Multiplayer Balancing - Will Arma3's MP be balanced?

[VojtasCZ]

ding ding! Your our 50,000 customer who doesn't read original posts. Here's your reward.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/at...rrel_05_lg.jpg

Thank you, but i just wanted to express :-)

[Celery]

NoRailgunner, would you like to answer my question?

[Iroquois Pliskin]

It seems that some people are just afraid that BIS could increase the authenticity of Armaverse a little bit? C'mon it can't be so hard to read/inform yourself about advantages/disadvantages of certain A3 weapon systems/vehicles etc....

Reading comprehension - level 0. We're talking about assets only - do you envision authenticity in the form of OPFOR having AK74 with ironsights as standard issue, while the other team sports all the latest gadgets?

We're talking World War III scenario here, not some cave sweep operation by a limited contingent in Arabistan against farmers with CZ550.

Maybe ask BIS for some better tutorial/demo missions for MP too? Or is it impossible/out of question to enjoy A3 training and practise on MP?

No amount of training will let you counter a 256-Tunguska in your A-10 prior to it TAB-Clicking you.

[NoRailgunner]

Imo its all boils down to BIS refusing to make believable / authentic features for all the things out of the box but instead relying on community to fix and tweak all these things. Equalizing west and east side/faction would be just another step into mainstream/gamey place. What kind of technolgies should be comparable and which should be without an counterpart? Or should there be really no difference at all except only the visual appearance aka camo/color, signs/symbols etc? Maybe the OP is able to elaborate a bit more about what he means with "balanced", "equal technolgy for both west/east side" and "like to feel like both teams are worth playing all the time"? Maybe just some good examples for Arma3 Air, Sea and Land combat?

[Celery]

Just a summary of the balancing in the previous games.

Operation Flashpoint
Small arms: different but neither side has functionality that the other doesn't, save for NATO's AR optics and the almighty G36
Cars: Light cars are fairly balanced: NATO has Jeep, MG Jeep and Humvee as opposed to USSR's plain UAZ, but USSR has the heavily armored BRDM
Light tanks: M60 is slightly inferior to T-72
Main battle tanks: Abrams is slightly superior to T-80
Helicopters: Quite balanced, although USSR's only version of Mi-17 has almost 200 rockets to spam all over the place
Planes: Quite balanced

Armed Assault:
Small arms: US has all sorts of toys, OPFOR's most advanced gun is the scoped AKS-74
Cars: General purpose cars are imbalanced to the better-armored Humvee's favor; US has a truck with MG
Tanks: Abrams is vastly superior to T-72, the best that OPFOR has
Helicopters: OPFOR's single-seat Ka-50 is a bit imba with its missiles, otherwise US has more variety and better specialization
Planes: OPFOR's Su-34 is inferior in both air and air-to-ground combat against US's specialized planes

Arma 2:
Small arms: US has a ton of toys for all occasions, OPFOR has only single attachments besides grenade launchers for its narrow variety of guns
Cars: General purpose cars are imbalanced to the better-armored Humvee's favor
Anti-air: Otherwise ok, but OPFOR's Tunguska is ridiculously overpowered
Tanks: Even the weakest Abrams is vastly superior to Russia's non-TI'd T-90, or indeed Takistan's pride, the T-72
Helicopters: OPFOR's Ka-52 has trolltastic missiles, but otherwise NATO's choppers clean house
Planes: OPFOR's Su-34 is inferior in both air and air-to-ground combat against US's specialized planes; Su-25 and L-39 are underequipped and stall easily; F-35 completely dominates every OPFOR plane


These are the facts that all mission makers have to deal with when they're making pvp missions with something more than just infantry. The problems are amplified the fuller you want the spectrum to be. I hope this clarifies the context of balancing requests that some people here interpret as attacks against realism.

NoRailgunner needs to read this again.

[jumpartist]

From reading EVERY post in this thread. It seems most Realism fanatics are confusing those BALANCE fanatics for 1 thing. Balance does not mean Mirror. In reality. It just means balanced think of five chunks of lead all different sizes on one side of a scale, and 5 TOTALLY different looking chunks of lead on the other side. They are balanced. One chunk might be sharp for stabbing while another blunt for plain old hard hitting ability. Etc. etc.

The Idea being you are not weighing 5 pieces of Lead to 5 pieces of GOLD. If you get my drift.

If BIS invests the time to get rid of very arcadey tab lock and fire gameplay, and commits to developing some near to real aircraft/ground targeting system, we might just have some BALANCE built right in that we can use on both sides of a conflict. No need to put a stripe on a M1A1 and call it a bad guy tank. Just get us a little closer to similar tech and let us go at it.

[NoRailgunner]

I still think it would be tenfold better if BIS would do something more about 'authentic' and cut the gamey/arcade part of A3. Question is how many casual pvp and coop players will like it? How many got just too comfy with gameplay of other popular games and how many people are interested in a different gameplay? Or will it be even possible to switch A3 into "casual" or "simulation" mode?

[Chortles]

I still think it would be tenfold better if BIS would do something more about 'authentic' and cut the gamey/arcade part of A3. Question is how many casual pvp and coop players will like it?

Well guess who I am!

In any case, "simulation" mode is probably called ACE... I'm perfectly comfortable with the "gamey/arcade" part in the vehicle simulation.

[Timnos]

Or will it be even possible to switch A3 into "casual" or "simulation" mode?

It's already possible to switch between 3rd person view for casual gamers and 1st person view for hardcore simulation players, it's a good system that suits all.

[TheCrusader]

Honestly reading all of this thread confused me.
Obviously many ppl here post their opinions over and over without listening to arguments of the other side.
To me it all breaks down to this:

"Realism crowd": Technology is not equally distributed IRL and so shoud not be in the game, as this "feels more authentic". Herein also lies a more or less overt criticism of the way BI handles modern fire control systems.

"Balance crowd": Stuff should have a rough equivalent on the other side of the fence, so if ppl flock to the side with more tech (which always happens) you do not have numerical + technological advantage against you.

I fully agree with the criticism on the BI FCS implementation.
Seriously, look at mandos stuff. There was a lot taken from his ideas for OA. So plz BI go the whole way and implement all of his stuff, yes its that good.
But I cannot understand whats the problem with both sides having equal tech in the future?
IRL the problem with most tech is not availability but price.
You CAN have top rated tech from Russia or China which is equal (at least in the resolution of the game) to modern western equip, its just very expensive. That is why u dont see it too often. But in the future with peak oil etc. who is to say how much money a country like iran could invest in the newest gadgets?
I think that is what Celery is trying to convey, correct me if I'm wrong.

Just my 0,02€

Cheers
Crusader