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dnk

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Posts posted by dnk

  2. Posted

    @Krazikilla

    You clearly have been around for a long time, so you know this is how it works. Why do you just assume the entire studio is going to change how it works for this specific release? This is how the series has evolved since forever. Arma 1 was basically a half-finished, rushed version of OFP 2. Arma 2 was the supposedly "finished" game they wanted originally, which itself was full of bugs and incomplete or poorly implemented features. OA fixed up a lot of issues, but itself needed further polishing, and even by the end of it was still riddled with bugs and gameplay issues (like, walking through a door? Still impossible). A3 is by far the best release I've seen, and they've added/improved at least as much as for any other major release - more I'd argue. It has issues, and at this point I'd rather, say, not get permastuck in objects all. the. time. than have bipods.

    Just be happy the release is as good as it is, the game really hasn't strayed far from its milsim roots (contrary to all the intense worries over that at the alpha stage), and everything is, more or less, functional and beautiful, and the devs are still as committed to the series and ongoing support as they have ever been (not to mention engaging the community). This glass is 85% full, and will likely get a decent bit fuller over the next 6-12 months. Compare that to AAA titles at release (especially EA's).

    (suggesting that a dev decided that shooting-from-vehicles was not a priority)
    And why would it be? I really don't understand what it adds to gameplay. A good number of tracker issues are like that. Even my personal fav, the grass at a distance thing, really doesn't add much - it's a nice graphical polish, adds a bit of added tactical difficulty, and a dash of increased realism/immersion. That said, it probably would take 50 man-hours to implement at least. Is it worth it? Not my call, and the devs clearly have decided for the time being on it being not an efficient use of resources.

  4. Posted · Edited by DNK

    Anything from the DEVs about the discussion?

    Why so much small fixes like: grenade cast shadows, and rearlights of hemtt trucks, and cinemetic borders now hide GUI elements,... are done but hardly any high voted feedback tracker thingy?

    - For example, in the "bad italian translation" topic, 2-3 DEVs answered like a few minutes after it got created.. Whats going on here?

    - a, for sure nice improvment of UAV is goin to be implemented (SITREP), even its nowhere near the top voted and awaited features.

    I for sure love this game, nothing comes even close. I am just annoyed that it could be so much better, if concentrated, focused on some.. other things and reading the devbrachn update, everday makes me a bit sad.

    1. Maybe they want to fix up what they already have working before adding new features. That's the part of the cycle they're in. Early alpha was the time to get them to change their feature set, not post-release (and many of the ideas on the tracker were probably too big to shoehorn into an already very tight dev deadline). Right now, feature requests will probably need to wait for the expansion, though that's no reason not to start plugging for them ASAP, of course.

    2. The amount of time required to do a lot of these things is not available, especially with DayZ and the campaign in the works. DayZ is already terribly behind any expected schedule anyone had for it. I don't know how many people have moved over, but I imagine getting that out the door is the next big priority for BIS.

    3. They don't agree that the features are worth the time/expense to implement them. Sorry, but devs have a different viewpoint on things, and also the hard realities of making X happen may differ significantly from laymen's expectations of how easy X is to do. Now, bipods, yes that should be easy to do easily (and has been done via scripting already). But doing it right with correct animations and collision detection can take much longer. Much of the rest of the tracker are far more complex issues that might not even be possible. I have pushed heavily for "grass at a distance", but I recognize that it's not the sort of thing you expect to happen. Some things (climbing) I've seen devs hint at being in the works. Some things (female soldiers) might be coming in a campaign update. Some things (shooting from vehicles) might be... not to the dev's liking (fairly pointless and not worth the effort).

    I don't find it very surprising considering anything a BIS employee says can and will be used against him as you just demonstrated.
    Seriously. Devs get a ton of flak from members after entering threads and engaging, either because they didn't engage enough or because someone didn't like what they said. Probably why you don't get outright statements of "that's not going to happen for this release" or "we can't do that right now", because some posters would get apoplectic and run all over the forums quoting that dev and linking to the thread... Devs speaking their minds here can sometimes be tossing redbull to swine.

  5. Posted

    nothing better, then having detailed, but 1x1km skycrapers map, right?^^
    I don't know exactly, but Desert Combat had a bunch of maps that were at least 3x3-5x5km and very open with small towns and forts here and there. It's not Everon-sized, but again I don't think it was engine limitations that prevented them from being larger. Even some of the stock DICE maps were fairly large back then, and some quite small too yes.

  7. Posted

    but are there many engines out there, cappable to do same stuff real virtuality enginge able to do?
    Whatever GTA runs on has fairly vast maps with lots of AI and battles and such. I struggle to think of any other FPS game with the scope of Arma's though. Old BF (Desert Combat) had pretty large maps, though. Not quite Arma-sized, but I'm not sure it was engine limitations that prevented it, rather gameplay concerns (it wasn't really a community that would support spending 3-5 minutes just travelling to the AO). Not sure about the current BF engine, but again it might be community concerns that prevent it from having Arma-sized maps (and a lack of modders/devs interested in massive scale maps).

    That's the thing really, probably quite a few engines could handle all this, especially if the devs were willing to spend a full release cycle optimizing for such gameplay, but outside of the Arma community there just doesn't seem to be the interest. Large, open environments are "boring" after all... :/

    Arma could be greatly improved by going through the top 10 feedback requests and, you know, doing them.

  9. Posted

    i5 3350P (3.3GHz 4c), GTS 250 1GB, 2x2GB 1066Mhz CAS9, etc

    Manage 30-40FPS in SP, 20-30 in COOP (on Annex, Domi; 30-40 on smaller missions) with 2400-3000VD (full object/shadow), mixed settings (low-mid on average), no AA.

    Only have real issues in forests where my GPU dies a quick death (campaign is rough going). Mostly, it's the CPU that bottlenecks the system, despite only running around 25-50%. I think it's been well explained by now that the one central thread of the game has a lot of latency issues from handling too much of the simulation, which limits how fast it can run, which in turn limits overall FPS.

    A better graphics card should be able to improve visuals by increasing texture/object quality, but if you're CPU-bound, you're CPU-bound either way for your FPS. Also, VRAM is probably fairly important, and I expect one reason my GPU can still handle the game somewhat is because of its 1GB.

  11. Posted

    Update: after visiting some nearby sites, I've found finding a place without modern background noise is impossible nearby, so it might take some months to gather samples. I'll let you know when I have something. I'm going to hopefully get some decent stuff this week, but rain especially will take 6mo+ since we just entered the "it doesn't rain for 6months straight" season.

  13. Posted

    Pro-scalable:

    This on/off switching is gamey.

    It breaks immersion to have sudden shifts in animations/etc.

    At any point in combat where I've been running around a lot, I should be penalized for not taking 5sec for a breather. I should be slower/less accurate than someone who's been well rested for a few minutes and is settled in place. Why should I be able to hit targets at 350m as well as that guy? Why should I be as fast as him? My muscles would have that much more lactic acid built up. I want that modeled.

    *****

    Long-term fatigue:

    Okay, perhaps it can be inserted with the current system. I mean, currently (main branch) it's sort of like "60% fatigue, no more sprinting" and that's nearly it. Also, the regain rates are ridiculously fast (I think it's 5%/sec while prone, 2% crouched/standing, meaning 60%-0 in about 12sec). It's unrealistic. I'm no soldier, but I do run regularly, and if after 5-10min of a good jog I start sprinting about as fast as I can (which, by the way, takes a few seconds to build up to), as soon as I have to cut off and lower my speed, simply stopping for 12 seconds and lying down is not going to make it so I'm 100% again. I need a much longer breather to let the lactic acid dissipate and fully catch my breath, and that's with ~1kg of "gear" on. I'm fine without long-long-term fatigue, since most missions/lives won't last much more than 30min, but the current system needs to have more realistic regain rates and loss rates. In my experience, a 5-10min fast jog requires about 2-4min of recuperation before I'm near 100% again (though it would be more like 87% since I've used up some energy and worn my muscles a bit). A light jog can be maintained almost indefinitely, though.

    Maybe a system where the regain rates vary by quintile?

    1.0-0.8 fatigue = 3x regain

    0.8-0.6 = 2x regain

    0.6-0.4 = 1x regain

    0.4-0.2 = 0.5x regain

    0.2-0.0 = 0.25x regain

    That seems more realistic, when combined with more realistic regain and loss rates.

  14. Posted

    Regarding volume, might be you could dynamically adjust all other volumes when an "overloud" (more than max) sound plays for a short duration. Sort of like how in movies when a grenade/explosive goes off, everything else gets really quiet (minus the ringing, though I think ACE did that mildly which worked well), but just less pronounced and with a very quick resumption of normal volume.

    So, you have a sound that ends up reaching the player at 150% volume. Normally, the game just plays it at 100% because this amp doesn't have an 11. Now, you could have some sort of script that went and adjusted everything by -33% over like 0.25 seconds, then slowly readjusted back up to 100% over like 5 seconds. Obvsiouly, another >100% sound playback would readjust everything downards again.

    This is the audio equivalent of false HDR editing of videos, where artists brighten the areas around dark edges and such: it gives the appearance of greater dynamic range than the medium is capable of recording.

    You could do this with fadesound, but I don't know how you could check individual playbacks for a "greater than 100%" sound.

  15. Posted

    AI just need to be set properly by mission makers. 0.5 accuracy is way too high for normal GI (and many servers have 0.7 as the minimum!). The correct range for non-snipers should be 0.1-0.25 for "aiminaccuracy" and "aimingshake". 0.25-0.35 for "elite" units, and 0.35-0.75 for "snipers" or other one-shot types. 0.05-0.1 is appropriate for non-military shooters (gangbangers or whatever).

    Still, it's silly that a "super shooter" skill level is 1/3rd of the total. The devs really should consider adjusting it so that 1.00 is the new 0.35 and everything else scales up accordingly. Yes, this would make certain sniper units unrealistically poor shots, but that's such a minor issue compared to having every unit being a super shot.

  16. Posted

    I am fully expecting something "Asian" and Chinese-focused. I wouldn't expect Vietnam, but I would expect Taiwan or Indonesia or something similar.

    I would also expect:

    • More modern buildings (2035 and we've not yet hit the 21st century in building materials?)
    • At least one Zargabad-like map for the region
    • Readdition of older (current) weapon and vehicular assets
    • Improvement to sound
    • Building up urban AI

    Give me at least 3 of those and I'm happy.

  18. Posted

    I am so sick of the desert. Its in every Arma game. Time for some urban combat. Give me some Cities. Buildings. Industrial plants. American / European towns. Castles. Large military bases. Something besides the freakin desert. CQB. You can say what you want about Battlefield, but at least their maps have some variety (and some buildings!).
    Chernarus was a desert? Sahrani was a desert? The latter had desert parts, but that's because it included a little bit of every major biome, so I don't get the complaint about that. And Everon was a giant green blob of a map... OA was desert for mostly topical reasons (GWOT).

    And frankly Altis isn't a desert. If we're going to throw everything from chaparral to shrubland into the "desert" biome, then, yeah, a lot of maps are going to be "desert" because a lot of the world is "desert" by that definition.

    And decent maps are what is REALLY holding this game back.
    We have already Altis, Takistan, Chernarus, Sahrani, Fallujah, Isla Duala, Lingor, Podagorsk (a personal fav), etc, etc. You have everything from dense jungles to dense massive cities to shrublands to thick temperate forests to deserts!!!
    Another problem is, I see all this talk about Ai. Screw the Ai. Its never going to be good. What you need is PVP, TVT. Now that's a match. I've never understood COOP, and from what I've seen of messing with the Ai so far, they're dismal at best.
    It's one of the few FPS games that actually focuses on having competent large-scale AI. That's a huge selling point. That's what a ton of the fans want. Why should we only listen to you? A cursory look at the current games in play (online) shows a few large PvP servers and a few large COOP servers and a whole lot of smaller servers for both (though the smaller ones are mostly COOP). And since most people play SP, I think, it's a clear winner for focusing on AI.
    What I'd like to see is some smaller maps, with Urban terrain, and real mission goals, where you don't have drive half an hour, just to get to whatever tree your supposed to defend. This game has potential, the devs just have to realize it. Just look how many copies BF is selling.
    Fallujah? Oh wait, community doesn't count in your mind, does it? For someone with such a dismal view of the community (their opinions are moot compared to mine regarding AI, their maps are unimportant, they are small (?) and unengaged (???)), it sure is odd to see you here engaging with it to try to convince it that it is misled about itself and its own desires...
    Forget "its a sandbox". Make a better BattleField, which this game is completely capable of, and they will come.
    Go play Project Reality then. That's what it comes down to: you don't like this game, you want it to be drastically different and made by a different studio with a different community.

    Also, what Iceman said.

  19. Posted · Edited by DNK

    I think they really improved over Takistan and Chernarus. What were those maps exactly? They were just as deserted as Altis. I went all over Chernarus, and it's 85% empty forests and small farmhouses; most cities are just small <100pop towns, with the largest maybe holding a couple thousand people. I went all over Takistan, and again it's 85% literal desert and hills with a bunch of podunk towns and one or two "large" "cities" that might have a few thousand people living in them IRL.

    What is this comparison? The overall urbanization of Altis is the same as its predecessors (as well as Sahrani). The fact that much of the island is flatter is probably due to the devs wanting something with more armor-suitable terrain (armor on the other 2 maps was hellishly rough, and generally required the use of roads). If you don't like the flatness, there's the western 1/3rd of the island with all the urbanization. Personally, I prefer some flatness for infantry, because without it infantry combat is a cakewalk of AI fish in a bowl.

    That said, it would be nice to get a proper large city one day (at least a Zargabad map), maybe a somewhat modern one at that. I don't need Shanghai, but I'll settle for anything that could conceivably hold more than 50,000 people and has a built up downtown with most buildings at more than 5 floors (basically, a mid-sized college town by US standards).

    Also, I'm pretty sure the western urban area is way larger and denser than anything on Chernarus or Takistan by a factor of 3. You need to look to 3rd party maps to get more (eg Fallujah). I think the real complain is a lack of development of the urban area - it's still low-density (by city standards) and low-skyline, but hey, that's reality. Chernogorsk was unrealistically built up (no way you have 15-story buildings in a city of 1,000 people). If you want a real urban area, you need to do something like Fallujah, where half the map is the city and sprawling suburbs.

    So, yeah, I'd LOVE a more developed and larger version of Zargabad for the 1st expansion. I am fully satisfied with the major improvements made for the primary map, though (may I suggest to the devs Izmir or similar).

  20. Posted · Edited by DNK

    Guys seem like you want 2 different "fatigue" values, one for short-term "fatigue" and one for longer-term "exhaustion".

    That would be nice, yes. Having the current fatigue system plus something that kept tabs on your overall energy levels, which would drop slowly over time but would not recover quickly either.

    something like (note this isn't tested, just conceptual):

    ///// VARIABLES /////
_guy = _this select 0;                                 // assume this is run as execVM in a unit's init with [this,1] for arguments;
_stam = _this select 1;
_guy setvariable ["energy",1];
_delta_fatigue = 0;
_min_fatigue = 0;
_old_fatigue = 0;
_energy = _guy getvariable "energy";

if (_stam > 1) then {
   _stam = 1;
};

///// MAIN LOOP /////
while {true} do  {
   sleep 1;                                 // 1-second check intervals, 60x/minute adjustments

   _energy = _guy getvariable "energy";
   _delta_fatigue = _old_fatigue - (getfatigue _guy);

   if (_delta_fatigue < 0) then {
       _guy setvariable ["energy",(_energy) - (_delta_fatigue / 30)];  // takes longer to regain than to lose energy
       _energy = _guy getvariable "energy";
   } else {
       _guy setvariable ["energy",(_energy) - (_delta_fatigue / 10)];
       _energy = _guy getvariable "energy";
   };


   if ((_energy) > _stam) then {
       _guy setvariable ["energy",_stam];                // max energy, set through script arguments, so adjustable for units
       _energy = _stam;
   };

   if (_energy < 0) then {
       _guy setvariable ["energy",0];
       _energy = 0;
   };

   _min_fatigue = (1 - _energy)/ 2 + _energy;                // your minimum fatigue is 1/2 the difference of energy and no fatigue (50% at highest)

   if ((getfatigue _guy) < _min_fatigue) then {
       _guy setfatigue _min_fatigue;
   };

   if (_delta_fatigue < 0) then {                        // lower energy results in lower fatigue decrease
       _guy setfatigue (_old_fatigue + _delta_fatigue * _min_fatigue);
   };

   _old_fatigue = getfatigue _guy;                     // this will be "old" next time delta_fatigue is checked

   ///// DEBUG /////
   _guy globalchat format["%1 energy %2 == fatigue %3 == Dfatigue %4",_guy,_energy,getfatigue _guy,_old_fatigue - getfatigue _guy];
};

    Of course, you can try this out for yourselves as it's a basic script (though I haven't had a chance to test it for myself, so bewarned it may be totally broken).

  21. Posted

    We need better ways of telling an AI team member to interact with certain things...

    E.g. tell the AI to "trade" inventory with this chest/body and not just any body the AI thinks is cool, like the "open inventory" option does.

    the interaction menu that just lists all options that are available is not good enough. Particulary not if its spammed full of either doors that could be opened, or dropped weapons that could be picked up!

    Yes, it would be nice for there to be an action (like "move here" or "mount this") when pointing the mouse at something for the AI to "inventory here". If I have 3 different ammo boxes, each with different objects, it's basically impossible for me to get an AI to visit each in turn, or even more than 1.

  23. Posted · Edited by DNK

    This might be outside the scope of this mod, but there's something I'd really like to see the AI do, well 3 things regarding buildings:

    - if suppressed, move into shooting positions inside the buildings

    - if suppressed, move "behind" the building

    - get AI to preferentially use buildings for pathing when in stealth mode and make interiors pathed in combat mode as well. If AI would just use the cities when in them other than walking down the streets like so many fish in a barrel, it would be a totally different game in MOUT situations.

  25. Posted

    Makes the weather look realistic and not fake.
    I guess you live in an odd place then.

    It can go from bright and sunny to full-on monsoon downpour here in under 10 minutes, and thunderstorm cells and fronts can kick up crazy weather in similarly small time frames throughout the Midwest in the US. Given that there's such miserable control over rain in the simulation (like, you can't just have an overcast sky, it has to rain at the same time. always, which is ridiculous), we really shouldn't be so limited.

    Also, setfog is messed up. setfog array with a short timer results in VERY random results. Like, every time you run it you get a different density. Also setting fog to 0 density and 0 cutoff leaves you with a hazy look, and if you set the base up to like 500m it's impenetrable. I do not get how that works.

    Additionally, while I'm on it, we should be able to set the fog color or at least, please jesus, the saturation of the color. I really, really, really hate the gamey-immersion-breaking-always-blue fog. Reminds me of GTA cheats that make everything look silly.

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