Can you play Arma 2, after playing Arma 3 for a while?

[NeuroFunker 11]

Been playing arma 3 for a while, wanted to play some arma 2 again. Ended up, arma 2 just feels crap, compared to arma 3, nearly in every aspect. Just in case, ive been playing since Operation Flashpoint, and enjoying arma 2 for many years. But duude, arma 3 is really a HUGE step forward! Arma 2 wins at content amount only, with all the addons and dlcs, and countless mods.

How does feel arma 2 for you, after playing arma 3?

[Rolling 1]

The biggest issue I have with ArmA 2 after playing A3 is the amount of time it takes to zoom. Seriously, it bugs the crap out of me now.

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

Takes an hour to get used to playing A2 again lol. A3 seems much better in many way already.

[gpha5e 1]

i have all arma games but i couldn't play arma 2 cuz of all the bugs that turned my 4ghz quadcore with gtx 560 and then 680 into useless trash, seriously arma 2 is so slow and buggy, but i did enjoy OA for some time, now im really happy with arma 3, i cant hold tears looking at arma 2 player models animations lol, they are so unrealistic and cartoonish that i quit instantly :D

[toiletguy 1]

I can't go back to arma 3 after playing arma 2 after going back from arma 3. Mostly i plays only singleplayer and editor in ArmA series. The AI in arma 3 is too advanced and dead on accurate in all terms but in arma 2 they're somehow perfect with mods and stuff. Most of the animations are realistic compare to the arma 3 except for those unarmed running animations.

[viper[cww] 14]

I can, and do all the time, playing Insurgency ACE on Zargabad is where the funs at yo!

[St. Jimmy 272]

Clunky animations and eye/screen burning HDR are the things I hate in Arma 2 and now I hate them even more :D

[byrgesen 1]

When i go back to A2 i feel so restricted, especially in my movement.

Ive always loved A2, but damn it seems so old now hehe.

Only thing i go back for is content, and i certaintly didnt miss the A2 animations hehe.

Its hard tbh, i wanna play it, but i just cant get my self to launch it hehe

[chrisb 196]

I believe a lot of players think A2 was bad because they didn’t have it set up right. If you have a lousy experience playing anything, you will not enjoy going back.

Me, on the other hand, have to go back to get a decent game, having had heavily modded exceptional ai in A2, I couldn’t realistically play A3 and enjoy it, with the woeful OFPElite (xbox) style ai it seems to have at present, its stepped back a whole 7yrs where ai is concerned.

For a decent intelligent game its A2, for tourism to look at the pretties its A3, but that counts for little, when the game is about war…

O.k. the movement system might be better and the looks, apart from that its still second rate, when compared against A2 game-play..

And I like A3 for all the wrong reasons, it looks nice, underwater swimming ‘lovely’, the lighting ‘terrific’, the clouds, well, ‘fluffy’, the movement ‘not bad’ etc..

Then you stop and think, to play a game I have to put the ai on here, then all that niceness goes right out the window, fire up Arma 2 then..

[Varanon 892]

Yes, I can go back and enjoy it tremendously. Arma 2 is still a great game, and all the flashy stuff in Arma 3 Alpha doesn't blind me enough not to see that. Right now, I enjoy Arma 2 much more simply because of the amount of content, interesting missions, and interesting environment. I find Stratis somewhat boring after some time, there's only infantry and a bit of other stuff, and honestly, I can't attack Mike-26 for the 30th time.

I'm sure Arma 3 will be great once it's done.

[Masharra 10]

I cant honestly play Arma 3 for anything other than with CIA Friday nights. Someday it will hit (and hopefully pass) A2's level but today is not that day.

That being said, I think you may be oversimplifying by saying "arma 2 just feels crap, compared to arma 3, nearly in every aspect."

By saying arma 2 wins in "content AMOUNT" feels extremely wrong.

ai, diversity of content, modifiability, community, mods, sound,

Maybe Im just a silly pessimist but its like the fog. My first thought was "but how do the ai see through this pretty fog?" And thus far, silence on that part. afaik. and that is what is important to me.

I demand a little bit more "something" and that little bit more isn't there. Not yet.

Though I will admit.. I do enjoy that the ai is very hesitant to engage me and my squadmates from range. It makes me feel as if I am good at the game.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Masharra

[Varanon 892]

Maybe Im just a silly pessimist but its like the fog. My first thought was "but how do the ai see through this pretty fog?" And thus far, silence on that part. afaik. and that is what is important to me.

My thoughts exactly

[tortuosit 486]

No problem for me. Downside on A3 for me is, sometimes mouse reaction is slightly delayed and the movement (turning) feels a bit nervous and not as smooth as A2. Also, I find myself only using the default stances in A3, because a) ctrl as a modifier is a finger breaker for me (but I need shift/tab for something else) and b) you cannot change stances while moving. Also, no big love for Stratis yet.

[kernriver 4]

Of course I can play Arma 2, especially now that CWR2 is released. ;)

[Alwarren 2767]

Been playing arma 3 for a while, wanted to play some arma 2 again. Ended up, arma 2 just feels crap, compared to arma 3, nearly in every aspect.

**NOTE** What I am about to say is not trying to whine about Arma 3, nor is it trying to be a hidden plea for more content. I am aware that Arma 3 is alpha, and what I am about to say I say because it IS alpha.

There is no comparing for me when it comes to Arma 2 vs. Arma 3. Arma 2 right now is the better game. A3 is alpha, and hence it lacks a lot of things that make it an actual game. The assets are extremely limited, and it is hard to make interesting missions on an island that is essentially a radar station, a small village, an airfield and a couple of camps. In fact, the locale is IMO the biggest issue with Arma 3. I am not a big fan of the Greek setting nor the future time period, and find it hard to relate to any of it. Certain aspects of A3A seem to be lacking, like the magic first aid system, and I hate the sun which looks like a sprite nailed to the sky. I like the sound much better in Arma 2 due to using JSRS which is frigging fantastic.

All in all, Arma 2 just has so much more game. RIGHT NOW.

Having said all these things, I am sure Arma 3 will be awesome. It already shows a lot of potential and I do enjoy it a lot. But from the pure gameplay aspect, unsurprisingly Arma 2 is way better, because of the larger amount of assets and locales.

I am looking forward to Beta and eventually the Final. There are a few things about A3 that annoy me (sun and First aid being two of them, as well as movement/anim speed and lack of inertia), but if they get fixed, I am quite sure were looking at a winner. But since the question was, can you play Arma 2 after player Arma 3 for a while, I can only say, yes, and with pleasure.

[dmarkwick 261]

Maybe Im just a silly pessimist but its like the fog. My first thought was "but how do the ai see through this pretty fog?" And thus far, silence on that part. afaik. and that is what is important to me.

As soon as the new fog hits the stable build I'll be testing it for AI visibility. It's something I'm concerned with too. I know the fog *used* to affect AI sight, but I wonder how the new altitude-dependent fog acts.

[dunedain 48]

I still like ArmaII more.

ArmaIII is great but it's still is very much limited in content and it misses many things modders brought to A2. I'm not too found of the Aegean islands kind of environment, nor do I like the weapon systems in game so far. I like more authenticity which ArmaII provides even without addons... I wish now more than ever than BIS chose to focus on Africa and early 90's technology than anything futuristic. Moreover I still have some stability issues, crashes and huge framerate drops for no reason.

I'm sure ArmaIII will sooner or later surpass ArmaII. But Right now, ArmaII is still is the superior product and ArmaIII very much an alpha.

[dmarkwick 261]

I find that I'm liking ArmA 3 so much that I'm prepared to put up with the problems and simply port all the ArmA 2 stuff into it and use it in there. I'm getting better performance (albeit with no AI mods) and ragdoll makes such a difference I can't tell you. Fallujah is behaving nicely (some z-fighting though) ad the lighting in ArmA 3 is great. As soon as the new fog system hits the stable build I'll be back in Chernarus though :)

[comc 1]

Along with what most are saying, I have to add that I am a sucker for the fields and small towns of Chernarus. I'm sure that Altis will be nicely varied with beautiful terrain, but I will probably prefer a more lush forested area to a Mediterranean one, especially the savannas of Stratis.

[bigshot 64]

I believe a lot of players think A2 was bad because they didn’t have it set up right. If you have a lousy experience playing anything, you will not enjoy going back.

Me, on the other hand, have to go back to get a decent game, having had heavily modded exceptional ai in A2, I couldn’t realistically play A3 and enjoy it, with the woeful OFPElite (xbox) style ai it seems to have at present, its stepped back a whole 7yrs where ai is concerned.

For a decent intelligent game its A2, for tourism to look at the pretties its A3, but that counts for little, when the game is about war…

O.k. the movement system might be better and the looks, apart from that its still second rate, when compared against A2 game-play..

And I like A3 for all the wrong reasons, it looks nice, underwater swimming ‘lovely’, the lighting ‘terrific’, the clouds, well, ‘fluffy’, the movement ‘not bad’ etc..

Then you stop and think, to play a game I have to put the ai on here, then all that niceness goes right out the window, fire up Arma 2 then..

This is EXACTLY how I feel about it. They need to stop using super duper AI aiming skills in an attempt to make up for the overly apparent lack of intelligence in their AI. Hopefully this will change soon, before release...but IMO they should have re-invested years ago back into their AI technologies. Seems they've put little to nothing back into it since OFP which has yielded them little to no AI advancements.

...and as far as the topic is concerned...yes, the graphics and lighting are missed when not playing in A3, but to be honest, I think A1 was actually the most fun version to date thus far and I still play it! Some of the best missions and overall gameplay can still be found THERE.

Edited April 22, 2013 by BigShot

[Alwarren 2767]

I find that I'm liking ArmA 3 so much that I'm prepared to put up with the problems and simply port all the ArmA 2 stuff into it and use it in there. I'm getting better performance (albeit with no AI mods) and ragdoll makes such a difference I can't tell you. Fallujah is behaving nicely (some z-fighting though) ad the lighting in ArmA 3 is great. As soon as the new fog system hits the stable build I'll be back in Chernarus though :)

Agreed, especially the lighting in desert regions look great. However, right now, even though it is possible to play Arma 2 missions with AiA, having insurgents in high-tech Iranian combat gear just completely breaks any immersion. Once there are more varied units to replace the placeholders, I am sure that it will be awesome to play Arma 2 missions in A3, although the tank physics of imported Arma 2 tanks just doesn't work...

[dmarkwick 261]

Agreed, especially the lighting in desert regions look great. However, right now, even though it is possible to play Arma 2 missions with AiA, having insurgents in high-tech Iranian combat gear just completely breaks any immersion. Once there are more varied units to replace the placeholders, I am sure that it will be awesome to play Arma 2 missions in A3, although the tank physics of imported Arma 2 tanks just doesn't work...

Yeah the ArmA 2 vehicles are rather funky in the ArmA 3 engine - a lot of the time they just flip over at the slightest corner or bump, or braking. I'm guessing they need some PhysX config entry to give them proper weight or something like that, and are defaulting to some nonsense value. That'd be my guess :)

I don't mind too much that I'm stuck with high-tech Iranian gear, it is alpha content after all :) and really it's quite nice to face an opponent who is as well-equipped as we are.

I am seeing better AI behaviors generally, even in ported maps. Units seem to take cover better and move into better firing positions it seems to me.

[Smurf 12]

Nope. Mostly because I have to install A2 from the DVD and then download and apply the patches manually.

Too lazy to do that.

PS: Don't think is fair to compare A2+zillions of mods with A3 Alpha. Go barebone with both, who "wins"?

[MavericK96 0]

Pretty much just waiting for AiA to reach a stable level. I barely have time to play ArmA 3 these days, let alone ArmA 2 anymore. :p

[Varanon 892]

PS: Don't think is fair to compare A2+zillions of mods with A3 Alpha. Go barebone with both, who "wins"?

A2. It's got boars, goats and tanks!