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PC Gamers Crush Console Brethren
l_bratch writes "Since December 22nd DICE have been running a competition between each target platform of their latest Battlefield expansion — Bad Company 2: Vietnam. Players were required to complete a large number of 'team actions' in game, in order to unlock a hidden, remastered version of the Operation Hastings map from the original Battlefield: Vietnam. PC gamers have completed the task, whereas gamers on both console platforms are only about halfway there."
Players with superior input devices do better. More as this story develops.
Not to defend the console gamers but:
1) This is based on one game.
2) This assumes that the ports were equivalent
3) This was a count of collective actions of a community not averaged over the individual. The same tournament held between various PC OSes would have resulted in Microsoft crushing Linux's gamers simply because there are more of them on the PC platform.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I read the summary title and thought - for once - some insane game company had enabled PCs to play in the same games with consoles. But no... PC gamers just performed more "team actions" in their own isolated world than console gamers did in theirs.
The game could be more popular on PC than consoles, or perhaps just more "serious" (and maybe older) players on PCs. Hell, maybe the PC version just got cracked and it didn't involve many players at all. Who knows. Slightly interesting, with so little data, only slightly.
http://www.battlefieldbadcompany2.com/globalstats ;)
Both consoles have over 90k combined playing hours, while PC gamers only accumulated 55k so far and have been nearly doubly as "efficient" in total (regarding this challenge).
Which of course makes one PC gamer 3-4 times "better" than a console gamer
On a more serious note, you have superior input instruments and superior communication channels on the PC, plus the crowd is generally a bit more "savvy".
Not just easier to learn, but better. The reason is because a mouse can be both fast and precise. You can easily make quick movements, but can dial that back and be extremely precise too. This is the reason it works so well as an input device. You can get the cursor across the screen fast, but then easily zero in on a small button. Joysticks can't do that. They can be fast or precise, but not both at once. You either have to turn up the sensitivity/acceleration for fast moves, meaning precise aiming is very hard, or you have to turn it down to allow precision, but sacrifice quick movement.
So for FPSes the mouse is by far a superior control system. That is part of the reason for next to no cross platform shooters. Xbox Live makes that possible, Windows and the 360 can play against each other, however in play testing the PC users just slaughter the console users. This is also why in the exceedingly rare cross platform play titles the console users have auto aim and the PC users do not.
Not all games benefit from a mouse. I'd say platformers are easier with a controller, but FPSes do in a big way.
More likely what it means is that console players don't know how to play real FPS games. The controllers just don't support any game made from Quake or so on. I remember prior to Quake pretty much everybody played with keyboard only, then quake came out and people started to use keyboard and mouse other wise they were going to get crushed by the competition.
Comparatively speaking the controllers that these games are designed for on consoles fit midway between keyboard and keyboard/mouse combo. They require special tweaks and assistance to work which aren't necessary on PC.
Doesn't mean that console FPS can't or aren't fun, but it does mean that they're the equivalent of arcade race games to the PC's race simulators.
Whenever this tired argument breaks out I never hear mention of the REAL reasons why PC FPS gamers are better then consolers.
Yes, it is true that the k/m combination is much better then an analog controller for FPS games, but this has wider implications then just simple accuracy and speed. The fact is the tactics used by PC gamers are more sophisticated because of the better controls. PC gamers an defend themselves from flank attacks much better because of the ability to turn quickly. If you cannot turn 90/180 degrees in a tenth of a second or faster with a mouse then you need to set your sensitivity higher and practice some more. A consoler has far fewer options when defending from such attacks. How long does it take for a consoler to turn around when being shot in the back? Since such limitations exist, the defensive skills to utilize turn speed are never developed in consolers.
A large part of a master FPSer is superior situational awareness. Knowing where the enemy is at all times involves the ability to make quick visual checks at all times. You virtual 'eyes' should be darting around looking and checking every corner of your field of view AT ALL TIMES. This is what separates the proficient gamers from those with real talent. It is harder to get the element of surprise on a person who has the ability to see in all directions and uses it. This is achieved through the use of high mouse sensitivity. The distance a mouse should travel to turn 90 degrees should be much less then an inch. You should shoot for an eighth of an inch of physical space traveled to turn 90 degrees. If you can maintain accuracy at this speed, and I assure you this is very possible with practice, then your turning movements should be very near instant.
The contribution of situational awareness to the skill-set of a gamer cannot be understated. The poor response of analog controllers ensures that console gamers will never develop proper situational awareness skills.
The PC gamer has a much larger set of tools, so to speak, and so he or she learns to use these tools and becomes efficient with them. Console gamers don't have effective tools and so learn inferior tactics and are unable to capitalize on the awareness afforded by a better input device.
I've used this before and I'm sure most of /. has seen this, but I believe it fits the conversation at hand.
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I believe you 100%, but can you provide a link, so that I can twap other people around the head with it ??
Here you go:
http://kotaku.com/5593259/rumor-microsoft-killed-plans-for-pc-vs-xbox-360-online-play
My take is that due to pervasiveness of cheaters in PC multiplayer games, most long time PC gamer have already joined some clan or another, or have long time in-game buddies. Otherwise, if you venture out alone, you will be playing against cheaters all day long.
In BF2, it is common for PC clans to host their own servers, so they can ban any cheaters found.
OTOH, the console don't have/need private servers. Hacks/aimbots/etc mods are not (yet) possible on PS3, so it is common for PS3 players to just join random multiplayer games without any clan or wait for buddies. Lots of BF2 games in PS3 are filled with players who don't know each other at all, you will find maybe 5-6 from clans out of 24 players in the game.
With this background, is it any wonder that tasks needing team work will be done much much faster for PC gamers than console gamers?
While some would say it is good news for PC gamers, as they logged only 1/2 of the hours played but "achieved" twice as much". I would think the opposite, as it indicates that PC sales is probably only 1/2 of either PS3 or XBox sales. I.e. combined console sales : PC sales would be about 4 : 1!
Is it good news for PC when they only consist of 20% of the market share?
Oliver.