Floating zone poll

[Master gamawa 0]

There's just no golden balance unfortunately. You just can't turn off the crosshair if you're using floating zone.

Well my friend, prepare to be dazzled!

There is a simple addon that adds this crosshair:

Useless at anything more than short range and gives you a very good impression of where your weapon is pointing without being intrusive.

you'll find it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?n4b3jyznyhn

thread here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=80358&highlight=minimal+crosshair

The default game crosshair is game breaking, to be honest. Game breaking enough to be more effective than ironsights, especially it times of urgency! That just shouldn't happen! I even catch some of my hard core Arma friends using crosshairs which pisses me off. I used to be a no crosshair guy before this addon. Of course trying to play a sniper without crosshairs is like a damn nightmare. After the kick and the reloading there is no indication of where your weapon points and you start fumbling for the target.

I now use this crosshair that is usefull only in very short range and is a good indicator... you know selecting crates or searching bodies and all that.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Master gamawa

[galzohar 31]

Of course trying to play a sniper without crosshairs is like a damn nightmare.

Of course IRL I want to see you fire a sniper rifle with the agility that the Arma 2 soldier does. Especially the M107 (but also the M24 or even the DMR). Those things are not only heavy, but are hard to aim fast in CQB, with or without using the sights... Those weapons simply aren't meant for that, yet in game they're made extremely effective at any range and overall way too "easy to use".

That crosshair mod probably still gives you too much accuracy at too long distances, though not having the little "line" that tells you exactly where your barrel is pointing is a big step forward towards realism.

Maybe if the crosshair was 4-5X wider than the one in the picture it would be good enough to tell you what part of the floating zone you're at, but hopefully not good enough to give you excessive accuracy nor an advantage over people who use no crosshairs at all. Though with enough practice even a crosshair as wide as your entire monitor can be too accurate, as well as center-of-the-screen no-crosshair shooting can be, though most people probably aren't practiced enough to reach unrealistic accuracy levels.

[wamingo 1]

Of course IRL I want to see you fire a sniper rifle with the agility that the Arma 2 soldier does.

SNIP

This thread is about floating zone though and my point was that if you use it ie on servers with crosshair disabled you will be left in the dirt by those who don't use floating zone. Particularly in pvp of course.

Balance first, realism later, that's my opinion. High float users need a crosshair. If it's not realistic enough for you, then reduce the accuracy of it instead of disabling it, then the player can enable or disable the crosshair as prefered.

[Master gamawa 0]

That crosshair mod probably still gives you too much accuracy at too long distances, though not having the little "line" that tells you exactly where your barrel is pointing is a big step forward towards realism.

I don't know, since I don't use crosshairs unless some asshole jumps right in front of me from behind a bush and I don't have time to react!

But try it and you'll see how useless it is at long ranges. You cannot shoot anything unless you use a damn machinegun and spay bullets everywhere.

It could be a bit bigger, I wouldn't mind it... But it works pretty good as it is and I am not changing it unless something better comes along.

[galzohar 31]

I don't know how you've been shooting, but I've had incredible accuracy using crosshairs to almost the same distances that I have with ironsights. Definitely more than the 25m you'd be able to shot out to IRL without aiming (and even that will be hard IRL). If you feel floating zone is a disadvantage, you don't have to use it. However, if a server admin wants his server to be anywhere near realistic, they HAVE to disable the crosshairs, and as you can see the good servers do that.

Crosshairs are a lot better than "just emergency shooting up close" in their current implementation. Reducing crosshair accuracy will require having random bullet spread which is basically removing realism in order to balance another unrealistic feature instead of simply fixing the unrealistic feature.

[wamingo 1]

Reducing crosshair accuracy will require having random bullet spread which is basically removing realism in order to balance another unrealistic feature instead of simply fixing the unrealistic feature.

Not necessarily. The gun could simply sway more than it does when not using sights. Isn't that ultimately what you would want anyway? I mean you ARE saying the crosshair is unrealisticly accurate, right? So reduce accuracy.

With crosshair disabled, I can quite easily hit stuff 100m out without sights, with no float. And I can certainly more easily line up for sights at any distance, than with floating aim.

[galzohar 31]

The problem is that not every method of reducing accuracy would end up realistic. Just spreading the bullets around or increasing sway is not a realistic solution. IRL you don't miss because you have some random spread or extra sway when not aiming - you miss because you don't know exactly where your barrel is pointing.

[t1337Dude 10]

Are you guys talking about dead zone? Wth is floating zone?

[Fiya 10]

Are you guys talking about dead zone? Wth is floating zone?

They are the same thing. In Arma 1 it was called floating zone.

[frag85 10]

it took me a while to get used to it, and using head tracking deffinitly made it more natural for me.

~80%

[ActionMan 10]

The problem is that not every method of reducing accuracy would end up realistic. Just spreading the bullets around or increasing sway is not a realistic solution. IRL you don't miss because you have some random spread or extra sway when not aiming - you miss because you don't know exactly where your barrel is pointing.

How about instead of adding "spread" like in most games, you just add "spread" to the crosshair.

In other words, the gun still shoots in a straight line (instead of spread in a large cone), but the crosshair will be placed somewhere in a "spread cone" instead of being in the correct location.

[wamingo 1]

The problem is that not every method of reducing accuracy would end up realistic. Just spreading the bullets around or increasing sway is not a realistic solution. IRL you don't miss because you have some random spread or extra sway when not aiming - you miss because you don't know exactly where your barrel is pointing.

IRL your weapon isn't automatically aimed exactly at the center your vision either.

[galzohar 31]

IRL your weapon isn't automatically aimed exactly at the center your vision either.

Nope, I didn't say that was realistic, but having a crosshair is definitely a lot less realistic than this.

If the weapon keeps pointing at the same place but the crosshair has random offset, then where will that offset be to? It's a lot more complicated than that, and in the end anything with a crosshair doesn't do anywhere near a reasonable job at simulating unaimed shooting. No crosshair center-of-screen shooting may not simulate it perfectly, but it's much better than any crosshair solution. Of course, there are even better solutions, but they would require more work.

[Alex72 1]

Dont like floating. I just cant get used to it. Cant hit shit with it. :)

But since we can have it ON/OFF and all in between. Its all good.

[Lovehandles 10]

You can call me stupid but can someone please tell me about what kind of option you all are talking about? Can I find it in my settings?

[max power 21]

I use 50% floating zone and 50% head bob.

[rotkeps 10]

Upon installing, instantly removed the ghastly head bobbing and disjointed floating zone. I then opted for a touch of the headbobitis in an effort to add a touch of ambiance to the shader jested affair. Now I have both back around 50%, the circle, completeth.

Seems to simply be a transition of coming from other FPS games and being presented with change, the most terrifying voyage of any creature of habbit. However the more time you devote to ArmA2 the more you realise how much those two features add to the experience. I am just glad they provide a slider to allow you to be intravenously wrenched from your more accustomed Quake3 on ice shooters.

Edited August 6, 2009 by rotkeps

[Bad Pilot 0]

There's no option for 30%, which is how I prefer it.

For kicks after noticing this thread yesterday, I tried to play with a 10% zone and a 75% zone. Both felt very wrong.

[Guest]

I like FZ, but my biggest issue is movement. Sometimes i just want to turn left whilst moving fowards, but to do that i must first aim my gun all the way to my side, and then it finally turns left. And by that time i have run out of room with my mouse, so i now have to pick it up and move it again.

You counter it by increasing mouse sensetivity, but it's uncomfotable.

[Trauma.au 10]

I hate it, feels soooo bad.

[Gigan 1]

I use 100%. It looks natural to move from the waist.

[Angle 10]

i use a large FZ.

Without it it looks like someone nailed the gun to the poor guys shoulder. I hope OPF:DR have it or else the slim chance that i might get it goes down to no.

[TangoRomeo 10]

I use floatingZoneArea=0.5 in my profile.

Floating point feels more natural; i can aim or cover w/o changing my direction of movement, comes in usefull in a variety of situations. It also destroys less concealment (grass) when prone if engaging targets within the envelope.

Last but not least, if engaging within the envelope, the system does not need to calculate and display new objects coming into view, for every little mouse movement being done.

[xclusiv8 10]

After reading about some of you guys using 100% FZ i have to say that is the best for me aswell. I started out with nothing and took it up to 15% and now im at 100%. It really gives a better feel to the game. Somehow i feel like my responsivness to different situations is way faster now.

[BeardPI 10]

I <3 floating zone.

It lets me aim at a guy leading a group on the edge of the screen without losing sight of others.

Sometimes it annoys me a bit when I'm not in a fight and am just trying to look around, but its fantastic when it counts.