Suppression Effect missing in ARMA3

[mr_centipede 31]

I think the suppression effect in A3 is missing. I think there was a screen blurring/heavy breathing in A2 when bullets impacting near you (though not flying near you, but TPWCAS fixed that). Since that effect is missing, does this mean the AI are not affected by suppression?

Btw there's a ticket here:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5496

[-Coulum- 35]

As far as I can tell there are no suppression effects for the ai, not even the ones from arma 2. My hope is that they scrapped the old system because they want to make a new and better one more similar to tpwcas. Ai skills should drop severely for a very short time when directly under fire and should also gradually drop for longer periods after prolonged fire and casualties. As well, ai stance and behavior (seeking cover) should be changed by incoming fire.

As for player suppression effects, I would love to see it as an option in the difficulty settings. imo the suppression effects should be composed of:

• breathing rate increases
  
• breath control is lost
  
• slight blur (intensity depends on the amount and precision of incoming fire)
  
• the gun makes a small random jump/twitch when you hear sonic cracks
  

I think RO had a pretty good suppression system going also albeit it had some flaws.

[Hartmann 10]

Arma 2 suppression was kinda frustrating, I do believe there should be some mechanic that encourages keeping your head down when fired at though.

[liquidpinky 11]

Not gutted.

[chrisb 196]

Suppression in the past has been provided by a number of methods; SLX, GL4, TPW_AI_Sup. With Arma3 I can see perhaps TPW coming across, but the rest won’t ever make it across, I don’t think. To have this as part of the standard in-game ai is very important to add realism to the game-play.

At present the ai in arma3 are pretty bad, very shooter'ish, which belittles the series. BIS will have to start spending some serious time on improving ai to get them anywhere near realistic. Ok they flank, but its a near flank, no real attempt to flank wide, maybe it was considered too long of a process, make players bored:rolleyes:.

Well some players may get bored, but the series was never about speed, it was always about tactics and planning, thats the way it should be played. The ai sort of go to cover, but its got to be pretty nearby, its a fairly lame cover method, mods made it better for A2, but it still could be impoved a lot.

I returned to play a short scenario mission I made on the new 'Katherine' map for A2, just me and the ai. It was a breath of fresh air getting back to decent ai behaviour (modded). The way I have A2 ai setup at the moment wipes the floor with A3, thanks to many talented mod makers (not myself, I just test and pick the bits that suit my game-play best). Hadara a walled village/town in Katherine, great for CQC, building to building alleyway to alleyway, really fantastic, I wrote a little about the scenario over in the A2 forum in the Kathrine thread. It was a joy to be back with great ai.

When I watch arma3 ai, which falls someway short of the mark, its disappointing, shows just how little effort has been put into that part of the game. Its been tweaked, yes, but it still feels cosmetic, just for show, we need better ai, the game deserves it..

Voted this up...

[dnk 13]

Huge oversight to not have it. Quite doable. Both returning the effect for the player AND adding it to the AI.

[dmarkwick 261]

Huge oversight to not have it. Quite doable. Both returning the effect for the player AND adding it to the AI.

Oh Gawd don't let the Rambos see this :D there was quite the dust-up when people insisted they had the right not to be bothered by suppression. The argument went like this:

Against: Playing the game properly meant you would react to suppression anyway i.e. you would want to preserve your gameplay in no-respawn environments.

Pros - no interference with ingame controls.

Cons - no reason to hide really when you can sharpshoot just as normal.

For: An ingame analog is required to give you an ingame reason to keep down & hidden. i.e. you are not much use when suppressed so you might as well hide.

Pros - gave you a real reason to hide.

Cons - "RPG"-like elements telling the player how scared he is.

I favour the suppression is effective (for) approach.

[mr_centipede 31]

This ticket is for suppression effect on player:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5645

And again, ticket for AI Suppression:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5496

Vote up guys

[liquidpinky 11]

I favour the suppression is effective (for) approach.

Pretty obvious considering your cons on the no suppression side. :P

The reason I stopped playing BF3 is suppression bullshit effect, well that and shitty blue tinted glasses.

The cons are, yes you can still sharpshoot (like you can in real life) but you are also still a sitting duck and will eventually die (like you can in real life).

You are asking for an effect that does not actually exist in real life, your senses actually sharpen. So to make an effective suppression that is realistic they have to smother the screen with radial and DOF blur till you get shot at, at which point it is removed.

The suppression mechanic, I understand the need to give the AI a certain value of their own lives so that they too will seek cover like I myself do as I am not a total retard.

If you want to value real suppression, maybe stop using vehicles for awhile. Once you have hiked for between five to ten minutes just to get to the AO you will maybe try your damnedest not to get killed and repeat said hike (enjoyable as the scenery is).

Make it a server side option then all can play as they like to play, instead of the usual having the shite rammed down our throats. Please BIS.

I didn't pay good hard earned cash for a decent PC just to play a game like I am wearing Vaseline coated glasses all the time, I would be left feeling it wasn't money well spent.

Voted down for sentient beings (maybe they could build in some sort of IQ check for players to decide) and up for AI (after all, they don't have as many cores as human brains and need to be directed more like sheep).

[wydySk 1]

Good points here, especially i agree with -Coulum-, ChrisB and DMarkwick.

I think suppression should be in but it must be felt natural. Something like suppression in the Darkest Hour (the mod for the RO). It should prevent from a sharp-shooting but still allowes to be able to return a fire. Suppresion should not to be a big effect, just breath control lost or something like that.

[PMartin 1]

(first post)

I mostly agree with no screen effects for suppression. Although I like the effect when a grenade explodes near you. There's a dirt overlay and your head/aim moves up, like an involuntary reflex or some kind of blast wave (but I think the aim should really go down on the grenade reflex, point at the floor, instead of at the sky, because as an involuntary reflex it's more natural to curl yourself to protect your face, and looking up looks more like Sgt. Elias being shot in platoon. Maybe I should create a ticket for it?)

Forcing the suppression effect is cheating in my opinion. Like a lot of arma players, I come from Original Ghost Recon, and that game was incredible on making you feel really suppressed. It had no artificial effect, but every time someone started shooting at you, you would get a little scared. And I think it was all thanks to an unbelievable EXCELLENT sound work. The bullet's whizzing near your head still to this day make my finger twitch to the crouch button.

And with all respect to BIS, but I'm impressed that AI suppressing is still missing since OFP... I remember back in 2005/06 when I first played Brothers in Arms and that game changed my whole outlook on every realistic/semi-realistic shooting game. Suppression in that game is one of the main mechanics, and although they made you REALLY inaccurate to compensate for how close-quarters most firefights were, suppression, cover and flanking were really impressive and seemed really simple, like, not some overly complicated AI scripting. Every enemy and team mate, on contact, would seek cover and return fire in a natural and fluid way;

[SSgt Godwin 1]

I quite like the suppression effect in BF3 and agree, somewhat, with it being used in Arma.....BUT, I even more-so agree with the fact that a round or two dropping you kind of negates the need for a suppression effect.

So, having said that, its a great idea to have it as an option to use if you want to...depending on difficulty settings as stated by Coulum and i think a few others.

[KingChubbles 1]

Battlefield 3, as well as other games that use the suppression mechanic, use something called deviation. Deviation is where even though your rifle barrel is pointed at something the bullet hits somewhere else. This mechanic would be outright terrible for the Arma series.

Other kinds of suppression might work, such as more weapon shake, however I am skeptical as to how well this will work. As said previously, if you value your in-game life you won't stick your head out of cover the same way you would if you weren't taking fire.

Edit: In regards to the AI I do think there needs to be a way to suppress them, make them take cover more often, and make them come out of cover and return (accurate) fire less often.

Edited April 2, 2013 by KingChubbles

[Smurf 12]

Supression is an actual tactic and should be represented somehow, otherwise what is the point of using it when the other guy can just pop up and pick the shots? Most poeply don't pretend to be there anyway.

Heavy breathing, lost of focus, shaking hands, increased heart rate make you more proned to execute delicate task, as shooting accurately, very bad. I nearly crashed my car one of these days and felt all of the above, probably something that can be compared to an extend to be in a firefight.

Seasoned soldiers learn to get used to that and manage to remain calm, something that can be simulated in-game too.

As I said in other occasion, both RO 1 and 2 got that right with somekind of blur (is not a blur, see), desaturation of colors (of, that might be too much), shaking hands (twicht moves are annoying as hell), heavy breathing and (probably the most important) the momentary loss of the ability to zoom while aiming, making very hard to shoot back accurately.

The TPWCAS mod was also really nice.

Also, COD doesn't have any kind of supression effect.

[mmaruda 20]

People react differently to suppression, the fact that someone fires at you does not make you magically go blind. You hit the deck because you don't want to get shot, some people curl in fear others don't. I don't think we need any special effects for that in Arma 3, the risk of getting hit and the lethality of the weapons should be enough.

[Gorbachev 1]

Agreed. I don't want any forced effects on my player character. Make the player value his life instead.

[Chocolate 1]

IF there is any suppression effect it should NOT effect vision. If you want to add some breathing ok, but nothing drastic. The player should decide his own value in "life." I realize that can be flawed because depending on game setup, the player can just spawn back in and resume the assault, but adding more artificial effects doesn't help either.

[maturin 12]

Loss of the ability to zoom with the camera is a great idea, actually. No one can take the time to gaze into the distance and focus on a target in such a situation.

People react differently to suppression,

There's the old saw again. And some people are Olympic sprinters, some run marathons, some have a mental condition that prevents them from feeling fear, some people don't notice bullet wounds and survive impalement or dozens of gunshots.

So we can thoroughly ruin the gameplay for the sake of all you people dishonestly claiming that your ability to scare yourself on behalf of a fake avatar who might face a five minute walk as consquences for death will lengthen firefights and reward proper tactics. If we standardize all the upper reaches of human combat ability, it will just be BF. Except that even BF has suppression effects.

Weapon shake is a must-have. Non-negotiable. It's an abstraction but a necessary one. Color desaturation and other effects get the point across without actually penalizing your performance. From that baseline, we can debate more intrusive screen effects.

[kireta21 13]

Visual effect used in TWPCAS works very well for me.

Short oversaturation when shot at, don't cripple your combat skills, but sharp change of colors can make you loose focus for a moment, making it's harder to return fire.

Since effect increases with amount of bullet count, beign under heavy fire makes it very hard to respond effectively. Strong change of colours will make models visually blend into background (works similar to color blindness caused by HDR), especially if using fitting camo, but if player don't panic and still remember positions of known enemies, there's still a chance for him to effectively return fire despite obstructed vision.

[maturin 12]

I'm in favor of:

Hands shake when bullets impact close (Just like ArmA 2).

Dirt of camera, possible blinking or involuntary sharp head movements from impact dust, spraying masonry and bullet fragments that would realistically be present.

Brief jolt when close sonic cracks are heard, just enough to throw off a carefully aimed shot momentarily.

Brief and subtle brightness changes. Heavy breathing and heartbeat noises.

Loss of ability to zoom and hold breath.

I think this would have a good effect, and there's nothing psychoactive about it.

[dayglow 2]

Also have it more of a tunnel effect. Near the center less saturation so the target you Re focused on is still visible, but the tunnel vision makes it harder to pick up other targets on your periphery, much like the tunnel vision that comes from an adrenalin dump.

Also some auditory exclusion would help with the effect. All sound effects get muffled, again causing you to be less able to pick up auditory cues from different sources. You are focused in on the center of your screen, but lose overall sensory information.

[liquidpinky 11]

Jesus, its going to be BF3 all over again. FPDR

Now where did I put my M60 with silencer?

Again I politely ask, BIS make it an option please.

[metalcraze 290]

There gotta be suppression for both AI and the player. TPWCAS does it well in Single Player and yet modders still can't make it work fully in MP.

People who say "well duh I will know when to hide anyway plz no screen shake / blur ; don't break norespawn gameplay" - it's not true. I played quite a few norespawn missions in ArmA3 by now and after you've been playing these games for years you know much better when you will get shot and when you won't. You can tell when shots are not precise. That fear factor is lost quite a bit in many situations.

There's gotta be a visual suppression effect making your and AI's aim less precise (and forcing them to crawl into cover). Nothing forces the player himself to bug out of the line of fire like the inability to return fire effectively.

PvP/Coop it doesn't matter. Just imagine putting some rapid fire into a cover where other players hide and watch them duck or crawl for other cover instead of just trying to snipe you back like nothing's happening.

[dmarkwick 261]

Pretty obvious considering your cons on the no suppression side. :P

The reason I stopped playing BF3 is suppression bullshit effect, well that and shitty blue tinted glasses.

The cons are, yes you can still sharpshoot (like you can in real life) but you are also still a sitting duck and will eventually die (like you can in real life).

You are asking for an effect that does not actually exist in real life, your senses actually sharpen. So to make an effective suppression that is realistic they have to smother the screen with radial and DOF blur till you get shot at, at which point it is removed.

The suppression mechanic, I understand the need to give the AI a certain value of their own lives so that they too will seek cover like I myself do as I am not a total retard.

If you want to value real suppression, maybe stop using vehicles for awhile. Once you have hiked for between five to ten minutes just to get to the AO you will maybe try your damnedest not to get killed and repeat said hike (enjoyable as the scenery is).

Make it a server side option then all can play as they like to play, instead of the usual having the shite rammed down our throats. Please BIS.

I didn't pay good hard earned cash for a decent PC just to play a game like I am wearing Vaseline coated glasses all the time, I would be left feeling it wasn't money well spent.

Voted down for sentient beings (maybe they could build in some sort of IQ check for players to decide) and up for AI (after all, they don't have as many cores as human brains and need to be directed more like sheep).

As I said, the Ramboesque will complain :)

Anyway, as this convo is destined to go the same way as the others (the Rambos vs the crybabies, or whatever) I guess what will be, will be. :)

[scrim 1]

Also have it more of a tunnel effect. Near the center less saturation so the target you Re focused on is still visible, but the tunnel vision makes it harder to pick up other targets on your periphery, much like the tunnel vision that comes from an adrenalin dump.

Also some auditory exclusion would help with the effect. All sound effects get muffled, again causing you to be less able to pick up auditory cues from different sources. You are focused in on the center of your screen, but lose overall sensory information.

BIS, I'm not kidding, if you implement this rubbish arcade shit, you will have deserved losing just about all serious players.

Seriously, this is not what happens IRL when you're being shot at. If you want to have something that unrealistic, get out of the Arma series and pick up a copy of BF3.