Does anybody prefer lock-on cover systems over passive cover systems in third person games?

[Zhukov]

Let me take a moment to define my terms here.

By "lock-on cover system" I mean the mechanics popularized by Gears of War. Press a button to enter cover, press it again to move freely. Aim to peek out. Fire to blind fire. Use other buttons to switch to nearby cover or vault over current cover.

By "passive cover system" I mean that used in the new Tomb Raider games and The Last of Us (and possibly other games that I didn't play). Move close enough to a cover object, crouching if necessary, and your character just automatically tucks themselves into cover. Aim to peek out etc. You can still move freely without having to specifically detach yourself. No option to switch cover, you have to manually walk yourself to wherever you want to be.

EDIT: Just to be clear, with the passive systems I'm talking about you do not ever "stick" to cover. I was very deliberate in my choice of examples there.

So, does anyone prefer the former system? If so, I would be curious to hear your reasons.

I ask because after having experienced the latter system games using the former system feel clumsy and dated to me. I personally hope passive cover systems become the standard.

 

[tippy2k2]

I much much much MUCH prefer the "passive" cover

I don't know if it's my slow brain or clumsy fingers or what it is but when I have to press the button to get to cover and then press a button to get out of cover, it just kills the flow I had and generally gets me killed or discovered.

I can't count how many times this has happened to me in Assassins Creed...

Alright, I have that bad guy to stab in the face! Get behind the doorway and wait for him to turn around. He turned! Go Ezio!...Go Ezio!....God damn it, I pressed the button, Go! NO, I don't want you to switch cover, I want you to get out of cover. No! GOD DAMN IT Ezio!!! No, you vaulted the cover, what the fuck are you doing!?!? Get out of cover so I can walk and stab this guy in the face! Damn it! He turned around...

Now contrast that with my Last of Us experience...

Alright, I have that bad guy to stab in the face! Get behind the doorway and wait for him to turn around. He turned! Go Joel! Off the wall, face stab, now let's move on. Boy am I glad that the game doesn't force me to stick to stick on cover like I was a magnet!

 

[Jamash]

I much prefer it when entering cover and changing my stance and manner of fighting and movement is a voluntary action instigated by myself at the touch of a button, so lock-on cover system for me.

I can't even remember the specific games, but my vague recollection of passive cover systems always seemed to be imperfect, like I was fighting with the system and sometimes getting sucked onto a wall without intending to go in to cover, so you would have to give walls and sticky objects a wide berth if you didn't want to automatically go into cover when you don't intend to. I think the most recent game may have been Assissins Creed Black Flag, although I could be confusing its cover system with all its other involuntary passive changes to movement.

I think I even prefer no cover system, other than crouching and positing yourself behind obstructions manually, to a passive system that decides what you want to be doing at a given moment in time based entirely on your proximity to certain unmarked objects and terrain features.

 

[DoPo]

I prefer the passive cover system. It's a natural evolution of the old "no-cover" system (where you just go behind something and that's it) and the lock on cover system. It's really mostly the "no-cover", it's just touched up to make the animations better.

I just never really liked the lock-on cover. Didn't seem natural to me after years of playing Quake/Unreal Tournament/Half-Life/Counter-Strike. If you go behind an object, you are in cover, to me - that's it. Adding an additional button for that is just...bizarre. It's like if you were typing and every third space you want to add, you have to press they key twice. Sure, you could have that but I don't see a good reason for this behaviour. Vaulting to cover could already be done with dodge buttons[footnote]on a separate note, they never really took off in FPSes. Which is a bit of a shame. The Specialist mod for Half-Life showed they could work and work well. It's not such a stretch to use the acrobatics to go to different cover.[/footnote] or even by redesigning the "lean" buttons.

I don't really see the lock-on cover solving any problems that really needed solving. It was introduced in order to make shooters less hectic and slower paced and to...well, streamline the level design. I think it's just like the lazy way out.

Passive cover system is not a really new thing, as I said, it's been out there since the dawn of FPS games, however, I think it looks really good in third person shooters. It's way more natural and just doesn't bog down the game with unnecessary controls.

 

[Souplex]

Once again I must correct your terminology Zu. This is becoming a distressing pattern.
The terms are "Sticky cover".

 

[Barbas]

If it's tied to a button, I'll likely forget. You shouldn't have to press a specific button to exercise basic self-preservation in a firefight, anyway. Passive all the way (preferably destructible and directional cover as well) so long as it doesn't involve a pointlessly flash and time-consuming animation - again, ridiculous when you're doing something that you only ever do in as little time as possible.

 

[Zhukov]

So, does anyone prefer the latter system?

Do you mean the latter or the former?

Shhhhhhh. You saw nothing.

 

[Silvanus]

I much prefer passive cover. Lock-on cover systems just don't feel as natural, and always make me take cover on the wrong piece of debris, or slow me down when I'm trying to move or something. I tend to sigh when I realise the cover system is sticky.

 

[DoPo]

Shhhhhhh. You saw nothing.

I think I smell a cover up. You can never silence the truth! FREEDOM OF SPEA...

*gets shot from behind a crate*

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Always lock-on. I had bad experience with passive cover system, and contextual controls in general.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

I hate cover system in general. i prefer lean and peak. cover system slowdown the gameplay, break the immersion and make game much casual and easy. its one of the worst mechanic ever introduce in gaming. althought im fine with cover system in stealth game but not on Shooters.

 

[Glongpre]

The best cover system I have used was in Splinter Cell Conviction. You use left trigger to stick to a wall.

I believe it also crouches you, so when you aren't near a wall you just crouch, but once you get close enough, Sam will stick to the wall.

Easy peezy, no muss no fuss.

 

[Pseudonym]

I don't play a whole lot of third person games and when I do I ussually just go through them once. The only ones I played a lot were the mass effect games. So I'm digging and trying to remember whether the games I played had lock-on cover or not, I'm not sure.

In any case, assuming both variants are done well, I much prefer to have a button so that I will decide when and where to take cover. Otherwise I will take the game with the better system, even if it is a passive lock on game.

I much prefer the cover system of a game like halo or call of duty though, where to take cover you stand behind a solid object which blocks bullets. You can crouch or in some games lie down behind these solid objects. Maybe some of the objects are more solid than others. There might be a lean feature with the q and e buttons. No need for any systems beyond that, if you ask me.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

No cover system.
If I want to take cover I'll go behind something and crouch/prone.
I want to decide when to crouch, take cover, shoot and why.
No streamlined auto-cover/fighting/acrobatics. It's a no sale.

I remember a mod for half-life that implemented "cool effects" whereby you could vault all over the place and implement slow bullet/matrix time whenever you chose to.
Can't remember the name sadly but if they could do it in a mod then triple-A gaming sure as hell should be able to come up with something equally good.
Not making the new generation of gamers dependent on the game playing itself..

 

[DoPo]

I had bad experience with passive cover system, and contextual controls in general.

And I've had very bad experiences with lock-on cover systems.

I think it would only be fair to compare the two on equal terms, though - every concept could be implemented poorly, however, I don't see people denouncing, say, Euro Truck Simulator just because Big Rigs exists.

 

[DoPo]

I remember a mod for half-life that implemented "cool effects" whereby you could vault all over the place and implement slow bullet/matrix time whenever you chose to.
Can't remember the name sadly but if they could do it in a mod then triple-A gaming sure as hell should be able to come up with something equally good.

There was The Specialist mod which ran wild with the idea. It was awesome. You could roll, plunge and do other acrobatics and it all depended on a single button. Some powerups allowed you to also execute very enhanced actions, like the bullet time[footnote]everybody else was just REALLY slow, while you had more control, also you'd be using it when it was advantageous to YOU, so the rest of the players would probably have the effect wasted[/footnote], akimbo guns (so you could do dual uzis or shotguns), or enhanced acrobatics which both enhanced your stamina meter and allowed your dodges and rolls to cover more ground and in general be more awesome. The Specialist focused on making the entire match into a John Woo movie.

There was also Action Half-Life which did this before the Specialist but to a smaller extent. I believe it only allowed you one plunge once in a while. It also had some powerups that were similar in concept to the other mod. Action Half-Life was still trying to do a somewhat "movie-like" experience but in a different direction. I think later versions of the mod did introduce some bigger changes to what I played (including a single player, I think) but I never actually managed to play the more recent versions. Similarly, I only played the beta for The Specialist, as I wasn't able to get the later versions of the mod.