BurningMustache

Well, I adhere to the philosophy where I would absolutely not consider the learning and mastering of user interface mechanics to be a fundamental skill that should be required to master a videogame. For me, user interfaces should be something that help the player and make playing the game easier and smoother. It absolutely shouldn't be another obstacle the player has to battle against. As such, anything that streamlines this process and cuts down the clutter is welcome. Feel free to disagree. EDIT: Furthermore, I don't think anybody is arguing to take away any existing mechanics from the game in order to dumb it down or anything, it's about making the existing mechanics more easily and conveniently accessible. It's not about removing any of the abilities the list menu gives you, it's about accessing them in a quicker and more streamlined manner. If you're against that and you believe that adding additional, needlees barriers between deciding to do an action in the game and actually executing it is a valuable skill that should require mastering, I don't know what to tell you. Along the same lines one could argue that just moving around as infantry should require QWOP-style controls (I would post a link but I can't as I only just registered here, just search for "QWOP" on YouTube) because it's "more realistic" that you would require to move each of your limbs individually.

See, this is something I will never understand. I don't think the majority of the people here clamoring for abandoning the clunky list in favor of a new, more streamlined system want this because of an urge to "dumb down" the game or to bring it more in line with more casual, arcade-y games. There is absolutely no connection between clunky controls and deep, complex or realistic gameplay. This is entirely a user interface issue, and I really don't get why people think that modernizing, improving or streamlining the user interface would make the game turn into "just another spawn and die franchise" :confused: Back in the day of mainstream FPS games like Duke Nukem 3D, people would use the cursor keys to walk / turn around, and in Duke 3D specifically, use the PgUp, PgDn keys to aim upwards and downwards. Later, Quake introduced mouselook and the default controls for FPS games were to use your cursor keys for walking and the mouse for looking around. Since Half-Life, WASD + mouselook has become the standard, and for good reason (WASD has significant advantages over using the cursor keys for most people). User interface and control schemes have evolved and improved over time, and there is absolutely no argument to be made that, say, Duke 3D is less of a "spawn and die franchise" than Half-Life, or even ARMA, just because it uses a much more clunky control scheme. ARMA 3's mousewheel list system is pretty much the same that even OFP used back in the day and UI design has come a long way since. I would argue there's no reason not to make advantage of new, more streamlined concepts if they end up working more efficiently just out of a stubborn* sense of "this is how it's always been done in these games". * No offence intended.

Just wanted to chime in and say that I very much agree with the sentiment of the OP. I don't really have a solid solution myself, but in general something approaching a context-sensitive commo rose would be a step in the right direction, double so if it would be a menu that would be active only for the duration you hold down a key, so that releasing the key would make the overlay vanish and give you full control back instantly. Additionally, I would absolutely argue that a commo rose style menu (think Left 4 Dead) is a lot faster than selecting an item within a list with the mousewheel. A quick flick of the mouse in a general direction and release of a button works much faster for and better for me. Again, I won't claim to have a perfect solution for this figured out, but I just want to raise another voice in favor of overhauling the current system because it has always felt very clumsy, as far back as OFP, and video game UI design has come a long way since, and there's no reason for Arma 3 to not make use of that (although I realize people who are content with the current system will be inclined to disagree, obviously). I'd be very happy if the devs would consider this issue. That said, and seeing as how this is my first post here, I also have to voice massive appreciation for the work they've put into the game so far. Considering it's only in an Alpha state, it's really, really impressive and I'm enjoying it tremendously so far.