Realistic Wounds and treatment for ARMA 3

[galzohar 31]

The most unrealistic part of every medical system ever implemented or suggested is the fact that a treated soldier can fight again at one point or another, and IRL it could take days/weeks/months/never to recover depending on the injury.

So basically all those fancy "medical treatment" ideas to "improve realism" don't really improve realism IMO, because the most unrealistic part is still in the system. If you want to improve realism start by fixing the most unrealistic part of the system, then work on adding detail.

But I doubt anyone would want to play with a fully realistic medical system anyway because there's no real way to put one in a way that would work gameplay-wise anyway, which again leads me to saying that those systems are rather pointless.

So you've clamped the blood vessel, now what? He gets up and starts running around the room, pwning newbs and so forth? There goes your realism.

That sums it up pretty well IMO.

[Tom1 10]

@sky999, very good point, maybe mortally wounded soldiers could count as dead? Or maybe the mission could use "captured by Blufor" instead of "OpFor not present" because this allows for wounded, dead, fleeing and surrendering units.

@SpetS15, i suggest you read through the entire wall post before posting, it explains that this system is very much like ACE 2 only with a small amount of extra wounded states and treatment options to keep the medics job slightly more interesting and keeping first aid simple, yet challenging and fun underfire. I do like the idea of ace, but once unconsciousness is brought into the game then breathing and cardiac arrest come into play (you don't die from being just unconscious :D). If ACE2 is a good system though I don't see why in the next installment it shouldn't get better :)

The most unrealistic part of every medical system ever implemented or suggested is the fact that a treated soldier can fight again at one point or another, and IRL it could take days/weeks/months/never to recover depending on the injury.

So basically all those fancy "medical treatment" ideas to "improve realism" don't really improve realism IMO, because the most unrealistic part is still in the system. If you want to improve realism start by fixing the most unrealistic part of the system, then work on adding detail.

But I doubt anyone would want to play with a fully realistic medical system anyway because there's no real way to put one in a way that would work gameplay-wise anyway, which again leads me to saying that those systems are rather pointless.

That sums it up pretty well IMO.

I deffinitly agree with you, although in modern combat ammunition is meant to wound not to kill in order to slow down the enemy. While yes, a unit can be healed and get back up and advanced system will still feature all of the important first aid steps that happen before MEDEVAC or whatever.

The point is, although it will never be super realistic, the more the better in some people's eyes, and if it simulates the flow of combat (remember ammunition made to wound not to kill to slow down enemy) then it would work well in a lot of situations.

Check out the simple first aid system I was talking about as well, it would probably appeal to you a lot more, and @sky999 this simple wounding module would solve the problem of units not being dead and just wounded making more simple missions a little wierd.

I honestly will have more fun most of the time with the simple system although in big games like domination, Warfare, CTI, MSO and some more hardcore COOP missions the advanced medical system would be fitting, and it can always be disabled ;)

Anyway please give feedback on simple first aid module if the advanced system isn't your thing.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I think I prefer varying healing abilities (also by class of aid), that gradually becomes lower each time you take damage. Events that take place:

1) You get shot in the arm and goes into agony.

2) Fellow soldier stops the bleeding, and takes you out of agony state, but your injuries persist.

3) Medic can now heal individual parts only to 80%. Next time if injury goes beyond the threshold, only restore to 60%, then 40% and so on.

4) Visiting a MASH typically doubles the effectiveness of a medic. So where a medic can heal you to 40%, a MASH can get you to 80%.

5) Going to a medical center (the really BIG medic tents usually in base), can get you fully restored.

However, it pretty much requires a huge change in how firefights go down in the game. Currently pretty much each time I do take a bullet, it's a fatal one (not using the medical system). In real life when you read about massive firefights going on for hours and hours, there are hardly any casualties, certainly not many actual kills. 10 hour fight, and they killed 4 having 2 wounded. In Arma, the ratios tend to be ridiculous. Now, it's not the real world, so maybe we get added kills for not being equally careful. But I do think there are too many hits and kills when the shooting starts. We need more sway, and farther detection range for supression effects.

[chortles 263]

This should be an addon/mod, not "core/vanilla ARMA 3."

[-GR-Operative 10]

I can see a evac system and even a FA system implemented, but this of course would not put anyone back on the action, would only improve the survive probability of the individual.

In SP it's all fine, but what about MP, mainly COOP? Is it okay to put AI teammates to only drag dead/wounded personnel? I suppose fixing penalties for not helping teammates is not enough. Maybe optional?

But all this is up to the individual team organization, of course. Teams that focus realism probably don't allow respawns and would demand the members to give assistance to wounded mates.

[rye1 21]

This should be an addon/mod, not "core/vanilla ARMA 3."

It's ok saying that and I agree in someways, but then again what would people like to see from the vanilla wounding/medical system? Instead of putting a comment like this, add to it, what would you like to see?

I hate the idea of basic CPR as in vanilla you just heal the guy and move on, heal the guy and move on. The AI are annoying as they die or get injured frequently so with an improved medical system, say bandages, this would have to be accounted for as you'd surely run out before the end of the mission. :mad: Stupid AI.

It would also have to allow AI to heal you. Maybe it could be differentiated between SP and MP.

[Tom1 10]

Operative;1933376']I can see a evac system and even a FA system implemented' date=' but this of course would not put anyone back on the action, would only improve the survive probability of the individual.

In SP it's all fine, but what about MP, mainly COOP? Is it okay to put AI teammates to only drag dead/wounded personnel? I suppose fixing penalties for not helping teammates is not enough. Maybe optional?

But all this is up to the individual team organization, of course. Teams that focus realism probably don't allow respawns and would demand the members to give assistance to wounded mates.[/quote']

Do you mean that units after recieving first aid will not be fighting? :confused:

In real life a unit who is shot and wounded will require medical attention, so first aid from his buddies and a medic as soon as possible. Then he will be extracted and go to hospital or whatever, if his injuries aren't too bad he can continue fighting and get extracted a bit later.

In the advanced medic/treatment system I have proposed, a soldier who is shot and wounded will require first aid and a medic as soon as possible, but after a medic has completely treated him he can fight again - for gameplay purposes. Maybe some wounds will stay (like shaky aim, just not as bad once treated) until a field hospital is visited, but otherwise after treatment even the most mortally wounded soldiers can fight, so nothing will change from what we currently have. The only thing is first aid will have more options, and being a medic will be more important, challenging and fun.

Many people have said "what is the point of all the detailed first aid if they are going to just stand up straight after?" My answer to that is for more realism. Yes, a wounded soldier cannot be treated for severe trauma in real life then just jump up and kill shit, but this happens in EVERY other wounding system for arma as well, and this is just to keep the game fun. The other way this is somewhat more realistic is, modern ammunition made to wound, not to kill will actually wound units and actually force the team with wounded to change their tactics/slow down in order to treat their wounded. Arma has been realistic in the sense combat and battlefield drills have been quite realistic, this addition will mimic real life in the sense that it changes the flow of the battle in favour of the side inflicting casualties.

@Chortles, I would normally agree with you there, but seeing as wounds are quite a big part of realism, it would be better if it came out right. What I mean by this is ACE and SLX, however good they may be, still have AI issues involving treatment. AI will soemtimes not heal you, they wil sometimes not use required equiptment, and will sometimes even act retarded in order to treat you/after being treated. If the creators of arma 3, BIS, did a complex wounding system themselves these issues could be more thorughly adressed, fixed and ultimately understood by them.

And people please, I understand not everyone will like the idea of a complex medic system, which is perfectly understandable, but I have also proposed 3 other major ideas that seem to have been over looked. They are:

-Simple first aid system in addition to advanced so players have option to chose.

-No more accumulating hitpoint damage to legs kill people, only die from headshots, bleeding out and (advanced system only:) cardiac arrest and non breathing.

-realistic body armour: Units with modelled hard armour will have additional protection to front of torso. Body armour is much stronger than most are aware of, stopping 2-6 7.62x51mm ball rounds at 50 meters. This can be implimented with a seperate damage value in the ammo's config known as "bodyArmour Damage" that is put into the damage formula.

Body armour can stop rounds, but depending on the round (based of real life data, although not heaps can be found) the armour plates can be shattered rendering it useless.

With a body armour system obviously more variety of ammunition wound be added (ball, armour piercing etc etc)

For those of you/us who only/also enjoy simple wounds and treatment all the time/everynow and then, the simple first aid module is pretty much the entire BIS First Aid module we have now with some tweaks such as bleeding, soldiers stopping bleeding but only medics healing from incapacitation. So please, if you do not like the advanced medic system idea purely because it is not your cup of tea, please comment on the simple medic system, body armour ideas, and no more accumulating hitpoints idea. This wound be greatly appriciated and helpful for BIS if they took notice in this thread :)

---------- Post added at 17:01 ---------- Previous post was at 16:14 ----------

First post updated - Adds in some stuff I forgot to mention/ could have made clearer

- cardiac arrest can be treated but aslong as blood levels are still low, a unit will very quickly enter cardiac arrest again. He requires IV/Plasma to refill his blood levels, although IV/Plasma will not actually wake a unit from cardiac arrest, auto-injectors, AEDs and CPR are for that.

-AEDs can be used on anyone, unlike in real life when only certain heart rates or whatever can be shocked

-In the simple first aid module, units will bleed out after time, soldiers can still stop bleeding, and medics can still 'heal' incap/agony. Consecutive shots will make bleeding faster.

[Fireball 16]

-In the simple first aid module, units will bleed out after time, soldiers can still stop bleeding, and medics can still 'heal' incap/agony. Consecutive shots will make bleeding faster.

This is how it is in Insurgency right now, but scripted - not with modules. I'd be glad already if those FA/AFA modules would work fine in MP.

The scripted version works out pretty good, but there is desync sometimes and sometimes you can't heal someone - actually some unintentional realism, which could be very well built in into such a system - sometimes someone is wounded fatally and you can't treat him on the field.

If the advanced first aid system would be something along ACE2 simulates I'd be pretty fine with it - I find it already "complicated" enough for a game but still fun. I think (pseudo-)realism like you describe should not be in games, rather in VBS (where it's probably rather fully realistic) - but that's only my humbly opinion.

I'm rather on the bandwagon for gameplay > realism in this regard.

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm rather on the bandwagon for gameplay > realism in this regard.

Me too :) I say have it all moddable, but have the release version playable. In fact there's already a solution, the medical module right? Just refine that, job done. People can either use it or not right off the bat then.

For the realism nuts, the realistic way to play is to play up until the point where you get shot. Then you shut down your PC and go to bed :)

[Maddmatt 1]

For the realism nuts, the realistic way to play is to play up until the point where you get shot. Then you shoot yourself in the head :)

Fixed :cool:

Generally getting shot means a soldier is out of action and goes home in real life (if he doesn't die). So the current 1 or 2 shots = game over is best for single player mode I think.

For multiplayer, being revived via first aid is really just a way to keep you in the action, since you can't just load a savegame when you go down. There's no way it can be realistic, we just need to accept it as a way of sacrificing realism for gameplay and enjoy the sense of teamwork it adds :)

[rye1 21]

So if BIS give the basics (that worked correctly in MP/SP environments to gameplay standards) that are refined and reworked then modders can add on. Would an AA3-like system still be satisfactory for gameplay purposes or just stick to a basic first aid system, click and go?

I don't like the FA system as there is no player choice involved. It is the same with the ACE system but at least it is a little more realistic (apart from epinephrine), the AA3 system offers more of a penalty if you get it wrong, the patient dying or losing health, so players choice is crucial and it is fast for PvP purposes.

The AA3 system works great for a PvP and CO-OP environment, though they are the fastest medics I have ever seen put on bandages. :D It has a bit of player thought and skill set to go into it with the diagnosis and treatment process. It gives you a small description (symptoms) and four options off that - OPA, saline, smelling salts and splint.

Here are two videos:

What would you like to see refined within the medical module? And remember other features relate to it, say if BIS made a new interaction menu which was easy to use and quick loading then it would make the medics role a lot easier and it wouldn't seem as cumbersome.

Edited May 23, 2011 by Rye
Spelling error

[Innomadic 10]

I don't get the fuss. You're all complaining about "clamping blood vessel and getting up and killing everyone", however this doesn't have to be in every mission you play, since it is obviously not built for Dom, Warfare or Insurgency. Perhaps once you've been hit mobility is reduced, aim is thrown or something that simply indicates you can't play as you were a minute ago. You'd use this in clan nights where extreme realism is the go.

This does not mean the end of revive, i see this as simply another option that can be added to the game, and if it can be added at vanilla level there will be less conflicting issues with other mods that will certainly come down the pipeline.

I also don't understand how different it is to current vanilla which constitutes of "kneeling over casualty, wave magical hands and hey presto, up and walking again", and I don't believe anyone here is of the belief that an absolute 100% realistic system where you die you never play the game again is a good thing, but this is simply an effort to increase complexity/immersion/realism to those who want it.

[max power 21]

One potential problem is that you have extreme realism going into extreme unrealism, which creates a contrasting experience, which will give the player a break in immersion. I think I had talked about this before.

[rye1 21]

One potential problem is that you have extreme realism going into extreme unrealism, which creates a contrasting experience, which will give the player a break in immersion. I think I had talked about this before.

So what meets in the middle.

[max power 21]

I don't know if there is a meeting in the middle. That would be for a game designer to figure out, I think.

[smookie 11]

So body fat percentage is an accurate measurment of how well conditioned you are? :D

It's a factor, yes...

[Splintert 10]

I think the current system is quick and easy. There's no reason for any player of a game to be 'out of action' while another sits there and works on them. In real life (though i have no experience, don't take my word for it) I highly doubt that combat medics perform more than basic stopping of bleeding/preparation for transport and actual treatment after they are flown out of the combat.

Sure, it would be more realistic, but when does it cross the line between realism and not fun?

[rye1 21]

Well then, give an alternative. This vanilla system is shot -> down -> first aid -> good to go. Or shot -> down -> dies. There is a big reason to be out of action, you've just been shot. If it was based on the percentage of damage then that would be reasonable because if it was a minor or non-life threatening would you could obviously fight back, depending on the severity it might be actually getting up and fighting back or staying prone. But you do not want a COD-like system of taking many rounds and carrying on operating like normal - that is stupidity.

There is no basic stopping of bleeding in the vanilla version, and medics perform a variety of tasks as well as what you stated. I personally don't care about medevac, I don't agree with that side of the advanced system - I think the person should be able to operate, move around, maybe to be 100% healed (they would be shaking, have bad aim) they must visit a medic tent. But for gameplay purposes they should be healed there and then.

If there was a way to stop the bleeding state via bandages then at least it would be feasable. You would have limited numbers of bandages so it wouldn't be unlimited. This is like norrin's revive system with a number of revives but only put into the vanilla game.

You could easily add in advanced or basic modules to fulfill all levels. I don't care if it's not realistic, as long as the F/A system get's a bit of work. The bandages system could be classed as the advanced version; though it is not that difficult, and the basic version being the F/A system.

And by the way this advanced version is nothing but a diagnosis menu with a bunch of options off that. It's not too difficult, the good things it adds is replicating somekind of real soft tissue damage based on hit location (which is hard to do in A2 due to the engines bugs with hit location). If you don't like it then fine but for BIS to fix and add some engine features that would be great; like fixing hit locations, differentiating soft tissue, vehicular and construction material and damage, improving the medical module, improving of wound ballistics and terminal ballistics based on the ammunition you use (this could open up for adding different kinds of small arms ammunition) and finally implementing a basic system for body armour so modders can improve upon. Not all may be feasable in the engine or popular, that's for developers and the public to decide but giving the basics will allow modders to do a heap!

And by all means fix it where getting shot in toe sends 0.2 damage to the head. This system is not good for the medical treatment or wounding.

Edited May 24, 2011 by Rye

[no use for a name 0]

I want a more realistic system, but not full realism. I hate shooting moving targets several hundred meters away, and only seeing a little puff of blood while they seem unaffected. I want to see some more REACTION to getting shot besides heavy breathing and blur.

Also, I would like to be able to at least limp my way to safety if one of my legs gets hit...as it is now you either can still run full speed or can't walk at all.

Basically I just want to see some better wounding effects, not a fully realistic first aid system

[rye1 21]

So better blood splatter, identifable, maybe like the ACE system where if they run you can see it on the ground. The reaction sounds great, this would be good with new animations - you can tell if you have hit or not in the way the character acts, big point.

[Militant1006 11]

I want a more realistic system, but not full realism. I hate shooting moving targets several hundred meters away, and only seeing a little puff of blood while they seem unaffected. I want to see some more REACTION to getting shot besides heavy breathing and blur.

Also, I would like to be able to at least limp my way to safety if one of my legs gets hit...as it is now you either can still run full speed or can't walk at all.

Basically I just want to see some better wounding effects, not a fully realistic first aid system

I agree with this for sure, probably even more important than a realistic first aid system, but the two could go hand in hand, once again, in a game it is more about realistic gameplay than actual treatments, realistic gameplay would mean, making medics job harder and the potnetial to get it wrong, and also having to medevac wounded, although I think it would be fine with this, but then at base say they go into a medic tent for a minute or two then they are good to go, but reaction to getting hit is very, very important is isn't something I see much of in Arma 2.

[5LEvEN 11]

I think arma 3 needs a medic system similar to the one in americas army 3, but more complex....

[rick rawlings 2]

I think the system should be changed to something like this:

Open console

Type "this setDammage 0"

Close console.

Seriously, I have to say that this is a case where more "realism" does not equal more fun. If you want to go to a system like AA3, fine, but anything more than that would detract from the experience. At the end of the day, either the guy can get up to fight again or he can't. For most people who forked over $60, they are going to want to get back up, or if they have to wait through a lengthy heal phase, they will just hit respawn. As soon as we agree that wounded soldiers will be back in the fight, we are just arguing about realistic unrealism that ends up with the same result: a recovered fighting soldier or a dead respawning one. I would rather have resources spent on something like a working m203 sight, or windage on scopes, or realistic accuracy on AI or the ability to drop a grenade while moving or the ability to peek over grass or turn around elegantly in a hallway or have non-clunky dialogue like "hi, THERE" or CQB AI or undercover operatives or any number of other polishing touches to a great series.

my $.02

RR

[rye1 21]

If you want to go to a system like AA3, fine, but anything more than that would detract from the experience.

And what should an AA3 like system have in it?

[rick rawlings 2]

And what should an AA3 like system have in it?

America's Army 3. It should have the stuff it already has in it. I am quite content with that stuff. Anything more than that prolongs the "He can fight/He's dead Jim" situation that we must have for an entertainment product. How viable would a "Wow, my femur was shattered and I have to sit here for the rest of the mission" situation be from a gameplay point-of-view?

RR