Share your first Arma3 Beta Impressions (all first impression type posts here pls)

[fabrizio_t 58]

First of all, thanks to BIS for releasing this as Alpha, i think it was a brilliant idea.

I'm pretty sure ArmA3 will grow on users' feedback in the next few months.

Now a few impressions, after a quick alpha run:

THE GOOD

* Even on a dated notebook like mine, game runs fine on standard settings. Considering this is a alpha release 2 thumbs up.

* Quite a lot of contents for an Alpha release;

* Nicely detailed, crisp objects and models;

* Nicely detailed terrain. Way less prone to LOD switching if compared to ArmA2;

* Dynamic lighting looks good (shadow edges can be improved though);

THE BAD

* Could not spot any AI improvements over ArmA2. Looks 100% identical to me. Buildings interior still not considered as cover by AI.

* AI units still pass through eachother. This was ridiculous in ArmA2 and it's still the same.

* Commanding Interface still the same, it still feels a bit cumbersome.

* 3D editor anybody? Still missing.

THE UGLY ( IT'S ALPHA )

* PhysX is fine, but looks like some ragdoll animations happen in "slomo". Also Weapons fall on ground like sticks, are they affected by PhysX?

* Not sure i'd prefer the new animations over ArmA2 ones. Sometimes soldiers just seem sliding on terrain.

* Bushes and trees look quite ugly to me, even at close distance, on standard settings.

* It's just me or environment is just overbright, even for Mediterranean settings (i live in Italy) ? Everything looks a bit washed out.

* Many textures are bland (but that's alpha ...)

Edited March 5, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[Muzza 0]

Having purchased the Alpha on steam and had no problems launching the game I can say as a fan of the series since the launch of OFP I was overwhelmed by my experience today. There will come a time for criticism of this release but for now the developers deserve my gushing praise.

- It runs beautifully! Remarkable improvements over Arma 2 on my mid-range machine, something entirely new to me in my experience with Arma games.

- It feels amazing! From the recoil of the firearms to the fluidity of the animations, I cannot believe what you have acheived in this regard.

- It sounds authentic! I love what you have done with the chat, it sounds much more fluid and the introduction of names instead of just numbers is a huge improvement.

- It has enormous potential! I can hardly wait to see the modding scene by the time this hits beta.

It has been a rough ride as a fan of the Arma series, and I admit that I had my doubts over this project; but I wish you all the success you deserve with this title. May your critics be stunned by the amount of polish you have put into this.

[tremanarch 6]

i like it too

[ChuloZ 10]

I liked it alot aswell.

It all ran very smoothly for me and the only issue i had was unstable servers and one sudden crash after 80 minutes of gameplay.

In other words, a very good Alpha release.

Cant wait for the full game! :D

[adamjm 10]

I've just started it up and only played for a short time but I completely agree with this feedback. My PC is fairly powerful so I've never had any problems running Arma2 but I thought I was pushing it to crank this to Ultra right out of the gate, but it still runs smooth!

Also those combat stances and the really simple way you adjust them are completely game changing. Everything is so smooth. I really must applaud BIS they have done an outstanding job so far and I can't wait to see what else they achieve right up to release.

[taztek 10]

The game has run great for me as well. I have to say that i really enjoy the helicopter rides, controls work very well. One thing though, is it normal for a helicopter to be able to fly upside down? I am getting great FPS and am at high to very high GFX settings. I am running the game with a AMD Phenom X6 1090 with 8 gigs of ram and a Nvidea 550Ti. No over clocking.

[manzilla 1]

My first impression is it's excellent. Runs very smooth on high settings. I'm really enjoying the showcase missions. The new gear and menu is nice. The movement feels a lot different than A2 but I like it better. Even with the limited content I can tell I will really enjoy this. I'm gonna try to make a few missions but I need to remember how not to mention learn what's new.

I just ended up buying it on steam cause I was having troubles completing the order via bis store. I feel bad I couldn't grab the supporter bundle but I couldn't complete the transaction thru their store. I'll buy the support bundle at a different time just to help out.

[Bee8190 10]

One thing though, is it normal for a helicopter to be able to fly upside down?

It is possible in arma ;) I used to fly the ospray upside down while transporting some pals. The LB in A3 though slightly descents

[postalsam 10]

I have a fairly decent rig that had issues with Arma 2 mainly because of the heavy CPU load but now it seems to use my GPU a lot more and I'm really impressed, I also cranked everything up to "Ultra" and even set the view distance to 12km and got around 30-40 fps, if I tone it down to like 10km I get solid 60.

Another thing I like is the possibility to transfer maps from Arma 2 into the new engine, I'm still working on getting them to work but when I tried Taviana it loaded fine but was missing the objects that are used from Chernarus, which means once myself or someone works out what exactly needs to be done to transfer over maps properly, we would basically have more maps and content to use in the alpha unless more is added in future patches, which would also be a plus.

I am really enjoying the alpha... Keep up the good work BIS

[rfc 10]

Same for me!

I'm really impressed by the quality of the Alpha. Of course, it's not like there are no issues but I'd say it almost plays like Arma2 did in the beginning :)

Visuals are stunning, performance is great. Radio voices are awesome. Controls are fine (but beware: they changed (G)ear for (I)nventory and G is now grenade. Almost did suicide the first time).

My first play session ran rock stable for over an hour. Tried all the showcases, only managed to complete one unfortunately. Going underwater was hilarious, the animation of the waves is incredible. Sound effects feel very natural.

The vehicle physics look great, but alas the didn't feel so great. I found by steering hard, cars/quads very easy to get stuntman-style on two wheels on one side. Tried some jumps with the quad and was fun, but sometimes the physics go havoc the quad made a complete 360 flip out of nowhere. It's not like I'm expected vehicles BF3-style, but still I feel they could pimp this a bit.

Animations of the weapons feel very realistic. I love to change ammo and use alt to look down at the weapon while doing it.

I absolutely love the game.

[Necramonium 10]

For a alpha this runs very smooth, i have seen beta's and full games that ran absolutely crap!

[zeep 3]

Loving the alpha. Runs very good!

The only dislike is when as infantry changing weapons, you're immobilized like in Arma2. You gotta wait until the soldier finishes his little animation before you can move again.

I hope BIS will get rid of that and make changing weapons fluid like the rest of the really good movement!

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Runs great in MP on an i5 dual core, but SP can be choppy due to PhysX probably <-- especially the Helo/Kamino base mission.

[Elcoo 3]

Hey guys,

I tested out the Alpha for a few hours now, my first impressions are very good, though there are some things that have to be improved of course, but that's all right in the Alpha stage.

Some things that I noticed:

- The new combat stances are brilliant and very usefull especially in CQC. I'd love to see TrackIR working together with it though. Like going 1-2 steps up and down from the selected stance by moving the head up and down.

- In the lowest stance, the one where the character leans to the right side, I can not aim down sight. I don't know if that's intended, but I find it hard to predict where my bullets are going to end up, as I have the 2D crosshairs disabled.

- The weapons taclight seems to produce a very soft and large spreading light, almost like a floodlight, I think it should be more focused.

- The ka-60s Spotlight is pointed straight to the ground, so that it is barely usefull to any helicopter passenger or the pilot. I think it should be controllable by the Co-Pilot, so we can really use it to highlight the LZ or search for enemies.

- The motion blur effect is a bit heavy, especially as it blurs the sights. I'd like to have an extra controller for that in the graphics options, so that I don't have to turn down post processing just to get rid of the motion blur.

- The multiplayer seems to be very instable, me and a friend lost connection after 5-10 minutes and often weren't able to connect to any server ("failed to connect") but I guess that will be fixed in some of the next patches. Might even be a server side issue.

All in all I'm excited about the performance of the new engine, the effects, the new gameplay elements - I'm sure this sim will turn out great!

[chrisb 196]

Well l thought long and hard today, which one to buy, really want the hard copy for my A3 pc, its what I have always done really.

So I decided I would buy the DDE from Steam, rather than the SE. I’m going to get the hard copy of the SE and put that into my A3 pc. So the DDE has gone on my A2 pc instead (had to see the game today;)), well I was really surprised when I got quite good fps, even in town on high-v high settings for the main texture/detail etc. However I do recommend, as has already been mentioned somewhere on the forum here, run it with v-sync disabled, it really increases fps. I never have v-sync enabled anyway, but had a look to see and it does really improve fps with it disabled. I disabled AA, although I could have ran it fine, by the looks of things, even on this older A2 pc.. View distance down to 1000, I am, after all, running it on an older system, although again, when fully optimised, could take it up quite a bit probably on the ground and really quite high vd in the air, not flown yet, system is really working well. Still hard copy in the other pc by then, so won't need to find that out anyway.

A3 1

A3 2

A3 3

I went straight into the Editor, big relief for me, as its great :D, very much like the A2 editor. I’m really pleased with it, that’s where I will be most of the time. I set the editor to ‘Traditional’ view, although even that is not quite complete traditional, still better than the new ‘streamlined’ look, for me anyway, its easy to handle and there are some nice new features, wind strength inc gusts and direction looks to be just a couple, wow.

It makes use of many of the set-up configs I already have, so that helped get straight into things. I can see VBS2-ish bits in the game, which is nice, I have configs for that too with my Nostromo, so some of its going to be a cross over until I set A3 configs, which won’t be until I get the hard copy on my A3 pc, just looking around at the moment.

Anyway, placed a couple of units down ‘Blufor’ & ‘Opfor’ (nice to see them step into the standard game with decent attire), off I went.

Blufor was on a ATV, which if I’m honest is not quite as nice as the A2 one’s we have, however we are in the future here I suppose, things move on, opfor unit was on foot..

Without doubt it’s a beautiful island, set in a luscious blue sea (got to go spend some time with the fish soon), everything looks better, but its not strides ahead. They have made the usual gradual progress that has been the theme during the series, when players tell you its radically different, it may be to standard A2 vanilla, but its really not compared with modded A2. SMK movement is there ‘ish’, plus some other features including ASC lights (I think, very similar), plus some other bits and pieces. But bare in mind this is the standard Alpha, so that’s already a plus factor..

Have yet to play any ai, but talking to a member of our group earlier, they are really not upto our modded A2 yet, far from it, he said. I will have to look and see myself, but I expected it not to be to our level for ai, we use a heavily modded ai for A2, so its not surprising.

Buildings are much the same, well the ones I have seen so far are, infact they should have looked to Aplion for his buildings, they would sit nicely with the island.

I am really pleased I got the download now, its not what I intended to do today, but that’s to come (hard copy), I got to see it today and play with it (Editor) and that’s enough for me for now, can play around with it until my HC arrives. Once I get it ordered of course..

Worth the money! without doubt. A good step forward! Yes, what will it be like in 18months time, phenomenal, is probably going to be the word, if not better than that..:)

[Albatorix 1]

I have been looking at the Arma 3 Alpha and I want to address a few things that seem slightly agitating to me.

One: The sprint animation while holding a standard assault rifle looks a little bit off. The upper body movements are way too fast for a realistic looking run. I think the arm motions should be more drawn out and slower, making the arms come out slightly more than they have currently set up, not as far as they are drawn out in the previous game where your arms are almost flailing around. I still think they should be more drawn out and a little more slower. Also possibly a little bit more gear animation during the sprint.

Two: The automatic rolled vehicle flipping system is a little bit odd, I believe that you should at least have to walk up, scroll wheel on it and select something that proposes a flipping motion.

Three: Enemy AI seem to be just a little bit too oblivious to their situation and should be possibly hardened just a little bit more.

Other than that I have not come across anything else I feel needs criticism. So please take this summary seriously,

Thanks, Apollo/Albatorix

[camo1018 0]

I agree with you guys.

I usually don't like to get hyped for any game, but being a fan of this series, I couldn't help myself but to have high expectations for the alpha release of ArmA 3. But my, I would be lying if I didn't say I was blown away.

Really looking forward to the release of the full game!

[HKFlash 9]

All I can say is: I'm fucking stoked to the game! I'll save more in-depth impressions for later!

[PsychoPigeon 10]

this is best game

[tremanarch 6]

to much for today: MP was hell of a fun! 4 strangers before after we fled we were 4 friends :) good game BIS

Grats

I wanted to buy SE - but due to the shop downtime I just bnought the DDE. If there will be some upgrades I would happily upgrade in the future. anyway, I will buy the DLC's anyway.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

i dont care about anything when gameplay mechanics still suck ... and nothing changed when it comes to this .... so i am not that convinced for now ! no matter how technically it's impressing ! because this is what decides ,for a 100% MP player like me, whether a game is good or not ... sorry BIS .

Edited March 6, 2013 by On_Sabbatical

[ramazoti 1]

Really I would like to thank every one participate in Arma 3, and i want to say a job well done. this is only the beginning... we need more ..
thank you and keep up.

[smacker909 3]

Took my first spin just now.. so far only playing with infantry, have to say, I really like it. Feel quite a bit different.. but in a good way. weapon sounds are great so far and radio chatter is a nice change as well :)

[johncage 30]

the game performance twice as well and looks twice as good as arma 2 on the same computer. i am very impressed.

[nodunit 397]

i dont care about anything when gameplay mechanics still suck ... and nothing changed when it comes to this .... so i am not that convinced for now ! no matter how technically it's impressing ! because this is what decides ,for a 100% MP player like me, whether a game is good or not ... sorry BIS .

You haven't made it clear what it is about the mechanics that upset you really. I was watching several livestreams including dayZ players and the response to the new movement system has been much more positive. In fact I saw more deathmatch than single missions and heard very little in the way of complaining about movement.