supathang

I like the old system. The only thing this game seems to fail at in general is to tell the player how his character feels. I can see that BI wants to go away from the good old mana and health orbs, but for the character's well being, I have not seen anything quite as easy to read and understand as some sort of health UI element.The wheezing and groaning is a bit too imprecise I feel. You run, your character gets tired so you slow down, but there is nothing that gives you feedback if your character's fatigue is improving or getting worse over time except that you start or stop wheezing at some point. You have to wait and hope he wheezes less. You have to read somewhere that apparently lowering your weapon makes you recover quicker, something that should be easily visible in the game and not be inferred by stopping time between the start and stop of wheezing (or reading code). Or if you get shot you need to infer from your characters inability to aim that you were hit in the arm. I'm pretty sure that in reality you first notice that you have a bullet in your arm before you notice your aim is off. I think this opaque nature of the player's well being is what also causes frustration as it feels like your character constantly complains without any sign that he's getting better or what's wrong. I think that the player's character's well being should be very easy and precise for the player to read as in reality you don't need any skills to figure that out about yourself. The player gets quick feedback if he does something right or wrong, leaving out a lot of guesswork on things that shouldn't be. I think the bar is a great addition, it lets you easily see how you influence your well being and in what state your character is. You can see clearly that you are helping your character's well being by not sprinting and making it worse by packing a lot of stuff. I also think that something like adding a few colors on the limbs of the "position" guy on the top right would solve the health issues. You quickly look up see your fatigue go up or down, maybe see that your character's legs are wounded, all that without trying to count wheezes or checking if you can still sprint or if your leg's textures have changed. The stamina system itself feels a bit like Arma wants to blend in further with other games in the military shooter genre, but they do arcadey shooting and driving vehicles a lot better. So I think Arma loses some of it's identity and distinguishing features.