Multiplayer Balancing - Will Arma3's MP be balanced?

[BLSmith2112 0]

In terms of simulation, BIs record on armament is superb, but it terms of balanced multiplayer gameplay its not, and arguably has never been for the sake of realism. This question has been posed in previous titles (OFP/Arma1/Arma2) but since BI has taken the liberty of extending the timeline of their next IP into the future, I was wondering if there was anything mentioned on the subject of having equal (or near equal) technology for both east/west sides since they have the liberty to stretch what is realistic and what is not.

There are some east players who enjoy being east, I get that, however, most flock to the west team in almost every server I join (arguably better AT, tanks, light vehicles, weapons/scopes) and I would (for once) like to feel like both teams are worth playing all the time.

[instagoat 133]

If combat turns out fair, you did it wrong.

Balance is something for boardgames and competition, E-Sport type titles. This is a milsim. Combat is unfair. Deal with it. Or as they teach the people in the military: Assess, Adapt, Overcome.

[Flash Thunder 10]

LOL wat?

You serious?

[Steakslim 1]

People flock to West teams because it's what they are familiar with, it has nothing to do with balance, it's favoritism. I can tell with with certainty that before Arrowhead, the Russian faction was greatly overpowered over the Marine unit in ArmA2, and damn it was fun being on either side of those encounters, and after the expansions if a mission uses the Russian units, they are still well equipped. Even in Combined Ops, if there's a pvp match, the mission maker may disable some things (like flir) for balance, but that's about it. Either side has their advantages and disadvantages. If a team is getting steamrolled that team is doing something wrong.

[Nicholas 5]

War is not fair. You can win a war with outdated equipment, you just have to be smarter than your opponent.

[b00ce 160]

ArmA is not, and never will be, about "balance". If things end up balanced (and I'm sure it will be pretty close since there are two super powers going at it in ArmA3) it won't be for the sake of balancing things, it'll be for the sake of making things authentic within the confines of the story line.

Take ArmA 2, for example, the Russians outclassed the Marines; in OA, the US Army absolutely dominates the Takistani army.

[Colossus 2]

I guess they'll take a few liberties when it comes to balancing it out, like what sort of weapons the infantry are using, but I don't think you'll see it more equal then that. A 7.62×39mm will still act like a 7.62, and so would the 5.56×45mm as a 5.56. It would just be silly and boring otherwise.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Agree with all of the above - I imagine we can see OPFOR exerting a substantial overmatch on BLUFOR in the SP campaign, however, balance is something that should be considered by mission author rather than artificially introduced.

[giorgygr 61]

Normally in ArmA3 we SHOULD see balancing.

You see..

1) the WHOLE story is fictional (if i saw in RL an Iranian soldier wearing camera on helmet..i ll eat my hat..AND yours 2)

2) YES-I don't know if this sounds 'strange' to some people's ears but..

LOTS of us playing PvP! (oO)

So..while the matter of "forces simulation" doesn't stands anymore..it would be nice to have balance for our PvP matches-without

to do 'magic' as having both sides rearming from "unisex" weapons (lol)

pure 100% logic..

[metalcraze 290]

Real combat is never balanced.

Taliban doesn't care if west has FLIR, NVGs and shit when planting those IEDs that kill more western soldiers than their AK bullets.

If you can't beat Abrams with your AK - get creative.

And I hope Bohemia will stay true to reality, not true to so called "MP balance"

[W0lle 1046]

Real combat is never balanced.

Taliban doesn't care if west has FLIR, NVGs and shit when planting those IEDs that kill more western soldiers than their AK bullets.

If you can't beat Abrams with your AK - get creative.

And I hope Bohemia will stay true to reality, not true to so called "MP balance"

[sirscorpion 10]

well that's cute guys, the response from this community and how it was worded is dreadful to say the least, same thing i saw on the BF3 forms and COD before hand. let me break this to you, Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim, Il2 is a SIM, DCS is a Sim, cliffs of Dover is a sim. seriously this whole i r mil sim gobktocod is whats draging this down. ACE brings it closer, but about ten tons of items are missing in terms of "Mil sim" in "Il2" my plane has wight, my gun can be shot off, a million things can go wrong, in DCS my helicopter as complex engine management, proper and correct weapon systems firing procedure. Arma has group hit points, right click lock kill weapon systems, infinity range IR scopes. and in vanila u can have a solder with 3 thousand machine gun rounds and an AT for good measure.

Can Arma be balanced? yes, hell yes, war is balanced on a whole huge amount of variables. i play warfare and i assume the OP is using that as a starting point. and this game is probably the easiest to balance b/c of 1 important game play element and that's cost. the whole war is not balanced when it comes to pvp crap does not fly, its sad and lazy to say otherwise, and this is why its hard as hell to get a game going. that exact mentality.

here a simple way to balance things, a few needed and already modded systems and lairs of complexity in weapon systems, simple right? wight? simple right?

IR scopes too op? well infantry IR scope has bat like of 3-4 hrs costs about 30k USD and has an ID range of about 900m tataaaa done IR is balanced.

M1A2 to op? sure it is but it can be for a cost of 4-5 T72, done balanced also if the T-72 had a proper AGM with engagement range of 4-5 km as it should be M1A2 wont be so op.

a US marine will set the government back about 500k-1mil USD, a Taki around 5k (over expected service life + factoring medical, insurance training etc"

the cold war was balanced in terms of tech, even without a MAD situation the numbers where balanced. the dip in "east" tech only happened in the last 20 years, but now its starting "slowly" catch up

but seriously guys, using ignorance as a shield to lolwut you way around things is not proper, and if you want this to be a true milsim, and balanced it can be done.

[katipo66 94]

Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim...

Its a sim in my eyes, sure its not perfect, we all know the imperfections... sure it may not be as detailed a simulator as the ones you mentioned but can they do half the stuff thats possible in Arma? i dont know, i never played them! but i know ive never seen or heard off a game that gives me the same possibilities as arma can.

Also there are other factions than just Russia and US, how would you balance them out..

Mostly i like to play lowtech militia against the superpowers, its a different game... no to balancing.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Katipo66

[-=Grunt=- 10]

I don't think balancing should be done but I believe that every in-game vehicle should have a counter-part on both factions.

Like in ArmA 2, the USMC and Russians got counter-parts of every vehicle. (LAV-25/BTR-90, Su-25/A10, etc)

[Angle 10]

MP-Balance is not a game design issue in Arma, Its a mission specific issue.

And balance does not have to be symmetrical.

[metalcraze 290]

Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim

Why exactly? Because you can't tweak soldier's buttons and knobs? Alas soldiers don't have them.

You have ballistics here, you have wounding closer to reality than in any other shooter, you have all that artillery support and weapon systems that work more or less authentic. And of course you have weapons and vehicles dealing/taking damage in accordance to IRL data - aka "unbalanced".

AK74 is different from M4? Let me surprise you - they are different. In ArmA too.

An RPG can't take out Warrior (brit APC) by hitting its front armor but has no problem taking out BMP (russkie APC) from any angle? Surprise - IRL BMP is nicknamed "bratskaya mogila pehoty" which means "infantry mass grave". Can you guess why?

So why isn't it a milsim?

If you don't like how your PvP mission is "balanced" maybe that's a problem with a mission maker you know? Or maybe you expect wrong things from a milsim?

During WW2 soldiers didn't complain that the reality is unbalanced facing superior German Tigers which had 180mm (!!) front armor and were virtually impenetrable by anything available at the time. Germans even had assault rifles, while everybody else didn't. Germans had the best army in the world. And yet Germans lost.

Edited June 24, 2012 by metalcraze

[rye1 21]

If you at least try to balance it evenly for regular troops and loadouts then mission makers can make more fair matches, especially for PVP's. Then again, ACE and other mods will probably turn that around. :p

[smookie 11]

I have played OFP, ArmA and ArmA2 competitive leagues for 9 years and I have never experienced severe balancing problems. Of course, this aint BF, but in general it is possible to weight out proportions of both sides by different means. In the series usually guns had their counterparts on both sides, same for regular vehicles (with small tradeoffs - for instance: hmmwvs were slower but tougher, uazs were faster but weaker etc.). The only problem was always with the heavy tanks and their toughness - western tanks were always superior to eastern and that usually hurt. But I believe even this can be compensated easily by a mission maker.

So let the realism crowd have the imbalance (realism) they wish for.

[Messiah 2]

It's up to/in the hands of the mission maker to balance the sides/equipment if they wish to, not for BIS to balance the gear they create. That's what the mission editor is there for.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Where is the challenge if all factions/sides do use the same vehicles, gear/equipment and weapon systems?

[[frl]myke 14]

let me break this to you, Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim

From all FPS games out there that could be at least vaguely comparable, BI tries to get closest to a sim of all.

When i follow patchnotes from other games, i see this:

weapon configs adjusted for balancing

while at BI i see this

weapon configs adjusted to be closer to realistic behaviour

This tells me something about what BI tries to achieve. While they might have a eye on PvP, their main goal remains to be authentic. If they succeed or fail is another topic.

And i really, really dislike it to see other shooters taken as reference to compare ArmA with. Even more since i've watched a BF3 vid on YT where a player got into a vertical climb in a fighter plane, then jumps out of cockpit (still in climb), turns around and shoot the enemy plane behind him with his rifle and then get back into the cockpit and continue his flight. At this point i felt off my chair, LMFAO and closed the vid, asking myself how people can play such a crap.

So, ArmA might fall a little short as a sim compared to DCS products or other flight sims, but it is lightyears ahead of any other FPS actually available.

[Timnos 1]

It's impossible to balance MP mission's when playing against me, my team has massive advantage due to my exceptional tactical skills from playing ArmA all the time.

[neokika 62]

in "Il2" my plane has wight, my gun can be shot off, a million things can go wrong, in DCS my helicopter as complex engine management, proper and correct weapon systems firing procedure. Arma has group hit points, right click lock kill weapon systems, infinity range IR scopes. and in vanila u can have a solder with 3 thousand machine gun rounds and an AT for good measure.

Hi,

For DCS-A10, you pay 50€ to be able to fly one vehicle...Need to say more?

Last thing Arma 3 needs is an artificial balance like in mainstream games.

[celery 8]

I find it silly that "balance" is such a naughty word here that makes everyone go apeshit in a hasty attempt to be the one who sounds the most anti-arcade and, by extension, the biggest milsim fan because opposing other things is the hallmark of such fandom.

The usual strawman associated with balancing is that whoever even ever so slightly suggests balance wants everyone to have the exact same equipment, or at least completely unrealistic vehicle specs. That is, as I said, a strawman. It's also possible to pick the vehicles so that there isn't clear full spectrum imbalance like there is in Arma 1 and 2.

I wonder how many people who laugh at the concept of balance and say embarassing things like "USA vs. <undeveloped country's guerrillas> isn't balanced, your argument is invalid" have a tendency to play pvp missions that don't, for a change, revolve around asymmetric warfare or buying stuff. Asymmetric warfare is called that for a reason, and that is to differentiate it from warfare (the normal kind, remember?). I have played in large-scale pvp tournaments, and putting clearly imbalanced vehicles as counterparts can make a very big difference in the course of a 3-hour battle, and victory can be attributed to the superior vehicles if there wasn't much score difference, and the bad blood generated by it is all the more bitter the more obviously superior said vehicle is.

Yes, there will at least be rigorous mission-side balancing in Arma 3's multiplayer.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Celery

[Defunkt 431]

I think balance is absolutely vital but don't see why it means both sides have to have comparable equipment. How much does an M1 cost to manufacture in RL? How many export versions of the T-90 can be purchased for the same money? More I'm sure. Reflect that in game, give one side quality and the other side quantity, as much quantity as is needed to create balance. That way you get balance, more realism and immersion (because you're better reflecting the real world) and more nuanced missions (both sides have to be played differently).