Are headshots ruining games?

So apparently Goldeneye was the first game to include this now prevalent feature. There's a really cool article on Kotaku detailing the history of the headsot (and even has Jeff's game ruining argument thrown in for good measure!)
 
http://kotaku.com/5625054/the-history-of-headshots-gamings-favorite-act-of-unreal-violence     
  
I for one totally agree that they're ruining games - here's hoping game stop making enemies bullet sponges and go for a more realistic approach, with one bullet actually doing a meaningful amount of damage, regardless of where it hits. I hate shooting an enemy in the arm/leg and having them carry on as if I'd just slapped them...

No

Get shot in the head, then ask this question again.

No.

I do not think so. It's a realism option certainly, but one that demands skill to execute.

" No "

" No. "

" I do not think so. "

I understand where Jeff is coming from, I really do, but headshots aren't the problem. Shitty AI is.

Yes but they aren't as much of a problem as snipers are.

In multiplayer titles, it's too easy for a hipshot bullet heading off of massive recoil to hit a player in the head. It means instant death because of total chance. 
 
I agree with it as a skill shot, but it is so easy to perform, it's hardly skillful.

No, not really. However, headshots are more or less a problem with games like Fallout 3; where you can simply put on VATs and always aim for the head; because that's pretty much 80% of the time where you're going to kill the enemy faster (unless the accuracy sucks balls). 
 
I do respect games that however unlearn the headshots; such as Dead Space. Normally in games when I find it difficult to kill an enemy, I'll look for the opportunity to shoot for the head. Except, that doesn't work in Dead Space.

It's a problem in games where you have high amounts of time to aim like SC: Conviction and Fallout. It's fine in Halo, but in multiplayer games with lots of recoil getting lucky headshot from random hip firing at people's legs is a problem. It's kind of hard to argue about because if they remove the recoil the game is unrealistic (But how realistic is it that elite american soldiers run around hip firing at each others?) , but if they keep it it may become an unbalanced shitfest where all that matters is luck. 
 
I'll say no though, it's normally not a problem as long as the design team is concious about making it take skill to execute.

Hell no.

Headshots are only a problem because of other design flaws (retarded AI, being able to line up headshots whilst your character is behind cover staring at his own feet, unrealistically accurate weapon use etc).  Getting rid of headshots would be treating the symptom rather than the cause.
 
I do agree that some kind of ratio ought to be maintained between headshot damage and body damage.  One shot headshots are all well and good, but not if it also takes half a mag to the chest to kill somebody.  You can't really use 'realism' as justification for it in that case.

In the games I play, headshots are really hard to pull off, so I dont see them as a problem. They reward the good players most of the while. 
 
A point could be made though that they are punishing to new players, but thats a whole different bag of worms.

I know people are going to misconstrue this as just me being a peecee fanboy, but eh.
 
Are console shooters becoming stale because of overreliance on headshots among the "hardcore" community? Most definitely. Granted I'm not a big follower of MLG and the like (infact I detest the MLG for reasons I won't go into in this thread), but it's pretty plain to see that those games are all about using a small selection of weapons - ones deemed by the community to be "balanced" - most of which are medium/long-range guns like snipers and assault rifles, whose main strength is the ability to easily score headshots. Instead developers should strive to include a balance of long, medium and short range weapons (Halo is a good example of this. There are definitely things I'd change, but for the most part it manages to stay competitive while still being very diverse).

Is the same true for PC-oriented shooters and communities? Yes and no. There will always be those people who think they're hardcore because they can noscope, but for the most part I believe the PC scene has been around long enough that it's beyond that "headshots are so hardcore omg" phase. To be honest I'm a relative newcomer to the PC world, so there's not a whole lot I can use to back this up.
 
Anyway, feel free to pick apart this post and tell me why I'm an idiot.

no, I don't like damage sponges.

Only when they don't cause instakill. 
More enemies, less enemy health.

That was a surprisingly well written article from kotaku, considering their usual terrible standards.
 
As for the headshot debate, headshots work fantastically in some games, and not so well in others. But they've become a necessity in gaming, and the majority of reviewers would mark a game down if it didn't have one-hit-kill headshots, claiming it makes it too unrealistic. But games don't have to be realistic, and I don't see why some games couldn't remove the headshot (or at least make it less powerful) to allow the other weapons to be come more useful. Ultimately it depends on the individual game design direction, but the headshot shouldn't just be something that gets automatically shoved into every single shooter.

Look in real life, a bullet to the head with end someone's life and shatter their brain, so it makes sense that it's a good thing. If you aim at their torso, you need quite few shots to kill them, legs and arms are survivable. You haven't seen headshots non stop until you played counter strike. Of course getting a head shot in real life is difficult.
 
Tbh, I am not good enough with a console controller to hs everyone, most ppl who kills me on consoles usually just spray and prays for multiplayer. However for single player games, I do like going for headshots and that works.

" That was a surprisingly well written article from kotaku, considering their usual terrible standards. "

Only when using certain sniper rifles in Counter Strike :P

Well...sometimes.
It's skill to an extent, but really I sometimes come across duders online who just blast you clean in the head every single time.
Which sucks if you unload a clip in their torso and they casually shoot even tho you had the advantage.
That could be seen as my own lack of skill (Oi!) or just lifeless kids...
 
Thinking the last option makes it a bit more durable for me...

" @MattyFTM said:

" That was a surprisingly well written article from kotaku, considering their usual terrible standards. "

Really? "

I understand the arguement in terms of realtively slower paced games like Splinter Cell but other than that it's fine. If you can a head shot on an enemy they deserve to go down quickly
 
@BrainSpecialist: Ya really!

Nope.

no, i don't think so. it is just other things that make the game ruined. recoil from hip firing the person. it can make the gun go to the head. back in the day headshots were a lot harder to do than before. snipers are another thing that happen. there are a lot of people that camp and snipe all day.

Are headshots ruining games? I wouldn't say so. But what I do believe is that in terms of realism, the headshot is the only part about shooters that matches reality. At least for the most part. There've been plenty of times where a person got shot in the head, and survived without any brain damage. But that nitpick aside, I often do feel like shooters don't portray getting shot realistically, unless it's a headshot. In real life, it doesn't take several shots to the chest to kill someone; a well placed shot at the heart will almost always be a killing shot. Similarly, if you shoot someone in the leg, there's no way they will continue to run around as if nothing happened. When it comes to games, however, only the ultra-realistic shooters acurately represent this.  
 
But think about it for a moment. Do you really want this level of realism in all your games? Would you enjoy a Call of Duty game if getting shot in the leg meant your movement speed was reduced to a hobble? Or if a shot to the arm meant you no longer had a steady aim? Personally, I can't see that as being much fun. Then again, I could be wrong, and the result might make for far more interesting multiplayer matches.  
 
You know, on second thought, I wouldn't mind a CoD game with accurate damage models. It could even the playing field, and I think it might be fun to shoot your opponent in the foot and watch them try to get around afterwards. We could even have interesting challenges like, "feet fetish!" 
 
But long story made short: headshot aren't ruining games, the innacurate damage models on the rest of characters' bodies are. 

Claiming that headshots are ruining games is essentially the same as claiming that aiming is ruining games.  A headshot is aiming at a smaller target on an enemy to do greater damage, in most cases, the enemy's head.  If headshots are ruining games, then strategic dismemberment in Dead Space was not good.  You were aiming at a target on an enemy's body to do superior damage.  In Capcom games (Lost Planet and Resident Evil), many enemies have glowing yellow spots on their arms or chests that you need to shoot (in addition to regular zombies and soldiers having the target be the head).
 
Aiming is not hurting games.  The idea of an enemy having a weak point is not hurting games.

No, a too high level of accuracy is ruining games. In the real world and games that accurately model combat it is often preferable to shoot for the center mass because it's easy to miss a head. Lower accuracy to a realistic level (it's almost impossible to hit something while moving, breathing affects accuracy, as does fatigue) and headshots are no longer an issue. 

Not at all

" It's a problem in games where you have high amounts of time to aim like SC: Conviction and Fallout. It's fine in Halo, but in multiplayer games with lots of recoil getting lucky headshot from random hip firing at people's legs is a problem. It's kind of hard to argue about because if they remove the recoil the game is unrealistic (But how realistic is it that elite american soldiers run around hip firing at each others?) , but if they keep it it may become an unbalanced shitfest where all that matters is luck.  I'll say no though, it's normally not a problem as long as the design team is concious about making it take skill to execute. "

" Get shot in the head, then ask this question again. "

Headshots are a fucking achievement, you dumb baby.

" No, not really. However, headshots are more or less a problem with games like Fallout 3; where you can simply put on VATs and always aim for the head; because that's pretty much 80% of the time where you're going to kill the enemy faster (unless the accuracy sucks balls).  I do respect games that however unlearn the headshots; such as Dead Space. Normally in games when I find it difficult to kill an enemy, I'll look for the opportunity to shoot for the head. Except, that doesn't work in Dead Space. "

" @MattyFTM said:

" That was a surprisingly well written article from kotaku, considering their usual terrible standards. "

Really? "

And to call into greater focus Jeff's actual argument; it was not that aiming for a weak spot is bad design, it's that many games are balanced in such a fashion that it as a playstyle completely nullifies playing the game any other way.  In a well balanced game, your weapon selection is based on either tactical (shotguns for corridor crawls, sniper for range, explosives for groups), or personal (selecting a weapon based on your comfort) reasons.  Jeff's argument is against games that are balanced in such a manner to make both tactics and personal preference moot, as there is really the one correct way to play.  He deliberately uses the term 'min-max', which is not something you see outside of RPG discussions, and it's accurate.  You discover which weapons break the game's difficulty, and you focus entirely on those.  If every quest in an RPG could be solved by the lockpicking skill, you would focus on that to the exclusion of all else, or you would be deliberately hampering yourself.  If the game never requires you to alter your tactics, or presents situations that reward or punish your personal preference, it makes a game full of weapons turn into a game of one weapon.

" @Meteora said:

" No, not really. However, headshots are more or less a problem with games like Fallout 3; where you can simply put on VATs and always aim for the head; because that's pretty much 80% of the time where you're going to kill the enemy faster (unless the accuracy sucks balls).  I do respect games that however unlearn the headshots; such as Dead Space. Normally in games when I find it difficult to kill an enemy, I'll look for the opportunity to shoot for the head. Except, that doesn't work in Dead Space. "

Dead Space is a bad example. Instead of shooting the head, you shoot an arm instead or something similar. Rather than removing it, it just put it on a different body part or turned it into a two step system. "

We have a God given right to headshot.   
 
Take it away now...do it, I dare you to.   
 
I'll laugh when the zombies come out and win.

They need to introduce nut shots.

" They need to introduce nut shots. "

" @Fallen189 said:

" No "

@BulletproofMonk said:

" No. "

Or for a more polite approach 
 
@Ghil said:

" I do not think so. "

"

I like shooting guys in the head and being rewarded! Splinter Cell Conviction (the game Jeff complained about) was just poorly designed, I guess. I don't think they make games too easy, and in multiplayer games they are really cool.

If I shot someone in the head and they didint die instantly then I would be pretty pissed off.

So you still want a headshot, just one that registers anywhere on the body?  That seems right.

" No, a too high level of accuracy is ruining games. In the real world and games that accurately model combat it is often preferable to shoot for the center mass because it's easy to miss a head. Lower accuracy to a realistic level (it's almost impossible to hit something while moving, breathing affects accuracy, as does fatigue) and headshots are no longer an issue.  "

No, not really

I think headshots are one of the most satisfying things in a multiplayer shooter.

Fail gamer.  
 

No but toe-shots in hardcore modes are. Prone needs to make a mass comeback so we can implement being knocked down as a standard. I can understand bleeding out from a grave foot injury over a number of seconds, sure. But when a couple rounds of pistol fire to the toe kill me instantly, I get annoyed.
 
I should be forced into prone with the ability to crouch for a few seconds until I either find a medic, bleed out, or get shot.