Plea from rockpapershotgun

[Reise]

@Reise: New and innovative was what I did with DH and everyone complained. What makes you think TW can come up with something completely different again that people will actually like?

I believe there are other ways to approach the idea. Rather than physically limiting a person whenever somebody sprays rounds at him you could use other mechanics in the game to "encourage" suppressed behavior.

ARMA does the same sort of thing when you're being fired at. You lose stamina and your avatar starts shaking violently. You might as well already be dead at that point.

As much as this reaction might be "realistic" we have to remember that this IS a video game. I don't believe the game should promote that spraying behavior by allowing it to limit someone else's ability, if only purely for gameplay reasons. I think Tripwire has the same sort of thought process, too.

Yeah millions upon millions of rounds were fired in WW2 that never hit anybody, but we don't have millions upon millions of rounds. And, even though it may strike some people, RO2 still seems to revolve around killing the other guy, not keeping him pinned down.

I also still believe that DH is primarily a tanker's game, but that's for another discussion.

 

[Zetsumei]

and you want the system to artificially **** you up effectively making the game another frustrating experience like DH

No I want people to somewhat react more similarily to how normal soldiers did and do to incoming fire. As then normal military tactics would work. I don't like DH's system as the jerks are too unpredictable which is why I want a system inbetween DH and RO.

My calculations says that 91 people think that DH system is bull**** and only 27 supports it.

And if the last option to have RO suppression wasn't split into two would make 47 and be a higher number than the people who wants something higher (yes, 16 of those people would specially hate a higher effect than in RO if they don't even want the one in RO because they think is too much)

So original RO option would be the most voted if it wasn't split.

Also, the proof that the detractor's opinions on this matter are stronger, is that while even if you don't like it, you still play RO, but we just can't stand DH.

You cannot say anything about whether those 44 voters would rather have the DH system or the Roost system. Heck I voted that I wanted something in-between DH and Roost myself. If anything the vote is better this way, as you can clearly see that the opinions of people say that they want something less intrusive than the DH system but more effective than the Roost system.

Next to that just because more people play RO does not mean that everybody hates every feature of DH. Heck I pretty much only play RO and hardly ever play DH. But that doesn't stop that I love the selectable spawns and the effect the suppression has on the game play.

@Reise the Arma method is pretty similar to DH then, DH doesn't force you to take cover. It just makes you flinch when a bullet is flying right over your head. It doesn't stop your ability to move or anything. It just throws of your aim off by a a centimeter on your screen every time a bullet flies over.

As its impossible to anticipate flinch in a random direction, I would personally prefer something like sway so you can try to counter steer against the effect. And next to that having effects such as bullet impact debris getting into your eyes. Together with a lower visibility of muzzle flashes / tracers when blurred/blackened out.

 

[Fedorov]

You cannot say anything about whether those 44 voters would rather have the DH system or the Roost system. Heck I voted for something between DH and Roost myself. If anything its better this way, as you can clearly see that the opinions of people direct to something less intrusive than the DH system but more effective than the Roost system.

Still, if you drew a line in that poll in between the line of those who want something "in between" the balance would clearly fall to favor those who want "less" than those who want "more"

 

[Zetsumei]

Still, if you drew a line in that poll in between the line of those who want something "in between" the balance would clearly fall to favor those who want "less" than those who want "more"

You can say that most people indeed want less suppressive effects than what can be seen in DH. And at the same time most people want more suppressive effects than what is seen in Roost. So the answer lies in the middle. And that is my personal opinion as well.

I think I was confused by your statement, as you say people that want "less" or "more" without stating less or more than what. So I assume you meant "more" or "less" than DH all the time when I thought you meant Roost.

 

[Fedorov]

You can say that most people indeed want less suppressive effects than DH. And at the same time most people want more suppressive effects than in Roost. So the answer would lie in the middle.

I think I was confused by your statement, as you say people that want "less" or "more" without stating less or more than what.

Well if you can say that there is some kind of middle ground, that middle ground should still feel much more like RO than DH.

Anything else would piss a lot of people off, including myself

 

[Zetsumei]

Well if you can say that there is some kind of middle ground, that middle ground should still feel much more like RO than DH.
Anything else would piss a lot of people off, including myself

Where the optimal middle ground lies would be determined by beta testing. Whether that is closer to DH, RO, ArmA, Insurgency, Quake or something different all together would depend on what the Devs feel is best and how the community reacts to it.

I think that nobody from a realism standpoint would really be against modelling sand getting into someone's eyes if someone hits the sandbag in front of you, or little bits of stone dust from a bullet hitting the stone in front of you.

And I think that nobody would be against making it harder to track back where someone is by his muzzle flashes when blurred (like for instance blurring muzzle flashes together with the rest if possible).

With a bit of luck that would already be enough to get suppression working.
But if it isn't with the first person free aim system, even a quick weapon jerk like in DH would be less annoying as the background image wouldn't have to change and only the weapon would change within the free aim area. Next to that rather than a random jerk a more controllable sort of sway could be used.

 

[Fedorov]

Where the optimal middle ground lies would be determined by beta testing. Whether that is closer to DH, RO, ArmA, Insurgency, Quake or something different all together would depend on what the Devs feel is best and how the community reacts to it.

I know how I'm gonna react to it if it leans more towards DH than RO, and that poll reflects it. If you are now disregarding the results of the same poll you brought up then I don't even know where we are heading to with this ****.

If you use the middle ground as an axis, there are far more people who want less suppression than those who want more.

 

[Zetsumei]

If you use the middle ground as an axis, there are far more people who want less suppression than those who want more.

Again please when you talk about people that want more or less suppression, say more or less suppression than what.

Use the middle ground as an axis? If you mean the current Roost, then the poll clearly states that there are more people that want heavier suppression than people that want the game to stay the same or have less suppression.

And where am I disregarding the results of that poll? You're confusing me. All the poll says is that the majority of the people seems to want something milder than DH but heavier than Roost. It doesn't say anything about whether it should lean more towards RO or DH or whatever. All it says is milder than DH and Heavier than Roost.

 

[Fedorov]

Use the middle ground as an axis? If you mean the current Roost, then the poll clearly states that there are more people that want heavier suppression than people that want the game to stay the same or have less suppression.

Again please when you talk about people that want more or less suppression, say more or less suppression than what.

I didnt meant the current Roost, I meant just what I wrote.

And I say less suppression than that axis, which means that middle ground should be much closer to RO than to DH, don't make me repeat myself, I think is pretty clear saying it once

 

[Zetsumei]

You can't draw the conclusion whether the game should be closer to RO or DH or whatever. Unless you completely remove 1/3rd of the votes basically everybody that voted for the something in-between option. You cannot simply say that the suppression effect should be 42% DH and 58% RO especially as that holds no meaning.

Next to that people their opinions would depend heavily on how it will work in game, which is why nothing can be said or discussed really till people can play test and give their opinion. As a lot of opinions are bound to change and the group will logically be bigger than 118 people.

 

[Nimsky]

This has been discussed many times before.

I'm all for a new suppression system in RO2 and making suppressive fire work, but making it 100% cosmetic and leaving arm spasm / vibrating guns out of it is the only way to keep everybody happy. Anything that takes away control from the player should not be added to the system.

 

[Zetsumei]

This has been discussed many times before.

I'm all for a new suppression system in RO2 and making suppressive fire work, but making it 100% cosmetic and leaving arm spasm / vibrating guns out of it is the only way to keep everybody happy. Anything that takes away control from the player should not be added to the system.

Everybody hopes for that but the question is, is it possible to get suppression to work with only that? Which is what play testing would find out.

Next to that if your gun moves say 1 millimetre pretty much nobody would find it annoying, there is a boundary of jerk movement there before it gets found annoying. In the case of regular weapon sway nobody considers that taking away control from the player.

There is no black and white optimal solution, opinions will remain spread out. The key is finding the solution that pleases the most people. Perceptions of best ways to make something realistic will always differ.

 

[Nimsky]

Everybody hopes for that but the question is, is it possible to get suppression to work with only that? Which is what play testing would find out.

Yes, I think it would work.

In the case of regular weapon sway nobody considers that taking away control from the player.

You're right, nobody complains about weapon sway, but sway is always there in real life anyway. Jerky arm movement isn't. Some soldiers are incredibly calm under fire and that comes with experience. A cosmetic suppression system can simulate that, whereas a vibrating arm system can't.

The whole point of a cosmetic suppression system is that the player can get used to it and return accurate fire, which comes with practice. I.e it still rewards skill.

 

[Zetsumei]

The whole point of a cosmetic suppression system is that the player can get used to it and return accurate fire, which comes with practice. I.e it still rewards skill.

That's the exact reason why I used sway/recoil as an example, as you can counter sway and recoil with practise and experience. By moving in the other direction as the sway/recoil you can steady your sights. Similarly to how experienced soldiers can learn to shoot under suppressive conditions.

And that is why if physical movement is needed I would like something like sway/recoil over the a sudden impulse as in DH. With sway and recoil you can predict where the gun is going so you can counter the movement with your mouse. Where as with an impulse you have no time to counter react.

If anything visual suppression is more permanent and can't be overcome by training or getting better at the game. As the game decides how dark or blurry your screen becomes, and you simply cannot see something that is not visible. Whereas with more physical suppression such as sway you can teach yourself to counter it. But I still want things like dust getting in your eyes in the game (or your eyes closing fully to stop it from happening).

---------

One of the things I like in RO is exactly that you can learn to control most difficulties. So a weapon doesn't have a different accuracy when standing or crouching but it simply got more sway and recoil, and with practise a player can overcome that hurdle. So rather than getting better stats at something in Roost you simply really get better at controlling your weaponry. Which is why I'm not a big fan of stat bonuses such as reduced sway/recoil for HOS, as when players get better they automatically get less sway/recoil as they learn to compensate better against it (although it does give an initiative for people to keep playing).

And I think that similarly rather than adjusting the accuracy of a weapon or something. I think that when suppressed it should be more difficult to aim accurately, so that players can practise and teach themselves to be able to control that difficulty. The question is which method would be best to achieve that.

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Something slightly offtopic:

Another issue that for instance happens with the darkening the screen is that quite some players will then simply turn up the gamma of the game to be able to see everything perfectly while suppressed.

If you look at counterstrike or quake 3 every computer can run those games at 999 frames per second at the highest settings yet people still play on low details with weird gamma to be able to see enemies better/quicker. In competitive environments the smallest of an advantage can be the key that decides victory or a loss.

For this reason I hope that whatever is found as alternative to motion blur for weaker players Is somewhat different from darkening the screen. Logically if the screen would get pitch black it wouldn't be possible to exploit.

 

[Shepuz]

I'm with Zetsumei on this one. The current supression effect in ROOst doesn't work. It's there, it works the way how it was coded, but it doesn't actually supress people. Shooting an MG firing upon you is easy if you are able to align your shot behind the cover, quickly put your head up and pull off the shot without getting hit. Done it million times, others done it to me a million times. They just don't get actually supressed. The supression method in DH is far from perfect and it can be frustrating at times, especially when that friendly MG parks his *** next to you and fires away non-stop, spending every last of his ammo and you can't hit anything because your screen shakes like you're OD'ing in E. But it's better than RO's current supression system. Firing the MG at the buildings windows actually makes the enemy inside keep their damn heads down so that they won't mown down your teammates as they try to get over that short wide open strip of land between your lines and their stronghold.. that means, tactics can be implemented. A single tank can supress entire squad inside a building while the infantry runs in with grenades and rifles firing, clearing it out. That's how suppression should work. It should make you feel very VERY uneasy about popping your head up in to the fire and taking a peek who's firing at ya and from where, or even try to take a pop at the bugger.

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

It always amuses me that people think I was taking player control away in DH when they're still perfectly capable of moving and shooting.

well, you were idk why we're saying "you".....that's just trying to make discussing the system come off like people are personally attacking you as opposed to critiquing the game.....

so to rephrase: DH's suppression system does take significant control away from the player. the forced "spasms" put on the avatar makes it nearly impossible for the player to control his ability to return fire regardless of whether or not they are really in any danger of being killed. it is an artificially forced mechanism which removes the ability for the player to act upon his own instinct, free-will and abilities to control his actions as seen via his avatar.

The whole point of suppression is to encourage your enemy to keep his head down. It turns out however, that people only like the idea of suppression, they don't actually like having it.

yes that's the purpose of suppression. it turns out that many people LOVE the idea of suppression, but many don't like the way in which DH's suppression system sacrafices player control in order to mimic the effects of suppression.

@Reise: New and innovative was what I did with DH and everyone complained.

just because something is "new and innovative" doesn't mean people will love it or that it will work. Coca-Cola claimed the "new Coke" was new and innovative.......and people hated it. and really, was "forced spasms" new and innovative? maybe to RO, but not to fps gaming as others have shown with various other systems in other games.

What makes you think TW can come up with something completely different again that people will actually like?

well i believe they can because the simple fact that your average forumite, like Nimsky for example, has provided great suggestions on how to improve ROOST's suppression system. and no offesnse to 3rd party mod teams, but i have more trust in a professional dev team that has more indepth knowledge of their game and direct control of how to tweek it.

My calculations says that 91 people think that DH system is bull**** and only 27 supports it.

while i'd bet there's really more than 91 people who dislike the DH system, the way in which the poll choices are worded supports this analysis......check the original poll.....27 people "approve" of DH's system, while 91 say they (at the worst) want RO2 to have something that isn't quite at the DH level, meaning they do not "approve" of every aspect of DH's system (in particular, as stated in the poll: bluriness and involuntary gun movement)

This has been discussed many times before.

I'm all for a new suppression system in RO2 and making suppressive fire work, but making it 100% cosmetic and leaving arm spasm / vibrating guns out of it is the only way to keep everybody happy. Anything that takes away control from the player should not be added to the system.

just like in every thread where this issue is discussed, Nimsky wins again. here, to requote his suggestions from an old thread:

Look at this list and tell me that it won't be effective at suppressing people (items in bold by Zets):

- Penetration of the bullets
- Smoke and Dirt coming up from bullet impacts around you (with possibility of getting in your eye). (larger caliber kicks up more dirt)
- Less visible emitters (tracers, muzzle flashes) when getting blur (to make locating someone firing at you harder)
- Reducing the popup firing ability of people
- Loud supersonic bullet cracks
- A slight blur

oh, and this video:

YouTube - Facing the German MG-42 Machine Gun!

 

[Zetsumei]

The key in that video is how hard it is to actually see the mg when he's firing around that camera. Especially the smoke makes it hard to locate. And that while he's what 20 meters away?

However remember that blocking someone's vision when suppressed actually takes more control from the player than an imposed sway/recoil. As you can learn to suppress the effect of recoil or sway, but you cannot learn to spot enemies that do not show up on your screen.

 

[Dwin]

It always amuses me that people think I was taking player control away in DH when they're still perfectly capable of moving and shooting.

Capable of moving and shooting, yes. Capable of aiming? No. This is the issue.

Apparently "control" is somehow being defined as the ability to pick off a machinegunner while under fire, the exact behaviour that it was designed to prevent.

No, "control" is defined as the ability to perform and action without intrusive involuntary movements preventing that action.

The whole point of suppression is to encourage your enemy to keep his head down. It turns out however, that people only like the idea of suppression, they don't actually like having it.

@Reise: New and innovative was what I did with DH and everyone complained. What makes you think TW can come up with something completely different again that people will actually like?

It is not the idea of suppression but Darkest Hour's implementation of suppression that people take issue with. Not only is it a matter of taking control away from the player, but it is also exploitable. When you die in a game, you have your control taken away from you to, but you accept it because the enemy succeeded in shooting you. When you get suppressed in Darkest Hour, it can be frustrating because the enemy is still being rewarded for not being able to hit you.

That being said, I still prefer Darkest Hour's suppression system to no suppression, but DH's system definitely has room for improvement.

 

[PsYcH0_Ch!cKeN]

There's a lot of responses here guys but I have to say, mostly it's just going back to what I said before. Everyone loves the idea of suppression, just so long as it doesn't actually, you know, suppress anyone. Like RO's system which, lets be honest here, does bugger all to make people keep their heads down. It's nice in theory, but completely ignored in practice.

I've played many games that have tried to implement suppression and they either don't work at all, or cripple the player completely for the next 10 seconds so that they're completely combat useless, even after they're no longer being suppressed. All the suggestions I've seen in threads around these parts fall into these categories as well.

I could discuss it further, but I suspect my perceived bias will cloud people's judgement of my arguments so I might leave it there. I think I caused enough arguments just by creating the system, I don't need to throw any more fuel on the fire.

 

[Oldih]

Everyone loves the idea of suppression, just so long as it doesn't actually, you know, suppress anyone.

The problem might lie in the simple fact that as you said, suppression has the bad habit of either being not functional at all or it's more or less overdone with the relation to what people love to refer as control. Zetsumei's point about competitive gaming is true, they dislike anything that would take control away from them but we could always go on and mess how RO and RO:HoS are not exactly the most suitable candidates for proper competitive gaming if you really start comparing diffrent games, but people still play it that way. Now then we could bring up the crowd who are not alerted by not having that much control might enjoy the small random factor, given it's reasonable.

It would be beter to question what is considered "too much" when discussing about taking control away. DH suppression system doesn't really take that much but it still doesn't really eliminate popup shooting or ability to fire back at will, just makes it somewhat less effective. It's quite fun to spot an MG in window, support your SMG on something (while laying down) and start emptying your magazine. Even if the MG is shooting back at you quite frequently it'll end up as kill on your favour if you just know how to aim with an SMG. With Garand it's still more than possible, with Mauser\Enfield it's bit tricky for obvious reasons. Sure it's realistic that it's easier to return fire with automatic weapon than with a bolt action rifle, but returning perfectly accurate norecoil fire by supporting your gun is not that big diffrence from RO itself.

It wouldn't hurt if they could make partitially weapon based suppression effects, so that a rifles are less affected (but relatively speaking would have notable effect) while automatic weapons have greater malus, and removing the ability to support weapon to something when under heavy fire combined with potential removal of popupping would make supression work pragmatically speaking, but this is where the question comes in hand. Alot of people would say about taking too much control away and then the debate avatar vs player suppression, which I consider to be (partitially, if nothing else) a crock of bull, as supressing the player behind the computer under common circumstances is just not really happening that often. Sure there are always players who will be supressed by the slightest of things, but wait few days, or a week at most and people who are even mildly observant can figure out how it works and suddenly they are what we can refer as 'veterans' and those who have played RO before have already grown their beards many, many years ago and basically notable majority of the playerbase can easily dismiss it as a smelly fart sooner or later. The funny thing is it's not just related to RO, any game that can get a person to play it somewhat frequently eventually learns that most of the things you thought to be so "cool" and "immersive" are suddenly nothing more than ridiculous jokes you'll laugh at.

Now the question for everyone: what is considered taking too much control from the player? Describe it as clearly as possible without leaving it too ambiguous, E.G. responding "anything that takes control away" could give me a reason to say: go play a game that is more suitable for such things, like Quake, BC2 or [insert a game here that has alot of 'control']. Then we can start brainstorming possible ways to make some reasonable system, even when it isn't (probably) going to lead us anywhere from square one.