Why do so many have a problem with thermals?

[ivan keska 45]

Something i've started to notice more and more since working on a making server, is that people often have a problem with thermals. Now I understood the concern before really just on altis which has so much open ground, thus no cover to use. But on maps like Stratis and now Tanoa, there is a lot of cover and areas in general that just greatly reduce spotting range. And now we have the anti-thermal uniforms and gear that pretty much make you invisible on thermals and only really noticeable if at very close range. Yet people still hate the idea of thermals, like they are a guaranteed win option. When avoiding them isn't that hard if you play smart and now you are free to take more risk because you can mask your thermal signature.

To me it's a game play mechanic that adds an extra layer to combat, and can be countered if you know what you are doing and understand were they are good and bad. Anyways what do you guys think about the subject are you for thermals or against, and if so why.

[Jona33 51]

I really like the new thermal stuff. The ARMA 3 thermal goggles are definitely not some sort of god mode, in that holding up a hot (recently fired) weapon in front of them washes them out so they're really not OP, as to use them effectively you really need to lower your weapon. They therefore favour careful movement and sparing use if you're in heavy fighting.

 

On Altis they could be, and every vehicle having thermal optics was a pain given how open it was, but on Tanoa they're brilliantly helpful.

[ineptaphid 6413]

Well I think this come down to peoples "gamey" way of thinking. While I know arma is a game, it still strives for realism, and so I think that if something exists, then it can't be described as OP or unfair. 

 

I remember someone complaining on the RHS thread that the Abrahms tank was OP and could take a lot of RPG hits.Well...thats because an Abrahms tank CAn take a lot of RPG hits and is basically indestructible.

 

MAny countries use thermal scopes on SOF missions and in vehicles in real life and so I don't see an issue in Arma.  I've never seen a group of Afghan insurgents suddenly sit down  and start shouting at the Americans or British "No fair guys!That Apache is way OP! We're not playing anymore :( "

 

;)

[dr death jm 117]

pffft .. play the way you wanna play....

 in my mission, everyone is in the dark and all ya got is flashlights... lol... fun...

[ineptaphid 6413]

pffft .. play the way you wanna play....

 in my mission, everyone is in the dark and all ya got is flashlights... lol... fun...

Exactly. Anyway-I only play singleplayer, so i don't have  to think about stuff like this ;)

[JojoTheSlayer 35]

Only thing that jumped out at me with the new Apex night/thermal visions is that the nightvision part is wrong. Because the reason you have the mid circle view on the old nighvision googles (OpFlash to A2). Is because they were two eye pieces going into one camera lens like the image, but the new Apex googles and A3 for that matter have two eye pieces AND two lenses. Which would change the smallish center O view from the users point of view.

[semiconductor 309]

Because thermals are poorly implemented. They aren't challenging, they aren't intresting to look through and they indeed OP in a way that they have outstanding quality and no matter how hot the environment is, people and vehicles are always contrasted with it.

[dr death jm 117]

in all truth, it is why one country has the upper hand on another.. it is what it is.. 

 

the community wanted more realism, (they got it) .. for what its worth.

 

me personally wish is was more like ofp , but at the same time "its in the hands of the scripter" (if you can think it you can script it).

 

shotgun   V  shotgun with sos ....nothing is ever equal in arma. 

[nomisum 129]

i can only speak for tvt in which my main interest lies.

thermals are hard to balance well. recon is key to success in tvt matches and thermals makes it just too easy and tanks are just plain OP with thermals. realism doesnt automatically translate to fun in adversarial gameplay. same reason for a strict no scopes policy in our group, makes firefights much more interesting.

tanoa might be something else, we didnt have a chance to test it out in MP yet.

[x3kj 1247]

Thermals are OP because the contrast between a living object and a static object is extreme. Everything that moves stands out from the environment like a sore thumb. This might be the case for cold areas, but during daytime in hot climate, this should not be the case.

[sic-disaster 311]

It's not much of an issue for me because these days I play mostly in Sp. But I can see the annoyance. It kind of reminds me of the sniper+AT combo people used to use a lot, where you have the best tool for every situation every time, and it's boring. It's much more interesting to work around limitations, or find creative solutions to these problems.

[2nd ranger 282]

 it's boring.

 

That's it in a nutshell. That's why 1985 was such a good setting; all you had was a rifle with iron sights. It's much more of a challenge. Personally, I don't even feel right about using any of the Marksman DLC weapons. Feels like cheating to me.

[sic-disaster 311]

That's it in a nutshell. That's why 1985 was such a good setting; all you had was a rifle with iron sights. It's much more of a challenge. Personally, I don't even feel right about using any of the Marksman DLC weapons. Feels like cheating to me.

 

 

Yeah, it's funny. I make a lot of missions where the player has no access to a scope. I enjoy the firefights more because they last longer, and allow for more manoeuvering. But I tend to get a lot of comments complaining about it, of people wanting a virtual arsenal in every mission so they can pick exactly what they want etc. 

But it's not going to happen, because I taylor my missions to a particular style of play that I have in mind for it. 

 

Well, actually.. maybe I should crank out a few missions in the deep jungle of Tanoa and give everyone a scope that doesn't have back-up sights on it. They'll finally get what they want lol.

[x3kj 1247]

 

virtual arsenal in every mission so they can pick exactly what they want etc. 

But it's not going to happen, because I taylor my missions to a particular style of play that I have in mind for it.

There are different styles than AT-Sniper-Operator-Tank-Pilots? mind blown ...

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

i can only speak for tvt in which my main interest lies.

thermals are hard to balance well. recon is key to success in tvt matches and thermals makes it just too easy and tanks are just plain OP with thermals. realism doesnt automatically translate to fun in adversarial gameplay. same reason for a strict no scopes policy in our group, makes firefights much more interesting.

tanoa might be something else, we didnt have a chance to test it out in MP yet.

This is the part that always kills me. Arma is fun, especially when everything is at play in a single environment, it creates a great quantity of options. However, when you say for example, tanks are out right OP, it's not true, in a sense that you take thermals off a tanks, and you still have a Titan AT in play for example, or even a PCML, then th Tank instantly becomes simply target practice for Rockets, and thus the AT soldier becomes OP. Give both thermal, and it's a matter of who finds who first, and really, because infantry are so small, and mobile, it's easier to infantry to take out a tank before the Tank takes out the infantry. If you remove Thermals from tanks, and replace the Titan AT with the RPG-42, it makes the Tank Semi-OP, because while the RPG-42 is good at it's job, it requires skill to use, or for a inexperienced player to get close before use.

 

In short, No matter what you do, one side or the other will be over powered, but the best way to balance the gameplay, it's to simply have almost every option available. Take wasteland for example, you have servers who remove thermals on everything outright, but keep for example lock on rockets, thus making every vehicle even less capable. Then you have a server with "everything goes", and you get a mixture of win/lose situations. You will get a tank taking people out left and right, but here comes some random guy with a rocket to end the massacre of the Tank.

 

In the end, the thermals really aren't the problem. Thermals are like using a flashlight in a room full of pillars. You shine the light, but it only see's so much, not showing what's behind the pillars. Tactics dictate how useful they are, just like anything else. Change position, shine the light again, and you see a different angle in the room and maybe you notice the pillars are another texture. anyway, honestly, i think the only problem i have with this subject, is that Bohemia hasn't really put enough in the game to broaden the capabilities of offensive/defensive gameplay. We're only just seeing it now with thermal gear. At least, this is my opinion.

[ineptaphid 6413]

 

 

 

In the end, the thermals really aren't the problem. Thermals are like using a flashlight in a room full of pillars. You shine the light, but it only see's so much, not showing what's behind the pillars. Tactics dictate how useful they are, just like anything else. Change position, shine the light again, and you see a different angle in the room and maybe you notice the pillars are another texture. anyway, honestly, i think the only problem i have with this subject, is that Bohemia hasn't really put enough in the game to broaden the capabilities of offensive/defensive gameplay. We're only just seeing it now with thermal gear. At least, this is my opinion.

True enough. it's why poorly equipped insurgencies can hold off massive 1st world armies for so long-change up your tactics and become unpredictable. A 50m dollar helicopter can be taken out by an untrained kid with an RPG-so too can thermals be countered and overcome with clever tactics.But yes-thermal countering gear like we see in Apex will make a lot of difference soon too.

[nomisum 129]

I dont think making "everything available" is a good option to balance a tvt mission as everyone will go for the best equipment for sure. The point of balancing is - well - balancing the limited equipment. We strive for interesting maneuvers and long lasting firefights and this is why we dont use scopes or lock on launchers either. In our experience this made everything more challenging, as you have to get closer for lethal effect.

I get your point though and I wouldnt necessarily say the vanilla game is per se not balanced. As soon as you use mods and provide carefully selected vehicles you have to think twice whether the result is fun. Lots of trial and error too.

I can think of settings where thermals could have the right to be there, but just giving the enemy anti thermals would kind of defeat the purpose of giving thermals in the first place. For a dedicated assymmetric mission I wouldnt rule out thermals completely if the counter is available too (e.g. lock on, as you said).

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

As a scenario designer, players running around with full-screen thermal vision limits the content we can create for them. If players want to run around as OP super-soldier cobra commanders, then they also will be accepting the watered down gameplay.

[EDcase 87]

Thermals are OP because the contrast between a living object and a static object is extreme. Everything that moves stands out from the environment like a sore thumb. This might be the case for cold areas, but during daytime in hot climate, this should not be the case.

Exactly this.

 

The thermals aren't implemented realistically so its like a 'Battlefield' perk.

Because of the above vehicles are over effective as well but at least they have a slight disadvantage of being easier targets.

May as well equip everyone with thermals and play in B&W.

 

Of course its free choice how people want to play but I certainly won't play PvP/TvT with them available.

 

If BiS fix the daytime environment temperature/signature then it will be more realistic and enjoyable.

[Beagle 684]

The main concern with TI in ArmA is that TI imaging is not displayed the way it really works. The image is much too clear in much to high resolution. Even the small Optics TI for mounting on Weapons act like those with 10 times larger and therefore more sensitive lenses and sensors.

TI devices in the 10.000$ range ussually can just pick up a man sized target at 1000 yards. Thats it. What we see in ArmA is pure magic. NV magic in arma is quite similar. the practical resolution of the image caused by display or tube resolution and atmospheric distortion and dissipation of the waves is usually not good enough for unlimited vision with neither TI nor NV and even technological advance can't change the laws of physics.

[roberthammer 582]

Reason is the auto contrast thing - is making the Ti look like it is a Black vs white

while irl they are many factors that Ti must deal with to function and it is not always like: "hey look that white thing is the enemy"

here is the older ticket about it https://feedback.bistudio.com/T61266

[slatts 1978]

If you don't like the enemy players using thermals just stand behind glass all round Â¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Alwarren 2767]

Thermals and their overuse is one of the reasons why I sincerely hope that Arma 4 goes back to Cold War or early 2000's... If there was a realistic depiction of future warfare, we'd be all using self-homing bullets and just press a button. Good for soliders on the battlefield, not so hot for gaming. All that thermal stuff is way too expensive to let every grunt and even every spec op have it.

 

#ColdWarForArma4

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I dont think making "everything available" is a good option to balance a tvt mission as everyone will go for the best equipment for sure. The point of balancing is - well - balancing the limited equipment. We strive for interesting maneuvers and long lasting firefights and this is why we dont use scopes or lock on launchers either. In our experience this made everything more challenging, as you have to get closer for lethal effect.

I get your point though and I wouldnt necessarily say the vanilla game is per se not balanced. As soon as you use mods and provide carefully selected vehicles you have to think twice whether the result is fun. Lots of trial and error too.

I can think of settings where thermals could have the right to be there, but just giving the enemy anti thermals would kind of defeat the purpose of giving thermals in the first place. For a dedicated assymmetric mission I wouldnt rule out thermals completely if the counter is available too (e.g. lock on, as you said).

What i mean by "everything available", is every single asset, but not everyone can have the same asset. Sorry i didn't clarify. What i mean is there's one of each vehicle, making it important for team work to be able to use all the assets in combination properly. This way, you wont have 20 people with Artillery tanks scattering mine fields everywhere, or 10 jets on one teem, and 10 tanks on the other team. Each team has one of each asset, and is responsible for using said assets to benefit the match. If they lose one, it's out of play for awhile, leaving them less effective, thus creating more of an emphasis around tactics, and NOT gear alone. This is what i meant.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

A3 needs a Batteries mechanic, to apply to electronics (GPS, optics, etc).