Strafing / Raindancing

[John Daymon]

First of all this will be the official discussion regarding strafing / raindancing, please note that this is just a discussion so that we can resolve what we as a community think is completely fine to do and what we would either like nerfed / not allowed at all.

A couple of months ago @Slayerduck opened a discussion regarding what he called raindancing, in his post he included a clip where a player was moving like this

I would consider this not being allowed in my own opinion, the reason for this is obviously because you should not be moving around like this in a simple gunfight because not only is it unrealistic but also just stupid.


Now I've come across a lot of gunfights and have had a lot of discussions regarding this "tactic" in general, I believe that a movement as shown below is anything bad or has a bad effect on any people in a gunfight other that they have to adjust their aim slighty, some claim it's muscle memory and that they do it without thinking which I can partly agree too, I do such thing aswell.

However below here we see a clip of something that I'd personally want to see either nerfed or just removed completely / forbidden by rules.

Now please note that this is only a discussion, respect each others opinion on things and don't talk smack people for their opinions, try to get them to understand your opinion instead.​

 

[Imperial Watch]

You want to ban something that comes in a complete natural way when you are playing FPS games?
I personally don't mind "raindancing" as long as they're not bunny-hopping during the gunfight or some stupid shit like that
It's something everyone does if they've played some sort of FPS game or a game that requires you to shoot a gun during their lifetime.

Some things should be just left alone, and I think this is one of those things. As mentioned, it's something that comes naturally to everyone so I don't see why it should be regulated

 

[Daigestive]

As people have already been banned for it as 3.3 realistic actions ... if its being enforced as it is I'd like something added to the rules to state that you cant strafe/sprint while shooting. Currently the rules are very vague when it comes to "raindancing" which is something everyone will do in gunfights otherwise to minimise the chance of being hit. You can say that it's unrealistic but something that comes very natural in games.

 

[FatGeorge]

i dont mind a little bit of a strafe, but when it comes to this:

Kill it with fire.

 

[Jonah]

Personally i feel like it's just too natural not to raindance. As a player that plays multiple FPS games raindancing is just like second nature for me.

 

[Josef Stalin]

Best thing to do right now is making you slower when aiming down your gun (right mouse button). Its an easy option and there wont be any misunderstandings anymore

 

[Slayerduck]

I don't think enforcing this by rules is good in the long run, thus why i suggested to deal with this in the game engine instead. https://perpheads.com/threads/studder-stepping.27507/

 

[Alliat]

Thats why we should add something that raindacing drastically decreases your aim. That way people can choose being hard to hit but terrible aim. Or easy to hit but also capable of hiting your target properly. Right now there is not really a disadavange when raindacing.

 

[exrobite]

Memery aside, both @Slayerduck and @Alliat have proposed the optimal (and in many peoples eyes, only) solution to the issue.

Many FPS games encourage erratic movements while shooting as they do not attempt to conform to a realistic setting. This means that players are used to the shooting style.

It is also true that users will always use the optimal strategy presented to them. In a heated situation rule considerations may be second place to emerging victorious. The players who take any means necessary and may inadvertently revert to their habits of rain dancing are then punished. For what? Wanting to win? Nah fam.

tl'dr: Rule based deterrents do not work particularly well with split second decisions. Conditioning users to not raindance via the shooting system itself is a better idea.

 

[Moon The Goon]

I dont mind civillian doing it, but it when TFU do it...All that armour and they are just going left and right so they're hard to hit. That's when it annoys me

 

[Teemo]

It is literally compulsory to anyone who has played an FPS for more than a year. I would understand if it was something where people had time to think but if I am getting shot at I am going to use my muscle memory.
It depends on the severity of rain dancing, I tap A-D like I do in other FPS's but if people are running in all directions. :/

 

[Moon The Goon]

I present to you! ItzRyzo the raindance kingggggg....

 

[Taylor]

well this server has been up for a good few years now, and people have been using the "raindance" ever since, because its pretty much a muscle memory, but for some reason people are only complaining about it now? idk why but anyway, like i said, it's a muscle memory and i wouldn't complain if i saw this:

because thats normal, and people that can actualy shoot... can kill them if they do this or not.

but if i saw people bunny hopping, and doing this

then maybe they are pushing it.

 

[John Daymon]

well this server has been up for a good few years now, and people have been using the "raindance" ever since, because its pretty much a muscle memory, but for some reason people are only complaining about it now? idk why but anyway, like i said, it's a muscle memory and i wouldn't complain if i saw this:


because thats normal, and people that can actualy shoot... can kill them if they do this or not.

but if i saw people bunny hopping, and doing this

then maybe they are pushing it.

As said the walking is fine, i'm completely fine with it


Second thing is just aids

 

[GringoHead]

Well, I think that raindancing is something just natural and you can't defeat nature. So just let it happen really

 

[joey]

Honestly, I don't think players should be blamed for this anymore. My reasoning is that it's a problem with how the guns on PERP work, not how "realistic it is" as if a player shouldn't be able to strafe shoot, without stopping, and have a high amount of accuracy then the game mode should be to blame and it really should be fixed.

Although this has been suggested before, they should just do a CS:GO and make guns incredibly inaccurate whilst moving in any fashion, such as you would experience in real life, then you just need to stand still as a rain dancer's bullets miss you. I hope people share this view as it feels as if it's becoming excessive when players are punished for doing this in combat.

 

[TinySlayer]

Firstly, this should never be something that is enforced by server rules. This is because it is not black and white, it is natural for players, and is frankly ridiculous for anyone to complain about when they have the equal opportunity to do the same actions.

So, that means we have to address it though a game mechanic. The big question is: How?

The major issue with any solution is that we should avoid degrading the ability to shoot while moving in a single and constant direction.

Currently, the game mechanic works by taking your current velocity and using this to increase your recoil and decrease your accuracy. Simply put, the faster you move, the worse you aim.

The first option is to simply increase the variables so you shoot even worse while moving, perhaps with a particular bias when moving sideways.

The second option calculate the recoil and accurate values on the average speed (it is key that this is not velocity) of the player over the past 5 or so seconds.

The third option is to reduce movement speed while holding a firearm, aiming a firearm, and even increase the time taken to raise or lower your firearm shortly after moving.

However, all three of these ideas hav a detrimental impact on a core game concept - raiding. If it becomes too hard shoot while advancing forwards, the advantage to the defenders increases massively. Therefore, while you could implement any of these solutions, they will just create different problems. Instead, we need to focus on the precise mechanic of sidestepping.

This is not a straight forward mathematical problem to solve. To detect if a player is side stepping, you would need to regularly record their velocity vector and aim angles. You may then be able to change the players movement speed, adjust accuracy or recoil. Personally, I would prefer if stamina is massively reduced instead.

If any of you budding young mathematicians or computer scientists wants to show me some pseudocode to calculate if a player is doing the third gif, but not the other two, I'll be happy to critique your work.

 

[glacial]

https://perpheads.com/threads/raindance-fix.28173/ consider my post.

 

[Jimmy]

Why not just disable ADS when holding the sprint key?

 

[Walker]

I don't get why this is such a problem, this is essentially an FPS game with the focus on gunfights etc etc (lets be real) and any mechanic you implement will be horrific because its gmod. Disable ADS when sprinting sure but anything more than that will be clunky and annoying.

Easier solution is just not to care because you are playing a GAME and anyone who has ever played a FPS game like CS:GO will do this.

Then you have @Husky using this to shit on people in OOC but he does it too because its a habit 90% of people have.