Any thoughts on rewarding suppression?

[Conscript]

Oh, and another thing - can we remove suppression from nearby friendly fire? I don't mean friendlies firing at you, but firing next to you.

I've been aiming out of a window only to have a team mate open fire from the window next to me with an automatic. Result? My vision went blurry, my heart started pounding and my gun jerked all over the shop, even though I knew the fire was coming from a team mate next to me.

 

[Nikita]

People inexperienced with firearms flinch even when they are the ones pulling the trigger--in my experience teaching less-experienced friends to shoot, it takes several outings on the range before one stops blinking every time one fires a round.

Now, despite my seven years of recreational shooting experience, I think I can say with reasonable certainty that if a bullet wings by me, I'm probably going to blink and flinch enough to lose my sight picture. And if the bullet actually smacks into the wall next to me, throwing wood and brick splinters everywhere with the impact, then I'm probably flinching as well.

The one unrealistic thing about the 'flinch' reaction of suppression is this--when you're under a continuous burst of fire, the flinching 'stacks', so to speak, even though you would probably only flinch at the first few shots in the burst, you somehow manage to flinch at 900 rounds per minute

 

[Mekhazzio]

Conceptually, the flinch response is sound, but the conditions that trigger it are far too loose, and thanks to an interesting array of bugs and strange design, you wind up with an implementation where you might be flinching (at the 900 flinches-per-minute) from random fire a floor below you but be totally unfazed by a bullet that actually hits you

I consider the flinch response to be independent of a suppression system, though. It's more a part of the damage model, since it ought to be restricted to such a short range that the shot has practically hit. It's one thing to say that a human might involuntarily react to a pressure wave inches from their head, and another to try to justify a reaction just because something vague (that they may not even know about!) is happening somewhere within 9 meters from them...or worse, that some friendly has died without a sound, 20 meters away, on the other side of 4 walls.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

In short, the inability to return effective fire should come as the natural consequence of a suppression mechanic that induces fear and forces you to take action to get away from incoming fire.

How exactly do you think a "suppression mechanic" is going to induce fear? Most players are not so weak-willed that shouting loud noises at them on a regular basis will continue to have any more effect on them than the current sounds. There is nothing scary about loud noises if you end up exposed to them dozens upon dozens of times in a match, and it's certainly not going to suppress people. The people who currently just stay exposed to return fire at the people shooting at them will simply continue to do so.

The reason not to expose yourself to incoming fire is because it can kill you, not because it makes scary noises at you.

If we're not going to get a proper fear-of-death into the game, then the flinch mechanic is useful to at least simulate the effect. As Mekh points out, it needs a lot of tweaks, but it's a good idea.

 

[Conscript]

How exactly do you think a "suppression mechanic" is going to induce fear?

The reason not to expose yourself to incoming fire is because it can kill you, not because it makes scary noises at you.

Well, exactly! The noise is there to indicate incoming fire. Nothing is ever going to induce real fear, because we know we are playing a computer game. But the aim of that game includes survival, so I play it as such - if I know bullets are striking the window I'm hiding behind, I'm smart enough not to stick my head out. But I the enemy starts firing wide and I do stick my head out, I find it annoying that the game continues to jerk my aim around.

Most players are not so weak-willed that shouting loud noises at them on a regular basis will continue to have any more effect on them than the current sounds.

So then why assume that they are so weak willed that as soon as enemy fire comes within 9 metres of them, that they can't even shoot straight without flinching and jerking their muzzle around?

If we're not going to get a proper fear-of-death into the game, then the flinch mechanic is useful to at least simulate the effect. As Mekh points out, it needs a lot of tweaks, but it's a good idea.

Perhaps I've come across as a bit overly critical, but it's just one of those things that I find very forced and incredibly irritating.

For instance....lining up a perfectly aimed shot at a Soviet with a PPSH. He spots you, panics and fires a stream of bullets over your head, missing you. Your shot is spoilt and he kills you while you work the bolt. This happens to me a lot and I find it excruciating. I think it would be better to have the flinch only happen under sustained fire, so as not to make the above scenario commonplace, where it really feels like the player is being rewarded for missing their target.

 

[Conscript]

Conceptually, the flinch response is sound, but the conditions that trigger it are far too loose, and thanks to an interesting array of bugs and strange design, you wind up with an implementation where you might be flinching (at the 900 flinches-per-minute) from random fire a floor below you but be totally unfazed by a bullet that actually hits you

I consider the flinch response to be independent of a suppression system, though. It's more a part of the damage model, since it ought to be restricted to such a short range that the shot has practically hit. It's one thing to say that a human might involuntarily react to a pressure wave inches from their head, and another to try to justify a reaction just because something vague (that they may not even know about!) is happening somewhere within 9 meters from them...or worse, that some friendly has died without a sound, 20 meters away, on the other side of 4 walls.

This is exactly my problem with it. I could probably stomach if it if I was forced to flinch from bullets landing in the woodwork right by my head, but when your shot is spoilt by fire that's nowhere near you, or in the room next to you, it's hard not to be annoyed.

I think that both you and Nikita have hit on the crux of the problem, the effect is cumulative. It would also be much less irritating if it just caused your aim to 'vibrate' slightly within the usual sway zone, or cause sway to increase.

 

[Mekhazzio]

But the aim of that game includes survival, so I play it as such

That's the trick, though. The game design is such that survival is often a low-priority goal, and it's not hard to come up with a scenario where survival is actually counterproductive to winning.

Say, for instance, that you're on offense, and you've got your squad leader on the outskirts of an objective, it's the hardest objective on the map, and you know it's currently somewhat lightly defended. The optimal play in this scenario is to just zerg-rush it - by the entire squad simply flinging themselves at the enemy, you will easily overpower them and secure the objective, with the only penalty for that play being in reinforcements...and even there, the possibility exists that you'll actually save reinforcements in the long run. The optimal play for the defenders is to counter-rush to try to kill the squad leader.

If you want to encourage conservative play, you need to give players actual concrete reasons to do so - you need to make it gameplay-optimal. You don't design games around the players who are casually playing to the atmosphere or role-playing a preconceived idea of what should happen, you design a game around the players who are going for the minimax route to success. Once you've nailed that behavior down, everything else naturally falls into place beyond it.

 

[Proud_God]

Another thing that would indirectly increase the effectiveness of suppression is decreasing the power of a 'pop-up' rifleman: ie, increasing the time it takes to get a perfectly aligned sights picture (note: not increasing the time to go to IS, like classic does)

As it stands, you are so damned effective by popping out and taking lightning fast, perfect shots, that taking cover is often not the best choice. Imagine just a slight delay to get your sights perfectly aligend when going into IS (eg. 1 sec). You will find keeping your head down a more attractive option.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

So then why assume that they are so weak willed that as soon as enemy fire comes within 9 metres of them, that they can't even shoot straight without flinching and jerking their muzzle around?

You could possibly read and consider the rest of my post, where I point out my agreement with Mekh, who is calling such stuff ridiculous. I know that takes two steps to connect the two concepts, but really, I didn't think I needed to explicitly spell it out.

 

[Conscript]

Another thing that would indirectly increase the effectiveness of suppression is decreasing the power of a 'pop-up' rifleman: ie, increasing the time it takes to get a perfectly aligned sights picture (note: not increasing the time to go to IS, like classic does)

As it stands, you are so damned effective by popping out and taking lightning fast, perfect shots, that taking cover is often not the best choice. Imagine just a slight delay to get your sights perfectly aligend when going into IS (eg. 1 sec). You will find keeping your head down a more attractive option.

I agree, although I think the 'pop-up rifleman' technique is still much less effective than in RO1. I find it takes more time to accurately aim a shot now that we have sway that is affected by breathing.

You could possibly read and consider the rest of my post, where I point out my agreement with Mekh, who is calling such stuff ridiculous. I know that takes two steps to connect the two concepts, but really, I didn't think I needed to explicitly spell it out.

I would apologise for misreading the point of your post, but if you cant even give me the courtesy of an un-patronising response, I wont bother.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

I would apologise for misreading the point of your post, but if you cant even give me the courtesy of an un-patronising response, I wont bother.

When you start out by attributing an argument to me that has nothing to do with what I had been saying, I don't think that you have much ground to be complaining when I tell you so.

 

[Conscript]

When you start out by attributing an argument to me that has nothing to do with what I had been saying, I don't think that you have much ground to be complaining when I tell you so.

I wasn't attributing the argument to you at all (or at least, not intending to); you stated that players aren't weak willed (I agree) - I merely quoted that portion of your statement to highlight that I think the current system treats them as such.

I only quoted what you said to highlight a point, not necessarily argue. I maintain that that didn't deserve such a snide response.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

I wasn't attributing the argument to you at all (or at least, not intending to);

When you quote someone, and then ask a question, it rather looks like you're asking the person you quoted the question.

 

[LugNut]

I don't mind the suppression mechanics too much, except for the buggyness of it at times. I'm personally a fan of ARMA's, which isn't excessively different, except more subtle. When under fire, your breathing and heart rate increases, increasing sway. It's enough to keep you from popping up and snap shooting back since the odds of being on target are low, but not enough that if you can stay protected, you can return fire and suppress the enemy yourself. That coupled with the multitude of spawn penalties make you switch your priorities from killing the other guy to staying alive by either moving, or if trapped calling from help from squadmates. Something that never happens in HOS. I think the major issue is that respawning and quickly being back in the battle is too easy.

 

[akb]

I actually think suppression needs to be seriously looked at in regards to the way it upsets your aim for you. Having your weapon jerked around by incoming fire seems to me to be both ridiculous and annoying. It seems to be forcing a kind of 'flinch' response from the player to prevent you returning fire, but I think it's unnecessary, as with a proper suppression mechanic, this flinch, or fear response, should be something that I myself initiate in order to survive.

Let me try and explain. At the moment, say I'm aiming out of a window. A machine gun opens fire in my direction but doesn't hit me. Now, I know I am under fire, and in danger, but I remain at the window. I am taking a calculated risk that the machine gunner is laying down fire but isn't necessarily aiming directly at me.

The suppression mechanic kicks in. It jerks my aim around making it impossible to return accurate fire, as well as blurring my vision and inducing bullet cracks. Now, sorry, but this seems silly to me. The game is forcing me to flinch, as if to say "You are under fire! Quick, experience fear!". It feels very forced to me, forbidding me to return fire simply because the game dictates that I should be suppressed, and flinching and jerking gun movement is somehow a symptom of that.

But the thing is, I wasn't scared. I remained at the window for a reason. I was taking a calculated risk. Yet I am still at the mercy of a game mechanic which is dictating that I should be a flinching, nervous mess, unable to hold my gun straight, when in reality, I had realised the danger wasn't immediate and was preparing to calmly line up a return shot.

Instead, Mormegil and teemu92 have summed up what I think should happen...





...I think the game should suppress you by trying to influence that fear in the first place, not by arbitrarily deciding when you are scared and affecting your aim negatively. I think the effects of incoming bullets should be modelled by loud cracking and ricochet sounds, dust and smoke effects, blurred vision and flashes. Make it feel like someone is firing 800 rounds a minute at you from a machine gun. The suppression then happens naturally - when the world around me starts to explode and turn to hell, I naturally seek cover, stay away from the window, and can't fire back from the virtue of the fact that I'm cowering behind overturned furniture crying.

HOWEVER - if I do decide to take the risk to fire back, then I should be able to. If I calculate the risk, realise the machine gun is firing blind, or that he doesn't know I'm there, I might decide to lean out and take a shot back. At that point, I have overcome the fear, and therefore, having the gun jerked around to indicate "more fear" is pointless. By all means, have suppression affect the things that would make shooting harder by association - perhaps make the breathing quicker so you cant hold your breath for a steady shot, as what happens when you try shooting while tired. But don't just grab the muzzle of the gun and throw it around the screen as if to demand that you feel fear.

In short, the inability to return effective fire should come as the natural consequence of a suppression mechanic that induces fear and forces you to take action to get away from incoming fire. It should not arbitrarily upset your aim simply because someone is firing at you, as this prevents any sort of return fire once the MG opens up. As it stands, it feels like a machine gunner gets rewarded simply for holding the trigger down, rather than making sure his suppressing fire is well coordinated.

You nailed it exactly. I didn't read it all so I'll add that people that are level 99's and have upgraded weapons to 50 don't have a clue what supression actually does to people that have just started playing. It honestly makes it impossible to return fire if an smg or mg is firing at you because the supresion is kicking your gun all around dramatically. I know this because I'm a level 99er and have 50's on just about every class. I recently bought a second account and started playing on it and there is a huge difference. It's unrealistic and hurts the game play for the new players. Why do they have to feel so much more supression. This is why adding all these things to make the game "more realistic" is a bad idea.

Others have it right as well. The main problem with people not fearing dieing it having the spawns far to close to the capzones. Edit/Remove the overly dramatic supression and make the spawns further from the capzone.

 

[Calumhm]

Another thing that would indirectly increase the effectiveness of suppression is decreasing the power of a 'pop-up' rifleman: ie, increasing the time it takes to get a perfectly aligned sights picture (note: not increasing the time to go to IS, like classic does)

As it stands, you are so damned effective by popping out and taking lightning fast, perfect shots, that taking cover is often not the best choice. Imagine just a slight delay to get your sights perfectly aligend when going into IS (eg. 1 sec). You will find keeping your head down a more attractive option.

This. I've not got experience/training with a real rifle, but sighting always seemed too perfect to me.

Btw, It's all very well lots of people here talking about making the player feel REAL fear instead of forcing suppression mechanics on them - but if we're NOWHERE NEAR scaring the player then it's moot.

Making guns more lethal by will make a difference. With the current wounding system, I can take a yellow-level hit in the guts (or hand/arm!); first accurately kill the the guy who did it to me, and then bandage at my leisure. Not ONLY does my avatar probably need SURGERY for most of the hits he takes and not a bandage, but being hit doesn't actually reduce my combat-effectiveness at ALL.

Also Pheonix, I wasn't talking about suppressing people in cover earlier, I was talking about heroic riflemen who think they're playing CSS, and don't budge when you put rounds at them. The fearless players, must be made to fear, or artificially made to BEHAVE as if they were - If we continue to strive for realism at least.

Also, if what someone said about lv0 players and lv99 players is accurate, makes me wonder if the game really would be alot better if everyone were level 0, or a lower level than 99 anyway.

 

[Rabid Penguin]

Funny story about suppression. Once, as a rifleman, I saw 2 enemies together about 70m away, about a meter apart from each other. I take aim at the one on the left, and fire at the exact same time the one on the right shoots at me. Well, Right-Hand guy's fire made my weapon jump at the exact same time it fired, which caused my round to hit him right in the face, instead of the guy I aimed at.

In regards to eliminating "pop-up riflemen" - as many people have said, it needs to take longer (about 1-2 seconds, instead of instant) for the front and rear sights or scope to properly align. And then if you move your weapon, the sights misalign and realign again when you stop moving. You can still do snap shots, but they'll be hurried and not aimed.

In regards to suppression, they really need to fix being suppressed by friendlies firing next to you, and by fire happening in different rooms or nowhere near you. Suppression should only occur when a bullet impacts or passes by within a few feet of you.

But ultimately, the best suppression is fear of death, which is hard to create in-game, unless there are harsh penalties for dying. But then the issue is people camping and refusing to move forward. It's a catch 22.

 

[Mekhazzio]

But ultimately, the best suppression is fear of death, which is hard to create in-game, unless there are harsh penalties for dying. But then the issue is people camping and refusing to move forward. It's a catch 22.

That's not a bug, that's a feature. Giving people a reason to play more conservatively is the whole point

 

[Rabid Penguin]

That's not a bug, that's a feature. Giving people a reason to play more conservatively is the whole point

I agree. But you can't ignore the fact that you will get people who avoid death at all costs, to the extent of being absolutely no help to their team whatsoever.

I do want harsher death penalties, I'm just presenting the cons along with the pros.

 

[Cpt-Praxius]

Though suppression works in RO2 (not as strongly as, say DH, but it's a good compromise), most people seem to under use it.

Any thoughts on ways to reward people for using suppression? Perhaps kill assists, or even team work points. The game itself knows when you're successfully suppressing somebody, as your avatar says so (I think, I've had native voices on too long).

Of course, we can also ask for higher suppression effects, bullet cracks, etc, but a lot of people hate suppression effects. So I thought this might be a way to get more suppression in by incentivising player behavior.

I think maybe have another section in the score board for suppression points, as it doesn't actually fall under "Kills".... but it should work in much the same way as kills.

What I mean is that if you suppress someone a little, you don't get any points, but for each person you completely suppress, you get a point. This can work for all classes with any weapon that suppresses, including Commanders & Arty.

Due to the fact that you pretty much render the suppressed player useless for a short time (they hunker down in a hole, can't fire back safely, vision and hearing is all screwed, etc.) it's not much different than taking out that enemy.

Of course MG's and Commanders with Arty would tally up the most suppression points in a round in most cases, but that's part of their job anyways.

Maybe to make things a bit more balanced, for every full suppression, you only get half a point.