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So there are plenty of challenges that present themselves at the notion of a consolized ARMA 2. I'm a PC only gamer, so I really have no vested interest in an Xbox 360 ARMA 2, but sometimes I just love to brainstorm gameplay ideas. And I think both platforms can enjoy benefits of increased revenue for BIS from a successful and uncomprimising port.
Now there are a ton of subjects to tackle in the challenge of porting this game to 360 format. I'm skipping the obvious technical challenges and instead will tackle IMO a much more difficult and abstract challenge, that of preserving BIS' realistic individual bullet ballistics and long engagement ranges (which for me make this game a much more rewarding infantry and gunplay experience than other shooters), while still making it assessible for the rather clumsy and imprecise nature of a gamepad.
How are they going to perserve the challenge of BIS' comprehensive inidvidual bullet ballistics physics? It hard enough trying to hit something at ARMAs typical engagement range 200-400 m (in which ppl look quite small) with a controller, then factor in them running and changing distances, past 300 you will have to aim high, short distances (80 or less) you will have to aim slightly low, so elevation + lead off + shooting at very small targets. Its such a deep shooting experience that I can unwind and enjoy my freetime simply firing a few shots off at my sniper range. But that's with a mouse.
A Gamepad is a whole different animal, and dumbing down the shooting experience, doing auto-aim or whatever would destroy one of the central tenants of ARMA's strategic depth.
Heres the system I propose. I have not seen such implemented in any game thus far. It goes like this: When you attempt to engage difficult target(s) (say a man at 350 m, running 45 degrees obliquely towards you (remember, gamepad)). you get to activate a sort of non-realtime adjustment mode to take a ballistically adjusted shot. I'm naming it "Marksman focus". Please keep reading, the devils in the details.
The mode is a timed (3-5ish sec) pause or bullet-timeish event where you zoom to see the enemy (zoom level would be a function of target distance, weapon type/optics and caliber, etc). No assists, you judge distances based on the amount of zoom you receive and on camera travel time. You judge lead-off for moving targets based on the targets' animation, facing, etc, at the time of mode activation. The mode is of course only available after you make IDed contact with the enemy. Now heres the trick.
You get to do a double tap. First shot sends down a tracer. A couple seconds time elapse (still in zoomed, bullet time mode). You get a second shot 2ish sec after first misses, you adjust based on tracer.
If your first shot kills (the tracer round), you get a bonus shot to repeat the process after 3 sec elapse realtime on another target. For the more common case of the first shot missing, you reset 12 sec before you're able to re-enter this Marksmen mode (a second shot kill on the double tap does not get the bonus). The notion is you can pull off a string of first shot aces mimicking a successful "zeroing in" on the enemy squad, like if the enemy is moving bunched up and directly towards you.
For their tactical error and your good shooting you get the reward of potentially neutralizing mulitple targets in one shooting cycle without having the 12 second realtime reset. (Remember we are taking gamepad control, so such bonuses will be hard to come by.) In the usual case that you kill the target on the second, tracer adjusted shot you revert back to normal FOV and cant re-enter the mode for 12 secs.
You can use this time to laydown fire/pot shots, assign targets to your squad, move to a better firing position, etc. So if you've got good thumb dexteritory and a solid understanding of projectile ballistics you can string together first shot kills. Otherwise you'll have to play a more tactical approach.
The system would balance and tweaked so for most people on first practical engagement (300m) of a 10 men enemy squad the player will average 3 of the kills and either your squad mates do the rest or you suppressed them to prone position(something the AI already does, and now they are staring at tall grass and cant see a thing) and then improve your position to where you're able to pull off a string of first shot kills.
In conclusion, the basic premise of my system is that we want to keep the challenge of realistic ballistics and the overall depth of BIS' gunplay, but allow a gamepad user to actually have a chance to hit something moving or even just stationary at 300m (and not by requiring they have ungodly gamepad skills, not by resorting to auto-aim or crutches, but by implementing a hybrid system that helps with the main deficiecies of a gamepad for shooting, which is its lack of precision in engaging 300+m range small targets, compounded by the challenge of realistic projective ballistics modeling.
There is no crutch here. It will be a challenging approach to gunfights, in which the player that knows his weapons performance characteristics, moves into firing positions that stack the enemy, and has some levels of thumb dexterity will be a successful shooter. This system should allow console gamepad gamers to experience a whole new depth of shooting, previously availible only to the PC gamer.
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Originally Posted by Vandrel
). Just as a brainstorming session, I encourage anyone interested to read the full details of my idea and comment. I am confident that if you run the scenes of how the system plays out in your head a few times, it will become clear that my system allows effective use of a console gamepad while still retaining the challenging and rewarding aspects of BIS' complex gunplay. 