Close-quarter combat

[Tequilla Sunrise Inc.]

Few ideas how to improve close-quarter fight. I think gameplay of majority of games fails in situations when soldiers engage themselve in very small distances.

1. Hipshooting (shooting without aim)
Some games allow players to shoot while running (Darkest Hour), some not (Arma). The problem of hipshooting in DH is that it s very accurate. It´s so unrealistic and starts to be annoying when you get few kills from a guy who is running around and using hipshooting. On the other hand, i can´t agree with Arma model - you have to stop yourself, aim (if u play without crosshair. Will crosshair be in TW? I hope not) and then u can shoot. It s impractical in close-quarters. In my opinion a game should allow player to hipshoot while double time or walking but not during sprinting. No doubt hipshooting should be enough inaccurate to force players to use only as "last option". I have read somewhere (i think BULL, S.: World War II Infantry Tactics.Squad and Platoon.) german soldiers used to grasp their weapons near hip and shooting while charging enemy positions.

2. Melee system
I think this is must. I use Darkest Hour (Red orchestra) as example again. It has the melee system but it sucks a lot. Now it is fixed in new RO2 and I quite like it - it s easy to use, minimazes hipshooting and It causes quick dead to the enemy.

3. Lean system - proper cornering techniques
Very important stuff but unprized by developers. Combat in built-up areas is all about cornering. Everywhere are corners which can be very deadly. Some games try to solve this problem. Brothers in Arms has own lean system but it fails because your body exposes first before u can see what s behind a corner - easy kill for camping enemy (Same situation in DH). We need something that allows players to check corner safely. Sometimes I wish to have the Cpt. Miller´s mirror linked on the knife xD.


"Correct technique for looking around a corner" (Field Manual):


The video for inspirations (SAS in-house corner techniques):

 

[Moody]

Several fair points, although I have a few things to add or argue.

1. I've always felt that hipshooting has been approached wrong in a lot of games. The truth is that hipshooting is vary rarely used. Instead people fire from a readied position, without looking down the sights. This readied position allows you get a general sense of where the barrel is pointing, while giving the large field of view required to be effective in close quarters. This readied stance is great for close quarters room clearing, and even for providing suppressive fire at medium range when you can't really see what to specifically shoot at. A good comparison is the weapon raised stance in arma. So I would suggest having 3 combat stances: Lowered (hip fire), readied (as described), and aim down sights (iron sights or otherwise).

In the lowered stance you have a lot of mobility and can jog and fire (although when firing maybe the jog will slow down some), as well as fire from the hip with lowered accuracy and more recoil. In the readied stance your weapon is raised and pointing straight ahead, instead of jogging you can do a fast walk (good for room clearing and getting through doorways quickly), and can fire with more accuracy and the standard amount of recoil (since your weapon is braced against your shoulder). Then there's aim down sights which is self explanatory.

2. I'd like to argue that DH actually had a marginally better melee system than RO2. In RO2 if you have the bayonet unlocked it is attached to your gun automatically and makes you automatically better in melee with no down sides, in DH bayonets actually effect your aim and can be attached and detached. The melee animations aren't as polished as in RO2, but I like the ability to attach or detach bayonets. Other than the cool factor, bayonets make the front end of the gun heavier, and thus more difficult to keep steady. This means that attaching a bayonet should effect your accuracy, so that they are only attached when there is a real possibility of melee happening. It really breaks immersion when you see every rifleman running around with a bayonet, and getting into surprise melee combat where you only have a rifle butt vs. a bayonet is always intense.

I always thought that the melee systems in RO2 and DH were very similar though, I'm curious what you think makes them so different.

3. Definitely agree, although it's difficult to make a good leaning system like that. Maybe making it so that E and Q do a small lean which is only used to peak around the corner (weapon lowered, only upper body twisting to get a look around the corner, so that only part of your head is poking out), and then double tap E or Q to do a full lean to fire around the corner.

 

[VonMudra]

Hip shooting is weird in WW2. Whilst we would view it as inaccurate, it was extremely commonplace, especially for SMG gunners. The Finns actually PREFERRED shooting from the hip, finding it not only just as accurate, but actually easier to control the recoil. German army manuals meanwhile trained riflemen to have a ready stance for close combat that involved firing from the hip. Assaults also tended to lead to men firing from the hip, in this case more fear-fire and "put lead down range" than actually hitting anything. MG gunners, in the german army, were trained to shoot from the hip with an assualt stance that created a shotgun effect, so short range, but deadly. Bren gunners also had an assualt stance, with the handle flipping out to use the left hand to control and absorb recoil. So essentially, expect no cross hair, expect mostly poor accuracy apart from automatics which regain accuracy from control-ability and lead-down-range, but that will also require one to know their approximate "center" of firing, as well as controlling where the recoil is throwing the gun.

As for melee, bayonets and trench knives will of course be ingame. Rifle butts not sure, as that could be hard to represent, it's a lot more wieldly in real life, rather than in a game where you'd be having to fliip around between selecting bayonet, bullet, and butt.

Leaning will of course be ingame.

 

[Pascucci]

Hipshooting should be in, but for gameplay reasons I'm sure it should also be made inaccurate and hard to use. Should be mostly for when fighting at very short ranges <10 meters or so.

 

[CanadianSquirrel]

From my book, Hipshooting should be available since it would get annoying for an MG Gunner to have to aim and get *RAPED* because he aims slower.
However, it should only be in a last call move situation
It shall be really *recoily* And be totally inaccurate!

Sincerly,
-Squirrel

 

[Tequilla Sunrise Inc.]

I am keeping on with another ideas for this topic.

4. Grenades
I am sure everyone has founded himself in a situation when he tried to throw a nade into a building throught a window and got killed by his own nade. It s a silly death caused by a bad calculation of a its trajectory. I think this can be fixed very simply - players should see trajectories of nade throws like in Heroes and Generals game.

Cooking nades and ringing in ears (like in Arma or Vietcong) would be nice as well.

5. Map and its tools
Under term "map tools" i mean possibilities which allow you to mark points into a map, paint, draw and write into there and every player on your side can see it. It s good stuff for clans and realism units.
You can zoom a map to get more details in Arma. I think map zooming will not be necessary in TW because there wont be so much huge maps like in Arma. However detailed maps of towns (cities) are vital important, especially for clans or realism units. Detailed maps mean maps that show all buildings of some town. Thanks by map tools players can mark every house on a map by numbers so commnad and control is better transparent in combat unit vs unit.

6. Combat engineer tools
6.1. Ladders or ropes
They allow players to enter building from unexpected entrances. Ropes are used in Project Reality:

6.2. Sticky bombs
For not only tank destryoing but for making wall holes and new entrances.

6.3. Bared wire and wire cutters
I mean bared wire which can be deployed. A combat engineers will have lets say 10 meters of bared wire and he will be able to use it for blocking for example house door or street. Bared wire can be deployed simply like booby traps in sniper elite v2.

 

[VonMudra]

Seeing trajectories would be rather unrealistic. Bad throws happen, so sorta gotta live with it.

Cooking of nades is planned.

Map is currently under work, we'll see what we come up with. Detailed maps will happen of course, but writing is hard to say.

Ladders/ropes weren't really used much in combat in WW2, apart from specialized assualt units for specialized missions that required them, non of which are probably going to be in TW, since they are few and far apart, and about the only thing I can think of for TW would be Pont du Hoc.

Sticky bombs were developed by the british and quickly thrown out for being more dangerous to the users than to enemy tanks. The german magnetic mines would be a possibility though. Engineers WILL have satchel charges.

Barbed wire will be in, and wirecutters are something we are looking at.

 

[titsmcgee852]

Throwing grenades through windows is all about practise. I know what you mean, it is frustrating, but if you do it often enough you get good at it. For example, every grenade I throw at a window in DH cooks everyone in the room

 

[TheTurk_007]

These sound nice titsmcgee. It would be great if we could see what happens when we stab someone (like in BF3 or FarCry3)

PS: We definately need wooden clubs with spikes and a shovel covered in blood

 

[VonMudra]

Trench clubs are a WW1 thing, never seen them in WW2. Shovels as hand weapons are a def possibility though.

 

[TheTurk_007]

Then we shall have a FS knife? That would be awesome.

 

[Nic727]

Hi,

it could be nice to have close-quarter combat animation different for each gun and accessories (bayonet, etc).

thx