Well that's weird.

by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Friday, March 22, 2013, 01:33 (4052 days ago) @ Xenos
edited by uberfoop, Friday, March 22, 2013, 01:40

Fishy as hell article. What does "networking randomness" mean exactly, why does only 1 developer cited in the article actually mention anything about randomness (Jason Jones' whole section reads like it's actually about bullet magnetism, while the Counter Strike stuff could just as easily be cast as an argument that dedis are awesome), and is the "80% random" thing actually something a developer said or was that just a misuse of the clan motto of some CoD player?

Certainly, if we take this to mean that hit detection itself is randomized, Halo doesn't seem to have any intentionally-implemented such randomness unless you really want to argue that shot spread falls into that category. What networking-related gunplay inconsistancies exist in, say, Reach feel extremely host-dependant and I would be very surprised if they were remotely intentional to level a playing field.

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Anyway, speaking of Jason Jones talking about magnetism:

Jones says that they will be incorporating this mechanic in Destiny saying, “Many RPG fans will know that luck is a common statistic found in those types of games. While not an MMORPG, Destiny has included ‘luck’ in the game to give players a sense of advancement in the open world. The higher your luck is, the larger your leeway is when making a shot. This innovation in first-person shooters will revolutionize the genre just like we did with Halo.”

...that's what this reads like. Could be more than spatial magnetism, of course; "leeway" could involve a time component as well, i.e. more lenient hitting-targets-dodging-behind-walls timing, though that would be absolutely bizarre.

In any case, I don't see why the term "leeway" would be used if it was a dice roll adjustment. Nor would making the networking intentionally less responsive for new players make much sense at all.

The quote does concern me, though. Regardless of interpretation, it's saying that the game is in at least some respect going to vary in responsiveness according to a progression system. That a new player who makes the exact same shot as an experienced player is, due to intentional internal systems, going to miss in situations where the experienced guy would have registered a hit. If that's intentional shot-dropping, that strikes me as somewhat terrible (but it also seems unlikely), and if it's magnetism adjustments, it means the game's gunplay could easily become less awesome as you progress. I don't want to totally write the idea off, but it's going to take a lot to convince me. My knee-jerk reaction is in the realm of "you go from CE pistol gunplay to Halo 4 DMR gunplay as you progress? Weak!"