Haha, BI will be very sad about this one.
They were so proud of their muzzle flashes in the showcase videos.

they were so proud of their lighting effects all together which are stunning. But I was looking at muzzle flash the other day and it wasn't very predominant. but I was sitting at about 500 meeters and barely saw a flash with no light hitting the objects around the shooter. but maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention.

Good catch though squishall

At longer ranges I agree that the illumination is not bad, but at more likely engagement ranges of 50-200m it is definitely noticeable. As a gamer I actually like the muzzle flashes as they do look cool but in terms of not exposing myself to enemy fire because I lit up like a Christmas tree they are not so good.

Its a perfectly Valid point. and we are playing a simulator and not Battlefield 3 where realism\Authenticity are much more of a guideline and not reality.

I play Arma for the complexity and reality and BF3 for the lols.

The illumination is too long lasting, but the flash itself is alright. This is a gameplay decision, and the reason for the flash suppressor attachments for the weapons. You want less flash, you put on a suppressor, and deal with the increased weight and bulk.

Nobody complained about the massive muzzleflashes back when OFP was released, then everybody complained about the static or nonexistent flashes in Arma 1+2, and now that the animated big flashes are back, people still complain?

It is a game, and the muzzleflashes are as much an aesthetic decision as a gameplay balancing one.

Edit: Also, why the hell is this a "major" issue?

If anything, this is purely aesthetic, which is entirely subjective anyway. As I said, the core of the flashes being the way they are is because they are a conciously created gameplay element. "It is unrealistic" is a non argument in this case because the realism is not the primary point of this tool.

It is to increase the ease of spotting enemies firing at you, and making it easier for your enemy to spot you, in twilight and night scenarios. If you want this to go back to "no flashes at all, sir.", how do you bring back this elementary gameplay tool?

It is important because if Arma ever wants to produce a lively PVP community running on vanilla content, you need to have some sort of indicators that help you spotting from where you are being shot at (unless the mission designers wants to avoid that specifically, then he adds suppressors or flash hiders) without resorting to HUD elements.

If you have any suggestion as to how to enable this balancing aid without using HUD or prominent muzzle flashes, it´d be interesting to hear.

I also add that the size of the flashes varies greatly from weapon to weapon, for example the intervention rifle has neglible muzzle flash, compared to the MX, while the Tavor and the M200 are somewhere in the middle.

There are pleny of videos showing huge muzzle flashes bigger than in ARMA3. The illumination from the flashes may be exagerated a bit but remember it is a game and though based in simulation and realism, gameplay must be top priority without going over the top (*cough* B3F3)
So a compromise must be reached. Currently the muzzle flash is not visible more than a few meters away.

The only gripe I have with'em is they are too spikey.

Bringing this one back up. The latest releases seem to have increased the visibility of muzzleflashes during daytime. The current state of muzzleflash is equivalent of that of a weapon with a bare muzzle shooting ammo with no flash retardant(in effect; not milspec.).

I too agree that the pattern of the muzzle flash is too (to put it kindly) "spiky".

Credit where credit is due; the dust kickup of shots fired from prone are looking really good now.

I have to agree - i liked the idea from arma 1 , muzzle flashes during the day were barely seen and in the night they were visible

that way it is like in irl

So bis could tweak the muzzleflashes to be less visible during the day to almost none

Wish this would be looked into :(