Improve the Medical System - Bleeding Out?

[blackpixxel 53]

Hi,

The current bodyarmor-system on the devbranch allows you take maybe 7 hits from a 5.56 rifle. Then you just have to use an FAK and you are fine again. You can run into several bullets without any risk. On the other hand, there is no reason for someone to use one of the smaller 5.56 assault rifles, because it takes so long to kill an emeny, especially at longer ranges.

Would it be so hard to implement an ACE-like bleeding system? It doesnt make much sense to try to simulate a realistic body armor if you can survive so many hits, while you would still die on a real battlefield because your wounds are heavily bleeding.

The DEV's would just have to give the FAK's a bandage-like functionallity and that you may need more than one if you are heavily bleeding.

In my opinion this would make the firefights much more authentic, because it would very important to catch as less bullets as possible. In addition to that, the programing efforts would be surprisingly low. It would simply require a blood-number that would lower itself slower or faster if you were hit, depending on the amount of bullets and on the caliber. If there is not much blood left, you may get unconscious and wake up, but after a certain treshold the player should die.

All in all, I really don't know why the DEV's didn't make an ACE-like wounding system, because it just needs some little items and some days of programing, but it would give the game some of the much needed authenticity. And the Arma 2 community were I play is just waiting for some ACE-functions in Arma 3.

[JestersDead 2]

I'd love to see a more advanced medical / damage system in the game. It would make medics much more valuable, and would make the combat much more realistic. I like the idea of having more of a "blood count" instead of a traditional HP system. They could even make it more interesting by adding different "states", so that as your blood level decreased you wouldn't be able to sprint as far, your aim would suffer due to being dizzy, and eventually you'd pass out. Then if you didn't get treatment, you'd bleed completely out and die.

A system like that would make playing a medic really fun IMO. Not just spamming FAK's as it is now. Maybe even have IV kits to replenish lost blood, etc, etc. I know a lot of people dislike DayZ around here, but the medical system in that game is actually pretty good.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Try the AIS mod/script

[rye1 21]

Try the AIS mod/script

What's this?

[UltimateBawb 1]

Try the AIS mod/script

This may solve the problem, but relying on mods to implement what should be core mechanics is not a true solution.

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

TPW mods has bleedout feature.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Günter Severloh

[lysan 17]

It should be a part of the core system in my world just saying...

[enex 11]

I would like to see system at least on the level of Arma 2 OA.If we consider medical from arma 2 Operation arrowhead

and arma 3 is following step backwards I'm afraid.

So A2 OA had dragging, carrying, hurt state, limping state and it provided medic with meaningful job.Without that

medic would be only running storage container for unit supplying first aid.

[sanguinius51 11]

At this point in A3, we have a level of sophistication in our first-aid only slightly above that of your standard FPS. We have the uber-medics who can patch you up and bring you back to perfect health. The only slight improvements are FAKs and the fact that being wounded... actually affects your aiming. What is wrong here? Did we really take a step BACK from Arma 2?

At leats in Arma 2, it added stress to the situation! A heavily wounded unit could only fire off the rest of his magazine, and (I believe) he could only move incredibly slowly. They could be dragged or carried back into cover, depending on the safety of the situation, and the medic was oft a highly-sought person.

Is it really so hard to implement an ACE system? Will that honestly be too difficult for casual players to learn, and understand? I mean, god, all you really have to know is 'DON'T GIVE THEM FIVE MORPHINE INJECTORS.' That's it. Even though it is incredibly simple, it still provided an element of realism missing from Arma 2. I remember playing with the 15th MEU, when people always asked who the medic was, and made sure they had a lot of bloody supplies, because it was about to get intense.

The Pros of an ACE-esque Medical System are

-Easy to use, easy to understand system.

-Kept the best features of Arma 2 first-aid, such as dragging and carrying.

-Had many modules and settings, so realism could be tweaked as much as needed.

-Not everything can be solved with one remedy. A bullet wound will require bandaging, however, falling or other trauma will require you to have morphine in order for you to walk/hold a gun steadily.

-Unconsciousness is a factor - You can fall unconscious from a wound, but still wake up later, dazed and confused. That was possibly the most fun part - being knocked out, left behind, and forced to make your way back to the unit by yourself. In Fallujah, imagine that!

Cons of an ACE System

-...

-...

-Ah, it is slightly more difficult to implement than having HP, so let's just stay with Halo CE, okay boys?

[Bee8190 10]

Ace medi system worked just fine and I would be happy to see something similar or even better in complexity in the vanilla.

Simple Assumptions, but I feel that BI is hoping to get their hands on medi system brought in by modders participating in the announced contest and pick one that will fit the most. Could be the same case with bipods too but I guess we'll see

[the_demongod 31]

I really wish the Arma 2 medical system would come back. It's beyond me why BI would remove such a feature. It was simple, effective, and made medics an asset on the battlefield, instead of a unit that can give you 15% extra health.

I would be happy if they sold it back to us as a DLC. I just want to know that it's coming back.

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

From what I have gathered, BIS would like the community to develop a comprehensive medical system. Down the line, they will then implement that code into the official game.

[enex 11]

I really wish the Arma 2 medical system would come back. It's beyond me why BI would remove such a feature. It was simple, effective, and made medics an asset on the battlefield, instead of a unit that can give you 15% extra health.

I would be happy if they sold it back to us as a DLC. I just want to know that it's coming back.

I think it's gone because new iteration of arma (setbacks, too ambitious, small team) and medical system is one of those WIP features like grenade system that are unfinished.

However Medical system should have higher priority, nevermind the setbacks : )

---------- Post added at 12:27 ---------- Previous post was at 12:27 ----------

From what I have gathered, BIS would like the community to develop a comprehensive medical system. Down the line, they will then implement that code into the official game.

Where have you gathered that?

[sanguinius51 11]

Another key issue with Arma 3 Medical System (Henceforth referred to 3MS) - is the absolute LACK OF DISCTINCTION. A bullet wound to the chest from a high-power round will have the same effect as a bullet to, say, the knee, or foot. What? What is this?

There is no disctinction in this. A high-power rifle shot to the knee has the same effects as a shot to the arm, or stomach. By all rights, this should be a fairly simple system to implement - create 6 hitzones (7 if you want to include the abdomen), each of which have their own distinctive effect on the unit. A shot to the knee may only cause you to dramatically limp, if it is, say, a pistol round, but a high-powered rifle, such as the 6.5, would shatter the bone and wreck the muscles. By rights, the player should not even be able to walk, crawling or very, very exaggerated limping would be the only things he is capable of.

A shot to the arm would render that arm useless, or make it so that any movement is clumsy. If you are shot on the arm, you should a) perform movements slower, such as reloading, placing charges and b)have a dramatic effect on your accuracy - a bloke may not even be able to pull the trigger, and so he would actually have to switch from right to left handed. Wouldn't that be intense?

A shot to the chest would have one major effect - you would probably get hit in the lung, or at least cause some major damage in there. The effects this would have would be, of course, heavy, painful breathing, which will completely mess up your aim, and you will not be able to even jog for far. ACE-esque falling down as you run would be a major dramatizer.

A shot to the abdomen, well, haemorrhaging for one, and acidification of your bowels, as your stomach acids leak out. Wouldn't that be nasty?

So, a quick summary of awesome medical features to have.

- Arma 3 Medical System

-Implements varying hit zones and effects,

-Body is split into 7 different hit zones - Right Arm, Left Arm, Right Leg, Left Leg, Abdomen, Chest, Head

-Bleeding out is a definite possibility - if wounds are not bandaged quickly, tourniquet applied, or compression applied, a person can bleed out from major or many minor injuries in a matter of minutes.

-Unconsciousness happens - You usually will not immediately die, and you can be woken up with epinephrine or CPR.

-Field Hospitals or Medical vehicles can heal any injury (gotta keep it enjoyable, and it's not fun to die with something that cannot be treated.) Therefore, MEDEVAC is vital. A person can be stabilised in order to keep the alive a little longer.

Hit zones

Arm - Decreased speed with actions, some actions cannot be performed at all (cannot climb ladders, etc.)

Leg - Complete loss/disability of movement, limping.

Chest - Difficulty breathing, intense pain, will not be able to run far without falling down.

Abdomen - Haemorrhaging possible, untreatable unless at field hospital.

Head - Death likely, impaired vision, intense pain.

Bleeding

Bleeding out happens - bleed enough, you fall into unconsciousness. Tourniquets can be applied along with bandages or compression on the wound to stem bleeding.

Some of you may take issue with this. I cannot apologise. I do not know what silly misconception could possibly make you ignore such an awesome idea for a system.

[blackpixxel 53]

Nice post Sanguinius!

This would not be hard to implement. Just add a few variables, scripts and it is do...

STOP!! WAIT!!! What is about the poor kids at Altis-Life and Wasteland? What is if there is no medic?

Arma 3 is not a serious game anymore. It is a completely balanced nearly arcade game. Every side has the same vehicles with different models (but same weapon models), there is nothing unique, and many realistic features are gone.

Bohemia should think about their target group. Altis-Life OR authentic military gameplay.

[marcai 1]

Oh boy, yet another post which was made purely to blame our problems on other people for having the wrong type of fun. It really is quite pathetic to see people blaming Altis Life or DayZ for imposing their playstyles on the rest of us, whilst essentially trying to get the creators of the game to impose *your* gamestyle on everyone else.

Back on topic, the main issue with advanced medical systems such as the ones proposed are that they only cater to organised mulitplayer. I very rarely go into multipalyer (despite loving how much fun it looks, I'd want to take a few friends in with me!), and if all of these features were implemented I'd essentially not be able to play the game. AI medic dead? Game over. AI medic not coming to heal you? Game over. Unconcious on the ground for 5 minutes of darkness hoping the AI medic is alive? Not fun. Getting shot in the leg at the start of a mission and have to crawl 4km? Tedious. All of this is coming from a guy who modded Fallout to the point that I needed to eat, drink, sleep, ward off infection and one bullet kills happened. The issue is, you can't just tell people THIS IS FUN and expect them to go with it. I, for one, enjoy actually playing my games rather than watching a black screen and hoping that the game saves me, and I can wager than 99% of gamers don't see that as enjoyable either.

I really can see the benefits and the multiplayer perks that an ACE style medical system bring to the game, and do enjoy seeing it used in videos of large scale missions akin to the type that various members of ShacTac upload, but for the casual player or singleplayer gamer it would actually *oppose* fun. If you look at how many people have bought the game and compare the number of players in active clans/groups/regiments/whatever, BI would be excluding a large amount of their player base from actually being able to play the game. At the moment, the medical system is simple,but it works. If you want a more complex one, there are already plenty of medical system mods out there to chose from. Seeing BIS create an improved healing system that caters to all needs would be wonderful, I have yet to see one that benefits both styles of play without hindering the other. Hell, even ACE isn't perfect- soldiers can simply magically stop themselves from bleeding as if it weren't the leading cause of death in soldiers- surely if you want realism you would simply clutch your wound in a futile attempt to save yourself and die in a ditch- isn't gritty realism so fun? On top of this, there are enough technical issues reported on these forums without adding "I can't play because AI medics aren't applying Eppi to the right part of my body!" to the list of threads we see twice per day.

I guess what I'm saying is that regardless of what you do, you need to suspend your disbelief for a medical system in-game. Even with ACE medical systems, soldiers who get shot four times realistically wouldn't just get up and act like normal because a medic patted them for 10 seconds. More depth would be nice, but how do you implement a 'deeper' medical system without essentially telling a large chunk of your customers that they can no longer play because they're not cool enough to be in an organised online gaming group and be into 'authentic military gameplay'?

[bad benson 1733]

Oh boy, [...]

you're missing the part where you acknowledge how it was before in vanilla arma 2. that's why people ask for it as a given. imposing playstyles? come on!

and keep dayZ out of your it. it has a great "medical system".

More depth would be nice, but how do you implement a 'deeper' medical system without essentially telling a large chunk of your customers that they can no longer play because they're not cool enough to be in an organised online gaming group and be into 'authentic military gameplay'?

module? optional but elaborate?

although i think bleeding out should be in the core game. it's a great mechanic to create urgency and makes you manage your health and it can be easily tweaked so it doesn't happen too fast so all the people who get annoyed so fast don't have to rage quit because the game dares to impose consequences on them after being shot with bullets...so ridiculous. ikr

[sanguinius51 11]

Oh boy, yet another post which was made purely to blame our problems on other people for having the wrong type of fun. It really is quite pathetic to see people blaming Altis Life or DayZ for imposing their playstyles on the rest of us, whilst essentially trying to get the creators of the game to impose *your* gamestyle on everyone else.

Back on topic, the main issue with advanced medical systems such as the ones proposed are that they only cater to organised mulitplayer. I very rarely go into multipalyer (despite loving how much fun it looks, I'd want to take a few friends in with me!), and if all of these features were implemented I'd essentially not be able to play the game. AI medic dead? Game over. AI medic not coming to heal you? Game over. Unconcious on the ground for 5 minutes of darkness hoping the AI medic is alive? Not fun. Getting shot in the leg at the start of a mission and have to crawl 4km? Tedious. All of this is coming from a guy who modded Fallout to the point that I needed to eat, drink, sleep, ward off infection and one bullet kills happened. The issue is, you can't just tell people THIS IS FUN and expect them to go with it. I, for one, enjoy actually playing my games rather than watching a black screen and hoping that the game saves me, and I can wager than 99% of gamers don't see that as enjoyable either.

I really can see the benefits and the multiplayer perks that an ACE style medical system bring to the game, and do enjoy seeing it used in videos of large scale missions akin to the type that various members of ShacTac upload, but for the casual player or singleplayer gamer it would actually *oppose* fun. If you look at how many people have bought the game and compare the number of players in active clans/groups/regiments/whatever, BI would be excluding a large amount of their player base from actually being able to play the game. At the moment, the medical system is simple,but it works. If you want a more complex one, there are already plenty of medical system mods out there to chose from. Seeing BIS create an improved healing system that caters to all needs would be wonderful, I have yet to see one that benefits both styles of play without hindering the other. Hell, even ACE isn't perfect- soldiers can simply magically stop themselves from bleeding as if it weren't the leading cause of death in soldiers- surely if you want realism you would simply clutch your wound in a futile attempt to save yourself and die in a ditch- isn't gritty realism so fun? On top of this, there are enough technical issues reported on these forums without adding "I can't play because AI medics aren't applying Eppi to the right part of my body!" to the list of threads we see twice per day.

I guess what I'm saying is that regardless of what you do, you need to suspend your disbelief for a medical system in-game. Even with ACE medical systems, soldiers who get shot four times realistically wouldn't just get up and act like normal because a medic patted them for 10 seconds. More depth would be nice, but how do you implement a 'deeper' medical system without essentially telling a large chunk of your customers that they can no longer play because they're not cool enough to be in an organised online gaming group and be into 'authentic military gameplay'?

I suppose I was going too far with saying THIS IS IT. DEAL WITH IT. IF YOU CAN'T USE IT, DON'T PLAY IT. I should maybe have specified what I meant in further detail, but then again, I didn't really play much singleplayer; all of my time used to be spent playing ACE on Arma 2 multiplayer, with the 15th, 10th and so on.

My true dream of Arma 3 is to have massive modularity - massive modularity with medical, and with realism segments. A lot like ACE, and somewhat like Arma 2's original system. Players can choose what exactly they want - only medics being able to apply morphine/epinephrine, only medics being able to fully heal you.

[blackpixxel 53]

The module-idea is great. If you want to have the improved medical system you just drag a module on your mission. Another idea would be an option in the difficulty settings, similar to the TKOH-Flighmodel that you can enable and disable.

The problem at the moment is the body armour system. Bullets arent really lethal anymore, you can catch five of them and still run arround with no drawbacks. As a result of that firefights in A3 feel very weird in comparision to A2. You have to hit the AI so often into their body to get them to the ground. This can be very hard with the huge recoil. But at the same time the AI does not have any recoil problems (because they ARE aimbots ;) ). So they will shoot you down very quick and easy.

In my opinion the firefights feel 'unfinished'. It needs some tweeks and features (like bleeding-out= to reach their full potential.

Let's see if BI will surprise us in the future!

Edited June 10, 2014 by BlackPixxel

[sanguinius51 11]

Not to mention that AI can see through soft cover - bushes, trees and that - so while you may land 1 shot on them blindly shooting through the bushes and trees, they have regular accuracy, and can take you down easily.

[PuFu 4591]

before i state the following, i want to make sure this is posted as well: i am a bit dissapointed with the way BIS handled A3 features

....that being said, they also:

1. stated that they have removed A2 scripting workarounds for most if not all features, and are trying to move things engine side for performance sake - that covers A2 medical system just as well

2. most of you stating that the real reason behind this "step back" is their users base changes (including, but not exclusive DayZ side of things)

3. most of you posting "this would be easy, why don't they just do it" have not fucking clue what they are talking about, and have little to no experience regarding a game development process and the high chance of a chain reaction of fuck-ups with every added new feature. That includes the OP

4. Yes, BIS should put a lot more emphasis on the subject, but because of different other fuck-ups (including the body armor inclusion and the direct consequence that some rounds and absurdly non-lethal at close-medium distance) they do have other priorities, which is, at least in my mind, what they should be focused on

5. if you want a scripted solution opposed to engine based one, there are numerous community made addons and scripts to cover that. even better, you are allowed if not encouraged (by the MANW contest) to create your own solution, instead of a constant bitch about...

PS: saying that AI cheats is such a fucking laugh, especially when you consider that they don't have a brain and you should have a working one (with an emphasis on should). BTW, AI cannot see through the vegetation geometry. That's a busted myth.

Edited June 12, 2014 by PuFu

[enex 11]

PUfu I would quote your for truth!

[bad benson 1733]

Not to mention that AI can see through soft cover - bushes, trees and that - so while you may land 1 shot on them blindly shooting through the bushes and trees, they have regular accuracy, and can take you down easily.

i've been getting mixed results on that. i could save myself lately behind bushes after gettign shot once in the open. it seems like at least their accuracy or ability to target you properly is influenced by bushes. no idea if they still know where you are but there'S definately a great improvement.

[zooloo75 833]

i've been getting mixed results on that. i could save myself lately behind bushes after gettign shot once in the open. it seems like at least their accuracy or ability to target you properly is influenced by bushes. no idea if they still know where you are but there'S definately a great improvement.

Nothing a lineIntersects can't fix! XD

[near_blind_sniper 10]

BTW, AI cannot see through the vegetation geometry. That's a busted myth.

Could you post a link to where it was busted? I'm not doubting you, I'm just genuinely curious as this is a complaint I hear alot when I play.

Also I couldn't agree more with the rest of your post.