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FPP vs TPP - What's Better for Competitive PUBG?
We grabbed ZoidM8 to take us through the competitive difference between First and Third Person Perspectives in PUBG
It's a tricky subject — most people seem to think the game is simply more competitive when it's played from the First Person Perspective (FPP). It was something heard repeatedly at the PUBG Gamescom Invitational — that Third Person Perspective (TPP) was inherently less competitive. To find out more, we asked Tenzin "ZoidM8" Wallis how he felt about the two modes from a competitive perspective.
His team, Avoid The Zoid, secured the win in the PUBG OCE CGL last week, and he's widely considered to be one of the best players in Australia. At one point he simultaneously held first place on the leaderboards for Solo, Duo and Squad in OC. As we said previously, the idea of who is Australia's best player is contentious, but ZoidM8 puts forward a fantastic case.
Following a fantastic campaign by the local community, Bluehole added FPP Duos Servers for the Oceanic region last week. The latest patch added leaderboards for FPP servers in every region they're currently operating in. But it's unlikely that we'll see ZoidM8 adding that leaderboard to his list of conquests.
"I still like Third Person a lot," he explained on. "I feel like you can play more mind games with people. [PUBG] is about positioning, and taking over the best position to give yourself a good advantage. And having the Third Person camera helps you with that. If you get yourself into a position you should be able to use that cam to take advantage over others [in worse positions]."
It's a tough topic to tackle. When playing in Third Person players can manipulate the camera to see over ledges or around corners that they might not otherwise be able to see — in First Person those areas would be blind spots unless the player actively moved their line of sight to acquire that data. But the reality is that people are aware of a lot more than what they immediately see in the 105 degrees in front of them in a video game. Micro-movements of the head as well as natural field of view allow us to typically see just short of 180 degrees.
Even outside of shooters it's a sticky issue. Supercar Champion and Racing legend Mark Skaife once told me you need to keep the camera behind the car in Racing games to get a proper feel for what it's doing — that you can't get all the information you need about the race trapped in the head of a driver.
"In First Person, gunfights are more even because generally if you've seen them, they've seen you," ZoidM8 explained. "I like that aspect of [FPP]. The player with the better reactions will mostly likely win the gunfight in First Person. But personally I like Third Person more. There's a lot of RNG [in PUBG] and Third Person sorta helps with that.
"First Person is more Frags [focused], where Third Person is more tactical," he continued. "FPP is more reactive. In Third Person you can gain so much more information. You've got a wider FOV, you can quickly see in 360 degrees, you can gain information over [the top of] certain objects. In First Person you don't have that information. So you can be running into a situation where you don't know people are there. Whereas in Third Person you might have known. Scenarios play out differently based around that. First Person to me, you run around and frag. You might know that an area on the map is [tactically] good, but once you get in that position it's just point and shoot. To be honest I want to play a lot more First Person to make a proper judgement — [prior to the addition of OC FPP Servers] playing on the AS Servers is too laggy for me."
The high octane frag focused nature is what lends a lot of First Person servers its cred — games are more exciting because players aren't able to pick their opportunities as carefully, and they're forced into possibly unwanted conflict more often as a result. Conflict is what people are watching for, at the end of the day, so if First Person servers result in more of that it might have some merit.
But a the reason competitive games have downplayed conflict is less about the perspective and far more about the nature of the competition. As it is right now, the scoring system in place might be much more of a problem.
"The whole point of this game is to win, right?" ZoidM8 said when I asked about the scoring system. "To me second isn't a win, so in this current state people aren't playing for the win. They're playing for the highest placement. To me playing to win… if I'm playing to win I have a certain playstyle. I will do certain things — take risks, make plays — that will benefit me and my team and get us the win. But [in this current point system] instead I'm playing passively and letting other people die instead, to get better placement points."
"It doesn't encourage making the winning play," he continued. "Because that winning play can mean taking a risk, and if that risk doesn't pay off you can get really screwed on your placement points. I've thought about different systems, like having only wins count for points. Anything below that wouldn't even matter. Second wouldn't even get any points. Or maybe only first, second and third get points. Because it's not as competitive as it should be right now. You see people just tanking the blue, buying time with meds and letting people die so they can get the best points placement. It kinda frustrates me when I play, because I have to play in a playstyle that isn't how I usually play. Because for me, it's fun to play for the actual win — but in competition, I mean, if we win we win, but second or third isn't that much worse."
Ironically, securing third place by tanking the zone last night is what would secure Avoid the Zoid enough points to win the PUBG OCE Finals. But outside of League Play it's clear ZoidM8 is a very aggressive player — and a lot of fun to watch, even if he generally only plays third person. With changed rules — maybe nothing as drastic as limiting points to wins alone, but with a more refined system encouraging active winning — the brilliant tactical gameplay of third person can absolutely be just as exciting as First Person.
As PUBG's competitive scene continues to grow, this is a discussion which will no doubt continue. Players from both sides will chime in, and it's tough to determine who is ultimately correct. For now though, we can watch whatever version we want — and now that Bluehole has given OC some First Person Servers we can get practice in with that mode as well. If you want to see ZoidM8 in action you can watch him on twitch or follow him on twitter.
