Slow development and overall dissapointment

[bugeater36 14]

I have been an Arma player for over a decade now. I am an avid fan of the series and I have played nearly 3000 hours of both Arma 2 and 3. I was very hyped when I first heard about Arma Reforger, as we had heard next to nothing about the next Arma game in the decade since Arma 3 released. Upon purchasing the game, I found that it was very barebones; something that Bohemia said was part of the plan. I understand that at release it was only supposed to be essentially a tech demo for the Enfusion engine. However, what little that was there, should have been functional. The server issues and constant crashing was really amateurish by modern standards, but even with those very major problems, I was willing to play. I thought that those issues would be fixed in no time; That I could dive into the workbench and enjoy this new engine and it would all work soon. Fast-forward to 2 months after release, things were very bleak. The server issues had been worked on, but most players still couldn't go 20 minutes without being disconnected from the session, and any time I tried to use the workbench, progress was at a crawl due to the constant crashing. The playerbase had decreased by nearly 90% and I was ready to give up too, but then BI released a roadmap. It honestly was a pretty simple roadmap; one that was very much achievable if development continued at a steady rate. The promised content was the bare minimum expected for an Arma game; Helis, Mortars, Mines, ETC., and was set to release in the coming 12 months. Fast-forward to now, nearly a whole year since Reforger was released, and next to nothing has been added. We received maybe half of one of the 'milestone' updates, and nearly all of the bugs, crashes, and server issues are still present. I am not here to lobby against BI, nor am I here just to rant. Everyone is familiar with the state of the game. I am here to ask Bohemia Interactive to be more transparent. If the very achievable roadmap couldn't even be 15% completed, There must be something seriously wrong with the company right now. Features that are seriously needed, asked for by the community, and ridiculously easy to add (such as a proper arsenal, a simple civilian faction, destructible trees, ETC.) have not made it into the game. I would love for them to add the promised content and more, but I really think that by now, it is too late to save this game. Arma Reforger averages around 230 players at a daily peak, and unless BI can perform a miracle, I don't see that number increasing anytime soon.

The whole point of Arma Reforger was to give the community a window into what Arma 4 was going to look like. If we are to take this at face value, then Arma as a series is doomed. We, the community, should expect Arma 4 to be an overpromised, underdelivered, and content dry game that will not only be unplayable, but will receive almost no support after launch, not even the most simple of asks. Bohemia Interactive, is this seriously what we should expect?

If there is anyone listening who is part of the Arma team at Bohemia, then please, all I ask is for some transparency. Make a video or something that details the problems that lead to Reforger being in the state that it is. Give us an honest view into how you plan to go foreword. The lack of communication is almost as tedious as playing Reforger in the state that it is (lol).

Bohemia Interactive, you owe this to your very loyal community. If there are problems, we will understand, and many are willing to help, we just need you to communicate with us. 

I hope that Arma 4 will be all we need it to be, and that Reforger gets the love that it needs; and very soon at that. However, for this to be possible, there needs to be some serious change at BI. I know that I am not alone in feeling this way, every Arma player I've met agrees.

Sincerely, a big fan, who cares a lot about these games.

[jakeplissken 81]

• The AI can not even hear you coming from behind. They pose no threat at all, you just drive past them and they will not even shoot at you sometimes. An AI with an RPG-7 will not even shoot at a vehicle. And the RPG-7 can not even use the PGO-7 scope which would be very useful to engage at a longer range.
• There are still not that many extra weapons to choose from.
• Players are still deleting bases and causing a lot of problems. Vote kicking does not even work, this is a big problem. Players can cause all sorts of problems and not have to worry about being kicked.
• No flares to see better at night, this would be very useful with the new lighting system.
• Poor performance with a large convoy of trucks. This is not a good sign if this engine is intended for Arma 4. This engine needs years of work before it is acceptable. Maybe poorly optimized code. You need multithreaded code to take advantage of modern cpu hardware with at least 12 cores. A lot of lag when first joining a server.
• US Army needs an M113 to compete with the BTR-60 APC that Russia has, although this model in the game is poorly armored. This would be fair. Turrets in the Humvee can not even rotate 360 degrees, this is a joke. Do the devs even know anything about vehicles?

[kev2go 9]

On 4/22/2023 at 5:01 AM, bugeater36 said:

 

 

They added new updates in the experimental build of Reforger on April 27th. Introduced ragdolls and  anti tank mines. Not sure how long this will be in experimental build before making its way to main Reforger launch.

 

See? It was well worth the wait.😂

 

[Lone Penguin 15]

Bohemia stated that they have been a little ambitious with the release schedule of the milestone updates, and according to them that is due to the technical difficulties they are encountering with their new enfusion engine, which they built from the ground up. I'm no developer but I assume this in itself is no easy task. They are focusing for now on a lot of invisible code work to make the game more stable before adding new features (take a look at the huge list of crash fixes in the 0.9.8.50 update report). We don't see a lot of progress from a player's point of view but behind the scenes a lot of things are being fixed without us knowing. Day by day the engine is being worked on to be ready for Arma 4. That is the intent of Arma Reforger after all.

 

You bring up all the negative aspects of the game's current state, but it would be unfair to forget about all the good things the new engine brings for the Arma series too. It runs quite smooth, the graphics and lighting are really pretty, the physics and audio have been reworked, (we will have full destruction of interior furniture and buildings in the future), working radios, vehicles animations, etc... This is all real proof of the effort that was already done by the people at Bohemia.

I'm not a modder but I think a lot of them are super happy about the new tools they have access to thanks to the new engine, and that too is probably a lot of code work that we don't see if we don't use them.

 

I wasn't able to play multiplayer for a month after the initial release so I understand the frustration of the bugs that still remain but, don't forget we are in early access. Why not give Bohemia the time to improve the game that is still in preview stage, wait for the 1.0 update, and then judge Arma Reforger for what it will be on the official release ? If the game won't meet the expectations, then everyone will be in their rights to complain.

 

I say let's wait, cheer on Bohemia for the time being, help them by reporting the bugs, and hope for the best 😄

[jakeplissken 81]

EDEN editor, please.

[bugeater36 14]

On 5/4/2023 at 4:30 PM, Shurilex said:

I say let's wait, cheer on Bohemia for the time being, help them by reporting the bugs, and hope for the best 😄

Bohemia wasn't ambitious at all. That is the problem. The roadmap they released was pretty rudimentary, and included some things that were very easy to add, and yet we are only just now (1 year later) getting landmines, something that should not have taken nearly this long to add. Bohemia also put a ton of work (and likely a lot of money) into marketing this 'game'. If the code is in such a sorry state that they still have yet to pass the first milestone on their roadmap, then why was the game released? Shouldn't they have waited until the game was functional? Bohemia publishes their own work, so I doubt that there is external pressure to meet deadlines, so that begs the question; why? The game still is barely even playable, and the majority of playability comes from mods. Modders have already covered a lot of the stuff on the roadmap, even sooner than the roadmap stated (and I really commend them), but there is a huge problem here. Bohemia has made it clear through all the media they have produced that they expect modders to do nearly all of the heavy lifting in fixing this game and adding more content. Of course I welcome all the wonderful work that these people do, but it is really shitty and low of BI to ask these unpaid and underappreciated saints to clean up their mess. BI chose to release this game in such a terrible state, and they also chose to release a ton of promotional stuff for it, knowing full well that the game was unplayable. Once the players had realized this and had begun to leave, they chose to release the roadmap. I simply don't buy that this was honest. I believe that the roadmap was a complete lie and they never intended to follow it. They could have, but there is just no possible excuse for how little has been done. The roadmap was clearly just another marketing scheme to try to make the game sell. I would love to be proven wrong, but If there really is work being done on the code, then Bohemia desperately needs to communicate with the community because otherwise, I have no conclusion to draw other than they lied. Bohemia Interactive made this game to demonstrate their new engine. I am well aware that this is the purpose of Reforger. This, however, is not an excuse for the developers to release a broken product, and to lie to their fans. Bohemia interactive has seriously dropped the ball here and if they do not start communicating regularly and updating the game, then its game over for Arma. 

There are many things that are killing the modern gaming industry. I am sure that many of these problems are present at Bohemia Interactive. One of the biggest problems, however, lies within the community. Developer simping is present in many communities, and it enables developers to break promises and walk all over their most loyal of supporters, all the while not caring one bit. Yes, when developers deliver, we should cheer them on; However, when developers constantly drop the ball, it is up to the community to hold them accountable. I appreciate the positive outlook, but I think you have set the bar way too low. When we as a community let this type of behavior slide, we actively seal our favorite franchises' fate. 

Bohemia Interactive, I will once again say this: YOU NEED TO COMMUNICATE. YOU ARE SHOOTING YOURSELVES IN THE FEET. It would literally take maybe 30 minutes max a week to make a video updating us on what is going on. 

There is a long laundry list of things that the community expects out of Arma 4. Many of these things are possible with the technology that BI currently has. The bar is set very high, and if they meet it, Arma 4 will be one of the best selling and most played games to date; However, having experienced the catastrophe that is Reforger, I'm not sure they will be even remotely close.

I don't mean to single you out in particular, just the over-forgiving mentality.

Edited May 8, 2023 by bugeater36
format made more sense

[krzychuzokecia 719]

[Lone Penguin 15]

We’ll never know the entire truth of the situation, maybe you are right to be concerned about the future of Arma, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is « game over » for the series.
We all have our ideal Arma in mind, and I think we’ll never have 100% of what we wish for, there will always be something that could be different or better. I'm afraid Arma will never be “one the best selling and most played games to date”, Bohemia just don’t have the money to meet that kind of expectations.

 

As a player that isn’t a developer nor a modder, all I can do is hope for one of my favorite game to be the best it can be, because I have no other way of contributing. The outcome of the game is out of my control anyway, so I don’t think getting angry will change anything. My strategy is to try and give moral support to the creators behind the project, because I think that sending positive vibes will maybe motivate them to give their best. In the worst case scenario, if Arma 4 proves to be a disappointment, I’ll just keep silent and move on. I see no other useful behavior, and I don’t like conflict anyway ^^.

 

Now here is my theory behind the situation.

 

I don’t think Bohemia are dishonest. I think they had a product that worked well in a controlled environment (their computers and local network), but when released to the world revealed itself to be unstable. Shit happens. Astronauts’ lives were lost during space programs. Scientists were confident that their rocket was ready for use, but still exploded at launch.
Coding is really difficult, it involves too much external parameters to be completely bullet proof. I’m not simping, I just find myself obliged to have empathy for the humans that are behind the project. They are not immune to mistakes, and coding an engine is hard, that’s how I explain myself the huge delay in the game development, but maybe I’m wrong.

 

I personally don’t find the game unplayable, I would like to know why you think that way. It doesn’t have a lot of features and assets but almost everything that is implemented works fine. The only real issues are crashes and unstable network. Which is why I think Bohemia concentrates all of its developer’s power on the engine stability.

I think a lot of the assets planned on the roadmap are already done, they are just waiting to release them. (Some screenshots show for example civilian vehicles already moddeled, and some fix updates talk about helicopters). Releasing a big feature/asset update after the core game is fixed will allow Bohemia to regain players and keep them on the long term. Releasing features in a game that still crashes will just create more frustration among players. « Nice helicopters Bohemia, but I can’t even play your game, is this how you treat your community? » I already imagine comments like these. Fancy stuff is the ultimate trump card to regain players, and it would be unwise to use it with the game still unstable. This is why no fancy stuff for now. If this is indeed their strategy, I understand it and would have done the same.

 

Something you stated I have to disagree with. “Modders have already covered a lot of the stuff on the roadmap”. Would like to know what you have in mind.

Building destruction, freeform building for conflict, electricity network, wildlife, ai vehicle driving, unconscious state of character, fuel system… I don’t think I’ve seen any of these features as mods. That is pretty much everything that is on the roadmap, apart from new weapons and vehicles. And the modded weapons and vehicles I happened to test were reusing sounds and animations already present in the game, so made by Bohemia…

 

That’s subjective but for example I personally prefer to wait for vanilla helicopters. I’m pretty sure their 3D models, sounds, and flight physics will be vastly superior to what we have with mods now. Not to belittle the work of modders, they do amazing stuff for free which I’m not able to do and thanks to them I had a lot of fun in Arma 3, but they just don’t have the time and money of a studio, that’s why saying that they are doing the job of Bohemia creators is unfair I think. Bohemia does live records of military vehicles and weapons sounds, travel to different countries to take pictures of the environment and recreate hand crafted maps… that is work that takes time, effort and money. They just don’t have the same priorities and workflow that modders have. Comparing their work would be unfair. Modders can release broken and work in progress stuff, and even abandon a project when they don’t feel like going on anymore. A studio can’t, at least not to that extent. The whole situation we’re actually in proves it.

 

Now for the lack of communication. I agree with you Bohemia are scarce in the info they give us, but in my opinion not telling everything is different than lying, and I just think they keep things for themselves because the game industry is a business after all. As you said they have a marketing image to maintain, they spent some money to build it, and it would be too risky to openly talk about all the problems that the game might have. That’s how the capitalist world works, I don’t really know what we can do about that. When the internet is angry, sometimes silence is the best strategy. Apart from not buying their games, I don’t know if openly complaining will change something if there is indeed malicious intent at Bohemia.

 

You know a couple months ago I too wished for more frequent news to be released, but I thought about it rationally and asked myself, what would Bohemia tell us if they would give 30 minutes weekly interviews ? If the code is broken, the code is broken, there is nothing much else to do than taking the time to fix it. I don’t think they would have anything informative to tell us, so they don’t. They already stated “guys, we are aware the code is broken, that wasn’t expected, we are fixing it, please wait, sorry.”

I think Bohemia are indeed exchanging with the community, but probably only with what I would call valuable members, not random dudes on forums like us. Known modders, administrators of famous milsim communities, hosts of busy multiplayer servers etc… People that are worth investing time to communicate with, that will give valuable info on how to fix and improve the game. For everyone else we can can report an issue or give feedback on the feedback tracker.

 

Suppose Bohemia would give an interview, and would say exactly what I've theorized. "The engine is broken and it takes a heck of a lot of time to fix it, and we don't want to release features until it's fixed". Would that be satisfying for you ? I'm curious ^^. Again, I don't think the community is letting slide what is happening. Just look at the huge amounts of bad reviews on Steam and the tons of complaints on forums. I think Bohemia knows that a lot of players aren't happy, I don't know if complaining even more will change anything, that's just what I'm trying to say, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

I've not set the bar way too low, I didn't even set it in the first place haha. Don't expect anything, and you won’t be disappointed, that's the philosophy I try to go by (easier said than done). I personally would like a game that mixes the war simulation and open world of Arma, BeamNG vehicle physics, civilian life of Grand Theft Auto, and smooth gun animations of Battlefield. I know that will never happen, so I stopped wishing for it.

 

I’ll be honest I’m a bit disappointed too at the state of things, so I understand what you’re feeling, but I see all these angry people already and I just don’t want to rub salt in the wound. I try to be original and give emotional support instead of complaining on stuff that are out of my control anyway ^^.

 

Anyway, May 17 is coming soon, the date of the first anniversary of Arma Reforger, let's hope Bohemia has prepared something nice for the occasion.

[jakeplissken 81]

This is still a thing in 2023, plus poor netcode and poor framerates. This game needs an overhaul very soon. Not a good look for Bohemia to releasing this game in this state.

 

 

Crash log: https://pastebin.com/B2mc6rc2

 

You can be in a truck underwater and not drown. You can not swim back to the surface.
 

 

[kev2go 9]

On 5/10/2023 at 11:30 PM, jakeplissken said:

This is still a thing in 2023, plus poor netcode and poor framerates. This game needs an overhaul very soon. Not a good look for Bohemia to releasing this game in this state.

 

 

Crash log: https://pastebin.com/B2mc6rc2

 

You can be in a truck underwater and not drown. You can not swim back to the surface.
 

 

 

 

Not to mention I still get random crashes to desktop. "GPU hangs, Or your Drive tried to write something unauthorized, from time to time.  

 

Yea a year in and still lacking lots of content plus still dealing with stability and network issues.

[bugeater36 14]

On 5/8/2023 at 10:53 AM, Shurilex said:

Suppose Bohemia would give an interview, and would say exactly what I've theorized. "The engine is broken and it takes a heck of a lot of time to fix it, and we don't want to release features until it's fixed". Would that be satisfying for you ? I'm curious ^^. Again, I don't think the community is letting slide what is happening. Just look at the huge amounts of bad reviews on Steam and the tons of complaints on forums. I think Bohemia knows that a lot of players aren't happy, I don't know if complaining even more will change anything, that's just what I'm trying to say, but maybe I'm wrong.

Bohemia could do a lot more. I really am not asking for a lot here, there are unanswered questions that they really need to address. Here is a quick but pretty comprehensive list of questions that they could answer in a single twitlonger.

1.) What is going wrong? What are the main problems that you are working on right now and what do you plan to do to fix them? Is it console versions? Code? 

2.) What does the company look like right now? How many devs are working on Reforger? Are those devs also working on Arma 4? Are other games eating up time that would otherwise be used on Reforger?

 

3.) How did it get this bad? What led to the game being released in such a broken and bare-bones state and what lead to the original roadmap being deemed 'too ambitious'? Why has there been so little communication? What do you plan to do to avoid this in the future?
 

4.) What is the plan for the future? Do you still plan to cover everything in the roadmap and post-launch support? What can we look foreword to in the near future and when? Will you guys make a more realistic roadmap? Do you plan to add features requested by the community (better editor, workshop, better movement system, ETC.)?

5.) What can we do? There are a lot of talented people in the Arma community, have you considered outsourcing work? Is that practical? Are there enough devs already? 

Again, these are all questions that could be answered in a single twitlonger. It would take at most 15 minutes. If Bohemia Interactive actually cares about anything then their top priority should be to answer these questions. It would take very little effort on their part to be honest with us, and yet so far, we have only had radio silence. I am hoping for the best, but right now, I seriously have my doubts as to the trustworthiness of the devs.

Edited May 14, 2023 by bugeater36
made an error

[computer 113]

On 5/11/2023 at 6:30 AM, jakeplissken said:

This is still a thing in 2023, plus poor netcode and poor framerates. This game needs an overhaul very soon. Not a good look for Bohemia to releasing this game in this state.

 

 

Crash log: https://pastebin.com/B2mc6rc2

 

You can be in a truck underwater and not drown. You can not swim back to the surface.
 

 

Put that on the feedback tracker https://feedback.bistudio.com/

[icebreakr 3159]

Reforger really divided up the community...

[jakeplissken 81]

Still has constant internal errors kicks over a year after release. Maybe it will be fixed in 2025. I got a 3fps bug too, opening the map fixed it, but closing the map it went back to 3 fps. Please fix this terrible excuse for a game for once. We need a hotfix now.

[Wilks 10]

Pretty much agree with all of the above.

 

The one silver lining I take is that they actually released something before ArmA 4 to figure out their engine needed years more work.

[jakeplissken 81]

One more patch and it still has connection issues. I swear GPT-4 could write better code than this. The whole networking code needs work, once this is done and working in 12 months, then add more content, but you need to fix the networking first, this if very important. Once there are no more connection timeouts, then the other content may be added, but networking issues are the #1 issue.

[razor6014 35]

The only timeouts i had was when a router went out and the ping was above 999 ms, at which point I would expect to get kicked. 

As per coding with chat gpt ..

its ok for some low level stuff but in a proper project,

well it wont win any engineering awards any time soon.

 

If you have some particular circumstances, best send them to BI so that they can fix them. 

Again any development team will focus on most wide spread issues first. If you dont report it, or if its some real edgecase, or if it requires reworking everything it will be pushed to later.

Just by the max players its 6000ish players, if we go by 80 % rule  where it will take 20 % time to fix problems of 80% of players  and  80% time to fix  the problems of the rest of 20% of players.  

That means for the majority of the project 1200 players will be unhapy. 

I guess you are in that 1200.  Sorry but thats how your beans fell 

[jakeplissken 81]

I am sure they will fix it in 12 months...

 

 

 

[Kristian 47]

On 5/4/2023 at 1:57 AM, jakeplissken said:

• US Army needs an M113 to compete with the BTR-60 APC that Russia has, although this model in the game is poorly armored. This would be fair. Turrets in the Humvee can not even rotate 360 degrees, this is a joke. Do the devs even know anything about vehicles?

 

LAV-25 is in the ever-so-elusive roadmap, so we hopefully get that coming someday to combat the BTR.

HMMWV Turrets have been turning 360 degrees since day one of Reforger. Mouse controls the weapon in the mount, A and D turns the mount horizontally. I love this system as it gives the gun the heavy feel it needs. 

[kev2go 9]

6 hours ago, Kristian said:

 

LAV-25 is in the ever-so-elusive roadmap, so we hopefully get that coming someday to combat the BTR.

HMMWV Turrets have been turning 360 degrees since day one of Reforger. Mouse controls the weapon in the mount, A and D turns the mount horizontally. I love this system as it gives the gun the heavy feel it needs. 

 

I find it interesting that the LAV25 was chosen since the faction specifically represented is the US army, not the usmc.  But a LAV25 would be expected to be vastly superior to a Btr70 in many regards.  It has a 25mm autocannon. This would be superior firepower to the russian 14.5mm gun . the  main canon is also stabilized, which would allow for shooting on the move. LAv25 also has proper night fighting equipment. LIke not just passive night vision but thermal optics as well, which are paired with a laser rangefinder and fire control system. So with the primary gunners sight you can just laser designate a point, recieve accurate distance to targert and have the Fire control compensate for the ballistic drop thus not even need range scales for long range gunning. The fire control can also calculate the necessary lead to hit a moving vehicle. 

[Ady-Judge 0]

I’m not bothering with reforger or Arma4 unless they are VR compatible 

 

A separate 2d screen just doesn’t cut it now 

 

been using arma3 with VorpX which shows how well suited Arma series is to VR 

crisp sharp & rock solid 90fps 

[teabagginpeople 398]

On 9/2/2023 at 1:44 PM, Ady-Judge said:

I’m not bothering with reforger or Arma4 unless they are VR compatible 

 

A separate 2d screen just doesn’t cut it now 

 

been using arma3 with VorpX which shows how well suited Arma series is to VR 

crisp sharp & rock solid 90fps 

I think most people are reasonable and want BI and Arma4 to improve upon what Arma3 got right. They wanted a more stable playtime and some updated graphics (Arma3 is still quite pretty compared to many AAA games) and new features that mods had created, better Ai.

 

I don't think everyone was kicking up dust because its VR compatibility. It would be a nice addition at the back end. Most right now are probably more concerned with the possible direction the overall game might end up. As in dumbed down reincarnation of the bad times after Flashpoint, nail in the coffin of the studio/series.  

[jakeplissken 81]

Just console Xbox trash. We want a good PC-only game and we get this. At least Arma 3 is still available. What is the maximum terrain size on Reforger anyway? I just made a nice 50x50 KM map for Arma 3. Could I port it into Reforger? Can the outdated Enfusion engine even handle such a massive map?

[Ady-Judge 0]

Most on here & that use Arma have no VR headsets , pretty much all the people that will only use vr ( like me )  do t habe or can not use the Arma series , as so far no VR