Arma 3 Constructive Critiques

[CiberX15 1]

Arma 3 Constructive Critiques

Before I start I want you to understand that I love what this game is attempting to do. I am also a budding game designer currently studying at Full Sail University. Everything I say here is said in the hopes of seeing this game succeed wildly. That said I will now brutally rip apart every function and mechanic that annoys me. But, I will try to offer solutions to said problems because as stated above, this is a critique and if I didn’t offer any solutions this would just be me complaining.

The Problem:

The biggest problem that cripples this game for me and downright drives off my friends are the controls. Across the board they are unorthodox and confusing. Many of the key presses require players to reach across their keyboard for tasks that should be quite simple, changing weapons for example is mapped to “right ctrl + ;â€. Jump or rather vault is mapped to “V†and spacebar which users would expect to be jump is the interact/switch weapon key. The controls are so un-intuitive that my poor soldier can hardly figure out how to stand up much less fight. What makes this worse it the complete lack of any instructions. There is theoretically a context sensitive help menu but it is not very smart. For example, the first thing it told me how to do when I entered a helicopter was tell me what the little lights in the top left corner were for. The second thing it told me was what the icons meant on the radar. You know what I really wanted to know? How to make it lift off. I spend most of my time in this game getting shot at while trying to figure out how to pull out the right weapon.

The Solution:

Because of the sheer volume of actions you can take in Arma mapping keys is going to be a challenge. Perhaps the context help is exactly what is needed to help players figure out what to do. However it needs to figure out what is the most relevant information first. For example the first thing it should display when I enter a helicopter is the helicopters most basic controls; How to take off, how to steer, how to shoot. Heck when I start the game as infantry the first thing it should tell me is the WASD keys and how to aim and fire my weapon. Even so, I feel a complete overhaul of the default controls are in order to make the game much more intuitive. Arma has an unrealistically high level of entry. In its current state it only really appeals to a niche, a relatively large niche but a niche none the less. But it doesn’t need to be so constrained, the concept of wide open battlefield warfare appeals to a lot of people, but most of them can’t figure out how to play the game and give it up. If the level of entry can be lowered substantially, without removing any of its depth mind you, this game would be embraced by a lot more people. Also it would be an incredible help to have a search bar in the controls menu. There are seven lists for various commands and an additional list for custom commands. It can take forever to find the control I am looking for when I want to figure out how to do something.

The Problem:

Vaulting. Nice concept, if I had to guess vaulting was put in place to prevent people from doing the ridiculous jumping tap dance done in most shooters when players are trying to be really hard to hit. However, Arma’s vaulting takes it to the opposite extreme. Instead of quickly clearing a short fence or obstacle with a quick jump like any 12 year old can, my highly trained soldier chooses to smell the roses while under fire and daintily tip toe over it like a ballerina. The whole process take around two or three seconds giving the enemy ample time to kill me six times over, and half the time I just clip into the wall and get set back to where I started from anyway. Nothing is more annoying and immersion breaking than being stuck in a long and sometimes pointless animation while getting shot at.

The Solution:

Vaulting should be much quicker. Optimally, although this is probably too much work to implement at this point, I would like to see a context sensitive system. Rather than being able to press V whenever and watch your character step over thin air I would suggest that pressing V does a check of the surrounding area. For example: If I am running up to a short fence and tap V my character should quickly leap over it. If I am crouched and walking slowly towards a fallen log tapping V that’s when he will carefully step over it to reduce noise. However, if I run at a sheer cliff face or the side of a brick building or if there is nothing in my path that warrants valuting and tap V, nothing happens. I neither climb the building nor interrupt my movement. If you had time to take it even further you could allow players to climb slightly higher barriers, Those sand bag wall would not be unrealistic to vault over nor most any wall under five feet or so. This context system would also prevent people from just jumping ridiculously out of the way of fire but also give them a much more realistic and intuitive freedom of movement. I am not asking for Assassin’s Creed here, just the simple actions that any trained soldier should be able to do. I would also migrate the “Vault†command to the space bar where most gamers are used to it being. The context command menu might do better on the “F†key anyway since that is a key commonly used for interaction in other games. You might even combine sprinting and vaulting like some games have started doing and free up the left shift key. That would open up an easily accessed key to be mapped to other important commands like the “switch fire type†command that is currently on F and for some reason is called “switch weaponâ€. Or perhaps the “Next weapon †command that it currently mapped to “right ctrl + ;†which is incredibly difficult to reach in the heat of battle.

The Problem:

Tag/mark targets. You already have a spot enemies command, not that I can figure out where on the keyboard it is but I hear other people spotting vehicles and soldiers so I know it’s there somewhere. The problem is someone will shout out “ENEMY TRUCK 3 O’CLOCK†but it doesn’t highlight it for anyone. In real life the soldier in question would likely be pointing at his target and the soldiers around him would quickly see this. With these clues in real life it is not difficult for a soldier to spot and track the enemy. However in the game, lacking many of the senses and general awareness that one has in real life, when someone calls out the vehicle has often killed your squad and run you over before you have spotted the enemy vehicle that your ally has supposedly spotted for you. It is also incredibly difficult at times to tell friend from foe. Again in real life this would be instantly obvious, the men around you are your friends and comrades you have been with them for months if not years, you can easily tell them apart from the enemy soldiers. This does not exist at all in the game, and due to varying graphical levels, most players find themselves having to determine which brown camouflage soldier is his friend and which brown camouflage soldier is his enemy. Example, on one server I ducked out of a building I had been hiding in for several minutes and spotted someone, and he spotted me. Guns up both aimed and ready to kill, but neither of us was sure that the other one was an enemy. We stared at each other for almost a minute before be both decided that it didn’t matter and we both went our separate ways. I still don’t know if he was an enemy or an ally. While this does make for some pretty interesting emergent game play, it was also rather ridiculous. We are not playing in Vietnam where you really couldn’t tell friend from foe, we are playing in a modern war where highly trained soldiers should be able to recognize who is an ally and who is an enemy.

The solution:

I know it is not as realistic but compensate for the senses we are losing because we are in a game and not actually on a battlefield. When an ally spots a target, draw a box around them, highlight them in red, do something that stays on the screen at least until they manage to get out of sight. If the enemy gets too far away or ducks out of sight its perfectly fine to lose the marker, but when they are running or driving around and by all rights any normal human would know exactly where they are in real life, they should be highlighted. Again, I know this is not realistic, our soldiers do not have little visors that display holographic target markers over enemy… wait they can probably do that now can’t they? In fact the military has been working with and improving helmet mounted heads up displays since the late 1970s. Hu, well guess you have no excuse now, get to it I want my enemies tagged! I know it puts red dots on enemies on easy but that’s actually too much. It marks every enemy no matter what. Besides this almost every server ever listed is either on regular or veteran and the few that aren’t are on elite. I have never seen a server besides one of my own use the Easy setting. I’m not asking for every enemy to be automatically highlighted for me, but the AI’s certainly don’t have any problem finding human players. Why should the human players have such difficulty? How about this: on veteran and regular when someone spots an enemy the game should put the same red marker on them as it does in easy or else a target box like the one used in the infantry showcase, but not before they are spotted. If the enemy then goes out of sight it takes it off. This way stealth and tactics still work but when the enemy should be clearly obvious and has been pointed out we can see them. Also the extremists can still play on elite and not have what they would consider an over powered and unrealistic advantage.

The Problem:

This is clearly less end game problem and more an issue with the alpha version but there appears to be no way to open up a console, nor any other way to control a server. To be more specific, I was hosting a Escape Stratus mission and right as we finally got to the airport some little greifer took the only helicopter on the field flew around gunning down all of our hard earned trucks and then crashed the helicopter into the ground. He then proceeded to team kill and spawn kill everyone he could find. Unfortunately I could find no means to kick the little twit and after half an hour of searching the menus and the internet I finally gave up. The thing that stings the worst is that the little twit won, he managed to ruin the server for everyone because I had no way of getting rid of him.

The solution:

Should be obvious. I know this is an alpha version of the game but the very first thing you should be doing, if you don’t take any of my other suggestions, please give server hosts the ability to kick players.

Ok, moving on here are a few glitches/errors I have found so far.

Glitch/Error

I’m not totally sure if this one is a problem or a glitch or intended. If you try to turn when flying a helicopter it will not turn if it is moving forward. When stationary it turns fine, but when you’re moving at almost any speed forward it’s like it is hitting a huge amount of resistance and it will push to the side but when you let go it snaps back. I’m talking about rotating on the vertical axis. I don’t know how a real helicopter flies and I assume that realism is what you are going for so if this is not a bug that’s fine, it just seemed rather unusual. If it is supposed to be that way you should mention it in the help menu that way noob players know that that’s just how the helicopter handles and their controls aren’t all messed up.

Glitch/Error

sometimes when someone spots an enemy they call out cardinal directions instead of the clock, which would be fine but the game still displays the clock on the screen not the compass and the two are not interchangeable.

This is by no means a complete list, and I will likely post more here as I continue to play, but if these issues can be resolved this game can far surpass its predecessor.

[CombatComm 10]

I certainly agree with the context sensitive vault and I would love to see more context sensitive animation in general. Lowering the gun against walls, putting your hand against buildings etc, but I dont think this is remotely possible with the core RV engine. They just don't have the framework for the player model to know what is in front of it.

[CiberX15 1]

In that case they could at least replace the long vault animation with a quick hop. The way movement is in general, letting players just jump normally shouldn't cause any problems, so long as they can't change their direction in mid air.

[metalcraze 290]

I certainly agree with the context sensitive vault and I would love to see more context sensitive animation in general. Lowering the gun against walls, putting your hand against buildings etc, but I dont think this is remotely possible with the core RV engine. They just don't have the framework for the player model to know what is in front of it.

See norrin's mod. It just lacks the lowering weapon animation using the default BIS one instead of lower-ready but it does it right.

Saying that it's not big deal.

We are not playing in Vietnam where you really couldn’t tell friend from foe, we are playing in a modern war where highly trained soldiers should be able to recognize who is an ally and who is an enemy.

I'm not sure modern soldiers have red squares drawn around enemies they spot. They still have to use eyes.

Modern soldiers also don't go to war in 5 minutes after getting a gun. They train.

So train, it's not that hard.

[keefehb 0]

Should be obvious. I know this is an alpha version of the game but the very first thing you should be doing, if you don’t take any of my other suggestions, please give server hosts the ability to kick players.

If your logged in as server admin type #kick (name, ID or Player#). Source http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Multiplayer_Server_Commands.

As a budding game designer you should be looking at what this game does differently from all the others and thinking creatively about what they add to the series. Taking elements from Crysis and Ghost Recon Online and adding them to a game that is trying to provide an "authentic" experience isn't going to work.

At least you didn't ask for the ability to leap over a wall, instantly change to your pistol mid air, mouth shot double tap someone before finishing off his mate with a knife based take down.

[defk0n_NL 2]

Uhm... Yes.

first off Arma3 is still in alpha and nobody really knows in how far the issues you are pointing out will get resolved.. At all.

Second the whole ArmA series is not your average run of the mill shooter. I think you are walking towards a really big misconception about it being what you think it is. Which is a Fun FPS shooter. Its more of a simulator mind i tell you. It evolved along way since Operation Flashpoint and if you start playing you are basically expected to read through the controls.

Arma 3 is actually just starting to better at delivering the "Ooeh Shiny" factor - nowadays. Arma 2 was absolutely not "Fun" to play, but really was good at playing for fun.

The fact of the matter is that you are accustomed to a certain level of "fan service" that simply does not exist...yet :/

ArmA is about choices and freedom. There is no fun in all actions being mapped under a single magic key.

But there is fun in finding new features in & outside of the actual gameplay being presented by you through a spoon like (guessed it) Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assasins Creed and what have you.

If you want to go over a wall you better well make damn sure you are able to do it and if its not smooth enough it comes because you have your keys mapped wrongly.

What works for you might not work for anyone else and there is where the keymapping option in Arma comes into play.

BIS developers were kind enough to notice that and offered you a chance to edit those nasty keys inside your /Documents/Arma/Profile

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/DIK_KeyCodes

Where your key equals a hex number you need to convert to decimal and enter them in.

Yay for science.

PS: I really really dont hope that what you are proposing is a hud system with a big ass rectangle on your back saying "This is Enemy, Shoot!"

[Vladplaya 10]

All are pretty legit points OP. Its funny that I was just complaining to friend of mine about how unintuitive controls are while playing Alpha. I know there are so many actions that you can do in the game, but come on, there is somewhat generic standard for FPS game controls, they could at least TRY to somewhat stick to it past WASD.

Distinguishing enemies from friendlies is probably fine as it is, and I tell you that it doesn't get much better in real life when talking about trained soldiers. I have been in service for 6 years and with all the missions and training I have done I can tell you that sometime that's just what it is, its hard to tell if you are looking at friendly or enemy, if they are concealed or they are far away etc, especially when soldier's camos are very similar to each other. Heck I could hardly tell difference between British, German and Swedish soldiers when I see them, and I am standing next to them. If we would be in combat and all three of them would be mixed up, it would very hard to make quick decision on whether you are looking at enemy or ally. So I can't really complain there, except when you have lower graphics settings and textures on soldiers become blurry, then it becomes a problem, because there are even less detail that you can quickly look for recognition. Maybe if they would add friendly highlight, after you looked at person for few seconds, that would work, but I don't know about that one.

Highlighting spotted enemies is little bit touchy subject, but then I certainly agree that there have to be little compensation considering that THIS IS a video game, so if I play on lower settings, I am not going to see things as good as player who is playing on higher settings, so I am at huge disadvantage with no compensation. Further more I find it very hilarious that I can jump in helicopter, fly around while my character auto spots bunch of enemy soldier that I, as player, can't even see, and then have buddy of mine sit with mortar somewhere far away and bomb the heck out of red dots on his map... This is as Battlefield 3 as it gets, just ridiculous. Anyways I think quick highlights of enemies for just a second or two as they get spotted would be great, at least you would have an idea of what your teammates are talking about, and not just very generic direction that also might change as enemies quickly move around.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Vladplaya

[Bullweih 1]

Glitch/Error

I’m not totally sure if this one is a problem or a glitch or intended. If you try to turn when flying a helicopter it will not turn if it is moving forward. When stationary it turns fine, but when you’re moving at almost any speed forward it’s like it is hitting a huge amount of resistance and it will push to the side but when you let go it snaps back. I’m talking about rotating on the vertical axis. I don’t know how a real helicopter flies and I assume that realism is what you are going for so if this is not a bug that’s fine

Yeah realism is the purpose and it is fully ok like this. I really like the actual flightcontrol-feeling, only thing I cant really manage good is to gain altitude. I manage to fly up to 150 m but hten it stops increasing alt. at any speed. Any Tips what I could change in controls? I use a analog joystick for the choppers.

[CiberX15 1]

“Modern soldiers also don't go to war in 5 minutes after getting a gun. They train.

So train, it's not that hard.â€

That’s actually exactly what I am talking about. Soldiers don’t go to war in 5 minutes. They train for months if not years. However as players we ARE expected to go to war after 5 minutes. I am talking about compensating for knowledge and skills that the avatar has but the player doesn’t. Yes after I have played the game for two to three days Ill pick this stuff up. Then maybe I won’t want or need all of this extra help. But that is what the veteran and elite difficulty settings are for.

“ArmA is about choices and freedom. There is no fun in all actions being mapped under a single magic key.â€

In this regard ArmA succeeds hands down. I have never seen a war game that gives its players this level of choices. Unfortunately its default control scheme leaves players clueless as to how to make those choices. Yes they can go and remap everything, in fact I did sit down and take an hour or two to remap the keys for ArmA 2 when I used to play that, but we shouldn’t have to. The developers have been at this for three games, why not revamp the control scheme so that you don’t need an animal psychology degree to operate this game.

“I really really dont hope that what you are proposing is a hud system with a big ass rectangle on your back saying "This is Enemy, Shoot!"â€

Pretty much yeah. Look at the AI soldiers. You step within two kilometers of them and they open up with pinpoint machinegun fire on you. Now reverse the roles, your ally just told you that there is an enemy two kilometers to your left, how long will it take you to find him? No he is not moving or firing.

In real life your buddy would point and say to you “Over there, see that guy hiding in the bushes? No, not there, little to the left†and you would answer “yeah I got him.†In the game all we get is “bag guy left.†Hey if you don’t want a big ol’ rectangle that’s fine, maybe make them blink red for 5 seconds. That way it’s enough time for the team to see him but it doesn’t keep him lit up like a Charismas tree the whole time. Maybe use spotters, so that as long as someone has binoculars pointed at him he stays lit up. But the problem is when all I hear is “bag guy left†I’m not going to see him. It makes spotting targets about as useful as shouting “THERE ARE BAD GUYS!â€

[rogue trdr 10]

OP- It seems you are making a fair few assumptions based on how you 'think' things work on the battlefield. It shows that you certainly have never been anywhere near one (not being nasty it is just pretty obvious). Let me clarify a few things for you;

*You will never ever jump up in the air in a combat zone. It just doesn't make any sense to do so. To get over a low fence in real life (bear in mind a soldier is carrying up to 40kg of kit) would you take a running leap and possibly break an ankle or neck, or do you step carefully over it, which is safer, quieter and less obvious to any enemy watching.

*Marking targets, as some replies have already mentioned, soldiers (unless they are wearing some gucchi DEVGRU gear) don't get their targets marked with red circles. Instead they rely on their mates calling targets either by clock positions, or by using landmarks and ranges. You do not have time during a fire fight to be looking around at everyone else to see if they're pointing, conversely if you're pointing, you're not shooting and you should always be either sending rounds down range, or ready to do so when a target presents itself.

As for the rest, well we both know it's alpha and reporting them so they can be fixed is the best course of action.

[CiberX15 1]

“Distinguishing enemies from friendlies is probably fine as it is, and I tell you that it doesn't get much better in real life when talking about trained soldiers. I have been in service for 6 years and with all the missions and training I have done I can tell you that sometime that's just what it is, its hard to tell if you are looking at friendly or enemy, if they are concealed or they are far away etc, especially when soldier's camos are very similar to each other. Heck I could hardly tell difference between British, German and Swedish soldiers when I see them, and I am standing next to them. If we would be in combat and all three of them would be mixed up, it would very hard to make quick decision on whether you are looking at enemy or ally. So I can't really complain there, except when you have lower graphics settings and textures on soldiers become blurry, then it becomes a problem, because there are even less detail that you can quickly look for recognition. Maybe if they would add friendly highlight, after you looked at person for few seconds, that would work, but I don't know about that one.â€

See this I understand, I kind of even like it. I don’t want every enemy to just light up like the Fourth of July, but when and ally is effectively pointing out an enemy I want some visual clue as to what he is pointing at. This game does not give me that. When someone spots a target, the only information the other players get is that the target is a certain distance in a vague direction. This is not enough information to tell me where he is looking at.

I played one level where one of our guys was going in to this enemy compound, and I was a machine gunner. I was watching him carefully because I didn’t want to lose him and accidently shoot him when the fighting started. This was one of the cooler moments of playing this game, and I don’t want to take it away. I am offering suggestions of how to solve the problem of pointing a specific object or target.

Again, I am not saying do this for all the levels of difficulty. The problem is is that 90% of the servers play on regular, and the ones that don’t are running elite. Regular is incredibly difficult, and elite is for those who want something as close to real life as is possible in a game. This closes this game off to a massive player base that would otherwise love this game.

Where normal is now is what I think veteran should be. The Elite and Easy difficulty are pretty much fine where they are. But normal really should be tuned down to where you average gamer can get into the game and enjoy it. Chances are they will eventual come to play on the veteran and elite levels as they get better. This is a game. It has this great community. But whenever someone from outside the community comes in they are somehow expected to know everything, and they are yelled and made fun of when they don’t. The level of entry on this game is set way to high for the average gamer to get in.

[CiberX15 1]

" Any Tips what I could change in controls? I use a analog joystick for the choppers."

Well I use a analog controller too, Mine has a little secondary joystick on top and I use that for altitude. It also has a hat so I can rotate it left and right so I use that for turning. Besides that prety standard set up.

---------- Post added at 01:06 ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 ----------

“Modern soldiers also don't go to war in 5 minutes after getting a gun. They train.

So train, it's not that hard.â€

That’s actually exactly what I am talking about. Soldiers don’t go to war in 5 minutes. They train for months if not years. However as players we ARE expected to go to war after 5 minutes. I am talking about compensating for knowledge and skills that the avatar has but the player doesn’t. Yes after I have played the game for two to three days Ill pick this stuff up. Then maybe I won’t want or need all of this extra help. But that is what the veteran and elite difficulty settings are for.

“ArmA is about choices and freedom. There is no fun in all actions being mapped under a single magic key.â€

In this regard ArmA succeeds hands down. I have never seen a war game that gives its players this level of choices. Unfortunately its default control scheme leaves players clueless as to how to make those choices. Yes they can go and remap everything, in fact I did sit down and take an hour or two to remap the keys for ArmA 2 when I used to play that, but we shouldn’t have to. The developers have been at this for three games, why not revamp the control scheme so that you don’t need an animal psychology degree to operate this game.

“I really really dont hope that what you are proposing is a hud system with a big ass rectangle on your back saying "This is Enemy, Shoot!"â€

Pretty much yeah. Look at the AI soldiers. You step within two kilometers of them and they open up with pinpoint machinegun fire on you. Now reverse the roles, your ally just told you that there is an enemy two kilometers to your left, how long will it take you to find him? No he is not moving or firing.

In real life your buddy would point and say to you “Over there, see that guy hiding in the bushes? No, not there, little to the left†and you would answer “yeah I got him.†In the game all we get is “bag guy left.†Hey if you don’t want a big ol’ rectangle that’s fine, maybe make them blink red for 5 seconds. That way it’s enough time for the team to see him but it doesn’t keep him lit up like a Charismas tree the whole time. Maybe use spotters, so that as long as someone has binoculars pointed at him he stays lit up. But the problem is when all I hear is “bag guy left†I’m not going to see him. It makes spotting targets about as useful as shouting “THERE ARE BAD GUYS!â€

[/color]

“Distinguishing enemies from friendlies is probably fine as it is, and I tell you that it doesn't get much better in real life when talking about trained soldiers. I have been in service for 6 years and with all the missions and training I have done I can tell you that sometime that's just what it is, its hard to tell if you are looking at friendly or enemy, if they are concealed or they are far away etc, especially when soldier's camos are very similar to each other. Heck I could hardly tell difference between British, German and Swedish soldiers when I see them, and I am standing next to them. If we would be in combat and all three of them would be mixed up, it would very hard to make quick decision on whether you are looking at enemy or ally. So I can't really complain there, except when you have lower graphics settings and textures on soldiers become blurry, then it becomes a problem, because there are even less detail that you can quickly look for recognition. Maybe if they would add friendly highlight, after you looked at person for few seconds, that would work, but I don't know about that one.â€

See this I understand, I kind of even like it. I don’t want every enemy to just light up like the Fourth of July, but when and ally is effectively pointing out an enemy I want some visual clue as to what he is pointing at. This game does not give me that. When someone spots a target, the only information the other players get is that the target is a certain distance in a vague direction. This is not enough information to tell me where he is looking at.

I played one level where one of our guys was going in to this enemy compound, and I was a machine gunner. I was watching him carefully because I didn’t want to lose him and accidently shoot him when the fighting started. This was one of the cooler moments of playing this game, and I don’t want to take it away. I am offering suggestions of how to solve the problem of pointing a specific object or target.

Again, I am not saying do this for all the levels of difficulty. The problem is is that 90% of the servers play on regular, and the ones that don’t are running elite. Regular is incredibly difficult, and elite is for those who want something as close to real life as is possible in a game. This closes this game off to a massive player base that would otherwise love this game.

Where normal is now is what I think veteran should be. The Elite and Easy difficulty are pretty much fine where they are. But normal really should be tuned down to where you average gamer can get into the game and enjoy it. Chances are they will eventual come to play on the veteran and elite levels as they get better. This is a game. It has this great community. But whenever someone from outside the community comes in they are somehow expected to know everything, and they are yelled and made fun of when they don’t. The level of entry on this game is set way to high for the average gamer to get in.

[ShadowPryde 10]

Good points OP. I fully agree

[johncage 30]

learned arma 3 controls in about 3 minutes. the key is to go into options, stop add'ing in your chair and actually set up the keys.

[MissionCreep 12]

I used to think the keyboard commands were non-intuitive. Now I do stuff as second nature. In fact, I probably can't tell you what keys do what. My brain just does it. Its a little scary if you think about it. Its like typing your password many times a day into your computer.

As to jumping, full body armour can weigh 20-30 kg, a helmet a couple more. Add to that spare ammo, rations, water, webbing, boots, rifle, sidearm, knife, grenades, radio, compass, bayonet, spare batteries, flashlight, chem light, first aid pouch, NV equipment, poncho, spare socks, spare undershirt, sleeping bag, gloves, maps, gps, knit cap, water purification, personal hygine kit, rope, sleeping pad, knee pads, elbow pads, NBC kit - depending on the plan and duration of the mission. While it varies with their responsibilities, the mission and its duration of mission Soldiers typically carry 25-50 kg (50-120 lbs) in the field. There is usually very little jumping an leaping typically done in the field of battle - just a lot of lumbering around. A leap off an obstacle of any significant height or even onto soft or uneven ground could wreck ankles and knees in the real world.

To make things realistic, I guess BI could make a player more agile on screen by shedding rucksacks, primary or secondary arms, webbing, spare ammo, armour etc. This would be the tradeoff to better mobility.

Edited March 8, 2013 by MissionCreep

[metalcraze 290]

That’s actually exactly what I am talking about. Soldiers don’t go to war in 5 minutes. They train for months if not years. However as players we ARE expected to go to war after 5 minutes. I am talking about compensating for knowledge and skills that the avatar has but the player doesn’t. Yes after I have played the game for two to three days Ill pick this stuff up. Then maybe I won’t want or need all of this extra help. But that is what the veteran and elite difficulty settings are for.

Play on Recruit. It has red glow over enemies. (At least it does in ArmA2)

Also that's how series were for the past 11 years. Yes you will suck really bad at first. When I played OFP back in the day it took me 5 days to learn not to die all the time and 2 weeks to learn to shoot and spot properly. OFP didn't have the multitude of helpers you have in ArmA3 already.

It's called the learning curve. We all go through it. If you are going to play ArmA you have to know it's never going to be easy. If there will be magical squares in the game pointing at everything - you will never learn.

And telling white/greenish NATO from brown iranians wearing silly helmets is not even a problem, bro.

Edited March 8, 2013 by metalcraze

[CiberX15 1]

Play on Recruit. It has red glow over enemies. (At least it does in ArmA2)

Honestly I would play on recruit if I could but the only time I ever see a recruit server is when I am hosting it.

It's called the learning curve. We all go through it. If you are going to play ArmA you have to know it's never going to be easy. If there will be magical squares in the game pointing at everything - you will never learn.

I did learn, I like the game. But I want my friends to join me and the learning curve resembles Mount Everest so they refuse to play it. I want to see the learning curve smoothed out. Without fresh players coming into this this game will stagnate.

To make things realistic, I guess BI could make a player more agile on screen by shedding rucksacks, primary or secondary arms, webbing, spare ammo, armour etc. This would be the tradeoff to better mobility.

I could accept that. I admit that that paint ball is as close as I have ever come to fighting anything, and while I find my self very agile there I am also not wearing any body armor nor supplies..

[Cyper 18]

I agree with a lot of this, but I do not agree with drawing a box around enemies. The truth is that it is all about practising. I had this problem in the beginning but I never have that anymore. Regarding ''ENEMY, SIX O-CLOCK'' you can always look at the clock that appears on the screen.

[Winfernal 2]

I did learn, I like the game. But I want my friends to join me and the learning curve resembles Mount Everest so they refuse to play it. I want to see the learning curve smoothed out. Without fresh players coming into this this game will stagnate.

Wow, wow, wow...

Calm down there. This community is VERY strong, and has been up for over 10 years with a learning curve like this. It's this strong because of the way ArmA is and has been. So no, it is not going to stagnate.

BI's goal is not about beating other mainstream shooters. The core game wont change. They're happy with the position they are in now, as said in interviews and videos.

They've managed to make the game more user friendly with ArmA 3. And it's really not that hard to learn if you set your mind to it.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Winfernal

[dmakatra 1]

Honestly I would play on recruit if I could but the only time I ever see a recruit server is when I am hosting it.

First, I want to say that you raise a few fair good points. Some of us have played this game for 12 years and can be a bit blind of how unaccessible it is. Hell, I've played it for 12 years on-and-off and everytime I come back I'm faced with a new update and community addons that changes everything and makes it confusing even for an old fart like me. Also, quite a few of this community's members can be, how do I put it, rather douchey, when a new community member comes along and proposes changes that will make the game more accessible (which in some peoples eyes can be intepreted as "dumbing it down").

However, this particular issue about highlighting targets I find a bit odd. Because, as you said, the feature is there. At least it was there in arma2. And it is a feature that I think most people would agree only really belongs in a situation to help beginners learn the ropes. Most seasoned players don't want this. I certainly don't want it. But having the option for beginners is always welcome. And you can't really blame the vast, vast majority of players who don't want to play with it (and who run the servers in their spare time) when they choose to turn it off. If you want to play with this feature, either find/start a server with it, or play enough SP until you're scarred enough to play without it. :)

[Winfernal 2]

First, I want to say that you raise a few fair good points. Some of us have played this game for 12 years and can be a bit blind of how unaccessible it is. Hell, I've played it for 12 years on-and-off and everytime I come back I'm faced with a new update and community addons that changes everything and makes it confusing even for an old fart like me. Also, quite a few of this community's members can be, how do I put it, rather douchey, when a new community member comes along and proposes changes that will make the game more accessible (which in some peoples eyes can be intepreted as "dumbing it down").

However, this particular issue about highlighting targets I find a bit odd. Because, as you said, the feature is there. At least it was there in arma2. And it is a feature that I think most people would agree only really belongs in a situation to help beginners learn the ropes. Most seasoned players don't want this. I certainly don't want it. But having the option for beginners is always welcome. And you can't really blame the vast, vast majority of players who don't want to play with it (and who run the servers in their spare time) when they choose to turn it off. If you want to play with this feature, either find/start a server with it, or play enough SP until you're scarred enough to play without it. :)

I don't mind it getting more accessible.

But things like spotting/marking and red boxes around enemies... whats wrong with communication? (And you already got that feature while you're playing at recruit mode.)

i am playing ArmA to escape those features. They are in every single mainstream shooter these days.

I recommend people to watch this video when they're on the fence about buying ArmA. It explain things well. And it explains what ArmA is about.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Winfernal

[Varanon 892]

Regarding the controls, it might be a good idea for BIS to create a set of tutorial missions that walk you through the controls and gives you the option to change them in that mission.

This is sometimes done in a much more simplified way in console games, where they let you look up and down and then ask you whether you would like to reverse controls for the Y-axis or not.

[metalcraze 290]

Honestly I would play on recruit if I could but the only time I ever see a recruit server is when I am hosting it.

That means the vast majority of players can manage without the red glow. Newbies and veterans alike.

I did learn, I like the game. But I want my friends to join me and the learning curve resembles Mount Everest so they refuse to play it. I want to see the learning curve smoothed out. Without fresh players coming into this this game will stagnate.

But it haven't stagnated yet.

If your friends are afraid of a learning curve - it's not game's fault. Even on recruit there will be no instant gratification. But ArmA is not like flight sims either where you need to study a 700 page manual, 90% of which doesn't even deal with direct combat.

Besides why not just create the server and practice with your friends on recruit where everyone of you will have the red glow, extended armor, autoguide for AT etc? Honestly, unless they want nothing but public deathmatch (which in case of ArmA is like buying Pagani Zonda just to drive it within speed limit for the rest of its days) they will have to learn.

[JackSpyder 10]

Default controls are terrible. I had to spend a good while in the controls before i got them just right for me.

The ACE mod for arma2 introduced a "hop" features. Same key but if you were sprinting and pressed V it would do a little hand on the ledge hop over. if moving slow, it would do the normal quiet step over. Perfect.

Server controls exist, the reason you're having issues atm is because we're either hosting them locally, or our "dedicated" servers are simply full copies of the game with a -server tag. When we get our proper dedicated server files we'll get the server controls. So that IS something that is coming.

all the target spotting crap, we get rid of all that and the interface rubbish. We like to play it "milsim" but thats a personal preference.

Nice post though! Anything BI miss, the modders wont.

To most of the arma crowd the only thing a new arma release gives us is, engine improvements and the editor. The actual game, we make in the way we want to play it. And for me, id want it no other way.