Difficulty option

[Aeon 0]

Difficulty settings may increase lifetime of the game, or on the other hand make it more accessible. However it's wise to let the user choose his own difficulty level ("Cadet" or "Veteran", + custom difficulties locked or unlocked).

I saw another topic about "jam failure", wich is a good idea, but in my opinion complicated to code or script.

Since soldier reload animation is almost the same as it would need for unjam, I suggest to allow player to enable/disable display of magazine and round. (we could still check how many magazine in the gear section)

That will force hardcore gamers to count every round fired in order to anticipate reload action. If they don't, an empty magazine at critical time surprise as much as weapon jammed

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Second suggestion : to enable/disable "Auto-hover" (helicopters) from the difficulty settings. If disabled, hovering for a while remain possible someway or other, but whatever with mouse control or even joystick it would be a little more difficult (and realistic) to stabilize, I think this is just what skilled pilot love through those settings.

[guyguy1 0]

ArmA is going to be more "mainstream" player-friendly, but by no means should the realism be sacraficed in game 2 (or ArmA). No matter what the difficulty, damage modelling, physics, AI, sounds, and the environment should all be the same. IMO the difficulty should concern crosshair, player identification (as featured in OFP), nightvision, and other things that aren't at the core of BI games. I seriously hope that ArmA and Game2 will not stretch its realism by allowing the option of taking 10 hits or having "balanced" vehicles. The difficulty system in OFP was great, and as long as the player can customly select certain aspects of the game to be turned on/off, it's fine with me. The realism should be in place in order for the game to be itself, but things on the screen (recoil, crosshair, identification, etc) should be able of being changed in the difficulty menu. I'm just a bit worried that this whole difficulty issue mentioned in the article might turn out worse than I thought.