CiberX15

Brace yourselves, because what I am about to say is blasphemy. The scroll menu, it must die. It was bad in Arma 2, it is worse that it has survived into Arma 3. Hitting space to interact is rather unintuitive as it is, but having to scroll though a long list of options while under fire is downright clumsy. The interaction menu is incredibly clunky and clumsy. When interacting with a car for example, I should be able to simply hit interact to get in and interact to get out. Quick, efficient, intuitive. I don’t have to spend a second to think about it. This becomes blatantly obvious when you are under fire and need to jump out of the vehicle and you have to sit there carefully scrolling though the passenger seat, the gunner seat, the turn off vehicle option, the get out button, till you finally reach the eject button and then have to hit interact again to confirm you purchase. Now the reason you wanted to eject in the first place was because you saw a soldier with an RPG standing in the middle of the road aiming at you. He only needs to left click. What do I suggest? A context sensitive radial menu triggered by the interact key (usually mapped to spacebar). Tapping the spacebar would cause you to take the default action, getting in and out of a car, looting a body, open door. Holding the spacebar would bring up a radial menu, moving the mouse around you could quickly select up to eight additional options. Releasing the spacebar would then activate the command. This would allow players to quickly perform actions without confusion or clumsy mistakes, while still allowing for the plethora of additional commands that makes this game great. Again, this is just one possible solution, but I feel Arma needs to move past the scroll menu.

You know what bothers me most on these forums? Being told to go play Call of Duty. Any time anyone brings up a new idea, a change that might make this game more accessible someone always says, "go play Call of Duty." And we all know that that translates to "You're too stupid to be playing this game." If you can't come up with a better response then your stupid, don't post.

OH NOES! not Call of Duty! Tis the worst slur that can be bestowed upon a member of this forum! Our honor, our very legacy is ruined by your suggestion that we play a different first person shooter. X )

Because of intuitive controls. Think of playing a game for the first time. A new game, not ArmA. You hit the E key and you sit down in a chair. Now what would your first guess be to get out of that chair? you would hit E again right? Now imagine you are playing a game and you hit space bar. a menu comes up. you don't want the menu so you hit spacebar again. The menu does not go away, it looks like you just switched weapons? Space bar is the switch weapons key? So then your near a door and you want to switch weapons and you hit space bar and instead you open the door. Now you are really confused. Eventually they will learn that right click breaks out of the menu and that it is in fact an action menu. Then they will have to train themselves to learn thos buttons, and it will take a while because their natural reaction will be that the spacebar opens menu so spacebar should close menu. Holding and releasing spacebar is easy for a player to understand. Its simple cause and effect, its induitive. you don't need to look up the controls to figure it out. That's what good UI developers should be aiming for. ---------- Post added at 02:09 ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 ---------- You know what sir? You might be right. X P

It requires less button presses to get there. As it is now you need to hit space to open the menu scroll and then hit space again. Also by holding space you are talking to the game, telling it that you are ready to make a decision now. Pressing space is just telling the game that you are going to make a decision.

Well, holding/releasing space dose not require me to do anything with the fingers responsible for movement, aiming, and firing. While right click works, you would have to click it twice, once to get out of the menu, and once to aim. whereas if you released space, you could be doing that at the same time, it streamlines the process.

However, right click is also responsible for zooming and iron sights. two things you want readily available when you spot/are spotted by an enemy.

See I think one of the main issues with the scroll menu is that once its open your stuck until you either pick something or take your hand off the mouse or movement keys and hit backspace. It's like some guy runs up to you and puts a survey in your face and wont let you do anything until you fill it out our shoot him. That's why I suggested the radial menu, if you are not actively holding down the button (telling the game you are ready to make a choice) then there is no menu in your face. In fact that could be the compromise that makes this work. What if when you hit the space bar it preformed an action as it does now open door, vehicle, etc. If you hold the spacebar it brings up the familiar scroll menu, however, instead of opening and staying open, it will select whatever is highlighted when you release the space bar, with the first option being none. This way we keep the scroll menu but if you start taking fire you can drop it quickly.

Hey no problem, I brought up a problem and a possible solution, you just gave your own solution. The only reason I don't downright agree with your idea is that there are still a few places where multiple choices could be useful. Going back to the truck for example, once you are in the truck how would you switch seats?

I'm not shooting down logical replies, I am responding to them. Several people here, including the first post and some players I believe to be veterans have stated that the scroll menu could use an overhaul/replacement/removal. I am not suggesting we remove the ability to remap controls. You would still be free to map controls however you please so you don't have to adhere to my idea. In fact, if it were a radial menu it might even allow for more customization of the controls by allowing players to place custom commands on the radial.

Yep. its bad enough when you have to make decisions under pressure. Its even worse when you have to make decisions under pressure and then fight with the controls to make those decisions into actions.

See I still feel you need something. As I said above the scroll menu did serve an important function. Once players become more experienced they will most certainly start mapping keys out to their preferences, but until then there should be some functionality to bridge the gap. Whether a radial menu fills that gap? I have no idea. ---------- Post added at 00:59 ---------- Previous post was at 00:55 ---------- That's sort of how I feel about all of ArmA's controls, I was hoping that was one of the major things they were working on in this release. But hey, this is alpha, there is still more than enough time to fix it.

I get that, and maybe the radial menu is not the way to go, but at least it is a possible solution. Care to offer one you think might work? But how long have you been playing ArmA? You can certainly get used the the controls, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to improve them. Yes yes yes, I know I can remap the controls. But the problem that the scroll menu was put in to fix doesn't go away. The scroll menu DID put a lot of controls at the players fingertips, albeit in a very clunky clumsy way. I am making a SUGGESTION as to how that system might be improved upon.

Can I hear a hallelujah! X )

Meh, I wouldn't post here if I didn't expect opposition. Don't throw the first snowball if you don't want to get hit. Besides it makes excellent debate practice ; ) I meant in real life. You cant, I was being a twit ; )

Oh for heavens sake, I get it, this is the veterans crush the noob on the forums game. You guys give the the rest of this community a bad name. That was what we call an EXAMPLE. surely you can think of more instances on your own where quick selection of an option is preferable to scrolling through a menu. Yes I can spend all day remapping keys to my hearts content, but if I wanted to do that I would go and fill out tax returns because that's more fun. Think about it, its like opening a door by turning the handle, then turning around and attempting to open the door by turning the hinges. There is no logical connection between those two actions just as there is no logical connection between hitting spacebar to get in a vehicle and hitting V to get out. If I have to dig around in the controls for ten minutes then perhaps the control is poorly mapped in the first place? I am asking for a clunky outdated system to be looked at for an overhaul. Don't be change-a-phobic.

Ok so there are keys that will do that, yes, but it is incredibly un-intuitive. Think about it. You hit space bar to get in the vehicle and then V to get out? There is no connection between those two options. Is there a separate key for walking on a diagonal on a Tuesday? PS, just because one game screwed up radial menus doesn't mean they should be banned from a user interface designers tool box.

Arma 3 Constructive Critiques Before I start I want you to understand that I love what this game is attempting to do. I am also a budding game designer currently studying at Full Sail University. Everything I say here is said in the hopes of seeing this game succeed wildly. That said I will now brutally rip apart every function and mechanic that annoys me. But, I will try to offer solutions to said problems because as stated above, this is a critique and if I didn’t offer any solutions this would just be me complaining. The Problem: The biggest problem that cripples this game for me and downright drives off my friends are the controls. Across the board they are unorthodox and confusing. Many of the key presses require players to reach across their keyboard for tasks that should be quite simple, changing weapons for example is mapped to “right ctrl + ;â€. Jump or rather vault is mapped to “V†and spacebar which users would expect to be jump is the interact/switch weapon key. The controls are so un-intuitive that my poor soldier can hardly figure out how to stand up much less fight. What makes this worse it the complete lack of any instructions. There is theoretically a context sensitive help menu but it is not very smart. For example, the first thing it told me how to do when I entered a helicopter was tell me what the little lights in the top left corner were for. The second thing it told me was what the icons meant on the radar. You know what I really wanted to know? How to make it lift off. I spend most of my time in this game getting shot at while trying to figure out how to pull out the right weapon. The Solution: Because of the sheer volume of actions you can take in Arma mapping keys is going to be a challenge. Perhaps the context help is exactly what is needed to help players figure out what to do. However it needs to figure out what is the most relevant information first. For example the first thing it should display when I enter a helicopter is the helicopters most basic controls; How to take off, how to steer, how to shoot. Heck when I start the game as infantry the first thing it should tell me is the WASD keys and how to aim and fire my weapon. Even so, I feel a complete overhaul of the default controls are in order to make the game much more intuitive. Arma has an unrealistically high level of entry. In its current state it only really appeals to a niche, a relatively large niche but a niche none the less. But it doesn’t need to be so constrained, the concept of wide open battlefield warfare appeals to a lot of people, but most of them can’t figure out how to play the game and give it up. If the level of entry can be lowered substantially, without removing any of its depth mind you, this game would be embraced by a lot more people. Also it would be an incredible help to have a search bar in the controls menu. There are seven lists for various commands and an additional list for custom commands. It can take forever to find the control I am looking for when I want to figure out how to do something. The Problem: Vaulting. Nice concept, if I had to guess vaulting was put in place to prevent people from doing the ridiculous jumping tap dance done in most shooters when players are trying to be really hard to hit. However, Arma’s vaulting takes it to the opposite extreme. Instead of quickly clearing a short fence or obstacle with a quick jump like any 12 year old can, my highly trained soldier chooses to smell the roses while under fire and daintily tip toe over it like a ballerina. The whole process take around two or three seconds giving the enemy ample time to kill me six times over, and half the time I just clip into the wall and get set back to where I started from anyway. Nothing is more annoying and immersion breaking than being stuck in a long and sometimes pointless animation while getting shot at. The Solution: Vaulting should be much quicker. Optimally, although this is probably too much work to implement at this point, I would like to see a context sensitive system. Rather than being able to press V whenever and watch your character step over thin air I would suggest that pressing V does a check of the surrounding area. For example: If I am running up to a short fence and tap V my character should quickly leap over it. If I am crouched and walking slowly towards a fallen log tapping V that’s when he will carefully step over it to reduce noise. However, if I run at a sheer cliff face or the side of a brick building or if there is nothing in my path that warrants valuting and tap V, nothing happens. I neither climb the building nor interrupt my movement. If you had time to take it even further you could allow players to climb slightly higher barriers, Those sand bag wall would not be unrealistic to vault over nor most any wall under five feet or so. This context system would also prevent people from just jumping ridiculously out of the way of fire but also give them a much more realistic and intuitive freedom of movement. I am not asking for Assassin’s Creed here, just the simple actions that any trained soldier should be able to do. I would also migrate the “Vault†command to the space bar where most gamers are used to it being. The context command menu might do better on the “F†key anyway since that is a key commonly used for interaction in other games. You might even combine sprinting and vaulting like some games have started doing and free up the left shift key. That would open up an easily accessed key to be mapped to other important commands like the “switch fire type†command that is currently on F and for some reason is called “switch weaponâ€. Or perhaps the “Next weapon †command that it currently mapped to “right ctrl + ;†which is incredibly difficult to reach in the heat of battle. The Problem: Tag/mark targets. You already have a spot enemies command, not that I can figure out where on the keyboard it is but I hear other people spotting vehicles and soldiers so I know it’s there somewhere. The problem is someone will shout out “ENEMY TRUCK 3 O’CLOCK†but it doesn’t highlight it for anyone. In real life the soldier in question would likely be pointing at his target and the soldiers around him would quickly see this. With these clues in real life it is not difficult for a soldier to spot and track the enemy. However in the game, lacking many of the senses and general awareness that one has in real life, when someone calls out the vehicle has often killed your squad and run you over before you have spotted the enemy vehicle that your ally has supposedly spotted for you. It is also incredibly difficult at times to tell friend from foe. Again in real life this would be instantly obvious, the men around you are your friends and comrades you have been with them for months if not years, you can easily tell them apart from the enemy soldiers. This does not exist at all in the game, and due to varying graphical levels, most players find themselves having to determine which brown camouflage soldier is his friend and which brown camouflage soldier is his enemy. Example, on one server I ducked out of a building I had been hiding in for several minutes and spotted someone, and he spotted me. Guns up both aimed and ready to kill, but neither of us was sure that the other one was an enemy. We stared at each other for almost a minute before be both decided that it didn’t matter and we both went our separate ways. I still don’t know if he was an enemy or an ally. While this does make for some pretty interesting emergent game play, it was also rather ridiculous. We are not playing in Vietnam where you really couldn’t tell friend from foe, we are playing in a modern war where highly trained soldiers should be able to recognize who is an ally and who is an enemy. The solution: I know it is not as realistic but compensate for the senses we are losing because we are in a game and not actually on a battlefield. When an ally spots a target, draw a box around them, highlight them in red, do something that stays on the screen at least until they manage to get out of sight. If the enemy gets too far away or ducks out of sight its perfectly fine to lose the marker, but when they are running or driving around and by all rights any normal human would know exactly where they are in real life, they should be highlighted. Again, I know this is not realistic, our soldiers do not have little visors that display holographic target markers over enemy… wait they can probably do that now can’t they? In fact the military has been working with and improving helmet mounted heads up displays since the late 1970s. Hu, well guess you have no excuse now, get to it I want my enemies tagged! I know it puts red dots on enemies on easy but that’s actually too much. It marks every enemy no matter what. Besides this almost every server ever listed is either on regular or veteran and the few that aren’t are on elite. I have never seen a server besides one of my own use the Easy setting. I’m not asking for every enemy to be automatically highlighted for me, but the AI’s certainly don’t have any problem finding human players. Why should the human players have such difficulty? How about this: on veteran and regular when someone spots an enemy the game should put the same red marker on them as it does in easy or else a target box like the one used in the infantry showcase, but not before they are spotted. If the enemy then goes out of sight it takes it off. This way stealth and tactics still work but when the enemy should be clearly obvious and has been pointed out we can see them. Also the extremists can still play on elite and not have what they would consider an over powered and unrealistic advantage. The Problem: This is clearly less end game problem and more an issue with the alpha version but there appears to be no way to open up a console, nor any other way to control a server. To be more specific, I was hosting a Escape Stratus mission and right as we finally got to the airport some little greifer took the only helicopter on the field flew around gunning down all of our hard earned trucks and then crashed the helicopter into the ground. He then proceeded to team kill and spawn kill everyone he could find. Unfortunately I could find no means to kick the little twit and after half an hour of searching the menus and the internet I finally gave up. The thing that stings the worst is that the little twit won, he managed to ruin the server for everyone because I had no way of getting rid of him. The solution: Should be obvious. I know this is an alpha version of the game but the very first thing you should be doing, if you don’t take any of my other suggestions, please give server hosts the ability to kick players. Ok, moving on here are a few glitches/errors I have found so far. Glitch/Error I’m not totally sure if this one is a problem or a glitch or intended. If you try to turn when flying a helicopter it will not turn if it is moving forward. When stationary it turns fine, but when you’re moving at almost any speed forward it’s like it is hitting a huge amount of resistance and it will push to the side but when you let go it snaps back. I’m talking about rotating on the vertical axis. I don’t know how a real helicopter flies and I assume that realism is what you are going for so if this is not a bug that’s fine, it just seemed rather unusual. If it is supposed to be that way you should mention it in the help menu that way noob players know that that’s just how the helicopter handles and their controls aren’t all messed up. Glitch/Error sometimes when someone spots an enemy they call out cardinal directions instead of the clock, which would be fine but the game still displays the clock on the screen not the compass and the two are not interchangeable. This is by no means a complete list, and I will likely post more here as I continue to play, but if these issues can be resolved this game can far surpass its predecessor.

Honestly I would play on recruit if I could but the only time I ever see a recruit server is when I am hosting it. I did learn, I like the game. But I want my friends to join me and the learning curve resembles Mount Everest so they refuse to play it. I want to see the learning curve smoothed out. Without fresh players coming into this this game will stagnate. I could accept that. I admit that that paint ball is as close as I have ever come to fighting anything, and while I find my self very agile there I am also not wearing any body armor nor supplies..

" Any Tips what I could change in controls? I use a analog joystick for the choppers." Well I use a analog controller too, Mine has a little secondary joystick on top and I use that for altitude. It also has a hat so I can rotate it left and right so I use that for turning. Besides that prety standard set up. ---------- Post added at 01:06 ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 ---------- That’s actually exactly what I am talking about. Soldiers don’t go to war in 5 minutes. They train for months if not years. However as players we ARE expected to go to war after 5 minutes. I am talking about compensating for knowledge and skills that the avatar has but the player doesn’t. Yes after I have played the game for two to three days Ill pick this stuff up. Then maybe I won’t want or need all of this extra help. But that is what the veteran and elite difficulty settings are for. In this regard ArmA succeeds hands down. I have never seen a war game that gives its players this level of choices. Unfortunately its default control scheme leaves players clueless as to how to make those choices. Yes they can go and remap everything, in fact I did sit down and take an hour or two to remap the keys for ArmA 2 when I used to play that, but we shouldn’t have to. The developers have been at this for three games, why not revamp the control scheme so that you don’t need an animal psychology degree to operate this game. Pretty much yeah. Look at the AI soldiers. You step within two kilometers of them and they open up with pinpoint machinegun fire on you. Now reverse the roles, your ally just told you that there is an enemy two kilometers to your left, how long will it take you to find him? No he is not moving or firing. In real life your buddy would point and say to you “Over there, see that guy hiding in the bushes? No, not there, little to the left†and you would answer “yeah I got him.†In the game all we get is “bag guy left.†Hey if you don’t want a big ol’ rectangle that’s fine, maybe make them blink red for 5 seconds. That way it’s enough time for the team to see him but it doesn’t keep him lit up like a Charismas tree the whole time. Maybe use spotters, so that as long as someone has binoculars pointed at him he stays lit up. But the problem is when all I hear is “bag guy left†I’m not going to see him. It makes spotting targets about as useful as shouting “THERE ARE BAD GUYS!†[/color] See this I understand, I kind of even like it. I don’t want every enemy to just light up like the Fourth of July, but when and ally is effectively pointing out an enemy I want some visual clue as to what he is pointing at. This game does not give me that. When someone spots a target, the only information the other players get is that the target is a certain distance in a vague direction. This is not enough information to tell me where he is looking at. I played one level where one of our guys was going in to this enemy compound, and I was a machine gunner. I was watching him carefully because I didn’t want to lose him and accidently shoot him when the fighting started. This was one of the cooler moments of playing this game, and I don’t want to take it away. I am offering suggestions of how to solve the problem of pointing a specific object or target. Again, I am not saying do this for all the levels of difficulty. The problem is is that 90% of the servers play on regular, and the ones that don’t are running elite. Regular is incredibly difficult, and elite is for those who want something as close to real life as is possible in a game. This closes this game off to a massive player base that would otherwise love this game. Where normal is now is what I think veteran should be. The Elite and Easy difficulty are pretty much fine where they are. But normal really should be tuned down to where you average gamer can get into the game and enjoy it. Chances are they will eventual come to play on the veteran and elite levels as they get better. This is a game. It has this great community. But whenever someone from outside the community comes in they are somehow expected to know everything, and they are yelled and made fun of when they don’t. The level of entry on this game is set way to high for the average gamer to get in.

“Distinguishing enemies from friendlies is probably fine as it is, and I tell you that it doesn't get much better in real life when talking about trained soldiers. I have been in service for 6 years and with all the missions and training I have done I can tell you that sometime that's just what it is, its hard to tell if you are looking at friendly or enemy, if they are concealed or they are far away etc, especially when soldier's camos are very similar to each other. Heck I could hardly tell difference between British, German and Swedish soldiers when I see them, and I am standing next to them. If we would be in combat and all three of them would be mixed up, it would very hard to make quick decision on whether you are looking at enemy or ally. So I can't really complain there, except when you have lower graphics settings and textures on soldiers become blurry, then it becomes a problem, because there are even less detail that you can quickly look for recognition. Maybe if they would add friendly highlight, after you looked at person for few seconds, that would work, but I don't know about that one.†See this I understand, I kind of even like it. I don’t want every enemy to just light up like the Fourth of July, but when and ally is effectively pointing out an enemy I want some visual clue as to what he is pointing at. This game does not give me that. When someone spots a target, the only information the other players get is that the target is a certain distance in a vague direction. This is not enough information to tell me where he is looking at. I played one level where one of our guys was going in to this enemy compound, and I was a machine gunner. I was watching him carefully because I didn’t want to lose him and accidently shoot him when the fighting started. This was one of the cooler moments of playing this game, and I don’t want to take it away. I am offering suggestions of how to solve the problem of pointing a specific object or target. Again, I am not saying do this for all the levels of difficulty. The problem is is that 90% of the servers play on regular, and the ones that don’t are running elite. Regular is incredibly difficult, and elite is for those who want something as close to real life as is possible in a game. This closes this game off to a massive player base that would otherwise love this game. Where normal is now is what I think veteran should be. The Elite and Easy difficulty are pretty much fine where they are. But normal really should be tuned down to where you average gamer can get into the game and enjoy it. Chances are they will eventual come to play on the veteran and elite levels as they get better. This is a game. It has this great community. But whenever someone from outside the community comes in they are somehow expected to know everything, and they are yelled and made fun of when they don’t. The level of entry on this game is set way to high for the average gamer to get in.

“Modern soldiers also don't go to war in 5 minutes after getting a gun. They train. So train, it's not that hard.†That’s actually exactly what I am talking about. Soldiers don’t go to war in 5 minutes. They train for months if not years. However as players we ARE expected to go to war after 5 minutes. I am talking about compensating for knowledge and skills that the avatar has but the player doesn’t. Yes after I have played the game for two to three days Ill pick this stuff up. Then maybe I won’t want or need all of this extra help. But that is what the veteran and elite difficulty settings are for. “ArmA is about choices and freedom. There is no fun in all actions being mapped under a single magic key.†In this regard ArmA succeeds hands down. I have never seen a war game that gives its players this level of choices. Unfortunately its default control scheme leaves players clueless as to how to make those choices. Yes they can go and remap everything, in fact I did sit down and take an hour or two to remap the keys for ArmA 2 when I used to play that, but we shouldn’t have to. The developers have been at this for three games, why not revamp the control scheme so that you don’t need an animal psychology degree to operate this game. “I really really dont hope that what you are proposing is a hud system with a big ass rectangle on your back saying "This is Enemy, Shoot!"†Pretty much yeah. Look at the AI soldiers. You step within two kilometers of them and they open up with pinpoint machinegun fire on you. Now reverse the roles, your ally just told you that there is an enemy two kilometers to your left, how long will it take you to find him? No he is not moving or firing. In real life your buddy would point and say to you “Over there, see that guy hiding in the bushes? No, not there, little to the left†and you would answer “yeah I got him.†In the game all we get is “bag guy left.†Hey if you don’t want a big ol’ rectangle that’s fine, maybe make them blink red for 5 seconds. That way it’s enough time for the team to see him but it doesn’t keep him lit up like a Charismas tree the whole time. Maybe use spotters, so that as long as someone has binoculars pointed at him he stays lit up. But the problem is when all I hear is “bag guy left†I’m not going to see him. It makes spotting targets about as useful as shouting “THERE ARE BAD GUYS!â€

In that case they could at least replace the long vault animation with a quick hop. The way movement is in general, letting players just jump normally shouldn't cause any problems, so long as they can't change their direction in mid air.

Oh yes, I love that gun too, although I don't own one. Honestly my choice of guns at this point is based solely on look X D

Things I already love about Arma 3 This is sort of a sister post to one I created to critique the game so far. This one however is me pointing out the things that I found awesome, and what makes me stick with the game though its quarks. Wide Open Battlefield Gameplay. I was lucky enough to join a decent server on my first try. We were playing Escape from Stratus mission. Listening to my commander talk I got a grasp of just how deep this game goes. We wanted to get to the airfield so that we cold hijack a helicopter to get off the island, but before we could do that out commander wanted to get a hold of some better hardware first. Some armored vehicles, maybe even a tank. This wasn’t some call of duty rip-off where your objective is to go kill someone and you just gun your way though a base like an action hero. You played as a soldier, you had to be smart. There was a great amount of depth in tactics and strategy. It gave the correct feeling of being stranded and alone on a hostile island far better than Far Cry 3 without ever showing a single cinematic. Host Custom Servers: Just for kicks I decided I would try my own server; both because I wanted to see if I actually could, and because I wanted to try a server on super easy because I am lame like that. I clicked the new button selected internet and hit launch and it worked. In within minutes I had someone I didn’t even know already connected. With so many games forcing players to use proprietary servers only it is good to see a company that respects its players enough to give them private servers. Not only that but private servers that work simply and easily as well as working out of the box in an alpha version. Now that’s just unheard of.