Bring back the Stealth.

The GRAW/GRAW2 engine, IMO is terribly lacking when it comes to rendering grass at long distances. As it has been stated many times, this leaves one at a tactical disadvantage since one's view is obscured by the grass that surrounds him, while the distant observer sees the him lying on bare ground with nothing concealing him.

I haven't worked out every detail but I think this idea is worthy of discussion in hopes that the right set of eyes will view it an it will one day be incorporated into future game-play, probably not in this game, but maybe some future title.

First, there needs to be character skills governing observation and stealth. Your stealth ability will control your visibilty to others, and, your observation skill will control your ability to view other players. The visibilty of a player in-game will be a function of these two attributes and the game's graphics engine will then render the players accordingly. The stealth effects also need to be governed by some additional conditions.

- The stealth effects are non-existant if a player is walking/running/firing.
- The stealth effect fade into effect after a period of non-movement (like 10-15 sec).
- The stealth effects are diminished by some percentage by slow movement (like 5-10%).
- The stealth effect are lost upon firing but fades back to full effect more quickly than after running or walking. This exposes a sniper to being spotted for a few seconds after taking a shot, but returns him to the safety of his concealment if the enemy fails to locate him quickly (like 5-10 sec).
- The stealth effects are lost completely if an enemy is within some minimum distance (like 20m). The minimum distance would increase to 40m if the person hiding is talking.
- Since the system is also based on the skill of the observer you could have a situation where some are able to see a target, and some are not.
- If your are within 20m of a player who CAN see the target, you would inherit his ability to see that target. This would simulate the ability of being able to point and say "He's over there".

Think of the strategic impact this would have where teams each have a sniper. Instead of the sniper's having a footrace to get into position and get off the first shot, they could drop down behind a rock or other object, wait for full stealth to kick in, then slowly crawl to a postion of better observation. While still, the two snipers would have no chance of spotting the other. As each sniper scan the battlefield, he sacrifices some of his stealth possibly exposing himself to his opponent. Or, when sniper-A fires upon the manuevering squad-B, sniper-B then see where sniper-A is, and takes him out.

If this were incorporated, the grass could be completely removed and the graphics engine would be relieved of ever having to render grass. As I said, its not a fully developed idea, but I'm curious as to what other peoples thoughts are on the subject.

i would like to see something done to deal with the issue's concerning grass.

i think there has been other games where you would become somewhat transparent when lying in the grass,to an observing who was at a distance where the grass was no longer being drawn.

If they fix the draw distance on grass, problem solved. The last thing a (supposedly) realistic game needs is invisible players. There are already plenty of solo ninja kiddie-snipers running around. No need to encourage even LESS team play. It's less of a problem in AA:TS than in GR since GR is, or at least used to be, more based around stealth.

I would agree that if they solve the draw distance with the grass it would solve the problem. However, the CPU power required to do that level of rendering out to the distances required to keep someone concealed may not be solved with this generation of console (or next even?).

RoaS employed this technique although a much lesser degree in that, if you character couldn't see an enemy (based on relative observation/stealth of the players), you wouldn't get the red-dot over their head.

I disagree with your point that something of this nature would encourage less team play. If that's the case, you should be advocating to have the sniper position eleminated from the game, since by it's nature, it is a position separate from the main element. I don't know of any Army Field Manuals that state a sniper is part of an infantry fire-team or squad.

Fact of the matter is coordinating effort and working as a team can be done with a sniper. A well positioned sniper is your extra set of eyes on the battlefield and works better than the drone in some instances. If he's in direct communication, he's telling you what you need to know, vs the drone which requires that you have your eyes on the drone-view. I guess you could argue that there's no difference, that a soldier manning the drone is as dis-engaged from the team as a distant sniper. But at least the sniper can act against an enemy target. Until they arm the drone's the guy manning the drone is at a disadvantage (in that scenario).

The problem might be partially solved by fully rendering soldier's camo and face-paint at all distances. I mean, what's the point in having selectable gear if it means nothing in game.

I've reading some old couple old smct's one from 81, another from 90. A lot of the info/content is the same stuff they currently use. I found this website:

http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/SMCT_CTT_Tasks/Sk...sl1-select-tem.shtml

It has duplications of what is actually printed. If you clink the link, it will take you to "071-326-0513 (SL1) - Select Temporary Fighting Positions" Number 2 says: "Choose a position that allows you to observe and fire around the side of an object while concealing most of your head and body." I think I remember reading some more detailed info about this somewhere on the site too, but I cant find it now.

If you explore the grassy areas around the sides of cover spots on the demo level, you will find many spots that work with that. You can use the grass as concealment and see through it. I don't know if Red Storm meant to program that in there but its been working for me. Versus looking over objects. In wide open spots it's obviously hard to use, but don't you always want to try to find cover or at least concealment anyway?

I've really just been learning a lot of this stuff. I have knowledge of paintball and experience target shooting with my own guns. but its been trial and error. I don't know if something should of been different about the game yet.

While the same principles apply equally to both the infantryman and the sniper, the sniper relies as much on concealment as he does cover. The difficulty to detect someone should be in direct proportion to the distance of observation. Currently the game makes it easier to see someone once you achieve a certain distance. All I am suggesting is to come up with a way to augment the current technology so that it more accurately reflects real-world conditions. Just as there are those who are lobbying for instant kill ability as opposed to a fixed length death-clock, which btw, I hope they fix for the final version, but that's a discussion for another thread.

There's a big difference between snipers and marksmen.. If you pay close attention you'll notice in GR that there are no snipers, only marksmen. They should be working with their team, and if they're not then they're not doing their job. The "lone gunman" might get a few kills, but a good marksman who works with the squad will help the team a lot more. As far as invisibility goes, this isn't D&D - I shouldn't have to make a saving throw to spot an enemy.

Sniper or marksman, a rose by any other name is still a rose... neither is part of a Rifle Company Squad or Fire Team. Yet, they are in the game. A soldier equipped with that style of weapon is expected to behave/perform in a manner consistant with that weapon: He engages the enemy from a greater distance from a position that affords him good cover and concealment. The game provides the weapon but not the means to use it in the manner that it was intended.

I completely agree that a marksman worth his weight in salt, would be working in coordination with the fire team. But, he's going to be most effective doing so from a distance and stationary, not along side manuevering with the fire team.

Nope. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_marksman

Okay, I can admit err on my part on the sniper/DM point. My frame of reference is my Army Field Manual FM 7-8 (dated 1981). It was relevant during my term of service (1986 to 1992).

Your link describes the weapon that the DM would use for that role, but that is not the weapon that is issued in the game. The weapon in the game sounds more like the sniper's weapon (going by the article's description).

The topic of the thread is stealth and observation and how this game handles those elements, or how they might be handled in the future, not the technical differences between marksmen and snipers and their weapons. I know what you're trying to do. You don't like what I am saying so you are attempting to invalidate the entire discussion my pointing out errors in my statements that are mostly irrelevant to the subject at hand. You read one word in the discussion that you don't like (invisibity), so you are trying to trash the entire discussion. Either get with the discussion, or move on.

Sorry, but it's a terrible idea. There's plenty of cover in the game - they just need to fix the draw distance on grass. COD4 handles it just fine so it's clearly possible. There is no need to resort to turning snipers into Predator.

quote:

Originally posted by MeanMF:
Sorry, but it's a terrible idea.

In your opinion.

BTW, why don't you stop over to the True Soldiers website and look over the roles, and then come back and man up to the fact that you were wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by MeanMF:
Sorry, but it's a terrible idea. There's plenty of cover in the game - they just need to fix the draw distance on grass. COD4 handles it just fine so it's clearly possible. There is no need to resort to turning snipers into Predator.

The draw distance problem is a huge deal. At a min they should render the grass while you are Scoped in on a target. Not showing the grass and some bushes past a certain point is a huge drawback.

This problem was present in GRAW 1 and 2 you think they would have taken notice.

Ya if they get grass to render at distance it would be fine. As it is, there aren't all that many spots on the map where it's a problem, but when it does show up it's really annoying. But the way to fix the problem is to fix the problem, not to introduce more unrealistic aspects.

I did a little experimenting and found using the bushes works good.

Here's Some Pics

They are kind of blurry, because I used my cellphone/television to get them. In the top 2 notice how well the concealment works using the bush. The scale from enemy/friendly POV is amazing. It is prone behind bush with lean. Really blends in. The friendly is to the right of that tree BTW.

In the bottom left, notice how the m4 goes through the rock, but the end of the barrel is unobstructed. Looking, through the scope, there are also no obstructions to view from that position. Once again, hard to notice, until you get real close.

Shadow is an important factor in both of these too, as it contributes to the blending in to surroundings. It makes it hard for the eye to pick out a human shape figure from the bush.

One other test I did relates to the cliff spot. I found what seemed like an amazing spot below, in-between small palm trees. You couldn't see the guy from even right next to him, yet had a pretty good view of the entire bridge still. I checked multiple vantage points and you could not see the guy from anywhere. Until you went up top, then all the grass was invisible, and he was plain as day.

These tests, which would not of been possible with out me, annoying the hell out of my girlfriend, made me rethink some of strategies to say the least.