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You can already set satchels by cycling through F and Left-Clicking MB - Set Satchel & Touch Off need to be removed from the Action menu, because this is an accident, which is waiting to happen. :cc:

Timer functions could still be retained via Action menu; Touch Off would happen by cycling through F and selecting the placed satchel, then Left-Clicking.

Basically, what I would do: unload the Action menu from similar actions that should not be there and then possibly rework the Action menu system to something like radial selection by one key (middle mouse button, or whatever you bind it to) depress activation -> mouse over -> releasing the depressed key/button will trigger the action.

i would rather have the F key solely used as a fire selector for my primary weapon. every time i change the fire mode, i have to go through [grenade][smoke grenade][satchel] then it goes back to [semi].. it sucks, it's slows things down and just gets in the way.

thats why grenades should have it's own dedicated key, as well as explosives.

whats more intuitive? scroll down action menu, select M136. use M136, scroll down action menu, select primary weapon.

or - press 4, equip M136, use M136, press 1 equip primary.?

removing the whole command/action menu from the number keys, and using a pop-up rotary screen menu would not only speed up action selection, but also free up the number keys to be used for more useful tasks. the number slots can be inventory slots. that way we would be able to equip any specific inventory item we need at the time, instead of having to go through our gear menu.

i think this is what many people complain about when they say the ArmA series has clunky controls, apart from the animations and the bad collision model when inside buildings.

this is how i currently have my ArmA2 keys set:

WASD - general movement control

E - use/interact

Q - quick swap/last weapon used

R - main weapon sight

T - toggle between main sight and back up battle sight (AGOC and Elcan Specter DR have back up iron sights)

F - fire mode cycle (wish it didn't have grenade-smoke grenade-satchel on this)

G - gear menu

Z - reload

X - prone

C - kneel

V - stand

B - binoculars

N - night vision

Left Shift - lean left

Space bar - lean right (there's a reason why i have used shift and space for lean. i don't like using one of my movement control fingers to lean. it limits my movement options, as i either lean or move. with shift/space as my lean, i use my pinky and thumb to lean and can still move around freely. it makes moving around a CQC environment more dynamic)

i would love to add the scroll wheel as a control for movement speed. scroll up to go into a sprint, and scroll down to dynamically slow down to a slow walk. there are 3 phases in the movement animation, walk, jog and sprint. if you are at slow walk, as you scroll up, the walk animation speeds up. once at a specific pace, the animation changes over to jog. as you scroll up further, the jog animation speeds up until it changes over to the sprint animation. i would still keep key bound to these actions for times where you need to instantly change your movement speed.

in the end it's all about stream lining the players actions. with the current action/command menu system, you cycle through the commands as if they are pages. when something happens that needs your direct attention, you have to spam the backspace key to get out of the menu. a similar thing happens with the scroll menu... you have to press backspace to close the menu, or when you go to fire your weapon, you plant a satchel and get killed instead.

i completely agree on the rotary menu. click & hold middle mouse to open rotary menu, move mouse over the action you want, then release middle mouse to select action. if you want to close the rotary menu just release the middle mouse button in an open space.

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If you read what I wrote carefully - the issue is much deeper than 2xW. The issue is that changing speed with a mouse wheel is sloooooow and you can't immediately go from running to snail's pace.

I remember the speed-controlled-by-scrollwheel working very well in Hidden & Dangerous 2, it became very intuitive to use. And, IRL you also cannot go from running to snail's pace immediately :)

In fact - if it were up to me I'd increase on this idea and suggest that the speed controlled by the scroll wheel should go beyond 3 preset speeds, it should be variable beyond that. So that a guy with heavy loadout and a guy with light loadout could match movement speeds instead of constantly stopping/starting etc. I'd have a little onscreen indicator showing roughly my current speed setting (like a small bar or something) and have the scroll wheel smoothly increase/decrease that level. And a scroll-wheel-flick would go to max or min. Something like that, idea needs work obviously but it's just an idea. Not like BIS are going to take it & run with it :)

Besides mouse wheel is needed for the menu. But why the non-mouse wheel menu won't work is the stuff of the neighboring thread.

Rose GUI FTW :)

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Dynamo;2212154']i would rather have the F key solely used as a fire selector for my primary weapon. every time i change the fire mode' date=' i have to go through [grenade'][smoke grenade][satchel] then it goes back to [semi].. it sucks, it's slows things down and just gets in the way.

thats why grenades should have it's own dedicated key, as well as explosives.

this is how i currently have my ArmA2 keys set:

F - fire mode cycle (wish it didn't have grenade-smoke grenade-satchel on this)

I'm in total agreement with you there on dedicated keys for unique/often used Actions, such as satchels, grenades. I used F as an example of what is already in-game, but given some thought we could free up a key for this particular Action.

i completely agree on the rotary menu. click & hold middle mouse to open rotary menu, move mouse over the action you want, then release middle mouse to select action. if you want to close the rotary menu just release the middle mouse button in an open space.

Said radial menu could be positioned in the spot of the current Action menu, bordering the lower-mid right edge of the screen and it shouldn't exceed it in dimensions either - well depending on how big you want the text to be inside each "petal".

Something like a hexagon-shape with 6 equilateral triangles could be employed, giving you the choice of max 6 Actions to be placed there, but you could then divide the triangles in half, giving you 12 in total, though I'm not sure the text is going to be readable.

An octagon is another option,

mary1.1.gif

North-South parts may present a problem in readability. Another configuration,

459045TriangleOctagonDetail.jpg

Or,

http://archive.ck12.org/ck12/images?id=300645

Edited by Iroquois Pliskin

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I initally had planned to come again on sunday but I think I did not properly measure up the results of my party on saturday... :D

But nonetheless there are some really interesting things for us! :) Writing at the moment, might be finished in the evening

You sir have a different definition of "in the evening" than the rest of mortals :P

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I remember the speed-controlled-by-scrollwheel working very well in Hidden & Dangerous 2, it became very intuitive to use. And, IRL you also cannot go from running to snail's pace immediately :)

In fact - if it were up to me I'd increase on this idea and suggest that the speed controlled by the scroll wheel should go beyond 3 preset speeds, it should be variable beyond that. So that a guy with heavy loadout and a guy with light loadout could match movement speeds instead of constantly stopping/starting etc. I'd have a little onscreen indicator showing roughly my current speed setting (like a small bar or something) and have the scroll wheel smoothly increase/decrease that level.And a scroll-wheel-flick would go to max or min.

This is exactly what I meant (minus the small variability you talk about here). I'm not sure why people consider mousewheel slow and unresponsive. While I'm not advocating 100% Splinter Cell like system, doing the flicks as described above worked really well. Combining a modifier key like Shift, the action menu isn't affected at all, and there's no accidental speed alterations. Technically, Shift becomes your speed modifier key, and mousewheel is the analogue control method for selecting desired movement speeds.

I'm not sure why this is considered slow or unresponsive and I'd like to hear some reasoning behind this from anyone that argues that. Idea is that you don't have to stop moving, even for a millisecond, while holding W, and Shift + MW alters your speed without stopping. You're still free to go to any stance from any speed with let's say Y/X/C. In my previous post, Shift + Middle mouse was intended as safe/combat (weapon up/down, currently 2xCTRL on default) mode switch, which might have caused some confusion with stances. Abusing three, possibly more keys for different movement speeds is kinda strange to me.

Also, consider that such system could be used for vehicles to those who do not posses a joystick/gamepad. Let's say initially holding W in a car would eventually accelerate the car to it's top speed if possible, and if you wanted to keep in formation with a slower vehicle or infantry, you'd "dial down" the max speed with Shift + MW, acting as some kind of a limiter (or let's say that A3 cars have gears, and the same would instead control gears). Switching from "Warp 1" mode to "Warp 10" mode would be a flick of the mousewheel.

And to echo what DMarkwick said:

Something like that, idea needs work obviously but it's just an idea. Not like BIS are going to take it & run with it :)

Regardless, from the comments made earlier by devs, it looks like they tried this and abandoned it, reasons unknown. So basically, stay civilized discussing things, all this arguing is probably irrelevant in the big BIS picture.

Ah, imagine if keyboard keys were designed as analogue inputs, we wouldn't even have this discussion. :D

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I would rather have better AI over fancy graphics any day. In this day and age we should be able to get both. Please don't disappoint us on the AI front, BIS. If I shoot someone in the head or throw a grenade in front of hostile AI, I expect that AI to drop whatever it was doing aside from locking its sights on my forehead and react like a real person would. Is that too hard to program? Maybe it is. I don't know but that's what I want. :-)

I also want to see multiplayer type gamemodes which never worked quite right in single person mode to be fully functional and give me an online experience without actually playing online against a bunch of 12 year olds.

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Is that too hard to program? Maybe it is.
InstaGoat and Old Bear's recollections about their time at Gamescom are as much as I know about any user's hands-on experience with ARMA 3's AI.

LATE EDIT: At

Gaia is asked about AI minelaying and explains that the AI will not do unscripted minelaying "because sometimes it could actually break the mission," although "a mission designer can tell them how to do it by some very simple commands."
I also want to see multiplayer type gamemodes which never worked quite right in single person mode to be fully functional and give me an online experience without actually playing online against a bunch of 12 year olds.
This should be more on the wishlist discussion thread, but I have no idea what you mean by the first half, while the second half isn't going to be ensured except by only playing with already-known "mature" players on a password protected server. Edited by Chortles

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Well you can script the (shift+) mouse wheel movement speed change easily yourself.

Having such prototype available would surely help to gather practical experiences.

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Said radial menu could be positioned in the spot of the current Action menu, bordering the lower-mid right edge of the screen and it shouldn't exceed it in dimensions either - well depending on how big you want the text to be inside each "petal".

Something like a hexagon-shape with 6 equilateral triangles could be employed, giving you the choice of max 6 Actions to be placed there, but you could then divide the triangles in half, giving you 12 in total, though I'm not sure the text is going to be readable.

You guys should play more PR:ArmA2 ;)

http://media.desura.com/images/mods/1/16/15122/hud_cargo.jpg

All accessible with keys. No need to scroll or mouse select.

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You guys should play more PR:ArmA2 ;)

http://media.desura.com/images/mods/1/16/15122/hud_cargo.jpg

All accessible with keys. No need to scroll or mouse select.

Meh, looks convoluted for ordinary Actions. I have the following in mind,

http://www.sztab.com/tapety/galeria/tom-clancy-rainbow-six-3-raven-shield-3.jpg

Resize it, displace off-centre, partition it to whatever configuration suits best and voila.

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Meh, looks convoluted for ordinary Actions. I have the following in mind,

http://www.sztab.com/tapety/galeria/tom-clancy-rainbow-six-3-raven-shield-3.jpg

Resize it, displace off-centre, partition it to whatever configuration suits best and voila.

Thats because you didn'y played it. It works like a charm in PR:A2, worked pretty well in PR:BF2 and BF2 itself. Its fast once you get it figured, you can have more than one option per cell (RMB, LMB) and multiple layers for each.

abpSvri1.jpg

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I was making a comment on the HUD-cargo interface with which I was presented. We're talking Action menu, which is wholly different from command and the one you have there appears to have the same mechanics/structure as in Rainbow Six 3, so I see no reason for disagreement.

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We're talking Action menu, which is wholly different from command.

No it's same. In PR:ArmA2 it's separated into "Self-action" (T) and "Interaction" (SPACE) menu. Interaction menu works with objects. But both have same interface.

HUD-cargo interface is example of Interaction menu on cargo object. T (self-action-menu or whatever it's called in PR) is equivalent to R6:RS action menu.

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No it's same. In PR:ArmA2 it's separated into "Self-action" (T) and "Interaction" (SPACE) menu. Interaction menu works with objects. But both have same interface.

HUD-cargo interface is example of Interaction menu on cargo object. T (self-action-menu or whatever it's called in PR) is equivalent to R6:RS action menu.

Well, I wouldn't know - haven't played PR mod, since ACE 2 is "first come, first serve", wink, wink. :) I'd rather take vanilla and work up from there.

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I'd rather take vanilla and work up from there.

Sure, NIH is the most effective approach.

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Sure, NIH is the most effective approach.

Well, you see, a simple screenshot doesn't provide any info on how the menu operates: do you want to integrate Actions & commands somehow in a single radial menu with a lot of sub-sections?

You can have the same mechanics but separating the two is more practical, since not everyone uses AI and everyone has to utilise Actions.

---------- Post added at 13:11 ---------- Previous post was at 13:08 ----------

No it's same. In PR:ArmA2 it's separated into "Self-action" (T) and "Interaction" (SPACE) menu.

Self-Action is interaction: at any one time you only need a handful, four or five Actions, to operate effectively in any environment. I suspect PR adds a lot more stuff to do with objects, this is why I would rather proceed from vanilla. My solutions entails simply porting existing Actions (not commands) onto a radial wheel with one key press activation under any circumstances.

Edited by Iroquois Pliskin

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One advantage of the radial menu is that it should reduce the amount of misclicks. Often I'll be using the action menu when a new action suddenly appears, skewing my selection and causing me to make a mistake.

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Well, you see, a simple screenshot doesn't provide any info on how the menu operates: do you want to integrate Actions & commands somehow in a single radial menu with a lot of sub-sections?

You can have the same mechanics but separating the two is more practical, since not everyone uses AI and everyone has to utilise Actions.

---------- Post added at 13:11 ---------- Previous post was at 13:08 ----------

Self-Action is interaction: at any one time you only need a handful, four or five Actions, to operate effectively in any environment. I suspect PR adds a lot more stuff to do with objects, this is why I would rather proceed from vanilla. My solutions entails simply porting existing Actions (not commands) onto a radial wheel with one key press activation under any circumstances.

What about this then?

abbo0Kq4.jpg

http://imgbox.com/abbo0Kq4

Edited by Smurf

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What about this then?

http://t.imgbox.com/abbo0Kq4.jpg

Something like that. A few reservations, on which we both must agree:

1) 1-9 keys for weapon/gadget/misc items selection is best for streamlined gameplay. The bar itself should be positioned at the bottom of the screen, preferably in the lower right corner. The iconography must be refined to a level, where it blends in with the rest of the HUD elements and does not stand out against whatever you're looking at, or against any environment for that matter (Chernarus, Takistan, Lemnos). Ideally, when selecting a handgun for an example, only the second icon to would pop, leaving the rest of the bar hidden. This way you maintain HUD distractions/immersion breakers to a minimum.

2) Action menu must include self-Actions & player-world interactions, since this is essentially the same thing. A dedicated "action window" on HUD is not optimal, a better solution is a radial menu which changes depending on the context, much the same way the current Action menu does. Action menu would be brought up by depressing the middle mouse button -> move mouse over the required Action -> release the middle mouse button -> Profit.

3) Wholly agree on the command menu layout - a radial style cluster of hexagons. Activation by depressing the Space Bar, command & sub-section selection by mouse over -> left clicking. Right clicking would become the navigational "Back" button.

So far minimum shuffle, yet a lot of change in gameplay dynamics: Space bar for radial command menu, 1-9 for weapon/gadget selection, right mouse button becomes "backspace" when command menu is open. This frees up the scroll wheel up/down.

One radial Action menu, one radial command menu, one self-hiding, semi-transparent, slick weapons/item bar. Win? :)

Edited by Iroquois Pliskin

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1-9 keys for weapon/gadget/misc items selection is best for streamlined gameplay.

ArmA is not the kind of game where you hit 4 to switch to your rocket launcher so that you can rocket jump over a n00b then hit 3 while in midair to drop grenades on the guy then 5 to switch to your knife while landing behind him to stab him in the back for the "Knife Dudes" achievement then hit 1 to get your gun ready again. I don't want to play a game that "streamlined" please. There's plenty of CoDs and BFs and whatever else for that kind of gameplay.

Middle mouse + drag is a painful movement and takes your gun sights off target. Bad idea for needing to interact with everything...

All these suggestions sound and feel like everyone wants to play Battlefield or something arcadey. It's kinda disappointing.

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Imho controls have nothing to do with arcade'iness. I wouldnt mind having weapons set on number keys. Anyway, because as u can tell everyone has their own control schemes a solution is being worked out so that it appeals to everyone.

BTW some of these controls (space on lean right... wow!!) are so bizzare.... but

Stewie_sleep.jpg

;)

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ArmA is not the kind of game where you hit 4 to switch to your rocket launcher so that you can rocket jump over a n00b then hit 3 while in midair to drop grenades on the guy then 5 to switch to your knife while landing behind him to stab him in the back for the "Knife Dudes" achievement then hit 1 to get your gun ready again. I don't want to play a game that "streamlined" please. There's plenty of CoDs and BFs and whatever else for that kind of gameplay.

Middle mouse + drag is a painful movement and takes your gun sights off target. Bad idea for needing to interact with everything...

All these suggestions sound and feel like everyone wants to play Battlefield or something arcadey. It's kinda disappointing.

I have nothing against streamlined. However, I don't want it to be ridiculous either. I'm happy with the command menu as it presently stands. The other thing I wish that was different was that if you only had 12 guys in your squad then F1 through F12 would be your men (like back in OFP). If you were to get more men then 11 and 12 would then go to the next page, still be number 11 and 12 but now be assigned F1 and F2 as it is in ArmA 2. It is the number 1 reason I don't use full Army squads in Arma 2. It is too much of a hassle having guys on the next page. I can work with it when I need to but I strongly prefer a combination of the OFP and ArmA 2 way.

Additionally some kind of new action menu mechanic would be nice. Trying to go up a ladder or open a gate on a fence is too clumsy right now.

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ArmA is not the kind of game where you hit 4 to switch to your rocket launcher so that you can rocket jump over a n00b then hit 3 while in midair to drop grenades on the guy then 5 to switch to your knife while landing behind him to stab him in the back for the "Knife Dudes" achievement then hit 1 to get your gun ready again. I don't want to play a game that "streamlined" please. There's plenty of CoDs and BFs and whatever else for that kind of gameplay.

You're being irrational here, 10 keys (0 through 9) take up the command interface, while we have A LOT of equipment to deal with: primary weapon, secondary sidearm, grenades, smoke grenades, AT mines, satchels, tripwire mines, binocs, laser designators, range finders (B key can be freed up if necessary in this case) - lots more is, or will be there, I'm sure.

Middle mouse + drag is a painful movement and takes your gun sights off target. Bad idea for needing to interact with everything...

As opposed to trying to scroll a 1-dimensional list in a middle of a fight? Don't be silly, middle mouse button + mouse swipe takes milliseconds, while keeping the crosshair on target - any movement is disengaged much like when pressing ALT.

All these suggestions sound and feel like everyone wants to play Battlefield or something arcadey. It's kinda disappointing.

These suggestions help the game survive, because the interface is antiquated. Rainbow Six Raven Shield must be in the same category as COD now, huh?

---------- Post added at 20:11 ---------- Previous post was at 20:08 ----------

Imho controls have nothing to do with arcade'iness. I wouldnt mind having weapons set on number keys. Anyway, because as u can tell everyone has their own control schemes a solution is being worked out so that it appeals to everyone.

;)

I will sleep well tonight. :)

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GREAT argumentation! Are you what? Six, seven years old? They should get rid of the fancy graphics and physics too then, as every rail shooter has them nowadays.

Simulator is all about awkard controls and no-ease of use, nothing to do with simulation (well, this word is out of place) of systems, weapons and the way they interact with each other, as soldiers IRL struggle to do anything.

Just pathetic....

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What about this:

1-9 to select equipment right? Then for example if 5 is the hand grenade button, repeatedly pressing it would cycle grenades (frag, smoke, gas, etc). What do you guys think?

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