Arma Vs Ofp

[Guest]

Been modding, testing relentlessly ai behavior in combat in Arma..

My mission project has been ported over from Ofp to Arma, and as the mission gets nearer and nearer to completion, I must be honest, Im having second thoughts about Arma being better than Ofp.

There is something about the visual qualities here that I cant put a finger on, but I swear it seems ten times harder to spot Ai units, and ten times easier for them to spot you. This has been a constant problem during my testing, in my mission Conquering towns with ai is a major role, and its seeming more and more like work than fun to clear out all but the smallest towns, simply because spotting is required to be at a uber maximum in order to survive.

Towns are vastly too big to be feasibly used for anything but mass scale Mp missions, they arent working for Sp. There is so much area for Ai to roam around once a battle starts, its just insane. More and more testing is telling me wow, what am I supposed to do with this in Sp mode? I already have mass ai wars going on, but due to the many buildings, fences that are tough to see thru, bushes everywhere, etc, its ideal for Ai to fight eachother that can differentiate a pixel bush at 200 meters from a unit sticking out next to it, and not so ideal for a lone player mixed in with friendly troops in enemy towns, where basically, you are the weakling in this respect.

Ai is jittery, they drop down and sit there at the slightest bang or boom from 400 meters away, causing groups to constantly "stutter", which is again, bad for mission that put ai groups along with player, it means player is stuck with 5 mins of inching forward as the ai gets up, moves 20 feet, drops down, rinse and repeat the whole way.

Ai's reaction to nearby fighting that doesent have explicit orders and is free to engage is another issue, it seems units from sometimes very far away from trouble will all run after a fight started, sounds good in text, but this is equating to everyone in the area pathing right down the pipe into the fight without any control over it..

All of this apart from the fact I have been unhappy more and more with the sight of the clunky look of the new movement animations as well, a unit doesent just run, it runs like its a hunchback, like its under fire constantly, even the walk is wierd to me..

Maybe some of this I have mis understood, but I know that through testing, vigorous testing, most of this was never an issue with Ofp, Ai behaviour was much more reliable, much more condusive to single player interaction with both friendly and enemy troops, it seems here, that Ai is only good for being under the players control.

Im not bashing Bis, but I am making a statement about what I am seeing here. I simply cant seem to get great battles that are both immersive, and fun with the ai here like I did with Ofp, the Ai is just misbehaving so much Im wanting more and more to go back to Ofp, and return my from Sahrani back to Kolgujev. I, alike many I think, made the change not because I was unhappy with Ofp, but because it seemed Arma would replace Ofp, and going back to Ofp now of course means Im going back to a pretty dead game.. but what do you do, Im becoming skeptical of Arma's engine more and more here. I can get pretty close to the same graphic quality as Arma in Ofp with addons, and starting to wonder why I left and spent months porting over in the first place.

This is a very odd feeling I have, and I have been fighting it off for the last two weeks or so since I have been doing extensive ai battle testing.. I cant ignore it anymore, something just isnt right here, and that which seems wrong here, never did seem wrong in Ofp. Maybe someone will tell me Im wrong, just looking at things at the wrong angle, and that would be nice, would be nice to get an angle that works.. but Im not seeing it, and porting my mission back to Ofp is the last thing I ever wanted to do, but Im leaning towards it more and more..

I havent posted a negative topic about Ofp nor Arma ever like this, and really dont know what the rules say about this - I guess if this requires locking for some reason I have missed then thats ok - But I feel a need to just say something, I feel let down, and cant believe Im fathoming throwing away a months worth of work in porting my mission over to arma to end up moving it back to Ofp, which is now pretty outdated and prolly dead..

[madrussian 347]

I don't really know how to say this but I try it anyhow...

Maybe it is not ArmA that has changed.  Maybe it is us.

I'd hate for you to spend a ton of time and port everything back to OFP, and realize even then that somewhere inside it is you who have moved on.

I had the same odd feeling for the longest time about ArmA.  Then one day I fired up OFP again and all the magic was just gone.  Now that it's all patched and modded nicely, I play ArmA, just never as much as good old OFP, which is just a fond memory for me now.  A really really stand-out fond memory burned in for probably the duration of my life, but a memory none-the-less.

God, I hope this isn't getting too depressing...

On the bright side, the mods just keep rolling out for ArmA and it is aging like a fine wine.  (Funny I say that, I don't even drink wine.)

And ArmA2 is not too terribly far off.  I'm sure the micro-ai and new scenery will do wonders for all of us.

Anyhow, I hope you keep going with your mission.  The concept is extremely interesting.  Maybe what you really need is a nice break from OFP/ArmA.  Go play some different games for a few day just to see something fresh.  Even casual games maybe.  Yeah, once the OFP/ArmA AI starts getting really predicatable again, it's probably time to let it go for a few days/weeks/months, whatever it takes.  Always seems to do the trick for me and when I fire up OFP/ArmA again for the first time, I'm always hooked again for weeks on end.

[.kju 3244]

You definitely right that the complexity of Sara is far bigger than

OFP islands. The AI behavior was not really adapted to that.

However you don't have to use Sara and you should use trueGameplay AI as standard IMHO.

Also DAC2 use should be standard, as well as some other AI tweaks.

Animations are still weak, yet there a few addons out there to improve them a bit.

[Average Joe 0]

OFP is still a better game /end/

[mcpxxl 2]

In OFP i used DAC / GL / WGL or ECS

Result --> we are dead

In Arma i use DAC2 / Gl2 / ECS

Result --> we are dead with better Gfx

For me there is no differnce but it´s like the most things

Go into the cinema today ..for me it is not the same like the years i was younger... you only think ok was a good film but ...

It will never give a:

Rambo

Terminator

Star Wars

.

.

.

only copys or likly films

The most bad thing for me is only the "wraping Enemys"

[NoRailgunner 0]

OFP is an old classic game. Its nice to see that there are some people working on it, making addons, mods, missions and campaigns. Those days were the most people are playing OFP very often/daily are gone. Now you have ArmA with some nice and usefull Addons/Mods & Tools (3DE, RTE, DAC2...). Be creative with your concept + work maybe you will find some workarounds or new ideas.

[SolidSnake-(SNK) 0]

I really hate how the tank personell gets out of the tank in arma after one hit. In Ofp they dident joump out before it was so dammaged that it was abouth to explode.

Also there are something wrong with the at weapons in Arma, they arent powerful enough or something. And when you finally have shot 4 missiles at the tank to get credit for the kill. there are something wrong in the transition from tank to destroyed/Burning.

Ofp is bether!

[vilas 477]

OFP had atmosphere, dirty towns, cold war, voices, effects , island were beauty, thats why i wait for CWR islands , cause for me it was most beauty environment in games ever

OFP community was other, matter of age, creativity and etc.

ARMA killed some people by its work, by broken hopes, by promisses and etc.

i hope that in A2 we (addonmakers) can have some agreement to avoid mess

in OFP we were learning all, now we are "masters" in our hobby-work, we can make good stuff for everyone fun, it could be good if we could plan some things to avoid OFP mess like 50 AK-47 addons not compatible, some super units that cannot be mixed together because of incompatibility, and etc.

it could be good if we could prepare for A2

but also i hope BIS will give us tools since first day of A2

and i hope A2 will not be making problems as software

what was good in OFP - it worked

what killed many A1 funs

on many PC this game was not working

A1 is not "bad game" it is "bad software"

addonmaking is my hobby, but belive me, if i was not freak , i would not spend even one hour on GAME which looses textures, makes more ctds with every patch and requires 2-3 times more powerfull PC than listed on box requirements

OFP was greatest because of community/modmakers

BIS should care about this the most

i was informed about OFP NOT BY ADVERTISMENT but by my neighbour who told "look there is a game in which you can drive on such big island and make missions"

than i told my next friend Tom, look there is modding, we can make Ikarus for game and drove our bus and make stupid mission like "drive passengers and find vodka in the wood"

thats how it started

i hope A2 and BIS cooperation with community will not broke hopes and let us again enjoy we had for many years

OFP had great atmoshpere , like RTCW, Max Payne1

A1 wasted all by hardware-malfunction

A2 can be the best game too, it depends not from us, from BIS making working software, not ctd and giving us tools

for A2 there are many plans for mods, OFP community was creative , most creative community ever was in the history

please give us also EASY tool to make islands

please do not give patches that causes need to buy new PC

please do not make patch like "the same chopper in new camo, the same tank with new cammo"

give us tools, mlods etc and you will have greatest community and milion copy sales

i can promise that if i will have free time - it is my hobby

but i want it to work

[MehMan 0]

ArmA has good ideas, but some bad implementation. The story itself isn't all that bad. However the campaign did suffer from the move away from the soldiers point of view by bringing in news coverage and some other stuff that didn't really work out. In OFP what really had charm was the small time anon soldier who was a really connectable character. The voice acting was good, the small scenes off duty were in good timing, not too often and far from stereotypical. It seemed like ordinary people doing ordinary stuff at that time and it connected to an average joe like me. The combat was also nice because if I remember correctly a large part of the campaign was fought in the private ranks, with the few airborne and spec op missions in between. The islands were also nice for the setting, it fit the story.

ArmA has some wierd ass island that just doesn't fit, half desert half woods? The campaign didn't make us connect with the characters, it all felt so...cheesy, public, as if watching some war footage on CNN, but just bad at it.

The mechanics were relatively the same at first glance, but once you look at it from close up you see the small but significant differences that are largely unused by vanilla ArmA and can really help with the game. Then some of the leftovers from the Xbox porting are rather annoying and were left unchanged. The animations are clunky and slow and they leave much to be improved - something that will never be.

All in all, the problem is that the big picture would be good if it weren't for the parade of small things ruining it.

It's a transitional product between OFP and Game2/Arma2 and it suffers from that, it's the middle child with loose ends, a rushed product that could've used a few months more development and optimization.

It's not a shit game and not a good game, it's a mediocre game, an upgrade to flashpoint, but not at the 1.5 mark, but more at 1.33 mark. It's stuck in the middle at all things so it never fully shines as it could. For me ArmA can be a great game when you finally butcher it into what I want, but the expirence can be quickly ruined by many factors, like the AI, the pisspoor preformance even though I'm in the recommended section and much more. It doesn't leave me hungry, but it doesn't fill me up.

[Average Joe 0]

Couldn't have said it any better myself, goodpost.

[madrussian 347]

Amen MehMan. Well said.

[spooky lynx 73]

For me OFP is still revolutional game. And Arma seems like not new game, but some kind of mod with some graphic features (not very well realised), ability to make vehicles with multiple guns (without additional scripting), changed flight model, and... tons of old bugs from OFP, which could be avoided and few numbers of mixed units (US Army infantry with some parts of USMC gear, Strykers, crazy mix of air units). In front of the nearly complete armies of about 20 nations represented in OFP, it looks very poor. Even nowdays. And all that huge patches, which corrected only config and gameplay errors...

[Guest]

First I want to say I apologize to Bis for being kinda direct in my complaint, and the only reason I apologize, is because I do know that the team and company is bare bones, and I dont know what sort of limited resources they have had/have to work with to get Arma1 going and up. I did post this out of building frustration with my results from ai battle testing over the last few weeks, and I guess I just have to live with it, it is kinda nuts to shift back to Ofp, and alot of work to do the port again.

I can agree with alot of what was said here, I read every word.

Another thing that troubles me alot about ai is the fact they want to lay down every time a hint of trouble comes near, or when in combat. Some might say this is realistic, personally, I say this is a game, not Rl, and I think the whole ground rat fever these units have is just way off. In ofp there was always a variety of actions, units would lay, some would crouch, some would advance, etc, and maybe alot of their actions were not the best decisions for surviving, but who cares, it looked cool, felt cool, and made for much, MUCH better ai battles. Heck here I cant get the units to even get close enough to eachother for some cool close quarters combat with grenades being chucked at times, they just want to lay down, get up, lay down, get up, lay down, and kill eachother slowly this way from a distance

I had tried various behavior settings quite some time ago, and found little change in their behavior, apart from setting them to do nothing at all..

And ya, really, for any big mission the animations become a big deal, when you end up spending 10 hours or more in one mission, stuff like that becomes a big deal. There is more need for interacting with the environment, wanting your character to look cool, and the only animation I can find I even half way like is the slow walk while aiming.. The standard walk is even messed up, ever notice how the head rolls to the left and right as he walks? I mean, like one of you guys said, simple little things, but when there are so many, it adds up.

And the vehicles are a problem, one of you guys stated that its not right units get out of the tank before its dead, and heck ya, its another mission issue. It means there is a vehicle left there with a big red x in the way of all opposing ground forces to advance - that little tank ends up holding back 2 squads of units and making them do the same old crap for 5 mins to path past the tank.. lay down, get up, walk forward 10 feet, lay down, get up, 10 feet...

I appreciate the suggestions Q, I need to spend some time and try out some of those suggested apps. If anything can help here..

So anyhow, my rant is done. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see what I can dig up to help with some of these issues in addons and live with the problems. Not much more I can do, head up and smile

[snkman 351]

OFP is still in my mind.... Can't remember how often hand how long i played this game...

One day i visited a friend spending 3 Day's at his home and we played OFP for the whole 3 DAY's over Lan.

We sleeped every day 4 - 5 hours. Just becouse we had to

Man this was really a very very good time...

Today i play ArmA with the same friend but after a couple of hours bouth of us get sick of ArmA

The handling of OFP and many many other things are way better then in ArmA the world's ( Map's ) to me look way better then in ArmA.

In OFP if you look to the horizent it feels magical!!

The villages look that good and sweet. ArmA really looks like a PC game very plastically.

If there would not be that much talented and willed people working on new AddOns i would have give ArmA a GOOD BY since very long time.

OFP will alway's be one of my first choice game!

[bhaz 0]

I preferred OFP's gameplay over ArmA, it seemed to have a lot more replayability for me. But since it came out, OFP got uninstalled and I never went back. Kinda felt like the community got split in two and the majority moved over to ArmA, which is only gonna happen again on the release of ArmA2 / OFP2.

[vilas 477]

what also decided about more addons in OFP (except malfunction of software called Arma)

OFP tools can work without game

Arma tools not

if you are in office, you have weak PC, you could do addons for OFP, but not for Arma , cause A tools won't lauch up

[ModaFlanker 0]

ArmA uses waypoints and scripting for AI. It seems to be a system that cannot be 'fixed' despite much tweaking... so this appears to be why they abandoned this approach and picked a new one for ArmA II.

The new AI system is apparently so CPU intensive it will require its own core to run properly, so you will be REQUIRED to have at least a dual core CPU to be able to run ArmA II.

The AI will be in constant communication with each other as they move in military fashion, covering each other.

[twisted 128]

Arma looks lovely and has advances in the engine that should have made it much better.

but somehow it just didn't come together 100%. It is still the game that i reinstall first when reinstalling windows though and OFP doesn't feel good after playing Arma.

The issue is that it's basically OFP with facelift and a few tweaks. The other issue is that while OFP lead the field of games in many ways ArmA lags behind well known games out there in terms of AI and immersion. COD4 is a smaller battle area but really defined a new level of ai (even though very scripted) and immersion. Arma 2 needs to deliver similar but on a much more open world like basis.

[VictorFarbau 0]

I think most weak spots of ArmA have been pointed here very well. AI "ubervisuals" seeing right through all clutter and killing players with deadly precision. Incredible path finding bugs, AI getting stuck everywhere, sometimes for minutes. AI and players stuck in robotic and repetitive animations which feels very unnatural (gimme the ragdoll engine of Max Payne I and I'll shut up forever). And one thing that annoys me time and again - houses with fake doors and windows. How often did I bump into painted doors and die when under fire? Especially annoying if that is the only house around in about 2 squaremiles.

And then the whole shebang runs at 10fps until you own an almost insane hardware configuration.

Special Ed is right - it just doesn't feel right. For some odd reason it did feel right in OFP. But turning back was never an option either.

Nonetheless - it is the only game that offers such a variety of modding capabilities and I do enjoy the creativity it sparks in many people. BIS has created a unique game design with freedom in design and modification so far unheard of. I sometimes tend to think: they gave us so much freedom and such a powerful concept - how can we make good use of it? All efforts seem so small and lost in such a vast environment.

My conclusion: I am delaying all major programming work and mission design until A2 comes out; I don't feel like spending many hours to work around the oddities of A1 only to find out I am back to square 1 when A2 finally comes out.

Then I will focus more on environmental addons; something that really brings more life to the game and creates a hostile environment to the player independent from any mission. So I am reducing my efforts to maintenance right now.

VictorFarbau

[privateguba 0]

OFP was simply far, far ahead of it`s time. Only now, with multicores becoming common and beggining to get used for games, other companies besides BIS and codemasters may try something of the same scope. I also hope that since giant developer teams are used even for run-of-the-mill FPSs maybe a second age of flight sims maybe coming.

That said, I don`t play Arma just because I don`t have the hardware for it. I`m very much a GAMEPLAY player, but after I installed Arma`s demo on a friends computer, I stopped playing OFP for a while. Even with the best mods, OFP looked empty and sterile by comparisson. Only recently I installed OFP again and started to play. And I take very good care not to play Arma`s demo again.

The only thing that really seems a disapointment in Arma is the XBOX leftovers. I think the animation and control troubles may come from that.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

To be honest, I love ArmA to a similar (if not greater) extent than OFP; people who say that "wow, OFP modded looks just as good if not better than ArmA" are simply lying, or myopic. But the appeal for me goes beyond looks.

My favourite BIS CWC campaign mission in OFP was Pathfinder, the one where you're the squad pig gunner and you have to blow up two Shilkas. Now, in OFP when I played that mission, it was as hard as hell. 9 times out of 10 my entire squad (all 12 or so of them) would be axed before even reaching Chapoi, and I'd have to flog a LAW from a corpse, creep over to a fuel station and smack down the Zeus remotely.

I have been playing ArmA quite a bit with the OAC and CWR mods. Although the campaign conversion is buggy as hell in OAC (breaking most if not all tanking missions and usually causing nasty scripting errors to show up) the improvements introduced with regard to AI in ArmA are evident. In Pathfinder, my friendly squad (with my help, naturally) kickeths arse all the way to Chapoi, and seeing them running on the gorgeous new Malden and taking cover behind bushes and trees seems a lot more common to me, and looks farking mad, functionality aside.

Another mission that I'm glad to be able to play in ArmA is Taking Command, where you have to repel a Soviet assault on Goisse. I shit you not, play this in CWR/OAC, and you will find defending to be several hundred handfuls harder than it was in OFP. Last time I played, I thought "ah, ho hum, I'll stick my LAWers back in the town, maybe put a pigger facing off towards Delta's side and bunker the rest of my squad down." I kept two or so dudes in reserve to the north edge. The Soviets wiped us out. Delta was axed within almost seconds by UGL fire. My LAWers got one BMP but immediately got raked with AK and PKT fire from the second APC, which then sat on the ridge shooting the crap out of the sandbags I was hiding behind. Seconds later, an RGD landed on my head. I didn't even have time to call my reserve dudes up before I was a goner. It was mad fun.

I get the feeling that quite a few ArmA bashers would be singing a different tune if ArmA had had an epic campaign like CWC or Resistance. But faulting its AI and graphics, is, in my opinion, unfair.

[MehMan 0]

Well, I don't know if OAC makes any corrections to the AI or not, but sometimes I get a bit, well, confused. The AI sometimes walks straight up to another AI and waits a few seconds before firing. Or they fire while standing in the middle of the battle. With an M240.

[.kju 3244]

OAC does not modify AI in any way.

Quote[/b] ]Although the campaign conversion is buggy as hell in OAC

(breaking most if not all tanking missions and usually causing nasty

scripting errors to show up)

Would you please report errors over here:

http://oac.armaholic.eu/forum/index.php

As for tank missions I believe you mean gameplay changes instead

of bugs right?

You want OFP armor values or is it the difference in AI behavior?

Thanks!

PS: You are playing the CWC campaign from the SVN source right?

[Guest]

Honestly I have seen significant issues in Arma with ai problems.

Those major ones that come to mind :

Units not moving forward due to much of any distant activity, causing them to lay down, get up, lay down, get up behavior.

Units are always favoring the prone position, rather than crouching, and/or moving about searching - its been a real immersion killer for me.

Pathing seems to be much worse in Arma, I still have random issues with tanks flying off during a battle to some unkown place, to return 5 mins later when the fight is over.

As far as I know, safe mode is still broken. Cannot rely on units patrolling because of this huge bug. Any units in safe mode that come under fire get stuck in combat mode, and never return to safe mode.

I tried out the converted Kolgujev island, just to see what it felt like to have a more conducive island for ai pathing. I then recreated an old battle I had setup on Kol - and the feeling of having brought Ofp in Arma all the sudden died for me..

I watched the enemy units coming running out of their base while under light fire, and they all looked like hunchbacks, like there is a 50 pound brick on their heads. Then, no wonder, a min or so went by they had all stopped advancing, and were all laying on the ground, occasionally getting up, to get back down again, spin around in circles, rinse and repeat. They never even got to the main battle position, because I ended the mission after 5 mins of watching this..

The ofp variant I had? The units would come flooding out of the enemy base to engage, some would get down and lay flat, and do the similar routine of getting up and down, but *not* all of them, a bunch of them would still advance under fire, they were able to get across the field and follow their paths to the friendly positions for some nice close quarters combat. And the animations were never an eye sore to me either.

I dont agree, sorry. If Arma was just Ofp with better graphics, and some additional better Ai, sounds great. But what I see is a mix of some ofp ai, and the rest is alot of buggy stuff, non conducive to immersive gameplay for many scenarios that used to do great in ofp, and now they do not.

The more simplistic approach that Ofp ai gave, which allowed random actions for ai was better than trying to it seems replicate Rl, because what is happening, is the Ai is no longer working to provide a great atmosphere of grand battles now, they are just trying to save their own *arses*, while being expert marksmen, and doing little beyond that Imo.

[ShrubMiK 0]

Why even debate this? If you prefer OFP, play OFP.

RocketScience != It