Some observations

[graill 10]

Take this with a grain of salt, my observations on finishing the games at max level difficulty (and many irritating deaths)

Ai target aquire: Not sure at max level but the aiming and aquisition of >me< by other targets was over godlike (at long range with any weapon) to include xray vision and vision able to zero me when land masses were totaly obscured.

Many times i went to max range of a sniper rifle, out of visual without a scope, and would take a pot shot to check reactions, the enemy ai would stop with its back turned, weapon still down and slowly turn, rotating to face me and then raise its weapon and fire and score a kill (my not moving on purpose to check this behaviour out and my leaning just a bit behind a tree or rock with a background.

This also happens at close range when the enemy doesnt know where the player is, it will fire through a wall or over long distance in rolling hills of grass, this was my favorite. Apparently they have satnav resources i didnt have access to.

The ai was very unrealistic and the immersion was destroyed at this level. Knowing the computer would "cheat" to zero you and not need line of sight gave me all the info i needed to easily bypass, and on many occasions, run behind, or crawl behind, i am talking inches away from the enemy, apparently they dont like to turn around and engage in hand to hand and dont mind someone behind them tapping them on the back which was amusing in its own right. I did this on many many occasions.

Enemy ai was also at fault in long range engagements drawing them to contact, this meaning you engage, at max range, and then run like hell down a hill or other obscurring object to your predetermined spot and wait for the ai to happily run into your killbox and bang, bang, easy kills. Proffesionals DO NOT CHASE, just an fyi.

Weapon textures and soldier textures, all textures to be frank (in my opinion) are still not up there with titles like BC2 or MW. this is with a monster system and everything turned up max, colors were to muted for my taste and i longed for somehting remotely close to a real green at times. I wondered if muted colors were the order of the day. Not that they were bad, just not up there enough for my tastes. i guess i am spoiled by BC2 graphics.

Night missions were pretty close to what happens when one side has nods and one does not. Reaction of enemy ai to targets being killed next to them was unrealistic though, they did not run, they dropped in place and after several seconds would stand back up and seem oblivious to the dead npcs next to them.

Wounding and bleed out if the medic doesnt get to you is an ok penalty, though some personal first aid should be available. If i am able to crawl and look around i should be able to help my self a bit.

As a side note i have never seen so many sniper rifles in one area in my life, must have been a sale..........

Worth the price of admission, though there is much room for improvement in ARMA2. :bounce3:

SFC. 22 years Army, Retired.

[Beagle 684]

Do I understand this right?

You play on profi and tell us it is too hard?

Damned yes it is, profi setting is for people that want it harder as life.

the more experienced ArmaII player tones down accuracy of enemy and own A.I. to levels around 0.450000 while setting skill to 0.85-1.0

with these custom settings in the user.cfg you should be fine.

skillFriendly=1.0000000;

skillEnemy=0.8500000;

precisionFriendly=0.5500000;

precisionEnemy=0.4500000;

you played on this setting:

skillFriendly=1.0000000;

skillEnemy=1.0000000;

precisionFriendly=1.000000;

precisionEnemy=1.000000;

This means you played vs. a world full of Robocops and Westworld adroids.

Human players wont be a challenge to you from now on.

Congratulations!

Edited June 8, 2010 by Beagle

[NeMeSiS 11]

So do i understans this right...you play on Profi and tell ius it is to hard?

Damned yes it is, profi setting is for peokle that want it harder as life.

the more experienced ArmaII player tones down accuracy of enemy and own A.I. to levels around 0.550000 while setting skill to 0.85

with these custom settings in the user.cfg you should be fine.

skillFriendly=1.0000000;

skillEnemy=0.8500000;

precisionFriendly=0.5500000;

precisionEnemy=0.4500000;

Difference in skill/accuracy setting between friendly and enemy AI? Pussy! ;)

[Beagle 684]

Difference in skill/accuracy setting between friendly and enemy AI? Pussy! ;)

I'am over 30 years old...I have to cheat just to survive :rolleyes:

[Rayers12 19]

Agree about the colors, thats what made me fall in love with Rahmadi Island.

[Jelliz 10]

Try amping up the digital vibrance if you have nvidia. Gives you some more colour.

BIS mission designers have used colour filters in their missions, as have i, to set the atmosphere. Colour filters actually looks better than the standard colours in my opinion, and are quite a powerful tool. But i might have been brainwashed by all the colour filters used by the evil Hollywood.

[dmarkwick 261]

Hmm yeah I agree, turning up the game to max difficulty then complaining that the AI were too good sounds like a settings issue ;) :D

More "realism" = turn down the AI levels. Sounds odd but there you go. Max settings means just that, not that it is more realistic.

[meade95 0]

Do I understand this right?

You play on profi and tell us it is too hard?

Damned yes it is, profi setting is for people that want it harder as life.

the more experienced ArmaII player tones down accuracy of enemy and own A.I. to levels around 0.450000 while setting skill to 0.85-1.0

with these custom settings in the user.cfg you should be fine.

skillFriendly=1.0000000;

skillEnemy=0.8500000;

precisionFriendly=0.5500000;

precisionEnemy=0.4500000;

you played on this setting:

skillFriendly=1.0000000;

skillEnemy=1.0000000;

precisionFriendly=1.000000;

precisionEnemy=1.000000;

This means you played vs. a world full of Robocops and Westworld adroids.

Human players wont be a challenge to you from now on.

Congratulations!

I know the sliding bar that allows you to adjust "skill' ratings..... Where is the place where one can adjust the "precisionenemy" ratings??

[NeMeSiS 11]

I know the sliding bar that allows you to adjust "skill' ratings..... Where is the place where one can adjust the "precisionenemy" ratings??

In your My Documents\ArmA2 folder there is a file called yourusername.ArmA2Profile, open it with notepad and you will be able to adjust it for all 4 difficulty settings.

[Cyteless 10]

As far as textures are concerned, you have to remember that Arma 2 is an open world game. MW2 and BFBC2 are linear games, so they can afford to add high detail, because they are relatively small areas, because there's less rendering on a large scale.

[Pease 10]

CMB Unit 01 is right. I can play MW2 on Full settings in all of its glory with my puter, but I have to really tone down my textures and settings on ArmA 2

[AL_ 10]

In your My Documents\ArmA2 folder there is a file called yourusername.ArmA2Profile, open it with notepad and you will be able to adjust it for all 4 difficulty settings.

Does this work also for a multiplayer session on LAN? And, if I play with the ZeusAI addon? thanks :)

[CarlGustaffa 4]

CMB Unit 01 is right. I can play MW2 on Full settings in all of its glory with my puter, but I have to really tone down my textures and settings on ArmA 2

That maybe, but BIS games are usually designed to last more than a year :)

[NeMeSiS 11]

Does this work also for a multiplayer session on LAN? And, if I play with the ZeusAI addon? thanks :)

I think that it will use the values you set only on the AI units which are local to your PC. Which are (AFAIK) the units under your command, and if you happen to be the server, then all the units under the command of the AI as well.

I dont know about ZeusAI since i dont use it, i like the default values since 1.05 very much.

[AL_ 10]

I think that it will use the values you set only on the AI units which are local to your PC. Which are (AFAIK) the units under your command, and if you happen to be the server, then all the units under the command of the AI as well.

I dont know about ZeusAI since i dont use it, i like the default values since 1.05 very much.

okay, thanks..We don't see the difference anyway :)

[Pease 10]

That maybe, but BIS games are usually designed to last more than a year :)

Oh wasn't saying bad about that, I actually prefer ArmA 2 to MW2...its just more fun to play coop (cause well MW2 doesn't have it.)

[Nielsneo 10]

CMB Unit 01 is right. I can play MW2 on Full settings in all of its glory with my puter, but I have to really tone down my textures and settings on ArmA 2

That's because MW2 uses low resolution textures and low LOD scaling, otherwise it would not run on the consoles.:rolleyes:

[bwc153 10]

Also ARMA2 is graphically superior in the aspect of some things such as realism... When's the last time you've seen another person in a game like CoD actually pull the magazine out of their gun and get another when they reload? (Yes ARMA2 doesn't do it very well and its somewhat choppy, but its still one of the few that actually makes the effort to make the game look good)

Also, to those who say the ARMA2 default colors are bland compared to other games, that is untrue... You've just had the issue of having things unrealistically over-detailed to make things look pretty. I feel the countryside of ARMA2 feels like a countryside due to its rather realistic choice of (or lack of extra) colors, rather than some over colored ground that you see in 95% of all other games out there.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

The one thing that sometimes completely spoils the mood in Arma compared to other games, are nights and how the "reduced alpha system" causes extremely visible banding. Cloud cover at night can appear to consist of only 4 or 5 "colors" due to this, and it simply looks horrible. So especially for clouds, I would really like if 32bit textures were used instead of the compressed ones.

[Erratic 10]

As far as the difficulties go in ArmA 2, as others have said, Expert is a larger than life setting. I'd say Veteran is as if you were going against obviously, well trained veteran soldiers and what not. From my experience and perception of how they would be, this is correct. It's good to not have things too easy like other games!

Edited June 18, 2010 by Erratic

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Ehm, no. Difficulty deals with what kinds of help you can have in terms of artificial ui elements. When you go to an MP game set on expert, you know there will be very little such help available. On Veteran, slightly more. You can find servers running on Regular mode with everything turned off (if admin chooses to deal only with AI difficulties, like I do). But you can never find an Expert server running with stuff like third person or crosshairs enabled.

Difficulty can govern AI skill and accuracy, but it doesn't have to. Typically I like playing SP games on Regular or Veteran (depending on how difficult it is, when patience run out regarding restarts), but I always like my AI competition to be high on skill and low on accuracy (except snipers).

[Erratic 10]

Ehm, no. Difficulty deals with what kinds of help you can have in terms of artificial ui elements. When you go to an MP game set on expert, you know there will be very little such help available. On Veteran, slightly more. You can find servers running on Regular mode with everything turned off (if admin chooses to deal only with AI difficulties, like I do). But you can never find an Expert server running with stuff like third person or crosshairs enabled.

Difficulty can govern AI skill and accuracy, but it doesn't have to. Typically I like playing SP games on Regular or Veteran (depending on how difficult it is, when patience run out regarding restarts), but I always like my AI competition to be high on skill and low on accuracy (except snipers).

You sounded like you disagreed with me, and then said "Difficulty can govern AI skill and accuracy", which is clearly what I was reffering to.

I know it affects the UI stuff too.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I am disagreeing with you :p

I'd say Veteran is as if you were going against obviously, well trained veteran soldiers and what not.

I'm saying that Veteran does not have to be any different regarding AI skill and accuracy, although it can be. For me you give the impression that all the difficulty setting governs is the AI part, when in fact it's the onscreen UI help. You can even have lowered skilled AI on higher difficulty if you want.

But, it's only nitpicking on my account. :)