roshnak

If BIS were interested in just making money they probably wouldn't be making niche military shooters. They've got DayZ now, but for over a decade that hasn't been the case.

I understand it was a long post, but nowhere in it did I ever claim that crosshairs encourage slow or deliberate gameplay. I'm pretty sure I explicitly said the opposite. You may also want to reconsider the portion of your post where you compare crosshairs to aimbots.

What I'm saying is that it's not like you're suddenly using crosshairs against people who don't have them. I won't argue that it changes the way the game is played. It obviously does. But from a strictly multiplayer standpoint, the playing field is still even. Even if crosshairs do make it easier to aim in close combat (I literally never said they don't. They are supposed to make it easier to aim in close combat. BIS did that on purpose. It was a design decision.), is it really relevant to have the option to turn them off in the same place as AI difficulty settings? Shouldn't UI options be in the UI options menu, or under realism settings, or literally anywhere else that doesn't imply that it primarily affects single player and maybe co-op? I also never said it wasn't just my opinion. That's why I keep saying I think... and not It is a fact... But, by the same token, it's not like I haven't written paragraphs and paragraphs of reasons that I hold the opinion that I do. For example: How many times have you been playing Arma and died and said to yourself, "I bet if I had crosshairs enabled that wouldn't have happened." How many times have you looked at a situation and said, "If I turned crosshairs on I could win this engagement, but that would make it too easy." Or is it actually a situation where you approach the game differently based on whether or not crosshairs are enabled? Maybe you're more aggressive in close combat situations. Maybe you're a little more willing to "kick down a door". Maybe things move a little quicker. Maybe the game becomes a little less focused on who is already in position and aiming at a corner. Maybe making the first move in close combat doesn't put you at quite as much of a disadvantage as it otherwise would. Maybe, knowing this, you become just a little bit more confident that you can beat that other guy even though he has a better position. Maybe you're a little more willing to open up in full auto at long ranges, since it's a little easier to judge where your rounds will impact and, even though you probably won't hit the guy with your first burst of fire, you know it'll be pretty close, and you can adjust from there. Maybe some, or all, or none of these things sound familiar to you. But this is what I mean by crosshairs making the game different, rather than easier or harder. Yes, they make one aspect of the game a little to a lot easier. But the game isn't just that one thing, and the presence of crosshairs has a cascading effect that is so much more than just whether the game is "easy" now. It changes the playing field. It has an effect on the way people percieve almost every situation in the game. And, because of this, it changes the way people approach almost every situation in the game and that changes the way those situations unfold. Whether or not any of the effects I described are good, I can't say. They're different. Some people probably look at many of those things and think to themselves, "Yeah, that sounds dynamic and awesome and exhilarating. I want to live on the edge. I want to kick down doors and rely on my reactions and practice to bring me out alive." Other people probably look at those effects and think, "No way. I want my game to be deliberate and thoughtful. I want to know that if I made the right choice that put me in a better position than my enemy, I will have a distinct and overwhelming advantage. I want to win before my opponent even knows we're in a fight." Now, this is Arma, and the game will always lean more towards the second option, but crosshairs (along with the tweaked movement and aiming) are a way that some of the flavor of the first style can be brought into the game. You may hate that idea, or you may not, I don't know. But to say that one of those styles is easy and one is hard is an oversimplification. And that's why I don't think it's a good idea to say crosshairs make the game easy or hard. A large part of the argument in favor of changing the difficulty settings is that many admins do leave the default settings in place.

Probably. I wasn't super concerned with the crosshairs being too accurate at closer ranges, since I figure their whole point is to use them in close range. Anyway, here's an album of the crosshairs at a bunch of different distances. There's also a couple of images with larger crosshairs as well. And, like I said earlier in the thread, I don't really think crosshairs are one of the things that should be removed from Regular difficulty. Leaving aside the fact that I truly believe that crosshairs and third person have no place in the difficulty menu, honestly, when was the last time you played a game that was really challenging on the "Normal" difficulty setting? If you break that trend you risk alienating a lot of people who don't realise this game expects them to turn the difficulty down, instead of up. I hesitate to even bring this point up, though, because I really, really don't think that crosshairs have anything to do with how hard the game is. At most, they tweak the gameplay style. I can't stress enough how unintuitive it is to have to difficulty settings affect PVP multiplayer.

I would say that ideally the crosshair would never shrink at all. I like that it expands when you zoom in so that it still covers the same area that it did when you were zoomed out, but I don't think the crosshair should really be dynamic beyond that.

I'm not just looking at it from a bombing perspective. I'm well aware of all the things you can use a TGP for. Buddy lasing (although I don't know why anyone would bother), target identification, aerial reconnaissance, BDAs. I just don't think those things are critical or even necessarily good for this combined arms game. I think that in many cases it's better to force aircraft to work in tandem with ground units for things like lasing targets and BDAs. I think that, from a gameplay perspective, it's probably better to force airplanes to fly around and look out their windows at stuff. I think that, in the absense of proper air defense units, the ability to target, identify, and engage targets from 3-5 km could be potentially game breakingly powerful. I'm skeptical of the game's ability to run acceptably at the view distances required for TGPs to be worth using. I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of the game having TGPs, either. For all of problems they create, they could also open up new gameplay opportunities. I do, however, think that the system you described sounds like a mod. It sounds like it would be as awkward to use as Mando Missiles was. And I don't think that BIS will ever implement a TGP the way you have described it.

The video test isn't 100% accurate because he's using the bullet tracing script, so you can see where your rounds are going and adjust easier than would otherwise be possible. As for the crosshairs being able to line up the vertical lines, how would you feel about a different shaped crosshair? A circle or maybe the corners of a box? That would make it harder to line stuff up at distance. I made some examples. They're not great. Aiming at targets 200m away from the zoomed perspective: Click for 1920x1080 again. It's not the best representation, since they're just mockups and already perfectly lined up.

They changed the running speed pretty early on after some pretty huge backlash. To be fair, the sprinting speed before the fix was comically fast. Like, way beyond reasonable. The problem I see with making the roll speed realistically slow is that it would basically negate the entire point of rolling altogether. And if you're going to do that, why even have rolling in the game at all? On the other hand, it probably wouldn't be the worst thing if roll speed or distance was based on encumberance.

I doubt it would be as usable in Arma as you think it would. First of all, if you want it displayed in an MFD, you have to account for people who don't have head tracking devices and need to manually pan their view down to the MFD and potentially zoom in to it. Second, you can't use the mouse in that case, because people are probably going to need it to look around, if not control the airplane. I guess you could use the arrow keys to control the TPG, but then you also need keys for point and area lock, unlocking, switching zoom levels, and switching view types. Arma doesn't need targeting pods. Seriously, TGPs aren't going to drastically improve or alter gameplay, unless you really like delivering LGBs. It's just getting into hardcore flight sim territory The only things fixed wing aircraft really need are usable HUDs and a way to employ weapons accurately (CCIP). Targeting pods would be nice, I guess, but they are in no way necessary for engaging targets or providing CAS in Arma. There are 20+ buttons on one MFD. Most aircraft have two or more MFDs. It's not really feasible to have those functions bound to the keyboard. I guess you could have a button to cycle MFD pages or something, but what good are the MFDs in Arma, anyway? In a real airplane they are used for various radar modes, the targeting pod, a moving map or HSD, and stores management. Arma doesn't simulate radar, doesn't have a TGP (and I don't really see an urgent need for one), you can pull up a moving map with the GPS, and cycling weapons is already bound to a key and doesn't really need to be more complicated than it already is. See, the thing is, while it makes sense for a flight sim to require users to buy hardware specifically to play them, I don't think it's reasonable to expect people who play Arma to purchase $150 joysticks to fly airplanes. Edit: So as to not completely derail this into airplane talk: On the topic of what a "next-gen Arma" would be like, let's be honest, it's going to be basically the same game with better graphics.

What is your suggerstion for allowing players without a HOTAS to operate a targeting pod while flying an aircraft? Or with just a mouse and keyboard?

I kind of think people must be claiming the crosshair is too accurate in combat situations. If it isn't, then what are people upset about? It being too easy to shoot pop up targets? The whole point of the crosshair is to be relatively accurate in close quarters combat. Its effect outside of combat is largely irrelevant.

Does it lock the point of aim to the center of the screen? Because what Bouben is referring to is that it's more difficult to tell where your gun is pointing when it isn't locked to the center of the screen. The guy he's referring to is saying that you can estimate where your rounds will impact by looking at where the barrel of the gun is pointing. It's more difficult to do that with the aiming deadzone turned on.

To clarify, I'm not saying the there should be a wider cone of fire or guns should be less accurate, I'm just saying that perhaps the area inside the crosshair could be larger, so it less accurately represented where your bullets were going to impact. Also, here are two screenshots of the crosshairs over a target at 200m. The first is zoomed out, and the second is zoomed in. They really don't seem that accurate at 200m to me. Click for 1920x1080

Yeah, I'm not sure why people are getting hung up on this whole "barrel blocked" thing. I'm pretty sure it was only mentioned once in passing. While the crosshairs do give an indication of whether your barrel is blocked by an object that's not their primary purpose. Crosshairs are for aiming. I don't think anyone is disputing that. The crosshairs in Arma 3 are designed to give a fairly accurate indication of where your bullets will impact at close ranges. They are wider than in most other shooters so that their usefulness becomes degraded at range. Like Bouben said, perhaps they could be expanded further so that they are even less accurate. Although, my experience has been that they aren't super useful for shooting at 100-300 meters, anyway.

Skill is skill. Arma is not a game that requires a high degree of skill. You specifically asked whether I was excluding RO and the like from the category of "skill based shooters." I was answering you by saying, "Yes, those games are not what people typically refer to as 'skill based shooters.'" There is no one who is "the best at Arma." No one is talking about who is in the top percentage of Arma players. You never run into someone and go, "Oh man, that's X, I'm going to lose." Arma is not a hard game to learn and play with or without crosshairs. As with any activity, there is room to learn and get better, but it's not on the same level as "skill based games." I don't know why anyone would argue this point. To reiterate, in response to anyone who says that crosshairs are easy mode, crosshairs do not make a game inherently easier or harder. But, look, I get it, you don't think there is any value in comparing games with differing mechanics. You think we should, instead, just compare Arma with Arma. Fine, let's do that. Arma has always had crosshairs. Since the very beginning. In Arma 3, they were tweaked to fill a role distinct from iron sights, in that crosshairs were designed for close range shooting while iron sights were better for long range engagements. It seems to me that Arma was designed, at least partially, around the idea of having crosshairs in the game.

Except that's not my point of view. I said that a better solution would be to find ways to force admins to look at the options and change them if they so desired. I also really don't care what server admins do. They can enable or disable third person and crosshairs at their leisure. I don't play often on public servers. The servers that I do play on often have third person disabled. I agree that there are situations where it could be exploited in PVP. What I take issue with is that a couple of people are trying to force their opinions about how to play the game down everyone else's throat because they think the game isn't "hardcore" enough. Not even two pages ago defkon_NL made a post focused on nothing but how the game was "meant to be played." I never suggested that it would make sense to have a game without crosshairs or iron sights, so I'm not sure why you think I did. What I did suggest earlier in the thread is that it could potentially make sense for a game to have crosshairs and iron sights. The crosshairs in Arma are already significantly less precise than in other shooters. Numerous people have made strong arguments in favor of features like crosshairs. Also, yeah PR, Insurgency, and Red Orchestra are not particularly skill based shooters. They're fun, but they don't require a substantial amount of skill to play and be good at. Especially not in comparison to games like Quake, which people can become almost mind bogglingly good at. Seriously, there are games out there where players can become so good that you won't win 99 out of 100 engagements with them. None of those games you mentioned are like those games. We're not talking about Chess vs Checkers here, we're talking Chess vs Clue (this is a bad analogy, Checkers requires an extremely high degree of skill to play at high levels). Edit: The point is that bringing skill or difficulty into the equation at all is pointless, because crosshairs don't make a game inherently easier or harder.

Well, like I said, I kind of just reject the whole idea that the crosshair, HUD settings, and third person perspective should be tied to difficulty. I think they should be completely separate options. I also disagree the idea that crosshairs make the game "simple" or "easy" instead of just "different." All of the hardest, most skill based shooters ever made have had crosshairs (and no iron sights). While flight sims, including the most niche, hardcore of the bunch, almost universally have a zoom function.

I didn't act like you quoted people of context and I never implied that your opinions are as aggressive as others posting in this thread. All I'm saying is that Bouben already admitted that 3rd person perspective, in it's current implementation, can be exploited. The reason that I'm saying that you shouldn't necessarily base the default difficulty settings around an absolutely fair and balanced competitive PVP scenario is that the game isn't inherently competitive for PVP focused. You've already stated that players can and do institute their own rules in order to make Arma into a good competitive game (I would argue that it's still not that good). If that's the case, what does it hurt to assume that they would also change default difficulty settings? By contrast, what's the problem with just clicking some options and just labeling yourself a "veteran?" This has nothing to do with personal feelings. I don't know why you keep bringing that into it. You can't argue that "nothing changes except admins [...] make conscious decisions" because a large portion of the argument for changing the default settings is that admins aren't making conscious decisions now. They just leave things default. How can you assume that they would make conscious decisions after things are changed? That is why I say that what people advocating for changing the default options are really asking for is to have everyone play the game the way they think is right, instead of actually forcing people to use the options menu. If you reread my post, I made suggestions that would significantly reduce the likelihood that any server has third person and crosshairs enabled just because they are the default option. They were as follows: -Decouple AI difficulty settings from the gameplay options (third person, crosshair) settings. After all, they kind of already are decoupled. They're in a separate dialogue box inside of the Difficulty options. Make that the new difficulty settings. -Change the current gameplay options (third person, crosshair) label from "Difficulty" to "Realism" or something similar, in order to minimize confusion over whether those options make the game harder or just different. -Make server ask admins choose both the AI difficulty and realism settings on server start (Please choose a realism setting: 0 - Arcade, 1 - Simplified, 2 - Realistic, 3 - Hardcore). Do not have default settings. Obviously admins should be able to set up default settings if they choose to (create a .cfg file or whatever). This would allow server admins with "advanced" knowledge to set up difficulty settings just like they do now, but still force new admins who are too lazy to do that to at least choose a realism setting on server start. Or, hey, they could I think you're sort of misunderstanding the situation with TrackIR. You don't need the crosshair to know where your body is pointing, because it's pretty easy to know that your head is twisted a certain amount. You need the crosshair to still have a rough idea of where you're aiming when your gun isn't constantly tied to the center of the screen. It's basically just an extension of the problem of knowing where your gun is pointing with the aiming deadzone enabled. I also still think you're overestimating the utility of the crosshair for aiming beyond a certain distance. Although, some people (including myself) have also said they would be okay with crosshairs being more expanded than they currently are.

Well, the fact that you quoted me in your reply sort of gave me the impression that you were replying to me. The guy you apparently are arguing with is barely defending third person in its current state, either. The very first thing he said about third person was, "Could be improved so that it is not so easy to exploit." Maybe don't make generalized statements about what people's opinions are when those opinions aren't being expressed in this thread.

Yeah, I've stated multiple times that I'm not opposed to removing third person from the Veteran difficulty level. The OP is requesting the removal of three options from the Regular difficulty setting. Why are you only picking the one that almost no one disagrees with to defend? Also, the problem with the OP's request is that it's not forcing people to pick better difficulty settings. What the OP wants is for the default options to be the way he wants the game to be played. Since it's safe to assume that many servers have never had their difficulty changed from the defaults, that is essentially asking for the game to force most people to play the way he wants the game to be played. If you really want to give people the option and make it less likely that admins just never touch the difficulty options, I already already suggested changing the name from "Difficulty" to "Realism" or something, moving the AI difficulty settings to a separate dialogue, and making dedicated server admins pick one at server start instead of defaulting it to Regular. This removes the misconception that people may have that changing those settings makes the game harder instead of just different, as well as making sure that settings aren't they way they are just because the admin was lazy. I'm also not sure why you keep accusing people of getting butthurt. Only one person was moderately aggressive in disagreeing. Almost everyone else who disagreed was reasonable and gave explanations or justifications for why things are the way they are. By contrast, many of the people advocating for changing the default settings have been increasingly hostile and condescending. If you would like, I can pull quotes from the thread.

If people are actually experiencing motion sickness in first person view in Arma, then they would most likely experience the same thing in other FPS games. It's not unheard of. Many people who got hooked on DayZ didn't come from other FPS games. They came from games like EVE Online, which support similar sandbox PVP gameplay. Alternatively, some of them probably heard someone else mention having that problem and it sounded like a good justification for keeping third person in. Edit: I don't think my statements were contradictory. What I mean why I say "competition focused" is that it would make a terrible sport or board game. It's not balanced. It doesn't have a defined set of rules. It's got a really low skill ceiling. It would make for a poor esport (not that that's a limiting factor these days). I'm not saying you can't have fun playing competitive game modes in Arma. You can have fun racing cars in Arma, too, but that doesn't make it a racing game.

Yeah, I've stated multiple times that third person could probably be removed from Veteran difficulty. There's really only one person in the thread who is arguing otherwise, and even he isn't exactly taking a hardline stance on the matter. As much as some people are saying that they just want to change some difficulty options, their implication is that their way of playing is the right way and anyone who plays differently is bad or doing it wrong. They are incredibly aggressive in stating their opinions and shoot down any arguments or reasoning against them with dismissive comments insinuating anyone who disagrees with them is either new or come from other games and thus their opinions are less valid. This game isn't focused on competition. It's not the kind of game you can play wrong.

For the record, I do play the game without crosshairs. I just also understand the argument for them being in place and don't think they need to be removed from Regular difficulty. Every post you make is dripping with condescension. You're not the only person who has been playing this series for a long time. And, since you're apparently so experienced with this series, you might remember that the difficulty settings we have now are the same as they were in 2001.

Yeah, that's clearly a personal thing for you, because those situations read the same to me. If you have a crosshair, sure, it might be easier for you to shoot him, but isn't it easier for him to shoot you, too? And if you don't have a crosshair, you've already acknowledged that you're on equal footing. Besides, crosshairs just aren't that useful beyond like 50 meters. They're really designed for area fire. I think it might be better to just change the name of the difficulty dialogue to "Realism Level" or something, since the name can be misleading. And maybe force server admins to set a difficulty level on their dedicated servers.

I'll just leave the whole quote in here so you don't think I'm pulling sentences out of context or whatever. I don't understand what you mean by, "People are not afraid of getting shot because it's easy to shoot people." That doesn't make any sense. I'm not understanding how you are laying down precision fire while moving with or without a crosshair. Are you literally just talking about shooting at people withint 15 feet of you, or what? Zoom blocks your peripheral vision to the same degree that utilizing an ACO does (not at all). First of all, congrats on coming off as more elitest than the guy are are calling elitest. Second, your argument that Arma caters to "the noob" with features like 3rd person and crosshairs is dumb and wrong. First of all, this isn't a competition based game. If it is, it's a really terrible one. It's a sandbox game and always has been. All of the most skill based shooters have crosshairs. Third person is an option in Arma because Arma is about options. If you don't want to play with it, turn it off. I've already stated that I think it would be fine if they removed third person from Veteran difficulty. Your arguments against crosshairs are overly simplistic and, if carried to their logical conclusion, have insane consequences. If you are seriously advocating for removing any feature that doesn't accurately reflect the way the human body works, prepare to get rid of using keyboards for walking and the mouse for aiming. You're going to have to get rid of the whole inventory UI, as well, since last time I checked I didn't have a GUI overlaid on my vision when I was trying to figure out what was in my pockets. Games require concessions in order to be fun and playable and in order to reflect abilities that we don't or can't have in a video game. Any argument that says we shouldn't make any one concession on the sole basis that it's not exactly like in real life is shortsighted and stupid.