Volume of fire and game dynamics

[lee_h._oswald 0]

Another thing that could improve "firefights" is the effect of RPG/M136/Mine/Satchel.

There should be a little "random effect", so a car/truck/apc/ifv/tank/etc is not getting killed everytime.

The chance that the personnel survives should be much higher.

I don't know how effective an RPG is in real life, but I'm sure that sometimes the crew will survive and maybe the vehicle can still drive. In ArmA everything(not the abrams) blows up and kills all crew/personnel.

MfG Lee

[ryankaplan 1]

indeed. I remember reading about an RPG hitting a US 5ton truck, and everybody inside surviving with minor injuries. Not sure about where it was hit, etc, and i cant say whether this is normal or just 'lucky' incident. With tanks, the chance to bail is also apparently quite high.

As you say, a randomizer would be quite nice. and would bring a level of unpredictability to the game, which is most welcome.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Agree that vehicles should have less fire+explo effects but better destruction effects.

The most commonly launched RPG-7 grenades are a HE or HEAT rounds (would be nice to see those in ArmA+ArmA2).

RPGs destroy cars with no/light protection but vehicles with bit more protection... imho an randomizer will be the best so maybe this vehicle gets fully disabled or partly or destroyed (modern RPG warhead).

[Correction 0]

Admittedly, I haven't read the whole thread so this might have already been mentioned, but when you start shooting off all these stats about the vast majority of war casualties being minor wounds, you still have to consider that most of those were probably severe enough to immediately neutralize the victim (ie, dropped him on the spot, at which point he would have been hauled off someplace and later gotten to the nearest field hospital). It's difficult to simulate this sort of thing in a game like ArmA, and is far more practical to just call him dead.

In the Rainbow Six series, players' characters can be "incapacitated" during a campaign mission, which basically means to the player that they're dead (technically hospitalized, but still dead as far as the player is concerned) for the remainder of the current mission and several missions following, but will return to as a selectable team member eventually. Again, though, this sort of thing would be difficult and impractical to implement for ArmA.

[croc4 0]

I think part of the problem with Arma is that it is too skewed in only one direction so volume of fire is a foreign concept.

For example for the most part Arma is pretty slow paced, and before you comment I'm not looking for a frag fest type game. But battles have rhythm to them, at times they are very fast paced, while others there are lulls, its this dynamic that makes for a better game, as in every thing variety is the spice of life, this in my opinion is what is sorely lacking, and until this balance is made then a volume of fire concept is not going to mesh very well.

[SeXyWombat 0]

Some of you have said that modelling morale and supression in a computer game is not really possible or wouldn't be fun - but I think that you're wrong in both cases. Just recall the tremendous success of Close Combat series, first two Combat Mission games or even Brothers in Arms. Just imagine ArmA with Close Combat squad morale/suppression system and immersion system resembling the one in BiA. Just imagine a more detailed environment with lots of cover, smarter AI with working chain of command and armor penetration model taken from Combat Mission (same goes for fire and dust). Now that would be something - and to some extent it is perfectly possible with modern technology. It also wouldn't really be that hard to model armor/penetration values correctly, same goes for ballistics, tank gunnery, modelling weapon systems (I mean why can't we have Javelin's and vehicles like in Americas Army ?). And if believable morale/suppression model could be done in mid 90's, than what's the problem now ? What's the problem with introducing weapon jamming and malfunctions ? Wounding and medevac have also already been done in the past, don't see a problem with that. The only problem would be creating a good tactical AI (correct movement patterns etc.) and getting the ammount of cover right on such large maps, but again there's a lot of room for improvement if one considers using pre-set positions around objects (in Close Combat if you move a squad into a trench, they automatically take positions granting them most cover in the given direction) and waypoints. Wouldn't it be a better game ? Wouldn't it be more realistic ? I think it could become popular with the general public just like realistic war movies do - if only it was done right and without going for compromises that break the experience for both realism buffs and the casual gamers.

By the way - of course we can't emulate the "fear of death" factor for players in a computer game, but we can make it much more immersive by making the environment believable. And AI displaying fear or getting pinned down is a big part of that, just like battlefield ambience and getting the equipment right.

[froggyluv 2136]

@SeXyWombat

I'm definitely behind all of your suggestions and would love to see all of those features implemented in Arma2 but as far as i remember, Close Combat was more of a squad level RTS. It's much easier to animate a little sprite/polygon guy into a 'supposed covered' position rather than in a fully fleshed out 3d world where cover is much much harder to program.

Although it looks like their attempting to tackle this in Arma2- here's hoping  

[kestrel7e7 0]

@SeXyWombat

A lot of innovative features have been seen across a wide range of combat games over the years, with varying levels of success. The main reason these features come and go is that it's extremely expensive to develop them and only a few can be pratically implemented in any one game. Also the current benchmark for graphics quality is getting higher and its difficult to keep up. As far as publishers (and most consumers) are concerned, graphics are the most important part of a game and are rarely sacrificed over other features.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator series shows that features can be continuously built apon over time if you monopolize the genre and have a large enough following that are prepared buy, what are effectively, full-price updates. The OFP graphics upgrade pack known as ArmA and the upcoming ArmA2 indicates that this is the direction BI is going.

[SeXyWombat 0]

@kestrel7e7

Still, those features could be implemented with a low cost on a boardgame level ("if squad under fire, throw a dice -> if lower than x, go supressed, if lower than y -> go pinned), same goes for virtually everything I talked about. The problem is not with money, it's with design concept. At least that's how I see it.

And it's a shame that BIS seems to be somewhat detached from reality - not implementing all this stuff - while us, gamers, mark the game as "unplayable" and wait to see all this stuff "repaired" by various tallented modders. And, given the modding community - it's not even about getting the values right, it's about getting this kind of stuff in hardcode, so that the community doesn't have to script around it. Or at least having "realistic armor penetration" and "squad morale" et cetera as an option, just ike you have "visible waypoints" toggable in veteran/recruit difficulty levels right now. It would wastly improve this game with a low cost.

[kestrel7e7 0]

Still, those features could be implemented with a low cost on a boardgame level ("if squad under fire, throw a dice -> if lower than x, go supressed, if lower than y -> go pinned)

It's only 1 000 000 times harder in a computer game.

First priority is the engine and graphics, normally these game projects have all sorts of fun ideas and features at the beginning but the majority get cut when the reality of the shipping deadline looms. I'm certain all the ideas in this thread have crossed the minds of BI developers and been discussed, brainstormed, ranked and finally cut. :P

[Second 0]

Naah. I as a amateur and scripting n00b could make quite simple suppression and morale model to ArmA. Why could not FPS gaming industry with professionals do better? It not hot thing in FPS (AI is just a bot, ment to be killed), that is the reason. ArmA might have best build-in morale model at the moment: squad either flees or then doesn't flee! That is not much, when you compare to something like Combat mission or Close combat.

Until someone proves and shows that it can be good thing for FPS's gameplay and players actaully likes it, it will not be implented.

Btw. in OFP allowfleeing 0 (don't flee) was used a lot (part of the reason was that AI could get stuck to fleeing point and mission didn't work as it should)

[wamingo 1]

Some of you have said that modelling morale and supression in a computer game is not really possible or wouldn't be fun - but I think that you're wrong in both cases. Just recall the tremendous success of Close Combat series, first two Combat Mission games or even Brothers in Arms.

You can't really compare these games though. Close Combat uses dice and Brothers in Arms doesn't have accurate weapons like arma does plus its AI was totally dumbed down, both games therefore allows for vastly more bullets fired per kill.

The problem, as already stated, is essentially that arma weapons are very realistic and thus very accurate, they practically all function like sniper rifles to a huge degree. There simply isn't enough cover to make up for it and neither enough incentive to use it in the few areas where there is.

There are even people who argue that arma's weapons aren't accurate enough.

Adding cover to the level that sniping will actually become less feasible and supressive fire more feasible, is probably going to create a big performance issue. The game was afterall supposed to be able to run on computers in the 2-3ghz p4 range.

Now... I would love to try a version of arma with "Accuracy Modifiers" but I'm not sure if the rest of the arma community agrees, and pretty sure BIS wouldn't dare the gamble.

Plus, though maybe I just lack the imagination, but I don't see how any accuracy modifier won't just benefit the camper even more.

Something not mentioned yet in this thread is the fact that you cannot reload while moving. I think we would definately see an increase in bullet's fired if this was different. Reloading makes you very vulnerable if you have to stand still to do so and people try to make sure they don't fire so much that they may end up having to reload in dangerous areas.

I've played many missions without reloading even once and still had several kills.

On the other hand it might just make people more careless. I would still like to try though.

[Second 0]

Close Combat's main innovative idea, which made it to stand out from rest, was individual troop's morale + realism (we lived "golden" times of Command&Conquer and Westwood ), and how it affects to whole squad. You could have one or more soldiers in group which didn't act like rest of them. They paniced, fled, did amok, fixed their jamming weapon, fought heroically etc.

[funnyguy1 0]

1. realistic engagement & spotting distance - the further your enemy is - the more ammo you waste to hit him.

2. cover - the more invisible your enemy is, the more ammo you shoot in his general direction. There aren't many places in ArmA to hide, grass isn't too tall, and I really miss the terrain detail option from ofp, you know, the one that would create those little bumps all over the place, making the terrain less flat.

3. AI that uses cover - apart from passive usage of cover (invisible when kneeling or lying), the AI should somehow know the level of it's exposure to the enemy, and try to stay invisible as long as it can, not to mention using cover during firefights and moving.

4. Suppression - ppl shoot more than the AI. And no matter what psychological conditions are behind it, AI should be more aggressive, and fear more about their little virtual as*es. The more bullets fly over their heads, the more they should fire back. Lowering the skills when AI gets suppressed isn't good, because they nearly stop shooting at all. They should shoot more often, with longer bursts and therefore be less acurate.

So, instead of lowering the accuracy, increase the number of fired bullets. I experimented a bit with it myself, and it works nice (especially with MGunners).

Also, the primary reaction for suppression shouldn't be decrease of skills, but getting to the nearset cover as fast as possible.

I wrote about suppression more in the ArmA2\suggestions\AI topic.

[icehollow 0]

You may have seen my other post, Unit Cohesion and Game Dynamics. If so I am sure you get what I am aiming at here.

In real life, a stupid amount of ammunition is chucked towards the enemy. I believe in Vietnam the stats worked out at 50,000 rounds of ammo fired for each enemy killed by small arms. It's also well known that the Artillery is the king of the battlefield, killing most of the enemy while small arms account for only a small  portion.

So in ArmA firefights, I feel slightly dissapointed when everyone can achieve kill/ammo ratios of about 1/3-4 including AI. We know suppression isn't modelled and I am sure that is a large part of what consumes ammo on the battlefield too, but surely real life combatants also shoot more bullets in order to kill too?

We can make a few config changes to the AI and make the weapons unrealistically inaccurate to create the *effect* of suppression, but it seems fundamentally lacking something.

Is it down to fear and psychology, where humans just want to make as much noise as possible in order to posture and scare the enemy away? Or is it down to adrenalin and the fast paced nature of combat that makes people empty magazines in each other's direction instead of simply aiming and killing.

Your ideas?

Just regarding your point about vietnam, this may be true but stats also show that special units (SAS etc , US SOF etc) in the vet'nam conflict had a far far better ammo/kill ratio. This reflects training.

Our soldiers today and training are much much better than they were in the vietnam war.

Though I do understand what you mean about the lack of back and forth firefights in ArmA.

[icebreakr 3159]

icehollow: try playing a game PvP and then against AI... difference is huge. Thursday we fought on one small hill for more than half an hour with OPFOR forces spending *a lot* of ammunition on our positions. It was hell ... and we loved it

[ryankaplan 1]

Quote[/b] ]Our soldiers today and training are much much better than they were in the vietnam war.

So why has the bullet to kill ratio has tripled from the 60000:1 ratio of vietnam to 200000:1 ratio in iraq? Maybe the americans have since stoped counting civilian casulties as kills? More use of surpressing fire due to the terrain allowing of it in iraq? or maybe simply the figures are totally wrong...

I dont know why, but i never believed the special forces kill:death ratio bollocks. In my mind, Its either blatent media campaigns to boost morale about how great we are, or, that the special forces are counting the kills of the artillery and aircraft they call in as their own.

saying that, a nice feature in ArmA 2 would be the ability to select your men, and drag a box around an area, which would then allow them to waste some ammunition on it for a while, until they see a real target.

[max power 21]

If the round/kill ratio is going up in every unit of the army, it sounds like a couple of things could be happening:

Automatic weapons are now more prolific, and army doctrine has changed. A few things point towards this: Bullets are now smaller on average and there are more of them. Magazines are 30 rounds instead of 20, there's a squad automatic weapon role with a machinegun that holds 200 rounds in a box. This has to do with weapon technology and military policy.

Why equate shots fired per kill to soldier skill / training quality? There's more to soldiering than killing all day on the cheap. By that rationale, walking a barrage up in front of your assets would be the most amateurish thing you could do!

[Second 0]

Quote[/b] ]Our soldiers today and training are much much better than they were in the vietnam war.

So why has the bullet to kill ratio has tripled from the 60000:1 ratio of vietnam to 200000:1 ratio in iraq? Maybe the americans have since stoped counting civilian casulties as kills? More use of surpressing fire due to the terrain allowing of it in iraq? or maybe simply the figures are totally wrong...

I dont know why, but i never believed the special forces kill:death ratio bollocks. In my mind, Its either blatent media campaigns to boost morale about how great we are, or, that the special forces are counting the kills of the artillery and aircraft they call in as their own.

saying that, a nice feature in ArmA 2 would be the ability to select your men, and drag a box around an area, which would then allow them to waste some ammunition on it for a while, until they see a real target.

I don't believe that special forces kill:death ratio is totally bollocks. And mostlikely those figures are somewhat limbing.

but it certainly is showing some differences between elites and regulars.

There are reasons for it such as:

-Lack of firesupport which regular troops had.

-different drills and rules of engagement, atleast i think so but i'm not sure.

-Different types of missions that regular army troops will do.

-Material of men (this has the main importance): They were and are creme-of-the-creme, and they are encgouraged to think so. Only aprox. 10% of men are truly capable soldiers and these kind of men are wanted to these kind of units. This is old universal truth and which every army uses: Finest willing men to finest positions.

Anyways. During WW1 one casulity took only 20-30 shots (i'm not sure but much less than 100)! ... Oh wait! Maybe ArmA is simulating WW1 with modern equipment. That would explain several things...