ArmA 3: E-sport ready?

[ric 1]

As I already explained; the e-sport scene (at least in west Europe) is getting bored of fast-paced arcade shooters and is looking for a more tactical game, which ArmA is. The fact that it's not a mainstream game (with killstreaks and instant revives) makes it even more interesting for a lot of players.

In the end; nothing about ArmA or it's gameplay needs to be modified, otherwise it wouldn't be the same game. However I do think that it's possible, with just a couple of additions (non-gameplay related) it would be a great game for competitive gaming and even e-sports.

anything can be competitive as long as the field is even and the rules are same for both parties, but when it comes to games lke COD/BF3 the field is anything but even, unless you are on a LAN with the exact same equipment and settings other wise hardware and connection differentials start to make it uncompetitive.

A good analogy would be if you were to clone yourself and in front of you and your clone were 2 brand new identical PC's with a vanilla install of BF3 with default settings. now you and you clone are going to engage in an old fashion duel which is you start back to back walk 10 paces turn and fire...10 out of 10 times you will kill each other.

now do the same test over except your clone with have mouse sensitivity turned all the way up...now 10 out 10 times your clone will kill you...because he now has a hardware advantage over you. Now add all the different gaming mice,keyboards,pads,macro's...etc along with latency and hardware differentials and you have no idea if a player killed you or was it locutus....it seems the more borg you are the better you "seem".

ArmA3 could be an e-sport contender but the community would really have to hammer out the details of how it would be handled.

[[aps]gnat 28]

ArmA3 could be an e-sport contender but the community would really have to hammer out the details of how it would be handled.

Sure, with OFP/A1/A2/A3 theres always some AWESOME long team PvP and CTI's etc, where using your brain and team for big-tactics and strategy is important, and it can be impressive to watch .....

But its not for the e-Sport demographic .... its not fast, its not furious, it's not bold, its not "flashy", its not for the young ...... so Sponsors etc aren't going to be interested.

An anology is: Watching a game of Poker vs. watching a game of Chess.

Both are good, differently.

[Grezvany13 64]

anything can be competitive as long as the field is even and the rules are same for both parties, but when it comes to games lke COD/BF3 the field is anything but even, unless you are on a LAN with the exact same equipment and settings other wise hardware and connection differentials start to make it uncompetitive.

A good analogy would be if you were to clone yourself and in front of you and your clone were 2 brand new identical PC's with a vanilla install of BF3 with default settings. now you and you clone are going to engage in an old fashion duel which is you start back to back walk 10 paces turn and fire...10 out of 10 times you will kill each other.

now do the same test over except your clone with have mouse sensitivity turned all the way up...now 10 out 10 times your clone will kill you...because he now has a hardware advantage over you. Now add all the different gaming mice,keyboards,pads,macro's...etc along with latency and hardware differentials and you have no idea if a player killed you or was it locutus....it seems the more borg you are the better you "seem".

ArmA3 could be an e-sport contender but the community would really have to hammer out the details of how it would be handled.

I don't agree that hardware and settings are giving an advantage or disadvantage. I've seen a lot of players who want different hardware and settings because that's what they like to use.

Some players would like to have their mouse DPI as high as possible (eg 6400 DPI) while others play at lower settings (eg 2000 DPI). Different people require different variables to be the best.

Ofcourse, two equal players (or like you said clones) do require the exact same settings to be 100% fair; however no single person is the same, so everyone requires different settings. And gamers who really play at the higher levels, already have the right hardware and settings for their own advantages.

I totally agree with the fact that the community needs to work out a "standard" for competitive gameplay, like rule sets (different gamemodes) and a mission framework or even addon.

This shouldn't be too hard to do since everything already exists, but needs to be tested (a lot).

[Sneakson 1]

anything can be competitive as long as the field is even and the rules are same for both parties, but when it comes to games lke COD/BF3 the field is anything but even, unless you are on a LAN with the exact same equipment and settings other wise hardware and connection differentials start to make it uncompetitive.

A good analogy would be if you were to clone yourself and in front of you and your clone were 2 brand new identical PC's with a vanilla install of BF3 with default settings. now you and you clone are going to engage in an old fashion duel which is you start back to back walk 10 paces turn and fire...10 out of 10 times you will kill each other.

now do the same test over except your clone with have mouse sensitivity turned all the way up...now 10 out 10 times your clone will kill you...because he now has a hardware advantage over you. Now add all the different gaming mice,keyboards,pads,macro's...etc along with latency and hardware differentials and you have no idea if a player killed you or was it locutus....it seems the more borg you are the better you "seem".

ArmA3 could be an e-sport contender but the community would really have to hammer out the details of how it would be handled.

Not true.

1) Competing against a clone of yourself would be against the very definition of competition.

2) You don't need identical PCs to have identical performance.

3) You don't need the same settings to have identical performance.

4) Bigger scenarios than 1-1 duels are often balanced.

5) High mouse sensitivity does NOTHING. Most champs use lower mouse sensitivity. Fps champs use 800 dpi and 5 times lower physical sensitivity (cm/360) than I do though I'm at the very extreme of high sens players.

Mice, keyboards, pads all have only a small impact that easily can be offset by skill or luck and are mostly for personal preference and so are settings.

Latency is the only big deal in online gaming and even it is pretty easily offset by skill differences anyways.

Besides far from all comptetitions use even fields.

[Wiffel 1]

it need only the right maps and Weapon scripts for a fair Gameplay... like a class based weapon script from the map "blitzkrieg" i have some ideas but cant script it.. if i have time, i will create a concept.

regards

[dragon01 902]

I believe ArmA could be adapted for e-sports. I'd be interested in watching the matches, but they'd have to be very different from what we see in BF, for example. They should be like clan-on-clan engagements, with not only the action on screen reported on, but pre-battle planning and command decisions as well. I imagine it'd watch much like military exercises. Sure, the games would be long, but a soccer match can be 90 minutes in length, so why can't an ArmA game? A single, asymmetrical objective, like "capture the base", with either randomized sides (attacker and defender) or two rounds in a row. Much like a soccer match or a military action, it'd require a good, really well coordinated team, good commanding and individual skill as well. The game is complex, but it has an advantage: the rules are based on reality. Exploit that, and you can afford very complex, yet very understandable mechanics. I don't know how the market for something like that, but I'd be very excited to see a professional ArmA match.

[Sneakson 1]

I believe ArmA could be adapted for e-sports. I'd be interested in watching the matches, but they'd have to be very different from what we see in BF, for example. They should be like clan-on-clan engagements, with not only the action on screen reported on, but pre-battle planning and command decisions as well. I imagine it'd watch much like military exercises. Sure, the games would be long, but a soccer match can be 90 minutes in length, so why can't an ArmA game? A single, asymmetrical objective, like "capture the base", with either randomized sides (attacker and defender) or two rounds in a row. Much like a soccer match or a military action, it'd require a good, really well coordinated team, good commanding and individual skill as well. The game is complex, but it has an advantage: the rules are based on reality. Exploit that, and you can afford very complex, yet very understandable mechanics. I don't know how the market for something like that, but I'd be very excited to see a professional ArmA match.

Balancing big missions would be extremely hard unless you make a custom, symmetrical map with relatively simple terrain and have attackers and defenders take turns.

I'd like to see it but because of how much work it would be I don't see a very big audience for it.

[comc 1]

I am sorely disappointed with the sheer volume of derisive and insulting comments made towards this idea.

I'm not a fan of E-sports, but that doesn't mean I'm going to try to make sure no one else can enjoy it in Arma. I love the series for its limitless gameplay and crushing realism, but others playing a more arcade style gameplay is not going to ruin my experience in the slightest.

BIS already have a ridiculous amount of work ahead of them, and Arma is much more than halfway done. They aren't going to change the core of the game to appease a possible small section of fans. Just look at DayZ, a mod notably more popular than the game itself; did they change Arma 3 to better accommodate the mod? No, they are releasing a completely separate standalone game for DayZ players, because the core of Arma is to be a basic, realistic and sandbox-style platform for anyone to edit and play. Arma 3 won't be made any more arcade-y than it is now. Even as it is now, ACE is sure to add the realism many of us want back in.

Arma is often touted as a game full of possibility - something you can make however you want. But many fans tend to be elitist, claiming their way is the only "true" way of playing the game. You need to get off your high horse and let others have fun, too.

[Reuben5150 2]

anything can be competitive as long as the field is even and the rules are same for both parties, but when it comes to games lke COD/BF3 the field is anything but even, unless you are on a LAN with the exact same equipment and settings other wise hardware and connection differentials start to make it uncompetitive.

A good analogy would be if you were to clone yourself and in front of you and your clone were 2 brand new identical PC's with a vanilla install of BF3 with default settings. now you and you clone are going to engage in an old fashion duel which is you start back to back walk 10 paces turn and fire...10 out of 10 times you will kill each other.

now do the same test over except your clone with have mouse sensitivity turned all the way up...now 10 out 10 times your clone will kill you...because he now has a hardware advantage over you. Now add all the different gaming mice,keyboards,pads,macro's...etc along with latency and hardware differentials and you have no idea if a player killed you or was it locutus....it seems the more borg you are the better you "seem".

ArmA3 could be an e-sport contender but the community would really have to hammer out the details of how it would be handled.

Nothing to do with hardware.

It just isn't skill based and there's some questionable game mechanics and underlying code at work here, namely lag compensation which actually over compensates giving the high pingers an advantage over everyone else, unbelievable but true.

[Yiippy 10]

If this were to work for Arma 3 my opinion of it should be that it would be based around a mission with a set of numerous objectives varying in difficulty

All teams are given the same equipment and position and are challenged to complete all of the tasks within a certain period of time (Reasonable time period not to rush people but to stop overly conservative play) and based on the number of objectives - side objectives - casualties sustained - time to nullify an objective - etc. the winner would be determined.

In my opinion this encourages the teamplay and realistic tactics that arma as a game promotes but allows for a venue ofwhich competition can take place.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Lot of nitpicking negatives here, as usual.

Don't remember the name of the mission but I remember a fantastic one that I used to play during PvP nights in days gone by. It had some funky custom shaders laid over a round robin system that pitted one player vs another while those waiting watched on and placed bets on the outcomes. Successive wins netted in game money that winners could use to buy better guns.

It may require some modding and some well constructed mission environments and rules but I think A3 is maybe an e-sport possibility.

[celery 8]

Lot of nitpicking negatives here, as usual.

And quite a few with their heads in the proverbial clouds. Disregarding anything that might prevent Arma 3 from being a good eSports title and focusing on some idealized end result where everyone is happily playing a game mode you like for money doesn't make Arma 3 a suitable eSports title. The points I've previously presented regarding Arma 3's eSports incompatibility are actual issues that have created unfair or exploitable situations throughout the existence of the game series. And when such situations arise in prize money matches, things can get really damn ugly - I have personal experience in the matter from the Arma 2 prize tournament I participated in where the other teams were very riled up about the highest-performing team's supposedly invalid playing style, not to mention countless no-prize competitions that always had heated drama over the smallest things. And I haven't personally even touched the game's spectator and announcer unfriendliness yet.

Arma 3 will probably be the best game in the series for pvp competition since Operation Flashpoint, and such competitions would be wonderful to have. ESports, however, is a completely different matter.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Celery

[Sneakson 1]

An e-sports fps needs to have as much entertaining action as possible in shortest time possible.

CoD has lots of arcade features for entertainment, quick gameplay on small maps to concentrate the action and short games.

Halo has a unique setting and extreme entertainment because of the wildly unrealistic things that constantly are happening and manages to compete with CoD since it is console-exclusive and thus more console-friendly.

Finally Quake offers the wildest and most unrealistic gameplay of all and I think that’s nice.

Counter Strike offers gameplay dangerously close to CoD but plays by last man standing rules and has equipment and money rolling over to the next turn adding a strategic element. However if CoD was to have a similar strategic game mode I can see Counter Strike hanging loose other than because it’s a classic.

ARMA doesn’t really bring anything new to this area and that’s the one biggest issue. Clearly Battlefield hasn’t done well yet for whatever reason and that’s a pretty strong sign ARMA would have no chance in hell of making it in there.

I’m sure we’ll see some suitable competitive maps soon but I still don’t see either the current players wanting to transition into that style, nor so I see other players wanting to convert to this nor the developers wanting to develop their game to support this as necessary.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

And quite a few with their heads in the proverbial clouds. Disregarding anything that might prevent Arma 3 from being a good eSports title and focusing on some idealized end result where everyone is happily playing a game mode you like for money doesn't make Arma 3 a suitable eSports title. The points I've previously presented regarding Arma 3's eSports incompatibility ........

Well I read your reasons and thought it amounted to saying that it isn't suitable because it isn't enough like all the other available games. And that there was nothing that could be done about it, though some points clearly could be overcome through mission parameters and a matchmaking process. But I supose after adjustments it then comes down what Sneakson just said.

ARMA doesn’t really bring anything new to this area and that’s the one biggest issue. Clearly Battlefield hasn’t done well yet for whatever reason and that’s a pretty strong sign ARMA would have no chance in hell of making it in there..

I supose at the end of the day its success or failure comes down to the punters. And now I've re-read the situation I see a huge gulf in a simple tourney PvP system and one which introduces real money. I intially thought that would be nothing wrong with adding some variety to the e-sport lineup but now I look at it and see that a good e-sport game isn't necessarily a great game. If people cant understand or accept the limitations (or lack thereof) of the game being played ,as many ArmA players still cant, they wont be able to gamble with any comprehension of the risk and therefore beat, let alone determine the odds. Sure there would be a few about who understand ArmAs finer points but probably not enough to form sustainable e-sport setup.

Edited July 15, 2013 by Pathetic_Berserker

[celery 8]

Well I read your reasons and thought it amounted to saying that it isn't suitable because it isn't enough like all the other available games.

I think it's fairly logical that successful eSports games don't have problems that would make them bad eSports games. You make it sound like the things that make Arma 3 arbitrary, unfair and exploitable are just refreshing changes that would make the game interesting for eSports.

[rasdenfasden 12]

Speaking as a guy with a decent amount of PvP experience both as a player and mission maker, here's what I've got to say:

1. Arma is its own game. When making a mission, don't copy Quake or any other competitive style shooter. You need to think with what Arma does best, and design the mission with as many of its strong points in mind, while trying mitigate the effects of its weaknesses.

2. Arma 3 does have potential for competitive style play. The controls (once you've learned them) are good, you've got fairly good grenade physics, weakside transitioning, stance adjust, steplean etc. Netcode is the greatest weakness atm.

Oh, and pistols actually are somewhat useful now. Well, at least the ACP-C2 is.

As for competitive stuff with money involved, I am highly skeptical. I mean, you can't really have an "Arma 3 tourney" when you think about it. You can only have a tourney for a specific player-made mission type, probably made with a 0$ budget and lots of trial and error in balancing. Making a perfectly balanced, highly competitive gamemode sufficiently good for real competitive play requires a proper, professional dev team's work. However, broadcasted PvP gaming as a way to promote the game and build community could work very well.

3. Arena maps are SHITE.

To be more specific: Symmetrical, mostly linear maps are bland, uninteresting and often frustrating for newcomers. Around alpha release there was this server that had a map that was just a big flat rectangle with various symmetrically placed objects for cover. Now, when it comes to the brainless action of putting a red dot on a guy and clicking, me and my teammates were fairly fast, and in no time the other team got pushed back to their spawn and left the server. There just isn't much involved in terms of tactics, and it's bland. Arma's combat can be about so much more than "who shoots first".

4. All PvP maps, no matter if CQB or large area need room for maneuvering.

Maps where the only option is to frontally attack go against Arma 3's nature, and result in a meatgrinder. Allowing players to flank, sneak and surprise is absolutely vital for interesting gameplay.

5. Don't give everyone a scope!

Scopes can make any fool with a rifle be effective out to over 500m and they shorten firefight length. I'll go as far as to say that ironsights are the funnest, because they're the least practical. For a more precise, less luck based environment go for collimators as the most common option.

6. Room clearing actually works now. Especially with flashbangs. With Arma 3's smooth controls and huge array of options for speed and stances, you can actually have fun doing room to room now.

6. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT ALLOW THIRD PERSON

SERIOUSLY GUYS THIS IS COMMON SENSE.

7. Long walks are rubbish. Good pacing is vital for PvP. Project Reality's rallypoint and firebase system is a good way to overcome this while simultaneously adding a kind of secondary objective and an additional layer of tactics to the game.

8. Keep it concentrated. Maps that are so stretched out that nothing happens are simply boring.

9. Make sure the objectives make sense. For example, place cap points in areas that you'd think would be worth capturing. Not in a pile of worthless sandbags in an open field.

10. Arma 3 PvP gameplay when broadcasted would have to be depicted in a unique way. Sure, CQB oriented game modes can be presented kinda like Counterstrike, but what I would find exciting to watch would be larger scale stuff, like large player count games in the style of PR for example. By combining a strategic map view that shows the way the 2 teams are moving and setting up and direct spectating of individual players, you can watch a combination of interesting tactical stuff and action. Even public games with a decent amount of organization could be fun to watch that way.

...you'd need quite a long delay on the streaming though, to prevent cheating.

Edited July 15, 2013 by RasdenFasden

[mmaruda 20]

Counter Strike offers gameplay dangerously close to CoD but plays by last man standing rules and has equipment and money rolling over to the next turn adding a strategic element. However if CoD was to have a similar strategic game mode I can see Counter Strike hanging loose other than because it’s a classic.

CoD has a mode similar to CS, it's called Search and Destroy and this is what was mostly played at CoD 4 tournament on Pro Mod until they made the series into a casual gamer oriented random mess.

Seriously, I don't think any one of you people discussing this has much of an idea on what makes, or breaks an e-sports game. Forget CoD and BF3 - there are tournaments and stuff, but these games are tailored for casuals, with unlocks, achievements and all that crap. Look at what is core in e-sports for a few years now. Counter Strike, becasue it's still the same formula since 98, Starcraft, beacuse it's the same formula since 98, Quake (now dead) beacuse it's the same formula since... 96 and DOTA games, FIFA and Street Fighter - all here since very long, with simple rules and gameplay depth. Games that are easy to understand, easy to play, hard to master. E-sports is like normal sports in one regard - people get an easy to understand game, that is fun to watch. Arma is another breed of game - you just cannot have a sandbox title that is competitve, not to mention you cannot have a realistic game that is competitive.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

I think it's fairly logical that successful eSports games don't have problems that would make them bad eSports games. You make it sound like the things that make Arma 3 arbitrary, unfair and exploitable are just refreshing changes that would make the game interesting for eSports.

Lol, well your right. And it was my opinion and pretty much what I said. And I admited after rereading the issue in more depth, interesting and e-sports do not go hand in hand.

[NeuroFunker 11]

depends on the mission. Arma 3 can have CS like style missions, and large scale battles. I see nothing wrong, arma 3 gets more attention. I see wrong, if that attention, will make DEVs for a reason, simplefile the game.

[The Barron 10]

So after seeing this thread, i had to make an account and add to this. This may be long, and i am a new comer but please hear me out on this. I've heard the arma community is great and open minded though so i feel as though my opinions shouldn't be a problem. I just want you guys to see the perspective from someone like me and other like me.

Alright so a little background about the type of player i am. I am completely new to the arma series. I dont own an arma game but did have the alpha of arma 3 for how ever long the duration of that was, so i am completely new to this. My past has be pretty competitive; i played in some mlg tournaments in halo 3, was part of a few clans in call of duty, and as of right now playing battlefield 3 very competitively (although, the competitive scene is a bit weak here.) So coming from cod and halo, im used to arcade style shooters which are twitch based or skill based. Every time i played with a team though, i loved leading them to victory and thats where my love for battlefield came in. I used to play bf2 on the computer and with the release of bf3 i went straight to it on the console and later the pc. I absolutely loved it. The feeling of being able to communicate with my friends in a squad and dominate was amazing! I loved the fact that it took a collaborated effort to actually win; often times i'd find myself issuing orders to my squad and other squads who would be in the chat with us (voip on xbox and ts on pc) and it felt great! Pulling flanking maneuvers on enemies and wiping them out, providing overwatch for a squad about to take an objective, providing suppressive fire down an alley way so my team has a chance of making it across without getting shot... this is when i gave up on twitch shooters and fully came to appreciate tactical shooters.

Now i know a lot of you are grimacing at the fact that i just called battlefield a tactical shooter, but hear me out on this; out of all the "fast paced" kind of shooters out there, battlefield is probably the slower of the bunch and most tactical, and with commander mode in bf4 and voip on pc, im really looking forward to the tactical play that will be involved in it.

Now how does this pertain to arma and e-sports you ask? Well simple, you see... a lot of people like me have gotten sick and tired of the cod formula: twitch shooting and no tactics. After i played the arma 3 alpha... i LOVED it. It really opens up a whole new can of worms when it comes to tactical gaming. I think competitive gaming these days, and gaming in general, is trying to reward those who work best together as a team, and those with the best strategies, versus those who want to just shoot anything that moves. I'd like to think there is a large appeal from people like myself to see people play these games. I'd love to see how to teams battle it out across say a 7x7 kilometer area; flanking each other, using the dynamic enviorments to there advantage (fricken night combat!), and using aerial and naval warfare to there advantage!

Personally, coming from someone who used to play competitively, i think arma 3 has a GREAT chance at becoming an e-sports game without changing up the formula! I think what a lot of people are missing here is that it not too many things are wrong with the way things play out right now! It's all about the team with the better tactics and commanders that win! It's like a chess game on a huge scale! Thats why i loved (and still do) battlefield so much, i always envisioned it as a game of chess. With arma i see the same, it a greater extent, and i think it would be a real shame if this opportunity wasn't taken advantage of!

Anyways, sorry for bumping this by 3 or 4 days. I just had to put my opinion out here. Please don't be too harsh and try to see my perspective on things here. I think the real plus side of all this is that nothing drastic needs to be changed! At least in my opinion.

Looking forward to getting arma regardless of if it becomes competitive or not though, this will be my first arma game and i am already pumped for it(:

[Sneakson 1]

So after seeing this thread, i had to make an account and add to this. This may be long, and i am a new comer but please hear me out on this. I've heard the arma community is great and open minded though so i feel as though my opinions shouldn't be a problem. I just want you guys to see the perspective from someone like me and other like me.

Alright so a little background about the type of player i am. I am completely new to the arma series. I dont own an arma game but did have the alpha of arma 3 for how ever long the duration of that was, so i am completely new to this. My past has be pretty competitive; i played in some mlg tournaments in halo 3, was part of a few clans in call of duty, and as of right now playing battlefield 3 very competitively (although, the competitive scene is a bit weak here.) So coming from cod and halo, im used to arcade style shooters which are twitch based or skill based. Every time i played with a team though, i loved leading them to victory and thats where my love for battlefield came in. I used to play bf2 on the computer and with the release of bf3 i went straight to it on the console and later the pc. I absolutely loved it. The feeling of being able to communicate with my friends in a squad and dominate was amazing! I loved the fact that it took a collaborated effort to actually win; often times i'd find myself issuing orders to my squad and other squads who would be in the chat with us (voip on xbox and ts on pc) and it felt great! Pulling flanking maneuvers on enemies and wiping them out, providing overwatch for a squad about to take an objective, providing suppressive fire down an alley way so my team has a chance of making it across without getting shot... this is when i gave up on twitch shooters and fully came to appreciate tactical shooters.

Now i know a lot of you are grimacing at the fact that i just called battlefield a tactical shooter, but hear me out on this; out of all the "fast paced" kind of shooters out there, battlefield is probably the slower of the bunch and most tactical, and with commander mode in bf4 and voip on pc, im really looking forward to the tactical play that will be involved in it.

Now how does this pertain to arma and e-sports you ask? Well simple, you see... a lot of people like me have gotten sick and tired of the cod formula: twitch shooting and no tactics. After i played the arma 3 alpha... i LOVED it. It really opens up a whole new can of worms when it comes to tactical gaming. I think competitive gaming these days, and gaming in general, is trying to reward those who work best together as a team, and those with the best strategies, versus those who want to just shoot anything that moves. I'd like to think there is a large appeal from people like myself to see people play these games. I'd love to see how to teams battle it out across say a 7x7 kilometer area; flanking each other, using the dynamic enviorments to there advantage (fricken night combat!), and using aerial and naval warfare to there advantage!

Personally, coming from someone who used to play competitively, i think arma 3 has a GREAT chance at becoming an e-sports game without changing up the formula! I think what a lot of people are missing here is that it not too many things are wrong with the way things play out right now! It's all about the team with the better tactics and commanders that win! It's like a chess game on a huge scale! Thats why i loved (and still do) battlefield so much, i always envisioned it as a game of chess. With arma i see the same, it a greater extent, and i think it would be a real shame if this opportunity wasn't taken advantage of!

Anyways, sorry for bumping this by 3 or 4 days. I just had to put my opinion out here. Please don't be too harsh and try to see my perspective on things here. I think the real plus side of all this is that nothing drastic needs to be changed! At least in my opinion.

Looking forward to getting arma regardless of if it becomes competitive or not though, this will be my first arma game and i am already pumped for it(:

As already mentioned to become an e-sport several things are needed:

1) People who want to play the game professionally.

2) A big audience that wants to see the game be played professionally.

3) Many perfectly even yet interesting scenarios.

4) A lot of developer effort.

5) Sponsors etc.

The biggest one is getting a big audience and unfortunately ARMAs vanilla gameplay isn’t very well suited to be a spectator sport unless it is compressed into Counter Strike-style size in which case it would be a lot less smooth than Counter Strike and not offer many news.

When the game is out we can probably start designing some competitive scenarios but I don’t see ARMA being an e-sport until ARMA4 assuming BIS have grown a lot by then and have the people necessary to make the effort.

[celery 8]

Personally, coming from someone who used to play competitively, i think arma 3 has a GREAT chance at becoming an e-sports game without changing up the formula!

Arma 3 already is a great platform for competitive gaming, if that's all you mean by eSports. However, Arma 3 would be a nightmare for professional players to make a living on because of countless factors out of your control that make otherwise consistent performance result in highly random outcomes, which very much works against the idea of sports.

It's all about the team with the better tactics and commanders that win! It's like a chess game on a huge scale! Thats why i loved (and still do) battlefield so much, i always envisioned it as a game of chess. With arma i see the same, it a greater extent, and i think it would be a real shame if this opportunity wasn't taken advantage of!

Were you describing Starcraft, you would have been absolutely correct. Leading a team of players in a first-person shooter is at best controlling where an autonomous teammate projects presence and firepower, and no maneuver you execute will guarantee success, because in the end it boils down to individual people getting their sights on the opponent. In the Arma series it's only pronounced because the little idea you had about the enemy's whereabouts in Battlefield is virtually gone because of the scale and more difficult spotting.

[The Barron 10]

Leading a team of players in a first-person shooter is at best controlling where an autonomous teammate projects presence and firepower, and no maneuver you execute will guarantee success, because in the end it boils down to individual people getting their sights on the opponent. In the Arma series it's only pronounced because the little idea you had about the enemy's whereabouts in Battlefield is virtually gone because of the scale and more difficult spotting.

I wouldn't necessarily agree, i generally feel that tactics always overcomes skill. Now i see the problem you do bring up though; its pretty hard to get a group of people, say 32 in a team, to all work together in unison. I believe that's the beauty of it though. The team that works together, wins together, and that truly takes some dedication and training to get right. You'd be working mostly at communication skills more than anything, which is actually harder than most people think. Leading other players can be more than just "defend this area" or "attack this area". With a good team, you could set up ambushes, overwatch positions, and so forth. As long as they listen to what the commander orders, and these people become trained with certain routines to follow, then it becomes more than just moving players. Of course though, when i speak of teamwork, I am speaking of objective based games. A team death match game requires little to no team work and IS twitch based. But i dont think thats what people would want to see in competitive gameplay.

32v32: Defend "xy and z" objective sabotage, search and rescue, something like this would fit the bill. Something where the team with the best minds and strategists wins, not the ones with the best twitch movement.

Something I'd like to add to is when you said "and no maneuver you execute will guarantee success", you had a good point there, but then again there are many multiple choice, the challenging part is to pick the best possible tactics that will give your team the highest probability of success. That's what makes or breaks a good leader.

1) People who want to play the game professionally.

2) A big audience that wants to see the game be played professionally.

3) Many perfectly even yet interesting scenarios.

4) A lot of developer effort.

5) Sponsors etc.

1) I think there could be quite a considerable amount of people who would be willing to do this. I for one would. Competition is key here though; i feel as though most people would rather play the co-op missions then pvp, from what i have heard (and correct me if i am wrong) but the co-op missions have been the bread and butter of the arma series. If there were more (and very well setup) PvP game modes (of course with no AI) then i'd be willing to bet a lot of people would play competitively, paving the way for professional gaming on arma.

2) I think a lot of people would actually, but i guess thats opinion based isnt it? It would depend on how the videos are delivered though.

Heres a good idea for that, take a 3 hour long pvp game, condense it into a 30 minute video highlighting main battles and turning points in the game, and for those main battles shown, have the commander detail what went through his mind during the battle and his decision making process. For example, he could explain why he had his main unit retreat, which was to lure the enemy into an ambush.

3)I think i detailed some gamemodes up above that would be interesting yet simple to balance. "Attack and defense" would obviously be the first choice. I can think of more detailed game modes but i'd probably write up a book on that if i did haha!

4) Not going to try and deny this. Completely agree. I guess when it comes down to it, the final decision is up to the devs

5) Agree as well. That would come some months, if not years later after point number 1

Edited July 20, 2013 by The Barron

[celery 8]

I wouldn't necessarily agree, i generally feel that tactics always overcomes skill.

While it's nice to think that your squad level tactics always drive the game home regardless of how your teammates perform, that is not the reality of professional fps gaming nor even non-professional Arma pvp.

32v32: Defend "xy and z" objective sabotage, search and rescue, something like this would fit the bill. Something where the team with the best minds and strategists wins, not the ones with the best twitch movement.

Something I'd like to add to is when you said "and no maneuver you execute will guarantee success", you had a good point there, but then again there are many multiple choice, the challenging part is to pick the best possible tactics that will give your team the highest probability of success. That's what makes or breaks a good leader.

The irony for which I won't blame you at all is that big pvp battles are, more than anything, decided by individual performance. In the 50-100 player campaigns I've participated in over the course of the Arma series, just one anomaly in the form of a skilled (or lucky) player in the wrong place at the wrong time could lead to catastrophic losses for the other team. Even consistently good performance in otherwise normal situations can give a player such a decisive edge in Arma's sudden death encounters (which btw heavily favor those with good twitch skills) that he alone can negate any semblance of tactics that the enemy had in his area. A commander's job in Arma pvp is little more than chaotic guesswork when it comes to making the "right" tactical decisions.

[.kju 3244]

Celery essentially all two large army events OFP/Arma had so far were made of 70-90% low level skills players in all regards - meaning also teamplay and tactics.

One cannot expect anything meaningful with those numbers anyway except if you either break it down to various high level clans/squads, or you have such a larger player basis that due to training and selection over time such large groups are able to reach a somewhat decent levels.

5-7 people are what humans normally can communicate and coordinate with max found by scientific studies; thats also the reason why everything is structured that way (teams in other sports, businesses, military, etc) - one can only break down larger groups into subteams and either give them separate tasks/areas of attention or/and have coordination layers between the teams above the small single group level.

Large numbers are by itself nothing to aim for anyway - it is a big misconception and also not needed for large scale play in OFP/Arma.

@ The Barron

Your words show excellent insights into high level squad play.

Check the links in #19 and our squad's page to get an idea about past and current competitive play in OFP and Arma.

You find also recordings in 1st person, highlight videos and past commented live streams.