Multiplayer gameplay

Hey

I'm new to the Arma series and bought Arma 2. Just a quick question about the multiplayer aspect.

I have recently been playing Project Reality and so far that has been superior to what I have found in Arma 2 online. Am I being silly or can you not create squads or even see who is in your squad in any possible way. Im also assuming voice doesnt work in Arma 2 either as not heard a whisper lol.

I was thinking that u might be assigned a squad automatically when looking at the roles? but still when runnin around online it just feels like you are completely solo'ing every thing as theres absolutly no reference to whos in your squad and where they are :(

Hope Im just missing something obvious when online

In ArmA 2, you don't get taken by the hand. A squad isn't a physical link, you establish it through comms.

In ArmA 2, you don't get taken by the hand. A squad isn't a physical link, you establish it through comms.

So why choose a class or have one chosen for you?

The game should allow squad creation and cater for it with inbuilt support. It does actually work and ARMA would benefit from it. Its no being taken by the hand its actually providing a platform for players to use team work rather than rambo-ing it.

Hi kdjac

Join a clan it will suit your ethos. If you look through this section of the forum there are several recommendations and advertisements of clans open to new members.

Also check the squads and fan-pages section:

http://forums.bistudio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=90

Over the next couple of weeks, former ArmA I clans will be updating servers and transferring to ArmA II. It will take couple of weeks to shake out, then things will be a little more stable. Many like Zeus are buying new top of the range servers and awaiting them being built and installed. So the number of large dedicated servers by the bigger clans will increase.

The big clans use public servers to ID potential members and weed out numpties, such servers are often admined as part of that. The main clan servers are locked and often hidden. Some clans also need you to fill in application forms and be trained, but there are several good ones who are not so formal.

This is the bible of ArmA TTP

http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/

Read, digest, practice and apply.

Kind Regards walker

Agreed, there should definitly be build in support for easy squad creations. By giving people the tools to easily work together as teams would make people to be more willing to actually attempt to learn teamworks.

Without it, solo loners would always going at it solo, even those who flirted with the idea of playing as part of a team. It's all because it simply cuts too much of their play time to organize squads manually.

A squad creation system would encourage teamworks. It's that simple. Just look at all the teamwork tactics going on in Project Reality's *shock, public servers. They may not be as perfect as the private servers but they're still way way wayyyyyy more organized than all the ArmA 2 public servers so far.

I guess if BI doesn't feel like adding in such a feature we'd just have to hope for some moder to do it.

No need for mod, it's the mission that can add it.

Note that many times, though, player is AI squad leader, and has his AI to manage. At least it's the case in things like Warfare/CTI.

That doesn't mean there's no teamplay, it's just teamplay on a larger scale, if I may say so.

1st example popping to my mind, yesterday, crCTI, 1 guy was providing chopper lifting for the whole team, he was just there ready to answer transport requests.

I was working with a teammate, each in his own squad, him providing backup with repair vehicle, me on the front to gain ground. And so on and so on.

Though yes, there's no specific tool in missions played atm to enforce such behavior. Which can easily make a game just a group of lonewolves running by themselves (and I also happen to do it yesterday, at odd moments, tbh)

I understand what ur all saying. Its just the gameplay to me appears to be, all die and respawn at main base and ultimately head back into the battlefield with a random bunch of people everytime.

They dont exactly do that in real life and just thought that was one of the basic things to have for a military sim type game.

And i dont know if all servers are disabling it but voip doesnt appear to be on any servers? Every1 has gone backwards and stuck with text typin while u are tryin to play the game.

I disabled it, honestly for no real reason :) It's just that I never really used it, don't know the quality, and I'm afraid of it impacting server performance. Probably a silly reflex :(

(you convinced me to at least give it a try :) )

Pleas, why isnt it posible to create an own squad among a couple of friends?

The game has potential, but respawn in som wierd base where every body is just waiting for a heli or a plane, isn exactly exiting teamwork.

Difficult to explain for newcomers... well, the game is made opened enough that it's the mission designer, not the game itself, which will decide of the squad system used. It just appears that mission mostly played atm don't have the squad system you seek.

Some Evolution in ArmA1 had it though. It's doable. Just not by the game itself because it is made to be as open as possible

You think it is good as it is? I think it is a disaster for the game, unfortunaly.

I want to play with my friends in a squad, holding places or take over places.

Now nobody cares about each other.

I prefer they keep it open (ie as a mission maker I've all the scripting possibilities I want) instead of forcing something which would have immense impact on the openess of the engine.

It's the missions that lack the feature you want, not the game, it's all I'm saying. I don't say the "no squad system" is better than having a squad system

Pleas, why isnt it posible to create an own squad among a couple of friends?

It was possible in Arma1 in Domination and Evolution missions to create/join squads though I don't know if it is functioning yet in the Arma2 versions as I haven't tried.

As for the general complaints about a lack of teamplay I think Arma2 is a victim of it's own success. I played Domination last night for several hours on a full server and it seemed that 90% of players are new to the series and do not understand the mechanics of the missions. Certainly I was the only one to bother answering questions. I think us old farts need to make more of an effort to school the young 'uns in the ways of Domination/Evolution/Warfare etc.

Have patience, it will get better.

Ok whisper, you seems like an well informed and serious fella, so ill take your word for it.

But it would be nice if the posibility to create own groups in MP existed as well.

Snackbar

I am new to the game, but i am not new to gaming, i have competed in many different games (cs, vietcong2, BF2 etc), and i am pretty old as welL.

What is domination/evolution/warfare?

Yesterday i played MP online, co-op and CTF, and from that i understood, there where IAs runnign around in both types of games. What server should i join if i dont want to se a singel BOT? What should i look for in the server-screen?

AI free games are rather rare atm (compared to AI full ones ;) ), look for missions named "C&H something blablabla". Usually atm C&H maps played are "CH UMPC <name of town here>".

C&H stands for Capture and Hold, where 2 sides fight for dominations of areas. No AIs in this one (no squad system either with the current UMPC maps ;) ).

I'd been more inclined at the beginning to play missions without AI in A2, but A2 AI made me revise my standpoint, tbh. They're not that bad :)

From what ive played so far arma2 online seems, lacking to what is promised by the community.

From what ive played its the whole "all for himself" attitude like every other fps, ive seen no teamwork and little to no communication, ill just stick to online till the community grows.

What is domination/evolution/warfare?

Domination and Evolution are both large-scale co-op missions from Arma1 against AI opponents (both can take several hours to complete). Evolution has a fairly bad reputation in regard to teamwork (though there were a few good servers) because you could recruit an AI squad and pretty much do your own thing. Domination generally has greater teamwork as most servers run versions without friendly AI and has specialised roles (engineer, medic, etc)

Warfare is a CTI (capture the island) mission that is usually team vs team vs AI with a lot of RTS elements (build a base, recruit soldiers and vehicles and then trash the opposing team). Teamwork was usually fairly good, but dependent on having balanced sides of human players.

Details of Arma1 versions of Evolution and Domination.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=55572

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=62579

Hope I didn't come across as patronising with the old farts and young 'uns remarks.

Yeah - ....

to me as an old OF-gamer multiplayersessions with ArmA make me sick:

As others stated there is rarely no co-gamin, no communication etc. ...

One reason surely is, as stated above, the success: There are many youngsters to this game.

The other problem is a quite high rate of natural born "autists" - as I call them who do not really care if the cogamers are AIs (bots) or natural persons. They will not communicate in any other way than commanding or insulting when they lose there nerves. And they often lose their nerves for they are not used to cogamers with an own brain and see only hindrances and obstacles in them.

Maybe a result of tooo much Single Player - gaming.

Maybe a result of too few sibblings in the family.

For me the most obvious reason is JIP ("join in progress") a possibility which OF never had: Cogamers keep goin and leavin throughout the game not feelin responsible for the whole or the group.

Sure: You can lock the server but that doesn't stop the attitude of those gamers. They will leave whenever they get frustrated.

In OF we are used to call these people "quitters" and it's commonly seen nearly as immoral / illoyal as "friendly fire": All are bound to stay to help their team. I have seen people get kicked or banned for repeated quitting. Whereas "quitting" means: Leaving without giving serious reasons to the others.

The nicest games I ever had were those where people fighted over more than 2 hours and coordinated their actions. If you win the battle - all the better but not inevitable - for having fun and excitement.

Another illoyal behaviour I did experience again and again: When the situation gets most critical (enemy firing on own base) some, even commanders, piss their trousers and declare: "You won !" or "GG" to the opposite side.

Those characters only like "winning" and "smooth" game where they are superior and have the finest and biggest weapons. They do not know that one of the nicest features of AA and OF is: Things can turn within the last minutes and it's more than illoyal to declare being defeated without talking to your own cogamers (of your side) first before doing so.

I repeatedly experienced situations where things turned this way:

- One eager cogamer was close to blast the enemy mhq with satchel.

- An eager enemy gamer destroyed half of his base because he had problems starting his chopper or plane and it exploded over or in their base

- enemy mhq ran on mine

- enemy mhq ran into water

so ... lez take it like Ernest Hemingway in

"The old man and the Sea": A man cannot be defeated; he is only defeated if he gives up himself." ;-)

I'm beginning to see a sad trend emerge here with newbies and online arma 2 games. How do we properly warn them of the dangers of public servers, so they at least can go into the experience with their eyes open?

I'm just afraid that the game will get a bad rep because crappy gameplay on the public servers. There is so much more to this game that these people may never see because all they get is pissed on in the crappy public games.

Hi Hund

Do what I am doing pop on a public server and give them some help and leadership. I even got a few thank you's for it. :)

It is time for the veteran ArmA players to step up and give a hand.

Kind Regards walker

... for you are rarely seriously interested in giving hints or even lessons to newbies when they might leave the game at any time.

There is no more solidarity.

JIP destroys the culture of clinging together till the last grenade pops ... ;-)

There is another serious reason why JIP should be deactivated or at least be deactivatable: Why not change name and team after you know the base position and play "base scouter hero" to the other side? The simple "it is forbidden to change teams" does not really help when JIP is on.

Question: Can JIP be deactivated? I don't mean "lock server" that's something different.

I tried MP in arma2 for the 1st time last night. at first it seemed a free-for-all but then i chose one guy at random and just supported them, started working as a team and that worked great.

that stopped us being killed every few seconds and soon we caught up to a few other teams and had fun destroying the AI.

amazing how fast the change from being killed all the time to killing all the time is made when teamwork happens.

JIP is much needed due to client crashes. Even in Arma1, and I expect it to be even worse in Arma2. We'd rather lock the server once everyone is in and unlock it on demand. But then, we're only a few players playing coops.

One of the problems wtr teamplay is that if someone actually dares (great phycological barrier to many), they are mocked senseless by the so called l33t when they make a bad decision or being stupid. Greater tolerance to 'stupid' leadership please, at least they're trying.

It was possible in Arma1 in Domination and Evolution missions to create/join squads though I don't know if it is functioning yet in the Arma2 versions as I haven't tried.

As for the general complaints about a lack of teamplay I think Arma2 is a victim of it's own success. I played Domination last night for several hours on a full server and it seemed that 90% of players are new to the series and do not understand the mechanics of the missions. Certainly I was the only one to bother answering questions. I think us old farts need to make more of an effort to school the young 'uns in the ways of Domination/Evolution/Warfare etc.

Have patience, it will get better.

Hehe .. it was me u were answering the questions for snackbar i was Adam. You proved to be extemely helpful last night on that server! Since you answering my basic questions in the game i understood it a lot more and had a lot more fun to be fair.

I think I will prob prefer domination etc over coop as they just seem dis-organised!

Cheers for ya help tho!

:)

I tried MP in arma2 for the 1st time last night. at first it seemed a free-for-all but then i chose one guy at random and just supported them, started working as a team and that worked great.

that stopped us being killed every few seconds and soon we caught up to a few other teams and had fun destroying the AI.

amazing how fast the change from being killed all the time to killing all the time is made when teamwork happens.

This was my first experience with ArmA 2 I had a few days ago, now when I join a server I can normally find someone to team up with in minutes, around Heli's is a good place as your all going to the same spot. Also meeting up with "Lone Wolves" is another way to engage in teamwork, some may just be lost not trying to be a one man army.