Add a reticle on player's reported spotted units

[mrcash2009 0]

I actually fully understand what this thread is all about and I think it should be added.

I think to sum it up .... your "inside" the body of the leader which you control, but then the AI side of spotting of the "body your in" shouts out spotted enemies, if this is the case its doing it FOR you and YOU (the being inside the AI body as leader) hasn't actually "seen" anything.

So a visual temp clue for the player inside the leader to marry up would be a nice balance, so therefore you have actually/literally "seen" the same in order to have it reported and logged.

I understand all the settings and situations of hard/easy and all what people have stated, but in such a situation of this setting a visual clue would be a bonus.

Otherwise its like your suffering from schizophrenia and a voice in your head spots enemies of which you have no clue where they are :) IE: "enemy spotted" ... ummm who said that? I haven't seen anything? Who are you? Why are you telling me this?! Get out of my head!!!!! :man3::jail: :)

some people should not buy Arma, but stay with CoDs

Arma2 is suppose to be simulator, if you would be in real war, you would not have any radar or reticle, you're good or die

Yes but you and me all started somewhere, these assist tools (with and "off" switch BTW) are there not for you but people learning the ropes, if you want it that real, go to war, this is still in binary remember. And as a request within an assist tool, it makes sense. Edited December 8, 2010 by mrcash2009

[NoRailgunner 0]

Well ok, but maybe the suggestion could be more like:

"Players character should only report those contacts that he really made on his own (= no sudden+surprising contact reports from players character) !" :)

Its imho better to silence this internal voice instead of adding even more consolish/gamey things like contact/target markers on screen.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I think the current implementation is good enough. When you actually get a target, you get a square on that target. If others get the target, you don't know as much as the others - maybe the leader pointed out the target to the unit. But if you have extended map info turned on, at least you can enter the map and get an update on the situation. Takes time, as would consulting with the leader. At the same time, at verbal communications going on should be enough to make the player try to keep his head down. And if you go as low as recruit difficulty mode, you get colored blobs not only in the peripheral vision, but also on screen, that will help you track them. I don't want this to be available in higher difficulty modes. War is confusing, and I think the current implementation depicts it quite well. The AI does get some artificial benefits from it, true, but simply by being AI they also get some artificial drawbacks, such as not being able to run between covers efficiently etc.

If you're the leader, you should spend most time in your map I think, to direct your squad, having extended map info enabled. But it's a dilemma for MP, as at least I consider extended map info a pest for gameplay :p

[Mr. Charles 22]

Sizing down the 'scan area' would be enough imho. Happens way too often that i just want to zoom in on a city and thus already spotted lots of enemies.

[Cookieeater 10]

LOL! You couldn't have explained yourself any better yet over and over this sounds like a Monty Python routine.

And I support what you saying :D

I don't understand how many people aren't understanding what i'm trying to say,:confused:. It's a little bit hilarious but all so frustrating.

some people should not buy Arma, but stay with CoDs

Arma2 is suppose to be simulator, if you would be in real war, you would not have any radar or reticle, you're good or die

Ok where would it happen in real life that you looked through your binoculars, yell out that an enemy is there, and still not know where you just spotted the enemy from?

ArmA II is supposed to be a simulator, yet through the monitor and mouse and keyboard interface, some things just have to be adjusted for computer playing. It's why you have the "extended" vision in First person where you can see blobs on the edge of your view to simulate the full FOV that humans can see. The vision system for the AI is obviously not perfect and makes a lot of mistakes such as reporting units through trees or houses. Even when it doesn't make a mistake, you almost always barely see the unit you just spotted due to limitations such as low resolution. This would curb the problem of player's not knowing where they just shouted their units from and would make ArmA II more realistic.

I think the current implementation is good enough. When you actually get a target, you get a square on that target. If others get the target, you don't know as much as the others - maybe the leader pointed out the target to the unit. But if you have extended map info turned on, at least you can enter the map and get an update on the situation. Takes time, as would consulting with the leader. At the same time, at verbal communications going on should be enough to make the player try to keep his head down. And if you go as low as recruit difficulty mode, you get colored blobs not only in the peripheral vision, but also on screen, that will help you track them. I don't want this to be available in higher difficulty modes. War is confusing, and I think the current implementation depicts it quite well. The AI does get some artificial benefits from it, true, but simply by being AI they also get some artificial drawbacks, such as not being able to run between covers efficiently etc.

If you're the leader, you should spend most time in your map I think, to direct your squad, having extended map info enabled. But it's a dilemma for MP, as at least I consider extended map info a pest for gameplay :p

You shouldn't have to check on the map for the unit that you just "saw" a second ago. A lot of the times you run through areas reporting units that you didn't see even though the computer spotted it for you. That is much less realistic then actually just telling the player where he just spotted his unit he reported.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Cookieeater

[Mark Interiis 10]

Let me rephrase.

In what way is your proposal better than simply removing the fact that he shouts out targets?

[Cookieeater 10]

Let me rephrase.

In what way is your proposal better than simply removing the fact that he shouts out targets?

I think that you should re-paraphrase again, but if you're asking why my proposal is better than the current system where your character shouts out units is this.

When you're playing ArmA II, as long as there is another person in your squad, you will shout out any unknown or enemy unit that comes across your FOV. Realistically when you shout out where the enemy is, you should know where your reported enemy is exactly at(across those trees, at that tower, in that house) because you just saw them! In ArmA II however, your soldier only reports out his bearing(12 o'clock, 9 o'clock, left, right).

This information isn't sufficient enough in an environment where there is a lot of cover(villages, forests) because there are so many spots to look at that even though you shout their general direction, you don't know where he still is even when you're looking at the general direction. Logically this makes no sense because technically you just spotted the enemy unit, you don't need to rely on o'clock because you saw him with your own two pairs of eyes, so WHY wouldn't you know where he is.

ArmA II makes a lot of mistakes with it's spotting system such as spotting through houses or heavy forestry, but it's better to tell us where the enemy is at with a reticle over it when your character spotted it, then to have your character spout out the direction the enemy is at while the person playing has no idea where he is at even though the person he's playing as has saw it.

As by yourself, you should have a pinpoint location where your shouted out enemy unit is at, your squad mates however can't see in your perspective so they would only really know the general direction. That is why i'm saying to only add the marker to the person who reported the unit, NOT THE ENTIRE SQUAD, because the person who reported the enemy unit should exactly know where the person's at.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

You shouldn't have to check on the map for the unit that you just "saw" a second ago. A lot of the times you run through areas reporting units that you didn't see even though the computer spotted it for you. That is much less realistic then actually just telling the player where he just spotted his unit he reported.

Ok, I play with auto reporting turned off and reveal mapped to something else than right mouse button. So if I see something, I have to manually report him, and by that I have full control over it. That is even more realistic, and best of all, it prevents polluting the radio channel especially in MP games (ehm, I believe server dictates that setting though).

Maybe the autoreported blob indicator should blink or animate size a few times or something when he was just reported for the first time, I don't know.

[Mark Interiis 10]

In what way is your proposal better than simply removing the fact that he shouts out targets?

I think that you should re-paraphrase again, but if you're asking why my proposal is better than the current system where your character shouts out units is this.

I wasn't talking about the current system, I was talking about tearing out the current system and just not having an automated spotting system at all. Like another poster said, your character should only call out targets that you prompt it to call out.

[Cookieeater 10]

Ok, I play with auto reporting turned off and reveal mapped to something else than right mouse button. So if I see something, I have to manually report him, and by that I have full control over it. That is even more realistic, and best of all, it prevents polluting the radio channel especially in MP games (ehm, I believe server dictates that setting though).

Maybe the autoreported blob indicator should blink or animate size a few times or something when he was just reported for the first time, I don't know.

It is probably most realistic to disable auto reporting, but that only really concerns people who play multi player only and disable the auto reporting since they have microphones and are disturbed by having the computer report for them while they're reporting at the same time.

It is too micro intensive to report every unit that you see manually, since you have to hover your cross hairs over a 4-6 pixel wide target, and then press a button to report. This could be in packs of squads too so you would have to repeat this many times. In real life, your vision of the soldiers would be much clearer due to no limitation of resolution, also in real life, it wouldn't be really a good idea to hold back reporting an enemy unit that you saw that your allies didn't since you're supposed to work as a team.

BIS probably ran across a design decision in OFP, whether to add in auto reporting or not. Placing your mouse over extremely small targets just to report them would be too counter intuitive ,redundant, and would take a long time when you could have spent that time shooting the enemy. OFP shipped with auto reporting.

BIS has added stuff that normally wouldn't be considered normally realistic such as third person, and colored blobs representing units on the sides of the screen. These things were added in though due to limitations of computers, specifically monitors, which don't give the full range of vision that a human normally has. My suggestion would fit under this category.

And to answer your last statement, i'm not saying that the reticle should be placed on the unit forever, it should be there for around 10 seconds JUST to get the player oriented to lock onto his shouted target.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Cookieeater

[Murphe 0]

I know what you mean. I was remembering that it used to happen a lot to me but I don't recall it happening for a while now. I must have turned auto reveal off and forgot it exsisted. I would say your idea should only be present if auto reveal is on, so as not to interfere with those who don't. I personally don't find it too micro intensive to spot each enemy individually and prefer the control.