Bear with me as this may be hard to follow, I'll try my best to keep it simple.
(Now edited for clarity - 3/5/13)
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[A.] CURRENT STATES
Right now there are essentially 4 main 'movement states' in game, these are:
(the bit underneath is the description of the state)
[1] Tactical Pace
> Weapon shouldered, ready to fire. (reduced speeds when moving, highest fatigue)
[2] Normal
> Weapon shouldered, but lowered slightly. (normal speeds when moving, high fatigue)
[3] Gun Lowered Tactical Pace
> Weapon NOT shouldered, the soldier keeps both hands on gun. (slightly faster than [2] when moving, low fatigue)
[4] Gun Lowered
> Weapon NOT shouldered, soldier at ease / relaxed. (slightly slower than [2] when moving, lowest fatigue)
Note 1: I am only talking about movement while standing and crouched, Prone does NOT have a Tactical Pace modifier.
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[B.] FOR REFERENCE
Since the states above don't really have proper titles as far as know, I'll be referring to them as the following:
[1] Combat Tactical
[2] Combat
[3] Casual Tactical
[4] Casual
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[C.] CONTEXT / EXAMPLE
Something that throws me off; and this is partly due to there not being any stance indicator in the official build, but sometimes it can be confusing to know if you're in Tactical Pace or not.
[Example:]
You are stood still. You press the Tactical Pace key. There is no visual feedback anything has happened. You run forward, you are in one state. You stop moving. You press the Tactical Pace key. No visual feedback. You run forward, you are in another state.
In the heat of the moment, and between all the different stance adjustments you can employ, it can be easy to lose track of what mode you're in - And with a brutal and unforgiving game like Arma an error here could mean the difference between life and death!
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[D.] THE SUGGESTION
Separate the Tactical Pace and Normal movement states entirely so you have:
(1) 'Combat': Your soldier has his weapon shouldered, but lowered slightly, so not obscuring your vision as much.
> Also known as Low-Ready. This would be the default state.
(2) 'Combat Tactical': Your soldier has his weapon raised, ready to fire.
> Accessed by pressing your 'Tactical Pace' key. See [F.] for more details.
At the end of the day we are playing a game, and probably more often than not a button press will cause our character to do something we didn't originally intend.
The idea here is to lower the risk of these errors happening by changing the system, and making it clearer to the player that if they a button the expected result will happen.
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[E.] WHAT IS REQUIRED
Ultimately this requires a few animation additions:
'Combat' animations for standing idle and crouched idle. (See attached file: 'Envisioned Combat Stance.jpg')
'Combat' animations for walking stood up and walking crouched.
(For all weapons: Rifle/Pistol/Launcher)
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[F.] HOW WOULD IT WORK
The default stance would be 'Combat' - Just as it is ingame right now, but with the new animation additions suggested in [D.]
If you were to press your Fire key while in 'Combat', you would enter 'Combat Tactical'.
If you were to hold down your Fire key while in 'Combat' you would enter 'Combat Tactical' and start firing, depending on the firemode you have selected for your gun: Semi-Auto, Automatic or Burst.
(Using this method there would be a short delay between the keypress and your gun firing, this would be due to the soldier having to first enter 'Combat Tactical')
If you were to press your ADS (Aim Down Sights) key while in 'Combat' you would go straight to ADS, as normal.
(This would be slightly slower than if you were in 'Combat Tactical' for the same reason as above)
When you come out of ADS you will enter 'Combat Tactical'.
Swapping between 'Combat' and 'Combat Tactical' is done by pressing your Tactical Pace key, just as it is now.
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[G.] CASUAL STATES
Right now you can toggle between Casual animations by using your Tactical Pace key. You cannot switch using this method while walking with your gun lowered, even though there are 2 animations.
If the states were split as suggested, you should be able to switch between them.
If you were to press your Fire key in any Casual state, you should enter 'Combat Tactical'.
Using your Toggle Raise Weapon key to manually switch states you would always go to 'Combat' (if in a 'Casual' state) or 'Casual Tactical' (if in a 'Combat' state). {F18663} {F18664} {F18665} {F18666}