Flaws of ARMA 2 - ARMA 3 Fixed?

[Tigerpaws 10]

Hi all

Please don't take what is here as the whole and soul of the game. It is the things that i saw in my eyes in ARMA II that needed fixing and wondered if ARMA III it will be fixed or not

The Videos are great what i see

http://www.arma3.com/surveilance/video-feed/

ARMA II Problems that annoyed me(I know there not called true AI, cant remember what there called but AI will do)

1) The AI shoot thought grass, do the new AI in ARMA III respond the same? Do they have a peripheral vision, and a fixed sight distance? They seemed very much at times to have super powers, some times its ok, occasionally you can get pinned down from absolute crazy insanity shots and im sniping, and the AI in vehicles can see you from absurd places that they don't have the ability to see from

2) Cant remember the name of it, but when you edit your own mission, i loved being a sniper and when the AI randomly spawn, the spawn points should be further away and more of them(ARMA III optics looks superior and could be fine now). I would love to see hot spots, even customise the amount of hotspots and troop density, and customise random aspects of vehicles and there compound. Basically i would love to see a map generated with 1000 troops with several hot spots and you patiently snipe then out and rpg em, ARMA II does a reasonable job, but it is not quite right

Well those things above are the most important, if you can customise(yes you already can customise the battles i know) the battles to the above specs you would have a game that just keeps on going. I would be happy to pay $200 for, but in ARMA II those things dont exist like described in 1 and 2 above. There were a few other things but cant think of them, might have to fire up ARMA II again

Im sure ARMA 3 will rock but hope the probs above don't exist, they really annoyed me at times, don't see many others saying the same but maybe many don't have the time to waste to post and hope to see changes, or am i the only one

Quick edit 03.01.2012 of my setup and things

Example of AI super abilities - Default Difficulty - ARMA II Vanilla - using FlashpointChernarus by thomsonb

Find a crest of a hill (Video options >> Advanced >> Terrain Detail = Normal) at the top of the hill if you can look around while prone and not see a thing, then its perfect. Once you engage a enemy at 200m+ while Crouch then hit the ground(save game) now go to the left, they know where you are, reload save, this time pull back out of sight from the crest of the hill and head around, look at your map and most of the time there are heading to you(if you dont engage them while crouched only not moving there blind as bats if no shots fired in last 5 min). Again you can do this at a distance of 800m and then 1400m, at around 1200m and grass enabled and you engaged the enemy and are prone with zero visibility, AI can shoot you knowing you have crawled away with Zero visibility and it is without any optics on there guns, i need to turn grass off and be using a gun with optics to see them at 1200m and there prone(can see some but there is always a few impossible to locate). On a widescreen tv too, not 24" monitor

Vanilla ARMA II, no cba no other altering mods(except console for ammo drop), Terrain Detail = Normal - mods FlashpointChernarus

I never have any members in my squad its just me, so i have to locate the enemy. I have grass turned off, and difficulty at Regular(Veteran seems to be a bug of no AI spawning). With the "debug console" so i can my own ammo drop so to speak

The setup

"Let me set it up"

Factions Setup

U.S. Army vs Takistan Army + Takistan Militia

Choose Player

British Army Sniper TIS

Time and Weather

9.00 am + Cloud cover 0% + Fog 0 %

Groups

Friendly 4 + Enemy 20 + Spawn 700 to 1500

Support

All default except tanks @ 10%

Now that's no walk in the park how i love to set things up and play, no AI on my team, but i got "Debug Console" for ammo drop, set at Normal difficulty. I average 30 kills till i die(average arond 40 - 50 with debug console now), if i take on squad members that can escalate to 70 plus kills, but there are times can die early on but mostly i do the owning only by understanding the AI super abilities

Im also just started playing with same settings above FlashpointZargabad by thomsonb on ARMA II OA(OA seems ok, no crashing just BAF and PMC) and think its my favourite, also love laggy's Behind Enemy Lines, was good last time i played a few years ago

Edited January 3, 2012 by Tigerpaws

[igneous01 19]

1: Never had issues with AI super spotting ever since OA came out. I run the ai on almost max settings (0.93) and if I am smart (prone inside a tree or in dense grass) vehicles can pass by all the time and never notice me. Infantry usually needs to get in 20m before they see me in a forest (the forest ground apparently has incorrect spotting value, compared to grass) the only thing I find that sucks, is that the AI sometimes dont see infantry in plain sight of them 500m away.

2: Use DAC, it does what you want and more.

[NeMeSiS 11]

2) Cant remember the name of it, but when you edit your own mission, i loved being a sniper and when the AI randomly spawn, the spawn points should be further away and more of them(ARMA III optics looks superior and could be fine now). I would love to see hot spots, even customise the amount of hotspots and troop density, and customise random aspects of vehicles and there compound. Basically i would love to see a map generated with 1000 troops with several hot spots and you patiently snipe then out and rpg em, ARMA II does a reasonable job, but it is not quite right

If you are talking about ACM: Spawn distance is tweakable.

[Tigerpaws 10]

Hi guys

I didn't do a good job of explaining a few things, my orig version of the game i gave to my nephew, and am running the steam version that tends to crash unless its just ARMA II(could be I7, unsure why, have not googled to see yet), so ARMA II is all i got running at the moment to refresh my memory with flaws

But lets just look at ARMA II alone, why did it never get the support of the other releases? Fixes and improvments, this alone is what originally turned many gamers off of ARMA vowing its rubish. Took forever for enough patches to be released to play it without crashing

AI Tank i can sneak up on no worries, i can even have a party. But go back to cover and shoot a bullet at it, it will aimbot you where ever you go. Leave the area by 2km and return it will know your ever movement behind buildings and every where you go. At night time none of the enemy have Nightvision, but they see you as clear as day.

The Anti material sniper rifle is the most powerfull sniper gun to date there is, but has more drop then the Nato GL, in fact i prefer the nato GL to the sniper gun if it is in the open. Never been fixed. All you have to do is start shooting at targets at a range of 800m to 1500m. Anti-Material sniper has as much drop as most other sniper guns so to speak

My main concerain with the game, will it be a ARMA 2 after release, lost and forgotton as they push out the others

[katipo66 94]

Download the latest patch along with some great user made mods/missions and your good to go, A3 won't cost $200 but you know you'll get more than you pay for.

Don't use grass as cover!?

[-FHA-Dynamo 0]

grass is only good for concealment at best, and a visual obstruction at worst.

the thing about hiding in grass, is that it can be really hard to pull off. either the AI hear you if they are close or they can spot your legs when you are prone and they are in an elevated position. sure your head and shoulders are concealed, but i bet your ass and legs are completely exposed.

[froggyluv 2136]

Dynamo;2082621'] sure your head and shoulders are concealed' date=' but i bet your ass and legs are completely exposed.[/quote']

This is one thing Ive always wondered, if a tiny part of you is exposed like a foot, is the AI less likely to spot you or is it an all or nothing game?

[-Coulum- 35]

@froggyluv

From my experience this does not seem to be the case. Whether I crouch behind a wall with just the top of my helmet exposed or I simply crouch out in the open the ai seem to see me just as quick. I have also had many experiences in which while behind a tree or something trying to conceal myself completely the tip of my toe or a few fingers are exposed and the ai sees it just as quickly as if I were out in the open. I think making it so ai have more trouble spotting portions of someone vs. there entire figure would go along way towards making their spotting ability more human like. I know that when playing against other humans it can take several times as long to spot someone's head sticking up behind a wall vs spotting them when there full figure is visible.

[katipo66 94]

You mustn't be that good? I have no problem hiding behind walls, if its not a high wall then i go prone, Also you can't really expect to hide behind a tree and not be noticed?

[metalcraze 290]

1. Yeah I have a problem with AI shooting through grass too. As we all know grass stops bullets - I hope BIS will make ArmA3 realistic! And those damn superpowers of AI like them ignoring you running in their peripheral vision! I hope AI will be totally blind and not only half-blind like it is now.

2. Assuming you are talking about ACM - you can fully customize at which distance AI with superpowers like making them ignore you the moment you crawl behind a bush or being unable to hit anything with MG spawn.

Them AI superpowers.

My main concerain with the game, will it be a ARMA 2 after release, lost and forgotton as they push out the others

Them BIS, not releasing any patch for ArmA2 for a whole week now!

This is one thing Ive always wondered, if a tiny part of you is exposed like a foot, is the AI less likely to spot you or is it an all or nothing game?

It isn't all or nothing.

I've been witness to AIs standing 5m apart with a bush in between looking at each other being unable to see each other, even though I could clearly see feet of the enemy up to knees in a recognizable camo.

I've also posted a screenshot showing a soldier lying in a grass on Chernarus which conceals nothing even to a human eye.

Just because your eyes are covered with something, doesn't meat the remaining ~2m of your body are.

@froggyluv

From my experience this does not seem to be the case. Whether I crouch behind a wall with just the top of my helmet exposed or I simply crouch out in the open the ai seem to see me just as quick.

What "quick" is? Depending on AI difficulty settings and AI config settings (the one in pbo) it takes certain amount of time you need to be exposed in their view before they spot you. It certainly doesn't happen 'quick'

I did tests where I was running from behind the building 20m away from them right in front of their eyes and it was taking them a whole second and sometimes even two to react.

AI from what I've noticed also tends to react to the speed of your movement (not just moving movement, but also you rotating your body) and the noise you make - they certainly won't spot you even in the open field if you will not move and they aren't alerted unless close enough.

In old ArmA2 1.05 coop we were lying in grass about ~10-15m away from a passing AI patrol (although it was at night) and they didn't spot us (this is in relation to AI has X-Ray vision at night)

AI has many flaws but from my observations they are all about AI not being as good as human, not being better than human. Since I can wipe out an AI squad alone knowing above nuances without much effort.

I mean MG dudes, which are dangerous IRL, are completely useless in ArmA2 (unless commanded by the player to go prone) at the moment because they keep shooting their MG while standing unable to handle the recoil and so all they do is pinpointing the location of their squad, not suppressing the enemy.

I've also noticed that both in OFP and ArmA1 AI had no problem shooting you through a bush, now when I'm going behind a bush AI suddenly forgets I did that just a moment ago and bullets stop flying at me. Why?

I can kill AI from 200m away with M4 carbine from 1st shot by simply aiming at them and pulling the trigger, but these so called "aimbots" have a problem killing enemies from 100 even with 1.0 skills

Superpowers indeed.

If anything AI with 1.0 skill should be close to being aimbots but with 0.0 skill they should be no better than an afghani insurgent. That will fix this flaw.

Edited January 2, 2012 by metalcraze

[igneous01 19]

one thing I have noticed now with the AI with 1.6 out - If you are in a firefight with your team against the ai: the more you shoot at the ai, the more the ai will return fire on your position, offering suppressive fire makes them lock onto you faster, and suppress you in return (that is if you are not returning accurate fire). So the more you engage, the more they engage you and see you as priority number 1.

[wipman 1]

Hi, the other day i was playing a EVO on the ArmA2 on Cadet difficulty; i was inside a house far from the door or windows, behind 2m thick wall. My character began to report about NME contacts that were +100m away from me and completly outside my view as i was inside a house, shudently... i began to hear SVD shoots entering by the door that came from a Marksman that acording to my character's report was at 200m; checking the map i was able to see new contacts, on the move at like 200m and vehicles at +400m.

I think that some of this can't be fixed (on the ArmA2) as it lays on the game's code and it's a central piece of the AI's heart, the things that make 'em move, shoot and react, but it's exagerated and unrealistic in therms of human awareness. I think that the AI will be better on the ArmA3 than on the ArmA2 aswell many other things, but we gonna see for sure some of the flaws and weird things that we can see some times on the ArmA2 because those things lay deep down on the basic game's code. Let's C ya

[Flash Thunder 10]

What needs immediate fixing is the AI's supreme situational awareness especially during night cloudy instances. There ability to snipe you from 100's of meters away in a few bullets.

Mainly all they do is when under fire, go to prone and then not move to cover they will just stay in prone in the middle of the field.

For a sound issue that really gets on my nerves is that you can hear the birds outside chirping (way too loudly most the time) and that there audible when inside a damn Jets cockpit or a helicopter in operation.

I really hope these are fixed/sorted for Arma 3.

And no ability to bail out of a jet when in use, come on... you would be annihilated in a split second.

[wipman 1]

Hi, there's a minor thing with the AI that i think that can't be fixed; when you order an AI to take X weapon or thing from an ammo box or something else... they could be right on top of the ammo box or the thing itself, but they gonna take a 6m long walk to face directly the proxy of the ammo box, object or vehicle and then take what you'd ordered 'em to take. Most of the times... they also gonna go prone three or five times before face the proxy that's 2m away from the ViewLOD and then perform the action. This is one of the things that i doubt that will change as this has been on the game's core since the OFP, is very annoying, consumes time and in some cases can lead the AI to the death, you or the whole squad too.

As i've said... this issue lays deep down on the game's core. Let's C ya

[stupidwhitekid75 11]

One of my biggest hopes is that they'll fix the Surrender module so it works better. Surrendering is always a big part in all of my missions, I've found myself using addons instead though because BI's default rarely has them surrender, and if you're lucky enough to get them to, they will only sometimes keep there hands up in the air and you have no way of interacting with them whatsoever. It was always a big disappointment to me.

It would be nice if they took note to GL4's method of surrendering, it happens in sort of a more realistic manner, as well as Nielsen's CIM, where you are able to cuff/detain/extract enemies and/or civilians who've surrendered.

[maturin 12]

Hi, the other day i was playing a EVO on the ArmA2 on Cadet difficulty; i was inside a house far from the door or windows, behind 2m thick wall. My character began to report about NME contacts that were +100m away from me and completly outside my view as i was inside a house, shudently... i began to hear SVD shoots entering by the door that came from a Marksman that acording to my character's report was at 200m; checking the map i was able to see new contacts, on the move at like 200m and vehicles at +400m.

Friendly groups were reporting the position of enemies that they spotted. This happens silently and it is why you were reporting it to your own group. Not many people are aware of this feature.

[metalcraze 290]

behind 2m thick wall

Looks like AI skills is not the only thing that's being exaggerated eh

[R0adki11 3949]

Personally if you want a good experience play PvP no ai to worry about :)

[wipman 1]

Friendly groups were reporting the position of enemies that they spotted. This happens silently and it is why you were reporting it to your own group. Not many people are aware of this feature.

Hi, the thing is that my AI mate was back on the Airport inside an AA HMMWV and he was also giving me accurate reports of the NME movement arround me, as accurate as my own character's reports and i was inside a house with 2m thick brick walls... .

The NME began to shoot at me at least 5mins after that i'd entered in the house and they wasn't there before, it was a group that came from the West, from arround the RADTO; i didn't moved to look by the windows or door once i was inside the house, i just remained quiet on the thicker part of the house and they just knew that i was there. I/my character shouldn't report about things that i just can't see or are not on my FOV, neither should the AI; if it were other player... we'll say that he've a radar and that's a hacker. Let's C ya