Weak suppression mechanics and why it's bad

[AveFerrum]

Hey everyone,

As many of you will know, suppression mechanics are a large part of today's realistic shooters. Every game seems to tackle it differently, and right now I want to draw your attention to how Squad tackles it, and why I believe it to be insufficient for a game that strives for realism.

First, I'll go over how some other games (RO2 and PR) handle suppression, and how they are different from Squad's mechanics. After this, I will explain to you why shooters that strive for realism need appropriate suppression mechanics and why Squad's mechanics are insufficient.

Red Orchestra 2:

RO2 is a WWII-style shooter and easily one of my favourites. While it doesn't win the price for highest degree of realism on all fronts, it's gunplay is some of the most realistic and intense I've witnessed in gaming. In large, this is because of RO2's suppression mechanic.

Whenever bullets impact near you, or fly by you at a close distance, suppression will start to kick in. The type of weapon that is shooting at you, and the mass of fire, make a big difference in the amount of suppression you will recieve. Suppression is actually measured in a bar, much like stamina. The further the bar is drained, the more suppressed you will be. After you stop recieving fire, the bar slowly fills up again and things will go back to normal. When you recieve suppression, a number of things start happening:

1. Every time a bullet impacts near you or whizzes by your head, your screen jerks slightly. Heavy machineguns cause more feedback than pistol calibre rounds.
2. The screen starts going black-and-white and becomes slightly blurred.
3. Sound becomes muffled.
4. When fully suppressed, your aim sways more and you are unable to steady your aim.

It becomes very difficult to return accurate fire when you are being suppressed. Additionally, it also lowers situational awareness. The effects of this mechanic are fairly limited in close combat, but tend to make medium-to-long range engagements last longer due to both sides struggling to return accurate fire.

Project Reality

A lot of people who play Squad have undoubtedly played or heard of Project Reality. Project Reality is basically what inspired Squad. Project Reality is built off an outdated engine, so the ways in which they could model suppression were limited. Therefore, the suppression model in PR is fairly simple, though very effective.

Whenever you are fired upon, regardless of what weapon is being used, your screen immediately becomes blurry. This effect is very strong and will severely limit your ability to see at medium-to-long range, whilst you are still able to return somewhat accurate fire at close ranges. Your aiming is not affected, but it should be noted that in PR, it is necessary to steady your aim after you have moved. The suppression effect only lasts for one or two seconds, so it wears off quickly once you stop recieving fire.

Eventhough PR's mechanic does not affect your aiming ability, it becomes near-impossible to distinguish silhouettes in cover at medium-to-long range, thus making accurate fire difficult, except against enemies in the open.
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Now, this brings us to Squad. In Squad, the suppression mechanic can best be described as a lighter version of Project Reality's mechanic. Upon being shot, you will recieve a graphical effect. There are no signficiant penalties to your accuracy or your ability to steady your aim. As a result, the effect that suppression has on the player's ability to engage at medium-to-long range is affected only to a very minor degree.

As you may have deducted by now, Squad's mechanics for suppression are quite light compared to some other games.
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So why is this bad?

The answer lies in how real firefights, ever since WWII and perhaps before, have worked.
"Fire superiority", "suppressive fire", "covering fire", stats like "One combatant killed for every 100,000 rounds expended". These are concepts you must've heard of by now. Modern firefights revolve around fire superiority, in other words, putting so many bullets onto your enemy's position that they cannot do anything but keep their heads down. Reducing the enemy's ability to function to zero, whilst your element can manoeuvre and take out the enemy position.

Despite this being the governing factor in today's firefight, it is woefully neglected in modern FPS games, even in those who strive to be realistic, like Squad. The reason for this is the lack of psychological effect that enemy fire has on the player. This is easily explained: in real life, you might die. In a game, it doesn't matter.

That is what a suppression mechanic is there to rectify and why properly functioning suppression is so important in games that strive to be realistic.
Currently, Squad does not revolve around fire superiority. In direct engagements (leaving flanking out of the picture) the decisive factor is who has the bigger magnification on their scope. A machine gunner is a sitting duck against an opponent with a scoped weapon peeking out of cover, no matter how suppressed he might be.
A common counterargument is that if someone is able to peek, the suppression isn't being carried out properly or isn't accurate enough (for otherwise the peeker would be dead). Whilst I understand this line of reasoning, it does not hold up to reality. The notion that the suppressive fire being applied "probably isn't accurate enough" would never move someone to expose himself to it, let alone be able to return accurate fire. To people insisting upon the theory that suppressive fire needs to be pinpoint accurate in order to be effective, I encourage you to look up some footage of recent fighting in Ukraine.

In conclusion, if Squad wants to recreate realistic firefights, it cannot ignore the fact that modern firefights are governed by achieving fire superiority and suppression. Considering suppression is mostly a psychological thing, it is difficult, but far from impossible to simulate in a game. RO2 and PR are both examples of games which feature functional suppression mechanics. It is to these games Squad should look to improve the player's experience, support teamplay and create a game that approximates reality.

- Thanks for reading.

[BlackLabel]

Not sure but they stated there will be a supression system in the future. I hope its more akin to Ro1 and 2 :)

[Lutz.Grossman]

Good statements! I agree with you

[OVKHuman]

+1

[Deku Dec (ง︡'-'︠)ง]

Originally posted by BlackLabel:

Not sure but they stated there will be a supression system in the future. I hope its more akin to Ro1 and 2 :)

First part of the supression is already in (First stage tho). But yes it will be worked on in the future.

[Bepin]

-1 you surpression is fine as it is, there's enough consequences for dying in this game, we don't need some stupid battlefield "surpression".

in short: You can't make a mechanic for fearing for your own life in a video game.

[[40-1]King_Kosher]

Originally posted by Some Random ♥♥♥♥♥♥:

-1 you surpression is fine as it is, there's enough consequences for dying in this game, we don't need some stupid battlefield "surpression".

The above mentioned forms of surpression are neither stupid nor do they have anything to do with Battlefield. In fact, the one we have now could be called that as the original PR were the current mechanics are from, did indeed run on the BF2 engine. It certainly is not a good part of the overall expirience and needs some tweaking (which Noxxid3 said will be done down the road)

Originally posted by Some Random ♥♥♥♥♥♥:

in short: You can't make a mechanic for fearing for your own life in a video game.

Thats not really correct, the firefights in RO2 will make you fear for your (virtual) life quite well and while it shouldn´t/couldn´t be copied 1:1 into Squad, the shift should go towards RO2 than to PR.
You should be more open to try out things to compare them before clasifiying your opinion as monumental fact, and i mean that without offense.

[Bepin]

Why do you want this when people already are concerned about dying in game enough already? How often do you see a person act all Call of duty-ish while shots are being fired at them? And if they do act as such they almost never win.

Stop suggesting a "surpression" mechanic when there's a more then enough reasons not to get hit, it's unnecessary and will ruin the game.

[AveFerrum]

Originally posted by Some Random ♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Why do you want this when people already are concerned about dying in game enough already? How often do you see a person act all Call of duty-ish while shots are being fired at them? And if they do act as such they almost never win.

Stop suggesting a "surpression" mechanic when there's a more then enough reasons not to get hit, it's unnecessary and will ruin the game.

I think my post summed that up quite nicely, but if I weren't clear:
Because;
A. Squad tries to simulate realistic firefights.
B. Realistic firefights revolve around suppression and achieving fire superiority.
C. Squad in it's current form does not revolve around either.
D. A functional suppression mechanic is a means of changing that.

Secondly, suppression mechanics are present in many realistic shooters (RO2, PR, ArmA) and vastly improve the experience, atleast for those who enjoy realism.

Which brings me to my last point; Whether or not Squad should try to approximate reality is an entirely different discussion altogether. If you don't believe Squad should approximate reality, we're on an entirely different page.

If you do think Squad should be approximating reality, but don't think an improved suppression mechanic is the way to go, then I am all ears.

[Bepin]

Originally posted by RunsWithBears:

Originally posted by Some Random ♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Why do you want this when people already are concerned about dying in game enough already? How often do you see a person act all Call of duty-ish while shots are being fired at them? And if they do act as such they almost never win.

Stop suggesting a "surpression" mechanic when there's a more then enough reasons not to get hit, it's unnecessary and will ruin the game.

I think my post summed that up quite nicely, but if I weren't clear:
Because;
A. Squad tries to simulate realistic firefights.
B. Realistic firefights revolve around suppression and achieving fire superiority.
C. Squad in it's current form does not revolve around either.
D. A functional suppression mechanic is a means of changing that.

Secondly, suppression mechanics are present in many realistic shooters (RO2, PR, ArmA) and vastly improve the experience, atleast for those who enjoy realism.

Which brings me to my last point; Whether or not Squad should try to approximate reality is an entirely different discussion altogether. If you don't believe Squad should approximate reality, we're on an entirely different page.

If you do think Squad should be approximating reality, but don't think an improved suppression mechanic is the way to go, then I am all ears.

This is and alway be a video game, no matter how much you try and make it "realistic" it will still never be anything close to real life. If you wanted it as realstic as possible why not just show the dull points of being in the army or you only live once in a match and have to always walk from main base to the fire fight?

The more this game tries to be like every other milsim out there is the day this game becomes garbage.

[Forward Bias]

Originally posted by Some Random ♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by RunsWithBears:

I think my post summed that up quite nicely, but if I weren't clear:
Because;
A. Squad tries to simulate realistic firefights.
B. Realistic firefights revolve around suppression and achieving fire superiority.
C. Squad in it's current form does not revolve around either.
D. A functional suppression mechanic is a means of changing that.

Secondly, suppression mechanics are present in many realistic shooters (RO2, PR, ArmA) and vastly improve the experience, atleast for those who enjoy realism.

Which brings me to my last point; Whether or not Squad should try to approximate reality is an entirely different discussion altogether. If you don't believe Squad should approximate reality, we're on an entirely different page.

If you do think Squad should be approximating reality, but don't think an improved suppression mechanic is the way to go, then I am all ears.

This is and alway be a video game, no matter how much you try and make it "realistic" it will still never be anything close to real life. If you wanted it as realstic as possible why not just show the dull points of being in the army or you only live once in a match and have to always walk from main base to the fire fight?

The more this game tries to be like every other milsim out there is the day this game becomes garbage.

I could come back with the same style of thinking that you have and say "Oh, you don't want this game to be realistic? Okay, so you want jetpacks and killstreaks? What about care packages and everyone gets a sniper rifle?"

While I'm not taking sides here, you can't just generalize somebody's entire argument like that. Somethings could be more realistic, while others shouldn't.

[osheamat]

Could not agree more. Need mechanics that encourace FIND FLANK FIX FINISH. When a "supressed" target can return effective fire against an LMG...well... F it.

This is a game, but if we are tying to be "realistic" we need to force the replication of what it feels like to be under effective fire. We are not supposed to be super Soldiers who can return effective fire againts multiple enemies or an LMG...I am too lazy to paste how I broke down both sides of the argument on reddit.

I HOPE this does not remain a first to an ACOG or best pixel aim shooter. It should be about positioning, tactics, supression (fix) and flanking...not straight up who has best aim :(

[Caliell]

Squad is amazing game. However to make it realistic (outside of magical soldier spawning in FOBs and on Rally rucksacks, which simply meant as replacement for stagepoint of reinforcements, thus spawns). From how medical heal mechanics work (there should be turniquet instead of dressing in my opinion at least or chest seal). Penetration are a bit unrealistic. Real life 5.56 and 5.45 will chew through several obstacles are in game, such as pre made concrete apartments in Al Basrah or Narva. Realistically bullets can easily ruin the integrity of many walls, even steel concrete with multiple hits, .50 will easily chew up an appartment complex given enough time.

Is real life like suppression good for Squad? Yes in ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ deed. Why? Because Squad is meant to be the trend towards realism instead of Semi Realism of DICE Battlefield series and absolute Rambo horse potatoes of Call of Duty series. The game in wider view designed for team tactics and not someone one "Dur Dur I iz Run and Gunz yu". However Squad still compromises with people who don't want it to be too punishing with giving it spawns akin to Battlefield, which is fair trade since obviously if it was too realistic like ARMA series, then everyone except people with the patience of iron will be pulling their hair and rage quit.

So as again, why Realistic Suppression would/will be awesome and not too punishing? One word - TEAMWORK! It will force people instead of typical today's of bread and butter of Squad "Lean over and shoot, or line up behind sandbags and shoot" to rely more on "Team members, some have to either push through the kill point, retreat or flank instead of being pinned so low that enemy squad members get up on you and slaughter".

I am heavily against games like Call of Duty, since it is targeted towards (I am not gonna even go on insult towards MLG Pro pimply teenagers to feel better after being bullied in school) individual skill of basically running and gunning harcore casual players. People like me who wanted more of tactical and strategic imersion cannot stand those types of games, let alone since the whole Call of Duty gives the adage of stacking bodies = victory where in reality and real world it is far cry from realism.

[osheamat]

Thank you Calieli

[MORPHiN']

nub

[SSIXS]

I think some of you are missing at least 1 key point about this game...it's not realistic and it's not MilSim, it's an arcade style game. So don't try to use "realism" as a basis for anything in SQUAD.

That said, I'd personally like to see some heavier suppression effects. I think it would be nice to get further away from the current COD/BF feel.