IMO KillCam killing the Game

[WaryWizard]

Originally Posted by Hmr85

My next thing. This is not a 32 vs 32 game. Camping is an extremely effective strategy in PS. Its one of the only games where its really rewarded. Where not talking CS or UT here where its Death Match and people are freaking out because Barnster1337 managed to find the one spot on the level where everybody has to come straight at him. Its can be hard to move around when you have 100+ other players mowing each other down around you. A lot of snipers in PS1 hardly moved at all.

If you spend a lot of time to get a good vantage point. The first kill should not give you away. What should give you away is someone following your tracer, and if your good you can keep that from happening with good timing.

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by arclegger

With a game that has as many players as Planetside 2 will.

The odds of you killing someone and the following happens:
They see your killcam/position
They wait to respawn (most likely not exactly at the same spot they died)
They find you (how this happens again is beyond me, enough time has passed that I guarantee you're not in the same position anymore where the player first saw you on the killcam)
That same person kills you because they saw your killcam.

All that happens before you die yourself, or they die again.

The server pop must be incredibly low.

Also, if I die and I see a killcam of 1 guy but the reason I died is because it was a huge 20v20 infantry standoff I don't see how the killcam ruins the game?

For the snipers, I love kill cams if I'm a sniper. I can kill a guy, then go and find a new spot. That guy sees my kill cam and tries to find me at the same spot and I kill him again because I moved 20 yards. Rinse Repeat.

In My Opinion the origin of the killcam into fps games was to get rid of campers (nobody liked campers in the old fps days). Now designers use it to help them flesh out hackers, help new players, and give insight to an experienced player as to why he died. It's not there to break immersion and mess up the guy who's getting the kills.

For the record I'm not in charge of what happens when it comes to killcam, I'm just throwing in my perspective as a player/lover of fps games. I'm for the killcam, but that's just me.

Camping isn't a big deal in Planetside. In the original it only got frustrating with 3rd person wall hugging, otherwise it was fine.

And the issue isn't the person that spotted you coming back to kill you. It's him having free intel and telling everyone on his side what he saw when he was in killcam.

[General M]

killcam would be bad, stick with the body cam.

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by arclegger

The odds of you killing someone and the following happens:
They see your killcam/position
They wait to respawn (most likely not exactly at the same spot they died)
They find you (how this happens again is beyond me, enough time has passed that I guarantee you're not in the same position anymore where the player first saw you on the killcam)

This isnt 1vs1. This will happen:

You kill me, i see killcam/position.
Im telling squad where you are - they start shooting at you.
Im ressed by squad, and go kill you.

In that short time you have very little time to relocate, especially when others shoot at you to suppress you in cover.

[VioletZero]

Hating something because it was in Call of Duty

Mounds of essay long responses.

This forum can be quite predictable.

That said, I like Killcam. It's a fantastic tool for getting better at the game and it encourages people to move around. Definitely not a bad thing.

[IceyCold]

Although I am against Killcams,; they can serve an extremely valuable purpose for another huge issue that people have been screaming about on these boards:

Hackers

If you have a killcam that shows the moment you were killed and notice that they weren't even aiming at you, or watching you through a wall, or suddenly turned to shoot you while cloaked with no visible clue to give you away; then chances are they are doing something.

That all said, I would rather not have them. Although Higby has said in either a video or a post that they are looking into an implant players can get that prevents you from watching a killcam on them, or something along those lines. They DO seem to understand that for cloakers and snipers that Killcams are an issue.

[VioletZero]

I remember that the reason they're not putting in Bombers or Artillery at the start was because it is not fun to just get killed out of nowhere with no way to defend yourself. And as much as I love Artillery and Bombers, that's a sentiment I agree with. And the same logic applies to cloaking snipers.

Killcam could essentially be the balancing factor for cloaking snipers. So that they can't just sit on a mountain somewhere capping people. Now they have to move around between kills to be as unpredictable as possible.

[Gortha]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I don't like the idea of killcams but I will wait to see what it plays like.

It would be cool if you could disable killcams of yourself in the options.. course then everyone would have that toggled off.

haha, Hamma

Why then put time into developing it!?

[Graywolves]

No way of dieing is a fun way.



The problem with killcams is the intelligence of the battlefield it gives to someone. It's like going "oh you died, lawl. To feel better have a look at where this guy is and everything around him."


I really don't want every dead person to call out in broadcast or local or w.e "There's a sniper at H12 on the hill in a tree! Go kill him!" or "They have a Galaxy tucked away over here, I know because I died 3 grids away from a sniper and saw it in killcam!"

[Gortha]

Originally Posted by WaryWizard

How does a kill cam help people learn? Seriously. I cannot fathom a SINGLE instance in which it helps. Someone please tell me how a kill cam is useful in ANY game type other than a 15 min 16vs16 match. I'll try and think of some right now

I am walking down a hallway. There is a door that leads to a somewhat open alleyway. I have a choice of going left or right. I look both ways, and it all seems clear. I decide to go left. After about a second I die. The kill cam shows an enemy walking down an alleyway and turning right. He sees me with my back facing him, and shoots. What did I learn? I should have gone right instead?

I am outside. There are bushes and trees. I am looking around for enemies as I advance. Bullets fly from a bush and I die. The kill cam shows an enemy hiding in a bush that clearly saw me and killed me. What did I learn? Should I shoot every bush I come across now?

I see an enemy running in my direction. I go to shoot, but he makes a sudden movement to the right. My bullet misses by inches, and he opens fire. My gun has a lower rate of fire, and I die. What did I learn? Don't miss?

What have I ever learned from a kill cam that has made me better? Nothing. I knew everything that the kill cam shows. I didn't notice him hiding. I wasn't looking in his direction. I have bad aim. What, is, there, to, learn?

Wow, very good @ WaryWizard.

All a KillCam is good for is to benefit stupid, lazy players with intel they wont have without it.
They know your location, eventually there are even more of your mates to see on the kill cam view.
They also know your equip, your armor, your weapons...
Next they tell all this free Intel their Outfit...

That just idiotic.

I can not understand why some guys like KillCams.

What´s the benfit of it, gameplaywise? Where do u learn?

@SOE
Please save us from the Feature! Please!

[VioletZero]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

No way of dieing is a fun way.



The problem with killcams is the intelligence of the battlefield it gives to someone. It's like going "oh you died, lawl. To feel better have a look at where this guy is and everything around him."


I really don't want every dead person to call out in broadcast or local or w.e "There's a sniper at H12 on the hill in a tree! Go kill him!" or "They have a Galaxy tucked away over here, I know because I died 3 grids away from a sniper and saw it in killcam!"

Maybe this is just me, but there is such a thing as a good death.

Not just talking about suicide runs either. A good kind of death is one where you can immediately realize the problem or get some more information out of it.

With the way that the battlefield will be constantly changing, the best way to fix that issue is just to turn off in game chat for people who died. Then this won't be nearly as much of an issue.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Before I go into kill cams I want to spare some words for immersion. Cyssor doesn't feel like a map, it feels like a place. Immersion is how a game tricks us to not think about how it isn't like reality. The difference between God Of War 2 and Xenosaga is that I find GoW more immersive because the characters act and talk like humans and stay true to their personalities even in more mundane tasks. It's like an on-stage play. Xenosaga's characters will just as often tell you what they're feeling which is something no human does. (Try imagining Kratos saying "I AM REALLY ANGRY NOW!" it's nonsensical as he expresses himself through actions not words.)

So what does that have to do with Planetside? As I said immersion is the way a game tricks you into believing it. The best way it does this is through your character and by creating and adhering to an internal logic. To me kill cams and spawning with your equipment in hand are both violations of planetside's internal logic of a war. No vehicle entering animations are a violation of the character. What must be sacrificed for gameplay or logistics must be sacrificed but it takes away from the believability and urgency of the game.

tl;dr: Immersion is hard.

Kill cams. I played on BF2 and CoD4 servers that have it off just because it ruins any chance of sniping for longer than 1-2 kills from a single hard to reach vantage point regardless of distance. This makes me quite biased against it but I recognize that it does help in smoothing out the learning curve and exposing hackers. For example, it helped me learn that MW2 was a bad game and has since saved me quite a bit of money. But these are games where the majority of killing happens inside close distance (~40m). So this gave me the idea for a potential fix.

Don't have kill cam past a certain range.

This will take care of your desire for learning/hacker detection and leave snipers alone. I'd also not have remote explosives cause kill cams which follows the internal logic of needing the killer nearby for them to work. Cloakers would also be immune for logical reasons. This could be justified by saying that implants hijack near by enemy's vision on death for a tactical survey.

[Figment]

@Arclegger: look what you did, now you got them all focusing on the blue texts! xD

That there are 500 other people to fight only matters if you are confronted with 500 other people at the same time and have to pick out that particular person. We're however not playing memory and if you only face 5-25 people (which will happen), then such information is a lot more valuable.

However, even in a base siege of PS1, if I know a cloaker is around merely through killspam, I'll start a search, people switch on dark light. If someone who died can tell you exactly how this person did this, from which spot, then by the time he tells you over teamspeak, that guy is only a few seconds from that position. Provided he had a chance to move undetected at all.

Teamspeak: "Cloaker, top east base stairs to wall" -> DL and correct angle -> Kill. Instead of "Cloaker, somewhere near east wall" -> DL search bottom and top + surrounding area" -> cloaker has a few seconds more to gain new situational awareness, check if he/she's been spotted and plan an escape.


What I'd personally be more annoyed with though is that people would learn my infil tricks by accidentally seeing them on cam and start expecting them once they know I'm in the killzone. Though a bit rusty, I still quite able to misguide enemies in thinking I went in direction A, while I went to sit in B. Next time they know I might be the one inside, they may not fall for some tricks. That's really something they shouldn't have learned by peaking over my shoulder, but from experience.

I wouldn't want them to know typical safe spots from where I start an approach on them either, because they'd start checking them. And frankly, if they don't do so on their own, they don't deserve to flush me out.


Thing is, I think most people don't want the game to do too much for the player. Intel gathering is one of those things.

A non cam related, but computer assistance related annoyance from World of Tanks is the computer doing the scouting for the player. It is killer on flanking moves as strategy when the computer spots you through spotting rules, it puts a big marker over your head and you on radar for their entire enemy team to see. Whether or not someone had actually noticed you yet. You immediately get targeted by the entire enemy team, who usualy instantly hit you as they got computer assisted aim (little personal skill involved). That doesn't encourage players to become better and sharper, quite the opposite.

Computer assistance for players always impacts gameplay somewhat in the sense it makes things easier for someone. That usualy makes that person lazier and more reliant on the pc. The same is true for intel gathering. Hence I'd go with the least intel providing kill cam myself, though I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it would any particular type of cam be used.



Btw, I wouldn't mind someone having to give up an implantslot for killcam. I would mind if you would need to give up a slot for killcam obscuring. Personally though I'd prefer the rule: not spotted by player or his buddies: no chance of cam.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by VioletZero

Hating something because it was in Call of Duty

Mounds of essay long responses.

This forum can be quite predictable.

That said, I like Killcam. It's a fantastic tool for getting better at the game and it encourages people to move around. Definitely not a bad thing.

I hate to be "that guy", but aren't you the person who hasn't played Planetside?

Sniping in Planetside was good because it wasn't the insta-gib quick-scoping twitch-shooting sniping of CS, CoD etc. It was the patient hunter. It was about getting into the right position, selecting the right targets and waiting for the right time to take the shot.

Now maybe sniping in PS2 will consist of rushing around, getting quick-scope and no-scope headshots at ranges far closer than a sniper should ever be (20 yards?), in which case yeah, killcams probably won't be a problem.

[VioletZero]

One of the best things about killcam is that it does give away the enemy position of the person who killed them. So that they aren't constantly dying to someone on a mountain somewhere.

This keeps the battles changing and forces people to adapt.

It's more fun to be able to retaliate without having to waste time looking for someone on a mountain somewhere just capping people without threat of being spotted.