The trouble with getting people into Arma

[[evo] dan 79]

They actually fixed perhaps the biggest issue in Arma 2 that put me off PvP, and that was the desync issue.

(oh and of course if you want more PvP servers, theres nothing stopping you from starting one just the same as any other mission type)

[maddogx 13]

And the biggest way to get more people into PvP missions is to fix........

*countless list here*

First and foremost: animations. - which they are working on. ;)

It will certainly be interesting to see the result. If that guy who claims to have seen a recent Arma3 demonstration isn't completely full of it, I'd say the PvP community has reason to celebrate.

[antoineflemming 14]

First and foremost: animations. - which they are working on. ;)

It will certainly be interesting to see the result. If that guy who claims to have seen a recent Arma3 demonstration isn't completely full of it, I'd say the PvP community has reason to celebrate.

yes! And not even necessarily for PvP. Better, CQB suited animations (albeit, still realistic) would improve CQB combat, whether PvP or PvE (COOP). And this would not negatively impact long-range combat. This is the primary thing I'm looking forward to in ArmA 3.

[Craig_VG 20]

First and foremost: animations. - which they are working on. ;)

It will certainly be interesting to see the result. If that guy who claims to have seen a recent Arma3 demonstration isn't completely full of it, I'd say the PvP community has reason to celebrate.

I'd say the entire community has reason to celebrate!

[crazyjake56 10]

And I then went on to suggest a change.

How do you feel about that change.

.

Oh sorry, I misunderstood. As for my opinion on it, I feel that we should take a look at counterstrike, tf2, that sort of thing. Lots of times they have those recorded messages like in tf2 where I would press z then 1 to call for a medic. so I could press (insert button here) then 1, 2, 3, e.t.c. to make an order.

[rye1 21]

yes! And not even necessarily for PvP. Better, CQB suited animations (albeit, still realistic) would improve CQB combat, whether PvP or PvE (COOP). And this would not negatively impact long-range combat. This is the primary thing I'm looking forward to in ArmA 3.

Spot on. If people get so worked up on animations they are doing a good thing. Imagine if they said the magic dollar making words, "We're drastically improving CQB". I'd donate a kidney to the cause*.

*Not my kidney of course, one of the basement childrens.

[Cripsis 10]

Imagine if they said the magic dollar making words, "We're drastically improving CQB".

I passed out in a large puddle of drool just fantasising about it.

[dmarkwick 261]

Why take your eyes off the screen?

I can use some of the keys without taking my eyes off the screen.

Nice efficient post, you asked, and answered without my help :)

[NordKindchen 12]

What got me away from arma again and again and again was the overall feeling.

Many things didnt fit in right - like lying down in gras but beeing able to be seen over far distances because they dont see gras from there (jeah we sink into the ground - but the sinking is allways the same high and has nothing to do with how high the gras is)

Also the lods from trees behind which you were better seen as u could see through while standing directly beneath it.

Or the animations - it takes away a lot of immersion.

Many things seemed jsut very clumsy and unnatural.

Not to speak about the AI - firing a sniperrifle (no tracers) from a mountain on soldiers in 500 meter distance - they instantly spot me and shoot me.

Also how much time got wasted by trying to get the right mods working

And the hotkeys often didnt work right on a joystick nor on some keyboardkeys - and on and on and on.

But what really got me away from the game was something else.

I could have ignored all of this if the graphics where nice enough to compensate for it.

But there were so goddamn many things which could have been made better. Tha arma engine could have done it! I really like the Arma like game more than battlefield like games but I have to take them as an example over and over again!

While the Arma engine sure was able to provide better graphics than anno domini BFBC2s engine - it often looked way worse!

Objects just didnt fit into the environment right - destroyed houses looked like out of the 60s not to mention the destroyed vehicles.....so goddamn ugly...and there are enough moders who proved that this could be done better! ACE mod delievered better looking destroyed tanks!

On distance most things just looked like put into the wrong place! Not even the camouflage nets where camouflaging anything! They were clearly easy to spot at distance!

If someone would have looked at the little details one could have twitched the colors accordingly but they didnt!

And the orange trees - every time i looked at them I wanted to vomit.

Arma had some places which looked really great - but there were so many places that looked really bad that I think they should have taken more time for the details.

HIding enemys in the hills werent really hiding because every item they where using seemed wrong at this place. It just looked like lego.

It just seemed so unnatural that it made me cry at some time! I really wanted to love this game but I came to points I hated over and over again!

I would really love Arma 2 if it looked like BF3. Nice animations and an incredible deep design of the map with all little details.

But - with all the deep gameplay of Arma! And no run and gun! Purely deep gameplay brought to life with a lot of handmade and not generic details and natural looking graphics. And the best would be a TvT scenario with a command hierarchie and Acre enabled!

But the little details in the environment took me the fun.

In BF3 it is really hard to make out a Tank in the distance because its camouflage works fine.

In Arma2 environment and models looked so far different that you could easily see which was what.

If Arma 2 had all this little details and lovely designed environments - i am sure I would still be playing it - Whatever bug would appear.

Edit: Oh and forgot following: Why would I want to go into every house on the island? This CAN ONLY lead into hundreds of hundreds of houses of the same kind. Leading to houses which will be used so ofen that they ofte just dont fit right into the world.

Pls take a look at the castles in Arma2. They looked like duplo-tox-castles set on a mountain! There are so many ways how to involve builindgs and structures into the world naturally but they just werent used because the islands where to big everytime!

And now Limnos shall be the biggest island of all....Who complained that Chernarus as to small?

I found the little island next to the chernaruslans island much prettier and better designed! Less is more!

I mean - just imagine what Arma would feel like (let it still have it bugs) if it looked like for example this!

or imagine to fight in this forest

Or look at this:

Exaclt ywhat Arma 3 wants to offer ...but allready now with grat graphics!

Sry for crying out loud but I am looking for a game like Arma since I was young and I hate that I keep beeing frustrated of this game...=(

Edited January 18, 2012 by NordKindchen

[Nicholas 5]

Have you ever tried Crysis or BF3? Might be more like what you want.

[Cripsis 10]

I mean - just imagine what Arma would feel like (let it still have it bugs) if it looked like for example this!

or imagine to fight in this forest

Or look at this:

Exaclt ywhat Arma 3 wants to offer ...but allready now with grat graphics!(

I too was recently deceived by a false perception that Cryengine 2 would be the ideal engine for realistic military simulations/games, but after exhaustive research I discovered that it's all an illusion -

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=46081&page=4

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Dude, I'm glad you finally see the light. Good graffix in an engine has absolutely nothing to do with how the game will perform as a game let alone a military simulation. Let BIS do what they do best, and improve a brilliant milsim. ;)

[Minoza 11]

What got me away from arma again and again and again was the overall feeling.

...

I completely understand what you mean, and am probably one of a few who can agree. There's too many players here who haven't even experienced games like BF or Crysis and are angry if someone even tries to mention them within an Arma fap fap thread.

I'm an Arma fan, I'm playing Arma since Arma 1 (yeah, haven't played OFP, stick me on a cross for that...) but that doesn't stop me from seeing what could be done better, or from what other games do better. The fact is, fap fapping brothers, this game isn't perfect, instead of directing people to other games cause they don't like particular features (or absence of those) in Arma, give them constructive criticism and help improve the game.

Point is, some of you have missed the point I guess. NordKindchen was suggesting to improve some aspects of the game and got a reply in a form of "Go play BF this isn't for you". Rather common answer here whenever someone points out what's not good or could be made better within this game. I have a feeling that pretty much all of those haven't even tried BF3 for example, but only heard of it's arcadish gameplay which automatically made it not decent enough for them to be bothered with it. :rolleyes:

Check out "Improving the lighting engine" thread, same guys made their points there as well. "Go play BF and Crysis if you like it so much..." - but in the end, people who did try to experience those other games (games which did this particular thing better then Arma) were able to give constructive criticism. That leaded devs to check out the idea and start working on it.

[nodunit 397]

It depends on what it changes, when people say things akin to the game should have a movement system as maneuverable as battlefield 3 then yeah they are going to get told off and told to go play it.

It's not perfect certainly but it depends on how the game feels, if it starts feeling more like a generic shooter due to movement it's likely going to be more perceived as such due to how we're all acquainted, but hey perhaps the new animation system will remove the pause in between animations and keep the arma feel without the 'lagging' movement.

As for the crysis graphics, you'd be surprised how many things you have to tweak to get a map like that to be feaseable, as someone who has looked at the maps in editor I can tell you that there needs to be many 'barriers' which stop anything behind them from being rendered as well as other small tweaks such as sprite distance. The grass is generally more kind to the gpu though since it doesn't use normal maps.

Edited January 18, 2012 by NodUnit

[bzbzb 1]

BF3 is a great demonstration of what a game shouldnt be. It really only has looks and fails to deliver everywhere else - even with the looks though there are plenty of people who prefer to use the colour blind setting and I dont think anyone can stand the glare from the sun.

Ultimately BF3 is about its persistence system which is entirely designed around a scientific approach to addiction, the use of micro rewards etc. Very clever psychology masking how poor the gameplay actually is, the players getting their fix of fun from outside the game environment whilst being overwhelmed by high quality visuals inside the game.

Mainstream games are really now more about their ability to addict you than to entertain you, my opinion would be that their isnt a great deal that you can learn from them, other than spending an epic pot of cash on marketing gains a lot of attention.

I do think ARMA is a little extreme to simply pick up and play but then that isnt a bad thing, it would be rather boring if you were the master of everything after playing for five minutes because everything had been dumbed down to the extent that a small rodent could play as well as a human being. But I think games like BF3 have taught the mass market that nothing should be a challenge and you should never need to use your brain to achieve an objective.

I like the clunky movements and all those slightly irritating details that mean you cant just press a button and have "WIN" flash up on the screen.

[maddogx 13]

I like the clunky movements and all those slightly irritating details that mean you cant just press a button and have "WIN" flash up on the screen.

This is the only part of your post I disagree with. :)

The clunky animations are actually one of my few big gripes with Arma2, and I really hope the "revamped animation system" will fix them. To be clear, it's not entire the movement system itself that bugs me, just some of its more annoying quirks and some particularly ugly animations:

- Changing stances while holding certain things like binoculars causes unnecessary weapon switch anims.

- Switching between certain weapons causes multiple unnecessary intermediate weapon switch anims.

- Weapons cannot be switched while on the move, which is annoying in itself but also exacerbates the above problems.

- Running upright with a pistol in hand. (Immersion breaker for me because it just looks laughable.)

- Loss of movement control while throwing grenades. (Should be possible on the move, like reloading.)

This is unnecessary clunkiness, and I'll be very happy even if just those problems disappear in Arma3 and the rest of the animation system remains the same.

Welcome to the forums btw. ;)

[rye1 21]

- Weapons cannot be switched while on the move, which is annoying in itself but also exacerbates the above problems.

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/25357

[Tonci87 163]

This is the only part of your post I disagree with. :)

The clunky animations are actually one of my few big gripes with Arma2, and I really hope the "revamped animation system" will fix them. To be clear, it's not entire the movement system itself that bugs me, just some of its more annoying quirks and some particularly ugly animations:

- Changing stances while holding certain things like binoculars causes unnecessary weapon switch anims.

- Switching between certain weapons causes multiple unnecessary intermediate weapon switch anims.

- Weapons cannot be switched while on the move, which is annoying in itself but also exacerbates the above problems.

- Running upright with a pistol in hand. (Immersion breaker for me because it just looks laughable.)

- Loss of movement control while throwing grenades. (Should be possible on the move, like reloading.)

This is unnecessary clunkiness, and I'll be very happy even if just those problems disappear in Arma3 and the rest of the animation system remains the same.

Welcome to the forums btw. ;)

^Things I agree with

[maturin 12]

- Changing stances while holding certain things like binoculars causes unnecessary weapon switch anims.

- Switching between certain weapons causes multiple unnecessary intermediate weapon switch anims.

- Weapons cannot be switched while on the move, which is annoying in itself but also exacerbates the above problems.

- Running upright with a pistol in hand. (Immersion breaker for me because it just looks laughable.)

- Loss of movement control while throwing grenades. (Should be possible on the move, like reloading.)

Precisely. I would never play ArmA with BF or CoD movement, and it has nothing to do with bias against those games. Nevermind realism, normal FPS movement would be useless in ArmA. Here, bullets actually kill. Therefore, I need to be able to lean. Not just lean, but toggle lean, partial Track IR lean, curve my torso around the a corner, duck my head by looking at the ground, look above grass by raising my head, roll, cue up optics modes with no delay between stances and weapons, walk, crawl, run and sprint with half a dozen speed settings in every category. And all of this with nine buttons easily learned in an afternoon of practice.

[antoineflemming 14]

Bzbzb and maturin, basically you're saying that you like clunky movement, or rather that you don't like more smooth movement, because regular FPSs have that. So you want clunky movement just to make a statement that you're different. Look at BF3's third person animations. I'm not talking about how the character slides on the ground. I'm talking about the animations themselves. Real human movement isn't clunky. It isn't super fast, but it is smooth because of joints and stuff. Even if you don't want animations like BF3, you should want realistic animations and transitions between animations. And, maturin, did you realize that MadDogX was talking about/criticizing ArmA2? Those things you quoted are problems with ArmA2's current animation system. If the clunky animation system was so perfect, why is BIS changing it? The argument that you should keep a bad feature and not choose a better one simply because that better feature is in another game is not an argument at all.

@MadDogX Do you remember the swimming animations from Gamescom? That had great transitions and animations. I think we can expect something more like that for the revamped system. I think (well, I hope) transitions are a major improvement in the new animation system.

[maturin 12]

basically you're saying that you like clunky movement

Actually read the fucking posts. I said the precise opposite.

I want ArmA's complex, highly precise and variable movement options, but dislike the flawed animation transitions and roadblocks that make it clunky and frustrating.

Now that we have all your strawmen and false dichotomies behind us...

MadDogX was talking about/criticizing ArmA2?

MadDogX was impeccably clear. It is you who have not comprehended his post.

To be clear, it's not entire the movement system itself that bugs me, just some of its more annoying quirks and some particularly ugly animations... This is unnecessary clunkiness, and I'll be very happy even if just those problems disappear in Arma3 and the rest of the animation system remains the same.

[metalcraze 290]

Yeah I want to see smooth transitions too. And no hand-made animations like unarmed movement (looks ridiculously ugly).

Of course the movement system together with the body weight and inertia and camera-in-eyes should stay. Wouldn't have ArmA the other way.

[NoRailgunner 0]

BIS need to find the magic trick to make new people get into the world of Armaverse. How do you convince someone who has never played a game like this to enjoy it? Imho BIS need to show more the differences to casual games/mainstream shooter and the possibilities one has to create something.

Maybe to start with an A3 teaser something like the Swedish Recruitment Ad:

AprqomTW-Wo

[Cripsis 10]

Maybe to start with an A3 teaser something like the Swedish Recruitment Ad:

It's going to be difficult to attract new players with a teaser like that when other game developers are releasing trailers like this -

ijxBbvr_qZY

[blu3sman 11]

It's going to be difficult to attract new players with a teaser like that when other game developers are releasing trailers like this -

Not true.