Finding the right ballance between realism and playability

[Binkowski]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTBPdVpdMc&t=30s

yeah!

[njmatrix]

You can argue as many points against it as for it.Realism is only good so far and then the game has to be desirable to play. and I think that is where playability comes in.

[ghost101]

One of the things that bothers me on the Arma series is that it seems to sacrifice the gameplay in favour of realism. ...But cratering only to these "hardcore" sim fans only limits the game appeal for a broader audience.

I have no problem with people talking about improving ArmA, but talk of making it more "accessible" to nit-wits like you really grates on my nerves. sorry.
there's nothing wrong with ArmA, the real problem is with you. go buy a Wii or something.

[metalcraze]

But what I'm implying is that by making it more accessible it would surely benefit and appeal to a broader audience.

Can people saying "broader audience" say "me" instead? Not all games have to appeal to you, you already have a lot of arcade shooters. We have only one ArmA

Besides appealing to a broader audience is always a bad thing for a game itself.

After all, would it be fun if the aircraft in the game behaved like real ones? In my opinion no.

It would be immensely fun if aircraft in games behaved like real ones. People complained a lot about ArmA planes (and they are the most arcade stuff here). And thankfully in ArmA3 at least choppers will.

And before you say that cutting-down on the realism is a bad thing per-se, do not forget that neither OFP nor the Arma series are actual "war sims". They clearly fall somewhere in-between realism and arcade.

All simulations, even Falcon 4 have arcade stuff because some things can't just be simulated 100% on a computer.

But Bohemia should continue trying.

More realism certainly helps playability a lot in a game like ArmA. See ACE mod.
Pressing a button and waiting 10 secs until soldier heals a wounded guy
vs.
Checking the wounded soldier, if needed applying morphine/epinephrine/doing heart massage, bandaging wounds (all of it takes resources medics carry which they don't in vanilla)

What's more interesting for a guy playing as medic here?


Besides I always hear about how ArmA "sacrifices gameplay in favor of realism" but I never have as much fun with some BF or CoD as I do with ArmA so I can't understand what you are talking about. Does it mean I can't be a part of a "broader audience" club?

If you think making the game more accessible will dumb down the community then you truthfully never have played on public servers. Addon(s) quality and quantity have both been dying slowly as the franchise progresses.

Public servers are crap mostly because there's zero communication between people for various reasons (that incl. people themselves)
ArmA community itself is still far from going down to the same level as "broader audience", despite having monthly "why this gaem no play like BF" threads like this one.

But I completely agree about addon quality. Maybe one of the reasons is that Bohemia ruined its reputation with many OFP players with not so good ArmA1 and some good addon makers were among them.

OFP was even less "accessible" than ArmA2 - yet it sold 2 mln copies a decade ago when there were much less PCs. BIS should focus on getting those OFP people back.
There is quite a number of people on various gaming forums that love OFP but think that ArmA2 is crap thanks to ArmA1 if that's of any indication.

[CarlGustaffa]

Let BIS worry about "finding the right balance". I think they're doing a pretty decent job:
1) We get to create missions that are anything but realistic, which also seem to be among the popular ones.
2) We get simplified medic system which works okay in most (especially public) gaming scenarios. And we can choose a more complex one if we so want it.
3) We have engineers that can now repair near wrecked vehicles. I was engineer, I never did that stuff. And yet I find it to be good "gaming mechanics" even if it's nowhere near realistic.
4) As for flying realism, don't forget that even if our fixed wing flight model is very limited, broader and more realistic flight models such as used in FSX also have it's moments where it fails just as bad as our ability to fly the AN-2 backwards
5) We have some realistic aspects that few others bother attempting even. Like moon cycles with corresponding tides and fairly realistic dark nights.
6) Not everything can be made realistic due engine limitations that may be too deep to address, have too much cost/time to implement, or is simply not desirable to implement from a gaming perspective, or even conflicts with already existing features.

With those in mind, it's clear that they:
1) Do implement new features for the sake of realism, with pretty deep structure changes (TAKOH flight model for helicopters, which I agree is far more important than fixed wing flight model wrt gameplay).
2) Have already more things simulated than we may care to acknowledge. Maybe it's there but we don't use them much? Like the three medical modules.
3) They do keep in mind gameplay and accessibility. Engineer capability is evidence of it, and they have also said so themselves.

They don't want to be too anal about realism (no, realism isn't always a good thing in a game), because they know it would hurt sales. Besides, looking at what goes on on public servers; what the hell is the point of having a realistic game when 90% of the players there have no intentions of playing it realistic?

Btw, it wasn't realism that got me into the game. In fact it near scared me away for being too damned difficult (OFP, one save! ). That part had to grow on me for some time, and even if I no longer play other games for gameplay being valued too much over realism (kills my ability to have fun), I'm also no completely anal about it and have no objections to respawn based missions (even if I do enjoy the occasional hardcore ones).

[.kju [PvPscene]]

A good thread to show if people are dump or do some thinking before press the post button.

A lot can and needs to be improved in the series. Much can be found in the CIT or
in one of the dozen discussions in this very forum.

My advice to you is to make specific suggestions and provide specific feedback.
Here and in the CIT. And yes the game needs to become more accessible. And yes
only meaningful realism makes sense.

[Cripsis]

A good thread to show if people are dump or do some thinking before press the post button.

Dump?

[])rStrangelove]

One of the things that bothers me on the Arma series is that it seems to sacrifice the gameplay in favour of realism. I'm sure many people who play these series play them because of the realism. But cratering only to these "hardcore" sim fans only limits the game appeal for a broader audience.

Don't missunderstand me, I do not want the series to turn into another "run-of-the-mill" Call of Duty type of game. That would be wrong. But what I'm implying is that by making it more accessible it would surely benefit and appeal to a broader audience.

Translation:

One of the things that bothers me on the ArmA series is that its realistic gameplay is different to how i feel it should be. I'm sure many people who play these series see it exactly the way i do. But the way it is now i feel like i'm being left out.
Don't misunderstand me, i do not want it to turn into a totally different kind of rush action game that has absolutely no use for kilometers of free open world. To say it like this would make me look stupid. But what i'm implying is that by making the game i bit more like i'd like it to be i would surely benefit from saving the time to do all the little mods and tweaks myself.

nice try

[Cripsis]

I'm confident BIS recognise the majority of ARMA's fanbase are interested in realistic battlefield simulation. OFP Dragon Rising was more accessible compared to its predecessor, and we all know how terrible that game was.

[metalcraze]

Yeah OP should try OFPR

It's perfectly what he wants. An accessible ArmA for a broader audience.


But not a good game.