Cover Systems? Why the butthurt?

[Freelance Henchman]

 

[MetalCraze]

again, skyway, rather than think of solutions, still prefers to stick to his stupid opinion by using strawman arguments in a poor attempt to counter ideas to make cover systems better. skyway is not a learning/progressive animal.

The only solution that worked for 20 years without any problems is - don't use cover system.

get your rage memes right: console games are dumbed down for dumb players, not just because of gamepads (a minor element). i can aim pretty well after having gotten used to the gamepad.

Of course - that's because you are playing a console shooter where everything was slowed down for the gamepad.
Try playing something like UT99 with a gamepad and report back.

this is further disproven by other console games where things are the complete opposite of "static" and where quick reflexes are needed.

Care to name me these shooters where crazy reflexes are needed?

shooter games existed on consoles long before cover systems existed, and you had to be on your toes back then

Haha no. Look at those console shooters like Black or Syphone Filter or console Dukes or whatever - enemies remain mostly static or move at a very slow speed, some of those games even used auto-aim. And it looked bad without the cover system which creates an excuse for everything being so slow.

Even UT2003 (which is a PC port of Unreal Championship from XBawks) and UT3 are huge examples of how slow everything is on consoles - playing UT99 requires real reflexes while these two are like some fucking sleepy kingdom.

Whatcha gonna say now?

no, but you are a moron for thinking that camera/view techniques are unique to a certain type of game. 'no line of sight = no view on enemy' is a simple rule that isnt unique to any genre. it's a fucking logical point in camera systems (whether 1st person, 3rd person or top down), and logical points apply in all cases.

No they don't. Here's why you are so retarded. In shooters you control a single character and the whole gameplay is based around of what player sees, not what character sees. And walls plus other obstacles still block your view. In top down turn-based tactics they don't and it's based around of what a whole bunch of characters see, not what you see and you don't take a direct part in a combat at all. That's combined with things like it's being turn-based where enemies won't jump at you out of thin air at any time, there's such thing as hearing which marks where the noise was for characters that heard them.

So yeah basically your comparison of JA2 to third-person shooters is very retarded.

 

[Jim Cojones]

no, but you are a moron for thinking that camera/view techniques are unique to a certain type of game. 'no line of sight = no view on enemy' is a simple rule that isnt unique to any genre. it's a fucking logical point in camera systems (whether 1st person, 3rd person or top down), and logical points apply in all cases.

It isn't unique to any genre. But it doesn't apply to Killzone/GoW inspired shooters. Example.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I don't play console shooters.

 

[Sceptic]

Dumbass is living up to his name it seems.

Also, you were all trolled by OP.

 

[Nostradumbass]

What the fuck are you talking about? That's the whole reason why sticky cover sucks. YOU CAN STILL SEE AROUND YOU. We're not saying using cover sucks, but that sticky cover, in which you glue to a wall in third person but without obstructed vision and with retarded AI that simply pops up and down like so many moles is a bad system. The problem is that your vision isn't obstructed.

God you're a fucking retard. Learn to read you fucking faggot.

fucking shit, you are one hell of a fucking dunce. i mean how do you keep from shitting all over yourself every day? why don't YOU learn to read, MOTHERFUCKER.

one last time for your dumb ass, slowly this time: the same rule that applies in JA2 (no line of sight = no view of the enemy) can apply to ANY other games, including 3rd person cover shooters.

the game can calculate your fucking line of sight and decide whether to fade in or fade out enemies. whether you're behind cover or whatever.

 

[Nostradumbass]

no, but you are a moron for thinking that camera/view techniques are unique to a certain type of game. 'no line of sight = no view on enemy' is a simple rule that isnt unique to any genre. it's a fucking logical point in camera systems (whether 1st person, 3rd person or top down), and logical points apply in all cases.

It isn't unique to any genre. But it doesn't apply to Killzone/GoW inspired shooters. Example.

nothing to say it doesnt apply. in that perfect example, with such a system, the cop simply wouldn't be 'drawn' on screen unless niko peeks out or comes out of cover to aim.

 

[muffildy]

cover

ME2 does have the AI to kill cover users.
For example, some boxes that you hide behind are destructable
krogan will rush your cover in certain situations

So what needs to be done is to make ALL cover destructable, or to make certain kinds of cover only mitigate the damage recieved ie the wooden table reduces dmg by 15% or something.

There is an example i can think of for flanking too - i wish it happened more often, but there is one part of the game where shepard is talking to a krogan and if he wants to he can shoot a gas tank above and the krogan says ha u missed then gets blown up. But thats not the flanking part - the flanking is that there is a ramp to the right and the krogans will sometimes head there in order to shoot at your uncovered butt. So i suppose part of it is level design - they need to make more areas that offer flanking opportunities.

It would also make sense for as other users stated turn off the ability to see things you shouldnt be seeing. Now obviously while you shouldnt be able to see it visibly you should be able to see it on your radar screen unless its being jammed or the enemy is using invisibility.

 

[MetalCraze]

Or how about not using the cover system at all?
So far there are dozens of arguments why it sucks compared to the lack of cover system in normal shooters.
And not a single argument why it's good.

Now obviously while you shouldnt be able to see it visibly you should be able to see it on your radar screen unless its being jammed or the enemy is using invisibility.

So basically make enemies invisible in a viewport but make them visible on a magical radar anyway? Hahaha

 

[good little toastboy]

Vietcong's cover system was the only one I actually liked. Are there any games with a similar system?

 

[Destroid]

I think Republic Commando had sticky cover which did not switch to 3rd person allowing you to look around. Didn't play it much so I can't recall if that made sticky cover better or worse.

I think there was a similar WW2 squad based first person game that focused on suppressing fire and flanker, although I never played it.

 

[commie]

So far Far Cry had the best human AI I've seen in FPS games, enemies really could surprise me, flank, attack from behind etc. This game was so entertaining mainly because of AI (and take any road you want, although this was pretty limited). Well, unfortunately later you had to fight with dumb monsters that weren't much smarter than oblivion NPCs.

I remember the night mission where you land by boat. I went in, crouched until the encampment, and picked off the guys. All of a sudden a bunch of mercs come firing and running, though not all in the line of fire like lemmings. two bands split off and are flanking me! I can't see shit in the dark and with all the vegetation. I fire blindly clip after clip into where I think the mercs are while retreating under a hail of gunfire towards the boat. I'm almost outflanked and scum are tearing strips off of me from all sides! I just manage to get back in the boat and scoot away, firing into the shore undergrowth! BEST FIREFIGHT EVAH!!!

WTF were Crytek thinking fucking this up and Crysis with monsters/aliens?

 

[SoupNazi]

Get ready to stone me. I'll martyr myself for the good of Codexia.


I don't think the whole premise of cover system is entirely bad, and I know a single game where it was done half-decently (i.e. not popamole). I also have in mind several improvements that could make it even more decent, but admittedly, it will never be perfect (or rather, I currently don't know how to make it perfect without making it look retarded).

The game that I think did cover system half-right was Rainbow Six: Las Vegas. While the game itself was a streamlined dumbed down version of the previous R6 games, the cover system wasn't nearly as bad as Gears of War's, for example.

First off, enemies used it dynamically and rarely, if ever, popped out of the same corner repeatedly. They switched covers and, especially in the terrorist hunt mode, tried to flank the player. Admittedly I played on the highest difficulty so I can't really vouch if this happened on all difficulties.

The second point would be that when taking cover at a corner, you saw just about 0.01% of what's around it unless you had the character take a look, which immediately exposed his (or her, as you can play a female SWAT leader lol) head. Combined with enemy accuracy, this was a risky move.

Also, there was just an option of TRUE blind fire if I recall correctly. You couldn't aim your crosshair somewhere while staying fully covered and then fire when an enemy popped out their head or were changing covers, like you can in other popamole shooters. If you wanted to aim somewhere, like when you throw a grenade and expect the enemy to run away from it, you had to pop out of the cover and actually take aim, back in first-person. If you wanted to blind fire, there was no way to aim it, you just shot straight ahead. This was only good for very narrow corridors when you knew that enemies are likely running towards you.

The only major flaw I saw in the R6:LV cover system was when under low cover, you could still clearly see whatever is in front of you without looking up. Obviously unlike the corner cover (where the camera simply showed just the character, the wall around and a bit of whatever is behind the corner, but not much) you can't really just aim the camera on the floor to prevent the player from seeing what's ahead, that would be retarded. One option would be to make the enemies disappear when they're not in the character's LOS, but that would look even more retarded. (In JA2 it makes sense, in real-time shooters, it does not.)

And last, you could play Rainbow Six almost entirely without using the cover. In fact I found it more effective not to take the stick-to-cover approach when behind a low wall or something, it was better to just crouch and use the normal first person view, as it was easier to take aim that way.

Overall, first person cover has its flaws as well. You hardly ever know how much of you is exposed, when normally you would have nearly perfect feel of this when taking cover in real life. ArmA solves this by allowing you to switch to third person, adjust yourself so you can lean out of cover but not expose yourself too much, but it takes time. But with many other FPSs it doesn't work as well. I thought Call of Juarez 2 did this semi-right when they sort of stuck you to cover even though it was in first person, but even then it wasn't perfect. There needs to be a compromise, I think, that would allow for realistic and tactical combat.

This is also why I still have some hope for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, even if only minimal. The game could potentially be playable with no, or even minimal use of the cover system, and it could also be done half-right like they managed to do it in R6. Seeing as they are combining the first and third person view, this could work.

I just don't think that 'has cover system' must necessarily equal 'popamole'. Honestly, if I had a team, I bet your ass I could develop a fair and challenging cover system that would work and would still require tactical thought unlike current popamole systems.

Now mock me, flame me, stone me, maul me, Codex. I'll still love you though.

 

[commie]

You put a lot of effort into that SoupNazi and you make a good case. NO need to go ballistic on your arse!

 

[Burning Bridges]

I just don't think that 'has cover system' must necessarily equal 'popamole'.

And a hooker may not fuck you for the money, but ..

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

The discussion isn't that cover systems can't potentially be good, it's that they, in practice, haven't been. Dumbasses' comments are saying that potentially they could make stuff you can't see invisible while you're in cover, and while they could do that, I'm not aware of any time in which they have. So he's still a fucking retard.

There really isn't a reason why cover systems can't be good in theory, but until I see something that proves to me that they aren't shit in practice, I'm going to operate under the assumption that sticky cover is in fact shit popamole nextgen gritty dark mature epic shit.

 

[MetalCraze]

The real question is why do you need them.
Let's even forget that the sole purpose of cover system is to compensate for the gamepad speed so you can just remain at the same place while shooting enemies as you can't move and shoot simultaneously with a gamepad like on PC

What makes cover system better than the lack of it?
When you don't have the cover system you may move behind cover whenever you wish, in whatever ways you wish and stay behind it in any way you wish.
The cover system restricts you to the single dimension behind it (left-right) and constantly slows you down making moving behind it ultratedious.

So what's the point in having it apart from dumbing down for gamepads?

 

[obediah]

Never mind these grumpy ol' crustvags.

You can make a damn fine cover system with a few minor caveats:

- only use first-person perspective
- destructible cover w/ soak damage
- enemy ai designed to kill you rather than provide targets
- no health regen
- remove the "sticky" part
- add crouch, lie, lean keys

 

[DraQ]

Cover was fun BEFORE it became a system. FPS of the old had moves to peep around corners, and crouch. Why do we need more?

Stuff like CoD never had cover "systems" in fact. Enemies took cover. They crouch behind walls and such. You did the same.

Cover systems are just a gimmick - a stylizing of a an age-old technique in FPS, made easy for the console tards whose controllers are far inferior than the simple mouse + keyboard.

This.

They are also a cheat, due to TPP supernatural aiming without line of sight to the character.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The real question is why do you need them.

Because they are the next step in the evolution of gaming. Like everything that makes game easier is. And one day in the future the games will play themselves.

 

[MetalCraze]

Never mind these grumpy ol' crustvags.

You can make a damn fine cover system with a few minor caveats:

- only use first-person perspective
- destructible cover w/ soak damage
- enemy ai designed to kill you rather than provide targets
- no health regen
- remove the "sticky" part
- add crouch, lie, lean keys

That's exactly what we had before cover system appeared and cut these out.

 

[SoupNazi]

So what's the point in having it apart from dumbing down for gamepads?

I feel I answered that in my tl;dr post a bit above, let me quote it out for you:

Overall, first person cover has its flaws as well. You hardly ever know how much of you is exposed, when normally you would have nearly perfect feel of this when taking cover in real life. ArmA solves this by allowing you to switch to third person, adjust yourself so you can lean out of cover but not expose yourself too much, but it takes time. But with many other FPSs it doesn't work as well. I thought Call of Juarez 2 did this semi-right when they sort of stuck you to cover even though it was in first person, but even then it wasn't perfect. There needs to be a compromise, I think, that would allow for realistic and tactical combat.

To add onto that, I also don't like when games treat the player as a "levitating box with a gun sticking out", and you yourself as an OFP/ArmA player should know very well what I mean. Again, ArmA does this well but about any other FPS game puts the player in situations where a real human with a real body would either be unable to stand/act or it would be awkward.

You can test the "box complex" easily. In any FPS game, walk backwards to a wall until you hit it, i.e. presumably the character hits the wall with their back. Now use just your mouse to turn. In most games, the character will simply turn as if the gun wasn't actually sticking out forward like it would normally. In few games, ArmA being one of them, an animation plays out where the avatar sticks the gun towards their chest or something along those lines.

I think the third person cover system can nicely prevent that, if it was made with the adjustments I had in mind that would make it less (or not at all) popamole.

They are also a cheat, due to TPP supernatural aiming without line of sight to the character.

Though that's not really an inherent "feature" of cover systems, it's just another symptom of streamlining dumbing down. Again, you can make a cover system, with the whole stick to cover part, without supernatural aiming and unnatural LOS point for the player.

 

[Mangoose]

The real question is why do you need them.
Let's even forget that the sole purpose of cover system is to compensate for the gamepad speed so you can just remain at the same place while shooting enemies as you can't move and shoot simultaneously with a gamepad like on PC

What makes cover system better than the lack of it?
When you don't have the cover system you may move behind cover whenever you wish, in whatever ways you wish and stay behind it in any way you wish.
The cover system restricts you to the single dimension behind it (left-right) and constantly slows you down making moving behind it ultratedious.

So what's the point in having it apart from dumbing down for gamepads?

I guess the only real benefit is that you can hide behind objects that may be just too low or irregular shaped to protect your static crouched model.

Idea: What if crouch height could be modified on the fly?

 

[Undead Phoenix]

I'm of the cover system =/= popamole group. Now, personally, I quite like cover systems, they're the equivelent to stances and leaning in a FPS (any FPS that doesn't have them is shit. Period.) - thing is they are implemented poorly in most cases. What a cover system in a TPS needs:

1) Must not be able to see past cover when you're in it
2) No corridors littered with conveniently shaped boxes
3) No invincible conveniently shaped wooden boxes
4) AI that knows how to flank
5) AI that doesn't suddenly get 100% accuracy when you're out of cover
6) Being in cover shouldn't magically reduce your hitbox
7) No regenerating health FFS

 

[Bruticis]

I just want to know why those boxes and crates are strewn all about everywhere I go. Do workers not put those things away?