Are Crosshairs Popamole?

I started playing Heretic these days (man, I haven't played this one since I was a boy!) and I noticed something: Doom and Heretic didn't feature crosshairs. Build games like Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, Blood, Redneck Rampage, etc, did feature crosshairs but they could be turned off. I haven't played a newfangled shooter for good years, so I'm not sure you can still toogle crosshairs, but the point is... are they popamole that breaks the purity of the game's experience or necessary feature?

CROSSHAIR: or not?

 

Yes, because you point at the mole and pop with the LMB.

 

Early FPS games didn't have crosshairs because they were designed with KB only controls in mind and featured excessive autoaim - which is now pretty much exclusive domain of console popamoles.
Ability to aim precisely added a lot of depth and fun to the FPS games.

Arguably, crosshair can become a popamole feature if the game allows aiming with ironsights or some other way to aim "immersively" using weapon model. Then crosshair becomes a crutch for those who can't cope with the tradeoff between reduced visibility (and often mobility) and inability to shoot accurately.

 

^ That. Those games didn't have crosshairs because they weren't designed for mouse aiming.

 

This poll is weird. Crosshairs are the opposite of popamole.

 

But what is the opposite of popamole?

 

Guns don't point right down the middle of the screen anymore, so yeah, crosshairs.

 

Only if there are iron sights in the game, automatically transcending them to tacticular shooters.

 

It's when moles pop you instead.
clearsky.jpg

 

fixed

 

You clearly failed to grasp my superior wit.

 

Crosshairs are ok in games that doesn't pretend to be anything but arcade... However optics/ironsights and proper ballistics without retarded spread and with proper recoil and no crosshairs are a lot more immersive.

 

I was aiming more for a word-concept-image-meme, a single or two words that define the opposite of popamole.

Just like evil is the opposite of good, masculinity is opposite of feminility.

 

I turn off crosshairs if given the option.

 

Playing a mouse-aim game without crosshairs is very weird... I think the only example I recall is the bow in Resident Evil 5, that is a 1-hit kill weapon but with no crosshair. Very fun to play, but as an exception. An entire shooting game without crosshairs would be very awkward.

 

I know trying to pick up small objects in a first person game like Morrowind is infuriating without crosshairs. I don't think they are popamole at all.

 

Zero Tolerance for Mega Drive/Genesis

Can't imagine playing Enemy Territory without crosshair tho.

 

Also consider that many older shooters had weapons which weren't designed to be realistic. The cone of fire on a minigun, or the explosion of a rocket launcher, or the arc of a fireball does not require pixel-perfect precision. It's only in games where everything is hitscan, pinpoint accurate that you really need crosshairs.

Also: crosshairs actually benefit gamers significantly as a point of reference, especially for preventing motion sickness. So they do have an upside other than popamoling your game up.

 

They are especially handy in games like STALKER where accuracy can vary a LOT depending on weapon condition and mods. Not necessary with iron sights, but it helps.

 

Yeah and that's why shooting in STALKER feels so badly. Except for CoP where designers that weren't stupid came and made weapons to be acceptably precise (however shitty cone of fire is still there).

Cone of fire is a shitty outdated mechanic that needs to go and die in the era of modern CPUs and physics when each bullet can be traced. If I aim with my ironsights at something bullet should go in that direction, not in random one for no reason.

 

I just thought that was a product of the gun-eating bacteria apparently infecting every gun in STALKER. I'm not surprised when something that's apparently 30 shots from blowing up in my face shoots like a carnival air rifle.

 

And I was just aiming to say that STALKER:CS had cover system that was only usable by NPCs so instead of popping moles you had moles popping you.

That heavily depends on implementation. For example STALKER had you pick small items often, yet it was never a problem with crosshair disabled (and you never had trouble selecting the right item either).

Actually, AoE weapons like rocket launcher and projectiles in general really benefit from precise aiming because smart use of projectiles, AoE or not, cannot be approximated by simple heuristics of "aim at the dude closest to the middle of the screen".

Pinpoint accuracy with something akin to Quake rocket launcher can be the difference between a rocket exploding exactly where you need it and sailing harmlessly past your opponent.

I think the important consideration you miss is resolution and monitor size. In 320x200 on an old small CRT you didn't really need crosshair to be pixel precise and you lacked information for sub-pixel precision. Additionally, in something like Doom you didn't have ANY way to aim vertically and weapon sprite was centered on the screen horizontally.

Hitscans actually are easiest to aim algorithmically. You don't need to lead target moving with variable velocity in variable directions in space cluttered by potential cover. You don't need to aim explosive projectile so that the target will be least likely to avoid damage when it gets there no matter what the target does to avoid it.

Hitscans can be perfectly functional with just autoaim. Of course, this precludes any sort of satisfactory sniping, but then, proper balistic system with actual travel time and drop beats the living shit out of hitscan sniping in terms of satisfaction.

 

Oh, I usually play at 2560x1600 resolution... so hitting stuff in the distance is like a pixel hunt. Crosshairs help with that.

 

I hope this question is just a joke. You want to see papamole? Play Bioshock: Infinite. It was the first fps I have played where you didn't have to aim at all. To jump on skyrail all you have to do is pressing space key when a hotspot starts to blink and watch an animation of PC doing your job. Now that's a Papamole with a great P. Even when it comes to shooting things and there actually is a crosshair, you don't have to aim. It's like your enemies are attracted by your gun barrel and just run in front of it. After 2 hours playing this shit I felt like someone have puked on me. I felt like I'm suppose to excuse myself that I'm not retarded. That's how it ends when you think crosshair isn't necessary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc86ZXFsriM

This is like playing B:I