Various MP questions/issues

[fz50 10]

Hello all.

Me and a friend just bought Arma 2 Combined Operations on Steam, since we both love playing war games in coop mode. Since neither of us have any particular experience with the Arma/Operation Flashpoint series, we have a couple of questions for you pros out there.

1) I start the game as team leader, and my friend as a rifleman. We also have two bots with us (a grenadier and a medic). This a coop mission in MP on Operation Arrowhead (I think its number 5, investigate a town). Soon into the mission we get pretty shot up, and both of us gets immobilized at various points. Problem is though, that team roles gets totally randomized. Suddenly my friend is team leader, I’m medic, etc. Then suddenly I’m grenadier, and so on. Why does this happen? Is it possible to change the roles back somehow, so I’m back to being team leader?

2) Sometimes during playing I can see a yellow or red “broken chain†on my screen. I’ve read that this relates to some synching issues. Is this something to worry about? We play on LAN, I have 100 mbit wired, and he has 54 mbit WLAN.

3) I think this has something to do with the possible sync issues mentioned in 2), but here goes. Still on the same mission as in 1), our two bots are injured, but mobile (not all fixed up by the medic). We save the game, and load it back up. When the game has loaded, the two bots just drop permanently dead, and the radio subtitles seemingly go through a lot of things, “enemy spottedâ€, “taking fireâ€, and so on, even though we saved at a completely safe spot. What is going on here? Sync issues again?

Hope somebody can answer these questions. Apart from the problems above, we’re both loving the game so far!

- FZ50

[Hanzu 10]

I assume you have patched your Steam version to 1.57.

1) Everytime the mission ends for any reason you can reselect roles in Multiplayer Setup screen and there should not be any other way to change roles. Are you playing Harvest Red campaign (mostly forest) or Operation Arrowhead campaign (mostly desert) which both include 4 player slots and come with Combined Operations install? Will the team roles get randomized when you load savegame or just like that when you are running around?

2) This will happen every now and then because of various reasons like the game trying to sync after mission start or the game trying to sync because of loading or because of graphical or bandwith lag. It is nothing to worry about, but to be less likely to avoid problems it may create we usually stop walking, running, driving or any activity until the chain is gone. Also never use savegame when chain is on. Since you guys play in LAN its not likely to be bandwidth lag, but more likely it means the game loads on your drive when there is lot of activity around, lots of stuff in your vision or just a big map which needs to stream new stuff every now and then.

3) Sounds new to me, but weird things may can happend if the game has been saved in desync and then loaded. If it is anything like this, please let me know:

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/16733#note-2

(Since I need verification for my problem).

[maddogx 11]

1) There is a respawn type in the game where you "respawn" into a different member of your team when you die. Maybe that's what's happening to you.

2) I assume one of you is hosting the game from his machine. I would recommend configuring and running the dedicated server executable (on the fastest machine, or ideally a third one) for the best MP experience.

3) No experience with saving in MP, but I've heard lots of complaints about it. I would say it is best to be avoided.

[Hanzu 10]

1) There is a respawn type in the game where you "respawn" into a different member of your team when you die. Maybe that's what's happening to you.

If fz50 is playing campaign like I assume (because of 4 player characters) there is no respawn in it. Campaign missions will end as soon as one of the character dies. In non-campaign coop missions, you will respawn by taking over control of your AI teammate IF the server has not selected "Disable AI option" where AI teammembers are not presents with you the mission.

2) I assume one of you is hosting the game from his machine. I would recommend configuring and running the dedicated server executable (on the fastest machine, or ideally a third one) for the best MP experience.

I though it is possible to host campaign coop only with non-dedicated server, because campaign progress and automatic saves (which you cannot avoid if you play campaign) are saved to the host computer.

3) No experience with saving in MP, but I've heard lots of complaints about it. I would say it is best to be avoided.

I have been using MP saves every week since September 2010 and they work ok if you know what to do and what to not do while using them. There has been progress the function usability ever since. I think MP saving just got bad reputation because it was working way too unreliably before 1.08 and 1.54 patches. I see people still writing they could not get MP savegame to work at all, it only makes me wonder if they have tried it year ago or something. One day I should make a long post about how to use MP savegame properly.

If you play campaign in coop (=MP) you cannot avoid using savegames because automatic savegames will happen as scripted and you can not turn them off. Also in big and long missions like Manhattan or Dogs Of War it is truely an accomplisment if you complate them without loading savegame even once, since the game will crash or your character will get killed at least once before mission is finished.

[fz50 10]

Thanks for all the fast answers so far.

Just to clarify, this is not campagin COOP. We just selected MP, map: Takistan, and COOP 05: Hike in the Hills, and played. We didn't select any other things, except difficulty Regular, which we had edited a bit with 100 (or 1.0 or whatever it is), on the slider at the bottom of Edit difficulty in the main menu.

[Hanzu 10]

In that case try the host (you?) should set "Disable AI" before mission, if you don't want to respawn as your AI teammember after your character dies.

If this does not help try what MadDogX said. Creating a dedicated server. It can be run in same computer too where you play yourself.

We completed COOP 05 Hike In The Hills in Expert difficulty just by...

stopping to the first crossroads, defending there 360 degrees (they come from start location direction too) and after some radio messages driving back to extraction. No saving required. Mission can be completed in about 6 mins. COOP 05 Hike In The Hills Objectives

Edited January 21, 2011 by Hanzu

[fz50 10]

In that case try the host (you?) should set "Disable AI" before mission, if you don't want to respawn as your AI teammember after your character dies.

If this does not help try what MadDogX said. Creating a dedicated server. It can be run in same computer too where you play yourself.

I think we'll try that. Problem is though, that we're only two human players, and we still want that help from the AI team members, we just don't want to respawn as them. For me it would be ideal that if both of us die, and are not healed, it's mission failed, even if the AI team members are still alive

[Hanzu 10]

Yes I would like that too since AI teammates are not clever enough to finish objectives and the mission without human players commanding them, but the feature of non-campaign COOP mission to end when all human players are dead, just does not exist in this game.

If we made it with 5 on Expert, maybe you could handle with just 2 of you on Regular. :) If you play with Steam version like you said you must be also connected to internet, so maybe creating a server where it is possible to join from both internet and LAN is possible to get all 5 human players for that mission.

[fz50 10]

The reason why me and my friend played this COOP mission in the first place was that we couldn't fint campaign COOP :p (guess you have to select Host from the SP Campaign menu?!).

I think we'll just play campaign in the future. Seems more fun to have some sort of story linking the missions togehter.

I totally agree though, that the AI just seem dumb at times, staring into walls, and so on. Don't even get me started on their driving skills. :p

Anyways, thanks for all the great tips. We might try that dedicated server thing, and see how it works out. Looking really forward to playing more though. We both really love this types of games, and this one seems like a true gem beneth some layers of "dirt". :D

[Hanzu 10]

Campaign(s) is fun in COOP, but still plagued by some multiplayer only bugs. If you run into them, do not hesitate to PM me, I may have found a workaround for most of them.

Two more tips, AI is really good sometimes as vehicle gunner, because they know better where enemy is and if it is enemy at all, but I never let them drive cause they don't know where we are going unless told so constantly by you as a commander.

[fz50 10]

Ok, thanks alot. Great to have people like you that really want to help people in a community. :jump_clap: You might just get a PM, if our games start acting erratic (again). :p

Edited January 21, 2011 by fz50

[MissionCreep 12]

2) I assume one of you is hosting the game from his machine. I would recommend configuring and running the dedicated server executable (on the fastest machine, or ideally a third one) for the best MP experience.

Hi ... my experience is the opposite for 2-player Co-op on a LAN. Hosting 2-player ingame gives better faster than running the server and hosting 2 games. Mind, you this might be because our machines are lower spec

The faster one is

Dell GX620, 3.2 GHz Core Duo CPU, 4 Gb RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5570 - 1 GB VRAM, 500 Gb SATA2 disk.

The slower one is identical except for an ATI Radeon 4650 DDR2 1GB.

Our LAN is 10 mbps. Running MP, like Warfare with 2 independent entities (eg each player on a different side or on different missions), overwhelms the system. But for SP and CO-OP where we are both on the same page, it is great.

[fz50 10]

While playing the Operation Arrowhead COOP campagin we realized that no cut scenes or mission videos are shown. Is it supposed to be like this in COOP campaign, or have we encountered some sort of bug here?

[Hanzu 10]

While playing the Operation Arrowhead COOP campagin we realized that no cut scenes or mission videos are shown. Is it supposed to be like this in COOP campaign, or have we encountered some sort of bug here?

Have to say I am not the expert here, since I only played the first mission of Operation Arrowhead campaign, but it seems that all 4 players have different start locations and different tasks/objectives, so there is not really a good place for cutscenes. Imagine you completing one of your assigned tasks and other player completing one of his assigned tasks simultaneously, so what cutscene would be played or if one players would reach cutscene, what would others do while one is watching cutscene, maybe they would be in the middle of combat so the gamemakers would have to decide if cutscene would also play for them with risking their life or skipping cutscene for them with leaving them less aware what is going on in the plot. What I have heard Opeation Arrowhead is pretty much lone wolf style of campaign, where 4 players keep on doing their own tasks. Correct me if I am wrong.

Harvest Red campaign has plenty of cut scenes, but I don't like them at all since the game going to that kind of special mode in the middle of the game sometimes leaves that special mode on creating coop-only bugs like this:

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/15621

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/15536

I think most of people agree that Harvest Red campaign is more enjoyable coop experience than Operation Arrowhead campaign, but to deal with Harvest Red you need to know there are still bugs slowing down the progress.

Some say there are better custom campaigns available for free download, but I have never had time to try one since I'm still busy completing, bugreporting and making my own walkthroughs for some original missions and that is my priority.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Hanzu