[SP CAMP] Liberation of Chernarus

[Zardas 1]

I've played a few missions and it's pretty good so far. I like the larger groups, finally it's not 4 marines vs. 10 russians fighting for a large town. True it's a bit sluggish (maybe some groups should attack from slightly different angles), but my old Core2Duo ran it at a decent pace even with World of Warcraft running in the background. I wonder how that i7 can't keep up...

[forzajuve 20]

So I did play a few Missions and well lets start with the positive stuff:

The Prologue Intro was really well made

The First Mission was quite good. I liked that you could choose to stay and fight or to run

Now for the bad stuff:

The second Mission: The Gear selection: Why did you give some units silenced G36? They don´t make any sense on FR Units. Some Units had silenced Weapons while other had non silenced, you should either give silenced weapons to everybody or just leave them at their standard weapons. Some Units had mounted flashlights and turned them on when the fight started. It just completely blinded me and I couldn´t see anything.

The Third Mission: A nice dogfight with a few SU-25 but you made the mission end as soon as the last Su is destroyed. Also there isn´t a single AA at the Airfield.

The Fourth Mission: Jesus Christ how many Marines were that? Performance was quite bad because of so many Units in a tight Area. Also that has to be the most absurd ambush I ever saw. Simply lining up the Marines and throwing a huge bunch of enemys at them is not an Ambush.

Fifth Mission: Jesus are you serious? This has to be a full platoon of Marines+a ridiculous ammount of AAVs all starting in a 200m*200m Area and then beeing thrown at a huge ammount of enemys. Performance was extremely bad and we are talking about an i7 2600k that is running at 4,3GHz

I don´t know if I should continue playing this campaign at this point...

I appreciate the feedback. A couple of things though, I have never experienced 'mounted flashlights', you must be using a mod. I am running a core2duo and 5-6 year old 512mb 3850 and I could run every mission without lag. You don't need to play on max graphics with 16xAA plus 6 movies, chrome/firefox and movie editor running in the background. For the jet mission, I did experiment with using AA but I found it was extremely difficult, because they would shoot down the planes much too easily. Also, never did I say this is aiming for realism, i.e. some silenced units and the ambush ;)

---------- Post added at 04:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 AM ----------

I've played a few missions and it's pretty good so far. I like the larger groups, finally it's not 4 marines vs. 10 russians fighting for a large town. True it's a bit sluggish (maybe some groups should attack from slightly different angles), but my old Core2Duo ran it at a decent pace even with World of Warcraft running in the background. I wonder how that i7 can't keep up...

yep, I am also running a core2duo and it works fine.

Edited October 5, 2013 by ForzaJuve

[Tonci87 163]

Yeah I should have added that I was playing with ACE+ASR_AI+TPWCAS+JSRS.

I think Zardas Idea might work. Try using some groups as flanking force etc. That way you will still have a very immersive battle (especially with JSRS) but without groups bunching up too much.

[forzajuve 20]

I suggest to not with play with mods that change gameplay and AI behaviour. If you liked mission #1 then I suggest to keep playing because there are a lot of specops missions as well.

[Kommiekat 11]

You should feel happy that Tonici87 played your camp.

Just wish he had played mine. I'm jealous :(

[Tonci87 163]

You should feel happy that Tonici87 played your camp.

Just wish he had played mine. I'm jealous :(

Oh you made one? Sorry, I didn´t notice.... Congrats!

[Kommiekat 11]

Oh you made one? Sorry, I didn´t notice.... Congrats!

Dude! I'm shocked! I've got 3 camps here...........

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?144822-SP-CAMP-CO-Real-World-Operations-(RWO)

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Campaign

Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement Mini-Campaign

The Golden Triangle

This one was well recieved by the Chinese VME community that made VME_PLA. They even made a youtube of it

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?139942-SP-Senkaku-Diaoyu-Island-Conflict-(VME_PLA-MOD)

The Senkaku Diaoyu Island Conflict

One SP here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?140921-SP-Wakhan-Corridor-Afghanistan-VME_PLA-MOD-Mission

Wakhan Corridor

And my first SP here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?140395-SP-Cyber-Warfare-VME_PLA-MOD-mission

Cyber Warfare

So sorry, ForzaJuve for hijacking your thread!

I'm a naughty boy.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Kommiekat

[Brainbug 10]

I suggest to not with play with mods that change gameplay and AI behaviour.

yes, that helped, now the enemies in c-day and airfield assault at least shoot back. FPS are a bit better, too, though not great - no wonder considering the sheer mass of units.

They are still missions that are not fun to play at all. Too much running and overall tactical nonsense, this assault looks like a horde of barbarians with clubs running into each other for a melee in the stone age, but not at all like something the US Marines would stage in 2008. And I don't know how other players see this, but I don't like just "being present" while the AI fight it out between each other, especially if they are acting that idiotic.

As suggestion for improvement, I'd do this advance much slower and have different stages of support. When the choopers attack, interceptor fighters would be called, when there are tanks, call some Cobras or maybe let the AT-inf defend against them, but hold back the weak AAVs that are useless against tanks anyway. And don't let the player just run the whole distance. Mechanised infantry is transported in the IFVs and only debarked for fighting, they don't run miles (which they can't anyway considering all the weight they have with vest, weapons etc.). You also must give the player some pauses to refill his ammo or whatever; what if he already used up everything in that head-on meeting at the railroad crossing (what you call "ambush" for some unknown reason), is he really supposed to continue with a picked up rusty AKM and just toss his personal DMR away that he trained and slept with for several years? Come on. At least TRY to be a bit realistic. A Designated Marksman would probably not be Private anymore but a bit more advanced in ranks, but that belongs already to the smaller issues here.

This tedious running was already a downer in the flyswatting mission, but there it made sense from a gameplay perspective. But you should make it more interesting by putting e.g. a small patrol in the woods or something else. G36s are certainly ridiculous, there are enough weapons available that make more sense for USMC. And it is way too easy to just run around, put down a few satchels and run away again, I didn't even have to crawl, let alone to kill anyone. Those few precious planes are supposed to be totally unguarded and open to anyone?

Haven't player further yet, but I hope the rest is a bit more fun to play. Sorry if this criticism sounded too harsh, but you wanted feedback, didn't you. I guess other people who played this would have said something similar but were either too polite or too lazy to write that, and both wouldn't help you improve the campaign.

[forzajuve 20]

Well as I've said multiple times, I'm not going for realism since I am not a military tactical expert and I am not interested in creating such a campaign. I made what I thought is good so I guess you might best be served playing something else then ;) having said that, there are still many other types of missions following those ones and I suggest playing them before calling all the missions 'not fun'. at least get halfway through or so before making a judgement like that after playing only 4-5 missions out of 25. everything in this campaign is created with a purpose, such as AAVs being destroyed, if it wasn't supposed to happen I would change it. also 'too much running'? every single mission and arma campaign I've ever played involves lots of running, some much more than mine. this just seems ridiculous to say this. I remember in the harvest red campaign in the last mission the player must run like 5km or something like that...

One thing, you said realism, but now there is supposed to be us ammo dump or truck in the middle of a field ahead of the ambush? sorry but that sounds too unrealistic even for me, plus I gave the player 12 mags of DMR ammo, which should be plenty, plus there are also other designated marksmen who will usually die that the player can pick up ammo from.

there are 2-4 patrols in the first woods first mission, you must have missed them (playing v1.0?). I guess you play too 'hardcore' though, i'm not sure how you snuck in and blew up the planes without killing anyone, but I never expected anyone to play like that... it's certainly not unguarded so I guess your skill if you managed to do it like that. I'm not going to make call of duty mission where 5 guys take down 50 enemies, now that would be too unrealistic. not to mention, it is only the first mission. also in regards to g36s, base arma 2 only has a few silenced weapons so I used what was available. plus a few missions you can choose weapons in starting brief, if you read the readme.

I appreciate the feedback though, as you say, better than nothing :) just seems like overall you are criticising my campaign for something which it's not (i.e. hardcore military sim campaign) rather than for what it is. and one thing, if you think I can't take criticism of my work, the campaign would not be 30% as good as it is now thanks to a few people who helped me when I made it.

Edited October 17, 2013 by ForzaJuve

[Tonci87 163]

Well actually I also managed to blow up the planes without killing anybody. :p

I came in from behind the hangars, went between them (after shooting out the Lamp!), quickly run to the right one, then to the left one, and then out of there without anybody noticing me.

[forzajuve 20]

well that's fine, I don't see why it should be criticised if you can do that. I think the fog also helps too, I noticed the ai definitely cannot see as well through thick fog.

just a question, did you do it by yourself and made your squad wait behind? I would assume so.

Edited October 20, 2013 by ForzaJuve

[Kommiekat 11]

Well actually I also managed to blow up the planes without killing anybody. :p

I came in from behind the hangars, went between them (after shooting out the Lamp!), quickly run to the right one, then to the left one, and then out of there without anybody noticing me.

That's exactly what a RECON/SF squad is supposed to do, right? Go around, flank, sneak, belly crawl.

They don't always go head into battle when there are other ways around it.

[Tonci87 163]

well that's fine, I don't see why it should be criticised if you can do that. I think the fog also helps too, I noticed the ai definitely cannot see as well through thick fog.

just a question, did you do it by yourself and made your squad wait behind? I would assume so.

Yeah of course I left them behind the hangars, the AI isn´t so good when it comes to sneaky stuff :p

[forzajuve 20]

They aren't too good at most things most of the time :D

[tom3kb 15]

Im on mission 10 now and i must say that i really like the Force Recon and Eclipse team missions. Not to big groups are fighting, good and different tasks. No bugs in Nightstalkers,Guardian angel,Dolinas Misery (i play with A2CO so i can't use NVGs with M107 but i killed few chedaks from 1200m ;) ).

I dont like the big battles missions in arma, like yours Battle of Zelengorsk, Assault on Balota.

---------- Post added at 04:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:27 PM ----------

For me to many units i one place and missions are to heavy for my Pc. Sometimes units dont even shoot. ;) and i dont wont to play on LOW in arma but this could help. :)

So i really like this campaign, the Force Recon missions are very good.

Ps: 1 suggestion (but its not a big problem) i think you could add hints when we finish tasks. Sometimes i open map and i see that i finished some tasks ;)

[forzajuve 20]

thanks for the feedback :D there are still a lot more cool force recon missions after that, my favourite is maybe mission #13. I feel that the big battles are necessary, but maybe I could've put 1 or 2 less considering they aren't that popular. but I enjoy them; battle of zelenogorsk is probably one of my favourite missions from the campaign.

well it's weird because I never had problems with too many units in 1.0 and I am running like 5 year old mid-range hardware. mind you I mostly play on normal-high graphics with high view distance (6000-8000) at 1440x900 but the graphics still look pretty good to me.

I had task hints intially, but I didn't want to put them so the player isn't told everything they have to do. I guess I could have left the task completed ones though.

[tom3kb 15]

As i write earlier. I like smaller scale missions where we have only few squads with some support. But different people like different things, so its good that there are also missions with big battles. About tasks hints, it's good idea to not add them and that you inform player about "task completed" by some radio messages with HQ.

---------- Post added at 06:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:51 AM ----------

In few cases there was no radio messages or talks that we completed something, so i noticed that i finished task when i opened map to check something. ;) Its realy not a problem and you dont have to add them.

[forzajuve 20]

ok. as far as I can remember I put task completed for probably 2/3rds or most of them but yes I can remember not all of them had a radio message. silly, oh well, as you said it doesn't matter much.

[tom3kb 15]

Played few more missions, found two small bugs nothing gamebreaking. In mission Firesale task Kill the Chedaki (in Bor) was not greened in briefing when we cleared that village but mission ends without a problem. In mission Berezino defense we play with our ingame nick, setidentity for players unit is not working.

[forzajuve 20]

ok thanks for that, will fix.

also what did you think of mission #11 grim reaping (sniper mission). did you have to sneak from some patrols etc?

[tom3kb 15]

First i was thinking that i will have problems, i play with A2CO so i can't use NVG's with sniper rifles. I take m1911 and i run to first objective, i run on 1 enemy patrol in forest but they didn't saw me. I killed my target from 750m with m24,good that there was some lights in that village, so i didn't need that Nvg's.

Ps: i liked two missions in which we fight together with CDF and NAPA squads.

[forzajuve 20]

ok, seems like luck on how many squads you will run into, sometimes I ran into 3 or sometimes none.

I put lots of light at the target for that reason, otherwise CO players wouldn't be able to play.

I agree they are quite fun missions, definitely brings something different to the campaign.

[forzajuve 20]

over 100 downloads now, pretty cool :)

[IcyDennis 10]

Great campaign, with great intro and interesting mission so far. Playing with A2CO I haven't had any problems except the small glitches mentioned already. Thanks for the work you put into that. :)

[xxbbcc 6]

I also started playing your campaign. First of all, thanks for making it and especially thanks for not requiring any addons. I use A2CO with ASR AI, JSRS, a number of PvPScene addons and other addons that fix various realism aspects of the game.

Technically the campaign seems to be well done (I only got to the first 2 missions, though). Unfortunately, I have to say the missions themselves are rather poor from a strategic point of view. I hope you forgive the harsh opinion but I write this in hope that you'll update the campaign and deal with these problems. It's obvious you put a lot of work into making it and it's a shame that the tactical aspects of the missions ruin your work (as it is). I agree with most of the criticism put forth by Tonci and Brainbug.

Mission one: the mission includes a 2+ km hike and yet, I didn't see a single enemy soldier (apart from a BMP that showed up once and then disappeared) until I reached the hangar. I didn't even have to crawl - I walked straight to the hangar (from the back), put down the satchels and walked away. I finished the mission without firing a shot. The entire mission area feels empty and it's unrealistic that two fighter planes would be almost completely unguarded.

Mission two: I, too, have a hard time trying to understand why the soldiers carry silenced weapons when the machine gunners carry regular machine guns. They started firing right after the first report of contact, making silenced weapons totally useless.

The fog... well, I was trying to find an adequate word to describe it. The fog is simply absurd. Why you even put the fog in the missions is totally beyond any reasonable explanation I could think of. For most of the time I was staring at a solid green screen (NVG) randomly (and very, very briefly) interrupted by semi-transparent fog. The AI is in no way hindered by the fog but I couldn't see anything for ~90% of the time when I was standing still. When running, the fog keeps cycling between 0% and 100% transparency withing seconds that ended up hurting my eyes. I've seen heavy fog in real life but it doesn't keep changing between no fog and full fog every 2 seconds. Eventually this made me gave up on this campaign.

As it stands, I'd give maybe 3 out of 10 stars to this campaign. It seems to be bug free and well done, yet it's unrealistic and not fun at all. There may be many more missions that I didn't play but I'm not willing to damage my eyes to try them.

As I said, I hope you'll update your missions - there are now several players telling you about similar experiences so the pattern should be clear. This seems to be a campaign with great potential - it'd be a great loss if you left it as is. Let me know if you update it - I'd be willing to give it another try.