Love/Hate relationship with ArmA 2

[Firebomb 10]

Love/Hate relationship with ArmA 2

I’m going to try and word this so it’s not the normal “rage troll QQ flame†post.

Admittedly at the moment of typing this out, I am sort of at the end of my rope.

I’m of the hope, people can respond to this and tell me what, if anything, what I’m doing wrong? Or is the game this FUBAR’d?

Hello world. (story mode on)

So I install the game, start it up and do some of the ‘boot camp’ training missions. The game starts by running pretty sluggish on my system with medium settings and I have weird texture glitches but that’s no big deal I thought.

After playing about with the setting I find it in fact runs faster with everything set to high/very high settings and shadows on. I even have x16 AA, super sampling etc. on (forced on with my GPU driver) and 100% fill-rate (1650x1050). It looks great and runs smooth so I’m all happy.

Unfortunately, after starting the main campaign, it all goes a bit (a lot) down hill in other areas.

AI minus the I?

First off, I find the command system really frustrating. There could be ways of doing what I’m doing better? I don’t know (someone fill me in?) but the problem I find is I can’t tell a unit to say **move here, get in to cover, watch this area** in a chain. I have to tell the guy to move, wait-- tell him to get to cover , wait—tell him to watch an area wait--. I can’t seem to find a way of chaining commands. It seems kind of daft that I can’t give a guy a waypoint with some added parameters such as the above as I can when commanding an army.

Now, sure, I can live with that. After all, when ya playing a game with such tactical depth a little clunkyness in the command system is ok BUT add that to an AI that’s, well to put it bluntly pretty poor, leads me to really start to get frustrated.

Its not always rubbish, some things it does well (example: enemy AI) but having ya guy get killed because you told him to watch an area and to do so he stands up out of cover for all the world to see is a pain in the buttocks.

Still, even this I can live with, after all the game is pretty damn complex as games these days go and they can always fix these things in patches. My forgiving nature towards the AI system is still holding strong at this point but the tide is slowly rising.

When AI goes bad 2, the return.

Not only did the AI get worse later in the game but at times it totally stopped working.

When this first happened I thought it was a game play element. Something along the lines of “you go on ahead to grab some orders elsewhere while your team waits around, meeting up with you laterâ€, a classic game play turn of events.

After about 20mins, it became apparent that this was completely wrong. Around the same sort of time i was being gunned down by a large number of AK47’s.

Not only this, but while commanding troops, I have no ability to attack anything with them. They would not move to my way points or even use cover. Only after restarting that mission about four times did the AI kick in and work to a small existent meaning I could line up my troops and use them as targets while I flank and take everything out myself. Maybe NAPA training camps are under funded? Maybe there is something BIS is not telling me. That’s not a one off with this game it seems.

As a side note, the US needs to train there chopper pilots better because mine always seem to want to fly off in to trees.

The bottom line for me here with the AI is, I feel my team mates etc are hampering me rather then helping me a lot of the time.

So at this point in this massively longwinded post you could say to me “ OMFG AI is a bit bugged FFS get over it newbie, QQ more, seriously l2p.â€, and in a way I would agree if a dodgy AI was the only problem. As you might of guessed, for me it was not.

I R C4N C0D3

I think I have been pretty fair handed so far, here’s where that ends.

Much of the game scripting is F**king rubbish.

OK, I’m sorry. I needed to get that out of my system but my god. It’s not just a few missions or a small amount of scripting that buggered. It’s massive sections of the game leading to some parts being totally unplayable.

Were talking show stopper scripting bugs. Bugs that stop you finishing missions. Bugs that make have to restart a mission and lose 3 or 4 hours or saves. Bugs that automatically kill you. Bugs that make people disappear. Bugs that make allies shot you to ribbons. Bugs that make the enemy fear you so much they don’t move a muscle!

We are not talking one or two bugs of this kind ether but in every single mission.

All good things…..

Many experts agree, one of the pillars of a good game is its ability to maintain immersion. ArmA does not do a bad job of this in parts, but here’s my beef.

What’s with the bizarre loading and waiting around? I mean at one point:

LOAD SCREEN

Map info-

cont.

LOAD SCREEN

Plane landing,

Dialog

WAIT.

Mini bike ride (takes 2 mins)

Dialog

WAIT

LOAD SCREAM

Sorry did I say scream? Hehe.

From the example there you can see that’s like 10mins of doing nothing for a 2min bike ride. Nothing in that setup there really adds to the game in my opinion in any way. If that whole section was integrated or FMV with the mission loading in the background then I might be more interested. Hell, it might do it for some people but not for myself. There are other examples of this breaking up of immersion all over the shop for no good reason. Just out of interest, why in the name of the holy father am i riding a BMX in a warzone? Wtf am i, tony hawk or something?.... Give me a tank.

Alright, guess I have cried my eyes out long enough. I did have a few more sections like “Show me the way to the UAV†and “Marines are all Sunday drivers†but ill pass on typing them right now.

I understand in light of this ‘negative’ post that there will probably be some flames and I guess that’s fair.

Keep in mind that I do give a shit about this game enough to type out this monster post. Keep in mind that I understand this game is not a typical AAA title and also understand that I accept that all games have some bugs in them when they first come out.

It’s not the fact I don’t like the game it’s just the frustration of paying for something half finished coupled with how good this game could be.

Edited June 27, 2009 by Firebomb
wrong res

[dvolk 10]

Look at things from the bright side, eg. choppers crashing into trees make many infiltration missions a lot easier.

[Firebomb 10]

True enough, i did once have starforce smash in to an APC blowing it up.

[jakerod 254]

I don't have the game yet but this works in ArmA I so might work for you. Instead of telling your soldier to move and then waiting to tell him to find cover you can just tell him to Move behind cover and while he is moving there tell him to watch what direction you want him to. You can also tell him what stance you want him to be in but keep in mind this will affect the the movement.

Ex. Tell him to move behind a tree and then tell him to watch 3 o'clock or something.

In opposed to...

Move over in that area... wait... find cover... wait... watch 3 o'clock.

About helicopter landings. Make sure you pick an LZ that is fairly open. Logically they should be able to land any where that a helicopter can fit but not all pilots are nightstalkers.

[Firebomb 10]

Thanks.

Logically thats makes perfect sense. Making sure the LZ is in a more open area helps out the AI land the bugger.

As for the troop movment. Well im playing about with it now.

I mean you can set combat mode to "danger" so they are aware and tell em to 'keep low' and yeah, that helps. Problem is im not sure the AI's always taking these things in to consideration becos there are times when, after issuing these commands they run about like headless chickens in the open then get chewed up like so much sunday roast.

Its a bit of a case of distrust towards the AI with the game screwing up so often mayhap.

[Joseph Troska 0]

Look at things from the bright side, eg. choppers crashing into trees make many infiltration missions a lot easier.

Oh... is AI piloting skills bad in ArmA2 as well? (don't have the game yet)

That was one of my main beefs with ArmA1, and why I chose to stick with OFP... Any aircraft flown by AI would invariably end up crashing.. flying into cliffs, trees or just the ground.

OFP didn't seem to have that problem at all, as a matter of fact the AI piloting skills seemed extremely good... is this something which can be patched??? Was it ever fixed (using patches or mods) in ArmA1?

[mcbane 0]

Can't you customize movement waypoints to tell them what to do once they get to the waypoint?

[BoxiouS 10]

I love this game too, but i've noticed a few of these bugs myself. Also it's all too easy miss-click and have your AI team all stand up when in fact you wanted them to target a tank, and the outcome is obvious. As far as the pilots are concerned, they are really bad. BIS seem to have imroved the AI pathfinding in ground vehicles to a certain extent but even that can be laughable sometimes, and as soon as you add the 'z' dimension and obstacles then it becomes a case of... 'Ask for transport' 'Take a knee' 'Remove bible from pocket' and pray that the pilot makes it from the base. There should be an added dialogue where the chopper pilot responds with "Er... Yeah.. Roger that. I.. er.. have to warn you though, it's my first time in a helichopper." Followed by "Yeehaw" I think BIS even covered this in some of the dialogue for one of the campaign missions where you are on your way to the LZ in the AI chopper and the pilot says something about the landing being tricky. rather than the pilot being stoned.

Add to that the AI controller of the UAV. on a couple of occasions i've had to restart one of the campaign missions and sit through loads of dialogue including "You can use the UAV" only to find that in the 5 seconds it takes to get to the UAV trailer it's ditched in the forest!

Other than the 'Move' bug i've found the infantry AI to be excellent. I haven't experienced any of what you've said other than through the ropey command system.

[Firebomb 10]

man i gotta stop replying to meh own thread.

@mcbane

and ermm nope, unless ya commanding a unit in "commander mode" (so not single members) i dont think (dont know of) a way to set a waypoint for a single squad member and add para's to that waypoint like you can in commander mode so once they get to that point they do other things.

Edited June 27, 2009 by Firebomb

[richardg 10]

The manual say if you hold down left ALT while going to command mode, it "sticks", then you can enter a chain of commands to a unit.

[Firebomb 10]

No idea what you're on about. What page of the manual says that? The only thing alt does is change a few option on the qwick command menu as far as i can see (you get watch here and suppress). Thats it. It does not give ya a WP u can interact with on the map etc. You only get one of them when commanding an army.

[Dangerdog 0]

The manual say if you hold down left ALT while going to command mode, it "sticks", then you can enter a chain of commands to a unit.

actually, it's "hold Ctrl"

page 41

[Firebomb 10]

well in normal squad mode (not commanding an army) that is not the same as setting a WP for a squad member and upon reaching that WP, he goes pron/hides/watches area or whatever, or opens fire. Infact i cant see anything happening with ctrl held down while giving normal squad orders. If i say 'move there', 'find cover' while holding ctrl etc the do that order instanly and not in a chain.

Dont see why ya cant give squad WPs same was as u can in commander mode.