Character run speed

[TheBeard 1]

Honestly, I think that the sprint speed is fine. The sprint duration needs to be shortened. Needs to only last 5 seconds. If you rest for like another 5 or 10 secs, you recover some of your energy, but not all. The speed is good for sprinting for short distances.

I'll go ahead and second that thought.

[MissionCreep 12]

There is a place for sprinting in the game, but generally for distances under 50 meters. After about 100 m your pace should slow down to something more like a quick jog.

[-Coulum- 35]

Honestly, I think that the sprint speed is fine. The sprint duration needs to be shortened. Needs to only last 5 seconds. If you rest for like another 5 or 10 secs, you recover some of your energy, but not all. The speed is good for sprinting for short distances.

Actually... yeah you are totally right! Its not the speed but rather the duration that is the real problem. shorten the time that one can sprint before getting exhausted (also making it dynamic depending on weight), make the speed ever so slightly effected by weight as well and I think it will be perfect.

btw I counted the sprint speed to be about 100m per 17 seconds. Not all that impressive if one wasn't wearing gear.

[Hartmann 10]

Honestly, I think that the sprint speed is fine. The sprint duration needs to be shortened. Needs to only last 5 seconds. If you rest for like another 5 or 10 secs, you recover some of your energy, but not all. The speed is good for sprinting for short distances.

Is this based on something? I'm fairly sure a physically fit person can sprint for longer then that, hell I know I can.

[JojoTheSlayer 35]

In my view sprinting would be fine if it could only be used for short bursts instead of the marathon sprints.

[Make Love Not War 10]

Why is it that as soon as my wheels touch dirt the car loses 20km/h? I feel like the dirt is made of tire attracting fly paper.

Granted, off-road speed is highly variable upon a great many factors, but, generally speaking, driving across even a seemingly flat, open field with a 4x4 is often a slow and bumpy process. Giving it some more thought, I'd say ideally off-road speed should be most dependent upon the driver's willingness to risk damage to his vehicle. So, while a given vehicle may well have the capability to reach a certain speed off-road, high speeds will usually be reserved for emergencies and the normal pace will be a lot slower and realistically deliberate (assuming a sane, responsible driver).

Back on topic, I actually disagree that sprint speed is too fast. Currently, it's 24 km/h which is roughly a 4 minute mile. Considering that the in-game character can only keep that pace up for 30 seconds, that seems well within reason. Keep in mind that the affects of slope (ie., going uphill) and encumbrance haven't been implemented yet, both of which will change things a great deal. So, assuming an unencumbered well trained, athletic frontline soldier moving on level ground, I'd say the sprint speed is fine. In fact, the sprint duration could in be increased.

OTOH, the crouched tactical pace w/ primary is way out there right now - at 12+ km/h it is barely slower than crouch run at 13 km/h and significantly faster than standing tactical pace at 10+ km/h. That can't be right, can it? Also, IMHO, while sidestep or strafe seems reasonable on it's own, when used in conjunction with a forward run it feels weird and unnaturally fast.

Ed: For those wanting to investigate exact movement speeds themselves, go into the editor, place a player unit and then throw this into your unit's INIT field:

speed_hint = this spawn {while {alive player} do {hint format ["speed %1", speed player]; sleep 0.1;};}; 

Edited March 11, 2013 by Make Love Not War
Additional Info.

[-Coulum- 35]

Back on topic, I actually disagree that sprint speed is too fast. Currently, it's 24 km/h which is roughly a 4 minute mile. Considering that the in-game character can only keep that pace up for 30 seconds, that seems well within reason. Keep in mind that the affects of slope (ie., going uphill) and encumbrance haven't been implemented yet, both of which will change things a great deal. So, assuming an unencumbered well trained, athletic frontline soldier moving on level ground, I'd say the sprint speed is fine. In fact, the sprint duration could in be increased.

I still think the time of the sprint should be decreased to shorter than 30 seconds considering the recovery time is so short.

OTOH, the crouched tactical pace w/ primary is way out there right now - at 12+ km/h it is barely slower than crouch run at 13 km/h and significantly faster than standing tactical pace at 10+ km/h. That can't be right, can it? Also, IMHO, while sidestep or strafe seems reasonable on it's own, when used in conjunction with a forward run it feels weird and unnaturally fast.

I agree the especially about crouched tactical pace - its crazy fast. It seems like running forward and strafing simply results in you running at an angle at your normal running speed. This in't unreasonable but maybe it would feel better if the speed was inbetween the strafe and normal run speed? I don't see it as that big a deal.

[Mac 1]

Throw on 80 pounds of gear and dont sleep for 24 hours, then see how long you can sprint for. In combat you're never lucky enough to fight at 100%. You're always tired, pissed off, annoyed, injured, you slip, you stumble, etc...

[tedbell 0]

GTA 4 had a very nice movement system IMO. When sprinting you took time to stop and get going, and you could only turn slowly when running fast.

True, but GTA4 used Euphoria middleware, which provides blended animations. This is not available in Arma3, but I would like to see running movement similar to Arma2 which was really nice. Right now it feels a little like floating over the landscape like UT3.

[bakerman 247]

I think increasing the stride length of running and especially sprinting will make it look natural. At the moment it kind of looks like a power walk in fast forward.

[twisted 127]

yep, sprinting will be slowed down slightly

That's great to hear. Speeds close to real life speed means more need for intelligent use of transport. And greater efficiency in ambushes., etc

[Make Love Not War 10]

It seems like running forward and strafing simply results in you running at an angle at your normal running speed. This in't unreasonable but maybe it would feel better if the speed was inbetween the strafe and normal run speed? I don't see it as that big a deal.

Yeah, it's not a huge deal. It just looks a little strange to an observer, because IRL it's impossible to perform a running shuffle sidestep and maintain the same speed as a normal forward run. But it feels fine from the player's perspective which is the crtitical bit.

Throw on 80 pounds of gear and dont sleep for 24 hours, then see how long you can sprint for. In combat you're never lucky enough to fight at 100%. You're always tired, pissed off, annoyed, injured, you slip, you stumble, etc...

Good points, but if we're talking about extenuating factors then I'd counter that adrenaline should also be taken into account. I have a feeling that when under fire, you'd be able to sprint at surprising speed regardless of how grumpy, tired or beat up you may be. Nevertheless, my main point was that I don't think BIS' choice for sprint speed was particularly outlandish. That said, I also have no problems with them lowering it either. The most important part is that the fluidity and control of the movement in ARMA has been improved exponentialy, so I'm not too bothered if things are tweaked one way or the other.