Sustained Fire Penalty#26585

There have been a lot of suggestions proposing changes to gun mechanics in order to counter recoil scripting. Here’s one that wouldn’t be as punishing to skilled players, and would have the added bonus of providing a bit more immersion in the shooting mechanics.

Rather than “randomizing” recoil, as a number of players have suggested, why not have the spread slowly increase after the first 4-5 shots in sustained, automatic fire? That would make it possible for a skilled player to still get two or three kills with a good spray transfer, but would prevent recoil scripts and aimbot from enabling a player to kill 6+ people with a single magazine dump.

The idea is, for the first 4-5 shots, the recoil pattern stays the way it is. After that, if the player continues to hold down the trigger without letting recoil reset, the spread slowly increases with each shot until the 15th shot, where the spread could be within 1-2 degrees off from center based on the weapon’s already existing accuracy stat. After the 15th shot, it stays at that value until the recoil reset time passes, which would be intuitive, since most skilled players know how to observe (or have a feel for) when the recoil has reset.

This wouldn’t have a significant effect on close-range engagements, but would make controlled bursts and tap-shooting more effective in large engagements at medium range, effectively altering the skill requirement in a way that would reduce the effect of scripts and hacks without significantly raising or lowering the skill ceiling. It would require well-practiced players to adjust and relearn some behviors, but that’s really the worst impact I can imagine.

I’d love to see how other players would feel about this idea, too, so please leave comments.

Edit for clarity: In this proposal, recoil and the recoil patterns stay the same. A slowly increasing, slight random deviation is added as the trigger is held, until the trigger is released and the recoil pattern resets. The main skill change would be a trade for burst timing at medium-long range rather than practicing drawing a squiggly line with your mouse until your eyes melt every day.