Aim vs. tactics

The skill-level of the higher echelon of a given game player base increases as one or more of the following occurs:

1. The quantity of the player base increases.
2. The maturity in terms of number of played man-hours increases per player.

In regards to 1v1 gameplay, aim and tactics are always important, but which is more important? Let's define the terms first, using my favorite FPS series Quake as the benchmark. The same definitions can be shifted slightly to apply to other popular FPS benchmarks like Counterstrike.

Aim - To direct a weapon towards an intended target.

I, as a player, have to manage my hand-eye coordination in order to move my mouse precisely to the proper pixel space on the screen, taking additional care based on whether I am using a projectile weapon (plasma gun, rocket launcher, grenade launcher) or a hitscan weapon (machinegun, shotgun, lightning gun, railgun). For projectile weapons, there are additional variables on how to manage hand-eye coordination based on the speed or trajectory of the projectile.

Plasma fire spam is extremely quick and straight. Rockets are moderately fast and straight, but also do splash damage so the best risk-to-reward is to hit a player directly on their feet. Hitting a player directly on their feet will often be rewarded with a direct hit and, therefore, maximize the amount of damage inflicted. If the shot is slightly off, the rocket still hits on the ground near the target's feet to inflict splash damage - the closer the shot to the target, the higher the amount of splash damage done. Grenades have an arcing trajectory and are best, like any other weapon, when the shot directly hits the target. Due to the arcing trajectory, they are slightly more awkward to aim and, as a result, are often spammed (shot in great quantity) in order to create higher quantity of risk for the opponent.

Players can respond to projectile weapons by dodging the fire. Different dodging patterns work better on certain player styles over others, but there are generic dodging patterns that tend to work advantageously overall.

For hitscan weapons, the only limitation to hitting your opponent is the requirement to be in line of sight of the opponent. If you can see your opponent, you can hit them.

Conversely, dodging hitscan weapon, on a technical level, is not possible. However, certain dodging patterns play on standard human hand-eye reaction models to trick a player into aiming improperly and missing their shot. Players who have control over their mental game and are never tricked will never miss because of opponent dodging techniques. There's no current player like this though (although some players impressively come close sometimes).

Tactics - A procedure or set of maneuvers engaged in to achieve an end, an aim, or a goal.

In our benchmark case, the goal is to maintain level control or achieve a point by fragging (scoring a gaming kill) your opponent. Tactics are managed for the following reasons:

1. To maintain level control positionally - The player who controls more advantageous positioning has an advantage (in general). This usually means the player with higher ground or better angles has the positional advantage when initiating a player confrontation (a fight).
2. To main level control via item control - The player who controls the more desired item resources (armor, health, weapons, and sometimes ammo) has an advantage.

Tactical advantages can change quickly if item control changes. Additionally, tactical advantages change quickly based on the positional risks taken and positional changes by each player. There's a lot of subtlety involved in tactics.

As games mature the following occurs:
1. Tactics increase exponentially and then flatten out in growth towards maturity.
2. Aim steadily increases for the overall player base.

This allows for more tactical risk to occur as a game matures since players with increasingly good aim can manage more risk. However, an equal opponent can manage the same. So both factors (aim and tactics) are still equally important.

The issue that arises is when aim increases, the power of projectile weaponry gets reduced. This is unavoidable. Aim being equal, it makes sense to use a weapon (in the majority of cases) that cannot be dodged.

This leads to aim being a stronger factor than tactics, if and only if, the damage done by hitscan weapons is greater than or equal to the damage done by projectile weaponry. This is the current state of things in Quake. Rockets and grenades still have their place, but are not as powerful as they used to be. Why?

Again, if a player can manage more damage without caring about dodging techniques, then it makes sense to do so. In turn, when dodging becomes less relevant and hitscan weaponry become overused, tactical intelligence gets put to the wayside, which, in turn, dumbs down the game.

This is part of the reason why I never got hugely into Counterstrike. Everything is hitscan. The saving grace that Counterstrike has is that it is a team game so tactical positioning and timing is still important because you can work with teammates to move opponents into tactically disadvantageous positioning.

So it comes down to how does a game designer balance hitscan against projectile weaponry. I'm not certain entirely, but I think a good start is to never design a hitscan weapon to be as powerful (damage-wise) as a projectile weapon based on common fight patterns. As a disclaimer, I am comparing the common competiting weapons (rocket launcher vs. railgun / plasma gun vs. lightning gun).

I realize I am showing some bias, but I do truly think that tactics make for more tense and interesting games. Otherwise, base competition becomes reduced into a hand-eye coordination competition, which isn't in the spirit of any competitive 1v1 game.