Good and bad Impressions of Arma II

[janh 0]

I have been playing Arma II for a good 5 weeks now (patch 1.03) and wanted to get rid of my impressions. I will not try to post anything that has been mentioned in another thread, but there are so many that some things may already have been posted elsewhere.

I have played/modded OFP/RES for a good 8 years, and skipped Arma I as it didn't seem to add significant gameplay or realism. But Arma II now has a quite new feel to it, largely due to the improvement of the environment.

The bullet penetrations of materials are quite neat, though I find that still having a simple "hit point system" rather than a sophisticated damage model including at least the impact angle is a bit disappointing. Well, a good thing is definitely the new building destruction model.

I miss the tank cockpits, too, though the degree of detail of the models is now astonishing. However, the cost in terms of CPU and GPU load are enormous, and I cannot use long "realistic" viewdistances. In dense woods, and particulalry in the cities the framerate crashes quite badly. It would be nice to see air units independent from the viewdistance setting out by several miles, and also if the view distance when using air vehicles could be increased at loss of ground object details.

Oh yeah, on the "flight simulation" part with this mystic "RadIR" detection thingy I won't even comment. I had hope that by now Radar and passive and active jamming techniques, as well as a distinguished IR system and flares would have been implemented.

The new AI is quite neat and a challenge. But I have noticed a few odd things, like AI trying to drive around a car parked on the street in the campaign and actually banging into it a good 10 times before evading it on the left lane.

Sometimes AI subordinates follow my orders too closely, so as upon disembarking from a hovering chopper. Unfortunately the chopper sometimes gains a few feet altitude, but the team mates still follow my order ... into death. On other occasions, they have a mind of their own, that they didn't have in OFP: like canceling orders to "hold fire", when sneaking to a target and while still being undetected. Or even standing up and running a few steps ahead despite "stealth" and "crouched" orders...

One thing I had hoped for since OFP was that AI would make use of buildings, windows and rooftops and that storming them would be included now. To bad to have that scripted in a movie sequence in the campaign, since this type of action makes up for a good part of the activity in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Also when on "Danger", AI tends not to follow me fast enough anymore, even if I hop rather slowly from house to house or tree to tree. They sometimes even get lost or can't follow my path. Same I noticed around Pik Koslova, the steep cliff in the south: AI is unable to find a path down and even sustains casualties trying so.

In "Danger" mode, they should find cover closer to the leader. Sometimes they stray to far. Also I still miss a WP order to Defend a position, which would prevent AI to stray to far from it and expose it. The old trick to lure them away still works to well.

Anyway, nice game so far. I hope some of the issues will be patched (like perfomance and the AI quirks), and a few more like the simulation parts and damage model be addressed in the announced addon.

Jan

[thaFunkster 0]

...It would be nice to see air units independent from the viewdistance setting out by several miles, ....

Totally exactly agree, BIS PLEASE IMPLEMENT THIS, having aircraft dissapear at 1.5 kms just looks plain silly!

This would be easy to implelent, please set it independently of viewdistance, mayb can make an "aircraft viedistance in options", or just set it to 5 / 10 kms.

Thanks.

O, and the slow AI on danger mode I totally agree with. It REALLY annoys me, often I have to put time acceleration x4 on in order for them to catch up 150m or so...

Edited September 14, 2009 by thaFunkster

[Bulldogs 10]

A mod is being developed to handle the distance thing. It's actually going pretty well

---------- Post added at 05:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:08 PM ----------

As for the danger mode thing, yeah it's annoying, but the point of it is that in danger mode they will think they're surrounded by enemies and take every pre-caution. Hence why you put them on aware or safe to get them moving.

That said, many people don't understand that forcing your men on safe mode means that you've telling them that there's no enemy around even if there is. I see so many posts of people saying "My AI ran in and got killed" after they put the AI on safe then told them to move to the enemy position.

[Planck 1]

We already have a place for Impressions:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=74926

Closing.

Planck