The state of ArmA?

[DBR_ONIX 0]

I've apparently been around here for about 4 years, which means I first played OFP probably 5-6 years ago. Like many of you, I played OFP an absurd amount..

I remember playing 9 hours games of "Crime City" with RCIR. Spending entire afternoons (..and evenings) throwing together multiplayer-missions the Ocean Island map with Gandalf the White and DaveP (and mocking his helicopter-flying skills). Happily suffering perpetually-slowing games of games of Capture the Island (The only game where I ever put up with 2 frames-per-second!

I spent scarily long with OFP. In-game times measurable in months (That sounds quite scary when written down..)

When I bought ArmA, I didn't like it, at all.. The controls were weird (A step back from OFP, especially air-vehicles). The graphics didn't improve that much. Most of the OFP bugs were still there (clipping though solid objects for example). The action/inventory system was far slower than OFP's. The AI was as bad as OFP (They still all went prone the second they heard a sniper, instead of actually..err, moving). Then still managed to shoot the sniper in the left eye on their first shot. The AI still either shot you the second you ran around the corner, or stood and kindly waited for you to shoot them while they slowly-rotated to aim at you..

I prodded around the mission editor (Something I spent literally months in with OFP), and it hard hardly changed in 7 years.. Even the unit-rotation was still twitchy (it's was hard to select the numeric-box in the middle of the circle)

And most annoying of all, there was no mod tools released, despite this being several months after the initial release of the game?! That was a complete joke, for a game that pretty much exists because of the mod community.. But that's another rant altogether..

Then it dawned on me. The version of OFP I had been playing for most of the time was version 1.94 and above.. I had gotten used to playing a fairly mature version of the game, with many mods (ECP, VME AI improvements, Y2K mod, FDF etc) which too were in fairly late versions...

Going from v1.96 with very professionally made mods, to (effectively) version 1.00 of a new game is never going to be a good experience.. So I decided to put ArmA on a shelve for a while, and return after some patches.

It's now been a year since the release, and there's been an expansion pack released. Not far of when I started playing OFP.

And here ends my slightly over-elaborate setup for this question:

What is the current state of ArmA?

Has the AI improved since the initial release? (Do they still all go prone in open ground, despite being under fire? Do they still have either inhuman accuracy, or brain-damage?) Have the heli controls improved? Is the clipping problem improved at all?

And, more importantly: What is the current state of the Armed Assault mods? Is there any ECP-like "improvement mods"? Have the mod-tools improved since O2-lite?

To summarize: I want to give ArmA the best shot possible.

How much have the patches improved playability, and what are the best mods currently around?

Thanks!

- Ben

[Messiah 2]

Without trying to sound patronising (truely, I'm not), the only person who can really gauge the state of ArmA is yourself.

I could go on about how much I enjoy it, but that means squat to you. What you enjoy and I enjoy are more than likely to be two very different things.

Quote[/b] ]Then it dawned on me. The version of OFP I had been playing for most of the time was version 1.94 and above.. I had gotten used to playing a fairly mature version of the game, with many mods (ECP, VME AI improvements, Y2K mod, FDF etc) which too were in fairly late versions...

Going from v1.96 with very professionally made mods, to (effectively) version 1.00 of a new game is never going to be a good experience..

Indeed. Patience is a virtue.

Honestly. Install it again, download the last few patches and play around with some mods. ACE is the new ECP/WGL, and its apparently not too far around the corner. DAC 2 has been released that solves a lot AI stupidity, although in many respects its still there (less sniperish now though)

If you still hate it, at least you realised that on your own terms, rather than listening to a few very narrow minded members who will either praise or bash with very little substance to their arguments. I'll almost wager there will be a certain member who will turn up and bash on for the 1000th time how the CTF is poor in ArmA.

[-Snafu- 77]

There is also the ECS mod which is like ECP. I think. Never tried it myself.

For mods that enhance the game look out for:

Sickboy's Pack 1 and 2

True Mods

PROPER Mods

LowPlants and Durgs vegetation fix

Sakura Chan's sprint fix addon

ArmA Effects or DM Smoke effects

Sakura's non-blinding sun mod

NWD's mods (proper ballistics and tank FCS)

If you want to find out more mods there is a thread in the Addons Complete section called, 'Addons for more realism and immersion'. Look it up.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[wolfsblut_ 0]

For me the state of ArmA is that i have quit ArmA for some time ago for several reasons. The big 4 reasons are:

1.) fairplay in PvP is hardly possible

because of the wall-hack-possibilities in ArmA (leaning to walls and in zoom-mode you can look through walls; in prone-situation and if you near a wall and if you zoom-in and if you use a pistol you can look through walls, rocks, floors and tree-trunks).

2.) server-bans on 3 public  and  realistic-playing servers, which i would be interested.

3.) not very interested in shooting robotic AI

4.) recently have not found enough public online-servers which dont play the run&gun&die-missions.

Goodbye all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dIqajtIkTQ

Now i am interested in the realistic shooter ground-branch

http://www.blackfootstudios.com/forums....orum=13

[dznemesis 0]

1.) arma aircraft controls were only bad in 1.00, after that they fixed the over-sensitive controls...if you liked the OFP-like controls, you will still be dissapointed, because arma has much more realistic controls and thus maybe more frustrating for people that are used to OFP-arcadeness

2.) ArmA graphics was always EXCELLENT...i mean even now, there is not a single game of a similar scope that has such beatiful graphics. of course, you need a reasonably fast system (3ghz, 2gb ram, gf8800GT/GTS) but it was the same with ofp in 2001.

3.) MP: the online-coop is quite dominated by one map type: evolution. in PvP, there is a type called sahrani life, which is more of an RPG mission. for serious PvP i think you should join a league (i don't know any but www.IC-arma.com, where 2 armies fight a 3h battle every week, average player count ingame is 90-100 players).

[CarlGustaffa 4]

OFP without mods was bad, really bad. Arm is better, and still is I think. But I do use certain mods now, some of which I have modified to own personal preferences:

* TrueView and TrueMovementSounds - Maybe new FOV will suit you fine though, haven't tested these 1.12 changes.

* Some modification that makes better the scopes, together with an improved ballistics mod. Unsure about their name.

* FDF sounds, by some believed to be a bit Hollywood style, but suits me perfectly.

* ECS (similar to old OFP ECM). Will add a lot of good ambience to the game, such as smoke stacks, environmental sounds, radiochatter, auto flare and smoke use etc. Without having to tell ArmA in a mission to actually use this. So this works fine with default campaign. Be sure to read the instructions if you want FDF sounds instead of the ECS Armory package though.

There are games out there with better "regular" gameplay and graphics, but they're always small in mapsize and lacks the flexibility of the ArmA engine. So I prefer ArmA over any of those. Domination is an MP coop mission which I think is gaining on that Evolution mission. Personally I prefer Domination, but online it doesn't quite deliver its full potential regarding teamplay coop because too much is available to every guy ending up with everyone running around with M4GL_ACOG and 3xM136. Evolution is less coop friendly in that you have to build your character, and is expected to perform those duties when available.

Both have great potential if "done right", but unfortunately both have some issues when done public.

About AI, they will still perform "bad" in certain situation (lay down instead of running for cover), but they're still able to make surprice flanking moves which are really effective while playing "all man for himself" online. Proper team movement can guard against this quite effectively.

Mods such as ECS tend to improve on this. I think the flanking is now much wider, and they can now traverse more difficult terrain (steep hills) than in the first versions of ArmA. In addition, with ECS, they now use smoke and flares automatically which adds a great deal to the experience. AI is also now much less prone to getting stuck, although it still happens.

[sickboy 13]

ArmA v1.12beta is way way way way ahead of arma v1.0

I personally love the game, but I loved it since v1.0, even though I ofcourse hated the bugs that plaged the game.

I have always played modded versions of the game, not because I hate vanilla ArmA, but because ArmA can be so much more in any area you like.

Most prominent mods have been named already, and it will not be too long before ACE comes around the corner too

Stuff like DAC is a great great enhancement for MP Coop, especially when you wield it correctly

How creative mission makers or public server admins are and which mods are ran/allowed, is of course entirely dependent where you play.

I dont play public servers so I guess im missing 80% of all the problems and stuff that others are complaining about

For the rest im with Messiah here; I guess nobody can tell you better, than yourself

[baddo 0]

OFP without mods was bad, really bad.

Uh... what?    

Have you found a better singleplayer campaign than Cold War Crisis? There is no match to it that I have seen, not even close. It's not just nostalgism/faded memory, I've played it recently again and it still rocks compared to its competition.

Also it should be recognized that while some great user-made addons exist for OFP (and for ArmA), only small percentage of them are close to being as good as or better than the stuff made by BIS. The Modding Community isn't the kind of heaven some people seem to think it is. It's full of great promises of great addons and relatively little actual delivering, and of that small amount of actually delivered addons, most are not even close to the level of BIS-made stuff. Might be a bit pessimistic view, but it's something to remind you of realism.

Addon creation for ArmA is much more challenging than it was for OFP. It is in my opinion over-optimistic to expect that we would get lots of great user-made addons/big mods for ArmA. I'm welcoming peoples' hard work certainly, don't take me wrong here. But the cold realism is that most addon projects either die before they get released, or the quality of the released addons are much lower than that of the stuff made by BIS.