zoom is a double edged sword, ill make a long post just reserving a spot
First lets put some things together of the function of your eyes.
- your eyes see everything at a realistic size
- your eyes are able to see in about a width of 180 degrees
- your eyes work at a constant field of view which doesn't change when focussing.
- you see sharp in a range of a 10 degree fov, but your eyes got the fastest muscles in your body allowing you still feel you see things sharp over your entire vision by quickly focusing and moving your eyes around.
- when running or moving your eyes physically do not change, it just becomes harder to keep looking at a single still item as you need to try and track the target with your eye muscles rather than just keep still.
Now first up is that looking at this list is that without a big screen or a wide fov head mounted display its pretty much impossible to obtain the full functionality of your eyes. So whatever you do in a game even when being realistic whatever you pick ends up as a compromise.
The classical approach
For instance most games decide to pick a trade off between fov and the size of things. Such that you have a big enough fov to not feel like you're moving around with blinders (and minimizing the fish eye effect) while still being able to see things in a reasonable size. The advantage here is that things are always showcases at the same size, which primarily helps in immersion. But the maximum range you fight at is diminished generally.
The Zoom approach
Some games want people to be able to see things at a realistic size, on an average monitor and average distance this requires a fov somewhere around 40-50 degrees. As this fov on its own is too narrow to move around, these games generally offer a wider fov option you can switch between to give you an ability to see your surrounding better. The advantage here is that you are more easily able to fight at realistic ranges (and judge distances correctly), although the image often changes in size which can take you out of the immersion.
My verdict
Both methods are not perfect, but both points have their merits and can be defended from a realism standpoint. Both offer something realistically that the other method does not, and trade in another part of realism.
What method you prefer based on realism will depend on what you find more important, seeing things at a 1:1 size at a realistic distance. Or not having changes in the imagery. This in the end is just a matter of taste, and not so much that one method is absolutely more realistic than the other.
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Having said that, I'll now explain why game play wise I personally prefer the more classical method. And beside that give my opinion how RO2's zoom which will inevitably stay could be improved.
Zoom got an advantage of being able to see things at a realistic size allowing you to fire and shoot enemies at a realistic distance at approximately double the distance without zoom. However when you are zoomed in due to limitations of your screen you trade in size for less fov, this brings the biggest issue for me with zoom.
Because both you and the enemy can zoom this means that enemies will try to setup at a range where they can see targets when zoomed in, but are very difficult to see when not zoomed in (the difference between full zoom and no zoom is simply too big for that, DH and KF in a sense allow both fovs to be functional). This forces you as a player when you want to take that enemy down you need to zoom in yourself. When zoomed in your fov is severely limited meaning that its likely that not all potential treats fall within your 45 degree fov, requiring you to use your very slow arm muscles to move your mouse to look around, and cannot rely on your very fast eye muscles.
This makes me feel like playing with blinders on, and gives me the same sensation as in most games when you play as a sniper. Essentially a big part of your mobility comes from your abililty to see a relatively wide area, take that away and you become forced to act like a sniper. Whether realistic or not from a gameplay sense I don't like games where the sniper class is unlimited, and in hos with the zoom the gameplay becomes very similar to those sort of games.
While with a lower fov enemies are more difficult to spot than they would be in reality, a counter for this is simply making enemies easier to spot in general. In Red Orchestra Ostfront, characters didn't have self shadowing making them stick out more than in reality. While an unrealistic effect, as a result even when enemies were smaller than in reality they sticked out more allowing you to see targets at close to realistic ranges. (
http://steamcommunity.com/id/zetsumei/stats/RedOrchestra/?tab=achievements I got the Marksman Gold award at 400 meters an enemy was roughly 1 pixel big at 1920x1080 but its possible to pull it off).
For general spotting there is another effect that can be used in all games to effectively zoom in. Which is effectively the flattening of the fish eye effect. With a 90 degree fov (default for many games) you have a quarter circle projected on a flat image.
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As you can see the red bit sticks out quite a bit from the green line, this makes it such that items in the corners of your screen take about twice as many pixels as objects in the center of your screen. This means while items feel as if they are the same size in the corners of your screen they are actually about twice as big (just try it out yourself). Meaning that even if you found things too small you could use the corner of your screen as a magnifying glass to look around in realistic size.
Judging distances with 1:1 fov goes better however, judging distances is not that important unless you need to know the actual distances. Since there is no map based navigation in RO you only need to know the distance for the bullet drop and how far you need to lead your target. The advantage or disadvantage of being essentially zoomed out say at 90 fov is that it feels as if your character moves twice as fast as in reality. (this is likely the reason why the movement speed in HOS actually seems too fast as when you sprint your fov becomes even wider).
Finally there is another point with the fov zoom which is specific to tripwire's implementation. You can only use the fov zoom when standing still and not while walking jogging or sprinting. When sprinting your head bobs in RO2 and the background changes quickly making it hard to focus on things just as in real life. Realistically the defenders have a huge advantage over the defenders, but being able to see things bigger isn't one of the defenders attackers. Which is why I think that like in other games utilizing zoom you should always be able to quickly go in an out of zoom and switch between the two states.
Anyway this was my bit on zoom
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