The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Ausdoerrt said:
You make it seem like there's no "third choice" between cover and crappy FO3 AI. There's a plenty of shooter games with good AI without a cover system. STALKER series is one of them.
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Of course there is. Hence why I am arguing. I wish Vegas (or any future shootliker-Fallout game for that matter ...) would try to go a bit more for a authentic representation of combat. Not just all the people storming at you like mindeless zealots. What about people with guns using sandbags ? ruble or what ever as cover.

Also in Stalker the AI did not really used cover either. I found Stalkers AI pretty dump. Either they see and smell you from half a mile away or they just charge at you.

I dont say a cover system as shown with Mass Effect 2 is the holy grail of combat. But there at least the AI IS using cover at all! Something I can not say from most other shooters. Of couse it is scripted. Sometimes looks even silly. It is overused in some games. But that doesnt mean the direction in general is bad. Depends how you deploy it and what the developers make out of it in the end.

Ilosar said:
I get where what you want to say, Crni Vuk, the problem is cover-based shooters are (captain obvious incoming, sorry) based around it. The levels are specificaly designed with it in mind. The Red Orchestra videos make a big deal of designing the level with cover; as I said, it works for linear single-player or multiplayer maps where the field of battle is clearly defined and limited, but putting objects that can be used for cover (because they have to be specifically marked so, I imagine) all over the wasteland is quite a task, not to mention that conveniently placed rocks everywhere in a desert where firefights happen would be a little silly.
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Yes right. Because neither Fallout 3 nor Vegas offer enough levels or areas with cover. What about Fallout 3s "city" landescape where you fight inside of DC with countless of ruins and buildings. Same with Vegas, either in vaults, bunkers, caves, some camps or ruins. There are also many mountains with rocks, streets moving trough valeys of some sorts. Its not like the world in Vegas is completely without cover. The trick is to make it feel natural. But thats what level designers are for. Thats their job at some point. Most of the time I would fight in open space with Radscorpions and raiders. Which some are armed with clevers, knifes or something like that. Vegas features particularly around the strip a lot of locations with ruins and buildings like some farms which can be used as cover. Heh I mean hey even the quest of the boomers some NPC tells you that you should use the landscape moving from "cover" to "cover" avoiding the boomers artillery!

Thing is just that the enemy is never doing it. When watching for examle the NCR fighting the raiders (Feens ?) attacking each other I always have to lough at how pathetic it looks. Not just from the visuals that could be somewhat excused as the animations already sucked in Fallout 3 but they just stand around or run in circles shooting each other while there seem to be sandbags and other parts of "natural" cover around which simply no one is using. Maybe I am looking to many war movies no clue, but to me particularly this feels just overal pathetic and unatural - I dont want to say un-realistic but it just doesnt feel or look plausible most humans know that a rock will give them more chance to survive compared to standing around in the open. Think about it like those old indian vs cowboy movies.

To say that as well, that is one part of Red Orchestras maps (also remember they try to create some battlefiels how they really looked like in WW2). It is based on the Unreal engine 3 which will also alow to render and show very huge maps with lots of space between it (they will use that a lot for combined arms battles where you have infantry and tanks fighting next to each other) not to mention the map they show Red-Square (winter map) has when you look at it a lot of "open space" but craters, and ruble, ruins etc. give as well chance to use cover. But it is not like you will always just face urban settings.

I agree when you say that Mass Effect and more important Mass Effect 2 have been specificaly designed for "cover based gameplay", it is noticable. But thats where I say, it depends a lot on how the level designer make it. Good designers might do it in a way where you dont notice it. For example camps with sandbags, fortified positions. No one will just have his army standing around in the open field somewhere in the desert. That doesnt make any sense in the first place so to say. And most of the positions where you have either NCR or Legion around you will see some small camp of some sort. Except for those times when you see 2 or 3 characters on patrol. But even then there are many times rocks or other obstacles around. Not to mention the places like Nipton for example. I dont know why you might think all places of Vegas are comletely made only from open space.
 
Ilosar said:
I get where what you want to say, Crni Vuk, the problem is cover-based shooters are (captain obvious incoming, sorry) based around it. The levels are specificaly designed with it in mind. The Red Orchestra videos make a big deal of designing the level with cover; as I said, it works for linear single-player or multiplayer maps where the field of battle is clearly defined and limited, but putting objects that can be used for cover (because they have to be specifically marked so, I imagine) all over the wasteland is quite a task, not to mention that conveniently placed rocks everywhere in a desert where firefights happen would be a little silly.
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I don't understand why a shooter has to be either A) run and gun or B) cover-based. there are plenty of opportunities for both the AI and the player to take cover in firefights in for example F:NV. start a firefight in an area without good cover? well, you're shit out of luck. just like in real life. pick your moments, that's where the tactics come in. a cover-based shooter with specifically designed cover for the player takes away a big part of the tactical decisions you'll have to make, and reduces the whole thing to a cool way to shoot enemies.

the real problem is that the AI doesn't take advantage of cover properly, and doesn't understand when the player is taking cover and when he's not. FO3 was even worse, where there was some ridiculous collision bug(?) between bullets and walls - shooting from behind cover was almost impossible because the bullets would hit the wall far below/to the side of the gun.

a game that did firefights really well, taking cover into consideration without being specifically cover-based was F.E.A.R. - the AI was superb in that game, always taking cover and trying to flank you when you were taking cover. and there were no weird and illogically placed covers thrown about the maps. you had to make do with whatever was near.
 
Thingie is, you must sacrifice some level design to make good cover-based combat; ME2's combat worked very well, but the conveniently placed chest-high walls everywhere were a bit far-fetched sometimes (especially in natural areas, Omega or on the Collector Ship/Base), ruining the believability of it all, for me anyway. This is not the fault of the level designers, it just must be like that for the combat to be natural and somewhat balanced.

However, I agree that the AI is phenomenally stupid. Making it seek cover would be a big step up. A good point of reference imo is Crysis; it was not cover-based, but the enemies were smart enough to hide when lead started flying, and using cover was essential at higher difficulties, and it finally worked very well in Crysis's more open environments. So I could very much welcome similar changes, but basing the whole game around combat like Mass Effect is a no-no for me.
 
Ilosar said:
Thingie is, you must sacrifice some level design to make good cover-based combat;
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Again. No. You. Do. Not.

I will repeat. It depends on "inteligent" level design. Just dont make al the time and every where a firefight. And even IF it happens in the open (like letz say you encounter some recon unit of 2-3 people) no one will complain. The issue is just as how aenemic nicely explained that the AI does not know about what "cover" is and if the player is using it or not.

I start to really think that developers should play a few more multiplayer shooters to get a sense of inteligent level design as some games (and most important mods) have some of the best designed shooter maps. Regarding cover and diversity.

Mass Effect is a different kind of experience its a railroaded shooter and thus it is completely focused around the cover and the maps are designed like a tunnel or tube so its just natural that you will notice it here a lot. With open world games like Vegas you could easily avoid that. You would not even have to change that much with the world. It does provide actualy already a lot of cover (at least in some areas). The enemy just never makes use of it.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Ilosar said:
Thingie is, you must sacrifice some level design to make good cover-based combat;
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Again. No. You. Do. Not.
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It has only an impact in leveldesign in a linear shooter, where you cant choose the time and place of an engagement. A game like FO3 / NV has enough cover and enough freedom of movement to make designed placement of cover obsolete. Of course the player would need to adapt and keep away from wide open spaces if there are hostiles around. It would greatly improve combat if situational awareness and choosing your path/approach would matter. It would make crossing a drylake riskier, especially if a bunch of raiders was holed up at the other end.

But hat would need good AI and good game mechanics and bathesda is certainly not the company to provide those things.
 
They could have simply added an ability to lean (not symbolic 1 inch lean but an actual useful lean) and go prone and that would already make combat in Fallout 3 somewhat tolerable.

Instead, it feels exactly like this:

Borat.gif


The same could be said about Oblivion combat.
 
aenemic said:
where there was some ridiculous collision bug(?) between bullets and walls - shooting from behind cover was almost impossible because the bullets would hit the wall far below/to the side of the gun.
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Not a bug but rather a problem with the gamebryo engine as it uses rectangle collision boxes for objects rather than the object itself.
 
maximaz said:
They could have simply added an ability to lean (not symbolic 1 inch lean but an actual useful lean) and go prone and that would already make combat in Fallout 3 somewhat tolerable.
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Thing is though, that the AI has to make use of it as well, like using anything in its range as cover.

Sadly I have yet to find a shooter with realy believable AI. Not even Arma 2 which has a quite "complex" calculation behind it features a interesting AI. I mean I rarely see any of them using cover, seting up an ambush even (Though I gues thats demanding a bit to much).

I think many games today concentrate on visuals but somewhat the AI is still in the same stage like 10 years ago when I played HL1 for the first time, where human enemies would throw grenades after you once you been in cover or retreat even and regroup when the player caused to much damage to them. For that time quite impressive. And Even with modern games it seems the AI has not developed here all to much. Quite sad in my eyes. Particularly when you consider how much power the hardware has compared to the time when HL1 was released.
 
maximaz said:
They could have simply added an ability to lean (not symbolic 1 inch lean but an actual useful lean) and go prone and that would already make combat in Fallout 3 somewhat tolerable.

Instead, it feels exactly like this:

Borat.gif


The same could be said about Oblivion combat.
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You sir, made a good analogy.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Also in Stalker the AI did not really used cover either. I found Stalkers AI pretty dump. Either they see and smell you from half a mile away or they just charge at you.
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You should get your game fixed, I've always had problems with entrenched stalkers sticking to cover and trying to take me out. Or briefly popping out into the doorway to take a few shots and hite behind it again.
 
Well I agree the last mission (inside the reactor) was not that easy. But usualy I managed to win by simply waiting for most of them to get to the door and shoot them while they line up nicely to enter the room I was in. Of course taking out the one or two remaining f**** who decided to stay behind some crate ... was more difficult. But outsidein the open taking out bandits was the easiest thing ever. I had only to make sure not runing out of amunitions or "breaking" my weapon (hence why I always keept some machinepistol with me which the bandits would use all the time ... I am so glad there are mods available which alow you to repair your weapons).
 
Alphadrop said:
aenemic said:
where there was some ridiculous collision bug(?) between bullets and walls - shooting from behind cover was almost impossible because the bullets would hit the wall far below/to the side of the gun.
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Not a bug but rather a problem with the gamebryo engine as it uses rectangle collision boxes for objects rather than the object itself.
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well, they sorted it out in F:NV either way.
 
Listening to Todd talk about role playing games...was certainly interesting.

Also, I need to show part three to my Hardcore Japanophile JRPG fans for some lulz.
 
I managed to sit through 5 mins of the second video... listening to him is brutal...

I didn't know he wasn't at Beth from the beginning though.
 
In video 2:

TES I was originally meant to be a gladiator fighting game.

It evolved into a free roam RPG.

The Blades were originally a gladiator team.

Daggerfall was awesome.

Todd doesn't look at a game and think "what will we add in the sequel" he tries to re-imagine what the game is / should be.

That's where I stopped.
 
rcorporon said:
I managed to sit through 5 mins of the second video... listening to him is brutal...

I didn't know he wasn't at Beth from the beginning though.
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I think his first game he did for Bethesda was a Terminator first person shooter game called Future schock or something ... well tells a lot about him if you ask me.
 
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