Getting up to speed with ARMA3 / community

[Varis 34]

Hello ARMA3 world -

 

Veteran of computer gaming for 35 years but an ARMA newbie - literally first tried the game only a couple weeks ago, have all the DLCs and previous titles now.

 

Question (for newbs and vets):

If you started with ARMA today, what would you do to get the most out of it as soon as possible?

 

My primary concern is what kind of player groups to associate with, and how, but of course open for any other advanced ideas. Please note that I'll closely read the promising thread at 

to get a better touch of all the basics. (Watching videos is a good tip, I often skip that for other games, shame on me!)

 

The rest of my post is just filling in my background to give you an idea where I'm coming from, organized in sections, feel free to skip through it as fast as you want or take your time:

 

CV in short

 

-Variable leadership positions in a number of clans starting from 1998; created my own in 2012 and it was a huge success

-Prominent modder from Battlezone (1998) and Homeworld 2 (2003)

-Some background from open source projects/Linux (yes includes skills in programming and internet architecture)

 

Relevant gaming diet

 

-Interest in simulators earlier on, HIND (1995) was the last significant experience and it waned from Longbow (1998) onwards as radar blips don't make for exciting enemies,

a bit of DCS: Black Shark 2

-Also a good varied diet on shooters earlier on (latest one Planetside II, as well; expert on the lightning)

-Was big into Battlefield 2 at the time, PKM, attack helis and jeeps (was #500 in global ranking at a point in these) being my weapons of choice

-More strongly into strategy and indie titles nowadays, prefer turnbased (if I could get Steel Panthers II but with starships, that would be about as close to my ideal game as possible)

 

Interests in ARMA3 so far

 

-The vanilla game (with all the DLC save Karts)

-Teamplay

-The editor / scenarios

-Zeus mode

-Mods (my installed collection is very light so far)

 

Finally

 

I guess people come to ARMA from very different backgrounds, from the above you see I can take it from different angles. And they naturally adopt different roles / niches in the community - do you instantly see something that would be just natural for me or is in high demand currently?

 

I expect to work full time, or more, during the coming months, though my schedules can be surprisingly flexible. About 20 hours per week is the absolute maximum I think I'd be able to spend on ARMA most weeks. So no over-ambitious modding projects taking 6 to 12 months - unless it's somebody else's pet project and I can just lend a hand one week and try something different the next week.

 

Thanks for reading this far, the sandbox is full of toys! 

[SpacePilotMax 47]

3 hours ago, Varis said:

-Also a good varied diet on shooters earlier on (latest one Planetside II, as well; expert on the lightning)

 

You're lucky. PS2 (at least to me) fells rather like Arma in its combined arms aspect, so it shouldn't be that hard to adapt. As for getting the most out of Arma, play the Zeus gamemode. It's awesome. Also, try to find a good group to join. This game really shines in semi-organized coop, but pvp can also be very fun. Keep in mid though you will not find a unit that mostly uses vanilla. Some of the best mods are the RHS pack. CUP is fairly useful (ported content from BI's earlier Arma games). If you like going in-depth with the possibilitis of the game editors, you might like the scripting. If that sounds good, this is a good place to see.

 

P.S. This was written over about 40 mins so don't mind the stylistics.

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

To get most out of games of a similar type it's always good practice to memorize the keybinds.

G for gear etc comes in handy and saves a lot of time.

 

Cheers

[Rich_R 1087]

Agree wth @SpacePilotMax Arma bears a lot of similarities with planet side 2. If you play on there as an organized squad, you could consider the game Arma-lite.

 

The other thread has a bunch of great advice that doesn't need to be repeated here. Will point out, the most successful players are those that take the time to research, watch videos and simply get stuck in. Those who come on and ask, 'what does this button do?', will have a hard time with the game and the community.

 

Please, please research any groups before joining, I screened applicants for two other groups and the number of people who wanted a play style completely different from what was offered was surprising. To the point we would ask they watched two videos before applying.

[SpacePilotMax 47]

10 hours ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

To get most out of games of a similar type it's always good practice to memorize the keybinds.

G for gear etc comes in handy and saves a lot of time.

 

Cheers

 

Remember: G is for Grenade, not gear. Used to be gear in previous games, I hear it caused a lot of havoc among A2 communities which just moved to A3.

[EDcase 87]

Don't be afraid to remap keys to your liking or what you're used to in other games.

Create a new profile in the main screen and then you'll be able to go back to vanilla keys if you wish.

 

Play all the included single player missions first until you are completely comfortable with controlling your character then try some multiplayer games.

Follow people around to get a feel for the mission. Remember that ARMA missions are true sandbox so they can be very different in how they are set up and play.

 

Public servers are often chaotic so don't let that put you off.

If you want more organised games (usually Co-Op) then look at the SQUADS page to join a private server.

[SpacePilotMax 47]

3 hours ago, Rich_R said:

Please, please research any groups before joining, I screened applicants for two other groups and the number of people who wanted a play style completely different from what was offered was surprising. To the point we would ask they watched two videos before applying.

 

I've seen this happen. Also, if you plan on being with a group, lear to use the ACE and Task Force Radio mods. For some reason, most groups use these. Also, a bit of personal advice: steer clear of RP milsim groups and if you don't, do ten times more research. These guys usually will want you to put them before real life, not to even mention you will get yelled at.

[Varis 34]

As a side note, I wonder if ARMA has some slight issues in its public image, or has the bias moved from hard core realist / milsim more towards the mainstream with ARMA2->ARMA3? The blip called "ARMA" started growing bigger on my radar maybe some 5 years ago, during late ARMA2, and the few videos I saw and the comments I got indicated that ARMA is a small hard core niche community, with special tastes and also fragmented by the X various mods. (I guess the last at least holds some truth then.) Note that "small" in my books is usually something between 50 and 1000, maybe a couple thousand, daily peak players. With its 35k peaks, ARMA3 is more like showing a new way for mainstream shooters!

 

So personally I was surprised how close to BF2 the game is, how accessible things like helicopters and jets are, etc. (With ground vehicle targeting systems and all the advanced features of the game of course there is a learning curve.) I would have thought it's more sandbox/simulation while it seems they (we?) managed to cram in quite a bit of gaming fun in the old way. I guess people comparing the game to Planetside2 and not being yelled at is one indicator - but I agree with your point that the game had a beautiful combined arms model and a good vehicle implementation, even though in style it was more a fantasy (sci-fi) shooter while here it's more a contemporary military thing.

 

I take which game mode you go for and which mods you use has the most fundamental impact on your ARMA experience. So far I've done a bunch of the out-of-the-box SP experience, with some community missions and Zeus+KOTH for multiplayer. Can you identify a few main styles in ARMA gameplay or is it more like a fragmentation into a dozen or more, loosely connected and often similar micro-communities?

 

Critical for me is to understand what kind of groups I'm looking to find. Do we have scenario editors/testers guilds that hold weekly sessions on Works In Progress or something? Do major clans recruit rookies and train them up pretty much behind closed doors? Or is it common to host open community events/ops with your favourite mods of the week where anybody is welcome to join? Is there any kind of a competitive scene in ARMA?

 

Over the years I've learned it's important to do screening with groups, both ways, though you can't be too strict or you end up with nothing and just waste a lot of time. The group has to be a good fit in terms of expected skill levels - attitudes / approaches / atmosphere - focus of activities and so on. I've been to groups that were very competitive and it was tough to keep up your own pace, and groups that lacked any distinguishing skill or style, groups that had some interesting out of the box focus and groups that basically were just a bunch of friends having fun together and some that were between those. Some groups achieved just outstanding teamplay and player development and often I helped to create them. A most peculiar situation was with Planetside 2 as I didn't find small groups with a well defined focus and approach - instead there were a good number of small or large groups who did basically blobbing and moving from one control point to the next with overwhelming numbers; rinse and repeat. Gets old very very fast.

 

I guess at this point it's maybe mostly Zeus and scenario editing that I'm looking forward to experiencing with a good group. I've been playing around with the editor over the last two weeks and it's piss easy to just drop some items there and have fun playing around - making everything polished and behaving nicely is an entirely different matter! The last thing I did was trying to build some kind of a "control this area" objective but the game was telling me I haven't defined a what it calls a curator. Should certainly start digging deeper into scripting etc!

 

Thanks for the replies and all the advice!

[joostsidy 685]

Same as @Grumpy Old Man I would like to extend friendly advice (again) to this new player that Blackfoot helicopter pilots can use 'eject' in flight to remove the mission disk from the helo's data-link system.

[joostsidy 685]

Even though your resume is long and impressive, I must inform you that the correct preparation for this game is:

- Delta Force

- Armored Fist

- Comanche

- OFP

 

... eh ok, I admit it, I've never played Arma 2 :-O

 

Hmm, first 3 games are all Novalogic, aren't they?

 

 

 

[SpacePilotMax 47]

5 hours ago, Varis said:

Do major clans recruit rookies and train them up pretty much behind closed doors? Or is it common to host open community events/ops with your favourite mods of the week where anybody is welcome to join? Is there any kind of a competitive scene in ARMA?

 The only sort of competitive scene I can remember is Friday Night Fights and these are invite-only events in which whole units often participate. Public events done by a group are there but they're essentially there to get you to join the group. Units often provide basic training to those who need it (and others won't let you in unless you have 500+ hours but still train you as if you never played the game before). Getting into a major-major clan is rather hard and it's often better to have a small-ish group where you have a realistic chance of learning everyone's name

[Varis 34]

Just now, SpacePilotMax said:

 The only sort of competitive scene I can remember is Friday Night Fights and these are invite-only events in which whole units often participate. Public events done by a group are there but they're essentially there to get you to join the group. Units often provide basic training to those who need it (and others won't let you in unless you have 500+ hours but still train you as if you never played the game before). Getting into a major-major clan is rather hard and it's often better to have a small-ish group where you have a realistic chance of learning everyone's name

 

ARMA is so different from your usual "game of the year" thing, which makes it fascinating. When clans run their custom mods/scenarios there's obviously some deep interaction between the players and the modders.

 

But also the long learning curve has many implications - I think it's a franchise like Eve Online where players stay on and off (did that with Eve from 2003) for a decade(s) and as their skills and experience develop they can more easily hop into the more demanding clans over the years, and the tiering of groups is often very obvious. You usually don't jump to the deep end where people are diving 20 meters if you can't swim. Exception being some rare people who are super talented and/or super dedicated.

 

Yeah I'd think at this point I'd be basically looking for anyone suitable I can learn and have fun with and who's got their shit together.

 

I guess there is a difference in how Eve and ARMA handle their demanding learning curves. In Eve the learning is very heavily based on other players - there's often little point in playing and ignoring the clans/corporations side while ARMA has extensive SP content that introduces the game concepts all along. But there is also a difference in the thing that ARMA is much a co-op sandbox while in Eve there is almost always a PVP aspect to the sandbox, with strategic alliance level military struggles over territory being seen as the end game rather than "I like to run missions with my friend".

 

1 hour ago, joostsidy said:

Even though your resume is long and impressive, I must inform you that the correct preparation for this game is:

- Delta Force

- Armored Fist

- Comanche

- OFP

 

... eh ok, I admit it, I've never played Arma 2 :-O

 

Hmm, first 3 games are all Novalogic, aren't they?

 

Ooops I never did any of those  And don't really know Novalogic, but wasn't Comanche quite arcade-y while Delta Force would feel more like a proper predecessor for ARMA?

[R0adki11 3949]

17 hours ago, SpacePilotMax said:

 

Remember: G is for Grenade, not gear. Used to be gear in previous games, I hear it caused a lot of havoc among A2 communities which just moved to A3.

G is for gear, if your using Arma2 keybinds 

[joostsidy 685]

10 hours ago, Varis said:

Ooops I never did any of those  And don't really know Novalogic, but wasn't Comanche quite arcade-y while Delta Force would feel more like a proper predecessor for ARMA?

Yeah Comanche was the most arcadey of the three games. Delta force was the best at the time in my opinion. Was almost unheard of in a game that you could be killed by one stray bullet. DF also featured swimming which BI took some time to catch up to in Arma 3 ;-)

For me those games represented the feel that Arma 3 gives me now, the harsness of war scare, that trivial things can end your life. What's encouraged in other combat games will finish you fast here, at least in the more serious game modes.

[SpacePilotMax 47]

As far as I remember, Comanche (4) is nothing like Arma. In fact it's the opposite where gunner and pilot are the same person. Still a fun game, I recommend it. Also, don't believe anyone who tells you G is for gear and/or the "eject" in helicopters is for the CD player. Both of these will lead to your untimely virtual demise.

[almanzo 144]

As a representative of the COOP community, I can tell you that there are a vast variety of groups out there, that do different things. Most train their members within "closed doors" as you say, but some groups have a more open approach. A group called "FOLK" (http://folkarps.com/) hosts public sessions each week, with no requirements of membership or much prior knowledge. Then there are other groups that are more closed, and it varies how strict the different communities are maintained and nurtured. Some aim for large scale communities with alot of versitility in terms of gameplay, while others try to maintain smaller and more tight knit communities. Some communities have strict attendance policies, others are more leanient.

I do highly recommend trying to find a community though, regardless of your gameplay preferences. ARMA is best served in an organized fashion, and at least for a large part of the community, mods are quite essential. You could try to play with FOLK or other open groups to get a taste I guess, or you could visit r/FindAunit on reddit.

 

[Varis 34]

One cool tip I learned today: If your debug console comes up by accident when you're in the editor (or anywhere), hit Esc to get rid of it.

 

Had to search for 1 hour+ for it, doesn't appear in google results until I found this one: https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/181005-arma-3-unable-to-remove-debug-console-from-ingame-settings-screen-on-main-campaign/

 

I was finally able to save my work! 

[SpacePilotMax 47]

Welcome to the strange parts of Arma! If you like stuff breaking try using the Enchanced Movement mod, you probably will get stuck in a wall and die.

[Terramesa 66]

I would get used to the vanilla experience before loading up 3GB worth of mods.

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

On 20.7.2017 at 4:04 AM, Terramesa said:

I would get used to the vanilla experience before loading up 3GB worth of mods.

3GB? That's the size of my startup parameters.

 

Speaking of mods I suggest trying out JSRS and the RHS mods and Iron Front for A3.

Great love to detail on those, JSRS can really enhance your gameplay if you for some reason aren't happy with the vanilla sounds which have come a long way since the game came out.

The assets in RHS and Iron Front are extremelty well done and improve the diversity for mission making tenfold, a factor that BI has been ignoring for too long in my opinion.

 

Cheers

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

Varis, 

Welcome to our amazing community. I truly do mean that. I've been apart of it for the last 16 years and barring a few aspects, it has only gotten better with time. 

To answer your question, I believe @Rich_R answered it best in the thread you linked. 

 

Play through the tutorials: I cannot emphasise enough how important this is! If you want to learn without the fear of dying consider using the SSPCM Mod (Simple Single Player Cheat Menu). This will allow you to perfect calculating range on moving targets and also help you figure out your own play style (amongst other things). 

 

Join Good Servers: This is a difficult one. As others have said, KotH and wasteland "may" be a good place to start. They are good in that they are moderated, but bad in that they are so well known and large that every noob cheater flocks to them. Anticipate a free for all, but be thankful if you have an organised squad. 

 

Watch videos: I find myself doing this more and more lately. Dslyecxi's videos are a solid starting point. I've linked the tutorials playlist, but he has many others https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQEd6zRLOafU3aek--f71a-GQwByv6_bP

 

Play in the editor: 90% of everything I've learned in Arma has come from the editor. It's a literal sandbox, test, replay, test, replay and on and on. There is no better place to learn weapon types/preferences and use cases. 

 

Join a group/clan: For me this was the hardest task and one that has taken the longest. My recommendation is to be active on the forum and the Arma 3 Discord https://discord.gg/UPNpZz9 Hopefully after interacting with a few people, you might find like minded players to play with. Playing with incompatible players can be a game ruining experience. 

 

 

Mod recommendations:

ACE3 (Advanced Combat Environment)
CUP (Arma 1 and Arma 2 assets)
RHS (Red Hammer Studios. Russian, US and other units. Highly detailed)
CBA (Community Base Addons)

to name just a few...


Welcome to Arma!

[Varis 34]

Thanks again  Seems days are busy again after the summer, and my daily stab at ARMA is usually just some casual KotH, having some old background in shooters (I even played Unreal Tournament seriously and Quake Wars: Enemy Territory) there is that familiar PvP rush, with the impressive detail and immersion of ARMA 3. Time to time also trying to improve in the Kiss the Ground time trial. Not so much experimentation right now.

 

The search for the clan is still on, in principle. I guess I got a bit overwhelmed, like many people do, I think. A categorized index of clans could be nice (how about a few lists in wiki if that doesn't exist already). There are LOTS of different clans and many of them are milsim/realism/tactical, and even the ones that really aren't seem to like to name themselves 3507th Special Airborne Regiment or some such, not a good way to differentiate from a marketing perspective  Maybe at first it's smarter to go to any open events or gatherings of regular players - for many clans it appears that "our playstyle" is the thing they are really organized around, and how do you know yours as a new player when you don't know half the game yet?

 

Does ARMA embody a stratification of clans like Eve Online? A new player would join a clan that is open for newbies and has few requirements, then after 1-2 weeks of learning the rudimentaries of the game and having an idea about their path, they may go to a "real" clan with a serious agenda but which is welcoming to new players and typically has high-rate pilots only in the top ranks. There the player will get busy practicing their trade the best ones might leave in just a few weeks or months to join a clan in a serious branch of business like intensive PvP such as wormspace (high value assets/rewards only) or 0.0 alliances (large and often very powerful enemies in multiple aspects engaged in massive warfare). Typically a few years of high rate service in such a group can get you fit for moving to the top tier clans that go to the Alliance Tournament, and basically anywhere in the Eve universe they want. At that point you'd have a very good, broad view of the game, probably mastering a branch or two of business and owning top tier (faction) combat gear and performing far above the average combat pilot, even holding your own against several pilots with average level of gear/skills. Very demanding if you get to that level.

 

Videos are a good tip, you can often learn quite well that way. I've been too lazy to watch videos in many other games too  Also the editor, obviously you could place any type of target, use any type of weapon/gear and try out any type of scenario/concept with that. Highly useful for a new player... I don't think I've even tried to shoot half of the guns yet...

 

 

[jarrad96 1940]

You know what- some sort of Clan/Group/Unit I suppose naming conventions would be fantastic- right now, as you say, there isn't really anything. 

 

If I had the option I would go for a 'Casual' -> 'Roleplay' -> 'Tactical' -> 'Milsim' -> 'Military Roleplay' standard in terms of Group Scaling/Hardness. 

 

Casual would be just general play, Roleplay would be a collection of the various 'Life' servers, Tactical would be something with elements of realism, for example use of some unit-level tactics and weapons use, Mil-Sim would be the same as Tactical but taken slightly further, perhaps with assigned roles and ranks of players, and finally Military Roleplay would be 80% at base talking shit while you wait to do drill. 

 

As as far as 'training' groups, I have encountered a few that were basically just very well run public servers with regular attendance, but most of the groups around are modded in some way, with more of a focus on retaining members- with all the variances in groups.

 

Even seemingly 'simple' things like TFAR VS ACRE, RHS VS CUP VS Anything Else, ACE vs No-ACE (or even Basic VS Advanced VS Custom versions of ACE itself) is way too much hassle for a training group to try and predict- at least with EVE things are relatively stable as far as systems and content goes. 

[djotacon 190]

I strongly advise against joining a clan.

 

I suggest find players to your same player level and the same game knowledge and play all missions in a private level or in a public server to achive the maximum level of fun.

 

If you want to play more tactically you can learn and try exactly the same tactics learning from a book and put this ideas with your game friends.

 

To me is the best way lo play Arma 3.

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

Varis,

You may find these guys of interest. http://www.republicoffolk.org