Weapon Inertia & Sway Feedback (dev branch)

[machineabuse 11]

Is this a suggestion for the sway pattern, or the amount of sway, or both? Do you just think that they should revert the changes to weapon sway altogether and go back to the old method?

I actually do think that the A2 sway simulation being driven by the new inputs in A3 would work nicely. I did say this a couple of times already but I doubt that they'd do it. The thing with the current A3 rubber bandy behavior of sway is that you can strong arm it and force the sights where you want them to be relatively easily. With A2's system that's harder, but on the flipside, A2's simulation only required a comparatively small amount of sway amplitude before shooting started to get challenging. With ACE2, when you're injured, tired and suppressed making hits past 50m is seriously difficult. That felt about right.

I think a lot of the people complaining about the nauseating effects of current sway are related to the sway pattern and amplitude. Especially when using a magnified optic the effect is akin to being on a boat in the ocean.

These two things seem contradictory to me. It seems like you are saying two conflicting things are good here. Or are you saying that the old way was flawed because the there was no natural point of aim?

It doesn't *feel* to me that there is a natural point of aim in either A2 or A3. A2 definitely had the phenomena of the aim sway eventually pointing you in a random direction.

A3's sway on the other hand in effect; doesn't seem to gravitate to a single point in space so much as around it. When you hold up a pen tip and try to keep it on an object notice how the tip intersects the intended "point of aim". That's because your muscles are working toward centering onto the point your brain is telling it to.

Think of natural point of aim as the player intent. The player intends to aim right there and the sway is the mechanic that balances it's acquisition. It is analogous to the way expanding crosshairs work in old Rainbow Six games but the difference is you always know where the bore is physically pointing. You just need to drive the point of aim onto the target and either strong arm the sights onto target OR wait for your body to center on point of aim naturally.

Either way, there is a natural point of aim in the Arma 3 system in that the sway follows a distinct pattern, so you could argue that the bore will always return to every point within that pattern at some point in its cycle. Is it possible that the sway pattern is just too long/complicated, and it would be better if it was shortened so that the weapon returned to a given point quicker?

Yup, I suspect it is both too long and the pattern too orbital. I think a shorter, more jittery pattern would work as well practically and also represent player intent better.

I'm also pretty certain that your aim point would not wander away like you're describing in the old system (I could be wrong on this, I don't have Arma 2 installed so I haven't had the opportunity to test it).

Neither have I. I think I saw that once in the issue tracker during Alpha but I haven't followed up on whether or not this still holds true with the current sway system. For all I know the point of aim in space is a fixed point now but it would not surprise me that it isn't. When I have more time I will run a test with time compression and see what that does.

I may have really misread this section and, if so, I apologize.

Nope, you read right the first time. No worries.

[bigpickle 0]

The sway is all wrong imo, it needs to be not only reduced but changed to short sharp movements when shooting, not long swaying motions.

[qantaqa1987 10]

Sway is ok.. learn to play!

[haleks 8204]

The sway is all wrong imo

I don't have any problem with weapon sway & inertia - but what does bother me is, yet again, that the AI isn't affected by it.

I'm really getting tired of seeing an AI unit one-shotting me right after a 90° turn... I was thinking that their precision would be influenced by at least weapon inertia, of course I was wrong. :/

[oldy41 61]

The sway is all wrong imo, it needs to be not only reduced but changed to short sharp movements when shooting, not long swaying motions.

I wouldn't say the sway is all wrong, but it feels definitely way overdone.

Currently your avatar behaves like a drunkard when turning. Especially in CQB situations your aim is bouncing crazily sometimes reducing you to a sitting duck for seconds. Speaking strictly for myself I find it nearly impossible to compensate these extreme sway effects (and I spent quite some time trying...).

That being said I am fine with the general approach. It should just be toned down to reasonable levels, and its influence should be inflicted on AI too, in an adeqate and believable way.

[TiborasaurusRex 11]

i totally agree with this guy from "Weapon Sway Inaccurate" thread.

With all due respect, please dear BI devs, would you kindly start listening to real experienced & trained shooters?

I would like to bring the issue of weapon sway to the table, please know before judging, I am an VERY active shooter and practice a lot! I have loved Arma for years and years now because there is not a game like it. The mod Community is fantastic as well. So I hope this will be taken as Constructive Criticism for BIS and may lead to more realism weapon handling.

Can we PLEASE remove/correct weapons sway in the game. Its unrealistic, and completely unnatural. I've been shooting AR platform rifles, SBR to the standard AR-15 for many years with and without optics, even have the RCO/or Leupold HAMR, ARCO/ ELCAN Specter DR as its real name is on my AR. Under 0 Circumstances have I ever had the swing/ wobble/ 12 liter of vodka sway feature that is in ARMA 3 currently. This game is based around characters that are combat operators, not children that can't hold a rifle. Theses are trained professionals that have been trained in stress shooting from years, Range or Combat. The only time I have experienced wobble (real life) is after I have held my rifle in standing shooting position for loooong periods of time, and fatigue starts to take effect after I loss stamina. Even when I'm looking thru my optic my head does not wobble around like I have Parkinson's disease (little Harsh, but completely true) when I'm looking down a rifle. Arma has really bad over swing on the rifles like they have a 10 lb weight attached to the front and a crazy amount of circular drift, not present in the real world.

When shooting a rifle, it's firmly pressed against your shoulder, and your cheek is against the stock which prevents wobble, and promotes accuracy for fast target alignment. With your cheek against the stock, where ever the scope goes your eye goes with it, head wobble or drift doesnt exist because its aligned looking thru the optic. Even when you look around with your head your rifle is fixed in a forward shooting position, only your head turns a bit, when you return your head back forward it natural aligns back with the scope thru proper alignment and muscle memory. Therefore no wobble. The only time I have had wobble is when doing stress shooting and training with law enforcement (Civilian to U.S. Marshals), my adrenaline is flowing and heart is racing, I wobble a little but not like in Arma. The stock of the rifle should always be solid in the shoulder of the character, with minimal sway up front as proper firing uses a pull/push to target method, not swing. The Mag well seems to be the main swivel position while looking into the optic instead of the shoulder, as the front and rear of the rifle would have be be moving, to cause this wobble.

I do like the idea of the 3D scope for realism purposes but it really needs to be fixed as its unrealistic. When looking thru a optic a players eye should be in prefect alignment with the scope not wobbling or having a circular drift, if a player turns there head, it should snap back in place once the head is returned back to center and should be dead on due to muscle memory. If a player stays in this position for to long then you can do a little bit of weapon wobble as a player would lose stamina, from holding that position for too long.

I hope this doesn't come as I'm complaining, as I doing it for improved game play and accuracy stand point for all players Novice to Hard Core.

[S20 10]

Agreed with the above; the weapon sway mechanic is entirely unrealistic, and unwelcome in any form IMO. Nearly everyone I play with (and I play most nights) dislikes it, and the accompanying increase in sway that occurs when fatigued after running 300ft, or injured, can make some moments in-game infuriating.

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Agreed. I hope in time we'll see improved sway/inertia. I'm also hoping in the future they'll tweak deadzone a bit as well. Call me crazy, but since ArmA 2 I had just a enough deadzone set to give a bit of room for play. It felt really smooth the way it was setup. But in ArmA 3, it feels like I'm holding the rifle with a pair of drunken granny arms. It feels way too accelerated and erratic. Only way to faux-smooth it is with the dreaded mouse smoothing, which means even more aiming issues and the inability to get on and stay on target. Still, even so I must admit with a bit of deadzone and the inertia, it feels a bit more alive for me.

I hate this whole rotate your entire body in place as if you are strapped to a Lazy Susan. It's nice going into a building and having a little room to move and aim while going through a doorway instead of turning my entire frigid body. I'm sure there will be a billion groans when people read about deadzone, but dammit--I like it! :P Between inertia, deadzone and all the weights in my mouse I start feeling a tiny bit more like someone holding a weapon and not a stiff robot with a stick firmly planted in my arse.

So hopefully BIS will listen to the people who know what they are talking about in terms of sway and inertia--though I'll wait before attempting to hold my breath to that--and someone at BI will slow and smooth out the deadzone for those few incredibly weird people who actually like having their weapons with a little give to it and not have to rotate their entire body just for a slight aim to the left and right. ;) (I'm sure both friends--LordJarhead and Robert Hammer are going to see this post and groan, "oh god, he's bringing this crap up again?!" haha)

[andersson 285]

Full deadzone sine 2001, the only way for me! :)

[mjolnir66 48]

Agreed with the above; the weapon sway mechanic is entirely unrealistic, and unwelcome in any form IMO. Nearly everyone I play with (and I play most nights) dislikes it, and the accompanying increase in sway that occurs when fatigued after running 300ft, or injured, can make some moments in-game infuriating.

If you're having problems shooting after running 300ft, you're either carrying too much, moving too fast or both. I've never had a problem with the fatigue, cause I try and keep my weight down. Though I suggest maybe you find a gun, go out, run in 30kg of kit for 300feet and then try shooting. Because its not easy. And if you find trying to shoot after having been injured infuriating, good, it damn well should be. You've been shot/peppered in shrapnel. The whole thing is unrealistic if you compare it to range shooting because its not designed for range shooting. ArmA2, which everyone seems o want to go back to made battlefield shooting into range shooting and the consequent increase in lethality made the game less enjoyable to play.

[S20 10]

If you're having problems shooting after running 300ft, you're either carrying too much, moving too fast or both. I've never had a problem with the fatigue, cause I try and keep my weight down. Though I suggest maybe you find a gun, go out, run in 30kg of kit for 300feet and then try shooting. Because its not easy. And if you find trying to shoot after having been injured infuriating, good, it damn well should be. You've been shot/peppered in shrapnel. The whole thing is unrealistic if you compare it to range shooting because its not designed for range shooting. ArmA2, which everyone seems o want to go back to made battlefield shooting into range shooting and the consequent increase in lethality made the game less enjoyable to play.

Well, let me rephrase then. 300ft is a rough guess of how far you can basically jog (the animation and speed are hardly a sprint), before debilatated by fatigue. I've never served in the military, but I've backpacked extensively, including some very fast travel above treeline. Yes, your heart-rate is up for a sustained period, but you don't slow to a crawl and have to take a dirt-nap to recover. That's absurd.

[Jona33 51]

Facts below.

as a blufor missile specialist at-which is a bloody big load, around 70-80%

jogging, weapon up: Covered 463m before being forced to stop jogging, after approximately 250m the slowdown in running is obvious,

sprinting: Covered 125m before being forced to slow to a jog.

As a blufor rifleman

jogging, weapon up: Covered 562m, was still going but then a script in the mission i was using to test kicked in which sort of put paid to that test.

Sprinting: Covered 215m before being forced to slow to a jog

[mjolnir66 48]

Well, let me rephrase then. 300ft is a rough guess of how far you can basically jog (the animation and speed are hardly a sprint), before debilatated by fatigue. I've never served in the military, but I've backpacked extensively, including some very fast travel above treeline. Yes, your heart-rate is up for a sustained period, but you don't slow to a crawl and have to take a dirt-nap to recover. That's absurd.

Facts below.

See this. An AT specialist is carrying a good 35 to 40kg of kit. I've moved with Javelin loads before, which is roughly the equivalent of a Titan kit, and I know I couldn't jog nearly 500m with it, let alone sprinting over 100m.

[Tsark 12]

Hi folks,

In my humble opinion a better and more realistic way of disadvantaging heavier and bulkier weapons would be to have more sway and more wobble progressively come in the longer you have your weapon up, (for every weapon) with the effect kicking in faster and harder the heavier and bulkier your weapon is. Lighter weapons could also be raised or lowered faster than heavier ones.

But in order for this to not make for infuriating gaming moments, some anim work would have to be done:

The default "combat" stance (as opposed to the relaxed 2x ctrl one) should be some kind of a low ready position, instead of the weapon up, and that wether you' re stopped, walking slowly, or at tactical jog speed. At any time, when stopped or moving at one of those speeds pressing c or left click once should make you very quickly raise your weapon, since the stock would already be placed against your shoulder, and most important, it shouldn' t make you stop/ slow down / accelerate/ move forward without being able to stop...etc as it is the case today with 2x ctrl, the transition should be as fluid as it come. Pressing c again would make you return to the low ready position, once again without stops...etc

That way it would discourage people from using heavy weapons to do things that they weren' t designed for as they couldn' t keep them up for a very long time or they would have to face the consequences (wobbling, sway) and when lowered they couldn' t transition to a high ready position as swiftly as someone with for example an smg or an assault rifle/carbine.

To further discourage people from using the heaviest weapons in cqb they could have a bit of weapon sway/wobble even when the soldier' s arm aren' t tired like we have now, but certainly not to the ridiculous level that it is at now.

It would also have the added bonus of avoiding to have everyone running around with their weapons constantly up, flagging their teamates and looking ridiculous.

To further develop the idea with the heavier weapons you could reach a point where if you keep those up for too long you can' t shoulder them anymore and can only keep them lowered or fire from the hip until you arms are a bit rested, but that would require even more anim work since in Arma your weapon is always shouldered even when your not looking through the sights, so it would need holding the weapon at hip level anims.

LaXemann already made a mod going in that direction, sadly unless BIS reworks the anims it' s not very practical.

What do you guys think?

[roshnak 41]

Suggestions

How do you think this would impact long distance shooting with regular rifles? I can only imagine it would make it significantly easier.

Also, do you envision this as a replacement for weapon sway, inertia, or both?

[Tsark 12]

How do you think this would impact long distance shooting with regular rifles? I can only imagine it would make it significantly easier.

Sorry, i should' ve explained myself a bit more clearly: I do not in any way advocate removing the classic weapon sway from Arma and turning it into an Arcade shooter. I' m fine with the classic sway, even after it became accentuated by an update a few months ago and made many people complain that there was too much sway.

I was specifically refering to the "crazy drunk dude sway wobbling" that is part of the weapon inertia mechanics that kicks after your shift your aim as little as 10 degrees no matter how smoothly (i' m only exagerating slightly) and makes urban combat/close range combat absolutely infuriating.

About how my suggestions would impact long range shooting, i believe that if anything it would make a bit harder as the normal sway would be left untouched so it wouldn' t be any easier on that side and and that it would even make it a bit harder as people would have to estimate when it is sound to raise their weapons to take a shot or that there is a high chance of a target popping up or rather when it is unproductive to stay with their weapon up, having their arms more and more tired and thus having more and more pronouced sway.

I envision this as a replacement for the "crazy sway/wobble" of the inertia update and as generally a new game mechanic giving more depth and imo more realism in general to the weapon handling.

If weapon resting is finally introduced with the marksman update, it could make weapon resting even more important as it would allow you to have your weapon up and ready without tiring your arms, in addition to the usual benefits of weapon resting.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Tsark

[roshnak 41]

In that case, while your idea is interesting, I'm not sure it's necessarily the right solution for Arma 3. One of the primary complaints (not from me) following the removal of turn rate limits with the release of Arma 3, was that players could now turn around too quickly, and your suggestion wouldn't really do anything to address that.

I definitely think there are things that could be done to improve the intertia system, though. A move to a more acceleration based model might help with tracking ability and encourage players to make smoother movements, while punishing sudden or jerky ones. I also think that the amount of inertia penalty added by equipping fore-end attachments like flashlights, IR pointers, and suppressors is a bit too high. I'm also not a fan of the way that sway kicks in following a turn.

[Tsark 12]

I had completely forgotten about people turning around too quickly, true.

Regarding that, some inertia would be kept. In my first post in this thread i mentionned keeping some inertia for the heavy weapons even when your arms aren' t tired, i forgot to mention that it wouldn' t mean that there wouldn' t be inertia at all for the lighter weapons; the longer you would keep your weapon up, the more inertia you would have in addition to the increase in sway, and the heavier and bulkier your weapon the faster you would have sway and inertia increase.

I definitely think there are things that could be done to improve the intertia system, though. A move to a more acceleration based model might help with tracking ability and encourage players to make smoother movements, while punishing sudden or jerky ones

Sounds good, and having a bit of inertia when turning around 180 degrees even with lighter weapons is understandable as long as it remains "a bit" and doesnt' t feel like your holding the rifle ad the end of your armes as if it was a pistol. The "inertia dead zone", as in the amount of degrees you can turn before the effect kicks in, along with the speed at which you can turn for small variation of angles should be increased though.

About the amount of inertia added by accessories, it just feels terribly gamey: "Make important tactical decisions! Would you rather have an IR Laser that serves no purpose since you can just aim with your sights and will make you unable to aim as if you were drunk and stoned or just use your CS crosshair? What would YOU do!?"

Come to think of it, the laser' s fate is sealed with the way the game handles all of that...

[dnk 13]

I like the sway and fatigue systems as they are now.

Seems realistic, maybe a bit too punishing for the slowness of sway cooldown when coming to a stop, but otherwise solid. The end result is realistic anyway. At any rate, the end result changes the tactics in a way that makes them more realistic, which really is key. The days of run-and-gun killing people with quick-scoping ms reactions at 150m after sprinting 200m are over, and that's for the best. If I want that, I'll play BF4.

As for the speed of sprinting, it's ~15MPH over 300m, which is realistic. Yeah, typical people can get up to 20MPH, but can they sustain that for a full 500-750m usually? The speed:stamina ratio is realistic at "sprint". Wanting an extra 33% speed is reasonable, but it would come at a higher stamina cost, and it'd be all but useless given a full 100% energy burst is hard to sustain in reality for more than 150m for anyone other than Olympic athletes and Tier 1 SOCOM operatives.

The different speeds and weight effects and stamina impacts all are reasonable as well. They force you to seriously consider your loadout and pace. If you want to cover large distances with much gear, you need to be low-jogging. If you are lightweight, you can fast-jog for most of it. If you're wearing 100kg, you better walk everywhere. This was the desired outcome, stated by the devs, and it's succeeded. While a few tweaks here and there might help, I think it's 90-95% "good as it can get" for the stated goals.

People are complaining because the game isn't CoD anymore, and the devs have come through with an actual realism feature that works and is reasonably accurate and forces more realistic gameplay.

[Smurf 12]

I don't like the way the sway its implemented;(when you are rested) It is not predictable, isn't smooth and fuck up everything when using scopes.

[twisted 127]

I don't like the way the sway its implemented;(when you are rested) It is not predictable, isn't smooth and fuck up everything when using scopes.

i like the idea of sway and agree with DNK that sways effects improve gameplay a lot.

but i use vts weapon resting to actually stablisie my rifle in game. REALLY HOPE BIS have bipods and weapon resting (the MOST voted and requested feature) in their marksman dlc coming soon. That's exactly what's needed to round it off.

edit - and i do quite like Tsark's idea of having weapon down as a default and having to hoist it up to fire. would imporve energy/faigue managament by defualt too. but bipods/weapon resting are whats needed to round this system out right now.

Edited January 3, 2015 by twisted

[andersson 285]

I like the sway and fatigue systems as they are now.

Seems realistic, maybe a bit too punishing for the slowness of sway cooldown when coming to a stop, but otherwise solid. The end result is realistic anyway. At any rate, the end result changes the tactics in a way that makes them more realistic, which really is key. The days of run-and-gun killing people with quick-scoping ms reactions at 150m after sprinting 200m are over, and that's for the best. If I want that, I'll play BF4.

As for the speed of sprinting, it's ~15MPH over 300m, which is realistic. Yeah, typical people can get up to 20MPH, but can they sustain that for a full 500-750m usually? The speed:stamina ratio is realistic at "sprint". Wanting an extra 33% speed is reasonable, but it would come at a higher stamina cost, and it'd be all but useless given a full 100% energy burst is hard to sustain in reality for more than 150m for anyone other than Olympic athletes and Tier 1 SOCOM operatives.

The different speeds and weight effects and stamina impacts all are reasonable as well. They force you to seriously consider your loadout and pace. If you want to cover large distances with much gear, you need to be low-jogging. If you are lightweight, you can fast-jog for most of it. If you're wearing 100kg, you better walk everywhere. This was the desired outcome, stated by the devs, and it's succeeded. While a few tweaks here and there might help, I think it's 90-95% "good as it can get" for the stated goals.

People are complaining because the game isn't CoD anymore, and the devs have come through with an actual realism feature that works and is reasonably accurate and forces more realistic gameplay.

Totally agree. In OA I got the habit to have quite some load in my rucksack as I didn't get a penalty. Today I have to think what I really need and maybe even ditch the backpack in some situations.

[machineabuse 11]

Inertia and Sway today is what the expanding crosshair was 12 years ago; a refinement of a stepping stone. Back then I recall the devs of Raven Shield saying; "iron sights aren't fun". So much for that :p

Now as then; there really isn't much good reason we can't have better.

Inertia would be better if it were acceleration based and sway behavior would benefit greatly with refinement to work more organically based on the way the player last moved their mouse.

I will say I have no qualms with stamina and fatigue as it stands. It seems pretty reasonable to me.

[dnk 13]

I don't like the way the sway its implemented;(when you are rested) It is not predictable, isn't smooth and fuck up everything when using scopes.

It's only an issue for me when my player is in an odd stance, out of breath, and/or injured. As it should be. Otherwise, it's very easily controlled in my opinion.

[bigpickle 0]

Sway and recoil system is terrible and it keeps alot of A2 players from arma3, almost every person i asked why havent you moved to arma3? They say its right up there as one of the main reasons.