PC Gamers Crush Console Brethren 387
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."
Re:It doesn't say that at all. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, assuming that the player populations are of equal size, with equal numbers of hours played...
That may be quite an assumption, since the hours played since team actions have counted towards unlocking the map isn't listed (at least it wasn't when I checked). Considering that BC2 is a bit of a darling on PC in light of Activision's actions of late, it likely has a much larger portion of the online population on the PC than the consoles (where most players are probably playing CoD, Halo, or Resistance/Killzone). That being said, PC gamers are still faring a higher actions per hour rate since launch, but with the possibility of a larger population on PC it's likely this was never going to be close.
Re:hold on there (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, but it's a fairly popular game.
The players were required to perform certain "team actions" which are healing, resupplying, repairing, reviving, spotting and assisting. With the exception of assisting all of these actions are simple and require no aiming or other complex action to perform, put simply push button, receive medkit.
Yes, but you're logic is flawed. I would bet there are slightly more players on Console then on PC as DLC tends to sell better on consoles. This has less to do with the number of gamers and more to do with the way gamers on the respective platforms work together. PC gamers tend to be less "STFU NOOB" and more working as a team. I've played BF BC2 for a while and I've yet to suggested to perform any sexual acts on my progenitors. I mean the other day this guy accidentally ran over me with a tank as I was getting out, he even apologised.
The real truth from a FPS gamer of 15 years. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:It is a superior control system (Score:4, Interesting)
Actions rewarded here in this story aren't about "precise aiming and control". It's about hitting a button or a key to throw out a healing pack, ammo pack, or blow torch to point at a tank (about a foot in front of you, so no aiming necessary). Kills and other actions that are non-support are not counted in this statistic, making the input method irrelevant.
It seems obvious to me that there is less fragmentation on the PC right now, so everyone rushes to the new gaming experience that is finally available. On the consoles, people are spread across a number of pretty good recent games. For example, there seem to be an average of 1,000,000 playing the newest COD at any given moment on just the 360, alone.
It may also simply be that Bad Company is bigger on the PC than consoles (I'm not sure if it is or not, though it seems odd if it is, since Bad Company is essentially the round-edged console version of a Battlefield game). If that's the case, then it's an even less meaningful statistic. It's like saying that PC gaming is the biggest thing going, merely because so many people play WoW.
Don't get me wrong. I've been a PC gamer my entire life and I used to talk trash about consoles. I've just come to grips with the fact that we're charity cases, taking what developers pick and choose to actually give us and often as poor ports from games focused on console development and dropped on the PC as an afterthought. Telling myself that "PC gaming is bigger than ever!" isn't going to make it so.
The one benefit I would say PC gaming still has is the community of gamers. I was getting really addicted to Black Ops on the console (I finally got over the "I need WASD+M" hurdle), but I recently woke up one morning and said "I'm done. Not playing another minute of that, ever.". People on PCs are assholes, but I've never experienced anything like Black Ops on the console. Not even Modern Warfare 2 on the console was this bad of an experience. In one evening's gaming session, I would say the average person must hear about 500 racial slurs, just as many homophobic slurs, and a couple hundred death threats. And that doesn't even count the constant five year olds squealing into their microphones, assholes playing their shitty fucking rap music or country music over the mics, randomly screaming into the mics just to disturb people, or carrying on phone conversations or in-person conversations while their fucking mics are hot.
PC gaming seems to still have just enough of a hurdle to get into that it filters out a big chunk of these dipshits.
PC players are more clannish (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:It is a superior control system (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually with analog controls you can be quite precise as well. The problem is that people that grew up on consoles (the 16 year olds these days) have gotten used to consoles dumbing down the controls to the point that many don't know they can be more precise. There's many times I play with my younger brother-in-law and beat him in FPS I haven't played before and when I look at his screen he doesn't even bother aiming before shooting. I have seen the same from a number of gamers even those that are ranked pretty high.
This conflicts.. They dumb the controls down precisely because they know the analog stick is a poor substitute for a mouse. It's not just the controls either, but the whole gameplay mechanic: hitbox size, movement speeds, weapon damage etc.. There's a reason consoles had that 'kiddie' rep in the first place, it's just that the current crop of gamers never played any of the oldschool pc shooters, so they say that pc gamers are whiners who can't adapt. They can adapt just fine, it's that they don't want to use something that's inferior to what they've been playing on for the last 15 years.