How to improve the Close Quarter Combat experience in Arma 3?

[iceman77 18]

That's not entirely true. Maybe on the vehicle side it's not a simulator. But I think it does a very good job simulating infantry combat in the open world. So to me it is a simulator of a sort. Atleast better than any other game. What I'd love to see is, Steel Beast, blackshark & arma rolled into one :cool:

Edited January 6, 2013 by Iceman77

[rye1 22]

"tradeoffs selecting gear" was already announced for Arma 3, it's just that BI chose the drawbacks to be sprint duration/aiming accuracy/recovery time (of aiming accuracy) instead of agility.

Far out I can't wait for that. Affect upper body movement? Who knows? I wish heavy backpacks and chest rigs did.

The standerd is a constant strive towards realism otherwise this is no simulator. No games does it flawlessly but most if not all do CQC better than Arma , Get the best of both by fixing the dam movment system and everyone is happy.

That's a great suggestion. "Fix it". :p No shit. I'm not striving towards realism here, but a better way of doing such with references to reality. If you wanted realism, there's no such thing with CQB. Everyone has their own way of operating, their own style, movement patterns. It's not an RPG: "Decide what hand you use and what colour your pretty hair is".

With a smooth arma there would be no reason to choose between either CQC or long range, they would both be equally polished. Having to choose one or the other limits arma's credability as a military simulator completely.

Hey that's why you run a scope with back-up sights, amaright? :cool: I don't get how you choose. BIS chose well for ARMA 2 - Field infantry type warfare and it was great. OA tried upgrading the CQB aspect. ARMA 3 looks to do more. So they have chose. They've chose to do both and brush up on each others flaws. At least it looks that way. If they've chose CQB over the field aspect playability more so is only for the future to tell but with over 50 towns and cities on a huge map populated with trees, rocks, urban settings - I'd cross my fingers and really hope they've gone for a huge CQB improvement.

How would that affect long-range combat? Well it depends what they change and how they implement it.

I just can’t see ai in this series doing room clearances properly, as said, human players can do this reasonably well with SMK.

I've never seen it done properly in any game. SWAT was "Bang and clear". They'd throw a flashbang (single bang) and run in to all directions. It was basically a dynamic entry - not a real entry tactic, even if you wanted something done deliberately. With the amount of building types, shapes and obstacles (stairwells, ladders, doorways, room layouts) you come across then it would need to be more fiddly to do it "properly" and that would be a pain in the arse then to control AI. RVS was just as bad too so... Heck. You're right, even they - being a lower standard than one would want in ARMA - are still a flipping great alternative to the current.

Well clipping a gun/rifle barrel through walls and other solid objects should be a no-go. Imo somekind of body feedback feature/system for players body would be good so the player will have some troubles if he is doing something wrong or/and too fast.

Now this is a pretty good suggestion but I don't get how? Stance indicator? Speed indicator? I think weapon collisions can enhance a game if done correctly - look at SWAT 4. Infact it can give some advantage to movement. If weapon collisions was considered, so should a better low or even high ready stance to navigate fatal funnels, doorways, whatever. A collision may make you go to a low ready stance or move the weapon around it. It'll have restricted angles, which is a good thing when you talk of realism.

For example I can't get my weapon all the way down from the top of this rooftop low-wall to engage the guy below me because the angle just doesn't allow for it. At the same time you could argue that you could adjust your upper body over or whatever, or blind fire. But ARMA doesn't allow so you'd have to change positions or allow for the consequences of those pitfalls.

Does it feel similar for you when moving through your own house in real life to the way you move in a house in Arma?

Similar, no. I can adjust my speed, my axis of advance, my body (upper and lower limits included) rotation, my stance. I can curve my body as you said, I can navigate it through anatomical and physiological manipulation as well as weapon manipulation. Simple fix: make bigger doorways.

No offense to that discussion, because yeah floating cameras are the sin! But I play first person only.

I just looked for an article I read that you would of loved. It was called "The Role of the Visual System during building clearance" and it has been deleted. It was: "Walker A., Muth E.R., Switzer F.S., & Hoover A.W. (2010). The role of head movements in simulator sickness generated by a virtual environment. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 81, 929-934" if you ever want to research it.

By that standard, this series has never really been a simulator except in the fanboys' minds... and considering a dev's own remark (I believe Vespa's?) on development priorities, it never will be. :lol:

Iceman I actually agree with Chortles. They aren't interested in proper CQB! They aren't apart of any MILSIM or tactical clans! They don't really give two huffs.

Just give me a team. Scripters, modellers, texturers and an animations guy. And a CQB mod will be started! :D Heck, I'd even through in a guide haha.

[iceman77 18]

Well to be fair, they are working a fix to allow a better gun holding position while indoors or in any confined spaces, so we don't snag our weapons up on objects. Combined with (hopefully) more fluid movement in general, hopefully cqb can be tolerated in A3.

[rye1 22]

What like the actual base animation or are you talking like you can short stock your weapon or something?

I wonder if bullpups will make a difference if so.

[iceman77 18]

Give this a read. Tonci bolded out the part that is apparently going to happen.

:rolleyes:

Edited January 6, 2013 by Iceman77
I mispelled Tonci with Tonic instead

[Psychomorph 1]

I see OPF and ArmA not as a simulator, but as what I call a "simulator-game". Kind of a hybrid, that has some simulation traits, but is still a game with a story, details that are necessary for a game but not a simulator, etc. It is mostly a game of course.

As for the statement that CQB was never intended in OPF. That might be true, but fact is that there are buildings in the game and soon or later you get close to them and it would be good if the game did it well enough. Also as seen in OA, CQB is more prominent in the modern day warfare than it was in the past maybe, so BIS can adapt to it.

Thing is, when I ask CQB, I mean proper movement and weapon handling, which I really don't think is hard to do, I don't see why it would. But if CQB means offline AI to be programmed to perform proper CQB with commands and schemes, than things get tricky. As said all I want it the individual (human controlled) CQB element to be present.

@Rye: Your PM box is full.

[rye1 22]

@Rye: Your PM box is full.

Fixed, sorry.

[dmarkwick 261]

Give this a read. Tonic bolded out the part that is apparently going to happen.

There is no post by Tonic there, or even a quote from him.

[iceman77 18]

There is no post by Tonic there, or even a quote from him.

*Grabs Glasses* - I meant Tonci. Sorry for the typo. I fixed it. It now says Tonci instead of Tonic. :rolleyes:

Edited January 6, 2013 by Iceman77

[dmarkwick 261]

...or a Tonci :)

[Tonci87 163]

OMG I´m so popular :o

[iceman77 18]

...or a Tonci :)

LOL, what? Idk what you're getting at. Tonci did post and quote at the link I gave...

---------- Post added at 10:16 ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 ----------

OMG I´m so popular :o

yeah!! I was just referring someone to one of your posts about weapons, and I mis-spelled your name.

[St. Jimmy 272]

LOL, what? Idk what you're getting at. Tonci did post and quote at the link I gave...

There's not still any Tonci's post in your link.

[Smurf 12]

There's not still any Tonci's post in your link.

Yeah. Probably diferent number of posts per page configuration. Better to link the post itself instead of the page.

[Smurf 12]

Just came across this video and had to post it:

(start at 2:10 if you will)

Imagine the same situation with better animation\movement system and most important: working grenades. No more wacky leans, the agony of going thru doors, ladders and hallways nor the grenade from nowhere inflicting damage.

[cadmium77 16]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=439_1286821327

An AI that goes about MOUT with these tactics..

[rye1 22]

Imagine the same situation with better animation\movement system and most important: working grenades. No more wacky leans, the agony of going thru doors, ladders and hallways nor the grenade from nowhere inflicting damage.

Not getting stuck on dead bodies who have just died gets a lot of people killed too. That's how people can camp out the doorway without too much risk - shoot the lead and the rest get stuck. There are many small problems. Some are general gameplay and others are more specific and less likely of BIS to look into.

---------- Post added at 03:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:47 PM ----------

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=439_1286821327

An AI that goes about MOUT with these tactics..

Makes no sense. AI aren't going to act like that, human thought - come on.

I'd love to see them use windows and rooftops to fire from sure - or get pinned down themselves more commonly. But "MOUT tactics", what are you talking about and how can you make the AI do so?

[chrisb 196]

The test below in my sig called ‘Skirmish’ is a walkthrough showing ai behaviour, its not the greatest quality vid and you will need to use full screen, but it shows great ai..

It took 5 minutes to setup, when it was done. Full missions using the pbo’s from the mod’s mentioned in the vid and you will get stunning results.

Its really down to mission design and setup, ai entering a building and getting stuck on each other rarely happens, and to stand and wait for lemming ai is no tactic, just console shooter stuff. Using windows, doorways, balconies and rooftops are all part of the modded ai now and have been for some time (yrs).

Yes we need better animation and ai movement, but what is available now, via mod’s, is pretty good and very intelligent, its just a shame many players still don’t use it.

To see this type of ai behaviour added to Arma 3 as standard, would be great, but its there now, just look for it and test to find your perfect ai balance..:)

I hope for even better from A3, well hopefully..;)

[froggyluv 2136]

Using windows, doorways, balconies and rooftops are all part of the modded ai now and have been for some time (yrs).

Using windows? I don't believe any of the aforementioned mods give instruction to fight from windows or doorways as there would need to be more core instruction from the engine. Sure they may shoot at you from time to time but thats generally more happenstance than instruction and I don't think anyone would say they do so in any sort of intelligent way. If an AI is shooting at you from inside a door way, he is generally just standing there and that almost makes him as vulnerable as standing in wide open space unless he happens to have a steep angle on you. Most infantry footage I've seen involving window fighting involves lots of vertical "pop up, shoot, duck to cover" and doorway fighting requires lateral "lean out, fire, lean in". Those need to be hardcoded to be relevant.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Using all sort of AI tweaks and combinations maybe nice for your own scenarios but missions that aren't made with these customized AI scripts/addons will very likely be broken or screwed up. Probably some of these AI tweaks can also be too old/obsolete to be used with latest A2OA (beta)patches.... On the other hand many players just don't like to waste their time setting up all these AI tweaks up until they fit to their taste and just to find out that not all sp/mp missions will work with their customized AI setup.

[chrisb 196]

Using windows? I don't believe any of the aforementioned mods give instruction to fight from windows or doorways as there would need to be more core instruction from the engine. Sure they may shoot at you from time to time but thats generally more happenstance than instruction and I don't think anyone would say they do so in any sort of intelligent way. If an AI is shooting at you from inside a door way, he is generally just standing there and that almost makes him as vulnerable as standing in wide open space unless he happens to have a steep angle on you. Most infantry footage I've seen involving window fighting involves lots of vertical "pop up, shoot, duck to cover" and doorway fighting requires lateral "lean out, fire, lean in". Those need to be hardcoded to be relevant.

The game gives the ai instructions to use animations given to them when the situation requires, a wall is cover to the ai whether they be inside or outside a building, a doorway and window, which if you look through my vids you will see quite a few examples, are open space to the ai, again whether inside or outside. They shoot you through a window if your inside a building and they are on the outside, they just see the window as an open space. As for popping up and down using windows etc, why do you think they pop up and down when behind small walls outside, they are simply popping up into open space to fire. Look through my vids, there are plenty of examples of this behaviour, popping up and down at windows, plus I have hundreds of pics from testing over the years showing the same (some in the albums below in sig).

It goes for rocks, tree’s, bushes of some type’s, buildings, vehicles etc. These are just cover for the ai, leaning out to fire or popping up, makes no difference to ai, they will do this in many situations from many positions. If you allow the ai to use spaces that are more tactical, i.e. buildings, rooftops, balconies etc, then they will use the areas pretty well, shooting from any open area, be it a door or window or whatever, a small wall on a balcony could be a small wall on the ground to the ai, they use it the same, a doorway to lean from, to them, would be like a wall end, depending on how good the building model is put together, but most are good in the game, so they use them. The ai lean to look into a building, again seen in my vids, so they do the same to look out, well our's do.

The need to take cover is from Zeus or SLX find cover, ai will act the same inside or outside, they want cover, walls of buildings are cover whether inside or out. The albums below are full of ai behaviour, firing from apartment balconies, rooftops, doorways, windows etc.

Its just ai looking for places to fire from and its probably the best we are going to get from ai now or in the near future. Mission set-up is all important for realism, troops don’t stay outside and take cover behind a tree if there is a building nearby to inhabit, its just not realistic.

Many players just simply look at a mod and then play it, the mod would have been made by very talented people, but its to the modder's preference, of course, it should be. We as players, have to look to see what we can make of it, for ourselves. GL4 is the fullest of any ai mod (GL, genius mod's), but even then you have to alter the configs to get better or different behaviour, or simply the behaviour you want to see, plus settings etc. May even mean unpacking a pbo itself to gain access to change what you need, provided its for your own, or your groups use, then there's no problem.

Attacking a town with all the ai outside is just not remotely realistic, attacking the town shown in this video is far more realistic and it only took 5mins to set-out the test, imagine it in a full, well put together mission, one that has taken a few weeks to complete, based in a large town or city.. I know what it looks like put together really well, its pretty real, infact stunning in many cases, and the best your going to get from A2, imo.

The best we can hope for is animation that improves the type of body position they can use, i.e. leaning from a wall end would be the same as leaning from a doorway , large opening or window, we just need more variety of animation. The same goes for popping up to see what’s going on or to shoot. They do this now, well for many players they do, just needs to be animated with a variety of positions.

Now SMK gives us some great stances and positions, we don’t use it much as it conflicts with some SLX pbo’s we use, however if the SMK movement and stances could be incorporated into A3 for the ai, then that would be a great benefit to the game and to CQC.

The ai will use a window or doorway, it’s a space to them, they will use it and use the animations they have already been given to some effect, its simply the animations at present are a little restricted.

---------- Post added at 00:39 ---------- Previous post was at 00:22 ----------

Using all sort of AI tweaks and combinations maybe nice for your own scenarios but missions that aren't made with these customized AI scripts/addons will very likely be broken or screwed up. Probably some of these AI tweaks can also be too old/obsolete to be used with latest A2OA (beta)patches.... On the other hand many players just don't like to waste their time setting up all these AI tweaks up until they fit to their taste and just to find out that not all sp/mp missions will work with their customized AI setup.

I agree that most all missions, not made on a GL4 format, will not work completely correctly with this mix. But I play with a group and there are two of us that make the missions, we don’t use any other BIS or community missions as we have an ongoing campaign. Three of us do ai testing and have done for a number of years with this series, we pull apart mod’s and make them as near to what we want as possible. They will overwrite parts from other pbo's here and there, that’s life with any mod, but provided we don’t see this in-game and the game runs smooth and is as realistic as possible, then we don’t mind. We would have tested prior, if parts of a pbo that we want to use is overwritten by another, yet the part we want is still there, then we will use it and allow it to be overwritten where its not needed.

I would not play the game with any of the ai mod’s as they are, and certainly not with Vanilla ai (although its improving), each has something, we just tweak them for our own benefit, these are tested and put together. There would be little point in playing the game as it is, it would just lack realism, for me anyway now, having played with ai mods for so long..

We move with the beta’s, simple ongoing testing and tweaks keeps your ai working as they should. Most of the time we don’t have to change anything much. BIS have advanced the ai, but really not that much in comparison to the ai mod’s available, buildings and everything else is more or less as it always has been in A2/OA, if I made this test now, today, it would play the same with the latest beta, I’m pretty sure of that..

Its certainly not a waste of time doing this with your ai, the ai is all important for players in SP or MP who play against ai on the whole. They have to be as real as possible, if your playing humans most of the time, then perhaps the need is not there.

AI as we all know is cpu intensive, therefore it would depend on your cpu, but most would run this, I do on a 3yr old (maybe older now) pc, runs fine..

[wipman 1]

Hi, IMO the best, and who knows if the only... way of improve the AI on CQB will be to have two different waypoints systems, one for the open field (the common one) and another for indoors; all this combined with a good 3D editor, that allows us to put single units on rooms, corridors and balconies aswell as place single units but part of fire teams or even squads in guard/defending/sniping possitions inside buildings while the rest of the squad do the 1St line tasks.

The common system of wapoints for outdoor, an UFO: Enemy Unknown/Ghost Recon 4 waypoints & orders/options for indoor. With MOUT options for it, so they'll act as a squad when enter or exit a house/building and if they're ordered to guard it... then they'll leave the grouped formation for a diamond like distribution by the house/building, placing those with scopes (read: marksmen) on the upper level (if available) keeping the ARs and MGs on the main level and if a grunt falls... the observer takes his/her possition.

But anyways... this is not possible (the MOUT movement like) without well scaled buildings and a good collisions systems with "some aids..." as i.e: lower the weapon (if is a long one as an AR, an MG or a DMR) and placing the arms closer to the chest and the weapon closer to the face if it's a pistol or SMG, may be too much to ask if the man with the shotgun passes the stock above the shoulder to lean in the corners to look, and at the hip level if is leaning and moving; having the logical impact on the weapon sway when it's not rested on the shoulder... , in the long weapons case. The current way of work of the AI don't works indoors, period; 'lil improvements in the form of addons that the server could have or not or kick you out for have 'em or not... is not a solution, is another problem IMO. Two waypoints systems + 3D editor and layers + better anims In Real Time + well scaled indoor enviroments could work.

As side note... a fire sector haves as default 37º, in combat; when you spect throuble, you use to check like 65º on the movement direction and from time to time you check from 120º to 180º just to check what's up on the place and where's everyone. When you're at ease... just walking and calling names to everyone above your grade and everything on the enviroment... you use to be checking between 60º to 120º at different ranges, usualy close & mid range but without loose the long range. This is something that the AI should do too just for improve their behaviour and drop for good their F Superman/Supergirl über awareness way of work, seeing throug solid objects, tall weed, fat bushes etc. Let's C ya

[froggyluv 2136]

why do you think they pop up and down when behind small walls outside, they are simply popping up into open space to fire. Look through my vids, there are plenty of examples of this behaviour, popping up and down at windows, plus I have hundreds of pics from testing over the years showing the same (some in the albums below in sig).

Thats just too much footage for me to sift thru. And vanilla AI doesn't pop up and down from behind small walls -at least not in any sort of a realistic manner. They may go prone then stand and the like but that is hardley the same thing. Yes certain AI mods help with going to crouch but again, watch real infantry footage and it is far different.

It goes for rocks, tree’s, bushes of some type’s, buildings, vehicles etc. These are just cover for the ai...

Vehicles are not something the AI use for cover. The AI uses objects in the permanent landscape but not dynamically placed items. Perhaps the TPWCAS sight mods makes them break los and use vehicles but I really don't think so. I would absolutely love it if infantry ran behind their APC and leaned out to fire or shot and ducked from car hoods in an urban landscape but honestly we are no where close to that.

As for popping up and down using windows etc, why do you think they pop up and down when behind small walls outside, they are simply popping up into open space to fire. Look through my vids, there are plenty of examples of this behaviour, popping up and down at windows

Well if your satisfied with how they use small walls for cover and consider that proper vertical fighting -why not be happy with the happenchance window firing as well :p Again, they need hardcoded instruction to give any semblence of realism here. Just because an AI can see you (sometimes) thru a window and fires, and maybe goes prone then stands up that shouldn't satisfy you on CQB potentiality.

The best we can hope for is animation that improves the type of body position they can use, i.e. leaning from a wall end would be the same as leaning from a doorway , large opening or window, we just need more variety of animation. The same goes for popping up to see what’s going on or to shoot. They do this now, well for many players they do, just needs to be animated with a variety of positions.

Well yes new animations would be useful but my point is that there needs to be actual hardwired code for AI to use windows and doorways effectively. Yes, similar to the wall lean but a window or doorway is going to take alot more finesse. A wall (lateral) is simply one plane that the AI has to recognize as one side being "closed" and one side being "open". It took them a long while since OFP to give us this. Now imagine windows -what height is at? What stance is the proper one to fire from? There would have to be a really centimeter tight nodes on each side of the window for the AI to plant themselves at because if not, he would look really silly being in the center of the window but leaning right. Doorways also present similar problems. Of course they can be done -but its not a simple as adding a few new animations.

---------- Post added at 20:01 ---------- Previous post was at 19:58 ----------

Hi, IMO the best, and who knows if the only... way of improve the AI on CQB will be to have two different waypoints systems, one for the open field (the common one) and another for indoors;

I agree with this as well as Open Space/CQB alternate orders with respective behaviours.

Edited January 20, 2013 by froggyluv

[rye1 22]

I agree with this as well as Open Space/CQB alternate orders with respective behaviours.

Examples?

[froggyluv 2136]

Examples?

Was shooting some ideas about it here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?144196-Infantry-Combat-Boring-and-Unrealistic&p=2280681&viewfull=1#post2280681