Some Thoughts on Multiplayer

[Lincoln1stFJ]

There are a few things that irk me about the MP community for A2.

I acknowledge that 3/4 of the complaints we hear are a result of an release still in it's infancy and that the real community mods have yet to be released. We should all consider that a little patience is in order.

I'm typically a helo flight or persistent fight kinda player and I almost always play PvP - I enjoy the game only in cases where I fly human players in/out or have an environment that allows me to out-maneuver, out-smart, or roadside bomb a human opponent, over time, and with the devices of my choosing.

Nothing about Co-Op is ever really enjoyable for me. It used to entertain me in the A1 days but now I selfishly see a dynamic and complex engine being under utilized. Don't get me wrong; Co-op is great for squad play and even better for unit training. I fail to see any significant reward for chasing magic stars disguised in an OPFOR uniform. IMHO, the real thrill is in the combat, hunt, or the ambush of human opponents.

I see a multitude of COOP servers that are typically always empty. I see smaller TEAM games that are often locked. There are a few worthy PvP servers out there but they are full often, suffer from hacks, and/or contain highly restrictive gameplay. By restrictive I mean lack of new or substantial weapon diversity, inadequate transportation, or poorly thought-out battle dynamics.

A good example of this would be the BerZerk Sobor missions that annoy the shat out of me for having one car and one bike for OPFOR / no HMV for BLUFOR and no DMR. Even some of the potentially awesome AAS maps still hang too much restriction over the player. Players are encouraged to fly to the AOs but the lack of ground transportation usually translates into some day 1 pilots flying you into the forest. Hiding in a marker, waiting to blast someone while hoping said marker turns another color is an equal annoyance.

I wish to propose that the community entertain a focus shift away from COOP & restrictive play and consider competitive, persistent environments that allow emergent behavior. I'd like to see the player decide his/her loadout, squadmates, and mission objective. Giving the players problems to solve via more dynamic objectives, rather than destroying 8 radio towers at random towns will keep this simulation alive with the competitive crowd. Players need to carry more gear; no real need to restrict players to 4 clips and a satchel...know what I mean?

I don't think many of us purchased this title to fire virtual weapons just to make noise. In my opinion, the folks over at RP-Mods have the right idea. I still can't seem to get access to Chernarus Life to check it out but if I'm to use Sahrani Life RPG as a measuring stick - will it turn into a one sided BLUFOR LIFE where the opposing force needs to spend 6 hours to compete, only to be kicked / banned when doing what the role prescribes?

Recently, I spent time conceptualizing an alternative to the status quo of COOP/CTF/DM/WF. The end result was a detailed and "well" thought out, draft mission plan. My central idea is not an innovation; It's been done in ARMA and touched on in the countless missions we've all played through the years. It is most certainly a product of observation of these forums and the game servers and in convo's had with individual players on both.

I don't possess the scripting know-how to realize what maybe considered a new game mode, but it looks great on paper and when layed out in the misson editor. While I've had some parties interested in developing my concept; If there is interest by a developer here I'd be willing to forward you my write up and discuss it further in the spirit of adding to the community and realizing what I feel could be a very fun game mode or scenario.

I don't lay claim to greatness or even 1337ness; I simply would like to see some more attention given to emergent behavior (combat) scenarios that don't require tower hopping or marker hugging.

Thanks for reading and I hope I gave ya something interesting to chew on for a bit.


-L

[Hund]

Good initiative there Lincoln, but I'll fight ya to the death to keep my co-ops!

The fact of the matter is that we as a community decide what is popular. If a lot of people want to play PvP then that gametype will become increasingly popular on the server browser.

Now the problem that has arisen in these early days, and I'm just talking out of my ass here, its just a theory, is that a lot of the new guys want PvP, while a lot of the old farts want co-op. The new guys haven't played around as much with the editor, which means that progress on the PvP scene is kinda slow.

As I said, it's just a theory (and a half-assed one at that), but maybe if all you PvP types stuck your noses into the editor and rummaged around, you would be able to supply yourselves with missions and thus envigorate your particular gaming culture within the community.

I know one dude already made a CTF script pack which might serve you well in that regard.

[mad rabbit]

he new guys haven't played around as much with the editor, which means that progress on the PvP scene is kinda slow.

Pretty good theory in my opinion. I forget that it's not only the players but also PvP map makers that are in their infancy.

[anfiach]

LOL I was making a comment earlier about this in a different thread. The difficulty here I think is that the most talented mission makers aren't interested. I'm just starting to learn but if you want to toss it my way I'll be glad to add my input.

[Lincoln1stFJ]

Thanks for the reply fellas; sure ani, I'll shoot it your way.

I've laid it out something fierce; still need some logic / scripting to make it real.

We'll keep plugging away for sure - its all good.

[galzohar]

You may want to look at: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=80452

Granted this mission has nothing that requires actual understanding of the editor beyond units, triggers, init lines and description.ext weapon list, but it should work and be very playable. To make it complete though it would need the whole briefing, map markers etc. Currently it just spawns your team at a place and tells you the objective is ~500m to the southwest. Sorry though, you only have to destroy 6 antennas, not 8. But they're close together and can be blown with 2 satchels, only reason I went with multiple ones is so that you can't just have 1 guy suicide bomb the objective and win. Also antennas have the advantage that they're very hard to hit with rockets, so you can't just get in a safe spot and blow them up from a distance without engaging the enemy.

It's intended to be realistic: has no respawns, both teams start together, and has a well-defined objective (destroy tactically important piece of equipment with unknown exact location), and is different every time due to picking a random spot from chernarus to place the objective every time it's run (and places the assault team properly so you don't have to travel too much).

I'd really like to see missions of this nature made by people that actually have a clue how to make missions properly, and not do the lame workarounds I had to do to get this concept mission out. Again, though, it should be online playable.

[Lincoln1stFJ]

As an example;

I want to have the opportunity to ambush a human controlled supply convoy; that convoy's survival would depend on other human player running a forward and rear escort mission or sweep/clear prior to supply delivery to a defined point; enabling said convoy to use that point as a FOB or jumpoff to the next objective.

[galzohar]

If the escorting is purely player-controlled, you could make the entire supply convoy as 1 squad, and have the players give it waypoints with the high command module. That is, make a "high command - commander" module and sync it with the commander, make a "high command - subordinate" and sync it with the convoy, and then sync the 2 modules together.

Though I wonder how you're going to make a mission where a player ambushes a player? In general this kind of thing doesn't work, because players will behave differently when they know an ambush is coming. A human will simply not bring up the convoy until all ambushers are flushed out.

[Lincoln1stFJ]

If the escorting is purely player-controlled, you could make the entire supply convoy as 1 squad, and have the players give it waypoints with the high command module. That is, make a "high command - commander" module and sync it with the commander, make a "high command - subordinate" and sync it with the convoy, and then sync the 2 modules together.

Though I wonder how you're going to make a mission where a player ambushes a player? In general this kind of thing doesn't work, because players will behave differently when they know an ambush is coming. A human will simply not bring up the convoy until all ambushers are flushed out.

Well if played out over the entire country it'll be hard to root out the danger zones ahead of time. It would be part of the immersion and an actual challenge instead of running around the map.

I'd look to create scenarios where they know an ambush is eventual; just no idea where and when along say a 12km stretch of highway.

So if you had human elements running supply; and human elements running security and suppression patrols - you'd have a human opposing force attempting to engage them.

It would make for a challenging and action filled scenario that would *require* teamwork and strategy.

[galzohar]

If you're making it such a huge scale, how will the ambushers know where the convoy is going to pass? Not to mention, the mission will take so long that nobody will want to play it. I mean, you can also make a "checkpost" mission where you guard and check vehicles passing by, and only 1 out of 10,000 is an armed terrorist that will attack you. Realistic? Quite. Playable? Not really.

Not saying you can't make realistic missions that are fun and playable, but you can't make *any* realistic mission and have it be fun and playable.