Alternative to cover-based combat?
- Thread starter Cranyx
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Both style games have their issues. People are only bringing up Cover-based mechanics because they're more common now than they were a 5 years ago.
The run-and-gun style of Doom is hard for developers to develop and make interesting to a mass audience for a long time in todays market. Back when Doom was new and original, those kind of games worked because, at the time, thats the only real way to make the game work. Quake, Wolfenstein, and Unreal Tournament followed suit.
In an age where software and hardware can press technological bounds, that type of gameplay is being phased out: just like turn-based combat in RPG's. Wave after wave after wave of enemies charging at you, and either:
A. being turned into pastrami
B. Getting railed
is hard to design successfully for. It either puts the game in a situation where its too easy, or too hard. Both cause a lot of people to put the game down. Its hard to tell when and where to put a health pack in non-regenerating health games: put them too far apart and its artifically harder, while putting them closer together makes the game artifically easier.
Cover based games, however, have much more appeal to people. Health low? Pop down, regen, pop back up. It allows for varying degrees of difficulty, without making the player feel like its too easy, or too hard (unless it was badly developed). The problem with that is then linearity. Its easy to tell when something is going to happen.
Atleast thats what people say: personally I get engrossed in most of the games I play. I dont think to myself "ambush up ahead", I go into it and get suprised. Same for movies as well, I dont think ahead, I watch whats in the present. Try it sometime, it makes your experience MUCH better.
But I digress. These two styles have there flaws. Personally, I think the Run-and-gun era was just boring. Very little tactic, and with the open world (and often lack of a compass), it made getting lost really easy. The cover based games appeal to a wider audience: and are often more fulfilling. Whats the challenge in mowing down 46 demons with a Chain Gun if all you had to do is press and hold your left mouse button?
The run-and-gun style of Doom is hard for developers to develop and make interesting to a mass audience for a long time in todays market. Back when Doom was new and original, those kind of games worked because, at the time, thats the only real way to make the game work. Quake, Wolfenstein, and Unreal Tournament followed suit.
In an age where software and hardware can press technological bounds, that type of gameplay is being phased out: just like turn-based combat in RPG's. Wave after wave after wave of enemies charging at you, and either:
A. being turned into pastrami
B. Getting railed
is hard to design successfully for. It either puts the game in a situation where its too easy, or too hard. Both cause a lot of people to put the game down. Its hard to tell when and where to put a health pack in non-regenerating health games: put them too far apart and its artifically harder, while putting them closer together makes the game artifically easier.
Cover based games, however, have much more appeal to people. Health low? Pop down, regen, pop back up. It allows for varying degrees of difficulty, without making the player feel like its too easy, or too hard (unless it was badly developed). The problem with that is then linearity. Its easy to tell when something is going to happen.
Atleast thats what people say: personally I get engrossed in most of the games I play. I dont think to myself "ambush up ahead", I go into it and get suprised. Same for movies as well, I dont think ahead, I watch whats in the present. Try it sometime, it makes your experience MUCH better.
But I digress. These two styles have there flaws. Personally, I think the Run-and-gun era was just boring. Very little tactic, and with the open world (and often lack of a compass), it made getting lost really easy. The cover based games appeal to a wider audience: and are often more fulfilling. Whats the challenge in mowing down 46 demons with a Chain Gun if all you had to do is press and hold your left mouse button?
So are you a fan of how the Uncharted series handles it? I actually do like it. In case you haven't played any of the games:oplinger said:
Some enemies (mostly ones with shotguns who have heavier armor) will continually press towards you while others stay back and shoot from a distance. Snipers will stay out of cover, but you need to either take them down quickly or stay mobile to avoid their fire).
You can shoot blind from cover. The reticule disappears as soon as you go into cover, so you really are shooting blind. You can also shoot (with a pistol) while hanging from an object. And you can also shoot behind you while you're being chased (it's much more inaccurate than standard shooting).
I understand that there will be almost an entire generation now that has seen little else but cover shooters and life regenerating meat walls, but before this current era we had games that operated like this:Cranyx said:
In the old days it was all about dodging projectiles and trying to keep one step ahead of bullets. Walls were used for cover but you didn't suction onto them and since everyone had fairly high health and head shots weren't one-hit kills it's not like you couldn't flush somebody out of cover. Play a game like Quake 2 and you'll see what I mean man.Owyn_Merrilin said:
Kill switch was a surprisingly good game. Cover was often arranged in a fashion that was almost like a puzzle and didn't resort to chest high walls planted here and there for the hell of it. It was a good game, I remember enjoying it when it came out. Had I known it was to spawn a never-ending wave of cover shooters I might have burned down the studio that made it but I am a little surprised killswitch itself never got a sequel.oplinger said:
Thing is every FPS to date technically has cover based combat, just some of them need it more than others. E.g, the medic and the sniper (shoot then run behind wall) in TF2 need it heavily whereas the heavy doesn't. Even in halo this kind of tactic can be applied, it just isn't really needed so much with the increase hp and all. The only games that I can think of where cover is actually irrelevant are RPG's like WoW but even then you can still hide behind walls to regain hp/mana so that the enemy hunter/mage cant shoot/spell you without getting around that wall/random rock.
Also, stealth can be applied to most games too, just learn to take the long route round. The fact that you can't turn invisible/cloak doesn't mean you can't be sneaky.
How heavily a game uses cover defines it. Games like GoW and Rainbow 6 need it heavily, but not completely. The lancer's chainsaw for example, can't use that in cover
Also, stealth can be applied to most games too, just learn to take the long route round. The fact that you can't turn invisible/cloak doesn't mean you can't be sneaky.
How heavily a game uses cover defines it. Games like GoW and Rainbow 6 need it heavily, but not completely. The lancer's chainsaw for example, can't use that in cover
In World of Tanks (an online multiplayer tank vs tank game that exited beta today I think) The larger tanks used cover to defend themselves (although most cover could be blown up) and the lighter tanks would use their transversal movements to defend themselves (going in circles around a slower tank and hopefully outrunning its turret turning speed).
You could have dodge based cover like in ratchet and clank where all projectiles don't move very fast allowing you to dodge some damage.
Unreal tournament style which is a combination of your accuracy and the ability to move unpredictively (what shooters used to be about
).
Those are the ones that come to mind. Cover based tactics work in UT, R&C etc but the effectiveness is lessened by the glorious lack of regenerating health.
You could have dodge based cover like in ratchet and clank where all projectiles don't move very fast allowing you to dodge some damage.
Unreal tournament style which is a combination of your accuracy and the ability to move unpredictively (what shooters used to be about
).Those are the ones that come to mind. Cover based tactics work in UT, R&C etc but the effectiveness is lessened by the glorious lack of regenerating health.
Anything from the fifteen years of amazing shooters before the cover system came into practice.
The frantic, circle strafing, hit scan dodging insanity of the Doom/Quake/Unrel/Serious Sam/Painkiller series. Kills based purely on your reflexes and skill.
Or the unforgiving old school method of just plain hiding behind stuff and one-two hits ending you. Arguably it's still 'cover based' but the simple system of Counter Strike/Battlefield/Swat/STALKER where your ability to avoid getting shot is determined by your own movement rather than arbitrary button presses. It works.
I hate cover systems, almost as much, no, more than regenerating health. It's as if the developer thinks you're too stupid to work out that bullets=death so has the game do it for you.
The frantic, circle strafing, hit scan dodging insanity of the Doom/Quake/Unrel/Serious Sam/Painkiller series. Kills based purely on your reflexes and skill.
Or the unforgiving old school method of just plain hiding behind stuff and one-two hits ending you. Arguably it's still 'cover based' but the simple system of Counter Strike/Battlefield/Swat/STALKER where your ability to avoid getting shot is determined by your own movement rather than arbitrary button presses. It works.
I hate cover systems, almost as much, no, more than regenerating health. It's as if the developer thinks you're too stupid to work out that bullets=death so has the game do it for you.
Halo is really anything but cover based... Hell, I think Halo is the right why to go do it: high mobility, mix of shields and health,...Cranyx said:
I quite like the way BC2 let's you blow up cover. That's an alternative. Or maybe if Vanquish had multiplayer... Hmmm...
One person said that cover has always been in FPS games, just the manner in which they are now implementred has changed, which I see as an extremely reasonable conclusion. With this in mind, what do you guys think are some examples in recent titles of well, and not so well, implemented covers systems?
Take out good ol' Unreal Tournament and Quake games, and lately Team Fortress 2, where the only real cover you have is your own ability to dodge.
Because I totally din't use cover based combat in ME1...uhuh. Hell, I was more running and gunning in ME2 than I was in ME1. Thanks Vanguard! Odd that you call ME2 slower too, it went a lot faster to me thanks to the developers smoothing out the cover system. The whole sticky thing wasn't very responsive on the PC.Souplex said:
The thing is, that 'cover based combat' doesn't mean that you can jump behind cover to avoid damage. It means:Cranyx said:
1) You 'interact' with cover in a context sensitive way. Like, you stick to them, or 'attach' to them or what have you.
2) The world then gets populated by specific items that you CAN hide behind, and specific items you CANNOT hide behind.
The problem with Cover Based Combat, as described above, is that it is very specific in how you are allowed to achieve victory. You must hide behind the specific barriers. And while hidden, are mainly invulnerable. It isn't really all that exciting because of the limited options, and feels very 'samey' after a while.
I think everyone can agree that cover-based combat, done right, is just fine. You run into problems when devs get lazy. Environments littered with convenient, artificial cover really break immersion. Enemies with truckloads of health turn gunfights into unsatisfying, overlong games of whack-a-mole. Regenerating health takes most of the risk (and thrill) out of combat.
Cover needs to be highly organic with respect to the environment. Enemies should drop quickly and violently when exposed. Players, too. That's how you craft convincing, tense, exciting gunplay. That's also usually not how it goes.
Much as I enjoy a challenge, I never play the Gears games on anything higher than medium difficulty. It's not that I can't handle it. I can't handle how bored I get pumping an entire magazine into one guy's head before he finally goes down.
Cover needs to be highly organic with respect to the environment. Enemies should drop quickly and violently when exposed. Players, too. That's how you craft convincing, tense, exciting gunplay. That's also usually not how it goes.
Much as I enjoy a challenge, I never play the Gears games on anything higher than medium difficulty. It's not that I can't handle it. I can't handle how bored I get pumping an entire magazine into one guy's head before he finally goes down.