Another suggestion thread, this time full blown overkill

[Psychomorph 1]

Suggestions

This is a very long text, because I chose to explain why I suggest/request the things and what is the thought and the logic behind them. Obviously, due to the sheer length and heavily sophisticated content (:p), I chose it to be a fresh new thread, despite the threat. So get yourself a cup of hot tea and enjoy the read (I poured my soul in). :pet5:

VIEW POSITION & FOV/ZOOM

I would like to have an option to adjust the view camera (left/right, up/down, forward/backward), of course within limits, and set the level of zoom-in.

Left/right

I like the 1st person positions of the weapons in ArmA3, but I would like to change the view position a bit to have the rifle slightly closer to the center, in order to have that "shouldered rifle, eyes just above sights" feel.

Up/down

The sights on the weapons vary in size, ideally the view should automatically adjust vertically in order to have the sights always below the horizontal view center, but in case it doesn't, I would like to tweak the view camera height to have an optimal solution.

Even if the view adjusts according to the sight used in the final game, I still would like to have the option to adjust the view height in order to get the right feel.

Forward/backward

This one is especially important for me. The ability to move the view back and forth would technically be nothing but setting your own default field of view (FOV).

The default FOV in ArmA3 is okay, but I feel a bit constricted, it is too narrow at times. You can zoom out by double tapping the Minus key, and get a nice wide field of view, but it is a bit too much, because there is too much screen tear (fish eye look) and it is not the most practical view to deal with the distances. Good for CQB though.

I would basically like to have a compromise, a FOV slightly wider than the ArmA3 default and narrower than the zoomed out FOV. Being able to move the view back and forth would enable me to do that and the weapons look nicer that way (not that much cut off).

Examples of more centered weapon views:

example1

example2

Zoom-in

Being able to additionally set the level of zoom-in would be nice, too. Sure, you want the max zoom, but what if you play a custom mission with CQB and shorter distances, you may still like to zoom in for accuracy, but not thrown out of balance by excessive zoom, so you could adjust the zoom quickly for this particular mission.

The settings above should carry over to vehicles as well, please!

ZOOM-IN / ZOOM-OUT

Please allow to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. The way it works now is that the zoom-in and zoom-out keys are toggle keys. That means you use the zoom-in key to zoom in and the same key to zoom out. Same goes for zooming out. This is extremely difficult to handle with the wheel right now as you want to scroll up to zoom in all the way up and zoom out all the way with the scroll down.

MOUSE SENSITIVITY

It would be very good to be able to define mouse sensitivities for various views. A separate mouse sensitivity for:

- normal view/sights

- the freelook view (affects freelook in vehicles)

- scope

- deadzone

DEADZONE

This subject is especially important for me, but may be difficult to comprehend for some.

I would like to be able to define the way deadzone works, not just increasing and decreasing it, but a bit more sophisticated.

The Unreal Tournament mod "Infiltration" has a very nice deadzone. It works in a way that you can move the gun only a bit to the sides and up, but are able to lower it much more. This is actually realistic as in real life you use to lower the muzzle, but not sway the gun all around in front of your face.

What I would love to do is to define how much deadzone there is to the top, the left, the right and the bottom. That would enable me to set the up/left/right deadzone to zero (instant turn around as without deadzone), but some deadzone to the bottom, so I can lower the muzzle and move the gun out of view.

This looks very sexy in the 3rd person also, you can try this in ArmA3, see how the gun is lowered but the torso remains steady, only I would like to have the unnecessary deadzone (top and sides) removed.

Watch an

. Except that in this video there is too much sway to the gun.

An example of how you could easilty set the deadzone in the options.

- You move the bars to expand the deadzone into that direction. If the bars are at the center creating a square, than there is no deadzone. You can always go back to the original bar above the cross, which will reset the deadzone and use the one defined there.

- The deadzone mouse sensitivity setting is deactivated if it is set to "zero" and is shown as half-full (let's be optimistic). You increase or decrease the sensitivity from there on. The X/Y speed is carried over from the main mouse sensitivity settings. On the other hand, you may prefer to have a faster sensitivity with the vertical freeaim (faster muzzle lowering) and normal horizontal sensitivity for whatever reason. Then a X/Y deadzone setting may be an option, too.

As said in the previous point, it would be great if you could also set the mouse sensitivity for the deadzone gun movement separately.

If you implement this feature, I will kiss your feet!

MOVEMENT CONTROLS

I've been battling the control scheme in ArmA3 untill I gave up.

First, what I need to do is to set my default movement speed in the options, be it walk, tactical or run (turbo excluded). That means if I spawn I want to walk by default.

Right now you are limited to how you can set up the controls. I would like to define exactly between which movement modes I toggle and which are hold key functions.

Allow us to bind a key to each movement mode separately. I would bind the "space bar" to the WALK and to the TACTICAL. Since I spawn with walk as default, I would use the space bar to toggle to the tactical and then back to walk. Further I would like to set the space bar as a hold key to RUN. In short, I push the key for toggle between walk and tactical, and hold the same key to run. This is the most intuitive and controllable set up for me.

People could easily customize their own controls by assugning separate keys to each function. You can have key1 to toggle walk, hold key2 for tactical and use a 3rd key to toggle to run, or however you please. No limits.

Also critical for me is the movement mode that is enabled when I quit running/sprinting. I mean if I run or sprint and either release the key if it is a hold function, or if it is a toggle, toggle it off, than I will be dropped to whatever movement mode I was using before I started running/sprinting, but that may not be a good technique, because in the heat of combat I may forget what movement mode I used before and releasing the key (or toggling the fast mode off) may take me back to walk, which comes unexpected. In short, I would like to set the movement pace that follows once I release/toggle off the run/sprint, which would be the tactical pace for me personally (by my twisted logic I want to get the next fast pace after run/sprint and tactical is obviously faster than walk).

Others may have a completely different movement control scheme and need to define what movement follows their fast pace movement action.

This is quite essential for me, to fully enjoy the gameplay, so I hope we will get some more say in how we define our individual controls.

I see suggestions to use the mouse wheel to scroll through different movement modes, I welcome that and would like to try if it was available as an option, too.

STANCE CONTROLS

I always preferred the separate crouch and prone keys, but Ghost Recon introduced a different scheme, where you use a "stance up" and "stance down" key setup (stance down to go to crouch and further to prone, stance up to go to crouch when proning and then further to standing). This was hard to get used to, but I did eventually and wonder if I would prefer that in ArmA3. An option to do so would be a good way to find out.

Also, using the stance up and down with the scroll wheel up and down function should be definitely possible, too.

STANCE ADJUST

It would be really great if you could actually set what keys you want to use for that. I would try the scroll wheel. Even if I would like to use the zoom in/out with the scroll wheel, holding down the stance adjust button would override the default scroll wheel function obviously.

If the stance up and stance down scheme is used by someone (as suggested above in the STANCE CONTROLS part), then they could use the stance up and down keys to adjust the stances. Would seem intuitive.

CARRY vs. LOW-READY POSTURE

This may be somewhat hard to understand for some, but when I play realism games, I always do a little bit of roleplaying. In ArmA, when I am moving through the woods without sight on the enemy, I put the rifle down. I also use the freelook to look around. All this because I hate it how silly it looks when people twitch around with the rifle glued to their cheek, BF3 style.

The carry posture in ArmA3 is great for this, but it is obviously a very relaxed position. The character walks with only one hand on the gun and the body stance is quite relaxed, too. This is good for patrolling around and walking around in the base, but seems off in the field.

A low-ready like posture - where the rifle is still held with both hands and the muzzle is pointed about 40 degrees down, still directed forward toward the enemy - would be much more fitting.

This should not only be cosmetic, as switching to the ready (muzzle forward) would be faster from that posture compared to the carry. The general body stance of the character would keep that combat posture (minimal view camera shift when toggling between the low-ready and ready) and you would be able to adjust the stances all the way. When lying prone, the weapon would be obviously in view, but the muzzle would still be pointed down as much as possible.

When clicking the fire key, the rifle would be brought to the ready position (like it is now with the carry position), but aiming the sight with the aim key would bring the rifle back to low-ready.

Why that? - If I get close to enemies, I bring the gun to ready by the appropriate key or by tapping the fire key, but when I have ranged combat and it is not necessary to keep the gun at the ready all the time (unobstructed view), all I need is to aim sights and I can do this by raising the muzzle from low-ready quickly and lowering it again.

This system would not alter the way things work with the gun at the ready and remember, this would be an option the casual ArmA player would not need to use, but the immersive realism gamer would appreciate.

The current carry position in ArmA has the crouched carry about the way I imagine it for low-ready, to avoid confusion, the crouched carry should be held really sideways (about like this), very relaxed, while the low-ready would be obviously held more combat ready.

The low-ready should be set-able as default. When I spawn in the base, I do not want to have it pointed at everybody. I always need to push a key to lower it (actually two keys, as I need to toggle to walk from the default run). What about having the weapons in the carry position automatically within bases (or within the spawn circle). So leaving that circle would bring the weapon to whatever position you have as default.

Also, allow to use the carry posture when laying prone, too. The rifle would be basically held sideways (muzzle to he side, the weapons side facing you). The problem right now is, that toggling the carry position will make the character stand up and put it sideways, which means death in a firefight).

Each function and position should have its equivalent within every stance, which brings me to the next point.

PRONE MOVEMENT CONTROL

As I said, every action should have it's equivalent. When I walk, I move slow and have the gun pointed forward, I would like to do the same when I crawl at the slowest pace (proned equivalent to walk). What that means is that the character holds the gun with the one hand, pushes it forward and lays the elbow in the ground for support, then he moves the other hand forward and lays it on the ground, when having both arms stretched out he pushes the body forward. You basically crawl very slowly with the gun pointed forward. I have actually seen footage when snipers (with ghillie suit) would slowly crawl forward by just pushing the rifle forward which always points forward. Less gun movement, more stealth.

The tactical pace and run prone equivalent would be obviously more dynamic, with the gun sideways. The sprint would basically be the way it is now.

PRONE VIEW CONTROL & TURN

I love the way Ghost Recon does the prone turning. Your mouse turning is limited to each side, so you cannot spin around on the ground (which is ridiculous really), to turn further you would use the side strafe keys + mouse movement to rotate, while side strafe alone would make you crawls to the side. Extremely well done.

Only thing that was really missing there was the ability to turn your head to check out the sides, that was really missing, but ArmA does not have this problem.

There is another subject that sometimes puts the prone in games to ridiculous. When you aim too high and look like a snake (ugh).

I suggest to limit the upward view movement severely, BUT, aiming higher than what is acceptable for a full prone, would actually make you roll on the side (like that side prone position that you can adjust in ArmA3 now) and you could move the muzzle up, until the moment where you aim that high, that you roll further on your back. Now then, when lying on your back, you can actually move the view further down until you get up and end up in the sitting position (that one you can also adjust now), facing the opposite side of where you were looking in the prone position. You could always roll on your side or your back and back to normal prone and cover most angles and not look dumb while doing so.

Next time someone is sneaking up on you from behind, you would not end up lying like a helpless fish, nor would you start performing break dancing spins on the floor, but act as cool as it gets.

THAT WOULD BLOW MY MIND!

A problem may be backpacks, but we can have some few compromises now and then, can't we?

FLEXIBLE AIM KEY

I would love to be able to set up the aim the way that holding the aim key will aim the holo sight and clicking it will aim the scope. In addition to that, holding the aim key while aiming the scope would hold breath, but when holding the aim key to aim the holosight would not hold breath, unless you set it up that way. You could set another key to zoom+hold breath as it is now with the holo sights, but that's the point, to shoot at disatance you need to control breath and with this system you would not need to do it with the holos, because switching to scope is so easily doable.

TURNING FAST WITH WEAPON AT THE READY

I'd love to have that little effect, that if turning fast would temporary lower the muzzle and get it back up very fast when the turning motion ends. In a realism game I don't like these generic mechanics of twitch shooters, where you turn around lightning fast with the gun glued to your cheek. You can turn around very quick in real life (much faster than gamepads, lol), but you'd not be able to swing the gun around, but would rather lower it and snap it back in to ready when you stoop turning. So the ability to turn would not be affected and you could fire fast after turning, but slower turns would be encouraged by having the gun steady at ready.

BINOCULARS

Most games let you switch to binoculars and have them in your hands, where you can use them by using the aim key, and you know what, I agree.

Some people may prefer to have an insta use of binoculars. Let them set it that way in the options, but allow them to "unaim" them with the aim key.

INSIDE VEHICLES

One thing I always wanted to see in a realism game, to be able to lean, level up and duck inside vehicles. It freaks me totally out when I am trapped into that stale sitting position, not being able to lean to look out the window when there are vehicle parts in the way (especially when you have tiny windows). Freaks me out.

Imagine you are sitting at the gunner position, if you could lean to the side, you'd be able to look out of the front window.

Same with the duck and raise. Want to see what's in front of the car (for instance when you got the vehicle nose up on a slope), make your view raise slightly. When under fire, duck down. You could use your infantry controls to use the lean and duck.

Some may argue that you got the 3rd person for vehicles, but some servers have it off for realism and I generally prefer to stay immersed into the 1st person. I use 3rd person only because of the limitations of the vehicle 1st person.

When driving vehicles off-road, I'd also like to hear gravel hitting the bottom sounds and when there is no roof than hear the passing by wind noise, which also goes for sitting on a MH-9 bench. Little nice details add some enjoyment to the game.

HUD STANCE ICON

I go further, not just an icon. I would like to have a full 3D animated and textured soldier icon of my own character in the corner of the screen, showing all the stuff that I actually do and am outfitted with. I mean if you reload your gun, you would see it on the icon, adjust a stance and you see it on the icon.

That way you would have full awareness of your body and actions while in 1st person, but this would be optional, of course. I can even imagine that ambient light has an effect on the icon, so you would even get an idea of how lit you are. Of course, it would never go pitch black, you'd always see the details, but a darker icon in a low light environment would also make it more comfortable to look at it, it wouldn't stick out too much.

An option to scale that icon would be good, and the ability to use it at the left or right side of the screen

Icon at right

Icon at left

INTUITIVE FREELOOK

This has me bothered from an aesthetic, realism gamer point of view. It is okay to turn full body everywhere you look when you got the gun at the ready, but it looks a bit strange when you are carrying the gun low. What if carrying guns low (carry/low-ready, but also sprint) would make you turn your head around freely? To turn the body where you are looking at, you would need to use the forward move key (tap it to turn torso, hold to turn and move toward that direction, obviously). If you want to turn your head when moving, you would actually do it the way it always worked in FPS games, by side-strafing (or forward + side strafe for diagonal movement). The head would be looking where you look at, but the body would be facing where you move to.

This would not affect you in a negative way. You can still use the freelook key, when standing or moving and since the weapon is held low you would not see anything weird in the first person, but it would make the (casual) gamers behavior unconsciously look more authentic, without him to do anything or even care.

APPLY BUTTON & KEYS INFO

Why not having one in the controls menu? You could change settings and save them, without leaving the current menu (which "continue" does).

Example

Maybe hovering with the cursor over the binds in your controls menu should blend in a little information field (like you have it in the video options) with information regarding the purpose of the key bind in question. Would help the noobs.

MISCELLANEOUS

The usual suspects, make rifles being put on the chest when you select a pistol, grenade, rocket launcher and let it be pulled on the back when going prone.

The grenade throw, holy mother of CoD... get rid of it ASAP!!

Cool idea! You got that flying over Stratis background, but it's day. What if I'm gaming at night and want to get in the right mood? Allow us to have that fly by Stratis at night in night vision mode. Give us a little button, let's say at the top, which can be toggled no matter in what menu you are.

Also, this background makes the game load slower initially. Let us deactivate that resource hog and I want this beautiful background

Thanks for reading (or scrolling down).

[jetset22a 7]

Definite +1 to the low ready suggestion. The current weapon down animation is much too relaxed, even on patrol. When I was in training we'd get always get yelled at for not holding our weapon with both hands whether we were walking around the training area, training, or on a hike. In the fleet, it becomes much more relaxed, but even then, I would reserve walking around with only one hand on the weapon for way behind the wire. Not to mention, in Arma 3 seeing everyone walk around the same way with the same one handed animation looks extremely awkward and unrealistic.

[rye1 22]

The grenade throw, holy mother of CoD... get rid of it ASAP!!

Disagree. It just needs some polishing and it'll be like an AA3 type system.

[chortles 263]

Disagree. It just needs some polishing and it'll be like an AA3 type system.

Pretty much this -- it's already confirmed WIP, but by RiE's remarks it seems to fit his intent so at this point it's probably already "here-to-stay-but-subject-to-tweaking"... and the current implementation actually makes me think of Dslyecxi's grenade concept, even if the implementations are so noticeably different, them being two different "reactions to/changes from" a shared distaste for the Arma 2 grenade implementation.

[Maxzy 12]

So, generally speaking, what OP is asking for is to devs MAKE ALL THE OPTIONS =)). Didn't get about view positions - you're asking to make aim not in the center of the screen? Like you're looking into ironsights (aiming) but they are not in dead center of screen?

[SmallBlackSheep 0]

great post

---------- Post added at 14:18 ---------- Previous post was at 14:16 ----------

i like the figure in this http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/4643/armahud2.jpg

[lolipoyi 10]

Very good stuff +1. Much of the movement options you suggested can be achieved by using a TrackIr device, such as leaning in cockpit thanks to 6dof, lowering your weapon by moving you head slightly up and you mouse down and so on, but making all that available to all players (not only those with said TrackIr) would be much appreciated. The way you pictured the aiming deadzone is perfect and about the ´nades, with a little more tweaking this system could be pretty handy. I´m more concerned about the healing system or for a fact, the lack of it... but anyhow, great post man.

[bars91 956]

Finally, someone who actually knows how to back up his suggestions and not just go "My way or the highway".

+1 on everything - the more control over the controls we get, the better!

[pd3 25]

Finally, someone who actually knows how to back up his suggestions and not just go "My way or the highway".

+1 on everything - the more control over the controls we get, the better!

The problem inherent to this suggestion, which I don't entirely disagree with, is that the more "options" you're given, especially if those "options" erode the simulation of real human limitations, the more the lowest common denominator will determine the "standard" configuration for multiplayer "efficiency".

This would inevitably result in as strong a deviation from realism over comfort and efficiency as allowable.

While I would say that I'm fine with options, in much the same way that servers can specify and essentially force drawdistance or minimum graphic options, so too should they be able to force certain configurations.

This way you have a clear division between communities instead of the derpin migrants from other less realistic FPS games utterly destroying the quality of online play with their lower functioning proclivities.

More options are better, but only if those options can in effect be forced by server hosts at their discretion.

I strongly believe this will not be the case however, because this series has crossed what I would consider the terminal gravitational threshold of the mass idiocy that has pervaded the rest of the gaming market. There will simply be too much crying about having to actually deal with "realism" in a milsim.

/cynicism

It's absolutely ridiculous, but financial interests inevitably corrupt everything it seems.

The Unreal Tournament mod "Infiltration" has a very nice deadzone. It works in a way that you can move the gun only a bit to the sides and up, but are able to lower it much more. This is actually realistic as in real life you use to lower the muzzle, but not sway the gun all around in front of your face.

What I would love to do is to define how much deadzone there is to the top, the left, the right and the bottom. That would enable me to set the up/left/right deadzone to zero (instant turn around as without deadzone), but some deadzone to the bottom, so I can lower the muzzle and move the gun out of view.

This looks very sexy in the 3rd person also, you can try this in ArmA3, see how the gun is lowered but the torso remains steady, only I would like to have the unnecessary deadzone (top and sides) removed.

Watch an example from Infiltration. Except that in this video there is too much sway to the gun.

I've been advocating this for a while, this is decent, however ultimately the future of milsim games will result in IMO

strength/tensor/flexor simulation for "arms/upper body" for the purpose of calculating sway and inertia of weapons, which should have a weight value attached to them.

Weapon handling is a critical variable to any game in this genre that wishes to maintain a high level of simulation accuracy.

Its not something that you can put off forever, inevitably you're going to hit a point where your audience will determine how committed they are to a real infantry simulation, and if it isn't found in this series, I certainly hope somebody else steps up to the challenge.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Pd3

[Psychomorph 1]

Thanks, for the positive replies. I'm glad the post was understood for the most part.

Definite +1 to the low ready suggestion. The current weapon down animation is much too relaxed, even on patrol. When I was in training we'd get always get yelled at for not holding our weapon with both hands whether we were walking around the training area, training, or on a hike. In the fleet, it becomes much more relaxed, but even then, I would reserve walking around with only one hand on the weapon for way behind the wire. Not to mention, in Arma 3 seeing everyone walk around the same way with the same one handed animation looks extremely awkward and unrealistic.

Quite strict your superiors. I agree, there is more or less one way to hold a rifle at low-ready, so I think the soldiers would looks less like a copy of each other, because the current carry looks kind of individualized and every soldier does it the same way, which stands out as a bit visually unnatural.

Disagree. It just needs some polishing and it'll be like an AA3 type system.

The way it is right now is a no go, but I agree that I do not want a return to the classical "rifle at back, prepare grenade, throw it, automatically grab another grenade, then deselect it to grab your rifle, etc". I think it is good if the rifle is still held with the left hand, but I'd suggest if you select the grenade, the rifle is slightly lowered, the grenade selected and held in the hand, than you click the fire key, the pin will be pulled and grenade thrown. After that you snap in back to ready.

Like this

So, generally speaking, what OP is asking for is to devs MAKE ALL THE OPTIONS =)). Didn't get about view positions - you're asking to make aim not in the center of the screen? Like you're looking into ironsights (aiming) but they are not in dead center of screen?

I see I was not very clear on this one. The so called forward/backward view adjust (FOV) would affect both, the aimed and unaimed view, because the view is only pushed back or forth, the sights would remain centered. The left/right & top/down view adjust would only work for the unaimed view, as it would allow you to move the view horizontally and vertically.

A gamer buddy told me he doesn't like the generic hip looking weapon position in ArmA3, because having the rifle shouldered looking past the sights should look different. I'm okay with the way the weapon is in ArmA3, but would prefer a position that I consider more realistic.

Comparison

---

I made a little demonstration video to explain some things. The first part shows a fast turn and the lowered/raised weapon during the process. It should work faster in the game and work more dynamic than as what it may look in the video. After that you see the slow view turn with the weapon steady, note you got no deadzone to the sides, but then there is deadzone to the bottom, which allows you to lower the sight when aimed and than quickly acquire the target again. Pay attention to how realistic the 3rd person (shadow) looks.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Psychomorph

[bars91 956]

Well, to add to the "lowest common denominator" issue(I agree that it's a huge issue).

It can be almost entirely eliminated by adding the most important points to server settings. This way one retains control over the said settings, but is forced to use the same settings as everyone else on the server.