Projectiles vs Hitscan

Most shooters aren't as big map-wise. If I'm playing on a 20x20 meter map, projectile and hitscan bullets will hit their targets at about the same time anyway. Hitscan is obviously easier for devs to implement, so it's the go to.

What would games like Overwatch or CSGO or Siege get as a benefit for having projectile bullets?

>>381527564
Depends on the game yeah but I genereally prefer projectiles.

I dont think games like teamfortress two would have been improved with projectile bullets

>>381527564
hitscan is a vastly inferior tech that only exists because of technical limitations in the 90's
there is literally no reason for it to exist

>>381527817
Even a tiny bit of travel time will force the player to lead the target even if just by a little. If they are aiming at a small weak point (like a head) then it becomes even more important. If the game provides characters and abilities which push them over a certain threshold of speed, it becomes possible or even partially meta to use these characters in melee combat, increasing gameplay variety without making them just flat out temporarily invincible to enemy fire.

Battlefield uses relatively slow projectiles but it would still play great if they all had realistic velocities.

>>381528190
>only exists because of technical limitations in the 90's

Why are you talking out your ass? Fucking Battlezone was first person and had projectile based weapons in 1980.

Of all the landmark classic FPS titles in the 90s, Wolfenstein 3D is literally the only one that didn't have at least one projectile based weapon.

>>381527817

Overwatch has a lot of projectile based weapons too tho.

>>381527817
Most non-melee attacks in Overwatch are projectiles the fuck are you smoking?

>>381527564
I like projectile the most, but that's not to say the other ones can't be fun all the time. Gravity is better with things like bows for instance.

>>381528190
Fancy bullet ballistic systems are really just a hitscan that takes place over more than one update with some simple trajectory math.

Hitscan exists because it's got an arcadey appeal to it. Aim shot perfectly in real time, click, dead. Small maps on arena shooters and such also mean it wouldn't make much difference either way.

Hitscan has a place and bullet trajectory has a place. For example Call of Duty wouldn't really gain anything if there was bullet trajectory and it would just make the game feel less tight since it's so fast paced and CQB, but if Battlefield used pure hitscan then snipers would be absolutely busted.

>>381529235
There are plenty of COD maps which are big enough for projectiles to make a difference, especially back in Ghosts which was a real outlier.

SMGs in the franchise were extremely over represented (again except for Ghosts) because they are only slightly worse than rifles at most distances and usually objectively superior up close. If COD introduced projectile velocities and set SMGs significantly lower than ARs and co., their role would be much better constrained. It would also become easier to add more weapons, more variants within the SMG class with less risk of stepping on the other weapon class roles because of this inherent defining class weakness.

I believe this effect is called "adding more gameplay levers" to help adjust game balance.

>>381527564
A good game had a variety and balances them accordingly. In arena shooters (the best fpses) hitscan is weak but accurate (or require headshots to do good damage) and projectiles hit hard but you have to predict.

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>>381527564
Why not have all three?

>>381530146
>Why not have all three?
You need to be careful or you end up like Tribes Ascend.

>>381527564
I love the Stalker games as it allows me to watch the sub-sonic bullet travel and fall.

>>381528190
Hitscan still works well for sci-fi weapons

>>381530205
Having all three forces your game to have a p2w cash shop?

>>381527564
Imagine aiming with a contoller if it was projectile with gravity. That is why hitscan still exists everywhere and you sometimes get projectile.

Also most games which use hitscan have to take special measures in order to counteract suppressed weapons with some negative traits, usually decreased range before the damage starts to drop off. Sometimes this results in funky interactions with the damage such as certain weapons having a minimum damage that doesn't change the amount of shots to kill, which means using suppressors on those guns is super fucking mandatory meta.

Having projectile velocity means you can decrease that trait as well to have a strong downside to being invisible to radar or whatever the game has for a detection system. You could even go further and allow players to choose supersonic or subsonic ammo so that they have full control over whether they want only a partial sound decrease from the suppressor with no damage reduction or take the full penalty in exchange for near silence. Can't do that with pure hitscan mechanics.

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>>381527564
Team Fortress 2 is a perfect example of a game that uses Hitscan, Projectiles, AND Physics projectiles all at the same time, and does it very well.

Eg: Scout's Scattergun is hitscan, Soldier's Rockets are projectiles, and Demo's stickybombs and grenades are physics projectiles.

when will they put windage in games

>>381531693
Splatoon, too. Chargers are technically not hitscan but may as well be, shooter pellets are projectiles until they reach the end of their range where they become physics projectiles, blasters are slow non-physics projectiles, and rollers, sloshers and burst bombs are pure physics projectiles in different shapes.

>>381531693
Anyone knows if Rising Storm uses projectiles? I'm pretty sure there is some delay between shooting and seeing the shot connect, especially over longer distances

>>381527564
just play arma, retard

>>381527564
>less variety between weapons, any weapon can be used to snipe heads from wherever
This makes zero sense

>>381533735
Hitscan is infinite velocity for all.
Projectile velocities can vary so short range high DPS guns can be set to low velocity to soft cap their range without putting in severe damage dropoff.

If you do heavy damage dropoff, it means big enemies cannot be sprayed from far by that high DPS gun. If you do velocity reduction instead then that gun can have more than one role in that it is good for spraying any target at short distances and still decent for hitting big targets at long distances even though it takes a while for projectiles to impact.

If you do no damage reduction and still hitscan then sniper rifles and other long range weapons get screwed in the overall meta.

>>381534013
Hitscan can have limitations of range.
This is mostly why is sucks, I remember in the CoD4 shotgun range was fuck all making it one of the if not the worst weapon to use.

>>381534013
You said "any weapon can be used to snipe heads from wherever." Nothing you just posted has anything to do with that.
Spead, recoil, and damage falloff mean you can't snipe heads from anywhere with any weapon. That's never been the problem with hitscan.

>>381534201
Almost every COD has shotguns being an on/off switch between "they ded" or "you ded". It is technically possible to follow a different, better kind of balancing paradigm for shotguns while still using hitscan but COD wants to keep with this.

In any case I think projectile velocities could help balance out shotguns regardless of the game. Don't give it so much damage falloff and rely on the spread and the low velocity to counter the high damage output. So in a PvE game you can still shoot fatties and huge elite enemies from a safe distance, meanwhile in PvP in the very same game the shotgun requires you to get closer to hit the small, fast moving player characters. Natural balance in two different gaemplay modes without hamfisted tweaking.

>>381534541
Okay, I'll give you that precisely not EVERY weapon can be used in place of a sniper rifle to hit small weakspots like heads, but hitscan certainly doesn't help prevent this. Also making spread too much can cause weapons to be very unsatisfactory and too random to use.

I'm harping on this because that's was just my particularly scarring experience with the way Insurgency plays. I'm sure other games do it better.

Unity cant into projectiles, half the time they dont register so hitscan is the only way to go

>>381534201
People would also use Snipers to quickshot people in that game.

>>381527564
>play Tribes
>have tons of fun dueling other fags with fusors, nades or other projectile faggots
>that one asshole that whips out his hitscan rifle when it was OP
goddamn why are people so shit at game design

>no mention of Titanfall 2 in the thread

I am disappoint. It's got a good variety of both hitscan and projectiles, even if the devs can't balance for shit sometimes.

>>381530146
Titanfall 2 is criminally underrated.

>>381529038
Overwatch is a pretty even split for hitscan vs projectile

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>>381527564
After playing ARMA projectiles is a must for me

>>381533572
Yes it does. With bullet drop as well. Which is definitely what I prefer out of military shooters.

I definitely don't mind hitscan weapons in more fast-paced shooters like quake and overwatch, etc. but the hitscan weapons need to be balanced out with the projectiles. Obviously.

>>381536743
>I definitely don't mind hitscan weapons in more fast-paced shooters like quake and overwatch
>hitscan weapons in more fast-paced shooters like quake and overwatch
> more fast-paced shooters like quake and overwatch
>overwatch
Everyone in that game moves at the exact same foot speed though.

>>381529038
Hitscan:
Tracer
Sombra
McCree
Soldier
Widow
Winston kinda
Zarya leftclick kinda
Orisa
Bastion
Roadhog leftclick I think
Reaper
Ana
Dva

That's a pretty long list

>>381527564
I only play games with laser weapons so hitscan is ok.

>>381536926
I think Roadhog is technically projectile but they have such short range and go so fast it may as well be hitscan.

Ana is only hitscan when zoomed in

>>381536863
Some heroes are pretty hard to hit, due to no momentum, so instant direction changes, small hitboxes and movement abilities
Lucio and Genji foremost

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>>381536940
>game has bullet and laser weapons

>bullets are hitscan but lasers are slow projectiles

>>381537256
>Serious Sam

you may have to lead the target with hitscan because the player's hitbox is in front of him when he's moving.

>>381537482
That's only in source games because Valve are a bunch of hacks

>>381536926
Orisa isn't hitscan, her bullets are actually quite noticeably slow.

>>381537728
You are correct

>>381537482
>>381537669
all games compensate for latency and it happens so fast you cannot even register it

>>381536926
Ana is also not hitscan

>>381537993
zoom is

>>381538040
its still not its just a faster moving projectile if i remember correctly

>>381538090
Nope, zoomed in Ana is hitscan

>>381538090
Every google resource I can find tells me it is, so you gotta back that up

>>381538130
yeah just looked it up i was wrong

>>381527564
Games with projectiles always make everything go slow as fuck. They make the ballistics very simple, usually a generic unchanging speed of 300-600 meters per second, no muzzle velocity of 1000+ m/s that many rifle rounds have, and no drag slowing it down over a distance.

As a result, a lot of games' projectiles feel like you're shooting nerf darts and even point blank shots need you to lead your aim on moving targets. In nearly all games with projectile bullets, anything beyond a short distance is a frustrating bullshit fight of you and the enemy moving randomly side to side while spraying at each other, making it purely chance based since you can only fire at their general location rather than reliably leading them due to the slow speed of the projectile.

Many have tried, but game engines can't properly model projectiles reliably hitting things when they're going that fast, which is why they make them go slow at all times. I want to see a game that uses a hybrid system. Emulate that very fast muzzle velocity by emitting a short hitscan out to maybe 50m, then spawn a projectile at the end of that ray on the next frame, assuming the hitscan didn't hit anything, to travel as normal.

>>381538217
Tribes goes sanic fast and there's projectiles all over the place

>>381531435
making certain guns extremely OP and charging the dollars for them does

>>381536371
blind faggot
>>381530146

>>381527564
Just play War Thunder.

>>381537841
in old source engines, hitbox didn't sync with model properly.
Here is sold old tubes for you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zB1N0zwKy0

>>381530146
because then the hitscan weapons have to be so bad they arent even worth using

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>>381530205
>>381531435
It wasn't the cash shop or the weapon variety that killed Ascend

it was the fucking limiting of fast that killed it

it still hurts man

>>381538557
first p2w weapon was last straw that killed camel tow.

>>381538557
That's a meme, flag drag was necessary to stop people from capping in half a nanosecond with no possible counterplay and it didn't affect the rest of the game
p2w weapons with giant fuckoff hitboxes and awful progression systems were what killed the playerbase and subsequently the game

>>381528190
Not really, for most shooters that take place in camped corridors or small maps hitscan is no different from ballistic physics.
Ballistic only kicks in on extreme ranges and only important for autistic war sims.
Snipers in FPS should have ballistics though

>>381538217
Not even 5.56 breaks the 1km/s barrier. Planetside 2 sticks close to 600 m/s for most weapons but has no problems with certain ones (especially NC) cleanly exceeding 600 without affecting hit registration. The Railjack fires 850 m/s projectiles and has no problems.

If the game generally fired projectiles in the 800+ range it would be well within realistic rifle amounts while potentially straining the server less because there are less projectiles in the air at any time (they hit and disappear faster).

300 m/s is fine for pistols.

>>381538770
>tfw using the same sniper in BFBC2 for hundreds of hours, ot the point where I can reliably headshot people out of cars across half the map
Much more satisfying than hitscan for sure

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>>381538217
>Many have tried, but game engines can't properly model projectiles reliably hitting things when they're going that fast, which is why they make them go slow at all times.

Couldn't be more wrong, it's a design choice (a dumb one, but still), not technological limitation.

You NEVER simulate a projectile with physics like you would a barrel in the game world (a mesh with physics collision), since no engine can handle that in real time properly (not without making it needlessly expensive). What you do is you trace from the current location to the location where it will be next frame (current velocity vector multiplied by deltaTime), so really what you are doing are many small hitscans along a path. Since game engines work on ticks (ignoring the special case of substepping), it doesn't really matter if the path traced between two ticks is straight. You then simply set the position of the visual component of the bullet (usually a sprite) to be wherever the bullet will be this frame. You then apply any disturbance you wish to the velocity vector, e.g. the projectile will start with a (900, 0, 0) velocity, then you simply add (0, 0, -9.82*deltaTime) every tick to it to simulate gravity drop (other forces are more complex, but in the end it all ties up to a simple addition anyway).

>>381536926
>Winston kinda
>Zarya leftclick kinda
WTF?
Both have ticks that do damage, they are nothing like hitscan. Zarya's beam may use hitscan for hit detection, but it still does DoT and not instantly applied damage.

Orisa is not hitscan (how can you even assume she is?)

Roadhog's left click is a projectile, but a weird one. They can turn 90 degree midflight.

>>381539060
Hitscan refers to how it detects hits, not how/when damage is done.

>>381539060
Hitscan doesn't refer to the type of damage, though
It just refers to how it detects if it hits

>>381538217
Every weapon except for one cards in Battlefront was a projectile and I thought it was pretty good still

>>381539137
>>381539167
Winston is just plain not hitscan.

Zarya's beam likely uses hitscan (or raycasting to be precise) to detect if it's on the target, but it does not register a hit until it ticks. This is not hitscan for all purposes. Her beam is even limited in range, how fucking autistic you have to be to put her in the same category as McCree and Widowmaker?

>>381539309
>Winston is just plain not hitscan.
What would you call it? It's certainly not a projectile.
Also, hitscan doesn't need to have endless range, that's an arbitrary limitation

>>381539309
I don't even play OW, but hitscan (like you said, raytracing) is just how the hit is detected. Doesn't matter if damage is applied instantly, over time, after 5 seconds, or after the player emails a picture of his hairy balls to Blizzard, as long as the detection is done via a single-frame raytrace, it's hitscan.

>>381530146
what weapon is that?

>>381530018
Thread

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>>381530146
>>381536404
I keep forgetting i own this game. They need to email me about playing or something

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>>381527564
>not both at the same time

>>381530018
Arena shooters would be even better if the weak hitscan weapons became fast projectile weapons so that people have to aim them just ever so slightly better and take into account how the enemy player is moving.

Things which are truly hitscan like lightning guns or variations thereof can then fill a sort of power weapon role.

>>381536926
A lot of them have damage fall off, which encourages being close. This in turn prevents the campy style promoted by infinite range hitscan.

>>381539816
Keep playing it, anon. Just because EA forgot about the best fast paced AAA multiplayer shooter in years doesn't mean you have to.

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>>381536926
>Buying a Blizzard game after they merged with Activision
Consider suicide.

>>381527564
whining about the porverbial "hitscan" is a hot trend among OCDicklets and autismos. They never play shooters, or even know what it entails. They also pretend to ignore the fact that adding more variables to online games would only fuck with the netcode further.

Notice the very first complaint is "point and cliky gameplay" as if not every goddamn shooter is exactly that. This is something consolewarriors usually whine about out of impotence, when confronted with the fact that controller aiming is terrible.

Shooters all use hitscan weapons, at least all of the ones that matter. The amount of games which don't is very minuscule, mostly because of how much extra information it adds to an already cluttered online game.

This is a case of some idiot focusing on a gameplay mechanic he read about somewhere and not any specific game, to sound cool in front of the "hardcore" crowd. Literally every shooter even worth touching uses hitscan weapons.

>>381538326
Also TF2 and Quake CPMA. That anon has no idea what he's talking about.

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>>381540465
>porverbial
First, learn how to spell the word "proverbial".
Then learn what it actually means.

-1/10.

>>381540465
>ARMA doesn't matter
>Battlefield doesn't matter

bonk

>>381540465
>>OCDicklets
>>Shooters all use hitscan weapons, at least all of the ones that matter.
>calls others OCD
>probably will drone on about Quake 3 or other arena shooters being the perfect fps

Just because you're one step above OWfags and consoleplebs doesn't mean you aren't an OCD pleb subhuman high on energy drinks.

>>381527564
The worst is projectile based game is were the projectiles is removed when you are killed. I'm looking at you Tripwire.

>>381536926
>Hitscan:
Tracer
Sombra
McCree
Soldier
Widow
Bastion

>Conditional
Ana

>Fucking shotguns
Dva
Roadhog leftclick I think
Reaper

>Not guns
Winston kinda
Zarya leftclick kinda

>Not hit scan
Orisa

Shit the list doesn't look so bad when it's not bullshit.

>>381541318
Shotguns are also hitscan

>>381540935
you think it's a good thing but people got mad when bf1 removed that function because killtrades were happening everywhere and it was annoying as fuck. now they rolled it back and projectiles only persist past death beyond 50m so that only mostly longer ranged engagements like sniper duels will get killtrades