Note to BI - A thought to make NATO more believable.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I've read around, gather thoughts and ideas, and came up with a solution for the NATO team in Arma 3. I looked at the faction, how they use MTP's, and what else is needed to make it look officially NATO. I figured, what if players can choose what flag patch shows up on their shoulder. For example, maybe an option in "Profile" on the main menu, grants the player the ability to choose a country of origin, and in turn, in game will display that flag on the patch. This is one of the ways to make NATO seem like more than just one country, which is less significant than a joint league of nations, which is what NATO is.

The solution of having this option in the "Profile" menu is just one way. It could also be possible in the editor somehow. It's also worth noting, this is an idea i thought up for the Vanilla product, and that giving the player the ability to choose their country of origin, won't effect the Singleplayer NATO patches, because it's obvious the Campaign goes by story line.

What do you guys think?

[JTF 10]

i love this idea

[Tacti-Cool 10]

See also: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?165818-Flag-Patches

[jgbtl292 0]

and give us the squad patch on the uniform back ! the aaf units have it !! and for the ai un your team to . nato have not only mtp the english units have a very nice grey camo. sad then we cant have this units in the editor :butbut:

Edited November 20, 2013 by JgBtl292

[Sandy* 10]

IMHO, having a NATO unit consisting of random nationalities down to the squad level is no less or more believable than the current weird homogenous faction we have.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Yes, but in reality, there are many units in NATO, that are seen working together. For example, Funker videos have Canadians, British, and Americans working together in multiple occasions. It'd be nice to be great to be defending a base in Multiplayer, and having a squad of UK soldiers arrive to help out. Not only that, but even in the map editor, you can mark different National Flags down. The only problem with that are occasional trolls (more than occasional) who simply delete it off the map to annoy friendly units. So why not impliment "Profile" Equipable shoulder flag patches. Its just a fantastic idea.

[antoineflemming 14]

They need to just name the units' vehicleClass to US and UK while keeping the faction name as NATO. That is the solution to this problem. In Arma 3's story, it's only the US and the UK who are involved in the Mediterranean, just like not all NATO members are currently involved in Afghanistan. So it's not unrealistic to have just the US and UK as the NATO presence on the islands. But they are operating as a NATO force and not as individual American or British forces.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

They need to just name the units' vehicleClass to US and UK while keeping the faction name as NATO. That is the solution to this problem. In Arma 3's story, it's only the US and the UK who are involved in the Mediterranean, just like not all NATO members are currently involved in Afghanistan. So it's not unrealistic to have just the US and UK as the NATO presence on the islands. But they are operating as a NATO force and not as individual American or British forces.

True that it's only the UK and US are in the mediterranean for the campaign, but as i stated earlier, this ability for all players to choose corresponding patches, only deals with multiplayer, not conflicting with the story line, and to give more flavor to missions, and scenarios, that could turn out with countless moments, and possabilities.

[jgbtl292 0]

where is the problem from more fraktions on blue in the editor ?? cant see it its a sandbox ore not ? or a sp campain game ;)

[Sandy* 10]

Yes, but in reality, there are many units in NATO, that are seen working together.

Countries cooperating in a military operation is quite far from a unit put together from soldiers of random nationality.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Countries cooperating in a military operation is quite far from a unit put together from soldiers of random nationality.

Very true, but with the way multiplayer works, it would be a nice feature. For example, i've been playing wasteland for awhile, and i've had moments where It's me and a group of buddies guarding a base. We get attacked, we fend them off, while a squad of British flanked from behind the attackers. After all was said and done, they walked in talking the accent and all, only thing missing, was representation of nationality. Yeah, it's just a game mode, but it indeed feels like it kills some of the immersion, and moments.

[2nd ranger 282]

Yeah I think one thing doesn't really have much to do with the other in this case. Customizable patches? Fine, sure, why not. It's been brought up before. It won't make NATO more "believable" in the game. That discussion is overpowering the real purpose of this thread which is a simple armpatch request.

[1kimon0 10]

While the ability to change flag patches like in Rainbow Six is not a bad feature to have, it's far from being realistic.

Other than the point made by SandyBandy, uniforms will be a problem if such a feature is to be implemented (for the sake of reality), as "the same uniform being used across all NATO countries" is not a realistic scenario at all.

Then, if the uniform is to change according to the country selected, it will make identifying people very hard for no reason.

"Giving more flavor to missions" should always be done by mission makers, to make everything not ridiculous.

[Sandy* 10]

Wasteland has nothing to do with the base game's setting, and this feature could be achieved by the mod alone. In a normal Arma mission however, even for multiplayer, the mission's creator has likely created a backstory, a specific unit, and specific roles for the players to fill and play as (instead of playing "themselves"), so people running around with arm patches derived from some profile setting would only destroy that immersion.

"It could be an optional feature according to mission file" is an argument one could make, but at this point it's starting to sound like such a niche feature it's best to leave it for the community to create instead of requesting BI's valuable development time, coupled with feelings of indifference from non-NATO nationalities. :p

[Smurf 12]

Wasteland has nothing to do with the base game's setting, and this feature could be achieved by the mod alone. In a normal Arma mission however, even for multiplayer, the mission's creator has likely created a backstory, a specific unit, and specific roles for the players to fill and play as (instead of playing "themselves"), so people running around with arm patches derived from some profile setting would only destroy that immersion.

"It could be an optional feature according to mission file" is an argument one could make, but at this point it's starting to sound like such a niche feature it's best to leave it for the community to create instead of requesting BI's valuable development time, coupled with feelings of indifference from non-NATO nationalities. :p

Hi speed US Delta SF Tactical Operator with iranian face. Done, destroyed everything.

I'm up for flag patches.

[Sandy* 10]

Hi speed US Delta SF Tactical Operator with iranian face. Done, destroyed everything.

Yeah we all know how devoid of immigrants from all over the world the United States is.

(At least Nato units don't speak farsi?)

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Yeah I think one thing doesn't really have much to do with the other in this case. Customizable patches? Fine, sure, why not. It's been brought up before. It won't make NATO more "believable" in the game. That discussion is overpowering the real purpose of this thread which is a simple armpatch request.

You guys are taking it a different way, i never said anything about customizable patches. I simply brought up an idea to give the player an option, to select a "National Flag", of course one that includes NATO, to be placed on the shoulder patch. No fancy stuff. Just a plain ol' Flag.

Example:

Heres a good one, Canadian patch on the right, US on the left. Simple flag, two NATO countries. Just a thought that would bring more flavor rather than too much nonsense like all the fancy crests and emblems.

[Sandy* 10]

You guys are taking it a different way, i never said anything about customizable patches. I simply brought up an idea to give the player an option, to select a "National Flag", of course one that includes NATO, to be placed on the shoulder patch. No fancy stuff. Just a plain ol' Flag.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Giving the player the option to select his favorite NATO national arm patch means giving him/her the ability to customize patches...

Heres a good one, Canadian patch on the right, US on the left. Simple flag, two NATO countries. Just a thought that would bring more flavor rather than too much nonsense like all the fancy crests and emblems.

Two soldiers from two different militaries meeting in base? This is entirely the opposite of what your suggested feature would result, i.e. soldiers of different nationalities being part of the same unit and military organisation, using the same gear, in combat.

And I'm sorry, I wouldn't want to drag this so much but there seems to be a lot of disconnect between us in this conversation.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Giving the player the option to select his favorite NATO national arm patch means giving him/her the ability to customize patches...

Two soldiers from two different militaries meeting in base? This is entirely the opposite of what your suggested feature would result, i.e. soldiers of different nationalities being part of the same unit and military organisation, using the same gear, in combat.

And I'm sorry, I wouldn't want to drag this so much but there seems to be a lot of disconnect between us in this conversation.

First, giving the ability to select a flag that is apart of NATO, is more of a choice, rather than customization, because it's not "Custom", not made by the player, its simply an option. (Than again others may refer to selection as customization... what ever).

Second, Two different soldiers from two different militaries, yet, both countries apart of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in one base. It's VERY common in real life, i've seen it many times. Even though more often than that, different countries FOB's are sometimes placed not too far from each other. Than again, as i mentioned before, this could be done by placing countries under NATO as well, but the Profile menu was a whole new thought, much more simple, since you can change things like faces, and voices. Does that help you connect on the topic again?

[Sandy* 10]

First, giving the ability to select a flag that is apart of NATO, is more of a choice, rather than customization, because it's not "Custom", not made by the player, its simply an option. (Than again others may refer to selection as customization... what ever).

Giving the player choices about how their game characters look or play is customization. I assume your native language isn't English (neither is mine) but you've understood the word wrong.

Second, Two different soldiers from two different militaries, yet, both countries apart of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in one base. It's VERY common in real life, i've seen it many times. Even though more often than that, different countries FOB's are sometimes placed not too far from each other. Than again, as i mentioned before, this could be done by placing countries under NATO as well, but the Profile menu was a whole new thought, much more simple, since you can change things like faces, and voices. Does that help you connect on the topic again?

You still misunderstand the point. NATO is a military alliance, yes, but comprised of the militaries of independent nations. While different NATO members work together in the same operations, they aren't going to make a fireteam composed of a French teamleader, a British grenadier and a Polish rifleman for example. This is however the level of anarchy this sort multiplayer armpatch system would result. The correct way to do things would be to use modded or possible future official NATO factions in a mission by having them in their own squads, cooperating somehow for the greater objective.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

You still misunderstand the point. NATO is a military alliance, yes, but comprised of the militaries of independent nations. While different NATO members work together in the same operations, they aren't going to make a fireteam composed of a French teamleader, a British grenadier and a Polish rifleman for example. This is however the level of anarchy this sort multiplayer armpatch system would result. The correct way to do things would be to use modded or possible future official NATO factions in a mission by having them in their own squads, cooperating somehow for the greater objective.

True, true, and i understand that although many players would use the arm patches correctly, the fact that even more would use it as you said, a random assortment of countries in one squad, would be a bit more ridiculed. So say, how about the option to enable and disable the patch feature in server settings, or as a mission option. So only servers which use say, a more organized platform for their mission, composing of squads from different NATO factions, would have the feature enabled, making it a lot more feasible.