How Strong Will The PVP Scene Be?

[Shadowesh 1]

So how does United Operations work? Do teams just contact each other and look for scrims and participate in the community tournaments hosted every now and then? Or is it a community solely based on the tournaments?

[viper[cww] 14]

I expect it to be strong, but nothing compared to games centered around PvP. ArmA is best played in coop imo.

[Reuben5150 2]

Greetings fellow bf/cod l33t pvp playa

being as polite as i could with ignorant people who have no idea what they are talking about.

Sincerely,

n7snk

Apparently some people have no idea what Battlefield is about, and it has nothing to do with Cod.

[Smurf 12]

Apparently some people have no idea what Battlefield is about, and it has nothing to do with Cod.

Up to BF2 I agree.

With BC2 (quite good on it's own merit) and BF3 (meh...) it is closer to COD than legacy BF.

___________

I expect great thing for A3 in both Coop and PvP, specialy public PvP wich was severly lacking in A1 and 2.

Always have to schedule a game to have a good time isn't a good thing.

[nodunit 397]

Assisting cooperating squads as a commander was the shiz yo.

I think my best memory of BF2 was a two hour long match in project reality, no tools, no kit..just voice to ask squads for intel, relay that back and suggest counter maneuvers..only killing the stray guy that tried to flank our lines to assassinate me...that was a fun match.

[Vanz0r 39]

Greetings fellow bf/cod l33t pvp playa

now compare organized platoon of people who actually know what they are doing and have common goal to your marginal fun of "we play together alone" in your favorite bf/cod where everybody runs around like headless chikens.

now dear sir, may i ask you, did you ever was a part of massive organized platoon vs platoon tvt?.. i bet no. if you belive that ramboing or playing with 1-3 friends is "good" teamwork, you probably never experienced arma.

ah wait a secod.. may be all pvp fun as you imagine it is dumb zerg rush alone with respawn?... ah boy you surely do. and surely you know better because you are l33t pvp playa, right?

As it happens my background is the Delta Force series (aka the first open world shooter with never ending maps). So I'm not talking about 1-3 players but 16v16, 32v32, 50v50 and 75v75. As you may know this series is totally PvP where teamwork is essential to accomplish the 'unrealistic' objectives such as capture the flag, TDM, TKOTH, A&S etc.etc.

I've also played competitively online for over 18 years so I probably have more experience and knowledge of PvP than anyone else in this thread.

The odd server with 60 players playing once or twice a week does not equal a vibrant PvP scene; you need tens nay hundreds of servers full 24/7 to be able to claim that accolade.

The audience for PvP has changed over the years and become significantly younger, hence people require instant gratification and relentless action and you're simply naive if you think there's any mileage in a PvP scene where folks 'play soldiers'. Just to be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this type of gameplay, I'm sure it's satisfying and thrilling, but, it will never be popular.

Arma is basically a 3D 'shooter' and the unwillingness of the majority of Arma players to play on First Person servers means, IMHO, that the PvP scene will never be anything to match even the Tier2 FPSers (such as Delta Force).

I haven't bothered to research the facts but, I bet there are more people playing Wasteland than any other PvP Arma2 (excluding Dayz)?

[Trauma.au 10]

Let me consult my crystal ball...

[chortles 263]

So how does United Operations work? Do teams just contact each other and look for scrims and participate in the community tournaments hosted every now and then? Or is it a community solely based on the tournaments?

... not quite. Here's an example announcement (almost a month old) of a TvT (team vs. team) event, basically "we'll play co-op and some co-op/TvT until 5:45 pm Zulu time, then the server gets restarted and we play almost nothing but TvT until 7 am or somehow run out of TvT matches to play" followed by details (i.e. the possibility of some team vs. team vs. team matches).

The odd server with 60 players playing once or twice a week does not equal a vibrant PvP scene; you need tens nay hundreds of servers full 24/7 to be able to claim that accolade.

The audience for PvP has changed over the years and become significantly younger, hence people require instant gratification and relentless action and you're simply naive if you think there's any mileage in a PvP scene where folks 'play soldiers'. Just to be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this type of gameplay, I'm sure it's satisfying and thrilling, but, it will never be popular.

Arma is basically a 3D 'shooter' and the unwillingness of the majority of Arma players to play on First Person servers means, IMHO, that the PvP scene will never be anything to match even the Tier2 FPSers (such as Delta Force).

Pretty much +1 to everything about this, though it seems that Arma's online scene has stronger roots in player vs. AI co-op unlike most FPS games.

I haven't bothered to research the facts but, I bet there are more people playing Wasteland than any other PvP Arma2 (excluding Dayz)?

Hmmm, this is an interesting one, but I can see it being plausible as well, not least because the public perception of it is "DayZ without the zombies"... though I've seen servers where occasional missions that are offered and where people end up having access to heavier vehicles; it should be added though that at last check, Wasteland is specifically a mission only using vanilla Arma 2 and OA content, no addons required, so unlike all the hilariousness of the early days of DayZ installation or having to run DayZ Commander nowadays, Wasteland is literally "run A2: CO without mods enabled, connect to a server running Wasteland and it'll download the mission file if you need it."

[metalcraze 290]

The audience for PvP has changed over the years and become significantly younger, hence people require instant gratification and relentless action and you're simply naive if you think there's any mileage in a PvP scene where folks 'play soldiers'. Just to be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this type of gameplay, I'm sure it's satisfying and thrilling, but, it will never be popular.

Yes let's make everything play like Call of Duty because popularity is the only thing that matters.

[Oshi7 1]

Yes let's make everything play like Call of Duty because popularity is the only thing that matters.

For a business based on games development, popularity is a huge thing. Wanting your game and business to be a financial success is a good thing. Also stop comparing peoples desire for faster paced ArmA PvP to turning this game into Call of Duty. Its a fallacious argument and you embarrass yourself when you make it.

[LeeManatee 4]

So how does United Operations work? Do teams just contact each other and look for scrims and participate in the community tournaments hosted every now and then? Or is it a community solely based on the tournaments?

no, we run server 24/7 and play coop then tvt then coop then tvt

The odd server with 60 players playing once or twice a week does not equal a vibrant PvP scene; you need tens nay hundreds of servers full 24/7 to be able to claim that accolade.

everyday

... not quite. Here's an example announcement (almost a month old) of a TvT (team vs. team) event, basically "we'll play co-op and some co-op/TvT until 5:45 pm Zulu time, then the server gets restarted and we play almost nothing but TvT until 7 am or somehow run out of TvT matches to play"

if you never played at UO, please do not comment regarding how we play there by bits of quotes. thanks.

we play both mission types one after another

on madhouse we were playing stricly pvp for whole evning and thats why we were playing coop till the evning.

[metalcraze 290]

For a business based on games development, popularity is a huge thing. Wanting your game and business to be a financial success is a good thing.

For whom? Me? You? How? OFP was a huge success. ArmA games were successful too.

Also stop comparing peoples desire for faster paced ArmA PvP to turning this game into Call of Duty. Its a fallacious argument and you embarrass yourself when you make it.

And 'faster paced ArmA PvP' is different how? What is this faster pace that ArmA has not?

[chortles 263]

Re: faster paced Arma PVP -- I believe it all comes down to the adding of 'combat pace', and at last check Smookie got hired at least in part for being the only person to have implemented anything like that in an Arma game.

[Reuben5150 2]

For a business based on games development, popularity is a huge thing. Wanting your game and business to be a financial success is a good thing.

Few people these days are in the business to make "great games", they design games to make money, take EA, they produce over-commercialized BS that "looks real good on youtube" but has a shorter shelf life than the cd's in your local supermarket.

[chortles 263]

Longer shelf lives would risk people sticking with these games instead of getting the next installment.

[kocrachon 2]

There has always been some desire for PVP, but it will never been a large enough event to where you will see many tournaments. There are a few sites that do, but no more than 10-15 teams, and usually small teams at that. While I do see there being more PvP in A3, I don't think it will really go main stream, simply because theres not enough balance and focus from BIS to make it worth it, with out relying on mods, which at times will split the community making it harder.

IE, Project Reality will get 1/3, ACE will get a good chunk, and the rest will be vanilla, and each will stick with their preferred method, thus making PVP even more minor and hard to get into.

[nodunit 397]

Longer shelf lives would risk people sticking with these games instead of getting the next installment.

Didn't seem to be a problem for A3 despite A2 having plenty of life in it.

[chortles 263]

I said risk, dude... BI accepts the risk, the AAA publishers don't. :p

[metalcraze 290]

Didn't seem to be a problem for A3 despite A2 having plenty of life in it.

BIS hasn't done anything to compromise the reputation of ArmA3 among the core fanbase. It's still ArmA at heart, despite some issues.

I hope it stays that way instead of appealing to people who think that playing anything but 5-sec respawn TDM is for "spergers" and "people who play with trains"

[ratszo 17]

I'd like to see a default 'join squad' option.

Players ought to be able to form and join squads/fireteams on the fly ingame.

Combine this option with a sthud type squad radar, and we'd go a long way in tactical play.

[DavidCastle 1]

Arma 2 had a good pvp scene and still does. Mostly though it is on whitelisted servers. Arma 3 will seem to be more public as the attention from Dayz, Shack Tac, and PCgamer as well as lack of interest in Run and Gun Cod and BF (i love BF don't get me wrong, armas just better) have brought enough players to arma 3 to create a public scene. I hope it stays this way, though the best experiences will always be private servers and organized events. I view arma as doing milsim airsoft/paintball. You can go to a public game hosted by a group and these are usually always available at any time, but organized events and private groups are always the best.

TLDR: I think it will, but private is the best way to play

[chortles 263]

I'd like to see a default 'join squad' option.

Players ought to be able to form and join squads/fireteams on the fly ingame.

Combine this option with a sthud type squad radar, and we'd go a long way in tactical play.

In the meantime I would advise you to encourage mission makers to implement such an on-the-fly grouping system, I've seen it before.

[Atkins 10]

In the meantime I would advise you to encourage mission makers to implement such an on-the-fly grouping system, I've seen it before.

I bet PR:A3 will have a such system, just like PR:A2 has. This kind of squad management is must for public PvP.

I just would like to see a native implementation for this kind of system from BIS. The vanilla squad system is horrible for public PvP.

Someone should make a ticket about this matter.

[batto 17]

You could make ArmA3 PvP stronger by signing up (and form a team with me maybe ;)):

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?150823-4on4-Blitzkrieg-cup

I feel that some people don't know about / skip this forum section which seems to be place for PvP.

[deepfried 1]

My experience from Arma 2 is that the PvP is dead/terrible on public servers because of hackers, however its great on the private servers, if you can get in with a clan or w/e. For me Arma 2 was 90% coop vs AI.

I expect this to all be the same for Arma 3, as BIS have demonstrated no interest or competence in tackling hacking.