The Barron

I wouldn't necessarily agree, i generally feel that tactics always overcomes skill. Now i see the problem you do bring up though; its pretty hard to get a group of people, say 32 in a team, to all work together in unison. I believe that's the beauty of it though. The team that works together, wins together, and that truly takes some dedication and training to get right. You'd be working mostly at communication skills more than anything, which is actually harder than most people think. Leading other players can be more than just "defend this area" or "attack this area". With a good team, you could set up ambushes, overwatch positions, and so forth. As long as they listen to what the commander orders, and these people become trained with certain routines to follow, then it becomes more than just moving players. Of course though, when i speak of teamwork, I am speaking of objective based games. A team death match game requires little to no team work and IS twitch based. But i dont think thats what people would want to see in competitive gameplay. 32v32: Defend "xy and z" objective sabotage, search and rescue, something like this would fit the bill. Something where the team with the best minds and strategists wins, not the ones with the best twitch movement. Something I'd like to add to is when you said "and no maneuver you execute will guarantee success", you had a good point there, but then again there are many multiple choice, the challenging part is to pick the best possible tactics that will give your team the highest probability of success. That's what makes or breaks a good leader. 1) I think there could be quite a considerable amount of people who would be willing to do this. I for one would. Competition is key here though; i feel as though most people would rather play the co-op missions then pvp, from what i have heard (and correct me if i am wrong) but the co-op missions have been the bread and butter of the arma series. If there were more (and very well setup) PvP game modes (of course with no AI) then i'd be willing to bet a lot of people would play competitively, paving the way for professional gaming on arma. 2) I think a lot of people would actually, but i guess thats opinion based isnt it? It would depend on how the videos are delivered though. Heres a good idea for that, take a 3 hour long pvp game, condense it into a 30 minute video highlighting main battles and turning points in the game, and for those main battles shown, have the commander detail what went through his mind during the battle and his decision making process. For example, he could explain why he had his main unit retreat, which was to lure the enemy into an ambush. 3)I think i detailed some gamemodes up above that would be interesting yet simple to balance. "Attack and defense" would obviously be the first choice. I can think of more detailed game modes but i'd probably write up a book on that if i did haha! 4) Not going to try and deny this. Completely agree. I guess when it comes down to it, the final decision is up to the devs 5) Agree as well. That would come some months, if not years later after point number 1

So after seeing this thread, i had to make an account and add to this. This may be long, and i am a new comer but please hear me out on this. I've heard the arma community is great and open minded though so i feel as though my opinions shouldn't be a problem. I just want you guys to see the perspective from someone like me and other like me. Alright so a little background about the type of player i am. I am completely new to the arma series. I dont own an arma game but did have the alpha of arma 3 for how ever long the duration of that was, so i am completely new to this. My past has be pretty competitive; i played in some mlg tournaments in halo 3, was part of a few clans in call of duty, and as of right now playing battlefield 3 very competitively (although, the competitive scene is a bit weak here.) So coming from cod and halo, im used to arcade style shooters which are twitch based or skill based. Every time i played with a team though, i loved leading them to victory and thats where my love for battlefield came in. I used to play bf2 on the computer and with the release of bf3 i went straight to it on the console and later the pc. I absolutely loved it. The feeling of being able to communicate with my friends in a squad and dominate was amazing! I loved the fact that it took a collaborated effort to actually win; often times i'd find myself issuing orders to my squad and other squads who would be in the chat with us (voip on xbox and ts on pc) and it felt great! Pulling flanking maneuvers on enemies and wiping them out, providing overwatch for a squad about to take an objective, providing suppressive fire down an alley way so my team has a chance of making it across without getting shot... this is when i gave up on twitch shooters and fully came to appreciate tactical shooters. Now i know a lot of you are grimacing at the fact that i just called battlefield a tactical shooter, but hear me out on this; out of all the "fast paced" kind of shooters out there, battlefield is probably the slower of the bunch and most tactical, and with commander mode in bf4 and voip on pc, im really looking forward to the tactical play that will be involved in it. Now how does this pertain to arma and e-sports you ask? Well simple, you see... a lot of people like me have gotten sick and tired of the cod formula: twitch shooting and no tactics. After i played the arma 3 alpha... i LOVED it. It really opens up a whole new can of worms when it comes to tactical gaming. I think competitive gaming these days, and gaming in general, is trying to reward those who work best together as a team, and those with the best strategies, versus those who want to just shoot anything that moves. I'd like to think there is a large appeal from people like myself to see people play these games. I'd love to see how to teams battle it out across say a 7x7 kilometer area; flanking each other, using the dynamic enviorments to there advantage (fricken night combat!), and using aerial and naval warfare to there advantage! Personally, coming from someone who used to play competitively, i think arma 3 has a GREAT chance at becoming an e-sports game without changing up the formula! I think what a lot of people are missing here is that it not too many things are wrong with the way things play out right now! It's all about the team with the better tactics and commanders that win! It's like a chess game on a huge scale! Thats why i loved (and still do) battlefield so much, i always envisioned it as a game of chess. With arma i see the same, it a greater extent, and i think it would be a real shame if this opportunity wasn't taken advantage of! Anyways, sorry for bumping this by 3 or 4 days. I just had to put my opinion out here. Please don't be too harsh and try to see my perspective on things here. I think the real plus side of all this is that nothing drastic needs to be changed! At least in my opinion. Looking forward to getting arma regardless of if it becomes competitive or not though, this will be my first arma game and i am already pumped for it(: