Do you play with or without mods - Arma 3

[Bee8190 10]

I would be inclined to say that the vast majority of arma players play with one or more addons on top of the vanilla Arma 3 to enhance their experience. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to see how many play vanilla arma without any mod enabled.

Without going into specifics of any addons or a mod ( feedback should be left in the correct thread for each mod )

If you play without addons ( vanilla Arma ) - can you tell us more about the choice of not using mods in general, eg; not knowing how to install mods or whether you experience performance issues?

If you play with add ons - can you tell us more about what it is you're looking for in an add on ( eg; better helicopter simulation or simply more content )

.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Bee8190

[vegeta897 13]

I play with mods. Of feature mods and content mods, this is what I gravitate towards:

Feature mods: Provide enhancements to the game that don't detract from the game's intent, like making things too easy or changing fundamentals. Ones I enjoy: shack tac HUD, weapon resting, mag repacking

Content mods: I do not like using small packs with a couple weapons or vehicles. It's too much of a pain to compile them together and get all my friends to do the same. Islands are an exception of course, since a single island provides a lot more than a single weapon/vehicle. I use this weapons pack. I also use JSRS and can't wait until this mod is released to throw it on top.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Both. When i play mods, it's only the Highest Quality mods that fit Arma 3's base game. When i'm done playing mods, and i get bored, ill disable all of them and see if there's anything interesting that the Vanilla has to offer. Other than that mods are a pain, because it's hard when no one else wants to go through the process of downloading them in my squad. <.<

[froggyluv 2136]

Without going into specifics of any addons or a mod ( feedback should be left in the correct thread for each mod )

Actually would be nice to have a thread where people describe what addons they like and why. Alot of gems are simply buried by time on these forums and allowing people's choice mod userlist would bring some of them to surface.

OT: Use a huge library of mods for SP -and thats my problem. Once getting used to resting weapon, altering stance by mousewheel, changing weapon on the move, ability to jump small obstacles with da quickness and much, much more -it's nearly impossible for me to join up with old friends and play MP without them. Thats why I wait for large combination mods like ACE for MP in which I can get many functions and theres a good chance many servers are also using it.

[alky_lee 279]

I have different shortcuts for different modsets, but even my vanilla shortcut still has CBA3, Mag repacking and ShackTac hud. I like mods that improve immersion such as Bcombat and TPW. Having said that, I may not want to use everything that a mod provides. I also use mods to make editing quicker or simpler.

[katipo66 94]

I like both, of course I like to use mods for obvious reasons but there's also a nice feeling when playing the game clean, maybe a both option?

[Longjocks 0]

I try to play without mods for the single player campaign because I like to experience such things as intended by the devs. But unfortunately I find the vanilla game mostly frustrating and a constant fight so I have to resort to mods. I generally stick to ones that improve controls, interface, weapon stability and AI (gameplay mods basically). I'm not really concerned with mods such as weapons and vehicles just for the sake of having more, but I'll happily try something that adds a more playable weapon/vehicle or system to the game. All this probably puts me in the 'other' camp.

[chrisb 196]

In the past I used a mix of AI mods, or I should say pbo’s from various AI mod/addons. These worked very well indeed, however they were best used for missions made by the user, specifically with those mods in mind. It also took time to tweak these and make them work really well, but good gaming needs time.

I play in an ongoing war-gaming world, where missions are made based on fully militarised terrains/regions. Therefore its easier to customise it down to certain mod/addons.

I only use one mod for AI now (sig), it covers all aspects concerning AI, almost to the point of independence (I test for it too).

After that, I use a set of other mod/addons to cover other things, these are combined into folders, I find it easier to split mod/addons up and folder them up myself (always have done), was also easier to test combined results that way, for me.

I only return occasionally, to the original game (vanilla), to check game progression (that doesn’t take long on the whole for A3 ;)).

AI and everything concerning AI is the most important thing for me. Very realistic, tactical & reliable AI is paramount to my/our gaming, especially as AI is the centre pin for militarised terrains.

All other mod/addons are far less important in that respect, but its still very nice to have them, notably islands/terrains, all work by others concerning these, is much appreciated.

Has to be said though, I/we spend most of our time in A2 at the moment, vast war-gaming world.

[kremator 1065]

With mods, always! I do have a range of mods that I use, but in my @alwaysuse are a soundmod, a visualmod, an AI mod, some element tweaking mods and CBA_A3.

Refuse to play without them. The ONLY reason I go vanilla is to jump onto a server to get a mission. I then mod-up then play it on my dedi.

[Jona33 51]

I will always play with mods with the exception of if I think I've found a bug then I will likely test again in vanilla. Thanks to playWithSix the mods I use vary wildly, for example if I'm working on something specific in the editor then I'll bring up my "editing collection" which is VTS_weapon resting, outlawal mag repack, MCC and CBA. Other times I have huge collections of mods for both weapons and units etc.

[Rydygier 1317]

I'm using vanilla for first run of official campaign etc., and if I'm testing my own work, which in fact covers about 90% of my total A3 "play time", unless I specifically want to test, how it behaves in the modded environment. Apart from that - certain mods are used, but it's really rare, when I'm just playing.

[theevancat 277]

I play the majority of my time in SP with mods, and a lot of that is spent on development. On MP, however, it's usually vanilla because I can't be assed to find a clan and their assorted mods.

[chompster 29]

Play with mods all the time. Haven't played vanilla since the end of the beta.

Mods for me fill the(many) gaps left behind by BI while simultaneously vastly improving pretty much everything else.

[Tonci87 163]

Who plays this without mods? (except if you really want to play on a particular server where they aren´t allowed)

[Wiki 1558]

I do.

I always play official or usermade missions and campaign vanilla.

Mods can be game breaking.

Sometimes, I can try mods like JSRS or bCombat or usermade vehicles to have fun, but most of the time it's vanilla.

As I make missions too, I really hate it when people come to me - or to any mission maker and complain about things not working, etc... whereas they don't even bother trying to look for the solution themselves.

And when I ask whether the guy is using mod (or not), I usually have "yes: TPW, bCombat, ASR_AI..."

It's weird, because when I tell them to play vanilla: it's a miracle, it does work!

So, mods can be good, but as they're also game breaking, I don't use them much.

[miketim 20]

I always play with addons. I agree with Vegeta on alot of his points.

I play with almost 40 mods right now, and I am tired of it though, I really just don't want to play vanilla, i dislike the content.

So I am waiting for RHS US armed forces and Russian armed forces for now, and ACE later so my modpack should look ideally like:

-CBA

-ACE (I sure hope so)

-ACRE 2 (If I can figure out how to use it once its released :cool:)

-A3MP

-RHS US Armed Forces

-RHS Russian Forces

-3-4 Islands (possibly)

-Bornholm, Denmark (Once that gets released)

-BWMod or German Armed Forces (If that ever gets made/finished/released, I speculate they are silently working on it now, and will probably release in about a year)

-FFIS 2 (once its released)

- Possibly RH M4/M16 and his other hopefully to-be-released packs, unless I decide the US Foces pack from RHS already does the job.

I am really trying to stay away from stuff like NATO-sf weapons pack, that adds like 90394230493294032 different low quality versions of each gun, with overall sub-par sounds and kind of crappy textures,I don't want 40 different crappy camo varieties of everything, its just too many items I don't want it.

Right now I use about 40 different mods, I would really rather not.

[Wiki 1558]

Well, on my previous comment, I was mostly speaking about AI mods of course (should have said it).

Addons mods such as new vehicles or units... don't have any gameplay impact - I mean, vehicles can but not gme breaking, so I don't bother.

I like using new vehicles, such as F-15 by dezkit or F-18 by John Spartan & Saul.

However, I really hate it when people make missions that requires a ton of mods - whereas there is no real value about them.

[Bee8190 10]

Actually would be nice to have a thread where people describe what addons they like and why. Alot of gems are simply buried by time on these forums and allowing people's choice mod userlist would bring some of them to surface.

ACE for MP in which I can get many functions and theres a good chance many servers are also using it.

Mainly I was trying to avoid mod vs mod or unwanted feedback discussion but I agree some here already mentioned mods that I wasn't familiar with or somehow slipped under

Anyhow, can't wait for ACE also

Who plays this without mods? (except if you really want to play on a particular server where they aren´t allowed)

I play with mods whenever possible but as said some servers don't allow any ( not even a sound mod :( ) which is a shame

[surfer 42]

I could live without most mods apart from A3MP & Thirsk, my favorite map and weapon resting which should be vanilla anyway. Come on BIS, you can do it!

The reason is that I want my missions compatible for most people to enjoy.

[L3TUC3 32]

It depends on the scenario snd situation (SP/MP).

I typically play with some mods always enabled that improve my experience (vts_weaponrest, blastcoreA3, JSRS2.1) if allowed.

Singleplayer scenarios I might download the prereqs if I like the scenario and it looks to be a good mission.

As for my own mission creations, I just add army/weapon/vehicle/island mods as I feel a need for them, it adds a significant portion of what I want to the mission and the quality is good. I don't like being limited when it comes to immersion and options so I look around for stuff that fits all the time. My mod folder is at 18.2GB!

For example I made sort of an analog reality mission based on recent events in the Crimea. I used A3MP for Utes, sud_russians for russian troops (and guns) and Caf_Ag for the eastern europe rebels. So that's about 6GB to download to even play it.

Right now I'm making a TvT Libya vs Chad scenario set on FSF Daryah (has A3mp prereq) with Drongos SAA mod (for the generic middle east army faction), Massis African Conflict (for the Chadians). So it's shaping up as another prereq heavy.

They're far from the most popular missions on the workshop, but I find them the most fun to make.

[kilroy the nerd 14]

I don't always play with mods, but when I do, I choose Authentic Gameplay modification.

Seriously though, usually I just play vanilla with Zeus. So far the only mods I use are AGM and BWMod, though I sometimes experiment with various content mods like Kaelies's South Zagorian guys, or Massi's Spetsnaz, or other armies.