Composure Level

[Skewballzz 0]

All is calm. Everything looks normal. Suddenly you hear the wiz of a bullet inches from your head. Your screen becomes blurry for a moment. You recover. MG fire in the distace. The screen appears to shiver slightly. A tank shell explodes to your right. Everything becomes washed out as the explosion attracts all attention. All because you are a soldier in OFP2* with the lowest skill level.

Here's my idea...

OFP simulates combat. Yet one thing left untouched is the human aspect of the game on an individual level. Yes, you can make AI seem to panic if a grenade goes off near them, but that is just the begining.

What if you could simulate the confusion, chaos, dissorientation, and most importantly, EMOTION, of a battle for a player?

I'll explain. I was playing around with the glare setting w/ DXDLL. Then i got it so everything left trails and such. Now what if that happended to the player when certain stimuli were triggered? Now take the level of stimulation needed to cause effects and base it on the skill level of the unit, or a whole new "composure level".

Certain events may cause different reactions based on how skilled or composed a unit is. Take enemy fire for example. Enemy units are 400m out. They begin to take shots at you. Your composure level is low - .1 As the enemy bullets begin to zero in on you, your screen becomes slightly blurry. A few rounds kick up dirt in your face. Everything is impossible to see as life is a blur. suddenly another squad attracts the attention of your enemy. As the engage them and stop firing on you, things become more focused and clear.

That adds another way to add something OFP lacks...

Suppression. In a game dominated by AI that will do nothing but run or shoot right back at you, your options are small. Add in a supression system, and BOOM, new level of gameplay added.

How do you add supression to OFP?

A composure level setting for each individual unit that effects AI and human players alike. No longer will the skill level of a unit not affect the human player inside of it.

[Acecombat 0]

Neat idea , something of this sorts is incorporated in the Brother in Arms game i think but not the whole thing.

[EvEnLeaSe44 0]

Ive got to say, Smartist idea ive heard all year.

Its a GREAT idea! I love it.

[Skewballzz 0]

thanx guys. Came to me when I was working on a mission where you're a fresh off the boat soldier. I was trying to find a way to "hinder" good players to the level of a no experience guy.

[Rumsfield 1]

Genius idea, I hope to see it in OFP 2!!!

[Jinef 2]

I disagree with this idea because I don't think it portrays reality.

All boy racers hands up

*looks at Bravo the Mank*

You just turned a corner at 89mph, the car lifted up to one side and you just made it round without rolling. You are sweating, breathing hard and on one serious adrenalin comedown. If you think back to that situation you did not have blurry vision, you weren't scared at the exact moment of turning and you knew exactly where your hands where. You knew the number of revs your engine was doing and the exact speed because the rush of adrenalin made you super alert.

I have never been shot at, I have cut a few very sharp corners and been on the edge quite a few times though.

Adrenalin is one the most powerful drugs you can have. You find yourself with extra strength, super sharp senses and very clear thinking. It is pure animal instinct and survival coming out.

[Balschoiw 0]

If you are shot with regular ammunition your view doesn´t get blurred. In fact your body is put in 150 percent "aware" mode, where you see more, hear more and react faster instantly.

Blurry vision ? No.

After a while you get used to those situations and don´t worry much anymore. The end result is that you are sleeping in an enforced barrack with mortars going down around and you don´t even wake up anymore.

[Jinef 2]

What if you are shot at with irregular ammuntion?

[chipper 0]

then you say this

[bonko the sane 2]

a good thing would be blurriness and shaking screen caused by a nearby explosion..." a la Red Orchestra", thats plausible, better than the current whiteout in OFP anyway (which im not criticizing at all)

[Baphomet 0]

I've mentioned something like this before. However I think it should be manifested conceptually, in more practical features. Like the integrated steadiness of the hands in OFP. When you're under fire and stressed out. The greenhorn isn't going to have nearly as steady a hand when trying to aim as the seasoned veteran.

Start from there. Fill in the blanks.

And I agree. It's a great idea.

[Skewballzz 0]

most of the effects i mentioned erlier would be applied mostly to low skill level units. those low level soldiers do not snap into 150% mode like vets do. The whole idea is to work physical and mental emotion into the skill level of a unit. Most, if not all the AI act like SF under fire. Explain how a unit with .1 skill can fire back everytime after 3 of his squadmates are shot within 5 seconds and an MG is filling the dirt around him with depleated uranium. Any "green" soldier would panic and most likely freeze.

[Jinef 2]

Freezing is not the same as blurry vision like you said before.

Military training in the British Army is kept simple. So when put in to stressful situations you know from your training what you have to do.

Even recruits snap into 150% awareness mode, it has nothing to do with skill, experience. It is all about fear and the adrenalin. Fear occurs to all soldiers, stress occurs to all soldiers. It is simply about how they apply their training despite how scared shitless they are.

As for what you said about the guy seeing two fellow soldiers die. 2 words should be going through his head. Suppress and Communicate. If he doesn't fire he may get killed, other soldiers may get killed. He needs to fix the position with fire and warn other soldiers of it's presence to allow them to aid in suppression/destruction.

Good soldiers follow orders/training first, think second.

Freezing does occur. Usually during situations where training was too complex, or orders were too complex. Basically any time the infantry soldier has to think, the more he is going to realise what a fucking idiot he was for joining the Army and he is going to fear death.

The British military keeps it as simple as possible so that when in a situation every soldier will know what to do.

Keep it simple, Keep it simple, Keep it simple.

To represent this in game is hard, as it requires mental conditioning to be a soldier. Someone with a higher rank on his DPMs might as well be God. You just do, you don't think.

As an admin/mission leader on a server exercising teamwork enforced by discipline in large scale coops and adversarial scenarios, I know that gamers do have a difficulty grasping the military values. A lot of the war boffins on here could rarely follow orders, too civilianised. In order to follow orders people generally need to feel respect towards the person leading them. In the real military you generally think the officer is a right tosser and don't respect him. You follow his orders though.

Officers get to think in small amounts. The people who should think most are the high echelon military commanders (they do), politicians and the general public.

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End of background info.

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To simulate this in a game would be difficult. Fear and adrenalin can be simulated by heavy breathing, harder to control weapon as someone else suggested would be OK.

This effect is more severe the lower the experience factor maybe.

However if the game is real enough, and you positively fear your life (A campaign mode where you only get 1 life). The fear and adrenalin will come anyway. I have only felt scared in OFP a few times, mainly on after montignac where you are being hunted. Notice how many people loved that mission as they were scared. Ever wonder why people like watching shit films like the Grudge and going on rollercoasters - fear sells.

Anyway, I am babbling again.

[Skewballzz 0]

jinef, great points... never looked at it that way

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]What if you are shot at with irregular ammuntion?

Like a screaming handmade dum-dum ? That´s what I was talking about.

[5133p39 12]

i don't think this is a good idea, the confusion can be created pretty naturally without any visuals - in some action games, there is a lot of it, when enemies are jumping from every corner and you cant find any cover, and so on.

I think those feelings should be made in a way so the player culd actually feel them, and not to draw 'be confused'/'be ready'/'be afraid' commands on his screen. It reminds me of those stupid TV 'shows' where they shows messages to it's audience so the people know when to laugh, and when not.

But, on the other hand, it would be nice to have some deafening effect when you are near some explosion, or some blackouts when critically wounded, or something like that - but this is a simulation of consequences of physical interaction with a grenade or something, and not simulation of feelings (which i think is stupid)

[CherokeeJack 0]

Agreed, 5133--Yours is a good idea, Skew, but I think the developers should simulate the confusion and din of battle by using effects and sound to influence the player directly, instead of imposing artificial limitations on his character.

I think this could be done by having explosions, bullet whizzing, gunfire and such significantly louder relative to the non-combat environment that surrounds the player before a battle. For example, if a player is walking through a field, he hears his own footsteps, those of his squadmates, chatter, and other ambient noises at a normal volume. Then a bullet flies past the player, giving off a "WHIZZ" sound effect that is at at least double the normal volume, making the real-life player jump out of his seat! Hopefully, while he does this, he taps Z and goes prone . If there's an explosion near the player, his vision should be blurred and there should be a ringing in his ears. If the player character has been doing a lot of running, we should hear heavy panting, as well as the panting of those around him.

The confusion can also be escalated by using long-lasting, drifting smoke that covers the battlefield and obscures everything. I've never been on a battlefield, but I would imagine that there's a lot of smoke after a while. Sources would include fires, explosions, smoke grenades, surrounding terrain (i.e. dust and sand being kicked up by rotor blades and such), RPG launches and prolonged gunfire. After that, it's up to the player to pick out his targets through the smoke and engage. Maybe allied soldiers could have their "allied" label disabled if they're obscured by smoke, and the player can only judge based on how they act or what they say? Maybe we could get rid of the labels altogether?

The player can be further confused by enemy behavior, especially in urban environments. Enemies should lean around corners, run from cover to cover, give covering fire and stuff like that. Close engagements should be fast and furious.

Also, there could be civilians in the battle zones that behave very differently. They could run around confused, cower in a corner, or maybe even take up a weapon and join the fight, who he or she attacks depending upon his or her attitude toward the fighting factions?

Another way to add to the experience would be to make the player's life mean something to the player. In regular shooters like HL2 or Halo, life doesn't really mean too much because if you F up, you just respawn from your last save point, which can be anywhere. I think BIS understood this when they implemented their retry/1 save system for CWC. If you have to restart 1000 meters away from your objective when you die, you suddenly become more careful so that you won't have to go through that again. RPGs give life value by implementing penalties for the player character if he or she dies. I'm not sure how a game like Game 2 would do this, but I think BIS was on the right track with the present system.

My point here is that a player's "composure level" should depend upon the player himself, not his character, and that how he feels and acts on the battlefield should be influenced by visual and auditory effects, as well as tactically-skilled AI and a life that has value.