Marksmen DLC: Concerns regarding suppressors

[L3TUC3 32]

I don't know if there was a balancing reason for it, and I can imagine there is. But compared to other things lacking this is really low on the list. Typically with BI, for something to not be in the game, or the way it is, it's been time/resource constraints and I can see why .50 silencers weren't a priority.

Ironically, for quite a while the M320 and GM6 with iron sights were awesome CQC guns. Without inertia, sway and fatigue there was no drawback to run n gun as if it's a slug shotgun, scoring OHKs to the pinky toes. I can only imagine the lulz with a silencer on it too.

It was pretty awkward to see in a game that prides itself on realism. A3 over the last year has made some huge steps to bring it closer to its simulation roots, with probably the biggest one coming tomorrow.

Tl;dr Should .50 silencers be in on realism merit? Sure.

Is it worth the time/effort/money? Probably not.

[Jona33 51]

That makes sense.

I wonder why my bipod says premium when I mouse over it. The text color changes to yellow/gold as well.

Muahahaha! I have a special bipod that no one else has! :-)

Thanks for the info,

-Doc

Freaky, I don't remember it being like that. Out of curiosity do you get ads when using the bipods on vanilla weapons?

[Jackal326 1181]

I don't know if there was a balancing reason for it, and I can imagine there is. But compared to other things lacking this is really low on the list. Typically with BI, for something to not be in the game, or the way it is, it's been time/resource constraints and I can see why .50 silencers weren't a priority.

Ironically, for quite a while the M320 and GM6 with iron sights were awesome CQC guns. Without inertia, sway and fatigue there was no drawback to run n gun as if it's a slug shotgun, scoring OHKs to the pinky toes. I can only imagine the lulz with a silencer on it too.

It was pretty awkward to see in a game that prides itself on realism. A3 over the last year has made some huge steps to bring it closer to its simulation roots, with probably the biggest one coming tomorrow.

Tl;dr Should .50 silencers be in on realism merit? Sure.

Is it worth the time/effort/money? Probably not.

Just to pick up on the time/effort/money argument at the end of your post. I've been developing a few internal addons for the squad I am a part of and one such addon is a small pack of sniper-rifles. Without going in to too much detail I was able to model, texture (including UV mapping and all that jazz) as well as code 3 suppressors (2 different .50cal and 1 .338 Lapua Magnum suppressor) in the space of a couple of hours. I even went ahead and added the proxies onto the rifle models themselves in those couple of hours, and I'm by no means a professional modeller/texture artist/coder.

I understand if BI decided to leave them out as some sort of balancing issue, but to try and say its because they didn't have time or the resources to add them is simply a fallacy.

[chortles 263]

It's entirely possible that that BI's perception of time/resources is affected by how badly anyone internally wants said suppressors (most likely answer: not at all​).

[doc. caliban 34]

Freaky, I don't remember it being like that. Out of curiosity do you get ads when using the bipods on vanilla weapons?

Ads? Oh man, could that actually happen?

Luckily, no. It wasn't always like that, BTW ... it's only been recently that I've noticed the bipod showing as premium. I'm using it on the MK18. (I switch back and forth between the bipod and laser designator during missions.)

I guess that's another thing ... enemy with NV don't see the laser designator, but oh well.

-Doc

---------- Post added at 22:02 ---------- Previous post was at 21:57 ----------

I don't understand why they wouldn't want them ... (Just thinking out loud, not arguing the point.) The advantage is exactly the same as it is with the sidearms, assault rifles, and DMRs. That's why I figured it was a misplaced effort at unneeded balancing.

I mean, what difference does it make to my target if I'm shooting them from 800m with a suppressed weapon vs. from 1,400 meters with a different suppressed weapon?

My personal interest in having the option is that my MP play is typically 2-3 person co-op, so as much stealth as possible is usually the rule.

-Doc

Edited April 7, 2015 by Doc. Caliban

[L3TUC3 32]

Just to pick up on the time/effort/money argument at the end of your post. I've been developing a few internal addons for the squad I am a part of and one such addon is a small pack of sniper-rifles. Without going in to too much detail I was able to model, texture (including UV mapping and all that jazz) as well as code 3 suppressors (2 different .50cal and 1 .338 Lapua Magnum suppressor) in the space of a couple of hours. I even went ahead and added the proxies onto the rifle models themselves in those couple of hours, and I'm by no means a professional modeller/texture artist/coder.

I understand if BI decided to leave them out as some sort of balancing issue, but to try and say its because they didn't have time or the resources to add them is simply a fallacy.

That's pretty awesome, and I hope you'll consider releasing/adapting your mod so we can lay this topic to rest. But if anyone made a fallacy, it's you. You cannot compare a mod-maker to a professional for-profit development team, even if the end result may be the same or better. The requirements, deadlines and organizational structure are vastly different. If the boss says 'nope, work on X instead', then that's what happens. They obviously can do it, but odds are there's going to be a few more people (at minimum 2) involved in creating the items, and that's if the artist wears different hats like you, not counting QA. It's a more complicated process, one modders don't have to adhere to or can even skip parts.

I had a project job once where I got paid $15 an hour to make pictures of unique items, edit the pictures and make them ready to put up for sale on a website. My boss signed off on all pictures and had me redo any he didn't like because reasons. I messed up on one item and he didn't tell me to redo it, and I wondered why. "This thing sells for $0.05, we just added it for completeness. Just do it in the next batch". It just wasn't worth the time/effort/money to him to redo it right away. Or pretty much ever since I had 1000s of other items to photograph still.

If you take that analogy and apply it to BI's current business projects, odds are most if not all available resources are going towards the expansion asset creation. And time is a pretty important finite resource.

It's surprisingly but understandably easy to trivialize and underestimate efforts required for seemingly small additions and pretty optimistic many think BI can just whip something up at just the suggestion. The reality unfortunately just doesn't match the expectation.,

[doc. caliban 34]

That's pretty awesome, and I hope you'll consider releasing/adapting your mod so we can lay this topic to rest. But if anyone made a fallacy, it's you. You cannot compare a mod-maker to a professional for-profit development team, even if the end result may be the same or better. The requirements, deadlines and organizational structure are vastly different. If the boss says 'nope, work on X instead', then that's what happens. They obviously can do it, but odds are there's going to be a few more people (at minimum 2) involved in creating the items, and that's if the artist wears different hats like you, not counting QA. It's a more complicated process, one modders don't have to adhere to or can even skip parts.

I had a project job once where I got paid $15 an hour to make pictures of unique items, edit the pictures and make them ready to put up for sale on a website. My boss signed off on all pictures and had me redo any he didn't like because reasons. I messed up on one item and he didn't tell me to redo it, and I wondered why. "This thing sells for $0.05, we just added it for completeness. Just do it in the next batch". It just wasn't worth the time/effort/money to him to redo it right away. Or pretty much ever since I had 1000s of other items to photograph still.

If you take that analogy and apply it to BI's current business projects, odds are most if not all available resources are going towards the expansion asset creation. And time is a pretty important finite resource.

It's surprisingly but understandably easy to trivialize and underestimate efforts required for seemingly small additions and pretty optimistic many think BI can just whip something up at just the suggestion. The reality unfortunately just doesn't match the expectation.,

Agreed: Release your mod and shut that damn Doc. Caliban guy up. :-)

Also being familiar with software production is why I always cite PM (Project Managers) as typically being responsible for where lines are drawn on features.

-Doc

[das attorney 858]

In 30 years of FPS gaming it's always annoyed me when suppressed weapons are penalized with fictitious limitations in games (less power usually being the case) in the name of "balancing". While understandable with the popularity of PvP style gaming and the level of "it's not fair!" whininess of enough of the players, PM's feel that they have to neuter what some players perceive as an unfair, super-weapon when they find themselves on the wrong end of it. With Arma, I hoped that wouldn't happen and that players would simply be subjected to the real-wolrd unpleasantness of being in such a situation.

So are you going to ask BIS to reinstate/revisit weapon collision with object geometry?

I can stick a silencer on a long rifle and navigate through a house no problem, which shouldn't be the case. It doesn't bother me that much but seeing as this thread is about realism, I thought you would want to consider that when asking for all the other things related to silencers in the name of realism.

I'm not talking about the slight increase to inertia when a silencer is fitted, I mean that the barrel ( plus silencer) clip through objects.

[doc. caliban 34]

So are you going to ask BIS to reinstate/revisit weapon collision with object geometry?

I can stick a silencer on a long rifle and navigate through a house no problem, which shouldn't be the case. It doesn't bother me that much but seeing as this thread is about realism, I thought you would want to consider that when asking for all the other things related to silencers in the name of realism.

I'm not talking about the slight increase to inertia when a silencer is fitted, I mean that the barrel ( plus silencer) clip through objects.

They had weapon clipping? Oh man, why did they disable it? We are in the habit of switching to handguns or PDWs when going into buildings as a way of self-inforcing a sense of realism ... actual clipping would be great!

But no, I'm just staying on my topic of the two suppressors. There are no doubt many things that can be improved or what have you, but this particular cause is one that means something to me since it's such a commonly misunderstood thing, argued against with overly-specific what-if's, and in this case they already set up at least 5 other suppressors, so programmatically the feature is already there. I'll let others take up the cause on other topics.

-Doc

[Brisse 78]

There was full weapon collision a long time ago but some players found it annoying because it was easy to get stuck, and sometimes it didn't make sense to get stuck, so they changed it. There's still collision I think, but the game allows a certain degree of clipping. It's not as punishing as it used to be.

Try walking sideways through a small door opening with a shouldered M320 or GM6. I bet it will not work (you will get stuck), and that will pretty much confirm there's still weapon collision in the game.

[Jackal326 1181]

That's pretty awesome, and I hope you'll consider releasing/adapting your mod so we can lay this topic to rest.

I've re-read my original post and what I failed to mention is the rifle/suppressors I worked on were not the M203 AND GM6 but were other, non-BIS rifles. Editing their ArmA3 models is impossible, though if they want to send me the MLODs I wouldn't mind releasing an addon on their behalf to end this discussion as suggested *hint* *hint* *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*. I perhaps should have been more clear.

As to the rest of your points L3TUC3, you're perhaps right that I cannot apply the same logic to BI's method and work practices.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Jackal326

[das attorney 858]

There was full weapon collision a long time ago but some players found it annoying because it was easy to get stuck, and sometimes it didn't make sense to get stuck, so they changed it. There's still collision I think, but the game allows a certain degree of clipping. It's not as punishing as it used to be.

Try walking sideways through a small door opening with a shouldered M320 or GM6. I bet it will not work (you will get stuck), and that will pretty much confirm there's still weapon collision in the game.

Incorrect.

There used to be a mod many moons ago that made you lower your weapon when there wasn't enough room to wield it but for whatever reason BIS decided to remove collision entirely rather than account for it.

Now you can do "peek-a-boo" shooting round the corners of walls and door frames...

[Brisse 78]

Oh crap. Didn't think it was like that. Thanks for the video.

[das attorney 858]

Here's the mod for Arma 2:

And A3:

By Norrin. Pretty cool imo - much better than what we have now.

[fareast 20]

yes we need better weapon collision asap..there's some exploit going on with the current system

http://i.imgur.com/VOVpjK4.jpg

[jgaz-uk 132]

Arma 3 Marksmen DLC; Purchased this DLC (as I have all the A3 DLC) not seeing the Tripod deploy visually it remains in the up position. Am getting the top right icon showing it deployed & firing is more stable, BUT no visual difference to weapon sadly. Have I missed something like a key combination? The Steam Sales pitch video shows tripod actualy in the down position, are we looking at a bit of artistic licence, other wise known as Bull, or Is it me again :bounce3:

[chortles 263]

The default keybind for deploying is C, bipods simply increase the stat benefit.

[jgaz-uk 132]

Right, I'm running the Climb mod which uses C key,

I'll have to change stuff. Thanks for the info.

[metralla 19]

EDIT: Great! I've been shown the error in my information. My concerns are abated.

Please, don't let the DLC become an intentional lever to force us to spend money on this obvious, missing feature.

Let's let BIS know that, while we may love and appreciate the Marksmen DLC, we don't appreciate having to pay additional money for basic functionality that has been intentionally left out of the product that we've already bought. Not everyone can justify spending the money on the DLC. Not everyone will be interested in the additional content of the DLC. However, everyone deserves to have the complete, basic functionality and features that they've already paid for.

The two missing suppressors should be added to the base game via a free patch because they are just that; missing. They are not a DLC feature.

Best,

-Doc

I pay and keep paying while this game continue improving and adding new content.

This game takes two years and continues to develop with updates every day except major holidays. :)

Your money and everyone who wants to contribute in this game continue to improve not mind paying € 12 for any DLC. developers work must be paid, is not free friend. :cheers::icon_slap:

[doc. caliban 34]

Freaky, I don't remember it being like that. Out of curiosity do you get ads when using the bipods on vanilla weapons?

I was wrong. When I hover over the bipod, it says it's premium content and prompts me to press a key combo to, "purchase this DLC". I ignore that and it works just like normal.

-Doc

---------- Post added at 04:30 ---------- Previous post was at 04:26 ----------

I pay and keep paying while this game continue improving and adding new content.

This game takes two years and continues to develop with updates every day except major holidays. :)

Your money and everyone who wants to contribute in this game continue to improve not mind paying € 12 for any DLC. developers work must be paid, is not free friend. :cheers::icon_slap:

I have no issues with the DLC in general ... a mod on the issue tracker had lead me to believe that the two suppressors that aren't in the vanilla game for the .50 and .408 would be added with the DLC. That was my gripe. Turns out to not be the case though.

-Doc

[Varanon 892]

There used to be a mod many moons ago that made you lower your weapon when there wasn't enough room to wield it but for whatever reason BIS decided to remove collision entirely rather than account for it.

Now you can do "peek-a-boo" shooting round the corners of walls and door frames...

Since the new weapon resting feature requires constant evaluation of what's in front of you (so it can rest the gun if needed), it shouldn't be too hard to implement this feature. Just lower the gun when close to a wall, similar to how the mod handled this.

It's a really necessary feature to balance out gameplay, and AFAIK, balance was one of the corner stones of Arma 3 development, wasn't it ?

(By the way, check how the old Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter handled this... get close to a wall, the gun is simply retracted).

[doc. caliban 34]

Since the new weapon resting feature requires constant evaluation of what's in front of you (so it can rest the gun if needed), it shouldn't be too hard to implement this feature. Just lower the gun when close to a wall, similar to how the mod handled this.

It's a really necessary feature to balance out gameplay, and AFAIK, balance was one of the corner stones of Arma 3 development, wasn't it ?

(By the way, check how the old Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter handled this... get close to a wall, the gun is simply retracted).

I liked that feature in GRAW.

Personally, I hope that Arma 3 is about anything but balancing. Balancing is for games, and we need a title that values realism over all else in the interest of being more on the "simulator" side of the scale, IMO. Arma is the closest thing we are likely to get.

Balancing is about "fairness", and fairness is a concept invented by human beings. Reality doesn't believe in it.

-Doc

[chortles 263]

... you weren't around for much of Arma 3 development, were you?

[doc. caliban 34]

... you weren't around for much of Arma 3 development, were you?

I'm a customer; I was only around for the spending my money part. :-)

Were you going to elaborate? I can imagine that there was a lot of back and forth over balancing whatever they wanted the product to be and what the masses were wanting. My vote is always for realism when there is a choice. Plenty of FPS game-games out there already. So far, Arma has been great.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Doc. Caliban

[chortles 263]

I'm a customer; I was only around for the spending my money part. :-)

Were you going to elaborate? I can imagine that there was a lot of back and forth over balancing whatever they wanted the product to be and what the masses were wanting. My vote is always for realism when there is a choice. Plenty of FPS game-games out there already. So far, Arma has been great.

Sorry for the late reply, but BI has made official statements specifically deeming Arma 3 to be a sandbox game with a default "near future military" theme, and unofficially has practically run away from the term "simulator"...

(Unofficially, the designers have also tended to treat Arma gameplay as informed by but not inherently beholden to realism*, tending towards more realistic than most shooters but still a game... and of course, there's all the time/scope/budget trifecta that can prevent or delay implementations of stuff that even the devs are interested, i.e. windage running into the brick wall that was performance and up against the Marksmen DLC's 8 April 2015 deadline.)

* You won't be able to shame the devs into more realism by pointing out VBS3 either, especially when there's multiple testimonials on its thread deeming Arma 3 the better game.