Realistic shit that many people would think is unrealistic if they saw it in games - When real doesn't "look real."

[Corn Flakes]

As someone who isn't really into war stuff and is only really a layman at the history, I also found it interesting that a lot of modern naval battles were more of a loose game of hide and seek, where timing and surprise are one of the more important things besides firepower. Same as to how many warships optimally needed months of repair/refit after engagement.

Most modern media in emphasizing only the battles sort of makes you think that ships went from battle-battle, and that battles were still massive fleets steaming into battle with one another. This also carries forward into the sci-fi genres (where space ships are equivocated to earth navies), and so something like Children of a Dead Earth was interesting in the way it portrayed space ships and battles.

Most games also don't model just how many shots ships needed on average to get a single hit at long range. Even World of Warships, which has less accurate ships than most, doesn't come close to the amount of lead WWII ships needed to put in the air in order to get a clean hit on a target far enough away.

 

[The Wizard]

Knocking someone unconscious for longer than 10 seconds is actually really fucking deadly and basically results in brain injury. The longer you're knocked out, the less chance you're getting back up again.

You also don't fade to black when you get knocked out (especially from some kind of head trauma).

When you black out, generally it feels like a jump-cut. One instant you're standing upright, then the next, you're laying on the ground with a headache and wondering how you got there.

Depending on the nature of it, you may not even remember much in the minutes/hours leading up to losing consciousness.

 

[Dark Edea]

I was in the shower yesterday (naked) and was looking at the shower curtain. It has a mesh region up near the top and when seen at the correct angle the layers appear to make hard vertical and horizontal lines.

And I thought of this thread because I have seen transparent fabrics in video games behave this way and it always bothered me. But now I've seen it in the real world (and while I was naked, no less!) so it seemed like a good thing to add.

Granted I still think fabric materials behave poorly in just about every game ever. But that's another issue.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Meow?

Spoiler

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[Alexander Thaut]

swords aren't all that effective compares to polearms and axes and bows.

seriously, i remember a lot of people thinking swords were amazing. Katanas, claymores, rapiers, etc.

 

[IamSpechal]

swords aren't all that effective compares to polearms and axes and bows.

seriously, i remember a lot of people thinking swords were amazing. Katanas, claymores, rapiers, etc.

Disagree. It's highly dependent on what and who surrounds you and the place you're fighting. Swrords aren't the best, but they're still versatil. No weapon is "the best".

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

Disagree. It's highly dependent on what and who surrounds you and the place you're fighting. Swrords aren't the best, but they're still versatil. No weapon is "the best".

I could be wrong but I understood that swords were often sidearms/backup weapons... but they filled a lot of niches and their usage varied from location to location and from era to era.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I could be wrong but I understood that swords were often sidearms/backup weapons... but they filled a lot of niches and their usage varied from location to location and from era to era.

Different tools for different purposes, yes. If you're a footsoldier or a poorly-trained levy in an army-vs-army field battle? Spears and polearms will see you through the initial charge, and swords are a good backup when the crowd gets tight around you. If you're a guard assigned to stay in one place all day and not move much? Spears and polearms are still very good. If you're going out and about and doing things and walking all day, though? A sword is lighter and easier to carry than a spear, and being able to cut things out of combat is often more useful in day-to-day life than being able to stab things. So yeah, there's no ultimate weapon no matter what the weebs say about the katana.

 

[Solid Snek]

swords aren't all that effective compares to polearms and axes and bows.

seriously, i remember a lot of people thinking swords were amazing. Katanas, claymores, rapiers, etc.

Disagree. It's highly dependent on what and who surrounds you and the place you're fighting. Swrords aren't the best, but they're still versatil. No weapon is "the best".

I could be wrong but I understood that swords were often sidearms/backup weapons... but they filled a lot of niches and their usage varied from location to location and from era to era.

Different tools for different purposes, yes. If you're a footsoldier or a poorly-trained levy in an army-vs-army field battle? Spears and polearms will see you through the initial charge, and swords are a good backup when the crowd gets tight around you. If you're a guard assigned to stay in one place all day and not move much? Spears and polearms are still very good. If you're going out and about and doing things and walking all day, though? A sword is lighter and easier to carry than a spear, and being able to cut things out of combat is often more useful in day-to-day life than being able to stab things. So yeah, there's no ultimate weapon no matter what the weebs say about the katana.

Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria (fencing club, Youtube channel, and historical research forum) is fond of saying "context!". In fact, he is so fond of saying "context!", that he says it even when it's not contextually appropriate.

Yes, in general, the best weapon for any given situation will depend "on context". In the context of a historical, pre-modern combat situation, you will not be able to say that there is one weapon which, in all cases, regardless of opposing weapons, armor, number of opponents, time of day, thing you had for lunch etc, will be superior to all other weapons.

That said, in most contexts, polearms are better than swords. This has been born out both by testing (HEMA practitioners and experimental archeologists), as well as by examinations of the historical and archeological record. Pole weapons were more popular than swords, because they were more effective than swords, in a wider variety of contexts.

Throughout much of history, swords were treated either as status symbols ("wall hangers"?) or as sidearms - as a secondary or even tertiary backup weapon on the battlefield, or as a day-to-day civilian defense weapon, similar to the "handgun in the glove compartment" thing we might see today (for weapons that could double as tools, knives, daggers, and hatchets were preferred). However, if you were a pre-modern person, you knew there was a fight coming, and you had your choice of weapons, then polearms would probably be the one you'd want.



The sole exception to this rule is the katana. The katana was used by ninjas, and thus is clearly the most ultimatest weapon ever.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria (fencing club, Youtube channel, and historical research forum) is fond of saying "context!". In fact, he is so fond of saying "context!", that he says it even when it's not contextually appropriate.

Yes, in general, the best weapon for any given situation will depend "on context". In the context of a historical, pre-modern combat situation, you will not be able to say that there is one weapon which, in all cases, regardless of opposing weapons, armor, number of opponents, time of day, thing you had for lunch etc, will be superior to all other weapons.

That said, in most contexts, polearms are better than swords. This has been born out both by testing (HEMA practitioners and experimental archeologists), as well as by examinations of the historical and archeological record. Pole weapons were more popular than swords, because they were more effective than swords, in a wider variety of contexts.

Throughout much of history, swords were treated either as status symbols ("wall hangers"?) or as sidearms - as a secondary or even tertiary backup weapon on the battlefield, or as a day-to-day civilian defense weapon, similar to the "handgun in the glove compartment" thing we might see today (for weapons that could double as tools, knives, daggers, and hatchets were preferred). However, if you were a pre-modern person, you knew there was a fight coming, and you had your choice of weapons, then polearms would probably be the one you'd want.

Yeah, it’s kinda like how some officers will commission fancy pistols. It’s easier to travel and to conceal a sword too.

The sole exception to this rule is the katana. The katana was used by ninjas, and thus is clearly the most ultimatest weapon ever.

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bullshit that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon) 1d12 Damage 19-20 x4 Crit +2 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon) 2d10 Damage 17-20 x4 Crit +5 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.

 

[Stalphos Johnson]

For as odd as the game was, E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy is the only other game I can think of off the top of my head that had a shotgun that was effective past Bad Touch range. You do a lot of corridor fighting and mid-range engagements, so early on before you get access to the really crazy shit, the Depazador and its twenty round magazine do some damn fine work for most maps if you don't want to bring an assault rifle of some stripe.

I remember Doom 1 and 2's shotgun had a decent range on it and was pretty useful if you didn't have the patience to pistol or minigun snipe.

 

[MysticMisty]

Explosion sounds (when the explosion is a distance away) and pretty much any thunder that doesn't come from a lightning bolt super close by. In real life there's always a gap between seeing an explosion (or lightning bolt) and then hearing it, but media pretty much always portrays it as being instantaneous when it's in the distance.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Since we're on topic of medieval weapons and since the little polearm boys are done creaming themselves about their peasant weapons, let's go back to the topic of swords, the real man's weapons, namely longswords and zweihänders.
I'm sure a lot of people would think that the deathblow technique, more popularly known as "mordhau", as well as half-swording would be considered "unrealistic" or would necessitate "hurting" yourself when using those techniques because you're gripping the sword by the blade to turn it into a mace (mordhau) or spear (half-swording) so you're obviously cutting your own hand, right?

WRONG! It's all in how you grip it, if you grip it correctly you can even hold the sword with your naked hand and slam something as hard as possible and you still wouldn't cut into your own flesh.

 

[Bastard_Call]

This one right here. Throw a turkey choke on your shotgun and you're playing an entirely different game. And most people will say it is unrealistic and overpowered.

Do any games offer customization that in-depth in terms of firearms?

Resident Evil 4 has a selection of 3 shotguns. One is a typical video game shotgun, the other has an extremely wide spread for crowd control and lastly the "riot gun" is basically what he described. Very tight spread, very long range, and a high DPS. The individual customization of each weapon isn't great though. Maybe Payday 2 has what you're looking for, but you'd have to put up with the dull game that surrounds an admittedly pretty good gun-autist simulator.

It's all in how you grip it, if you grip it correctly you can even hold the sword with your naked hand and slam something as hard as possible and you still wouldn't cut into your own flesh.

You make it sound like some ancient technique. It's just a matter of gripping the sword tight so it can't slide around, since the slicing motion is what actually cuts you. More interestingly, if you sit on a bed of nails and place a cinder block on your stomach, then have a friend swing a sledge hammer against that cinder block, breaking it, you will get back up perfectly unharmed. The cinder block perfectly disperses the energy from the sledgehammer and so doesn't transfer to you.

 

[Neet Tokusatsu]

I remember Doom 1 and 2's shotgun had a decent range on it and was pretty useful if you didn't have the patience to pistol or minigun snipe.

I think it is actually kind of hard to name a particular shotgun on an old FPS that was bad at medium to long range, like many people already mentioned in this thread, the shotgun in both Doom 1 & 2 works decently at long range, same goes for Quake's, Duke Nukem 3D , Turok's and Half Life's respective shotguns. I think the weird idea of "shotguns can't kill anything beyond 3 feet away" started not with shooters, but with horror games, Resident Evil shotguns are nearly useless unless you fire at point-blank range, and of course, there's also this thing...

The poster boy of all videogame shotguns with so little range, to the point they might as well be melee weapons.

 

[Jabroni]

In fps games when a grenade or even mortar fire hits your surrounding area your player doesn’t immediately get knocked down for a couple of seconds and lose all hearing. If this was real people would complain about being hit with a blast being a free kill.

 

[StraightShooter2]

There really isn't much in video games that's "realistic" to begin with (other than maybe driving sims or something), there's just different levels of believability, ranging from the comical and absurd, to the semi-realistic and somewhat believable.

The same goes for movies, TV, and entertainment in general.

 

[Radical Cadre]

Resident Evil 4 has a selection of 3 shotguns. One is a typical video game shotgun, the other has an extremely wide spread for crowd control and lastly the "riot gun" is basically what he described. Very tight spread, very long range, and a high DPS. The individual customization of each weapon isn't great though. Maybe Payday 2 has what you're looking for, but you'd have to put up with the dull game that surrounds an admittedly pretty good gun-autist simulator.

Red 9 life.

 

[mr.moon1488]

The way starships handle in games. In reality, in order for a starship to stop or slow down, it would have to use some kind of mechanism to produce thrust in the opposite direction to which it's currently traveling. I've seen this in almost no games though. In most of them when you let off the thrust, the ship slowly comes to a stop.

 

[Kurtis Trent]

Americanized standards to how women are allowed to be portrayed. All these androgynous looking wahmen with a tumblr haircut, square waist and a fat ass treated as more "realistic" and "human". Beautiful women are realistic too, not to mention I don't see any male protags looking like MovieBob.