Hello everybody, I was somewhat active on these forums back sometime before version 0.40 (or whatever it was) and just recently rediscovered the game. I enjoy playing games like ARMA2 (with ACE mod of course) and a lot of these suggestions are going to be based on what I've experienced with that. I'm aware that this game isn't trying to be a military simulator, but I think there are a few things that can be changed or added to make the game feel and play better, and perhaps even look better.
(I didn't intend for this post to be this big... oh well...)
Weapons: (This is what people would be most interested in, so it goes first!)M240/Automatic Rifles Posture: Currently this only applies to the M240. If the M240 cannot be fired from the shoulder while standing or crouching then the character should perhaps hold it at the hip or pointing towards the ground. This gives a visual indicator that the weapon can't be fired from that position. Naturally, it would be raised up to the shoulder when the bipod is deployed on a surface, kinda like it does now.
Weapon "Classes": This isn't really so much meant for realism than it is meant to give weapons their own 'personalities' and uses (This may or may not tie into character classes, should Pasik decide to implement those, which I'm not all that for or against right now). I'll put some suggestions for counterparts or changes as well. Not really a short-term goal, I'm suggesting this because I didn't notice much difference between using the G36 and the AKM (then again I always grab the G36 when I see it so...)
- The way I see it the G36 would be more suited to firing at longer ranges with less recoil and more accuracy, but the smaller caliber round wouldn't do as much damage.
- The AKM would be a more mid to close range assault weapon, with more recoil. It would do more damage, and it could have a bayonet attachment which allows it to attack in melee faster than people who have to reach for their knife (bayonets for this weapon do exist).
- The M240 is a relatively heavy weapon for the role it's trying to play in this game. It weighs ~10-12kg (for reference, an M4 carbine weighs ~2-3kg), and is just relatively unwieldy to use. To make up for it, it could be very accurate and have a heavy punch in its round, more than the AKM. If bullet penetration were added, this would be a devastating weapon. Easily flanked though. If this weapon were to be replaced with something similar, the PKM or M60 would be a fitting choice.
- An alternative to the M240 would probably be less accurate and have less stopping power (for gameplay purposes), but be more mobile and have a higher capacity ammo belt. A faster rate of fire would also be nice. Weapons that come to mind are the MG4 (probably not...), MG36 (Somewhat redudant because there's already a G36?) and the M249 (made by the same guys who made the M240). If suppression effects are ever added then this weapon would most likely be the main source of that effect, its purpose to pin enemies down and make sure they aren't shooting back rather than killing them outright.
- Mossberg 500... Pump action makes its rate of fire relatively low, and loading each shell individually makes reloading slow as well. Interruptable reloading means you aren't stuck defenseless while reloading... Good for clearing trenches and close quarters, since it fires so many pellets at a time, it may hit multiple enemies, and it will kill anybody who is hit directly at closer ranges. Not something you want to be using out in the open, if you can avoid it, but that's not why you would use this kind of weapon anyways. Alternatives to this gun could be... well, lots of different kinds of pump-action shotguns. There are semi and fully automatic shotguns, but perhaps those would unbalanced?
- The MP5SD is the weapon people think of when they think of suppressed weapons. It is so silent, it has been said that the shell casings hitting the floor are louder than the weapon itself firing. Relatively high rate of fire but a very weak weapon. They won't know what hit them.
- A counterpart to the MP5SD would be one that hits harder and perhaps isn't as quiet. I honestly don't know quite so much about SMG's so I really can't give many suggestions here, but I would go on the assumption these weapons are supposed to be silent. Many SMG's can fit a suppressor, the P90, UMP, Bizon, etc. are just a few examples. Pick one and just modify it the way you want, it doesn't even have to make too much sense as long as it fits the gameplay. Heck, the MP5 might not even need a counterpart. You could have something like a Glock 19 and have the character hold the knife at the same time, allowing for quick melee (like the AKM with bayonet) at a loss for some ammo capacity.
Marksman Weapons: Sniper rifles of all sorts, from designated marksman rifles (typically semi automatic with less powerful scopes), to sniper rifles (would probably be able to hit things almost across the current map if they were implemented 'realistically') to anti-material rifles (penetrate light armor, explode munitions, explode heads and torsos...). Personally I've never been too fond of 'typical sniping' in video games, as it seems to just be a way to rack up your KDR with little threat to you, which isn't what snipers and marksmen are really for. I suppose it's something to consider though, since all the kiddies want to play with their omglawl snipur riffuuls herp derp derp. I think the focus of the game sohuld stay towards mid to close range combat, myself.
Launcher Weapons: Something to think about for the future, most likely, when vehicles come into play. Disposable ant-tank weapons like the RPG-22 (and the others like it), M136, M72, etc. fire one light anti-tank rocket and are then disposed of, but they are generally lightweight and can be carried by regular soldiers not carrying heavy equipment such as the AR. Heavier antitank weapons would include the M3 MAAWS, Mk153 SMAW, and RPG-7 and can be reloaded. They can also be loaded with varying rounds that behave differently depending on what you want to use it for. Then there's the even heavier launchers such as the FGM-148 Javelin, M47 Dragon, 9P151M Metis, and NLAW and are purposed more towards destroying tanks and may have guidance systems. There are of course grenade launchers, some which can be mounted on assault rifles, and they are all very lethal, perhaps too unbalanced for this kind of game. There are also underbarrel shotguns for assault rifles, which would defeat the purpose of having the Mossberg.
Grenade Types: Right now all grenades seem to be fairly large HE grenades. HE grenades, as you may have guessed, simply create an explosion when they are detonated. Most grenades these days, however, are fragmentation grenades. The explosive effect is actually relatively small, but the killing power comes from the shrapnel it produces. Think of it as a shotgun that fires in every direction at the same time. They would not do much structural damage to bunkers and such but they generally have a larger 'radius' than HE grenades simply because the fragments can travel further, but HE grenades have a more guaranteed kill zone while fragmentation may actually miss people further out. So, from a gameplay perspective, this means that if frag grenades are used, the explosion should be much, much less dramatic and only produce smoke the way it does now if it explodes on sand or loose dirt, but it will shoot several projectiles in every direction which rapidly lose their power over distance. HE grenades should pretty much behave the same way they do now... maybe lower the kill radius just slightly. (There are also other types of grenades but I'm not sure if they are within the scope of this game)
Support Fire/Off-Map Artillery/CAS: Right now the only support fire are mortars, which basically make a few grenade-sized explosions in a small area. Making mortars more available while not making them completely relied upon/spammed would be interesting. Right now you can only possibly get a few per map and that's it. Mortars taking time to reload would be an option, but then the question is how long does it take to reload, and what prevents someone from just hiding in cover and spamming mortars on the enemy. This would apply to other support assets such as artillery, naval barrage, DPICM artillery/cluster strikes, and other goodies. The problem is that these kinds of strikes are very very powerful and could probably wipe out entire grids of enemies if they were modeled realistically. The same applies for various CAS assets, where a strike from an attack helicopter could dominate a whole sector, and napalm strikes, carpet bombs, AC-130, and such would be pretty much the same story. For the moment it seems that small mortar clusters are fine and don't add too much complication. Perhaps have it so you can set the dispersal for the rounds, and have them fire in volleys.
Tracers: I have already talked about this. Basically, tracers should have more meaning in the game other than just indicating that bullets are flying through the air... if I need to I'll add more information. Some of these could probably be easily implemented, but the light source things would probably be a more long term goal.
Particle Enhancements: During nighttime, muzzle flashes should be what they're like now, and even produce small sources of light briefly. Suppressed weapons would not have this effect, since suppressors not only silence weapon noise when firing but also suppresses muzzle flashes. During daytime the ambient lighting is much, much brighter than at night, and muzzle flashes should be very subdued. Currently weapons produce black puffs of smoke when being fired which is relatively accurate, except the smoke puffs should be white rather than black.
Crew Served Weapons (CSW): This could
sort of be tied in with constructing things. Crew Served Weapons are basically weapons that take more than one person to operate. However, in terms of gameply, they could simply just be emplaced heavy machineguns, rocket launchers, mortars, grenade launchers, all that good stuff. Being able to place them on constructions, fortifications, trenches, just about anywhere that's needed would be ideal. Usually a weapons squad will have a rifleman who carries the tripod/baseplate and the gunner that carries the weapon, but perhaps CSW's could just be boxes that need to be dragged/transported, and then while standing near the box you can deploy the weapon on anything nearby.
General GameplayScreen Shake: Currently the only real screen effect is shaking when an explosion goes off on-screen. This should be changed so that explosions far off do not effect the screen, but explosions near the player should. This should also apply to any effects that may be added later such as blur or color correction. Basically, if an event occurs that effects a small area, it should not effect the camera simply because you're looking at it, it should only have an effect when it's near the actual player character.
Looking and Aiming: Right now your character can only move in 8 directions, and thus only really face 8 directions. When stationary you remain looking in the direction you had been moving before even when moving your cursor around. Having characters look where they're pointing while not shooting simply makes sense. Your upper body or head looking towards the cursor while moving would also be good. AI who are not looking at you when you start shooting at them from behind should also have a sort of delayed reaction. Many times I have snuck up behind an enemy who instantly turns around and shoots me. Other times I've noticed enemies who I've started shooting at from the side or event the front stop and take a second to react to me, so it seems a little inconsistent. Finally this allows squad AI to ambush in the direction you're facing more easily, but would this cause them to constantly change position as you looked around?
Grenade/Supply Box: The grenade box should be changed into a general supply box. Touching it refills your ammo and grenades, but 'using' it (pick up weapon button) should allow you to select which weapon you want to use (among other things further down the line perhaps). Trying to loot the weapon I want off bodies isn't really... good. A sort of delay for using the box would help prevent standing by the supply box and spamming grenades at people.
Suppression: This wouldn't have to be anything too dramatic, perhaps make it so if a lot of bullets are going past or landing near you your aim gets a little messed up, or the edges of the screen blur a little. Machineguns and explosions would have a greater effect than assault rifles and SMGs. It shouldn't be a gamebreaking thing. Then again, I don't know if this sort of thing is within the scope of the game. It already seems the AI will try to put itself between you and an object to avoid incoming fire, allowing you to send your squad out to flank them... but it doesn't quite work as well as I hope.
User Interface/HUDMap Appearance/Layout: Right now the map pops out from the left of the screen and wobbles a bit, but it's just a UI overlay of some sort. Replacing it with some sort of GPS or digital map would look better, and make it so objectives are listed on the side, allow grid coordinates to be displayed, and for future things (High commander mode?) The numbers indicating force strength should be displayed like the objectives are, right now they only show up after the map has stopped wobbling when you pop it out. Hovering over a grid on the map should also display what grid it is somewhere. A current grid display in the main game screen would also be nice.
Squad indicators: Currently there's no way to tell who is in your squad, or even if you have anybody following you. There's a small circle under the player's character, so I don't think it would be too hard to have some sort of indicator under/over squadmates. Having a special icon appear or some other kind of indication for when teammates join or leave your squad would be handy, too. Teammates saying "I'll follow you" or "You lead the way" could be one way of indicating this...
Improved crosshair: The current crosshair is the typical vertical and horizontal bars, which to be honest doesn't really fit in well in a game like this, especially when your bullets can be coming from any direction of the screen. Back when I played (before the dynamic crosshairs) I replaced the default cross with a circle. The circle would change color depending on if the target could be hit or not, while leaving the target unobstructed by the cross. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to make the circle bigger (or to have two separate circles) much like the current ones do as your fire becomes less accurate. The indicator could also more easily show the direction from the target to you (sometimes it's harder to keep track of both you and the target especially when they are on opposite sides of the screen) by having a simple chevron or post of some kind in the direction the player would be firing from. An alternative and probably simpler solution would be to have three 'posts' instead of four, and just remove the top post, then have the dynamic crosshair rotate so the bottom post always faces the player character. (After writing this it occurs to me I have already suggested this.... but I'm going to leave it here, just for completion)
From left to right: Current expanding crosshairs, My crosshairs pre-0.40, Small circle crosshair with an echelon indicating direction towards player with a larger faint circle that expands and contracts like the current one does, three-post crosshair with bottom post facing player, grrbllhlthbapthh.Line of sight awareness: This mainly ties in with the crosshair suggestion, but I honestly am not sure if it would work very well or look very good in this kind of game. I'm going to suggest it anyways, just to see what you guys think. If you've played any of the Close Combat games you'll know exactly what this is. Basically a (colored) line will be drawn from the muzzle of your weapon to the target, and if it intersects an object the color of the line changes past that point. It could probably be an alternative to the current implementation, which uses a more Men of War approach (in fact, I modified the 'helper crosshair' to be a yellow dot, much like that game had it).
Line is green, then turns yellow with a dot at an obstruction, then turns red past the intersection. End of the line has a red dot. A clear line of fire would be a solid green line from the muzzle to the target.Additional Crosshair Information: If you have played the Half-Life 2 episodes (I can't remember if the original had this) you may have noticed health and ammunition counters on either side of the crosshairs, both important things to know in a place where you don't have to stray your eyes from what you're trying to look at. Instead of health and ammo though, I think something such as elevation difference from the player to the target would be more useful (no health bars are a good/interesting thing, and knowing how much ammunition you have in a magazine is something I may get into later). There may be other uses as well, such as likelihood a grenade will land at the given target.
Rank indicator: The bottom right of the screen has a saluting soldier with a number to indicate rank. The icon is relatively large considering it doesn't really serve much of a purpose, and the number next to it is the only relevant information it gives. This should be replaced with something more useful. If there are ever classes implemented into the game it could simply have a silhouette representing that class so you know what class you are. If not, it should instead have a graphical representation of your rank. Either that or the icon could be sized down and have a fraction number indicating the maximum number of soldiers that can be in your squad compared to how many are actually in the squad.
Personal awareness/hud/what do you call this: The further away from the center of the player character the cursor is the less information about the player should be displayed, or different information should be displayed. Having the cursor over/near the player character would be similar to looking at themselves I.E. Their inventory, status of weapons, other personal information. When looking away some of these elements should be removed from the HUD or made more transparent to give better awareness.
Construction/Cover Related: (These are mostly future goal suggestions)Blast Craters: Large explosions should create craters. Altering the terrain wouldn't really be necessary either, simply placing a crater object with appropriate textures corresponding to terrain would work.
DFPs: Shellscrapes and foxholes are created by digging and displacing earth to the outer edge of the position, creating a wall of dirt to hide behind and staying below ground level so direct and indirect fire has less effect on them. Shellscrapes are typically very small and laying prone is needed for them to work, but they are faster to make than foxholes. Foxholes are generally deeper and gives a soldier better protection, and allows them to kneel and still be fairly well protected while firing. These kinds of positions are generally easy to create using a shovel by any soldier.
Sandbags: Sandbags are great in that they can be placed on just about anything to offer more protection and can be filled with sand or dirt by any soldier, then emptied and carried off to another position to be reused. Sandbags can be placed on existing fortifications, on buildings, or even on top of each other to create a wall. Gameplay wise it might not be desirable to have to place each and every sandbag individually, however, its various applications are something to think about. For example, you could have different types of sandbag walls available to build if you have a sandbag item, or you can use it to 'upgrade' an existing structure to increase how much punishment it can take before being destroyed. They could also increase the survivability of vehicles to small arms fire. Sandbags wouldn't be able to be filled if there's no dirt or sand available (the middle of a road).
"Engineer buildings": These are really just more complicated structures that, if classes were implemented, wouldn't be created by regular soldiers as easily, or just take much longer to make. Examples would be wooden bunkers, larger trenches reinforced with wood, and more permanent fortifications like concrete constructions. Barbed wire
may also fit in this category. Since some of these take longer it may be best to have a player place a 'blueprint' of sorts and allow defending AI soldiers to create it, since you may not want to be sitting at your base for 5 minutes making a trench or something.
Empty Map: Starting with a 'virgin' map and having the defensive structures pop up by people placing them (or if you want more simplicity just have pre-designated areas certain structures can be built, designated by piles of supplies or boxes, would make AI more manageable) would be neat. You start the game in a nice town or countryside, and by the end after brutal fighting the place has been bombed to hell with rubble and destroyed bunkers littering the place.
Multiplayer:Radio Messages: Players should be able to broadcast team-wide radio messages. A button to view radio logs would be good to have, since you may get a message during combat and miss it. This could tie in with the map idea from earlier, where the space next to the map could display previous messages.
Directional VOIP: This would probably be a future goal. Using a microphone and having the sound originate from the player's character would be pretty awesome. If you have ever played ARMA2 with ACRE on a server with 60+ players it really helps, since regular 'omnipresent' voice chat would quickly become a mess. Perhaps in the future if the game becomes popular, might not be needed when there's only 10 people on a server.
New Co-op Gamemodes: Game modes where you to go through pre-built missions with your buddies, defend against whordes of zombies, prevent waves of enemies from breaching all your defensive lines and getting to your HQ, whatever you can think of. The last option is one I'd like to see most, currently.
At this point I'm kinda sick of making this topic/typing in general and I want to do other things, so I'm just going to stop it here. My final suggestion, which is more like a wish or a dream, is that
Off the grid terrain were added to this game. I wouldn't know how possible it is, but if it is it's definately something that should be looked into.
A final note: please give your input and thoughts.
Login
FAQ
Search
