Just curious: Is anyone interested in no-respawn MP?

[Bahger 11]

I make a lot of missions for DCSW A-10C. I tend to favor tactical scenarios with a lot of support and good balance so that the player will not get killed if he has good SA, communicates to his squadmates and knows his mission. MP missions with unlimited recycling of lives are fun to play but they also encourage recklessness and after a while, all tactical cohesion is lost. My first MP mission for ArmA3 (a beta right now) does not have respawns yet; it's a village sweep with mortar support and assisting AI infantry and overwatch. I was just wondering, if I released this with no respawning, will anyone play it. or will I be the laughing stock of the ArmA community?

[giorgygr 61]

No..you will NOT become anyone's 'laughing stock'.

I m one of the many who believes that Parameters make the experience.

i.e

Build two variants of the same mission-played by the same people.

One with _X number of revives/respawns..and one with none.

In first occasion you will see NO difference in player behavior of popular games like CoD BF etc

In second occasion..people will TEND to progress as a team-carefully moving under cover..or they lose :)

Go for it!

[Beerkan 71]

No..you will NOT become anyone's 'laughing stock'.....

Agreed.

It is hard to play a mission that you don't know, that takes a couple of hours to play, with just 1 life. And very frustrating when you die.

My personal opinion is limiting respawns to 1 or 2 is about right. And long respawn delay (30 seconds or more) to drive the point home.

You aim is to make it a rewarding experience, and a long tactical mission with the right balance achieves that. That's what differentiates the ArmA series.

[tonygrunt 10]

I have played in a clan server where all missions are 1 life only so there are people that enjoy them, including me from time to time. You are forced to a team tactical play knowing that one bullet is all it takes.

My recommendation is to try to keep the mission time for completion under 1 hour and try to avoid situations where people could die accidentally due to the environment (climbing ladders, ...). Also use some spectate script for dead players to follow the action (no bird spectate).

[Bahger 11]

Very encouraging and helpful responses, glad there's interest.

To minimize frustration I've changed my enemy precision settings in the base config profile as recommended by MacScottie:

precisionFriendly=0.65;

precisionEnemy=0.2;

I wonder, will this affect all clients if these are the server settings? I've already noticed a huge improvement; if you are going to get killed, it won't be because you were headshotted from 300 yards, while running, by an AK.

The mission is probably about 45 minutes long.

Obviously this way of playing is best suited to clans with Teamspeak comms, etc. If any of you would like to play it in an organised way, i.e. with Teamspeak, let me know, it'll be ready next week in both SP and MP versions. I'm very proud of it, it's not graduate-level mission-design but it's a good scenario involving classic infantry tactics and fire support via the artillery module.

[VisibleGhost 1]

Yes I am very interested in this as well. Many of my friends have a background in the Playstation series SOCOM before it was butchered. We cut our teeth with that before moving on. Those of us lucky enough or with enough money to spare have found a home in ARMA for some years now.

I personally have been waiting for my account to allow me to post my own thread as I need help with my mission that I am making. I do not wish to hi-jack this one but if someone could tell me how long I have to wait to post my own thread that would be great.

Edited March 22, 2013 by VisibleGhost
spelling

[Variable 322]

It saddens me that we live in times where people are in doubt that no-respawn missions are in demand. Let me tell you this - YES! Please make no respawn missions. We, Comrades in Arms, play ONLY no-respawn missions. You are right, it's the only way to keep the game serious, realistic and tactical. It's funny how in such a game with so much emphasis on realism, people play with endless lives (or additional two or three lives for that matter). I am aware of the fact that groups like us are becoming extinct, but I would like to think of ourselves as the true coop players, maybe last of a kind.

If you ask me, those who play with "extra lives" are the ones that should be laughed at, not people who make missions for the more serious parts of the community.

If people here still look for the no-respawn feeling, check my signature, and join the community group "NO respawns! NO revive!"

Edited March 22, 2013 by Variable

[tonygrunt 10]

@VisibleGhost, your question about thread posting would be better served at "The all new: Ask a moderator about the forum & rules".

@Variable, you forgot your signature. :)

[Alwarren 2767]

I make a lot of missions for DCSW A-10C. I tend to favor tactical scenarios with a lot of support and good balance so that the player will not get killed if he has good SA, communicates to his squadmates and knows his mission. MP missions with unlimited recycling of lives are fun to play but they also encourage recklessness and after a while, all tactical cohesion is lost. My first MP mission for ArmA3 (a beta right now) does not have respawns yet; it's a village sweep with mortar support and assisting AI infantry and overwatch. I was just wondering, if I released this with no respawning, will anyone play it. or will I be the laughing stock of the ArmA community?

I don't need respawns, I have ammo :)

Seriously, though... I dislike missions with respawn. Most of the time, respawn is used as a replacement for balance. I want to be able to finish a mission with what we have, not with X amount of raise-from-death. In our clan games, we deliberately avoid respawn-missions if possible. The only sort of respawn we use is if there are AI left in the team.

If at all, make respawn an option, so real men can turn it off :)

[Varanon 892]

I personally prefer no respawn over respawn or revive missions.

The reason is simple: If you know that you can respawn, you behave differently. If you know that you can respawn with no penalty other than an embarrassing coprse lying somewhere in an open field because you Rambo'd, you will go Rambo whenever possible.

A well designed mission without respawning will keep players tense and fearing for their "lives". It makes missions so much more exiting.

In my missions, I usually add a difficulty setting that can be used to tune the mission down or up, depending on how many human players join.

But in essence, it's my preferred mission style, without any question

---------- Post added at 07:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:48 PM ----------

It is hard to play a mission that you don't know, that takes a couple of hours to play, with just 1 life. And very frustrating when you die.

An alternative to low respawn rate is also to allow dead players to respawn into friendly AI..

[Variable 322]

@Variable, you forgot your signature. :)

weird... Anyway, here's a link to website of a gaming community who plays only without respawn: http://ciahome.net

[VisibleGhost 1]

@VisibleGhost, your question about thread posting would be better served at "The all new: Ask a moderator about the forum & rules".)

Thank you for the link but it is a daisy chained link that takes me to 2 other threads and then I get a maintenance notice on the final link. Either way after posting once I was able to finally edit my profile and within it I was able to figure out the post count required for some things.

Back to on topic, when I manage to post my help inquiries I hope some of the savants on here can help me with it. Thank you.

[NecroticRx 1]

i am all for either type respawn or no repsawn

[Cato Larsen 10]

Glad to see more "serious" mission actually. I do make a few now and then for our group, but depending on the mood of us all, it switches between revive and respawn, and none.

Good ol days of OFP, none of our FDF mission had any of that fancy respawn thing, and I have yet to enjoy myself as much as I did back then. So keep them comming mate.:D

[Bahger 11]

Well I appreciate the encouraging response. The mission is very winnable but the Blue c/o needs to exercise proper use of mortars to thin down the enemy HMG units before senduing his infantry into the objective. Does anyone know if you need to be the host to be able to access the artillery menu? I hope not.

Here's a follow-up question: I'm thinking of making the MP version a 4-player coop, with each player controlling a squad of 4 AI. How do you feel about being in command of AI, is it a hindrance or a decent way to populate the battlefield realistically when there are only four human players? In testing the mission I have not had to do too much hand-holding, but, as I say, I have to use my mortars before having the grunts go in.

[jfl125 10]

I guess you can do it in order to populate the battlefield, but commanding AI units is a pain. They don't take proper cover and do stupid things. I would say keep the squad of 4 real players, and if you want to still populate the battlefield then maybe add scripted AI squads.

[Alwarren 2767]

Well I appreciate the encouraging response. The mission is very winnable but the Blue c/o needs to exercise proper use of mortars to thin down the enemy HMG units before senduing his infantry into the objective. Does anyone know if you need to be the host to be able to access the artillery menu? I hope not.

It should work in MP without being the host; on a dedicated server, there actually is no host at all.

Here's a follow-up question: I'm thinking of making the MP version a 4-player coop, with each player controlling a squad of 4 AI. How do you feel about being in command of AI, is it a hindrance or a decent way to populate the battlefield realistically when there are only four human players? In testing the mission I have not had to do too much hand-holding, but, as I say, I have to use my mortars before having the grunts go in.

I'd go for full playable teams, with the added info that only the team leaders must be humans. When we play at CiA, we usually try to pick missions that are close in number to our actual current player base, but might have a few more to allow late-comers. Usually, it's better to give the option. When I do missions myself, I usually have a "difficulty" setting in my parameters where I can select easy, normal or hard difficulty, depending on the number of players participating. That way, players can tone the mission down a bit if it gets frustrating, but a full team of players without any AI can add a few extra or a few tougher enemies for an extra challenge. I'd have to say though that usually my missions are for lower numbers of players (below 10 usually).

[Variable 322]

Why not have the mission for 16 players? this will allow 4 guys to take command of AI teams but if more people are playing they can then populate the teams themselves. In this case go for GROUP type respawn. That is allowed also in the hardcore groups :)

[Bahger 11]

Why not have the mission for 16 players? this will allow 4 guys to take command of AI teams but if more people are playing they can then populate the teams themselves. In this case go for GROUP type respawn. That is allowed also in the hardcore groups :)

Interesting. How does "Group respawn" work in the Editor?

[Varanon 892]

Interesting. How does "Group respawn" work in the Editor?

It's a setting in description.ext

[Phantom Six 25]

I say definitely go for no respawn missions. Respawn/revive missions create more of a psychology of "forget being careful and tactical and just rush in and rambo as your teammate revive you or you respawn". So you can just continuosly rush and charge without a cause and no thinking would be required.

For group respawn, put this in your description.ext

respawn = "GROUP";

For side respawn

respawn = "SIDE";

[bjwimer 1]

This is the only game type I play. Just add a spectate script for the noobs that treat this like COD or BF3 and die first and it should be fine. If anything only a revive option where a team mate can bring you back, but only with a health kit or something.

[Bahger 11]

Could you explain to me how to apply a spectate script, and what this would be? I appreciate it, I'm a very experiencec mission designer but not in this engine.

[bjwimer 1]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=18929

[3instein 10]

I remember a good while back we used to play no respawn,

Two groups of 4/6 on opposite end of Utes,you had 1 hour to take control of the airport tower,group/person that was in the tower at game end was the winner.

It was pretty intense trying to get there and knowing you could die at any time,would be cool to try out your mission pal,

Mick. :)