Improve grenade throwing

[Joe98 90]

As you hold down the button, a red spot appears on the ground ahead.

This is the place a grenade would normally land if you let go right at this moment.

Also a green circle appears on the ground around the spot. Although you are aiming at a specific spot, in real life nobody is that accurate. Therefore the grenade lands somewhere in the circle at random.

The same idea can be used with weapons that fire grenades.

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[Ulanthorn 10]

Uhm...you might notice that aiming helps are left out of the game for good...thats a desigh decision...you need a bit pratice to use the weapons.

Anything less then veteran mode is not considered a difficulty.

Currently ist is just poiting and counting...1,2,3 throw.

Off course you can count to 10, thats makes you throw further.

Aiming aids, hud and crosshair all full off.

[Cookieeater 10]

Might be the same for weapons, but you can probably have a general idea of how far the grenade will go when you throw it in real life, compared to in game.

[dmarkwick 261]

Anything less then veteran mode is not considered a difficulty.

By who?

Aiming aids, hud and crosshair all full off.

This is your own preferred game style, but it does nothing to address the thread's premise. My own gaming style involves onscreen cues to replace the cues missing because of the nature of playing on a small 2D screen with no visceral feedback. Simulation doesn't always mean removing info, but replacing it with suitable info :)

I think generally grenades do need a small rethink. There are many RL moves with a grenade that cannot be done in the game, and as you say OP the grenade throw arc is very difficult to judge. As ever, practice makes perfect, but you should be able to pop a grenade through an open window without wrangling your position into a dangerous one.

[Ulanthorn 10]

By who?

By sever Admins of most serious coop based mission servers with reasonable difficulty and story driven missions.

---------- Post added at 03:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:44 PM ----------

By who?

By sever Admins of most serious coop based mission servers with reasonable difficulty and story driven missions. There is no point playing such a game PvP with all helpers enabled.

[wolfbite 8]

I agree i tend to avoid grenades because they are so hard to use. The lack of any feedback at all about the throw makes it very difficult to use them effectively.... a rough arc would be very helpfull..

[dmarkwick 261]

There is no point playing such a game PvP with all helpers enabled.

I would agree, which is why I have only some helpers enabled :) just the ones that replace the missing visceral cues.

[shay_gman 272]

I don't agree on the no-feedback mathood.

It's a simulator but also a video game, when video game could mimic the weight and phisical movement of my arm I'll say no to helpers. When I throw something I usually hit somewhere near the place I wanter do to hit it, In ArmA HE grenades are waste of gear slots. While in RL grenades are frequanly used because they are still and on of the best soultion for indirect fire on a relativly close target.

I do agree that grenade launcher don't need any helper with the iron sights. Learn how to use them as you do in RL.

Now for the post itself. I think it will be great thing but I'm not sure how it can be done.

[msy 22]

The most important is to resolve throwing twice bug when holding SHIFT-KEY to move.

[Baff1 0]

I had a go with VBS lite, the British armed forces one.

I was pleased to see that they had reworked the grenades to depict the predicted throwing arc.

It looked quite ugly, but suddenly grenades were a useful game option.

There aren't many games that do hand grenades worse than this one. In order to successfully simulate a throwing action in a 3D game enviroment, it must be a quick and instinctive action, intuative rather than consciously and deliberately aimed.

In real life I do not have to practise throwing things with a modicum of accuracy. I have known how to do so almost as long as I have been able to walk.

[11aTony 0]

I find throwing grenades in OA one of the best tbh. Ive seen some games that have a marker where the nade will land and I have to say it was way too easy. Main thing is that you can now throw a nade over the wall next to you. You can even make it so nade goes off in air, which is very nice.

However, such aid could be available as option in games parameters like crosshair, etc.

[Eclipse4349 0]

Another big thing that is missing IMO is the ability to toss or roll a grenade underhand. Especially with OA having so many enterable buildings. It is no good to have to look at the ground to get a grenade to go through an opening, rather than bouncing back into your face.

I also definitely agree that there needs to be some reworking on the feedback end also. I think that some sort of marker would be extremely helpful. As someone already said, it takes no conscious thought to be reasonably accurate enough to toss an object into a rough circular area in real life. That needs to be somehow worked into any game that uses grenades, or they will be largely avoided because of their unintuitiveness.

Also, a weighty object like a grenade probably doesnt bounce as much as those in Arma do when they hit the ground. This makes them even harder to use, because you can't predict where it will end up before it explodes. Something with weight will hit the ground and stop, possibly rolling or bouncing only a very, very short distance. It will not bounce like a tennis ball as the ones in Arma do!!

When it comes to a battlefield simulation, nothing touches Arma. Anyone who ever wish the Battlefield series leaned more towards realism has a dream come true in Arma. This is because the game does a great job, outstanding actually, on most things realism and weapon related. I could list many, like ballistic trajectory, time to target, the velocity effecting when you here a bullet crack in relation to the actual shot, the effect of fatigue and and the near misses that almost put a hole in your head on your accuracy... the list goes on and on. Grenades however, are not at all in this list!

Edited December 25, 2010 by Eclipse4349

[metalcraze 290]

No markers please. That will absolutely ruin the game. In real life you don't see where your grenade will go and ArmA is a sim. Go play Gears of War if you want to be a grenade-sniper.

[celery 8]

No markers please. That will absolutely ruin the game. In real life you don't see where your grenade will go and ArmA is a sim. Go play Gears of War if you want to be a grenade-sniper.

In real life you have a fairly good idea where you're throwing things. In Arma 2 you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to land a grenade near the general intended area, kill or no kill.

Incidentally, are you also opposed to the zoom function as you can't zoom in real life?

[rome 0]

Even CS has NO marker for nade. So please, no marker.

A simpler way to throw nade ala America's Army with the left hand aiming is really needed though.

[DillonAero 10]

To those who say there should be no visual aids for grenade throwing, I say then give me an interface that is somehow hooked up to the neurons in my muscles so I can gauge the throw by feel without any help from visual aid. But since we don't have that sort of technology, we have nothing but visual aid at this point, and the one currently in Arma 2 is lacking.

Even the old Rainbow 6 series had a more intuitive aid for throwing at the same time without making it too easy to be precise until you've become experienced with it: A little bar indicating how much strength is being put into the throw depending on how long you hold down the mouse button, combined with the factor of how high you are aiming, will result in a certain distance and trajectory of the throw. No destination markers needed and there's even an underhanded option. Simple yet effective.

And contrary to what a previous poster mentioned, I feel as if grenades in Arma 2 don't bounce at all, and seem not to be real objects either. From my experience, whenever I see a grenade land, all I saw was a little black dot that sticks to the ground as soon as it lands, with no bouncing or rolling whatsoever. There is no noise of it landing either, even if on concrete or hard indoor floor. So whenever a grenade is thrown at me I have no way of detecting where it lands unless I happen to look the right way.

So not only the throwing interface needs improvement, the grenade as an object itself needs to be made more substantial rather than "phantom-like".

Edited December 26, 2010 by DillonAero

[metalcraze 290]

In Arma 2 you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to land a grenade near the general intended area, kill or no kill.

That's strange. I usually throw grenade close to where I want it to go when playing.

Incidentally, are you also opposed to the zoom function as you can't zoom in real life?

That's BIS simulating eye-focus from real life where everything is in 3D. You can't just focus like that on objects on your plain 2D monitor screen where everything is drawn using small dots.

It's a different thing from pulling a grenade-sniper where everyone will just spam enemies with grenades - now if by some mistake in your config you play with the crosshair it won't tell you where bullets will drop now will it?

Edited December 26, 2010 by metalcraze

[dmarkwick 261]

No markers please. That will absolutely ruin the game. In real life you don't see where your grenade will go and ArmA is a sim. Go play Gears of War if you want to be a grenade-sniper.

Hmm, well you would be mightily disappointed with VBS2's method in that case, not only do you get a marker, you get the whole arc of flight displayed right there for you to see, meaning of course you can pop a nade through a window or a door. I'm in two minds - first of all, ArmA2 simulation doesn't involve taking away without appropriate replacement. That means that just because I don't have a marker in real life doesn't mean it's inappropriate to have one in-sim, because simulation means replacing meaningful RL cues with appropriate monitor 2D cues. Like the age-old question about HUD injury representation, IRL I know what hurts, ingame I need some other method to tell me.

I believe a separate grenade-throwing UI is needed, one that allows me to throw in different ways. How this is represented visually, well I have ideas but I'm open to suggestion also :) I did briefly toy with a method that involved player-only visible particles that represented the approx. current flight, but it proved unworkable with current particle methodology.

Edited December 26, 2010 by DMarkwick

[Millenium7 0]

my suggestion:

Grenade throwing should be angle dependant. I.E. if you look down below 45 degrees it should be rolled, between 45 and 120 degrees it should be thrown and over 120 degrees it should be lobbed high. In other words look down for low arc (rolls forward more, good for doorways), look ahead for mid arc (throw through window etc) and look up for high arc (over a wall)

The 'bouncing' REALLY needs to be reduced, atm its bloody ridiculous

I also think there should be a 'grenade' key. As it's too bloody fiddly hitting next weapon through a list of things to get to a grenade, then try to go back to your gun but... woops now its on burst fire mode, gotta cycle through again..... not good in CQB

And finally something must be done about the strength of the throw. I believe the only way to do this is with some sort of visual cue. The 'hold it longer to throw farther' method is not the most viable, infact I hate it because if you hold it just 0.5 seconds too long your stuffed, needs to be more precise.

Personally I think holding the fire/grenade button down, and then being able to roll the mouse wheel forward/back with a small visual bar to indicate throw strength would be ideal. Obviously disable the action menu while the fire/grenade button is held down so you aren't accidently scrolling through that. And also temporarily make the middle mouse/use action key 'cook' the grenade

So to recap grenade throwing would be done like this...

Hold down 'Grenade' key (or switch to grenade and hold down fire), keep it held down and scroll the mouse wheel forward/back for throw strength. Aim up/down towards target, aim low if its into a doorway, up high if its over a wall etc.

Optional: Click middle mouse button if you wish to start 'cooking' the grenade at which point you have 5 seconds before it goes bang

Release grenade key/fire button to throw grenade