Action Menu - must do better

[pillpopper123 10]

Actually, thats not a bad idea at all, but the highlighted area should be only barely visible, what you have on your picture is just too much.

Yep, That was just to show where it is, a similar colour to the crossair would be better. :)

Edited July 27, 2013 by pillpopper123

[enex 11]

As long that there is a option.If there would be logical intersection of let's say Looking at door "sit in back" then

looking between that door and front door would get you no action, while looking at front door would get you option driver seat.

That seems enough logic to me that I wouldn't require any sorts of highlighting ; )

[tremanarch 6]

it could pulsate a little and low brightness

Edited July 27, 2013 by tremanarch

[kylania 567]

it could pulsate a little and low brightness

Or you could just play Deus Ex instead:

Rather not turn ArmA3 into a console port.

[pillpopper123 10]

Lol. that's just wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much. :)

[papanowel 120]

Oh god, don't add something like this...

At least optional.

[xendance 3]

Or you could just play Deus Ex instead: http://www.thegameeffect.com/contentMedia/images/users/DylanCoffey/d58d1569-8c2a-4abe-9ec9-062f588850d4.jpg

Rather not turn ArmA3 into a console port.

I think a highlight around the part you're going to use is intuitive and a great idea. Do you have a better one?

How is knowing what door you're going to open (referencing dslyecxi's vid) a console feature? I'm rather tired of all this PC/Simulation elitism that happens in this community, especially when it makes no sense in cases like this.

[enex 11]

It's already set up great - you get icon that is showing you what your action is (sitting, driving, gunning, gear)

The problem is the not correctly detecting things that you looking at and using old Arma menus to access it

rather then with one key (space for example) to do it.

[dissaifer 10]

I like the idea of the highlighted item, it seems less intrusive then a hand or door symbol.

[valnwt 11]

I like the idea of the highlighted item, it seems less intrusive then a hand or door symbol.

Im actually the other way around :p , same visuals just not broken. Now i havent thought this thru entirely but having a system like Amnesia (atleast for doors) would be cool. Having a yellow/White line apear around every action-available thing is for me a big immersion killer.

[x3kj 1247]

they should make more hotkeys for action types...

one key for opening/closing doors + entering/exiting vehicles with double function.

One simple press does the action you would expect from what you are looking at. If you press and hold it's giving you the available options in a rose menu, but JUST the available enter/exit options. And not Gear, switch weapon and whatnot.

Another key would be for ordonance (replaces Grenade button). Press once and you take a frag grenade into your hand. Press+Hold to see the ordonance rose menu (deploy mine, deploy satchel, touch off etc). By taking a grenade into your hand, a better controll for grenades can be implemented. Fire modes for the grenades could be cycled through via normal means - because it is the active weapon. throw, roll, hurl (high arc over wall). Now a normal tap on fire button does a 100% throw/roll/hurl - depending on which you chose (throw=default). Holding fire button charges strength up to 100%.

Additional benefit: you don't immediately throw a grenade once you press the G button accidentally. You can switch back to your normal gun. And it's less COD-actionshootery as it takes a little bit more time to throw a grenade compared to what we have now.

Weaponswitching (primary, secondary) should also be a seperate hotkey. Press+Hold Weaponswitch key enables the ammo menu rose - for different bullet types on hand weapons or in vehicles. Fire modes can do with a double function with press+hold to switch to the "secondary mode" of a weapon - i.e. underbarrel grenade launcher/shotgun

The rest of the actions can stay in the action menu, because with all the important stuff having seperate keys it's also very decluttered - even when sitting in a vehicle with a lot of options.

[bars91 956]

Novalogic did it in 2003 with Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/610300-joint-operations-typhoon-rising-windows-screenshot-take-a.png

This is a screen from their next game Joint Ops: Typhoon Rising

You basically had to push Shift and look at a seat/door you wanted to jump in.

IT'S THAT SIMPLE and no highlighting the whole object/outline bs.

EDIT: and they had "shooting from LBs and vehicle windows/hatches" thing as well... :j:

Edited July 27, 2013 by Bars91

[D_wolf 1]

Yep, That was just to show where it is, a similar colour to the crossair would be better. :)

http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q437/rc-flights/arma3-2013-07-27-11-28-46-403-1.jpg

I support this!

Slightly less brighter though

Edited July 27, 2013 by D_wolf

[BigBoss 10]

Highlighting wouldn't help, that isn't the problem plus it looks silly and distracting, something out of CoD. In a hurry, you would still open a door 10 meters behind you, because the selection is broken. The only thing that is needed, is separating contextual actions from self-managing actions, this way you don't switch weapons if a car drives away etc. Contextual actions should only take things, you are directly looking at into account and they should be less finicky. No fancy, bling bling HUD elements are needed.

Edit:

One more thing about highlighting, sure, if BiS added it (I hope it never happens), they would include an option to turn it off. That's cool, for single player, but multiplayer is a different story. The server enforces these options, so if you are part of a community or play on a server which has all the stuff enabled, even ones that annoy you, you are out of luck. This is of course, understandable, cause on a server where HUD elements are disabled, for realism's sake, you don't want people to "cheat" by enabling them. A system is needed where you can turn unwanted elements OFF in multiplayer, but never ON. However that's a different issue.

Edited July 27, 2013 by BigBoss

[Inimical_rize 1]

Edit: Whole post was a stupid rant

Ok, whole wholeheartedly agree with everything said here that's in favor for this to be implemented.

For those people saying 'Oh gawd I'd rather this not look a console port, ugh *sick* ew icky icky' Get a grip, none of you saying stuff like that could ever justify this Scrolling>Clicking>Rescrolling>Reclickingbecauseyouclickedthewrongthing>click>continue mission.

Wrong! Maybe the highlights are a little over the top, however even a simple icon corresponding to the seat you want to select.

Simplicity isn't rubbish or dumbing down, it's this 'FLUID' 'DYNAMIC' 'USABLE' and all these other phrases Bis throw out to cover up the 'We made more stuff guyz, and you can do all this other stuff with reflectionz and we called it dynamic and usable'

Sprinkles on sh** still means its sh**

Edited July 27, 2013 by Inimical_rize

[x3kj 1247]

It doesnt have to be the whole object that is highlighted though, it could also be a small green dot at the centre of the object/position you are looking at to get a feedback where you will end up with if you use the action

[big_t 1]

And the funny part is that the in-cockpit action system of TOH was pretty good, with the use of 3D icons, it should be used as default in Arma 3.

This whole video hit the nail on the head especially starting form 3:00min with the door. There needs to be a dedicated action key. I thought spacebar was kind of going in that direction yet As of now I keep deploying my secondary weapon using spacebar when trying to use it out of range. In game now if you tap space bar twice in the middle of a field you will switch weapons, why? I'm also always pulling up commands for infantry I have no control over. Many wasted key clicks correcting small misclicks. These mis-clicks are the fault of the system being clunky and unintuitive and not really chalked up to user error.

The whole middle scroll system is just clunky and sad. I remember thinking that when I first played arma2 " What the hell this system is silly" but I loved the game anyway and played though and eventually got sort of used to it . Then I was letting my try out the game for the first and he pointed out how great the graphics are but also how clunky the UI is. Watching him trying to get into a vehicle ,, oh man.

It really needs looking at from a fresh set of eyes. A pure UI developer someone not nested in the ARMA series form the old days.

I don't have the answers but a someone well versed in Game UI will.

[Inimical_rize 1]

I would like to know what Bis has to ay aout this, or atleast get some feedback as to why we shouldn't have wasted our breath on saying this. lol

[das attorney 857]

I watched the video earlier tonight and agreed on the points raised. One of the points that most resonated with me was this bit about opening doors incrementally:

>> FFWD to about 25.15.

I didn't have Raven Shield at the time but played it's console little brother RS6 and Black Arrow on X-Box. The ability to open doors incrementally was one of the best features and promoted some very intruiging gameplay.

[rye1 21]

The problems with features like incremental opening are that there are very limited cons to them for example doors do not make a noise therefore you can operate freely creeping open a door with little consequence. Gameplay wise people may be fine with it having zero noise but I think it's kind of odd. In RVS people used to do it all the time because the AI were haxor and could one-shot face-fuck you in little to no time. If there was multiple AI in the same room or vicinity it was nearly always guaranteed death so you'd creep open a door, shoot and creep open some more. The AI tended to get 'confused' you could say by seeing one AI drop dead and no enemy in sight, do a random ass patrol script then stop again. So it was exploitable by players who just opened a little bit more and shot the next one and then sometimes waited for more to come into the room or moved in. That could be used against ARMA 3 AI who go prone and hug down areas but they will engage doors and walls, they'll shoot at areas they lock down. What I'm saying is the incremental opening feature in RVS was a feature made around the game and AI, nothing more. In ARMA it would have a hell lot more utility for grenades so on.

[Masharra 10]

In ARMA it would have a hell lot more utility for grenades so on.

You missed out using grenades in rvs then.

[rye1 21]

No, I explained why people used to make pop-shots through incremental opening in RVS and added on that on top of that in relation to ARMA that grenades would become more a utility alongside this feature. Context. "For grenades" means for the use of.

[goldenfiver 11]

+1 , action key will be better than the normal action menu. In addition, the ability to open the door slightly is another must have.

[Kable_ 10]

I'm really not against the highlight idea. I don't find it especially unrealistic, since (like the stance indicator) some real life stuff can't be correctly translate into a game.

But in the meantime if we can have 3D Icon it would resolve the door AND vehicule issue.

Moreover I would like to open door incrementally:

You press space -> Open Door

HOLD space + mouse -> Incremental openning

[Przemek_kondor 13]

1. In Arma you do have the action key

2. Other idea is to have many action (which are in range) icons at the same on the screen but only 1 (the one closest to screen center) is enabled - i.e. other icons / actions are grayed out.

For example: you're staying next to heli and you see 4 icons on the screen - passenger (close to passenger doors), pilot (close to pilot door), gunner (close to gun), rearm (close to the ground)