The trouble with getting people into Arma

[Smurf 12]

Dwarden shows up, drop a bomb and leave it ticking? Not fun. ¬¬

[froggyluv 2130]

If you can get something working for close quarters, then it'll pretty much work for long distance. If BIS would begin to focus on close quarters gameplay in addition to long distance, we'd have smoother controls/fluid movement because it takes that for close quarters gameplay to work.

Amen to this! Long distance almost takes care of itself via ballistics and flanking. I'd also like to see some different strategies ie..Sniper unit goes to concealed spot, intelligent approach via terrain etc.. but if the CQB was really implemented - twould be the game of all games.

[rye1 21]

It would but for CQB to be done right that would need a lot of fixes. :D A very f'ing lot. Some that people don't normally think of also... needs a lot of brainpower.

[oktane 0]

Dwarden shows up, drop a bomb and leave it ticking? Not fun. ¬¬

Haw, he always does that. Always carrying satchels that only sometimes explode. :D

Here is an old post from last year.. I really think that on the MP side, improvements with addon syncronization to help new/non technical players, as well as vast usability fixes (accessablity now a swear word too? :D) would really help. After all, while there are tons of single player users, I believe the vast majority play public or private MP with their mates. And that's just what people want these days, either story SP, or some sort of MP. The MP has always been great with the Arma series, when you see past the multitude of issues. A really big one that has always been missing is some sort of social features built into the game to find the server your buds are on, or at least keep tabs on players that you've had quality games with so you can play with them again. Right now, the game requires you to find a group to play with or a very well admin'd server to get any good public play on.. and the new users are all going to start out playing public for their first impressions and to find their style of play, favorite server, gaming group, etc. So that impression there matters, imo. I highlighted those parts below that I refer to above. Since then I've sort of taking a break from the hell that was being a public server admin, I just play an occasional 2 man coop on the LAN. :cool:

Huge post behind spoiler.. clicky

source: 200+ page thread, ugh.. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1625042#post1625042

• Arma is a pretty hard to use, open ended simulator game, created at the dawn of the sandbox era.
  
• People are busy, especially in the US. This leads to impatience, frustration with an ever more complex life. Maybe we over here have a grass is greener work life kind of thing compared to say Europe. This could be totally wrong, it's based on a personal opinion.
  
• Most people have no insight to how game development works, or the very limited resources of an indie studio. They expect multi-million dollar budgets and the team, process, polish that comes with that. (as in manpower implied, not so much brains.. because we all know of many big budget turds) This is in contrast to the 'old days' of gaming, when the expectations were much lower and on a more human level, rather than the assembly line blockbuster machine we have now.
  
• They expect more and more, address our problems now, boycott this or that, selfish brat attitudes. It seems to get worse as life gets more complex. (or maybe I am just an old dude now? sigh) I try not to ask of things unless I have exhausted all possible resources I can think of.
  
• On the game developer side, the market is shrinking for PC games, and has been for quite a few years unfortunately. Dev's blame all kinds of things, piracy a big one, yadda, but I hope everyone can agree that the modern console is killing it. It just isn't profitable unless you already have a foothold with a brand or genre. People that used to maintain their gaming computers and game libraries have now settled on the reasonably high quality of console games and the luxuries that provides. (along with apparently settling with the negative aspects, such as 12yo's spamming racial slurs into your headset) I think it's bit of a cultural thing too, going with the whole complex life thing. People like simple, easy to use, even if the game being played isn't that simple itself.
  
• Consoles have a lot of 'social-integration' features and are based on a very well thought out and very well supported platform. (especially the XDK for the 360, PS3 sdk is a nightmare honestly) The delivery systems are superb. People want to connect, have fun, not learn complex systems(six updater, teamspeak, addons), deal with hardware and operating systems.. all of these things add up to kill the PC Gaming for other than a few niche footholds. (like MMO's, accessible + competitive + polished FPS's(TF2), and simulators-especially flight sims)
  
  
• Since Arma crosses a few genre boundaries, our possible target audience is decreased due to that modern console exodus.
  
• PC milsim market is niche for many reasons, and this seems to create a bit of pride and elitism, some for good, some for bad. Or maybe it's just the kind of person that this game attracts. Some people are put off by this. Others wonder what drives a person to be an evangelist of such things and discovers something wonderful.
  
• Dare I say OFP/Arma has always striven to be the very definition of 'feature-bloat' and 'scope creep', treating it in almost a non-negative way. (!) And even though those features are often buggy, some unfinished, and yet I still love them. They represent the imagination of the devs at BIS, and even the community of which they often give and take from. Aiming so high, their vision seemingly unfettered by milestones, scrum meetings and shareholder demands like most developers have to deal with.
  
• But certain things become a detriment to even the most patient of players... The addon system for example, we have people here saying it's easy, well it isn't for most folks. I don't know what you're smoking but give me some! I am a 'supporter', I help a lot of people with the problems that come with this game, often (much to my dismay) when I'm trying to play it.. but I can't help it. I don't want people to give up, to get fed up with it, because then they are gone from an already small pool...
  
• If you've been in the game industry, you are familiar with what is lovingly referred to as 'programmer art'. Arma seems to have what I'd call a 'programmer gui' (funny pic) You could go on and on about this but what it all boils down to is the end user experience. Specifically, I refer to a new player, unable to join servers with required addons, error boxes providing no meaningful info, barely usable yet commonly accessed interfaces (server list, mission select list (ffs, same as ofp's!)) Because of the indie nature however, the developers (and rightly so) instead devote their effort into more substantial gameplay improvements. But the problem is that all of these little things add up. And a new player doesn't care about improvements over the last version, because he didn't know about or have the last version. All he experiences if lucky are some awesome battles and a lot of usability issues. (even though he doesn't know anything about usability, ui design, etc.. he doesn't have to. He's a user and experiences the design failures firsthand, the game fails him in that aspect.)
  
• For some of the issues, I've made some CIT tickets for. This brings up another issue, the communities inability to agree on anything. Some people would rather have no solution at all if they disagree with a single thing. Take the addon auto-downloading issue here. People entirely miss the point and think that a 3rd party solution is best. Sure best for them, because people forget about the big picture. And they, being Arma power-users so to say, perhaps it is better for them to use Yoma's. But that doesn't help that possible future player I mentioned, who has no knowledge of these 3rd party systems. His first impression. Not to mention, that again, this time because of Yoma's limited resources, his updating app has resembled a submarine control panel for most of it's existence. Same goes for Six-Updater! (and no offense intended to either, I greatly admire and respect the people that contribute tirelessly to this community with more than forum posts) Back to that player, we as admins cannot even tell them to go here or there to get so and so addon pack, all they get is a generic error box 'you cannot play this mission, depends on xyz_cryptic_classname', wtf does that mean to them? To them it means this game sucks, it's half assed, which to me is frustrating because they may miss out on the real fun experience in game on that server. But it's those small things that add up. As public server/newbie friendlyadmins, we are stuck in this tug of war, player count vs content. When add content to make our regulars happy, we unintentionally destroy any chance of getting that less-informed player in to have fun. Only when a huge all-in-one pack comes out like ACE are we able to add that content, since again it's *easier* to manage. (then again maybe not, since Six Updater keeps breaking for people frequently) This extends across many elements of MP, required addons making 3rd party tools necessary, kick messages for custom files, deficiencies in the voip system leading to using 3rd party apps, the list goes on.
  
• People that think that the game should be some kind of secret indie hit, we don't need new people, we don't like those people, we don't want to attract those people.. well those people were all US at one point. Get your heads out of your asses and realize that having a few thousand more players is not going to dent your ego. There will still be niches of players that like one style of play(see TF2), servers that enforce certain gameplay rules(see TF2), everything we have now and love. There will just be more people, more excitement in large battles, more serious players you'd like to play with. If you don't open the door, nobody can get in, whether you like them or not. It's a chicken-egg scenario. Compare this to this, and think of what an awesome difference just a few thousand players could do to the scene.
  

I should mention that I am not a console gamer, I'm an A2 player. ;) If/when I play MP games, it's always been OFP/ArmA/A2 for the most part, cooping with a close friend since around 2002. But ironically I spend most of my time helping other people with their A2 problems or with my head in mission code. I own a console (360) only because I got one for free from work, my girlfriend likes to play it sometimes, but I could never get into it because I'm naturally a tinkerer. (code, wires, anything) I do not think A2 should be a console game, even if it's sales will forever suffer as a result. (I don't think it's plausable to consider the game scope working on a console and without community mods) I worked dev support inside the game industry for a measly 5 years (at a place that originally did PC games and transitioned to cross platform) but I learned a lot of interesting things about the trials those teams go through to make games. I defended PC gaming's merits to my similarly aged peers (I was a minority!) until I was faced with hard sales numbers and realized my misconceptions and narrow sightedness about the niche PC gaming market. I also felt there was a large disconnect between how BIS does things compared to the rest of the industry. As such, it almost feels as if A2 is not a game but something more worth while for me, a hobby? It's just a bit obscured under some oily rags and newspapers.

Anyways this is long enough. I hope you'll all vote on any of the CIT issues (see sig + list below) with the core vision in mind, the same as this thread, to make it more popular so that we can all have a better time. Even if you do not agree with every tiny detail, the consequences are far worse, like not having enough players for a good ol game of blowing shit up. New players would benefit all parts of our community ecosystem, except possibly the patience of the forum mods. :D I'm not going to subscribe to this thread because it's kind of hopeless to me, sadly. Instead I want to enjoy the fun while it lasts.

Cheers and much respect, oktane (really really sorry for wall-o-text)

---------------------------------------------

Another:

...snip.. I think I know exactly what you want. I call them usability improvements. Like a friends list in game.. so you play with a dude, you can click a star next to his name in the player list and then you can see what server he's on or send him a chat. Basic tools to keep the community connected.

Right now there are friends playing arma.. but they aren't necessarily playing together. And maybe you'll meet someone that you'd like to play coop with again.. but the game doesn't help you remember who that was.

Have you used Steam at all? I'd say it's a bit like that. More channels of communication between players other than the standard join server + chat way... because you can't always GET ON the server.. (addons, locked, full, etc)

New players don't know where forums are or what TS server to join. The BASIC, i say again BASIC features are required in the game itself, out of the box.

The integration is already there.. it was in ArmA1.. for the canned 360 version. (hit esc, see 'Friends' list)

Cheers and keep up the good discussion! I hope that it helps the devs.. when the thread grows to 200 pages I have to assume they simply don't have the time to keep up with all of those.

PS: I have always tried to explain the depth of the AI in ArmA to people. It's just when they stand there and suck up bullets is when it falls apart. But at closer range, it's really fantastic. And then as mentioned, at 50m it sometimes falls apart again but it's passable. Good luck inside buildings though, sigh.

Edited October 7, 2011 by oktane

[Cripsis 10]

The problem with buildings and AI is that AI will never enter them ever chasing you (unless with some heavy UPSMON scripting and even then nothing is guaranteed).

I'm still disappointed that BIS made so many buildings enterable and usable by the infantry but AI doesn't even have an idea those buildings are in the game.

That's interesting because I find that using buildings is one of the AI's major strengths. I normally don't spend any longer than a minute or two to create missions, I keep them very basic, usually no more than sixty AI on the map at once. Maybe that helps? I really don't understand the science behind it but it works OK.

I recorded some gameplay footage today of typical AI behaviour when fighting around buildings, house to house fighting is always intense, forever getting my butt kicked by sneaky AI.

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[djfluffwug 10]

Another major thing that many people have already mentioned is the AI is unrealistic which puts alot of new ArmA players off the game. They seem dumb in CQC and make many bad decisions that wind up getting them killed.

I created a video below to show you guys what I mean. When I shot at the AI, it just lay down in the middle of the street. I realise that if you are getting shot at you should stay low, but wouldn't you want to also get into cover as quickly as possible? The AI don't seem to take this into account much. They just lay on the ground and slowly turn around until they finally shoot at you.

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(Sorry about the bad framerate. Fraps kills my PC)

We really need some better tactics for the AI to be implimented for it to become more popular. I realise they are working on AI in the newest of patches but they should really use cover more effectively and value their life a bit more.

[antoineflemming 14]

It would but for CQB to be done right that would need a lot of fixes. :D A very f'ing lot. Some that people don't normally think of also... needs a lot of brainpower.

Just because it needs a lot of fixes doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. If it takes ArmA3 longer to come out because they need to fix the game to support CQB then I'm all for it.

[Cripsis 10]

I created a video below to show you guys what I mean. When I shot at the AI, it just lay down in the middle of the street. I realise that if you are getting shot at you should stay low, but wouldn't you want to also get into cover as quickly as possible? The AI don't seem to take this into account much. They just lay on the ground and slowly turn around until they finally shoot at you.

With the mods and settings I'm using that AI would have engaged and very likely hit you immediately after you fired the first shot. Your video is an excellent demonstration of how deplorable the AI react at default settings, but I'm hoping that BIS will rectify this issue for ARMA 3.

Regarding this subject, I think it's a bit strange that in all the ARMA 3 footage released so far the enemy AI have been effectively hopeless, I mean I don't recall even seeing one AI return fire.

Hopefully BIS purposely made the AI dull-witted so the media could wander around the town and show-off a bit of the new Lemnos map, but in my humble opinion a better way to advertise ARMA 3 to potential new customers would be to release a thrilling gameplay video of a really intense firefight against a tough enemy AI, something exciting, something that will catch the attention of people that haven't played ARMA before.

[jw custom 56]

@Cripsis

Using housepatrol script doesn't really tell how great AI is using buildings by themself...

[Tonci87 163]

Hopefully BIS purposely made the AI dull-witted so the media could wander around the town and show-off a bit of the new Lemnos map, but in my humble opinion a better way to advertise ARMA 3 to potential new customers would be to release a thrilling gameplay video of a really intense firefight against a tough enemy AI, something exciting, something that will catch the attention of people that haven't played ARMA before.

^this

[maddogx 13]

...in my humble opinion a better way to advertise ARMA 3 to potential new customers would be to release a thrilling gameplay video of a really intense firefight against a tough enemy AI, something exciting, something that will catch the attention of people that haven't played ARMA before.

^^ Exactly this. :)

In addition, once the game is close to completion they really, really need to make a video showing actual multiplayer gameplay. Something that shows off some of the cool features, the scope and the awesome visuals of the game while also being both exciting and clearly recognizable as MP footage. Show some coop, some PvP, some aircrafts, tanks, boats in action etc.

Especially now that the game will have smooth, interpolated movements in MP, such footage is going to look cool enough to draw in a much bigger crowd. :D

[tk1138 10]

honestly im wary of these videos, its sometimes hard to tell if the publicity videos are like from the game engine or simply pre-rendered scripted and designed....

[HyperU2 11]

Yeah, mostly you'll get people to buy the game and be disappointed.

[maddogx 13]

Yeah, mostly you'll get people to buy the game and be disappointed.

The point isn't to make the video a BF3/CODMW3 style hypetastic rapid-cut explosion fest, but an honest video of what the game can be like. Target it at the right kind of people and there will be less disappointment.

And for the doubters like tk1138, slap in a simple "The following footage consists entirely of real multiplayer gameplay" at the beginning. :rolleyes:

[160thSOAR 10]

I got someone I know to get ArmA2 yesterday. He's played it before on my computer, and he liked it. I finally got him to buy it yesterday.

He really likes the number of vehicles and I'm starting to teach him how to fly helicopters. I hope he'll stick with the game.

I don't see a point into trying to get the Call of Duty kiddies into this game though. I found ArmA2 through the BFBC2 Forums, where people were talking about it as something that was too realistic and too boring. Regardless of their opinions, I looked up some gameplay videos and read dslyecxi's guide. I ended up buying the game and have stuck with it ever since. Right now, BIS seems to be doing all right. If they let people who honestly want to play a game like ArmA come on their own, they will do fine and we won't get a huge influx of immature idiots.

[Cripsis 10]

Using housepatrol script doesn't really tell how great AI is using buildings by themself...

housepatrol script has some serious AI issues, they often walk off building tops or through building walls and die. Maybe someone with scripting experience can iron out those bugs but I prefer to stick with my current setup - ZeusAI + ACE mods.

I believe the key to making the AI wisely use cover is mods, COMBAT mode, and place waypoints close to buildings/walls/trees.

Here are some videos to give you a closer look at how the AI fights from behind cover, sorry I couldn't compile them into a single video I'm having problem with windows movie maker. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that I think newbies would find ARMA far more enjoyable if the AI didn't require any mods to use cover properly.

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[wiggum2 31]

@ Cripsis

Sorry, but your videos are pointless.

Your using mods and a special setup to get your AI to use buildings, ok thats fine. But place them 100m away from the next building in the open for example, will they move there and seek cover ?

Or what is their behaviour if you let them patrol through the streets and fire at them from far away ?

Will they take cover inside the buildings too ?

How will they use terrain features as cover ?

Your videos are to short, nobody can tell if the AI is really that great with your setup that way.

[Cripsis 10]

Hello Wiggum, I will soon post some videos so you can watch how the AI react when they make first contact with enemy.

[wiggum2 31]

But dont give them waypoints or set them to COMBAT manually this time please.

[Cripsis 10]

But dont give them waypoints or set them to COMBAT manually this time please.

OK I just simply placed units on map to show how the mods work, no waypoints, no COMBAT, nothing.

1st video shows typical behaviour of AI when they detect enemy presence in urban areas, they won't stray too far from original positions but will move in and out of local buildings. They have detected enemy placed behind some buildings on other side of the town, but have not yet engaged any targets.

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2nd video shows typical behaviour of infantry when they first detect enemy, I put a enemy soldier several hundred metres away to demonstrate how AI will first find cover then engage him.

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[instagoat 133]

Gameplay technicalities aside, what I am most afraid of running nose first into the dirt is the story pretense. I´ve already made a thread saying how illogical the equipment seems...

But seeing the ending of PMC (the bad-bad one),

I am inclined to think that it was one of the reasons. However, in the real world, this has happened, and led to the conclusion of WMD programs.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/

and also the other way round:

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-pak-sold-nuke-technology-to-china-iran-n-korea/20110919.htm

There have never been -any- reactions such as those depicted in PMC, and seeing as China is a -major- world player, nobody would dare making military fuss along their borders just because some recently toppled fringe government got told how to spin a centrifuge the right way around.

I hope the pretense for the conflict depicted in Arma 3 will be more realistic, and the PMC ending turn out to be a minor happening, or maybe a small starting point, for a more serious crisis. Especially in relations to chinas proven tactics of economic warfare, as well as the shanghai coop organizations (maybe the origin organization of the CRZ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation) start to bundle economic together with military activities as a counterpoint to Nato.

I know I am overthinking this a bit, but I´d love for the game to have a realistic background. Especially with the sillyness abound in the other shooters around, such as MW3

Edited October 8, 2011 by InstaGoat

[dmarkwick 261]

OK I just simply placed units on map to show how the mods work, no waypoints, no COMBAT, nothing.

1st video shows typical behaviour of AI when they detect enemy presence in urban areas, they won't stray too far from original positions but will move in and out of local buildings. They have detected enemy placed behind some buildings on other side of the town, but have not yet engaged any targets.

2nd video shows typical behaviour of infantry when they first detect enemy, I put a enemy soldier several hundred metres away to demonstrate how AI will first find cover then engage him.

I think it's a problem of sticky perceptions. Once a person has a notion that the AI will not do such-and-such an activity, then even when that activity is fixed the perception remains. It's possible to convince someone, but even so they will always revert to their previous sticky perception eventually. :)

Human behaviour :)

[froggyluv 2130]

@Crispis Search video: Well it's better then we had in OFP/Arma1, but still has a way to go. The building search still feel somewhat arbitrary rather then "Building clear, lets check the next one".

At 0.41, you can see the soldier on the first floor go prone for no apparent reason and then stands up to face a wall. Now I don't pretend to know how AI "vision" works but facing or aiming at interior walls for a length of time is a no-no.

There needs to be probability of enemy in structure and different actions for each level.

Such as:

Green: no enemy spotted in actual building but enemy is known to be in area. This could result in the type of search seen in your video, tho once a room is deemed as "clear" soldiers move on until building is clear.

Yellow: possible enemy in actual building. More tentative approach with definite use of cover fire positions from supporting AI (those not needed to do actual search). Lots of quick position checks and AI ready for super quick CQB and necessary maneuvers.

Red: Definite enemy spotted in or entering a building. Same as yellow but windows are checked, doors are stacked before tactical entry. Infiltration team (size determined by building size and available squad members) move as tactical unit covering each others six as they clear room to room rarely or never using prone and ready for quick action with lean avaliable for quick shot to cover.

Possible? definitly. Probable? I'd say no but let a man dream eh :)

[Cripsis 10]

I think it's a problem of sticky perceptions. Once a person has a notion that the AI will not do such-and-such an activity, then even when that activity is fixed the perception remains. It's possible to convince someone, but even so they will always revert to their previous sticky perception eventually. :)

Human behaviour :)

Yeah I'm not really too concerned about trying to persuade peoples opinions, myself I couldn't be much happier with the way ARMA 2 plays, you guys keep creating awesome mods and all I need do is experiment until I find a combination that suits my preferences. :)

Admittedly it's been frustrating at times figuring out which mods conflict with other mods and which mods require other certain mods so I do truly believe BIS will attract more customers if they can improve the AI, the newbies could simply install ARMA 3 and be pleased with vanilla gameplay.

---------- Post added at 02:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 PM ----------

@Crispis Search video: Well it's better then we had in OFP/Arma1, but still has a way to go. The building search still feel somewhat arbitrary rather then "Building clear, lets check the next one".

At 0.41, you can see the soldier on the first floor go prone for no apparent reason and then stands up to face a wall. Now I don't pretend to know how AI "vision" works but facing or aiming at interior walls for a length of time is a no-no.

Yeah it definitely isn't perfect, I've done a lot of testing with other mods and tried a few different scripts but kept getting bugs so I'll have to stick with this set-up until ARMA 3.

House to house fighting is great, but room to room fighting is abysmal. Thankfully the AI usually get killed before they manage to enter an enemy occupied building, but in the rare cases that opfor and blufore are in the same room they just walk straight past each other like they are invisible to each other. It's annoying but it doesn't happen very often so I've learned to live with it.

[-=Borz=- 10]

So it seems that many people has to play ArmA games with strangers because their 10 gaming friends from the neighbourhood do not want to play arma after trying it.

Furthermore, I have even bought a copy of ArmA2 for several of my friends to try to convince them, but they do not want to play.

In my case i believe it is the lack of user-friendliness of the game.

None of my friends want to get a PhD in Arma management to be able to play sometimes.

The inability to download mods and updates automatically (if you press "yes, download the new version") as you are joining a server.

There is no doubt that Arma games are the best ever and everything should remain as it is, otherwise it would not be ArmA, but BIS should think about making the management of the game easy for those not skilled or those who do not have the time to read forums for hours daily. We do not want COD kiddies playing, just being able to play with our friends,. WHo knows, maybe among them we have another hidden sickboy or sickgirl!

It is true that many skilled people have kindly made tools to update the game, the mods, etc, and we really appreciate this, however the use of these tools is still too complicated.

If BIS does something about it i trully believe all the friends of each one of their customers and fans would buy ArmA3. BIS are good guys, but ArmA is also a business and has to feed staff.

And something else. Many of us, who do not have the editing skills despite reading hours of forums everyday would pay for and Advanced editing DVD course via video tutorials, manuals, etc. Since Arma is mainly the editor, and for many a hobbie (as stated above by someone) this should be more profitable than the game itself.

Kind regards and thanks.

Borz

Edited November 22, 2011 by -=Borz=-