Will you keep buying ArmA games?

[johnnyboy 3797]

Fuckin' A I will.  You can't stop me!

[pharoah 65]

My question is, if not ARMA then what?

 

Yeah ARMA isn't perfect but for what it gives us (for <$100) combined with the ability to mod it (which I think is one of its strengths) - its the best damned mil sim out there. Whats the next best thing? BF4/COD?

[3D_vet 29]

Well, Planetside 2 is darn fun to play. Of course, is no mil sim, at all. Is futuristic everything, but it has an strong tactic  aspect, some guys have almost become professional in leading platoons or squads,(I don't use the mic in any game, but listen the platoon commander, only when am in the mood to get in an army-ish -like match. The cool thing is you can play solo as well, if you understand the game enough, you can help the team just as well, outside any squad or platoon) the game has *a lot* of depth, is stable, slightly less hardware demanding (my machine can play it as is with no disadvantages) , is fully free and you can get most stuff just through gaming and skill. (and you can purchase everything, too. Like in Battlefield play4free, some weapons are only through purchase, but is not important) . If realism is not that important to you in terms of environment, weapons, etc, the tactical component is heavy, the way of understanding the map and what is really happening , what's the enemy actually trying to do, flank attacks, traps, etc, in that part the game has its strengths. Despite being futuristic, the weapon system has a lot of depth and each weapon has a lot of settings which make every choice very key, also depending on how you play and shoot. Also, while it has some long loading times like Arma3, they are shorter. In my experience, with my machine, is also more stable (but I had some isolated crashes with it, too. Surely all this is in both games due to using a very under powered machine). Yet all that, I kind of left (but starting to think on how to free space in my fully fulll 1TB HD, and have both installed, for depending what moment) the game mostly due to a single fact : Gaming is not enough for me any more, and becoming more of an occasional thing, but I am more and more interested in modding like I did in the good old times. In that aspect, very few games out there now allow this kind of flexibility. And seeing how many of BI games allow this, it seems to be the main spirit of BI studios. Which is great, of course. But yep, if is gotta be a mil sim (I don't care that much: I like realism in every area, but not a need for me, gotta be a good game, most of all) I don't think there's anything like Arma, allowing also to mod it till that extent. At least, of what I am aware of.

 

Indeed, starting to think I'll keep planetside 2 as my arcade-tactic game, Arma 3 for my modding... Yet though the other day played Arma 3 with some settings recommended here and also trusting more in the autodetect system,(the new card will have to wait..,) and while still was not fluid, playing more in mid/far distance and less in cqc combat (actually, did too, but letting the experienced guys go first, lol, and as a medic, cure and revive everyone later, in a sneaky, not heroic way, hehe), I could get useful to my team in the game, and could do some tactics and stuff. Getting finally the hang of it in my 3rd day-session, which might be not so bad after all. But is gonna be mostly my modding platform, I hope.

[Stalkermaster2015 60]

It's a maybe for me. I'm not happy with how they handled the Apex release ie no info untill the last 2 or so weeks.

Some people might not believe it but I like the official content BI does in terms of missions and campaigns (except for apex Protocal). It gives me stuff that could take loads of hours to do by myself and they give voices, mo cap and other things you can't do. So if they want me to preorder their next game then there must be some clear business decisions that ain't hidden till when the thing comes out.

[Beagle 684]

I have recently switched over to Squad since that game delivers much more was I was looking for...a better ArmA II for military themed Multiplayer out of the box.

The amount of "Survival" and RPG servers and the lack of milsim servers in ArmA III makes me turn away currently after 15 years of fandom.

[angel24marin 34]

The amount of "Survival" and RPG servers and the lack of milsim servers in ArmA III makes me turn away currently after 15 years of fandom.

Is it possible to get a full Mil Sim experience in a random server? Without be in a group of players? Also AFAIK, clans shut off his servers if they aren't running any mission in group.

[MartinFromZeusCommunity 15]

Is it possible to get a full Mil Sim experience in a random server? Without be in a group of players? Also AFAIK, clans shut off his servers if they aren't running any mission in group.

Zeus Community (gamemode not name related) does public milsim. Experienced members will when in leading roles teach new players the ropes, and admins keep the trouble makers out.

 

Havent found another server that offers the same level of play publicly, so I dare say I was darn lucky to hit upon this server back at a free weekend.

[chompster 29]

Highly depends on if Bi decides to continue on the path with this pseudo sci-fi/futuristic mismatch copy past nonsense. If they do, then it's a definite no. If they don't, well then it depends on what they do..

 

My question is, if not ARMA then what?

 

Yeah ARMA isn't perfect but for what it gives us (for <$100) combined with the ability to mod it (which I think is one of its strengths) - its the best damned mil sim out there. Whats the next best thing? BF4/COD?

Squad.

 

While it may not give you the freedom of mission making, it beats Arma hands down in actual combat gameplay(just infantry atm, eventually combined arms) and authenticity.

[Beagle 684]

Is it possible to get a full Mil Sim experience in a random server? Without be in a group of players? Also AFAIK, clans shut off his servers if they aren't running any mission in group.

Prior to the DayZ era that was rather the norm. On most warfare servers you would also use real life tactics and procedures and even combined arms. The public servers had their regulars even without a clan and cooperation was the norm...well As I saif...prior to the DayZ era.

 

That kind of natural milsin gameplay is now found in Squad while ArmA IIi is about drive by shootings in sportswear with funny hats or killign for Water bottles and canned food.

[B_Fox 132]

I'll probably wait to see the reaction of the community before buying another ArmA game. But what about ArmA 2 if people don't like ArmA 3 or the direction ArmA is going why not just which back to ArmA 2 ?

[Beagle 684]

I'll probably wait to see the reaction of the community before buying another ArmA game. But what about ArmA 2 if people don't like ArmA 3 or the direction ArmA is going why not just which back to ArmA 2 ?

Despite ArmA III you will at any time find enough ArmA II servers runnign Coop or CTI.

I know a lt of player whis stick to ArmA II or switch often like me. One of the main reasons is the native support of CTI "warfare" that was introduced in Armed Assault and dropped with ArmA III. But ArmA II is showing its age and compared to ArmA III I sometimes feel a bit restricted in ArmA II. The main reason to still play ArmA II is the better overall server population and server count for CTI warfare servers. specified Warfare BE on W.A.S.P

[Taxen0 15]

I will definitely keep buying future DLC's / expansions, every one so far has added new cool features, assets and implemented things into the base game that you previously had to mod / script to get - making the editor much more straightforward to work with.

 

I can't comment on the campaign too much as I only played the first mission so far, and usually don't play them at all. For me the game is about making your own scenarios or playing other community made missions with a handful of friends. more toys = more fun!

[focher 15]

I will continue to buy as long as BIS continues with the same long term development approach. I cannot think of a single other game developer that follows the model BIS follows. Highly engaged with the community and constant iteration on the game.

[BigBenREDUX 59]

Still play Arma II sometimes, in between playing Arma III.   Will definitely buy another Arma product.

[Llano 11]

Maybe.. but that has nothing to do with the mechanics. It all falls down to how the performance willl be in the upcoming game (Arma 4?), and by judging at how Arma 3 is, it doesn't look bright.

 

If it will have the same problem, it will be a no-buy for me.

[CNutter 24]

If you plan on to criticizing my point of view, I challenge you to read all of this post because I've worked hard to put my side of the argument to words.

Willfully, happily? Hell No.
Realistically? Yeah– simply because Arma fills a gap in the gaming industry that nothing else quite covers.

 

 

First off, all of this is from my own (perhaps limited) observations.

As followup to that, I realize that absolutely nobody (myself included) can change the state of things due to the monopoly that BIS has as well as the decline in online milsim culture. I think all of us who dislike where the series and community are going are woefully yelling at a brick wall.

 

As I said, Arma fills a gap– it's like a tarp that's been sprawled over a gaping hole in a roof because there's not enough incentive to build a new roof, but there's still intrinsic need for the hole to be patched.

The sad reality is that there are just enough milsimmers out there to make something like Arma marketable– with it's wide gamut of features such as combined arms, large scale coop, in depth strategy and realism, single player campaigns and missions, custom mission editing, and wide acceptance of modding.

But milsim is still niche enough that companies like BIS can stiff players and get away with it: neglecting their wants and needs; expecting the "modding community" to fix their shortcomings; releasing glitch-riddled products and expansions with seemingly no QA or play-testing; the list goes on.
Yet players will still come back for seconds, because there's literally nothing else like it.

Sure, there are other titles and projects like Squad, but by and large those titles have and will always have much smaller player-bases because they lack a wide enough array of features to cater to the colorful needs of the milsim community at large.

So, one could say from that statement, that BIS should be commended for creating such a largely appealing game for this community? Absolutely not!
Countless times have they released half-baked feature additions and easy stopgap maneuvers to drum up business, because at the core Arma is failing. Point in case: Life, PVE, BP, and RPG servers in general are reaching much greater numbers– even though Arma is marketed as a military game!
Arma is failing to retain it's original player base of traditional milsimmers which it gained through OFP and A2, and there simply isn't enough monetary or PAX incentive to keep improving the game for those folks. Let's face it, there just aren't enough of us or our dollars to catch their ear. There are more "casual" folks who want Arma 3 to be turned into "RPG simulator 3" or "Run and Gun 3" than there are milsimmers seeking a game in-depth enough to scratch their itch.
Why am I so critical? BIS developers are more focused on bringing in money to keep their business running (an understandable directive) than they are on actually improving and polishing the gaming experience by say, scrapping the current terrible engine in favor of a better one, improving the realism of AI,  bettering the current "futuristic" lore and factions, incorporating features from community works into the core game, etc.

Yes, there have been attempts at helping the community such as Make Arma not War, but really how many of the content made in response to that competition is still being maintained today aside from what was already present before, and what won. And how much quality content creation did that incentivize anyway? Money can help temporarily, but at the core it can't drive dedication, and BIS should have known that. Rather than fostering long-term community involvement they made yet another stopgap maneuver to drum up business and increase player levels.

 

Moving on,

There are more empty servers than full in the Arma 3 server browser, with the exception of PVE / PRG / Zomgies / what have you– which I say again don't align with games "military" focus. Really, does Altis Life sound like military simulation to you? It sounds like Cops and Robbers to me. So maybe BIS should accept that those are the people playing the game now and shift their marketing to reflect that?

It seems that every decent milsim group I find is shorthanded at best, and a ghost town at worst.
And further therein, for a community so praised for fostering the idea of "if it's not there, mod it in", I see a surprising amount of servers with red dots blacklisting any and all all mods for the reason of preventing hackers. This brings me to the topic of anti-cheat, which apparently SUCKS if you have anything to do with addons, so much so that server hosts and admins are turning off addons altogether (aside from server-sided ones and mission scripts). That kinda kills the idea of even using addons, don't you think? And me personally– I refuse to play the game in vanilla because the core game lacks a ridiculous amount of the features I've come to rely on just to enjoy playing.

Oh, and speaking of enjoyment, if I were to reflect on my 1100+ hours and 3+ years spent playing Arma 3, I would have to say more than half of that was spent having zero fun because of various problems including but not limited to: testing addons to see if I can fix them or if they're broken / conflicting, desperately trying and tweaking to no end to get decent stable FPS, joining and being kicked from servers because "this addon isn't allowed", "invalid version of x", Battleye bugging out, other non-related game crashes, waiting at a load screen (even in spite of having OS+A3 on an SSD and a rig well above the recommended spec), attempting to command friendly AI to do simple things, respawning or loading a previous save because a poorly balanced AI system 360-noscoped me as soon as I came into it's (absurdly large) detection radius, or because it saw me with x-ray vision through foliage or other soft "cover", or because it somehow knew I was 100 meters away behind it because "cones of vision" are a seemingly unknown topic to whoever programmed the games simplistic, copy-paste, AI.

Of course the list of shortcomings goes on, as you could infer.

 

Moreover, I'm quite confused and angry with BIS and the community they breed and host.
The community is definitely polarized, with people on one had (seemingly blindly) worshiping Bohemia Interactive as if it's a deity, and on the other hand people throwing baseless or misguided accusation and anger at them.
I personally don't understand how people can be so easily appeased by the game devs mundane additions and changes, and overlook all faults as if Arma 3 == OFP. Of course on the flip side I see very few of the people who are angry pointing out any of the real issues the game has, or taking any time to gather unequivocal evidence (objective or even reasonably subjective) to give the devs any motivation to make the improvements they demand.

 

 

If you have trouble seeing what I'm saying, perhaps you could look at the War Thunder / Gaijin Entertainment debacle. That game fills a need; it's the only widely popular MMO focused specifically on aerial combat. Sure, there's IL2, but seriously that's far less popular...

War Thunder's popular enough to hold monopoly even though it lacks many basic and expected features such as modding, community hosted servers, even remotely acceptable and balanced match-making, or proper peripheral support (think HOTAS, MFD, switchboard, VR, multi-display), so much that mouse and keyboard are recommended for a flight sim game?! And it doesn't even cover a decent array of aircraft; you're limited to WW2 era vehicles (even then once you get to a high enough Battle Rank you'll be waiting upwards of 30 minutes to get into a match). And that isn't bad, But it does serve to illustrate my point. The community there is just too niche to monetarily justify developing for, so much so that Gaijin still relies on micro transactions to fund War Thunder's servers.

 

It sucks to be part of a niche player base.

[Vigil Vindex 64]

I don't think I could resist buying more Arma content. That being said, since there is "no magic bullet" for performance during the lifetime of Arma 3, I will be very sad if the performance, particularly in MP AI scenarios, is not tackled as a priority for Arma 4. Until then I will be happy to support BIS by purchasing Arma 3 content. My hope is for us to eventually fill these wonderful maps with a convincing AI population.

[3D_vet 29]

That which you describe as issues, wrong company focus, etc... Is indeed way better than in the many other game communities I have been at. In most, I have become quite a seasoned player, and carried the game usage to its limits, and modded there were was possible, too. In practically all of them these issues were even worse, in some cases, just simply terrible, and I kept playing because I still had fun. And you obviously still do, or it'd be nonsense from you to even care, or make a long post about it... you'd be long ago already playing only other games, and not touch this one. 

 

A niche player base equals today for a company to not being able to pay salaries. I have worked at 4 game studios, and gamers don't care to even imagine how hard can be life inside one of those. Specially those not under th eprotection of Sony or the like (not mentioning EA, as in that one there's been said situation is no better than in the poor middle size or small studios I have worked at.  ) . It is very simple: If a studio CAN'T pay the bills, it closes. Goodbye. And goodbye to your loved game, no matter if it's not in its pure milsim nature or whatever. It can simply close in a matter of days, to never come back.  i know that much better than most gamers, for the reasons before mentioned. So I deeply understand the survival needs of a company to grab a big enough user base to be able to pay for licenses, software, salaries (BTW, except in some companies in the US, do not think a game artist salary (some programmers can earn a bit more, but not the raw grunt, definitely) is something high, lol ) , electric power bills, rent a big place, and usually depend of very mind changing and demanding investors, that are not easy to find, convince and keep happy because is a hard thing to invest in: The investor will only see benefits in 5 or more years, there's much more risk than in other investments, lots of investors don't know this and get very angry later, etc.
I'd said before, but any company still respecting even if partially its game niche, and not falling FULLY for casual gamers, is in my book, heroic. IMO what happens here is many of yo uhave not played that much in other game comunities... Some other milsim, maybe... But.. really, game companies falling is so often is even ridiculous, and your game playing expertise goes with it.  I don't really care, is not as bad as my production software as a freelancer, ie, much worse when an artist specializes in Softimage XSI sees its software being killed after being acquired (obviously with the only plan all the time of eliminating it ) . Cause that's not just games, is your food plate. It happens in companies every freaking day, and the miracle is them surviving, indeed.  Yep, there are some expected to be solid no matter what, valve and a few more, but the majority not having their feet so solid, they pend from any change of wind...

 

It is much much much worse when you have played a fremium game, purchased items that finally cost twice the price of a game (in my case, in case of people I know, they put from 200 to 500 $ ! ) and they suddenly decide to close it, not the studio, but obviously, the distributor or "mother company". And that after way, way much worse treatment to the players than anything which you describe up there...

 

I only mention this maybe to give a different, external (to his community, not to video games, lol) POV, it sometimes help...



 

[KeyCat 131]

 

Wall of text deleted.

 

...BIS developers are more focused on bringing in money to keep their business running (an understandable directive) than they are on actually improving and polishing the gaming experience by say, scrapping the current terrible engine in favor of a better one, improving the realism of AI,  bettering the current "futuristic" lore and factions, incorporating features from community works into the core game, etc.

 

You must be kidding right?

 

If not, take a good look at the 837+ posts in the change log with engine improvement and bug fixes the dev's have posted.

 

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/140837-development-branch-changelog/

 

Your statement that they don't improve the AI as well as incorporates features from the community are simply not true! Case in point... sling loading, FFV, weapon resting, improved sound engine and sounds, stances, bipods, improved lighting, 3D editor, Zeus - all of them as free updates.

 

Of course you are free to have your own opinion just like anyone else but if you do express your opinion you should at least have the facts straight.

 

/KC

 

[lexx 1385]

Hell, I would buy single vehicle / item DLCs, if they'd sell them.

[3D_vet 29]

Hell, I would buy single vehicle / item DLCs, if they'd sell them.

 

Excuse the question from a BIS games absolute newbie, but... Are there vehicle DLCs created/modded by the community ? (other than just texture re-skins)  Is it possible for a modeler(who knows his stuff) to model these vehicles and get them integrated in the game, or the prob is there are some scripting/engine level hard coded limits avoiding this ? And.... [insert big cough here]  Would it be badly seen, or even , forbidden, for a modeler to do some of these, and have a link in the signature for voluntary donation (paypal) ? I think I've seen that done by some total conversion mods (still digging that great thread about Ravage mod, great project, it seems) , not sure if is ok to do so with smaller things.... 

About the game purchasing, in the view of a total new comer, I can tell you that what is seen, that is, sensation after installed and giving it a good go (after all I put there some bucks, so it gets more chances than a free to play game)  is : A very deep, complex, graphic rich game, with good immersion details, and that seems to be fun to play. I have played only in its pure style, I mean, no mods. And got a nice sensation. After a first bad experience due to my old hardware, configuring it differently thanks to some great advice around here, I find the game playable and quite enjoyable. So, very dangerous for me, as I really have some work to do with my graphics freelancing, lol.  

IMO, the milsim guys in the end will keep around, and new comers, if they're even just a bit fan of FPS games, will stay, too.  I have it uninstalled now because (laughs allowed) , did run out of space as needed huge gigabytes for certain graphic projects, and the game I think was taking 60 gb, after installed some stuff I wanted to have to try and mod for it, lol.  I'll be reinstalling soon, though. 

 

My best wishes to BIS. Is an original focus, very good game editor and super nice care for the editing community.

 

[chortles 263]

Excuse the question from a BIS games absolute newbie, but... Are there vehicle DLCs created/modded by the community ? (other than just texture re-skins)  Is it possible for a modeler(who knows his stuff) to model these vehicles and get them integrated in the game, or the prob is there are some scripting/engine level hard coded limits avoiding this ? And.... [insert big cough here]  Would it be badly seen, or even , forbidden, for a modeler to do some of these, and have a link in the signature for voluntary donation (paypal) ? I think I've seen that done by some total conversion mods (still digging that great thread about Ravage mod, great project, it seems) , not sure if is ok to do so with smaller things....

Ehhhh, yes in that there's plenty of community vehicle addons for the game that aren't just retextures, but I wouldn't call them DLCs since they're not from Bohemia and aren't dealt with using the Steam DLC system.

[CNutter 24]

-some text-

I only mention this maybe to give a different, external (to his community, not to video games, lol) POV, it sometimes help...

Yeah, I didn't really hit on that because I don't know as much about dev studios as others do. But the issue with money comes back to what I was saying before: Arma will never be as stable / polished / what have you as say TF2 or COD, because it's simply not as popular. Less popular means less money, means less budget for coders and projects. And unless BIS pursues a different sect of gamers from the current (regretfully) small niche it has, they will always be relatively limited by a smaller player base. And in turn, limited by fewer funds.

It really, truly, sucks.

 

BIS is still battling memory leaks from 3+ years ago, but yet they have no problem releasing Apex, which only introduced more memory / game hang issues... I get that feature additions bring in the money, but I really really wish that they would / could focus more on QA and debugging before thinking of the next DLC.

-some text-

 

/KC

Perhaps better modding support then? I was playing vanilla just the other day and was getting over 60 FPS on multiplayer servers with 50+ players + countless AI... Yet if I play on a 20 player server with fewer AI and only a few addons enabled, I'm dropped to 20 FPS. One could say I'm using bad mods, but every one I use has been around for years and it's developers have coded for previous Arma games too. I trust that they all can make a decent addon...

 

I guess they do look after the community better than other studios, but from my perspective vanilla just isn't fun in the first place. A lot of it is because I don't like playing with future guns and cars; I like playing with now. But that's a thing that's hard to cater to because the core game took a different approach with A3 than in A2 and others.

 

You're absolutely right, I just tend to be a doom and gloom person.

[icewindo 29]

Nah, ArmA3 is probably my last ArmA. 

 

I've loved the games and excessively played and modded them, learning as I went on. But for me ArmA just is too much of a timesink now - I need to invest too much time to have a good experience. I guess I am "casualized" in a way that I do not see the fun anymore in driving around endlessly large maps. Which is funny, because I also dislike some of ArmA3's casual gamers appeasement steps. My attention span for gaming is about 1-2h now and that's just not enough time for ArmA from my experience.

 

I'm waiting for SQUAD to get more polished and then I'll switch to there from Project Reality. No need to wait for a specific time or join a clan, just some instant tactical action.

[Joe Frag 0]

NO.

Unless these forum/game trolls are removed, I am done with BIS.

If Developers, Moderators or anyone in charge cant see who is really hurting this game and preventing it from taking his place, then you deserve what you got.

Simple as that.

Peace.