• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Well?

  • Projectile

    Votes: 269 67.6%
  • Hitscan

    Votes: 129 32.4%

  • Total voters
    398

signal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
40,283
I know this will vary from game to game but assuming you have a preference, what type of character or weapon is your normal go-to in FPS titles that offer the choice of both hitscan and projectile weapons?
 

Skel1ingt0n

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,892
I typically prefer projectile weapons if given the choice. Not always, but usually.

I don't have the speed/dexterity to feel as competitive as I'd like with hitscan, but projectile weapons at least make me feel like I can add some additional strategy and "4D chess moves" to my encounters, trying to stay one step ahead of my enemy. I feel more competitive adding a bit more brains to my 1-on-1s.
 

Nemesis121

Member
Nov 3, 2017
13,907
Projectile requires skill, one of the things i love about BF i have to adjust my shot for distance and bullet drop, hitscan is old and outdated..
I remember getting a headshot with a sniper in BF3 on Operation Firestorm from 211meters away..fun times..
If you game has hitscan I will never play it..BF3 spoiled me, too bad BFV is trash..
 

JigglesBunny

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
31,277
Chicago
For arena shooters, hitscan. For shooters with large, expansive maps and a focus on slower gameplay, projectile.
 

Rygar 8Bit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,016
Site-15
Projectile requires skill, one of the things i love about BF i have to adjust my shot for distance and bullet drop, hitscan is old and outdated..
I remember getting a headshot with a sniper in BF3 on Operation Firestorm from 211meters away..fun times..
If you game has hitscan I will never play it..BF3 spoiled me, too bad BFV is trash..

Nothing more satisfying then adjusting your aim to hit someone across the map with a sniper rifle in BF games.
 

Ionic

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,735
If you're going to say projectile at least have the decency to say it's because of Tribes.
 

SrirachaX

Member
Apr 12, 2019
236
I want to say both because they're both important in arena shooters, but I guess I'll go with projectile since you could have "hitscan" if you make the projectiles go fast enough I suppose. Projectile also is a big reason I prefer to play Battlefield over something like Call of Duty since it adds an extra element of gunplay skill
 

Jonathan Lanza

"I've made a Gigantic mistake"
Member
Feb 8, 2019
6,890
I'll go with projectile.
I like that there's a lot to consider with projectile, how far you are, what direction they're moving in, etc. This is assuming it's a FPS/TPS focused around fighting enemies.

For a lightgun game I'd go with hitscan granted I don't think I've played a lightgun game with projectiles.
 

Kent

Member
Jun 4, 2018
1,101
Projectile.

There's an amount of grace and precision that goes into hitting your mark with a projectile weapon that just isn't there in hitscan-centric games. To the point where hitscan just isn't fun, interesting or engaging when it comes to shooters; they fundamentally rely on other things (usually things like positioning) to make anything interesting.

And yes, it's because of Tribes. Tribes 2, specifically.
 

5taquitos

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,945
OR
Everything should be projectile, hitscan is a relic of the past, even though some of my favorite games use it.
 

Letters

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
4,490
Portugal
Can't really pick because it really depends on the game, hitscan would ruin Hunt Showdown, projectile would ruin CSGO/Valorant.
 

Hellraider

Member
Oct 27, 2017
671
Athens, Greece
Picked projectile but my preferred answer is a combination of both. Doom's gameplay loop of having to prioritize between enemies with either one or the other is another thing that adds to the complexity of the enemy encounter design.

That's for PVE, PVP is a whole other thing and it depends solely on what type of game it is.
 

srylain

Member
Jun 15, 2018
417
It really depends on the game. Gears wouldn't really work well with projectile (Torque Bow in Gears 1-Judgment was projectile, but it moved so fast it never felt like it needed to be in the first place) for its rifles and snipers, while a game like PUBG is as hard to play and as satisfying as it is because it's projectile based. Halo I think has always had projectile, but the bullets move so fast that it usually isn't even noticed.
 

haveheart

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,076
Projectile requires skill, one of the things i love about BF i have to adjust my shot for distance and bullet drop, hitscan is old and outdated..
I remember getting a headshot with a sniper in BF3 on Operation Firestorm from 211meters away..fun times..
If you game has hitscan I will never play it..BF3 spoiled me, too bad BFV is trash..
So quake, unreal or cs, the most notorious skill based shooters, became this big despite no skill being required?
There is no answer here, it's a design choice.
 

MC_Leon6494

Member
Sep 7, 2018
501
Hitscan can and should fuck off in any and all competitive multiplayer games. Old shooters and retro style fps can get away with hitscan but new stuff should go projectile. Projectile feels so much better and yes this is because of Tribes. And BF3.
 

Patitoloco

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
23,714
I don't fully know what it means, but if "projectile" means seeing bullets fly with a trace, I hate that.
 

stryke

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,347
didn't fortnite use both? or am I making that up...
I havent played in a long time but I seem to recall hitscan for short-medium range and projectile for long range?
 

Hasney

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,944
Have they got a Pharah? If they do, I'm switching to Hanso as is DPS in Overwatch tradition to never use a hitacan against them.
 

Tomasoares

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,635
Both is better than only one. Hitscan x projectile dynamics is another reason why classic Doom gameplay is so fun.
 
OP
OP
signal

signal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
40,283
I don't fully know what it means, but if "projectile" means seeing bullets fly with a trace, I hate that.
Think of projectile as the damage actually leaving your weapon and having to travel to whatever you were aiming at vs. hitscan as damage occuring on whatever you were aiming at the moment you press fire. An example might be a grenade launcher vs. a sniper rifle or something similar.
 

Mechaplum

Enlightened
Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,940
JP
Think of projectile as the damage actually leaving your weapon and having to travel to whatever you were aiming at vs. hitscan as damage occuring on whatever you were aiming at the moment you press fire. An example might be a grenade launcher vs. a sniper rifle or something similar.

Or a bullet vs laser.

Prefer projectile. Lasers are boring.
 

Kent

Member
Jun 4, 2018
1,101
I don't fully know what it means, but if "projectile" means seeing bullets fly with a trace, I hate that.
Hitscan refers to casting a ray (as in, the mathematical concept of a ray) to determine if a shot is a hit or not. This is how this is calculated in a lot of shooters - even ones that have a fake tracer shot to let players know what direction a shot is coming from (Halo does this for human weapons, Gears of War does this for a lot of things, etc.). This means that the hit calculation is performed the same time the shot is "fired," so it's instant.

Projectile refers to a shot being an individual game object that has a velocity and therefore travel time. Determining if a projectile is a hit is a matter of determining a collision between this object and something else. Projectiles may or may not have some sort of physics implementation (such as the projectile dropping in altitude over distance - so the shooter would have to accommodate for this over a long distance). A much slower variant of this is how thrown grenades are handled in almost every shooter, where it's a physical object that collides with things. Projectile weapons are typically like this but the projectile is much faster.

Fundamentally, a projectile weapon will have travel time on its shots, whereas a hitscan weapon by definition does not.
 

Skade

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,900
Hitscan is nice and all but projectile is the jam, it makes more sense and recquire a bit more skill (i think).
 

Neo_MG90

Member
Apr 23, 2018
1,137
As a Battlefield player, definitely projectile.

Having to adjust your aim to compansate for travel time and bullet drop and still getting that headshot is super satisfying.
 

Murfield

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,425
Some games have both: Hitscan for lasers and projectiles for ballistics. Which makes for a fun combination.
 

nekkid

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
21,823
There's a place for both. Military shooters like Battlefield benefit from projectiles, but I'm more keen on hitscan for faster-paced twitch shooters.
 

KDR_11k

Banned
Nov 10, 2017
5,235
Usually projectile but it really depends on the game balance. A lot of modern games just don't include viable projectile weapons.
 
Oct 25, 2017
298
Really depends on the game and type of weapon, my mind always comes back to TF2 that had both depending on what type of weapon you were using and it worked.

I will also agree with the sentiment that Tribes, probably more than any other game for me, made projectile super satisfying and maybe edges slightly ahead because of it.
 
OP
OP
signal

signal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
40,283
Both, depends on the game. Sometimes both in the same game.
Really depends on the game and type of weapon, my mind always comes back to TF2 that had both depending on what type of weapon you were using and it worked.

I will also agree with the sentiment that Tribes, probably more than any other game for me, made projectile super satisfying and maybe edges slightly ahead because of it.
Was thinking more about character preference since lots of games have both. TF2, overwatch, etc.
 

Matty H

Member
Oct 31, 2017
1,108
Hitscan is cookie clicker BS. Why have projectile weapons in a game if you're not simulating the projectile?
 

Zom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,192
Sniping people from more than 300m felt amazing in bad company 2, good times
 

Alek

Games User Researcher
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
8,492
Hitscan feels better on the whole, I would say but it can create problems for the game. Mechanically aiming your cross hair over a target isn't all that difficult, so if you have a game with fairly simplistic movement and hitscans you can create a game with a very low skill ceiling.