Netcode and Hit Detection in Online Games

by Stephen Laughlin , Long Beach, CA, Thursday, March 21, 2013, 23:43 (4264 days ago) @ Xenos
edited by Stephen Laughlin, Friday, March 22, 2013, 00:37

Bungie, developers of Halo, has also talked about their experience with randomizing hit detection in the original Halo games. Founder Jason Jones says, “It is one of the breakthroughs of the first Halo trilogy. We discovered that the thrill of killing people is what turns people on to first-person shooters. Giving people more opportunities to kill other players only made Halo better.”

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.”

I'm reticent to jump to any conclusions since this is so ambiguous, but what do you think Jason is talking about? From that tiny quote it sounds to me like he's saying lower level players will have a messier bullet spread or less forgiving auto-aim.

I'm a huge fan of RPGs but traditional pen & paper style combat systems based heavily on random dice-rolls and statistics always seem out of place in video games to me unless the underlying mechanics are way, way out of view.

As much as I love the modern RPG revival with KoTOR and all its progeny, the combat in those games has always felt clunky. If my character fires a blaster straight up in someone's face, the hit ought to connect whether the game rolls all 20s, a critical failure, or anything in between. You have much more immediate and direct control over your character in a video game than in a tabletop setting where everything passes through the dungeon master. They're totally different settings and should be treated as such.