RAINBOW SIX SIEGE NEEDS CLARITY
R6
Rainbow Six Siege is a competitive PVP shooter. A fair playing field should be a top priority for the developers. This includes visual and audial effects and interactions.
In this blog post. I will talk about what these effects are, and why they’re a problem, and finally what can be potentially done about them.
These are the points I wish to talk about:
Blur effects, dust particles, audial effects, object clutter, bullet holes, Operators blending with the environment, and finally, looking back at how things were when the game first came out.
Hope you enjoy!
Blur Effects
Whenever you get hit, your screen will get this severe blur effect that distorts your screen for around half a second.
This might not seem a lot, but in direct fight engagements it can play a major factor in deciding who wins the encounter.
Look at this example:
The reason games do this is because they want to inform the player that they’re getting shot by someone.
This is fine, however, the way you let the player know doesn’t need to be this distracting. It can be subtle yet informative. Besides, the player may already know that he is getting shot, like the sound direction of bullets coming and the actual indicator that appears on your screen with an arrow pointing at the exact location.
A suggestion on how to fix this:
Remove the blur effect entirely, then experiment with simple and subtle replacement effects, like:
A tiny blood splatter on the bottom of the screen, nothing on the side, only small blood splatter on the bottom. Should not take more than %5 of vertical space
Or
Having a glowing, pulsing red animation on the circular health UI on the bottom. Only the circular section should glow.
There can be many ways and methods to do this well. These are only some of them.
Dust Particles
The maps in Rainbow Six Siege are apparently all extremely dusty.
Every time you shoot a bullet and it hits an object; a cloud of dust particles appear that shall obscure sight on what you’re trying to aim at. The enemy. A swinging Vigil!
Check the pictures below to see how significant and absurd these particles are:
And here’s a video where I pray, “aim”, spray, then score a kill on Ela (slowed at %50 speed) notice the dust that appears when I shoot.
And here’s a look at how clean and good of a job Valorant does this.