ArmA2 1.03 Impressions - ALL Impressions/Videos/Screenies Here

[lt_darkman 0]

Patch 1.02 is a big improvement over 1.01 for me and improves many of the things I found annoying.

I know it's still work in progress but you're on the right track BIS. And thank you to everyone with the German version who has fed back on bugs so far helping BIS focus on the most important issues first.

My first day disappointment is now a distant memory.

P

[nikodemus 10]

Just downloaded the patch and had some gaming on this, so far, EXCELLENT game! So far, very impressed...

Have done most of Boot Camp now, just short of the last two, high command and...er...the other one (forgot...)

[wiper 0]

How about the AI?

unfortunately something looks totally screwed for me with the 1.02 AI !

in utes, playing a blueteam rifleman, put an opfor riflemam on the runway in 200m distance, give him max skill, play in veteran mode.

right on start he goes prone and ... in 9 out of ten tries he does NOTHING

can even run 100 meters in his direction before he starts shooting

tending to revert back to 1.01 here :-\

man was that 1.01 AI brilliant!

did BIS hear too much to all these "cheating AI" whiners ?

I guess so.

I tuned the AI down a bit using "Accuracy" and "aimingshake" skill arrays and had most intense firefights ever against any AI all times.

Not with 1.02 as it looks, even with max skill a bunch of sitting ducks now

[Majormauser 0]

unfortunately something looks totally screwed for me with the 1.02 AI !

in utes, playing a blueteam rifleman, put an opfor riflemam on the runway in 200m distance, give him max skill, play in veteran mode.

right on start he goes prone and ... in 9 out of ten tries he does NOTHING

can even run 100 meters in his direction before he starts shooting

tending to revert back to 1.01 here :-\

man was that 1.01 AI brilliant!

did BIS hear too much to all these "cheating AI" whiners ?

I guess so.

I tuned the AI down a bit using "Accuracy" and "aimingshake" skill arrays and had most intense firefights ever against any AI all times.

Not with 1.02 as it looks, even with max skill a bunch of sitting ducks now

I did not see anything about AI seeing trough Grass.... and you can't. The AI needed to be tuned it was way to good.... I understand this is ArmA ... but they we to good at spotting you from 750-200m

Edited June 20, 2009 by Majormauser

[rübe 127]

Question: Where have the (editor-)modules gone?

Prior to the 1.02 patch they were under `Spiel-Logik`>`Module` if I recall it correctly. Now all I get to choose there is:

`Spiel-Logik` > `Stellen` (Flugfeld, Kontrolliert, Magazin, ...; locations?)

`Spiel-Logik` > `Objekte` (with only one item, good old `Spiel-Logik` with the blue flag, known from OFP.. though it makes a silly path: `Spiel-Logik`>`Objekte`>`Spiel-Logik`... wait, what?)

And the Modules are nowhere to find... already placed ones from saved missions (1.01) still show up and they still do work.

[lilshortie 10]

Is it or me but the other i was waiting at the loading screen waiting to into a game of arma 2, the black loading screen with the 3 army men standing there, you know the one i mean, well if you look at the man standing at the front, IT'S MCGIVER !!! . well it looks like him any how :)

[Skulleye 0]

It's a seperate category like units, waypoints and triggers. Press F7.

[wiper 0]

Question: Where have the (editor-)modules gone?

key F7 - modules

see the patch 1.02 readme

[rübe 127]

:o, now I feel a bit silly, hehe.

Thanks you guys.

[nuttyjawa 10]

macgyver you mean? I thought all 3 of the guys look the same

[wiper 0]

I did not see anything about AI seeing trough Grass.... and you can't. 750-200m

well, there is NO grass on a runway.

And, grass or not, i dont see why AI does not shoot at all at point blank range

[Wynthorpe 10]

This patch has made a mess of Arma2 for me, textures dont load properly, LOD problems with models that are close, blurry screen unles go into menu via esc and back into the game.

[Helmut_AUT 0]

Patch Download is kinda broken: If you do not enter an age above 18 at A2.com (I just clicked over it since I was in a hurry) you get redirected to an entirely different page and can't download 1.02. How stupid is it to make the user enter his correct age before he can download a patch?

[Placebo 29]

Patch Download is kinda broken: If you do not enter an age above 18 at A2.com (I just clicked over it since I was in a hurry) you get redirected to an entirely different page and can't download 1.02. How stupid is it to make the user enter his correct age before he can download a patch?

Plenty of mirrors posted in this thread.

[lapa 1]

Patch Download is kinda broken: If you do not enter an age above 18 at A2.com (I just clicked over it since I was in a hurry) you get redirected to an entirely different page and can't download 1.02. How stupid is it to make the user enter his correct age before he can download a patch?

Delete your cookies and refresh.

[manzilla 1]

Alright, I just DL'd the 505 version and patch v1.02. Previously I was using the German version v1.01. V1.02 seems to run much worse then v1.01. With German v1.01 I could set everything to very high and play with 7000+vd and the game ran perfectly, especially a mission I've been making. Now with 505 + v1.02 this very same mission gets real jittery when running around. Things seems to be fine when I'm standing in place. I'm playing with the same settings and even lower settings but it's still jittery.

Anyone else get this problem?

So unfortunately my immediate impression is a little confusion.

[Helmut_AUT 0]

I know that I can find some mirrors, and I know I can delete my cookies (which I did) it's still 100% unnecessary to hassle an user for his birth date (and otherwise make it seem like the link is broken) if he's following the official forum link to the official patch download. That is just bad usability.

---------- Post added at 03:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 PM ----------

Okay, Patch Impressions:

Disabling PP adds two FPS compared to Keygets "NOBlur/NoHDR" mod. Though now distant objects seem blurry again, which wasn't the case with the modded 1.01

FSAA gives me artifacts even as it disables shadows.

Don't quite like the new loading screen (minor thing, I know...) the previous one had Osprey, Venom, Force Recon, normal Marines and an AAVP7 - quite a nice display of what the game is about - now the Venom and Force Recon are gone, the new screen doesn't look any better for it and "gradient" from green to black on the edges looks amateurish.

AI/CPU Hunger is unchanged, AI still needs the same amount of performance. Can't say how different the behaviour is, haven't tested that yet.

[mr reality 0]

Since the patch, i can now run ArmaII reasonably well. The main reason being post processing being disabled.

I usually played Armed assault on very high with 3000 VD, but alas i can only play armAII on medium with 1600 VD. It still looks good though.

I noticed they added a lot more years in the editor drop down list. I thought it was a bit odd that it only went upto 2009 in ver 1.01. I know there are more bugs to squish, but BIS certainly have an eye for the tiniest details.

[ScorpionGuard 10]

No more vids :(

[FlamingDeath 10]

The patch improves some things, but not enough, I guess patience is needed.

I have got myself into trouble on these forums by being direct in my critisisms of the new game, but I have one more critisism, ill make it my last.

Arma 2 is mainly developed for the X-Box.

The original game Arma was very PC centric, and being a PC gamer im all for games that are developed solely for the platform.

Over the years lots of decent games (or should have been) have been watered down, and ruined in order to cater for the console market. COD 2, Crysis, Oblivion to name the worst effected.

These titles brought to the fold features that were not present in the earlier game, that were solely aimed to please console owners. As a result I felt very much let down as a fan of the original games.

Now with Arma 2 im again feeling let down. Im sure many will not relate to my gripes, but consider these points.

The menues are designed to work with a x-box controller, the vehicals are totaly useless to controll with a mouse, plug an X-box controller in and they drive well. The towns are all on one level, unlike Arma 1, where the streets were at different heights, with small hills to climb. This made Sahrani a varied place to explore and made your approach to the missions varied. Arma 2 leaves you with flat GRAW type towns, optomised for the same X-box controller.

As a big fan of the original Arma, my wish list (the improvements that I would really have dreamed of) consisted of - better AI, more vehicals and guns, and better animation. Arma 2 does bring a few new things, but with it comes all the compatability problems, huge system load, and nasty features such as bloom and blur (sorted in the patch). I think most of these features were not needed. The AI is still a nightmare, the new guns and vehicals few.

I dont believe the Original game needed such an overhall of the engine, just some exciting new features.

As a whole then I belive this to be X-Box arma, designed to cater for the games controller, with its framerate caps, and fillrate instead of AA.

Sure I understand that as developers you wish to greatly increase sales, and as nothing like Arma 2 has ever appeared on the consoles, its an oportunity that shouldnt be missed. But as a hardcore fan of Arma 1, and PC gaming as a whole, I wish that developers would concentrate on playing to the strengths of the PC, and not the watering down needed to make a cross platform release. And also not constantly developing games that need hundreds of pounds spending on PC hardware to make them run as they should.

Those are my final critisism's, I look forward to decent patches, and hopefully the mod comunity will bring this game back into my perspective. Ill cu online in MP, cos I aint abandoned all hope yet.

We must be twins, because i could not agree more

the console money grab by developers will hopefull bite them in the bum when their primary supporters jump ship to another more dedicated pc game developer

[sgt gul 0]

i am playing most stuff on high, post a-a etc off. visibilaty at 2000m. i get 20+ fps, which myself i find it playable. heres my system:

AMD 5600+ 2.91 Ghz

2gb memory

ATI HD 3870 512 MB

[Simon C 0]

Oddly enough, I'm still seeing AI walk through fences and the occasional car. I think the accuracy of the AI has somehow increased too, not sure how... time to fiddle with settings I think. :p

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

We must be twins, because i could not agree more

the console money grab by developers will hopefull bite them in the bum when their primary supporters jump ship to another more dedicated pc game developer

there is not another, more devoted game developer, console or pc, anywhere.

where you on a mental vacation yesterday? they released a patch at 2am, their time.

you are obviously new to this community.

[wiper 0]

unfortunately something looks totally screwed for me with the 1.02 AI !

in utes, playing a blueteam rifleman, put an opfor riflemam on the runway in 200m distance, give him max skill, play in veteran mode.

right on start he goes prone and ... in 9 out of ten tries he does NOTHING

can even run 100 meters in his direction before he starts shooting

tending to revert back to 1.01 here :-\

man was that 1.01 AI brilliant!

did BIS hear too much to all these "cheating AI" whiners ?

I guess so.

I tuned the AI down a bit using "Accuracy" and "aimingshake" skill arrays and had most intense firefights ever against any AI all times.

Not with 1.02 as it looks, even with max skill a bunch of sitting ducks now

ok, quoting myself here because I noticed while these test conditions (h2h meeting on the runway) still stand with some questionable AI "behaviour" but in general the AI seems to operate quite well in the field in 1.02 though.

Need some further references on details to be sure though and maybe will report them later.

One thing I really love to see is FindCover script function back in order as it currently returns nothing.

I strongly hope anyone of BIS may notice / read it. At the Bug Tracker site its already recorded but I really cant wait to have it back as I'm currently digging through my ancient terrainscanners from OF times for substituing this most helpful function for dynamic AI scripting :-)

[S_Z 0]

It would be nice if someone could post a similar clip as this,

but running on 1.02 code for us poor fellows who have not got our copies of Arm2 yet...the post office still got mine :mad: