There is but one concern, well, my biggest concern with Destiny thus far is the inclusion of Aiming Down the Sights, ADS for short, or the ability to look directly down the sights of your weapon. ADS is not wholeheartedly a flawed mechanic, but used in the wrong type of game it can be game-breaking.
You may all be familiar with this mechanic, but a refresher. By ADS of your weapon, your accuracy is drastically increased and your movement speed is drastically decreased. When not ADS, or Hipfireing, the opposite is true, you have good movement speed and poor accuracy, and by poor, I mean you only really have hope a hitting a target at point blank.
Now this is great for tactical shooters, (generally with longer engagement distances, such as ARMA, Red Orchestra, Ghost Recon, etc.) as it forces the player to move cautiously and use cover, considering when you stop to shoot you are a sitting duck. If Destiny ends up being a shooter of this nature, then great, I have no problem with ADS, but I think most of us are expecting something else.
Where the ADS mechanic falls flat on its face is fast paced games with shorter engagement distances. We need not look any further than our beloved CoD. Lets look at an encounter from a few perspectives, imagine two players run around a corner and meet each other and proceed to engage.
[b]Option 1[/b], they both hipfire, they both have good movement speed so they can try and strafe, but considering the terrible accuracy of their weapons, the winner of this encounter is decided primarily by luck, with an edge given to the player with a weapon more suited for this situation, skill is hardly a factor here.
[b]Option 2[/b], they both ADS, meaning the two players are standing more or less still shooting at one another, given the short range they hardly need to aim, and assuming they both ADS at the same time, this encounter is won by having the better or faster killing weapon. Again skill is only a factor is one player goes for a headshot, but considering the other player is already shooting at them, headshots have to be achieved extremely quickly.
[b]Option 3[/b], one player decides to start shooting immediately and hipfires, the other takes time to ADS. The player that is hipfireing only needs to hit a stationary target, the ADS has better accuracy but has to take the time to ADS. Either the guy that is hipfireing gets lucky and wins, or the ADS player wins with an easy shot, neither requiring much skill.
What you might ask, is a good way to get an advantage in this type of encounter? Well if you've played CoD you might be aware of it. If you are ADS before you see your enemy, you have a clear advantage, but doing so means you can hardly move, so what is the solution? Something we all love, Camping. Long distance is not much different, the only real option being to ADS, meaning near stationary players are shooting at one another, lowering the skill gap tremendously. Now obviously we can compare this to a game without ADS, such as Halo, and we all know how the encounters go, it's about footwork and aim, trying to get your enemy to miss while having better aim, meaning the winner is determined by skill and weapons, with a touch of luck, sure.
So while ADS might be a great mechanic for some games, when it's implemented into a fast paced game with short engagement distances and players running around the map, it doesn't work in my book, resulting in a game about luck, weapons, or annoying tactics.
However, assuming Destiny is a fast paced game, there are way in which ADS can work.
[b]Option 1[/b], get rid of the standard features of ADS, meaning ADS works just like it does in Halo, your accuracy doesn't change, nor your movment speed, the changes lies in your zoom, optics, and FoV.
[b]Option 2[/b] I like this one, get rid of the accuracy penalty, meaning hipfire doesn't suck, and instead add a recoil bonus (reduction) to ADS. The movement penalty can remain. This is great as you can engage an enemy and any distance with hipfire, but if you want to zero in on an opponent that is far away and get a faster kill you have to ADS, which can get you a faster kill but puts you at a disadvantage as you are now a sitting duck. Additionally, the guy you are shooting at can return fire (not as effectively as you of course) while still trying to get cover.
Well, that was a bit of a read, but the implementation of ADS is a bit of a concern, and I want to have a discussion about it with you all. Bungie is a great developer, and I believe they will implement it correctly, but there is still a bit of a fear that it can really hurt the game. Please, I would love to hear your thoughts.
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I most enjoy the Halo/L4D style of no ADS, but I recognize that with a game like Destiny, it might be an essential mechanic.