Arma 3: Community wishes & ideas- DISCUSSION

[kot1k 13]

This is my part of whining. Have to admit I'd been hating myself to the moment I finished composing it, but this is outmost limit of my grammar skills so you have to bear with that. Also, I afraid Bohemia has been asked for this many times to the moment.

This game needs proper MOUT/CQB simulation so badly, that I can't even express it apropriately. We need proper animations for covering behind wide variety of obstacles and objects; animations for peeking/firing around the corner and through the windows on different altitudes, both from inside and outside of a building, ability to slightly lower/rise your head/barrel while still staying in prone or sitting position, to look out of cover/into the window, and shoot over some obstacles which you couldn't shoot over from the standart prone/sitting position; animations and features for breaking into the room through windows. Yes, exactly what Smookie had been trying to accomplish with his SMK mod (here is preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vklOq6KFQy4). (Well, even better, what if the game could feature an animation editor, where player could construct his custom set of different stances and transitions between them, of course, limitied by anatomy of human body, then just import them into the game and assign hotkeys). We need easy ways (even if it means scriptable and static, like "press the Ctrl+Shift+F to throw grenade into this window") to toss grenades into the different size's apertures, into the doorways (without stepping into them or staying in front of them) - and all this have to be available while running/walking too (here is a concept which is currently on "to do" list of ACE mod:

). We need ability to breach different obstacles with demolition charges, to blow holes in the walls with c4. We need grenade you've thrown up the staircase to the 2nd flor wouldn't kill you through the concrete ceiling, the same goes for fences; fast and easy weapon management when dealing with narrow doorways and passages (hotkey for lower your weapon and rise it again, or just auto-raising/lowering). We need more buildings that can be entered, in the end. Edited December 5, 2012 by kot1k

[rye1 21]

This is my part of whining. Have to admit I'd been hating myself to the moment I finished composing it, but this is outmost limit of my grammar skills so you have to bear with that. Also, I afraid Bohemia has been asked for this many times to the moment.

This game needs proper MOUT/CQB simulation so badly, that I can't even express it apropriately. We need proper animations for covering behind wide variety of obstacles and objects; animations for peeking/firing around the corner and through the windows on different altitudes, both from inside and outside of a building, ability to slightly lower/rise your head/barrel while still staying in prone or sitting position, to look out of cover/into the window, and shoot over some obstacles which you couldn't shoot over from the standart prone/sitting position; animations and features for breaking into the room through windows. Yes, exactly what Smookie had been trying to accomplish with his SMK mod (here is preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vklOq6KFQy4). (Well, even better, what if the game could feature an animation editor, where player could construct his custom set of different stances and transitions between them, of course, limitied by anatomy of human body, then just import them into the game and assign hotkeys). We need easy ways (even if it means scriptable and static, like "press the Ctrl+Shift+F to throw grenade into this window") to toss grenades into the different size's apertures, into the doorways (without stepping into them or staying in front of them) - and all this have to be available while running/walking too (here is a concept which is currently on "to do" list of ACE mod:

). We need ability to breach different obstacles with demolition charges, to blow holes in the walls with c4. We need grenade you've thrown up the staircase to the 2nd flor wouldn't kill you through the concrete ceiling, the same goes for fences; fast and easy weapon management when dealing with narrow doorways and passages (hotkey for lower your weapon and rise it again, or just auto-raising/lowering). We need more buildings that can be entered, in the end.

Thank God you put this in the discussion section. There's so many feature requests you'd love to talk about or even argue but they're only left in the no discussion section.

I think most of us agree and ARMA is definitely updating itself in that specific environment. I can't address the issues but a few feature requests listed I don't think we'll see unless the modding community get on it; I can comment on them at least.

1. Animations are being heavily looked into. Smookie is apart of their team. I'm sure someone can confirm this but I think they've added the ability to adjust stance gradually? Either way the animations look a lot better, a lot more workable and you can use cover more effectively; especially low-walls and awkward cover. Not to mention what modding animators may be able to do.

2. If above is true then you could pop your head up in theory over walls. Around them is a factor of leaning and how that will work. Placements is a good idea to be able to pop around corners, myself and chortles had a chat about such when it came to a specific entry and realized it would be a lot of hassle and virtually impossible to get in a game properly without turning into gears of war type cover system.

To shoot back over them means you'd have to bring yourself up even more by my thought process, if I can imagine this feature. It would mean that you'd be virtually exposing yourself a hell of a lot more until your barrel unclips from the object and you can shoot - this is of course unless they add blind firing or implement some kind of shooting over cover feature like an SBU drill. Developer and game issues to that would include people exploiting such a feature, but the same may be said for tactical pace?

3. Another note is mid-animation executions are available so you can stop an animation part way through. Animations get us killed quite often during gameplay so this is a huge improvement. I just hope it's not like the "medical" animation of healing (and what ACE have as bandaging) as cutting off this animation half way through is useless - you're still taking too long to get out of it. I hope they cut them quick and you get back into a combat ready stance or position quickly. At the same time such really tight TVT/PVP games can show us these animations such as America's Army 3 are fast, way too fast in my opinion, because it's based around that speed type of gameplay. ARMA isn't but at the same time it needs to be a little quicker due to CQB features.

4. Going through windows would open up tactical solutions and be great for gaming. No more getting hogged in the doorway. At the same time that's going to happen for second floor houses so some clusters are just apart of the game.

5. Customizable animations for modders would be great. They've certainly improved the animation system a whole lot, that leads me to believe the animation tool they use and how they implement that in ARMA has been improved. Stances, animations, how the player body or skeleton works. I'd like to see better upper torso movement when it comes to snapping to a target at close range and more reactive abilities. You tend to either over adjust or under in ARMA and Coulum talked about this due to some negative pressure mousing thingy mo bob that I can't remember the name of! But they've worked on that I think. :D God I'm crap at this haha.

6. The grenade concept has been talked about. Dslyecxi's video of his proof of concept is basically visually identifying the collective thoughts of what has been mentioned here on grenades. Nou is working on it for ACE. Hopefully BIS will take that into account because the grenade system needs improved. Now I don't agree with you about your hotkey selection or the way it pans out but I believe customizable hotkeys for such are a good idea. But there must be no static animation or mobile animation. It must be a fluid animation like AA2/3. You get the grenade out, you have it infront of you, you hold to pull the pin. From this point you can do WHATEVER you want. You can move, you can stop. That gives you control.

This is far opposite to the current system where you're stuck in one animation or another with no control, never mind accuracy. And by the way that concept will definitely improve accuracy and grenade use will escalate. I agree too that grenades should not go through second, third, fourth story walls. It's dodgy as it is to say the least.

7. Weapon management I think would improve selecting and using weapons and that has been talked about a lot here in terms of UI/dialogs, interaction menus and hotkeys. There are a tonne of suggestions to make it run like water. See here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?139228-Controls-Scheme-amp-User-Interface-Feedback ...

8. Breaching is a great suggestion. I just wonder if the building damages have been changed. Because insert X damage at X position of building and is collapses. It could be similar for insert X explosive to X position. Unfortunately I do not think you'll have such a breaching and demolition system as BF2 where you can blow down every part of every wall and even structurally take down a building by exploding its strong points.

9. I think most, if not all, buildings will be enterable. They have to one-up OA don't they? :p

10. Overall generally good selections. Other people in terms of CQB have talked about the ability to get closer, i.e. decrease the spacing blocks between players... automatic collisions and lowering/bring up weapons like SWAT 4. So on. 135 replies later... http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?137157-CQB ... :D

Edited December 6, 2012 by Rye

[Kamov 1]

I hope they integrate equipment beyond flashy new camouflage and models. For example, the Russian equipment package Ratnik includes a tablet computer for the squad leader which tracks where your squad members with glonass/gps and puts it onto a flashy looking map. It also lets him see from the point of view of the soldiers with a high resolution camera attached to their helmet mounted display systems. Stuff like that, beyond the basics. AFAIK it also lets them aim without even looking at their rifle.

[scrim 1]

Sounds similar to "Future Soldier/Land Warrior" or whatever the US military calls it. The question is wether or not those sorts of systems will end up being practical to use, considering that most of those program's have been in development for more than a decade without being used to any mentionable extent in the field.

[rye1 21]

Blue Force Tracker?

[Kamov 1]

Sounds similar to "Future Soldier/Land Warrior" or whatever the US military calls it. The question is wether or not those sorts of systems will end up being practical to use, considering that most of those program's have been in development for more than a decade without being used to any mentionable extent in the field.

Russia and Americas systems seem alot more practical then Frances "Future soldier". They seem relatively cheap and down to earth while being light weight. I'm actually quite amazed at how similar they are. They're almost exactly the same.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Kamov

[carzilla 2]

Cman people we need a boot camp with Gunny Lee Ermey in it. that would be soo awsome

[scrim 1]

Never mentioned France. Land Warrior has been in development since '89, and only parts of the system have been very sparingly used in theater.

[Kamov 1]

Never mentioned France. Land Warrior has been in development since '89, and only parts of the system have been very sparingly used in theater.

You mentioned Future Soldier, although accidentally I might aswell bring it up as a example of what not to do.

[scrim 1]

Think France's Future Soldier is actually called Felin.

[Kamov 1]

Think France's Future Soldier is actually called Felin.

okay.

[chortles 263]

This one's a minor one, but the "45 degree offset" optic mounting has intrigued me ever since I've seen it, and I'd actually been hoping for it to be in Arma 3, only to be disappointed to find that Arma 3 (or at least the combination "4x"/red dot optic on the MX 6.5 mm) is still using the over-and-under; in the real-world it's for maintaining cheek weld, but since that's a non-issue in video games I imagine that it might help with not being as disoriented when transitioning between sights. Might it be possible to add such a sight option (whether using iron sights or a collimator for the 45-degree offset) as an attachment, or at least give modders the tools with which to create one that achieve the desired effect?

[gossamersolid 155]

I just thought of something that ArmA 3 needs to have.

When a player makes a marker on the map, it should have the player's name associated with it (either marked in brackets or we can hover over it and it'll say who owns it). I can't even begin to tell you how many CTI/Warfare matches were ruined by people anonymously marking friendly bases in global chat. Since we have no clue who did it, we can't remove him.

[Kamov 1]

I just thought of something that ArmA 3 needs to have.

When a player makes a marker on the map, it should have the player's name associated with it (either marked in brackets or we can hover over it and it'll say who owns it). I can't even begin to tell you how many CTI/Warfare matches were ruined by people anonymously marking friendly bases in global chat. Since we have no clue who did it, we can't remove him.

Why don't you write a client side script to report him to you? Just put something into a variable and then make it a publicvariable.

ccontrol = [(getPlayerUID player),(cameraOn),(typeOf (vehicle player)),(weapons player)];

publicVariableServer "ccontrol";

then add a restriction to publicvariable.txt

1 "ccontrol"

I don't know how you would track markers, maybe track double map clicks if they're within range of a warfare object?

Edited December 17, 2012 by Kamov

[gossamersolid 155]

Why don't you write a client side script to report him to you? Just put something into a variable and then make it a publicvariable.

ccontrol = [(getPlayerUID player),(cameraOn),(typeOf (vehicle player)),(weapons player)];

publicVariableServer "ccontrol";

then add a restriction to publicvariable.txt

1 "ccontrol"

I don't know how you would track markers, maybe track double map clicks if they're within range of a warfare object?

I don't know if there's a way to track markers. You could use the onDoubleClick (I think that's what it's called) to log serverside when a player has double clicked on a map and where (assumed marker pos). But this isn't a solution.

This should be handled by the engine and we shouldn't have to do this.

I don't think it's unfair for me to ask for this feature.

[Kamov 1]

Its not unfair I'm just suggesting what you can do in the mean time. I know the publicvariable log shows what is inside the publicvariable you decide to restrict. OnMapDoubleClick then find the distance to nearest warfare object plus the players name and team and then put it into an array and publish the variable with publicvariableserver. Bam, its reported and you now have a log of every single marker that could possibly rat out teammates.

[gossamersolid 155]

Its not unfair I'm just suggesting what you can do in the mean time. I know the publicvariable log shows what is inside the publicvariable you decide to restrict. OnMapDoubleClick then find the distance to nearest warfare object plus the players name and team and then put it into an array and publish the variable with publicvariableserver. Bam, its reported and you now have a log of every single marker that could possibly rat out teammates.

It doesn't just have to be warfare objects. People have previously marked where a couple of squads have been lazing targets for aircraft. Really, the game should just show who has placed a marker, period.

[Kamov 1]

Then do it for friendly soldiers and warfare objects? I've just tested it, its very easy to do.. with a simple script.

[chortles 263]

I believe the hope is that this time such a function wouldn't even need a script...

[gossamersolid 155]

I believe the hope is that this time such a function wouldn't even need a script...

Exactly.

I didn't feel like posting again to reply to Kamov because I don't think he was quite understanding what I was saying, it was just a needless back and forth. Even though it's possible to script these fixes in, it's not something we should have to do for the 4th iteration of this series. It's a feature that should be there by now.

[Kamov 1]

Exactly.

I didn't feel like posting again to reply to Kamov because I don't think he was quite understanding what I was saying, it was just a needless back and forth. Even though it's possible to script these fixes in, it's not something we should have to do for the 4th iteration of this series. It's a feature that should be there by now.

If you say so.

[chortles 263]

Even though it's possible to script these fixes in, it's not something we should have to do for the 4th iteration of this series. It's a feature that should be there by now.

This right here is what I've felt about much of Arma 3's visible reveals, though considering some of Jay's earlier comments in 2012 I wouldn't be surprised if that's why they finally got implemented, because he felt the same.

[scrim 1]

AN/PSQ-20 Enhanced NVGs. The AN/PVS-15s that are currently pictured will be extremely obsolete in 2035, it'll be like using Vietnam era NV sights today.

[chortles 263]

AN/PSQ-20 Enhanced NVGs. The AN/PVS-15s that are currently pictured will be extremely obsolete in 2035, it'll be like using Vietnam era NV sights today.

Heh... well, if it's not too late to be trendy and they have the time/money to remodel (warning: do not assume that BI can afford this) then they could just go ahead and use the GPNVG18, leverage that "people looking for the gear from Zero Dark Thirty" demographic. :D

[scrim 1]

Well, that strange thing hasn't been issued. The PSQ-20 has started being used to a certain extent by regular infantry in Afghanistan. In 2035 that one will probably also have been replaced, but it'd be better to have that than something that is already today starting to turn obsolete.