Helicopter camera

[pooroldspike 129]

2 hours ago, Misconduct said:

Firebird, you said it all man.

Devs, please revert. We are watching this community die.

 

The word "die" is a bit strong as the KOTH servers are still very well-populated, and I haven't noticed any decline in the numbers of choppers in the air since the 1.70 heli hotfix because I think we're getting used to it..:)

However the Blackfish VTOL is now a rare endangered species in KOTH because most people (including me) can't get the fiddly new 1.70 key controls to work (sniffle)

And just for the record a lot of KOTH players (including me) are also complaining in voice chat about the new 1.70 Titan AA launcher, I posted screenshots about it in another thread. 

[Theo1143 18]

10 hours ago, pooroldspike said:

 

I'm not sure what you're saying muchacho, all the dozen or so KOTH servers that I play on have got 1st or 3rd-person options, and nearly everybody plays in 3rd-p (as I do myself) because 3rd-p is hugely popular.

For example nobody wants to sit in the back of a chopper in 1st-p where they can't see much, we prefer to be outside in 3rd-p.

In fact I often can't get into some KOTH servers because they're  full up with about 110 guys, so I have to find another KOTH server with fewer players..:)

 

If you read back what you wrote you yourself then read what I say and things clear up...

I'm saying that no one likes the new change from the point of view of someone sitting in the back of a heli, and you can't blame that person for the pilot using a keyboard.

 

And about you saying maybe we should wait and see if people actual like it or not.

Which I disagree for the reasons above, a pilot can change into 1st person, but someone just riding in the back can't.

And then we come back to koth and invade and annex, just two examples of where heli's are important. 

 

10 hours ago, pooroldspike said:

 

The word "die" is a bit strong as the KOTH servers are still very well-populated, and I haven't noticed any decline in the numbers of choppers in the air since the 1.70 heli hotfix because I think we're getting used to it..:)

However the Blackfish VTOL is now a rare endangered species in KOTH because most people (including me) can't get the fiddly new 1.70 key controls to work (sniffle)

And just for the record a lot of KOTH players (including me) are also complaining in voice chat about the new 1.70 Titan AA launcher, I posted screenshots about it in another thread. 

 

Actually 70% of the daily players are now playing something else instead only because of this reason.

And that only reflects the people I play with but these people are not just limited to pilot roles.

This is exactly the same thing as the AA or the new rangefinder push to use, Bohemia stop making changes just for the sake of annoying us.

[Firebird-B4L 51]

A good option was mentioned to have different camera options available to the pilot, especially to include the pre-DLC heli camera.

 

 

 

 

[Greenfist 1863]

4 hours ago, theo1143 said:

Actually 70% of the daily players are now playing something else instead only because of this reason.

And that only reflects the people I play with but these people are not just limited to pilot roles.

This is exactly the same thing as the AA or the new rangefinder push to use, Bohemia stop making changes just for the sake of annoying us.

I disagree. The player numbers have actually tripled since the update, based on the fact that my only two friends who play this game have picked it up again.

 

But wait a minute, I have just been notified that there's actually 400,000 other players who too have played in the last two weeks. Let's see how it looks like:

[Firebird-B4L 51]

The jets and the jets DLC and the camera fix for the jets in particular and the people buying and playing the game based on that is defeintly worth mentioning in passing.  

 

But really that's not what this topic is focused on.  We are addressing how the game died instantly for the original and/or ace helicopter pilots who love the heli aspect of the game and rely on a consistent and reliable flight platform to continue to thrive and grow upon.

[FoO2shOot 1]

I think devs are going to do what is necessary to have the good camera again.

 

I hope that!

[pooroldspike 129]

18 hours ago, theo1143 said:

...no one likes the new change from the point of view of someone sitting in the back of a heli,..

 

Sorry mate I'm still not sure what you're saying..:)

Here are 6 screenshots I took during my KOTH session this afternoon-

1- This is my 1st-person view after I hop in the back of a Mohawk as a passenger, that other guy is also in there-

 

 

2- And this is the view after I hit the 3rd-person key, my warm squishy body is still inside, but my eyeballs have popped outside. As you see, you don't have to stay cooped up with smelly other guys if you don't want..:)

 

 

3- Same when you're the pilot, this is your 1st-p view- 

 

 

4- and this is your 3rd-p view, you can fly from this view if you like by waggling the joystick and juggling the throttle..:)

 

 

5-  Regarding the 1.70 hotfix, I've grown to like it because no matter how you throw the chopper around when you're the pilot in 3rd-p, the horizon always stays in sight which gives you good situational awareness in the 3D world..:)

For example, the horizon is still there if you shove the nose down like this..

 

 

6- and the horizon is still there if you violently pitch up like this-

So to sum up, although I didn't like the hotfix at first, I now like it..:)

[Firebird-B4L 51]

Nice screenshots, but you've completely missed our gripe here.  It's a problem that can't be understood by a screenshot, only by a pilot whose spent enough hours flying will understand the full magnitude of the problem. Even guys who are decent flyers are noticing too, and that's a large, large crowd of people, they just aren't on the forums, I've heard the talk in the game. 

 

Unless you've flown enough under the old system, you won't be affected too much to really make a difference.  I can still put the heli on the ground and land, thats not the problem.  But if I try to do it like I'm used to, the thing will crash more than not, because virtuoso pilots push the envelope--you have to to land a heli full in a hotzone on KOTH.  We know how frustrating it is to wait for the pilot to land and it takes forever.  Also it's frustrating when the pilot crashes and kills you.  There's a real need for good pilots on Arma KOTH, the most popular Arma multiplayer game, right? 

 

The problem is the camera isn't steady and doesn't give you a clear steady view of your heli's relation to the ground, with extreme maneuevers low to the ground to slow the heli and touch down quickly and then get the hell out of there, the camera is awful, the opposite of what we need. 

 

It is the few of us that have invested so much time mastering this that are really getting the short end of the stick in the worst way.  That's why we are so frustrated and that's why we're here trying to get someone to understand what's happening to our game.  You don't go, and after years and years of succesful piloting, change something so drastically on the community knowing it could mess up the game for so many.  You offer the option to change it as an addition to the game.

 

When somoeone pays for a game, they want it to remain the same reliable game and have bugs fixed and the game improved.  This new flight camera does the opposite for us in the helicopter.  It destroys our ability to fly the way we worked so hard to fly.   

[Trimmer 28]

I have a feeling that most of the people that are claiming to "like" the new 3rd person camera on the helicopters, feel that way simply because they never got anywhere near mastering piloting in 3rd person. In fact they may be grateful, as they'll get more passengers with some of the best pilots gone due to this problem.

To say that the KOTH servers are still full and helicopters are still in the air isn't anything to go by in this case. I'd say about 95%-99% of the other people I see flying in KOTH, are really not  good enough to where the changes had such a noticeable impact on their abilities.

Most KOTH helicopter pilots I see, either go back and forth doing paradrops and land really slow at base, or they "try" to do landings and crash or their final approach takes forever. The pilots that actually get shit done without dropping everybody out of the sky, the ones that go back and forth landing their teammates the whole match without ever having to spawn more than one or 2 helicopters, the ones who's helicopter everybody at base piles into because they know they're going to get to where it matters the most and they're going to get there quick with their team, those are the ones that are being effected... So if you're one of those dudes that does a lot of paradrops, or gets bitched at for your landing attempts, like the large majority of the other KOTH helicopter pilots I've seen through my years, then you're probably going to be content with whatever camera they give you... The good, experienced, seasoned, devoted, serious, and therefor obviously "loyal" Arma 3rd person heli pilots are the ones taking the hit... You'll be left with only slow landings and paradrops in KOTH helicopters unless you get the rare guy with a headtracker that can "properly" do it in 1st person. Whether you think it's a big deal or not isn't really the issue. It's a negative change to the game, games aren't set in stone, so a 3rd person heli revert is in order no matter how you look at it in the best interest of the game, through my logic anyways.... To each their own.

 

[pooroldspike 129]

1 hour ago, romille1 said:

Nice screenshots, but you've completely missed our gripe here.  It's a problem that can't be understood by a screenshot, only by a pilot whose spent enough hours flying will understand the full magnitude of the problem..

 

I've spent 1500 hours in the KOTH forums doing nasty things to the enemy and their fluffy kittens, and I estimate about 10 percent (150 hours) of that was flying choppers, so i've bin around and people like flying with me; for example a bunch of guys once jumped in the back of my Mohawk and one said "I hope we've got a good pilot", and somebody replied "Yes we have"..:)

And although I can live with the new 1.70 hotfix, I'd have no complaints if BI decided to scrap it and go back to 1.68 because I can live with that too.

The ideal solution would be for BI to give us the ingame option to select whichever view we prefer, (1.70 hotfix or 1.68) like nearly all flight sims out there do..:)

Incidentally I asked developer Oukej what AA3 jet pilots thought of the new 1.70 view and it seems they like it; and it was their idea in the first place!  

Here's his reply on page 5 of this thread-

"Valid complaints that 3rd person camera used to be "suboptimal" (and sim industry non-standard-ish) for aircraft control and flight vector awareness is what triggered the changes in the first place :)

One examplehttps://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/5h06zz/aircraft_3rd_person_camera_proof_of_concept/

So from airplane's perspective we've received positive feedback after the change."
 

[Misconduct 99]

"Valid complaints that 3rd person camera used to be "suboptimal" (and sim industry non-standard-ish) for aircraft control and flight vector awareness is what triggered the changes in the first place :)

 

If simulation is the attempt you should probably eliminate 3rd person altogether... I don't want that to happen, but making changes to the way you observe the game is a mistake, I bought Arma 2 & 3 largely because of 3rd person (FrankieonPC DayZ) and fell in love with flying in 3rd person with King of the Hill and Wasteland. Flying is now a nauseating experience for me.

 

Also, I really don't know what to do with my youtube channel which exclusively catered to Arma 3rd person flying. Is my existing footage worthless now? Are my videos now outdated? I've had so many people tell me my vids are the reason that they bought Arma. Please don't take it all away, I need 1.68 view as an option.

 

[pooroldspike 129]

23 minutes ago, Misconduct said:

Also, I really don't know what to do with my youtube channel which exclusively catered to Arma 3rd person flying. Is my existing footage worthless now? Are my videos now outdated? I've had so many people tell me my vids are the reason that they bought Arma. Please don't take it all away, I need 1.68 view as an option.

 

It happens to us all and there's nothing we can do about it, for example I started a 'Weapon tests' thread 3 years ago, but all the game updates since then have rendered it out-of-date (sniffle)

https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/165403-weapon-tests/

 

[Firebird-B4L 51]

Pounding keys in the forum to help steer an amazing game in the right direction is appreciated.  150 hours in a helicopter is nice, I probably do that in half a week (which is sad now that i think about it).  I'm not exaggerating.  I have mastered the hummingbird, and I didn't do it in a few hundred hours.  I'm approaching seven thousand hours on Arma 3 KOTH, and a majority of that time was spent doing what I love, rocking the hummingbird into the hotzone for the underdog blufor noobs on KOTH with the odds stacked against me.  But who cares or gives a shit.  I'm not bragging, just letting you know what time and skill that was flushed down the toilet overnight for me and a lot of other pilots who've taken the potential of the heli and have paved the way for up and coming pilots to aspire to and surpass.  And its hard to say goodbye to a camera system that worked so well and hello to this jet style camera that takes me way way back to relearn a system that i cant stomache for the sesick feeling and the frustration of crashing over and over and over.  

 

But the few, the proud, the real heli pilots that make this game amazing for our passengers and dazzle You Tube audiences and make kids want to buy the game and follow in our footsteps and experience the full potential of ArmA awesomess is a sad thing for us to say goodbye to.  

 

That being said, and my sad, sad life exposed, I expect the camera to be back as either full-time or an option.  If not, this is going to be hard to swallow and recover from and extremely disappointing to a lot of heli pilots.  We already have to deal with explosive grass, bushes, and tree leaves, and we have overcome that.   This camera though is so bad compared to the other 3rd person when doing fast, low maneuvers (which is what keeps you and your guys alive when landing in a hotzone).

[Trimmer 28]

1 hour ago, romille1 said:

Pounding keys in the forum to help steer an amazing game in the right direction is appreciated.  150 hours in a helicopter is nice, I probably do that in half a week (which is sad now that i think about it).  I'm not exaggerating.  I have mastered the hummingbird, and I didn't do it in a few hundred hours.  I'm approaching seven thousand hours on Arma 3 KOTH, and a majority of that time was spent doing what I love, rocking the hummingbird into the hotzone for the underdog blufor noobs on KOTH with the odds stacked against me.  But who cares or gives a shit.  I'm not bragging, just letting you know what time and skill that was flushed down the toilet overnight for me and a lot of other pilots who've taken the potential of the heli and have paved the way for up and coming pilots to aspire to and surpass.  And its hard to say goodbye to a camera system that worked so well and hello to this jet style camera that takes me way way back to relearn a system that i cant stomache for the sesick feeling and the frustration of crashing over and over and over.  

 

But the few, the proud, the real heli pilots that make this game amazing for our passengers and dazzle You Tube audiences and make kids want to buy the game and follow in our footsteps and experience the full potential of ArmA awesomess is a sad thing for us to say goodbye to.  

 

That being said, and my sad, sad life exposed, I expect the camera to be back as either full-time or an option.  If not, this is going to be hard to swallow and recover from and extremely disappointing to a lot of heli pilots.  We already have to deal with explosive grass, bushes, and tree leaves, and we have overcome that.   This camera though is so bad compared to the other 3rd person when doing fast, low maneuvers (which is what keeps you and your guys alive when landing in a hotzone).

 

Well said. I 2nd everything in this comment...

BI will hopefully realize the effect this change has had on some long term Arma enthusiasts.

I've lost a lot of hope in ever being able to enjoy flying in Arma the way I used to. I feel tempted to come to the forum and see the progress, but really don't think a whole lot is being made after every visit. It seems like the issue has been fully brought to BI's attention. In the end, If I'm not flying in the 1.68 view, Arma probably won't even be on my computer anymore within a month from now, as that was the one aspect of the game that had me logging in so many hours for so long...

[Misconduct 99]

2 hours ago, romille1 said:

Pounding keys in the forum to help steer an amazing game in the right direction is appreciated.  150 hours in a helicopter is nice, I probably do that in half a week (which is sad now that i think about it).  I'm not exaggerating.  I have mastered the hummingbird, and I didn't do it in a few hundred hours.  I'm approaching seven thousand hours on Arma 3 KOTH, and a majority of that time was spent doing what I love, rocking the hummingbird into the hotzone for the underdog blufor noobs on KOTH with the odds stacked against me.  But who cares or gives a shit.  I'm not bragging, just letting you know what time and skill that was flushed down the toilet overnight for me and a lot of other pilots who've taken the potential of the heli and have paved the way for up and coming pilots to aspire to and surpass.  And its hard to say goodbye to a camera system that worked so well and hello to this jet style camera that takes me way way back to relearn a system that i cant stomache for the sesick feeling and the frustration of crashing over and over and over.  

 

But the few, the proud, the real heli pilots that make this game amazing for our passengers and dazzle You Tube audiences and make kids want to buy the game and follow in our footsteps and experience the full potential of ArmA awesomess is a sad thing for us to say goodbye to.  

 

That being said, and my sad, sad life exposed, I expect the camera to be back as either full-time or an option.  If not, this is going to be hard to swallow and recover from and extremely disappointing to a lot of heli pilots.  We already have to deal with explosive grass, bushes, and tree leaves, and we have overcome that.   This camera though is so bad compared to the other 3rd person when doing fast, low maneuvers (which is what keeps you and your guys alive when landing in a hotzone).

Third this.

 

How about an update on the progress BI?

[pooroldspike 129]

Just to clarify for newcomers to this divine thread, the AA3 1.70 update introduced a new 3rd-person view for planes and helis which made the horizon go up and down like a ship in a heavy sea and made most of us puke our guts up with seasickness, so to their credit BI brought out a 1.70 Hotfix which stopped the horizon going up and down so much, but it still makes some people feel queasy.

That's why a lot of heli pilots want BI to put the view back to how it was in 1.68 where the horizon doesn't move at all.

PS- Remember, 1.70 was the killer, so make sure you've got the later 1.70 Hotfix installed which partially improved it.  

 

[pooroldspike 129]

5 hours ago, Trimmer said:

I have a feeling that most of the people that are claiming to "like" the new 3rd person camera on the helicopters, feel that way simply because they never got anywhere near mastering piloting in 3rd person...

 

I can't speak for others but I mastered the old 3rd-p,and now I've mastered the new 1.70 Hotfix view, piece o' cake, so it makes no difference to me if BI decide to revert to the old 1.68 view or stick with the 1.70 hotfix view..:)

PS- my awesome flying skills are due to the fact that I'm 60-plus years of age and retired, and as retirement is the world's longest coffee break, I can put in about 10 hours of game-playing 24/7 without the distraction of having to go to work.

It only took me about 3 days (30 hours) to master the new 1.70 hotfix view and I spent most of today throwing choppers around at low level in KOTH, skimming the rooftops at high speed in a near-vertical bank, slaloming around the towers and making the local natives shriek "Aiieee! It is he who flies with danger!"

 

 

[Trimmer 28]

Okay I'll go ahead and say it...

Bohemia Interactive- I assume some of you have been on YouTube.com some time in the last year, and by the fact that you're the developers of Arma, that you've stumbled on to Misconducts videos, perhaps you've seen the amount of subscribers he has (6,061 people at the time of this comment)... Regardless of the fact that he clearly demonstrates the awesomeness of our beloved 1.68 camera and how it allows a pilot to fly to his full potential, that's 6,000+ people aside from those voicing themselves in the forum that feel the 1.68 version was more ideal, as those 6,000 people will no longer have that content they subscribed for...

[Trimmer 28]

52 minutes ago, pooroldspike said:

 

I can't speak for others but I mastered the old 3rd-p,and now I've mastered the new 1.70 Hotfix view, piece o' cake, so it makes no difference to me if BI decide to revert to the old 1.68 view or stick with the 1.70 hotfix view..:)

PS- my awesome flying skills are due to the fact that I'm 60-plus years of age and retired, and as retirement is the world's longest coffee break, I can put in about 10 hours of game-playing 24/7 without the distraction of having to go to work.

It only took me about 3 days (30 hours) to master the new 1.70 hotfix view and I spent most of today throwing choppers around at low level in KOTH, skimming the rooftops at high speed in a near-vertical bank, slaloming around the towers and making the local natives scurry indoors shrieking "Aiieee! It is he who flies with danger!" 

 

 

What you call "mastered" and what I call "mastered" is likely quite different... If you practiced it in 30 hours, I can't imagine your flying to the standards anywhere near of what I would call "mastered" which isn't even perfection, but it's held to pretty high standards of capabilities.... Skimming rooftops, hard banks, and avoiding obstacles isn't something justifies the term "mastered" but should be achievable for a somewhat acceptable flight model.

Now I'm not trying to harp on you, I have no idea of your capabilities. But I'm taking what I know as enough to doubt that anybody has "mastered" 3rd person helicopters with the current camera. It takes thousands of hours with a good camera (1.68)... 30 hours practicing with a changed shitty camera (1.70) PLUS the additional hurdle of "ULEARNING" your intuition of speed, momentum and many other aspects of flight, it's quite difficult for me to believe anybody mastered it or has even come close in such a short amount of time... A pilot that really pushes his abilities and strives, isn't going to call himself mastered in anything after 30 hours regardless of how much progress he thinks he's made, you can't really even engage in all the potential scenarios in that amount of time, even if it's just mastering the perspective in flight , that's just setting the bar very low...

 

I admit, I started somewhat getting the hang of it, but during many maneuvers I'm extremely familiar with and always comfortable with, there's certain things that should just feel natural and perspective changes that significantly... Like I said in an earlier post, some people who only reached a certain level of potential to where they think they're "good", likely will not have as much difficulty adapting as the people that got anywhere near what would be called "mastered" with the old version would... Let's see a video of these "Awesome flying skills" and what 60yrs of age can do with a game only a few years old... LOL, I really just want to see if anybody is capable of meeting the standards I would need to even put up with the sloppy camera movements in an attempt to carry on with it. Which I'm about 99% sure I'm not going to take part in, as I understand as I'm flying why I need to back off on certain things I would do in the original flight model, I'm compromising in order to maintain stable and controlled flight in a logical way, but not the ideal flight path or maneuver. There's things I should do, but not with the perspective the camera is currently giving me as it wouldn't allow me to see around this or that or whatever in the proper fashion. It's not a skill thing, it's the restriction of using that skill. There will be many times where the original perspective and the new perspective is the difference that effects how you see the scenario and your resulting decision, I argue the original camera allows more benefit in more scenarios than the new camera, which to be fair, may offer an advantage at the occasional moment, but doesn't hold weight to the benefits of the original.

[pooroldspike 129]

30 minutes ago, Trimmer said:

 

What you call "mastered" and what I call "mastered" is likely quite different...

 

Tell it to my passengers mate..:) 

When I crank up a transport chopper they all come running to daddy because they know they've got a much better chance of getting to the objective with me than with most other chopper pilots.

Sometimes I fly as passenger in somebody else's chopper and I feel as if I'm in a flying coffin..:)

PS- my passengers used to LURV it when I flew a Blackfish VTOL and gave them HALO drops, and 550 knots highspeed low-level drops, but since 1.70 f***d up the Blackfish controls it's a dead duck and I won't touch it any more, and neither will most other players, I only saw a single Bfish on the KOTH servers today, whereas the sky used to be full of them pre-1.70 (sniffle)

[Trimmer 28]

5 minutes ago, pooroldspike said:

 

Tell it to my passengers mate..:) 

When I crank up a transport chopper they all come running to daddy because they know they've got a much better chance of getting to the objective with me than with most other chopper pilots.

Sometimes I fly as passenger in somebody else's chopper and I feel as if I'm in a flying coffin..:)

Talk is cheap. But you're making an important claim. If this new cam can be mastered, that changes my opinion on the update and hotfix and is very relevant... Please post a video of an example of how this camera mode can be mastered... Would be very helpful to the thread. I haven't seen evidence of such potential for this cam.

 

UPDATE: Just saw you added to your comment that you fly a Blackfish... The capabilities that I've been referring to cannot be displayed with a Blackfish I'm sorry, nevermind my previous inquiries about your skills. Completely different piloting scenarios with completely different degrees of problems. If I did paradrops I wouldn't really have any issue with the 1.70 cam at all, but I don't even remember the last time I did a paradrop, they're like watching paint dry to me...

[pooroldspike 129]

13 minutes ago, Trimmer said:

Talk is cheap. But you're making an important claim. If this new cam can be mastered, that changes my opinion on the update and hotfix and is very relevant... Please post a video of an example of how this camera mode can be mastered... Would be very helpful to the thread. I haven't seen evidence of such potential for this cam.

 

I'm mostly a screenshot nut and only have very limited video-making experience, but I think I know how to do 30-second FRAPS vids and upload them into youtube. 

30 secs is all FRAPS will allow and might not be long enough, what other way of doing vids would you recommend?

[pooroldspike 129]

46 minutes ago, Trimmer said:

..If I did paradrops I wouldn't really have any issue with the 1.70 cam at all, but I don't even remember the last time I did a paradrop, they're like watching paint dry to me...

 

Yes, ff there are SAMs about, chopper pilots have to fly low all the way to the objective and land, but even so, many have the bad habit of landing smack in the enemy's lap and getting shot to pieces by the enemy, you should hear their passengers curse them! 

Beats me why they don't land on the relatively safe edge of the objective area so the passengers can make their own way to the centre on foot, using cover.

Even worse, some chopper pilots land smack in the enemy's lap even when there are no SAM's about, and nearly get lynched by their passengers!

Logically in a SAM-free environment they should fly in high above small-arms range and let their passengers parachute out. 

PS- to clarify what I said earlier, I fly choppers and (until recently) Blackfish VTOLS. 

[EXEPOWERED 16]

My friend have an problem. He updated game but camera is still unfixed. There is an option to change this camera?
I got fixed camera after update, but he not.

[Trimmer 28]

14 hours ago, pooroldspike said:

 

Yes, ff there are SAMs about, chopper pilots have to fly low all the way to the objective and land, but even so, many have the bad habit of landing smack in the enemy's lap and getting shot to pieces by the enemy, you should hear their passengers curse them! 

Beats me why they don't land on the relatively safe edge of the objective area so the passengers can make their own way to the centre on foot, using cover.

Even worse, some chopper pilots land smack in the enemy's lap even when there are no SAM's about, and nearly get lynched by their passengers!

Logically in a SAM-free environment they should fly in high above small-arms range and let their passengers parachute out. 

PS- to clarify what I said earlier, I fly choppers and (until recently) Blackfish VTOLS. 

 

Well I disagree with quite a bit of that... Landing people at the edge of the objective is sometimes the most logical thing to do. But many of us pilots are fully capable of regularly landing teammates right in the heart of the action in a place to take cover and typically right behind a structure that other teammates have secure in a strategic location. Not to say that's all a fully capable pilot will do, as the battlefield is constantly evolving, a well seasoned pilot while watching the action from above and listening to the coms, a pilot should often know where inside the hotzone he can get guys in safely... You're opinion about the edge of the AO and paradrops kinda suggests to me that you're not the caliber of pilot that your other comments imply.

In a SAM-free environment, the most logical thing to do is NOT fly high and let people parachute out in most cases. Then you have a bunch of teammates floating down to the AO, and if you watch your guys on the minimap, about 1/3 of them will get shot up by people on the ground like injured ducks, and only a couple will likely land near friendlies. At most I find a paradrop useful when the team hasn't really secured any area of the map and awareness of the enemy's locations hasn't yet been established, but even then there's often a better alternative where you can keep 7 guys together rather than putting on a parachute show in the sky.

 

As for recording, I recommend nvidea's shadowplay... Seems to be the most common and if you have Geforce Experience then you already have it. A lot of people don't realize they already have the program. But if you're trying to show that you mastered 3rd person helicopter flying, a paradrop run isn't going to do it... Demonstrate a simple display of abilities.  Jump in a heli, bring it up to 230 km/h, and land it as fast as you can once you hit that speed. You'll be much faster at this if you're already at a low altitude so that by the time all the speed is bled off you're already at altitude to set it down, but whatever you're capable of.. Like I said, I just want to see an example of somebody "mastering" this new camera view, as I still maintain that the time since the new camera has been introduced isn't sufficient to have enough experience to claim the skill level of "mastered", and aside from time, I don't think the perspective changes will allow a "master" pilot to perform the way he knows he can.

 

Like I said before, for a pilot that knows what's possible, it's not a matter of skill, it's a matter of what the camera will allow him to carry out with the proper perspective. The decision of how hard to flare and when to begin the flare while approaching a tree line or other obstacle at low altitude is drastically effected by the pilots new perspective. The physics at play during that maneuver are all programmed into the pilots muscle memory and doesn't have to even think about it after a lot of flight hours, but if the perspective changes, all those hours of mental programming gets altered and you should be at a completely different place in your level of abilities. UNLESS, you never reached that point where 99% of the otherwise difficult maneuvers are just muscle memory, I imagine it's easier to go from a mediocre pilot and relearn to be a mediocre pilot, than it would be for a master pilot to regain his previous status after a major change in perspective of flight. A "Master Pilot" has to UNLEARN more than he has to LEARN in a case like this, and it's going to take a hell of a lot longer than the 30 hours you're claiming it took you to "master" the current 3rd person helicopters. Somebody who points out their ability to paradrop people and land them outside of the AO isn't likely to know what I'm talking about...