Cover Systems in Gaming: cRPGs and Beyond

[Humanity has risen!]

Oh fuck I fucking hate that cowering shit. If I play a shooter I don't want me and my ennemies to be forced to play a game of cowering constantly like little faggots. This stuff only slows down the gameplay anyhow. It's so fucking annoying!

What's the coolest style of shooting, Painkiller, or Faggots of War?

 

[Dormir Con Las Arañas]

DOOM

 

[MetalCraze]

Imagine when they will start implementing this shit into multiplayer games

Unreal Tournament 4, deathmatch - bunch of faggots mash their buttons hoping to pop that nasty enemy mole popping from behind his box to pop them, at the same time trying not to get pop'd by going down behind the box. This goes on for a minute or two and then blam LAG and one of them gets pop'd. FFFFUUUU

That would be seriously hillarious and it would play exactly like that

 

[BLOBERT]

NO ONE EVER GOES INTO COVEWR EVER IN REAL WAR THEYT JUMP BULLETS IF YOU GO INTO VCOVER INTO A FAME POPAMOLE FAGS BROS THE MOST IMPOROTANT THING ABOUT CONVERSYSTEMS IS THAT THEY LETY YOU KNOW THAT THE GAME IS NEW SO THAT YOU HAVE TO HAGTE IT

LLOLLOLLOL AT ALL THE FAGS TRIPPIUNG OVER EACH OTHER TO SUCK THEIR DICKS LOLLOLOLOL

BROS WHICH IS BETTER POS3 OR XBOX ANY OPINIONS!!!>>>!!

BROS LOLLOLLOL THIS FORUM IS ABOUT SPOUTING OFF RANDOME BULLSHIT IN THREADS ABOUT GAMES LOLLOOLLO

BROS HEY WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK RIGHT NOW VODKA AND DIET SEVEUP FOR ME VBUT I STARTED WITH WINE LOLLOLLOL

 

[Dormir Con Las Arañas]

gears of war has multiplayer, it's played competitively i think

 

[BLOBERT]

THANKS IRON YURI I GET WHERE YOU ARE GOING BUT YOU ARTE TRYING TO DISCUSS STUFF ON THE CODEX YOU MOSRTLY JUST POIST STUFF LIKE BRO FUCK YOUR POPAMOILE FAGBOX CRAP

WELL YOU DONT DO IT LIKE THAT CAUSE I HAVE CAPS WHEN YOU DONT USE CAPS IT LOOKS LIKE INTELLIGENT COMMENTARY

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

While Gears of War introduced this element to the third-person shooter, another game, Company of Heroes, introduced the cover system to the real-time strategy.

Close Combat, 1996, developed by Atomic Games, published by Microsoft

Except that Close Combat is a real-time simulation, not real-time strategy. The name real time strategy are basically strategic level games that for some weird reason adopted aesthetics of tactical/skirmish level games.

 

[MetalCraze]

Kill.switch was a console game, mainly, released in 2003, not 2005. Skyway you just fucked yourself by arguing that you don't "play shitty console games" but used a console title to refute my PC cover-systems argument.

There are no PC cover-systems. Because you don't need one on PC as you play with a mouse and keyboard. Also I haven't played kill.switch

I've owned a PC for 17 years, and before that a Commodore 64. So if you think I'm a newfag then you'd be wrong, sorry.

For how much you owned them doesn't matter. Newfag isn't age - it's a state of mind.

As for Company of Heroes- DoW and CoH are both relic games, ergo it was an RTS gimmick deployed by Relic.

See you keep proving my point. It was there way before CoH (in DoW1 it was just craters giving defence bonuses) and already got perfected in Outfront which is 2004 (you may know it as the first ever prequel to Men of War) and had a much more complex cover system than anything in CoH where your units could've hidden behind even a single wheel that rolled away from the truck when it got blown.

(As for the accusation that I know nothing about RTS, I started RTS with Dune and Warcraft, later Starcraft and spent 7 years playing Age of Empires II while refusing to upgrade to anything newer, so fuck yourself.)

See. Do you know other RTS games apart from the most mainstream ones?

in 2006 the tactical or sticky cover shooting mechanic became a mainstream element in gaming; in both shooters and RTS games.

Didn't you say that CoH was the last game to have it?
Also there is nothing tactical about sticky cover and RTS doesn't have sticky cover - in fact it works there in a totally different way, so what are you talking about?

Mass Effect was an RPG in more ways than it was a shooter or action game (inventory system, character building/development system, dialogue system, quest mechanics inc. quest hub, skill system... etc etc) and as an RPG it brought the sticky cover system into the genre in a big way with its 2008 release.

Mass Effect had no character building or development system found in RPGs, it had no stat and skill checks. Enemies had 0 stats too, they were just bots. In RPGs all enemies have stats and skills too. Hey I can argue that ArmA2 is even better RPG than ME - it has inventory system, it has classes with different abilities, it has dialogues, it has quest hubs and quest mechanics and it even has non-linearity depending on your decisions - something that ME lacks. Wow it must be the best RPG ever!

Is the *STICKY* or *TACTICAL* cover system, which is a recent gimmicky mechanic in gaming, which is the current paradigm in third-person action game design and which has come into the RPG genre through titles like Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol going to remain the paradigm? Is it just a one-trick pony which will be replaced? Can it be done right, if so, how could it be improved?

ME and AP are not RPGs so I can't see how it has come into RPGs. See you are being very newfaggy here.

And further- Don't tell me that a shooter is good because you can strafe left and right while dodging enemies. Try to run side to side in real life while shouldering a rifle and shooting at someone with perfect aim.

Try hiding in the real life behind the wooden box under high caliber fire and then just pop from behind it and instantly shoot 3 people in the head like you do it in AP?

Wait what are you saying that Arcade Shooters are not realistic?!

Just because it was in DOOM or Hexen or Quake doesn't make it a good mechanic; it just makes it old.

Yes it's old, so is sticky cover system. Except it adds fun to the game instead of taking it out.

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO LOLOLOLOL NICE ARGUMENTS HERE4 IS THE SUMMATION


BRO LLOLLOLLOL STICKY COVERS SUCKS AND IS FOR FAGS TAKE THAT BOOOMM!!!!!!!?//

BRO YOU CALLING SOMEONE NEW FAG IS THE KETTLE TELOLING THE PLOT HE IS A NEGRO

 

[VasectomyOmega]

The latest Call of Juarez (Read: Jaurez, not Duty) game had it's own style of cover system. It was pretty much the same thing as using WASD to move out of cover, except you used your mouse to peek around the corner. If you looked down while standing in front of a window, you leaned over the window so you could shoot at an angle impossible in other shooters. You can't see what's in front of your cover.

Red Orchestra 2 uses the same system, except you could blind fire, but you can't even see what you're blind firing at. True to it's name.

It doesn't belong in RPGs, however. Unless it's some kind of deal where "Targets in front of your cover have a 75% less chance of hitting you".

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO YURI LOLOLLOLOL ONLY NEWFAGS USE FAGTALK TO TRY AND DISCUSS SHIT OLDSCHOOL BROS ARE LIKE BRO FUCKS YOUR CONSOLETARD FAG SELF TAKE NTHAT BOOM!!!!???

 

[Malraz Alizar]

While Gears of War introduced this element to the third-person shooter, another game, Company of Heroes, introduced the cover system to the real-time strategy.

Close Combat, 1996, developed by Atomic Games, published by Microsoft

Except that Close Combat is a real-time simulation, not real-time strategy. The name real time strategy are basically strategic level games that for some weird reason adopted aesthetics of tactical/skirmish level games.

Look, I'm sure this makes perfect sense in whatever gibberish language you think in, but to the rest of us you just sound like a nutcase. Why don't you go adopt the aesthetic of someone who can use a dictionary, and come back when you have a better handle on whatever it is you're trying to complain about here.

 

[Big Nick Digger]

Cover systems are fucking boring. The enemy stays in cover, and you stay in cover. The enemies are dumber than you more often than not so it's just a matter of picking them off.

 

[MetalCraze]

If you haven't played killswitch then don't use it as an example.

Why? Are you saying it didn't have sticky cover system now?

Mass Effect did have skill checks for charisma and intimidate to make successful dialogue attempts

Awww sorry to disappoint you here but there were no dialogue attempts because you either unlocked those few lines of flavour text or you didn't. Keep trying.

Mass Effect also had skill difficulty levels, if you didn't have enough hacking skill you couldn't hack certain objects or even override them with omni-gel;

I remember I just played minigames instead of that shit

And no, I haven't played many non-mainstream RTS games, so what? I played Age of Empires II from release in 1999 until 2006, I bought Age 3, threw it away and re-installed Age 2 because it was better.

Wow you've played AoE2 for 7 years - that means you are truly hardcore.

And what the fuck is this "newfag is a state of mind" shit? I am critically analysing cover systems.

You do? So tell me what's so good about them apart from "they are revolutionary!!1" (even though as it turned out to be they were there since forever) or "realistic" (which is a complete bullshit).

If being an old-fag is just saying "LOLOLOLITSSHIT" but not providing any points as to explain why then do you think anyone gives a shit?

I take it you've missed a few of my above posts where I said that they ultimately turn you into an immortal static turret and why?

Cover systems became a huge selling point for games around 2006.

Yes. Years later they still turn possibly good shooters into a boring shooting range

Why? What makes it such a problem?

You are fucking joking right? 2 pages of this thread don't exist?

If it is a problem then it can surely be improved and if so, how could it be improved?

By completely not using them? Note how cover systems never ruin games where they aren't used.

 

[zeitgeist]

The latest Call of Juarez (Read: Jaurez, not Duty) game had it's own style of cover system. It was pretty much the same thing as using WASD to move out of cover, except you used your mouse to peek around the corner. If you looked down while standing in front of a window, you leaned over the window so you could shoot at an angle impossible in other shooters. You can't see what's in front of your cover.

I thought that was a pretty decent implementation of a "cover system" for a FPS. I mean it was basically crouching and leaning with arm/hand/gun animations adapting to what's in front of you in real time. It seemed like an organic addition to normal FPS gameplay, not a whole new system that turns combat into a minigame and takes character control away from the player.

 

[MetalCraze]

That isn't a cover system. It's just a better made leaning.

 

[mondblut]

JA2 had a good cover system.

 

[entertainer]

RO2 has a good one too

 

[MRSA]

A cover system could work if it's realistic and not retarded. No indestructible objects behind which you take cover, no popamole AI that just stands there and waits to be killed, no slow-ass and retarded enemies, no blind-rfiring that is as accurate as normal shooting, and NO FUCKING CHEATING by being able to see everything behind cover.

Of course it will never happen, because people who play cover-based shooters are morons (see my sig for details).

 

[entertainer]

fucking latvian

 

[deus101]

Q and E keys...we hardly knew ye...

If anything, to be able to be able to fire blind in an FPS note "FPS" not third person popamole.

Then the QE keys would do, if you ran to a wall and got close to a corner and used the QE keys then the gun could then be pointed down the corridor without the camera following suit...then just aim blindly to your hearts content.
(to choose to pop your head to the side along with the gun you just move closer to the corner)

To fire over a wall/barricade just keep pressing towards the obstacle and the gun will be aimed over it, and will do so as long as you keep pressing against the wall.
I also liked Stalkers two degrees of crouch, knees bent and kneeling.
Which could also be used if you wanted to pop your head along with the gun over a sandbag or just the gun.


(things to add to my already humongous portfolio todo list that probably wont be hacked/progged/implemented because of the W3 consortium and all its evil machinations )

 

[deus101]

The latest Call of Juarez (Read: Jaurez, not Duty) game had it's own style of cover system. It was pretty much the same thing as using WASD to move out of cover, except you used your mouse to peek around the corner. If you looked down while standing in front of a window, you leaned over the window so you could shoot at an angle impossible in other shooters. You can't see what's in front of your cover.

I thought that was a pretty decent implementation of a "cover system" for a FPS. I mean it was basically crouching and leaning with arm/hand/gun animations adapting to what's in front of you in real time. It seemed like an organic addition to normal FPS gameplay, not a whole new system that turns combat into a minigame and takes character control away from the player.

Well fuck...

Could you fire blind?

 

[Admiral jimbob]

More or less. It was initially awkward to get used to, and to be honest its utility was fairly minimal in practice - the bobbing around made me feel a bit seasick and was hard to control precisely, really - but it's definitely the approach cover systems should be taking. With some refinement, it could be a really good mechanic.

 

[Mastermind]

As far as I can tell, cover-based mechanics in shooters exist because they facilitate play on consoles, where the imprecision of the controller makes traditional shooters difficult to play.

What is it with the codex and the "shooters is hard 2 ply on a cansole" bs? Do all you fuckers have degenerative muscle disorder? I'm far from a shooter grandmaster but I've had little trouble aiming with a controller, even when there is no autoaim. If traditional shooters were difficult to play on consoles, they would not sell.

 

[Mastermind]

And no, I haven't played many non-mainstream RTS games, so what? I played Age of Empires II from release in 1999 until 2006, I bought Age 3, threw it away and re-installed Age 2 because it was better.

Ahh, and I was starting to like you.