I believe the reason for this is because changing FOV screws with reticles on guns making them inaccurate, such as moving the range, zeroing points around. It was possible to change the FOV in Arma 2 with an online calculator and editing an .ini file, however as said above this would screw up the reticles. If you don't like the amount of FOV you have, you can always use 3rd person and free looking, that's what they're there for. The game also includes a peripherals system, which shows enemies and friendlies just off the sides of your screen as little red and green dots.

Also if you have the money, there is an excellent head tracking system you can buy that arma utilizes called trackir, It will automatically move your characters head around in game, from small head movements as you look around your screen.

Hope this helps

It likely won't be a feature if at all till beta, too many problems right now, with more coming.

Every first-person game should have an FOV slider from 60 up to 120 at least, no messing with .ini files, no breaking all the scopes because you've changed your FOV or any of that. It's a basic feature that should never be left out, and when it is it's usually because the game's a half-assed console port- not an excuse ArmA can fall back on! It's alpha so it doesn't matter much at this point but there needs to be an FOV setting in the full game.

An FOV slider would be nice, that's been asked for on the forums for a while, but it dosen't make enough of a game changing difference to implement it at the current state of affairs.

the current fov makes me very sick

that in the blur and glare and the slow framerate makes me want to puke

we need slider in graphics and options to individual enable / disable those other things.

yeah sure you can google and find workarounds, but what a pain.

I think my point was missed, The way the zeroing and realistic weapon mechanics are done, which other first person shooters do not do, makes it impossible (in its current form)to change the field of view without screwing up the realistic ballistics and zeroing. They have to pick a field of view then work with it, allowing FOV sliding that doesn't screw up zeroing and range markers on optics would mean sacrificing the realistic weapon zeroing etc (at least the way that it is currently done). This is my understanding of the situation.

i think that we'all understand what you are saying that it messes up the way zeroing and realistic weapon mechanics are done

but understand it does not matter, it does not matter that the weapon displayed looks wierd, it has to be so that people like myself can play the game at all.

other it we get very motion sick

its like color blind support its not because it makes it look better its so people with color blindness can then play the game.

so its not choice or like kind of thing, its a must have so that a certain part of the market can will buy and then be able to play.

they should just put slider to make it easy, right now we have to manually do math and change config files.

most games, including others that it messes up the visuals have it for people like myself.

eh... how does zeroing my rifle have anything to do with FOV. Or the way my gun handles via recoil?

Whether it would mess with the game or not as everything ArmA, use it at your own risk. ArmA is about options, so why restrict them?

It's easily doable to change the field of view yourself, i also think it is completely reasonable to not include a setting in a game that affectingly makes the weapons useless in any range over 300 meters. I have tried it in dayz, and moved the FOV from 75 to 90. This resulted in the DMR being mostly useless unless you spend the time to work out the new bullet drop points, because the ones on the sight cannot be relied upon once FOV is changed. Adding a setting to a game that effectively breaks it in some regards is not a sensible thing to do, and if it is really that bad for you http://www.wsgf.org/fovcalc.php and http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/31609-ultimate-fov-field-of-view-guide-for-arma-2-and-dayz-from-dayzpvpcom/ should help.

You can change FOV, it's just not neatly presented.

Firstly, set your aspect ratio correctly.
After that, go to your documents/arma 3 alpha folder, open the .Arma3AlphaProfile folder and look for fovTop. That value should let you change FOV.

Beyond that, it's default to be a bit zoomed in, you can double tap Minus in order to lock the view to a zoomed out view.

^ I'd forgot about the double tap.

The only reason changing FOV breaks the reticles and such is because they're 2d elements and they apparently aren't made to scale to any other FOV than the default one.

This could easily be fixed by making the scope overlays scale based on the FOV/apect ratio.

This should have already been done, as not everyone has the same aspect to begin with.

@integ3r:

Double tapping minus does zoom out, but the fov resets to default as soon as you aim the sights. Well, at least for me it does I can tell. So I guess this needs to be fixed then?

@Psychomorph

Yes, the double-tap feature needs to be fixed as I hate the default FOV. The double-tapping also needs to remain in the vehicles as well, as I find the default way too close and confined.

However i think it would work better if:

non-tactical mode (normal default look): The FOV is set to 90 or whatever the figure is when zoomed out is toggled, just general purpose awareness and peripheral view. This should be the default.

Tactical mode/pace when weapon is raised: The FOV should change to the default as it is currently since your focus will be much more narrowed at where the weapon is pointing. No change basically.

Aiming down the sight: This should also allow the default zoomed in as is currently to simulate the narrower focus. No change basically.

in short, what I am saying is by default we should begin with FOV zoomed out, as if double tapping/toggling "-" on the numpad. So BIS doesn't need to actually change much more than that, without breaking anything else.

otherwise they should just fix the zoom out toggle, and I agree it should apply within vehicles as well.

This i think will serve a much better experience.

Quake3 270Deg view?! NO!

I have actually recently been playing with controls to kind of fix this for me. I have double assigned the zoom out with my sprint and free look keys. So basically when I sprint the FOV increases, when i look around, the FOV increases. It helps allot with peripheral vision when looking around or running. So only time i actually have a narrower zoom is when I'm moving tactically and focused on my direction, even then i still can zoom out with free look.

And best of all is my method doesn't mess with scores and mill dots.

Only complaint though is, The zoom out effect is too sudden, it needs to kind of blend in without feeling like distraction. So allow zoom out to transition slowly, about as slow as it is to zoom in on sights.
Also the FOV value isn't big enough. Sure the image starts to look odd like fish lense the more it increases, but really just need to give us more FOV.

Since we now have 3D Scopes, i think we may be able to have a configurable FOV without messing with accuracy of Scopes?

Should test this. Will update when i get around to it.

An easy way to avoid the problem of sights becoming inaccurate when changing your fov would be to make two separate fov settings, one for your normal view and one for your scoped view. You could change your normal view fov, but when scoped in you would always have the same fov (it would zoom your view in the same amount when scoped in regardless of your normal fov.)

Who cares about the programming logic behind it - or why they never did it. That's their business... It's ridiculous that they didn't implement it in the first place.

Good news though: in September they'll release the "FOV DLC". For a mere $7.99: you'll get access to change your FOV.

Am I the only one with the opposite problem? I think the FOV is too wide. I keep using zoom in and zoom out, and turnig my head around with ALT to watch all around.

However, even when zoomed in, ennemies at merely 150m away look like they are 400m away! It makes it harder to spot and shoot them.

Anyway, that's my opinion. But in any case, an adjustable FOV would benefit both kind of players.