MadocComadrin

I don't think any of these are necessarily signs of a bad campaign. It may not be the campaign YOU want to play, but that does not make it bad. MP only can be frustrating, but it doesn't mean it's not quality work. I do consider it somewhat unfortunate that the modern trend in gaming is to focus on MP, but that doesn't make MP-only/focused games bad. Sometimes things are more fun when you have a decent amount of people cooperating. As for no saves/respawn only (bolded to group them), this can work if the campaign is well designed around it and there's a good reason for it. I don't think the Apex campain was the best place for it, but it's NOT a sign of a bad campaign. The next three points also questionable. Complete linearity can be done quite well--it's when it's done poorly that it's bad (via monotony or tedium). You can also have a campaign where characters themselves aren't important (this can feed in to a respawn style of campaign--you play the faceless grunts). Having little connections between missions isn't the worst either: you can tie things together in other ways. Consider a campaign where you explore battles that happened about simultaneously as offensive, where you play as "just another grunt." Respawn, little individual character development, and limited connection between missions could work well, and you could still fold in emotional experiences. It's all about how you work with the perspective you choose, not WHAT one you choose. As for the last point, I don't see how that figures into DESIGN. Technical issues are technical issues: that's the scripter's fault, not the designer's--even if it's a team of one.

DayZ's new rain looks like it has a bit more volume, but from what I've seen, it doesn't really obscure vision that much (saw more of that from fog). They look about the same to me otherwise.

Added emphasis. All of the bolded games you mentioned require such a level of modification to keep the game fresh or to keep a dynamic meta (for the really competitive games). ArmA really doesn't fall into that category. More content would be nice, but heavy modification makes for a chaotic, inconsistent player experience where players aren't looking for such a thing. Seeing that ArmA is supposed to have a decent degree of realism, not being an arcade, arena or competitive tactical shooter, you shouldn't have to mod things to get a respectable amount of realism.

I've seen mentioned here that the new system is Bohemia dumbing things down because a majority of the playerbase is Altis Lifers/Wastelanders/DayZers/Etc. I have to disagree with that notion. I do not think the majority of the playerbase are these people who solely play these. I have 700 hours in ArmA 3: most of that is single-player, setting up missions for myself to enjoy. I've still played a decent amount of multiplayer missions--from coop with friends, to domination-like missions, to KoTH. I've even played a little bit of Wasteland and Exile. I would argue that most of the player-base actually plays a variety of game-modes. They're players who come for the realistic sandbox and stay for the other things. Sure, some players are brought in by the attention things like DayZ get, but the ArmA 3 audience still wants ArmA 3, and any sort of dumbing-down--intentional or otherwise--is going to hurt the majority of the playerbase. I'd also say that a lot of the players who buy the game based off hyped up RPG mods/mission don't stick around (and that the players of these mods also play other things in ArmA 3). They're not worth it. They buy for the (easily created) hype. You don't need to develop for them because they're going to spend without thinking or even playing that much.

In the mean time, we should give feedback to RPS. If they're stirring up trouble, give them heat.

I agree and disagree. The main issue I take is with your fourth point. Some successful PvP games do this, but many don't--it takes away from competition. MOBAs don't really do this (although sometimes Free-to-Play models requires unlocking characters, but you're generally expected to be comfortable with most if not all characters before doing any sort of ranked game). Some FPSs do this, but they aren't necessarily at the top of what people consider competitive (although they may be successful popularity-wise or monetarily). "Persistence and progression" isn't really that important either, as can be evidenced by Rocket League: unlocks (consmetic) don't take that much time and achievements are very easy to get. You've also missed something very important: an interesting meta. An interesting meta is just balanced enough to be fair, has a well-shaped learning curve, provides some solid strategies for any familiar player, provides some great strategies for skilled players, provides for experimentation and emergence, can shift without outside/dev support (to stay fresh in-between changes/"seasons"), and can be shifted with careful developer support. Another thing to consider is that many successful modern team PvP games have a competitive matches that require some set up/investment and casual/semi-casual "quick"/unranked matches that mimic the competitive matches. You may also see ranked matches for solo/non-full-team players as well. This creates a well layered approach that allows for people with varying interest in competition to play at a level that works for them. It really comes down to what type of PvP do we want to see from ArmA 3? I would love to see a PvP mode that focuses around proper role usage, group and individual tactics, and situational awareness. I don't actually see Bohemia pulling that off with their current staff. They'd need to bring someone, if not a few people on to support a large-scale competitive PvP effort. Also, more and more noticeable official servers please.

I don't think penetration would happen that much as the bullet fragmenting (until you get to higher calibers). It would still be painful, if not lethal.

Or you could do that. Not only that, but aside from optimizations, there have been feature and content additions and modifications. 1.52 might actually be more optimized than ArmA 3 a year ago--even if performance is now similar or worse--because ArmA 3 a year ago might have been a smaller beast to begin with

When developing any sort of API, library or language, it can make good sense to leave in deprecated features in for compatibility; however, there are also times where you don't--especially if you REALLY want people to move away from something. You can end up in a sort of version hell sometimes, but sometimes you just have to cut the cord.

I was under the impression that the expansion is going to be set BEFORE the events of the ArmA 3 campaign.

I'm aware that there were some budget constraints (and that a lot of the content that was shown well before the alpha was scrapped). I'm not angry about what BIS couldn't/didn't do, I'm interested in what they can do now. I think a good vehicle and static weapon DLC with a mix of free and restricted content could make things more interesting. Alternatively, jam pack the expansion full of more vehicles and variations.

To be fair, ArmA 3 does have these weapons being more "fatigueable," and KoTH's indefatigueable perk lessens this by quite a bit. But yeah, the MMGs should be a lot more unwieldy than they are now in many situations.

There are some PVP issues, but a lot of that is mission-specific balancing. For example, the bolded part of your quote is an issue (IMO) in King of the Hill. Mixing a DLC MMG and a perk that makes fatigue much less significant means that MMGs become much more powerful in close quarters. Throw in the fact that you can put a decently magnified scope on one and you have a weapon that is effective from close quarters to long range (ranges relevant to the mission at least), and has a beefy enough caliber to not only kill in one hit, but to still be quite lethal penetrating through walls and such. I would love a DLC that adds more faction-based variation. What global arms dealer is making bank off this conflict, selling hardware to all sides? Too many things are the same for each faction.

"You made it." The game split a long time ago from VBS. Parts of the engine are very much arcanely mysterious for BIS staff. You ask for no more "half-measures" or "bullshit excuses," but the things you ask for require not only major research into the engine itself (to determine plausibility), but major refactoring of the engine itself. It's not possible for ArmA 3 because the effort that many of the "major refactoring" requests that people have would be the same or more than making ArmA 4, if not ArmA 5 (especially the 64 bit part, which doesn't automatically guarantee increased performance or fidelity, especially when naively implemented). I'm not saying they shouldn't try to fix these things. I would love to see some heavy engine loving between ArmA 3 and ArmA 4, even if it means waiting longer than normal for it.

I'd love to see better radar and locking mechanisms. You don't need DCS-level realism (although better flight modeling is always a plus), but cycling through very mobile targets is silly most of the time, although having some targeting systems allowing you to "bookmark" targets to cycle through or even share after acquiring them would be neat--the KA-50 for example has target saving and sharing, and the A10C's markpoint system can let you use all of your ATGMs very quickly on multiple targets in a single pass. My main request is to actually have different locking mechanisms (more and more developed than what we already have), especially when it comes to countermeasures, AA, Air to Air and Air to Ground: IR, Radar, Laser-guided, wire-guided, elector-optical, satellite guided, etc are all different things and should ALWAYS be treated differently. For example, if you don't have a way to detect a lock of a certain type (eg IR), then you shouldn't get a lock warning. If your countermeasures aren't designed to defeat something (say flares versus a radar or electro-optical guided missile), you shouldn't be able to defeat them. As for radar, making it more realistic would be nice. Separating your own radar and RWR would be great, as would conic scanning (where applicable). They probably don't need to go into huge detail in terms of slewing and ranges: that can be abstracted a bit--limiting air combat to the full-flight-simulator crowd wouldn't be the best move (although, maybe they should have and edge).