General Discussion (dev branch)

[Victim9l3 11]

Thanks for giving the Opfor Urban units matching vests. They look so pretty now. It's way better than the brown vests that helped them to actually blend in with anything outside the cities. I called for reinforcements during a mission and the urban squad leader told me to bring the enemies close to the city so they can help us. They said that if they came out of the city to help us their uniforms might clash with the environment.

Seriously though, did we not learn any lesson from the U.S. Army acp camo? The Opfor camo is actually cool and I like it a lot. It works. But why would you give them blue backpacks? Why would any army make uniforms but make the gear completely different. The urban camo has gray-ish tan, and brown besides the blue. But you gave them backpacks with ONLY different colors of blue. Not one useful color (outside of the straps). And when you saw how bad the blue backpacks looked, rather than match them to urban camo, You decided to just make them dirty to blend in. Please, why would any army spend money on blue backpacks? Now you give them black vests because it looks better with their uniform. That brown vest was one of the few things that let them blend in to their surroundings. I don't know what's going on with the thinking lately.

One army has everything from guns, to uniforms, to equipment, to vehicles with the exact camo pattern. Nothing is different. Another army gets random vehicles from various countries but put americans in them as if that would ever happen. Everything stealth has no stealth, every turret the same, etc. This whole game is so mismatched that none of it makes sense. And sandbox content (objects, vehicles, etc) is way under par from any previous game. Not one army has a standard, soft, light vehicle. Everything is armored.

Someone must have destroyed your plans somewhere in the middle of production. You seem to be trying to catch up in order to meet deadlines.

That's my opinion on the devbranch. Give them vests that match environment not to make them match. Please. And fix the textures on your fortifications.

p.s. you have a cargo HQ facing the wrong direction (steps to get inside are a meter away from hbarrier walls. It's near the 2 hard hangars at the north east (I think) side of the airport.

Thanks

[VanZant 48]

Please, is there any chance of having a proper damage system? because 2 weeks ago the bullets were like throwing pieces of paper to the enemy, later the thing seemed solved, and since a couple of days ago like paper again. The last update supposedly adds more damage, wrong again. It is exactly the same.

The last mission i played my team wasted 3 magazines to kill a guy at 300 meters. I know I am not the best player out there, but this is a complete nonsense.

[progamer 14]

Unified squad leaders and team leaders ammo count across factions

Unified basic rifleman / scouts magazine ammo count across factions

Some more arcade balancing. Great job BIS, you are totally doing good thing to the game.

Why do the default amounts matter to you?

Why don't we stop calling them CSAT, NATO and the AAF when they should be called "unrealistically balanced generic faction 1, 2 and 3."

Its like by more accessible, they mean more balanced like arcade games. Because you know, those COD and BF players like to play a balanced game.

If they actually put like "Modified ammo count to be more realistic", then that would be fine, even welcomed. But the fact that they don't is troubling.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Some more arcade balancing. Great job BIS, you are totally doing good thing to the game.

Yeah so game breaking and arcade.

I didn't even knew that they weren't unified before and what does it even matter? All three factions are using different weapons.

[progamer 14]

Yeah so game breaking and arcade.

I didn't even knew that they weren't unified before and what does it even matter? All three factions are using different weapons.

This never would have been done in Arma 2 though...

[St. Jimmy 272]

This never would have been done in Arma 2 though...

Not sure if sarcasm but A2 ammo loadouts were also pretty unified.

[NeuroFunker 11]

i don't think it differs alot from arma 2. The only unbalanced in the way you mean, were project reality arma 2. Where US soldiers had modern weapons with IR scopes, all sort of long range scope rifles, and takistani had only akm's/74 without scopes, unless they were officers and snipers. In arma 3 maybe only the vehicles, are pretty identical in therms of arms, ammo, towers etc, yes not the best thing, but it's there, and you can live with somehow.

[dnk 13]

How much of a difference is there IRL between the US and Russian armies? I'm not aware of 556 being a whole lot different from 545 or the 30 rounds in the AKs being much different than the 30 in the Ms or the hand grenades in the Russian pouch being different from the ones in the US.

[msy 22]

Some more arcade balancing. Great job BIS, you are totally doing good thing to the game.

why dont you say if you are kia in the game your cdkey should be banned?

[twisted 128]

On this current topic, perhaps BIS would have been smart to include a rash tag resistance army using updated versions of arma2 weapons and vehicles collected from the black market. Bmps, ak74, ak47, g3, m4, m40a, t72, huey helicopter, mi24, etc.

[NeuroFunker 11]

they said, it would take to much time, to bring arma 2 conent, on arma 3 level, not gona happen, else they wouldn't publish mlods i guess.

[maturin 12]

The last mission i played my team wasted 3 magazines to kill a guy at 300 meters. I know I am not the best player out there, but this is a complete nonsense.

Actually, if you wasted 30 magazine to kill him at 300m, then that would be real life.

You didn't hit him 90 times, so this is just a comment on your accuracy. No human in this game ever survives more than 5 rounds to the body armor, and 2-3 is most common. In practice, you will score a lot of hits to arms, backpacks, guns, etc. And the survivability of such hits is actually quite realistic, if only there was a real effect on combat performance.

[L3TUC3 32]

Not sure if sarcasm but A2 ammo loadouts were also pretty unified.

For shits and giggles.

A2 USMC Rifleman

[indent]6x STANAG
4x m67 frag[/indent]



A2 CDF Rifleman


[indent]6x AK
2x RGO frag[/indent]



A2 Russian Rifleman


[indent]6x AK
4x RGO frag[/indent]



A2 Insurgent Rifleman


[indent]6x AKM
2x RGO frag[/indent]



A2 Guerilla Rifleman


[indent]6x AKM
2x RGO frag[/indent]

HOLY SHIT THEY ALL CARRY 180 BULLETS EXACTLY. Most. artificial. balance. ever!

A2:OA on the other hand was more asymmetrical. The US had more ammo for it's default riflemen (8x mag) compared to takistani army (6x mag) and militia (4x mag). But y'know, it was an actual asymmetrical war setting.

I don't understand the fuss as every mission maker worth it's salt will just adapt loadouts anyway.

[mr_centipede 31]

I don't understand the fuss as every mission maker worth it's salt will just adapt loadouts anyway.

People like to cry when they heard or read the word 'balance'

[NeuroFunker 11]

Actually, if you wasted 30 magazine to kill him at 300m, then that would be real life.

You didn't hit him 90 times, so this is just a comment on your accuracy. No human in this game ever survives more than 5 rounds to the body armor, and 2-3 is most common. In practice, you will score a lot of hits to arms, backpacks, guns, etc. And the survivability of such hits is actually quite realistic, if only there was a real effect on combat performance.

depends on a weapon as well. Where 5,56mm needs 5-7 shots, 7,62mm needs 2-3 or 1 headshot. And the further your enemy is, the harder to hit and less deadly small cal weapons are.

[dmarkwick 261]

People like to cry when they heard or read the word 'balance'

Indeed. Imbalance, if desired, is achieved by the mission designer. A goodly portion of the posters don't believe in mission design though it seems.

It should be clear by now that ArmA 3 is a different game to ArmA 2. I don't know why people insist that BIS should simply make the same game over & over again. ArmA 3 has the possibility of a multi-faction balanced game, while allowing the mission designer to make that actual decision.

That said, I would surely like to see ArmA 2 assets in the ArmA 3 engine, but that's because the A3 engine performs better for me. (Plus, ragdoll is cool.)

[Alwarren 2767]

HOLY SHIT THEY ALL CARRY 180 BULLETS EXACTLY. Most. artificial. balance. ever!

A2:OA on the other hand was more asymmetrical. The US had more ammo for it's default riflemen (8x mag) compared to takistani army (6x mag) and militia (4x mag). But y'know, it was an actual asymmetrical war setting.

Hardly a justified comparison. Arma 2 had the limitation of slots, and the upper slots were always filled with mags, so yeah, each had six magazines. However, they didn't have the same ammo to begin with. 180 bullets of AKM is something different from 180 bullets 5.56 NATO too.

I don't understand the fuss as every mission maker worth it's salt will just adapt loadouts anyway.

Which would beg the question, why even try such balancing, if, as you put it, every mission maker worth its salt would change them? Could have saved a lot of work for BIS.

On the subject of custom loadouts, it would have been nice if the loadout could be edited from within the game's editor without having to resort to scripting, which is tedious as best. But then, you cannot even check or edit your loadout in the briefing anymore, which, as custom loadouts go, is pretty bad.

So yeah, balance or not, *these* issues definitely need addressing; the briefing loadout even used to be there (and can be put back by mods). I cannot comprehend why it isn't there anymore. And the editor inventory editing was there as a button in a life stream but mysteriously vanished again.

---------- Post added at 13:48 ---------- Previous post was at 13:46 ----------

People like to cry when they heard or read the word 'balance'

See, here we go again. If all you can add to a discussion is flamebaits and insults, why not abstain from posting in the first place? It's such a predictable scheme, "don't share my opinion? Crybaby". Seriously, it's impossible to have a decent discussion here.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Which would beg the question, why even try such balancing, if, as you put it, every mission maker worth its salt would change them? Could have saved a lot of work for BIS.

I see this infantry change as a mission development consistency rather than a "generic shooter balancing act", think of them as templates for rapid mission prototyping rather than generic shooter classes. Generic shooter classes can be well defined now with the newly introduced respawn options if you need such in the generic shooter respawn game modes. Hence it's convenient if the mission maker can reasonably expect that the Rifleman for all factions can be expected to have let's say, 7 mags and 3 grenades, is equipped with the basic rifle the faction uses with the factions red dot.

In Arma 3 default soldier classes are nothing but templates to cut down on the need to give every single unit clothes and armament due to the uniform/inventory system.

Compared to Arma 2, the only person that could possibly be wearing a cap or a beret would be an officer, and the only soldier not wearing body armor would be the "light" variant of soldiers. But there is nothing stopping you from turning a Rifleman into an Officer or a "Light" version of anybody in Arma 3.

For a rifleman, a generic OPFOR rifleman is fine in most cases unless you as a mission maker need alter his loadout in a specific way, or if you need a unique unit, you usually strip it down and build it up.

"A lot of work" is overestimating the time it takes to change a few lines in the config for this thing.

[l etranger 5]

What does it mean ?

This also introduces slightly different recoil modifiers according to difficulty levels.

Firearms recoil different depending of your difficulty setting ?

[gliptal 25]

What does it mean ?

Firearms recoil different depending of your difficulty setting ?

I don't think I like this. I play on lower "General" difficulties to enable gamesaves, but for the rest I have everything on Veteran. I would like to see a setting to tweak the recoil.

Yay!

[papanowel 120]

I don't think I like this. I play on lower "General" difficulties to enable gamesaves, but for the rest I have everything on Veteran.

You can always turn that off. Play in the lowest difficulty and disable what you don't like, nothing to worry about.

[Alwarren 2767]

In Arma 3 default soldier classes are nothing but templates to cut down on the need to give every single unit clothes and armament due to the uniform/inventory system.

Compared to Arma 2, the only person that could possibly be wearing a cap or a beret would be an officer, and the only soldier not wearing body armor would be the "light" variant of soldiers. But there is nothing stopping you from turning a Rifleman into an Officer or a "Light" version of anybody in Arma 3.

Yes, but in that case, being able to define your own classes like in VBS2 would have been the better solution. A loadout editor in the mission editor would go a long way here too. Even if it isn't particularly problematic to add a new loadout, it's more hassle than it could be. Much more, in fact.

"A lot of work" is overestimating the time it takes to change a few lines in the config for this thing.

I was being sarcastic :) As I said earlier, making carbon copies is the easiest way to "balance" things.

[John Kozak 14]

You can always turn that off. Play in the lowest difficulty and disable what you don't like, nothing to worry about.

Depends. On Recruit, there are "spotting" markers. On Regular, there are "periferal view" ones. Both can't be disabled - they are tied to the difficulty "level".

Also, AI skill sliders have different range on different difficulties.

So, I hope there actually is a modifiable recoil option.

[supercereal4 29]

"The Kuma takes less damage from shots into its belly (there's nothing to be destroyed there)

"

Um what? Why would there be less damage to the weakest, thinnest, and overall most vulnerable part of the tank? A sabot hit could burn up the crew if a good shot hits the belly. There's a reason that ied's destroyed/damaged more tanks in Iraq than rpq's and mortars- the belly is more vulnerable than the sides/front. In fact, in training videos from the 70's, AT riflemen and tank crews were taught to hit the belly of the soviet tanks if ever possible. As far as "nothing to be destroyed there", that's true however the hull damage could be much greater there, as well as crew damage.

[chortles 263]

The interesting thing about the 'autorifleman ammo' comparison is that this time around they're actually more 'asymmetrically balanced' than in Arma 2, since this time around you've got 100-round magazines and 150- and 200-round belts... so although they all total up to twelve-hundred rounds per auto rifleman, that's twelve box magazines for BLUFOR, eight 'belt mags' for OPFOR, six 'belt mags' for INDFOR... and OPFOR's are in 7.62 mm.

Oh hey, more asymmetry here, also in today's changelog:

Equipment tweaks: 6 HE grenade shells were added for BLUFOR and OPFOR ammo bearers. INDEPs will not have them for they carry more machine gun ammo along with a heavier rocket type (NLAW). They should now serve as quite universal ammo loading points for different weaponry of the whole squad and thus provide robust supply support in contrast to specialized support of different Assistant units.