We need Arma 3 on consoles

[chortles 263]

@chrisb I believe that you may have misinterpreted bent.toe; I took them to mean that not that DayZ console money saved the company as a whole but rather that, in their opinion, console revenue influenced Bohemia to keep up the promise of continued DayZ PC development instead of (at least openly) 'cutting perceived losses' and wrapping-it-up in a way analogous to the current state of Arma 3. (For all that the remaining Arma 3 devs may fix and/or try to fix, Tanks DLC was arguably Bohemia closing the door on engine-level gameplay features -- see how Contact's stuff relies on a mix of SP campaign scripting and config changes that can unwittingly mess with other content.)

On 7/11/2019 at 10:33 AM, Spatsiba said:

This is pure speculation but wouldn't the PC version have more funding if work on consoles never started? You also have yet to explain how all these keybindings would work on console without ruining the game. I have nothing against them making a console version in itself. I just don't think that it's a good move considering variables such as money, time, manpower etc. It's my analysis that if ArmA4 was worked on for consoles that's valuable time, money, effort, compromises that could've been put into developing the game on PC. For what I want they shouldn't waste their time on console ports.

It's also worth noting that I find consoles pointless since it's just a limited PC. Why not just get one without child lock features?

I'm skeptical of the first sentence for several reasons, one of which is that Rocket already had console in mind (though not priority) in the months before the standalone was first available for sale, and another being that apparently at least one DayZ dev claimed that budgeting was set independently of sales (in response to claims that the standalone's scope/ambitions grew after its initial sales on PC were so high). Unless you've got a source to contradict that or to say that things changed much later/very recently...

As for keybindings... considering what you say right afterward I'm skeptical as to whether you're posing that question in good faith. That being said, I notice that Bohemia's already headed towards 'industry standard' choices via their keybinding presets (G-for-gear-whoops-grenade jokes aside, two examples of the latter in Arma 3 would be Wx2 -> LShift for sprinting and adding weapon slots to the number row instead of the number row being exclusively for group commanding) and they've implemented partial solutions such as hiding action menu entries which have a keybind. However, whereas a comprehensive UI overhaul in Arma 3 could have broken existing community content, it would seem that 'Arma 4' would be Bohemia's chance for a 'clean break': no existing community content to be broken post-launch, and the removal of SQF in favor of Enforce Script aka EnScript may have already made it impossible to 'drop in community-made content from the previous game and see what happens' as in prior Arma games (I'm thinking of the first few months of Arma 3 modding)... so who's to say that we'll end up still needing so many keybinds in the future instead of them having been nested into submenus? (Alternately, PC could just have the advantage of having both methods available.)

 

As far as the controller, for now I'll say that while the DualShock 4 and Xbox One controllers each have only four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, two sticks (plus their push-the-stick-down clickable buttons), and a D-pad, between those and tap/double-tap/hold there's a lot of possible button mapping combinations.

 

Speaking of UI, I don't know if "inventory Tetris" would meet your definition of "ruining the game" but people have wanted some inventory solution that took volume into account (or at least an item/weapon/magazine/piece-of-equipment's longest dimension) instead of an arbitrary mass value as in Arma 3, so I see no obvious reason that Arma 4 designers should rule out DayZ's inventory system out of hand, much less reuse button mappings from that; I would say that the same goes for its world interaction mechanics such as different context-sensitive actions between left or right mouse/shoulder button taps, and/or holding for 'partial fill/unfill' actions made possible in DayZ (such as mag repacking)... and whether or not ACE3's interaction menu is your preferred solution for an action menu replacement, I'll note that radials with nested submenus have been a thing as far back as Dragon Rising while people have over the years advocated replacing the action menu with a radial irrespective of controller compatibility. Allow for slices to be dynamically added/removed/resized to allow for community-made slices/submenus, break the seeming console limitation of D-pad-friendly quadrants/octants in favor of any number of slices which can be freely selected (mouse for those who have one, analog sticks for controllers), and I think you're on to something...

FInally, you declared that you "find consoles pointless since it's just a limited PC", but one aspect that you may have overlooked is that while the Arma series is notorious for favoring Intel CPUs and higher clock speeds the DayZ iteration of Enfusion is compatible with the AMD Jaguar-based octo-core (two quad-core modules) CPUs in both PS4 and XB1 with reported clocks of 1.6-1.7 GHz (2.1-2.3 GHz for PS4 Pro/XB1 X). If Bohemia leadership directing engine development in this way ends up meaning that 'Enfusion-powered Arma 4' is the first in the series to finally play nicely with AMD CPUs (much less hey, multi-threading) on PC...

[bent.toe 12]

I'm still looking for an Arma3 substitute on X1X or PS4pro... nothing.

 

Oh well, next-gen around the corner so here's hoping we get some milsim openworld stuff by 2021.

[Jackal326 1158]

On 7/29/2020 at 8:46 AM, bent.toe said:

Oh well, next-gen around the corner so here's hoping we get some milsim openworld stuff by 2021.

...and if its made/published by Codemasters....don't bother *cough* OFP Enter The Dragon (or whatever it was called) 💩 *cough*

[drebin052 323]

13 hours ago, Jackal326 said:

...and if its made/published by Codemasters....don't bother *cough* OFP Enter The Dragon (or whatever it was called) 💩 *cough*

 

Excuse me, but I'll have you know that Red River was the best Battlefield Call of Duty game in the series thus far. A true worthy successor to the Operation Flashpoint name!

[Janez 507]

I mean, some of these latest consoles are pretty powerful, its really sad that so many developers, publishers and particularly platform holders are focusing so much on gimmicks like 4k and whatnot, wasting performance, rather then finally, after 20 years, expanding gameplay into something more complex. There were some incredibly ambitious games back in late 90s/early 2000s, its just you know, view distance was about 20 meters back then. Then PS3 and 360 were truly limited and went on for far too long and with 8th gen they mostly just continued doing the same shallow games just with better graphics.

3DEN is obviously going to be clunky with controller no matter the interface but perhaps BI should consider having cross platform play for next title. Both consoles have native M+K support these days and you can already play A3 on a controller. Besides, there is a lot that needs doing for the next tittle regarding how player interacts with environment (DOORS!), vehicles and AI. More on those sort of things in Offtopic Arma 4 thread.

 

With that said, there is a very justified fear of consolization around here, Arma is one of (if not last) last standing series of hardcore, tactical games but I think the time is coming that BI can make something truly amazing with it and realize ambitions they had back in the day. There is a lot of hunger for this type of game on consoles as well and I think it could be done right but game/platform it self probably wont be enough on this route. Instead of unfinished saturation, a robust, persistent (not in +125 points per kill CoD way) and especially polished game mode would be required that truly represents the heart of Arma.

And BI, if you're lacking a bit of gusto, turn to editing section when the time is right, its full of awesome guys just itching to get in there.

[Valken 621]

I like the upcoming generation console boxes in terms of specs as a game and work PC. Add a USB KB + Multibutton mouse, plug it in, and it should be good to go. 

 

Most good PC games are launched on the consoles first now but ARMA is a legacy beast in terms of resource usage. It is not console optimized. 

 

Look at Grand Theft Auto Series and Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar. They optimized the engines for consoles first, then need a fairly powerful PC to EXTEND that game, such as hires textures, higher sound fidelity and high poly models.

 

ARMA is the other way around... it is built to the limits of PC CPU and memory usage due to the scripting engine so it would be sub optimal on the consoles.

 

I think ARMA 4 and beyond may work but then the game engine will have to scrap the current scripting compatibility or rewrite script code in new formats, or get castrated by console reviewers for slow performance.

 

 

[mmm 35]

What's running ARMA with JUST controller like? I mean you are releasing on console, it has to offer full functionality for controller only, you can't make M+KB mandatory. I'm not qualified to comment at all with single digit hours of controller experience under my belt and 0 console owned in my life time, but is it at all possible to do it without stripping features from baseline ARMA 3 standard? Say you do that with button combinations and multilevel menus how's ergonomics for controller then?

 

And what's the "ARMA experience" console players looking for? Full disclosure I'm not familiar with how most other play ARMA. I jumped into ARMA 3 for the kind of experience in the earlier pre-release advertising material on the single player campaign, as seen here and here, and having been looking for it ever since(and learned how impossible it is in the process with the ARMA 3 we currently have on hand...), although I do have the self awareness that I'm in a very small minority. From the little I know though it seems diverse and very mod dependent. Say it is technically feasible, is it the exact perfect replication of the entire ecosystem but just running on standardized hardware they would like? In another word as if they're just like all running on PC but with identical spec? Or it is not the case but they already find the vanilla offering compelling enough, or with a few officially sanctioned mods?

[Valken 621]

I run ARMA 3 with both KB+M and DualShock Joypad for DRIVING.

 

If I can figure it out, I would FLY with KB+M, but a stick or joy pad should work.

 

Infantry needs a KB+Mouse for aiming, and all the positioning, not to mention command module.

 

Actually, Cold War Crisis was released on XBOX so should review how the controls were on that as a benchmark, but while the aiming and movement works, it is clunky compared to KB+M. 

 

If the player never used KB+M, it is possible for this but if cross platform play is allowed, the joypad players would get slaughted by PC players due to superior controls they have access too. 

 

The easy solution is to ENABLE USB KB+M controls ALLOWED on the consoles. They can move up from joypads to KB+M in the future.

[Jackal326 1158]

6 hours ago, mmm said:

 ...you can't make M+KB mandatory....

Sure you can. PS VR games require the VR equipment don't they?...

[mmm 35]

11 hours ago, Jackal326 said:

Sure you can. PS VR games require the VR equipment don't they?...

I don't know of a precedence so far for mandatory mouse keyboard on console. There's yet to be a VR only major title other than half life, and sony can't peddle first party mouse keyboard can they? As I understand M+KB is still something of a controversy on console for its competitive advantage in shooter. While I don't personally see ARMA as looking for maximum competitive advantage in competitive multiplayer mode, there's no guarantee it won't be the popular mentality for console demographic. And to be honest I'll be a bit concerned if that steer ARMA in different direction. Reminds me of the "Argo" thing also...

 

But I'll give you a better counter argument, "you guys don't have a phone?" "I mean a mouse?" I understand the barrier is very low.

 

15 hours ago, Valken said:

Actually, Cold War Crisis was released on XBOX

Thanks for reminding me of that fact. Actually anyone with hands on experience on that can probably offer some insight into what a potential future port look like.