Posted: 03 Dec 2009 03:20

Hi there,

I think the SDM Qualification is quite unrealistic. I realized that somehow from time to time you miss a target even tough you marked it right. It seems to me a little bit buggy or done by a random generator...

Besides that I think it's a little bit odd to aim always for the head. During my military service we always learned to shoot for the body (heart, etc.), because it's the biggest part of a human and therefore you won't miss it that easily.

This is my personal opinion, I'm interested what other players think about this training.

Regards,

Cobra

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:02

SpecialForceOp wrote:

Hi there, I think the SDM Qualification is quite unrealistic. I realized that somehow from time to time you miss a target even tough you marked it right. It seems to me a little bit buggy or done by a random generator... Besides that I think it's a little bit odd to aim always for the head. During my military service we always learned to shoot for the body (heart, etc.), because it's the biggest part of a human and therefore you won't miss it that easily. This is my personal opinion, I'm interested what other players think about this training. Regards, Cobra

It IS buggy. You're not supposed to do the training anyway, because auth has been down for it for months.

Also, there's a reason to aim for the head. It makes for a nice, quick, clean kill. Aiming for center mass may be effective and easier, however, considering the fact that the enemy also wears body armor, makes it actually harder. the head is the soft target. you could shoot for the legs, but capping his knees and crippling him won't necessarily kill him. The bullet is also not necessarily random. It's realistic bullet drop and trajectory, so it is still possible to miss a target, even IRL.

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 08:41

Yeah, Lilith, I'm pretty sure SpecialForce is referring to real life for that whole aiming center mass thing, not the computer game.

As for the SDM training being buggy, the registration is a little off sometimes, but I think there is a "wind factor" in there somewhere that can make the bullet drift a bit without us being able to really tell ( as we have no indication of wind direction and all that in game ). You would probably be a better judge if that is realistic or not at those distances, as you said you were in the service.

During the Open Beta when I actually spent the time to get expert, most of my misses definitely seemed like the bullet just disappeared half way to the target and never got there when it probably should have hit.

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 10:08

I wasn't criticizing about the center mass thing; I didn't say that this is not done/taught IRL. I know it is. I was saying that regardless of the hit-and-miss, center mass would not be efficient knowing that the enemy has body armor in that area. The more exposed part, and most at risk to injury and/or death is at the head. AA2, however, doesn't exactly include body armor data, even though Soldiers are skinned with them.

The game has strays just like IRL, and this was done intentionally. The developers were making this game in preference to more realistic projectile behavior than in AA2, where bullets actually originated from the chest of the Soldier himself, with no bullet drop and laser-like trajectory. Because of this, your grouping is determined by the recoil the game creates, and the distance to the target. AA3 doesn't exactly ignore bullet drop, so there is technically no laser precision.

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:06

Hi Lilith,

O.K. - that's an argument I can accept. Even tough aiming for the head is something very difficult IRL. First of all soldiers normally wear helmets and second head movement may be sudden. So it's quite difficult to make a clean shot.

Even tough it's not appropriate, we learned to wound the enemy not exactly to kill him. The reason is quite simple, a dead soldier you can bury where you found him, but a wounded soldier poses a huge problem - logistically. I don't remember it well, but I think they were talking of around ten people absorbed for one wounded one.

The body armor thing is an acceptable reason to aim for the head. But honestly wearing body armor is quite annoying and you get tired quite fast. I'm not sure if all American soldiers wear body armor during combat. Otherwise there exists special ammunition to shoot down a guy who wears one...

But back to the game, it would prefer, that the SDM Qualification would be a bit less difficult. I think that wind or bullet drop don't exist in the game (am I wrong?), but there's a random factor which influences the hit or no hit. That's a bit annoying... But as I said in my first post, this is my personal opinion.

Greetings,

Cobra

Posted: 16 Dec 2009 16:11

You have the option to always hit body, you will still pass the training and get proficient. Doing all headshots in my opinion is only for gameplay purposes and just for a badge/achievement.