Best of First-Person Tactical/Wargaming

[dslyecxi 23]

I've written an article that deals with first-person tactical/wargames and the best features that have been implemented in them, along with commentary on the genre and some ideas for future implementations.

There's a lot of Flashpoint & Armed Assault references within, along with a slew of videos, screens, and pictures to illustrate it.

I would highly recommend that anyone who's a fan of this genre (which all of you should be, if you're in the ArmA forum) should check it out.

The article can be found here.

This should give you something interesting to do instead of endlessly refreshing the forum in the hopes that new screens have been posted.

Feedback is appreciated, of course. Discussion is also welcome.

Enjoy.

[berghoff 11]

Very nice article so far, I'm reading/watching it now

[bravo 6 0]

indeed!

http://dslyecxi.com/images/bestoftactical/acog_reticules.jpg

plz BIS..

[dslyecxi 23]

indeed!

http://dslyecxi.com/images/bestoftactical/acog_reticules.jpg

plz BIS..

If you look at the latest ArmA shots, the BIS ACOG sights seem to be much more accurate than what was seen in various OFP mods. I don't know if it's perfectly calibrated/scaled in ArmA, but it sure looks close.

[sanctuary 19]

Very good article, well wrote and interesting to read.

A game that would include all the feature from this article would certainly be on my "to buy quickly" list

I would like to add some notes that could be nice for this kind of article.

For the prone part of the article, Ghost Recon was a very interesting way of simulating this position, and i strongly believe Raven Shield system you explain in the article is in fact a variation of this very good GR body feature (i think GR simulated the difficulty of the prone position even better for the "feel" of the player).

For the ironsight, i would add Infiltration (total conversion for the UT of 1999) as a pioneer, considering Infiltration was the first time i saw a "free aiming" system like we got in OFP later), with 3D ironsights, no more crosshairs, vector based bullets, a recoil system that was not based on randomness , so you could control really your weapon.

Plus this TC had a real management of the leaf sight of the M16 with M203.

I remember that some of the early developers/contributors of Infiltration ended in the Red Orchestra dev team, while some played Infiltration, so it is not very surprising to see this new game using these very well done features about the weapon management you discuss in several part of the article.

For the sights adjustement, i would add Delta Force 2 as it was an old game that came with a very good system about this, i really liked using one of the sniper rifles thanks to that.

About bullet penetration, i remember Swat3 had a very comprehensive system, one of the training map even had some pannels of different material you could move around to test different kind of penetration.

[Friedchiken 0]

I'm in the middle of page 2, and I gotta say that your videos are very helpful in illustrating your points.

Plus your way of playing RS3 is really badass. Kinda wished you made a video of the ArmA E3 gameplay.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

Fantastic article!

Very good work, BIS and all the other game producers should read it!

Thank you!

MfG Lee

[dslyecxi 23]

Very good article, well wrote and interesting to read.

A game that would include all the feature from this article would certainly be on my "to buy quickly" list

I would like to add some notes that could be nice for this kind of article.

Thanks for the feedback, Sanctuary. It's appreciated.

I was aware of the Ghost Recon prone implementation, but I chose to focus on the Raven Shield one due to the game being more recent and the "true first-person" aspect giving it more "presence" than the GR1 one. One thing I recall liking about the GR1 version was that you could twist your body such that you would be shooting around a corner, with the bulk of your mass hidden behind the cover. That's not really represented in RvS, and I should have mentioned it. Oversight on my part.

I was also aware of Infiltration doing the M-203 stuff, freeaim, etc etc. The problem there was that I've never actually played Infiltration for any substantial period of time, and certainly not within the past four years. I didn't cover any games that I wasn't totally familiar with, so Infiltration unfortunately got the short stick. I might add a note about that when I revise the article. It does deserve notice.

I didn't include Delta Force because given the choice between WWIIOL and it, I feel the WWIIOL implementation is better. IIRC Delta Force allowed you to do very rapid elevation adjustments, whereas WWIIOL imposes a brief pause between each 100m adjustment. They're so similar that such a small thing puts WWIIOL on top in my eyes.

As to the SWAT series, I unfortunately haven't been able to play any games in that series. The most recent one, SWAT 4, I thougt looked very cool from the demo - but, alas, I had serious mouse issues that prevented me from being able to comfortably play it. Thus, I never got the full game, never experienced it fully, and couldn't really write about it due to the restrictions I imposed upon myself when writing the article.

[sanctuary 19]

No problem if you have not played them, that are just some more addition i put here to add on possible discussion matters in this thread.

Your article is very comprehensive and the game selection you used as an example is enough to illustrate your points, and will certainly speak more to the reader than the older/more confidential titles that few people will remember anyways

Swat4 , as far as i remember was very different from Swat3 in regards to ballistic and penetration, while Swat3 used real penetration by material and by bullet type from tests in fire ranges, i believe Swat4 had no penetration at all and was a bit more arcade on that point.

I didn't liked the Swat4 demo and never bought it so i can't speak about the retail product, unlike the Swat3 that had a very good demo (i played it for 2 months before buying the game) and , like OFP "forced" me to buy the game .

[jammydodger 0]

Top read there Dslyecxi, cheers mate

[simulacra 0]

Yea, good article, there's just thing I'd like to know, several of those details about arma are unknown to me and I follow the news around the game somewhat closely.

Do you know something we dont? or have I just missed some article?

But when it comes to effects in games I must say that steelbeasts pro simulates weapon hits very well, AT weapons and crew served weapons doesn't produce a large explosion on impact.

There's just a flash, the same goes for does explosions that DO occur, a quick flash followed by smoke, not a gasoline powered hollywood explosion we see in most games, realistic or not...

[dslyecxi 23]

Yea, good article, there's just thing I'd like to know, several of those details about arma are unknown to me and I follow the news around the game somewhat closely.

Do you know something we dont? or have I just missed some article?

Could you be more specific? What did I write that you haven't already heard about somewhere else?

[simulacra 0]

Yea, good article, there's just thing I'd like to know, several of those details about arma are unknown to me and I follow the news around the game somewhat closely.

Do you know something we dont? or have I just missed some article?

Could you be more specific? What did I write that you haven't already heard about somewhere else?

Mostly the sound bit, about arma's sound engine modeling hills and other things obstructing sounds etc, the whole bit about how advanced the sound engine's gonna be...

[dslyecxi 23]

Mostly the sound bit, about arma's sound engine modeling hills and other things obstructing sounds etc, the whole bit about how advanced the sound engine's gonna be...

I couldn't give you exact quotes from the devs about it, but I'm sure someone else here could. Soundwave modeling will be in ArmA, and it will include things like objects, buildings, etc obstructing sound.

As to the High Dynamic Range Audio stuff, that has also been confirmed but not too much info has come out about it.

The rest of it (doppler, speed of sound, etc) is all possible in OFP as you already know.

[simulacra 0]

Well, I know that there is SOME kind of advanced sound fx in ofp, I've just never heard it in a way that impresses me, the sound travel issue is about timers, and the doppler effect isn't terribly convincing either.

I've heard that ppl with x-fi cards get those kind of effects perfectly, but I'm having a hard time believing that ofp's sound handling only works the way it should be on cards that were released 4 years after the actual game.

My guess is that it's in the ears of the beholder, and my ears aren't impressed at all, doppler or no doppler effect...

And if you wanna see great ballistics, check this out from

steelbeasts pro, the graphics arent anything to write home to mommy about, but the ballistics simulation is...

[raedor 8]

Page 3 does not open for me...

[dslyecxi 23]

Page 3 does not open for me...

This link should work fine: http://dslyecxi.com/bestoftactical3.html

I haven't heard anyone else say they had issues with page 3, and I haven't changed it recently, so it was probably just some net fluke.

[Ukraineboy 0]

Great article Dsylecxi, BIS should hire you

[paragraphic l 2]

BIS really should be reading this article, as they like to be inovative with their products, like the whole medic stuff I know there where people here discussing the possibilities off draging teammates and all, but I guess it won't be in ArmA non the less I would love to see it in Game2 or some patch for ArmA

great reading for sure

[Donnervogel 0]

Overall you raise certain good points and I congratulate you to this good (even if somewhat freakish ) article.

But there are some things I don't totally agree with. Me being a conscription soldier, not even slightly motivated to do all that real world army crap but still having somewhat of an experience seeing/working with fellow conscripts aswell as professionals I don't share your point of view that in games everything should be modelled like if the player was an highly trained operative. I think simulation of skill is something the game also needs. Plus even highly trained soldiers sometimes simply aren't very good shooters... this might have various reasons but I don't really want to discuss this to death. What I say. Every person has certain specialities it can do well and others it can't. And this needs to be a part of the game implementation somehow. Now I have two systems in mind.

You either make some semi RPGish aproach of "classes". Like if you play a special operative you will have more accurate aiming or what I would prefer... the abillity to get your aiming right more quickly (because in reality the problem isn't necesserily that you can't aim but the time it takes you to aim correctly - especially in combat situations). This system can be much more worked out. I think you get the idea.

The other system is more "mission maker" responsibility. Like you assign a skill to every person that is going to take part in a mission. This is of course assuming we use a somewhat similar system to OFP player slots. That way you could assign medium skill to soldiers that are supposed to be conscripts like when you play with FDF mod or something like that. And you could assign high skill to soldiers that are supposed to be professionals. This would impact sevral things ingame like your abillity to align your aiming correctly in less time.

Now I see the general problem some people might have. They don't want to have their aiming "skills" restricted by the game. I see that problem and to a certain way you can't get around it if you want reality. Real world shooting (not on firing ranges) is something that rarely is extremly accurate even with professional soldiers. And I have yet so see system that would even slightly simulate the difficulty of correct aiming in stress situations... soo we either end up in a sniping frenzy or we have to accept that the game is going to artificially limit our aiming capabillities in some way...

EDIT:

concerning real world accuracy in combat... what I mean with "not extremly accurate" is not that it's very difficulty for a highly trained soldier to hit someone on typical engagement ranges of 30-150m but that it's not "pop pop pop pop - yeah baby all headshots with my trusty ironsights while under enemy fire" - you get the idea...

[l etranger 5]

Great Article

/me Knock to Game Devs Doors

[Kode 0]

It really is a great article. I especially liked the examples of movement wth a gun and firing at the same time interesting. It's nice to see some real movies. Many people haven't seen these things before. Experiencing is of course always the best, but a movie is already showing much more.

Also something that I found really interesting was the supersonic bullets. I didn't knew that at all. But of course, I never shot with a rifle with real ammo, so I don't know anything about it :s.

[Friedchiken 0]

Also something that I found really interesting was the supersonic bullets. I didn't knew that at all. But of course, I never shot with a rifle with real ammo, so I don't know anything about it :s.

I definitely recommend going to a shooting range (uh, if you are an American).

What most games don't portray is how loud and powerful a 9mm handgun really is! I never knew before that handguns are much louder than rifles due to the short barrels. And 9mm packs a powerful punch for first time shooters. Don't be fooled by video games, any gun of most calibers is a vicious killing system (in a good way).

Renting is fun!

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]What most games don't portray is how loud and powerful a 9mm handgun really is!

Most games really don't portray how loud combat in general is, to include most every weapon system there is. Out of everything I've played, I think the FDF sounds are the best for really giving gunfire a proper volume.

Quote[/b] ] I never knew before that handguns are much louder than rifles due to the short barrels.

I wouldn't say that they're louder so much as the sounds are different. A pistol tends to sound like a loud, quick and sharp CRACK, whereas a rifle is more of a lingering, deeper BOOOOM.

Quote[/b] ] Renting is fun!

Agreed! My interest was piqued in pistols the first time I went to a civilian shooting range while stationed at Camp Lejeune. They had a ton of stuff to try out, I must've spent a full paycheck there over the course of a few weeks trying out all the different weapons and blowing through ammo like it was free.

I'd definitely recommend anyone who's interested in realistic games to give a shooting range a visit sometime. It'll change the way you look at true realism when it comes to weaponry.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Nice article - certainly held my attention. We have a lot in common, as far as realism goes.