I Used to Believe in Suppression

 DICE introduced a new game mechanism called "suppression effect" in BF3. What it does is when you are fired upon, your vision goes blur, and your accuracy drops magnificently, even if you're aiming right at your target.

 The purpose is to force you to find cover and play more tactically - same as in real combats which is to prevent enemy targets from operating. So basically I supported DICE's take on suppression effect at first, but later I regretted and turned against it.


Suppressive Fire in real life

 Let's take a look at suppressive fire in real firefight:

Soldier under fire, via Darrod Peters

 Like you see in the picture above, when suppressed, a soldier would feel great pressure both physically an psychologically, and thus instinctively tries to keep head down and take cover, making he/she temporarily incapable to engage.

 It's usually used on close quarter combat to suppress enemy fireteam, with favorably deployed machine guns, or sniper fire (DMR). And also often used by vehicles to create landing zone, secure rendezvous area.. etc.

 I'm not a strategist but it's clear that a well placed suppressive fire would gain your team great tactical advantages.




Suppression Effect in BF3

 When suppressed, the time and space for one to operate will decreased, and the fear of death would rise. DICE tried to mimic this by blurring your vision, and adding RBS (Random Bullet Spread) by large amount - basically you are still able to aim if you manage to deal with the blur, but your bullets would most likely miss the target.

 Below are the main reasons why this doesn't work as DICE expected:

1) Guns and bullets have no feelings, they don't get suppressed nor feel the fear of death, but DICE just made them do with increased RBS, while soldier - whose movement and capability should be affected instead, can still aim perfectly.

Normal shooting

RBS based suppression

Soldier movement based suppression

 Some may argue the increased RBS is equal to degrading soldier's abilities like aiming. But I'd have to say no, as I've seen too many cases that a soldier gets suppressed and gets behind cover, yet the enemy runs up while the poor fellow, though have already found cover, have terrible RBS to defend him/herself...
Possible Solution
 A. Make soldier's capability affected, not the weapon's performance
 B. Remove suppression effect


2) Ironically soldier's movement gets affected when his/her rifle is deployed on bipod, causing gun to sway, even though bipod is there to help gun's stability in the first place. Plus the RBS and blur, using bipod becomes worse than without it.
Possible Solution
 A. Weapon on bipod should not sway, make soldier keep head down or dodge instead
 B. Remove suppression effect


3) When in sudden encounters with enemy soldier, especially in CQC, it's more of a fight or die matter than fight or flight, as you don't really have time to run away and take cover but to focus and down your opponent ASAP. But with the suppression effect in bound, the one who fire first, no matter by luckily spotting you first, has faster connection, or better reflex, can put the opponent in great disadvantage. This can be done more efficiently with aim assist.

When in sudden CQC encounter, it's about Fight or Die

In BF3, it means automatically panic

 And if you have laggy connection like me, it's going to be worse.
Possible Solution - I don't know LOL remove it maybe?




Suppression Effect in other games

 Not many shooter games out there have suppression effect, but it worths a look at the two below

ERM, a realistic mod of Call of Duty: World at War

It has a similar effect to BF3's blurry vision, but only take effects for a minimal amount of time, and it utilizes sound of bullets passing by which further adds tension, the ballistics seems to remain unchanged.

Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm

(4:26, 5:30, 6:20)

It's a lot more saturated than BF3, and it gives Banzai chargers more stamina and suppresses the US marines within certain radius. Unsure if ballistics is affected.

The ideal suppression approach for BF4?

 I'm not saying it's the only way to go, but for me the best way to create tactical gameplay, is to NOT focus on suppression, but other game mechanics like bullet damage, solider movements, map design.. etc, but if we have to have suppression in this game then I'd say make it blur only and nothing more (edit: or use bullet's pass-by sound as a que to add tension), or if possible make soldier instinctively dodge, keep head down, avoid coming fire, but not adding RBS to the guns.

 But for now, and maybe whole BF3 lifespan, it's always gonna be there, so we all have to deal with it, unfortunately.

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