Banjo

Thanks again, at least now I know what to look out for just in case.

Tankbuster & Orcinus: thanks HEAPS for the tips and making me feel welcome! I laughed at the "busts of one" comment, because that's how I was trying it with the SAW! Using Orcinus' advice, I got the mouse to respond much better already. I still feel rather "slippery" running around (one of the few times I've wished for analog control, so it's not just "snail pace walk" or "full tilt run"!), but turning off smoothness as well as lowering the sensitivity makes a huge difference to the mouse indeed, especially to aiming. I'm glad to be rid of the vomitous "head bob" as well (something I loathe in all games!). Amusingly, once I got past the SAW range test (where - I forgot to mention - it won't let you go prone, just kneel), the game hilariously told me "See how hard that was? Now try shooting prone". Wow, really? :rolleyes: As someone who used to play as a "pigman" in a lot of games, I think I officially hate that SAW in ArmA 2! Amusingly, the sniper rifle and heavy weapons were a breeze to shoot after that! I noticed something called (gasp!) "auto aim" in the difficulty settings... but it didn't seem to really make much of a difference to me, so I left it off. Anyway, I definitely feel like I'm getting the hang of the controls more now, thanks to you guys. Just did the medic training and laughed at my "assistant" (?) showing off his awful acting skills, pretending to be wounded! And that super-detailed firing range mod looks awesome! I'll have to give it a shot to get comfy with the weapons and UI tomorrow. Thanks again! PS Re: the "Degrade" DRM: so in other words, I'd definitely know if it had accidentally kicked in, then? I just don't trust any system enough to think it would only ever work when it's supposed to. :p

Hopefully the veteran players of this game can help me out (I posted this at GameFAQs but then figured here might be the best place to find the current "community" for the game!) I bought the ArmA X "anniversary edition" box set the other week, after falling in love with the Xbox 360 game "Operation Flashpoint: Red River" a while back, and later learning the "backstory" behind it and the original OFP, the "two dev teams" and so forth. I used to love an old game called "SEAL Team" when I was a teenager, and I'd often heard that the original OFP (by BI) was the "spiritual successor"... so that made me interested as well! Now I've got the box set, the first thing I did was install ArmA 2 and Operation Arrowhead, and was looking forward to it from all the great things I've heard about it. However, I'd also heard a lot about the VERY steep learning curve: it is more of a "simulator" than a "game", is the majority of what I've read, but that's cool. So after taking ages fiddling around with the options just to get rid of a hideous blur to the graphics (turns out you turn off "post processing"!), I started the basic training missions. Immediately, I'm concerned by three things, and would like to know if it's "just me" or something else? 1) The very first ArmA 2 basic training mission won't progress past the firing range for me: tells me to "fire off a few rounds, then start the rifle drill". I fire, move to the marker... nothing happens. Known bug? 2) So I tried the OA basic training first mission. Doing the timed course seemed impossible, since my character "slides around" so much/so fast when moving. I keep "overshooting" where I'm running to, and the mouse cursor whips around like anything. I've tried reducing and increasing sensitivity, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. What am I missing here? 3) And this is the big one. Weapon accuracy seems terrible! I get that this isn't COD, and we actually have "real" bullet physics/drop here, and I'm happy if the answer is just "practice!" but I'm surprised at how hard even the timed training firing range was: I simply can't pass the SAW range because poor accuracy, massive recoil (yes, I'm crouched) and the afore-mentioned "mouse lagginess/super-sensitivity" is making drawing a bead on and hitting the targets a complete nightmare. I really REALLY want to love this game. I don't mind "hard", but "impossible" is killing any fun for me here, and I can't shake the feeling that I'm just not setting something right, or missing something obvious. Honestly, is it just typical for a beginner at this game to suck this bad? I wouldn't mind getting destroyed online, or even by enemies my first time out... but not being able to run an obstacle course or hit a wooden target is pretty demoralizing! Losing to AI is one thing, losing to the UI is something else!!! Is it me being a "noob", the game being deliberately super-hard to control, or some kind of UI bug I'm encountering? I just want to be sure... as I said, I bought this "blind" on fans raving about it, and really want to love it (as much as I adored Red River, for all it's quirks and flaws). (oh, and while researching my woes, I came across info about the copy protection the game uses: "Fade", and for a moment I wondered if it could have accidentally been triggered in my legit copy... but "Fade" introduces obvious graphics distortions and - I'd presume - a warning/notification, and doesn't JUST ruin gun physics, right? Or else how would I know if this was the cause?)