcam, though I don't really see the point: enough info can be gotten from that. Also, I don't really think a lot of people would find value in having to give up an important implant slot for such a thing.

Again, could see how cloakers and snipers would almost feel forced to get that implant though.

Hmr85 · 2012-01-31, 08:03 AM

See, I want the immersion effect and a tad of realism. yes, I do realize this is a sci-fi game. But with that said in all fairness to the sniper/whoever just shot me. I do not think I need to know where their position is.

I know whats coming next "Well Higby said there was an implant or w/e they could use that would hide their position so it did not show them on killcam. Sort of like a Jammer". I am aware of that but how do we know the other implants are not gonna be better? Why should I have to weigh the possibility of sacrificing reduced COF or faster reloading against a jammer just to hide my killcam so other players cannot find my location. Its kind of crap imo.

So no to killcams.

Shogun · 2012-01-31, 08:08 AM

no killcam. leave it as it was in ps1.

it served the purpose to decide if you would respawn or if there is any chance for a medic coming to heal you.

and if i get a killcam showing me how much effort someone put into a shot that killed me, it will just make me rage to see that purple noobs nonaimed accidentally AoE lasher shot got me killed. there is enough teabagging already. voicemakros are already confirmed, so there really is no need to put in another teabagging instance.

oh and when the killcam get´s binned and frees dev ressources, please use those for vehicle enter animations! then you hit 2 flys with one boltdriver. because both changes would recreate some of the massive immersion that i fear to vanish from planetside.

CutterJohn · 2012-01-31, 08:16 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Showing who killed you last with what kind of shot.
Basically this is a kill replay. Games like CoD use this feature. What you can learn from it is what you did wrong and what the killer saw, from which you can derive where he was located. You also get an idea of the weapon used and effort put into the shot and whatever else is seen on screen.

As these replays are typically a set amount of seconds, you get a good idea of what the player was doing prior to killing you. You basically gain more information if an engagement was shorter than killcam time than if it was long as you probably returned fire or took cover in between, making the killcam spend more time focused on the engagement with you rather than other things.

Showing what you did before you died
Rather than showing you what the enemy did, it is a recording of your death from a point of view close to you. It could be a third person view, it could be a rotating or rotatable cam. If it is rotating, you can make out some more details than from a fixed point of view. You can use this to analyse the situation a bit more indirectly to derive similar information as most of the above. It wouldn't always quite show you what the opponent did or does and is therefore more an in between of the CoD killcam and PS deathcam, as it can give you situational awareness you did not have during your death.

It's actually a bit like FIFA and other sportsgame goal replays. Of course the level of interactivity can be changed to even have control over it.

I like these two. They do not show what happened after you died. They just show you what you did wrong, from both your perspective as well as the enemies, and as such would be a very valuable training aid.

"Well shit.. He could see me the entire time! No wonder he got me!"

Coreldan · 2012-01-31, 08:16 AM

Dont think the killcam and vehicle animations would be anywhere near comparable amount of work

Vancha · 2012-01-31, 08:22 AM

Unless this was implemented Planetside-style (which was more of a "post-death cam"), I'm having trouble thinking of how this could be done without revealing the position of snipers/cloakers.

This is what I'd support, for people who wanted to know how they were killed and where from.

Edit:

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

I like these two. They do not show what happened after you died. They just show you what you did wrong, from both your perspective as well as the enemies, and as such would be a very valuable training aid.

"Well shit.. He could see me the entire time! No wonder he got me!"

How does that not reveal the location of snipers? They either show you the perspective of the sniper (oh hey, he's behind enemy lines!), or allow you to concentrate on hit indicators and the tracer (all that effort to make sure I shot him in the back and he sees where the bullet came from anyway).

CutterJohn · 2012-01-31, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by Vancha

Unless this was implemented Planetside-style (which was more of a "post-death cam"), I'm having trouble thinking of how this could be done without revealing the position of snipers/cloakers.

Why would it matter? They are cloaked. They can move. Meaning they are no longer where you saw them. If you have buddies around they already have a really good idea where they were. If you don't have buddies around, then by the time you respawn they will be elsewhere and in no danger.

Vancha · 2012-01-31, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Why would it matter? They are cloaked. They can move. Meaning they are no longer where you saw them. If you have buddies around they already have a really good idea where they were. If you don't have buddies around, then by the time you respawn they will be elsewhere and in no danger.

In Planetside, I mainly tree sniped or tried to flank the enemy. Them knowing simply which side of them I was on could well have ruined my day.

Now granted, PS2 terrain looks to be on a bigger scale, but if I've just spent a load of time scaling a mountain undetected and sniping people who aren't looking in my direction, the one thing I don't want them to do is figure out they're being shot from above and to their left instead of from the direction of the enemy.

Vancha · 2012-01-31, 08:45 AM

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

You guys do realize if SOE decides to put it in, they are going to put it in. Regardless if two thousand people wrote in this thread saying "don't add kill cam!"

If they want that feature added, it wil be added. This goes for vehicle animations, instantly boarding the vehicle and other things.

Sucks, but that is just the way it is.

I wonder if that's true...I wonder if nothing in PS2 has been decided based on the community response here?

Things like boarding animations and holstering weapons weren't included for time/performance reasons. It's much harder to implement a load of boarding animations than it is to not implement a kill cam.

Sabrak · 2012-01-31, 08:54 AM

I actually don't see the point of having a KillCam in Planetside (and so probably in PS2).
If you got killed, it's because you were out of cover, or in the middle of a big battle.

In both case, who killed you doesn't matter, because even if KillCam shows you Mr-X, it could very well have been Ms-Y or Grampa-Z, out in that hundreds VS hundreds battle.

And if you got shot by a lone sniper/shooter in a little skirmish or in a ambush, you're not supposed to know where it came from, for the sake of immersion.

CutterJohn · 2012-01-31, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by Vancha

In Planetside, I mainly tree sniped or tried to flank the enemy. Them knowing simply which side of them I was on could well have ruined my day.

Now granted, PS2 terrain looks to be on a bigger scale, but if I've just spent a load of time scaling a mountain undetected and sniping people who aren't looking in my direction, the one thing I don't want them to do is figure out they're being shot from above and to their left instead of from the direction of the enemy.

What about the hit indicators and tracers?

Any time I tried sniping from places other than the zerg front I'd get return fire within a minute. Often much less.

Any time I killed someone as a cloaker they were able to get a shot off at me, or at least turn to face me before they remembered they had their glue gun. Except phoenix pilots, ofc.

I fear you're worrying about giving away information you'll already be giving away.

Originally Posted by Vancha

I wonder if that's true...I wonder if nothing in PS2 has been decided based on the community response here?

Things like boarding animations and holstering weapons weren't included for time/performance reasons. It's much harder to implement a load of boarding animations than it is to not implement a kill cam.

I'm sure they've taken some of it under advisement, and i believe higby really did ask about the possibility of vehicle animations. But this is a tiny, vocally fanatic community. Merely being here means you love PS1. A lot. They don't have to worry about you not playing ps2.. They have to worry about the millions of other people they want playing PS2.

Vancha · 2012-01-31, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

What about the hit indicators and tracers?

Any time I tried sniping from places other than the zerg front I'd get return fire within a minute. Often much less.

People very rarely seemed to pay attention to hit indicators. The vast majority of people you'd hit and not kill would act like they'd been shot from the direction of the enemy. As for the tracers, you'd make sure as far as possible that people near the target didn't see them (again, people rarely seemed to pay attention to tracers that weren't in their immediate vicinity).

Knocky · 2012-01-31, 09:28 AM

I do not see what the big deal is.

In PS, you know the direction the sniper shot came from when it hits you. Those around you see the tracer and know where the sniper is.

If snipers piss me off enough, I simply cloak up, grab the wraith, and go own some snipers.

Vancha · 2012-01-31, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by Knocky

I do not see what the big deal is.

In PS, you know the direction the sniper shot came from when it hits you. Those around you see the tracer and know where the sniper is.

If snipers piss me off enough, I simply cloak up, grab the wraith, and go own some snipers.

Knocky · 2012-01-31, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by Vancha

Yes I know....however I think we will have to agree to disagree.

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