Finding the right ballance between realism and playability

[Minoza 11]

Dude, the only thing (well almost) I did back in Arma was flying choppers for transport. Now in OA, I still provide air transport, but I like to play other roles too, especially with ACE.

[kernriver 4]

You already can climb over obstacles, and there is some sort of suppression fire / effects.

True, but the features I mentioned were just an example.

What I was trying to say is Arma needs no balancing.

If BIS makes Arma3 as realistic as possible, the game will balance itself.

[Cripsis 10]

What I was trying to say is Arma needs no balancing.

If BIS makes Arma3 as realistic as possible, the game will balance itself.

Totally agree.

[Pulverizer 1]

If BIS makes Arma3 as realistic as possible, the game will balance itself.

How do you figure? Real warfare is extremely imbalanced in video game terms.

[Cripsis 10]

Real warfare is extremely imbalanced in video game terms.

That's the point. Real warfare is in equilibrium with ARMA because it realistically simulates combat, in contrast to a game like battlefield 3 where the gameplay does not represent actuality.

[Zoz 10]

I havent played warfare a lot, anyway:

Well, since the US are so overpowered in terms of equipment, its actually pointless to play a gamemode where two obviously unbalanced sides play with the same objectives.

Maybe the takis objectives and rewards should be different as they are bound to get their ass kicked most of the times, fighting on the same level of the US. And in real life it would probably be worse.

Perhaps the gamemode is broken unless we have 2 equal sides (maybe we are getting them this time), or different objectives for each side, depending on strenght.

[5LEvEN 11]

I havent played warfare a lot, anyway:

Well, since the US are so overpowered in terms of equipment, its actually pointless to play a gamemode where two obviously unbalanced sides play with the same objectives.

Maybe the takis objectives and rewards should be different as they are bound to get their ass kicked most of the times, fighting on the same level of the US. And in real life it would probably be worse.

Perhaps the gamemode is broken unless we have 2 equal sides (maybe we are getting them this time), or different objectives for each side, depending on strenght.

If I remember this correctly, the opfor units get cheaper armor faster. So if played correctly, they could spam t-72's and cut off blufor armor and air support. After which opfor would get air support, meaning opfor is a mid game force, while blufor is an end game force. Both are about even in the beginning if you play correctly. You're thinking about warfare as a FPS only mode, it's also a lot of strategy and tactics, and you cannot play opfor like blufor and vice versa.

[-Coulum- 35]

How do you figure? Real warfare is extremely imbalanced in video game terms.

What is fair and unfair is all a matter of perspective. Even when technologically superior forces face off against less equipped foes there, is always ways to adapt and even the playing field. Just take a look at afghanistan. Although US has the upper hand in technology the taliban it is probably the ones who have the unfair advantage simply because they play by a different set of rules and have very different goals.

Basically I think that enemies will adapt in real life. In arma 3 I hope that players can do this as well. Adding more realism will hopefully help open up our options when playing and allow players to better adapt to situations. ie. If arma 2 were to introduce the ability for opfor units to conceal small weapons and blend in with the local populace like in reality, it would even the playing field in arma 2 more.

In my opinion more realism does not equal easier gameplay. It just means that players will need to approach tasks from different angles.

[dragon01 902]

Warfare is unrealistic, and it was never meant to simulate anything. Any realistic game mode will "balance itself", or will have to be balanced by the mission designer. If, say, US and Afghani forces had the same goal, the war wouldn't have been worth a footnote. It worked in OFP, where US and Russia were more or less equal, but in case of one side being guerillas, it doesn't. It is possible to balance the sides, for example by giving guerillas a different goal, lifting some restrictions off them and allowing them greater numbers.

[kernriver 4]

How do you figure? Real warfare is extremely imbalanced in video game terms.

I didn't mean the game will automaticaly balance weapons or anything like that, I meant exactly what Cripsis said.

Arma 3 should "balance" itself with real life.

IMHO. :)

[Daniel 0]

The only balancing should be done by mission designers and players. All weapon and vehicle specifications should be as true to life as possible. There is no need to "nerf" any aspect of the game.

That's the only reply I can offer to the thread starter. I would have thought the original post far too vague to be worth this much discussion.

[Tonci87 163]

The only balancing should be done by mission designers and players. All weapon and vehicle specifications should be as true to life as possible. There is no need to "nerf" any aspect of the game.

That's the only reply I can offer to the thread starter. I would have thought the original post far too vague to be worth this much discussion.

This!

[ladlon 10]

I'd like to voice my opinion on this as well. I'm a HUGE Arma fan. I loved Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2, and still think they are great, too. But, I was turned off of Battlefield 3 due to the lack of bots. I kept looking at COD, but really dislike the frantic pace of it.

No, for me, my favorite, by far is Arma (Arma2, Operation Arrowhead, etc). As some have stated, it IS the realism that is what makes it for me. The non-scripted, open world. The fact that things aren't choreographed (...as 'nice' as that looks, it sometimes makes things predictable, as you KNOW that it won't be quiet for too long, whereas with Arma, you truly don't know how things will be with each minute).

Like others, I too actually enjoy hiding in the grass... worried about my next move... PLANNING things out, THINKING it through... CONSIDERING my options... Even the 'dull' moments are great, as they are really part of the experience... In Arma, 'dull' moments are often 'tense' moments.

In fact, this is one of the reasons I don't think I would enjoy COD and similar titles, as there is no real stratagy, planning, thinking things through.... but, instead, seemingly just fast paced run and gun (which to me is dull, in long stretches).

Certainly, there is a place for that sort of thing, and I'm by no means writing it off as 'bad'. I'm sure a lot of us still enjoy having a Rambo moment, or causing lots of explosions, or living out an 'action scene'. It's all good. BUT, I TRULY hope that Arma never begins catering to that, and strays from it's realism base, as it really is about the only game/sim that does cater to that. There are plenty of 'action' titles out there, so there really is no need for Arma to make the HUGE mistake of trying to please everyone (because you ultimately will end up pleasing no one). I think there are plenty of us 'realism' fans.

I just noticed Arma3, and I can't tell you how excited I am about that! Looks fantastic, and I am 100% buying it when it becomes available... both because I totally love the series, and also because I want to support the development team, who not only create an amazing product (and one that just keeps giving and giving, with so much depth and features).

I can't wait for Arma3, and will continue playing Arma2/OA for many years.

No ill will to the original poster. I see the point you are making, but I strongly feel that Arma's strength is that it IS the (seemingly) only realism based military sim (and a great one at that), while there are plenty of other action based games out there to satisfy the 'other crowd'.

Cheers!

[JayMeal 10]

The only validity I see in the OP's reasoning is the game becomes less playable, when you have to factor in AI, and complicated controls. Commanding other units is such a hassle, in theory it's a few menus, but hit one wrong key and you're starting over. Realistically, commanding a unit would be verbally, every point you get across would be easy, succinct, and effortless.

Working with AI in ArmA2 is a total hassle, I'm sure a lot of you mastered it - but anyone can master even the most awkward of maneuvers with time and practice, that doesn't mean it's optimized though. A lot of actions we would do in real life would be effortless, and in sims, they take conscious thought and several actions so in my opinion anything done to reduce redundant actions, and make the gameplay more of finding your targets, getting from point A to point B, ambushing, defending, etc, rather than spending minutes working with complicated controls.

I hope they update their menus too, they look very similar to A2 as of now. Just make them look more user friendly I guess, navigating through them just reminded me of a windows 95 start menu.

I also - like someone else mentioned - rather stay prone for 10 minutes planning my kill than the MW3 type games, they are no-brain-power point and click games. I like playing them though (yeah yeah big deal); but this to me is a different genre which I like more, but to make it out of the box easier, and more familiar is not a bad thing.

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

sorry to beat a dead horse maybe the word you guys are looking for is not accessibility or usability but making the game more intuitive. easy to understand but difficult to employ?

i'm a helo pilot so i'll use helicopter analogy. learning the basic principals of helicopter flight is pretty straight forward, x happens so y is the consequence and z is what you need to do. all that's simple in a text book but very different when you're actually flying (when the helicopter behaves realistically at least). this is how the game should be like, the tutorial systems should make it intuitive that you can understand what you need to do but it should be difficult to employ once you're actually playing the game or flying the helicopter.

i do agree the ui is quite old and the controls are a bit clunky and the communication voice overs are regressive, you'd think after a decade they'd took a week or so to take new voice samples or make the models more fluid and life like and menus easier to navigate?

also i actually read through this whole thread (all 14 pages) and i just have to say something about the player making a mission placing an artillery team in his squad. what if the player starts playing and is all happy then squad size opponent ambushes him and kills the artillery team? how will he call for artillery then? or what if he was trying to create a multiplayer map where everyone can call on that artillery, will everyone who joins the game have a squad of artillery operators in their team? he'd need to go back to the editor, place the artillery team outside of the players' squads in a safe position like 7km away in a friendly base and will need to employ a script so everyone who is playing can call artillery to hit a specific location on the map. now the player has a sad face again because he can't figure out how to do it.

my point is that this game requires a different attitude than most to enjoy, it forces us to adapt, be patient, learn and cooperate with others. be it creating missions or how to lead a shot when you have a 7kt crosswind or how to coordinate with your team or how to fly a helo etc and that's just cold hard fact. some people will be very good at one thing and fail miserably at another and that's why we have this wonderful community to help each other out. sometimes no amount of accessability can accomodate the the lack of intelligence/capability or our unwillingness to adapt and learn new things, unless you play run, point and shoot type games.

to the person that compares gta4 to arma.... you've got to be kidding right?

imagine arma is the prestiged harvard/mit university, it's not meant to be accessible but the rewards are great. people might ask them to make it more accessible to the general public but tough shit. this is not an elitist mentality but it's this that seperates arma from the rest, and arma IS the only one of it's kind and it appeals to a pretty narrow range of audience. this requirement for intelligent, teamwork based game play is what seperates arma from cod/bf3 etc.

Edited November 9, 2011 by MD500Enthusiast

[Maio 293]

imagine arma is the prestiged harvard/mit university, it's not meant to be accessible but the rewards are great. people might ask them to make it more accessible to the general public but tough shit. this is not an elitist mentality but it's this that seperates arma from the rest, and arma IS the only one of it's kind and it appeals to a pretty narrow range of audience. this requirement for intelligent, teamwork based game play is what seperates arma from cod/bf3 etc.

ArmA does not require inteligent teamwork to be played...

It can be played just like any other FPS on the market. The only thing that sets it apart from the mainstream is that you can choose on how you want to aproach a situation (both SP and MP) a.k.a it's a sandbox.

The thing is most new players don't know what to do within a sandbox environment. They play SP, they dont like it beacuse it's not one big interactive movie, then they switch to MP, where they end up on Domination or Evolution maps and we all know what goes on on most public Domi and Evo maps :rolleyes:

They quit playing... and then bad mouth it...

[ladlon 10]

Actually, ya, I agree... The one 'gripe' I have with Arma is that the control scheme can sometimes lead to frustrating 'misunderstandings'. I completely understand (and appreciate) the open, modular system they have in place, and it makes sense for expandibility and compatibility, etc...

But, that said, I certainly have had many experiences where I spend 5 minutes just trying to get (say) one of my crew in a vehical as a gunner, and another in the back... or have them move to a certain spot on the map. Always human error, to be fair, but nonetheless frustrating. It often becomes a frantic comedy of errors, where it's like 'NO! Wait! No, YOU stay there! YOU go over here! WAIT!!! What are you doing!?! NO! Don't get on that motorcycle! Will you please lie down so you won't get shot! HEY! Where are you going now! ARGH!!!!'

(Again, please know that I love this game... probably my favorite of all time, and I'm not saying the game is 'broken'... just that sometimes the control system can 'motivate' human error..... (am I saying this carefully enough? hehehe). The context sensitive menus can sometimes be your worst enemy (...ex. you neglect to specify a team member before going through all the command trees, etc).

Not that I have a solution... It's a ridiculous amount of commands that they have to address, so it's not like the 'screwed up something easy' by any means. The fact that the AI can generally navigate and act on the world as it is impresses me to no end. Playing with human teammates, it's all good, and it's a simple matter of you saying what you want, and the human understands (and makes natural assumptions, etc). When dealing with the computer AI, there's SO many details that have to be specified, that we take for granted.

I don't imagine the interface will ever get a full overhaul, as (beyond being a lot of work) it would also mean throwing off all those who are used to the system for years. Even then, I'm not sure what would be a better system.

It seems the best solution is for us humans to adapt to the software, instead of the other way around, as it's ultimately easier, I think!

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents (plus tax and exchange rate)

---------- Post added at 11:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 AM ----------

Oh, one other thing... as far as 'accessablity' (in the sense of it being easy to learn), one sore spot with Arma has always seemed to be the 'lack' of a proper (complete) manual... which has puzzled many users. Granted, a complete manual for the game would probably be the size of a phone book! But, on the other hand, it's hillarious how there are STILL people out there who don't know how throwing a grenade or using a grenade launcher truly works in the sim! Even recently, when I asked about it, I found there's a lot of people saying, 'Ya, I still don't really know...'.

It's an odd thing, the (apparent) lack of full documentation... but, something that we pretty much accepted, as it's a beast of a sim that keeps growing and evolving anyway. The experience of the game is well worth the researching and experimenting anyway!...

[sic-disaster 311]

To hell with the broader audience. The broader audience has had enough.

Operation Flashpoint went down the drain, so did Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, and the future of the genre apart from the ArmA series is so bleak I don't even want to see another SWAT or Hidden and Dangerous game to be announced because they will be fucked up beyond a single doubt.

The very idea of people begging for ArmA to become less than it is makes me want to crucify someone.

[MD500Enthusiast 10]

ArmA does not require inteligent teamwork to be played...

It can be played just like any other FPS on the market. The only thing that sets it apart from the mainstream is that you can choose on how you want to aproach a situation (both SP and MP) a.k.a it's a sandbox.

The thing is most new players don't know what to do within a sandbox environment. They play SP, they dont like it beacuse it's not one big interactive movie, then they switch to MP, where they end up on Domination or Evolution maps and we all know what goes on on most public Domi and Evo maps :rolleyes:

They quit playing... and then bad mouth it...

arma is definately playable as a lone wolf in domination, but how often do you see 1 person on the ground completing the objective by running in guns blazing? he'll get mowed down before he reaches the AO.

[Maio 293]

arma is definately playable as a lone wolf in domination, but how often do you see 1 person on the ground completing the objective by running in guns blazing? he'll get mowed down before he reaches the AO.

True... but you get the same result if you happen to be the only person in the vecinity of the objective in other games as well :D

I don't know... I think this thread has run it's course... It will end up in a looping patern soon enough :bounce3: and us sensible folk will just get caught in it.

Oh mighty moderators, save us from our cruel cruel faith.

[dragon01 902]

But, that said, I certainly have had many experiences where I spend 5 minutes just trying to get (say) one of my crew in a vehical as a gunner, and another in the back... or have them move to a certain spot on the map. Always human error, to be fair, but nonetheless frustrating. It often becomes a frantic comedy of errors, where it's like 'NO! Wait! No, YOU stay there! YOU go over here! WAIT!!! What are you doing!?! NO! Don't get on that motorcycle! Will you please lie down so you won't get shot! HEY! Where are you going now! ARGH!!!!'

(Again, please know that I love this game... probably my favorite of all time, and I'm not saying the game is 'broken'... just that sometimes the control system can 'motivate' human error..... (am I saying this carefully enough? hehehe). The context sensitive menus can sometimes be your worst enemy (...ex. you neglect to specify a team member before going through all the command trees, etc).

What you describe are old problems with ArmA well known through the community. Namely poor interface+idiot AI. This is a SNAFU waiting to happen, and it frequently does. That's why my favorite occupation in ArmA II is a sniper or an infiltrator. That means I don't have to deal with friendly AI, only with enemies (who are OK to shoot :)) Driving vehicles is also fun, but you have to swap between positions if you wish to do something meaningful, since once again, neither interface nor AI make actually commanding a vehicle easy. Not to mention High Command missions (in which I usually end up getting a tank and going solo).

Both of these issues are known too well by everybody who played original AII campaign, and BI promised to fix them in AIII.

As for manual, Falcon 4.0 came with a manual on par with a Harry Potter novel when it comes to thickness (500 pages). Allied Force expansion for it included an abridged paperback version and a full (over 750 pages) version on PDF. I would've been all right with ArmA coming with a similar manual, full of miscalenous info on how military procedures work, "feelies" about the Armaversum and other such things besides basic controls info. It would greatly contribute to immersion, as well as help players learning how to play. Old games frequently did that, and I miss that a bit in modern titles.

[ladlon 10]

Ya, I play (pretty much exclusively) Cipher and the Flashpoint (both versions) mods... and often as a lone wolf (although sometimes with one or two AI teammates, just for a change once in a while). So, usually, I don't wrestle with that commanding issue. If you memorize the more common command sequence to their number sequences (ex. 1-4-2), then I imagine it could go a lot smoother than going through the physical menus.

Still definitely not a deal breaker for me in any way. They get so much right, that it's really not terrible when things sometimes go wrong in a session.

Ha! Funny you mention the Falcon4 manual, as it's sitting right behind me. Ya, those where the days, eh!

I guess the lack of full documentation thing is becoming very common. Same thing seems to be happening in sports games. I recently got myself a cheap copy of Fifa9, and it practically has nothing in the manual. And even with the hints and tips scattered in the game interface itself, it still doesn't explain all things (and always assumes you know what all the various move/kick names... like 'ground cross').

Ah, well... I guess that's what Google and Wikipedia are for... :D

[ghost101 10]

To hell with the broader audience. The broader audience has had enough.

Operation Flashpoint went down the drain, so did Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, and the future of the genre apart from the ArmA series is so bleak I don't even want to see another SWAT or Hidden and Dangerous game to be announced because they will be fucked up beyond a single doubt.

The very idea of people begging for ArmA to become less than it is makes me want to crucify someone.

^^ that times 10

as my name suggests, i used to be a fan of GR. and we all know what happened to that. now i'm a fan of ArmA and I hope i will be for a long time. screw "accessibility". the focus should be on perfecting ArmA, not making it more palatable for the dim masses who only appreciate one thing: X-Factor Hollywood stupidity.

everyone here knows how great ArmA is. we appreciate this unique gem and want more of the same...extended, perfected, more more more! not dilution and retardation in the name of "accessibility". we will not stand for such nonsense!

[nkenny 1057]

To hell with the broader audience. The broader audience has had enough.

Operation Flashpoint went down the drain, so did Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, and the future of the genre apart from the ArmA series is so bleak I don't even want to see another SWAT or Hidden and Dangerous game to be announced because they will be fucked up beyond a single doubt.

The very idea of people begging for ArmA to become less than it is makes me want to crucify someone.

What he said.

[Variable 322]

To hell with the broader audience. The broader audience has had enough.

Operation Flashpoint went down the drain, so did Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six, and the future of the genre apart from the ArmA series is so bleak I don't even want to see another SWAT or Hidden and Dangerous game to be announced because they will be fucked up beyond a single doubt.

The very idea of people begging for ArmA to become less than it is makes me want to crucify someone.

Spot on. Full stop.