I wonder how this would generalise. Especially on VR.
I have a VR headset, and have played through Half-Life Alyx and a bit of zombie mode in Pavlov VR. My first headcrab in Half-life Alyx was horrible. I panicked, forgot which button to press to release the magazine, fumbled the insertion, forgot to load the gun after having inserted the magazine… but by the end of the game, those head crab didn’t trigger any fear, only a reflex of pulling out the gun, pointing, shooting, and reloading quickly became a reflex. Oh, and I became much better at quick aiming. I’m no speed shooter, but I do land a couple shots per second.
Then I tried Pavlov VR. First the shooting range to get used to the slightly different mechanics. And then the zombie mode. This time the zombies were fast. And what do you know, I panicked again. Though I didn’t fumble with the reload this time (I had no spare magazine), and my aiming was okay, I massively overshot.
That’s when I thought that people who unload their entire charger really aren’t necessarily vengeance driven bloodthirsty warmongers. They may just lack training. Anyway, I trained a couple times more with the zombies, and it got better.
Here’s the thing though: I now have trained VR games to shoot at moving humanoid targets, some of which shoot back, some of which just try to close in to melee range. So now I wonder: if all goes to shit and I’m handed a loaded gun, and suddenly 3 angry people with knives close in on me with visible killing intent, what are the chances that my VR training may cause me to shoot them in the heart by reflex, instead of panicking, running, or negotiating?
I have a VR headset, and have played through Half-Life Alyx and a bit of zombie mode in Pavlov VR. My first headcrab in Half-life Alyx was horrible. I panicked, forgot which button to press to release the magazine, fumbled the insertion, forgot to load the gun after having inserted the magazine… but by the end of the game, those head crab didn’t trigger any fear, only a reflex of pulling out the gun, pointing, shooting, and reloading quickly became a reflex. Oh, and I became much better at quick aiming. I’m no speed shooter, but I do land a couple shots per second.
Then I tried Pavlov VR. First the shooting range to get used to the slightly different mechanics. And then the zombie mode. This time the zombies were fast. And what do you know, I panicked again. Though I didn’t fumble with the reload this time (I had no spare magazine), and my aiming was okay, I massively overshot.
That’s when I thought that people who unload their entire charger really aren’t necessarily vengeance driven bloodthirsty warmongers. They may just lack training. Anyway, I trained a couple times more with the zombies, and it got better.
Here’s the thing though: I now have trained VR games to shoot at moving humanoid targets, some of which shoot back, some of which just try to close in to melee range. So now I wonder: if all goes to shit and I’m handed a loaded gun, and suddenly 3 angry people with knives close in on me with visible killing intent, what are the chances that my VR training may cause me to shoot them in the heart by reflex, instead of panicking, running, or negotiating?
How far pure video game training can go?