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

[Timealude]

I dont see how adding a kill cam would help. You can die from pretty much anything in this game. If you get killed by someone with a shotgun, most likely they are moving and you couldnt have prevented it anyways.

[Ghoest9]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

TBH, I expected to be completely verbally slaughtered at this point but I've yet to make a decent argument for this highly unpopular point of view.

I fixed that for you so that its truthful now.

[Wahooo]

We should also probably have the IFF's on all the time rather than spotting. That would help new players. OH, we should also have the IFF indicators visible through walls that would also help new players. OH OH OH... also the hit arc that we already have, should turn yellow if an enemy's gun is pointed at you.

Yeah... a little trolling but as far as i'm concerned not any different than kill cams.

[BlaxicanX]

Kill-cams aren't necessary because this isn't an arena shooter where killing individual people matters. You're walking down the road, your head explodes, the kill-cam shows that the guy who shot you is hiding in the cliffs above. Okay. Who cares? He's just one guy out of a hundred enemies in that base. You won't even have time to get a vendetta against that guy because you'll be too busy getting killed by his 50 allies who are right in your face. Even if you did have the time to hunt this lone camper, the chances are that he'll have either moved or have been killed by YOUR 50 allies by the the time you've respawned anyway. It's hard to be "sneaky" in planetside because 1. almost all of your shots are tracers, meaning any shot you make is going to be seen by 20 enemies , and 2. every shot you make paints you on the radar. So if you cap one guy from a distance, congratulations, there's three enemy infiltrators aiming at you now.

It's a pointless mechanic for this game.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by Memeotis

Maybe have a kill-cam from level 1-15? After which it disables permanently.

I could actually live with this idea as a compromise. I would make it level 1-20 though (or one weekend of intensive playing). The game still needs a way better death screen for everybody though. I personally liked the BF3 screen.

Originally Posted by GreyFrog

Farming is a problem that Kill Cam won't solve.

Camping is a problem that Kill Cam won't solve.

For farming however, it becomes a risk vs reward game. You can rack up kills from your Prowler on that hill, overlooking that enemy Sunderer, but you know that if you don't stay mobile and move to another camping spot, you're going to be hunted down.

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

Kill-cams aren't necessary because this isn't an arena shooter where killing individual people matters. You're walking down the road, your head explodes, the kill-cam shows that the guy who shot you is hiding in the cliffs above. Okay. Who cares? He's just one guy out of a hundred enemies in that base. You won't even have time to get a vendetta against that guy because you'll be too busy getting killed by his 50 allies who are right in your face. Even if you did have the time to hunt this lone camper, the chances are that he'll have either moved or have been killed by YOUR 50 allies by the the time you've respawned anyway. It's hard to be "sneaky" in planetside because 1. almost all of your shots are tracers, meaning any shot you make is going to be seen by 20 enemies , and 2. every shot you make paints you on the radar. So if you cap one guy from a distance, congratulations, there's three enemy infiltrators aiming at you now.

It's a pointless mechanic for this game.

Kill-Cam is not meant as a personal vendetta machine because in that case you are correct. Kill-cam is meant as a personal awareness and feedback tool, giving you answers on those typical "What the hell killed me?" - situations, so you can learn from your mistakes. And for that, it is extremely useful.

Originally Posted by Taramafor

So basically you're saying that the answer to zergs is a killcam?

I never mentioned zergs.

I mentioned kill-cam as a tool:

• to bridge the ever increasing skill gap, allowing players to learn from enemy:
  • techniques
  • tactics
  • positioning
• to discourage farming

As a bonus, it helps against cheaters as well.

Perhaps in smaller fights but why should every side be known where they are to the enemy if they find a good spot to get the drop and keep the enemy unaware of numbers in the area? A small squad can appear to be an army. Result of known numbers that appear to be more? Intimidation factor lost and other side storms in no longer afraid of being swarmed. It favors the attackers more then defenders and defending HAS to be done in this game at times.

Bogus arguments, seriously. Everybody can already look at the map and get an estimation about how many enemies are in an area. Kill-cam won't change that.

If you want an idea of how many people there are in a building and want to know the locations then that's what the dart gun is for. Use it. Speaking of which, a killcam would make that less useful so another reason not to add it.

Not true. Kill-cam is a time stamp, after which the enemy has probably already moved. A dart gun however, sensors player movement which is a whole lot different. Btw, if you want to stay undetected as a team in a building, you should not be shooting from that building in the first place.

The way you argue your case is "look at who killed you. See their class. Know EXACTLY why you died" but we already get that. The only thing we don't see is the location and you want to be lazy and not make the effort to look for who killed you?

Kill-cam is not about looking for who killed you. As said above, it's pointless as a personal vendetta machine. It's about giving away positions so you learn about camping spots and force the enemy to move to another camping spot after a kill.

[Taramafor]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

I never mentioned zergs.

"farm fest" implies zergs does it not?

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Bogus arguments, seriously. Everybody can already look at the map and get an estimation about how many enemies are in an area. Kill-cam won't change that.

As I said before, there's a difference between an estimation and constantly knowing. All you got to do with a kill cam is send someone into the building to know what's inside and where.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Not true. Kill-cam is a time stamp, after which the enemy has probably already moved. A dart gun however, sensors player movement which is a whole lot different. Btw, if you want to stay undetected as a team in a building, you should not be shooting from that building in the first place.

See above. Only instead of once it's used over and over and over. Never worry about dart gun ammo again.

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Kill-cam is not about looking for who killed you. As said above, it's pointless as a personal vendetta machine. It's about giving away positions so you learn about camping spots and force the enemy to move to another camping spot after a kill.

Your only argument so far is to discourage sniping. You seem to think that adding kill cam will make them move. It won't. They're likely already moving anyway (if not in a tower). Besides, anyone with half a brain knows good sniping spots. Behind cover or high up, preferably both. Is it really so difficult for new players to understand that that we need to add a kill cam?

Other then knowing the location of someone that sniped you, what does kill cam have to offer? You got shot down by aircraft? Well, guess you didn't look up. Tank round? Obviously on the ground nearby somewhere. No wait, with kill cam I can see it's just gone behind that rock and I hadn't seen it when it fired. I now know where to flank the bugger.

Yea, I don't see this working.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Kill-cam is not about looking for who killed you. As said above, it's pointless as a personal vendetta machine. It's about giving away positions so you learn about camping spots and force the enemy to move to another camping spot after a kill.

What? You started saying it was as a tool for new players, but here it is what you are REALLY talking about is that you don't like a play style and would like to punish those players.

Slow clap...

time to move on.

[Canaris]

I think bro as you can see from the cross sample of players here on PS-U the killcam ain't popular and wouldn't get a very warm reception if this mini tsunami of hate is anything to go by

Got to say I'm not a fan of them either and I was rather vocal in their removal during development. I just don't think they benefit a game like PS2.

[Shamrock]

I'm totally against the idea of kill cams, but I would welcome a temporary one from level 1 to 10 so new players would have a slight crutch helping them transition into the game.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by Taramafor

"farm fest" implies zergs does it not?

Farming is not the same as zerging, you should know that by now.

As I said before, there's a difference between an estimation and constantly knowing. All you got to do with a kill cam is send someone into the building to know what's inside and where.

Knowing exactly what's inside a building you can already do without a kill-cam: Just go to a building and look inside.

See above. Only instead of once it's used over and over and over. Never worry about dart gun ammo again.

For that you need to keep dying again and again but here you actually do have a point for a possible exploit with a kill-cam. You could have your team mate constantly heal while you die over and over again to constantly give situational updates.

Not sure if that would be a game breaker though. Don't forget that UAV's are already in the making, which do exactly the same without the cumbersome dying.

Also, there are many ways to implement kill-cams. Everybody is assuming in this discussion that a kill-cam would completely give a way the surroundings of an enemy that shot you, revealing Sunderers, numbers of enemy in a building, etc. etc. This doesn't need to be the case. You can implement a kill-cam in a way that it only reveals the single person shooting.

Your only argument so far is to discourage sniping.

My argument is to discourage farming which is not the same as sniping as you know

You seem to think that adding kill cam will make them move. It won't. They're likely already moving anyway (if not in a tower). Besides, anyone with half a brain knows good sniping spots. Behind cover or high up, preferably both. Is it really so difficult for new players to understand that that we need to add a kill cam?

Other then knowing the location of someone that sniped you, what does kill cam have to offer? You got shot down by aircraft? Well, guess you didn't look up. Tank round? Obviously on the ground nearby somewhere. No wait, with kill cam I can see it's just gone behind that rock and I hadn't seen it when it fired. I now know where to flank the bugger.

You make it all sound like it's dead easy to figure out what and how you got killed but many times it's really not, especially as a new player. This game is too chaotic and vertical for that.

Originally Posted by Wahooo

What? You started saying it was as a tool for new players, but here it is what you are REALLY talking about is that you don't like a play style and would like to punish those players.

Discouraging farming is a good thing in my book but other than that kill-cam is not about punishing play styles. You can still farm whatever you want, only now there's a risk attached to it.

Originally Posted by Canaris

I think bro as you can see from the cross sample of players here on PS-U the killcam ain't popular and wouldn't get a very warm reception if this mini tsunami of hate is anything to go by

I wasn't expecting to win a popularity contest here.

Going to hardcore fps forum and proposing a newbie friendly COD feature is like praying for Jesus in a mosque. That doesn't mean we should steer away from the issue that this game is becoming ever more newbie unfriendly and that this is a problem for hardcore players as well.

[Gatekeeper]

I'm in favour of some form of kill cam overall. So, I've tried to summarise common objections to kill cams below, and then provide some counter-arguments, or ways of minimising these problems:

1) It would prevent snipers being effective by revealing their location.

As people have already pointed out at length in this thread, experienced players tend to have good situational awareness, and often being killed by a sniper (or seeing a team-mate die to one) is enough to give away the sniper's rough position. That doesn't make sniping obsolete, because the important part is getting the shot. After that, maybe you displace, maybe you just rely on the battlefield being too busy/dangerous for them to come get you, or maybe you just bet that you (or your buddies) will kill them if they do. Or maybe you're just somewhere they can't get to. Whatever.

The point being that snipers are never really completely hidden after they fire their first shot, and if the kill-cam is implemented in a careful way (revealing rough direction the shot came from, for example - rather than exact position) then it would help new players know where death is coming from, but wouldn't really change much else.

2) It would reveal exact numbers and disposition of enemy forces, especially at key locations like AMS Sunderers, choke-points or capture points.

Instead of a kill-cam that shows the exact position and surroundings of your killer, we could have a system where the camera just rotates towards them (perhaps with a small zoom), or maybe a 'victim cam' that shows you your last few seconds of life in slow-mo, and gives you a chance to see the shots coming in, or the mine you stepped on. Maybe both? Maybe an option? (which would let people just turn it off if they find it annoying).

Point is, if there's a problem with traditional kill-cams, that doesn't mean we can't add something to help new players learn the ropes.

3) As a veteran, I don't need a kill cam.

Although veterans would benefit less from a kill-cam, this isn't really an argument against them. If you can be found by veterans anyway, but new players will fall prey to you over and over, then all you're really doing is preying on the weak - and making their experience with the game a hell of a lot less fun in the process.

Is this the community we want to be? A bunch of veterans hiding in hard-to-find nooks, farming noobs and chuckling to ourselves about how clever we are as we drive them to other games?

4) It would reduce the game's skill ceiling.

While situational awareness and stealth are key skills in PS2, this wouldn't eliminate them (especially if the kill-cam is present in some limited form, as suggested above). Knowing (roughly) where the enemy was after you die is a world away from spotting them before they kill you.

Also, forcing ambushers and campers to displace or defend themselves more often just makes these more challenging, skilful tactics for veterans to employ. And doesn't it make sense for the skill burden to rest with us, rather than with new players?

5) The game is so easy to learn that there's simply no need to help new players.

If you think that, you're kidding yourself. Even if you found it easy to learn, a lot of players really don't. PS2 is a complicated game - try talking a new player through it some time, and you'll probably see what I mean. As veterans we should be finding ways of bringing new players in to the game, helping them to learn it and encouraging them to stay. Being elitist about it is ultimately self-defeating.

6) The game needs veteran players more than it needs new players, so helping new players at the expense of veterans is a bad idea.

We're all here because we came through those early battles and kept going, so we've all learned how the game works and we don't need help any more. But for every veteran PS2 player, there are several who tried it and found it confusing and frustrating and ultimately gave up. As we saw in PS1, whittling the population down little by little to an ultra-elite hard-core of veterans is not good for the game. We need fresh blood! Every multi-player game does.

Sure, lets not make changes that will drive off veterans in droves - but if we can come up with a compromise that makes the game less intimidating/frustrating for new players without ruining things for vets, then that's got to be a good idea.

tl;dr - Helping new players is good for everyone, so let's come up with a compromise solution that helps new players but doesn't ruin the game for vets.

[PredatorFour]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Camping is a problem that Kill Cam won't solve.

Are you for real ?????? Saying camping is a problem in an arena shooter i can perfectly understand but in a shooter where there is objectives on a massive scale?? It's insane to say camping is a problem in planetside!

"oh look at them campers holding the objective! We need to change that!" ..or
"look at them campers holding that bottleneck stopping our massive TR zerg from going through!"

It's like going back in time and assaulting a castle...."stop camping the walls we can't get in!"

Like someone said earlier this is a troll thread, i'm out!

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by Gatekeeper

6) The game needs veteran players more than it needs new players, so helping new players at the expense of veterans is a bad idea.

I truly wish more people realized this.

Besides the transition from noob to veteran is not that hard and goes very fast if people better understood the value of joining established Outfits in the game. So if any one whats to do something to help the noobs help them organize. No game mech in the world can be better then players helping players to learn the game.

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

Are you for real ?????? Saying camping is a problem in an arena shooter i can perfectly understand but in a shooter where there is objectives on a massive scale?? It's insane to say camping is a problem in planetside!

"oh look at them campers holding the objective! We need to change that!" ..or
"look at them campers holding that bottleneck stopping our massive TR zerg from going through!"

It's like going back in time and assaulting a castle...."stop camping the walls we can't get in!"

Like someone said earlier this is a troll thread, i'm out!

Yea those that seriously QQ over campers in PS2 have no fucking clue what they are talking about. I even wonder if any one can talk about sad topic with a strait face.

PS: Every game is not for every one. If we try to make every game likable by every one we will just end up making games that no one likes. So keep the kill-cam out of PS2 because we who play it does not like it and the reality is that value of it is very small to newbs anway.

[Roderick]

I have never been a supporter of the kill cam. It always reveals more than it ever should and just takes the "covert" experience out of an FPS game.

[Dragonskin]

This game needs kill cams as badly as it needs aimbot hackers.