Dario on 19/11/2008 at 20:59
I far prefer FPS games with natural, free movement mechanics (Thief, Half-Life 2) than games with artificial cover systems (Rainbow 6: Vegas).
However, I think the R6:Vegas cover system 'worked' to a degree, simply because people like me aren't normally in tune with the concept of "staying alive" in that game, and so it forces you to quite simply "be careful", and not get shot... because, until you get the point that you're supposed to be hiding all the time, the game is so incredibly difficult, that many gamers will just go through the entire game getting shot every second, and not get the point that you're EXPECTED to hide 90% of the time. I never played a Rainbow 6 game more than an hour before launching it out the window, until R6:V, simply because I could finally stay alive (thus they probably made a good choice).
It reminds me how long it took me to break into Counter-Strike: Source, back in the day, and "understand" the tactics needed to stay alive. Until one understands that walking around with a gun can require such drastically different tactics from one game to the next, there's going to be a lot of dying and throwing games out windows.
lost_soul on 20/11/2008 at 00:35
Being able to use cover is always neat. I just hope the AI in DX3 is like the AI in the original Half-life... where if an enemy can't take a shot at you, they'll bounce a grenade to where you are. That was so cool getting blown up when I thought "there's no way the AI can toss a grenade in here!". In some FPS games, the enemies only throw grenades at you when they have a line-of-sight to you, but it is much better when they use them if they can't get a shot. Hopefully they will bring back leaning around corners in DX3!
BlackCapedManX on 20/11/2008 at 10:34
I think there's a problem of distinctions here (because the DX3 team hasn't made this distinction clear.) Using cover-in-battle and LOS-stealth are being lumped into a single group, when that might not necessarily be the case. The analogous game-types to look at are R6:V for cover and MGS for LOS-stealth. Cover happens when your enemies know you're there, and they're shooting at you, and you're hiding behind something that you'd rather be shot than you. LOS-stealth is when you're behind a corner, or in a vent, or under something or whatever, so if enemies are looking at you, they don't know you're there, because something's in the way. They get kind of automatically grouped, because in both instances you're using an object to block something the AI is sending at you, it's simply that in one instance you're blocking bullets and in the other you're blocking awareness.
In most action shooters, cover functions because pc vs npc awareness is less of a heavy consideration, the game pretty much assumes you both know where each other is, it's just a matter if you can shoot when they pop up or if they shoot you first. Essentially FPS games are turning into those foot pedal arcade shooters, but with a little more player freedom. LOS-stealth (which was actually quite heavily utilized in the old R6 games, back when they were tactical shooters and not action shooters), insists that both you and the enemies have to find each other, so giving you extra eyeballs that float around corners to see for you makes a little less sense for a first person game.
The obvious solution that has worked forever is leaning (and was actually quite necessary in the old R6 games, a point that becomes excruciatingly clear if you try and map out your teams route for a level and have the AI run it, they don't lean very well and often waltz into a room and get seen and subsequently shot.) If DX3 has leaning, then whatever, I'll turn the cover system off, not have my experience jarred by having my vision ripped out of my skull so I can see how sweet squatting behind a couch looks, and be done with it. If they don't have leaning and find cover to be an adequate solution, then they're not providing an adequate solution to the players they're promising a non-cover game for.
And I agree with Papy. Leaning offers the ability to observe an otherwise fully exposed AI, without exposing enough of yourself so as to be obvious, allowing you to see what you're going to do next. DX had a robust enough awareness engine that the AI would or would not see you depending on how much of your body was visible and at whatever range (it wasn't the most elegant heuristic, an AI could go cautious if you're standing up, but if you crouch will still in plain view, at certain distance they simply wouldn't see you anymore, because you were "less exposed" by being smaller). It would be regrettable if "any amount of your person is enough that the enemy can see you if they're looking toward you" is the MO for DX3, because then they could excuse not having lean because it wouldn't make a difference. It would also mandate the 3rd person view cover system to double for stealth, as otherwise you couldn't see them without being seen.
(also, what if you want to snipe from around a corner, using cover? would this put you back into a 1st person view to shoot the gun? This works fine in say, MGS2, because all of the game is 3pv, but in DX3 would it mean you start in 1st, go to 3rd to hide against the wall, peek around the corner, go into 1st to shoot, go back into 3rd to duck behind cover, and back into 1st when you leave cover? Because that's just stupid and ridiculous, and hard to say it isn't immersion breaking, especially since leaning would solve the whole thing with substantially less fuss.
