Being Suppressed

[Chumba 10]

In ARMA2 there seems to be a sort of wandering aim / sway effect when enemy fire hits nearby - ie. player is being "suppressed". Is that right or have I mistaken actually being hit for a "suppression" effect?

That's sort of my point - IMO when player is under fire and there are near hits - ie. player can be considered as being under suppressing fire - then the effect should be a vision blur - or fuzzy/blurry patches in the field of vision - rather than sway.

If I have mistaken being hit for a suppression effect then there SHOULD be a suppression effect and it should be something like I've described.

[maturin 12]

Suppression effects involve weapon sway, heavy breathing, the crosshair dispersing, vision blur and even changes in screen brightness.

However, very light injuries, such as being hit by a ricochet or a penetrating shot, often have most of the same effects, plus a stupid little transparent blood decal on the screen that is barely noticeable.

[hund 0]

I would really like to see them turn the suppression way up like it is in VBS2. Suppression is the cornerstone of fire and manouver warfare, which is what we spend all day doing - except it doesn't work. For the player, some dramatic visual cues that you're doing it wrong (ala the white flashes of VBS2 or the blurred vision of Project Reality) and for the AI the inability to move or shoot back while you keep up the pressure.

As it is now the automatic weapons aren't used like they should be because it would be a waste of ammunition. It's all about putting the hurt on the other guy while your buddies move in for the kill. As it stands, snipzoring is the order of the day because neither AI nor players react to the subtle little hints you send their way at 900 rounds per minute.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Hund

[Inkompetent 0]

Agreed. Flashing, blurring or both and a bit of additionally increased sway would be nice, effects increased with caliber.

Since automatic weapons are more likely to put a lot of rounds close to you in a shorter timeframe they'd become much more useful, even if in a position or at a range where it is hard to hit.

Grazing fire and area fire with belt-fed weapons and vehicle coaxials could become a real bugger to be the victim of.

And not to mention... the M134s on the Huey might actually become worth something.

[MavericK96 0]

Yeah, I'd like to see something done about this as well. I've tried using suppressive fire and the AI doesn't seem to react to it at all, and you don't always feel all that "suppressed" as a player, either. Though when bullets are hitting all around me and I see dust getting kicked up (I hear it's more exaggerated with WarFX, but still) I usually feel some pressure to get the eff out of there. :cool:

[Fox '09 14]

And not to mention... the M134s on the Huey might actually become worth something.

i could imagine that, you're in a trench or something, and that fires on it. the screen would flash to black/white and blur.

these little details create "ArmA" moments :D

[CarlGustaffa 4]

That's sort of my point - IMO when player is under fire and there are near hits - ie. player can be considered as being under suppressing fire - then the effect should be a vision blur - or fuzzy/blurry patches in the field of vision - rather than sway.

Heavily disagree with that last one. If we had no sway, people would just still make accurate shots. It's there to simulate fear (I assume), something that is easy to just ignore in a game.

I play with a new added sway mod, and I still don't find it enough, although it was mostly addressing increased sway while standing.

Heavily agree with Hund, the maneuver part is a no subject in Arma today, since the suppressed defenders can give back accurate fire.

But alas, AI would have to be properly responsive to it as well, and sometimes value hiding higher then returning ineffective fire. It would allow us to get a bit more up close and personal using maneuver, rather than the turkey distance shoot we have today. AI is pretty effective up close against players who doesn't cover their sectors, but they suck at a distance. And up close, their uniform (russian and usmc) provide excellent camoflage to the player when hiding in grass, much better than at a distance (only grass layer based, which helps but is inadequate).

[MavericK96 0]

What mainly annoys me about the lack of suppressive fire is when you're unloading on the AI with a machine gun, and they just sit there and manage to still take pinpoint accurate shots at you. They have zero reaction to suppressive fire whatsoever.

[Beagle 684]

Supression has the same effect on A.I. as on players...you can notive that the accuracy of A.I. under fire goes down significantly.

I suggest to use a A.I. accuracy value of 0.5 maximum with experience at 1...with these values the effect is best to notice.

Edited May 13, 2010 by Beagle

[Chumba 10]

Heavily disagree with that last one. If we had no sway, people would just still make accurate shots. It's there to simulate fear (I assume), something that is easy to just ignore in a game.

I play with a new added sway mod, and I still don't find it enough, although it was mostly addressing increased sway while standing.

I get what you mean, but again I have to say I'd personally prefer to still be able to AIM my weapon (even when being "suppressed" )but be impeded in how EFFECTIVE I can be with it - ie. by having my view of the enemy affected and/or my weapon accuracy degraded (dispersion increase). Optics should be disabled and possibly the FOV expanded (everything made to look further away) as well as any other visual effects like blurring, dirt speckling, flashes etc.

I always have issues with my aim / control being artificially "borked" - having significant sway when wounded is fair enough, but not otherwise IMO - a tiny bit as norm and then more with fatigue and a lot when wounded is ok tho.

You shouldn't have a LOT of trouble lining up unless you're really puffing hard or wounded or drunk - but the final result is determined by factors you DON'T see reflected in the "sight picture".

IRL when you make a bad shot you don't SEE what went wrong as such - you never pull the trigger with the aimpoint somewhere you don't want it - unless you're a girl or just a really crap shot :D;) - but what happens as a result of your largely unconscious actions at the last few nanoseconds is what determines the final result. Skill in this area is in figuring out what you've done wrong and correcting for it - can be as simple and seemingly insignificant as shifting the buttstock a few mm in your shoulder.

A nicely sophisticated shooting model in a game like ARMA2 would be to have the dispersion gradually decrease with each subsequent shot as long as the aimpoint stays within a certain circle of the ORIGINAL aimpoint at the FIRST shot...

[Takko 10]

Beagle is right I think!

[11aTony 0]

I like it how it is.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

@Chumba: Guess we just disagree. Apparently it seems you want to be able to ignore the "fear factor" by just laying there delivering accurate fires. That will enable you to take out the enemy even if your "avatar" would be "scared as hell" due to close impacts. Some blurring doesn't really cut it.

That for me too much advocates "fast gameplay". In modes like Domination, you can choose to ignore the "fear" and deliver accurate fires. That's game over for AI, since suppressing you don't have the "expected result". You can choose this because if you die you simply respawn. Nothing has been achieved in terms of prolonging the firefight.

On the other hand, if you can't produce accurate fires, AI have a purpose of suppressing you while trying to outflank instead of running into a certain death. And players get the added benefit of getting the combat closer. For longer range suppression, you'd have to use vehicles and crew served weapons instead of M4s.

The big idea for me is the concept of "returning fire", instead of all shots being effective shots. As for "you never pull the trigger with the aimpoint somewhere you don't want it - unless you're a girl or just a really crap shot", check out

video, 45 secs: "Bang bang bang" - "You see'em?" - "No I don't see'em", and yet he keeps shooting.

So on public servers there will often be a lot of "new guys" who will only shoot at what they see. So when those bullets hit because AIs suppression is ineffective because you choose to ignore it, the firefight just dies.

This "artificial weapons sway", like in JCOVE Lite, is directly controlled with holding breath. Hold your breath and eventually you'll be able to counter the sway. The "size" of the sway would be dependent on all the "what goes on factors" (suppressed, stamina, damage etc), and the amount of "hold breath time" would be affected by "the amount of breath you have left". That means that in some situations, you simply won't be able to hold breath long enough to stable the sway enough to get off a very accurate shot.

The use of bipods and weapon rests would lower the amount of needed hold breath. Bonus for machinegunners and marksmen (who may typically have these). The entry should be mostly driven by the rifle (bipod availability and the weapons size/dexterity, smaller weapons are "more shaky"), but could also be influenced by rank (lieutenant or sergeant best[1.0], decreasing more rapidly towards private[0.0]than towards colonel[0.5]), and skill.

Ok, so I'm dreaming, but that's allowed :)

[Chumba 10]

Carl Gustaffa - yeah, I guess it's always going to be a very subjective thing :-) - but I do need to make it clear that I'm not suggesting any such thing as ignoring the fear factor or leaving player to be able to fire accurately regardless of circumstance - rather the contrary - MY concept would actually make it harder for player to be accurate than the swaying sight idea! What I'm talking about is for example whilst being "suppressed" - in addition to the visual effects and subsequent degradation in physically being able to draw an accurate bead, there needs to also be a decrease in final accuracy - ie. thru dispersion modification - that is the answer to:

"That for me too much advocates "fast gameplay". In modes like Domination, you can choose to ignore the "fear" and deliver accurate fires. That's game over for AI, since suppressing you don't have the "expected result". You can choose this because if you die you simply respawn. Nothing has been achieved in terms of prolonging the firefight."

The result would still be correct - whilst being suppressed, player would find it DAMNED hard to effectively respond without having enough firepower (either personal and/or supporting) to make it count regardless of severely degraded accuracy - pretty much how it works IRL I should imagine - or alternatively get the heck outta Dodge and set up a new field of fire.

Additionally I've been thinking that altho I personally don't think a large amount of sway is appropriate, I'd quite like the position of my aimpoint to "jump" somewhat as a result of the suppressing fire (ie. with each near hit). THAT would be much better than drunken and irritating swimmy behaviour - interestingly enough, when you think about it, the player having to return the sight to the target would "induce" a very similar look on the screen from the point of view of someone standing behind, but it's an entirely different mechanic to the player "chasing" a swaying sight.... intersting huh?

Using the "Village Sweep" scenario: on occasion I've used the machine gun in the Hummer as the initial attack - and when the return fire comes, the sight drifts off bizzarly to the side (default "suppression" effect). It would be better to have it "jump" sideways somewhat.... - THAT would feel realistic I think.

I do think there's a place for some sway, but only a fairly tiny amount, with - as I've said before - the major portion of FINAL accuracy determined by manipulation of dispersion factors. This also enables consistency of handling the configs for AI AND human player.

Control of my "minimalistic" sway along the lines you describe - indeed general control of dispersion as well - would be spot on - excellent concept.

I'm not against using sway, but not as the MAJOR component of the equation and certainly not at the expense of not using dispersion factoring at all.

Edited May 13, 2010 by Chumba

[Wolfstriked 11]

I think the chasing the sight could easily be cured by Arma2 changing to VSB2 sway model.Its more an up and down with very slight side to side movement.This feels more natural as its the same thing over and over and your just needing to either wait for it to pass your target or at least you know what direction its moving in.The sway we have now is more erratic and just moves all over.

Has a BIS agent ever responded back to reason why VSB2 weapon animations are not in Arma?

[Chumba 10]

I think the chasing the sight could easily be cured by Arma2 changing to VSB2 sway model.Its more an up and down with very slight side to side movement.This feels more natural as its the same thing over and over and your just needing to either wait for it to pass your target or at least you know what direction its moving in.The sway we have now is more erratic and just moves all over.

Has a BIS agent ever responded back to reason why VSB2 weapon animations are not in Arma?

Now THAT indeed sounds like a fine idea! - With that VBS2 style sway, variable dispersion, aimpoint "jumping" from near hits, and nice visual effects like blurring / screen mud + dirt "speckling" and whiteouts + flashes we'd have something really good

[MirindoR 10]

In ARMA2 there seems to be a sort of wandering aim / sway effect when enemy fire hits nearby

[...etc etc]

If I have mistaken being hit for a suppression effect then there SHOULD be a suppression effect and it should be something like I've described.

i bet you've played project reality.

The suppressive effects project reality has are exactly the same ones you want implemented in arma 2, and are what made me stop playing the otherwise fun mod. i could understand requesting an addon for all this but putting it in the general forums means you would have it changed for everyone?

their suppression effect was totally retarded. the ''blur'' (actually a completely black screen) made it impossible to do anything at all.

It is my knowledge that bullets hitting close or flying by do not cause any effect whatever on a person's vision, and i'd like to remind you that pursuing realism for its own sake using unrealistic methods (as in vision blur when suppressed) is a bad idea and will usually lead to lame firefights.

i think the PR community doesnt want to add any suppression effect in their upcoming arma 2 mod, as they were satisified with the default one.

http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f440-pr-arma2-general-discussion/80273-suppression-effects.html

this said arma 2 is an almost completely coop game and bots would be unaffected by any such blurring giving them an advantage.

you also suggest simply increasing deviation to simulate being suppressed.

increasing deviation means changing the weapon's intrinsic accuracy:

well i did a very long search (-.-) and i found out that weapons will keep shooting straight even when their operator is being suppressed.

in vanilla arma 2 a suppressed player will have extremely jumpy weapons sway which makes it hard to aim accurately. according to the definition of suppressive fire thats the whole point and bis did an OK job with it.

The suppressive effects project reality had are exactly the same ones you want implemented in arma 2, and are what made me stop playing the otherwise fun mod. i could understand requesting an addon for all this but putting it in the arma 2 general suggestions means you would have it changed for everyone?

Now THAT indeed sounds like a fine idea! - With that VBS2 style sway, variable dispersion, aimpoint "jumping" from near hits, and nice visual effects like blurring / screen mud + dirt "speckling" and whiteouts + flashes we'd have something really good

yay!

something like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/a/a8/BSODwin3.1.PNG

i can't wait

Edited May 14, 2010 by MirindoR

[Richey79 10]

I think the chasing the sight could easily be cured by Arma2 changing to VSB2 sway model.Its more an up and down with very slight side to side movement.This feels more natural as its the same thing over and over and your just needing to either wait for it to pass your target or at least you know what direction its moving in.The sway we have now is more erratic and just moves all over.

Has a BIS agent ever responded back to reason why VSB2 weapon animations are not in Arma?

I think changes along these lines would add a great deal to how enjoyable and immersive fire-fights are.

I've tried the recent 'figure of eight' sway mod, and it's well-intentioned, but as you suggest, the sway is still far too jerky and unpredictable. In reality, you should be able to compensate for it instinctively with practice, except for perhaps in the case of injury.

VBS2's system of sway and suppression would be great to have in Arma 2. Perhaps these features will see some kind of improvement in OA.

yay!

something like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/a/a8/BSODwin3.1.PNG

i can't wait

I'd happily sacrifice some CPU cycles for features like these, with the exception of purely-visual changes (such as dirt-flecks, almost anything that kicks in when post-processing is set higher than 'none'... .)

Edited May 14, 2010 by Richey79

[CarlGustaffa 4]

The sway can be figure of 8 as long as it doesn't become predictable. Some jerkiness are required, or you'd just wait for the sight to land where you want it to be and pull the trigger. Now, if you're able to hold your breath, narrowing it down to a well aimed shot wouldn't be a problem. But if you're super stressed and full of adrenaline in the middle of a firefight, that needed breath is hard to come by. There is nobody in their right mind who shakes their mouse around to simulate they are scared :)

The typical (most frequent) engagement distances in the real world is, like, below 30 meters? In Arma, 300 meters is about the norm. Why do you think that is? I vote for "because we shoot to well". If we can suppress the enemy, and while they strive to return fire, there is nobody shooting good. That means that maneuver is more likely to be successful, and we can engage at distances where quick aiming is just as good as using the sights. Well, something drastic have to be done to the currently overpowered weapons cursors, but that's a side problem.

Think how cool the fast paced modes like Domination could be if everyone wasn't able to hit as good as they do (including AI naturally).

I prefer using post process, not because of "added visual beauty", but because they put on me some (imho, realistic) limitations and penalties. There are also those who turn off grass and shadows, which (when combined) turn the game into stupidity. Yeah, they fight better, but where is the realism and immersion in it?

[Alex72 1]

I would really like to see them turn the suppression way up like it is in VBS2.

VBS2 suppression is really nice. Simple yet very effective. The tunnel vision created by darkening the screens edges plus stretching the image in the corners create a very nice tunnel vision effect, and its hard to keep focus around the screen (peripheral vision screwed up) wich forces you to turn your head and look around to see clearly. Simulating that your focus is bad due to stress and fear. Could combine nicely with some of the effects we already have in A2. Suppressings should make it real hard to fight back.

VBS2 high caliber single shots fired close to your head is also very well made. This is not suppressing per se, but the camera flinch when a 50cal sniper round just misses you plus a quick flash of black (some darkening of the screen for a split second) really scares the hell out of me everytime it happens. So its very effective as it gives you one of those horror film flinch jumps. :) AFAIK we have nothing in A2 when just one powerful round just barely misses you.

Maybe an addon could be made. Anyone with the skill up to it? Yep i'll help with advice and testing.

[Wolfstriked 11]

For people that haven't seen it from other thread.Check out 1:30 for recoil and sway effects.Its the realistic up and down with slight side to side sway as it happens to coincide with breathing.

[Chumba 10]

MirindoR - no I haven't played PR - and I'm definitely talking about something MUCH more subtle than your description: in fact Alex72's description of VBS2 effects sounds very close to what I envisage - and the idea is for the effects to be quite "brief" - ie. coinciding with near hits and dissipating quickly. When I talk about "blur" I mean a "twinge" effect: sort of "NNNnnnnggg" where the view goes out of focus and then returns in a short cycle - again coinciding with a near hit - along with a "spatter" of dirt. The "cycle" would be triggered again by the NEXT near hit AFTER the cycle has completed - ie. not multiple cycles overlayed on top of each other if there are multiple cloely spaced near hits. I guess a flash of whiteout would really only be appropriate for nearby explosions (OFP ECP does it really well) - which the game may already have? (I haven't been blown up yet :-) ). Sophistication would be to vary the amount of these effects with the nearness of hits, but not essential.

And I absolutely understand your worry about forcing something on everyone - I personally feel to already be a victim of thst as a result of the "majority" (or noisy minority? ) bagging of OFP helicopter FM's which resulted in the wierd thing we have now. And I have exactly your fear about the sway issue!! Again tho, keep in mind that re: suppression effects I'm speaking in the context of personally not being very happy with what the game has now - I find myself constantly trying to figure out if I've been hit.

All I'm saying is that instead of the current ambiguous "whoah! where's my sight/cursor going!? - have I been hit or is someone just shooting at me??" system we have now, I'd rather have a definite but BRIEF "buzz" of blurr out + possibly a spatter on the screen and have the sight "jump" to a different place rather than "swim" about - but I'm still able to get my aim back easily and quickly however the accuracy of my fire is quite seriously degraded in terms of dispersion. The result would be confusion, reduced capacity to maintain rate of fire, and reduced effectiveness in terms of accuracy - all exactly what being suppressed should be IMO...

And another thing is that some similar degradation in AI performance is important too - tho AI not being "suppressable" could be argued as being a levelling factor in the human vs AI context?.

[Chumba 10]

Damn! - just looked up Project Reality... it's a mod for BF2? - I say again: Damn!! - that's like taking a blowup doll to a makeup salon and calling it "Project Reality"....

[galzohar 31]

I find players react to suppression just fine. And if they don't and choose to stay in the open and fight back, they usually die quickly enough. If they stay in the open and don't die, then the shooting wasn't scary enough and IRL they probably wouldn't be that afraid of it either. Of course when you're being suppressed by a player it's even more significant as you're much more afraid of him hitting you, unlike AI as AI is much more likely to miss (at least at distances where suppression is actually a topic for discussion, at shorter ranges where AI hits you just fine are also distances where there is little point to suppression anyway as hitting is easy enough).

Suppressing AI though is a different matter, as they don't really do anything about it because they don't know how to get behind cover, but that usually just gets them killed rather than giving the player facing them a harder time. UPSMON takes the AI a good step in the right direction when it comes to moving away when being suppressed and overall decent AI movement, but it'll never feel right if the AI aren't programmed to fully understand the meaning of cover.

Edited May 15, 2010 by galzohar

[hund 0]

Maybe an addon could be made. Anyone with the skill up to it? Yep i'll help with advice and testing.

Hells, if someone is up to making it, I got a dedicated test server (ACE and/or vanilla), plus available test subjects, just standing by for them to use.

I find players react to suppression just fine. And if they don't and choose to stay in the open and fight back, they usually die quickly enough. If they stay in the open and don't die, then the shooting wasn't scary enough and IRL they probably wouldn't be that afraid of it either.

I don't really think you can compare players of this fine game with real soldiers in that way. If what you say is accurate, we are sending the wrong dudes to the battlefield, because the arma players I know are hard-as-nail killers who know no fear of death - at least when they are playing the game :D.

People just don't notice the sheer amount of bullets that are whizzing by.

Players really don't react to suppression like they should, in my opinion. I've seen dudes just sitting idly on hilltops (you included, Galz) while heavy machinegun fire was raining down on them from multiple directions - and the only response was "I think there's a Dushka over there, we might want to take cover". Good times indeed, but hardly the gameplay that we strive for.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Hund