MP thoughts

[{SAS}Silentkiller 0]

I love the free form gameplay with the DayZ MOD & Rocket's breath of fresh air approach to developing, I saw a post where he said something on the lines of "I'm not going to try & balance the game, it's like trying to wean people of EA/IW crack!"

I whole heartedly agree a player should adapt to the game not the game to the player & feel much better for it.

I feel what has been shown so far by DayZ is that persistence of kit/loot is key to keep people playing, I think this can be modified only slightly to make a military survivor sim so to speak as follows:

* No more zombies instead you have civilians, these civilians will make a lot of noise (throwing tin cans etc) when disturbed by someone with a gun (put your gun away & they stop, but make you vulnerable).

* No more one solid faction against another, these are allowed to form naturally, everyone starts of as neutral to one another until groups have picked up enough loot to build a main (indestructible?) base, here they can store things, both personally & as a group (restricted to rank in that group?).

*Basic loot (hatchet, knife, matches etc) can be found in any town, but to get loot to spawn to enable you to build more advanced things like machine gun posts/Humvees/helicopters etc. back at mainbase, you would have to build a Forward Observation Base (FOB) which would both time to build (30 minutes?) & quite a lot of loot/resources.

* FOB these can only be put up inside a town's radius & would have 3 effects:

1. It would bring to town/village under your group's control, so the civilians won't make noise alerting anyone else to your presence in the town, whether you have your gun out or not.

2. It would have to opposite effect to anyone not in the controlling group (with a gun out), so the civilians will make a lot of noise & on the maps of the group member's maps the FOB symbol will flash, indicating either, it is under attack/being caputured or there is someone trying to enter to area.

3. Advanced loot will spawn here, making the FOB & town more of a target to the enemy.

Persistance:

Mainbases & FOBs would only be persistent on the server they were built in, this would prevent conflict of controlling towns.

Character kit would be persistent between servers, so you could "raid" towns in other servers for loot, so you could effectively have several out posts in other servers if you wanted to but, if you stretched to far you wouldn't be able to defend them & be open to attack.

Vehicles would also be persistent only in the server they were built in & only if they were left in either the main base or FOB.

Maps: These would be automatic kit, (but can be dropped), where people of the same group can put makers down showing enemy FOBs & other positions. What I would love to see would be if you got killed with one on your body, the enemy could loot it & it would show a snapshot of the markers that were down when the person was killed, so it might show where their FOBs are & where they know you are.

If Rocket is anything to do with the Multiplayer side of ARMA3 I would hope for something like the above. It would be great to have a main FPS game to explore a more MMO style of gameplay.

EDIT: A note on servers, I feel server files should be restricted to communities rather than individual people this would concentrate the player base meaning more people per server.

Edited May 30, 2012 by {SAS}Silentkiller

[On_Sabbatical 11]

Plenty of PvP games, but most are are in communities where there is an actual plan of attack in the PvP game, both sides brief, all sides on TS, usually using ACRE.

No one here wants run and gun play, and thats what makes "big" PvP communties form, the ease of people joining and leaving. That doesn't work when you are trying to actually play with some level of planning.

As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong with the MP community for Arma, BIS needs to do nothing to make it better besides technical stuff.

Yeah ! that 's why when i check the list of the most frequented servers,i find a lot of RPG maps,domi maps and zombies now ! and not even a single PVP mission.

[antoineflemming 14]

I love the free form gameplay with the DayZ MOD & Rocket's breath of fresh air approach to developing, I saw a post where he said something on the lines of "I'm not going to try & balance the game, it's like trying to wean people of EA/IW crack!"

I whole heartedly agree a player should adapt to the game not the game to the player & feel much better for it.

I feel what has been shown so far by DayZ is that persistence of kit/loot is key to keep people playing, I think this can be modified only slightly to make a military survivor sim so to speak as follows:

* No more zombies instead you have civilians, these civilians will make a lot of noise (throwing tin cans etc) when disturbed by someone with a gun (put your gun away & they stop, but make you vulnerable).

* No more one solid faction against another, these are allowed to form naturally, everyone starts of as neutral to one another until groups have picked up enough loot to build a main (indestructible?) base, here they can store things, both personally & as a group (restricted to rank in that group?).

*Basic loot (hatchet, knife, matches etc) can be found in any town, but to get loot to spawn to enable you to build more advanced things like machine gun posts/Humvees/helicopters etc. back at mainbase, you would have to build a Forward Observation Base (FOB) which would both time to build (30 minutes?) & quite a lot of loot/resources.

* FOB these can only be put up inside a town's radius & would have 3 effects:

1. It would bring to town/village under your group's control, so the civilians won't make noise alerting anyone else to your presence in the town, whether you have your gun out or not.

2. It would have to opposite effect to anyone not in the controlling group (with a gun out), so the civilians will make a lot of noise & on the maps of the group member's maps the FOB symbol will flash, indicating either, it is under attack/being caputured or there is someone trying to enter to area.

3. Advanced loot will spawn here, making the FOB & town more of a target to the enemy.

Persistance:

Mainbases & FOBs would only be persistent on the server they were built in, this would prevent conflict of controlling towns.

Character kit would be persistent between servers, so you could "raid" towns in other servers for loot, so you could effectively have several out posts in other servers if you wanted to but, if you stretched to far you wouldn't be able to defend them & be open to attack.

Vehicles would also be persistent only in the server they were built in & only if they were left in either the main base or FOB.

Maps: These would be automatic kit, (but can be dropped), where people of the same group can put makers down showing enemy FOBs & other positions. What I would love to see would be if you got killed with one on your body, the enemy could loot it & it would show a snapshot of the markers that were down when the person was killed, so it might show where their FOBs are & where they know you are.

If Rocket is anything to do with the Multiplayer side of ARMA3 I would hope for something like the above. It would be great to have a main FPS game to explore a more MMO style of gameplay.

EDIT: A note on servers, I feel server files should be restricted to communities rather than individual people this would concentrate the player base meaning more people per server.

Something like that could be great, but I think something maybe even a little better and more tailored to Limnos would be if you played as like civilians/independents (maybe using the Greek resistance charac or something). There could be Iranians present throughout the island, as sort of an external force. You'd be friendly to everyone, so the Iranians wouldn't attack you outright unless you attacked them. You would have the option of fighting one another, raiding towns, taking from other players or attempting to attack the Iranian force and raid their stuff (maybe even attempting to raid their military base on the island). Because, while it's good that you start off neutral, with a persistent Iranian faction, you could attack and loot from them to try to gain an upper hand on your player-enemies. Scenario: You attack an AI iranian patrol, loot their gear, and then go attack a rival player-group's FOB. Now that would be awesome. Not only that, but something like that could be explainable within the ArmAverse story...

[VampyricTyrant 10]

@Sinnister domination for ARMA was the most popular mission since it came out by Xeno.

DayZ is now the most popular mod and since a lot of media is spread around it... there's a marketed mod for masses. Youtube is your friend. Since DayZ's release, the ARMA population boomed.

@VampyricTyrant if 6v6 is too much for a clan... simply remove one player from each side of the mission simply in the simple editor and there's your 5 v 5.

You can probably market to the masses by pushing awareness and having a lot of youtube medias and other stuff for it, if the mission appeals to the masses or if the addon appeals to masses. Most successful example I've seen is Day Z

PvP has a differnat type of approach since its neglected by the developers from the OFP times. PvP communities had to make their own missions etc and this creates fragments of PvP players, each of them playing differant type of maps or massing into campaign-ish style of communities that have totaly differant orientation from the one that standard competitive PvPers have

[dmarkwick 261]

PvP has a differnat type of approach since its neglected by the developers from the OFP times. PvP communities had to make their own missions etc and this creates fragments of PvP players, each of them playing differant type of maps or massing into campaign-ish style of communities that have totaly differant orientation from the one that standard competitive PvPers have

You know, I'd bet that would happen in any case. How many default missions of any kind are regularly played? It's not like playing any user-made mission is difficult either, it's downloaded the very first time you play it.

[VampyricTyrant 10]

How many default missions of any kind are regularly played?

because they aren't sufficiant for competitive PvP play. PvP ppl most of times dont care about making their maps etc. What I meant with all this is that the games has to come with a complete set of competitive PvP maps just like any other game.

[noubernou 77]

Again, a majority of the long standing community here have no desire to see "competitive" PvP/TvT. This is not what the game is about. There is a reason it has never become popular for that type of play, its because pretty much no one here wants to really support that type of community because its not even close to in line with what this game intends to have for its player base, ie there are far more communities that would rather sit around in a 10 minute briefing than there are players who want to just jump in and run around rambo style in some PvP match.

[batto 17]

Again, a majority of the long standing community here have no desire to see "competitive" PvP/TvT.

Why? You can ignore things you don't like. I'm certainly not part of this crowd.

This is not what the game is about.

Nope. Speak for yourself.

Those serious milsimers... :j:

[NoRailgunner 0]

A3 can be awesome if its using its content/features to create a very typical and unique A3 mp experience. Imo there is no need to try to copy/port current popular maps/missions just for the sake of 'popular'. Maybe old missions will be played now and then but usually people want something new, something challenging and something that is replayable more than once or twice. What is still sad to read about pvp players is:

PvP ppl most of times dont care about making their maps etc.

How this can be changed so pvp players do care about instead of waiting and crying on missing the constant stream of pvp missions/packs from gamedevs? Will examples and templates change something or will the pvp majority still moan that someone else should serve them pvp missions on a silver platter??

[Mr. Charles 22]

Will examples and templates change something or will the pvp majority still moan that someone else should serve them pvp missions on a silver platter??

Not really. I don't see any AAS missions, which aren't released by Coolbox/kju.

[dmarkwick 261]

because they aren't sufficiant for competitive PvP play.

I asked about missions of any kind, you'll find that hardly any default missions are ever used.

PvP ppl most of times dont care about making their maps etc. What I meant with all this is that the games has to come with a complete set of competitive PvP maps just like any other game.

I get it now. The PvP community just want everything supplied by default, as is, vanilla, out-of-the-box? I think you might be doing the PvP community a disservice, but I cannot say for sure because I guess I'm not part of that community. What you seem to be advocating is console-like activity. Nothing wrong with console-like activity on its own terms, it supplies a minimum gaming experience that anyone can join in with no problems. But ArmA offers so much more. I'm all in favour of BIS supplying as many different kinds of missions as possible, but this kind of passive activity makes the PvP community sound sort of.... dull.

[batto 17]

Nothing wrong with console-like activity on its own terms, it supplies a minimum gaming experience that anyone can join in with no problems. But ArmA offers so much more. I'm all in favour of BIS supplying as many different kinds of missions as possible, but this kind of passive activity makes the PvP community sound sort of.... dull.

It's common that games come out with playable content. Such practice predates consoles.

[dmarkwick 261]

It's common that games come out with playable content. Such practice predates consoles.

I expect you're right. Any game that sports such a powerful and easy to use editor has more playable content than almost every other game I played over the last ten years. However, as I said several times, I also support the inclusion of many default missions for those gamers who cannot fathom it. :)

[{SAS}Silentkiller 0]

I feel that ARMA3 will have massive multiplayer potential, unless they go down the more MMO sandbox path like the DayZ MOD has done this potential will continue to be untapped.

BI must not try to emulate other FPS games as this will fail, give people options of gameplay through almost no rules & giving players lots of unknowns, & making them work hard & making them feel rewarded for doing simple things (I love just navigating a group around with the map & compass & making it to where I expect to be!) But give them the tools to form unique groups with unique uniforms & names, and the game will blossom :)

[BinaryCode64 1]

Deleted

Edited March 10, 2013 by BinaryCode64

[{SAS}Silentkiller 0]

Having an unending mp battle would be awesome. 1000vs1000 player battles....

Something tells me that most servers would die with that many people!! But, split that number between 10 servers & you have people fighting for control of a map/server.

[gossamersolid 155]

Having an unending mp battle would be awesome. 1000vs1000 player battles....

No it wouldn't because it wouldn't be possible.

A majority of servers cannot handle 128 player PvP missions as it is...

[dekster 1]

Having an unending mp battle would be awesome. 1000vs1000 player battles....

That's the bit you have to leave out, unending isn't cool.

Pvp isn't fun if you can't finish your opponent off.

[polar bear 10]

It would be cool to have a river with a couple of bridges over it. That would create the possibility of "choke point" type scenarios, without actually imposing any unrealistic/fake constraint. You could then do some capture-the-bridge type scenarios.