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Controllers are good for FPS games, especially on PC, and we have to stop pretending like they’re not
(self.unpopularopinion)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Unpopular Opinion
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They're decent, now. But absolute position will never be an ideal fit for controls that change velocity.
Joysticks are relative inputs. Excellent for steering, and other continuous fine movements, over time. But aiming is about landing on a specific target angle. With a mouse, that is one motion, mapped from position to position. With a joystick, you have to accelerate in that direction, wait some specific fraction of a second, and then decelerate. Even letting go of the stick won't stop at that instant.
Here's an unpopular opinion:
Shooters shouldn't require aiming.
Not every FPS needs to be about "aim duels." Counterstrike and so on will never change, but that model doesn't have to be universal. Any FPS that's not explicitly about precision sniping or snap reflexes can instead focus on positioning, situational awareness, and decision-making. If you hear an enemy coming and wait behind a corner... your actual cursor position and button timing does not have to matter. The game can say yeah, you saw that guy's backside near center-frame for an entire second, of course you shot him.
Being five pixels off from a guy you had dead-to-rights, only to see him whip around and be better at clicking on you, is not a measure of tactical skill. We've wildly overvalued that one input as a deciding factor. Just being good at aiming is a dominant strategy.
Famously, one Counterstrike clan joined an America's Army tournament, having never played America's Army. They came in second. They had no idea how the objectives worked. They had no strategy. They just bounced into carefully-guarded rooms and clicked on heads. One redditor compared it to fighting the SS in WW2, "due to their culture of extreme violence, their strong nationalistic views, and being off their tits on meth."
Those magnificent jackasses were only denied first because every other team got together to strategize for the final match. When it takes that kind of meta to deal with people who only understand one part of the game... maybe that part needs adjusting.
Even Counterstrike tries. You have to come to a dead stop to have full accuracy. It's just implemented in such a 90s way (even now) that players learn to wait exactly umpteen milliseconds before popping someone's head from five hundred paces.
So picture, as an off-the-cuff proposal, a gigantic circular crosshair. It doesn't get smaller. It gets brighter. The longer you aim in one direction, standing still, the more likely you are to hit whateverthefuck comes into that region you're covering. Possibly assigning different face buttons to any target you can plainly see. Gentle motions - the kind joysticks make dead easy - won't diminish that accuracy by much. Running or whipping around will break it almost instantly. You can still fire, but you're just throwing lead in that general direction. If you've got a shotgun in close quarters, that can be enough, but even keyboard controls can make shotguns work.
America's Army was hardly a deeply strategic game, it makes sense some people from CS could stomp over most. CS is just the perfect shooter for refining aim, awareness and reaction times, some skills that will translate massively into other shooters, that's never going to change. Aim won't take you all the way in some games though, I think Squad would be a good example, if the teams are balanced with people who know how to play then aim isn't giving you much of an advantage.
I was GE in CSGO, lvl 10 faceit, whatever, but I don't have the best aim, I just knew what angles to hold, when to mix things up, I could read the game really well and it took me far, when I pick up new shooters I am looking forward to the additional gameplay, not having to relearn some gimped basics because someone decided they wanted grandpa joe on his controller to be able to play at the same level as someone with years of FPS experience.
It's not the mechanics of shooters that are the problem, it's the trainability of humans. People who enjoy shooters are not going to enjoy a shooter that tries it's hardest to take the skill out of it.
That is explicitly what I am suggesting could change. It's optional. Everything is optional. Games can be whatever you want.
To pick one clear example, headshots do not have to matter. Position-based damage is a neat trick ostensibly based in realism. Games do not require realism. It's not real. Quake 2 deathmatch was no less railgun-friendly just because every player had exactly one hitbox.
Yeah it'd be awful if all he brought was knowing what angles to hold, when to mix things up, how to read the game really well... what?
People who only enjoy shooters because of clicking on heads are spoiled for choice. People who were trained more for strategy and prediction are routinely fucked over by adderall-fueled flick-shots from people who demand every shooter cater to their existing skillset. Usually by insisting that other skills do not exist, since anything short of instagib from across the map "takes the skill out of it."
I don't understand where the headshot thing came from? No headshots, high hp is all fine, these are used mechanics in lots of games. What you were suggesting is taking any skill out of the actual shooting from a shooter, correct? And I was trying to explain how that would not appeal to most FPS players.
Then "most FPS players" have ten thousand other choices.
Nevermind that holding an angle is already a matter of skill in shooting that massively reduces the importance of rapid or accurate aim. As is removing the importance of a smaller, harder-to-hit box at the top of the model. If you're fine with a game not having headshots - if that doesn't make it an idiot-proof game for babies - then you understand there are skills in shooting beyond clicking the right pixel faster.
I explained that I understand there is more to FPS than 'shooting beyond clicking the right pixel faster', what you are failing to understand is that people who can still flick and track better are still going to have a baseline advantage from the start in FPS, that's the nature of the genre. Taking away skill from that will result in a dead game, people like working to improve and if everyone can aim as well as each other from the start, then the game wont be very appealing to fans of the genre. I already gave you an example of a more strategic shooter, but any shooter when played at a high level becomes less about aim and very strategic. If you think Counter-Strike is just about them fancy flickshots you are horribly misinformed, the strategy in that game goes very deep and game sense carries you insanely far.
There's games like Overwatch, it's an FPS, it has your standard guns, but it also has other characters where aim isnt as important, people who dont want to aim can play those characters and still be effective. Will the players with faster aim, reactions, crosshair placement and tracking still come out on top? Yes, of course, because that is what FPS games are about, the shooting.
It sounds like you want to play FPS games at a higher level, but you are not at that level and you are not prepared to put the time or effort in to practice. Or maybe you did, but you never got anywhere... I dont know, but the genre isnt going to change. There's already lots first-person games out there without guns or the emphasis on shooting for you to enjoy.
'I'm not saying aim is all there is, I'm just saying aim is all that matters.'
'If you disagree you must suck at aiming.'
Thanks for demonstrating the problem, at least. You can outright say that once everyone is super-duper good at aiming, high-level play takes it for granted and becomes about strategy... but you cannot imagine a game skipping ahead to that. Or you insist most FPS players would gag. Like if a game had any automatic assistance then it might as well use swords.
Have you looked at console FPS sales, lately? Or in the last fifteen years?
How are Unreal Tournament servers, these days? Full? Millions of people online? How's Quake Live doing? Because arena shooters were the pinnacle of what you think shooting means, and last I checked they're stone dead.
You are just completely ignoring all points I make and instead cherry picking words to fit your preconceived notions and then attempting to argue the same point over and over, so this conversation won't go anywhere, I can't be bothered going in circles again. I do hope one day you find the game you are looking for.
I don't think you listen to yourself.
What are games built more on strategy/ tactics vs accuracy? (Ideally that you can single player)
Arguably any game where "prefiring" is a thing. Rainbow Six: Siege is primarily about not getting shot by someone you didn't see and not running into an angle someone's holding.
But Siege is still a game where a noob with an aimbot might ace a team of experts. The near-instant lethality in that game is what allows the second-stupidest kind of aim duel, where you can get the drop on someone, spray bullets around them, and still die when they slooowly turn around and nail you with one shot. (The absolute stupidest kind is where you can land all your shots and they still turn around and kill you first. Lookin' at you, The Division.)