Bohemia Interactive's future ARMA 3!

[Big Dawg KS 6]

I've been around since OFP, and I've always found the num command system pretty useless. I've memorized some of the commands, but nowhere near what I'm actually using. And looking at new guys comments, they complain wildly about it. So what works for you does not always work for others. Why is that so hard for veterans to understand?

The way it is today, it's slow (since you have to read and go back and forth through menus), counter intuitive (especially the target and action menus), and doesn't give any sort of feedback about what you are about to do, or feedback about the current status.

Whether it's intuitive or not, you still need to practice with it to get good at it. I still have a strong suspicion that the majority of people complaining about this just haven't tried to learn how to use it.

As for the OFP system, I've pretty much memorized where everything is. And it's fast, a hell of a lot faster than anything that's context sensitive. I don't even have to think about it anymore, the keystrokes just come automatically.

The fact is, there is no one system that will be perfect. The noobs will always want something that's really simple, while veterans want speed and control. That being said, as a veteran, they should keep the OFP system (like they have), changing it would make us veterans angry.

I think what BIS attempted to do for ArmA2 is implement an alternative system for noobs. I guess it didn't work that well, but I really can't say because I've never used it. The problem is that if you try to simplify it, you have to lose some control. The AI in the game are just so complex that there's not much control you can give up and still be able to use them effectively. So if the noobs really do want a simplified alternative command system, what they'll get likely end up getting is a dumbed-down AI, and then they'll just go and complain about how dumb the AI is...

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Whether it's intuitive or not, you still need to practice with it to get good at it. I still have a strong suspicion that the majority of people complaining about this just haven't tried to learn how to use it.

As for the OFP system, I've pretty much memorized where everything is. And it's fast, a hell of a lot faster than anything that's context sensitive. I don't even have to think about it anymore, the keystrokes just come automatically.

The fact is, there is no one system that will be perfect. The noobs will always want something that's really simple, while veterans want speed and control. That being said, as a veteran, they should keep the OFP system (like they have), changing it would make us veterans angry.

I think what BIS attempted to do for ArmA2 is implement an alternative system for noobs. I guess it didn't work that well, but I really can't say because I've never used it. The problem is that if you try to simplify it, you have to lose some control. The AI in the game are just so complex that there's not much control you can give up and still be able to use them effectively. So if the noobs really do want a simplified alternative command system, what they'll get likely end up getting is a dumbed-down AI, and then they'll just go and complain about how dumb the AI is...

+1.

Oh, and set your aiming deadzone to max, you n00bs. Last time I checked, your rifle wasn't welded to your shoulder.

True men play with deadzone at max.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Oh, and set your aiming deadzone to max, you n00bs. Last time I checked, your rifle wasn't welded to your shoulder.

Last time i checked i could turn myself without slinging my rifle around.

I have it set at ~15%.

[giorgygr 61]

@CameronMcDonald

From ArmA1 era i play ONLY multiplayer and nada else.

I m especially very happy when my opponents use "aiming deadzone".

Its good for my score....

[CarlGustaffa 4]

@CameronMcDonald:

n00bs?

Nice...

I have it set at about 5% to avoid having an accurate screen center. Having to aim "off center" like you do with maxed floating zone is highly unnatural to me. Having offset axis for gun direction and unit direction is fine, as long as gun and sight remains at the center of the screen. Alt-aiming I have no problems with. When you aim your gun, you follow it with your head (not body), and aim is near center off screen giving you equal "side-view" input. I'm sorry, say all you want, but floating zone does not provide that, it just feels weird and extremely artificial. One of my pet hates (if not the pet hate) with OFP.

@GiorgyGR:

Some of us doesn't do this "for the score" but for the immersion. If you killed me 10-1 and I had a fantastic game due to immersion, I still "win", but there is no scoreboard that will show you that...

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Floating zone adds a feeling of momentum. Without it, your eye is perfectly affixed to your weapon. IMO, BIS should have at least made it so that if you turn it down to 0, it still lags behind a bit. Not that I really care though, since I use the good old OFP way (tried and tested).

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Yeah I agree, and I want that part, which is currently (for us non floaters) only available in sight when using alt-aim (you "bend" the upper part of the body instead or rotating the whole body). Snap rotate to any direction, but weapon/torso will lag behind to edge of screen, then (depending on weapons dexterity value) slowly come to center.

[giorgygr 61]

@Carl

I know what you mean by that..but what i was trying to say either good or bad

in PvP games even if you are "General Patton" in strategic planning and/or target approach..unfortunately the Speed is what counts in final. :/

But..if i ever find the money to buy a super mouse that doesnt need mousepad

i will use the Floating Zone combined with my TrackIR for a super experience,although, i ll still "think twice" using it in PvP :/

[NeMeSiS 11]

But..if i ever find the money to buy a super mouse that doesnt need mousepad

This is my mouse, and i havent touched a mousepad in years. :p

EDIT: It has a cord though, i wouldnt use a wireless mouse.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

@GiorgyGR: I know, which is why I'd like to see it implemented as standard. People would think twice about taking part of a close up assault carrying an M107 or DMR because it would be too slow to handle efficiently. The gap between free float users and regular users would narrow in, and we (since I'm a no float user) wouldn't get the same advantage.

Let floating zone drive how much you can aim off center of screen (enforced to a minimum 5% to avoid "dot painting" on monitor, important for no crosshair players to know that this "cheat" is impossible). The "lag behind feeeling/feel the weapons dexterity" should be independent of floating zone and be enforced on all players.

If you knew others didn't have the current advantage, wouldn't it be more sensible to actually use the features you've got (TrackIR)? I have TrackIR myself, but I actually prefer alt-looking, I couldn't never get used to it. Nice in Flight Sim though.

And, yeah, what's a mousepad? :p

[CameronMcDonald 146]

@CameronMcDonald:

n00bs?

Nice...

I have it set at about 5% to avoid having an accurate screen center. Having to aim "off center" like you do with maxed floating zone is highly unnatural to me.

I don't use a crosshair, so floating zone gives me the impression that my arms are independent of my eyeballs. If I want to shoot (and actually hit something), I use optics.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Optics (i.e. ACOG scopes) doesn't have this problem, iron sights and non scoped optics (aimpoints) do. If applied to ACOG scope, it would mean the whole overlay gfx was to move around the screen, which might be ok for some, but just disturbing to me. You get maximum control. I get to keep my eye focused on the sight. I can't see any advantages in either of these approaches compared to the other, but I do for the current "instasnap-to-center-of-screen" that we non floaters get today.

And I play without crosshairs myself. I would like to be able to accept them being enabled (there are good reasons why they should be), but the way they are done today (who needs sights when not using sights only bring positives to the table?) I just leave any server that has them enabled.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

By optics, I meant iron sights and CQB sights as well, pardon my poor usage of the word.

I can understand what you mean. However, since going into sighted mode puts the rifle immediately in the centre of the screen, I've had no trouble acquiring and killing things with speed, since with practice you gain an idea of the point of aim. I find MP in ArmA 2 to be more of a positioning challenge rather than a quick draw contest, unless you run into each other on the corner of a city street (and in that case, the tough go cyclic).

Good reasoning, however - I respect that. Really a taste kind of thing; I just enjoy stirring shit up with my abysmal PS abilities.

[giorgygr 61]

@Carl

M8..u r absolutely right about the "no" crosshairs matter.

You see..i have never understand why some servers have the Crosshairs "off"

in PvP.

There is none who can guarantee me,that the "opposing" player haven't just painted a "dot" in the center of his screen..so this can be disadvantageous for me.

Mousepad: Sorry..my English sucks but i meant something like that

http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.571834

So..the combination of the "above like" and TrackIR i think can be nice

having your head moving,and aim like in RL (u know..its like a wii controller/mouse)

Edited June 24, 2010 by GiorgyGR

[MulleDK19 21]

There is none who can guarantee me,that the "opposing" player haven't just painted a "dot" in the center of his screen..so this can be disadvantageous for me.

That's why you play clan-matches.

[Baff1 0]

ROFL.

That's why you avoid clan matches.

[MulleDK19 21]

ROFL.

That's why you avoid clan matches.

I meant the clan itself. Not versus another clan.

[metalcraze 290]

BIS allowing players to glue the aim to the center of the screen was and is one of the biggest mistakes. OFP didn't have this.

[spruxxx 10]

excuse my ignorance but i'll avoid the technical stuff and concentrate on what i'd like to see in arma 3 gameplay...and it's worth pushing the boat out right? i got bored of the arcadey fps games a long time ago. i wanted more depth and more of a challenge and arma 2 fpr me is the best fps out there (i was hooked with the original operation flashpoint!)...

i'd like to see a more fully integrated land / air / sea system and more mmo options. arma 2 leans that way but clearly the focus is on the ground forces (and understandably so). for a next gen version it would be great to see the addition of air squadrons equivalent to the ground troops.

this may need even bigger maps to balance the gameplay etc, but again if and when arma 3 comes out the average hardware spec will be better too.

add in dynamic, persistent, campaign maps and we could all be playing both sides in a long term war...!

sorry if this is a poor reference (no idea how many people have even heard of this game), but the enemy engaged 1 and 2 series (flight sim, but like arma the emphasis was on fun, and it had non-playable ground troops in it) had an excellent dynamic campaign system. the friendly ai commander would constantly assess the current map situation, enemy strengths and weaknesses etc and generate appropriate missions all over the map. for example, let's say an enemy factory is the ultimate target in a particular enemy city -the ai would generate several related missions - air cap to eliminate enemy air presence, anti-sam strike to remove aa defences, and finally a direct factory assault to capture or destroy it (maybe with apaches and / or blackhawks carrying ground troops).

As you can guess the success of each mission has a noticable effect on the other with persistent damage to the friendly and enemy forces - if those sam sites stay up, the troop carriers have a much harder time of doing their job. as the player you can jump into the nearest squadron at the nearest friendly airfield and take on whatever mission you wish, the ai will handle the rest. and that's just one factory, in one city, in a map the size of taiwan! so it's months of play if you want total victory on a particular map. it really was a full military campaign strategy, albeit with the focus on helicopter combat.

but this game is old, there was limited mmo capability then - this had 8 or 16 players max. personally i only played this in single player. but imagine if dozens of arma players could sign up whenever they like to the pilot and ground rosters and take on all these ai generated missions (it's persistent remember, so you could play for a few hours, come back the next day, and the war is still rolling on)? we're now seeing the kind of horsepower that could deliver it, and the domination maps in arma 2 aren't a million miles off. and you could also have top down human commanders instead of the ai, analysing both the map and previous mission successes before assigning new missions to squads and squadrons. all of a sudden recon missions become doubly important, as you need to know precisely how successful the previous strike was etc etc

ok that's enough! :) but i hope you get my drift - a much more mmo focused version of arma, but with a strong strategic element, over a long campaign on a persistent map...i live in hope ;)

[kotov12345 10]

Okay. I originally played OFP (GOTY), then

no single request regarding weapon - are you happy with rest ? :)

I think arma wargame simulator where armor and people interact with each other and this is most important :)

[Tigerpaws 10]

Hi

I must say i love the game, with it strengths there are a few weaknesses as well. Any way i did a forum search (searched for Arma iii in titles only gave 2 results), and did not find anything much covering the improvements i would love to see in Arma III

Sorry if some of these things have been covered, but this is every thing that i find to me would make it truly outstanding. It's the closest thing you could have without being in battle

Grass Fix

Yes its probably already been covered how the bots shoot thought the grass as if there is no grass. Only way i can play is by having the game settings "Terrian Detail ->> Very Low" then i have no grass but i do hate the look of not having grass, but it is the only way for me not to be owned

Bots Aimbotting

This is really for the Tanks that are in groups, kill a few enemies and if there are tanks, they can see you from that point foreward of time any where at crazy distances. But if you dont kill any enemies you can almost walk up to most tanks(not head on) like there having a picnic. And worst of all if you stire up the hornets nest, and run away by up to 1km and then return, there still as bad as when you left. Now i have in the town areas went around a building to launch the RPG then to the other side and finished off some tanks, but sometimes it like they know what your going to do and as soon as you just take a peak they drill you before you you could even aim your second shot to finish them off. Yes not so bad if you got that ammo for the rpg that does them over in one shot, but when you are surviving off what ever you get off the enemy it can be tought. Oh btw when you kill one bot some times they instantly find you from 300meters hiding sort of behind a tree. And the same for fog all the bots including my team member can see far better then me, i wont get kills unless i position my self to the horizon line at a distance where they are coming over the hill, its only then on the horizon line i can see them in time to kill them. Still my squad gives me a run for money on kills. Since normally i get all the kills and they get none. And the fog is bad if it is a hollow, i'll get nothing virtually and be there getting shot, when i have the advantage being prone and not moving.

Wounded Gun Shaking

I dont mind it, but it is not set correctly, next time your wounded crawl up to the next tree at point blank range. You are moving wildly, that wild moving at a 400 metre range would equate to a 50 meter movement or even far greater, im only just guessing a estimate here. So this is not what happens in the real world when shooting. The very finest of movement can make any gun with a scope at 400 meter move 10-20cm no worries(not wounded). Now lets clarify every thing, i dont want it removed, but at point blank it should just be moving at barely visible when wounded, but over say 400 meter be exactly the same as how it is now in Arma II.

Improved hit Boxes

Ok, this is a request that might not be for every one, so its a request as a game option setting would be best(wont be of any good if the grass fix never happens, or i'll need to play with no grass). I would love to see Realism as if you get a shot on the heart that is a kill, head shot the same and single lungs shot to send enemies to the ground and the same like wise for me too. Now one thing i liked in Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising is if your shot in the leg, well you cant run as fast, and OFDR has the same effect if your shot in the Arm you'll have trouble aiming. Now from above "Wounded Gun Shaking" should only really be there if it is the upper part of the body been shot, and probably more apparent when its the arm. This would make it great in my opinion

Unit Setting Type - Optional

I love being a sniper, be great to have a setting that saves my prefered guns in the squad instead of me having to remove the sniper his gun and giving him mine then equipping his gun to me

Choosing a Squad - Optional

Very very optional, being able to pick my squad of 4 men. Or only 1 like the medic. I really rather only one, especially if you fail a mission if you find one of them not following you and he gets killed cause you changed to them to kill a tank, and forgot to tell him to regroup, why should i ever need to do that. That is something that needs to be fixed, each time you change to them and then back to squad leader they wont move, but i never told them to stop.

Champagne mode and Scenario - Sniper

I could be wrong, it might be just the mod i was using but suspect its not the mod(Dogs of War), but i got the feeling Anti-Material Sniper in Scenario mode shoots at the correct range, but in Champagne mode i was sniping enemies at around 700 meters roughly and as they ran the other way trying to find me getting further away it was hitting the ground, no mater how high i aimed up in the air, i think around 750-800 meters. It felt like i was using a AK

Dogs of War example - Optional Scenario for Arma III

I love replaying dogs of war, but i Manage every thing(no AI) and and head off to kill every thing with my 3 squad members that i tend to leave behind in areas where they cant be killed.

But what i would love to see in Arma III and when it is finished, i'll use dogs of war as a example, is Dogs of War as a Scenario with no unit respawning, but me and a medic and another squad member. The chopper gets shot down deep behind enemy lines and the map has just as many enemies as Dogs of War does plus(You can choose to do whatever you like, try and kill them all) A base where there are 500 men, that is like a hornets nest if you try and take them, and to be so difficult you need to be sniping from a hill top and have to retreat and try many different things to take them out. Plus another couple of smaller bases of 100 odd, even having them spawn only when you get in range of say 2km to keep down the amount of enemies on the map, but no re-spawning

Well i think that covers most of the things i would love to see in Arma III, everything else i love in Arma II

Could not find any thing on the net if there will be a Arma III, will there be one???

I will be buying it if you could make it like Arma II. Plus with the fixes above, i wont mind paying $200 dollars for it, just to let you devs know how much those fixes would mean to see Arma III rockin. In my eyes it would be the ultimate. Oh almost forgot would love to see mortars and stuff too

Link of interest for devs for weapons eg mortars etc

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_individual_weapons_of_the_U.S._Armed_Forces
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Army_weapons_by_supply_catalog_designation

And thank you very very much Bohemia for the patches, it gave such grief when i first got it from crashes, where now its a dream with stability.

Edited March 3, 2011 by Tigerpaws

[PuFu 4600]

b

efore anything, there already 2 open threads about ArmA3, yet you choose to create a new one, on your first post.

Bohemia Interactive's future ARMA 3!

What if CryEngine was used as Arma 3 future engine?

EDIT: nevermind the above, someone was kind enough to moved your post, instead of the default lock

I know placebo was jocking about when he said the new forum members shouldn't be allowed to post new threads until they read the forums rules, or have a certain post count, but i am beginning to dig that idea..

* grass: AI cannot see through vegetation, or not as well as you might think. You can see the AI sinking at distance in the terrain, that is there to simulate the greenery one could use to hide in (especially if the height of the grass would be longer, at least in some places).

* aimbotting: there are no bots. there is a certain different between bots and AI, the most important being that the AI think for themselves and react to certain parameters, while bots are scripted units, that will use the same type of approach each time (usually aggressiveness).

* wounded gun shaking: i really doubt one will be able to shoot properly if wounded in the upper part of the body...

* your version of improved hit boxes: it works exactly the way you described it (minus the fact that when shot in the leg your avatar will only crawl). I for one would love to be able to affect speed based on lower part body injury

* unit setting type: you can already choose your weapon (based on the mission you are playing), as well as in the campaign, without forcing a switch weapon with your AI. try the editor.

* choosing squad: already possible, depends on the mission though. if you are talking about the campaign, then the layout is there for a certain reason..

* snipers: they work (most of them as they should). in OA you can set your MOA, so no need to aim higher anymore.

* dogs of war scenario: why do you limit yourself to the campaign missions? There are literally hundreds of custom missions, that goes without saying the amount of freedom the mission editor gives you when creating your own custom scenarios...

Edited March 3, 2011 by PuFu

[celery 8]

* grass: AI cannot see through vegetation, or not as well as you might think. You can see the AI sinking at distance in the terrain, that is there to simulate the greenery one could use to hide in (especially if the height of the grass would be longer, at least in some places).

Once an AI becomes aware of you, no grass layer in the world will save you even if you change position in a way that a human player would see absolutely nothing because of grass blocking his view either on his end, your end or both.

* aimbotting: there are no bots. there is a certain different between bots and AI, the most important being that the AI think for themselves and react to certain parameters, while bots are scripted units, that will use the same type of approach each time (usually aggressiveness).

You're missing the point which was about the hiveminded AI pinpointing you based on a general stigma caused by your actions.

[PuFu 4600]

celery, i never actually said the AI is perfect...really far from it.

If there is an aspect where Arma2 needs a lot of work, it is the stealth part.

There is really no way to escape AI once they got you in their sights, no matter what you might try to do. That goes for anything and has nothing to do with the grass, vegetation or anything alike

[carlostex 38]

no need to rely just on Havok

better to utilize P.A.L. (Physics Abstraction Layer) while use as base physical engine e.g. Bullet Physics Library

this way You get easy access to cost effective (no license fees) OpenCL accelerated physics

You can also then interact Bullet with e.g. DMM and accelerate both via OpenCL

This is the most reliable way to get physics. OpenCL could be very powerful when proper implemented there is enough power on GPU's today TERAFLOPS of processing capability and with APU's coming as implemented by AMD i suspect gaming on PC on the future will leave consoles eating dust.

OpenCL is the answer for awesome physics on Real Virtuality. MP client sync would be the greatest challenge however.