Really getting into iron sights

[Naniyue]

I've used them here and there, but after recently playing Call of Duty 2 with the single player realism patch, I've grown fond of them. Anyone else come to prefer them now? Or have you always?

[Hellser]

I find for Doom, they have no place at all. But for "realistic combat" (ARMA II, Battlefield II, Bad Company II), they're very good. Arcadey games (run and shoot.. like Doom) should avoid them at all costs. It slows the gameplay down.

[SFJake]

I've never enjoyed a FPS that makes use of them as part of their gameplay mechanics (meaning I've only ever enjoyed them if they were absolutely useless).

Realism might be the absolute worse trait in the world when it comes to gameplay.

[wildweasel]

I love 'em. They're the best way to ensure that your players are taking time to line up shots, and allows the player to compromise between aimed shots and slow movement, or quick movement but scattered shots. Plus, as a gun nut, I love anything that adds more detail to the guns, because the guns are the stars of the show in any FPS game.

[Trance]

I agree with Hellser. Mil-sims and other realism-focused shooter games (and mods) need them. Run 'n' gun shooters don't.

[wildweasel]

I agree with Hellser. Mil-sims and other realism-focused shooter games (and mods) need them. Run 'n' gun shooters don't.

That's more or less true; I find that iron sights are largely irrelevant in Doom due to a combination of factors.

• Doom's hitboxes are not as precise as modern FPS game hitboxes. Doom does not have locational damage (with the exception of some fairly glitchy implementations in certain popular mods), and monsters can be killed in certain situations while aiming at "blank spots" in their sprites.
• Doom's levels do not contain very long distances that would necessitate the use of a zoom button.
• Doom's action is extremely fast paced and requires you to be able to acquire and switch targets very fast and very frequently, while moving at very high speeds. Iron sights, in most implementations, either restrict movement speed, lose alignment while moving, or reduce the sensitivity of the aiming controls, all of which go very much against Doom's run-and-gun gameplay.

Most of these could be aided by a smartly designed gameplay mod, such as Hideous Destructor (where run-and-gun behavior is a surefire recipe for getting instantly killed). When I implement irons in my mods, I don't tend to let them zoom in very far, try my best to prevent them from taking up a lot of the screen, and offer them as a trade-off to firing from the hip: zooming allows shots to potentially retain full accuracy at any range, but this produces recoil that requires careful re-aiming for each shot. Hip-fire reduces recoil considerably, but your shots' actual accuracy is then at the mercy of the RNG.

[iSpook]

Eh, I prefer to use iron sites on only a couple of guns if I want Iron sights at all (such as the burst fire rifle in this thing I'm doing).

[Naniyue]

I agree that, for the most part, iron sights aren't good for DooM, though I have used a couple of sniper weapons in it with great satisfaction. I was referring to more realistic(ally modded) games like CoD 2, Far Cry 2, and the like. One of my favorite games, System Shock 2, doesn't use iron sights, and plays just fine, though it would be kinda neat to see them implemented.

[Nash]

I admit that ADS are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine in modern games. x_x Getting the gameplay balance correct (scattered hip fire VS precise aimed shots) wildly varies from game to game though.

Iron sights in Doom mods are cool too but you have to overhaul a HUGE chunk of your mod's gameplay to make them useful.

[Matt]

Used to be a big fan of them, but I find they take up way too much of the screen for my liking.

Also annoying to have to bind another key to go into an "aim mode". Which isn't a big deal if it's bound to altfire (i.e., what I've got bound to mouse2), but if it's something that is very frequently used and altfire is used for something else and it's a mod so I can't just bind zoom to m2, it gets annoying fast.

Still love how they give a huge sense of the gun actually being there though. (I don't feel this way at all about seeing one's own body ingame, but that's probably because the gun isn't actually a part of my body so there's no dissonance that is there when my left hand is on a keyboard rather than supporting the gun...)

[enderkevin13]

It depends on how the mod gameplay is to be honest. Like in brutal doom for example, I use them sometimes, and other times I simply spray bullets.

[kodi]

Love them (in appropriate games) but I really dislike when aiming down the sights zooms the view. Another video game gun handling thing I'm really fond of when the gun isn't locked to the center of the screen while not aiming. Operation Flashpoint and Insurgency (only played the beta) did that and it felt great, like your rifle was actually a part of the game world. Room clearing with an M4 at the hip in Insurgency was a very special feeling.

[Xaser]

For a dude who plays a lot of old-school shooters, I've got an odd love for Killing Floor 2, which is modern flavour in terms of gunplay (though not enemy assortment). I'll use ADS when appropriate (distance mostly), so it's not like I'm outright against it.

[Redfox123]

I reckon that iron sight are ok

how ever i dont bother because the simple reason that THEY ARE TIME COSUMING TO CODE.

[Naniyue]

For those who didn't already know:
https://sites.google.com/site/realgunshardcore/home

I started playing No One Lives Forever 2 again, and while there are no iron sights, if you change the color of the crosshair to all black, it kinda has that effect, at least for me.