More innovative than the cover mechanic in shooters?

Idk when this amazing mechanic was introduced but I first saw it in Gears of War and it was splendid. Now it has become the standard of all tps games with even fps games including it.

Can anyone actually think of something that is as innovative as that to bring shooting games to the next level? Maybe something to do with AI, destructible cover (I know this has been done but I think it needs more work), etc,?

@BboyStatix:

I actually do not like cover shooters that much. I like games that implement some form of cover(far cry, dishonered, gtav), but don't particularly like games that revolve around it (uncharted, gears).

And the worst thing about cover shooters is you know exactly when a shooting scene is coming up because you see a bunch of "cover" knocked down pillars, crates, etc in a boxed area, followed by walking through corridor or jumping around, then there is another cover boxed area around the corner with shooting. It would be great if they could fix the predictability.

Improvment. Shooting legs would cripple, shooting arms/hands knocks gun out of their hand. Shooting arrow in foot sticks them to ground like in shado of mordor.

@polishkid99: Ahh yeah I think that's why I liked GTA 5's shooting so much. It's because they created the environment without thinking about what can be used as cover. Cover isn't conveniently placed around and you aren't invincible when you hide behind it.

@BboyStatix: exactly. Cover shooters have to become less cover shooters and become shooters with cover.

Have you tried playing uncharted without using cover? It is the most awkward experience ever. The game simply does not work without cover.

Regenerating "health" system

Doom was a pretty innovative game for shooters.

I think VR with motion controllers will be the next big innovative thing for shooters and for gaming in general. I mean, how much more can they come up with that has not been done in the past with traditional gaming on a flatscreen monitor? Latly shooters have even gone from cover shooters to flying shooters like in Destiny and CoD and that to me is a sign that everything has been played out and it's time to move on to a whole new way of playing videogames.

@ojmstr: I agree with this. But at the same time, in terms of AI we have tons and tons of improvements left to make gun battles more dynamic. VR or no VR the AI will be implemented similarly.

I have a hard time seeing AI as being the next big innovative mechanic for shooters. Level design influences a shooter's mechanics far more than the AI does. The two things mentioned here, cover based interaction and regenerating health are actually "solutions" to level design problems. How do you design encounters with the expectation that players could be at super low health or at full health? Regenerate their health and every encounter can be designed with the expectation of max health. Same with cover based shooting; its meant to create a more "tactical" approach to encounters than the standard run and gun while soaking bullets in the face.

The next big thing would have to be something that solves or eases some kind of common level design issue of shooters.

For FPS games, I rather have a solid object that can break line of sight than use a cover system. I like to shoot n scoot quickly. A cover system sometimes locks me too long in that mode. The exception is the method used in Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4.

It maybe Standard but theres no game that implemented it better or aswell as gears of war.......

@Lulu_Lulu: Ikr!!! It felt so slick and smooth! And when two walls were close together, like for example a doorway you could transfer from wall to wall with a slick 360 rotation. That was just incredible.

@BboyStatix:

Danm Straight.... :)

3 words: aiming down sights. We take it for granted now, but once upon a time no game did that.

Sad thing is that RE4 had all of this, minus the arrow. You could even throw an egg at a villagers face and it would stun them. I have heard similar things about Binary Domain. On a side note, the fact that you could pin enemies to the ground with arrows was what impressed me the most about Mordor when I saw that first bit of footage for it. I remember hoping that AC3 would have that whenever I saw that trailer where Conor was hunting that guy down.....what a disappointment

@polishkid99: What about if you shoot someone with a high caliber gun in the face it schould explode/ripoff like IRL...

Bullet wounds don't look as real and accurate.

@dylandr: didn't call of duty 3 or world at war have that? I remember peoples heads exploding, and arms/legs flying off if i shot them with a high powered sniper.

Cover shooters are the most dull repetitive overrated thing in gaming history ever. I take cover when I want to. Here's some innovation. Run and gun!

with a healthy helping of good AI , level design, and many hours of fun.

I never played it, but Killswitch was the game that was known for starting the cover shooter sub-genre. Gears just made it popular.

I got a demo disc (when magazines had those) that this game on it. Me and my friends kept playing the demo over and over because we thought that being able to take cover was the coolest thing ever.

@JustPlainLucas: Wasn't Metal Gear Solid the first shooter with cover shooting?

@ojmstr: only it wasn't a shooter primarily. It's a stealth game with shooting mechanics

@mastermetal777: That's true, MGS was the first 3d game though with cover shooting mechanic but someone would most likely start making games with that function anyways sooner or later. I really don't care what company came up with this and that first as long as the mechanic works fine.

The cover shooting mechanic is something that comes natural with shooters anyways because it is what you would do in a real life situation if you had a cover.

My memory's really failing me. I don't remember using cover in that game, at least in the same sense as Killzone and Gears, who use it like pop-up and shoot.

Since I've always been primarily a console gamer I have played many 3rd person games. Lots of them. And something I thought was annoying was that the playable character was always in the center of the screen no matter what. But then Resident Evil 4 came out and did something no other developer did before... Over the shoulder camera. Something so simple and basic yet nobody ever thought about it before?

Cover system on the other hand, it was on Metal Gear, Winback, Killswitch, etc. What Cliffy B did with Gears of Wars was combine the over the shoulder camera perspective with a cover system and again, it blew everyone's mind. Now pretty much every 3rd person game be it a shooter or whatever has some sort of over the shoulder camera implementation and some sort of cover system.

Technically, maybe Time Crisis was the first game with cover mechanic, lol

come on guys, have you not played The Last of Us yet?

Sticky cover will feel soooooo outdated after playing TLOU....

@Gue1: don't listen to Lulu. He's the biggest troll on this forum. And The Last of Us indeed does cover very well.

I know it very well. haha but I troll too, I think that's all I do in this forum.

I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they never played it and that's why they think Gears' cover is the best. Although the feel of the shooting and aiming of Gears is still above of many recent games.

@BboyStatix: Although not a lot of shooters use this mechanic, the concept of "cover fire" was something used in Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. Basically if you stepped out from behind cover it meant instant death, so to move your guys forward you had to order individual groups to fire on enemy positions to allow you to advance. You had to move your guys around intelligently to succeed. This was pretty cool, although not a lot of shooters have used it since (although it's common in strategy games). Other games have tried to use tactical overhead views in shooters, but this is something that's harder to do correctly than a simple cover mechanic. Recently, the XCOM FPS game tried this and failed miserably.

-Byshop

@Gue1:

You picked the wrong example to advocate autocover....... The Last of Us was cumbersome...... Tomb Raider stuck to walls far more cleanly..... and even then..... it wasn't good enough to yank me away from good old fashioned button oriented sticky cover system..... of any game.

@mastermetal777:

Calls me a troll because he cant stand it when I'm right.......

you're so lazy.....

@Gue1: ur right I haven't tried the last of us. But I'm assuming it's similar to tomb raider? i think this system works for tomb raider but idk whether it's ideal for last of us. I say this because in gears of war and gta when u press the cover button u do a slick animation and rush to that cover. In tomb raider you can roll or dash to cover without having to press any cover button which is pretty neat. Idk how the one in last of us works but I don't think you can dash. If it had crouch it works but I'm taking about dashing to cover.

@Byshop: do you mean suppressing fire?

Yes, that's what I meant. It made that game pretty unique. Too bad more shooters don't use a similar mechanic.

-Byshop

@Byshop: Dude I love that mechanic too. I'm gonna try that with some friends tonight when I play heists on gta online. I wanna see if gta has this mechanic implemented. I have a feeling it does coz the AI never pops out of cover when you continuously fire at their hiding spot. I could pull off some serious tactical plays with my friends providing suppressing fire haha

@Lulu_Lulu: yeah because you haven't proven otherwise at all.....right.

And Gears of War sucks. I've played them all and none of what I played impressed me in the slightest.

I wouldn't go so far to call the cover mechanic an innovation, more of, well a mechanism. At best it is a refinement.

@mastermetal777:

Jesus you're a massive hypocrit.......

"And Gears of War sucks. I've played them all and none of what I played impressed me in the slightest."

And you say I have yet to prove points.....

The first Gears of War's cover system was fantastic....

It wasn't innovative either. Nope. That honor goes to Killswitch...... but unlike Kill Switch Gears Of War's cover system was polished....... and clever.... infact to this day I've yet to see a game that uses a single button for Sprinting Rolling getting in and out if cover and moving from one cover to another.... I believe Mass Effect 3 did though. ... Even the Legendary Vanquish used two seperate buttons for features Gears only did with one.......

Gears also actually puts its mechanics to use...... I don't get why people like to bitch and moan about the amount of chest high walls...... without them the cover system would merely be a gimmick.... iT even knows when to do away with it like those areas where you get attacked by wretches and tickers.

Should I keep going ? If you need a second to second to grasp the concept of an intelluctual argument then just say so..... I can wait...... in part two we shall discuss whats wrong with The Last of Us's cover system.

agree with lulu. cover in tlou was ok but often felt a bit fiddly and clumsy. in gears zipping in and out of cover felt far more natural and fluid.

as far as innovation goes i can't think of much else to add to what's already been said. i vaguely remember thinking the ability to pick up and throw grenades back at enemies in call of duty 3 was nice. and i was impressed with how well done shadow of mordor's nemesis system was and how it evolves throughout the game. it's a system that could be integrated into a lot of different genres

@Macutchi:

The thing that bugged me about TLOU is you need to aproach cover in a specific way if you want Joel to press up against properly with the camera focusing on the correct angle to peek around corners..... others he'l just crouch infront of it and the camera will show you a big pile of Nothing....... I never had this problem with Tomb Raider....partly because the camera is placed further back Behind Lara....

Edit..... I sincerely apologise for my grammar and spelling..... :(

When discussing this topic it's probably best to look at it from a Multiplayer angle if possible because that's where you really will see if alot of different gameplay mechanics works or not.

About Gears Of War, if they ever make a 4th game in the series there are a whole lot of stuff they could continue to improve on but i doubt we will see a more innovative feuture than the covershooting mechanic in Gears, not in Gears or any other game for that matter, not in a long time still, it's such a huge gamechanging innovative mechanic. I like the ideas from people here about crippling arms, legs and stuff.

There are games that incorporate various mechanics focused on either sponging up or blocking damage sources. There was that one Warhammer Marine game that had such mechanics. And of course other games just include cover as one of the many mechanics of combat in third person - like The Last of Us with its stealth-heavy gameplay.

@polishkid99: I agree, the game becomes predictable. Even in Open-World games it can force a small dose of linear level design where the game becomes linear even if it does not have a Linear level design at it's core. Cover Shooters are suffering from this. Gears of War was good but then the formula got overused and now gamers get tired of them because of the predictability of the game. I don't even want to talk about The Order: 1886.

@Lulu_Lulu: It maybe Standard but theres no game that implemented it better or aswell as gears of war.......

It's so nice to agree with you on something.

We always seem to to disagree in these forums.

@acp_45:

Its not you.... its me..... I have serious issues.... :(

Gears of War Wasn't the first game to introduce a covering system! KillSwitch came out a few years before Gears, but shooters weren't the industry standard at the time. That's why KillSwitch went under the radar.

@MarcRecon: I heard the Gears dudes hired the guy who designed the cover system for KillSwitch to design the cover system for Gears.

Then that explains where they got the cover system idea and that's one of the reasons that Gears is my favorite xbox exclusive.