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jackthe®ipper

Raised weapon sights

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I know quite a few people, and my self, have problems firing from the prone while lying in even short grass. A large part of the problem seems to me that instead of raising the weapon when you right click, your sight actually lowers down to the weapon.

Now Im guessing this may be an engine limitation or something, but i would personally suggest having the weapon raised to a higher position when prone so seeing over the grass is easier. This has really been bugging me lately.

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It makes sense that the weapon stays in the same place while your head goes down to your weapon, that's what would happen IRL if you'd be holding your weapon in a firing position but not aiming, which is what the Arma 2 soldiers are doing, and which is why you can fire with reasonable accuracy (in terms of how stable the weapon is, not in terms of knowing where your bullets are going to hit, though with no crosshairs you know that as well) when you're not aiming.

The problems with grass are:

1. Grass in most places is ridiculously high.

2. There is no way to "raise" your stance a bit so that you are higher than normal (like standing "more straight" or raising your elbows a bit when prone, at the appropriate cost to weapon stability).

3. There is no (practical) way to pull away the grass in front of you so you can maybe see something, only thing you can do is crawl all over the place to level it with your body which is just not that practical.

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I've been taught to bring the weapon sights INTO my field of view -- not the opposite. That way I merely need to look at what I'm targeting and not disrupt my sight picture by crouching/moving head/etc down to meet the weapon.

Problem is the animations are not consistent with expectations -- there are no animations for going "into" ironsights mode.

-k

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He means from the prone, NkEnNy - no way to bring up your weapon in that position since your elbows are resting on the ground.

But for standing/crouching you are right.

I don't know if it would be possible to fix this up with an addon, or even if it would produce the desired effect if you did. A remedial fix would be to not get into fights on open grass fields, i guess :D

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@Hund

Your absolutely right -- I'm a muppet for not reading closer. Even so the lack of 'enter ironsights' mode is part of the problem.

-k

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In another thread, I had suggested that they put in a 'briefly crane your head up for a better look' command (...body stays where it is, but the head/view goes up and lets you look around a bit).

More ideal would be the ability to raise your head up/down in freelook... both with the ALT key and with TrackIR.

But, that doesn't exactly address your concern... but maybe it could be incorporated towards a solution.

If the grass is just too high for you, I'm told there are mods to reduce the height.

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ladlon: You should take some time and read the forum. Suggestions and extensive talks about moving our heads/upperbody a bit more has been discussed a lot.

And suggestions here is more for discussion - not as a proper suggestion for game changes. You all know where thats done.

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Be fair, I'm agreeing with the suggestion. The other things are me just mentioning various other options, etc. I'm not going into detail or anything. Just mentioning things in passing.

Edited by ladlon

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3. You can roll in the grass in front of you to flatten it, but the effect seems to last too shortly. Should last longer, and maybe dependent on wind. Another scripted approach would be to enable certain classes the ability to put down a "grasscutter" object, to simulate a prepped firing position. Vanilla Arma2 doesn't have this anymore (ACE does), but you can use createVehicle "HeliH" and remove its graphics.

Simply agree with the other two :) ACE does give you "rest weapon" which is nice, but there is too little general weapon sway to make the function particularly useful for regular riflemen.

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Yeah, weapon sway in the game is overall way too low. Hitting a target at 300-400m in standing position is extremely difficult IRL with any weapon, yet is quite easy in the game if your weapon is accurate enough.

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Yeah, weapon sway in the game is overall way too low. Hitting a target at 300-400m in standing position is extremely difficult IRL with any weapon, yet is quite easy in the game if your weapon is accurate enough.

It seems the developers are steering away from realism?I like Arma beacuse it attempts realism.I would think most people who want realism play Arma and then are letdown by developers making the game easier.I noticed terrible accuracy in Arma2.I was kneeling and enemy runs right in front of me around 20 feet away.I open fire expecting all my shots to hit since dot was right on enemy.Instead I found I needed 3 seperate bursts to take him down.

Could the removal of sway be a reason that accuracy or dispersion is worse.Maybe people complained of not liking sway so they added in dispersion.IMO that only makes game feel wrong.You want an up close shot to be a pull trigger/dead enemy scenario.

I watch videos of say OFP and seem to like the fights in them.I can't pinpoint what or why.

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Oh dear. If you like arma I'd run to the store and pick up a copy right now if I were you.

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If you miss at 20 feet it's all your fault to be honest. Do remember jogging in Arma 2 is 20 KM/H which is pretty fast, so its not extremely easy to keep your sights well on a moving target at any distance, even if it's close enough for you to not need to lead your target. Plus, you fired in a burst, which means your followup shorts were affected by recoil. In the end it is easy to keep sights on target, but you still need to actually do that to hit....

Arma 2 has sway, it's just way too low. Same for dispersion (and ACE increases that dispersion to the point where it is too much with some weapons).

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I wasn't moving at all.I totally agree with you that recoil is the reason for my terrible attack.I thought it was gun accuracy but come to realize its recoil being extreme for standing/crouching.If you fire in burst mode the gun should be centered back on target by the time you send next burst away.I feel that the recoil could use a revamp for better play.

I'm also all for more sway while standing but would really like to see recoil reduced for standing and crouching.I do not know if ACE changed the recoil from default Arma2 and I did not see recoil mentioned in the list of changes made.In ACE I feel recoil is too high for standing and crouching.Its like you need to go prone to make a shot and alot of times in game being prone is terrible due to grass etc blocking your view.Of course standing and prone will have higher recoil still but it will feel sweet if the gun is still controllable.Wars are not fought mostly prone afterall.:cool:

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The recoil in the game is not too big. If anything, it is too low, and is still too low after the huge increase ACE gives to some weapons' recoils. The way the weapon recoils, though, is quite weird which might be why you are thinking there is too much recoil.

Being able to shoot 3 shots/second at 400m, even when prone (but with no bipod/weapon rest), and actually having a decent chance to hit is just not feasible IRL due to recoil and having to re-aim.

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Your probably right Galzohar.I love realistic ballistics,pulls me into game.Just wanna mention though how bad a badly implemented sway can be.Look at Stalker and its sway.The gun would move in a straight line up then straight diagnol then straight horizontal etc.I think a good sway would be an up and down with breathing with some slight horizontal as this is happening.

I think BIS has done some changes to game.Look at this video of OA and notice sway and less recoil. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9PI5fpINJI

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The absolute biggest problem with current recoil is that the weapon comes back precisely where it was when you fired it. The amount I actually do think is a bit too high, making SAW gunners a bit too ineffective unless prone, and their counterpart riflemen a bit too effective. The M240 seems fine though.

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That's actually a really good point, CarlGustaffa. Seems trivial at first, but it actually makes a big difference, since you don't have to readjust each time.

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That's actually a really good point, CarlGustaffa. Seems trivial at first, but it actually makes a big difference, since you don't have to readjust each time.

There is a new sway mod on the boards thats pretty good but not yet there.If this sway was increased and recoil lessened then it might feel very natural how your realigning after each burst.

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Grass is too tall? - hmm - I guess some battles DO happen on golf courses by coincidence... I personally have all grass except the lawn type / small tufted stuff reconfigured to be between 50% and 100% taller - this makes for an amazingly realistic result. IRL finding a firing position where you can see thru / past foliage etc. is a BIG deal!

And on recoils - M16 family actually have very light recoil + they're designed such that recoil is directed straight back not upward. It's quite easy to put accurate 3 shot groups out. Again, I've dialled recoils DOWN to a realistic level in my game.

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If changing recoil, the sway should be increased quite a lot. You reduce it temporarily with breath control, but you wouldn't be able to do breath control if you were low on stamina or being suppressed etc.

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I do hear you about sway, but altho I have no problem with sway for certain purposes - ie. wounded inaccuracy, fatigue and being suppressed - my personal preference is for the effect to be kept minimal and dispersions used to actually generate the final degradation in accuracy.

Same for recoil - we have to be realistic in understanding that for most combat rifles - particulary "assault" rifles - a trained soldier really doesn't have to think or worry too much about recoil. There are certain exceptions such as high powered sniper rifles and shotguns but broadly speaking recoil shouldn't factor in a players ability to aim and shoot weapons. OFP does the whole thing very well but ARMA games went in a bit of a crazy direction with recoils IMO.

In fact it's not so much the SIZE of the recoils that are fubar in ARMA2 but the SLOOOOW speed of them - it's mainly the speed that I adjust. Having the sight resettle to a point a tad off the original aimpoint would be a good thing too - this could be made different for various weapons (M16 family could in fact be left returning to the same point IMO).

People overestimate how hard it is to aim properly. I mean AIM, not SHOOT - of which aiming is only part - granny can line up the sights perfectly, but can she pull the trigger properly, spot the fall of shot and make subsequent aim corrections? In ARMA2 the player is supposed to be a trained soldier.... Again, OFP does it all quite well - I never thought about how the weapons handled from day one with OFP but the first time I tried to shoot in ARMA it was "WTF!!". The big issue shouldn't BE about wrestling the sight back onto the target - it SHOULD be about working out where the bullet/s actually went and correcting accordingly... It's a game - we're NOT shooting real weapons - so spending too much time on "realism" is silly - we need to be trying to get the basic mechanics workable and having appropriate and "realistic" RESULTS. Again, they got it pretty good in OFP so it's not like this is uncharted territory.

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Dispersions for inaccuracy? Are you serious? In real life, if your sights are on target when you pull the trigger and your trigger pull is at least half-decent, assuming you're not pushing your weapon to its limits (which is rarely the case, usually it's the shooter being the limiting factor) you will hit the target. Putting the sights on target, though, is often not trivial, especially when standing or crouching. I'd rather have the game simulate the "having a hard time putting sights on target" in places where that is the actual cause for missing, and only set dispersion values for the actual inaccuracy of the weapon itself (which should be very small for most weapons in comparison to the sway).

I agree people overestimate how hard it is to aim properly, but the difficulty of aiming should be simulated as a difficulty of aiming, not a random number sending your bullets off-course. If in real-life having sights on target lets you know that you will hit, it's important to have that effect in-game as well. The random dispersion is one of the main things that turned me off of Project Reality for Battlefield 2, which otherwise has a lot of great features. For PR though they have BF2 engine limitations which seem to prevent a more realistic approach, while Arma 2 doesn't suffer from said limitations.

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Hi, in the ArmA and the ArmA2 Demo, when you aim down the sights what did happen was that your point of view went down too much for the common grass height and also the few debris on the citys; what will be a good solution in my opinion, will be to rise a bit the weapon (close the angle that your elbows form when prone) and lower the head to actualy paste your cheek to the weapon stock.

Will be great to have another memory point (on the O2) to mark where the character will put the cheek on the weapon's stock and also... make the characters turn the hip when aiming down the sights and scanning for targets than having 'em moving more the shoulders and arms rather than the hip; that's how you'll do it IRL.

For what i seen on the ArmA2 Demo... there's room for make many improvements on the animations field; aim down the sights animation included. Let's C ya

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galzohar - I pretty much totally disagree with you dude! - check out what I said in the "being suppressed" thread rather than have me repeat it all here. Basically what I've said is that unless you slip or burp or fart or hiccup at the crucial moment or otherwise have some BIG messup - a bad shot is usually indistinguishable from a good one from the point of view of what you're seeing down the sights at the moment you pull the trigger. Certain "environmental" effects need to be applied for sure by way of aimpoint sway ingame - ie. fatigue, wounding - but otherwise, my ability to put rounds on the target point is only PARTIALLY dependent on being able to put the sights on it. If it was as easy as "the bullet goes where the sights are pointed" then 5 year old kids could be killer soldiers. The bullet goes where the weapon finally makes it go - which relies on both direction AND MOTION at the instant the bullet leaves the barrel - the "chase the sway and pull when it's passing over the target" model is fundamentally flawed - ie. when a plane drops a bomb it doesn't just fall directly vertically from the drop point to impact....

wipman - I think the answer to your point and also the OP is to actually have a system where either the stance up and down method is given more "steps" - or still have the three basic stances - ie. Prone, Crouched and Upright - but then be able to step in small increments up and down from each - even prone, which would give the option of being able to push up somewhat and be able to see over grass etc. a bit better - else be able to actually lay fully down with head on ground - tho how useful ingame that last would be might be arguable (unless some stealth / improved cover mechanic is attached to it) - but it wouldn't do any harm - point is that a universal "slight view step up/down" control that can have effect in any of the standard starting stances should be easy to implement because it wouldn't even need to be different for Prone.

Edited by Chumba

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