Multiplayer Balancing - Will Arma3's MP be balanced?

[W0lle]

Real combat is never balanced.
Taliban doesn't care if west has FLIR, NVGs and shit when planting those IEDs that kill more western soldiers than their AK bullets.
If you can't beat Abrams with your AK - get creative.

And I hope Bohemia will stay true to reality, not true to so called "MP balance"

[SirScorpion]

well that's cute guys, the response from this community and how it was worded is dreadful to say the least, same thing i saw on the BF3 forms and COD before hand. let me break this to you, Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim, Il2 is a SIM, DCS is a Sim, cliffs of Dover is a sim. seriously this whole i r mil sim gobktocod is whats draging this down. ACE brings it closer, but about ten tons of items are missing in terms of "Mil sim" in "Il2" my plane has wight, my gun can be shot off, a million things can go wrong, in DCS my helicopter as complex engine management, proper and correct weapon systems firing procedure. Arma has group hit points, right click lock kill weapon systems, infinity range IR scopes. and in vanila u can have a solder with 3 thousand machine gun rounds and an AT for good measure.

Can Arma be balanced? yes, hell yes, war is balanced on a whole huge amount of variables. i play warfare and i assume the OP is using that as a starting point. and this game is probably the easiest to balance b/c of 1 important game play element and that's cost. the whole war is not balanced when it comes to pvp crap does not fly, its sad and lazy to say otherwise, and this is why its hard as hell to get a game going. that exact mentality.

here a simple way to balance things, a few needed and already modded systems and lairs of complexity in weapon systems, simple right? wight? simple right?
IR scopes too op? well infantry IR scope has bat like of 3-4 hrs costs about 30k USD and has an ID range of about 900m tataaaa done IR is balanced.
M1A2 to op? sure it is but it can be for a cost of 4-5 T72, done balanced also if the T-72 had a proper AGM with engagement range of 4-5 km as it should be M1A2 wont be so op.
a US marine will set the government back about 500k-1mil USD, a Taki around 5k (over expected service life + factoring medical, insurance training etc"
the cold war was balanced in terms of tech, even without a MAD situation the numbers where balanced. the dip in "east" tech only happened in the last 20 years, but now its starting "slowly" catch up

but seriously guys, using ignorance as a shield to lolwut you way around things is not proper, and if you want this to be a true milsim, and balanced it can be done.

[Katipo66]

Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim...

Its a sim in my eyes, sure its not perfect, we all know the imperfections... sure it may not be as detailed a simulator as the ones you mentioned but can they do half the stuff thats possible in Arma? i dont know, i never played them! but i know ive never seen or heard off a game that gives me the same possibilities as arma can.

Also there are other factions than just Russia and US, how would you balance them out..

Mostly i like to play lowtech militia against the superpowers, its a different game... no to balancing.

[-=Grunt=-]

I don't think balancing should be done but I believe that every in-game vehicle should have a counter-part on both factions.

Like in ArmA 2, the USMC and Russians got counter-parts of every vehicle. (LAV-25/BTR-90, Su-25/A10, etc)

[Angle]

MP-Balance is not a game design issue in Arma, Its a mission specific issue.

And balance does not have to be symmetrical.

[metalcraze]

Arma is a bit away from being a Mil Sim

Why exactly? Because you can't tweak soldier's buttons and knobs? Alas soldiers don't have them.

You have ballistics here, you have wounding closer to reality than in any other shooter, you have all that artillery support and weapon systems that work more or less authentic. And of course you have weapons and vehicles dealing/taking damage in accordance to IRL data - aka "unbalanced".
AK74 is different from M4? Let me surprise you - they are different. In ArmA too.
An RPG can't take out Warrior (brit APC) by hitting its front armor but has no problem taking out BMP (russkie APC) from any angle? Surprise - IRL BMP is nicknamed "bratskaya mogila pehoty" which means "infantry mass grave". Can you guess why?

So why isn't it a milsim?

If you don't like how your PvP mission is "balanced" maybe that's a problem with a mission maker you know? Or maybe you expect wrong things from a milsim?

During WW2 soldiers didn't complain that the reality is unbalanced facing superior German Tigers which had 180mm (!!) front armor and were virtually impenetrable by anything available at the time. Germans even had assault rifles, while everybody else didn't. Germans had the best army in the world. And yet Germans lost.

[Rye]

If you at least try to balance it evenly for regular troops and loadouts then mission makers can make more fair matches, especially for PVP's. Then again, ACE and other mods will probably turn that around.

[Smookie]

I have played OFP, ArmA and ArmA2 competitive leagues for 9 years and I have never experienced severe balancing problems. Of course, this aint BF, but in general it is possible to weight out proportions of both sides by different means. In the series usually guns had their counterparts on both sides, same for regular vehicles (with small tradeoffs - for instance: hmmwvs were slower but tougher, uazs were faster but weaker etc.). The only problem was always with the heavy tanks and their toughness - western tanks were always superior to eastern and that usually hurt. But I believe even this can be compensated easily by a mission maker.

So let the realism crowd have the imbalance (realism) they wish for.

[Messiah]

It's up to/in the hands of the mission maker to balance the sides/equipment if they wish to, not for BIS to balance the gear they create. That's what the mission editor is there for.

[NoRailgunner]

Where is the challenge if all factions/sides do use the same vehicles, gear/equipment and weapon systems?