My Problems With VR!

[ZyroXZ2]

SvennoJ said:

Good topics to raise. I don't have any fire arm experience myself which has its own 'problems'. No clue where magazines go or how to cock a barrel. The game shows it once for a bunch of guns and then every time I find a new one I'm scratching my virtual head how to reload the thing. Fumbling around while getting eaten by the enemies. I was also holding the pistol wrong for two handed aiming, hand on the barrel, probably a good way to lose some skin while firing :/

But it still leads to fun like this where I end up using the guns as clubs to hit with lol.

I also dropped the gun many times. I played CotM first where R2 is grab, in RE8 R1 is grab. So confusing.

Gun play aside, the biggest nitpick I have with RE8 is how to access the map. It seems to be inside my left ass cheek. To get the map I have to stick my hand partly under my left butt side to get it. At least in RE8 you can set your orientation to body oriented so the holsters etc don't turn when you turn you head.

In TWD S&S when you try to look down where to place equipment, the game interprets the head movement as rotating your body. So if I look down to my left to spot my left holster, the left holster turns away from me. Always staying just on the edge of the fov, in the blurry section you can't really see. I look like a cat chasing its own tail trying to put my knife back in the belt. (It's not like RE8 where it automatically goes to your holster, weapons in S&S fall on the ground and you can lose them) After a few days I got the muscle memory down to put weapons away without looking, broadly placing my hand out a bit from my thighs to the side and watch for the "stored" prompt to appear instead of hearing a clunk from it falling to the ground.

Getting equipment out stays tricky. In RE8 it's still often a crap shoot whether I end up with the side arm or the other gun slot on the right side. In S&S I often end up with the weapon from my back while trying to get the journal (which is on my right upper arm in). Getting the flashlight, might end up with the knife then having to carefully store it again.

These body inventories need a calibration screen where you can adjust the relevant places. Which would also work as a quick reference as in S&S it took me a lot of groping to get my success rate of retrieving the journal over 50%. No clue where to look for it at first.

Btw maybe you can figure out the bow in S&S. I can't seem to find a way to shoot where I look, no matter how I try to line things up (with headset getting in the way of course) the arrow always goes somewhere I didn't expect it to go. So bow is useless to me. The whole aiming seems a bit off as I have resorted to grab enemies by the head, hold their head still while shooting them point blank in the head.

That realism can also be a bit disturbing. Now I'm training my muscle memory to grab and stab, day after day, stabbing/shooting zombies and people in the head up close without thinking about it anymore. It's more horror for how gruesome it is than it ever is scary. Jam a spoon in an eye socket when the knife breaks again. (It's like BotW weapon durability)

I do use an axe a lot every year. Like to do my yard work, culling dead/dying trees from the river bank along our house, by axe. Good workout :) Yet in the game trying to use the axe to hit a plank, so frustrating. No matter how I try to hold the virtual axe, I can't get a good swing going. Takes me well over a minute to break down a barrier of 3 planks. Axe just slowing down or wobbling the wrong way making a dull chink against the plank.


It's a learning curve, both for the players and the developers. VR is in that stage of awkward 3D controls. When 3rd person games all had their own idea how to handle the camera and movement in 3D, resulting in having to adapt to each new game over again. Yet nothing feels better when it all goes right and everything works just as you had in mind. Intuitive solutions that actually work are the real magic. Problem is, physics aren't there yet, so all those things you think off, someone has to have thought off while making the game, to make sure it all works.

You make a valid point that I've mentioned during streams that aren't in the video: REVillage was NOT designed in VR.  VR was added as a functionality, and thus the guns, gunplay, etc. were not built from the ground up with VR.  This means there's not as much testing, revision, adjusting, etc. as there would be if the game this full budget VR game from the get-go.  Of course, your issues with TWDSS more highlights this as well: surely had there been more budget, they would have spent more time testing and adjusting.  For the record, REVillage's placement seems fine for me with the only awkward one being the jacket: when I open my jacket up, the stuff inside can't be grabbed until I open the jacket ALL the way, and once again due to muscle memory, when I DO use my inside pocket jackets, I don't swing them WIDE open just to grab something lol

Now the funny thing is I never had a problem grabbing the map.  It's always been my left hip and it pulls up just fine...

Qwark said:

I tend to agree with some of the points, but we also need to celebrate that VR games are getting to a stage that things like these bother us. Especially in RE8 I thought pumping the shotgun and actually reloading my weapons is pretty dope. But it's a bit awkward at times, oh well such is the way of new tech.

I mean, that's ironically THE problem lol... It's getting TOO real and I start defaulting to what I "know" instead of how the game expects to be handled lol

Alex_The_Hedgehog said:

I want VR to succeed and become more and more immersive. It's a childhood dream.

Judging by how fast it's evolving, I think it's safe to say that with each gen, every "problem" is going to be fixed one way or another.

I don't know that the headset thing will be fixed for a VERY long time: as long as it protrudes from your face like that, you'll inevitably hit it when doing any required close-to-the-face motions.  Heck, I hit my headset a few times just climbing in HorizonCotM because when you climb, you're actually hugging the cliff, so I ended up smacking the headset a few times until I started climbing "away" from the wall hahaha

mjk45 said:

SvennoJ said:

My problem today with VR is, my back and legs are too tired too stand. I have been out all day, jogging, parkour along the river, repairing stuff outside the house. My arms feel heavy, just want to sit down and play with a dualsense. So far only GT7 supports that on PSVR2 :/ Need more sit down games without required arm movements!

And if it wasn't for PSVR2, I would have so jumped on this
https://www.samsung.com/ca/projectors/the-premiere/projector-sp-lsp7tfaxzc/?modelCode=SP-LSP7TFAXZC
Laser projectors are finally becoming 'affordable'. It's not true native 4K though, some trickery involved, yet at 2200 ANSI lumen, that's a beast of a HDR projector.

Less jogging more VR exercise, but on a serious note developers need to understand while immersion is great having options regarding how one chooses to move through the world is even greater, they need to be reminded that the medium can be much more than it currently is and having options enhances that experience for all gamers.

This leads me to VR and those with a disability and how if used properly  functions that allow for less physical means for control and interaction in the VR space not just the gaming space can be even more important when aimed at the needs and wants that come with daily real world living and so having options that cater to those for what ever reason can't or don't want to physically move through the VR game world can be seen as being more than just another set of options to be grudgingly tacked on, because in the long run taking a what can VR offer us as a community approach benefits everyone, it can benefit game development and non gaming alike so firms like Sony  should be encouraged to think outside the boundaries of PSVR2/PS5 gaming mindset and so  along with gaming look at having non gaming projects that aid peoples development being brought to the fore and given more thought than here's an adaptable controller now my job is done. I'm sure if it was done correctly that you would see benefits that flow back into the gaming experience as well.

I think overall this is a conundrum.  The idea behind VR is to allow us to control MORE things using our able bodies than just using our fingers on a controller.  Ergo, the idea behind VR is to get MORE physically involved and to do MORE things than are possible with a controller (example: holding a knife or flashlight with my pistol in REVillage and aiming them entirely independently is simply not possible on a controller; I inadvertently demonstrated this in REVillage during a stream where I punched one enemy to stall it while I knifed the other one, each hand dealing with one enemy).  If disabilities affect a person's ability to move their body or use parts of their body, I don't think VR would actually find new and better ways for them since it's targeting people using more parts of their body to play to begin with.

Naturally, there are certain disabilities which would have no effect, but I'm thinking a controller or disability controller (like the one Xbox offers) are better options for people who cannot operate their body in the same way as a normal able-bodied person can.