Viewbob/Flinching/Recoil

[Moody]

So I've noticed that many realism based games have a tendency to incorporate some form of bobbing, jerking, or flinching of the screen. In ArmA 2 the view bobs around when walking, jogging and sprinting (although it's possible to turn that off). In Project Reality (for BF2) the view shifts and moves as you reload or pull out your weapon. In the Resistance and Liberation mod for hl2 your screen jerks a bit when you fire to simulate recoil, and in Darkest Hour mod, you flinch and your aim displaces every time a bullet passes your head to make suppressive fire even more useful.

So I wanted to start a discussion and ask the devs what they think about these effects, and their feasibility within the engine.

Personally I support:
View bob while sprinting and/or jogging (although to quite a lesser extent than the default in ArmA)
Screen shifting/movement when reloading or switching weapons (makes characters feel organic and real)
Screen jerking when firing higher caliber weapons (to simulate recoil better)
Suppressive fire flinching (not perfect, but I prefer it over most other methods of simulating suppression)

I do however understand that these effects can disorient, and in some cases cause motion sickness. Some might also find it annoying and distracting to have your screen jerked around against your control. If the game lacked some of these, it wouldn't be game breaking for me, but immersion is a key feature for realism games for me, so please discuss.

 

[Maniche]

I personally believe that "headbobbing", proper recoil from gunfire and flinching from suppressive gunfire, are all a perfectly fine thing to add to the game, as it (in my opinion) gives the player the most realistic and immersive feeling one could experience on the battlefield in real-life.

Being less effective in a close-quarter combat-fight because of suppressive fire is all a very authentic and real emotion that soldiers would experience; 10 man vs. 1 around a corner of a house, being constantly shot on by those rifles, snipers and grenades etc. should at least cripple the single enemy in some way, whether it's loosing stamina, make him slower, disoriented, make the vision blurry, make him loose his balances etc.; it's a frightening experience to be "so close to death", and I'd love (God, that sounded awful though, haha!) to see a system that would try and mimick this the best way possible, as I want to achieve the most immersive and realistic experience there it, just like you.

Your heart should beat a bit faster when you enter the battlefield, your brain should work a bit faster when you're to make any calls that could jeopardize your team, and you should concentrate and communicate well to be victorious through these encounters.

Whatever system we implement, I can assure you it should be both userfriendly and realistic (userfriendly in that way it should be able to be turned off (headbobbing for instance, as you said, people do get motion sickness)).

Good points, Moody!

Maniche

 

[Moody]

While we're on this type of topic, what are thoughts about getting particles on the screen? ie, a grenade explodes nearby and some dirt sticks to the screen and fades away shortly after. Or a guy in front of you gets shot and you get some blood on your screen. I don't mean for it to be so in the way that you can't see, but I think it would be kinda nice if it wasn't terribly intrusive.

 

[Maniche]

This is a features that's already in the Vanilla Crysis-games so you could expect something similar, yes.

Maniche

 

[VonMudra]

One of the big questions is how to accurately portray suppression. The problem being that in a videogame, people are NOT afraid of death. This negates the realistic effects of artillery bombardments and covering machine gun fire, it simply does not dissuade you to stand up and shoot at the enemy when you know you can just respawn.

I think Darkest Hour/Forgotten Hope 2 have had the best solution in manually forcing the player's screen to jerk around and blurr and darken. This throws off any player attempt to aim or shoot, and creates tension, the knowledge that YOU are being shot at, which might also force the player to seek cover.

 

[Nate]

Now this idea may be stupid (considering I am buzzin on 3 percecets after surgery) but here it goes anyway. Would it be possible to maybe add a demoralization effect after the death of a nearby squad leader and or multiple close teammates. This would entail a slight blurring of the screen and possibly a slight deafening effect. Nothing too dramatic but just to highlight the loss of your teammates giving you that "oh ****" feeling. It would maybe last 10 seconds and is mainly supposed to promote clear thinking from the surviving teammates so they don't quickly find the same fate their team member found. This would also highlight the power of suppressing fire and its impact on the receiver of such heavy fire.


On the flip side while staying close to your team mates in your squad you may receive a slight moral boost. This would mimick the confidence the soldiers feel when they have strength in numbers. The closer you are to your squad leader and or teammates you may have clearer vision (once again nothing too overpowering) but just enough to promote people operating within their squads.

Hopefully someone can find a glimmer of an idea in my perked up post

 

[Maniche]

As we want people to stay together and work as a team to be victorious, having a "loss of faith"-kind of system when e.g your squad-leader dies, is something that could very much be plausible; the frustration of loosing a (perhaps) close friend of yours, and see your hopes of making it alive from the battle go down with him, is something I'd like to see happen through the screen. Obviously, the way you've mentioned now is one way of doing it that might work just like we want, so yeah!

PS. You basically said exactly what I made a post on in the "ZOMG AWESOM HIDDEN DEVELOPER SECTION" (yes, it's there!), haha!

Thank you for the suggestion, and please, keep them coming!

Maniche

 

[CanadianSquirrel]

I do however understand that these effects can disorient, and in some cases cause motion sickness.

Moody, that is an amazing idea! However, that ArmA Shaking gave me more than one Headache, being disoriented while shootin', ok, Sprinting's shaky camera ? Never! Got it off on ArmA as soon as i Found out the option because it instantly destroys my head.

I believe having Stress, darkening sights, etc effects really adds the manoever (I hate that word) the game needs !
And while we talk about it: There is that option in ArmA 2 that you can create a dead zone (Sort of) where you can move your Rifle/Aim without having to move your body

Cordialement,
Squirrel

 

[VonMudra]

I like that suggestion Nate, I like it a lot. It is def something to look into,

 

[Moody]

Would it be possible to maybe add a demoralization effect after the death of a nearby squad leader and or multiple close teammates. This would entail a slight blurring of the screen and possibly a slight deafening effect. Nothing too dramatic but just to highlight the loss of your teammates giving you that "oh ****" feeling.

Do you mean like this:

Resistance and Liberation has what they call a moral system instead of a suppression system. When you're low on moral the edges of the screen darken, you heart beats, and you breathe faster, and you are shaking. It's more difficult to aim, and your overall stamina and sprint speed is lower. Being around teammates makes it more difficult to become demoralized, especially when you're around an NCO. When a teammate dies next to you it takes a big hit on your morale, especially if it's an NCO. Suppressive fire also lowers your moral (obviously). Killing enemies raises your moral, and the more teammates you have nearby the more difficult it is to lower your moral, and the faster you recover.

They have a very complex and intuitive system that would be awesome to have in this game. It encourages team play, adds importance to NCO's (because of their heavy boost to moral), and can fit in perfectly with a suppression system.

Edit:
Here's an example of moral dropping when someone gets shot (at 3:25). Watch the rest of the video if you don't know what game this is. It's a very good realism based game that has some innovative ideas, especially considering the engine limitations of hl2 compared to Cry3
Resistance and Liberation: Lafiere Suppression - YouTube

 

[TheBuG]

I'm not sure if any of you tried CoD:WaW. The game sucks, but when you get an artillery strike on your ass there's two things that can happen.

1. You die.
2. You don't die, but at the same time your screens gets really blurry and starts shaking, making you unable to really do anything but walk (not run) away.

Think that's pretty much the best way to make it work in a game. As said, people aren't really afraid to die.

 

[Nate]

I was thinking more of a blurring effect because I believe it is a bit more subtle than darkening and we have all had those near death adrenaline moments where your vision hyper focuses. Plus I think it would still allow you to aim a little bit at where you were looking but acquiring new targets would be harder because your vision is blurred on the edges. Once again nothing too too extreme but more along the lines of "damn my teammate just got merked and now I gotta get in cover and plan my next move" I really like how this community is so accepting of new ideas and trying to tune them to perfection.

 

[MrT]

Even if it would be cool I don't really like the idea of psyche-dependant visuals, because I don't think It's possible to do correct really.

Firstly not sure everyone reacts the same way and or after becoming jaded.
Secondly the effect would make no sense at all if you are unaware of your hit teammate in the next room, and if it's programmed to accommodate that it should still trigger later when you enter the room.. doable? Bigger problem is -teamspeak "Dont go in there! The capt. was killed"... ehm. (when in fact just the info alone could/should trigger it, which can't be programmed).
But those aside.. and looking at playing, you might simply just tire of getting punished because one in your team dies often. (if it's a long enough effect).

Still it might become fine and I'm making a goose out of a feather, but many would still probably turn it off if aloud (some don't even approve of head-bobbing) and more significant visuals would definitely serve uneven gameplay so choosing a subtle effect would be good. IOW low if there's off. Or also add the high (or values) so good players can choose to even themselves out a bit.

Anyway.. blur-tunnel-vision would also be cool for severe injury, fatigue or such.. but splatter effects on screen as if wearing a cyclop feels a bit un-immersing and gimmicky.. unless a cyclop is actually equipped. OK.. they can be used to simulate awareness of fire-direction but colour flashes being similarly surreal is less intrusive.

 

[Nate]

What if the effect was just two seconds or so almost like a warning. The reason they are there is because you don't have the spatial awareness in a game that you do in real life. All you have is visual cues to tell you what happened behind you or next to you where you are't lookin. Also because in real life if you see someone get shot you prolly wont run right where they were and try to do the exact same thing but in a game people do. The systems mentioned are just ways for the player to be shown its not smart to do certain stupid things.

 

[Moody]

Even if it would be cool I don't really like the idea of psyche-dependant visuals, because I don't think It's possible to do correct really.

Firstly not sure everyone reacts the same way and or after becoming jaded.
Secondly the effect would make no sense at all if you are unaware of your hit teammate in the next room, and if it's programmed to accommodate that it should still trigger later when you enter the room.. doable? Bigger problem is -teamspeak "Dont go in there! The capt. was killed"... ehm. (when in fact just the info alone could/should trigger it, which can't be programmed).
But those aside.. and looking at playing, you might simply just tire of getting punished because one in your team dies often. (if it's a long enough effect).

Still it might become fine and I'm making a goose out of a feather, but many would still probably turn it off if aloud (some don't even approve of head-bobbing) and more significant visuals would definitely serve uneven gameplay so choosing a subtle effect would be good. IOW low if there's off. Or also add the high (or values) so good players can choose to even themselves out a bit.

Anyway.. blur-tunnel-vision would also be cool for severe injury, fatigue or such.. but splatter effects on screen as if wearing a cyclop feels a bit un-immersing and gimmicky.. unless a cyclop is actually equipped. OK.. they can be used to simulate awareness of fire-direction but colour flashes being similarly surreal is less intrusive.

When people get injured or killed they usually make noise. Even the sound of a body falling to the pavement would be enough to get your attention. This is a game in the end, and nothing will be perfect. If it's possible to have two systems, one where your moral drops if you see an ally die (cone of vision somehow), and another where your moral drops if an ally dies within close proximity (as in 10 meters away). Everyone reacts differently to fire, it's true, but the point of the system is to make suppression effective, and encourage preservation of life. When people die they make noise. The real point of the moral system would be to encourage sticking together by increasing resistance to suppression when around your squad mates, and to encourage preservation by making it harmful to moral when squad mates and NCOs die.

These effects shouldn't be extreme unless you're in an extreme situation. If a grenade blew up half your squad and your NCO, that's plenty of reason to be very shaken. To counteract this, it should be made that suppressing the enemy, or killing/seeing enemies killed raises your moral. This means that when a squad faces another squad, it becomes all about fire superiority, sound leadership (not dead leadership), and limiting casualties, just like in actuality.

As far as particles on screen, it can be a gimmick, but I think it can be done in a way that isn't gimmick-y. If it was somehow possible to detect when particle effects run into the player, then a system could be put in place where certain particle effects lead to certain overlays. It would be awesome to see dirt kicked up by bullet impacts land on the edges of your screen and quickly fade away, or the blood spurt from exit wounds land on the edges of your screen if you happen to be in their way. Although I doubt such a system is possible without lots of work an coding.

 

[CanadianSquirrel]

I am not saying what follows is normal, i just understand this is a brainstorm so i thought about GTA4's physics, when you get hit by a car you either finish your nose into the Curb, or you start getting distabilized and start walking around like you're drunk. that would be funny to see!

Cordialement,
Squirrel

 

[Moody]

I am not saying what follows is normal, i just understand this is a brainstorm so i thought about GTA4's physics, when you get hit by a car you either finish your nose into the Curb, or you start getting distabilized and start walking around like you're drunk. that would be funny to see!

Cordialement,
Squirrel

Would be awesome to see people stumble or fall down with physics when they get shot. Would give weapons with stopping power much more meaning if they actually stopped you in your tracks.

 

[CanadianSquirrel]

I'd find literally awesome to see a big coordinated groop, all sticking to eachother's boots (imagine 20 guys).
All getting Smashed by an Machine-Gewehr 42 and seeing the bodies accumulate in a blood bath pile (Gosh when i re-read i feel sadic)

All of them falling like dominoes with a strafe of a death machine !

Gentiment,
Squirrel

 

[Mr_Magpie]

I love the idea of a morale system.
The big issue to tackle is purely that feeling that if you die you'll respawn and it's all okay again.

I'm not sure if there's going to be a timer on respawns or if it'll be more like counter strike where you are dead until the objective is done or the other team is killed, but that's a good step in the right direction I think.

Not too keen on added recoil being the penalty for suppression though... Although it's NOTHING like real war, I can aim perfectly fine when at airsoft/paintball and when I'm under fire.
Infantry are also trained so that when they do get shot at, they shoot back, and accurately, that's the whole point of Army training.
Battlefield 3 had it too, and it became ridiculous when you were being surpressed by a SMG from across the map and couldn't return fire with your machine gun because the bullets were hitting the moon.

For balancing purposes though, it might be necessary to do that.

I'm sure there'll be a good way to do it.

 

[Pascucci]

Airsoft and paintball have absolutely nothing to do with real combat, because actual soldiers, trained or not, have to fear for their lives. The absolute majority of rounds fired during WWII were fired trying to suppress enemy soldiers, in real life, soldiers would tend to stay down when being shot at. In fact, many weapons, such as the BAR, were issued solely for the purpose of pinning down enemy soldiers. I believe that suppression is an absolute necessity and also believe that most soldiers would have an extremely hard time firing back at the prospect of having their face blown off by an MG42.