Feel like beating the dead horse?

[zenbitz]

Second, in any game, where player character huddles behind a cover without the line of sight to the target, and fires his gun "blindly", while the player can see the target, the cover system is effectively a cheat.

This is called "supression fire". The problem is not that you can shoot while "blind" - the problem is that you have any chance to hit (machine gun aside). On the other hand, why is the guy you are shooting out standing out in the open to get shot?

 

[PorkaMorka]

Men of War cover system has some things to recommend it over the more simple cover system in JA2.

It's tough to make it possible to effectively use cover just by using crouch, prone and standing, especially in 3D games where a lot of precision of movement is lost over tile based games. In reality a guy will contort his body more to make use of cover, not just crouch and prone.

In Men of War, in addition to just normally moving your guy behind a rock and crouching, each piece of cover has little ghost images of the positions you can take using that cover, which show up on mouseover and you can make your guy stick to the cover using those, to allow him to use maximum use of cover, and get into positions that would otherwise be impossible.

So you can do stuff like lean around corners, or stand with your back to a pillar and lean out to shoot, or just make easy use of available cover, without having to make sure your guy is lined up perfectly with that tree. It makes for pretty realistic looking positions.

It may sound dumbed down and next gen, but it works pretty well and the game would fail without it, so I suggest trying the Demo if you haven't.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

So it's just like CoH?

 

[DraQ]

It also uses bushes for soft cover, something I've yet to see in an fps.

STALKER (any)?

This is called "supression fire".

This isn't called "suppresion fire", it's called "faux suppresion fire with accurate aiming via invisible, immaterial virtual eye hanging in the air behind your ass".

In reality a guy will contort his body more to make use of cover, not just crouch and prone.

And that's the only thing an explicit cover system may possibly add - adopting your position to cover. Still the covers should not be declared explicitly, but detected based on their geometry. An unbelievably clunky, but fun proof of concept would be Cortex Command, where characters are animated using physical engine.

 

[Big Nose George]

So it's just like CoH?

No, its like Soldiers, you maggot. One more post like that and you end on my list.

 

[JarlFrank]

Again, I'd like to point to Call of Juarez 2. I didn't use the cover system much but it did work. Basically you just move very close to a solid object (a crate or a wall), then move your mouse upward to look above the cover and shoot or move it right/left when you're standing on the edge of a wall. Takes some getting used to but it works, and it's better than "press C to stand behind cover, press it again to stand up". It's more like "move close to cover, move your mouse to look out and shoot, leave cover with WASD".

And, of course, standing behind cover does not make you invulnerable. You can and will get flanked.

 

[PorkaMorka]

So it's just like CoH?

Dunno, I haven't played that dumbed down next-gen shit.

This series has been doing it (w/ fully destructible cover) since 2004's Soldiers Heroes of WW2.

It's pretty much impossible to make your guys use cover properly in non-grid based isometric 3d without using a system like this, so it's entirely possible more than one game has used a similar system.

And it's well done, you can stick to a very high percentage of in game objects and use them as cover, including wrecks that you made.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

"Feel like beating the dead horse?"


Should be the pop-up some people see when they click 'Post Reply'.

 

[MetalCraze]

Also, you are aware that the argument is not limited to fps (hence it is in RPG design)?

There is no reason in arguing about cover systems in RPGs (and other tactical-related games) - JA2 already made the point. But there were no firearms-based top-down RPGs in how many years? And with the current trend of making only shooters - won't be in a long time.

But let's not pretend that it is the only place to look for good examples, just off the top of my head, Soldier of Fortune (which is not the best example, since it's mostly leaning around corners), Full Spectrum Warrior (which is technically not an fps... but it's not a stretch to imagine similar approach to cover in an fps).
Also, OFP and the likes.

Except those games were a long-long time ago. Today it's all about pressing a button near the specially placed box. I don't truly remember how many FPS'es even have lean today. Haha CM even cut out leaning from OFP2.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yes, Ja2 would be a good example, though there are better ones out there, like Men of War, where you get ad hoc ocver - which is created when you blow stuff up. It also uses bushes for soft cover, something I've yet to see in an fps.

Wut?

JA2 has awesome cover system. Standing, crouching, prone are different and you get cover from every object in every tile between you and your assailant. Trees can stop bullets, as can walls, furniture, shrubberies, unlucky militia guy. Now that 1.13 added suppression fire (where getting scared means less AP, leading to a realistic "pinned down" effect) it's very nearly perfect, I'd only want heavy-caliber AP bullets to have a chance of penetrating building walls.

 

[MetalCraze]

Lack of material penetration is probably the only noticeable problem with JA2 cover system, but you can't have perfect things (although I would've wished).

 

[Reject_666_6]

A quick comment about health regen:

Escape From Butcher Bay uses the exact system you describe, spectre, with health regen acting only over certain thresholds. In fact, it might even use the actual intervals you mentioned (eg. every 20%), IIRC.

 

[spectre]

Does it work in practice? I knew it something like that but ould never get the damned thing to work on my gfx card.

 

[sah]

Show me a single game where cover system added any kind of tactical depth instead of just serving as a bad design excuse for console players standing in one place while playing a shooting range with enemies because it is impossible to play shooters with a gamepad properly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0lXSP-RpwE

This game is all about cover. The guy in that video fails pretty bad, which makes for a nice demonstration.

 

[MetalCraze]

Which is the problem - as it gives the exactly same feeling of GoW/ME where you just know that when you will step near this box the enemies will start firing from behind that box. Which is anything but a good design. In other words - overly too predictable and artificial (and turns into a shooting range where you shoot at "pop-up" heads). Which is the point of complaint.

In FSW it is even more obvious as you have empty streets with rare obviously placed objects which will always trigger some script.

OFP/ArmA are perfect examples of how tactical shooters done and they need no artificial cover systems.

 

[DraQ]

I agree with mister "banal, shit, boring".

 

[Twinkle]

BROS I USED TO COVER BEHIND PILLARS TO DEAL WITH MECHA-HITLER IN WOLF3D. DOES IT MAKE ME A CONSOLETARD?????

 

[DraQ]

BROS I USED TO COVER BEHIND PILLARS TO DEAL WITH MECHA-HITLER IN WOLF3D. DOES IT MAKE ME A CONSOLETARD?????

1.5/10