Fatigue Feedback (dev branch)

[Greenfist 1863]

Added: Stamina drain parameters for terrain (not yet configured)

This sounds great. But is only for sprinting or does it mean jogging will also drain stamina on steep incline? :huh:

[CaptainObvious 95]

... jogging will also drain stamina on steep incline

 

Well it better be, otherwise what would be the point?

[Greenfist 1863]

Well it better be, otherwise what would be the point?

Faster drain when sprinting uphill?

[machineabuse 11]

-snip-

To add to that, what are the implications as to how AI will handle a community created fatigue system? Will the aforementioned "hooks" extend into AI? A lot of question marks for cooperative mission design here.

[andersson 285]

All the improvements and suggestions in this new system are all pointing towards the old system....

[CaptainObvious 95]

Faster drain when sprinting uphill?

 

Yes of course, but I sure hope Bohemia doesn't half-ass it and make inclines only affect the sprint, wouldn't make sense to me...

[DancZer 65]

I hope that mean it will drain stamina if you run(not sprint) up to the hill too. Would be logical to lose stamina(possibility to sprint) after running up to the hill.

[five_seven5-7 56]

 

 

Added: Stamina drain parameters for terrain (not yet configured)

 

Nice touch, makes sense like IRL. Stamina drain its different on the asphalt and in high vegetation and sand beach and so on...

[fabio_chavez 103]

Arma 3 doesnt have an official gamemode, does it make any sense to create a hyper specific fatigue system if there is no gamemode according to which gameplay it can be ballanced to?

[CaptainObvious 95]

Arma 3 doesnt have an official gamemode, does it make any sense to create a hyper specific fatigue system if there is no gamemode according to which gameplay it can be ballanced to?

 

Yes? Realistic/authentic what ever you want to call it.

[rübe 127]

Yeah, fatigue is definitely on the simulation side of things - a thing that shouldn't depend on game mode (and even difficulty settings are questionable in this regard). I'm not saying that such things shouldn't ever be tweaked, but the proper place is rather a (total conversion) mod. The Arma gameworld/simulation should be consistent across game modes.

 

Also: why not tackle the problem from the other side? If we could simply "model away" fatigue/stamina by giving units uber-human endurance-skills, you could easily have your cake and eat it too.

This might be semantics, but technically the fatigue simulation wouldn't be touched at all this way, just the unit. Such endurance-skill bonuses could also be easily attached to some inventory-objects (e.g. uniform/exoskelet stuff), and again, no need to mess with the fatigue simulation at all. Messing with the skill-set seems to be way more transparent (granted, you don't get to "see" your skills ingame) and high-level/missionmaker-friendly, and also much more flexible, given it can be based on individual units. Currently BIS tries to only offer "reasonable" settings on a range from 0.0 to 1.0. Maybe that should change, s.t. much more extreme skills could be effectively achieved.

 

tl;dr: people shouldn't (have to) mess with the fatigue simulation at all. Just tweak the skill-set (e.g. endurance) of individual units, and be done with it. B)

[Roach_ 52]

Yeah, fatigue is definitely on the simulation side of things - a thing that shouldn't depend on game mode (and even difficulty settings are questionable in this regard). I'm not saying that such things shouldn't ever be tweaked, but the proper place is rather a (total conversion) mod. The Arma gameworld/simulation should be consistent across game modes.

 

Also: why not tackle the problem from the other side? If we could simply "model away" fatigue/stamina by giving units uber-human endurance-skills, you could easily have your cake and eat it too.

This might be semantics, but technically the fatigue simulation wouldn't be touched at all this way, just the unit. Such endurance-skill bonuses could also be easily attached to some inventory-objects (e.g. uniform/exoskelet stuff), and again, no need to mess with the fatigue simulation at all. Messing with the skill-set seems to be way more transparent (granted, you don't get to "see" your skills ingame) and high-level/missionmaker-friendly, and also much more flexible, given it can be based on individual units. Currently BIS tries to only offer "reasonable" settings on a range from 0.0 to 1.0. Maybe that should change, s.t. much more extreme skills could be effectively achieved.

 

tl;dr: people shouldn't (have to) mess with the fatigue simulation at all. Just tweak the skill-set (e.g. endurance) of individual units, and be done with it. B)

 

That's actually pretty interesting. Scenario designers would have freedom to choose each unit's skill-set/endurance as you said and adjust accordingly to the scenario's situation. That way it wouldn't need to be either full fatigue mode or disabled.

[roshnak 41]

Arma 3 doesnt have an official gamemode, does it make any sense to create a hyper specific fatigue system if there is no gamemode according to which gameplay it can be ballanced to?

 

You could make this argument about literally any mechanic in the game.

 

Yeah, fatigue is definitely on the simulation side of things - a thing that shouldn't depend on game mode (and even difficulty settings are questionable in this regard). I'm not saying that such things shouldn't ever be tweaked, but the proper place is rather a (total conversion) mod. The Arma gameworld/simulation should be consistent across game modes.

 

Also this.

[fabio_chavez 103]

The Arma gameworld/simulation should be consistent across game modes.

that would be bad game design, movement is a delicate factor to the gameplay balancing of a specific gamemode, what can be good for one gamemode can kill the next one, arma should deliver a framework of moderately penalizing fatigue that should be easily tweakable, mission/mod wise.

 

[fabio_chavez 103]

You could make this argument about literally any mechanic in the game.

 

 

 

yes, thank you, with no official gamemode as the basis, mechanics generally tend to be inconsistent :)

[supathang 2]

I like the old system. The only thing this game seems to fail at in general is to tell the player how his character feels. I can see that BI wants to go away from the good old mana and health orbs, but for the character's well being, I have not seen anything quite as easy to read and understand as some sort of health UI element.The wheezing and groaning is a bit too imprecise I feel. You run, your character gets tired so you slow down, but there is nothing that gives you feedback if your character's fatigue is improving or getting worse over time except that you start or stop wheezing at some point. You have to wait and hope he wheezes less. You have to read somewhere that apparently lowering your weapon makes you recover quicker, something that should be easily visible in the game and not be inferred by stopping time between the start and stop of wheezing (or reading code). Or if you get shot you need to infer from your characters inability to aim that you were hit in the arm. I'm pretty sure that in reality you first notice that you have a bullet in your arm before you notice your aim is off. I think this opaque nature of the player's well being is what also causes frustration as it feels like your character constantly complains without any sign that he's getting better or what's wrong.

 

I think that the player's character's well being should be very easy and precise for the player to read as in reality you don't need any skills to figure that out about yourself. The player gets quick feedback if he does something right or wrong, leaving out a lot of guesswork on things that shouldn't be. I think the bar is a great addition, it lets you easily see how you influence your well being and in what state your character is. You can see clearly that you are helping your character's well being by not sprinting and making it worse by packing a lot of stuff. I also think that something like adding a few colors on the limbs of the "position" guy on the top right would solve the health issues. You quickly look up see your fatigue go up or down, maybe see that your character's legs are wounded, all that without trying to count wheezes or checking if you can still sprint or if your leg's textures have changed.

 

The stamina system itself feels a bit like Arma wants to blend in further with other games in the military shooter genre, but they do arcadey shooting and driving vehicles a lot better. So I think Arma loses some of it's identity and distinguishing features.

[Nikoteen 24]

This sounds great. But is only for sprinting or does it mean jogging will also drain stamina on steep incline? :huh:

 

What needs to be implemented too is stamina management if weapon is raised or lowered. What this mechanic stands in the first place ? it's more revelant to save energy while running or jogging by lowering as much as possible the primary. I tried to sprint lowered and raised with the current dev build and it makes no difference. There's room for improvement.

[iratus 71]

Just want to post here to affirm that I do not like the direction that the new Stamina system is going. I don't think it is -- yet -- irredeemable as it isn't currently in its final state.

 

Some of the justifications being offered for the changes are also a little problematic. I.e:

Despite that we understand this as a sort of step back from the mil sim authenticity, we have also recognized that Arma is a platform for a much wider range of gaming experience, that we should respect one of the most fundamental standards in game industry and, most importantly, not to confuse the vast majority of our players.

To be honest, I bought into the ArmA franchise because it wasn't CoD or BF and offered a realistic system of action/fatigue that required a thoughtful approach. So yes, the present proposed system is a definate step back from wher I have always assumed ArmA was positioned in the gaming space.

 

The comments WRT the MANW and Gamemode/Missions having the fatigue system disabled are irrelevant. It is unlikely that they will enable the new Stamina system either as this is pretty much anathema to the whole run & gun one-man army that the majority of the currently available public gamemodes seem to encourage. That the Devs seem to be placing their entire focus on the needs of this group is extremely unsettling.

 

Pretty much all the systems in Arma are not industry standard. That is what makes Arma what it is! It's different!

Pay too much respect to the industry standard and it ends up like the newer "Flashpoints" published by Codemasters (Dragon Rising & Red River): Just another FPS noone cares about.

[Beagle 684]

Modding the fatigue system to something usable is a crutch. Sure, it's good at least that option is still available, but a) we shouldn't have to do this and B) it will always have limitations. "You can mod it" is a convenient excuse brought up all the time for something that is broken. And I do consider the stamina system broken until it accounts for stamina loss for jogging, because it does not make any goddam sense to be able to jog everywhere.

 

And before people start to come up with the old "I can jog farther than that" argument, remember that Arma is scaled down. Heck, Chernogorsk is supposed to be the capital and is smaller than the town I live in by at least a factor of ten. Everything is scaled down, and so is the distances. And the distance you can jog. So, whatever you say, the old fatigue system makes perfect sense.

 

I do not see why there cannot be two systems like with the Advanced flight model. Keep the original fatigue system around, and allow for a simplified, sprint-only system for the casuals. Problem solved. You don't need to "maintain two systems", just disable parts of the "complex" system to dumb it down. At least that would keep everyone happy, instead of having to sacrifice one for the other and tell them to go "mod themselves".

In fact the distances on the Chernarus map are scaled up from the real terrain but towns like cherno and elektro simply have fewer housings.

[iratus 71]

In „OPREP core mechanics refinement“ BiS said this:

Feedback from scenario designers, modders and admins confirmed our suspicions that the system was not transparent enough for some (and not a small portion).

 

 

So people could not figure out how fatigue works and because of this they could not strategize loadouts and movements that would be benefical fort hem. They became fatigued without knowing why, lost their ability to aim and (more annoying) their movement became slower. Naturally they did not like fatigue.

Important: The root cause is „could not figure out how fatigue works“.

 

So how to fix this? RiE kindly provided us the design goals fort he new stamina system:

 

 

Ultimately, we have to compare the performance of the system against our originally stated design goals. In my view, if our end goal is to create a mechanic that:

1. Encourages players to consider their loadout
2. Asks players to plan their movement
3. Rewards players that make objectively better choices
4. Prohibits players from selecting unrealistic loadouts
5. Is transparent and comprehensible for players

 

So how do we get there? Here’s my suggestion:

 

1. Keep the mechanics from fatigue
   I know this is not what you want to read, but bear with me please! Fatigue achieves design goals 1 to 4, so it should be easier to work with this than to start from scratch (or use "industry standard" as a base wich only acieves design goal 5 while falling flat on its face for goals 1 to 4). Also the root cause is „could not figure out how fatigue works“, so we only need to fix this (design goal 5). „Fatigue is too complicated“ you might think and yes, learning all the many things it does in detail might be asked too much - at least for beginners. But the thing is: People do not need to know every single mechanism in the system to be able to use it in a fun way! If they get the general concept* of it, it’s good enough to have fun. Heck it’s probably enough for most of them to realize that it tries to mimik real life (like so many other systems of Arma) instead of just copy the industry-standard systems.
    
2. Have fatigue/stamina be a topic in the field manual
   Now I do realize that many oft he people who find fatigue to be not transparent enough are also people who do not read the field manual. But it is still important to have a place where they can (be pointed to to) find more information about the system, therefor I mention it here. (Note: It is allready a topic in Field Manual>Tactical Guide>A06 Fatigue and Stamina - maybe it should become its own topic and be somewhat expanded)
    
3. Changes to the Inventory Bar
   In most games your inventory meter (be it a bar or a numerical value) simply states your maximum load you can carry. It’s usually a binary system: Either you are within your limits (up to full bar) and receive no penalty, or you are above your limit and receive maximum penalty (i.e. can only move painfully slow or not at all). Some games simply render you unable to pick up things if it would bring you above your limits. That’s probably what a lot of players assume the bar to be in Arma. We need them to notice that it works different.
   So we need a way to indicate to the player that they should consider loading less than full. A text prompt on the Inventory Bar itself stating „light load“ (at up to 25% load), „medium load“ (25-50%), „heavy load“ (50-75%) and „verry heavy load!“ (75-100%) would probably go a long way: It would signal that there is more going on than just filling a bar to its maximum. Players know the concept of light, meduim and heavy classes from other games and could probably conclude that a light load means less firepower/protection but more mobility and vice versa.
    
4. Add the Stamina Bar
   This is arguably the main thing missing. I personally like the breathing noise indicator, but i allready understand how fatigue works. Most players not familliar with Arma3 however are used to the industry standard: Character is able to run/jump/stunt indefinitely without penalty no mather the loadout and has a (limited) ability to sprint. However thats not how it should be in Arma3**. To learn that they loose stamina/gain fatigue off of other actions than sprinting, players need to get feedback direct feedback. The stamina bar does this in a way players are used to from other games: a bar depleting (and changing colour for additional clarity).
   When the bar moves there are little chevrons indicating if it’s going up or down. These could be futher improoved: The number of chevrons could go up for fast drain/regeneration and down for slow drain/regeneration. This would help players getting a feeling wich actions cost more or less stamina.
    
5. Make the AI lower their weapons in aware state
   AI set on aware should lower their weapons during movement to save stamina. This would help scenario creators and players controlling AI teams.

 

*: The heavier your load, the more exhausting your movement the more fatigued you get. Fatigue gradually affects your aim and ability to move quickly.

**: As I pointed out earlyer as long as stamina is only affected by sprinting, it becomes almost non relevant. Medium to high loadouts will be viable in most if not all circumstances (fail on Goal 1 and 4). Sprint will only be used when one's plan goes wrong (failing goal 2 and in combination with failing 1 and 4 it will also fail on goal 3).

[roshnak 41]

that would be bad game design, movement is a delicate factor to the gameplay balancing of a specific gamemode, what can be good for one gamemode can kill the next one, arma should deliver a framework of moderately penalizing fatigue that should be easily tweakable, mission/mod wise.

 

 

I think you might be confused, because that is actually very good game design. The last thing you want is for players to be able to sprint further in a KOTH mission than in a co-op mission with all other factors being equal. You wouldn't want ballistics to change from mission to mission, why would you want your movement capability to change from mission to mission?

 

yes, thank you, with no official gamemode as the basis, mechanics generally tend to be inconsistent  :)

 

Ok, for what other mechanic is this true?

 

So how do we get there? Here’s my suggestion:

 

These are all good ideas, but I think it's unlikely that BIS decides to return to the old fatigue mechanic at this point (although I thought it was unlikely they would completely ditch it in the first place, too).

[stormhawkv 19]

Why do you want to abandon a working system?

 

I know it's not perfect, but you could improve it instead of heading full speed into the opposite direction, especially after you invested that much time and work into it. Having this new stamina system will not keep those who don't like the idea of movement restrictions from disabling it, but those who use the current fatigue system because they like it are then forced to use a mod that has to be made first? This makes absolutely no sense.

 

You can please all people some of the time, or some people all of the time but you can't please all people at the same time. These changes won't do anyone any good. It won't make life of those who like to play KotH or Altis Life easier and it will severely hurt those who like to enjoy milsim-gameplay on non-modded servers. I already wrote that the current fatigue system is not perfect but it's producing a far superior milsim-experience compared to what we had before.

 

Please consider this before releasing these changes to stable-branch.

 

 

Are you doing this because you're looking for new features? Here are three much better suggestions:

 

1. Bullet in the chamber > nice dose of realism + working bolt-action rifles *cough* M320 *cough* (many players want to see this)

 

2. Collision boxes for rifles > to stop people from doing room-clearing with snipers and MMGs (gun is lowered/raised automatically upon colliding with a wall)

 

3. Rifle hanging from the vest when switching to sidearm so it doesn't take as long as putting it on the back (and allow the player to move while doing so)

[Kryptongame 14]

I can't wait to see how this works out in servers I play regularly. KOTH will be interesting. I am curious as to how the stamina will actually be when it's fully tweaked and released, and I can't wait for faces shots to actually kill my opponent regularly!

[Greenfist 1863]

Tweaked: Exhaustion is now significantly affected by the terrain gradient once again. Whenever the terrain slope becomes steep, the terrain icon pops up, sprint will be disabled and running / jogging will become exhaustive while walking will not be restorative.

Well this is getting better and better. :)

Although, I was kind of hoping the angle threshold for exhaustive jogging would've been a bit lower than that.

 

edit. I'll take some of that back - the angle was lower than I remembered. The limit is around 17 degree incline? That sounds reasonable to me.

[Kryptongame 14]

Well this is getting better and better. :)

Although, I was kind of hoping the angle threshold for exhaustive jogging would've been a bit lower than that.

Isn't the old system 10x more casual then this new stamina system? Seems this new update restrict just about everything