Medal of Honor

By now, most people know we’ve been trumpeting “authenticity” as one of the core tenets of Medal of Honor. But how far is too far? Can a game feature or mechanic become too authentic and ruin the experience?

Absolutely.

We’ve spent a great deal of time working on the sniping mechanic in our game. At times during our development, we would reach a point where we took into account too many things and the experience quickly deteriorated. So we would take a step back and approach it from a different direction.

Here is an example. For one of our sniping encounters, focused on the art of sending a very personal message at an extreme range, we started by first selecting the optic. We then chose the rings, reticle and turret configuration for this particular optic. We ultimately decided upon a variable 5.5-22x50 with a Mil-Dot reticle and 1/10 Mil-Radian turrets.

The fine details of angular Mils can be confusing, but basically Mil-Dots serve two purposes, range estimation and trajectory correction. The horizontal and vertical marks (or dots) on the reticle are used for range estimation and the vertical marks are used for bullet drop compensation. A well trained shooter will also use the horizontal marks to compensate for bullet drift due to wind.

One Mil angle is approximately 3.6 inches at 100 yards. A 6 foot tall man is 72 inches. At 100 yards he would appear to be 20 Mils tall. At 1000 yards, he would be 2 Mils tall.

To determine the distance to a target of known size: (Distance in yards) = 1000 / 36 x (Object size in inches) / Mils

To determine the size of a target at a known distance: (Object size in inches) = 36 / 1000 x (Distance in yards) x Mils

Knowing these relationships, in conjunction with the external ballistics of a loaded projectile, a trained shooter can dial in his glass pretty quickly and make an effective shot.

But guess what, for most people, this isn’t very fun.

Yes, it is accurate and it is authentic, but when you place a controller in the hand of most gamers, they instinctively think one thing. If I place the crosshairs on a target and pull the trigger, I will destroy the target. Doing math, estimating holdovers or adjusting turrets for windage or elevation isn’t something they bargained for.

What if we asked the gamer to consider bullet weight, muzzle velocity and terminal ballistics? After that, we asked them to think about eye relief, respiratory pause, temperature, barometric pressure, spin drift and the Coriolis Effect?

Imagine this. You’ve finally figured it all out and you send the shot. But then you realize that you forgot to consider whether Afghanistan is in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere to determine if the bullet will move slightly to the left or the right because of where you are located in relation to the Equator. It can quickly become a rabbit hole of endless possibilities to define what is authentic and real versus what is fun.

So although we strive for authenticity and accuracy we must always account for the enjoyment of the largest number of gamers.

We ultimately ended up doing something very cool with our sniping mechanic. It’s accessible, fun and provides the sort of immediate feedback you would expect from filling the role of a well trained sniper… without having to do the math.