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

[Asaob 10]

I made 3 category what i want to see, and not to see in the final game. And what are already fall in love with it.

Wish:

-shadow rays, especily under water, and places where are smoke and dust

-more aquatic life (crabs, more small fish, some big ones also,water plants ) for ester egg 1 big white shark on the whole island. More wrecks to explore. Also like to see some under water particles like boubles and small water dirt. For reference

. For my taste the under water scenes need a little more greenish color and a little bit closer water fog (i mean closer view distance)

-detailed bullet holes, not just black dots like these. (arma 2 have the same) need to mention im fine with the ground holes, those look great.

-Realstic physics. Finaly the first arma series have phisycs in it. I think it need a little tweaking and it will be great. Need tweaks on almost every aspects ragdoll, cars, boats helos etc.

-Winds (nature, rotor, thruster) affects more the surrondings like grass and trees. In editor i turn the wind up to the top, but the grass and the trees not move that much. (nice feature anyway)

-More mocap gesture. Like in arma 2 (but not that poorly) when going in silent mode than need abilty to make hand gestures. Also would be great some wave and interaction gestures for multiplay.

-optimization. I have a mid-high pc rig and the multipayer runs poorly.

-some place holder furniture in houses

-more lamps in villages.

-some hair styles for character customization. (i mean with alpha texture lock of hair)

Hate:

-grided gate doors can hardly open. (you must run around circles when finaly can open a gate) arma 2 had same issue and it is very annoying. (a lot of the doors now working fine in arma3 but there is till some what is not.)

-Ladder climbing. For me still ruin the imersion when the character climb in the air. Anyway i can live with it but not like it.

-Stupid Ai. I prefer play against players, but i used to play dominion with arma 2 what was fun with ai so absolutly need some upgrade.

-Poor performance. As mention before i wish BIS can debug this, but i have my worries. Think about arma2

-Stucking inside enviroment.

Love:

-The new Lightning and weather system. It has some issues what i reported, but looks absolutly stuning. The night looks also beautiful with lights. Hope there will be more lightsource in the villages then we can see imgages like these: http://www.hofistudio.hu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/este.jpg

-Underwater is also looks super. More fishes, plants some wreck and tweaks and a dream come true. (im a bige dive lover)

-Screen on screen. I know on those screens and rearview mirror are knurled, but those are great use. Im absolutly staisfied with them.

-Animation lot better than ever before. I wish someday we can se as great as fifa and BF3, but this one is feals finaly fluid and realistic. Lot better than arma 2.

-The new cover system is ammazing. This is great invention. Easly accesible, controllable. Every FPS need that system now. Only thing is needed a stance icon to know witch stance are you at. This is also true for the close counter sights. Great and easy to switch between scope and CQS.

-Wind. Love it, wish they can impove wind strenght and we can see some real nasty storms. (i havent seen lightning when raining, but im keep looking)

-all House accesible. (It will be much life like if some verry low poly furniture in it.)

-Muzzle flahes looks great at night. Some sparks also seeable. Super cool.

-Beatiful detailed cocpits, but these are trademarks of the arma series.

Today these what all in my mind, maybe later i will put some more thoughts about the game. Thank you for reading it.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Asaob

[Enrico 1]

Hi!

It 'hard to comment on without knowing how much Arma 3 is alpha test... eg: 50% ... 70% ... etx etx ...

However, starting from this basis, Arma 3 takes a look and feel great (thanks also DX 11) and then lights and effects are finally brought to new glory.

The animations of the movements (AI and player) now they are fluid, rather than mechanical, and this brings satisfaction, particularly in litte area or space..... like feel in trapped near a door.

In addition to = Up ...Crounch ... Prone position.... now there are also the ability to customize the standard posture with other subcommands.----nice to see...but i think a litte bit hard to use in full action...but it's a great and awesome new.

FINALLY there arent problematic whit negative or positive acceleration mouse ... even if in fact ----- if set to smoothing = 0 ..... is still jerky as in ArmA 2 .. but ... you can not have everything ..... right? :)

In terms of the optimization of the engine I have to say that the performance of Arma 3 Alpha are well above ArmA 2 ArmA 2 OA .... or at least a 20% - 25%.

This is because our GPU-CPU finally now working on a application built in this era! :)

The things I'd left me quite puzzled is the great difficulty in targeting crouch position to relaxing.

In practice could be compared to ArmA 2 after a run ..... I find it really too much .... maybe with a javelin could esssere right .... but with an assault rifle ... no!

See the enemies through the vegetations is .... phew! ... it's not easy thing .... if they are in prone position ..... become chameleons .... but for them, you're a shining star in the night!

--- So to see them - and kill it ........ is quite a feat! ... You risk the sniping = CAMPER!

Driving vehicles is like having a bar of soap in hand ... or have ice on the road.

The A.I is smart alternative to sleeping time or vice versa.

The sound alternates from fair to good-bad:

-sound of footsteps? ... where is it?

Motor vehicles-poor

Rifle-? sometime is nice and later .... so bad!

and go on ........!

For bugs ... the list could be very long but, being alpha,i hope that will be fix for ArmA 3 Official version Edition .... I hope at least in part!

However, just at first glance, it might become great ...if well correct!

Regards!

[Cabbagebasher! 10]

like most i been a fan since ofp. so for my opinion for A3 alpha. so far so good. i have a medium range pc ddr2 mother board 6gb ram duel core processor and GTS 450 grafix card. i stuggle to run BF3, but not had any problems so far with the setting. at the end of the day it still wip and there gona be bugs. today was is i command a AI diver to drop his weapon (rifle and pistol) he end up swimming on the spot no water and does not move. one thing i will always take into consideration about arma games is it may suck at the beginning, but then isn't that's why we have a kick ass community who put there time and effort in to bring us wonderful addons/mods which in turn make ArmA series so much fun to play! i happy to pay for alpha, we as a community get the chance to input our feed back and slowly improve the game to our liking. it a cruel land in the world of business, company are always going to find ways to make money to support cost and more. well this is my opinion so far.

Regards and stay safe :)

[aseliot 2]

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

O really? I have an i7 860 @ 2.8 Ghz and a 7950 3GB OC (which is practically a stock 7970) and i would not say it runs "well" on standard. Maybe this is just an AMD thing again? pretty sure it is... ArmA II runs realy bad on my PC though, while it did run fine when i had my 5830 so is it just drivers!? Anyway I paid 320 euros for this card and it is not performing in this game how i expect it to do.

THE BAD

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

I agree, one AI just walked straight toward me while i was behind a tree reloading and he didnt even shoot me at all i could just shoot him because he would've walked straight past me regardless. I know AI is really hard to program i've tried it myself sometime and i don't fucking get it but seriously this stuff is just funny =p

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

Yeah I partially agree but i don't know if there is really another way to do some things seeing as arma has a lot of stuff you can do and this kind of interface makes it really moddable and gives it a lot of room for variation in actions. Btw, i thought the ArmA II interface was horrible (all that green army stuff lol) at least this one looks like something proper now, a lot more polished i really like it.

3D editor anybody? Still missing.

Yeah editting in 2D like that feels a little bit weird, also a 3d editor would bring a LOT more possiblities.

+Points

Graphics are really pretty for a sandbox of such proportion. (Btw it looks like OF dragon rising did anyone notice that? lal. And yes i liked that game bite me.)

Cool interiors!

Draw distance

Volumetric Clouds

Underwater and water is general looks so good. Best virtual water award!

Everything enterable!

-Points

Doesnt really run as well as i would want it to with my specs.

I question the bullet collision because you can sometimes shoot multiple times as someone's head before they die, even from close up.

Ragdolls seems a bit weird sometimes.

LoD textures are very low-res compared to the rest, feels weird.

PhysX still make it so you can rush down a mountain with a vehicle and do all kind of crazy flips on a quad or something without people falling off and all that crazy stuff.

Some aspects of the game arent explained as well as i would like them for example i still dont know how to do all these weird stances lol.

Suggestions

Are you guys going to make falling animations? that would be nice. What also would be nice if V (vault) would also make you climb objects if they are to high to vault over.

Did ArmA II have directional damage? As in, when i get hit in my arm i could drop my weapon or when i get shot in the leg i will walk with a limp and be unable to run.

[Treehugger 1]

It seems that the view and object distance is a major factor in getting lower fps.

I hope the general performance with respect to view distance is improved on.

I want to see some kind of hotkey setup for quickly and effortlessly switch between two stored settings for the view distances.

On my second day with the alpha, I see that I get more fps by lowering all the various option to "standard".

The anti-torque rotor seem to be more eh powerful in Arma 3, which seem nice, I can only hope that this is more realistic. (I might be wrong about this though as I've only flown the littlebird in A3alpha)

Good:

• The character stances that are adjusted with ctrl + W/S key is a fun and useful feature.

• The game feels fresh and new.

• AI seem to be really dangerous and proper teamwork seem to be the way to success in dealing with them, or so is my impression.

• The inventory system seem to work ok.

• Flying a heli is still great fun.

• Vehicles now seem to have brakes, which is nice imo.

• Every buidling being enterable.

Bad:

• I dislike how the character can spin around when sitting on the ground, either when sitting down or after changing the stance to the sit-and-fire stance.

• The menus seem too transparent

• I wish the gun could be holstered and unholstered on command.

• Some changes to stances seem to result in unpredicable behavior and might become an annoyance in the long run.

• Somehow the bullet stream from the heli seem overly simple, perhaps because it is more pixelated or something, not sure.

• Texture popping (bushes, possibly also something to do with how shadows work, not sure)

• I wish people getting killed inside a heli would not end up falling out (alternatively, only people dying IN an open door would fall out)

• Unfortunately, the "respawn" button is right next to the "options" button in the main menu, probably causing some accidental respawns with players.

• The island of Stratis does not feel like a home. I guess I am missing the open and more flat landscapes and the forests of Chernarus :)

• The opening of doors still seem a little awkward. I would expect that the opening of a door should not affect the position of the player character at all. (I should go re-check this)

• I am not impressed by ragdoll physics and do not understand the need for it.

• Auto stand-up-feature

Edited March 9, 2013 by Treehugger

[treetop 10]

First of all ilove the game. But my qualms are optimization, cpu and gpu wise. Hwinfo in game 25% cpu and 60% gpu???!!!!

Somethings not adding up.

i7 3770k@ 4.2

660ti-stock

ripsaw 8gb- 1600

whats my prob. can run fine till stuff starts happening, then -30

[Flash Thunder 10]

Many Arma 2 annoyances fixed!!

+ SIGNIFICANTLY LESS LOD switching when it comes to vegetation and buildings. This was such an immersion blemish in Arma 2 glad to see it remedied.

+ Not much Z-fighting on distant geometry, some only found on Air Station Mike globe and some concrete walls.

+ Texture flashing is gone from what I have played. Not seeing anymore white flashing textures as you spin around in a city or zoom in with your scope.

+ Audio for weapons is vastly improved love it so far

+ Muzzles are awesome can even see some sparks awesome subtle touches add a lot to the experience

+ Stratis is beautiful, the sunset is beautiful and the water looks fucking amazing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- AI still need heavy work added functionality

- vehicles still seem awkward to drive around especially the ATV

- Not sold at all with physx, jelly flopping is lame looking

- Terrain textures look so bland it needs to be addressed, is bump mapping still only apply able to ground textures in engine?

- Shadows are still very spotty looking, overcast setting looks dull due to the lack of shadow the scene looses depth.

- Many of the buildings are just empty houses. No furnishings (do to alpha or intentional to keep performance up)??

- Commanding interface and interaction menu still need work I'm guessing that part just didn't make Alpha

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall I'm impressed with the alpha so far very stable and content is polished no hugely game breaking bugs so far in a few hours of play. Fairly the same performance as I got in Arma 2.

Good work! Keep on chugging.

[onde_ 1]

Damn nice alpha more complete then some of the recent new released full games.

looking good!

[blunt_razzor 1]

First impressions

Pro's:

- Controls were a LOT smoother and more comfortable than ArmA 2.

- Runs fairly well on a mid range system after a couple video changes. (I think it mid-range anyway)

- NEW STANCES :D

Con's:

- Aiming deadzone is too clunky and fast.

- No gear editor within the mission editor. Would've been really useful and pretty fun to mess around with.

Still it's in alpha and there is a lot of things missing and other things that need to be fixed but I love it anyway. Can't wait for new content

[Avean 1]

Poor AI

I think one of the biggest issues the Arma series have had is to do with the AI system. They are behaving like robots that follow very tight conditional type of scripting. One example is on the Headhunters co-op mission where you are to hunt down 3 officers. First village there is tons of soldiers walking about, then you have 4 soldiers just standing still not doing anything. If anyone make a sound they will all go to prone and then start firing.

This game really needs to get a better AI system so singleplayer missions can be fun as well. Also there is no need for the automatic radio commands yelling out enemy locations and what not. If you bring with you several AI friends then they will shout out enemy locations and every detail they do all the time. I feel it ruins the immersion.

The game itself is solid i think, its just the AI that is bugging me alot and needs to be fixed to grab a larger audience.

[clydefrog 3]

The AI is still bad but it's not only important for SP missions, most people who play Arma I think play co-op so bad AI is a big problem and a lot of people on Arma 2 run AI mods to improve as without they're a joke.

Personally I'm a bit frustrated that editor placed objects still have randomly sized icons that don't help correct placement at all, for example some huge square with a ? in it, yeah that really helps me position it properly. I was hoping they would've sorted this out since Arma 2 and the fact that it is still the same just looks like pure laziness to me.

The first thing wrong I noticed with the game, and it is a problem from arma 2, is after watching some enemy through my scope their feet where underground and when they went prone everything but their head disappeared. Since this is something else that has happened for a long time I'm thinking that it probably won't get fixed because they don't know how to do it. Same with the AI still being poor which is by far the biggest issue and it looks like it's not really been addressed.

Edited March 9, 2013 by clydefrog

[blackforest_rumbler 0]

I'm an OFP / Arma Player from the first hours. Here my impressions on ArmA3 Alpha and some point that need to be adjusted IMHO:

Overall Impression is positive.Graphics rock! Really Impressive!

Now it's time for some improvements:

=> Gear selection: IMHO it takes much too long to select weapons and magazines by drag and drop. Why not use the old system with double clicking or at least add some standard magazines when u choose a weapon? It's really frustrating when it takes you almost a minute until u have the gear you want with u and can move on to the battlefield! Maybe its possible to add a parameter somewhere in the options like "Gear selevtion: Old style / new Style"? For those who dont want to change their underwear in the game the old style is much better i think.

=> What frustrates me even more is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to shoot in a lying position from a tower or sth. like that. U are not able to get close enough to the edge so ur gun sticks out and u can properly aim and shoot downwards. What purpose do those climbable towers have when u cant shoot from there or u have to shoot standing which is a hard deal for remote targets? If u cant use the towers with a sniper rifle or machine gun, u can spare those ladders. Can't be too hard to improve that, is it?

=> Another Point, but maybe I'm doing something wrong here: Is zeroing not functionable in Alpha yet? I'm hitting the keys Page up / Page Down like a maniac but nothing happens!

=> Although some might say I'm a noob or a looser: I think the AI is too strong, especially when it comes to long distance fights. I ly in the grass with my sniper rifle and they give me hell from 400 meters away with their standard assault rifles or grenade throwers and i dont even have a chance to see where it comes from before I'm dead, even in recruit level. Maybe ist possible to tweak the AI strength a little bit between the difficulty levels, those who like it easier can play on recruit (IMHO u can spare those red marked enemies and take away some of their super hero powers instead), those wo like it hard can chose higher difficulty?

[Yenooc 1]

I bought Arma II, but never played it, and I'm brand new to Arma III. It looks like one with great potential for being the "combat sim" that I'm looking for.

One shortcoming that I've seen so far: Vaulting/climbing over low (thigh-waist-chest high objects) is a basic movement, and (as far as I can see) is missing from Arma III. I'm hoping that this is added in as the result of feedback during this Alpha testing, because leaving it out would be a major hang-up in its passing muster as a "realistic" sim. (And no, I'm not talking about "bunny hopping," which is ridiculous.)

I know that this is only a one-item entry, but I've just started learning to interact with it.

[ColinCJ 10]

First game in years I have bothered to look at.

BIS have done an amazing job and I suspect are still doing.

I am not familiar with Arma 2 and games before this one reason really steep learning curve.

This game has more controls than an old fella can handle but I persevered and slowly getting there. Nostromo and Razer mouse.

I have even been looking at the editor and placing ai in the map and doing my own thing, getting used to the complete game.

So for $40 odd you can get a game that looks amazing by any Alpha standard, edit it to your hearts content, and help polish the final product.

This dosent happen in this world anymore, but it does.

BIS and supporters you have a great Tactical game being developed that if done right will be played for years in the future.

A fantastic Alpha release.

C.

[10t 12]

I love a whole lot of things about how the alpha's shaping up, but have been most delighted by the fact that:

Burning fireplaces cause damage to players. I can't justify it, but I was deeply affected by the realisation that I can't sit in a cooking fire any more.

That, and the PhysX and lighting.

[Kuskov 1]

OK I've spent the past 2 days really sinking my teeth into the Alpha and must say that I'm blown away with how superb it is. The graphics are MINDBLOWING, the movements are silky smooth and the AI is a truly fearsome opponent when playing hardcore mode. In short I just can't believe how incredibly good this game is, especially considering that it's still Alpha.

The MP gameplay makes BF and COD look like utter garbage, no doubt there will be a lot of new players attracted to Arma 3.

[chris89 10]

Am incredibly impressed with ARMA 3 Alpha. It is a massive improvement over ARMA 2 and ARMA 1 & Operation Flash point compared to those at release time.

Apart from shading effects looking odd and distracting, it is a incredibly fun game to play, especially the scuba diving area of things.

Although some things such veichles do seem a bit odd to drive for some reason. The new postions you can do are incredibly interesting and make it more fun to use as well.

For AI i can't really judge as only done the showcase missions so far. Until i mess with them in the editor, i can not fairly judge it.

Edit: Another thing that does iratate me is the helicopter handling as it seems awkward (Flying with a Saitek X52 Pro) at least to me. Also that a AH-6 can loop and do moves, i believe wouldn't be possible in one.

Chris

Edited March 9, 2013 by chris89
Adding bits

[lemkeh 1]

At first look it seems big step in right direction. I really liked 'feelings' of A3. At least in SP it runs better than A2 (for me). I haven't yet tried out MP, guess there might be some problems with FPS. But overall seems good.

Now about grass. I am fan of old OFp, but.. I really hope, that Devs make something with visibility of grass on mid and long distance. I understand that this problem is big in whole game industry, but in military sim is this question more serious, than in all those fantasy RPG nd MMORP. Maybe is needed whole big separate team, to find epochal solution for grass/vegetation on mid and long distance?

Again about one feeling. Seems that keyboard will inevitably be limited in order to convey whole palette of the movements and stances. Even the pedals do not give to much.

Perhaps in ArmA is coming time for mind-reading game controllers.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Lemkeh
double post

[geoxile 1]

My first impression is... The engine still needs work. That's on the infantry showcase mission, getting 40-50+ FPS. I know it's in alpha but considering the state the game is in I'd assume that the engine is mostly done and they're working on the game: art assets, sounds, logic, etc. Arma 2 wasn't exactly what I'd call well optimized either. Never mind the dip in GPU and CPU usage at the end, I exited the mission. The graphics, while generally an improvement over Arma 2, don't exactly seem to size up to newer titles using new engines in terms of feature sets, but understandably, since Arma 3 isn't using a triple A engine. Yeah, I know about the draw distance and scale but that's beside the point.

As for the game. Movement is definitely better than arma 2. So is aiming as long as my FPS is 60 or above. I used to have input lag issues in arma 2. Enemy AI still seems a bit wonky. They seem to be able to shoot with remarkable accuracy even when I'm behind shrubbery and other cover that should break line of sight. That's all for now, I haven't played a lot.

http://i.imgur.com/jTIzpA4.png

Edited March 9, 2013 by geoxile
picture added

[old_painless 182]

By no means a complete set of first impressions.

I am very impressed on how solid it feels (for an alpha version). And it looks and runs quite well. I do not have the most powerful rig, but I did put in an SSD which probably has helped.

However, my take on accessibility:

1)

Seems Alt-Tab does not work ?! Can not switch out of A3A? I dumped a group with me as group leader down in the Editor and experienced that problem. Surely there must be something wrong

2)

The quick command from Arma2 (Space key) to select your entire group so that you can issue a group command? It's not there, the controls say it's on the ~ key, but which key is that on an international keyboard. Jeez ....

I was unable to select my entire group, and to go here to give my feedback for that, I was not able to Alt-tab out. Come on, please fix this.

Impression is generally very good, however the accessibility could use a bit of TLC

[KeyCat 131]

The first thing wrong I noticed with the game, and it is a problem from arma 2, is after watching some enemy through my scope their feet where underground and when they went prone everything but their head disappeared. Since this is something else that has happened for a long time I'm thinking that it probably won't get fixed because they don't know how to do it.

No it probably not going to get fixed since it's a feature and not a bug!

What you see is a compromise for not having the grass rendered to the horizon and the bodies is hidden in the grass and only the head pokes up. The same applies for you if you go prone in high grass, anyone looking at you in binocs/scope will only see the part above "grass level".

So why not render the grass to the horizon? You probably already guessed it.... it's to CPU/GPU demanding.

/KC

[old_painless 182]

Not entirely a good excuse, since they could render the local environment that is actually seen through the binos or scope. That would be awesome.

But yes, that is probably why they do it like that.

[KeyCat 131]

I agree that current "sink-into-ground" approach may not be the optimal solution but it works reasonable well, at least it's better than nothing!

Any improvements to a more realistic "grass-at-long-distance" are good ones and here is another thread discussing it...

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it

/KC

[Colt45_GTO 10]

head bob and scope movement is way too much, it makes sighting up on enemy at a decent distance near on impossible, even at close range its near on impossible. i have head bob turned right down.

secondly again graphic lag is out of control as with A2, so not only do we buy a game we would like to enjoy but we also have to spend £600+ to upgrade or buy a computer that can handle it. i have 8gb of DDR2 installed on win7 yet its crushing the memory installed. ''please close programs ARMA3, low memory'' or something similar.

the other isn't BIS related, it seems every moron has bought this so far and no matter the server (if you can find a decent ping that isn't full) the team killing on spawn is highly annoying. but as said this isn't a BIS problem.

[blotarn 1]

Well just bought and played it for a while, i will not say anything more than, its looking awesome, and its alot better than arma2 even on alpha stage.

BUT there is just one little thing that makes me wondering.

My computer specs are:

GPU ASUS GeForce GTX 580 1536MB PhysX CUDA

CPU AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition

RAM Kingston DDR3 HyperX blu 1600MHz 8GB

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3, Socket-AM3+

I dont think this is a crappy computer, but still. I can only play on the lowest graphics setting.

Its unplayable even on standard settings getting some rly bad FPS as soon as i look into the terrain.

This is annoying and i dont belive that it should be that high specs on this game. Or am i wrong?