If you disagree, please state why.

In real life you can estimate where the bullet will hit, but this is impossible in games and that's probably why they put crosshairs into the game.
/downvoted and monitored

You can estimate by actually looking at where the weapon is pointed. Or you can use your sight/scope to have a more accurate shot. There is no need for the crosshair, especially when it constantly flickers in and out of existence when you're sprinting.

You can't estimate by looking at it because it's a 2D image. And I don't mind the crosshair flickering when I sprint because I don't sprint that often and neither should you.

You can estimate by looking at where it's approximately pointed. And if I shouldn't be sprinting, shouldn't you not be firing from the hip?

The ticket does not provide a good reason/explanation as to why the default should be changed.

The current rationale is to make the default settings more easy and forgiving for new players, which includes enabling crosshairs. This makes a lot of sense, since the difficulty settings may not be obvious for newcomers. More experienced players who wish to play without crosshairs and other helpers will most likely know how to disable them.

But server's don't. I've been on dozens and only one has actually disabled them. New players are only being penalized by relying on crosshairs that shouldn't be there if one of the game's purposes is to simulate reality.

It should be possible to play with more difficult options, than server's settings, but not the other way. If server allows for crosshairs and you don't want them, you should be able to override this setting.

Dave, crosshairs are made less accurate than they were on arma 2, even on arma 3 some people (like me sometimes) found it easyer to just deactivate them and use their own eyes, if you complain about people having them on on MP, and you want them off BY DEFAULT, then they could change it too.

crosshair and space bar scanning should be disabled by default.

crosshair : because IRL you are not supposed to know where your barrel is exactly pointing (trying to hit a 50cmx50cm paper target at 50m without using ironsight is very hard. Ingame it's pretty easy to do.

it's much more realistic to be forced to estimate yourself the barrel orientation instead of relying on screen indicator.

space bar scanning : it's similar problem to crosshair and is showing you names, range, faction identification...etc and completely remove the immersion, the interest of using a laser range finder and the ability to stay hidden from ennemies. (they just need to press space bar to scan the surrounding and spot you even if they didn't see you with their own eyes.

Cychou, that's exactly it.

@cychou, @Dave: I disagree. Keep in mind the soldiers in ArmA 3 *NEVER* hip fire. The crosshair view is just with the weapon shouldered, but not looking through the sights. Using this technique, you have a pretty good idea of where the weapon is pointed in real life.

The ArmA 3 crosshairs are improved over the ridiculously accurate ArmA 2 crosshairs to reflect this.

AD2001 implied that he does. And if you don't hipfire, which I don't, then I don't see why it's such a bad thing to disable them. They're almost always pointed at the dead center of the screen anyway, so how is it really helping you?

I thought that the whole point of ArmA was to simulate the military, but instead its players rely on crosshairs that you wouldn't see in real life.

You also don't see an ammo counter in real life, nor a "selected weapon" or a stance indicator. These are standard HUD elements that either add information that the average 2D screen cannot properly convey or that are expected in a first person shooter.

There are also pretty hardcore milsim groups like ShackTactical who have actually added more info to the HUD with mods, such as the ST HUD, which simulates peripheral vision and spatial awareness by showing your team mates on a kind of radar.

Realism cannot always be conflated with the removal of HUD elements.

To be honest I'd prefer if those were all disabled as well.

Just to make one thing clear, I DO NOT hipfire (unless I run into someone who is half a meter in front of me).I agree with MadDogX, in real life you know how much ammo you've got, what stance you're in etc. And as I said before THE GAME IS A F*** 2D IMAGE so you can't estimate where your gun is pointing, but you can in RL.

How can't you estimate where it's pointing? And why would you need crosshairs if you "don't hipfire unless they're half a meter" in front of you?

is it so hard to go to the game options and change the cross hair to turn it off? seriously, this has been a complain since i think ArmA 1, also, these cross hairs are BY FAR less accurate than arma 2, in arma 3 the cross hairs are so unaccurate you'd be aiming better without using iron sights by just shooting at the center of the screen than using the crosshair, and no, you cant aim and shot 50 m using just the crosshairs because unless you are in prone the crosshairs are so big its even useless in CQB, Crosshairs do not help at all.

"is it so hard to go to the game options and change the cross hair to turn it off?"

Tell that to the server admins.

"Crosshairs do not help at all."

If they don't, why do we have them? And if they do, shouldn't they be disabled in at least the harder difficulties for reasons related to authenticity?

the crosshairs are for people without a square-like monitor, its harder to see with no crosshair with a modern HD screen, and even if the server admins use Crosshairs off by default then they will most likely change it to on.

WHILE i agree that if the serverside crosshairs are on the client should be able to turn it off, i dont really find this to be a problem, if you think this its making it less of a simulator, then wait until we can make 100% realistic virtual reality simulation, because you cant make a 100% realistic enviroment like war into a screen

But ArmA tries to get as close as possible to it. If you're going to give up at crosshairs, you might as well just play CoD or Battlefield.

if you are holding a gun in real life, you can estimate where the bullet might land. in a virtual simulation, where you are not physically holding the gun, you cant guess where that bullet might land. besides, if you dont like it, just go turn it off(not hard)

Yes you can, actually. If it's pointed in front of you, it's likely going to land somewhere in the center of your screen, where the crosshair is almost all of the time.

The problem is that it isn't as easy as telling someone to turn it off. I don't have the power to do that in any of the servers, the admins do. If this they were disabled by default in at least the two hardest difficulties, new servers would adopt the idea of servers not having crosshairs. That's what this topic is about.

as variant: increase side of croshair for arcade players :) as in COD...

@vryoffbtdrummr
I agree with you. This is what I've been trying to say the whole time.

@Dave
Try taking a sniper rifle and shoot it, standing up. where is the shot going to land? it will be to hard to predict. So, therefor, the crosshair is there for a reason. Besides, in real life, you can tell how stable the gun is, and the same goes for virtual simulations and crosshairs. the smaller the crosshair is the more stable the gun is. its something you know when you are shooting a real gun.

This is your opinion. It's the same as third-person. If you don't like it, don't use it. If it bothers you that much, play on servers that have it disabled. A toggle is fine

Should you even be firing a sniper from the hip? Is it that hard to just aim? Even with a fully automatic weapon many shots can easily be missed when you're not aiming, and with a sniper you're probably dead if you miss one shot in a close quarters fight.

"This is your opinion"

Our opinions shape the game.

"If you don't like it, don't use it"

As I said earlier, it isn't that easy. I don't have the privileges to change these settings, that's up to the server administrators to decide... please read the posts above before commenting.

dave, like i said, if its turned off by default, THEY WILL turn it on again then, and you wouldn't be able to do nothing, and if we want to go full realistic shit, then we should turn all HUD off and give you oculus rift and control every muscle in your body and why not, make EVERYTHING PiP (3d Scopes, screens, Airplanes HUDs, etc.)

HOWEVER, this cant be done, so we have to do with this.

How do you KNOW they will turn it back on? ArmA is meant to simulate the military, and that means disabling the crosshairs for a start. Eventually we will likely be able to control virtually every muscle in the body, but we simply don't have the technology yet.

Also, you do realize that we'll probably see PiP scopes, screens, etc. in the future, right? We're only in the Alpha right now.

"ArmA is meant to simulate the military"

Wrong, VBS is meant to simulate the military.
ArmA is made to be player friendly to start with, so if you join a server and crosshairs are ON please consider that :

1. Maybe everyone is not as good as you;
2. Maybe you should pick another server that fits your gameplay tastes better.

What could be a good idea tho is for BIS to add a filtering option about the default difficulty setting of servers. (For now it's indicated but I don't think you can filter per difficulty mode)

EDIT : Actually the browser could even give us more precise insight about which settings are ON and OFF with a button making a window pop-up and listing the settings/AI skills/and so on. Dunno how it would look like tho.

Sure, that might work, but having crosshairs disabled by default on the two hardest difficulties would encourage more servers to not use them. Currently, as I stated earlier, there was only one server I've been in that had actually disabled them, it's not as easy as saying "pick another server" since there are only a handful of them that are actually populated to begin with, nevermind whether or not it has crosshairs.

I made a revised new feature request since this thread doesn't seem to be going anywhere, it's having the option of enabling or disabling them in your settings if they are allowed in the server (and disabled completely if they are disallowed).

@Dave Zembler: Read this very carefully since you read my last post saying the same thing, but didn't understand a word.

The default gun position in ArmA (all titles) *IS SHOULDERED*. There is *NO* hip-fire in the ArmA-verse. If there were hipfire, I'd agree with you the crosshair is too accurate.

However, when using a rifle shouldered, but without looking down the sights, you can *easily* hit a door at 100m, which is about the accuracy you get now.

If you don't like the crosshair, turn it off, if you don't like servers that enable it, don't play on them, if you want more servers without them, make your own.

Things like a crosshair, stance indicator and fire mode HUD allow you to do things that are easy in real life, but hard when you're not the one holding the weapon or standing in the world.

If it's obsolete, I guess we can close it. :)

Let me know if you want it re-opened for some reason.