Plea from rockpapershotgun

[Dwin]

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.

So did you just ignore my post above yours that explains how this is not the case? It is the IMPLEMENTATION of Darkest Hour's suppression that is the problem for many people. It is possible to have a suppression that does not rob the player of the ability to perform basic functions (like aiming).

The goal should be to hinder the player, but NOT disable them. In Darkest Hour, the flinching effect disables the ability to aim. This is bad. Ideally, you just want to hinder their ability to aim, thus greatly reducing the effectiveness of return fire, thus encouraging them to take cover. The important part is that you still must present the player with the opportunity to kill the attacker, however small, so that it seems "fair". Taking control from the player is never a good thing (that's why players generally try to avoid dying) if it can be avoided. And yes, control IS important. Control is the difference between playing a game and watching a game, and one is usually a lot more fun than the other.

This is why I suggest things like longer reload times, longer weapon resting times, greater sway penalties, audio and visual impairment. Combined, these things will make it difficult for a player under fire to return fire effectively, but not impossible.

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.

Darkest Hour would fit into the overboard suppression category.

All the suggestions I've seen in threads around these parts fall into these categories as well.

How do you know this? Have you extensively tested each and every implementation of suppression suggested before?

 

[Oldih]

The goal should be to hinder the player, but NOT disable them.

Which is what Psycho Chicken meant with his "completely ignored in practice" post. Only way to do so would be to reduce some control but since the term itself is very ambiguous on its own (I.E. it could only refer to very subtle change, but using the term "less control" makes people go ape****) it would require some further explanations or what can be defined as loss of control. RO's own supression system is a joke if you think about it while DH supression (as the two are getting compared so much in general) is often considered overdone, mostly on the blurry-o-vision department, it still does not fix popupping or some other things even when it's less common. You can still easily sneakily rest your SMG on something and press mb1 and point at the general direction where you know the enemy is shooting from. DH system doesn't really cripple player that much, it merely annoys the crap out of you most of the time as it adds a random factor that has good intension but causes hilarious side-effects most of the time.

Just for the record it took over a month to actually see there is even some sort of proper 'flinch' in DH and even then I was more annoyed by the blur rather than the actual flinch, but I'll leave that as weird individiual experience.

 

[Zetsumei]

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.

The prime thing for me when suppression takes too much control away is when you cannot counter the effect with practise. Visual effects should make it more difficult to see, but not impossible. And physical effects such as an impulse or sway or recoil, should make it more difficult to aim accurately, but shouldn't make it impossible to counter the effect with your mouse. Which is why I think sway is a good example as it makes hitting something harder but not impossible.

In a game effects that only look scary or simply try to distract you will only work the first 5 times after that you will learn to ignore it. So whatever suppression effects there are technically they must truly make it harder to hit the enemy. Like in scary games enemies jumping right in front of you only is scary the first few times later on you begin to expect it and you wont be scared by it anymore.

Which is why its such a waste that in Roost the actual muzzle flashes remain easy to be seen when obtaining the screen darkening/blurring effect. As due to the muzzle flashes remaining perfectly visible you can easily pinpoint the location of your suppressor. And take him down.

Having smoke from weaponry blocking the muzzle flashes, and the actual muzzleflashes getting blurred out as well would be a step in the correct direction. Next to that the ability of dirt to get into your eyes when bullets hit in front of you should make it more difficult to keep aiming at someone that assaults you.

Finally if a suppression effect is made by movement of the screen, then a player can learn to control and counter the effect. So experienced players can overcome the effect of suppression, but will always have a slight difficulty. Which is one of the primary reasons why I do support slight physical intervention on the movement of the gun.

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I honest to god don't find it that hard to aim in DH with their suppression system. At times difficult but certainly not impossible. Now, I for one will say that I don't mind a little control being taken away from me in a situation where I am being suppressed. It is obvious that at least some members here in the forum do.

As many others have said, it seems a solution would be to have something more than what was in ROOST, but less than in DH in that there is no extreme (to some, not to me) jerky movements. Perhaps something that mimiks squinting and a slightly more exagerated weapon sway that makes it more difficult to aim but not impossible (again, to some). Now if that or something similar can be done in ROHOS, the question remains... will it actually cause any type of suppression?

My idea of suppression is basically two-fold:
- You want to make it more difficult, not impossible, to return fire when being suppressed. Make it more difficult to aim (yes that means more annoying to some), but not make it impossible by having completely uncontrollable movements forced upon the player.
- Encourage (not force) players that are being fired upon to actually seek cover. You can do this by making them more aware of bullets whizzing by them to where they think twice about staying out in the open and have them contemplate seeking cover. Also have them weigh the pros and cons of ducking for cover or firing back but with reduced efficiency.

From what has been said, it appears the dev team is trying to create something like that (more than ROOST and less than DH).

----------------

Obviously you are never going to make all players happy, the idea is to make the most happy and still add a very effective and immersing tactic to the game.

Having no suppression at all would be removing a wonderful feature that really adds to the immersion and gameplay.

Too much or uncontrollable suppression will just annoy some players even if it produces the effects that it intended to. This is how DH is for some players.

Suppression that is minor or mearly visual and thus something that can be so easily overcome just ultimately fails in the end as players quickly become used to it. Unfortunately ROOST falls into this category for me. The first couple of weeks after I bought the game, I thought it seemed great in this regard. Soon afterwards I forgot that it was even there and it ceased to even be a factor at all.

 

[Nimsky]

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.

Yes, great post. Those are exactly my thoughts as well.

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.

I don't think sway is easy to control at all, in fact it's difficult. I don't see why you would be against flinching but in favor of increased sway under fire because they're almost the exact same thing. ArmA 2 / OA has increased sway under fire and while I love the game, it annoys me to no end when that happens. Very unrealistic and difficult to control.

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

No. We all like suppression, just not if it makes your avatar's arms vibrate.

it would require some further explanations or what can be defined as loss of control.

See:

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

but you cannot learn to spot enemies that do not show up on your screen.

I never wrote that machine gunners would be completely invisible. They would just be more difficult to see. I'm sure that if a good cosmetic suppression system makes it into RO, it would be effective in keeping people's heads down, especially if they're new. And once a player has been playing for a few months he might become better at returning an accurate shot, even with crap flying into his face and bullets cracking overhead. It still rewards real skill.

As I wrote in the older thread, proponents of the vibrating arm system (that's how I'll call it from now on ) want to get rid of that kind of skill.

 

[Zetsumei]

I don't think sway is easy to control at all, in fact it's difficult. I don't see why you would be against flinching but in favor of increased sway under fire because they're almost the exact same thing. ArmA 2 / OA has increased sway under fire and while I love the game, it annoys me to no end when that happens. Very unrealistic and difficult to control.

I haven't stated anything about the amount of sway or recoil you would get when under fire.

You can make things as easy to control as you want that would be up to the implementation. You can do heavy irregular sway to the point of making 360 degree turns every split second, or slow slight predictable sway to the point of 1 pixel movement every hour, or basically any variation in between.

The thing is that you cannot really control vision. You can't do graduate steps with vision as you can either see someone or not. If you can see someone a little bit that is plenty to kill him. You only need to know that one pixel corresponds to an enemy to be able to kill him. Which is why vision suppression only works if it can be made possible to 100% stop the ability to see someone.

Especially as you often have a vague idea where someone is shooting you from you can always limit the area of your search to only a a few centimetre on your screen. If he can be seen then you will be able to shoot him just as easily as it would be without darkening or blur. Completely negating the reason why someone would use suppressing fire in the first place, to suppress the enemy.

With breathing being implemented in HOS it doesn't seem that far fetched to make people breath heavier when under fire. With all results connected to that.

 

[Oldih]

See:

I was not looking for dictionary definition, as basically characters\my tank having some inertia is a loss of control as my avatar does not STOP the moment I want it to STOP, when I want to aim my target right NOW but I have to wait for some silly ironsight to come up is also a loss of control in its own ways, as everything is heavily delayed. What my 'will' would consider under the specific control I want is not same as what the game allows me to do. Now obviously this is silly as you can always say it's realistic, but that's the reason why we need certain context for it. Having 30 second reload just because your pouch is wet and stuck and you're laying down is realistic, but that would be highly annoying. Having slower movement on snow due heel irons (they tend to be very unbalanced high heels after a while) is realistic, but that would mean loss of control as everything you do becomes more delayed and it's painfully slow.

I should probably rephrase it to include loss of control under certain context, as most of the supression discussion regarding loss of control (something which Psycho Chicken already implied) is this: everyone wants the enemy to be supressed while remaining the perfectly accurate supar awshum Mj. K

 

[FlyXwire]

This is a topic I've been chipping away at for months, and which I wrote about here already concerning features being built into Breach (March 2010), with a linked Shacknews report on this game's progress then:

[URL="http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=41818&highlight=Breach"][url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=41818&highlight=Breach[/URL][/URL]

"Mechanical" suppression effects can actually be translated into real in-game mechanical results, which has been a series of connected themes I've posted about for quite awhile now:

1) Destructible environments and the interactivity this feature promotes, can actually encourage the use of RL battle tactics (BFBC series w/in-game tactical effects noted, as well as Breach's progress in this area highlighted).

[url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=36693&highlight=cover+manipulation[/URL]

2) Munition hits (and misses) should produce interactive results according to the types of surfaces they impact, and present more than just "eye candy", but cause RL physical results, like rock chips, sand bag dust, and wood splinters, etc. This is essential for not only presenting hit/miss locactions, but cause damage via secondary projectiles, along with the following additional gameplay affects:

3) Actual mechanical (physical) effects can be used to model fire suppression results, by modeling the chips, dust, and debris of munitions hitting various surfaces, by A) obscuring a target's view and limiting the ability to see for return fire, and B) by the threat possibility of additional wounding or damage caused by exposure to secondary projectiles and debris.

A number of companies are increasing their destructible environment effects, not just to make more "eye candy", which is often sited as their base motivation, but to actually produce additional gameplay benefits.

These are developments I certainly welcome.

 

[Dr.Atkins]

I as well would like to see the suppression actually working in RO2, not like in ROst. I am fine with the amount of control that DH takes away from player, cos it actually works and makes ppl keep their head down, though you can always rise and return to the fire but with a reduced accuracy.
It would be okey if the same effect can be done otherwise. And I understand that not all like this. Hell, some dont like sway and recoil so they play MW2 and what not.

RnL has some good ideas, but i am not entirely happy with their method either. In RnL the sway increases and the corners of the screen start to go black and the screen shakes a bit, and the heart starts pounding and u lose stamina. The good thing with their method is that after a long mg42 suppression the shaking and sway stay for awhile until the heart rate goes back to normal. Bad thing is that you can still pop up and kill the mg if the shaking hasnt yet started or escalated too much. So if some dirt would get in the eyes would make RnL system quite nice.

YouTube - Suppression, knockdown and grenade effects in RnL Open Beta 1.5

I would combine DH + RnL so that making DH effect more milder and reducing a tiny bit the time that the sway and high heart rate stays in RnL. And not losing all your stamina at once like in RnL. Naturally having team mates/NCO near you would reduce these effects making it more desirable to stay close to your mates.

Anyway, imo Oldih/Psycho said it well. You cant have the cake and eat it too.

 

[Nimsky]

I was not looking for dictionary definition, as basically characters\my tank having some inertia is a loss of control as my avatar does not STOP the moment I want it to STOP

I've mentioned this in the older thread:

1. A person ALWAYS has inertia IRL.
2. A firearm ALWAYS has recoil IRL (except light .22s maybe).
3. A shooter ALWAYS has at the very least a little bit of sway when holding a gun.

So you have lack of control over these things, but it's a realistic lack of control.

However...

1. Not every soldier starts freaking out / shaking when under fire. Some soldiers are very calm when they get shot at.

So suppressing the avatar instead of the player by adding involuntary arm movement is quite unrealistic.

everyone wants the enemy to be supressed while remaining the perfectly accurate supar awshum Mj. K

 

[Zetsumei]

1. Not every soldier starts freaking out / shaking when under fire. Some soldiers are very calm when they get shot at.

So suppressing the avatar instead of the player by adding involuntary arm movement is quite unrealistic.

Not every soldier is hampered by suppressive fire, but the majority are. That is the reason why its probably a fundamental basis for infantry tactics today and in the past. As suppression doesn't work in Roost all tactics based upon suppression aka pretty much all forms of infantry tactics do not work either. And that's why I think for tactical depth and fun of the game suppression should be made as effective as in real life.

In Roost every soldier is completely without any fear of dying. Dying is only a mere inconvenience of having to wait to spawn and move back to the battle zone, this will cause that people react differently on incoming fire than in the real world. And that is why a suppression system is needed, if you want people to act more life like on the battlefield.

People their eyes do not get blurry either when they are being suppressed that is equally unrealistic. There are things that could be implemented like a player getting debris in his eyes or completely closing his eyes so debris cannot get in it but that would mean a complete black out of someone's vision.

The easiest way to model the effect of learning to handle being suppressed over time would be by requiring players to develop a certain skill that is utilized when firing under suppressive fire. Since the only inputs from a player into the computer is the mouse an keyboard input, every kind of skill must be done through that device. Having to counter a movement on the screen is the easiest way of doing this.

I never play with SMG's and i'm possibly the worst person with an smg but still I can suppress it well enough to be able to hit someone. Especially as the suppressive effect could be lowered based on the needs everybody could work with it.
YouTube - ROOSTRecoil

 

[Oldih]

1. Not every soldier starts freaking out / shaking when under fire. Some soldiers are very calm when they get shot at.

So suppressing the avatar instead of the player by adding involuntary arm movement is quite unrealistic.

Even when they do not freak out a bullet flying nearby will give diffrent biological-psychological stress to the body, and even if you're hardcore veteran if you're being shot unexpectedly from some direction your heartbeat rate will jump up and your body will react to it. It's diffrent sort of stress on your body to be in relatively calm state and still your heart is working like you're performing some moderate workout currently, and realistically that does involve some minor flinching or even involuntary action as your muscles, veins and such are not exactly being 'nice' to what you want to do. You could very, very roughly compare it to go outside when it's -20 degrees, sink your hands in snow for a brief moment and walk back inside and wait for a while. Your hands are shaking for numerous reasons, even when you don't want it to happen. Now quite frankly if they would add such effects in Hoes it would be realistic in winter maps, but obviously not really 'fun' on the control department. This is the reason why I said relative context of loss of control is important for the discussion, as probably someone else might've said in one of the numerous supression threads.

Some more bat**** veterans or people who obviously enjoy the thrill of danger are usually expecting that something is going on and they are handling it in a way that gives them more 'control' beyond some other person, but even they are suffering mostly from the same effects. This is what really becomes a problem when modeling such things in a game, as involuntary actions caused by biological function is realistic, but how do you replicate it reasonably in a game? That's the problem. Not having one is unrealistic in its own ways, while having one is also realistic - even if it's very annoying or feels artificial. The zoom function is also one thing in its own ways. There is no zoom in real life, yet since we know things are scale objects on screen it allows us to do certain things which are realistic, even if the 'system' itself is not entirely like that. The same is with supression systems, even though they are more plagued with the part I was being silly as most of the suppression threads it basically boils down to that 'joke'.

 

[Zennousha]

After that video of staring down the MG42, I'd have to say heavy kickup of dirt/concrete/particles (which proceed to rain down upon you in close proximity), and a lack of visible muzzle flare (excluding at night perhaps) with a bit of blurriness/slight darkening would be a great way to make sure 1) You're not taking away control from a player and 2) Maintaining a difficult shot due to being blanketed in kickup, but not impossible because your aim is whipping around the screen.

 

[PsYcH0_Ch!cKeN]

So did you just ignore my post above yours that explains how this is not the case? It is the IMPLEMENTATION of Darkest Hour's suppression that is the problem for many people. It is possible to have a suppression that does not rob the player of the ability to perform basic functions (like aiming).

I did read your post and I'm sorry, but I disagree with you and I guess you've prodded me enough to go back on my comments yesterday and make a more involved post on the issue. I'm afraid this is going to be a long one folks, but you can skip to the final paragraph if you don't like walls of text.

Yes, realistically being shot at wouldn't affect your ability to aim, but also realistically, you wouldn't be stupid enough to stick your head up to try it. Sure there's only a low chance of actually being hit, but if you DO take a bullet, you're dead and you don't respawn in reality. Without that fear in games however, people know very well that they're highly unlikely to be hit and are willing to take their chances. This is amplified by many "suppression" techniques, because with a slow build up that increases in intensity, it's in a player's best interests to try to take on their suppressor as quickly as possibly to prevent those negative effects from having a chance to pick up steam. That's the exact opposite of the desired outcome.

How do you know this? Have you extensively tested each and every implementation of suppression suggested before?

I've implemented and tested quite a few, yes. The thing is, they've all been done before. Nothing anyone is suggesting is a new idea and none of them have ever worked. They've either gone too far one way or too far the other.

Proper suppression is a difficult balance to achieve. You have to strongly discourage players who are being "suppressed" from putting themselves in the line of fire deliberately and picking off the "suppressors" (and that means nothing that players can learn to "compensate for", because then suppression no longer works and it defeats the purpose) but at the same time, you cannot do anything that will cripple the player's ability to move or fight enemies in other directions. For instance, a player might be taking cover behind a wall. Suppressing fire should make it very difficult for that player to peek around or over the wall to directly fight the 3 guys firing on his position. It should NOT however, prevent him from being able to fight anyone who approaches his position from the rear or the side, assuming he sees them coming. And this is where the trouble starts.

Everything tried up to this point is either ineffective at preventing that player from directly engaging his suppressors (and usually killing one or more at worst) or goes too far the other way and has a long lasting effect that renders the player completely combat ineffective, simulating a mental breakdown more than a suppressed soldier. I considered my system for DH to be a compromise - it's difficult to engage anyone firing at you, but if someone comes up behind you, it's still quite easy to take them on. More importantly, the effects were not long lasting, so a player who left an area that was being suppressed would not continue to feel the effects as if they were still under fire.

At the end of the day, like it or not, the system actually works for its intended purpose and it works very well. Better I would say, than anything else that's been tried to this point. It's not perfect however and I will make the concession that there are some circumstances where it takes effect when it should not realistically do so. I'm thinking mainly of instances where players will fire on each other while in the open - taking cover is not an option and thus a player could not truly be "suppressed", yet the system is still applied and it can, depending on the ranges involved, favour the person who fires first, especially if they have an automatic weapon. In that situation, criticism is valid, but when cover is involved, it is not.

But how do you fix those shortcomings? It's not as easy as you might think, both from a realism and a technical perspective. I stated that the suggestions made by people don't work, so it's only fair that I explain why I feel that to be true.


Longer reload times: I'm not sure how this is intended to be "suppression". Apart from there being little plausible reason for it to occur, if your target's weapon is already loaded, then it does literally nothing to them and they'll still happily pop up and shoot you.

Longer weapon resting times: As with the above, this isn't really a detriment. If you're attempting to suppress someone who is already in position, they'll probably already be rested. If you're trying to prevent a pop up shooter, they won't bother resting their weapon anyway, as it's an unnecessary extra step that has no bearing on the first round fired (which is all that matters on rifles anyway).

Additional Sway: This is really no different to the DH flinch. It's still artificially moving your aim around just as much and just as randomly, only with a little interpolation added to the mix. It could also be argued that to be effective, it would need to be of greater magnitude, which would then be detrimental to a player's ability to fight other targets coming up behind them.

Additional Recoil: For rifles, this would have no impact at all and for automatics, it would essentially be the same as DH's system, just moreso.

Loud Noises/Snaps: Noises I'm afraid, do absolutely nothing. You don't need sound to line someone up and blow them away and even if a sudden sound was startling the first time, you'd very quickly grow accustomed to it.

Reduced Muzzle Flash: This sounds nice, but doesn't actually work to keep people down. It simply buys someone slightly more time to take shots before they're discovered, while their target scans in the direction of the gunshots. And in situations where a position is known (e.g. a bunker, a church tower, etc) it would have no benefit at all.

Blur: Blur can work in two ways. Either a light blur, or a heavy blur. Plenty of games have used this technique and it's immediately apparent that on its own, this just doesn't work. Light blur doesn't do enough to discourage a player - if they can see straight, they'll take their chances. However once you cross the threshold from light to heavy blur, you've stopped the player from popping their head up, but you've also crippled them completely, leaving them open to attack from other angles, even if they move away from the suppressed area.

Smoke/Dust/Dirt: This sounds nice again, but it assumes that all rounds are hitting the ground in front of the player. More often than not, those rounds will instead be flying overhead, or off to the sides. In those circumstances, it does nothing at all.

Dimmed Screen/Tunnel Vision: This is very similar to the blur. It's either not enough, or it's too much. Screen dimming won't stop a player taking their chances unless you make things so dark that they can't see, but by that point you've crippled them completely against all attacks and that's unacceptable. Tunnel vision is similar, except that it has the exact opposite effect - the player is still perfectly capable of taking on their suppressor, but are crippled against anything else.

Stamina Drain: This falls under the category of "increased sway", but with the added bonus of crippling the player. Because it's an incremental effect, by the time enough stamina has been drained to discourage the player from trying anything, they're now unable to escape and will be more likely to take their chances since they have no other option. Worse, they'll know it's coming and will almost certainly starting shooting back as soon as possible to minimise the extent of the drain - the opposite of the intended effect.

Bullet Penetration: I've seen this listed a few times, but I can't see any reason that this would suppress people. If anything, it will do the opposite - if you know that you can still be killed behind cover, you're not going to stay there, you're going to either leg it, or start shooting back. Both options have a risk of being shot, only one has a chance of killing the suppressor. Most gamers will (and do) choose the latter.



Now with that said, for all those who are terrified that HoS will have DH-suppress_2.0, you needn't worry. The issue is divisive enough that I highly doubt TW would risk alienating a moderate sized chunk of their playerbase over it. Will there be some form of suppression? Yes. Will it be as effective at actual suppression as the one in DH? That remains to be seen. Personally I think they'll err on the side of caution, but in all honesty, I think that's exactly what many of you guys want to hear anyway, so stop stressing about it.

 

[Dwin]

Which is what Psycho Chicken meant with his "completely ignored in practice" post.

Completely ignored in practice would be due to an ineffective suppression system, such as in Ostfront, in which a slight screen blur hardly hinders your ability to return fire.

Only way to do so would be to reduce some control but since the term itself is very ambiguous on its own

Control is the ability for your avatar to perform an action given a player input.

I don't see why you would be against flinching but in favor of increased sway under fire because they're almost the exact same thing.

Well, I see two reasons.

1. Sway is like flinching, but the movement is easier to counteract. Of course, this depends on the intensity of sway, but sway implies slow movement, while flinching implies jerky movement.

2. Increasing sway would feel less intrusive since that element is always present anyway.

I was not looking for dictionary definition, as basically characters\my tank having some inertia is a loss of control as my avatar does not STOP the moment I want it to STOP, when I want to aim my target right NOW but I have to wait for some silly ironsight to come up is also a loss of control in its own ways, as everything is heavily delayed. What my 'will' would consider under the specific control I want is not same as what the game allows me to do.

DH's flinching induces LOSS of control. There is no loss of control when dealing with inertia, delay, etc. because you never had control to begin with.

By comparison, slowing down when getting shot in the leg is an example of loss of control. However, it is the lesser of two evils. The alternative (other than having no effect) would be to completely stop in your tracks, or even be restricted to crawling (like in ARMA). The latter is a COMPLETE loss of control, whereas the former is only a partial loss. In the same manner, I an increase in sway plus other effects would only be a partial loss of control compared to Darkest Hour's flinching effect.

everyone wants the enemy to be supressed while remaining the perfectly accurate supar awshum Mj. K

 

[Dwin]

Yes, realistically being shot at wouldn't affect your ability to aim, but also realistically, you wouldn't be stupid enough to stick your head up to try it. Sure there's only a low chance of actually being hit, but if you DO take a bullet, you're dead and you don't respawn in reality. Without that fear in games however, people know very well that they're highly unlikely to be hit and are willing to take their chances. This is amplified by many "suppression" techniques, because with a slow build up that increases in intensity, it's in a player's best interests to try to take on their suppressor as quickly as possibly to prevent those negative effects from having a chance to pick up steam. That's the exact opposite of the desired outcome.

I think we all agree in this thread that there needs to be some sort of artificial mechanism to produce suppression effects, but the implementation of this mechanism is up for debate.

Longer reload times: I'm not sure how this is intended to be "suppression". Apart from there being little plausible reason for it to occur, if your target's weapon is already loaded, then it does literally nothing to them and they'll still happily pop up and shoot you.

It falls under the category of impaired motor skills. More time reloading = more time in cover. Besides, it's not meant to be a suppression effect by itself. It should be combined with other effects.

Longer weapon resting times: As with the above, this isn't really a detriment. If you're attempting to suppress someone who is already in position, they'll probably already be rested.

If you're trying to suppress someone who is already rested, then I would expect they would have an advantage in the ability to return fire over someone who is not rested, so it makes sense in that regard.

Additional Sway: This is really no different to the DH flinch. It's still artificially moving your aim around just as much and just as randomly, only with a little interpolation added to the mix. It could also be argued that to be effective, it would need to be of greater magnitude, which would then be detrimental to a player's ability to fight other targets coming up behind them.

It is very different, as explained in my post previous to this one. Flinching is a sudden, uncontrollable movement. Sway can be compensated for because it is a slow, more predictable movement, but still makes it difficult. See Atkin's video of Resistance and Liberation, where the sway makes it difficult for the American Rifleman to directly target the attacker, but not impossible to put some rounds in his general direction.

Of course, you argue that a suppressed player shouldn't be trying to return fire at all. But suppression is more than just the suppression system, and it is not as black-and-white, suppressed or not suppressed as DH's system is, and this is why it's important to give the players the option of shooting back. Because it is an artificial mechanic that cannot fully account for every situation, there will always be instances in which the system does not describe reality. An example would be when you are advancing across an open field, and you come under fire. In such a case, you cannot seek cover, and the only option you have for survival is to shoot back. Would it not be realistic in this situation to return fire? In DH, suppression leaves you helpless. With toned down effects, you will till be at a severe disadvantage, but you won't feel helpless (even if you really are).

Additional Recoil: For rifles, this would have no impact at all and for automatics, it would essentially be the same as DH's system, just moreso.

How would it have no effect on rifles? Even though rifles are not automatic, the greater the recoil, the more difficult it is to put your sights back on the target for the next shot.

Blur: Blur can work in two ways. Either a light blur, or a heavy blur. Plenty of games have used this technique and it's immediately apparent that on its own, this just doesn't work. Light blur doesn't do enough to discourage a player - if they can see straight, they'll take their chances. However once you cross the threshold from light to heavy blur, you've stopped the player from popping their head up, but you've also crippled them completely, leaving them open to attack from other angles, even if they move away from the suppressed area.

I reiterate that none of these effects should be taken by themselves to produce an adequate suppression effect, but be used in combination. That is why it is pointless to try to refute these ideas as individual effects.

 

[Oldih]

Where are you getting these opinions from? Certainly not this thread, because nobody here has expressed the idea that they want reduced suppression effects so they can kill attacking machinegunners. Stop trying to wave away our legitimate arguments against DH's suppression system.

I am not really trying to wave it away, I never said that flinch is not a loss of control as the question I picked up was mostly was somewhat ambiguous, relative idea that what is too much when it comes to loss of control? I already said - to the point it's beating a dead horse - that it requires certain context and consideration, as several of my obnoxious examples are entirely realistic yet annoying or taking control away from the player. It's a paradox in any realistic game as E.G. in (the original) OFP FDF mod (and probably in ArmA and ArmA2) if you get hit in hands you can't hit anything past 50m anymore even if you're laying down and it's a loss of control. Lose your legs is also a loss of control, but not only it is entirely realistic, it also happens in real war. Now on the opposite side since it's supposed to be a game and games are meant to be fun and yadayada, it's not the 'best' or fun experience to alot of people. In both cases we could draw the black'n white line with "End of argument", as if the game is trying to be realistic and credible with the idea, it should probably be there but when balancing other functions of the gameplay the other side also comes in play, and since Red Orchestra mainly atleast tries to have some realism in it it is expected that you will have loss of control for certain things because it part of what we refer as 'realism' and part of the core in Red Orchestra. That still hasn't prevented people playing it and once again, we need more specific context when it comes to loss of control. I hope this is clear enough for the moment.

And as for that silly opinion, it's not from here. Considering the plethora of supression threads if you read them through several times you'll get that nasty little impression. Once again, I am not pointing fingers directly to anyone but it's not the first time discussion like this has been going on. Just for the record, I am not fan of the DH supression system either but it's mostly for other reasons than the flinch.

 

[<animal>INSTINCT]

Just tweak ROOST's suppression system to function a little more smoothly, so you don't go blind from explosions and the suppression blur is a little more debilatating.

It worked fine in ROOST, so don't mess with a good thing

 

[Zetsumei]

Just tweak ROOST's suppression system to function a little more smoothly, so you don't go blind from explosions and the suppression blur is a little more debilatating. It worked fine in ROOST, so don't mess with a good thing

The exact issue is that it doesn't work in Roost. At first your impressed perhaps by the graphical prowess that happens, but that effect wears off once you see its only bells and whistles.

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Just tweak ROOST's suppression system to function a little more smoothly, so you don't go blind from explosions and the suppression blur is a little more debilatating.

It worked fine in ROOST, so don't mess with a good thing

That's just it, after awhile, I forgot it was even there and had to make an effort to look for it after debating a new ROHOS system!

Explosions being the exception, which honestly I think are fairly decent.