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-FA-Mike

Arma II - Is eyesight a issue?

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Hello everyone,

I have been browsing the forums for the last few days in the background, came across dyslecsix's guide (Probably spelled his name wrong, but just been out drinking please forgive me) which was engrossing, and beautifully in-depth, I definitely would think about buying a TrackIR for myself for xmas.

Now to the issue at hand, I do not usually like tactical FPS because, well...My reactions and eyesight are not what they use to be, I am only 26 years old, but I am short sighted and I feel this has a great effect on my ability to play this game (In-case people wonder, I sit 8 feet away from the screen, using a 32" plasma in 1920 x 1080 res).

Regardless, I still stubbornly log into sniper team deathmatch maps, and try and "outsmart" my opponents (Flank them from directions they do not expect and such). The trouble is, even when I hear a opponent is firing really, really close to me (They sound about 20-30 feet away through my headphones, and I can pinpoint the direction), I still cannot spot them...No matter how hard I look, through the dense forests and grasslands combined with their camo I can no make out heads nor tails of a enemy.

Yet they funnily enough still manage to spot and kill me with ease, even if I am hiding underneath a pine-tree's leaves, prone, and using nothing but freelook to scan the horizon (so as not to turn my whole avatar and be more visible to the enemies). I still get capped by a distant sniper (Can tell they are far away since I do not even hear their guns go off.

Now I am not going to believe they are cheating (Not my style to shout that at every person that kills me), but I do still struggle to understand how these people manage to see these things and I find it so hard?

Am I the only one here that struggles to see the enemys in this game? Is there a trick to it I do not know of?

Some tips would be greatly appreciated, I really enjoy this game and have a pretty competitive streak about me, but im at a loss for tactics on how to shoot a enemy I cannot seem to see, or cannot seem to hide from...

Tips and advice, and the occasional "stfu noob" welcome :yay:

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A lot of people turn down their settings to make it easier to spot people online, that's how they see you so easily.

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I thought a game server forced on it's own graphics settings? Like forced grass on and such.

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TerrainGrid detail is a server setting but shadows are not. Shadows, texture detail, headbob, post processing, etc make a large difference in how hidden people are online.

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Why dont you get some prescription glasses to take away the short sighted problem. My bro is short sighted and he just puts in contact lenses and everything is perfect again.

Isnt short sighted where you see better close up, but blurry at a distance? And long sighted is where you see stuff blurry close up but clear at distances?

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I'm short sighted too, but I just wear glasses when I need them, including for the TV where I sit a distance away from :confused:

So I don't see how it's a disadvantage in a game.

Remember grass doesn't conceal you over distance (beyond the pint it's rendered at). Apparently that will be coming in a patch but I don't know any details of that.

Edited by Maddmatt

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You can have your eyes lasik'ed. I did it 10 years ago, it was expensive back then, but now it's so cheap. If the degree of your nearsightedness isn't too high, you can get 20/20 eyesight easily after surgery. Mine was mild, so 20/20. And not to mention you will save money in the long run as you no longer need to change your glasses or buy contact lenses and solutions regularly.

Edited by Amuro

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An added bonus to getting corrective lenses or surgery is that you can legally drive and such.

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Haha, just checked the thread again. I do wear glasses and I guess it does apply less to watching a screen than the real thing, but it's not really that much to blame for my lack of ability to spot people I think.

I just struggle to spot fully camoed soldiers sitting 600m away prone in grass (LIke I should, really), where I see the eagle eye next to me picking them off every few seconds, I struggle to comprehend how they do it, hence the desire for tips (And thanks for the ones I got so far, even the surgery suggestions *chuckles*).

I think my one eye has less sight loss than the other, which creates a haze effects around objects in the distance, but only on one side! It's wierd really, but whe nI put my specs on it fixes it, and it's only past around 40 feet or so.

Driving is not an issue really, except when it is frosty (The glare and reflections play tricks on my vision because of the wierd blurring of objects on one side). Gives me a headache more than anything else without my specs.

Anyway, wandering off topic! Me and a friend of mine discovered holding the shift key can sport players behind cover, which we don't really agree with. Another one told me to peak around corners with third-person view without actually looking around it, which I also think is a little unrealistic.

Maybe im just too fussy :)

Edited by [FA]Mike

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An added bonus to getting corrective lenses or surgery is that you can legally drive and such.

Being near-blind never stopped anyone from driving that I know of (work often with truck drivers). ArmA is good with lack of range definition with this zoom thing. I thought it was awful and would really trake away from the game when I first learnt of it, but you really can't make out the things you should in game without it. Beyond that, you can always just be an AT specialist, or a pilot with this odd auto-aim tabbing, or grab a .50cal and take a spotter. Ah, there are a lot of other things you can do besides be a marksman... I'm half a step away from glasses myself, with every damn thing being blurry close-up (and that's before this power-hungry game softens things up)

Ed: huh? Shift? Sport? what's this? more built-in hacks? :sigh:

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Are you using the zoom feature? (Hold right mouse button by default)

Helps spotting distant targets.

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Another lame/noob/tiny balls trick is to use the spacebar. If you hear something you might press the spacebar and scan the direction. Then you get the exact distance to target.

I noticed people systematically scanning their environment using this tool. It really needs to be removed from non leaders and stop displaying stuff that hasn't been reported/discovered.

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The poster above was what I was trying to type earlier (I was a good few Caps & Coke under the belt, sorry). "Shift and sport" was meant to be "space and spot" :yay:.

I do not tend to use that very often apart from possibly when I try to flank a opponent I know is standing still (If you try track a moving target with this feature it usually goes tits up, the map lags and lies to you, mwaha!).

Although it's not half bad for that sniper sitting 1.5k away being a total nuisance camping a spawn in team deathmatch. By flanking and patience I actually snuck up behind one with my M9 last night, took me 10 minutes to make the detour around him to his back, using binoculars, spacebar and listening to his shots going off, but I got a point blank headshot on him in the end.

Even though I was as usual on the bottom of the scoreboard, that one stunt I pulled off made the session worth while.

---------- Post added at 12:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 PM ----------

@ Maddmatt - yes I am, thanks for that tip, although even that does not help me spot them unless I have the high ground. On level terrain and zooming I do absolutely terribly (I was -4 after a hour session last night, wit hthe top scorer being 40ish in Evolution).

@ Serclaes - Yeah, that should be a spotter/leader/scout thing I agree.

Edited by [FA]Mike

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Since zooming reduces your FOV, you pretty much need to know where to look. You need to know where enemies are likely to be or come from in order to have a chance to spot them before they spot you. Making a detour to not get detected may help sometimes, but usually it's too time consuming to be worthwhile.

Keep in mind vegetation is only visible up close, so someone far away can see you if you're hiding in vegetation while you can't see him. So turn vegetation off or at least don't rely on it to conceal your position.

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Keep in mind vegetation is only visible up close, so someone far away can see you if you're hiding in vegetation while you can't see him. So turn vegetation off or at least don't rely on it to conceal your position.

I thought the vegetation was "layered" so at a distance , the details don't show but you're still concealed under a layer..or is that OFP : DR...

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As far as I understand this was the fix that was introduced in previous BIS games, but does not (yet) exist in Arma 2.

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Being near-blind never stopped anyone from driving that I know of (work often with truck drivers).

I said drive *legally*.

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Do like me and play with your nose touching the screen :)

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Yeah, I think being a full 8 feet or some 2,40m away from the monitor, even if it is a 32", is just too far. I'm sitting about 60cm or 2 ft away from my 24", so if you maintain a distance of maybe 4ft instead of 8 you will certainly see more. This is not a issue of short-sightedness (which you certainly even out with glasses anyway), but of viewing angle.

Disabling all that fuzzy blur by proper ingame settings will help too of course:

- Both resolutions should be equal and also equal to your monitor's native resolution.

- Disable post processing, as this LSD-trip is completely unrealistic anyway (introduced for console games as consoles couldn't do proper anti-aliasing, so blurring everything seemed a cheap way to distract from the ugly edges - nowadays every game developer seems to see this as a must-have feature).

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Disabling all that fuzzy blur by proper ingame settings will help too of course:

- Both resolutions should be equal and also equal to your monitor's native resolution.

- Disable post processing, as this LSD-trip is completely unrealistic anyway (Edit: I loled) (introduced for console games as consoles couldn't do proper anti-aliasing, so blurring everything seemed a cheap way to distract from the ugly edges - nowadays every game developer seems to see this as a must-have feature).

Good tips there Brainbug, and I do play with postprocessing off anyway with most games (I do not like bloom either), but strangely enough AA does not seem to work for this game for me (ATI 4870x2), even after I turn it up to max jaggies 30 feet away are still very visible.

All in all, back to the post-processing topic, I really dislike any kind of blurriness (Unless it serves a disrientating purpose, like a flashbang effect).

---------- Post added at 04:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:04 AM ----------

Do like me and play with your nose touching the screen :)

Hah! :bounce3:

---------- Post added at 04:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:06 AM ----------

Since zooming reduces your FOV, you pretty much need to know where to look. You need to know where enemies are likely to be or come from in order to have a chance to spot them before they spot you. Making a detour to not get detected may help sometimes, but usually it's too time consuming to be worthwhile.

Keep in mind vegetation is only visible up close, so someone far away can see you if you're hiding in vegetation while you can't see him. So turn vegetation off or at least don't rely on it to conceal your position.

I realised this and applied this promptly (The vegetation popping in and out of view ruins immersion for me more than enhances it, unless I was play at 10k view distance, which I cannot!), although most servers online tend to enable grass and such forcefully, so in a multiplayer sense it's something that I just need to get use to I guess.

When I take sniper positions on hills now, without being behind cover, just prone and low so I do not silhouette (??) myself, I tend to just shift a few feet forward on my belly first to flatten the grass infront of me, then shift a few feet back again and I can then see without being obscured.

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Even setting view distance to 10k won't really help seeing grass (nor units) further. Grass stops getting drawn after a rather short distance, and units top getting drawn after some mediocre distance, and both will never be drawn at 10km (or even 5km and probably a lot less) no matter what you set view distance to.

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At Very High View Detail I got Trucks to display out to 1800m, not a meter more than that.

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