hitscan vs projectile? Even for fast ones like bullets, what would be better for gameplay? I think dodgeable bullets would be much more interesting.
Okay, if the projectile is so fast, it’s basically a bullet, then there’s really no difference between a physical projectile and a hitscan ray.
I absolutely agree that dodgeable bullets are more interesting. I think you can draw a basic relationship on how dodgeable bullets are between the speed/size of the bullet versus the movement speed/size of the character. When characters move faster, it’s more realistic for them to be able to dodge faster projectiles. When they are fast enough (about CS:GO speed and higher), it’s more realistic for them to be able to move out of the way of hitscan bullets by staying ahead of the other player’s ability to keep their reticule on the target (though of course, not to dodge bullets coming directly at them).
Basically, as a character is slower, the projectiles too should be slower to compensate and allow the player to dodge. As the character is faster, the projectiles are allowed to be faster because the player can adequately dodge them. At the threshold mentioned above of about CS:GO speed, a player can move and change their momentum fast enough to stay ahead of someone’s reticule (this is because of human reaction time).
Regrettably, we’ve seen the opposite relationship between projectiles in games, slower games are more likely to have hitscan rays, and faster games are more likely to have slow projectiles.
This is because the world is fucked up and there’s nothing we can do about it.
As a follow up to the hitscan/projectile question, is there a place for hitscan weapons in games? Are the best kept as low-tier weapons such as how quake 1 handles them, or how q3 handles them as either high spread or low power?
Yes, absolutely.
I think you’re forgetting that in both Quake 1 and Quake 3, the Lightning Gun is one of the best weapons you can get.
The thing is, when you make a weapon projectile-based, even with relatively fast projectiles, such as Q3’s plasma gun, it gets harder to aim it. So the Plasma Gun doesn’t see the same type of use as a DPS weapon like the Lightning Gun, even though the Plasma Gun has a higher DPS than the Lightning Gun. Instead of being used to DPS opponents, it’s more used for covering fire and controlling space when you don’t see your opponent, or outside LG range.
Hitscan weapons are fine because ideally if both you and your opponent run out into the open and shoot at each other with LGs, you’re not both going to hit each other dead on until the first one to get shot dies, because you’re both going to miss a lot, because it’s hard to keep your reticule trained on someone who keeps weaving back and forth, and aiming better when your target is moving in ways you can’t predict, while simultaneously weaving yourself takes predictive skills.
It’s sort of like how in fighting games, you can’t see what move your opponent does until after it hits you. Reactionary blind spot. Similar deal in RTS with the fog of war. The winner isn’t determined strictly by efficiency, it’s determined by who throws rock and who throws paper. Efficiency in FPS games isn’t strictly who has better aim and target acquisition speed, it’s who can predict where the other will move and shoot as well. So hitscan weapons can’t consistently DPS, so it all works out as long as you’re not so slow these things become trivial.
Hitscan is fine, as long as it doesn’t dominate the game in one way or another.
Are you a fan of hitscan weapons? Why or not?
Uh, I like them when I like them? I dislike when a game is ENTIRELY hitscan weapons, like most modern shooters. It’s nice to have a mix of projectiles and hitscan. There’s only so much varying functionality you can get out of exclusively hitscan weapons.
I only really have an issue with when enemies have 0 startup hitscan weapons, that’s where trouble comes in.
Hitscan works fine in multiplayer because players need to predict which way their opponent will move, so it’s not totally a “who sees who first” thing, unless you die practically instantly and move slowly like modern shooters.
It also works fine in multiplayer because it doesn’t really matter if the player has unfairly overpowered weapons relative to the CPU, only that enemies don’t have unfair weapons against the player, because they can’t participate in the same mindgames as two human players can. They can at best approximate it, and have their efficiency cranked up or down.
Since the advent of First Person Shooter games on console systems, there have been a number of design trends that have negatively influenced the development of the FPS genre, some of these changes to first person shooters were necessary to adapt them to a console setting, while others are arguably arbitrary but have nonetheless become design trends. In brief these trends are regenerating health, iron sights, a limited weapon inventory, reduced weapon variety with a greater focus on hitscan weapons, slow pace of movement, low jump height, linear or front-focused level design, enemy homogenization, and reduced weapon accuracy. It is debatable why these trends have come to pass, from production costs to follow the leader styles of marketing, but their negative influence is undeniable. 
Celia Wagar's CritPoints 