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5 hours ago, Igor Nikolaev said:

A lack of clothes, or a lack of imagination? :)

 

And here we go again, a white knight ready to defend everything.

You are part of the problem. You are one of those people that drown all fruitful discussion under a curtain of sunshine, rainbows and butterflies.

 

You come up with excuses. We don't need excuses. This thread is for feedback, and feedback was given. I already mentioned things like specialized roles (police officer, priest, businessmen, authentic village folk) but you only jump on the variety of colors for shorts and pants. 

 

And you comment "no need to be rude" is kind of ironic after what I quoted above.

 

And why should we NOT be annoyed at the lack of females? Why should we NOT point out that we wanted more civilian assets? 

 

I am really getting fed up with apologists. I am really getting fed up with haters. Both are polar opposite groups that prevent any sort of constructive discussion by either painting  everything black or painting everything white. I hate comments like "this game is completely broken" as much as I hate comments like yours that try to pretend there is nothing wrong. There is a middle way, you know. The middle way where someone points out a deficiency and a discussion ensues on what could be done.

 

Geez, there used to be normal discussions on this forum, but the black and the white faction have completely killed it off.

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And now, my feedback on the Campaign.

 

I really, really liked it.

 

Spoiler

Pro:

  • Production value is great. The narration is well done, the effects with the memories is fantastic. I don't even think I found all of them.
  • Presentation is very well done.  I like how certain points in the game connect to new missions, it was very original.
  • I liked the fact that you play once with every faction in the conflict, It painted none of them as black and white.
  • The question at the end and the article that Kate was writing was a nice way to close it off
  • If the intention of the campaign was to get you thinking, it succeeded

Cons:

  • Some of the missions, especially the FIA mission placing the mines, where a bit rail-roady. There wasn't really much to do in that one
  • Finding all the mines in Oreocastro was a bit annoying, although the drone helped with it.

 

 

I wish it had been longer, but given the fact that it had more missions in it than APEX, that's fine. 

Thumbs up.

 

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By the way, that narrator voice was pretty good, but I could not stop imagining this NATO dude from the Apex campaign. From the very first moment I was like "hey, that's the same guy, isn't it?" which felt a tad distracting.

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13 hours ago, Alwarren said:

 

And here we go again, a white knight ready to defend everything.

You are part of the problem. You are one of those people that drown all fruitful discussion under a curtain of sunshine, rainbows and butterflies.

 

You come up with excuses. We don't need excuses. This thread is for feedback, and feedback was given. I already mentioned things like specialized roles (police officer, priest, businessmen, authentic village folk) but you only jump on the variety of colors for shorts and pants. 

 

And you comment "no need to be rude" is kind of ironic after what I quoted above.

 

And why should we NOT be annoyed at the lack of females? Why should we NOT point out that we wanted more civilian assets? 

 

I am really getting fed up with apologists. I am really getting fed up with haters. Both are polar opposite groups that prevent any sort of constructive discussion by either painting  everything black or painting everything white. I hate comments like "this game is completely broken" as much as I hate comments like yours that try to pretend there is nothing wrong. There is a middle way, you know. The middle way where someone points out a deficiency and a discussion ensues on what could be done.

 

Geez, there used to be normal discussions on this forum, but the black and the white faction have completely killed it off.

I was simply telling you, that things you want won't probably appear in Arma, and there's no need to ask for it, BI already answered about it probably.  I'm pissed off cause of the people, who talk about these things every time, but they can't understand, that you can't please everyone.

BI could've been doing females all along, but it would require much more time since Arma's engine isn't that flexible. It just can become a separate DLC "Women". Okay. Same thing with clothes. So, you can talk about it how much you want to, but you have to think by yourself: "Will it ever be here?".

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6 hours ago, Igor Nikolaev said:

BI could've been doing females all along, but it would require much more time since Arma's engine isn't that flexible. It just can become a separate DLC "Women". Okay. Same thing with clothes. So, you can talk about it how much you want to, but you have to think by yourself: "Will it ever be here?".

The women dlc was something asked from the beginning, not many expected them to be some free update after so long time has passed and spare me the usual excuse with how A3 engine is so difficult.

If you would have bothered to look, besides Max a modder guy that ported the women from A2 there is also Zeealex with Horriblegoat that are creating heads and a body(with animations) from scratch for free so without BI resources and manpower.

Regarding clothes I doubt you or I have insider knowledge and the engine is so difficult to create new outfits or civ assets. They made a complete makeover with the sensors in jets dlc so asking for civ stuff in a civ dlc is not exactly out of this world.

If guys like Cup created bazillion different uniforms and vests for free(because those weren't ported with how vests and uniforms were made in A2) I believe BI could develop a few more assets be it outfits or extra vehicles for a paid civ dlc.

And we talk about this because at least this way they're aware of the stuff some people want  in a civ based dlc and also provide feedback on what's already in the dlc, if you don't like\agree with what people are asking in this specific thread it's a free world, no one forces you to read.

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6 hours ago, Igor Nikolaev said:

I was simply telling you, that things you want won't probably appear in Arma, and there's no need to ask for it, BI already answered about it probably.  I'm pissed of cause of the people, who talk about these things every time, but they can't understand, that you can't please everyone.

 

I am not asking about these things "all the time", and frankly, if you don't want to read it, just don't freaking read it. Plans change sometimes, you know. 

This isn't about "pleasing everyone" either. It was feedback, given in a feedback thread. I (and others) pointed out some obvious deficiencies and that's it. You can disagree, but get off your self-righteous high horse.

 

6 hours ago, Igor Nikolaev said:

BI could've been doing females all along, but it would require much more time since Arma's engine isn't that flexible. It just can become a separate DLC "Women". Okay. Same thing with clothes. So, you can talk about it how much you want to, but you have to think by yourself: "Will it ever be here?".

 

Don't go telling me how the Arma engine works, I've been modding this thing for years. I've done over a dozen of units for CUP from scratch. I know exactly how much work it is. 

It is not unreasonable to point out that the civilian faction in a Civilian DLC was getting the short end of the stick.

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10 hours ago, lexx said:

By the way, that narrator voice was pretty good, but I could not stop imagining this NATO dude from the Apex campaign. From the very first moment I was like "hey, that's the same guy, isn't it?" which felt a tad distracting.

 

Every time I hear Dan Brown's voice I think "Cooper", even when he spoke as Gambler in Arrowhead, or in the diversity of small roles in the Arma 3 campaign(s) :)

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Thanks for the feedback, also the criticism. For what it's worth: there are some valid points on both 'sides' of the argument. We'll try to explain more of our goals, decisions and motivations over the coming weeks in OPREPs, the Developer Diary and other channels. The package is pretty big once you dive into Eden Editor with the DLC filter in our opinion, and a lot of that is free for the platform (i.e. all props and most reskins for IDAP). There are actually a lot of brand-new meshes, especially considering the size of the dev team involved. Yes, there are things we'd love to have added, but didn't or couldn't. Ultimately it's for you, players, to evaluate whether the DLC is for you. We hope there's something of value for many :smile_o:

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23 hours ago, Alwarren said:

I don't suppose that this feedback will be heeded, because there is just too little time until release to change anything about it, and I would guess that data lock already occurred. I have little hope that any of it will be considered for post-release, but if so, ALICE and SILVIE along with females will be the top of my list. But the answer will probably be "not enough resources" :(

Data lock was announced already so it was too late even before the reveal. Speaking of which, "there is just too little time until release to change anything about it" seems to have been a thing for every DLC Apex-onward, if not Helicopters and Marksmen too, which means that we can probably expect the same for Tanks' premium content too.

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A few DLC suggestions (maybe not too late?):

  • Flags as inventory items. Able to be placed by mines and the AI will not go within a few meters of them.
  • Ability to use signs as inventory items to properly mark mine fields

So as I said before, I think you guys did a great job on the campaign! I love the atmosphere and the story. Here's way more campaign feedback than you ever wanted (I'm spoiling the entire campaign so don't read if you haven't beat it yet):

 

Spoiler

Bugs/Improvements

  1. There's a "Memory" in one of the houses on the south-west side of town where Nathan mentions that there was cloud cover for 2 weeks or something but it was sunny outside during the "Memory". I'm not 100% sure if that memory should have cloud cover but the fact that he was mentioning it kind of made me think it should be. But I'm also a bit confused by the dates in the campaign because I apparently wasn't paying enough attention to that part.
  2. In the same house as above, I got stuck inside because the door wouldn't open and I couldn't walk out of the memory. I had forgotten about the "U" key at this point because I hadn't used it at all up until that point. A reminder at that point would be nice if there isn't one there already. If there is, my apologies, I missed it.
  3. When I did the memory inside the house with the tripwire mine, the deactivated tripwire mine was still there in the flashback. That felt very odd.
  4. When I did the memory at the cafe I got stuck between the chair and the table when it flashed back. I was able to free myself but it felt awkward. Maybe somehow not allow the player to stand where the table and chair appear.
  5. I didn't feel like the exit distance for the cafe was as good as it could be in terms of flow. I had entered into the area from the balcony side and so when I wanted to exit I wanted to exit the memory in the cafe to keep on my original path. However, I was unable to do this because when you walk inside, you stay in the memory, and the door inside is locked. I think it would be better to have the memory fade out as you walk into the building, so you get to search the front room in the "present time". Failing that having it fade out near the locked door would be nice. It's just a flow thing. It felt odd walking off the balcony to get out of the memory and then have to go back up into the building. Note, that this was before I remembered the U key.
  6. In the carpenter's memory, I started on top of the table with the saw which was weird.
  7. In the memory in the shed with the "No CSAT Sign / CSAT Target?" a chicken had spawned inside the ATV and it looked odd. Not a big deal. Probably is fairly random.
  8. In the memory where the guy on the top floor of the NATO/AAF Barracks is mourning the loss of his friend, he is looking at a picture that has two CSAT guys in it i think. It was difficult to tell but thought that was odd. I don't think that was a story hint.
  9. My game crashed after exiting the memory in the church. Only happened once though.
  10. The mission where you clear the minefield with the UAV could use a few less mines I think. I think I had to go back and rearm twice. It would probably be better if it was only once. It felt more like a chore by that point. Maybe I was being inefficient though.
  11. During the Oreo missions I was opening a lot of doors and gates and was a bit disappointed to see that they would be closed when I came back after scenarios. It was useful to see where I had already been. I was keeping track on the map too but the doors would be good as well.
  12. I lost one of my men on "The Redacted" and think you should be required to hide the body or carry it with you to extract. Seems weird that no one figured out who it was when there was a corpse sitting there.
  13. I think the team mates on "The Redacted" need better aim. I ambushed the first group of guys. I targeted one, 2 targeted one, and 3 targeted one. 2 fired an entire clip and didn't kill his target which resulted in us being "Detected". We ambushed them from a prone position where we had been waiting for at least 2 minutes so fatigue shouldn't have been a problem.
  14. Plane direction in "The Peacekeeper" was confusing. I wasn't sure if it was the direction the plane was going to be coming from or flying towards. Might have missed an instruction somewhere in there.
  15. Some kind of distinction of which Memories I have viewed and which I haven't would be nice. I didn't notice any or remember a tip about that. I played it over the course of two days with work in between so I was having a hard time remembering if I had seen some of them. I apparently need to find a few more.
  16. In the final Oreo phase, after The Major, one of the dead NATO guys was propped up against one of the orange fences. Seems weird that one of the NATO guys would drag him against it, or life him, place the fence, and then put him back down. I realize that it depends on where I killed them in the Scenario but maybe moving the orange fences further back a bit would make this less likely. Not a huge deal though.


Cool/Interesting Stuff

  1. Loved the little twist at the end of "The Redacted" and how you showed it
  2. Your attention to detail was amazing!
  3. The atmosphere was awesome especially in The Redacted and The Survivor.
  4. The story telling was great! Loved the narrating the flashback scenario via phone conversation idea. Loved the whole flashback and flashback scenario concept.
  5. It was great playing as all the factions even though one of them might not have technically been the faction you were playing as.
  6. Is the priest looking down at the playground supposed to be social commentary on the state of "the church" in this universe? Creeped me out a bit.
  7. Loved the fighter flying top cover for the second evac helicopter and the whole "high ranking guys trying to escape" mission concept in general. Remind me of a part in Red Storm Rising a little. Did feel it was a bit odd for the Major to station his forces in guerrilla territory though.
  8. A lot of other stuff I'm struggling to remember.
  9. OFP Laptop screen. Not sure if this was included in A3 or LoW but I like it.


Things I didn't like

  1. The Survivor was frustrating from the stand point of I wasn't fully sure what to do. It said to leave the house so I took it I had to do that but no matter where I went I would die because I was too slow to be able to get anywhere. I had to kill everyone from inside the house which I felt wasn't the point. It just made me question if I was playing the mission right or if I wasn't going to trigger something because I wasn't following orders. Mission still completed eventually but I was just a bit unsure on what to do.It also didn't help that my computer isn't the best so all the particle effects and fog were killing the frame rate but that's my fault.
  2. The Major was quite possibly the most frustrating mission I have played in this game but I don't know how it could be made better and it's probably too late for changes anyway.
    1. This was another level where I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. I kept just waiting around because I didn't know if guys were supposed to keep coming in or what the trigger was to end it. At various times I thought the mission would end when:
      1. the Major or I run out of ammo and surrender
      2. I decide it isn't worth it anymore and kill the Major (did this one time... not the victory condition)
      3. I executed the guys on the ground (which for me would be one of those "Spec Ops: The Line moments" where you go, "is winning more important than doing the right thing?")
    2. It would be nice for the Major to mention waiting for a second evac chopper or something. Maybe that's supposed to be a surprise but my lack of knowledge of how it was going to end and the constant waiting made me think the mission could be broken or that I was playing it wrong.
    3. I felt like Nathan mislead me on where I was supposed to put the mines the first time. He said the graveyard would be a good killing field but then the next time or the time after he mentioned putting them at the front door.
    4. The enemy kept 1-shotting me constantly even though I had decent cover. I would be watching the window next to the door and then a guy would walk into the doorway, turn, fire a single bullet and kill me or the Major. Maybe turn down their skill slightly?
    5. It was really annoying that no one seemed to have had any ammo or grenades on them. They would constantly be throwing grenades in but no one would ever have any. I suspect you were scripting grenades and ammo to be removed when they died? Either way, it gave off the impression that they were attacking the church while they had only one mag of ammo.
    6. Grenades! Holy crap. They were throwing those efficiently. I got hit in the face at one point. The Major alerting me to them helped a bit (not sure if you scripted that or if that's a default feature since I don't normally play with an AI leader). The AI using them feels realistic but it's difficult to avoid them because I would keep getting stuck on things on the floor or parts of the church. My low frame rate didn't help here either which again is my fault. Was the grenade throwing scripted? I felt like they were using them a lot more frequently. Possible they were running out of ammo?
    7. They were shooting up the walls outside a lot too. Was that also scripted? I feel like the AI only does that when they see you. These guys were firing in through windows they couldn't see me through. AI viewing bug with the building maybe?
    8. When I finally managed to stop them from coming into the church and went to clear the outside, I kept stepping on my own mines. I know part of the point of this campaign is "mines suck" and that I can probably choose to not place them to unlock that achievement but I have no idea how I would win with such limited ammo.
  3. I had a difficult time keeping which brother was which straight in my head. I still am not sure if I remember which was the guerrilla and which wasn't or what there names are. Might just be my memory going to crap though.
  4. As previously mentioned, had a difficult time keeping track of when things happened in relation to one another. I also never finished the ArmA 3 campaign so that might not have helped.
  5. Since most of my complaints are about the last two scenarios, there is a chance that I just suck at the game and once it gets difficult I can't cope and crawl into the corner and cry.

 

Final Thoughts
Awesome work! Really great that you guys made this. I'm not sure if the rest of the DLC elements will find much use in my missions or at least as vital parts of them but at the very least I loved the campaign. Also great that some of the money is going towards a good cause. I would absolutely love it if you guys put together something like this: http://moricky.com/blog/2012/07/private-military-creators/ . I would love to hear about some of the following things:

  1. How this campaign and DLC idea came about
  2. Some of the team's favorite parts
  3. Any references to other media
  4. Any decision tree moments that affect something later
  5. Who drew all those pictures in the school
  6. Why individual design decisions were made
  7. Significance of the missions on the OFP laptop screen (if it's a LoW thing)
  8. Any cool hidden stuff.
     

 

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will be added also female and child civilians?

 

I dont think the population of Stratis and Altis can survive much longer with just male inhabitants.

Children as soldiers not needed, but like civilians i think its necessary, Red cross doesn't  provide assistance only to adults males.

Kid's is also in MG and no one condemns it, it's cruel, but that's reality.

 

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2 hours ago, jakerod said:

Here's way more campaign feedback than you ever wanted

Thank you for such extensive feedback! I'll make sure to process most of the issues and suggestions next week, it's still not late to change things ;)

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Some more bugs I noticed:

 

Spoiler
  • In the mission where you have to direct the air drop, I used the point north of town, east of the castle (B I think) and asked for a north-to-south fly-in of the airdrop. Since the Blackfish came from the sea-side, it nearly crashed into the steep cliff wall (as a matter of fact, its ramp actually hit the ground). It might be a good idea to have it flyInHeight a bit more to avoid crashes.
  • In some places there was an "Arma 3 Placeholder" texture (for example the one memory with the table under the parasol, and in one of the windows).
  • In the web page at the end, some of the "links" appear clickable, but don't do anything. I know it's not a biggie, but maybe you could have them skip to a 404 page :)

 

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2 hours ago, Alwarren said:

Some more bugs I noticed:

 

  Reveal hidden contents
  • In the mission where you have to direct the air drop, I used the point north of town, east of the castle (B I think) and asked for a north-to-south fly-in of the airdrop. Since the Blackfish came from the sea-side, it nearly crashed into the steep cliff wall (as a matter of fact, its ramp actually hit the ground). It might be a good idea to have it flyInHeight a bit more to avoid crashes.
  • In some places there was an "Arma 3 Placeholder" texture (for example the one memory with the table under the parasol, and in one of the windows).
  • In the web page at the end, some of the "links" appear clickable, but don't do anything. I know it's not a biggie, but maybe you could have them skip to a 404 page :)

 

Spoiler

I had that same problem with the air drop but forgot to mention it. I was west of the castle at A though I think. I was very worried about it. It was like one of those movies where the plane is in a nose dive and then it goes behind something and pulls up at the last minute (i.e. GoldenEye). In this case though I was actually unsure if it was going to survive unlike in movies. It was kind of funny though because it pretty much threw the last two crates over the ridge.

I also saw those ArmA 3 Placeholders but I figured that was because it's Dev branch.

 

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Consider me utterly unimpressed. While I love ARMA and it will continue to be my go to game, really, Laws of War DLC... did you not do enough of that with the fact that you cannot wear enemy uniforms unless mod owners unlock them??? And this is what you bring out before fixing tanks... or adding melee weapons, you know combat knives and bayonets (or are you waiting for the Unsung folks to do that for you?).

 

 

Whoopee, we have better mine detection systems (which mods provided anyway) and unexploded cluster munitions and ONE new vehicle with 20 skins... hmm (at least we do get artillery deliverable mines at last - I am certainly planning on breaking some Laws of War but I will not be able to disguise myself as the enemy when doing so...!). IMO this should be the last project from the Dutch office (this was the super secret project that could not be named... LOL) - or maybe get them fixing ARMA bugs that have existed since the launch in 2013 (and I say that as someone who runs three ARMA3 servers!!!)?

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10 hours ago, jakerod said:

A few DLC suggestions (maybe not too late?):

  • Flags as inventory items. Able to be placed by mines and the AI will not go within a few meters of them.
  • Ability to use signs as inventory items to properly mark mine fields

So as I said before, I think you guys did a great job on the campaign! I love the atmosphere and the story. Here's way more campaign feedback than you ever wanted (I'm spoiling the entire campaign so don't read if you haven't beat it yet):

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Bugs/Improvements

  1. There's a "Memory" in one of the houses on the south-west side of town where Nathan mentions that there was cloud cover for 2 weeks or something but it was sunny outside during the "Memory". I'm not 100% sure if that memory should have cloud cover but the fact that he was mentioning it kind of made me think it should be. But I'm also a bit confused by the dates in the campaign because I apparently wasn't paying enough attention to that part.
  2. In the same house as above, I got stuck inside because the door wouldn't open and I couldn't walk out of the memory. I had forgotten about the "U" key at this point because I hadn't used it at all up until that point. A reminder at that point would be nice if there isn't one there already. If there is, my apologies, I missed it.
  3. When I did the memory inside the house with the tripwire mine, the deactivated tripwire mine was still there in the flashback. That felt very odd.
  4. When I did the memory at the cafe I got stuck between the chair and the table when it flashed back. I was able to free myself but it felt awkward. Maybe somehow not allow the player to stand where the table and chair appear.
  5. I didn't feel like the exit distance for the cafe was as good as it could be in terms of flow. I had entered into the area from the balcony side and so when I wanted to exit I wanted to exit the memory in the cafe to keep on my original path. However, I was unable to do this because when you walk inside, you stay in the memory, and the door inside is locked. I think it would be better to have the memory fade out as you walk into the building, so you get to search the front room in the "present time". Failing that having it fade out near the locked door would be nice. It's just a flow thing. It felt odd walking off the balcony to get out of the memory and then have to go back up into the building. Note, that this was before I remembered the U key.
  6. In the carpenter's memory, I started on top of the table with the saw which was weird.
  7. In the memory in the shed with the "No CSAT Sign / CSAT Target?" a chicken had spawned inside the ATV and it looked odd. Not a big deal. Probably is fairly random.
  8. In the memory where the guy on the top floor of the NATO/AAF Barracks is mourning the loss of his friend, he is looking at a picture that has two CSAT guys in it i think. It was difficult to tell but thought that was odd. I don't think that was a story hint.
  9. My game crashed after exiting the memory in the church. Only happened once though.
  10. The mission where you clear the minefield with the UAV could use a few less mines I think. I think I had to go back and rearm twice. It would probably be better if it was only once. It felt more like a chore by that point. Maybe I was being inefficient though.
  11. During the Oreo missions I was opening a lot of doors and gates and was a bit disappointed to see that they would be closed when I came back after scenarios. It was useful to see where I had already been. I was keeping track on the map too but the doors would be good as well.
  12. I lost one of my men on "The Redacted" and think you should be required to hide the body or carry it with you to extract. Seems weird that no one figured out who it was when there was a corpse sitting there.
  13. I think the team mates on "The Redacted" need better aim. I ambushed the first group of guys. I targeted one, 2 targeted one, and 3 targeted one. 2 fired an entire clip and didn't kill his target which resulted in us being "Detected". We ambushed them from a prone position where we had been waiting for at least 2 minutes so fatigue shouldn't have been a problem.
  14. Plane direction in "The Peacekeeper" was confusing. I wasn't sure if it was the direction the plane was going to be coming from or flying towards. Might have missed an instruction somewhere in there.
  15. Some kind of distinction of which Memories I have viewed and which I haven't would be nice. I didn't notice any or remember a tip about that. I played it over the course of two days with work in between so I was having a hard time remembering if I had seen some of them. I apparently need to find a few more.
  16. In the final Oreo phase, after The Major, one of the dead NATO guys was propped up against one of the orange fences. Seems weird that one of the NATO guys would drag him against it, or life him, place the fence, and then put him back down. I realize that it depends on where I killed them in the Scenario but maybe moving the orange fences further back a bit would make this less likely. Not a huge deal though.


Cool/Interesting Stuff

  1. Loved the little twist at the end of "The Redacted" and how you showed it
  2. Your attention to detail was amazing!
  3. The atmosphere was awesome especially in The Redacted and The Survivor.
  4. The story telling was great! Loved the narrating the flashback scenario via phone conversation idea. Loved the whole flashback and flashback scenario concept.
  5. It was great playing as all the factions even though one of them might not have technically been the faction you were playing as.
  6. Is the priest looking down at the playground supposed to be social commentary on the state of "the church" in this universe? Creeped me out a bit.
  7. Loved the fighter flying top cover for the second evac helicopter and the whole "high ranking guys trying to escape" mission concept in general. Remind me of a part in Red Storm Rising a little. Did feel it was a bit odd for the Major to station his forces in guerrilla territory though.
  8. A lot of other stuff I'm struggling to remember.
  9. OFP Laptop screen. Not sure if this was included in A3 or LoW but I like it.


Things I didn't like

  1. The Survivor was frustrating from the stand point of I wasn't fully sure what to do. It said to leave the house so I took it I had to do that but no matter where I went I would die because I was too slow to be able to get anywhere. I had to kill everyone from inside the house which I felt wasn't the point. It just made me question if I was playing the mission right or if I wasn't going to trigger something because I wasn't following orders. Mission still completed eventually but I was just a bit unsure on what to do.It also didn't help that my computer isn't the best so all the particle effects and fog were killing the frame rate but that's my fault.
  2. The Major was quite possibly the most frustrating mission I have played in this game but I don't know how it could be made better and it's probably too late for changes anyway.
    1. This was another level where I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. I kept just waiting around because I didn't know if guys were supposed to keep coming in or what the trigger was to end it. At various times I thought the mission would end when:
      1. the Major or I run out of ammo and surrender
      2. I decide it isn't worth it anymore and kill the Major (did this one time... not the victory condition)
      3. I executed the guys on the ground (which for me would be one of those "Spec Ops: The Line moments" where you go, "is winning more important than doing the right thing?")
    2. It would be nice for the Major to mention waiting for a second evac chopper or something. Maybe that's supposed to be a surprise but my lack of knowledge of how it was going to end and the constant waiting made me think the mission could be broken or that I was playing it wrong.
    3. I felt like Nathan mislead me on where I was supposed to put the mines the first time. He said the graveyard would be a good killing field but then the next time or the time after he mentioned putting them at the front door.
    4. The enemy kept 1-shotting me constantly even though I had decent cover. I would be watching the window next to the door and then a guy would walk into the doorway, turn, fire a single bullet and kill me or the Major. Maybe turn down their skill slightly?
    5. It was really annoying that no one seemed to have had any ammo or grenades on them. They would constantly be throwing grenades in but no one would ever have any. I suspect you were scripting grenades and ammo to be removed when they died? Either way, it gave off the impression that they were attacking the church while they had only one mag of ammo.
    6. Grenades! Holy crap. They were throwing those efficiently. I got hit in the face at one point. The Major alerting me to them helped a bit (not sure if you scripted that or if that's a default feature since I don't normally play with an AI leader). The AI using them feels realistic but it's difficult to avoid them because I would keep getting stuck on things on the floor or parts of the church. My low frame rate didn't help here either which again is my fault. Was the grenade throwing scripted? I felt like they were using them a lot more frequently. Possible they were running out of ammo?
    7. They were shooting up the walls outside a lot too. Was that also scripted? I feel like the AI only does that when they see you. These guys were firing in through windows they couldn't see me through. AI viewing bug with the building maybe?
    8. When I finally managed to stop them from coming into the church and went to clear the outside, I kept stepping on my own mines. I know part of the point of this campaign is "mines suck" and that I can probably choose to not place them to unlock that achievement but I have no idea how I would win with such limited ammo.
  3. I had a difficult time keeping which brother was which straight in my head. I still am not sure if I remember which was the guerrilla and which wasn't or what there names are. Might just be my memory going to crap though.
  4. As previously mentioned, had a difficult time keeping track of when things happened in relation to one another. I also never finished the ArmA 3 campaign so that might not have helped.
  5. Since most of my complaints are about the last two scenarios, there is a chance that I just suck at the game and once it gets difficult I can't cope and crawl into the corner and cry.

 

Final Thoughts
Awesome work! Really great that you guys made this. I'm not sure if the rest of the DLC elements will find much use in my missions or at least as vital parts of them but at the very least I loved the campaign. Also great that some of the money is going towards a good cause. I would absolutely love it if you guys put together something like this: http://moricky.com/blog/2012/07/private-military-creators/ . I would love to hear about some of the following things:

  1. How this campaign and DLC idea came about
  2. Some of the team's favorite parts
  3. Any references to other media
  4. Any decision tree moments that affect something later
  5. Who drew all those pictures in the school
  6. Why individual design decisions were made
  7. Significance of the missions on the OFP laptop screen (if it's a LoW thing)
  8. Any cool hidden stuff.
     

 

I have completed the campaign and it went very good, never had a single issue.

Spoiler

 

1) In the survivor everything is explained in the beginning, I know many people in general and youtube streamers do not read or listen what is narrated in game as well as skip cut scenes, for previous BIS campaigns it would do, but not here.

It basicly sais that as a civilian you are untochable under the Geneva convention. So the goal of the mission (imho) was to show that you were not attacked because you were a non combattant.

2) In the Major mission, the AI is so OP and you have so little ammo to force you to deploy the mine field via dispencers. The objective there is to create a pile of screaming bodies in the church yard (imho) to show how brutal the mines are. And because you have to see it, BIS gave you no option to complete this mission othewise but creating a mine massacre

 

.

 

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@moricky Found a trivial bug.

Whn loading Altis in the editor or mission it sais at the bottom screen:"Village of Oreokastro was abandoned after the civil war". Correct me of I am wrong, but that civil war happened before the events of the East Wind, that war was the reason why NATO was peacekeeping on Altis(Adams and Lacey talk about it on the helo flight to Rogain). But in Laws of War mini campaign Oreokastro is still populated almost up to the very end of the East Wind.  

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2 hours ago, Ivanoff.N said:

I have completed the campaign and it went very good, never had a single issue.

  Hide contents

 

1) In the survivor everything is explained in the beginning, I know many people in general and youtube streamers do not read or listen what is narrated in game as well as skip cut scenes, for previous BIS campaigns it would do, but not here.

It basicly sais that as a civilian you are untochable under the Geneva convention. So the goal of the mission (imho) was to show that you were not attacked because you were a non combattant.

2) In the Major mission, the AI is so OP and you have so little ammo to force you to deploy the mine field via dispencers. The objective there is to create a pile of screaming bodies in the church yard (imho) to show how brutal the mines are. And because you have to see it, BIS gave you no option to complete this mission othewise but creating a mine massacre

 

.

 

Spoiler

1.) I didn't skip any cutscenes and I'm fairly certain that I listened to the narration. I just went back and listened to it the narration again. Kate says "do you think he went back to talk him into leaving, or to join the cause?" I took that as "Did he go back to talk his brother into leaving or to talk him into joining the cause". Me misinterpreting the second part,  "talk him into joining the cause" made me think I was supposed to be the guerrilla brother. As I previously mentioned, I was having trouble keeping which brother was which straight. I think it's because you don't ever really hear voices, there is no distinct visual difference to them, and they don't have personalities (that I picked up on). Their houses are the same with the decorations being a bit different too so I wasn't immediately clear which house I was in on my first playthrough. Should have figured it out though from the hole blown in the wall. I guess you see them wearing different clothes which should have been another indicator but people change clothes so I didn't fin that odd. The last time I had seen the guerrilla brother was at the church so I didn't know he went back to town.

I considered not picking up the gun on the first run but ended up grabbing it and never thought about not grabbing it after that. Although Nathan did seem to be judging me for it.

 "So the goal of the mission (imho) was to show that you were not attacked because you were a non combattant." because the AAF hadn't committed any violations up until that point?... not to mention stuff in the other campaigns. I probably did go for the gun out of both a.) this is ArmA, I normally need one and b.) not trusting the AAF. But yeah valid point. And the "branchingness" of it makes me appreciate the mission even more. I just played through the non-combatant version and I enjoyed that. Although I missed the doctors body. Someone tossed a smoke grenade right where Nathan mentions it so maybe the smoke obstructed him. I'm assuming he had meds that I needed but I limped to the church anyway because I'm a trooper like that.
 

2.) I think forcing the mine massacre made it unrealistic though. Those guys should have had ammo. I get the whole "mines are bad" aspect and I know why they forced it but it made it feel less realistic which took me out of the environment and started to make me think about what triggers might be involved. Not to mention Nathan kept giving conflicting hints on where to set the mines each time I restarted. They were also apparently not as effective as I thought they were.


I'm going to spoiler my reply to Ivan's second post just in case:
 

Spoiler
2 hours ago, Ivanoff.N said:

@moricky Found a trivial bug.

Whn loading Altis in the editor or mission it sais at the bottom screen:"Village of Oreokastro was abandoned after the civil war". Correct me of I am wrong, but that civil war happened before the events of the East Wind, that war was the reason why NATO was peacekeeping on Altis(Adams and Lacey talk about it on the helo flight to Rogain). But in Laws of War mini campaign Oreokastro is still populated almost up to the very end of the East Wind.  


Technically that would still be accurate since East Wind is after the civil war so the village was still abandoned after the civil war. Additionally, if you take a look at this link from moricky's signature: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Armaverse_Timeline . You can see that the main part of the campaign takes place about a year before East Wind in 2034.

 

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Normally against double posting but a.) that doesn't seem to be enforced very much anymore and b.) I'm worried someone already read what was above.

 

Campaign Spoilers (shorter this time):

Spoiler

I managed to complete The Major without using mines. The Major didn't survive but screw that guy he was using landmines. Tried shooting out the one that the Major placed before he launched them but I had no success. I had to save quite a bit and at one point went through probably 10 save reloads trying to headshot an American before he could turn and shoot me when I had only 3 bullets left in my gun. The enemy not having much ammo gets very awkward. I was standing next to the door inside the church and two guerrillas managed to get inside but didn't shoot at me because they had run out of ammo suppressing I guess.I'm also fairly certain that one guy in the churchyard stopped firing at me because he ran out of ammo too. This allowed me to escape. I'm not sure where the line is between "me playing the mission" and "me being an asshole and breaking the mission" is.

Bug/Improvement: If you don't kill all the soldiers at the church, there are still people wandering around the churchyard during the cutscene when the brother walks to the church.

Bug/Improvement:Might be good to make the second evac chopper and anyone inside incapable of taking damage. It was taking machine gun fire when landing and flying past the church. Saw some broken windows. Unless you have a trigger setup for the possibility of the evac chopper being downed I would at the very least make it and the pilot invincible. I would have been upset had I been shot and killed through the open door when the chopper was flying past the church... although I enjoyed the view.

 

I really like all the subtle changes to dialogue based on events. For example, when I shot Alexos (I think his name is, or at least that's what my nickname is for him now) vs when he got killed by mines. It kind of makes me wonder if I can avoid killing him. Perhaps force him to run out of ammo before he enters the church.

 

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1 hour ago, jakerod said:
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1.) I didn't skip any cutscenes and I'm fairly certain that I listened to the narration. I just went back and listened to it the narration again. Kate says "do you think he went back to talk him into leaving, or to join the cause?" I took that as "Did he go back to talk his brother into leaving or to talk him into joining the cause". Me misinterpreting the second part,  "talk him into joining the cause" made me think I was supposed to be the guerrilla brother. As I previously mentioned, I was having trouble keeping which brother was which straight. I think it's because you don't ever really hear voices, there is no distinct visual difference to them, and they don't have personalities (that I picked up on). Their houses are the same with the decorations being a bit different too so I wasn't immediately clear which house I was in on my first playthrough. Should have figured it out though from the hole blown in the wall. I guess you see them wearing different clothes which should have been another indicator but people change clothes so I didn't fin that odd. The last time I had seen the guerrilla brother was at the church so I didn't know he went back to town.

I considered not picking up the gun on the first run but ended up grabbing it and never thought about not grabbing it after that. Although Nathan did seem to be judging me for it.

 "So the goal of the mission (imho) was to show that you were not attacked because you were a non combattant." because the AAF hadn't committed any violations up until that point?... not to mention stuff in the other campaigns. I probably did go for the gun out of both a.) this is ArmA, I normally need one and b.) not trusting the AAF. But yeah valid point. And the "branchingness" of it makes me appreciate the mission even more. I just played through the non-combatant version and I enjoyed that. Although I missed the doctors body. Someone tossed a smoke grenade right where Nathan mentions it so maybe the smoke obstructed him. I'm assuming he had meds that I needed but I limped to the church anyway because I'm a trooper like that.
 

2.) I think forcing the mine massacre made it unrealistic though. Those guys should have had ammo. I get the whole "mines are bad" aspect and I know why they forced it but it made it feel less realistic which took me out of the environment and started to make me think about what triggers might be involved. Not to mention Nathan kept giving conflicting hints on where to set the mines each time I restarted. They were also apparently not as effective as I thought they were.

 

The brothers are easy to identify, one has the hat and the other does not. It is the problem with arma players, through the years arma has been so versatile and complicated that people are trying come up with some crazy variants of what you need to do to complete the mission, when you need to play as if you have never played before, as if this is cod or bf.

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Response to Ivan

Spoiler

They both wear hats at some point and one of them doesn't always wear it. The civilian shirt would have been enough to tip me off if it wasn't for that line of dialogue that I misunderstood and maybe if I had done a better job of learning the brothers' names. I don't recall the last time CoD made a mission where you don't use a gun but then again I haven't owned a CoD since the first one. It seems like something they wouldn't do though. Not to mention CoD is notorious for having triggers that need to be tripped to stop spawning enemies.

 

Do the mines inside the town go away as you do scenarios, memories, or something else? I only ever had to diffuse the UXOs and like 2 mines in the town I think.

Also, why is the laser designator inside the town? Is it the laser designator or just a laser designator?

 

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33 minutes ago, jakerod said:

Response to Ivan

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They both wear hats at some point and one of them doesn't always wear it. The civilian shirt would have been enough to tip me off if it wasn't for that line of dialogue that I misunderstood and maybe if I had done a better job of learning the brothers' names. I don't recall the last time CoD made a mission where you don't use a gun but then again I haven't owned a CoD since the first one. It seems like something they wouldn't do though. Not to mention CoD is notorious for having triggers that need to be tripped to stop spawning enemies.

 

Do the mines inside the town go away as you do scenarios, memories, or something else? I only ever had to diffuse the UXOs and like 2 mines in the town I think.

Also, why is the laser designator inside the town? Is it the laser designator or just a laser designator?

 

Spoiler

 

The mines in town do not disappear, except for that one on the armory roof which explodes after you use the deminig drone.I believe, you will have to disarm them all at the end to complete campaign. This campaign has some innovation as you basically play throught one continous mission. For example when you build a barricade of cars and go to the castle, in the later mission bobcat ploughs through the barricade and you will notice that the cars are in the same sequence you put them in previous mission. If you check out the changelog for the debranch, they introduced a module which allows for manipulation of objects baked into the map, that way they sort of teleport you back in time replacing busted houses with new ones etc. So I think that is how the mines remain on their positions after each mission. We will know for sure when they will release the dlc and subsequently unlock the campaign files to be viewed.  

The building is an armory,  and the laser designator is just a visual representation for the next mission which is airstrike, so it is just a laser designator. You can notice tha there is a simbolic item for every mission that tells you what it is about like boxes, leaflet, designator, cluster bomblings etc.

 

 

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I have not been playing Arma 3 for a while now. Started Airsoft...Anyway. I have to say thanks for the free content. I haven't bought the second DLC package yet. I feel there is no rush and I am perhaps in this love hate relationship with Arma 3. 

 

Whom am I to judge right...that said I think the Laws of War...seems ass about face. At the end of all this death and shooting post campaigns-Statis,  Altis, Apex. We have "No take into account civilians". Yet when the great island hopping campaigns started. We should have had Geneva convention considerations.  It just seems a bit late now to worry about people. More Civilian related missions in the older campaigns would have been better...maybe? Said Helo needs to pick up said beleaguered babushkas as they facing starvation and death squads. Drop MRE packages over grid coordinates. Capture alive said war lord to face trial in the Hague.

 

The usual caveat is why no women. Why no kids. Towns lack life. Basically, I just feel Orange/  AKA Laws of War would have been a nice segway into "War in an Urban area and its consequences". Any sort of campaign to save civilians or prevent ethnic cleansing. Human shields. I would have been... thanks I will take two of those please. I can almost bet shooting the Civies nets you no sort of results in older missions or missions made in 3den. I mean are there even civilians in the older missions. Can't remember. That's my point.

 

At this stage, it's late in the game to expect these. The last DLC is Tanks. And rumor has it they busy with Arma 4. They not going to put man power on any further Civvies AI development. Pity though I feel then Laws of War would have been more appreciated if it did just that...added the human factor/ hearts and minds. Likely these were thought out but I assume due to time constraints they couldn't do it.  Perhaps this is what Marek Spanel wanted when he was talking about many moons ago about consequences regards wars affecting people/ Red Cross.  I mean kudos...really BIS/ Marek for donating cash towards the Red Cross. And the irony is the old devil may care attitude in me is rather give it to the Peshmerga. Because as the character in Rambo 4 said. God didn't save you. We did. Realistically we need more squirters then Rules of War. Because ain't anybody really "worried" about any law of war and decency. Sorry. That's the war I see in the 21st Century... Human life is cheap. VR with no visceral blown off limbs, head cutting, and ethnic cleansing seems even for a War game tame.

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I'm still missing a few things

 

- The ability to open the rear doors of the ambulance/cargo van from the inside and/or outside.

- A camera facing down on the demining drone to see if you're actually above a mine or not.

- The ability to place down flags/signs indicating mines/minefields and perhaps the ability to place down roadcones for utility workers.

- Perhaps the ability for civilians to hack UAV's/UGV's.

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