The Struggle - Enter-able Buildings Vs. Non/Partly-Enter-able Buildings

[killshot 5]

I don't really care about furnitures in Arma, but I bet there would be 50 new types of buildings and 100 new furnishings within two weeks and without a dollar to pay, if BI would just ask the community for their help with this issue.

[pettka 694]

Why not hire people ? we're paying for the expansion, you'll sell a lot more and make more income if the terrain is top notch, less enterable buildings will put a lot off and therefore affect sales.

 

 

I don't really care about furnitures in Arma, but I bet there would be 50 new types of buildings and 100 new furnishings within two weeks and without a dollar to pay, if BI would just ask the community for their help with this issue.

 

We are actually doing that already for quite some time, see our career page - several teams have already been so kind to stat cooperating with us.

[dunedain 48]

I really like the idea of open buildings that are fully destructible, the emptiness of the structures never bothered me.

 

Actually I remember that was probably my biggest disappointment with Sarhani and Chernarus the first time I launched Armed Assault and ArmaII after so many years playing on Nogova. Takistan and Zargabad are such good maps because you can enter about every single buildings.

 

I thought the "official" stance regarding interior furniture was always that it was up to the mission maker to put stuff where is needed to save performance actually. I don't see any reason to change that, especially now the game is gonna feature its own 3D mission editor.

 

Sounds like a step backward imo.

[BadHabitz 235]

Yes, Stratis and Altis do have a strange feel because of the empty buildings. If it's because of a trade-off for performance, then it's the right call to make. I think most agree that we'd rather have empty buildings than non-enterable buildings.

 

I wouldn't mind large buildings with most of the interior being closed off. As long as most of the first floor is open and there's a means to access the roof, then that would be acceptable. 

 

Small houses and buildings must be fully enterable. To not have that would kill the immersion that this game builds. When we approach a village or town, we know that our targets or goals are in one of those buildings. Each building feels like an important part of the environment. Having buildings that can not be entered feels like they're just props... "We don't need to search that house, it doesn't have any real doors".

[St. Jimmy 272]

Yeah I'd rather have some nice vegetation, trees, rocks or something rather than a building that can't be entered at all. Small buildings should be fully enterable and bit bigger (2 stories or above) should be at least partly enterable.

[hardsiesta 1]

It feels weird only when you're indoors yourself and have time to wonder about it. And then it's easy to understand when you go outside and realize you don't know any other game that offers similar combat or the environment for it. This is probably why none of the noobs I've recruited have complained about it either. They're in to play the tactical sandbox for the tactical possibilities it offers, not aestethics.

Big buildings being partial is fine and entirely reasonable, like how it is in A3 or DayZ SA. It really helps that more often than not, you're still surrounded by many other buildings with many other real peepholes to worry about.

In the end nothing feels as weird as the mostly unenterable A2 houses.

And really, it's not like the interiors have generally been any focus or exactly credible in pretty much any other (primarily multiplayer) shooters either, although their platforms and overall gameplay design are far better built to do it, without exception. That occasional hookah and a carpet was pretty much right in the league in terms of object count. Other than that, the interior immersion is much more about much higher variation in lighting and texturing in those primarily mp games. It's going to be really weird if Arma will have the most furniture and least enterability, compared to much more casual shooters.

Also, if there will be significant amount of furniture, will it be destroyable or movable? Will they have their own penetrabilities and such? Whether they do, I expect this to bring in some weirdness for its part as well.

[old_painless 182]

Good point about the 3D editor - it will be easier to put furniture in houses now by ourselves during mission making. So BI should not take out enterable buildings for that reason

[Varanon 892]

Small houses and buildings must be fully enterable. To not have that would kill the immersion that this game builds.

 

OTOH, go out on the street of your hometown, approach a random building, and try to enter... you'll notice that you can enter about 1 % of them (0.5 % of them being your own house).

 

While I agree that houses SHOULD be enterable, I found the completely empty buildings on Altis/Stratis more immersion killing than not being able to enter them.

 

Ideally, it would be possible to enter everything and all buildings had a decent interior, but I guess that is beyond the current generation of machines to handle

[dunedain 48]

OTOH, go out on the street of your hometown, approach a random building, and try to enter... you'll notice that you can enter about 1 % of them (0.5 % of them being your own house).

 

I don't think any of use live in a warzone and I wouldn't encourage people here to go out kicking doors open with a rifle on their back. 

 

Anyway I thought one of the main advantages of finally having a built-in 3D editor was to allow for anyone to place objects with ease in their mission.

 

I guess eventually we might even have pre-built pasteable templates of furnitures for the different structures. That would be pretty useful.

[chortles 263]

Big buildings being partial is fine and entirely reasonable, like how it is in A3 or DayZ SA. It really helps that more often than not, you're still surrounded by many other buildings with many other real peepholes to worry about.

In the end nothing feels as weird as the mostly unenterable A2 houses.

Apparently that last part was a consideration -- the designers were probably thinking the same thing that Varanon voiced (that "possible to enter everything and all buildings had a decent interior" wasn't happening so it was a choice between bad or worse), and DnA specified that (as Rocket seemingly did early on) that the problem with A2's houses wasn't them not being unenterable but not being visibly so (i.e. boarded-up windows).

[joostsidy 685]

Well just to empasize: to me the problem is not furniture or missing visual cues of unenterable buildings, its the unenterable buildings themselves. It feels like a step back while on the other hand each building could be created to be a mini-game-level in itself with either a lot of rooms to explore, partial entrance for large buildings with roof top access or maybe even some 'rare' features like a hard to reach attic or an interesting animation on some part (door/window/hatch) of the building.

 

I would have liked for instance that the ice-cream freezer belonging to one of the snack shops had a movable lid just like the rare animation of the playground merry-go-round. A couple of rare details like these keep you looking for hidden interesting things and can even be functional in some scenario's.

[hardsiesta 1]

Apparently that last part was a consideration -- the designers were probably thinking the same thing that Varanon voiced (that "possible to enter everything and all buildings had a decent interior" wasn't happening so it was a choice between bad or worse), and DnA specified that (as Rocket seemingly did early on) that the problem with A2's houses wasn't them not being unenterable but not being visibly so (i.e. boarded-up windows).

Yeah, if there are unenterable buildings, it should be somewhat obvious visually. But I do find it quite a problem if an object serves only as a prop although it could have crucial gameplay value in a game like Arma. And picking props over gameplay is worse imo.

I was mostly refering to SA apartment blocks tho. Somewhat like MDCCLXXVI said, perhaps having at least 1 usable windowed floor with ground floor (+possible roof) in most buildings, regardless of the actual number of storeys in the building, is the sweet spot that requires least work while still retaining most of the tactical aspects in having buildings at all. Mixed with variable storey buildings, it might work pretty well even if the buildings got bigger than 2 storey. There would still be plenty of peepholes on the horizontal plane, but also different vertical levels to keep in mind or take advantage of.

The real problem with the "emptiness" in A3 buildings is that the majority of the buildings are the orange roof plaster house type-clones, and all the rooms in those buildings have the same flat grey textures. The rarer buildings, like the stone houses don't really suffer from this as much imo. There's also that the (lack of) lighting complexity doesn't do any favors to interiors. All non-linear shooter games generally keep furnitures and unnecessary props to minimum anyway. Just a little more color and variation in textures would go a long way on Altis too, so I hope they don't go all A2 just so they can get nice but completely irrelevant aestethics in order. But they really shouldn't underestimate the importance of having buildings bring authentic complexity to the combat environment, especially now that they have already achieved it.

[BadHabitz 235]

OTOH, go out on the street of your hometown, approach a random building, and try to enter... you'll notice that you can enter about 1 % of them (0.5 % of them being your own house).

 

While I agree that houses SHOULD be enterable, I found the completely empty buildings on Altis/Stratis more immersion killing than not being able to enter them.

 

Ideally, it would be possible to enter everything and all buildings had a decent interior, but I guess that is beyond the current generation of machines to handle

 

My experience runs counter to that. A building that is not enterable is just a large block with a pretty texture on it. It might as well be a boulder on the hill. 

 

If we're searching a town or a village to rescue someone, or trying to achieve whatever goal is in our way, it's asinine to say we'd just skip a building because 'the door was locked'.

 

Sounds to me like being able to enter all buildings is just fine for our tech. Altis does it just fine, and most attempts to blame it on performance are met by a little pushback from the devs. It's about manpower and the schedule they've imposed on themselves. I give them credit for trying, since they're recruiting freelance modelers, but let's not cloud this issue by explaining it away with some reason that's not the overwhelming truth.

Stratis and Altis are examples where almost every structure can be entered, and that was one of the selling points of A3. If we have to take a step back from that in the expansion due to BI not having the resources to push out a completed project, then I hope they plan to offer the expansion at a reduced cost. People shouldn't have to pay 100% for 75% of a product.

[rundll.exe 12]

If it's a time/manpower problem, why not work on the interiors after the release? As long as the outer shape stays the same, I see no reason for custom missions to break, and each update could open up some more houses. 

 

Having a few houses un-enter-able because they have boarded-up windows is fine, but if you repeat this too much, it becomes unbelievable.  It's also fine to have multi-story buildings have only one or 2 enter-able floors, and put some barrier on the stairs to the third. As long as there's a ladder from the roof to the ground  ;)

[Alwarren 2767]

I guess eventually we might even have pre-built pasteable templates of furnitures for the different structures. That would be pretty useful.

 

And pretty unusable too. Placing too many objects will generate lag. You will only be able to furnish a handful of buildings.

[Alwarren 2767]

My experience runs counter to that. A building that is not enterable is just a large block with a pretty texture on it. It might as well be a boulder on the hill.

I don't quite get that type of argument. With the same line you could argue that trees are not climbable, so they could as well be boulders on the hill. Or that the transformer stations don't provide real electricity. Yes, enterable buildings are preferable over non-enterable buildings, but a city of houses devoid of any interior furniture isn't exactly that useful either.

 

but let's not cloud this issue by explaining it away with some reason that's not the overwhelming truth.

That's a good one.

They said in the SITREP that they do not have the means to provide full interiors including furniture for every building. It's a point to argue, and some people will agree that it's fine that some buildings cannot be entered, while others will prefer empty but enterable buildings. Let's not try to blow this up into one ultimate truth. This is your opinion. Other people have other opinions. Selling your own opinion as the "overwhelming truth" is like claiming your farts smell better. I.e. it's a mood point.

[BadHabitz 235]

I don't quite get that type of argument. With the same line you could argue that trees are not climbable, so they could as well be boulders on the hill. Or that the transformer stations don't provide real electricity. Yes, enterable buildings are preferable over non-enterable buildings, but a city of houses devoid of any interior furniture isn't exactly that useful either.

 

That's a good one.

They said in the SITREP that they do not have the means to provide full interiors including furniture for every building. It's a point to argue, and some people will agree that it's fine that some buildings cannot be entered, while others will prefer empty but enterable buildings. Let's not try to blow this up into one ultimate truth. This is your opinion. Other people have other opinions. Selling your own opinion as the "overwhelming truth" is like claiming your farts smell better. I.e. it's a mood point.

 

So you're saying the solution to not being able to furnish interiors is to provide no interior at all? Sounds like the option of every building being empty but enterable would be the preferred option. I'd like to see a poll. What I get from the SITREP and dev comments is that they don't have enough resources; which means they don't have enough people versus the time they have left, in relation to the amount of work that needs to be done. Discussing performance appears to be the fall back option when it comes to arguments, because given the condition the game is in, discussion of performance issues isn't unbelievable in any circumstance. 

[froggyluv 2136]

I don't quite get that type of argument. With the same line you could argue that trees are not climbable, so they could as well be boulders on the hill. Or that the transformer stations don't provide real electricity. Yes, enterable buildings are preferable over non-enterable buildings, but a city of houses devoid of any interior furniture isn't exactly that useful either.

 

 

Yes but unless we're talking bout the Great Koala vs Sloth Wars of '87, trees arent anywhere near as relevant to warfare as are buildings. On the contrary, buildings are a huge part of just about any war and add another full dimension of depth, strategy, as well as being useful for storytelling. For instance my favorite type of scenario is fighting somewhere on the outskirts of a town whether it be wooded, mountain etc.. and then finally spilling into town. If the buildings weren't enterable in said town, it's really pretty disappointing as you know to just check the corners of the buildings and any other map baked objects for enemies. The house interior provides a depth of mystery, "Whats going on in there?", "Are there prisoners in there or Civilians?'...etc As said, approaching a town needing to check every window, doorway as well as the outside world just triples the value as far as im concerned -but to each their own.

 

[-Coulum- 35]

t a city of houses devoid of any interior furniture isn't exactly that useful either.

WHAT! A city of enter-able buildings devoid of interior furniture is way more useful than totally un-enter-able buildings. Huge difference. The former might take hours to clear out of enemies with intense firefights, CQC and house to house fighting,despite armoured, artillery or air support. The latter can be cleared in short order, mostly from afar, even more so with armored, arty or air support. Un-enter-able vs enter-able buildings is the difference between a nonfactor infantry platoon in a town, and entrenched pain in my ass infantry platoon making me pay dearly for every inch of ground. 

 

All the enter able buildings in Arma 3 thus far has changed alot about the gameplay. It would be a real shame if it was changed on Tonoa.    

[soulis6 24]

I chuckled at the 'its a return to its roots' comment, if you believe that, then that's o.k. with me. I don't for one minute, certainly not from our gameplay point of view, but still, your very entitled to your view and from your gameplay style it might be the case, we all play differently.

There again, you alluded to something with your other comments, regards broader applications. That sort of said something to me as a player. Now as I said, from a business point of view, why not. From a players point of view, especially for our gameplay style, its not a good thing.

 

Regards the improvements in AI, I did say that in the post. But they're not vast improvements, they are however better and much appreciated. But getting AI into, and using, buildings would be a big (vast) step forward. Also having them use heavily wooded areas really well, would be good too. Lets face it, with this new terrain, the AI are going to need to know how to move around in a confined wooded area, whilst doing it really well. Should be fun watching it. On the other hand buildings have been sorted...

 

I don't play A3 much, I really only sightsee & tinker in the editor from time to time, in here. Also don't get me wrong, many players don't even notice the AI, they're quite happy to just run around and kill as many as possible, perhaps that's their game, which is also fine, more do it now than ever in the series. But there are many players and groups out there, that don't play that way, many never have in this series, They/we would much rather kill few and have realistic gameplay, whereas the AI are a real challenge. But at the moment, that's not in the Vanilla game, unfortunately it never really has been. Closing buildings won't get us any nearer either, just a plaster fix.

 

Speak for yourself there buddy. Don't try and lump all the players into the forum into some 'players vs devs' sides. 

 

I notice the AI plenty, and have been playing the series since OFP, and the AI is miles better than it ever was Arma 2. Try taking off the rose colored glasses next time. 

 

 

Returning to buildings, I agree that i'd rather have empty buildings that are enter-able, but if it's more like a half-and-half thing, with some of the large ones only climbable or having a lobby or something (like the previously mentioned kavala hospital) i'm fine with that too.

[Roach_ 52]

Speak for yourself there buddy. Don't try and lump all the players into the forum into some 'players vs devs' sides. 

 

I notice the AI plenty, and have been playing the series since OFP, and the AI is miles better than it ever was Arma 2. Try taking off the rose colored glasses next time. 

 

 

Returning to buildings, I agree that i'd rather have empty buildings that are enter-able, but if it's more like a half-and-half thing, with some of the large ones only climbable or having a lobby or something (like the previously mentioned kavala hospital) i'm fine with that too.

 

Exactly my thoughts. And we also have to realise Tanoa is a way different place from what BI has ever done before. For what I've seen, urban warfare shouldn't play such a big role as before.

[DancZer 65]

They could do all building fully enterable post release too, just as they did with stadium and ghost hotel. I can't wait what else the expansion brings. I would happy with more vehicle(with interior????) and less enterable building. We should wait the future reports until we go to the wrong direction with this topic.

[meaty 34]

a good compromise might be making all the houses enterable (even if the rooms are completly void of furniture and just basic box rooms) and then have all the little sheds/shacks/garages etc non-enterable. That way you strike the balance of having buildings for cover, without the extra drain on performance.

[chrisb 196]

Speak for yourself there buddy. Don't try and lump all the players into the forum into some 'players vs devs' sides. 

 

I notice the AI plenty, and have been playing the series since OFP, and the AI is miles better than it ever was Arma 2. Try taking off the rose colored glasses next time. 

 

 

Returning to buildings, I agree that i'd rather have empty buildings that are enter-able, but if it's more like a half-and-half thing, with some of the large ones only climbable or having a lobby or something (like the previously mentioned kavala hospital) i'm fine with that too.

 

You did read the post, I'm assuming you didn't.. Then try again and tell me how you arrived at that response ?

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Ok, so I have come to the conclusion that the best route BIS could take is the one they've stated. However, that does't mean that we would essentially agree that many of the buildings would remain unenterable. After release, even if BIS doesn't have the resources or performance to create enough enter able interiors, they can still edit those buildings and update them. So for instance, they can create the basic building design, and make it enter able on a later date, relating to whether performance or manpower is available.