JCDBionicman

"A genius is someone who has exceptional intellectual ability" - Internet A genius could clearly gather from numerous developer interviews and demonstrations of ArmA 3 that the game is only increasing the amount of options given to the player.

I thought I told you I was the one who didn't want to have anything to do with you didn't I? You want to make it look like it was your idea first, like a child? Well since you won't go away I have no choice but to address your points, as unworthy they are of being addressed. Cacophony... that's a new one. Google says "A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds." I think that's an accurate description of the current system of controls, not what I'm suggesting. Since generally leaning takes place behind cover, where you would generally sit still behind such cover, that movement cancels leaning is actually quite natural. I forsee "not-giving-a-crap." 1. There was someone else that commended my idea actually, also noting that the same system was commended in Medal Of Honor by all of it's players. If they work even just equally as well as q and e, and not better, it's worth getting rid of the wasted second key for a better use. There are fourteen keys surrounding wasd, and the commands for these keys should be chosen wisely. 2. It would take less than a split second more while saving the keys around wasd for more important inputs, making it very much worth it. Leaning is not something you even have to do often if we're being totally honest. 3. Actually in this case, both the controller and keyboard users win. As said, leaning is rarely used being that most battles take place out in the open. It's mainly just tacked on to the same key responsible for stance changing for the sake of getting rid of wasted keys for the sake of commands that are sometimes useful, but rarely so. Firefights usually take place nowhere near walls and other structures, which are the only type of cover that can be utilized by leaning. I think you might also be forgetting that I never said q and e couldn't be used in place of what I'm suggesting, if it really is so godawful. What you don't have the sense to understand: Including smaller maps for players that want them does not equate to destroying the ability of players to play on big maps. There's also nothing wrong with people that want to finish a whole game, rather than play Warfare on and off since it can take days to actually finish one. These smaller maps as I've said aren't separate maps, they are part of the large map. They are called maps for the sake of length, and you can use a whole map like Takistan for example, what would be different would be that objectives are closer together, and fewer, so that games can be wrapped up in a reasonable amount of time. 10 or 5 square miles is still a huge space, and still much larger than Battlefield. Games would still remain lengthy. You can sure as hell compare a bicycle car. Look, I'm doing it right now: Both are transports, a bicycle is harder to use, a car uses a fossil fuel whereas a bicycle uses the energy generated by the locomotion of a human, both use wheels which increase the amount of distance that can be gone with a smaller amount of energy. The proof is in that I just did what you said I could not do. "It is because you obviously fail to see the difference here" is not a reply to "Also, that "modders != mission designers" is irrelevant," it's not contradicting what was said in any way, and therefore not relevant to what was said. It's not that I fail to see the difference, as I obviously do know the difference, it's that I fail to see the relevance of the point being made. I understand full well that modding is prevalent in PC gaming. My point was that BI, nor any developer, should use the modding community as a crutch. On a smaller note, BI might have gone under if not for the modding community, so think about that. My problem with multiplayer in ArmA 2 has nothing to do with the fact that BI doesn't host servers. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I, and you guessed correctly, that I came from console gaming. They are possible to do? Is that a typo, because I don't think you're supposed to be agreeing with me there. I think it is you who is mistaken. As I keep pointing out, ArmA 2's server list is nonexistent, and before that it was still small.

I disagree. PVP fails because there is no sense of direction. The game itself isn't terribly hard to learn, it's just that when somebody joins a Warfare game, they have no idea what to do, and rightly so. What it should have been was a Human player focused gamemode where squad leaders are leading squads and buying vehicles and equipment for their human subordinates while human commanders are in turn leading them and building and enforcing bases for them to use. The way it is now, people are lost when they first join a Warfare server because they're struggling with the AI, and all of the boring stillness and inconsequential chaos that's going on around them. Ultimately they give up and probably don't come back.

We agree in that balancing isn't really a large issue with Warfare. What we disagree on is that your argument makes no sense. You said "war is not balanced, because war is unbalanced." You are saying that Warfare in ArmA 2 is balanced because it's realistic, which is not true. Balance is balance, balance is not realism. Since I haven't been able to force myself to player an adequate enough amount of Warfare in order to get a full experience, I can't actually say for sure whether or not it's unbalanced toward either side. They could however balance things while still catering to realism by simply giving the less fortunate side more volume for it's lesser quality. More opfor players for example might be pitted against Blufor, or opfor might be given more vehicles and supplies over blufor. ---------- Post added at 06:48 ---------- Previous post was at 06:33 ---------- Nobody should have to fix a developers broken game for them.

Your other two points were; Battlefield is more attractive over ArmA 2 because it is bland and non unique, and ArmA 2 has a lot of players still even for being old. To the latter, I've already made it known that some older games are actually more multiplayer populated than ArmA 2. I found via an internet search that ArmA 2 has fewer than 200 servers while Battlefield has more than 700. That 200 figure is actually less and should be considered so since it's only so large if considering it's DayZ population. It's less than 40 with vanilla multiplayer. Regarding what you said about Battlefield, I think Battlefield is more attractive over ArmA because ArmA's multiplayer is poorly designed.

Your saying "war isn't unbalanced, because war isn't balanced" which makes no sense. I didn't say Thermal Sights didn't exist, I was talking about some of the unrealistic ranges of some of the guns that other users have pointed out. There are also other things, like tread-toting vehicles, such vehicles specifically designed for traversing unconventional terrain, not being able to go up inclines and such. In the end though I think the minor inbalances are of no issue, because what ultimately makes a game (a PVP game anyways) is player skill. As long as things are reasonably balanced, and I believe they are now, a few slight unbalances here and there don't make very much difference. I also believe that opfor generally has an equivalent answer to each blufor weapon and vehicle.

I'm talking about maps, and it is fact that the community has been asking for smaller chunks of larger maps for quite some time, else Ivan wouldn't have mentioned as such as another user quoted.

Your point is that ArmA 2's multiplayer has an excuse to be unpopulated because of it's failure due to it being a single and multiplayer game, rather than solely multiplayer focused yes? Saying this point was correct however, it wouldn't matter seeing as both ArmA 2's singleplayer and multiplayer suck equally. It's not focused on multiplayer or singleplayer. It's focused on handing everything over to the modding community and taking no responsibility for anything. Again though, I'm going to suggest that there is no correlation between a multiplayer-only game's success vs a multiplayer-enabled game's success anyways. ---------- Post added at 05:52 ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 ---------- Your only real point seemed to be that ArmA 2 had won awards and therefore didn't fail.

Yeah, the thing about awards, the people responsible for giving them out aren't always competent. Mass Effect for example is a boring third person shooter with absolutely no real RPG elements with regards to gameplay, which despite this is somehow rated one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and the soapbox riddled with plot holes and melodrama all combine to make a product that is 7/10 material. Despite this, it received high ratings all around including GOTY nominations.

AI is used in place of Humans. Where commanding Humans would provide for more interesting and dynamic gameplay, it would also be much less frustrating. If this single problem was addressed, Warfare would be alot more fun. It's not the ridiculous size of the maps, or even the slightly unbalanced or unrealistic weapons and vehicles, or even the RTS mechanics. It's that the AI is stupid, and being forced to babysit them rather than cooperate with living breathing people sucks. As said, since commanding AI boils down to luck most of the time, and since AI populate games on a scale much larger than players, Warfare is nothing more than a giant coop game.

I think ArmA falls into the latter category, along with Battlefield. Playing the game's poor singleplayer campaign, it becomes quite clear that it was intended to be multiplayer focused. I'm going to also suggest that it doesn't actually matter whether a game that is multiplayer has singleplayer. COD and the new Battlefield games have singleplayer campaigns, but I would hope people would agree they are multiplayer focused.

I don't see how it's clunky. It wouldn't be less quick either (edit: It is slightly slower). It saves another key for a more useful purpose, where using leaning for two separate keys was wasteful.

I'm not sure what you mean.

It's been requested by the community multiple times. Again, you lean, you let go of the button, and you AIM WHILE LEANING. Moving then cancels leaning.

Not that I'm a fan of EA, or developers that are low enough to deal with them or to make us deal with them, but Battlefield is a fun game.

I would appreciate if you could perhaps change the name of the quiz instead. ---------- Post added at 02:43 ---------- Previous post was at 02:28 ---------- Sure that's a valid point, but one should also take into account some multiplayer enabled games entertain an online community years after their release. Battlefield 2 in particular has 700+ servers still, and that's from 2006. I see about 40+ CTI servers, half of them not really well populated in themselves. And ArmA 2 got put on shelves in stores, so it's not like the game failed just because it didn't have a proper budget for marketing.

You are hostile and closed minded. You fail to use common sense and at sensing your own aggressive bias. I have nothing to prove to you, only to developers who would potentially view our conversation. I believe they have enough common sense to realize a couple things, for one: if caps lock would be used for leaning, there's no magic rule that says you wouldn't be able to aim while leaned. If you would have used some common sense you could have been able to figure out for yourself that I was suggesting leaning while caps lock is held down, letting go of caps lock, then aiming. This is the only point I care to invest energy in correcting you in. So I leave with that.

Coop may be the core of ArmA 2, but one must also consider there aren't very many people playing ArmA 2 in the first place. Multiplayer is largely unpopulated. As such, I think we can come to the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with multiplayer. There are underrated games that a small majority play, then there are obscure games that even fewer people know exist. ArmA is in the latter category. I believe that if a game falls into such a category, it generally deserves to be, being that I've purchased more than a few of those kinds of games by now. Furthermore, Coop will never be as engaging as PVP, because AI will never be as dynamic as Human players. It doesn't matter how big the map is, the AI will react to a same scenario in a same way. The exception is when you have multiple user missions to choose from, because then at least there is something unique about each session. Again, even though domination utilizes the entire map, each playthrough will be very similar because it's being played on the same map with the same parameters. If you give the AI the same scenario over and over, they will react in a similar way over and over. "BF3-esque" scenarios WOULD be popular if they were given official support. The proof is in Battlefield itself, and in the repeated demands of the community. Didn't you just admit that DayZ was the only thing more popular than coop in ArmA 2? Being that DayZ is PVP focused, and immensely popular more than any of the vanilla or other stuffs aside, I think that also helps my point. I think we're generally agreeing on everything else though.

Since you seem to like realistic games, why not invest in a commercial copy of VBS2? A hundred bucks (or two if I'm not remembering correctly), but you'll be set for life won't you? People don't play video games for their realism. Certain exceptions to "realism" will have to be made in ArmA 3, just like in ArmA 2, if the developers want to make the game actually fun to play to the majority of PC gamers. Proof is in that, for example, you can switch out optics on guns on the fly in ArmA 3 while in real life you would have to carefully zero the optic at a firing range before doing so. Another example would be dealing with injured. In ArmA 2 (and probably 3) you simply treat the soldier, and while this can sometimes be lengthy, regardless of the severity of his wounds he will be able to still fight, and at full capacity once he recovers after some time. While this is unrealistic it's necessary so that games can be wrapped up in a reasonable amount of time, and still it's a lot more complex and cumbersome to gameplay than "hide behind cover" or "magical healthpack." No player wants to wait something like an hour to get back into the fight, and no sane person should for the sake of a video game. Can you see how certain sacrifices should be made for the sake of it being a video game? I believe a simulation nears reality, but does not mimic it completely. It sort of tries to create metaphorically accurate substitutes for things that players of the simulation simply wouldn't normally have the luxury of taking the time to deal with. In a flight simulator for example, the time for checking the plane for takeoff can be long, as in hours. Also, if the plane needs repairs or something, that can take days. So while the simulation of medical practices may not be perfectly accurate, It's reasonably accurate as far as in how it tries to create a somewhat believable atmosphere of realism while still being playable to the consumer.

What I'm saying is, and I said just exactly this already, the player would be free to utilize the whole map, nothing would be walled off. The only difference between these chunks taken out of the maps would be the location of objectives, which would be fewer and closer between making PVP sessions reasonably timed. So like a normal CTI match on Takistan or Chernarus, but with less objectives that are closer together. And there would be a few of these "maps" to choose from.

If I'm not mistaken we agree on everything but these: You should not be required to do the following in order to fully experience multiplayer: Join a group or clan Learn how to work a complex in game editor The reason I only talk about CTI is because that's the only game type that's sufficiently populated. Team Deathmatch and everything else has zero player count, or at the most one or two servers. Also, coop does count as multiplayer technically, but I fail to see why teaming up to take down AI in a scenario that plays itself over and over and over again is a "thing." For campaign sure, for some cool user made missions sure, but not as "multiplayer, except against the AI hurr durr" I'd imagine it would get old fast. The AI are going to do mostly the same things over and over again, with some minor variances only, seeing as their similar being given the same scenario repeatedly. As said, what alleviates this sort of thing would be playing the campaign or user missions on coop, where each situation is unique. The problem is there's nothing ingame that would allow the average player know that there is some hidden community or otherwise information, game modes, and things he should know about. User made missions in Far Cry and Halo work so well and such communities are huge because everything is ingame, and the editor is user friendly while allowing for a lot of functionality. ---------- Post added at 04:08 ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 ---------- No, it's on Bohemia, because they didn't provide. Modding is not a substitute for developer made content. It is irresponsible for developers to use the modding community as a crutch. ---------- Post added at 04:14 ---------- Previous post was at 04:08 ---------- Isn't that my point?

A fanboy is someone who is a fan of a given thing. I'm not a "fanboy" of either Battlefield or ArmA 2, they are both filled with flaws that cause me to regard them as little more than average games. Battlefield and 3 requires that you spend an additional 50$ in order to get a full experience, with maps and features that were withheld for more money only. Battlefield 3 in particular still has problems with balancing and identity issues. It tries too hard to be like COD. I've already mentioned the problems with ArmA 2. As far as listening to their community goes, BI would do well to do so more often, as they are the people who are responsible for BI's existence in the first place. BI shouldn't listen to all or even most of the community just for the sake of it, they should listen when the community has something intelligent to say. When BI ignores the intellect of the community, that's in fact irresponsible. Many people rightly want smaller maps. Few people want to play a game that spans for days, or a great portion of a day. What you did in quoting Ivan was a bit of strawman from you and from him. Nobody is asking for BI to do less work, if Ivan actually listened to the community he would know that. Finally, chunks taken out of the two massive islands that will be in ArmA 3 will still be large, in fact as I said already, still larger than Battlefield. "Walling off" sections isn't necessary, let the player be free to utilize the whole map, but make the objectives make up a smaller portion of the map. And, though this should be obvious information, people that want to use the whole of Stratis and Lemnos still can, just give the majority who are asking for it a way to play a quick 1 hour session.

Why are you reexplaining the definition of condensed (compacted is a synonym, meaning the same exact thing), the same thing I explained to you already? I think you're confused. The mouse would be for aiming as always. Alt would be used for freelooking, as always. Alt and the mousewheel together would be used for aiming. Caps lock with the mousewheel would be used to change stances, while caps lock with mouse movement would be used for leaning. I never said anything about locking the mouse into movement either, really I don't know where you're getting this stuff from. I break the ability of the player to use hotkeys in place of scrolling through them with the mousewheel? You can't even use hotkeys for weapon selection in ArmA 2 since the number keys are reserved for the horribly designed command interface. What your arguing against is in fact something that is already in ArmA 2, I'm just suggesting that the mousewheel be used exclusively for scrolling through weapons and mapping the action menu to the reload button. Also, that you are directly scrolling through your weapons is irrelevant since the switching animations are interruptable. I though I'd spare the player from having to press the fire button to select it from the menu when it would serve no purpose. ArmA 2 allowing for sandbox does not excuse the developers from creating proper multiplayer modes and smaller maps to choose from. I'm asking for some basic multiplayer functionality here, nothing special. Yeah, and I can make that comparison. The idea that you can't compare two similar things just because they differ in irrelevant ways is fallacy. You can compare the quality, execution, whatever else there is to compare in two different videogames. What you can't easily compare is for example, horse riding to videogames, but that has to do with ease of comparison and nothing else. Your argument is irrelevant. Also, that "modders != mission designers" is irrelevant. And no, BIS should also be responsible for the creation of smaller sized games as well. 70 people in an area greater than 144 square miles is very boring and too time consuming, go figure few people want to play multiplayer. Something like chunks of Stratis and Lemnos in 5 square mile chunks is more reasonable. Battlefield's largest maps are still much smaller than this, so games would still be long winded. If you really think the average gamer, hell even the average ArmA 2 gamer wouldn't want the developers to create smaller maps then you are mistaken. They included bite sized CTI modes as part of their recent reinforcement DLCs.

You seem to be ignoring a key point of mine. PC is better than consoles because the more freedom you get to do whatever you want with it, whereas in a console you are restricted to whatever software they want to allow you to use. Similarly, PC games are better because it's audience is more demanding of quality, both in graphics, and of course in challenge and unique gameplay. You are confusing difficulty with interfacing with difficulty (healthy challenge) in the game itself. Sloppily designed controls are not some required prerequisite to enjoying a PC game. Furthermore, smartly made controls in game x does not make x "consolified" (nice strawman btw). Imo if developers don't like or can't be bothered with a little interface and proper control creation, they don't deserve the money they are demanding from me. And the last is another strawman: I never said anything about not enjoying games that are wholly unique and "not trying to be a profitable [ripoff] of another one." On the other hand, some games have managed to be still original while rightfully borrowing certain concepts from others. Amnesia's insanity concept borrowed from Eternal Darkness for example. Also, ArmA 2 would have done better to include bite sized chunks of it's maps for CTI so that people could play shorter more fast paced games, similar to Battlefield. Taking pointers from successful concepts is not always shameful, it depends on how much of your own material is already original and how original your use and modification of borrowed concepts is.

Thank you for that link. Haven't tried it yet but it seems to be exactly what I was looking for. And one thing I didn't mention about why CTI is flawed is that commanding AI is unintuitive, and the AI require a lot of babysitting, especially when they use vehicles. CTI is trying to be an RTS while none of the issues with it are ironed out. It would be fine if the standard was games with AI disabled and human commanders leading human players.