So can anyone tell me why everyone is playing coop

[Heatseeker 0]

It is no way about dumping down the game.

Is is about fixing the core gameplay issues for ArmA2.

It is about making the game enjoyable.

It is about enhancing the game in gameplay and tactical aspects

- that can very well include realism aspects.

Yet only going for hard core realism is just plain stupid.

Noone is asking for quake/cs.

OFP was a FAR better base and BI should improve from there on.

About the "core" gameplay issues of the game i dont understand what specific issues you are refering to .

For making the game enjoyable and fun... i think Arma is more enjoyable and fun than OPF:R, alot better overall .

The gameplay in Arma is enhanced IMO but yet not that diferent from OPF, i dont think Arma went for hard core realism either.

I cant think of anything that made OPF a far better BASE, quite the contrary, Arma has alot more capabilities, features and potential.

Quote[/b] ]We are only trying to tell you that certain gameplay bugs hurt

ArmA very badly in terms of PvP, gameplay and fun.

The type map you are talking about is berzerk.

There are every CTI missions in ArmA.

You you please spend one minute of your time to think about this:

Why is the pvp (league and public) nearly non existent in

ArmA from the start and even less now?

I could think of reasons for this other than gameplay.

I think many complaints here are a bit vague and it would perhaps be helpfull if people could elaborate on them .

[benreeper 0]

Q I re-read my posts and I didn't see the word IDIOT anywhere in them! Do you have dyslexia or something in that you see things that are not even there? Where did you get that inference from? If the defense for your arguments is to completely make things up then I would be an IDIOT to even think that I could have a civil discourse with you.

--Ben

[JeRK 0]

Q I re-read my posts and I didn't see the word IDIOT anywhere in them! Do you have dyslexia or something in that you see things that are not even there? Where did you get that inference from? If the defense for your arguments is to completely make things up then I would be an IDIOT to even think that I could have a civil discourse with you.

--Ben

I just found the word idiot, and dyslexia too, lol.

[benreeper 0]

Q I re-read my posts and I didn't see the word IDIOT anywhere in them! Do you have dyslexia or something in that you see things that are not even there? Where did you get that inference from? If the defense for your arguments is to completely make things up then I would be an IDIOT to even think that I could have a civil discourse with you.

--Ben

I just found the word idiot, and dyslexia too, lol.

OK.

--Ben

[Heatseeker 0]

The people complaining about Arma being unsuitable for adversarial play are the same ones asking and/or complaining about why arent more servers running adversarial game types/missions, gah...

Some players moved to COD4 and their decision actually made sense since that game provides the arcade platform they were after (they could have moved for a more tactical shooter yet they didnt, back in the OPF days many players moved to BF1942 too, case closed).

Arma wasnt released in a very optimal state (fact) and wasnt the groundbreaking, debut title OPF was in its day (wich led to its popularity), more than a year after release Arma is still being worked on... i believe that many people influenced by the bad vibes some created early around the game accepted that the game wouldnt get better and moved on... their loss imo.

Others simply dont meet the somewhat demanding HW specifications to enjoy Arma at a proper frame rate and blame the gameplay..

I look forward to the next patch + server, OPF's MP only really kicked after the release of Resistance (sockets netcode) and that took some time too...

I dont know is adversarial gaming will increase and get any better in Arma's future but i believe this depends more on the player base and their initiatives than on BIS who is still supporting and improving Arma while working on the sequel.

Is this hard to understand? .

[.kju 3240]

More players = better.

Quite simple.

For us and for BI.

To mature players is up to the community, the mission concepts,

training missions, tutorial missions, clans, leagues, etc.

[celery 8]

Some players moved to COD4 and their decision actually made sense since that game provides the arcade platform they were after (they could have moved for a more tactical shooter yet they didnt, back in the OPF days many players moved to BF1942 too, case closed).

Why is it hard to understand that those who wanted to play competitive PvP in ArmA were not after arcade gameplay, they wanted realistic gameplay but only got unrealistically buggy and clumsy gameplay. Why the hell would they have played OFP for five years and bought ArmA in hopes of continuing with the same realistic setting? You must think that it's not realistic to kill for points or steal flags but it's not realistic to shoot enormous hordes of nearly vegetative AI units either. It's not even realistic to wage war on a godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere. It's the gameplay that's supposed to be realistic but in ArmA it's just hideous compared to OFP.

The sound bug (weapon fire sounds not transmitting between clients) lasted for a couple of months, during which many people were fed up already. The mouse lag issue has endured to this day because 1.09 still isn't official and nearly nobody uses the beta patch. There are no plans to fix animations in ArmA 1.

People don't actually "move" to some other game, they just stop playing ArmA and start playing some other unrelated game. It's not like there is a next to kin game that you can move to with the same gameplay. Rainbow Six is just as different from ArmA as Call of Duty.

[Heatseeker 0]

More players = better.

Quite simple.

For us and for BI.

To mature players is up to the community, the mission concepts,

training missions, tutorial missions, clans, leagues, etc.

I think the chances of increasing the adversarial player base might be better if someone who comes in here searching for info doesnt come across threads like this one... Arma is full of MP adversarial potential, its just not being used .

[.kju 3240]

Of course the PvP league community has organized itself. Yet

it is very very small.

http://www.esl.eu/eu/arma/

http://www.european-combat-league.com/

http://www.ic-arma.com/

http://www.arma-tow.com/

Celery has it put very well above your post.

OFP / ArmA has a far larger potential players. That is the point

here.

[-Snafu- 77]

I wouldnt really consider IC-ArmA or ArmA TOW 'leagues' in the traditional sense. I never thought of it as a league when I took part in it.

IC-ArmA has also been very successful with massive battles occuring every weekend. Despite certain deficincies within ArmA that have supposedly "killed" the "PVP community".

What this says for me is two things.

ArmA is more suited to large open battles than small CQB fights.

That the success of IC-ArmA and ArmA TOW indicate that the majority of people wan't to do something different than traditonal CTF, DM etc.

I'll probably take a shouting for this. God forbid someone disagrees with some of the people in here.

[The_Captain 0]

I would like to see Arma's PvP aspect improved *before* Arma II. I realize that Arma II will provide an influx of players, but it cannot be assumed that the desired gameplay will magically appear as well.

In my opinion, competitive quality PvP is what drives public PvP. With clan and organized interest in a competitive game, public interest seems to follow. If a game cannot be sustained in a competitive context (buggy, laggy, unbalanced, too-simple gameplay), then it likely will not catch on with the public.

If I recall correctly, the CTI leagues started roughly a year after MFCTI was introduced in fall 2002, after it had matured. By this point it was clearly not 'too late' for OFP to develop a new PvP scene. It seems that the same could be true for Arma. While it might be too late to revive the same PvP scene that floundered when Arma was released, it may not be too late to begin a new scene if the community can rally behind it.

Maybe this will come through config mods to fix gameplay issues, new maps or modes, or all inclusive mods such as ACE. Many of the issues outlined in this thread are certainly important, and if fixed and widely distributed, they would make the game far more fun in public or competitive PvP. Me, I just want to hop on an available server, with no fuss, and have fun shooting at other people. I suspect others would like the same.

If as a community, we can discover what we like in PvP before Arma II, there's a chance the success can carry into the sequel and benefit the new community.

[Heatseeker 0]

When was it the last time any of you ran the great old OPF:R 1.96?

Because... i did recently and compared to Arma it stinks .

[.kju 3240]

Can we come back to a proper discussion Heatseeker please.

[Heatseeker 0]

Can we come back to a proper discussion Heatseeker please.

Ok, keep promoting your client side solutions while they are likely one of the reasons the Arma comunity avoids PvP...

[walker 0]

Hi all

Yesterday and today I played a load of public Berzerk, kind of proves PvP is still going strong in ArmA. There were three public Berzerk PvP servers running in the 30 to 60 player range as well as masses of private PvP servers. There were also lots player made coops and PvP coops.

I would actualy say ArmA servers are on the rise. The private servers are keeping the riff raff out and allowing the public servers to have more customers and giving people refuge from the riff raff.

Seems to me like all this crap talk is just that. ArmA seems to be getting more popular.

Kind Regards walker

[The Susser 0]

After playing OFP for a few hours today, I conclude that ArmA is more clumsy. I see the point of the PvP players. While the movement may have been tweaked I can't help feeling it hinders, more than immerses, gameplay.

In fact ArmA now feels too sluggish in comparison. Really awkward to be honest. My gaming has been soured. Bah, I wish I never installed OFP again Gonna take a while to get back into it.

[.kju 3240]

Ok lets step back and see what we are doing here actually.

This is a forum.

So we are discussing a topic and share thoughts.

However it is NOT about your personal opinion, its about facts,

details and arguments. Otherwise there is not point in talking part

in discussions.

As you can see some people are actually interested in the details,

in the reasons, and even some like The_Captain are interested in

solutions and progress.

This is a community platform.

So people share the experience from the different parts of the

community. There is no the one community. ArmA just like OFP,

has many sub community. News, Editing, SP, Addons, Campaigns,

MP Public, MP leagues, clans, squads, tournaments etc.

This is the BI forum.

So the devs are reading this forum too. Maybe, just maybe they

are interested in how they can make their next product

commercially more successful.

Again its not about dumping down the game!

Instead its about understanding the core priorities and problems,

so that they can judge what they want to concentrate on.

OFP was a great tactical game, that is why people loved it. This

also also why your so called 'CTF players' came there.

OFP offered vast, diverse battle ground, an <u>unique crosshair

system</u> (one of the key aspects people easily overlook), <u>smooth

animations and mouse aiming</u>, a lot of different infantry weapon

system (MG, sniper, nades, rifles, pistols, silenced, autofire ones,

etc), and of course more realistic vehicle simulation (transport -

ground, armor, air; combat - light, armored, helos, planes;

chutes) - all these elements contributed to a very diverse and

tactical combat simulation with the emphasis on infantry, and

at the same time offering huge tactical possibilities with the

different vehicle types.

The crucial aspect here is that this system was broken by

various changes and bugs in ArmA.

Instead the system should be improved to boost the series even

more in gameplay and tactical depth.

---

If you are still with me, we can continue to talk about the details

and facts.

[sickboy 13]

So lets get down and get constructive, baby  

ArmA PvP seems to totally suck, because (not my reasons!:

[*] Sluggish Movements (Altough v1.09beta improves some aspects already)

[*] A couple of other issues, most resolved by the Proper Mods (Altough v1.09beta improves some aspects already)

[*] Not enough community created content: Missions & Gamestyles

[*] Buggy Game (Though every player is affected by this). v1.08 was a good start imo, and v1.09beta is even better

[*] Unknown fixes: Q's PROPER mods fix a lot of stuff concerning PvP players. People in this thread already showed they knew not about it. From other sides I hear unwillingness to implement mods etc...

So if I get down and jiggy with Whisper (I actually heard that Q and Sakura also worked out animation improvements :S), see what we can do with them animations... Then we hook up with Q's proper mods, create 1 big (small cuz its config entries) mod, make it easy accessible, everywhere known and advertised...

Then all that's left is 2 steps:

[*] Community Acceptance & Implementation

[*] Creation of Missions & GameStyles

Standards don't set themselves, people do.

So:

[*] Get a bunch of guys setup to arrange the missions/gamestyle development.

[*] Get a bunch of guys together that promote and support "The PvP mod"

So basicly when we move all this energy we put in these posts (or complaining; I believe it's clear after 1 year that BI does not want to make too much work of making the PvP scene happy ), into making a solution and making it work *all* and *everyone* _together_...

It is THAT (kinda) simple, right? If not, please elaborate.

If you want to make it better in ArmA2, I believe you're in the wrong forum area!

[tomcat_ 0]

the above is a very good summary....

In addition netcode in my opinion is a very important reason where Arma is letting itself down and mainly:

1. Jumpy units from distance

2. Lag of the whole server when a players JIP

3. Huge amount of resources of cpu, memory and bandwith

4. Lack of proper remote admin support

The first two is important in competitive online gaming and the other two are important for server admins and small squads to be able to have servers.

[sickboy 13]

Here and there I also hear dislike for v1.09beta, simply because it's tagged Beta

In truth I think some can agree with me that any version, from v1.0 up and until now has always been regarded as 'beta'. Heck I believe ArmA v1.0 was even claimed to be of 'alpha' state when it came out...

I don't see how using v1.09beta is an exception to the list; they all contain bugs, every patch fixed a lot, and we still have some bugs left... v1.09beta makes the ArmA experience even better, with even less bugs, improvements of mouse input, fps, and much much more.

v1.09final is still a ghost story, so why not play with the next 'beta' ArmA after 1.08?

the above is a very good summary....

In addition netcode in my opinion is a very important reason where Arma is letting itself down and mainly:

....

The first two is important in competitive online gaming and the other two are important for server admins and small squads to be able to have servers.

Quote[/b] ]1. Jumpy units from distance

Afaik this is only a problem when AI is involved, also, when you manipulate the minErrorToSend value, you can tune this quite far away, and put the distance to let's say 900m (v1.09beta tested)

Quote[/b] ]2. Lag of the whole server when a players JIP

This seems to be a problem of too many publicVariables and vehicleInits. After I removed all my vehicleInit's and switched to a low amount of publicVariable usage for netEngine and such tasks... this virtually disappeared! Also the problem seems to occur when using unoptimized (+unbinarized) weapon and infantry models, as they put the server and clients on their knees of ~1 fps for a split second when loaded (/inserted into the gameworld).

Quote[/b] ]3. Huge amount of resources of cpu, memory and bandwith

CPU and bandwidth I can agree to (altough current servers and connections suffice to my experience), but excessive memory seems only to occur when a great many of addons, mods, scripts and variables are used.

Quote[/b] ]4. Lack of proper remote admin support

Agreed, but one can do a lot through admin scripts. With a few good tools, customizations and simple security system you can arrange most to my experience. Other remote adminning is possible afaik through a tool made by the community, don't remember the name atm.

Anyway, for ArmA2 I believe it should be integrated and available per default too

[.kju 3240]

Life is simple,

people make it complicated.

1.09beta is a great step forward.

Leagues tend not to use beta patches. I think its stupid and people

tried to make people clear that its only a name.

Well unfortunately BI has very long beta phases, so the league

stick to older stuff and the community is split into two.

Patching should not be optional. There has to be always one

version possible in MP.

Of course BI would have to patch more frequently and be able

to do emergency patches.

Same goes for the linux server. I know BI has its valid reasons.

Still this make people use 1.08 for various reasons too.

Result = very bad.

Action is always good yes. So what can be done:

Use 1.09b - many improvements for MP play of all sorts.

See problems above.

For MP PvP you need to differentiate between public play and

leagues (or competitive play).

For public play I'd say its down to server admins to allow certain

modifications that improve gameplay, sounds mods etc.

Most server admins think they have to modify addons to have

valid keys. This is a misunderstanding. You only need to

generate your private key for the server and generate public

bisign files for the addons you want to allow.

People can download from any place, they only need to have

the very small bisign files from each server to be able to use

the addons each server allows to use.

For leagues its a different topic. In leagues the admins and most

times the major opinion of the clan decide.

However many people just like for public play disfavor strongly

game modifications for various reasons (cheating, used

to this recoil, that uniforms, etc, download size, hassle, I like A

over B, he likes B over C, etc).

Also the league admins have to take care for league stability,

quality, smooth running of their league.

So its a very tough job to addons introduced in leagues.

In OFP it took like 4 years..

Still leagues like ESL, ECL, IC ArmA, AToW work on their

individual addon package. It takes ages though.

And many many people left already..

Its late, way too late for leagues from my experience. You can

only stop people leaving the game. Almost noone is coming back

in this sector. Other games have less tactics and possibilities,

yet have way higher player numbers, competitiveness, are

smooth and simple to enjoy.

Again I hope BI wants to make (more) money, and therefore is

interested to regain these customers for A2.

[Heatseeker 0]

I think the current lack of a linux dedicated server for 1.09b and the fact that the much improved 1.09b is beta are valid reasons.

Other than that...

If your game feels sluggish, slow or unresponsive you need a hw upgrade and to patch your game.

I didnt bring OPF to this discussion but i've been there recently and its so behind that nobody plays it anymore (and its not just the graphics).

[*]Cant lean, cant roll.

[*]Cant shoot and walk as effectively as Arma.

[*]Walking is slow and jerky.

[*]Bad clipping problems makes your caracter feels like he's about to colapse/break in two.

[*]Bad clipping issues, getting stuck into buildings.

[*]Cant adjust free aim...

[*]Jerky weapon view shaking/clipping all over the place.

[*]Worse performance (netcode and fps) online.

[*]Worse engine performance (less eficiency drawing world data).

[*]More restrictive settings (controls).

[*]No JIP.

Just to name a few... Arma might have shipped with a large number of problems but unlike OPF it shipped with working MP and JIP atleast. 1 year old OPF didnt have more MP activity than 6 month old Arma either...

Arma is maturing and people are slowly upgrading their systems, if adversarial is going to kick up it only depends on the players.

[Abbe 0]

IMHO this is how different players see the gameplay in different ways:

1) Who cares about rolling (to slow) and leaning when you can corner and position yourself precisely? Those fancy animations are as made for beeing done by addons, as in Ofp, since they suite Coop/realism players better.

2) Walk? No matter if I crawl or run, my indexfinger still works...just as in Ofp.

3-5) I feel exactely the opposite way, no control over the animations. Jerky, unprecise and buggy. In Ofp you at least knew what would happen when you pressed a certain key.

6) Very true! And now that we can, most of PvP players finaly disable it completely, thanks. (unless in certain gametypes in which at least I prefere it on since it boosts the realism felling)

7) Feel it quite opposite. You don't get suprised by the animations, you get what you do and mostly hit where you aim...in Ofp.

8-9) Beeing subjective, the performance feels terrible with LOD's flashing, low FPS, laggy and jumpy gameplay, graphics options gives little control (thank god for "Low-plants") and crashes.

10) Yepp, here ArmA shines over Ofp...but by now, who cares about the controls when relesing the key doesn't make the character stop running no matter which key you choose from the wast and nice option dialog...

11) Well, for PvP I don't think JIP is such a blast. For Coop, I don't know how I survived without it! PvP, matches for some amount of time with opposing teams, you don't want JIP. Especially since it's been lagging the server and lag is a no-no in speedy games...

I can't say you're wrong in your opinions, it's just that the coin always has two sides...

[tomcat_ 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]1. Jumpy units from distance

Afaik this is only a problem when AI is involved, also, when you manipulate the minErrorToSend value, you can tune this quite far away, and put the distance to let's say 900m (v1.09beta tested)

True but still doesn't take away the fact that interpolation (??) is not used and vast majority of server is not optimised for that...hence a new player playing the game...starts thinking that he lags. Also, by increasing the minerrortosend u pay a massive price in cpu and bandwith. I have done many tests in 1.08 and the fps hit and the bandwith is unbelievable. With 4-5 players online the bandwith sent is sometimes up to 2-3MB

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]2. Lag of the whole server when a players JIP

This seems to be a problem of too many publicVariables and vehicleInits. After I removed all my vehicleInit's and switched to a low amount of publicVariable usage for netEngine and such tasks... this virtually disappeared! Also the problem seems to occur when using unoptimized (+unbinarized) weapon and infantry models, as they put the server and clients on their knees of ~1 fps for a split second when loaded (/inserted into the gameworld).

This is ok...however not many mission makers (if any) take that into account. I guess is a trade off, of having a very open and flexible way of making missions rather than a standarised one like most of the games have

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]3. Huge amount of resources of cpu, memory and bandwith

CPU and bandwidth I can agree to (altough current servers and connections suffice to my experience), but excessive memory seems only to occur when a great many of addons, mods, scripts and variables are used.

true current servers and bandwith suffice..but how much does it cost...a normal p4 3ghz, 1gb memory will set you back minimum 50-60 pounds per month, because unless you have a dedicated server arma cannot run...not on the above machine anyway...so again is far more expensive than running other game servers...

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]4. Lack of proper remote admin support

Agreed, but one can do a lot through admin scripts. With a few good tools, customizations and simple security system you can arrange most to my experience. Other remote adminning is possible afaik through a tool made by the community, don't remember the name atm.

The community might have made some tools...although i'm not aware of any to remote admin server like rcon etc...having said that, they are not as user firendly as any other remote programs for popular games...and in order to do that...u need hours of reading of scripts, tools etc....

(i would be quite interested in knowing what is the minerrortosend that you have found as optimum...and if that is different than 1.08)

[whisper 0]

So lets get down and get constructive, baby

ArmA PvP seems to totally suck, because (not my reasons!:

[*] Sluggish Movements (Altough v1.09beta improves some aspects already)

[*] A couple of other issues, most resolved by the Proper Mods (Altough v1.09beta improves some aspects already)

[*] Not enough community created content: Missions & Gamestyles

[*] Buggy Game (Though every player is affected by this). v1.08 was a good start imo, and v1.09beta is even better

[*] Unknown fixes: Q's PROPER mods fix a lot of stuff concerning PvP players. People in this thread already showed they knew not about it. From other sides I hear unwillingness to implement mods etc...

So if I get down and jiggy with Whisper (I actually heard that Q and Sakura also worked out animation improvements :S), see what we can do with them animations... Then we hook up with Q's proper mods, create 1 big (small cuz its config entries) mod, make it easy accessible, everywhere known and advertised...

Then all that's left is 2 steps:

[*] Community Acceptance & Implementation

[*] Creation of Missions & GameStyles

Standards don't set themselves, people do.

So:

[*] Get a bunch of guys setup to arrange the missions/gamestyle development.

[*] Get a bunch of guys together that promote and support "The PvP mod"

So basicly when we move all this energy we put in these posts (or complaining; I believe it's clear after 1 year that BI does not want to make too much work of making the PvP scene happy ), into making a solution and making it work *all* and *everyone* _together_...

It is THAT (kinda) simple, right? If not, please elaborate.

If you want to make it better in ArmA2, I believe you're in the wrong forum area!

Spot on.

And probably more than 1 effort will be done in this direction; I believe ACE is one of them.

Sakura's anims changes are integrated into PROPER, now what I don't know is how much of them are implemented into 1.09b and what is really left to be done in 1.09?

I tend to have a highly "unrealistic" approach lately, so I guess I have biased views on what should be done. For me, it's all a bit too slow (but I understand people wanting realism may prefer the slow movements).

In fact, what is itching me lately is to do a full "unreal" mod to see how we can take advantage of what ArmA brings on top of realism.