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Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 8:16 am
by fer
Comrade former-probably General Secretary Fer, you look like you have something on your mind?
I do! Comrades, apropos of nothing, I'd like to ask you to let me know what you think of crosshairs in Arma. Are they good? Are they bad? Do you even notice them at all? Do you wish you could install a Microsoft Windows theme pack from the 90s that changes them into tiny furry animals or animated cars and trucks? (just kidding, capitalist American imports are forbidden!). This topic came up at a recent Politburo retreat on a private island, and it would be lovely to hear the views of the comrades in the fields. And by 'lovely to hear the views of comrades in the field' I mean, of course, that anyone who disagrees with the Party line will be liquidated. Which we'll get to, once we figure out the Party line.

Wait, what is the Party line?
That's a state secret, comrade, but at the moment crosshairs are supplied to every brave fighter. They are grown in the fields of a neighbouring republic and shipped to us each session on a heavily guarded train.

Er, I'll post my ideas ... is this a vote?
Comrade, of course you'll be allowed to vote! The socialist agrarian utopia is a democratic socialist republic. There will be the Party option.

Can we execute comrade Boberro, whatever his views are?
Only after a televised show trial with several inexplicable gaps in the transmission.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 8:21 am
by boberro
Removal of crosshairs has my full support. From my experience it changes the pace of the game, stops you from getting "I can move an shoot" ideas.

PS. I'm not giving my consent for use of my image in television.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 8:25 am
by Bodge
While not too bothered if they get removed, their inclusion makes sense to me as Arma does not have hip fire in the traditional sense. Shots using cross hairs come from a shouldered weapon that is being aimed, just not down the sights, it adds feedback on point of aim that would otherwise be missing.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 9:49 am
by GeEom
The basic utility is pretty clear. Arma abides by decent gun accuracy across the board, where you point is what you hit. If you're not sighted in you need to know where your gun is pointing, and that's hard to ID without some indication. With TrackIR the problem is magnified, I need to actively track my aim location. The real world analogs don't apply, I can't half raise my weapon, I don't have it well tucked into my shoulder, I don't have physical spatial awareness of the weapon. My 'character' has these things, and the crosshair connects me as a player to that intelligence.

The problems mostly come in where the game's character has knowledge I wouldn't expect.
If I sprint for five minutes lugging a 70cm Zafir, I don't expect to track where I'm pointing it with no adjustment. What I'd describe as an imprecise knowledge is being communicated precisely to me.
This comes up in recoil too. I open up an AR for a few seconds and presume my character tries to compensate for the recoil, hopefully I get some good rounds in. If I'm sighted I have to work out where this recoil has taken my orientation, and re calibrate my aim. With crosshairs I know exactly where I'm now aimed.
Another anomaly is handling, the game models the comparative challenge of sighting a nice little MXC vs some long barreled beast pretty well. This is thrown out by the ever presence of crosshairs. The reaction time to sight weapons isn't contiguous with the reaction time to hip fire them. This isn't weird because of the timing, but because of the accuracy: I don't expect to know exactly where this huge gun is aimed as I swing it up, yet I do.

All of these points apply quite heavily to the ARs and MGs, in theory other high weight guns see these issues, but FA doesn't seem plagued by a high number of Lynx etc.It's no surprise to me that ARs come up a lot in the discussion, and if they specifically are damaging gameplay for us, crosshair removal is a pretty immediate solution. I personally like crosshairs, but I feel that's more what I'm used to than what I'd judge objectively.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 10:41 am
by zitron
I would prefer no crosshairs. It's easy enough to walk with your sights up at combat pace, even with head tracking. The crosshairs are way too accurate for hip fire or not aimed fire. Maybe they can be made more vague?

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 1:17 pm
by stonie
At the moment I'm all for keeping the crosshair. Personally I hardly ever use it to actually shoot things (except close combat surprises), and never thought it would be of good use anyway. For me Running and shooting accurately didn't work out very well. Main reason why I'm for the crosshair is to know where your weapon's pointing at which makes you hopefully lowering the weapon when pointing at a comrade. Normally you would know in which direction the gun's pointing at, because you're holding it with your hands and the crosshair somehow substitutes this feedback.

Maybe there should be session with crosshairs disabled to check how the experience changes.


EDIT: I changed my mind about crosshairs, read new post somewhere down below

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 1:23 pm
by AmishStrikeForce
On the one hand removing them increases immersion, which increases fun. On the other hand including them makes sense as in 2035 soldiers will definitely have augmented reality HUDs with crosshair overlays.

Overall if I had to pick, I'd say no to crosshairs.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 2:25 pm
by Costno
I would vote to keep the crosshairs just because Arma 3's have the incredibly useful feature of telling you if your barrel is actually pointed into your cover, not above it/around it. It frustrates me beyond reason to shoot the rock I'm hiding behind, because that is something someone handling a real weapon would not do. My ideal crosshairs would do the same but fade out if you are aiming beyond 25 m or so, some limit beyond what you could reasonably expect a person handling a weapon to know what they are aiming at.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 5:49 pm
by Grumpy
I'm for removing them. Being able to accurately hip fire, especially in adversarials is a little too COD for me.

Re: Crosshairs Discussion (2016 Edition)

Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 12:41 am
by ZeCatnip
I'm for keeping them. Is it possible to selectively disable them just for the adversarials?