Devs, please move the Briefing Screen!

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Playing coop or any mission or that matter, you can't read the mission brief until you have chosen the player slot and moved to next screen. Ideally, the briefing should appear before you have to select the player role so you know which units would be best taken into the mission.

[Sandy* 10]

But then you couldn't be given unit/squad/etc specific briefing/tasks.

[Zatan13th 10]

best solution

"#reassign"

[metalcraze 290]

Playing coop or any mission or that matter, you can't read the mission brief until you have chosen the player slot and moved to next screen. Ideally, the briefing should appear before you have to select the player role so you know which units would be best taken into the mission.

...Each one of them? The mission is designed with all those soldiers in mind, no?

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Yes but still helpful to know beforehand.

[2nd ranger 282]

Yeah but sometimes you don't know if that AT soldier in the list is essential, or if the mission maker put him in there for no particular reason, or if he just copy/pasted a squad from another mission or simply put down a default squad in the editor. When I play co-op it's usually just me and one other guy. I'm normally the commander, and I can't stand dragging more than four useless AI burdens around with us. So I disable alot of AI on the roster. In fact, many missions have AI disabled by default anyway, meaning that a small group of players would have to know beforehand if they needed to bring an AT guy, rather than just selecting their favourite slot. Unless a requirement for explosives or AT is mentioned in the description bar, you often don't know what to expect until you get to the briefing. Most mission makers don't put any useful information in the description bar. Even if they do outline the basic tasks - "A US army squad must seize a crossroads and hold it against enemy counter-attack" - it doesn't usually say BTW BRING AT MISSILES!!!!.

Sure, once you get to the briefing and see that you're up against armour, you can always just take AT weapons from the weapon pool. But not every mission has a weapon pool. Not every mission maker knows how to include a weapon pool. At the moment the Alpha doesn't even have a weapon pool (though obviously that will be added later).

Some kind of indication of basic requirements would be a help. Lightspeed is no doubt thinking in terms of Ghost Recon, where the character selection, briefing and tasks are all on the same screen. It had another useful feature - the mission maker could prevent players from even entering the mission if they didn't bring a certain piece of equipment, namely explosive charges or Anti-Tank.

Even a little window at the lobby showing the mission tasks, or just a 'mission info' bar or something under the description would suffice. Of course all of the relevant information could be put into the description or overview, but then, how many mission makers include an overview?

Edited May 19, 2013 by 2nd Ranger

[lightspeed_aust 681]

This is exactly the point. We play a lot of coop but don't always have numbers to fill the slots. Knowing the briefing would enable us to pick the best of the available positions.

[xyberviri 1]

Honestly this sounds more like a feature request, why would you want to remove something when others might be using it as intended.

Most of the time your expected to have a full load out, IE a mission requiring 8 men shouldn't start with 7, the mission maker should be able to force you to wait until the team is full.

TBH the best solution would be to add a pre-briefing screen that is available so that you can choose to show the players something before the mission starts. you need to go to the feedback tracker to suggest that.

[2nd ranger 282]

a mission requiring 8 men shouldn't start with 7, the mission maker should be able to force you to wait until the team is full.

Are you talking about preventing a mission from starting unless all slots are filled with human players? If so, that's a horrible idea. If you just meant preventing players from disabling AI, I guess that's worthy of being an option, particularly for badly-designed missions that require the team leader to be present, for example, but it would still be annoying for people who don't want to have to babysit more than 3 or 4 AI.

why would you want to remove something when others might be using it as intended.

[...]

the best solution would be to add a pre-briefing screen that is available so that you can choose to show the players something before the mission starts.

I don't think putting the briefing on the same screen as the lobby would do any harm whatsoever, but I agree that it's a bit drastic when an extra info or task window in the lobby would do the job..

[Smurf 12]

What about a quick brief (bonus for a picture there) similar to what SP missions have?

On a similar subject, what about a different screen for CooP and PvP\TvT where usually slots doesn't matter, just team selection?

Could be an option on the description.ext, where you define the gamemode anyway.

[mr burns 131]

There´s the new "Mission Summary" in the MP selection screen.

Provided that each mission maker uses this field to sum up objectives short and simple it´d be the way to go.

[2nd ranger 282]

What about a quick brief (bonus for a picture there) similar to what SP missions have?

You mean the overview? Well, people could use that already to include pertinent information (the server can see the overview when selecting the mission, clients can't), but as I said earlier, very few people bother with an overview.

EDIT

There´s the new "Mission Summary" in the MP selection screen.

Provided that each mission maker uses this field to sum up objectives short and simple it´d be the way to go.

Where's that defined?

Edited May 20, 2013 by 2nd Ranger

[mr burns 131]

Should be

onLoadMission = "To finish first, you must first finish.";

in description.ext, not entirely sure atm :)

[Jex 1]

Well now we seem to have something rather unrealistic going on here. You choose your load out before you are briefed on the mission? That's ass backwards and the OP is right, the briefing should come first and then you work out what you're taking. Nice OGR reference too!

Personally the whole UI should change, perhaps there should be a weapons pool that has the option to restrict it's access only to the SL. In fact just add the Falcon 4.0 UI it kicks ass!

[2nd ranger 282]

perhaps there should be a weapons pool that has the option to restrict it's access only to the SL.

That's what the gear pool was like in Flashpoint, and it was annoying. Maybe again as an option in the description.ext.

There´s the new "Mission Summary" in the MP selection screen.

Are you sure about this? As far as I know, the onLoadMission text only appears, as the name suggests, at the bottom of the overview box during the loading screen, while the actual mission is loading, not in the MP lobby. Oh, are you talking about when you actually select a mission from the list? If so then that's the overview.

[Sandy* 10]

Well now we seem to have something rather unrealistic going on here. You choose your load out before you are briefed on the mission? That's ass backwards and the OP is right, the briefing should come first and then you work out what you're taking. Nice OGR reference too!

No, you've understood this wrong. The OP wants the unit slot (class) selection screen to be after briefing. Gear (loadout) are still selected in the briefing screen just like in Arma 2 and before.

It's kind of fundamental that it's this way, since depending on the mission the briefing can be completely different for different units. Not to mention TvT missions where players choose different sides. An OPFOR player can't be briefed on BLUFOR's grand battle plan, now can it?

Edited May 22, 2013 by SandyBandy