Bouben

Good point.

I believe it would be completely unintuitive, unnatural and impossible to correctly estimate your weapon position with aiming deadzone as you would have no reference point at all (no crosshair while having skewed perspective, no natural depth of field, no muscle feeling etc.). It is also very hard and unintuitive to estimate with aiming deadzone disabled because it is very difficult to estimate delicate distances in virtual environments. I also don't talk only about estimating if your barrel is being blocked but also about general directions of your weapon while using aiming deadzone. Of course it would be playable, but it would be much less intuitive and less natural then controlling your weapon in real life. In real life, you would have more clues to your aim than in a game without a crosshair and that is something I would consider being wrong. More rough crosshair shape (bigger centre for less precision) would be much better solution than an obstructive, immersion killing "barrel blocked" text and unintuitive, unnatural controls of your weapon. I believe crosshairs are necessary evil. In Arma, though, they could use less precision. That would be then perfect, in my opinion.

Can you try your technique with aiming deadzone enabled and post your results here? Thank you.

I play in the 1st person 95% of the time I play Arma. I use 3rd person when I use vehicles (and since I mainly enjoy being an infantryman I don't use them a lot). Yes, you are right, 1st person is more realistic. I got lost in my logic with that. We can agree on that and I apologize for bad formulation. I would not, however, call the body situational awareness argument as "ridiculous". I think it is the very thing that is, in its functionality, more realistic in 3rd person than in 1st person even if it looks completely unrealistic (that you can see your body out of your body). For example, seeing how well your virtual entity is hidden behind an obstacle is a vital information that 1st person view fails to deliver. Such information is no problem to get in real life as you have much better body awareness. But I agree with you that the exploitability of 3rd person view is much bigger than the good things it does. And, to be honest, I would be able to cope with 3rd person view being out of the game completely (many servers already force that anyway). My point with crosshairs and zoom have not changed, however. As I have already written, I would not disable crosshairs (absolutely crippling and less realistic with aiming deadzone) but make their centre bigger so that the precision is decreased. I can, however, definitely agree with you that it brings more tension to the gameplay if the crosshair is disabled. But such tension is similar to not being able to cope with an enemy if you are crippled in some way. So disabling it is not a good thing in my opinion. I also want to apologize to you and other guys in this thread if I came out as being arrogant and rude. I was tired and had a not so good day. I am sorry for that.

You cannot damn well play without them if you use aiming deadzone. It is a lame and crippled experience. If you do not use aiming deadzone, then any experienced player is able to comfortably play without crosshair as all you got to do is stare at the centre of the screen and watch the bullet impact to adjust your aim. So in that case, what is the point of removing the crosshair anyway? It is useless against distant targets so you have to use your sights for aiming anyway. Of course, it is playable but that is not my point. My point is, that somebody likes to describe such gameplay as "realistic". And that is my problem with that - especially in a game like Arma. I play in first person all the time. Much more immersive for me. But I would not call it "more realistic" because of the limitations it brings to the experience (and I am not saying that you are calling it "realistic" - I am just trying to explain my motivation in this discussion).

1) I already said my points to crosshairs, zoom and 3rd person view and my opinions have not changed since I wrote the long post. Do I need to rewrite it for you specifically or you do you think you can manage to go back one page and read it? 2) I have not said I was or am skilled. I just said it was very challenging even with the unrealistic visual helpers ;-) That said - the healthy challenge is not in the disabled crosshair, absence of zoom or 3rd view. Disabled crosshair, absence of zoom or 3rd view are just crippling features in desperate need of a challenge. You can as well play with fingers on your leg - if you are that desperate. No problem with that. 3) I also said that 3rd person view could be tweaked to make it less exploitable. That way I clearly admitted that 3rd person view is a controversial point. EDIT: 4) I agree the crosshair could be a bit bigger with a bit more space in the middle (less precision). I used to use a mod for that in Arma 2.

You know what else will make the gameplay more challenging? Trying to control your mouse with fingers on your leg. You can even start your PVP server with such rules and observe players over an obligatory webcam that the players are really playing with their legs and therefore making the game more challenging. I am sure we can come up with many more ways how to make the gameplay more challenging in a stupid way. Americas Army 1.7 - 2.x was a challenging PVP game where skills were heavily involved (I was playing a league at that time and played against seriously good players - they had skills). Counter Strike is also a very challenging PVP game. Both games have crosshairs. The completely unreal Unreal Tournament PVP gameplay is challenging as ****. Yet, they have crosshairs in the game. So, please, finally admit that it is not only the challenge and skills you are after. You want to feel like playing something "realistic" and moan about it because other players does not share the opinion with you. ---------- Post added at 01:39 ---------- Previous post was at 01:34 ---------- I am sorry, but you obviously have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. But you can try to study human senses a bit. That might do the trick with you. I mean, you can't be serious about improving awareness of gun position in a virtual environment. I mean...I am not the smartest person in the world but that is a different level you have done there... EDIT: Go and fully enable aiming deadzone in the game and come back and share your experience with us. Crosshair disabled of course...

Well, you have obviously no idea how the things work. You are just another pseudo-realism elitist in the community. Nothing special here. A never ending fight with ignorance. Here is why: This is a typical pseudo-realistic example. The crosshair is fundamental for compensating the absence of feeling your virtual arms and virtual muscles. If you turn off the crosshair, you still look in the super-precise, non-movable center of your screen and you are therefore able to aim without much of a trouble. Now try that in the real life. Surprise, you will be unable to look around you like that and you will miss a lot of targets, because you are not a mathematically precise robot that would be able to align his arms and eyes with a precision (I am talking about firing without looking through iron sights). The next step is turning off your crosshair and enabling aiming deadzone so that your virtual hands can float freely. You will be unable to aim at all because you will have no point of reference at all. No crosshair, no muscles. Nothing. A completely unrealistic state of things. Same for the zooming: You have to compensate for the LOD switching and other technical compromises (playing in non-sufficient resolutions, inability of your eyes to perceive the natural depth and perspective between objects on the screen etc.). Surprise, you don't have to do that in real life. No LODs, no glitches, a true 3D vision and natural depth and perspective. If you have problems with eyes, you get glasses and you are set. 3rd person view: Could be improved so that it is not so easy to exploit but in real life, you are able to do very precise movement and feel yourself in the environment so you see where your limbs are going in the context of the space you are in. In real life you are also able to lean from behind corners with a great precision so you are almost impossible to be seen. Not so in the game where you have only predefined stances without needed precision and fluidity. 3rd person view compensates for that. So in the end, you just want absolutely unrealistic features in order to have a feeling of some kind of pseudo-authenticity and pseudo-realism. You have to remember that this is a game in a virtual environment and you have to make compromises. The games you have mentioned are not really a good argument either. Much more basic in many ways than Arma. Just normal, "hardcore" shooters but still super-unrealistic simulations.

The behaviour is broken. See my ticket in the signature. However, the intended behaviour is this: Engage = attack that specific target and nothing else. If ordered to regroup or given a different target then forget about the engage command. Engage at will = continue attacking any target that is given to you. If ordered to regroup, re-analyse the situation and attack again if the target is still visible (or reachable - dunno exactly how AI evaluates this). Disengage = disable the "Engage at will" command completely. If the target is given, just aim at it but do not chase it.

Oh no, another "crosshair off is realistic" thread... No it is not, if you ask me. It was discussed many times. This thread is a product of ignorance about how things work and how there is a need to compensate for them in virtual environments (Crosshair, zoom, 3rd person view). Study the human body a little, please, before you create another of such threads.

Well, you have to be kidding...

Are you serious? I have never heard of that.

I was quick! :-*

Completely, man. Thanks for letting me know. I thought that it was strange that YOU wrote it. Hard to tell what is sarcasm when put in text.

I am playing on a notebook and I am unable to force the game to use my primary graphics device. This is a problem, because the game now insists on using my slow Intel HD graphics instead of my Radeon. Is there any way I can fix this? Thank you.

I am always amazed how can anybody put out such a stupid statement. This is incredible. Incredible.

Yes, these are definitely serious AI issues so you can't go wrong giving them high priority.

Thank you!

You are in a wrong thread, buddy.

Improved: AI's losing sight of target Could you please explain us a bit more? What was actually improved?

I believe it is already in the stable.

:-))))))

That is fantastic actually. Some strong empathy vs brother dilemma right there. If it's intended (Ryd?) then it's even better.

Ryd, thank you for the automatic saving feature. Great job. Yes, I also turn off the music in the games (huge music enthusiast btw). In Arma, I have to concentrate on the gameplay and the music is distracting me.

Oh, I didn't think about it. I read the rules but don't remember anything about your mod not being fit for the contest. Will read the rules again.