Isn't it time we turned the heat up on game developers and publishers ?

There is something of a sickening trend of blind acceptance among consumers on the whole and Gamers are no different.

Before we actually stand together and  say "Hey! wtf, developers?! This is some next level bullshit!" we need to experience No Man's Sky levels of fuckery and that's after we've bought enough copies to make it one of the game industry's best selling titles. Much like looking at a 2 year-old's crayon copy of the Mona Lisa, it shouldn't be hard to see what's wrong with that picture.

We love our games and many of us bare a torch for our favourite developers as well. CD Projekt Red garnered many a doughy eyed follower after the release of their veritable titan of the western RPG genre; The Witcher 3, despite the majority of that new fan-base having no clue that the Polish development team even existed before May 2015 and despite the fact that TW3 isn't without its issues.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that either, that's how fandoms are created - they just pop up accordingly, organically out of society like weeds out of a cracked pavement when they see a bit of sunlight - often the imaginary glare emitted from developers asses seem to be easily confused with this... and that's the problem.

Once you put something on a pedestal and a fierce network of over-attached fans latch onto to it like a 14 foot carpet python it becomes very hard to challenge the status-quo and publishers and developers know this, and exploit it. 

If a game has a strong enough fan-base it doesn't even matter if it's total bollocks or about as well optimised across platforms as Greece's economy was to the German financial takeover or if it's game mechanics are as reliable as Windows Vista, if there are enough people to make the developers and publishers rich then who gives a fuck... right? 

Well, YOU should give a fuck. It's your money after all.

You need to understand that it's OK to say that a game is shit and if you like a game you need to understand that it's OK for other people to hate it, that you don't have to defend it beyond all reason and logic - because you know what? busty Jill from marketing at Blizzard isn't gonna pop round your house and give you a blowjob for your continued championing of their game. 

And for the love of GAWD stop pre-ordering games!! You're not helping yourself, besides being conned out of day-one "bonuses" than mean absolutely DICK and paying extra to have your pants pulled down by the retailer as well as the publisher before they go to town on your virgin ass with shitty servers and day-one patches and paid DLC. Yet there you are, $60 bucks short, with your pants round your ankles and that blank stare on your face like you've been there before but you keep coming back; you know you've only got yourself to blame. 

More importantly it's also OK to realise that pretty much no development team or publisher is poor enough to actually justify turning out a sloppy or underdeveloped product, besides some indy devs, though frequently they seem to do a better job than many triple-A teams. Oh that's right, they still actually care about the games and the fan-base more than rinsing you for every last cent. 

It's OK to demand more for your money, it's OK to complain about micro-transactions on a game that cost you $60 in the first place, it's OK to complain about paying full price for an early access or beta, it's OK to say that Metal Gear Solid is badly written or that The Last of Us' controls were clunky as fuck, it's OK to get mad at day one patches and overpriced DLC. 

What is it NOT OK to do is explain away all the bullshit that developers and publishers do that fucks you over because you've got a boner for them. 

This isn't an abusive relationship with a burly alcoholic Russian named Viktor that keeps you chained to the bed, you can say no if you want to.

I'm sorry if that's a little less cordial than you're accustomed to as you roast someone on Reddit who dared to raise an issue with your favourite game, supported by other <insert title of game here> groupies who love nothing more than to tongue the developers' collective asses and stroke each other's inflated egos like some fetishist cult that shuns anyone that doesn't conform to their world view.

If you don't think that's how it is you must be very new to the internet. People are fiercely loyal to their products and in being so are blind to any faults it may have or simply try to rationalise them away with logic that would raise eye-brows in a room full of Creationists.

I've even seen people try and explain away Hello Game's handling of the No Man's Sky fiasco, within that room these people are literally wading through the elephant shit to make their justifications which typically revolve around some sort of projected victim-complex on the developers/publishers because they're all so hard-done-by and we should all be gentle and lenient with them like delicate little flowers, not the stomping giant multi-billion dollar companies most actually are.

Well for your $60 and the 3.5 million other 60 bucks that everyone else paid you're happy to accept that the half finished, bugged, day-one patched, micro-transaction riddled games are the best you can get for that 

TWO-HUNDRED & TEN MILLION dollar investment?

You should never accept anything blindly and unquestioningly, especially when it's your money that paid for it in the first place and you certainly shouldn't defend a faulty product or one that's not even finished. You should be critical, scrutinise it and field the unpopular opinion so that it becomes the popular one and then maybe developers and publishers will be less inclined to pull the wool over your eyes, bend you over, and go in dry.

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Net Worth data as of 2014

Red Dead Redemption 2 - What will ride out of the gun smoke this time?

There is little denying that Red Dead Redemption is the best current iteration of the Wild West genre in gaming. With its epic vistas, well written characters and expansive world it almost had the whole package... almost. 

With the impending release of Red Dead Redemption 2, so many who loved RDR have been waiting for since they finished the game, everyone is on the edge of their saddle to see what Rockstar will bring to the sequel. In this blog I want to detail some of the things that really should be improved and indeed I'm hoping that they will be as it's not just been me who's commented on them in the past.

John Marston's Amorality.

Add caption

This is something that bugged me and many other players, especially those - like me - that played the game more than once and played it for more than just the rip-roaring wild west gun-slinging. The one thing you become starkly aware of set against the colourful background of supporting character is John Marston's rather grey and amoral stance.

RDR likely will not feature John as the protagonist unless they go for a prequel of course but this is something I hope to see addressed in RDR2 - you soon learn that although the game features a "morality bar" for want of a better term it's largely redundant.

Firstly, John seems to have no personality of his own with which to help the player guide his actions in game and constantly walks this line where he is neither a villain or a hero. How many times did you want John to just punch West Dickens in the face?  He occupies this odd grey area in between for the whole game. Maybe the finishing scene in the barn is a something of a reminder of the common saying that if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. 

In RDR2 it would be nice to have the game world reflect more strongly the players decisions besides getting a manky looking horse and some shops getting all moralistic on you and refusing to serve you or doing a token 24hr stint in the local slammer. Nothing that you do in RDR really changes anything and it would be nice to have a protagonist isn't just an idle bystander to anything in the game, who often eclipsed in character by the other people he or she interacts with who do actually have a position on things and stand up for their values be they right or wrong.

So, a more colourful protagonist please ! 

Sterile Game-world

For all New Austin, 'Mehico' and Tall Trees gave the player a lot to look at and ride around one cannot deny that fact that after a good while in-game you fast realise that there's a whole bunch of empty space with nothing of any real interest in it.

The game world is rendered beautifully and even now as it nears being 7 years old it looks fantastic - the lighting, the textures, the world design overall is brilliant. This isn't something that Rockstar have every had a problem with though, what they have a problem with is populating their visually stunning worlds with things of interest, GTA5 suffers the same sort of fate despite it's good points.

Tumbleweed - another beautifully rendered by completely
empty place.

I'm not syaing they have to go full-on RPG with side quests every 100 metres in game but some more things to do would be great. The mini-games in RDR were good but be honest, how many times did you play horseshoes apart from the time you needed to do it to make up a costume for John? 

After you clear out the bandit camps they just kinda respawn after a time, the trader's stock doesn't change, nothing really happnes in the game world over time or through player actions. It's all very sterile, there just isn't that much to do outside of the story off your own back.

More stuff to do, more people to interact with please! 

Financial Incentives

If like me you made a habit of gambling and hunting you too will have figured out you can go through the whole game with a steady balance of about $2,000 and that's generous too.Nothing is that expensive and if you keep yourself topped up - which isn't hard -  there is no real incentive to earn more. 

While I don't make a call to realism here - 2000 bucks was a fucking fortune in the time the game is set, the average person earned about $40 a month - it would have been nice if money was harder to come by and stuff was more expensive. Yes, a basic revolver was probably about $100 back then, but as you can see that was about three months money's worth. So the financial challenge to buy that new rifle or some dynamite just wasn't present.

In game economics are hard to get right. Assassin's Creed suffered the same fate, so did much of the Saint's Row franchise, though oddly enough the first one got it pretty balanced actually making you feel like you had to commit crime to make it pay. RDR was no different in getting stuff kinda wrong with money. 

So a more challenging financial system please! 

In-game challenges

These were clearly put in to address the issue of an increasingly empty game world but in realism if you do ever get round to skinning your last beaver (no that's not a euphemism for something else) to complete the master hunter challenge by the the time you get to reap the reward you're basically in the last throws of the game anyway so .. meh.

This is how I and many other's felt about the in-game challenges like Master Hunter, Sharp Shooter etc, that while fun they were essentially pointless as it was often too little too late. It was cool to be able to make medicine from vittles but by that point in the game I had enough money to just buy the doc out every time I was in town.  

Largely these challenges added very little to the game besides unlocking an outfit or two.

Story mission variety 

This was arguably my biggest gripe, 90% of the story missions followed this pattern;

> Go meet some guy

> Ride with some guy to X location while he feeds you white-washed US history

> Shoot some other guys who some guy dislikes for reasons

> [occasionally] escape withe some guy while other guys chase you

> Get paid $20 for your hassle and left in the middle of nowhere

> Grumble to yourself... 

> Ride back

Still one my favourite characters from
the game.

Initially I was fine with a bit of high ho silver gun-slinging action on the range while biding my time in New Austin in the company of the Sheriff and Bonnie Mc-why-the-fuck-are-you-with-that-other-bint-John? but I soon became tired of the repeated mission dynamic, hoping to find something new to do in Mehico and Tall trees, I, as you, were greeted with the same dynamic as described above with the odd interlude where you herd some cattle for Bonnie or hunt some rabbits.. 

Ultimately the rides with some guy were about as interesting as the inevitable shootout at the end of it, not necessarily any less painless either. I know it's a wild west game but not everything was gun toting bandits and horse chases into the sunset. I think what made this worse was the fact that John often alluded to being a bit more intelligent than your average gunslinger, and ode to his character writing or perhaps a lack of realisation thereof, nonetheless opportunities were wasted I feel in resolving story missions with something other than gratuitous amounts of flying lead.

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Overall Red Dead Redemption was a hugely enjoyable and repayable game but it suffered for what I felt seemed to be an effort of the game writers to not make things too smart and satirical to pander to the younger audience - I honestly the feel the shrewd irony of Michael and Trevor's conversion about hipsters in GTA5 was lost on about 90% of it's player base - being of that social subset themselves and that's what made it so funny. Oftentimes it seemed like RDR backed out of it too much but if you played the GTA franchise, into which RDR firmly sits in terms of style and representation, they were always clever, satirical and smart behind the blazing gun and rampant anarchic violence and Red Dead Redemption 2 needs to realise this.

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How to Not be a Fanboy.

You wanna know what the most insipid and cancerous thing in gaming is?

Fanboyism.

It destroys the gaming industry and, more importantly, your enjoyment. 

"Fanboy" is term that's thrown around a lot but what is Fanboyism really? 

"Fanboyism is the fervid and unquestioning acceptance of a product and then defending that product against all reason and logic, with the end goal being a universal acceptance of that product as being indisputably better than everything else." - Spekter Gaming (2016)

~

The error in fanboy logic; 

NO product is ever better than all other products in every way.

The problem with fanboyism; 

If developers and publishers can make money out of fanboys that they know will eat up new titles no matter how bad they are, they don't care; for us it's about the game and the experience; for them it's about cold hard cash. 

More fanboyism = Lower standards = worse experience for us. 

Fanboyism also divides the gaming community by creating pointless rivalries and arguments between fellow Gamers. As a Gamer, YOU are part of a global subculture that YOU have been a part in creating; fanboyism puts a black mark on this subculture and on you.

SG's free 'Don't Be A Fanboy' starter kit:

A simple kit to carry with you wherever you go in the gaming universe

• Demand more; Don't just suck it up if you don't like something.

• Have a voice! Review games; write blogs, make YouTube videos and give reasons why you do or don't like a game and more importantly; make suggestions on how things can be improved.

• NEVER get on the hype train. Because the only station is Fanboy Central; once you're on it, that's where you're going and it's a one-way ticket.

• Don't defend one or a few developers/publishers. As your "favourites" or as being better than all the others. Instead, defend gaming as a whole. 

• Don't favour one platform over the others. Even if you don't play the others. Everyone has their preference and they are entitled to that. Instead of bickering about which platform is (supposedly) the "best" enjoy the fact that no matter what platform, you are all Gamers and you share that in common.  

• Support Independent Game Developers and Modders  These are the future of gaming and on the whole they don't get enough recognition. Do your bit by buying their products if they are charging for them, give feedback on them if you like them or not; just swing an email to the devs. Promote their products to your friends and the greater community via social media and forums if you like them.

• Defend your fellow Gamer! Put aside your differences and pointless rivalries and stand together on the issues that affect us all. So if they play Battlefield and you play CoD, instead of arguing about which one is (supposedly) "better" find common ground in the fact that both of you enjoy first-person shooters. 

We need to show a united front to get the things we want from game developers and publishers and show them that we won't just take every underdeveloped, buggy, unfinished game they throw at us lying down. 

You are a Gamer, so am I , so are all those other people you talk to on G+ or Facebook or whatever you use. So instead of fighting each other, stand together!

#GamersUnite 
#GamersAgainstFanboys

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Dusty Relics: Just Another Day in Paradise…

After skydiving your way into what looks like a tropical paradise only to find it full of assault rifle toting pirates and mercenaries, you could be forgiven for thinking the fictional world of FarCry 3 isn’t all that unlike the Somali coastline. After all, there are speed boats and AK’s there too. White coral sand beaches stained with blood, a crazed lunatic after your head, a strange tattooed woman with mind altering drugs and a maniacal crime lord running the show; just another day in paradise. 

FarCry 3 is unlike any other FPS you’ll play: it has depth, a good story-line, great action and a huge open world to explore. I personal hold it in higher regard than FarCry 4 in terms of enjoyment and replay value. Ubisoft has tried to do a lot of things with this game and it has actually managed to pull most of them off. The corner of the tropics that is ‘Rook Island’ is lush and often quite good to look at – the textures are well rendered and the colours are rich. The foliage waves majestically as it flexes from a grenade blast and the crystal blue water glistens, reflecting the flames from that speed boat you just machine gunned to destruction. The sun climbs slowly creating that beam across the sea and gently illuminates your little corner tropical hell. Max this game on a decent gaming PC and it looks effing' fantastic. 

Whether you are just out exploring, or waging war with wanton disregard for ammunition and explosives, the effects in this game are good, even up close. Its quite satisfying to see your knife punch through an enemies throat or your character digging shrapnel out of his arm with a stick (apparently no matter what happens, Brody, the protagonist, only ever gets injured in the arms...). Just sometimes on this game, its nice to stop and smell the napalm, so to speak. 

The rich textures and tropical lighting really contrast the often
brutal action and story-line of this game,
making it something a feast for the eyes and the mind.

You are quite literally plunged into the action as the first ‘tutorial’ type mission has you escaping from a pirate strong hold (much less friendly than Jack Sparrow) and then legging it through the jungle trying to escape certain death; chased by the henchmen of the one of gaming's most memorable villains - Vaas. The story then plays out in a series of missions that you can undertake at your leisure. The USP (“Unique Selling Point”, not “Universal Self-loading Pistol”) of this game is the world you escape into; the beaches, the jungle, the ancient ruins and enemy strongholds. Its up to you what you do with it and there is so much to do and explore. 

Firstly you are pretty much naked; I don’t mean you're strutting round in your birthday suit, I mean you have one gun and a knife. If you want to carry more weapons and ammunition, you must craft holsters and pouches from the skin of the animals found on the island. If you want to survive a gun fight, or hold your breath for longer when underwater, you need to find the right plants to make syringes to reap the various benefits. Luckily all this doesn’t require a degree in engineering or chemistry, it just requires a little time and what way to spend that time than exploring and hunting on Rook Island? 

The vehicle selection is very good in FarCry 3,
you'll probably find yourself doing a lot of off-roading between missions
 and with plenty of elevation changes the game is basically made for
stunt driving lunacy.

Whilst out foraging you will inevitably come across other points of interest such as shanty towns, ship wrecks, sunken ruins, underwater caves or old WW2 bunkers, to name but a few of the attractions. Exploring has also never been more fun with a host of vehicles to hoon it around in. From jeeps with machine guns on top, Land Rovers with machine guns on top, boats with machine guns on top, to hand gliders and quad bikes (without machine guns sadly), the driving, flying and boating physics are also smooth and for the most part very good. The different vehicles all handle and feel slightly different too, a point often missed in games that mesh a lot of concepts together under one roof; usually something remains unfinished. Thankfully this doesn't seem to be the case in FarCry 3. 

FarCry 3 features many gratifying close-quarters takedowns,
from a simple stabbing to pulling the the pin on an enemy's
grenade and booting him to the floor.

The gameplay is fairly intuitive and doesn’t require much getting used to; after all, it is, at it’s core, simply a fancy first person shooter, so most situations can be solved with a suitable application of firepower and explosives.There are a number of skills that you unlock throughout the game that will help you better survive the jungle and the bad guys. These can make things more fun, my personal favourite being the “grenade takedown” – no prizes for guessing the outcome of that one... or more useful one's like being able to make certain syringes for beneficial effects.

The skills you learn are depicted as tattoos on the characters left arm which builds into a half sleeve as you learn more skills, which is certainly a novel way of showing progression if nothing else. The skills are also quite varied, as they range from health increases, to more functional skills like special take downs and other stealth and fighting abilities that you can use. Though the game is a huge advancement over the previous FarCry games, and indeed any other FPS/free roaming type game, all that glistens is not gold and it does have its flaws. 

Despite FarCry 3 handling like pretty much every other FPS, it's
the story and the game-world that really set it apart from the rest.

One of the biggest flaws that shows up after a great deal of game play is the enemy AI. Most fire fights are just too easy, even if you crank the difficulty up all the way – all that really changes is enemy accuracy and how many more grenades they’ll lob to flush you out. There are four types of enemy that you will face for the whole game; regulars, chargers, heavies, and snipers/RPG wielders. Even though shooters have advanced a great deal, and FarCry 3 is a good testament to that, the enemies remain as dumb as ever and quite frankly its not hard to run circles around them. All you need is a good position and you're pretty much set and by good position I don’t mean dug in on a hill top, behind your jeep seems to suffice for 98% of encounters. They don’t flank effectively or gain position, its generally always a frontal assault. They call in back-up but its more of the same and never more than 3 or 4 guys. If you are in a ranged position up a hill or another vantage point, its ridiculously easy, as they never really come looking for you or deploy heavier weapons to flush you out. This is a shame, as it means every encounter with the bad guys is pretty much repeat of the last hundred times you shot those four mercs’ with child-like ease. 

Vaas is arguably one of gaming's most memorable villains;
he is the perfect blend of insanity, intelligence and brutality.
I'm still not sure why they chose Gok Wan to be the villain in FarCry 4..

Although you can liberate areas by clearing out the occupying enemy camps, after doing 4 or 5 you’ll begin to struggle with new ways to do that as well. Thankfully the story missions offer some variety and the story itself isn’t all that bad considering its an FPS. The protagonist, Jason Brody, skydived into hell when he and his friends were captured by pirates (gun swinging, not rum swilling) after landing. After a shocking escape sequence, Jason Brody then goes on a search for the rest of his friends who have gone missing too.

During the search, Jason loses himself and finds new allies to follow on Rook Island, leading to some interesting plot developments and choices as you follow his own personal story arc. The way the story, and Jason’s character, develops isn’t done all that badly and its is quite good to follow. It won’t win an Oscar and its no Metal Gear Solid but far flimsier tales are usually found in the realms of the first person shooter. I guess this one is also well done because Jason isn’t some double-hard bastard ex-marine gone rouge, he’s just a normal bloke who is forced to learn the skills he needs to survive. 

Unlike in Red Dead Redemption, you can't just
 gun everyone down if you lose, shame.

Besides mercilessly slaughtering bad guys in missions, and mostly for fun, Rook Island offers some other, perhaps more wholesome past times, including poker, knife throwing, racing, hunting and favours for the locals. So when you’re bored of gratuitous destruction and bloody murder, you can cool your heels at a card table or take to mountains in search of some rare beast. Thankfully, these activities also offer financial incentives, how much depends on how good a poker player you are but money can be made from selling the hides and plants you gather and other ‘loot’ items you can find as well – these are more bullet tokens than beer tokens, in truth.

The bow is arguably one of the most enjoyable weapons to use,
especially as it offers flaming and explosive arrows as well at normal ones.

There is a good selection of remorseless pieces of metal for you to unlock and do harm with. However, another flaw in this game I found is that all the guns can be unlocked for free once you activate the right radio tower, so what was the point in having a price for them in the first place if they are all going to be free eventually? In this sense it also makes the economics feature of the game a little redundant, as there is little point in gathering money other than to buy ammunition (which can also be looted from enemies or found in weapon stashes) – it would have been nice to make the gun you want more of a challenge to get. Another minor issue is that the type of combat tends to be short to mid range for most encounters, meaning a good assault rifle and a shotgun will pretty much do you for everything, making unlocking something new later on have little impact on the game. 

The fictional Rook Islands are far more enjoyable to explore
than FC4's fictional corner of the Himalayas. 

Sure FarCry 3 has its flaws but it does what it does better than most that have tried it. Rook Island as a huge arena is inspired and the game play is tidy and smooth. The graphics are lush and the textures are detailed and look great, it seems as though no expense was spared in creating this little corner of the tropics. The missions are varied and enjoyable and include everything from proper stealth missions to frontal assaults and even burning a marijuana plantation... 


There is a host of other things to do on the island from hunt bad guys for money in the “Wanted: Dead” quests, to doing “Rakyat Challenges” where you best performance is recorded online. As well as acast of memorable What's important for me is that it's enjoyable and FarCry 3 is a pick-up-and-play kind of game; if you are bored you can just grab a controller and shoot up an enemy base for half an hour, create havoc, burn and pillage, run out of the bushes and knife someone in the face. But if you want you can spend a long time exploring and discovering, doing missions and earning the associated rewards and all the time its fun and that’s important. 

For me FarCry has excelled where so many other FPS games have failed; longevity and replay value. That is a mark that many new games have sadly fallen far short of, including the most recent FarCry which lacked all of the charisma and replay value of it's predecessor - though let's be honest, FC3 was a hard act to follow. 

You could do a lot worse than spend a few hours discovering the awesomeness of this lost paradise and as it's been superseded by FarCry 4, FarCry 3 is a lot of gaming fun for a bargain basement price.

Battlefield 4 - Dafuq is Bullet Drop? 5 things to get to grips with and take your game to the next level.

Battlefield 4 has pretty decent ballistic modeling, however, the trick to getting the most out of your favourite guns is to understand a bit about the stats of the weapons you use the most. Then if you miss or get killed in a fire fight, where you went head to head with someone using a similar gun that you felt you should have won, you might have a better idea of why you ended up back in the deployment screen and they didn't. 

One of the tricks to poker is only to
play your opponent on your terms.
It's the same in Battlefield.

There are some key factors in choosing the right gun for the right occasion, because although BF4 offers a very well balanced weapon list some weapon attributes just suit situations and play-styles better than others - this is particularly handy if you want to step your game up and rely less on luck and coincidence to get kills and definitely handy for those who like to take the long-guns out and fire at great ranges.

Good poker players know the game and can maybe read people, the best poker players play the numbers. It's the same in BF4 to a great extent. But unlike poker you don't have to play the hand you're dealt, in BF4 you can stack the deck in your favour by playing to a particular weapon's best qualities.

The game features a number of different scores for various weapon attributes*, in this post I will be explaining just 5 of them; Bullet Drop, ROF & DPS, Bullet Spread, Recoil and Muzzle Velocity.

No.1

Bullet Drop

Lower bullet drop is preferable especially when shooting at range because it requires you to adjust less for elevation, meaning that you can aim more directly at your target.

Close target;
no real consideration needed for bullet drop

Without writing a thesis on Newtonian physics bullet drop is much like it sounds; the rate at which the bullet drops from its initial trajectory over distance. 

Measured in meters per-second per second (m/s^2). Basically a variable in-game gravitational force. Although often given as a positive number like 15m/s^2 it is actually a negative figure; -15m/s^2 because it is pulling the bullet downwards at that rate. Simply speaking the lower the figure the less downward force is acting on the bullet - the further it will fly straight.

Far target;
Aim needs to adjusted to account for bullet drop

What this means in real terms is explained in my amazing MS Paint pictures here; at long ranges you will experience this drop a lot more so you will be forced to either adjust your aim correctly or zero the scope (if possible) for the range you are shooting at. In Battlefield you really only have to consider this when using sniper rifles or perhaps DMRs and usually only at ranges greater than 150-200m unless the rifle has a very high bullet drop rating. With other weapons like assault rifles your primary problem isn't bullet drop when pushing those kinds of ranges, it's your shot spread and minimum damage - though every gun in the game has it's own specific 'gravity' which will tell you how it will function at range it's usually not something you need to consider unless you're sniping.

No. 2

Rate of Fire (ROF) & 
Damage per-Second (DPS)

Rate of Fire and Damage per-Second are different things that are intrinsically related. ROF is how fast the gun will fire, whether that be automatically like an assault rifle, semi-automatically like a DMR or manually like a bolt action sniper rifle; it is the rate at which you can discharge the weapon. More accurately described as rounds per-minute (RPM).

DPS is the damage you can do to your enemy each second (assuming all your shots land) and is related to ROF. So a gun can have high base damage but a pretty average DPS thanks to a low ROF or fairly average base damage but a high DPS because of a higher ROF. 

Take the SAR-21 and the FN P90 for instance. 

The SAR has a higher max damage but a lower ROF - which gives it a maximum DPS of 245 (600rds / 60 seconds = 10rds/sec: 10rds x 24.5dmg = 245 Dps).

While the FN P90 boasts a DPS of 315 despite its lower max damage. (900rds / 60seconds = 15rds/sec: 15rds x 21dmg =  315 Dps)

So what does that mean in real terms? 

Well naturally a higher DPS is usually preferable for close quarters battle (CQB); engagements at <20-30m. This is the engagement range where you need to do the most damage in the shortest amount of time because targets will move through your line of sight very quickly or come up on you fast. So in this comparison the FN P90 is favourable. 

However there are usually trade-offs to high DPS weapons like the FN P90 - these are things like accuracy over range and max/min damage. With these things considered the slower firing SAR-21 would much more preferable for shooting at medium to longer ranges with it's higher velocity and longer damage-drop end range and higher max/min damage. 

So picking the SAR-21 for CQB wouldn't be great idea just as choosing the FN P90 for longer range shooting also wouldn't do you any favours. Considering a gun's effective DPS is key to picking a good weapon for CQB specifically but a high ROF won't be ideal for all engagements. Simply put - high ROF; better in CQB (usually), lower ROF typically more accurate over longer ranges. 

No.3

Spread

One of the key attributes that can affect your shots-on-target percentage is bullet spread. This is easy to imagine as a cone that the bullets make coming from the muzzle towards the target; smaller the cone = less bullet spread. 

Bullet spread is typically given as a rating in degrees; smaller the number the tighter the spread hence why it helps to think about it as a cone as degrees of variance over range creates a cone shape. 

What does this mean in real terms?

In CQB, not much as the closer the target is to the weapon the less you will be affected by bullet spread but equally the more accurate you have to be as if your target moves you will be forced to readjust more at close ranges. 

At medium ranges the 'cone' will be larger than in CQB, so technically you will be putting more bullets in a greater area; this works for and against you; initially this means you can be a little less accurate and still hit your your mark but equally it means your shots will be less accurate on the whole - somewhat of a paradox. 

The trick is to figure out the best range for your chosen weapon and where the 'sweet spot' of the bullet spread cone is, so that it gives you the greatest forgiveness for slightly wayward aiming and the highest chance of scoring a hit - this sweet spot is regarded as the weapons most effective range and it is slightly different for all guns. The thing you have to remember is the cone expands over range and is three-dimensional; expanding across X, Y and Z axes.

Notice the difference between zero shot spread (top) ADS-not moving with a sniper rifle and a greater degree of variance (spread) ADS-not moving with an average assault rifle. Note also that the degrees of variance here are exaggerated to make it easier to visualise; with typical assault rifle ADS spread actually being around 0.2/3 degrees which would be hard to show.

Many times when inexperienced players get killed in straight up fire fights it's because they aren't using their weapon within it's most effective range (among other reasons..). Even experienced players can sometimes be drawn in to engagements where they have to fire outside of their weapon's effective range or are too close for their weapon to be most useful (this often happens with those new to DMRs as well, who get drawn into using it in CQB or getting into sniper battles). Basically speaking pushing outside of your effective range means you're at the fat end of the cone, which mean lots of bullets over a large area -wide spread = terrible accuracy.

Understanding your weapon's shot spread is key to understanding it's most effective firing range and that is key to you putting your opponent back in the deployment screen before he puts you there.

No.4 

Recoil 

Recoil in a general sense is muzzle jump but in more detail it is the amount the muzzle moves in specific directions when the weapon is discharged; the directions are up, left and right (U/L/R). It is given in degrees and as with many values relating to accuracy, less is generally better as, in this case, it means the muzzle is moving away from true (zero degrees of variance) less when you fire.

Another recoil consideration is first shot multiplier (1SM) which as you can guess, multiplies the U/L/R recoil by X every first shot. The thing to remember is that recoil is a cumulative value, which means it stacks on itself if you hold the trigger down (on an automatic weapon) or fire very rapidly with a semi-automatic. So, assuming you do not counter the recoil, the gun will continue to move X amount in the three directions every time a bullet leaves the barrel creating that familiar muzzle climb.

Lets take the M416 as a pretty standard assault rifle. It's recoil values are; 

Up: 0.32, Left: 0.12, Right: 0.28, 1SM: 2.2

So what does this tell us? Well firstly, if you fire rapidly the weapon will primarily pull up and to the right which means you will have to counter the recoil by steadying your aim down and to the left. The 1SM tells us that every first shot, whether you are operating it in single shot or burst firing, the recoil will be increased by x2.2 where x is the base recoil value. 

Remember that recoil is given as degrees variation from true (zero). So lets say you burst the M416 for 4 shots -

Shot 1 will have the U/L/R values of 0.7, 0.26 and 0.62 degrees away from true, while the remaining 3 shots will have the base values above. 

"Well, naught-point-something is barely even 1 degree" I hear you cry. 

Yes, this is true but remember the spread cone? The degree of variance accumulates over range meaning the further your target the more variance you will experience; the more likely you will be to miss if you fire rapidly.  

What does this mean in real terms? 

In real terms you want to be looking for weapons that have lower recoil values or attachments to manage the recoil. 

Of course you can just get used to a particular weapon and understanding it's recoil model is key to this. Many people find it easier to aim in a certain direction as well - target tracking - you find it more with real firearms (because of the dominant hand preference) but even on games people can develop a preference. So if you find it easier to track a target moving to the right then you'll likely find guns with higher left recoil easier to control as you're used to adjusting your aim carefully to the right. Just something to consider.

No.5

Muzzle Velocity

MV controls two very important and related things; time to target and as an extension of this; how much you need to lead a target moving across your line of sight (LoS). Why is this important? Well, higher MV makes hitting moving targets are medium ranges easier as well as hitting stationary targets at long ranges less of a waiting game. 

Couple of things to note; firstly is that MVs on BF4 are not accurate - the 7.62x51mm NATO load, for instance, is stated to do 670 meters per-second (m/s) for the CS-LR4 sniper's rifle while the actual 7.62 NATO will achieve velocities in excess of 800 m/s (this is most likely simple game balancing as engagement ranges are significantly less than they are in real life). Secondly; velocities are also variable dependent on the gun despite being the same cartridge; for instance the Bulldog and Mk11 Mod 0 share the same round; 7.62x51mm NATO but the Bulldog has an MV of just 450 m/s while the Mk11 has an MV of 640 m/s.

Time to target: This
displays a basic x axis adjustment error;
the aim point has not
allowed for t (time) to target.

One of the key considerations in BF4 is firing at moving targets because very few people stay still for that long. MV plays a crucial role in this as it dictates how fast your bullet will reach it's mark (t - time (to target)) subsequently this vector how much you will have to adjust your aim along the x axis (aim ahead) to compensate for t.

As an extension of this; when shooting at longer ranges at moving targets you will also have to compensate for elevation (bullet drop) y, as well adjusting for x and t. Making hitting long range moving targets a real 3-dimensional feat of marksmanship as you need to judge for your target's movement speed as well.   

What does all this mean in real terms? Simply speaking it means that the further the target it away from you the more you have to adjust your aim to compensate for target movement, elevation and time to target. Which also means the further they are away from you negatively affects your probability of scoring a hit (more variable factors involved). 

What this means when choosing a gun depends on the ranges you plan to use it in - at close ranges the difference in a 500 m/s MV and a 700 m/s MV are negligible at best but push that engagement range out and suddenly you'll notice a huge difference; leading a target is much easier with higher MVs as it requires less adjustment and therefore less of a margin for error if the target suddenly changes direction - with a high velocity weapon there is still at least a small probability that the shot may hit them if they change direction as it takes less time to get there. 

With assault weapons this changes their most effective engagement ranges; the AUG-A3 for instance with a high MV of 670 m/s make it exceptional at close and longer ranges - put a 3/4x sight on that and you can punish people at ridiculous ranges for and assault rifle. Whereas the Bulldog, although having equivalent spread, has a much lower MV which is going to make it much harder to hit moving targets at longer ranges. 

With sniper rifles it is much the same, ideally you want high MV to help you nail those sprinters but you have to couple this with the elevation adjustments you need to make when shooting at long ranges. So the ideal sniper is high MV low bullet drop as it allows you to aim more directly at a moving target - remember the more adjustment you have to make the higher the margin of error. 

Unlike many other shooters BF4 has a very well balanced weapon list; there are really no 'top guns', they all have good and bad points. 

It is the understanding of these small differences from gun to gun and their ballistics that will make the difference to you and also explain why some guns seem to work better for you than others even if they are the same class. With nearly 100 firearms to carry into battle you have a lot of options to consider.

The most important thing is to know what works for you, your play-style and the scenario you're going into. You want the edge in battle? 

Get to know your weapon intimately. 

Squad dismissed!

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*All my in-game values for the guns I discussed came from Symthic