What would you like BIS to focus on?

[NevilleBartos 10]

I think BIS should focus on officially supporting some of the user content out there, and on dedicated server performance.

[carlostex 38]

Forme i´ll just say the same as 2 guys previously asked.

1. Better rendering. Z fighting, popping textures and too much LOD swithcing makes a beautiful game like Arma 2 and OA look horrible at times...

2. Improved AI/CQB- Maybe when AI and player enters buildings a different animation system should kick in so we don´t get units stuck on walls and such. Pre defined line paths inside the buildings so AI could follow these with milimetric precision to correctly avoid obstacles. The AI sould be aware that windows are a good place to shoot from there.

I won´t even ask for higher FPS right now because with further patching and time we will get there. It happened with the first Arma. And 2 years from now faster hardware should allow us to pick up extra FPS.

Real Virtuality ENgine seems to like AMD RADEON shader architecture, and i´m curious how much extra juice we will gain from the new 6xxx line.

[ProfTournesol 956]

2. Improved AI/CQB- Maybe when AI and player enters buildings a different animation system should kick in so we don´t get units stuck on walls and such. Pre defined line paths inside the buildings so AI could follow these with milimetric precision to correctly avoid obstacles. The AI sould be aware that windows are a good place to shoot from there.

Well, in fact there is already a path lod in buildings model which indicates which path AI must follow inside buildings.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

AI & FPS for sure. What i'd love to see are more expressions on the AI faces plus the right body language to go with it, like surprise, horror, fear or anger. When i storm into a building and find a surprised AI guy who freezes in place and begins to think whether to give up or raise his weapon and take a chance - now that would bring ArmA to a new level. And we need spoken sentences. Targetting an enemy up close should make my character say something and make the AI scream lol.

Another thing which is not on the list would be the player animations from 1st person. When i play OpF, ArmA or ArmA2 i cant help but thinking i'm playing a robot. My hands and my rifle instantly move with static animations but there's no sense of mass. Everything is moving with 100% speed and then stops in place within a split second. When i run forward and stop i instantly stand, like i bumped into an invisible wall.

Play the old Halflife from 1998 and you'll get the opposite experience: everything is smooth. Starting to run takes a while until you get to full speed, and stopping means i really need to think how fast i am because i wont just stop in place. Same with Rainbow6:RavenShield - all the player animations are very well done and smoothly transform into each other. Whether i'm climbing a ladder or opening a door, everything looks and feels like i'm really a person, not a robot.

[whisper 0]

My personnal list would start first with 2 items not in the list : Better addon management and more fluid animations. I know BI works on the first item, at least :)

I'll add another item too, better sound spatialization. I don't know for 5.1 systems, but with only 2 speakers or headset, localizing a sound source in A2 is terrible.

From the list given, I've chosen the dedicated server optimization and better FPS on client.

But tbh, you can't really make a list. We have all very different expectations for this game, due to its very large scope and possibilities, making it very hard for BI to have a clear "primary objective". They have to do much things as "primary objectives" ;)

[Flash Thunder 10]

For me its just performance my 9800gt and my quad core 2.6 ghz cpu should be able to play it OA latest build on Medium at least at 30 fps, for some reason its never 30 its always like 25-20fps this is with no AA no PP, Crap viewdistance.

i pretty much gave up on this game, my computer clearly aint capable unless I got 1000 extra bucks to waste on 2 5870's to get some visuals that dont look like they were from my PS2 at playable frame-rate in this game you want 60fps from what I tested the AI do better the higher the FPS.

my opinion though, I also have nobody to play this game with anymore.

BIS content wise is awesome but the engine is a pain at least for me.

[nodunit 397]

my computer can run both A2 and OA (mind you its under 30 fps) with just pentium D (the weakest of it's cousins) 2.80, x2 9500 GT's and 4 gigs of ram ddr2 2800 most likely..it's years old and it runs the games great most of the time even with near max viewdistance, textures set to very high, anti aliasing 1 or 2 and object detail set to high (on both Chernarus and Takistan)

Have you cleaned your PC recently? Done a thorough scan for viruses, malware, trojans and history cleanup as well as defragging hard drive?

Edited September 13, 2010 by NodUnit

[SPC.Spets 21]

can you focus on everything ^^ ???

that's everyones wish ;)

+1 :p

I will say, a complete animation for reloading weapons, boarding some vehicle, etc. little details that makes the game more inmersive and feel more realistic

[cjph 0]

"A well deserved rest after OA and BAF ?" :D

Or Optimized Client FPS/Loading. Low fps plus a change in vegetation shapes often divert my attention and lets the opposition end me. Or I am just a bad player. :o

[Flash Thunder 10]

my computer can run both A2 and OA (mind you its under 30 fps) with just pentium D (the weakest of it's cousins) 2.80, x2 9500 GT's and 4 gigs of ram ddr2 2800 most likely..it's years old and it runs the games great most of the time even with near max viewdistance, textures set to very high, anti aliasing 1 or 2 and object detail set to high (on both Chernarus and Takistan)

Have you cleaned your PC recently? Done a thorough scan for viruses, malware, trojans and history cleanup as well as defragging hard drive?

Of course, I built this PC a year and a half ago, I orginally had a ati radeon 3650 and my friend gave me his 9800gt saw a tiny performance increase but nothing substanial.

The game and the engine have a mind of its own, people are too busy asking me if my computer is whats wrong, it has latest drivers, no viruses, no 3rd party apps unless I need them to run, I constantly monitor CPU usage and GPU usage and temperature values, gpu usage in OA is ually 98% yet Its only temperature wise 75-80celcius thats a full load.

Like I said the game has a mind of its own, sometimes it will run fine, sometimes it will run 25-20fps NO MATTER WHAT SETTINGS.

I dunno. I just want better FPS, Im fine with content and features OA cannot be beaten when it comes to those, I really want RV to become more fluid and stable etc, would make the experience 100% better. :)

[polar bear 10]

The poll missed a big one:

Better documentation of the scripting API. A simulation engine should come with lots and lots of documentation, should not have to hunt through forums looking for posts to figure out how to use key modules and functions. Should be able to look it up in one canonical place--the biki is a good start but it is very limited.

My other big one would be implement a proper physics engine so that tanks don't bounce 30 feet up in the air when they drive over a pebble.

Third would be engine improvements around close quarter combat and indoor movement--make it smoother and more natural.

[armatech 8]

The poll missed a big one:

Better documentation of the scripting API. A simulation engine should come with lots and lots of documentation, should not have to hunt through forums looking for posts to figure out how to use key modules and functions. Should be able to look it up in one canonical place--the biki is a good start but it is very limited.

My other big one would be implement a proper physics engine so that tanks don't bounce 30 feet up in the air when they drive over a pebble.

Third would be engine improvements around close quarter combat and indoor movement--make it smoother and more natural.

not needed there is athe BIKI

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/

[CarlGustaffa 4]

What should BIS focus on?

Fill in the names sections on classes so that they show up with descriptive names rather than come up with blanks. There should be no blanks in the vanilla game. I.e. in triggers effect lists, you get a few sounds listed, and a lot of blanks. So you need to try every single one of them if you need to use it from the editor.

If too much work with localized descriptive names (understandable), even classnames would be better than nothing.

[metalcraze 290]

BIS should just concentrate on fixing bugs and making AI more lifelike.

When you must have an additional mod to make AI breach houses and deploy smoke you know that BIS has a lot to work on.

Also pathfinding. As I take it houses still need waypoints in them to make AI move around or at least enter them?

[Zipper5 74]

I've seen the AI on many occasions now dynamically enter buildings if the situation requires it. However, I believe they can still only move to pre-set positions in the buildings and not just anywhere in them.

[whisper 0]

I've seen the AI on many occasions now dynamically enter buildings if the situation requires it. However, I believe they can still only move to pre-set positions in the buildings and not just anywhere in them.

AFAIK :

* They don't enter buildings unless ordered to

* They go to predefined positions in building

They are ordered to get in a building when :

* They have a waypoint pointing to a specific building location

* They are ordered to engage a unit in a building

Ie, if not indicated by a waypoint (ie, in a non dynamic way), they will not enter a building unless another unit is already in the building, and with this rule in, you see very fast that they never enter building on their own. In a AI vs AI fight, no AI will enter a building.

Now, when player enter the equation, it changes all, because player can enter the building, thus being the first unit entering the building, and starting a possible chain of AI entering buildings ;)

In sort, without player, they won't use buildings.

This may have changed in recent OA patches, though, I've not tested since some months

[Zipper5 74]

They do use buildings, though. I've seen on many occasions that they will dynamically enter and move about one, sometimes getting to a spot and then shooting at me. Whether or not it was just a fluke of the AI pathfinding is a different story, but on Takistan at least they enter the buildings quite often. And this is without any scripting making them do so, and using the latest beta.

[maddogx 13]

An AI medic also climbed up a ladder onto a building in order to heal me once. Afterward he walked back to the edge and climbed down again. It was so unexpected that the experience was almost bizarre. I even have it on FRAPS. :D

[whisper 0]

Indeed, I forgot that AI do not always follow player to shoot him :)

[Dead3yez 0]

I'd like to see little things fixed, like:

• Weapons models. E.G M16A2 M203 weapon sights still low poly/texture, eyepoint wrong. Add animated ejector ports for all M16 variants/ all weapons. Also add support in OA to enable peq-2 to ArmA 2 content.
  
• Islands. Things like hovering trees on slopes.
  
• BAF content. Sounds on turret weapons / proxy zasleh on warriors / inverse door actions in Shapur... bla bla.
  

What I'd like to see:

• Added animations: Steering wheel, reloading static weapons, moving mounted weapons.
  
• Making the controls feel more fluid, specifically for movement (easier for CQC, walking over objects, collision model).
  
• Improved vehicle handling.
  

Anyway, all improvements in patches are always great, even if they are sometimes missing things I would have liked to have seen.

[callihn 10]

I didn't really see the option I wanted, which was to improve the listen/host server so we can use a server.cfg and run BE for those little WAN parties, as it stands now you can't and thus have to lock it or get cheaters since you can't run BE or check sigs, I've honestly never seen such a poor listen/host server.

Second would be the ability to override files using a package loaded after the original content, this would allow you to make changes without having to touch the actual content, for example you could use a custom config file on a model or a slightly different model even without touch the original or having to repackage everything.

Then I guess performance would be next on my list, I'm still curious and have yet to see an answer as to what compile options are being used to date, is this yet another game optimized for the i586 when a i586 can't even play it?

Next would be swicthing from DirectX to OpenGL, but we know that's not going to happen, so.

[Leopardi 0]

VSYNC OPTIONS. It would make playing ARMA a much better experience.

[maddogx 13]

VSYNC OPTIONS. It would make playing ARMA a much better experience.

Well, VSync can always be forced off in the driver settings, but an in-game option would certainly make things easier.

[bez 10]

I voted for better AI, GUI.

ANIMATIONS

I also think they should work ALLOT on the animations.

Now I am not expecting it to happen in arma2 but for the next game...

they should use euphoria, or make something like euphoria.

Look at GTA IV, ok arma 2 is bigger and have better graphics,

but there are still allot of peds in GTA IV they are ALL euphoria rag dolls.

back to animations, the so called mantel is funny imho,

soldiers sometimes jump over small rocks while running,

they can climb walls, they even train in CQB to push other up walls and such.

think about arma 3 and euphoria :eek:

which leads me to the physics which is something that should be revamped in the next game in general,

proper physics like rigid objects, physical demolition of large objects, proper vehicle physics and a smart ragdoll system (euphoria).

this would make arma3 the best game ever and don't let anyone fool you, it can be done if they will rewrite the engine

(which must happen in the next game).

BI YOU CAN DO IT I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!

however for arma2 i think they should at list fix animation timings, optimize collision detection and other small stuff.

GUI

The fact that the user interface has changed so slightly since OPF is insulting.

Yes we have the quick command menu, it is better but still awkward to use.

there are many issues still in the UI, very hard to control a squad in a way that

feel fluid. i know some of you will say it takes practice, but that is a poor excuse, since if it can be done better (and it can) why not implement it?

I think Radial menus frightens some members of the arma 2 community

because they see it as a dumb interface from consoles and maybe they are right.

but content aware radial menus done right would elevate this game so much.

of course they should keep the old interface if you want it with the 1-0 keys

and the back space, it would be the legacy mode.

and you still have a full keyboard to custom controls as you see fit.

but with content aware radial menus i will probably won't use the keyboard as

much as i do now and will control my squad better easier and quicker.

THIS HAS GOT TO CHANGE IN THE NEXT GAME.

AI

well generally the AI is good, except when driving (path finding in general)

and their magic ability to run through walls and other obstacles.

they also do not enter buildings, it is funny since i have seen civilians hiding inside homes i think.

Other than that I see arma 2 OA as a huge improvement over arma 2.

I love this game it is by far my favorite game.

I just hope next one will be all that.

thank you for the game BI.

Edited September 20, 2010 by bez

[ProfTournesol 956]

The fact that the user interface has changed so slightly since OPF is insulting.

Mmmm... sounds a little ridiculous, doesn't it ?