BY REQUEST OF THE WOOKI - RUSHED AS HELL
Introduction
So, there's a lot of silly threads in this section, here is a deadly serious one.
Field of View:
Humans have, roughly, a 180-degrees of peripheral vision, while "only" 120-degrees with binocular vision (both eyes, overlapping). This means movement outside of our direct view (the 120-degree cone), is blurry and faint. Some animals have an 360-degree FOW, but lacks the depth perception that we do. In the animal world, this is the difference between hunter and prey.
In game:
In Mount & Blade, the field of view is roughly 180-degrees when in third person, and about 80-degrees in first person. When zooming this comes down even further, about 50-degrees I'd say.
In Real Life:
Look away from your screen, now look at your screen again. Notice how it gets clear, but most stuff around it gets blurry. That's you focusing. The smaller the object of your focus, the less around it will be "clear".
Aiming is just this, only you have a guide point in front of your target, which is, if your doing it right, blurry. A trained marksman will shoot with both eyes open, if the sights allow it. Something that occurs frequently when untrained and/or under stress, is tunnel vision, which simply means that you only see things straight in front of you, losing all but the most basic FOW, focusing very heavily on one spot, one thing (this happens to most ranged characters in cRPG, on a fairly regular basis). The theory goes that tunnel vision is actually a part of the o'l reptilian brain, removing all the unnecessary functions for the task at hand (such as smell, hearing and so on).
This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Conclusion:
The biggest difference in Warband versus Real Life when comparing vision, is that Warband does not differentiate between the "Binocular vision" and Peripheral vision. There is a blur effect that you can turn on, but its more aesthetic then gameplay changing. I believe the FOW is more limited, to "simulate" loss of view.
What I'd like to propose, is a more clear distinction between the "zoomed tunnel vision binocular view" and the third person view. A more clear advantage and disadvantage between the two modes.
Proposal:
-Whenever a character has a ranged weapon out, the third person view goes into the [closest] 3rd person view.
-Problem with this is that your head is actually in the way, if possible change the angle or don't have it in the closest mode.
-When a ranged character aims, he slowly starts going into zoom mode, until he realises the projectile. Sound is decreased to half. This is the only zoom available while having a ranged weapon out.
-Zoom is changed to a narrower FOW, but with a slightly higher zoom ability. It takes a slightly longer time then it currently does ingame:
All numbers below are examples.
Introduce a sweetspot for ranged (not really thought trough):
When the weapon is fully zoomed in, the player receive a bonus of x+ accuracy/damage/shot-speed, which only lasts for 1 sec /0.5 sec. (there already is a sweetspot in place, but that one is more of a bug then a feature, and I think you should reward the players for making the right decisions, and hopefully not using the other one).
Zoom feature does not affect the reticule speed (this will have to be tweaked to each ranged weapon).
"Realeasing early (before fully zoomed) will make the bow slightly less accurate, but will make it faster instead, +speed rating (only until the zoom effect kicks in). Thus firing without the zoom will make you fire faster but with less accuracy.
