I think both serve their own purpose, and i can't say i completely prefur one over the other. If had to choose i guess it would be projectile, but not as it was in Halo 3. Actualy if i could use Battlefield as an example, i'd like to still be able to hit targets at medium to long range not having to lead shots as much. But when Cross-Mapping it makes alot more sense to me that bullets wouldn't be like laser beams, and then leading your shots would come into play. What say you?
Personally I don't feel like projectile based bullets work very well for the human weapons in Halo. It has never felt intuitive or satisfying to do and there was basically zero visual feedback for it. In Battlefield it works because you see your bullets actually fly through the air and in most cases you're throwing a ton of bullets at weak enemies anyway so a bullet missing its target here and there doesn't matter as much as it is does in Halo.
Good points. Now that hitmarkers are here to stay, and perhaps if bullets where more apperant, would your opinion change?
The only issue I have with projectile is lag. Hitscan can be used to simulate projectile's need to lead while avoiding lag... I believe that this is correct. Tell me if you think this would not be true.
It would be awesome if there was a way to require leading with hitscan. It's possible to do the opposite (make a projectile weapon act like a hitscan weapon). This was done for Halo 1 in The Master Chief Collection. There's also a 'No Lead' mod in Halo PC that does this. I've never heard of something like you're suggesting though, so I would assume it's not possible.
Have the ray persist longer than just the quick "flash" that you get normally. If a player intersects this ray, check the distance from the muzzle to the intersection point, along with the time passed since the shot occurred and the intersection occurred, and calculate the hit base on that.
Has this ever been done? I don't play many games, so I may very well be ignorant on this subject, but I'm not aware of any game that does this.
What about the best of both worlds? A projectile that moves at a VERY high velocity? That way there is that fast connection out to middle range, and just a bit of leading for long range encounters. Plus slightly different velocities could help differentiate certain weapons as far as effective range a bit more.
I don't know of any that do. I'm not sure that it would work very well. Moving objects in games don't actually move in the same way that objects move in real life. They simply update to a new position each frame, giving the illusion of motion. Because of this, there would be the potential for a player to essentially teleport from one side of the ray to the other without ever intersecting it, so you would have to perform a "sweep", where you check if there's anything between the player's new position and old position. I believe that that's how collision is handled for projectiles since they move so fast, so it's still functionally similar to projectile based anyway.
Projectile master race. It is a system where players can visually see skill differences which I find really rewarding and engaging.
Going back to my comments, it is my understanding that network lag (some use ping as a general indicator) can interfere with projectile hits, but not as much with hitscan. It isn't clear to me how a projectile can be so fast that it emulates hitscan's consistency. But it is very clear to me how hitscan can emulate projectile lead-the-target mechanics. I would even suggest that it is even higher consistency than standard projectile - which again is impacted by lag. further thoughts?
Anyone have any links to a good resource that explains this? I read the Wikipedia entry on hitscan, but there's not a ton of detail. I'd like to know if games generate 2D views of the path of objects from frame to frame or something like that. I'd always assumed that slower projectiles used line segments for the bullet path/progress between frames (rather than a line). I hadn't really thought about the target moving and having a path too. Or better yet, link me to how to shoot better in Halo for people who've lost a lot of their visual perception prowess. I have my very own built-in lag now! Yay! I can kinda see where the bullets go or hit if my weapon sprays enough of them. I really wanna know how to do that sniping where it didn't look like the target was even lined up. I just can't catch on, but I'm prolly a lost cause now anyway.
I don't think understanding how hitscan works is really going to help you shoot better, since literally all it's doing is shooting out an imaginary line and checking if a player intersects that line. "Hitscan" is sort of a layman's term, so if you're looking for technical information on the subject, try searching "ray casting".
Ok, thanks for that info, Chan. Guess I switched thoughts there and started thinking about just shooting better. I'm guessing the RTFM answer for that is "YouTube", right? Heheh. I am not thinking well today!