All Shooters should use Elements of Killzone 2's Controls

I know, I know... some people can't understand why having "laggy" controls will be a benefit in a shooter when you want responsiveness. You may also speculate that there may be some fanboyism behind the statement, but you can't be more incorrect. I'm talking from a center of enhancing the gameplay. The title for this blog sounds stupid for some, but let me explain how Killzone 2 was corrected, what exactly went wrong, and why I believe that all shooters will benefit from this most innovative and curious of features:

Let's start this in a Hebraic sequence with the reason why I believe all shooters will benefit from using parts of Killzone 2's weight system for weapons.

When developers make a shooter with a "twitch shooter mentality", it doesn't matter which gun you use, all of them have the same "weight" and therefore you can fire a shotgun just as fast and accurately as you can a handgun, making a handgun quite useless if you can get your hands on a shotgun or equip a shotgun from your loadout. With twitch shooters, the power and frequency of the rounds to put someone down hardly goes above a few shots or a couple of seconds. The reason why games like Gears of War, Resistance 1, and a lot of other shooters turn into a shotgun hell or a one-gun multiplayer is because shooters developed with this flawed outlook. Resistance 1 had to go so far as to make adjustments to the power of the shotgun, and Gears had to do several things to prevent techniques like the "roll and bowl" where someone would merely roll towards the enemy and shotty them to oblivion.

These solutions don't really apply to a game that's trying to be realistic; which is what Guerrilla Games attempted to correct. They subsequently succeeded with Killzone 2 after some adjustment, but it wasn't out-of-the-box perfect.

Now, what went wrong, you may ask? What a lot of people pointed out on various youtube clips, is that there was indeed lag in the controls along with their change in that the overall responsiveness was hampered along with the speed of the swing to make it a little hard to control for most people. If they state otherwise, I think that was their intended direction. I think that they also wanted to have a variable speed of movement for the controls, but along with a variable speed, the initial momentum to get the gun moving was added to a great degree so that you couldn't quick-draw with a shotgun as if you were holding a handgun. While this added very realistic movements to the weapons, the initial swing was too heavy on most of the larger guns, so the lag was prevalent to the degree that the middle range/weight weapons like the assault rifle would have a definite advantage over the shotgun.

What GG did in a later update was remove a lot of the from the lack of response time and added some speed to the swing to balance the guns out, but bringing it a little closer to what they were trying to avoid in the first place.

What Guerrilla Games should do for Killzone 3 in terms of the game's control is the following:

Give a small amount of initial momentum like before but make it so that depending on how fast they turn and the weight of the weapon, the final approaching speed of the weapon stopping will be a factor; that's accurate, because realistically, after a person stops their initial swing with a real weapon, they make a final "eyeball" to get the target: and in these little movements is where twitchy movements come into play.

So:

If you were still, like a sniper, your movements will be pretty accurate: but if you were that same sniper moving around, depending how fast you have to move and turn to get your sights on the target, your gun will have that "end-swing" to factor in: and if you get your sights on them before they do, they're gone. but if they have a handgun, with will take more shots, but is quicker on the "lay" (laying you sights on them), they have a chance to nail you, which they wouldn't if both had twitchy controls.

In conclusion, I think if every shooter implemented something like that, you'd see a wider variety of weapons used on the maps of many a game instead of the game eventually collapsing on gaming's unholy trinity:

The gun that's the most powerful (usually the shotgun),

The gun that fires the most rounds per second/largest clip (usually the assault rifle/minigun),

And the gun that shoots the longest distance (usually the sniper rifle).

At any rate, that's my two cents; can anyone else think of small tweaks that GG and everyone else ought to do to balance out the power of the weapons versus speed and accuracy of movement?

[crapgamer]

What's good for you isn't always what is good for others. I hated the Killzone 2 controls, from the sluggish controls to the lack of a prone feature.
I would abandon FPS games altogether if they were like that. Most of the complaints on Killzone 2 that I heard were the terribly unresponsive controls and gamers who play competitively weren't around long on the game, gamebattles teams were no existent because of the controls.

Nice article, but I am going to have to disagree with it 100%

[pixelsword]

and it's not "the controls", it's elements of Killzone 2's controls. Things must change where the weapons must be true to form and useable, or else you will get scalled-down weapons (weak shotgun) or you'll get a heavy gun with handgun precision, which imbalances the gameplay automatically.

[Tachyon_Nova]

Trying to be realistic? So what your saying is that it is realistic that an elite soldier (ie Sev) can't fire an very advanced assault rifle with even the same accuracy as a drunk man going to the pisser?

The sluggish controls in Killzone 2 do not make the game better. They add weight I hear people say, yes, but why so much? I dunno about you, but even when I'm holding some pretty heavy stuff in my hands, I can still turn pretty quickly.

They should make the control movement much more fluid for Killzone 3, if they don't then the sales will continue to be less than stellar.

[pixelsword]

1. Are you saying that a a drunk man going to the pisser, or inexperienced grunt SHOULD fire a very advanced assault rifle with the same accuracy as an elite soldier? I have a way around that, I will post it in the Killzone thread; I didn't post it here because I wanted it to be fresh when I posted that... go there and hunt me down for this post because it's not bad once I explain.

2. "The sluggish controls in Killzone 2 do not make the game better". Um, that's why I kinda said elements; I'm not saying it's the best of all time, I'm saying that of all of the shooters I've played, this is the only one going in the right direction in terms of balancing the weaponry without balancing the power, of which some comes from the controls.

3. "but even when I'm holding some pretty heavy stuff in my hands, I can still turn pretty quickly". Agreed, that is why I wanted the momentum to count on the "endswing"; because although you, like me, can turn quickly holding something heavy, aiming it and firing it accurately with the same speed is another thing entirely. With a heavy gun, you can let off of the control a little early and let the momentum get you in a spot, while it's doing that, you can move the controller with slight movements to get a good bead; that's realistic. Take a rifle and do that a few times (make sure it's not loaded, please) because I have. Just like I wrote, the "endswing", not the initial movement, is what matters when it comes to handling a weapon. Look at movies like (I hate to say it, but) Aliens with Privates Drake and Vasquez and their smartguns; their initial movements weren't the problem, it was the aiming which required the skill.

[DelbertGrady]

I'd rather see them use elements of BF: Bad Company 2's controls. They have a weighty feel without being sluggish and inaccurate.

[theonlylolking]

Bad company when you move looks like you are trying to swing the gun up and down, left and right. EVEN WHEN YOU WALK STRAIGHT!!!!!!!

[theonlylolking]

At first I was going to not agree with you but in the end I think that is what they should do.

[pixelsword]

Soda:

That's the beauty of using elements; you can use the advantages of both, but to be honest, the swing of the guns are identical for every gun in Battlefield. I was in the beta for that game and even though I didn't buy it, I did pay attention to the guns. The weight is there, I agree; but like lol king said, even when you walk you get that movement, and the movement doesn't translate at all when it comes to moving the weapon around. But again, like you said, elements... so you're not talking about the whole thing either, and I agree.

lol_king:

thanks, I was hoping I could try to make a case for the controls. I really think it could work if tweaked for realism. I just want to have a game where you can get variety in weaponry and every weapon have a place on the battlefield.

Bubbles to both of you, heck bubbles for everyone; my friend passed the bar, I'm in a good mood.