I'm sorta new but I have a few questions

[mannyrecon 10]

Hey so i've been playing arma for over a month now. It's my first one of the series and I absolutely love it and its realism aspects. The only two things that are driving me nuts right now are the excessive teamkilling and the funky lag (helicopters rolling over in mid-air, people flying out of them and elevating, etc). Sooo I do have a couple questions, and I'm sorry if there are other discussions about it but I couldn't find any.

1) How long will this beta last? I see zero changes to playability happening.

2) Will anything be done about team-killing? Like an auto-kick after x-amount of kills for instance? It's absurd how rampant it is in almost every game I join. There's always that 1 guy who obliterates the spawn points with guns, explosives, or vehicles, and nothing is ever done unless a admin is present.

3) Honestly, why are the most obvious and atrocious bugs not being worked on? I'm talking about flying vehicles and people, helicopters rolling over in the air and then teleporting back to where they were, medic revives/drags/carry being extremely awkward (i'm gonna move my arms in slow motion using magic and watching your body rise), and of course, when medics use a first aid kid on someone else, he actually uses it on himself physically, but it's just applied to the other person.

Okay, rant over... any honest answers help :D

[BL1P 35]

What mission are you playing when you play online ?

I ask this because the Arma series has a plethora of user made missions each with its own bugs and player types.

Some missions attract a player base which is more inclined to Team Kill than other missions.

And those mission types tend to overload the server capacity with high player counts while disregarding the detrimental effect on server performance, which inturn creates bugs such as desynced vehicles and players.

Edited August 12, 2014 by BL1P

[the_demongod 31]

Which "beta" are you referring to?

If you are part of Development Branch (manually picked in the Arma 3 Steam Properties), it goes on forever, constantly containing new fixes and changes.

The game is no longer in beta, it has been stable build for quite some time now.

Regarding team killing: It'll never stop. It is entirely based on the server, there is no kick after x amount of TKs. If a player is decidedly being problematic on a server, he can be vote kicked (by pressing J, clicking "players," finding his name, and clicking "vote kick), or an Admin can kick him from the server.

Your issues with lag and team killing are partially related actually.

Because Arma 3 is a complete sandbox game, many parts of online play you will see are customized via scripting in the mission. For example, reviving/drags/carry is not a feature in the game. It is a script that the mission maker downloaded off of Armaholic.com and included into his mission, because he desired a revive mechanic for his mission. This means that some servers may have that feature, and some may not. In fact, it's quite possible that a feature will never show up in any other mission/server again, because the mission maker custom-scripted it for himself.

Similarly, team killing is a server-based behavior. Servers that play games such as King of the Hill and Wasteland are far more prone to having hackers, team killers, and generally less mature players, as these game modes more closely emulate simple shooter games, such as Battlefield and Call of Duty (and therefore draw immature players to them). The best way to escape said players is to either A. join a private clan - you will get to know all the players you meet, and your servers will be password-protected, or B. simply find servers with more mature "regulars" (people who play on that server often, whom you see again and again). These players will feel more like the server "belongs" to them because they are familiar with it. As a result, if immature/obnoxious players join the server and begin causing trouble, the "regulars" will be more inclined to kick or ban that player from the server. This leads to certain servers containing more mature players, and other servers containing more immature players.

The issues you mentioned with helicopters are related to server desync - this happens for various reasons when the server believes something is going on, and your computer believes there is something different going on. This results in things such as vehicles glitching around, and players floating around helicopters and such. The rolling/teleporting could also be related to lag/latency. Make sure you only join servers that have a ping of less than ~300, and if a server hasn't been restarted in a while (this is often the case with non structured missions such as Wasteland), server lag may also be an issue. If you play missions with an active admin (such as Zeus), the server is bound to be in better shape.

Welcome to the Arma community, and if I could give you one tip, it would be to completely familiarize yourself with the game before playing much multiplayer.

In the main menu, you can click "editor," which takes you to a place where you can place almost anything in the game. Familiarize yourself with flying, driving, etc. Also play all the showcase missions and try some of the shooting range challenges.

That way, when you go to multiplayer you will know more of what you're doing (nothing is worse than riding in a helicopter that is piloted by somebody who doesn't know what they are doing).

It'll also allow you to tell when something such as the revive is an external script, or an internal vanilla feature.

Cheers

[mannyrecon 10]

What mission are you playing when you play online ?

I ask this because the Arma series has a plethora of user made missions each with its own bugs and player types.

Some missions attract a player base which is more inclined to Team Kill than other missions.

And those mission types tend to overload the server capacity with high player counts while disregarding the detrimental effect on server performance, which inturn creates bugs such as desynced vehicles and players.

I believe the one I play is something like Altis - Invade and Annex or something like that, where you do side missions, destroy artillery, and take towns one after the other.

[the_demongod 31]

Yeah invade and annex is similar to Wasteland, where the server just runs on and on for long periods of time. That would explain the lag and desync.

In my opinion, I&A has attracted slightly more mature players than, say, king of the hill but you still may want to find more advanced servers for a better experience.

[mannyrecon 10]

What types/gameplays do you recommend? I really like the flow of Invade and Annex, where teamplay is a big factor. I can't really grasp what wasteland, sandbox, altis life, and other ones really are. I tried sandbox once and I spawned in the middle of nowhere with a pistol, and I had zero clue as to what to do, so I left. can you sort of give me an example of what you generally do in each one? It would help..

Edited August 12, 2014 by MannyRecon

[the_demongod 31]

I'll try to give you a few:

Invade & Annex: A simple conquest-style gamemode where primary and secondary objectives are automatically generated. The objective is to kill all the enemies at the objective area. Servers may stay online for a long time, generating lag.

Wasteland: A survival-type gamemode, where the player starts with nothing but a pistol and must find/buy other equipment. Warning: Servers are often very laggy as weapons/objects are spawned randomly for you to find. This often bogs down the server fps. This gamemode also often attracts young/immature players who are annoying and will do things like teamkill. Multiple scripts implement things like thirst and hunger. (basically a bad DayZ clone).

King of the Hill: To be honest, I don't know much about this one. I know it's an adversarial (players vs. players) game type, and I assume the objective is for one team to capture and hold the "hill." These servers also stay online long amounts of time.

ZGM (Zeus Game Master): Ahh we're getting interesting now. Zeus is a gamemode where a player who is very experienced in mission making and is very familiar with mission flow creates a mission dynamically for all the players. The story/objective of the mission is anything that the Zeus can possibly imagine. This is a more structured gamemode, where players will use VOIP to communicate, and usually divide up into organized squads. Because the Zeus is usually the active Admin, the server is restarted often resulting in cleaner framerates. Be advised though: If a player who is a poor Zeus takes control, the mission will probably suck and either people will vote kick the zeus, or everybody will leave the server. Luckily, the Zeus is usually a skilled player. Unfortunately, there aren't many servers that play nothing but Zeus.

Your best bet will be to find Bohemia Interactive's official servers, which all start with [OFFICIAL] or something similar, and will say something like "Bohemia Interactive Zeus" or something. It'll also say where in the world the server is hosted, either [uS-NY] for New York servers, or [EU-NL] for Netherlands servers. Pick whichever is closer to you.

There aren't really many other "common" gamemodes (apart from Altis life, I don't even want to talk about that), most other servers you see will be rarer missions, or will be password-protected servers owned by private clans (who often have an in-clan mission maker who designs missions for the clan).

Cheers

[BL1P 35]

What types/gameplays do you recommend? I really like the flow of Invade and Annex, where teamplay is a big factor. I can't really grasp what wasteland, sandbox, altis life, and other ones really are. I tried sandbox once and I spawned in the middle of nowhere with a pistol, and I had zero clue as to what to do, so I left. can you sort of give me an example of what you generally do in each one? It would help..

Invade and annex should in general be a good mission to start with to be honest.

Myself I prefer the coop missions. But Bennys CTI is a good team based pvp mission as is Tactical Battlefield.

Finding a good community will also be to your advantage, One that is willing to help you install any needed mods etc.

I would try different servers if the ones you are using are plagued by Base destroyers or Team killers.

I am not a fan of the current popular missions like Wasteland or Life.

I would say give it some more time and you will find the communities and servers that are better ran, with missions that try to eliminate the less agreeable elements of internet play :)

[blackpixxel 53]

MannyRecon, I highly recommend you to join an Arma Community. Most of them uses a few mods that really makes the difference between day and night. Absolutely essential are ACRE or TFAR. Both are mods that work with Teamspeak. They improve the 3D-communication alot and include radios with different channels for long range communication. Just one of these two mods will change the gameplay alot, since everyone is forced to use them. Suddenly everyone plays together and you will enjoy the game alot more! It becomes a ton more tactical, realistic, immersive and fun!

In addition to that, there won't be much Wurstland-kids or teamkillers, because the mod installation appears a bit complicated for beginners (but it isn't, thanks to Launchers like PlayWithSix).

Arma without mods is just a regular game. But these communication mods will turn it into the best PC gaming experience that I ever had! Just use Google to find some communitys that match your expectations (realism or fun, coop or pvp, missions or 24/7 server, mods etc.)

Edited August 12, 2014 by BlackPixxel

[Flemdot Jr 10]

1) How long will this beta last? I see zero changes to playability happening.

That the question on everyone's lips ;).

[Gutsnav 13]

You can't fix team killing in any way the Arma community would be happy about (Sadly it does sometimes happen in real life), but you can play games with a group of friends or in an organized group like ShackTac or the 15th MEU. It's really great fun and there's no intentional team killing.

Plus you can just ban the dude or something.

[mannyrecon 10]

So basically Zeus is the ultimate team play experience, aside from being in a unit?

[the_demongod 31]

In my opinion, yes. Zeus is my favorite gamemode because it brings out the sandbox element of arma. No two scenarios will be the same unless the Zeus is purposely trying to replicate a specific mission. In theory, it should be impossible to get bored of because Zeus missions can contain pretty much any situation possible in Arma 3, using any vehicles, units, islands, missions, etc.

It is definitely the most Dynamic gameplay you will have, since the mission is being procedurally created by a human player. They will be open for requests, will ask for your opinion, and allow you to have some say in how the mission goes. I would definitely recommend playing at least a few rounds of Zeus on the public BI servers.

[BL1P 35]

So basically Zeus is the ultimate team play experience, aside from being in a unit?

For me No :) I dislike Zeus mode and prefer original coop style without a player acting as a dungeon master.

As you can see it looks like me and the_Demongod have very similar likes except Zeus and probably a few other things.

Which is the cool thing about arma communities you can find the one that suits you.

"Arma is like the porn of the gaming world theres something for everyone."

Quote BL1P :13.08.2014

Edited August 13, 2014 by BL1P

[the_demongod 31]

"Arma is like the porn of the gaming world theres something for everyone."

Quote BL1P :13.08.2014

Haha that's a good one :)

I'm sure you could find a Zeus game that would work for you, since it's so dynamic. The thing is public Zeus matches tend to feel different than normal scenarios, but if you have a private game with some friends and do a little more planning/talking beforehand, it's possible to get gameplay experience very similar to your typical coop scenario.

[SavageCDN 231]

Thanks for my new sig BL1P :p

[BL1P 35]

Thanks for my new sig BL1P :p

You are welcome :p