Singleplayer Beginner Confusion... BIS, right direction but still way to go :(

[Dreepa]

Hi,

I was wondering why the heck the markers on the singleplayer campaign, indicating where to move, who to attack etc. do NOT STAY for longer than 20 seconds.

However, you can press ESC or open the map and return to the game, and the markers will reappear but fade again.
I mean, BIS come on... You do so much to make the game more beginner friendly and then you leave in such weird behaviors a QA guy should be able to point out easily in playability & usability tests.

I mean, I am a new guy, I get thrown into the game, right into the action. Cool start up scene and everything. I havent played 2 minutes and already am confronted with negative experience:

1. My commander orders me to move to X.Y. but the indicator doesnt stay long enoug on screen to know where he wants me to go.

2. I am assigned a target, same prob as above.

3. There is incoming transmission (story based script) that is totally mixed up with my soldieres reports. Why not mute the soldiers commands for as long as a story audio is running?

4. And finally still the old idiocy of "Enemy soldier at 11 o clock" and all those relative positions to yoru own position, when you have absolutely NO CLUE where your leader is pointing at, and therefore you are totally lost and just ask yourself: What? Where? 2 oclock relative to what?
I remember a clock in, erm, Arma1 I think? It was on the bottom left. Where did it go? At least put a marker on the HUD so we know where 12 o clock is.

5. My mate says: "4: Need cover".... Alright, I would really like to help that ppor bastard, but how the heck to I find out who No.4 is?

6. Why is it impossible for a trained soldier to slowly move around a corner and steady his weapon aim? Close quarter combat is still to clumsy. I press SHIFT to slow down and use 'a' or 'd' to strafe while looking down the sights, and my gun is bopping up and down, back and forth like being held by an epileptic soldier. Slow TACTICAL movement with constant eyes on target should really be possible, somehow. Your animation ist just totally overdone. It feels wrong and it is.

I am again (as I was with Arma1 and Arma2) stunned how a game developer cannot find this flaws when playtesting there own game. Seriously. This is the 4th generation of your game (not counting VBS)... You have all the shiny stuff in there, masterpiece of open world fun.
Yet you miss such most basic things.
I just cant comprehend.

[DreDay]

The #4 in your post has been addressed. The clock indicator is back in the AO and it can be enabled in the difficulty settings.

The rest of your comments though are absolutely dead on. Unfortunately there is very little situational awareness in Arma/AO. This sad fact forces the players to go "Rambo style" instead of using the proper tactics. It's shame... I would certainly hope that BIS would put a lot more focus on the situational awareness tools in their next release.

Peace,
DreDay

[Turin Turambar]

1 and 2. It's an option in the game difficulty (edit your difficulty or lower the level).

3. True.

4. There is the clock, but it's now in the right side, instead of the left side.

5. Bah, the "need cover" and "covering!" are automatic messages with the idea of make the players feel more inmmersed in a real war, with soldiers shouting orders, etc. The soldiers usually work in tandem between themselves, and even if you were to cover him, he wouldn't be capable of noticing it, there are some limits on how good can be the AI. It's the same reason the AI is not capable of making a reasonble voice order for contact or movement. "Move to that tree at 11 o'clock". myself: Yeah, there is a fucking forest at 11 o'clock, which tree bitch.

6. CQB is the weak point of the game, yeah.

[Fred DM]

yes, the disappearing waypoint markers are a Difficulty option. i noticed that when i was playing the random Kill House mission in the Armory; the next waypoint kept disappearing and i had no idea where to go next and couldn't complete the mission.

i couldn't figure out why the waypoint would disappear, until i remembered i had edited the Difficulty settings for minimal on-screen help.

[Dreepa]

Fading waypoint indicator influenced by difficulty choice? Is it intended? Sounds like a bug. I mean, whats the reasning behind this?

[vini_lessa]

Fading waypoint indicator influenced by difficulty choice? Is it intended? Sounds like a bug. I mean, whats the reasning behind this?

I dont know the reason behind this, but I know I like it the way it is (eg: fading). I think it keeps me more immersed having to actually look at the compass and GPS sometimes.

[Jakerod]

Fading waypoint indicator influenced by difficulty choice? Is it intended? Sounds like a bug. I mean, whats the reasning behind this?

I see it as this: It pops up so that you know where to go and then fades to not kill the immersion. It gives you enough information that you should be able to figure out where it wants you to go. I would mark on the map before it fades and then use your compass/gps whatever to get there.

[Turin Turambar]

Fading waypoint indicator influenced by difficulty choice? Is it intended? Sounds like a bug. I mean, whats the reasning behind this?

Well, in real life you don't have magical waypoints in you eye vision...

Most of the "difficulty" settings don't raise the difficulty, it's more a series of realism settings.

[whisper]

Fading waypoint indicator influenced by difficulty choice? Is it intended? Sounds like a bug. I mean, whats the reasning behind this?

It is a choice, as pointed above, some people like it better with fade, others don't... To each is own, and BI kept the choice open. You cannot bash them for this.


I personally have no problem with moving with eyes on sight (3D sights makes for slightly better aiming while walking, btw). They based their animation on recording a soldier movement doing this, so yeah, quite possible the weapon moves like that, in fact. You're quite exaggerating with your "epileptic soldier" blabla. There's nothing difficult aiming in motion. The "gun on a glide" of all others FPS isn't there, it's 1 of the specific of this game since the beginning, and I like that.

The bad point in CQB if you ask me is still collision detection. You get irrealistically stuck in nearby objects, at times to such a point you cannot even "un-stuck" by going away. you need to move the gun down, up, whatever, try everything, before being able to leave a simple room corner, just because there's a table near the corner..... totally killing the CQB

[S-M]

You probably made the mistake of thinking the game was mass playtested

I get the impression that the only people who test these games are the team to be honest, its usually the random bloke at home who does things a different way, and causes stuff to bug/crash/act wierd.