Aiming Accuracy in Arma 3

[-Coulum- 35]

Well I meant post analysis as in the after battle report feature. I don't know if VBS2 can report how close a bullet passed during a mission or not

Oh. hehe. I thought you were talking about some sort of fancy method of tracking the rounds. But no it isn't post analysis, I am quite sure of that. I don't know if you checked on the link, but VBS 2 actually has a suppressed event handler that is triggered when rounds pass near a unit. Just tried it out on Jcove and it does indeed trigger not only for shots that impact nearby but also for those that snap past. seemed like it had a metre to 1.5 metre suppression radius.

This kind of event handler alone in arma 3 would at least give modders a good way to mod in ai reactions to suppressive fire. of course it would be better however if bis just implemented proper suppression effects for the ai into the base game though...

I'd still be in favour of suppression effects having a lifetime though, to promote active gameplay.

Not sure if I am understanding you correctly. do you mean suppressive effects should only last for a short period of time and then ai should return to normal behaviour? if so yes I definitely agree with you. Wouldn't want to suppress the ai and then have them just camp the rest of the battle.

[graill 10]

Hey folks, not a big poster but a troopy led me here so i will throw out a bit of input. Just some feedback from a retired vet (GS now) training mechanics in rifle fundementals and engagements for rear area fighting. Vib (VBS2) is good, but you must realize one thing, it isnt real. A person can be a pro at using a mouse and keyboard but joe could suck dunken donuts at using a real weapon, not that bad they hurt themselves but not the warfighter temperment and close quarters reactions in real life most combat kilos have.

As far as i see it the Arma series is the only combat sim out there worth a whit, that said, the simulation not being real, what mechanics (game) do you feel need to be harder on a task that is 100% sensory based? A soldier in real life has a host of sensory oprtions to choose from and digest whereas the PC Sim soldier has just eye/hand coordination to present in order to take down targets, and with the host of mouse deadners out there bult into hardware, what is the point? Even seasoned combat arms soldiers will tell you sims like this are good for hand eye coordination but precious little else. hell, i have even watch joe try to make fine line markers on my screens (they end paying the price) to try and cheat the hip fire solutions, of course civies use these "modifications as well, moreso in fact. This happens in the arcade games like COD and BC2/BF3 and in Arma, you cant stop it unless you are breathing down a persons neck.

Breathing, how the weapon is held, the particular individuals ability to transpose range and sight picture into firing accuracy, are different in every single individual, how this occurrs in real life is night and day verse a PC sim, though BIS does a great job at trying to emulate it. I am good with a multitude of weapons, not gifted as some are but i would make you think three or four times before moving out with me infront of you, that said i have seen soldiers whose shooting/combat skill is otherwordly, yet on sims they plain suck. How do you compensate for this? You cant. You can only generalize and set baselines.

In asking BIS to make shooting harder, whom do you want to make shooting harder for? Civilians? Soldiers? Everyone?

About the only suggestion i can make is to make the AI godlike to give you the PC challenge you want, otherwise i feel, from experience and real world experience, the Arma Series is about right. If you want some real (snicker) difficult aiming accuracy i suggest you get a few tours in combat arms down in ganny or some other hotspot to check out the differences. (grin)

---------- Post added 04-20-2012 at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was 04-19-2012 at 11:40 PM ----------

Bullet accuracy depends on the barrel length and type. Heavy Barrels are good for long range, but it also depends on how far away. Crosswinds definately can ruin your 'perfectly' aimed shot. I recommend little arm sway, but maybe a timer before the aim becomes steady.

Alot of innaccuracies being processed here in this one thread, i will touch on this one, though i could spend a great deal of time making corrections (Grin)

"Heavy Barrels are good for long range, but it also depends on how far away" With this statement i take it you have never done any long range shooting. Do you know what a "heavy barrel" is actually for? Hint, it isnt long range, you should have stuck with your first guess. Do you understand arm sway? Take the person with beanstalks for arms verse corn fed Billy from iowa with meathooks for arms, your saying one type of simulated sway is good for eveyone in a PC sim? How will you accomplish this for someone that in real life has no arm sway penalty and can run and gun (soldier or civy), and then they play this sim and have to compensate for another simulated mechanic with zero sensory feedback? Hmmm, i think until they develop a mouse or some other prosthetic to induce these forces and make you compensate in reallife in front of your PC, do not go overboard with comments on how to make Arma any harder or easier.

And to the other poster typing about this sim making it easier to use/shoot a weapon in real life........lots to learn i thinks. Sorry mod had to comment on that one.

Anyway, Are we all thinking about building this piece of equipment (Arma 3) to the point of it being overdone and overcomplicated for a PC combat sim, i am quite sure the developers are thinking about it.

[Panda_pl 0]

Hey folks, not a big poster but a troopy led me here so i will throw out a bit of input.

That was an interesting post.

Personally I think ArmA should do the following (and it is mostely done right save for some tweaks needed): use a method for aiming that will be prone to fail just enough to have player uncertain about medium and especially long range shots.

In addition the method should:

penalize for using up your stamina (stressing your metabolism)

penalize for being suppressed (loss of fine motoric skill)

make precision aiming more time consuming (partially done by range settings and windage settings for long range, partially by having to wait for sights to be on target during the sway cycle)

How it is done has impact on immersion. It is less of a factor in VBS2 but more so in a video game.

The video game will not teach you marksmanship fundamentals. Your avatar is assumed to adhere to them by himself, except for the button misnamed "hold breath" which is actually there to simulate the shooter focusing and trying hard to stabilize his weapon before shot. Leaving you to take care of everything else: approach, communication, coordination of CAS etc...

The thing is the game, just like VBS2, is aware of the limitations and does not attempt to be a marksmanship teaching app (apart from sniping elements, if you use a mod that introduces realistic ballistics but even then some subtle variables like humidity or ASL elevation are omitted... Except some VBS2 modules you can purchase that is).

It will focus on aspects of combat it simulates the best, already mentioned above.

Now on the deadzone and crosshairs: from what I remember the option for zero weapon float zone must remain there for Track IR users since it messed them up to have yet another float zone on top of their device's.

I was thinking about forcing minimal freefloat zone for rifle for players not using the device but I just get the gut feeling people would use fake settings or just put the device on the desk to cheat their way around it so ... Nothing we can do. Just like removing crosshair and forcing it off gives advantage to cheaters who will put a mark on screen.

As for what makes weapon accurate... Well, in my opinion barrel design and quality is by far more important than its length. If your barrel has good harmonics you can get away with shorter length.

As for bull barrels (heavy barrels for sniping) I think the current trend is to use carbon fiber wrapping instead of thickening the wall, so the issue of front heavy marksman and sniper rifles might be soon solved.

Edited: in short, because I seem to have drifted off the point (no pun intended) the aiming accuracy in vanilla game allowed you to take shots up to 500 meters with iron sight and that meant making your weapon too dependable as a tool to carry you trough. This partially took focus off other aspects of game, since you could just depend on your hand-eye coordination to correct for your errors. This is why I think decreasing the effective range of weapons to more realistic ranges (as done by some mods) make game better by putting more emphasis where it should be.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Panda_pl

[dmarkwick 261]

Not sure if I am understanding you correctly. do you mean suppressive effects should only last for a short period of time and then ai should return to normal behaviour? if so yes I definitely agree with you. Wouldn't want to suppress the ai and then have them just camp the rest of the battle.

Yeah that's exactly what I mean. I have no doubt that suppression should be effective, but in order to promote active gameplay the player should be aware that the AI will eventually recover their faculties and organisation after a few minutes. Not enough to turn them back into target lollipops, but enough to make them actively react.

[Choki 10]

The AI should be able to run and shoot at the same time. In ArmA 2 the AI make one thing at a time

[VampyricTyrant 10]

just like 1.08 in ArmA1

[Drumheller 19]

HARDER? Absolutely not. More realistic? Sure. They are not necessarily one and the same.

[tremanarch 6]

earth rotation and wind should be in

[twisted 127]

Having seen the latest video, I recon this thread it's extremely relevant. It is too soon to jump to conclusion, but silence trends to signal a certain bovine acceptance.

I ready hope to see more emphasis given and changes made to the mechanism of shooting than were apparent in the vid. There are a bunch of good ideas in this thread, like...

More noticeable and natural figure 8 like weapon sway based on breathing. Because more pronounced the heavier the breathing.

Sight pictures taking a bit longer to line up . Influenced by size and weight of weapon.

Size and weight of weapons having a real and expected impact on sway and manouevrability of weapon.

Supprrssion and it's effects on players and ai alike in an intelligent and effective way. Ie being under fire he has adverse effects that need to be simulated.

Think those were the biggest points on making arms 3 shooting next level.

[metalcraze 290]

Yeah the latest video shows that BIS did nothing to change the very steady aim. And there is still no info on whether BIS changed their stance on wind simulation (iirc they were against it).

[-Coulum- 35]

Having seen the latest video, I recon this thread it's extremely relevant. It is too soon to jump to conclusion, but silence trends to signal a certain bovine acceptance.

I ready hope to see more emphasis given and changes made to the mechanism of shooting than were apparent in the vid. There are a bunch of good ideas in this thread, like...

More noticeable and natural figure 8 like weapon sway based on breathing. Because more pronounced the heavier the breathing.

Sight pictures taking a bit longer to line up . Influenced by size and weight of weapon.

Size and weight of weapons having a real and expected impact on sway and manouevrability of weapon.

Supprrssion and it's effects on players and ai alike in an intelligent and effective way. Ie being under fire he has adverse effects that need to be simulated.

Think those were the biggest points on making arms 3 shooting next level. [/Quote]

Yep you pretty much summed up the things that would make shooting much more interesting in A3. more importantly they would make firefights play out more realistically and make real tactics much more viable.

In the latest vid there doesn’t seem to be any change to the aiming mechanics. What I did see however was some fatigue effects similar to vbs2. The edges of the screen darken as the soldier tires. Anyways, this is probably wishful thinking but maybe if Bis is going to take the fatigue effects from vbs2 they might also copy a few other features such as the weapon sway…

Really hope that at least one of the ideas from this thread make it into a3. any of them would greatly improve gameplay.

[metalcraze 290]

No there are no fatigue effects from VBS2. They just slapped a "cinematic" vignette as post processing.

They didn't seem to change a thing when it comes to shooting mechanics. That's really disappointing considering there's not much time left before Alpha for people to test any changes.

[-Coulum- 35]

No there are no fatigue effects from VBS2. They just slapped a "cinematic" vignette as post processing.

They didn't seem to change a thing when it comes to shooting mechanics. That's really disappointing considering there's not much time left before Alpha for people to test any changes.

hmm, I could swear that the edges get darker after the guy runs but its probably just my imagination.

Yeah it is kind of disappointing. Although maybe they are planning on testing shooting mechanics out sometime during the alpha. That seems to be what they are indicating by this quote...

"We also aim to improve weapon behaviour, which means tweaking recoil mechanics, precision and weapon sway to more properly reflect the different states of the shooter, factoring in fatigue and injury, for example. Our goal is to not only improve the feel of firing guns, but also make firefights flow as close to reality as possible. The latter will actually be a tough one to crack, and again we hope that the players of the Community Alpha can feed into this process."

I doubt they just decided to abandon this. I still have hope that at some point during the community alpha there is going to be some change...

It is kind of frustrating that they aren't really showcasing any gameplay changes as of yet. I mean I want to know more about weapon handling, the medical system, the weight/stamina system, and ai, all of which will have a huge effect on gameplay and less about lighting, ragdoll physics, and animations. (don't get me wrong I still appreciate all the new stuff we've seen though) Maybe they are just saving gameplay changes for the alpha, as it will require more testing and tweaking by the community.

[fraczek 4]

I think with most of those discussions, let's just wait for the Alpha. Enough has been written on proposed issues already, we will see then. And be able to file tickets about it. That is a pitfall of being relatively open with your game development, that people expect "Give us all the things!" right now :)

[T0bias 1]

I find weapon sway and other things like head bobbing to be extremely annoying and immersion breaking. Running in real life doesn't make me nauseous, but in arma it does. Even with it set to minimum I spend any time moving from one location to another in 3rd person, because in first person the amount of head bobbing is unbelievably annoying and nauseating even with the slider for head bob as far down as it can go.

Weapon sway is the same, it's an attempt to emulate "realism" that fails utterly, much like bloom attempts to emulate real lighting and fails utterly and is extremely annoying and is like being stabbed in the eyes.

I want aiming that relies on skill at aiming with the mouse, not ability to predict the random drunken swaying of your sights.

Edited May 15, 2012 by T0bias

[nodunit 397]

At the minimum headbob is 0, all that is left is the body's motion.

[metalcraze 290]

I want aiming that relies on skill at aiming with the mouse, not ability to predict the random drunken swaying of your sights.

Good news for you then. There's a game just like that - it's called Battlefield 3. A true mouse-twitcher delight. Just use them madskillz to point a crosshair at an enemy and BLAM - instant gratification!

Unfortunately for you IRL the soldier has to deal with the "drunken swaying" of his sights - hitting with a gun actually takes skill.

Edited May 15, 2012 by metalcraze

[Hillsbills 1]

There is a certain amount of disconnect though when having the game add it for you, irl it's a bit easier to tell what your body is going to do. I guess since I'm not in favor of the BF3 system though I'd have to vote for drunk. I usually do.

[antoineflemming 14]

Well, before they even correct the accuracy, I'd like to be able to actually pull my sights up to my face, as in a separate animation for bringing up your weapon. Once BIS does that, then they can more realistically deal with what you see in first person (in regards to sway). Then bring on more aiming accuracy. Also, when you look through your sights (and zoom in), the character should stabilize the weapon (as in, there shouldn't be as much sway when looking through the sights and zooming in as there is when not in sights)

[-Coulum- 35]

I find weapon sway and other things like head bobbing to be extremely annoying and immersion breaking. Running in real life doesn't make me nauseous, but in arma it does. Even with it set to minimum I spend any time moving from one location to another in 3rd person, because in first person the amount of head bobbing is unbelievably annoying and nauseating even with the slider for head bob as far down as it can go.

Weapon sway is the same, it's an attempt to emulate "realism" that fails utterly, much like bloom attempts to emulate real lighting and fails utterly and is extremely annoying and is like being stabbed in the eyes.

I want aiming that relies on skill at aiming with the mouse, not ability to predict the random drunken swaying of your sights.

Hmm, when I play Jcove with weapon sway like what is being suggested, I find it far more immersive, as you wait for just the right moment, hold your breath and shoot. I mean if weapon was how you want sniping would be really quite boring, and things like stance, weapon resting, wounds, suppression and fatigue would have very little effect on gameplay… Gameplay would be a lot more like many other generic fps games out there and firefights would have trouble lasting longer than a few minutes even with many people involved. And “drunken sway†doesn’t take the skill out of shooting, but rather the opposite. It takes more skill to predict the sway and time when you will hold your breath and take your shots, plus you still have to use the mouse to point at the target. Your method of 0 sway in my opinion requires little skill as anybody can point a a mouse with relative ease, and far quicker and more accurately than a real person with a rifle could.

***

There is a certain amount of disconnect though when having the game add it for you, irl it's a bit easier to tell what your body is going to do.

True, but that is why the sway needs to be slower and follow a figure eight sway, so it is easier to predict. If BIS were just to use the same random jumping/sway of the sights and increase it, the game would be a nightmare though. ***

***

Well, before they even correct the accuracy, I'd like to be able to actually pull my sights up to my face, as in a separate animation for bringing up your weapon. Once BIS does that, then they can more realistically deal with what you see in first person (in regards to sway).

Although it would be a welcome improvement, I am not sure I see the benefit of having an animation that brings the sights up to the shooter’s face. And I don’t understand why it would be necessary to do this before adjusting the accuracy of the player. What am I missing?

Also, when you look through your sights (and zoom in), the character should stabilize the weapon (as in, there shouldn't be as much sway when looking through the sights and zooming in as there is when not in sights)

Agreed, although if the sway is the predictable figure eight sway being suggested, even when sighted in there should be a noticeable amount of sway even without optics. In other words, when not sighted in there should be extra sway instead of when you are sighted in there should be less sway if you know what I mean.

[metalcraze 290]

When you "zoom in" by default RMB also acts as "hold breath". Of course with the crappy implementation of holding breath in ArmA2 (it just lessens the random sway) it is far from perfect. In JCove/VBS2 though it's done really well.

Oh and sniping is already boring. Mostly because there's no wind.

Edited May 15, 2012 by metalcraze

[-Coulum- 35]

Oh and sniping is already boring. Mostly because there's no wind.

Yep. But I would argue that a more realistic sway system with breath control would be more benificial. I mean wind is awesome but, in ace at least, once you have your sights adjusted properly, its just a point and click affair requiring very little skill or concentration. Breath control and sway however, would make sniping a challenge no matter what the situation is.

[maturin 12]

Sniping is never a point and click affair in ACE because the wind is always changing. If you know how to use the Kestrel, maybe you will be able to handle every different angle of crosswind with mathematical, precision, but there would never be a Kestrel in a BIS game.

And a weapon with a bipod shouldn't have that much sway anyways.

[-Coulum- 35]

Okay yeah I guess your right, sniping is not "a point and click affair" with ace especially when you need to hit in the first shot. In fact I don't even know what I was thinking. Wind is a huge part of sniping and adds immensely to the challenge and immersion. Guess playing with ace so long has made forget what it's lilt to play without it. And you are right that a lot of sway would be reduced by bipods however at the level of magnification most sniper optics have and long distances,even the slightest movement can translate to a significant drift off target, and even bipods wouldn't totally eliminate sway.

Edited May 15, 2012 by -Coulum-

[antoineflemming 14]

Hmm, when I play Jcove with weapon sway like what is being suggested, I find it far more immersive, as you wait for just the right moment, hold your breath and shoot. I mean if weapon was how you want sniping would be really quite boring, and things like stance, weapon resting, wounds, suppression and fatigue would have very little effect on gameplay… Gameplay would be a lot more like many other generic fps games out there and firefights would have trouble lasting longer than a few minutes even with many people involved. And “drunken sway†doesn’t take the skill out of shooting, but rather the opposite. It takes more skill to predict the sway and time when you will hold your breath and take your shots, plus you still have to use the mouse to point at the target. Your method of 0 sway in my opinion requires little skill as anybody can point a a mouse with relative ease, and far quicker and more accurately than a real person with a rifle could.

***

True, but that is why the sway needs to be slower and follow a figure eight sway, so it is easier to predict. If BIS were just to use the same random jumping/sway of the sights and increase it, the game would be a nightmare though. ***

***

Although it would be a welcome improvement, I am not sure I see the benefit of having an animation that brings the sights up to the shooter’s face. And I don’t understand why it would be necessary to do this before adjusting the accuracy of the player. What am I missing?

Agreed, although if the sway is the predictable figure eight sway being suggested, even when sighted in there should be a noticeable amount of sway even without optics. In other words, when not sighted in there should be extra sway instead of when you are sighted in there should be less sway if you know what I mean.

The whole point of having an animation that brings the sight to the face is that 1) it's more realistic than the view moving down to the sight and 2) if you animate bringing up your sights, then you can adjust the time it takes to do so.