Off topic - ARMA 2 question - Comparison to GB Options

[meade95]

I find myself once every several weeks coming back here to see how GB is developing.....I am an old school R6/GR player......constantly wishing to see the next true R6/OGR game to come out..... Which definitely seems like GB is the one that will finally do this....

In waiting I've gone the route of more SIMs like POA2, HPS games, and CMSF.........while occassionaly falling back and playing OGR (still)...

I've never played the ARMA series......but of late have been giving some serious consideration to buying (and getting more involved / knowledgable) on ARMA 2. Parts of me think the game looks great and really could be the next OGR (and Ive simply let it pass by me for the past several years!?!).

Can others on here, who I know are all original fans of R6 & OGR......Can I get any comments on ARMA....what makes it great....what makes it NOT.

Thanks.

[Grendel]

Oh man, that's such a loaded gun, it's hard to even know where to begin...


I will say this: ArmA is a great sandbox tool. The sense of scale is simply unmatched in the genre. It's great for people who want to spend a ton of time scripting, editing and designing. The military counterpart - Virtual BattleSpace - is great for exactly those reasons. It's very versatile, as it is sort of the 'Jack of All Trades' platform.

In my opinion, it is not a great game. The controls can be difficult, and the hit detection, physics and so forth may leave something to be desired. It certainly does not include the level of polish that you would expect from a modern game (but then again, the team designing it is nowhere near as large as you would expect).

Either way, as with almost anything, it's worth giving it a shot. If anything, it'll be a learning experience. Personally, I find it to be lacking in too many areas to be worth my time. I respect it for what it does well, but I find myself always disappointed in it, for its lack of - what I refer to as - "Common Sense Design".


I'm sure everyone else has an opinion, as well. And you could probably dig up some more information, using the search tool. ArmA has been discussed at length, many times.

[Bota:16]

As Grendel said, the ArmA series is great in the fact it can do what no other can at the moment. The ArmA platform is almost limitless. Someone even made a farming sim for it (ArmA 2). There are some annoyances, but overall it ArmA is a great platform. One thing I wish BIS would work on is the CQC aspect of it. ArmA 2: Operation Arrowhead is coming out in June (maybe July) and bringing with it some pretty good and needed additions/changes.

Also there is a huge modding community that makes the the actual game itself almost secondary. The ArmA series is great for Coop which is what you will find most MP servers are set to. Believe it or not PvP MP in ArmA 2 is pretty fun, its just hard to find a good server and the right people.

[Lightspeed]

I loved OGR - one of the last diehards of GR but I knew the time had come to find a new game and stop waiting for GR with updated graffix.

Arma2 (not Arma...that was a fail in my opinion due to AI seeing through cover) is a great game...not perfect and buggy here n there. But with the right ppl and in the right server it is really immersive and in many respects offers far more then GR ever did, and yet I still think GR is the greatest game ever made.

But GR is also virtually unplayed now in coop so being a lover of coop I have to move to where the players are, and for realistic tactical coop, there is nothing more realistic then Arma2.

Wait for Arrowhead due out this month and give yourself a couple of weeks to get the feel for Arma2 controls bcoz it does take a little time. Come to Legion of Sparta servers and learn to play with some of the Arma2 veterans. I think you will enjoy it and would say to most players who haven't enjoyed Arma2, that they prolly dint play with the right ppl in the right servers playing the right gametype. Get those elements right, and Arma2 is a realistic tactical blast.

[Bota:16]

As Lightspeed said, the controls can be tricky at first. Many keys have multiple actions attached to them depending on if you tap, double tap, or hold. Though every key/action can be remapped to whatever you want. For the most part you can get by with using just the traditional keys for FPS's.

If you want to fly jets, get a joystick with plenty of buttons. For the life of me I can not fly a jet with a mouse in this game. Though I prefer the mouse/keyboard for helicopters for some odd reason.

If you are into "modding" the editor can be a game in itself. You can pretty much do whatever you want with scripts and built-in modules. And you can play what you have so far from within the editor. No need to "compile" the map and related files and then load them in the game. It's great to quickly to see how different variables effect the mission. Or you can just pit huge armies against each other and watch from nearby hillside as they tear each other apart.

[Cpl Ledanek]

Love to pit armies and watch it unfold...it's almost sadistic as collecting ants from different colonies and then ha e them go at it

[zeep]

Yes all the above. Plus this, ARMA's / ARMA2's player movement is clunky. Your soldier feels like he's struggling with spasms on many occasions, like when changing weapons. This is because of the animations that play out fully everytime. Also, in CQB the clunkyness really shines. The player feels like a cow walking inside houses and tight areas..

Try the demo, see for yourself.

I don't have much hope for Arrowhead addressing the clunkyness.

This post has been edited by zeep: Jun 13 2010, 06:32 PM

[galzohar]

I don't have much hope for Arrowhead addressing the clunkyness.

At least it seems like the buildings/hallways/doors seem to be bigger. In Arma 2 they are way too small. Though I haven't heard anything about the "collision with corner issue, but proper building sizes are a good step in the right direction.

[zeep]

..proper building sizes are a good step in the right direction.

I hope for once BIS makes the player feel like infantry instead of a cow. I love arma but i hate armed cows, if you know what i mean.

[Ermac]

I couldn't stand the controls and movement for ARMA. The SP/AI really sucked too.

[desertjedi]

It's easy to pick at all the weaknesses of the Arma series.


But it's hard (for me anyway) to list all the different areas in which the Arma series shines. The best way, IMHO, to know that a game is doing things right is when you get that feeling that's as close to real combat as you can get given today's PC gaming software/technology. And Arma 1/2 will give you that feeling. And you will experience "holy ****" moments that you will remember for quite some time.

To be honest, I have to say that I don't relate well to some of the criticisms of the Arma series. I've been playing so much Arma for so long that I don't even think about its weaknesses. I remember when I first tried Arma, I had been playing R6 Vegas for a long time. Arma felt so incredibly clunky in comparison. There was a VERY LARGE *ahem* "adjustment" needed - probably more so than with any other game I've played. But you always get accustomed to stuff like that, eventually you don't even remember what the problem was. And I don't.

In Arma, think of yourself as a grunt, a infantry soldier best suited for long-range engagemnents. The scripting language is so rich that you can create a myriad of mission-types and objectives. That can even include "stealth" but it definitely does not include CQB/CQC! Arma shines at mid- or long-range engagements. It can get a little hokey at short range though. There is no diving and rolling, or blind-firing or cover-moves. There is nothing sexy here. Once I had an AI enemy soldier go prone right in front of me (zero distance) to prepare to shoot me. Hmmm? So I pointed down and shot him in the head.

Also, I strongly suggest you don't try the SP in the series. I found it so bad that I almost threw the game in the trash...but then I tried MP.

And if someone doesn't like something about Arma 1/2, you can be assured someone is working on a mod to change or enhance it. The mods truly are amazing.

If you've been waiting on the sidelines, you've missed a lot of good gaming. Where you can find better "tactical" co-op combat, I have no clue. Even so, I have to admit I have not jumped feet first into Arma 2. IMHO, with the Arma series, you have to wait for A LOT of patches to come out before I consider it "playable". Even so, I'd recommend that you pick up Arma 2:Combined Ops and get going. Combined Ops is Arma 2 boxed with Operation Arrowhead.

One really good way to get a feel for combat in the Arma series is to watch some videos. I made a video (here) to try and convey what gameplay feels like in Arma. Nothing is staged, nothing is scripted...and nothing is really sexy. The Arma in that video is extremely modified (WarMod). Vanilla Arma is way more sedate in comparison.

[zeep]

You have good points. indeed Arma is immersive and if you don't mind the clunkyness you can enjoy a nice game.

Once you've played a milsim like Infiltration that has properly simulated movement and weapon handling it's very very hard to settle for less. Arma in this regard is much less. The forced animation playouts / the clunky movement / weapon handling, it's just not good enough.

In short: On a grand scale, arma is great. On an infantry + weapons scale, it's not good enough.

I'm not buying OA since they haven't improved any aspect of movement.

This post has been edited by zeep: Jul 22 2010, 06:30 PM

[Cpl Ledanek]

.........if you don't mind the clunkiness ..........

...in my prior military experience, that's pretty much how it is

[desertjedi]

...in my prior military experience, that's pretty much how it is

Really good point, Led!

From just looking at what real soldiers carry on their back and all around their torso, one would imagine that trying to engage in a firefight that required any sort of movement to be incredibly awkward. And this seems to be portrayed pretty well in the recent films showing combat in the streets of Iraq.

Two points...

- we've been acclimated to video games where the player's mobility is orders of magnitude greater than what it would be in real life.

- can you get past the limitations of a game and enjoy the parts where it REALLY shines? I do this with every game I play. In specific areas, every game out there sucks horribly so adjustments are always needed.

As I said, I've played Arma so much that I don't remember how wickedly awkward soldier and gun movement is. I just got totally used to it. Playing is literally like second nature now.

When they created Arma, the Devs had to know how it compared to other combat games in terms of clunkiness. IMHO, this was probably done so that you had to think to succeed and not just "twitch". In other words, the game would reward you for taking the time to consider the strategy and tactics to set up a "win" situation and not how good you were and diving and rolling.

Once you've played a milsim like Infiltration

Whatever came of that? Does anyone still play it?

This post has been edited by desertjedi: Jul 23 2010, 09:24 AM

[zeep]

Whatever came of that? Does anyone still play it?

What happened is the Infiltration lead coder was (and hopefully will again) coding for this game, and many people from the Inf community are waiting here for the next Inf - like experience. As far as Infiltration 2.9 is concerned, it's still sparsely played with a handfull of servers in existence.

This post has been edited by zeep: Jul 23 2010, 09:56 AM

[durka-durka]

Arma2 is a great game, depending on how one likes to play. I started off playing OGR, and believe Arma2 is the closest that comes to that experience. I've been playing with the Sparta community for years now, and like Lightspeed, I totally believe it's who you play with that determines the enjoyment of the game.

The clunkiness has been hard to master, and I know how hard it is to move in real life, but I also believe that's the one thing that Arma2 has going against it. Yes, it is realistic, but I think that it detracts. One can look at this and say that it's not their cup of tea, but I tend to think that it keeps engagements to a larger scale, from 200-400m, which is more realistic. It would be nice to have a CQB element to Arma2 and then it would be complete, IMO. Honestly, if I could move less than 1ft without dropping my rifle down and walk just a bit faster, this would succeed OGR.

The best points of Arma2 though, are its map system and the ability to make markers. LandNav was one of my favorite subjects in the Army, and I've been very satisfied with Arma's way of doing it. I even made a landnav course once, which was really fun but nobody else liked it, lol.

Bottom Line: IMO, Arma2 and/or Operation Arrowhead is worth the money, but only depending on who you play with, and only if you like to mix strategy in with 1st person shooters.

[galzohar]

If there's one thing Arma 2 does wrong is how long the engagement range is. Granted it's mostly an island issue, but it is an issue on all islands, both BIS and user-made, and the only place where this doesn't happen is in dense urban areas which the game has very little of even in OA that addeed "a lot" of them (that is, "a lot" compared to vanilla Arma 2).

IRL soldiers are not expected to actually hit much above 100m with their M16 in actual combat (even though some train to 400m+ in the shooting range). IRL you have enough stuff on the ground that allow you to move forward from cover to cover until you get close enough to eliminate your enemy. In Arma 2, when you fight outside, it's just your group laying prone and spraying bullets until all targets eventually drop or run behind an even more far away hill. Getting up close is simply suicide in Arma 2 - Either you kill them at long range or you don't kill them at all.

That said, I try to make my missions with most enemies hiding either inside buildings or at least staying inside an urban area (though forests do work to a lesser degree as well). Makes it more interesting when AI doesn't just run around in the open to get sniped by riflemen (and yes, it's way too easy to hit stuff in Arma 2 at long distances, though it is a lot closer to real life than most games so I guess I'm just living with that as well, for now).

[ratoa]

@galzohar,

The U.S. Army train their regular troops at 300mts and it's quite hard to hit those

When I go to the qualification range with my unit out of the 8 300mts targets I can hit with some luck maybe 3 with iron sights btw those targets are static.

[Cpl Ledanek]

@galzohar,

The U.S. Army train their regular troops at 300mts and it's quite hard to hit those

When I go to the qualification range with my unit out of the 8 300mts targets I can hit with some luck maybe 3 with iron sights btw those targets are static.

now you got me thinking if we (USMC) did 300 or 500 ...I guess I go looking for my old Target notes....wife found it in the basement a few days ago....weird coincidence

[WhiteKnight77]

I remember training at the 200, 300 and 500 yard lines with a requal using a modified range of 200 and 300 yards (the firing range at NTA on Okinawa plays havok on qualifying as the firing lines have gullies between them with weird wind patterns between them).