Take On Difficulty Settings!

[OMAC]

I just beat the Silver time on the Railroaded time trial, playing on Expert. I have never been more immersed for 2 minutes in a video game! Talk about seat-of-your-pants flying! I'm muttering, "WHOOOOOAAAA," as I'm making those hard, high-speed banks through the skyscrapers. After I was done, I couldn't believe that I made it - when I first played it, I thought it would be utterly impossible to beat any of the times, but somehow I have learned. Surmounting and dismissing fear and trepidation is an important and awesome aspect of playing ToH! In a way, flying so fast and dangerously is scarier than playing Trial By Fire on Utes with your squad!

Mr. Charles, one solution is to play on Expert to get rid of autotrim, but enable full HUD in the Expert settings, so that you can use ^H to enable the gauges when absolutely necessary. Before long, you won't even need the gauges anymore - they can be distracting. It's fantastic how you learn to use your senses to feel the heli after a while.

[MadDogX]

So you're second-guessing BIS without ever having played on Expert? It looks like you don't have any idea what you are writing about! Quit your yammering and condescension and play the game!

Easily offended, aren't you?

FYI I have tried playing on expert mode but it's currently impossible for me to play without autotrim, hence I turn the difficulty down a notch... because that's what the difficulty settings are for. That's also how I found out that autohover is not a difficulty option, as I feel it should be. Hence the suggestion in my original post, which the devs are apparently taking under advisement. So in that respect I'm happy.

Btw. you completely ignored the point I was making in my last post, which is that expert difficulty is supposed to be hard (training wheels and helper features off etc.). That's why it's called expert after all.

[OMAC]

Your "point" was obvious. But since you have not mastered flying without autotrim, it is impossible for you to make meaningful suggestions about difficulty settings imo. In other words, you have no idea how difficult Expert already is. And, most importantly, the training wheels ARE ALREADY OFF on Expert. All you have to do for 100% total difficulty is NOT USE AUTOHOVER.

[MadDogX]

Your "point" was obvious. But since you have not mastered flying without autotrim, it is impossible for you to make meaningful suggestions about difficulty settings imo. In other words, you have no idea how difficult Expert already is.

That makes no sense at all. Autotrim and autohover are two different things... I don't need to "master" manual trim to conclude that autohover is basically a cheat, and I tried playing expert mode long enough, thanks. Stop making assumptions.

Btw. to be clear about autohover being a cheat: roll your helicopter on its back at 200-300 meters altitude and try to recover from that manually. Pretty much impossible. Then try the same with autohover... saves you every time. It's a "press X to not die" button that pretty much disables the flight model. How does something like that belong in expert mode?

And, most importantly, the training wheels ARE ALREADY OFF on Expert. All you have to do for 100% total difficulty is NOT USE AUTOHOVER.

"JUST DON'T USE IT!!!" is such an infantile argument. I guess BIS could add a rocket launcher with infinite ammo to every mission in Arma3... don't like it? JUST DON'T USE IT!!!! Right?

I say again, expert mode should be there for a reason, which is being the top of the learning curve. A feature like autohover has no place there.


Btw. so far I haven't heard a single real argument from you as to why autohover is a good thing that should be in expert mode. All I hear are ad hominem attacks and the frequent chant that people who don't like it can just ignore it. What gives?

[scarp]

There absolutly should be a autohover or a autopilot function at least on the heavier models. Simply because they exist in RL. Good enough argument for you

Another thing is that it is a nice pause thingy, even for us real pilots. I dont use it to fly, just to either chat or check the map. In RL, it is not that hard to check your map, kinda harder in TKOH because of what it is, a game/simulation with it's limitations and functions. Hence, the need to 'cheat' once in a while (wich in my opinion is not cheating at all, it is a way to work around limitations). But when I fly, I fly.

But, I just got an idea. Would it be too much to ask, to instead of having a simple autohover, you could opt for having a "flying instructor" beside you who could take over more or less in the same fashion as the autopilot?

Difference could be that, not only did you have a visual person besides you (instr. should be wearing a big, pink cowboy hat too so everyone could easily single out who's who he he) but there could also be some simple audio triggers as well such as "you're nowhere near soloing yet" and stuff like that just for fun?

That would bring another level for the novice, at least it would feel much more different in terms of immersion while it's still actually pretty much the same as autohover.
Perhaps not doable before release, but it would be a nice fuction tho.

But the ultimate would be to have a proper autopilot with hovering capabilities....could we have one BIS? please?

[MadDogX]

There absolutly should be a autohover or a autopilot function at least on the heavier models. Simply because they exist in RL. Good enough argument for you

Absolutely.

Definitely better than telling me to bugger off because I suck too hard to be allowed an opinion. Not to mention the old "just ignore it" chestnut.

Any chopper that actually has an autohover function should obviously have it.

Another thing is that it is a nice pause thingy, even for us real pilots.

I liked CarlGustaffas suggestion to only allow autohover above a certain altitude. That should be good enough as a pause feature.

But, I just got an idea. Would it be too much to ask, to instead of having a simple autohover, you could opt for having a "flying instructor" beside you who could take over more or less in the same fashion as the autopilot?

Difference could be that, not only did you have a visual person besides you (instr. should be wearing a big, pink cowboy hat too so everyone could easily single out who's who he he) but there could also be some simple audio triggers as well such as "you're nowhere near soloing yet" and stuff like that just for fun?

That would bring another level for the novice, at least it would feel much more different in terms of immersion while it's still actually pretty much the same as autohover.
Perhaps not doable before release, but it would be a nice fuction tho.

Nice idea, but this probably wouldn't fit in every mission.

But the ultimate would be to have a proper autopilot with hovering capabilities....could we have one BIS? please?

+1

[Sickboy]

Any helo has auto-hover? (At least the ones depicted in the game?)
If not, then perhaps on expert you still only get it for those choppers that really have it?

[OMAC]

Btw. so far I haven't heard a single real argument from you as to why autohover is a good thing that should be in expert mode. All I hear are ad hominem attacks and the frequent chant that people who don't like it can just ignore it. What gives?

Well, so far BIS agrees, and they have extensively play tested all difficulty levels, unlike you. You obviously have not played Expert enough to know what you are talking about. That is not an ad hominem attack. Playing with autotrim on is completely different than with it off (both are lots of fun), and greatly affects stability and difficulty. Autohover is nowhere near as necessary when autotrim is on, but I think that is a very important option to have on all difficulty settings, for multiple reasons which have been stated repeatedly.

I was taking it for granted that autohover is a realistic function present on the modeled helis. Autopilot exists in RL, right? Doesn't autohover? I'm no pilot.

[MadDogX]

You obviously have not played Expert enough to know what you are talking about.

Well, just for you, I checked my current settings to see what mystical expert features I am currently missing. Not only did I realise that I've been on Trainee (intermediate) difficulty all this time instead of beginner, but also the only difference between my settings and the default expert settings is the enabled autotrim. Everything else is the same.

Playing with autotrim on is completely different than with it off (both are lots of fun), and greatly affects stability and difficulty. Autohover is nowhere near as necessary when autotrim is on, but I think that is a very important option to have on all difficulty settings, for multiple reasons which have been stated repeatedly.

You are obviously right about autotrim greatly affecting stability, though I'm still not entirely convinced that disabling it makes autohover necessary.

The main reason I use autotrim is because I play the game with a gamepad, not a joystick, and the analog sticks simply aren't sensitive enough to make sufficiently fine trim adjustments. Otherwise, I've been playing in first person without ever using autohover since the beginning and have mastered landing pretty well.

I guess I'll have to start using manual trim and see if it really makes landing that much harder. Because if I can land a chopper on expert (without autohover) using a game pad, I'd say it can't be too difficult for expert mode, especially for someone with proper flight gear.

[RoyaltyinExile]

Hi, guys,

Thanks for your thoughts (particularly finding those 'deliberate' errors )!

In short, I agree with BIS' decisions regarding auto-hover to date, and am surprised that BIS is considering altering these decisions at this late date

You can rest assured that any decisions we've made regarding gameplay are locked for release! However, we think it's fair enough to evaluate what we can do with feedback post-launch, particularly with such a user-centric subject as difficulty options.

We noticed much of the feedback from problems in the playable missions were associated with missing gameplay helpers like markers and gauge-hints (most often missing due to difficulty option settings).

The main focus of this post - and with new texts now in game - was to explain the 'current state' and make sure that the explanations were understandable.


Best,
RiE