[sli]

This seems like a strange example because out of my fairly large VR game collection, I can't think of a single shooter where reloading is anything different from just physically doing a reload action like you would with a real gun. I can only think of two games where the ammo is stored differently than real life (Compound and Alyx), the rest have ammo pouches and belts.

I can think of one smaller game where reloading is different, and that's Space Pirate Trainer, where you bring your guns behind your back for a moment. But that's more of an arcade game than what most people mean when they talk about shooters.

Maybe give Subnautica a try. Or the old version of HL2 on VR.

[acid_burn]

> physically doing a reload action like you would with a real gun

More like physically doing a reload action while wearing a thick pair of well-buttered gloves.

Each game does have small differences in the reloading process, be it pressing a specific button to release the slide or (strangely) pulling the charging handle every reload. Even firearms enthusiasts would have to learn these details.

Beyond that, VR controls are still limited. You have little to no tactile feedback, so you don't intuitively know when you failed to grab the magazine off of your belt or failed to grip the bolt. You have to learn the exact positions and tolerances to avoid slipping up and botching an entire reload in the heat of the moment. I find this to be completely unsatisfying in comparison to mastering a real life manual task.

I also often find myself banging my controllers together, especially when handling pistols.

I think most people find this kind of thing frustrating and immersion breaking, which pretty much defeats the draw of VR gaming.

My favorite VR game is Resident Evil 4 partly because it seems that they focused on reducing the friction of weapon handling. Most processes are fairly simplified and the tolerances are generous, but you still get that heightened level of intractability in VR vs a simple button press.

[wkat4242]

> Even firearms enthusiasts would have to learn these details.

And they do, even without VR, because every gun is different. They all have different mag ejection and safety methods too:)

[SlickNixon]

>or (strangely) pulling the charging handle every reload

AK or AR or ?

[mkehrt]

> I can't think of a single shooter where reloading is anything different from just physically doing a reload action like you would with a real gun.

This seems exactly what the OP is complaining about. Why would you want that, rather than just hitting 'r' or whatever?

(I literally have no idea how to reload a gun, FWIW. Having it be "realistic" doesn't actually make it easy or discoverable.)

[bitwize]

Reloading typically involves disengaging and removing the empty magazine, sliding in a fresh magazine, and then pulling back on the gun's slide to chamber a round.

If you shoot real guns a lot, it's probably second nature. But it's a fairly involved motor process that's cumbersome to implement in VR. Furthermore, different guns in FPS games can have different (often creative) reload animations; Reaper from Overwatch for instance, simply discards his twin short-barrel shotguns and pulls out two new ones. Will these different reload animations necessitate different VR gestures?

Going for realism in VR or any video game is fraught with these kinds of problems. "The more you get specific about situations analogous to reality, the more you have to stipulate on." --Egoraptor

(There's a YouTube channel of a guy who makes different "reload animations" of himself wielding various objects (smoke detectors, caulk guns, toasters, Furbies, etc.) as "guns" with a different, unique way of reloading each: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHi-xECyGTU )

[PurpleRamen]

> Why would you want that, rather than just hitting 'r' or whatever?

Because it's more immersive.

> Having it be "realistic" doesn't actually make it easy or discoverable.

Isn't it the games job to teach you this? Like it's teaching you which button to use?

[ambyra]

It’s common beginner gamedev thinking that making things more realistic makes them better. It’s only fun if it’s fun. Realistic is usually != fun. Maximizing the core fun element, taking away everything else, is a good way to make a fun game.

Realistic skydiving game: Start! Drive your civic to the DZ. Oh no there’s traffic! Wait for plane. Get in plane. Take 20 minutes to fly to altitude. Fall for 1 minute. There are no obstacles, nothing around you so you don’t die. Land. Wait to get picked up, take 1 hr to repack your parachute. Talk to your friends about how cool it was.

Fun skydiving game: Start! Jump out of airplane immediately. Skydive for 15 minutes. Surf on the wing of a plane. Avoid obstacles. Fly around buildings. Try to land in a swimming pool on the side of a mountain. Land. Parachute repacks automatically. You’re back in the air automatically.

[duskwuff]

> It’s common beginner gamedev thinking that making things more realistic makes them better. It’s only fun if it’s fun. Realistic is usually != fun.

As another case in point: movement speeds in most first-person 3D games are unrealistically fast (like, walking at 10 mph, running at 20+ mph), because realistic movement speeds would make navigating around the game world painfully slow.

[dilznoofus]

*full packing physics for the parachute! Frayed lines, tangling, dodgy mechanisms! The risk of plummeting to your account's demise.

[matthews2]

We need a cops and robbers game where the robbers serve their prison sentence in real time, and the cops have to fill in mountains of paperwork for every shot fired :)

[Bjartr]

> Why would you want that, rather than just hitting 'r' or whatever?

I think it's more engaging/immersive not because it's more realistic, but rather because it adds nuance to the action and makes it more of a skill to be learned. The lows of the "oh shit" moment of flubbing a reload in the middle of a firefight and the highs of pulling off a perfectly timed John Wick-esque reload in the middle of a firefight are much more intense than just tapping a button.

It's a more embodied version of the "reload bar" mechanic in some games where you can just hit the reload button for a normal reload or hit it twice with good timing to get a better/faster reload, but if you miss the sweet spot you get a worse/slower reload.

[rolenthedeep]

That's the R in VR: reality.

The focus in VR games right now is creating realistic interactions. Ideally, your controllers should be only for interacting with meta content, like menus and other things "outside" of the game, or for controlling virtual hands.

Pushing a button to trigger a visible sequence of actions from your character breaks the immersion. It creates a separation between you and your character in a scenario where you're supposed to be the character.

Ultimately it is a stylistic choice. There's definitely room for both types of game in this space, but combining realistic and arcade style interactions in the same game tends to not work that well.

A big part of VR is manipulating psychology to fool you into feeling more immersed. It works pretty well until it doesn't, then users can become very uncomfortable.

I think the main problem here is semantics. We use the term VR to describe wholly-immersive games as well as traditional flat games with a 3D head mounted display, and everything in between. OP seems to just want a HMD experience tied to a traditional game. The industry really needs to come up with new terms to disambiguate these ideas.

[phailhaus]

Because if you hit "R" and your in-game model does something that you are not doing physically in real life, you will likely get motion sick or at least disoriented. It is a very unnatural feeling, and why VR games are so hard to design for.

[jkubicek]

> I can't think of a single shooter where reloading is anything different from just physically doing a reload action like you would with a real gun.

I'm fairly confident that more people have experience reloading video game guns (just press Square) vs. the motions required to reload a real gun.

I know that when I'm playing Pavlov, every time I spawn with a new gun, I have to relearn how to reload it (and then die surrounded by all the clips I've dropped).

[wkat4242]

> I know that when I'm playing Pavlov, every time I spawn with a new gun, I have to relearn how to reload it (and then die surrounded by all the clips I've dropped).

That is realism. Real guns are quite different in this regard too.

I understand you would prefer to just push a button but this makes it more realistic and adds another factor of skill.. Just like taking cover in real life.

Situational awareness in VR is better than pancake games. But a lot of other things are more difficult because it's more realistic.

[jkubicek]

No, you misunderstood me. I like the realistic reload mechanisms in Pavlov, I think they're fun and wouldn't change anything.

But the parent comment complained about having to relearn complex control schemes every time they pick up a VR game, which is valid. Effectively nobody is going to have the muscle memory for reloading a gun, making it strictly more complicated than just mashing a reload button.

[wkat4242]

Is that really different though from consoles? Most console games have control mechanisms that need to be learned for each game. Often with really complex button mechanisms. And as another poster pointed out, often you can have a button reload option too. Pavlov is different in this because it's a player versus player game, thus giving the option for a one-button reload would put the others using the more realistic option a disadvantage (so many times I've dropped a clip in Alyx and scrambling trying to grab it :D ).

So in PvP you need to make one choice and stick with it. Single player games don't have this issue.

The only game that really messed this up IMO was Lone Echo. There's a tutorial for a new thing every 2 minutes and that really gets annoying.

[dvngnt_]

but half life alyx has single button reloads too

[cableshaft]

I'm kind of sick of the realistic reloading being so prevalent (and mandatory) in VR. It was novel for a while, but it really takes me out of focusing on what the enemies are doing. Especially since it's not something that 'just works if you get it somewhat right' for pretty much any of those games and sometimes requires more precision for grabbing ammo out of your belt than for shooting the damn enemies.

Many of them require you to grab something in your belt area (and I'm a fat guy, so several games already require me pushing into my body to get to the right position), and/or I'll try to do it without looking down (like I would in real life) but then the game thinks I clicked in the wrong area, so I have to look down each time and even then it seems I clicked just slightly off 2-3 times before I can grab the damn clip off my belt, and by then the zombie or whatever has closed half the distance to me.

You're already breaking immersion for movement by having a stick to move you around and not walking 1 to 1, just let me press a damn button, wait a couple seconds while focusing on the enemy, and keep shooting.

Also, requiring you to grab ammo from your belt pretty much stops the game from being able to be played seated, because you'll be jabbing your couch or chair arm trying to get to your virtual belt. Sometimes I just don't want to stand in place for an hour. For most of those games, that's the only thing keeping them from being playable while seated.

One of the reasons I like Space Pirate Trainer so much is because there's no immersion breaking there, it's all energy weapons and you just have to slow down or stop shooting for a moment for it to recharge enough to shoot again, no reload required. And I can keep my focus on the enemies swarming around me. But I want more games besides that, and there doesn't seem to be that many (at least not that I'm aware of).

Compound is another one I like, although it does have several steps for its more complicated guns (although not the basic guns, and I tend to rely heavily on those), and sometimes requires you to drop your second gun (for it to float in midair, mind you) so you have a hand free to reload your other gun. How's that for immersion breaking?