Serious suggestion after seeing vietcong

[frag 0]

Hi guys,

First of all, great game! I play almost every day. I really like the mission scripting power.

I have just one serious suggestion for OFP 2. Take 2-3 hours and make a firefight in Vietcong (the game). The aiming, peeking and moving is so natural that you don’t even think about it. It’s a feeling that I never got in OFP. You run, jump over a log, and peek over it just enough to fire your weapon. Same thing while leaning behind a rock. You can’t understand what I am talking about if you did not try the game.

The enemy uses the environment so well, it’s unbelievable. The dive behind rock when you firing at them, they run from one tree to the other while you is recharging your weapon. They try to flank you while their friends make covering fire. They are not limited to run/crouch/fire.

Briefly it’s the most advance-fighting engine I saw.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like OFP, but you just can learn while peeking at competitor products. I know Vietcong is more arcade oriented than OFP. But the natural fighting system (aiming, peeking) is worth it …believe me.

Frag

[Gollum1 0]

I know what you mean, altough the AI might only at first glance seem "unbelievable", they practically have no idea what they´re doing, they just run around in random directions and sometimes advance in your general direction

But I know that cover plays a very large role in Vietcong, as in real life. In OFP you can´t take cover anywhere except the occasional rock or sandbag.

[frag 0]

About the random moving ... that is possible. But there is something you will agree on. They use cover when you fire at them. I can't remember how many times I laugh seeing them jumping behind a rock when I started firing at them. They hide, pop to fire, and hide again.

I like too the way our aiming is unsteady (always move 1-3 mm on the screen). It makes the firefight longer and more realistic (I shoot with rifle very often, and it's very difficult to have a straight steady aiming). Yesterday, while playing Vietcong... I had to empty 2 magazines to get rid of a VC popping from a distant log with a heavy machinegun. I was SO HAPPY when I finally shoot him down. In OFP as far as I see a pixel of the enemy, I can shoot him down with one bullet.

Another thing struck me. It’s amazing how fast they are reacting. Cross one at a corner and you better be fast on the trigger … or you are dead meet. In OFP, the enemy is generally slow when you surprise him around the corner of a house. You have plenty of time (even to change your weapon), before he sees you.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE OFP. Just want them to add pressure in firefight.

Frag

[Gollum1 0]

Another cool thing about VC, you know when the enemy are taking cover behind rocks they pop in and out of cover very quickly. Sometimes the muzzle flash and recoil of your weapon makes you unsure if you actually hit your target or if he popped back into cover. The you slowly walk toward the rock to confirm your kill and if he pops out again you almost have a heart attack

I think the accuracy and recoil of the weapons in VC is just right and would fit well into OFP. A fault that VC and OFP have in common are big muzzle flashes. IRL, you rarely see a muzzle flash in broad daylight, just a puff of smoke and sometimes a partial flash. I know from personal experience.

[haunted 0]

Quote[/b] ], just a puff of smoke and sometimes a partial flash

Whereas at night u see a flash for longer?? The muzzleflash in OFP is white anywas so it is harder to see at daytime

[frag 0]

Another cool thing about VC, you know when the enemy are taking cover behind rocks they pop in and out of cover very quickly. Sometimes the muzzle flash and recoil of your weapon makes you unsure if you actually hit your target or if he popped back into cover. The you slowly walk toward the rock to confirm your kill and if he pops out again you almost have a heart attack  

LOL It's so true about the "Is he dead?" ... It happened to me to discover one behind the rock, only hurt. Guess how fast they are using their AK-47 in that case!? As you said, I had a heart attack...

[ZIKAN 0]

Yeah, most FPS games tend to have this 'Hollywood' muzzle flash effect. The effect they use in films is kind of misleading to anyone not familiar with firearms in general. Blank firing weapons as used on TV and in films mostly produce this huge muzzleflash effect, it might look good but its certainly not an accurate representation. Also if you are producing alot of smoke from the end of your barrel, you have far to much oil in there!

I agree though Vietcong does bring some features like you stated that OFP2 could do with.

[Gollum1 0]

Also if you are producing alot of smoke from the end of your barrel, you have far to much oil in there!

No no, just a puff of course. On a Finnish Rk-62 assault rifle (mechanical copy of AK-47)

[Heatseeker 0]

VC is almost brilliant but too small , when you advance slowly into the dense jungle of high rez vegetation with sun rays between the trees and insects, butterflyes, and birds coming out of nowere awakened by the sound of your footsteps... unfortunetly the maps are almost claustrophobic, if only we could have such outstanding graphics, models, and "live" jungles in a opf size terrain .

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

Real weapons do have a big muzzleflash IRL but only for fractions of a second. Thats whats wrong with games - the muzzleflash stays for far too long (mainly because the smallest interval they can animate is one frame)

[CopyCon 1]

The muzzle flash thread can be found here

[Heatseeker 0]

Ok, back on track, the firefights in vc are very good, opf2 should have something like that, the a.i. should peek, shoot and reload their weap behind cover. If you use supressive fire they will take cover and your men will advance, really cool. The firefights in opf always felt too short, there is no movement, no real solid cover, one burst and yer done...not to mention how agressive the a.i. behaves in the forest, its like the vegetation isnt even there for them .

[hellfish6 7]

Real weapons do have a big muzzleflash IRL but only for fractions of a second.  Thats whats wrong with games - the muzzleflash stays for far too long (mainly because the smallest interval they can animate is one frame)

In my experience, you can rarely even see a muzzle flash unless it's night. Most flashes, especially daytime ones, are just quick little burps of translucent orange that are gone before you realize it.

[frag 0]

mmmm just finished the game. One of the point I forgot to talk about is the atmosphere. The jungle is so dense and real that you finally forgot that you are at the front of a computer screen.

If OFP2 can offer that level of immersion and a similar fight system, but on a big map ... THAT will be THE wargame. PERIOD.

[Goeth 0]

Personally i hope that bis don´t take anything from that shitty vietcong game, it was very lame game. I played it maybe the half of the campaign and some mp and neither one was good. I really didn´t get the jungle feeling when there were huge unpassable texturewalls everywhere.

[Heatseeker 0]

@ June 14 2003,12:49)]Personally i hope that bis don´t take anything from that shitty vietcong game, it was very lame game. I played it maybe the half of the campaign and some mp and neither one was good. I really didn´t get the jungle feeling when there were huge unpassable texturewalls everywhere.

No, not "take"! BIS does their own stuff pretty well, but there is some really awsome stuff in that VC game, the textures, vegetation, models, a.i., sound, weapons, animations, etc. Its unfortunate for us that current hardware cant andle such impressive detailed stuff on a larger environment like OPF, and the firefights were the best ones i ever had in a single player game ever. It made me wonder how bis is gonna recreate vietnam setting and jungle warfare in OPF2 .

[Baphomet 0]

First of all, to my knowledge Vietcong suffers from many symptoms of (pseudo realistic FPS) Syndrome... smaller maps mean that you can script or get the ai to do things that when using a much larger and unperdictable environment would be much more difficult. When you decrease the scope of the game. You have more options to focus on the smaller details... like guys leaping behind rocks or fancy vegetation etc.

Another problem of which I would have to seriously consider even playing ofp2 is if they adopted what many pseudo realistic shooters do and make an "expanding ring" dispersion system. This system is inherently flawed to the point that I refuse to play any game that uses it.

Basically what it is, was a bunch of goddamned lazy developers told some monkey to shoot some bullets in a board or a paper target and collected the grouping info (how the bullets patterened...) then drew a circle around it... then converted that info into to the game. The problem is then the bigger the aiming circle gets (in most games unrealistically wide, especially in games with small maps to keep the dispersion in ratio to the smaller spaces) the more likely you are to have ridiculously stupid things happen like a bullet flying at a 45' degree angle to the left... the right or down! This is because that imaginary circle is simply the area in which the random chance of a bullet can exist in. Which is stupid... A bullet originates from the barrel of a gun it doesn't fly out of the center of your field of vision and project in some random direction within an invisible circle that magically expands as you run... tell me something. If you've ever handled a gun. Does the barrel get bigger the more you move around and shoot? No. It's the lazy way of modeling dispersion instead of calculating the actual position of the barrel and projecting the bullet using reasonably realistic bullet physics model (As ofp does).

Ever notice how on the player model of the gun and when aiming the gun itself the bullet originates from the muzzle unlike any other pseudo realistic game like counterstrike or anything using that unreal tactical engine? It's why I can't play any other game than OFP. I just get way too pissed off at how obviously lazy the developers got. I forgot what this topic was about so I might as well quit while I'm ahead.

I've got to stop posting these mini-novel-length diatribes.

That's another thing. I'm sick of people complaining about how bad ofp looks... when you model terrain of 100km in size thereabouts or any significantly large expanse... you have to consider the economy of performance. You cannot compare any shitty small scale game and it's graphics to ofp's expansive and significantly less fettered potential. OFP is about large scale combat. Even BF 1942 pales in comparison to ofp as nice as it looks. I'll take functionality over nice looking bushes.

... I promise I'm done now.

[Snakezz 0]

I agree 100%,dont make OFP2 Super-Enhanced-Graphics,or otherwise people who played original OFP wont even be able to play the 1st level without 1 hour of loading and 2 hours of lag,what im saying is,just enhance the graphics just a tiny bit,and fix the rest,fighting.etc..

[Heatseeker 0]

I agree 100%,dont make OFP2 Super-Enhanced-Graphics,or otherwise people who played original OFP wont even be able to play the 1st level without 1 hour of loading and 2 hours of lag,what im saying is,just enhance the graphics just a tiny bit,and fix the rest,fighting.etc..

Perhaps BIS can come up with some better rendering system, oclusion maybe? what you dont see doesnt need to be rendered right?, and if you take a look at some latest models (camel pilots, Nogova civies) you notice how much more perfect they are compared with the horrible old soldiers. I would like to have the best graphics possible, if the game is suposed to be realistic they should make it look real too, without sacrificing gameplay ofcourse

[CopyCon 1]

I agree 100%,dont make OFP2 Super-Enhanced-Graphics,or otherwise people who played original OFP wont even be able to play the 1st level without 1 hour of loading and 2 hours of lag,what im saying is,just enhance the graphics just a tiny bit,and fix the rest,fighting.etc..

To be able to fight in the top of games 2004, OFP2 needs a lot better graphics, not just a tiny little bit. With games like HL2 and Doom 3 on the way, the standards will be ways higher than they are today.

[Heatseeker 0]

Graphix or not i think the main reason of this thread was gameplay elements, like having solid cover and the abilitie to lean around corners and use supressive fire that would force the a.i. to stay in cover, there is much detail and stuff in current OPF but solid cover is almost non existant, we should be able to use tree logs, small walls and other objects to avoid gettin hit and the a.i. should too .

[soul_assassin 1745]

dont u dare make 20 hours of walking in complete blindness in the tunnels of Vietnam...............thats what made me press the Uninstall button on VC

[Spy17 1]

I also liked the system of taking cover in that game. The use of the radio was although very nice (including calls for ary fire). An other thing I liked was the way soldiers walk and cross obstacles they screwed that up a little by adding jumping, it really looks stupid.

[Baphomet 0]

OFP doesn't need to compete with halflife 2 and doom3 for the simple reason is they're not even remotely similar. Some people just don't get that you must learn to sacrifice trite shallow details to achieve an overall versatility and expansiveness that OFP allows. I find nothing wrong with the original soldiers. It's people who obsess over the position of armpatches and small insignificant details which might railroad the development of ofp 2 into being another shitty ghost recon.

I care about what's pertinent to what the game achieves... I care about decent physics. I care about decently modeled wounding system. I care about graphics too but only to an extent that they convey well enough what's going on. Yet still allow the game to operate on a broad scale without shelling out eight grand for a machine.

Unfortunately as one mentioned... Occlusion in my opinion would be a bad idea. They have it in certain games and things literally pop up really close to you. No in a game where you should conceivably snipe people or fire weapons or simply see more than a kilometer away... occlusion would just be a bad idea.

[Guest Scooby]

BIS could definetly take interaction with terrain from vietcong. It was well done.