Disappointed after 13 years of 'Arma'

[sergeantgarbage 10]

There is nothing so banal as thread introspection.

[Gattobuono 10]

What i don't understand is why BI never actually took A3 seriously or its features. We have a setting based in the future but the vehicles and weapons are still pretty basic, like what actual advanced weapons do you see ingame? the vehicles for example,

-No Advanced Countermeasures or Defence Systems

-No Fire Control System

-Tanks from 1990 era are far more advanced than the vehicles in A3, and ArmA 3 is set 45 years later if based on 90 design vehicles for ex

-Air Vehicles are not very advanced either for their time and are somewhat lacking in advanced weapons and again systems

-Infantry weapons are again basic and are the still the same as weapons based on todays weapons which is somewhat interesting because the game is set 21 years from now...

Totally agree.

Here are some good examples ... tank design 2014:

'Made in China' stealth plane 2014: http://youtu.be/egvERAfCu_c

[jgbtl292 0]

its a bad trend from the US weapon industry - to add useless stealth technology on all and sell it for more and more money ....................

and designers with no military background design space vehicles with a form that you can already easily seen on longest distance :p

hee its steals looking spacey - Although totally useless against modern radars ... but it costs twice - buys buys

and the children who see the shrine yes the best !!!!! and the need to work with it grasp at the head :butbut: and the unsuspecting politician buy - he looks cool a very very bad trend i see her ;)

this tanks is not more than a upped cv90 ifv ( yes he is good ) with a remote 120 mm weapon station.

and a spacey look ^^

don't forget the most features in videos and wiki are from the manufacturer and the most dates works only on perfect conditions ;-)

a he warhead lost 40-60% off his energie if it has more than 3 degrees deviation that is the reason for 40 or more rpg on M1 ,challanger in irak for example ;-)

most of features and informations it is simply propaganda and works only in the very very very small window of perfect conditions ^^

the wonder thermals hidding system from BEA lol works only in the side ussless ...

the spacey stealth look on vehikles useless ...even more dangerous for the crew. nice to see you and works not more with camo net loool

a barracuda camo net + many naturals on it save better for sight than all this new expensive useless features in day ,night, infrared or thermal ;-)

Amen

Edited March 26, 2014 by JgBtl292

[Flogger23m 2]

The problem with BIS is they do not care to make a simulator or even a tactical shooter. The game has little tactics. "Move here, shoot him" is not tactical, which is all the campaign and user missions allow for. The game is very short on realistic mechanics, from firearm handling to actual tactics. The devs focus on absolute garbage like RTS inspired modes. ArmA 3 is not a simulator, and never will be unless a new development team steps up.

The issue is the fans keep buying the so called "battlefield simulator" which simulates nothing . Like battered wives the ArmA fans keep coming back for another raping telling themselves ArmA is the Falcon 4 of everything. And BIS makes money off of it.

ArmA 3 is as much of a simulator as the Goat Simulator. That is how realistic it is. The difference is one development studio is making their game as a joke and one isn't.

Well, A3 still has most versatile and impressive AI in games industry to date. Can't deny that.

In SWAT 4 I can order my guys to stack up in under a second. I takes me 60 seconds to manually to this in ArmA 3, and even then, they might wonder off course into enemy fire. And they can not clear, throw grenades or do anything else aside from chance stance and stop shooting. I'm calling BS.

What i don't understand is why BI never actually took A3 seriously or its features. We have a setting based in the future but the vehicles and weapons are still pretty basic, like what actual advanced weapons do you see ingame? the vehicles for example,

-No Advanced Countermeasures or Defence Systems

-No Fire Control System

-Tanks from 1990 era are far more advanced than the vehicles in A3, and ArmA 3 is set 45 years later if based on 90 design vehicles for ex

-Air Vehicles are not very advanced either for their time and are somewhat lacking in advanced weapons and again systems

-Infantry weapons are again basic and are the still the same as weapons based on todays weapons which is somewhat interesting because the game is set 21 years from now...

Like how hard would it have been for BI to implement a simple Bipod system for machine guns and sniper rifles, too much work for them i quess.

And then comes the control & command system.

- Nothing still the same as before which is clunky and very difficult to use. For example theres no improved GUI for doing simple tasks like getting into a vehicle or opening a door, planting a explosives etc. Commanding troops is fine but the menu system for other actions (player actions) is very annoying and outdated, this again was brought up by the community in past topics before A3 even in A2 yet BI ignores these requests.

Im just gonna say it and call BI lazy and incompetent, i could sit here all fucking night and go on but im tired and doing other things now, ive turned my back on BI because i honestly see no other reason for the lack of features or the things i have mentioned to be implemented in the first place, to me the genre is dead and they killed it with their own lack of support and negligence.

Because to me this is just another expansion pack but masquerading as new game, and if this is best BI can do these days then i am not impressed and not interested in their games.

And this. ArmA is no simulator. Red Orchestra, Rainbow 6 and SWAT were better simulators. Anything aside from the infantry aspect of the ArmA series is essentially CoD/BF level.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Flogger23m

[becubed 24]

In SWAT 4 I can order my guys to stack up in under a second. I takes me 60 seconds to manually to this in ArmA 3, and even then, they might wonder off course into enemy fire. And they can not clear, throw grenades or do anything else aside from chance stance and stop shooting. I'm calling BS.

How long does it take you to tell them to board a chopper, fly 20km to a town, find a landing point, disembark and then move into the town?

[Flogger23m 2]

How long does it take you to tell them to board a chopper, fly 20km to a town, find a landing point, disembark and then move into the town?

Logic disconnect. "But ArmA does this, and that!" Well, it does an atrocious job at doing all of that. Additionally, that is not the argument. The argument is quality and ability to do relevant and useful things. Stacking, breaching, banging and clearing. While moving to every area of the room automatically. SWAT's AI works well for doing what it is intended. It can be better but it is a 9 year old game. No, they can not jump into a space shuttle and fly into space but that is not what a SWAT officer does.

An infantryman does not fly a helicopter. Which, by the way, is horrible in ArmA. If you are looking for proper helicopter dynamics, mission scope and relevance ArmA 3 is as realistic as Battlefield 4. Get a flight simulator because ArmA 3 is absolutely terrible with helicopter flight and logistics.

[maturin 12]

Don't be a drama queen; ArmA's helicopters are miles more realistic than BF4. I shouldn't need to point out that there are intermediate steps between simulation and arcade.

And SWAT's AI actually does nothing. It entirely lacks the ability to make decisions on its own. It essentially has one routine, and that is stacking up and walking through doors, with an option to throw various round objects in the meantime. And once inside, yes, it can walk over a handful of pre-set movement nodes (as if ArmA's AI can't be scripted to do that?), and usually taking bullets to the face in the meantime. It's not like they actually use cover or tactics beyond that. That kind of AI is completely meaningless outside of the tiny indoor environment it was carefully tuned for.

So I'll say that about your comparisons. Other than that, it's difficult to engage with your vague blah-blah-blah-ing.

[Flogger23m 2]

Don't be a drama queen; ArmA's helicopters are miles more realistic than BF4. I shouldn't need to point out that there are intermediate steps between simulation and arcade.

And SWAT's AI actually does nothing. It entirely lacks the ability to make decisions on its own. It essentially has one routine, and that is stacking up and walking through doors, with an option to throw various round objects in the meantime. And once inside, yes, it can walk over a handful of pre-set movement nodes (as if ArmA's AI can't be scripted to do that?), and usually taking bullets to the face in the meantime. It's not like they actually use cover or tactics beyond that. That kind of AI is completely meaningless outside of the tiny indoor environment it was carefully tuned for.

So I'll say that about your comparisons. Other than that, it's difficult to engage with your vague blah-blah-blah-ing.

At least it was tuned for something. It works exceptionally well in the environments present in game. The same can not be said of ArmA 3. AI can not function in doors in ArmA 3 (which the campaign, and combat occasionally takes place in) and does not do much of anything outdoors. Yes, the AI in SWAT does not run off on its own; they take commands. Which are more flexible than anything ArmA 3 can offer. Try synchronizing an attack from multiple angles in ArmA with the AI. There are no hold commands, no way for them to throw a grenade, and they will move into open areas and not clear the space they are attacking. I've tried many times in ArmA 2 and 3 to get the AI to do anything other than return fire at each other. They simply can not do more and the command menu is damn near worthless making it even more pointless.

Which is why the campaign/missions in ArmA are so basic and eschew any real commanding or infantry tactics. Move here, pick up a truck. The missions essentially move you in linear pathways and don't allow for any tactics thanks to you being a one man army, regardless if you have worthless team members or not. The AI simply is not flexible enough to allow for any real scenarios, so instead BI focuses on silly "sandbox" missions.

Vehicle wise the helicopters in ArmA are indeed only a hair away from Battlefield realism. Aside from limited fuel and ammo there is not much separating the two realism wise. Same with the armor. Point and click shooting, absurd driving mechanics. Although BF3/4's tanks do have more realistic driving mechanics as they have weight to them and can knock down and crush more things than their ArmA counter parts.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Flogger23m

[calin_banc 19]

How long does it take you to tell them to board a chopper, fly 20km to a town, find a landing point, disembark and then move into the town?

Oh, cut de PR stuff! The AI cannot:

-heal themselves;

-rearm;

-use grenades, smoke, etc;

-follow you in a vehicle without destroying it or whatever obstacle they encounter;

-keep themselves in cover or look for cover on their own properly;

-act remotely as a human being;

-follow your orders;

-...

While playing you need to:

-scroll through numerous menus just to order ONE soldier to rearm, heal himself or another, move, etc., and can take up to minutes!!! Good luck trying to order you mate to pick up a specific weapon. May go for hundreds of meters for it, because why not, each item has it's own GPS;

-use painfully difficult actions to access and manage your team mates inventory while rearming from the enivornemnt;

-disconnect from the action to continuously manage basic stuff for the AI (movement stance, speed, formation, take them to cover, heal, rearm etc), because they simply cannot do it or they are so bad it hilarious;

-cannot vault over small obstacles

-cannot ....

They AI is bad, simple as that. It CAN work if you script it carefully enough or you use it under some limited circumstance, true, it does a well enough job. Overall is it better than other AI for what they are meant to do? Hell no! Not by a mile!

Regarding the content and gameplay I don't understand why:

-there isn't a resting position for every gun to allow sustain, precise fire;

-why the game doesn't take into account the bullet in the chamber when reloading;

-why there isn't a proper armor and health system;

-why there isn't a proper physics simulation for all vehicles;

-why the characters still teleport inside vehicles and outside;

-why there isn't a better inventory in which you can take attachments from the equipment on the ground and not needed to pick them up in your inventory to do that;

-why there isn't a better UI overall;

-why the MP part is still very old and encumbered without any new or better mods of play (including bad performance and netcode);

-why the performance is terrible;

-why the sound is terrible;

-why...

Now, if you like the genre and you're not afraid of painfully testing mods after mods until you get it to an acceptable level, then yeah, ArmA is a great game. The problem is you don't attract new customers and you risk of remaining without support even from your most loyal dye hard fans by following this path.

PS: Besides terrible AI, I'm the 3rd episode from the campaign, in some village/city, with some average to small firefight going on. Under 30fps, close to 20-25 in intense situations. Takes away all the will to continue. :confused:

[pd3 25]

Disagree.

Arma3 is a step forward about mechanics and graphic.

It's 2 step back about lack of content, compared to arma2.

Also: one year it's passed and to be honest I didn't see any major improvments; not to mention the "new" Bronco which looks like the old A-10 with different engines.

Maybe there is truth in the opinion about Arma3 being a side product of Bis arsenal... :(

>dumbed down and oversimplified for pimples

>step forward

pick one

[Tonci87 163]

Sometimes I do wish that CM didn´t fuck up Red Dragon so much. Maybe BIS would deliver better work if they had a direct competitor. OA was full of new things and features from VBS! My believe is that we only go those because Red Dragon was looming on the horizon and BIS knew they had to bring some serious improvements if they want to stay #1 in this genre.

[eymerich 11]

>dumbed down and oversimplified for pimples

>step forward

pick one

Err... In other words?

[[evo] dan 79]

Sometimes I do wish that CM didn´t fuck up Red Dragon so much. Maybe BIS would deliver better work if they had a direct competitor. OA was full of new things and features from VBS! My believe is that we only go those because Red Dragon was looming on the horizon and BIS knew they had to bring some serious improvements if they want to stay #1 in this genre.

Isn't VBS 3 PE looking at being made more affordable? I think I saw that in the VBS thread, maybe that'll be the Arma replacement

[bonchie 39]

I don't have half the complaints some of you guys have such as:

Regarding the content and gameplay I don't understand why:

-there isn't a resting position for every gun to allow sustain, precise fire;

-why the game doesn't take into account the bullet in the chamber when reloading;

-why there isn't a proper armor and health system;

-why there isn't a proper physics simulation for all vehicles;

-why the characters still teleport inside vehicles and outside;

-why there isn't a better inventory in which you can take attachments from the equipment on the ground and not needed to pick them up in your inventory to do that;

-why there isn't a better UI overall;

I can live with all of this. But the showstopping, mission breaking bugs with the AI that still exist 13 freaking years later are ridiculous. 13 years later we still shouldn't have AI going non-responsive for no reasons or refusing to follow orders or find cover in combat. They shouldn't still be trying to find a way to balance the AI from being super-accurate terminators vs. being total idiots.

After struggling to complete "Win" with constant AI bugs I've pretty much officially shelved A3 except for an organized MP session once a week. It now seems clear ARMA has reached it's ceiling and some things are simply never going to be fixed.

Edited March 28, 2014 by bonchie

[Sneakson 1]

I don't have half the complaints some of you guys have such as:

I can live with all of this. But the showstopping, mission breaking bugs with the AI that still exist 13 freaking years later are ridiculous. 13 years later we still shouldn't have AI going non-responsive for no reasons or refusing to follow orders or find cover in combat. They shouldn't still be trying to find a way to balance the AI from being super-accurate terminators vs. being total idiots.

After struggling to complete "Win" with constant AI bugs I've pretty much officially shelved A3 except for an organized MP session once a week. It now seems clear ARMA has reached it's ceiling and some things are simply never going to be fixed.

Well, to be fair not many games have good AI. It's an area in video gaming where we've seen next to no development in the last 10 years.

ARMAs AI is worse than average though when it comes to doing the most basic things.

Compare to how your Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfare teamies will completely autonomously follow your lead, change stances, attack and take cover effectively.

Not to mention the control over your teamies is bad. That's a game design descision. Again, in GRAW you can tell your AI to do basically everything you can tell the ARMA AI to do but completely without 10 menus full of commands.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Sneakson

[roshnak 41]

Dan;2654999']Isn't VBS 3 PE looking at being made more affordable? I think I saw that in the VBS thread' date=' maybe that'll be the Arma replacement[/quote']

No. VBS will never be priced comparably to commercial video games. It is also not a game and it is not designed to be fun. For all the cool features it has that Arma 3 is lacking in, it also misses out on a lot of the features that make games fun to play.

Not to mention the control over your teamies is bad. That's a game design descision. Again, in GRAW you can tell your AI to do basically everything you can tell the ARMA AI to do but completely without 10 menus full of commands.

The Arma command menu isn't even that bad, it's just bloated up with a bunch of dumb commands that don't do anything. Has anyone ever used "Advance," "Stay Back," "Flank Left," or "Flank Right?" Why do we have both "Stop" and "Wait for me?" Why do we have both "Open Fire" and "Fire?" We don't need the menu full of "Watch compass direction" when you can just hold ALT and tell the AI to observe a position.

[Tonci87 163]

No. VBS will never be priced comparably to commercial video games. It is also not a game and it is not designed to be fun. For all the cool features it has that Arma 3 is lacking in, it also misses out on a lot of the features that make games fun to play.

The Arma command menu isn't even that bad, it's just bloated up with a bunch of dumb commands that don't do anything. Has anyone ever used "Advance," "Stay Back," "Flank Left," or "Flank Right?" Why do we have both "Stop" and "Wait for me?" Why do we have both "Open Fire" and "Fire?" We don't need the menu full of "Watch compass direction" when you can just hold ALT and tell the AI to observe a position.

"Advance," "Stay Back," "Flank Left," or "Flank Right can be very usefull and I´ve used them quite a lot. I really can´t tell the diference between Stop and wait for me though.

[Sneakson 1]

No. VBS will never be priced comparably to commercial video games. It is also not a game and it is not designed to be fun. For all the cool features it has that Arma 3 is lacking in, it also misses out on a lot of the features that make games fun to play.

The Arma command menu isn't even that bad, it's just bloated up with a bunch of dumb commands that don't do anything. Has anyone ever used "Advance," "Stay Back," "Flank Left," or "Flank Right?" Why do we have both "Stop" and "Wait for me?" Why do we have both "Open Fire" and "Fire?" We don't need the menu full of "Watch compass direction" when you can just hold ALT and tell the AI to observe a position.

I always use advance... often flanking too. It's the only way of making sure you're not the first one to be hit lol.

And I still hate the menus actually. Could be done better still, but yes mostly the issue is the abundance of commands.

[bad benson 1733]

it's just bloated up with a bunch of dumb commands that don't do anything. Has anyone ever used "Advance," "Stay Back," "Flank Left," or "Flank Right?" Why do we have both "Stop" and "Wait for me?" Why do we have both "Open Fire" and "Fire?" We don't need the menu full of "Watch compass direction" when you can just hold ALT and tell the AI to observe a position.

which is probably what he meant by "bad" :p.

[Gutsnav 13]

Unfortunately the Arma community will have to do the work BIS should have done (And why did they scrap all the things from 2012? Arma 3 back then had so much more content and realism!). Maybe we will have to rely on ACE 3 or something, but who knows because the ACE devs got pissed at Arma 3 :P

[.Taffy 10]

"Advance," "Stay Back," "Flank Left," or "Flank Right can be very usefull and I´ve used them quite a lot. I really can´t tell the diference between Stop and wait for me though.

I always thought that 'Stop' meant that AI would hold their position indefinitely, regardless of where the player moves. Meanwhile 'Wait for me' causes them to hold until the player is near then they start moving again. Could be wrong though. 'Hide' can be a useful one, especially if you are expecting contact imminently.

[chortles 263]

(And why did they scrap all the things from 2012? Arma 3 back then had so much more content and realism!).

As someone who was around for that... no, no it didn't, the 2035 setting was one of the first reveals about Arma 3 (along with the infamous "railgun tank").

On the subject of AI commanding though, I'd say that for me the differences between certain commands aren't always obvious, which is a problem in a UI.

[Polygon 11]

AI commands should have their own pop-up boxes appear with explanations of each's purpose.

Just how BIS "streamlined" most features with an ingame wiki, same should be applied for managing AI.

[roshnak 41]

AI commands should have their own pop-up boxes appear with explanations of each's purpose.

Just how BIS "streamlined" most features with an ingame wiki, same should be applied for managing AI.

This could very easily lead to a really bloated UI. I'd much rather they just document the functions in the game manual. People not quite knowing what the AI commands do is a theme dating all the way back to OFP. Then again, documentation is a lot better now then it was back then.

But, really, there are just a lot of commands that do very similar things, and could easily stand to be removed. Even if you do want to use the advance and flanking commands, they could at least be nested deeper into the move menu -- or, more reasonably, the formation menu.

I think it would save a lot of space if you had a set up like: Formation -> Column -> Column, Staggered Column, File; and Formation -> Echeleon -> Left, Right. It requires more key presses, but it would mean not having to shift my hand all the way over to my 9 key to order my troops, which I think in the long run would make giving orders faster and more intuitive.

Edited March 31, 2014 by roshnak

[chortles 263]

AI commands should have their own pop-up boxes appear with explanations of each's purpose.

Just how BIS "streamlined" most features with an ingame wiki, same should be applied for managing AI.

I really, really do not have a problem with this idea, especially if we're not going get roshnak's suggestions of winnowing out commands that on-the-face-of-it seem redundant or at least move them about within the menu hierarchy. Complexity is way more appropriate than opaqueness, if that makes any sense...