One hit Kills in Online Multiplayer?

What do you guys think of One Hit Kill Mechanics in online multilayer games?
  
Personally i think its probably one of the worst mechanics a developer can ever implement, no matter how complex or easy it is to achieve.  First of all it automatically strips the game of any tactical layers online. Everybody rolls a type of Glass Canon character, where who ever hits first wins. I have never understood how this type of online play is fun for people. Its seems that people think wining is the most fun no matter how shitty the journey getting to that winning spot. Even if wining simply gets you a digital number above another individual. My most memorable online multilayer moments are always the ones where each side has been fighting it out for the last hour, and each side is down to the wire.  Then suddenly the last kill occurs and its all over. But I never remember those moments for the winners or the losers, but for how simply awesome the entire experience was fighting tooth and nail the entire match.
 
I'm mainly discussing this issue due to seeing multiple online communities fall prey to this type of play. Where once was a game with numerous layers, interesting ideas, out comes the teams full of glass canons. Now is this the developers fault, for allowing such mechanics to persist in their games? Or what about developers who willingly include these mechanics? Whats the point of constructing any other mechanics if you know well that 90% of your user base will use the one hit kill method?
 
The worst offender that comes to mind is Counter Strike, and CS:S where the entire game devolved into awp matches. Now thats not me complaining, as i was one of those awp whores. But I'd strongly bet that Valve learning much from TF2 will never allow such a repeat in CS2, out 2025. On the point of TF2 online play, its really weird to have an online competitive game where this issue doesn't arise. You can't say a Scout is better or worse then a soldier because they each have their roles, or a sniper vs a heavy.
 
This topic mainly sprung up from me reading about Armored Core V ( don't judge, we all have our embarrassing games we love dearly), where the developper said;
 

• Nabeshima pronounces the theme of violence with the "Over Weapon System" which is able to have players destroy combatants in one hit, although difficult to use.

 "Up to now, the battles were centered around how well you could dodge your opponent's attacks while firing away and gradually whittling down his AP. That's fun, of course, but once one side has an AP advantage over the other, it became difficult to come back from that. This system dramatically changes that battle balance."  

Resistance: Fall of Man:
 

• Team deathmatch
• Snipers only
• One hit kills
• Hanger

The tactics of being discrete and avoiding fire can be good too. They both have disadvantages. Either way, who ever shoots first, unless one of the players is significantly better, will generally win.

Depends. Arma, Project Reality for Battlefield 2 and the HL2 mod "Insurgency" is the best gameplay i've ever had. Knowing that you just cant run around like crazy (read: COD) is fun. You're looking for big fights and standoffs. In my experience that only happens IF theres a "one hit kill mechanic" in place.

Man i miss Insurgency..

The fun is in the tension.  
 
Tribes 2 Paintball mod was always incredibly tense and addictive, making it one of my all-time favorite MP experiences.

@laserbolts said:

It depends on the game really. I love the sawed off shotgun when I played then gears beta. You risk getting mowed down for attempting it but if you can flank someone and make it work, it's actually pretty awesome.

This. Sawed-Off Ambushes are hilarious.

Man with the Golden Gun anyone?

it depends on how the game is. i have played games where it was one hit kills and everyone was camping. they can be pretty boring if you can creep out of a corner to get shot at. i think it should depend on how close you are to the person.

Honestly I think games like CS 1.6 and Source handle it perfectly. They're highly skill based. Yeah there's one hit kill mechanics, but you can never rightfully bitch about a death; the best players would beat whatever chumps you're up against 100% of the time, so you could have won that round had you played it better, so what are you complaining about? That's the kind of attitude I want in an online multiplayer match. One hit kill is just a heavy punishment for it, meaning that players who make fewer mistakes are heavily(and instantly) rewarded. If a game is less skill based and has more random luck in it than Counter-strike I think it's just frustrating, though.

Depends on the game - TF2, due to it's nature, limits this mechanic to specific weapons that usually require a great deal of skill to use consistently (sniping, backstabbing), which is why the Direct Hit is a flawed weapon, as one-shooting light classes at point blank requires no skill at all.

CS, on the other hand, is a game built entirely around combining reaction speed with pin-point accuracy and an understanding of the movement and recoil. The AWP has significant weaknesses, even in the hands of a pro with amazing no-scope reflexes, which is why you don't see competitive matches consisting of 5 on 5 AWP matches. While many CS guns are considered flawed compared to the main ones, there is a reason that even those mains (AK, Colt, Deagle, MP5) are mixed up depending on map and situation, and why some people swear by less used guns (I was very good with the Mac10 in CSS back in the day, and would often use it instead of the MP5 when rushing in wars on certain maps).

Multiplayer FPSes, despite being a part of the same genre, often have very different feels, as the developer has different gameplay objectives. Bad Company 2 is focused on combined arms and movement, and as such has shooting mechanics designed to discourage loan wolfing it, whereas TF2's manner of encouraging teamwork is to push class roles and soft/hard counters. CS allows a much greater capacity for personal skill to influence the game, at the expense of the fact that all your personal abilities with one-hit kill weapons count for shit if you get flashed and gang-banged by 8 normal players with shotguns and duallies and you aren't alongside your team.

Different strokes and all that, essentially. While I have moved away from te CS style of gameplay and love my TF2, it doesn't invalidate the people that love that twitch, high personal skill style of gameplay.

Tim the Corsair just said what I wanted to say perfectly. That's exactly it.

Man with the Golden Gun anyone?

it has benefits i can appreciate but overall I don't enjoy games with one hit kills.

Resistance: Fall of Man:
 

• Team deathmatch
• Snipers only
• One hit kills
• Hanger

To this day, it's the most fun I've had online.

@EVO said:

Resistance: Fall of Man:
 

• Team deathmatch
• Snipers only
• One hit kills
• Hanger

To this day, it's the most fun I've had online.

God RFOM had some baller MP... Now i miss it  :(

Depends on the game - TF2, due to it's nature, limits this mechanic to specific weapons that usually require a great deal of skill to use consistently (sniping, backstabbing), which is why the Direct Hit is a flawed weapon, as one-shooting light classes at point blank requires no skill at all. CS, on the other hand, is a game built entirely around combining reaction speed with pin-point accuracy and an understanding of the movement and recoil. The AWP has significant weaknesses, even in the hands of a pro with amazing no-scope reflexes, which is why you don't see competitive matches consisting of 5 on 5 AWP matches. While many CS guns are considered flawed compared to the main ones, there is a reason that even those mains (AK, Colt, Deagle, MP5) are mixed up depending on map and situation, and why some people swear by less used guns (I was very good with the Mac10 in CSS back in the day, and would often use it instead of the MP5 when rushing in wars on certain maps). Multiplayer FPSes, despite being a part of the same genre, often have very different feels, as the developer has different gameplay objectives. Bad Company 2 is focused on combined arms and movement, and as such has shooting mechanics designed to discourage loan wolfing it, whereas TF2's manner of encouraging teamwork is to push class roles and soft/hard counters. CS allows a much greater capacity for personal skill to influence the game, at the expense of the fact that all your personal abilities with one-hit kill weapons count for shit if you get flashed and gang-banged by 8 normal players with shotguns and duallies and you aren't alongside your team. Different strokes and all that, essentially. While I have moved away from te CS style of gameplay and love my TF2, it doesn't invalidate the people that love that twitch, high personal skill style of gameplay.

I like 1HKs in competitive online multiplayer. They have their place within the eco-system of fun MP balancing. As long as it's under strict limitations.

Funny that you mention TF2. I think it's broken in the sense that it has a lot of comeback potential, and there's nothing that can really be changed either. If you're getting killed alot, there might be the chance that you get a random crit and turn the tables, or you can get an uber and hopefully put it to good use, or spy kills a key person. People only like playing and watching games that are broken, if there's no comeback factor it's boring. People don't generally like games of attrition, they want that quick rush and feeling of achievement.

OH Planetside .... how awesome you are for those long drawn out battles that last hours with no insta kills.....

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

Depends on the game - TF2, due to it's nature, limits this mechanic to specific weapons that usually require a great deal of skill to use consistently (sniping, backstabbing), which is why the Direct Hit is a flawed weapon, as one-shooting light classes at point blank requires no skill at all. CS, on the other hand, is a game built entirely around combining reaction speed with pin-point accuracy and an understanding of the movement and recoil. The AWP has significant weaknesses, even in the hands of a pro with amazing no-scope reflexes, which is why you don't see competitive matches consisting of 5 on 5 AWP matches. While many CS guns are considered flawed compared to the main ones, there is a reason that even those mains (AK, Colt, Deagle, MP5) are mixed up depending on map and situation, and why some people swear by less used guns (I was very good with the Mac10 in CSS back in the day, and would often use it instead of the MP5 when rushing in wars on certain maps). Multiplayer FPSes, despite being a part of the same genre, often have very different feels, as the developer has different gameplay objectives. Bad Company 2 is focused on combined arms and movement, and as such has shooting mechanics designed to discourage loan wolfing it, whereas TF2's manner of encouraging teamwork is to push class roles and soft/hard counters. CS allows a much greater capacity for personal skill to influence the game, at the expense of the fact that all your personal abilities with one-hit kill weapons count for shit if you get flashed and gang-banged by 8 normal players with shotguns and duallies and you aren't alongside your team. Different strokes and all that, essentially. While I have moved away from te CS style of gameplay and love my TF2, it doesn't invalidate the people that love that twitch, high personal skill style of gameplay.

This

I actually love this style of play. I started playing online shooters with Call of Duty on PC, where one hit kills were the norm...my favorite was the KAR-98K, iron sights of course, and it was essentially a one hit kill at any range with a torso or head hit. After that, games where my opponents were bullet sponges just never felt quite right. 

Gangbanged on CS S? The maps have choke points that you can fall back from allowing you to kill 2-3 enemies before said gangbang takes effect. Ever shoot two people in the head camping, throw flash and grenade, then rush in and kill another two, and throw another flash, and then try to take out the rest? CS S allows you to create situations where even against 8 people a single person can kill more then half of them. I;ve seen it happen a bunch of times. Grenades dont discriminate. CS S is awesome sauce. Most guns take two shots to the head or chest if powered properly. Headshots arent easy to get against moving targets. In real life those guns dont just kill you they remove your limbs leaving behind a shell of a person who is bleeding to death. :D

I'm not sure if it was an option but it seemed to be on the old Tom Clancy games.  I really enjoyed those 1-shot sessions back in the day.  Game rounds were fast, too.

I like it.

Instagib!

Strangely I had a lot of fun when I installed Red Faction 2 yesterday and played a bot match with 1 hit kill (Glass Cannons :P), maybe it was a blast from the past or a little something different but I enjoyed it, as for 1 hit kills in general? well it depends on the game and the mechanics within it, if you have a small map/deathmatch type game it would be pretty frustrating to have to shoot someone twice with a sniper rifle to kill them a,la Cod, also if you finally managed to get up close with a Gnasher in Gears 3 and the shot doesn't kill them.

Eh.
 
Unless it's trying to be a "tactical" game--by which I think you mean a game that necessitates a more methodical, less twitch-based approach, since...games with one hit kills still require tactics. Just not of the same kind--I don't see the issue with OHK mechanics. If it's not trying to be a slower paced game, then you can't fault it for not doing something to your liking. There is a subject of games available to you that appeal to those sensibilities. 
 
Twitch-based games/one shot kill games aren't inferior to more 'tactical' games, they're just not the same. 
 
As for how it's fun, welp, fun is a rather useless word. What does it mean? Can't I have "fun" with a one-hit kill game just as much as I could with a more 'tactical' game? It comes down to preference, and, given that, I don't see "fun" as a useful metric for determining whether one shot kills work well in a game.

I actually love this style of play. I started playing online shooters with Call of Duty on PC, where one hit kills were the norm...my favorite was the KAR-98K, iron sights of course, and it was essentially a one hit kill at any range with a torso or head hit. After that, games where my opponents were bullet sponges just never felt quite right. 

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.  One hit kills everywhere!